11 March 2026
Wednesday. A lady expecting her first child asked me tonight whether the investigation would require her to crawl under anything. Madame, I said, this is a grand hotel. Nobody crawls in a grand hotel except the occasional diplomat looking for a dropped cufflink.
There is no crawling in the hotel, no squeezing, no clambering, no tight spaces of any kind. The hotel is a place of corridors and suites and good posture, and an expectant mother or a guest who does not move as quickly as he once did may investigate in perfect comfort.
Her brother, who has asthma, asked about smoke. None. Not a wisp of theatrical fog anywhere in the building. In 1920, I admit, every gentleman in the foyer would have been smoking a cigar, but the hotel has decided to be historically inaccurate on that point, and I commend it.
They went up together. She took the notes. He did the searching. A very efficient arrangement, and one I intend to suggest to my superiors.
— Insp. A. Brochard, Gendarmerie
