11 August 2027
Wednesday. Three separate parties this week asked me whether the hotel will open in Sydney, or Melbourne, or both. One asked about Paris, which I took as a joke, and then as an insult.
I can tell you what I know, which is little. Some years ago there were advertisements that mentioned other cities. I have seen them. Nothing has come of them that anybody has told me about, and I am usually told, because I am the one they telephone. For now there is one hotel and it is in Perth.
If there were ever a second, I would have to take the stairs in two cities at once, which at my age is not advisable. I speculate only this far: if they build another, they will build the lift first, and she will be just as difficult.
Meanwhile the guests keep asking what kind of evening the hotel is, a puzzle room or a mystery. Both, I tell them. It has the locks and the clock of the one and the conscience of the other.
— Insp. A. Brochard, Gendarmerie
