The Last Guest Took the Staircase

How it begins

Rose Hart found the suitcase where the staircase had been.

It sat inside the hollow beneath the third landing, upright and dustless, as though someone had checked it into the wood.

The hotel manager asked whether it would delay the renovation.

'Only if you want it plastered over,' Rose said.

He decided to telephone somebody important. She decided to photograph the case before touching it.

William Mercer came up from the night office wearing a waistcoat buttoned incorrectly. Daylight did not agree with him.

'They said you found luggage.'

'You recognize it?'

He examined the faded red strap. His face changed.

'Room eighteen.'

'How long ago?'

'Seven years.'

The manager stopped dialing.

Rose looked at the luggage label. A man's name, a city address and a departure date written in the same careful hand as the hotel's old registers.

'He left it?'

'He left,' William said. 'The case went with him.'

The hotel had been preparing for its grand reopening since January. Every advertisement promised modern comfort without sacrificing a century of history. Rose had spent a month discovering which parts of the history were holding up the comfort.

She examined the panel behind the case. Its nails were newer than the surrounding wood. Whoever placed the luggage had opened the staircase after it was built.

William looked toward a narrow service door.

'There was another route down,' he said.

'Where?'

'Gone now. They closed it after the insurance inspection.'

The manager put away his telephone.

'I don't see why an old suitcase requires so much discussion.'

Rose brushed dust from the red strap. Beneath it, on the polished wood, a fresh white thread caught the light. Somebody had opened the case recently.

She took another photograph.

'Because,' she said, 'it seems to have had a more complicated stay than the guest.'