At The Plaza Majestic.

Chapter 7

I was sitting on the chair in my room, twirling Smart's room keys around in my fingers, thinking. It was too early for the Scotland Yard man's hangover to have worn off yet, so I had a good few hours to do all the things I knew he wouldn't approve of. I had a hunch that had sprung upon me in the night, and I was keen to test it out. But before I did so, I was going to have to make a couple of modifications to one of my suitcases.

Pulling one out from under the bed, and studying it carefully, I chose to destroy the handle, instead of the actual case. Otherwise, it wouldn't have looked accidental, I decided, taking some small scissors from my travel bag and cutting all the stitching that held the handle to the body of the suitcase, fraying the ends so it looked like it had been ripped. Happy with my work, I debated on how to get it where I needed it. I knew there was a lost luggage area next door to the lobby, but I couldn't put it too close to that, but then it seemed the best form of cover, really. No, I sighed to myself. That wouldn't work. I was going to have to find somewhere else to put it-

Then it hit me. I scrambled to find a needle and thread, and got to work. When I was done, the suitcase looked almost normal again, bar the fact that the handle, if I tilted it at the right angle, would easily come away. Plan set, I picked it up carefully as not to dislodge the handle, and hurried downstairs to the lobby, where I sat, rigged suitcase by my side, waiting to see if anything was going to happen.

I had to admit, this plan was, for one, very risky, and two, potentially pointless, as I couldn't be sure I would get what I wanted. For all I knew, the deal could already be over. I was going to need an awful lot of luck if this was going to work.

Miraculously, luck was what I got, even though I ended up sitting for at least two hours in the lobby beforehand. A skinny, foreign looking man with a deep tan and little round glasses perched on the end of his nose strolled in, suitcase in hand. After putting his suitcase down on the floor, he proceeded to talk for a good five minutes or so with the bellboy, before tipping his hat, smiling, and walking out, leaving the suitcase innocently on the floor. I could barely believe my luck.

I looked up at the clock on the wall and, seemingly noticing the time, stood up quickly, in doing so dislodging the rigged suitcase, so the handle fell off. I groaned in frustration, looking around and gathering the broken case up in my arms and hurrying over to the reception desk, putting my case down next to the solitary one as I did so.

"Excuse me!" I twittered dumbly. The male receptionist smiled the sort of worn out, tired smile that made me think he had to deal with twitterers like me on a daily basis.

"Do you know of anywhere in town I could get my suitcase fixed?" I asked, sweetly. "Only my handle's just broken on my suitcase, and..."

"Try the tailor down the road, madam" the other receptionist jumped in quickly, as the first had been making rather obvious 'get me out of this' signs out of the corner of his eye.

I beamed.

"Thank you awfully! I'll head down there this afternoon!" I chattered, moving away and sneakily picking up the other suitcase as I went to retrieve my own. I had almost made it up the stairs when I heard someone call.

"Madam?"

Internally, I froze. Externally, I turned slowly around, with a puzzled frown on my face. Instantly I recognised the man who had called my name. He was the man with the strange wisp of a beard I had seen out of my window a few nights before. Now I saw him in the light, his wispy beard seemed all the more wispy, and his eyes were quite unnerving, Siamese cat blue, and they came vivid and shocking from under his droopy eyelids and bushy brows. I could now see most of what I had mistaken for broadness was actually the extra weight that usually came from being the age he was, or at least the age I assumed he was. He stooped, too, not like Smart, more hunched over, but the physicality seemed to transform him into some sort of hulking beast of an old man, if such a thing existed. His companion, his junior by some thirty years, was exotic-looking, tall, athletic and slender, but he had a shifty look about him, despite his open smile, showing wolfish, white teeth.