Mystery in Paris
Paris 1889: The year of the “Great Exposition‟. The city was packed with businessmen and tourists, and most hotels were fully booked. A few days before the exhibition was due to start, two English ladies, Eleanor Redwood and her mother Clara, arrived in the city on their way back to London from India, where they were escaping the latest outbreak of the Plague. They managed to book the last two rooms available at one of the most famous hotels in Paris, and after arriving at the hotel both women signed the register, and were shown up to their rooms. The mother was given room 342 a particularly luxurious room decorated with beautiful red velvet curtains. Almost immediately however, the mother fell ill and they had to call the hotelʼs doctor. He examined Mrs Redwood carefully then called the hotel manager and spoke urgently to him in French. Eleanor could only speak a little French and didnʼt understand what they were saying. But after a few minutes, the doctor explained in English that he couldnʼt leave Mrs Redwood because she was too ill, so he asked Eleanor to go and fetch the medicine her mother needed, which was available only at his surgery on the other side of Paris. Eleanor set out in the doctor‟s own carriage, but the journey was frustratingly slow, and it was four hours before Eleanor finally returned with the medicine. She rushed into the hotel foyer and asked the manager anxiously how her mother was. The manager stared at her blankly. “What are you talking about, Mademoiselle?‟ he asked. “I know nothing of your mother. You arrived here alone.‟ The hotel doctor too denied meeting her mother, and in the register, there was only the girlʼs signature. Eleanor managed to persuade them to take her back to room 342, but the room was empty and even more mysteriously, the decorations appeared to have been completely replaced, and the beautiful red velvet curtains had disappeared. The distraught girl rushed to the British Embassy to tell her story, but officials refused to believe her, and when she returned to Britain she was put in a mental asylum. However, the girl continued to insist that her story was true, and doctors never found any other evidence that she was insane. Eventually she was released, but her mother‟s body was never found.
