McGrave's Hotel by Steve Bryant Page A

felt like adding that Fawn was not his girlfriend, that was nuts , he was just eleven , but a continued conversation to discuss possible romantic relationships did not seem advisable. Instead, he and Fawn whirled through the door.
    As the door slammed, they could hear “Kidding!” followed by a wham wham wham as all three Godfrey girls smacked the salon air with their wings. James could picture them rising into the shadows of the higher reaches of the room.
    “Good grief,” he said in the safety of the hallway. “I think auditions are over.”

Chapter Fifteen

     
    Will You Walk Into My Parlor?
     
     
    “She doesn’t need a sedative,” James said as he and Fawn approached the Bridal Suite. “She needs a flyswatter.”
    Given the whole of the night’s events, Mr. Nash had counseled a head-in-the-sand policy vis-à-vis the events in Victor Lesley’s suite. If the young ladies and Victor Lesley were out by morning, according to plan, then whatever went on in the suite was of no concern to McGrave’s Hotel. “When you check in here,” he said, “you take your chances.”
    The events of Frau and Rupert Grimm’s suite, on the other hand, were a more serious threat to McGrave’s reputation. Despite his suspicions about the widow bride, Mr. Nash was willing to let Detective Durbin sort out the legal give and take of the matter. If only Frau Grimm could be appeased for three more hours, thanks to the pitcher of warm milk and small honey pot James was currently delivering, then she too could be shooed out the door come sun up.
    From inside the suite came a wretched rasping noise. James and Fawn agreed that Frau Grimm must be snoring.
    “This should only take a minute,” James whispered. “I’ll leave this tray on the end table by the sofa. There’s no need to wake her. Then we can finally return you to Mr. Wu.”
    Fawn waited in the corridor as James entered.
    It was dark inside, and Frau Grimm appeared to James as a great dark mass occupying the mammoth bed. The loud rasping snore continued, and the meat-like smell James had first associated with the lady now overpowered her store-bought fragrance.
    Gingerly, James approached the table and bent over to deposit the tray. He noticed something white on the table and realized it was the long gloves that Frau Grimm had always seemed to wear.
    From behind him came a loud clickety clickety clickety sound, coupled with the end of the rasping. James spun about. The dark mass on the bed was gone, and the bathroom door was closing. Apparently the lady had to use the facilities. A thin line of light appeared beneath the door behind which a loud thrashing ensued. What was going on in there?
    James decided it would be best to leave as stealthily as he could. But when he tried to walk toward the door, he found he couldn’t. His left leg seemed to be caught on something. He reached down to feel what had snagged his leg, and suddenly his arm became immobile. He pulled hard, but his arm refused to move. What sort of trap had he walked into? Why did the room seem so sticky?
    The bathroom door slowly opened, and the light spilling into the bedchamber revealed the cause of James’s predicament. He was caught like a fly in a vast spider web, a silvery sticky lattice that extended from the floor to the ceiling. His right arm was still free, but it would take great care to not submit it to the same fate as his left. Something very creepy, like the foreleg of a giant insect, wrapped itself about the door and continued to ease it open.
    What James then beheld rivaled anything he had ever seen at McGrave’s. With incredible speed, the creature skittered clickety clickety clickety into the room. Silhouetted against the light from the bathroom, James could perceive that it was a spider as big as a desk. It stood balanced on six of its legs and raised two in the air, pointing at James as if to help determine his location. Impossibly, its head was unmistakably that of Frau Grimm.
    James