At The Plaza Majestic.

Chapter 5

The following morning, I was feeling much more in control of myself. At that point, I sitting on the end of my bed, thinking. Smart had confirmed Slade's room number, and I had confirmed via an idle wander down the corridor that room had been the one the body had been removed from. I had been spending the morning thinking of ways to work out how the murderer could have got into the room, as the door would obviously have been locked. That, I decided, was the mission for today.

I stood up and crossed over to the window. It overlooked a small green patch of grass in the middle of a London square, a patch which was currently occupied by a travelling circus. It had begun to arrive the night before, and a lot had been done in such a short time. A couple of tents were up, as well as a poster or two. Circus Impossible, they read.

I did a double take. Had I heard that name before?

"Hannah!" an irritable Scottish accent called from the door. With a jolt, I realized Smart had been knocking on the door for the paat few minutes.

"Sorry!" I yelled. "Sorry, sorry, sorry!"

I quickly unlocked the door and opened it, to see Smart shaking his head.

"Deaf as a post, you are" he sighed playfully, but I knew that I'd really had him panicked for a second. I made a mental note not to leave him waiting again.

After breakfast, we went for a walk around, in the pretence of seeing the circus, but really, I was pretty sure we were looking at the possibility of anyone being able to get in at Slade's window. The walls of the hotel were new brick, and very smooth, and although I didn't know what Smart was thinking, but I reckoned the only way anyone was getting in at that window was from the window directly above. The gaps between the windows and lack of windowsills meant that it was impossible to get in any other way than abseiling down from the room above, which in itself seemed rather unlikely. As we wandered around, Smart's eye seemed to be caught by a young circus boy of about nine or ten, running frantically from tent to tent like he was looking for something. As we crossed the road, he almost ran into us.

"Oo, sorry, sir, sorry miss!" the little boy said quickly. Smart looked characteristically stern, but I smiled kindly.

"Don't worry, young man. Just be careful of this road" I chided.

"Oo I will, miss" the boy replied, nodding his head.

"We wouldn't want you getting hit, would we?" I continued, to more frantic head-shaking from the boy.

"What's your name?" I asked him.

"Pye, miss."

"What are you doing, running around like this anyway?" Smart chipped in, studying Pye carefully.

"Well, sir" Pye began hesitantly. "It's my uncle, y'see. He were got by one of the lions, end of last show. We 'ad 'im in the caravan, recoverin' and now he's gone."

I looked quizzically at Smart. He seemed to brush it off.

"Chances are, they'll have taken him to see a doctor" he told Pye calmly. "They'll bring him back when he's better."

"I hope so, sir, miss" Pye sighed. "Thanks awfully. Goodbye."

With that, he ran off. I watched him go, smiling.

"What a charming child" I remarked.

"He was, rather" Smart agreed, as we walked back to the front door of the Plaza. "Although" he continued. "I was almost expecting him to go for your purse. Still, don't judge a book and all that."

Slightly shocked, I laughed, prodding him with my finger almost as a warning for him to behave. We entered the lobby, just to catch the tail-ends of a Scotland Yard detective as he made his way from upstairs through into the lounge. There was a gaggle of guests milling around, and we sneaked in amongst them to see if there was anything interesting to pick up.