Chapter 31
DELILAH
A Sherlock Holmes-style tan deerstalker hat appeared on Lucy’s head and a pipe in her hand. ‘A grave crime has been committed in my beautiful hotel. First off, we must establish the suspects.’
‘There are too many possible people,’ Delilah said. ‘Anyone in the hotel could have done it.’
‘Not after all the trouble we suffered passing the trials to get to the engine room!’ Heather disagreed. ‘Most people are here because they couldn’t even pass one test. Any guest who passed all seven trials would simply go to Heaven.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Delilah said. ‘No one is forced to press the button to head to Heaven. Anyone could have secretly snuck around the ladder completing trials. The ladder is designed so it can be used even when the lift is operating without anyone noticing.’
‘But why?’ Howard asked.
‘Exactly, my love!’ Lucy pointed at him. ‘Although any guest or staff member could theoretically be responsible, the pool of people with motives should be far smaller.’
John crouched down next to the wheels. ‘I need to get this fixed. Could someone take the gumballs as I yank them out?’
‘I’ll help.’ Jaime sat down next to him. He handed her a gumball. She immediately put it in her mouth.
Delilah had serious doubts about the sanitariness, but she supposed no one could get ill in Purgatory.
Lucy asked, ‘Who has the strongest motive?’
‘Godfrey,’ everyone said in unison.
Heather tapped her chin. ‘Godfrey used the hotel breaking down as an incentive to start a strike with the entire maintenance crew. I thought all along that the timing of the breakdown was very convenient for him.’
‘Hmm.’ Lucy waved her pipe, and a magical illusion appeared in the air.
It showed a miniature hotel, with a tiny Godfrey sneaking down the lift shaft using the ladder.
Lucy narrated: ‘Godfrey secretly passed all seven trials, moving around the hotel late at night when few people ventured out. He took advantage of his staff connections to know when cancelled slots were available.’ The miniature Godfrey opened the golden door, carrying a bag of gumballs over his shoulder.
He cackled and rubbed his palms together.
‘Then he reached the engine room and set about destroying my delicate system. All so that he could obtain more money in an afterlife that doesn’t even use money. What a dastardly fiend! Case closed.’
The vision vanished in a puff of smoke. Everyone looked at each other. Delilah said, ‘Don’t get me wrong, I hate Godfrey, but I don’t think he’s smart enough to pull off this plan. It’s not even a good plan. Godfrey is just very stupid. How would he ever find out the engine room exists?’
Heather shook her head. ‘Godfrey is too lazy to pass all seven trials. He’d still be stuck on Floor Gluttony, eating.’
‘I agree,’ Jaime said with her mouth full of gum. ‘Godfrey can barely even work up the willpower to change a lightbulb.’ She blew a bubble.
Still working on the perpetual motion machine, John called, ‘I don’t think it was Godfrey, either.
When the lift first broke down, he seemed surprised and even worried.
Then he came up with this strike idea, and he’s been blustering around ever since.
But I would swear that, in the moment we first found out, his shock was genuine. ’
‘It would have been convenient to pin the crime on the least likeable person,’ Heather said. ‘I would have enjoyed beating Godfrey with a table. But it’s probably not him.’
‘Then I have another even more wicked suspect!’ Lucy’s eyes blazed.
A second vision appeared, showing a cackling spirit flying up the lift shaft.
‘Barbara! Her very nature drives her to cause trouble for no reason, and especially to trouble me.’ Another illusion appeared, showing a black shadow stealing Lucy’s jewellery and secretly cutting off her hair.
‘She’s been like that since the beginning of time, always behind my problems.’
‘I thought Barbara only got into the hotel because the defences broke down,’ Delilah said.
‘That’s true.’ Lucy wilted.
‘Could Barbara have passed the tests?’ Heather asked.
‘I doubt it.’ Lucy’s illusion showed Barbara cheerfully robbing Floor Greed, stuffing herself at Floor Gluttony, and ripping apart the rage room on Floor Violence. ‘She’s a creature of chaos. Her self-control is non-existent. She would never be able to pass my intricately designed tests.’
The illusion vanished again. Lucy took a puff of her pipe, despite it not actually being lit. ‘Alas, now I’ll have to accuse my own friends.’
‘You will?’ Delilah asked. ‘No one is forcing you.’
‘It could have been a betrayal by my dear daughter!’ Lucy pointed her pipe at Delilah. ‘You felt that your trial was unfair. You could have taken out your rage on the entire hotel!’
An illusionary Delilah appeared, wearing an elaborate black dress covered in gemstones with a ruffle like an evil queen from a fairy tale. She stomped through the engine room, laughing as she kicked and punched the equipment.
Unimpressed, Delilah crossed her arms and glared. ‘I was about to get into Heaven when the lift broke down. I have the weakest motive of anyone in this entire hotel. Including you, Mum!’
‘She’s right,’ Heather said. ‘You should have heard her scream when the lift stopped working right before the doors opened on Heaven. It nearly broke my eardrums.’
Howard said, ‘Delilah is the person who convinced me to join this quest. She’s been the vanguard of our efforts.’
‘Then what about you?’ Lucy whirled on Heather.
‘Don’t you dare accuse Heather,’ Jaime snapped. ‘Why are you so set on finding the saboteur? What does it matter? The important part is that we can fix the hotel.’
Without listening, Lucy was already crafting her next illusion. ‘Heather could have become so angry from dealing with terrible guests that she decided to teach everyone a lesson.’
The illusions flashed through past memories of the hotel: guests who shouted at Heather, accused her of lying about them being dead, pestered her with alien abduction conspiracy theories and, finally, the man who’d attempted to throw water at her.
Lucy gaped. ‘Good Hell, that is so much worse than I expected. How do you put up with these cretins? The next time a guest attempts to physically assault you, you have my permission to toss them down the lift shaft. I will add it to the hotel rules.’
‘Customer service is the secret circle of Hell,’ Howard said.
‘I have no motive,’ Heather said. ‘I was about to re-take my test. I would have needed the lift to work.’
Delilah nodded. ‘Have your visions show you how much Heather has suffered as acting hotel manager since the lift broke. She had it even worse than me!’
The illusions reacted to Delilah’s words, shifting to show Heather attempting to bargain with the maintenance crew. They taunted and mocked her.
‘This Godfrey is a truly insufferable mortal,’ Lucy said. ‘I wish he was guilty, so that I could hang him by his heels over the engine room and roast him in the fire slowly.’
‘Is it necessary to get so violent?’ Jaime whimpered. ‘Isaac Asimov said, “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”’
‘I dismiss Heather as a suspect. If she wanted to watch the hotel fall apart, she could have simply done nothing.’ The illusion vanished. Lucy turned towards Jaime. ‘What about you? You could have done it all as revenge for your floor being broken!’
Jaime latched on to Heather as if for protection.
Heather laughed, which started the others laughing too. ‘Come on, now you’re blaming the literal child?’
‘It’s true – my hotel is not so poorly made that a child could break it.
’ Lucy whirled on John. ‘What about our skilled maintenance man? John, you have the skills to sabotage the hotel and you could have done it all for a promotion.’ The illusions shifted to show John lording it over the other workers and having Godfrey fetch him coffee.
He held up a trophy for saving the Purgatory Hotel.
‘On Floor Greed, your ambition was exposed. You want to be head of the maintenance crew. Fixing a major disaster would win you the admiration of everyone.’
John grumbled, ‘I can’t believe you’re accusing me when I’m the only person working on fixing anything.’ He tossed a gumball into the fire pit.
‘John’s not that kind of person,’ Heather said earnestly.
‘Yeah, he didn’t even want to help us at first.’ Delilah nodded.
‘I threatened him into coming along. If he’d wanted to play the hero, he would have been more eager.
And he didn’t have to tell us that the controls had been sabotaged.
If he’d been guilty, he would have kept that a secret.
A professional could have used more subtle means to break the machine than gumballs too. ’
‘I confess his motive is not strong.’ Lucy allowed the illusion to fade away.
‘Godfrey seems fairly easy to dethrone by other means. The fool is not qualified for his position. I don’t know why the last hotel manager kept him in charge of the maintenance crew for so long, but I will ensure the next one does not.
Who does that leave? How about Damien, the lift attendant? ’
The visions showed Damien creeping around the hotel, staring in on everyone’s tests.
Lucy narrated, ‘After decades of taking other people to Heaven, Damien became jealous. He decided to ensure that everyone got stuck like him. In addition, this would allow him to finally take a break from his tedious job. Damien was in the perfect position to discover how to pass each trial, garnering information from each guest. We have the perfect suspect!’
‘Hey, leave Damien out of this!’ Delilah cried. ‘He can’t even leave the lift. He never could have carried out the sabotage alone.’
Lucy was undeterred. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. Besides, who says that he worked alone? He could have recruited an accomplice.’
‘Like who?’
‘He’s very close to the hotel’s resident feline.
The cat could have told him about the engine room.
She knows almost as many secrets about this place as me.
Hmm . . . yes, this theory is all coming together.
She must have been bitter that I spent so much time away from the hotel and wanted to lure me back, even if she had to create a disaster to do so. ’
‘Now you’re blaming a cat?’ Delilah threw up her hands.
‘You’re getting desperate. It makes no sense to blame the staff – if they had passed their tests, they could just ascend to Heaven instead of taking six more then poking around for the engine room.
I’m tired of you throwing around accusations at everyone else.
How about you, huh? Aren’t you a suspect too?
You’re the only person here who definitely knew about the engine room.
You have the most information about the tests.
You could have been merely pretending to need to pass the tests in order to stall for time.
I also can’t help but notice you’re leaving the man you love off the suspects list!
You’re too biased to play Sherlock Holmes. ’
‘Please don’t fight,’ Jaime muttered, hiding behind Heather. ‘Aren’t we all supposed to work together to fix the hotel? Didn’t we tackle the trials of Purgatory as a team? Aren’t we friends?’
‘Very well, I accept the deserved criticism.’ Lucy snapped her fingers. ‘Show us the scenario where I am the culprit.’
The vision shifted to show Lucy sitting at a desk, scribbling on papers then tossing them into the bin.
The bookshelf held dozens of different editions of The Divine Comedy.
The copy on her desk had sticky notes all over.
Her eyes had grown bloodshot and her hands trembled.
She took a long sip of whisky, then returned to work, muttering.
Her own voice narrated without her lips moving: ‘I poured out my heart and soul into this hotel. Yet it has become a living entity unto itself, no longer under my total control. I have grown weary of this project, and long to explore the universe. First, I decided that if I can’t control my hotel then no one can!
’ The vision showed Lucy wearing a heavy black cape and an eye mask.
‘I snuck into the engine room and stuck those gummy-thingies in my own control panel.’
Illusionary Lucy cackled evilly, and the vision faded away.
‘How fascinating,’ the real Lucy said. ‘Until this moment, I hadn’t realised that I’d love to do more exploring of outer space and take a vacation from my projects. Even so, I would never destroy my masterpiece. I love this hotel.’
‘I believe you,’ Delilah admitted. ‘I never seriously suspected you. But I appreciate you using your magic on yourself too.’
‘Do me as well,’ Howard said. ‘It’s only fair.’
Jaime continued to hide behind Heather, her left foot tapping the floor, anxiety rolling off her.
The vision showed Howard sitting in a cubicle on Floor Limbo, his head in his hands.
A paper with a question rested on the desk before him, unanswered.
He chewed on the end of a pencil. The narrator said, ‘Pining over his unrequited love, Howard plotted to sabotage the hotel so that he’d have an excuse to spend time with her.
He planned to help her repair the hotel so that she’d be grateful and fall in love with him. ’
Lucy shook her head. ‘I would be flattered by such passionate love, but Howard isn’t the evil type. He’d never risk hurting the guests.’
Delilah nodded. ‘I agree. He nearly got sucked into Limbo rather than confess his feelings.’
Lucy clapped her hands, and all illusions vanished.
‘I am pleased to have eliminated my own comrades from the suspects list. I didn’t want any of you to be guilty.
What a relief. Time to move on to the rest of the hotel!
I have no intention of being delicate with the guests who aren’t my friends.
I hate talking to people too much to interrogate them.
Instead, I’ll string everyone up over the fires of the engine room until the culprit confesses. ’
‘STOP!’ Jaime screamed from behind Heather, finally stepping out to show her face. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She gulped. In a smaller voice, she said, ‘Please stop fighting and blaming other people. It was me. I sabotaged the hotel.’