The Gull's Rest Robbery
You arrive at the Gull's Rest Hotel, a peeling Edwardian pile clinging to a Norfolk clifftop, its off-season corridors smelling of damp carpet and old ambition. Rain needles the windows, the radiators clank like ghosts with grievances, and somewhere behind the reception desk a bell that nobody rings still waits patiently. Four people were under this roof last night, and one of them left with more than they arrived with.
Overnight, the office safe behind reception was forced open and Mrs Pryce's jewellery box — containing a sapphire brooch and a roll of banknotes — was taken. The theft was discovered at 7am by the hotel manager during his morning rounds, when he found the safe door ajar and scratch marks around the lock. There was no sign of a break-in from outside, and the only people in the hotel overnight were the manager, the night porter, the cook, and the maintenance man.
Victim: Mrs Eleanor Pryce — A long-term elderly resident of the hotel who kept her late husband's sapphire brooch and savings locked in the office safe for safekeeping.
The manager, whose ledger doesn't quite add up and whose patience is already threadbare.
“He was doing his usual paperwork and a 9pm fire safety round, then locked up front-of-house at 11pm.”
The teenage night porter, who keeps glancing at the fire exit like it owes him money.
“He says he was on the front desk the whole night, dozing occasionally but never leaving his post.”
The cook, who knows everything about everyone except, apparently, herself.
“She was in the kitchen doing the washing-up and prepping breakfast rolls until she went to bed around 10pm.”
The live-in handyman, who fixes locks for a living and apparently has strong opinions about being asked where he was.
“He claims he spent the whole evening from 8pm to 11pm alone in his workshop, fixing a broken window latch, with the light on the entire time.”