The Watch Before the Portrait

Every year, on Founders' Day, the Grand Hotel Corvelle takes one photograph. The manager, Mrs. Odette Marsh, stands beneath her grandfather's portrait in the lobby, wearing his gold pocket watch. The rest of the year, the watch rests in a small glass case by the front desk, where guests stop to admire it. At four o'clock, with the photographer setting up his tripod and the lobby full of chatter, Mrs. Marsh went to fetch the watch. The little case stood empty. The velvet cushion still held the watch's round dent, but the watch itself was gone. No glass was broken. No alarm had rung. The lobby had been busy all afternoon with staff, guests, and a visiting painter hired to touch up the founder's portrait. Mrs. Marsh kept her voice steady, but her hands were not. 'That watch has been in this lobby for sixty years,' she said. 'It will be in this photograph. Find it.' The photographer lowered his camera. Everyone in the lobby, it seemed, had been near that case.