This story is about a girl on vacation with her mother, in Paris. The mother appeared to be sick, so the daughter asked the hotel's doctor to examine her. After taking a look at her, the doctor said the daughter would need to pick up medicine for her mother. After hours and hours, she finally received the medicine and returned to the hotel. She asked the woman at the front desk for a key to the room she was staying in, but she was told that she must be mistaken, another guest was in that room. After repeatedly being told she must be in the wrong hotel, she demanded to see the room. It looked nothing like the room she had been staying in and her mother was nowhere to be found.
This story is a bit of a riddle and to find the answer to it, you're directed to the Notes and Sources at the back of the book. It turns out, as soon as the doctor saw the girl's mother, he realized she had the plague. In order to avoid mass hysteria, the doctor kept it a secret. He sent the girl away so hotel staff could quickly alter the appearance of the room. They pretended her mother never existed and made the girl believe she was losing her mind.
In the Notes and Sources, it says there's a movie inspired by this story, So Long at the Fair, as well as two novels, and it was reported as a true story in 1911 in the London Daily Mail, as well as in America's Detroit Free Press in 1889.
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