FIFTEEN
The doorman stood before the Hotel Arcadia like a gargoyle in a white calf-length jacket. I had forgotten about the doorman. There would be no way I could get around him. No way I could slip past his stern gaze and the iron hand that wrapped around the handle of the hotel's entrance.
It had only been my letter that had gotten me past him on my last visit. Fresh from the trail, covered in the dust of the road, it was clear without the letter he would have never let me past. Looking down at the clothes I was wearing now, it was obvious to me that he would have the same reaction. My old jeans were washed but still faded and stained. The shirt I had borrowed from the rectory was too large and too plain to belong to a tenant of the Hotel Arcadia. The jacket I had picked up in West Lov
