The Legoland Boutique Hotel Mystery

“You come highly recommended as the best private detective in Legoland”, the hotel manager had remarked. Ace Brickman saw no need to highlight that there were no other private detectives in Legoland. “But we have a bit of an emergency, and I feel that we could do with someone equally capable and discreet,” the manager continued. Ace tried to get some specifics, but before he could, the manager concluded with, “Come to the hotel right away”, and hung up.

Ace sat there for a second, staring at the phone on his desk. He wondered why it was that there were no telephone wires or cables anywhere in Legoland, and yet he needed a desk phone. Why, if the Legoland engineers had perfected wireless communications a long time ago, did Ace not have a mobile phone? But there was no time for these musings right now; there was a new case to deal with.

Ace had walked past the Boutique Hotel many times in his life, but he’d never had cause to step inside its shiny doors. He’d never once been called to investigate a cheating husband, but that may have been because all the men in Legoland lacked anything between their legs. He had never had to follow a potential scammer there to catch them spending their ill-gotten gains, and being a resident of Legoland, Ace had no reason to stay at a hotel.

But as he turned the corner past the El Cubo fine art gallery, Ace was struck with a sense of dread that he hadn’t felt in a long time. The call from the hotel manager had been adequately ominous and vague that Ace had no idea what his tiny plastic legs were walking him into.

His mind being elsewhere, Ace almost walked straight into the hotel porter. In keeping with the reputation of the hotel, however, the porter remained unflustered; the black moustache on his face didn’t move. Ace reached out with his yellow hand, saying, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m here to see the Hotel manager”. The porter looked briefly at Ace’s hand, and when he realised that there wasn’t a solid green bill in his hand, he didn’t reciprocate to shake hands.

Pointing to the front door, the porter replied, “Certainly, Mister Brickman, if you go through there, Bettina at reception will let him know you are here”. Ace paused for a moment, wondering how the porter knew his name. He was about to ask when a taxi pulled up in front of the hotel. Before Ace could talk, the porter was opening the door to a tourist, complete with a camera. Her loud voice was enough to drive the detective to leave with a degree of haste.

Once inside reception, he spied the blonde lady behind the counter, whom Ace deduced was Bettina. The opulence of the interior took him by surprise; every brick in the place was gleaming. It certainly wasn’t the dust gatherer that his office was.

“Mr Brickman?” asked the lady from behind the reception desk. Ace nodded in agreement. “The manager is on his way down. Is there anything I can get for you?” she inquired. Ace shook his head and replied, “No, thank you, I’ll just wait”.

Ace continued to look around the lobby as he heard the loud voice of the tourist approaching. Fearing he’d be forced to engage with her, Ace began to venture up the grand staircase. He was only a few steps up when he heard a woman’s blood-curdling scream. Ace looked back at the reception desk; Bettina had a look of shock on her face. He turned back around and began to run up the stairs.

On his way up, Ace spotted a noticeboard with several announcements on it, including one of his flyers with his photo on it. This solved the mystery of how everyone recognised him so easily.

Busting through the door to the first room at the top of the stairs, Ace was greeted by a grey-haired woman. The room, like the rest of the hotel, was immaculate, and the bed had crisp lines. The chocolate was as large as the pillow.

“Did you scream?” Ace asked the woman. She nodded, as if she were unable to speak. She pointed to the television in the corner of the room. The picture was frozen on a black and white image of a man with a microphone.

The lady started to stammer, “The… the… manager… he just disappeared”. Ace couldn’t understand what she was saying. “What do you mean?” he asked her. “The manager was here, he was talking to me about all the strange things that were going on, and then there was a loud noise, a flash of light from above, then he was gone,” was her response.

Ace sniffed near the woman to see if he could smell alcohol, but then he remembered that he didn’t have a sense of smell. He turned around, and the porter was standing outside the door. The porter stood there shaken, even though his expression didn’t change. He wasn’t confidently arrogant anymore.

“Do you think you could find something to settle this woman down?” Ace asked the Porter. He nodded and responded, “Come on, Mrs Bobble, let’s get you something for your nerves”.

Ace followed them downstairs and returned to the reception desk. The noisy tourist was standing in the corner, taking photographs of the hotel lobby. Ace thought it was strange that her camera didn’t make a sound.

“I think you’d better tell me what’s been going on here, Bettina”, the experienced detective said to the hotel employee. She pointed towards the corner of the lobby, away from the noisy tourists.

“This isn’t the first time this has happened,” Bettina stated. Ace was shocked, even if his face didn’t convey that. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Others have disappeared as well”, Bettina answered, “A housekeeper, another guest, the gallery manager, all the same way”.

Pointing towards the ornate ceilings, Bettina continued, “There would be a flash of light from above, the ceiling would open, and the next thing, the person would be gone”. Ace pried some more, “And they are never seen again?”

Her head swivelled around as her body stood still, looking to see if anyone else could hear them. Bettina answered him, “That’s just it, sometimes they come back, but they’re changed, they are different”. Ace’s curiosity was at its maximum level, so he pressed further, “What do you mean changed?” he emphasised the word changed.

“Sometimes they look the same, but they just appear somewhere completely different, other times their pants have changed, or their shirts, or their hair, and they don’t remember what happened.” Bettina fought back tears from her plastic face.

From behind them came the voice of the noisy tourist, “Are you saying this hotel is haunted? Cool!” Ace spun around and chastised her, “Don’t be silly, there’s no such thing as ghosts, and don’t go spreading silly rumours”. Unperturbed, she went back to snapping photographs on her seemingly limitless camera.

Ace’s thoughts went back to the disappearance of his father, the years of pain and hurt that had followed. But this wasn’t the time for him to lament his loss; instead, he needed to find answers for what was happening.

Ace set about interviewing people who had witnessed the unusual disappearances, and he even spoke to some who had disappeared. Their versions were the same: a bright light, something lifting them, then nothing until they came back. There was the housekeeper who had come back wearing a pink shirt and standing in the art gallery, the cook whose chef’s hat had changed into a bowler hat, and the hotel guest who suddenly had a mermaid tail. None of them could shed any light on what had happened.

Ace was back at the hotel, looking through rooms, trying to find clues. He stood near a window when suddenly, there was a rumble followed by a flash of light; he feared this might be the end of him. The light subsided and he heard a man’s voice he recognised, it was the hotel manager, “Mister Brickman”. Ace turned around to see a spaceman with a knight's helmet standing there. “Hello, I’m Mr. Barnes, the hotel manager”, he said. Ace looked twice, and the space knight said, “I’m sorry that we have wasted your time, it appears that there is no mystery at all”.

Ace questioned, “Ummm, I don’t know what you mean?” He tried not to stare, but the sight was a little bit too out of the ordinary for Ace.

“Well, you see, Mr Brickman, these things just happen at this hotel, so we will pay you for your time and you may leave”, came the muffled reply from underneath the metal helmet.

Ace had worked some baffling cases before, but this one certainly left him perplexed. He could see no point in arguing with the hotel manager, so he collected his disproportionately large cash and returned to his office.

As Ace sat there, contemplating why Legoland had no alcohol, he wondered what investigating a normal case would be like. But he would not find out today.

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This is the third Ace Brickman story. His origin was written about in the City Build on a Broken Baseplate.