She’s wearing a too-big coat, and I recognize it as one of my lost things. Her shoes are her own, but they clearly aren’t any good for winter, and are wet through. I see that the fire has burned low, so I shove another log in.

“Are you a…?” I begin, but she shakes her head, so I try again. “What about a…?” But she just laughs.

“No, none of those,” she says. “I’m not a thief, and I’m certainly not a guest at this hotel.”

I probably look a bit confused, because she smiles.

“But I know who you are,” she says. “You’re Herbert Lemon, the famous Lost-and-Founder at the Grand Nautilus Hotel.”

“Famous?”

“Well, famous to me. I’ve come hundreds of miles just to see you, Herbert …”

“Herbie,” I say, finally giving up with the cap and taking it off altogether.

“… because I think you are the only person in the world who can help me.”

“Really?” I say, scratching my head. “How come?”

“Because I’m lost,” she says. “And I’d like to be found.”

There are many strange stories about the Grand Nautilus Hotel, but there’s one in particular that I should tell you now. It happened twelve years ago, which is a few years before I came here myself, so I’m not exactly a witness. It’s the story of a baby found abandoned in the hotel, of parents completely vanished, of strange lights seen by the shore, of police swarming everywhere, searching high and low. Two pairs of shoes belonging to a man and a woman discovered, left neatly on the harbour wall. Along with footprints in the sand, leading from the harbour wall to the sea.

It’s a sad story.

Other prints were in the sand too – funny-shaped markings, as if something with flippers had dragged itself out of the water. But the tide came in before anyone could photograph them properly, and that part of the story was left out of the papers.

In fact, all this is hardly a story at all now, more a legend. The Lost-and-Founder before me was briefly involved, but a baby isn’t exactly something you can tag and shelve in a hotel cellar, so she got taken away and was never heard of again.

Until now…

“OK, I’m going to stop you right there,” I say to the girl, because I think I can see where this is going. “Even if you are this legendary lost baby all grown up, I really don’t see how I can help. I just do lost things. Not lost persons. You need a … a detective, or something.”

“But isn’t it your job to find the owners of lost things? How do you do that?”

“Well, sometimes there are clues…”

“Exactly! Clues,” she says. “You are a detective. I’m just another clue.”