“I’ve been doing a little research,” she said, setting down her fork in triumph. She had cleaned two plates. She removed a book called J. Allen Raumenberg: Design for an Age from her bag. “The man who designed this hotel…do you know what he went on to do afterward?”

“Did he invent Jenga?” Spencer offered.

Mrs. Amberson clearly had no idea what Spencer was talking about, but smiled like she did.

“No. He went on to make things like this.”

She held the book out, story-time style, showing fabulous black-and-white pictures of stage and movie sets.

“J. Allen Raumenberg was one of the greatest set designers of the golden age of Hollywood and Broadway. Your home was essentially a test run for a dozen different sets. Here, do you see?”

She flipped a few pages and held up a photo from a film called Midnight Journey. It could have been a picture of the Empire Suite, except you could see the Chrysler Building through the window.

“You see,” she said, “I chose this hotel for two reasons. One, I wanted the lovely family atmosphere that was promised, and certainly delivered. The second was that I wanted New York glamour—real New York glamour. The kind you can’t just manufacture somewhere. I was so sad to leave…but I’ve developed terrible allergies. I’m sure Scarlett has told you. Absolutely terrible. I had to move to a place with a centralized air conditioning system with air filters. Hence the quitting of the smoking.”

This, Scarlett felt, probably had a lot more to do with the origins of the cigarette case, and not this imaginary illness.

“We’re very excited to see the show tomorrow,” her father said, finally bringing the dreaded topic to the fore. “We’ve been waiting for weeks. Sounds like it’s going to be great.”

Spencer physically braced himself, then looked his parents and Mrs. Amberson right in the face, ready to take the bullet that was coming.

“Yes,” she said. “About that…A very funny thing happened. I ran into an old friend of mine, a very good friend named Donna. It was thanks to Scarlett that we got together, actually.”

Spencer shot her a look of confusion. This was going in an odd direction.

“Donna works for the tourist commission, for Broadway really, helping advertise the arts to tourists. I was telling her how your hotel is sadly empty much of the time. She had the most remarkable idea. It turns out there are loads of amateur theatrical groups who want a taste of real New York action, up close and personal with the performers. She deals with them all the time. ‘What if,’ she asked me, ‘what if there was a way to bring a show into a hotel? Let people see the process really up close? Spend time with the actors, see the preparation.’ An extraordinary proposition, really.”

There was a desperate, scary silence, which Mrs. Amberson moved quickly to fill.

“I couldn’t follow how that could possibly work either, but she pointed out to me that I, as the director of a theater company, could potentially join forces with you, bringing the production of Hamlet here.”