The ghost was persistent.

It had been a flicker in the corner of Edison's eye when they got out of the elevator, more a tickle on his brain than in impression of light. As the party made its way to suite 1612, Ed felt like something was following them. And when Ed went out to look for ice, there it was in his peripheral vision, a vague figure leaning against the door of the opposite suite.

When the booze was gone, and the party switched to doing lines, Ed stepped out for some air. And there it was again, clearer now: a sad looking man in black jeans and a black sweater, the room number just visible through its chest.

Ed squeezed his eyes shut and pressed against the door of his suite. He focused on the dim murmur of conversation behind the door and opened his eyes. The spectral figure was gone. Through the heavy door of 1612 he could hear his companions laughing. The prospect of watching them get high, listening to their feeble banter, was not exciting.

The real party, the New Year's Eve ball, was downstairs. But it was early yet.

Ed knelt and pretended to tie his shoe. No light spilled across the plush blue carpet from room 1615. He rose, smoothed his tuxedo, and thought. This was no time to be showy. He was here as himself, or the latest iteration thereof, not Avatar.  But it was early yet, he was bored, and there was something unusual about the room across the hall.

He stared at the door knob. Locks were not his friends, not like dice, but it was worth a try. He willed the door to open. A soft click carried across the hall and the door sprang open an inch. Ed took a long step across the hall and flattened himself against the wall. There was no noise from within. He counted to thirty then slipped into the room, softly pulling the door closed behind him.

Not much light was coming through the window - the curtains must be drawn - and Ed counted to thirty again as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. The bathroom was to his right, the door ajar. There was no one in there. There was no one on the bed either.

He flicked the light switch. The room was a single, and obviously unoccupied. Not only were there no signs of habitation - no loose change on the bedside table, nothing in the wastebasket, no smell of soap or shampoo in the bathroom - but the air was stuffy. There was dust in inobvious places, like on top of the light fixtures. And the wallpaper and carpet were different than those in his suite, as if redecorators had skipped this room. Odd enough that 1615 was unoccupied on New Year's Eve, but apparently it hadn't been occupied in some time.

"A cursed hotel room," Ed muttered. "What is this hokey shit?"

He roamed around the small room, running his fingers over every surface, hoping to catch some psychic impression of what had happened here. It could have been many years ago. He checked the closet, opened a few drawers of the dresser, observed the bathroom mirror out of the corner of his eyes. The only impression he got was a vague sense of expectancy, which could well have been in his own imagination.

There was a worn Bible in the table next to the bed. Edison examined it for many minutes, first holding it and concentrating, then opening to random pages. Nothing.

Finally he even took the ancient medallion out of his pocket and dangled it on its chain as he slowly paced the room. Still nothing, Even the vague sense of a waiting presence had receded. Perhaps the ghost was offended by his clumsy attempt to use the mysterious medallion.

"This has been Dowsing for Dipshits,' he sighed as he slipped the worn medallion back into his pocket. He thought of the members of the Conquistadors downstairs, and what they would think at this moment of their alleged expert on the supernatural.

"Not that I said I was an expert," he told himself. "Not in so many words." He kicked off his shoes and lay down on the bed. The comforter smelled faintly musty. "In other words, Topper," he told the ceiling, "How about a little help here?"

Something shifted in the room. The spectral figure loomed at the foot of the bed. This time it was distinct, solid looking. Its face was bloody and its eyes -

Ed locked eyes with the apparition and it was like they switched places. Now Ed was looking down at the man, whose arms were tied to the headboard. A pillowcase was stuffed in his mouth. Other figures moved around the bed, but they were indistinct; 3 or 4 men with cold eyes and grim faces. They did things to the man, sometimes with their fists and sometimes with metal objects. The man's eyes were full of fear, then full of pain, then glassy and empty.

They pulled the gag out of his mouth and Ed realized the vision had been without sound, for now he heard the man's ragged breathing. One of the torturers was talking to the prisoner but Ed only heard the man's whimpered replies, a long litany of "I didn't do it...don't know...don't have it...wasn't me...never double cross you..."

They untied the man and dragged him roughly into the bathroom. After a moment there was a horribly wet noise and Ed blacked out.

He woke to an awful smell. His own vomit was an inch away from his nose, a thin slick slowly soaking into the bed. "Shit!" he exclaimed, with more energy than he felt. He staggered to the bathroom and rinsed out his mouth. He did not look at the bathtub. For the next few minutes he only focused on cleaning up the bed as best he could.

After it had been thoroughly scrubbed, and the washcloth rinsed and hung to dry, Ed sank into a chair to put his shoes back on and have a think. There were a lot of theories about ghosts, and he'd read all of them. The one that made the most sense to him was that death, especially violent death, can leave a sort of psychic residue behind.

Mystery solved, more or less. This guy had stolen something, and died before giving it up. Perhaps Ed could do some research and get the details.

He could still faintly feel the psychic echo. "Go away," Ed sighed. "You're boring me now." That indefinable sense of something shifting came again, and the bloody figure stood before Ed. It pointed to the closet and was gone.

"More hokey shit," the psychic complained as he stood. He'd checked the closet earlier, but now he examined it more thoroughly. It was long and narrow, and scrupulously clean except for a slight scuffmark on one end of the baseboard. There were six hangers and one small fire extinguisher. The baseboard?

Lying on his belly, long legs stretched into the bathroom, Ed saw that one corner of the baseboard was not quite flush with the wall. There wasn't much to get a grip on but he tried to wriggle the wood. It rocked back and forth a bit. With a good tug the whole piece came loose.

Behind it rested a long plastic tube. It looked like something that held posters or blueprints, but it was surprisingly heavy. Ed drew it out and replaced the baseboard. Heart pounding, he took the tube to the bed and uncapped it.

Slowly he shook out its contents: a tightly wound piece of canvas that unspooled to reveal a portrait of a woman in fancy dress seated at her needlework. The painting had a warmth and richness that suggested the Romantics. In fact, it looked very like the work of Ingres.

Ed knew, better than most, that it was difficult to determine if a painting was real or a fake. But people had killed for this canvas, and that was a powerful argument for authenticity. Its age alone gave it some value, and if it was actually an Ingres...

Laughter in the hall outside brought him back to reality. It sounded like Berto and his bimbos were going down to the ball. Ed checked his watch and silently cursed. He'd been out of it for almost half an hour. As his erstwhile companions' voices faded, Ed gently put the canvas back in its tube.

He didn't fancy returning to this room, and hiding the painting in his own suite was risky. He'd have to slip out of the hotel and take it home. With luck he'd be back before midnight.

Ed took a last look around the room and satisfied himself that it was more or less as he'd found it. He hefted the tube lovingly, switched off the light, and pressed himself against the door, listening carefully for anyone in the hall.

There was a terrible smell coming from the bathroom. "Tough break, Topper," Ed whispered. "But you shouldn't have double crossed your partners." He shook his head at the persistence of the ghost. Persistence...

"Holy shit," he said. No mere echo could be so persistent, so directed. This was something Edison had long dreamed of encountering: a bona fide haunting. No doubt, no fakery. This room contained a restless spirit that would never be at peace until it was avenged or the stolen property was returned.

He was grinning like an idiot. Every now and then the world turned out to be as full of wonder as you always wished it was.

"Enjoy your stay," Ed whispered as he left the room.