The Weird Topology of the Hotel California

I go up to the man at the front desk. "I'm looking for room 273141," I tell him.

"No, you want 314127," he replies.

I'm surprised. "Do I? How could you know that?"

"Because Mr James left a message saying that a young lady would be asking for directions to his room. You are Holly Jordan, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am. Thank you for your help. But why did you call him 'Mr James'? James is his first name."

"And his last name. He's Mr James James."

"Oh!" That seems very strange, but I feel that it would be rude to say so. Instead I say: "So how do I find room 314127?"

"Take the elevator to the third floor. Then it's the first corridor on the left. Take the fourth on the left off that. Then the first on the left, then the second on the left and it's the seventh door on the left."

"That can't be right."

"Of course not. It's all left."

"But there must be some right turns, surely? You'd finish up going round in circles - or in rectangles, anyway."

"It's designed like that deliberately. It makes it trivially easy to find any room that you know the number of."

"I see. Well, thank you very much."

To my surprise, it actually seems to work. Though I have to walk rather a long way, I find James's room without any trouble.

I knock, and after a moment he opens the door. He is no longer wearing the suit that he wore for work, but jeans and a tee-shirt. I only have the one set of clothes, of course, which makes me feel slightly uncomfortable that I haven't been able to change.

"Hello, Holly," he says. "Come in. Dinner is almost ready. So what did you think of Gold Cheer Beaches?"

1. I tell him, at the same time looking around the room in which I find myself.
2. Oddly enough, I find that the book's contents seem to have gone completely out of my mind.

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