Two Curious Cases of Vanished Ladies

The first story is quite well known because it was filmed by Hitchcock in 1938 under the title "The Lady Vanishes." It was based on a novel called "The Wheel Spins" by Ethel Lina White. A young woman travelling in the Balkans becomes friendly with a middle aged English governess. During the train journey, the governess vanishes & the people who had seen her with the young woman all deny having seen her (for their own reasons). A young man helping the young woman finds out that the "governess" is an English spy returning home with vital information, who is kidnapped by the enemy powers & masqueraded as a patient with facial bandages. However she is unmasked & returns home safe.

The second story is not so well known. It is "The Room on the Fourth Floor" by Ralph Straus. A mother & daughter returning to England make a stopover in Paris. Because of the rush due to the Paris Expo of 1900, they are allotted two single rooms on different floors. The daughter sleeps for four hours due to tiredness & afterwards, finds her mother's room empty & she missing. Everyone, including the cab driver & hotel staff, insist that she arrived alone. Bewildered, she returns to England & has an attack of brain fever which proves fatal.

What really happened was that the mother rang for the maid soon after arrival, & the maid arrived & found her dead. The doctor when summoned, found she had died of Bubonic Plague. Any leak of such news would be catastrophic during the Expo. So the Government went into overdrive, destroyed all evidence of the mother's arrival & bribed all witnesses to deny her existence & successfully hushed up the matter.