The Priory of Finchelsea II.

Addendum: The East Bloomsbury Hotel is entirely fictitious, and any resemblance to any real hotel is entirely coincidental. That's my story and I'm sticking with it. We would also like to add that UCL do not, to our knowledge, but up visiting lecturers in tatty hotel rooms in dodgy hotels. So far as we know.

Lil Barton woke with a start. She woke like that because she had conditioned herself to do so, and the conditioning had been triggered by the telephone in her hotel room ringing. And the telephone did ring, it was an old-fashioned one with a dial and a real bell. She fumbled for the bedside lamp, missed and fell out of bed.
Feeling distinctly annoyed, Dr. Barton got to her feet and turned on the bedside lamp. She looked around the hotel room, the cheap and tatty furniture, the curtains that were different colours, and sighed.
Trust University College London to put up a visting lecturer in a dump like this! Still, it was better than her American University of Paris lecture, where she had been put up in a complete dump that rejoiced in the decidedly dubious name of 'Mister Bed City.'
She picked up the reciever of the 'phone and said, in her most annoyed and just-woken-up tones: "Hello? It's after midnight!"
"I know, Dr. Barton, but there's a man here to see you..."
"I hope you told him that this isn't the sort of hotel where ladies have male visitors after hours. Or is it?"
"Well..."
"I see. I'll tell UCL that I am not happy about the accomodation they provide. They probably won't do anything about it, but it'll make me feel better. The visitor is a man, right?"
"Woman."
"Oh well, that's different. One of my fan club?"
"No. She wants to see you down here right away."
"Tell her that right away isn't an option. Like most normal people I was sleeping, and like most normal people I don't sleep in my clothes. I have to dress first."
"Of course, Dr. Barton."
Lil Barton put the 'phone down savagely. She picked up a flyer from beside the bed.

University College London

Prodly Presents

An Evening with Lilian Barton

Professor of Symbology at St. Luke's College, Wymondham

Dr. Barton groaned. The whole trip had, in her opinion, been a colossal mistake, and that printing error confirmed it. For one thing, hardly any of the students had heard of her, despite her having published about a dozen books on the subject. For another the UCL symbology department had decided to fit her up, with the result that she had spent an agonising hour giving a joke lecture on religious symbolism in DC comic books that she had originally prepared for an after dinner session at an international conference. That had not been funny. For a third thing (as if the first two weren't enough), she had proved too short for the lectern provided.
And now this mysterious night-time visitor. She probably wanted to argue with her about the symbolism of the Flash's costume or something.
Well, there was only one way to find out