The Phantom from 512

It was the city’s grandest hotel once. Now it’s a shabby third-rate flop house catering mostly to out-of-work theatrical performers and travelers passing through. For a man down on his uppers, the night clerk’s job is a foothold—until a black-veiled stranger walks in from the street and asks for room 512.

Twenty years ago, a husband-and-wife dance team checked into that same room. By morning, the husband lay broken on the pavement five floors below, and his wife was on her way to the electric chair. The papers called it the city’s most notorious murder. Both of them are buried.

So why is the woman in black signing the register with their names? Why do their voices echo from a loudspeaker disconnected for years? And why, when the lobby clock stops, does the empty ballroom flicker to life with a tango neither of them lived to dance?