The Grand Babylon Hotel is a novel by Arnold Bennett, published in January 1902, about the mysterious disappearance of a German prince. It originally appeared as a serial in the Golden Penny. The titular Grand Babylon was modelled on the Savoy Hotel which Bennett had much later also used as a model for his 1930 novel Imperial Palace. In Bennett's journal entry on 18 January 1901, he also notes that said his serial was being advertised was the "best thing of this sort" they'd seen since The Mystery of a Hansom Cab by Fergus Hume. Plot introduction The protagonists are an American millionaire, Theodore Racksole, and his daughter Nella (Helen). While staying at the supremely exclusive Grand Babylon Hotel, Nella asks for a steak and Bass beer for dinner, but the order is refused. To get her what she wants Racksole buys the entire hotel, for £400,000 "and a guinea" (so the previous owner, Félix Babylon, can say that he haggled with the multi-millionaire businessman). Strange things are happening in the hotel. First, Racksole notices the headwaiter, Jules, winking at his daughter's friend, Reginald Dimmock, while they consume their expensive steak. He dismisses the headwaiter. The next day Miss Spencer, the pretty, efficient hotel clerk who has been employed there for years, disappears. It appears that she just took her things and left, no one knows when or where. And Prince Eugen, a prince regnant of Posen, who was to come to the hotel and meet his youthful uncle Prince Aribert (he and the nephew are of the same age), never turns up. Then the body of Dimmock, who was an equerry to the princes, come ahead to prepare for their visit, is found. He was obviously poisoned. And soon after, Dimmock's body disappears. The same evening the hotel is having a ball in the Gold Room, hosted by a Mr and Mrs Sampson Levi. There is a special secret window though which one can observe the room and the guests. Racksole looks out of it and sees among the guests the dismissed headwaiter, Jules. Racksole runs out to confront him and throw him out, but can't find him. He comes back to the secret window to find Jules, staring intensely into the ball room. Racksole orders him out of the hotel for the second time. Prince Aribert, who met Nella in Paris while he was travelling incognito under the