One Night in a Hotel (Wandering)

A young married woman apologizes to her boyfriend, Havel, that their departure must be set back three hours. The man thus wanders through the town, running into a bookstore and deciding to buy a detective story entitled Murder That Does Not Need an Explanation. Both the bookstore manager and the shop seller claim that the work is brand new, but Havel is firmly convinced he is familiar with the plot and has read it already. The situation results in a quarrel among the three. Havel later visits his friend, a detective-story connoisseur, asking him to judge the dispute. Then, he and Jarmila leave for another city and stay in single bedrooms on various floors, to give the appearance of being imperviously separated from each other. Nonetheless, the two lovers spend the night together. In the morning, Havel finds his lover missing and the liftboy claims not to be aware of their hotel sojourn at all. Havel rushes to the railway station but fails to catch up with the woman. It is only in Prague that he finds out that the train Jarmila was supposed to arrive with has been stuck for three hours in the station since the dead body of a woman was discovered on board. Then Havel receives a phone call from his friend telling him the plot of the book is definitely new and genuine.