“You require a table, madame?”
“I’m looking for friends. Monsieur and Madame Sloane and their party?”
“This way, madame. Will you be joining them?”
Oh, Lord. I hadn’t wanted a formal presentation. “I can find them myself. No problem,” I said.
“It is no trouble, madame.” He strode out ahead of me to a table in the far corner. Seated at it were a large florid man, his bad-tempered looking wife, a pink and chubby younger man, a similarly chubby young woman, and amid them, like the peacock in the henhouse, was Ellie. She was smiling shyly at something they had said to her.
They looked up as we approached. “A visitor for you, monsieur,” the maître d’ said.
They stared up at me, except for Ellie who was blushing bright pink.
“I’m sorry to trouble you, Mr. Sloane,” I said. “But I am a friend of Miss Ellie’s and I wonder if you could spare her for a moment.”
“We’re just about to eat, young lady,” he said. “If you’re a friend of my son’s fiancée you’re welcome to join us.” He turned to look at Ellie.
“Not really a friend,” Ellie said, waving a hand dismissively. “Just an acquaintance, and I’m sure I wouldn’t want to spoil my first meal in Paris with my new family for a spot of female chitchat.”
“It’s really rather important,” I said. “I was just speaking with the housekeeper, Claudette, and it seems that you forgot certain items…” I gave her what I hoped was a meaningful stare.
Ellie’s face was now bright red. She licked her lips nervously. “Perhaps I’d better…” she began. “If you could possibly excuse me for a moment.”
“Really, Ellie, I don’t see what can be so dashed important that you have to interrupt a pleasant meal,” Peter said. “Especially for a near stranger.”
“I wouldn’t dream of interrupting a family reunion but this matter can’t wait,” I said. “If I can just have Ellie to myself for a few minutes, I’ll be gone. I have friends waiting for me elsewhere.”
Peter stood, ungraciously, allowing Ellie to slide out of her place. I let her go ahead of me out of the restaurant. The moment we were out of earshot she turned on me. “What do you think you’re doing, embarrassing me in front of my in-laws? I felt like a complete fool. I don’t know what on earth you want with me. We only shared a couple of casual conversations in our whole life.”
“Oh, but I think you do know, Miss Hatcher,” I said. “And it’s up to you. You can have the conversation with me, or with the inspector from the Sûreté.”
Those blue eyes opened wide. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. I’m talking about Reynold Bryce’s murder. I was curious as to why you didn’t mention that you had seen Mr. Bryce on the day he died.”
“It didn’t come up in casual conversation. Why should I tell you anything?” she glared defiantly. “I hardly know you.”
“And yet you wanted me to lie that we had been together during all of your stay in Paris. At the time I thought you merely wanted to give your in-laws the impression that you were chaperoned during your stay here if they discovered you had been in Paris longer than you had told them. But later I realized it was quite different. You wanted an alibi, didn’t you?”
“For what?”
“For killing Reynold Bryce.”
“But I didn’t kill him.” She looked around in case anybody was within earshot, then took my arm, dragged me into an alcove, and sank onto the bench there like a deflated balloon. “I swear I didn’t kill him.”
“That’s not what the police think,” I said. “They know you came to visit him right before he died. The housekeeper has testified that you looked flustered and uneasy and insisted on seeing him. And she heard you say, ‘I don’t want your money.’” I decided to risk pushing this one step further. “And the Hôtel d’Alsace is missing one knife from their kitchen—a knife that has fingerprints on it.”
She gave a sob and buried her face in her hands. “Then it’s all over, isn’t it? The truth will come out and Peter will never want to marry me now.”
“I believe they still use the guillotine in France,” I said matter-of-factly.
She dropped her hands with a look of pure terror on her face. “But I didn’t kill him,” she whispered.
“The police won’t believe you. After all, you had the best motive, didn’t you?”