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"Miss Beckman received no deliveries?"
"If she had, the package would have been left with me."
"What about workmen? Did anybody come by to fix something?"
The concierge started to shake her head, then changed her mind.
"Well, yes, early this afternoon, but I can assure you, he went nowhere near Mademoiselle's apartment." Madame sniffed. "An annoying little man he was, too."
"What did he come to fix?"
"Oh, it was nonsense. Pure nonsense. We have all these rules and codes now. Paris has survived for centuries but lately there is always some fool stopping by to peer into the chimneys or tug at the wiring and tell me I must spend more money to meet some foolish new law."
"Did something like that happen today?"
"A man came, to check the elevator." Madame Delain sighed deeply. "I told him that there was nothing to check, that it was inspected two months ago, but he would not listen. Well, bureaucrats never do, do they? I told him to wait, that I would escort him to the elevator but he said, why did I need to bother when anyone with two eyes could see it stood right over there?"
"And?" Conor prompted.
"And," she said, with a shrug, "he rode down, he rode up, he made a pest of himself. He vanished for a while on the upper floor."
"My floor," Miranda said softly, and Conor's hand closed on hers in warning.
Madame Delain's brows arched. "He said it was to check the cables but I know how these fools do things." She leaned across her desk, her lips pursed like a prune. "He was hoping I would get nervous and offer him a few francs to give me a good report. Well, I did not do it. The elevator is fine and so are the cables. This is a well-run building. Anyone can tell you that."
"What did he look like?" Conor said.
"Who?"
The temptation to seize madame, drag her out of her chair and hang her up by her heels, was close to overpowering.
Conor smiled. "The elevator inspector," he said politely.
"Who would notice such a thing? A civil servant is a civil servant. They all look the same."
Conor opened his mouth, f
elt the swift squeeze of Miranda's fingers against his, and cleared his throat.
"Of course," he said.
"You think this man left this thing under mademoiselle's door?"
He nodded. "It's possible."
"Mon Dieu, such nerve!" The concierge looked at Miranda, eyes bright with curiosity. "What was it?"
Miranda hesitated. "Oh, you know." She smiled. "It was a nothing, just a message from a devoted fan."
* * *
"Well," she said to Conor, as they sat across from each other in a crowded café a little while later, "it might have been."
"Have you ever had gotten anything even close to that from a fan?"
"No, thank goodness. But I've heard about some weird stuff. You'd be amazed at the things people send to celebrities. Well, to people they think are celebrities."
"Weird, huh?"
