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In silence, we sip our drinks.
Elaine looks up at Camille and me with a faint smile on her hollowed face. “Congratulations on your marriage! I hear there will be a big wedding in summer.”
“That’s right,” I lie. “Given our upcoming consecration as the Duke and Duchess of Arrago, we didn’t want our wedding to be eclipsed by that, so we pushed it back.”
Wasn’t that smooth?It’s not for nothing I’m a diplomat.
“What a wise decision, my lord!” Her smile is broader now, more sincere. “Both those ceremonies are precious milestones in your lives. Each one deserves your family’s and the duchy’s full attention.”
Everybody nods, even Camille. Knowing how candid she is, this must require quite some effort.
“You must be eager to return to Arrago, and I wouldn’t want to delay you.” Elaine turns to Camille. “How can I help you, my lady?”
Camille pauses at “my lady” before regaining her composure. She launches into a choppy and faltering account of everything we’ve uncovered so far. She better get used to being called “my lady” because that’s what she is now, regardless of what she wears, how she acts, what she says, and how she feels about it. After we divorce, she’ll lose the title of Duchess of Arrago, but she’ll keep that of Marchioness de Valois. Whether she likes it or not, she’ll be a lady for the rest of her life.
As Camille’s exposé progresses, so does her coherence. The grimace of confusion vanishes from Elaine’s face. She listens intently, nodding every now and then.
When Camille is done, Elaine scoots to the edge of her chair. “That case, the palace fire, was driving Carlo mad. Being unable to get to the bottom of it is one of the things that pushed him to take his life.”
“Madame Bodden-Bock, do you think…”
While I search for suitable words, Camille jumps in, “From what you just said, it sounds like your husband didn’t believe Jeannette was the culprit.”
“The evidence against her was overwhelming,” Elaine says. “But Carlo thought there was more to it than met the eye.”
“Is it possible that Carlo brought home a copy of the coroner’s original report?” I ask her. “Is there a chance you still have it?”
She stands up. “Follow me.”
Elaine leads us to a vast basement. In the back corner, she keys in a passcode to open a security door. We step into a spacious home office. Rows of filing cabinets and shelves with binders occupy two-thirds of it, and every drawer and binder is neatly labeled.
“These are my husband’s personal archives,” she says. “If he had a copy of that report, it would be here.”
Camille moves from cabinet to cabinet, reading the labels on the drawers.
I turn to Elaine. “Did the chief of police come to see Carlo after their servers crashed?”
She nods.
“Did he scan the files in this office?”
“Carlo never told him about them.”
To my surprised look, she adds, “The police chief’s security clearance is lower than yours. It was insufficient for Carlo to give him access to classified files.”
“But the report in question had been produced by the police,” I counter.
She arches an eyebrow. “Even so. Carlo’s copy of it automatically became a MESS file.”
Bizarre logic.
“Makes perfect sense,” Camille comments, pulling out a drawer.
She fingers through the hanging folders to one in the middle. Inside, there’s a single stapled document. She pulls it out. Its title page looks familiar. It’s the fire investigator’s report!
I step closer to Camille.
Her hands shaking, she leafs through to the coroner’s section to the page with the findings from Pierre Housard’s autopsy.
