With the difficult part done, the breach of the floor, he worked quickly. He took the can of Scotchgard, reached down into Hamedi’s closet and sprayed a generous three-inch band over the shoulder of each jacket. From his earlier trials he decided that a second coat wasn’t necessary. He pushed the jackets back where they belonged on the rail and set the lower ceiling tile carefully in place, then arranged the cut-out section of wood floor at a forty-five-degree diagonal over the gaping hole. He cut away the pad to fit the raised section of wood, and when he folded the carpet flap back it appeared perfectly flat. He then shifted Madame Dupre’s luggage stand so that the two X-shaped legs were straddling the hidden hole. The patch wouldn’t go unnoticed forever, but Slaton was quite sure it would buy him the thirty hours he needed.

He did his best to clean up, rubbing a hand over the telltale sawdust until it disappeared into the carpet, and then using one of Madame’s hairbrushes to groom the thick-pile weave until his cuts were unnoticeable. Satisfied, Slaton was soon standing motionless against the door, glued to the viewing port and waiting for the silence that would send him on his way. Two minutes later, after a whistling steward passed with a room-service tray, he was at the elevator.

He was waiting for the door to slide open when the maid he’d encountered earlier turned a corner. In an awkward moment they locked eyes only a few steps apart. Slaton smiled to put her at ease, and then blew out a long and heavy breath, adding a mock look of exhaustion.

“Madame Dupre,” he said conspiratorially. “Un formidable appétit.”

The maid’s face broke into a look he couldn’t quite place—something, he reckoned, between astonishment and delight. Then the elevator arrived and the kidon was gone.

*   *   *

Sanderson arrived back at his hotel wet and exhausted, having spent a wretchedly inclement afternoon scouring the United Nations complex and the shores of Lake Geneva. From a park on the southern bank, his chin tucked against a heavy drizzle, he had watched the yacht Entrepreneur arrive in all her glory. From the busy sidewalks and pedestrian bridges beyond, sloshing through puddles and getting splashed by passing cars, he had studied a thousand faces. Not one was Edmund Deadmarsh.

He was passing the hotel’s front desk when a clerk called out, “Monsieur Sanderson.”

“Yes?”

“We have received a package for you, an overnight delivery.”

Sanderson walked over and took a small but solid package. “Thank you.”