“The places are not marked. Sit as you wish,” Miss Mulloy said, though Victor had already seated himself across from Merda. Matthew and Julian sat down side-by-side, with Matthew facing Montague at one end of the table and Julian facing Lioness, while Krakowski chose the chair on the other side of Victor facing Doctor Firebaugh. The Owl had not entered the chamber, much to Matthew’s relief. Where he’d gone, Matthew did not wish to know. Miss Mulloy waited until they were all settled at their places and then she said, “We’ll begin in just a moment,” after which she left the room by another door at the far side of the chamber.

Almost at once two servants appeared to pour more red wine into the glasses that were set beside each plate. Suddenly Julian lifted his glass. “A toast, if you will. To the great success of myself and Baron Brux.”

“I’ll toast that you fail miserably,” said Merda, who lifted and drank. The others simply sat in silence.

But then Lioness Sauvage levelled her steady and transfixing gaze across the table at Julian. “How is it that a Prussian speaks the English so fluently?”

“Born English. Raised and educated in Prussia,” Julian replied, parroting what the real Count Pellegar had revealed in the Grand Suite. “And I would say your grasp of the language is also exemplary. You had an excellent teacher, I think?”

“I killed the man who taught me English,” she said. “That was all he was good for. He was a brute. Let me correct myself … I executed him for crimes against me I should not wish to relate at this table.”

“Speaking of crimes against oneself,” said Montague with that squeezebox wheeze, “you are sitting across from a—dare I use the word without being struck dead—a gentleman who is quite familiar with the conduct of a brute. An ignorant brute, at that. Isn’t that true, Pellegar?”

Julian smiled silkily, while Matthew wanted to crawl under the table. “If you say so,” Julian replied.

“You know full well what I’m referring to! The Hollenstein affair in 1698! Tell them all how you and Brux carried out that particularly charming solution!”

Julian retained his smile, but he did shift a fraction in his chair. “I find—as likely we all do—that any solution has its own charm. You tell them, Montague, since you’re such the expert.”

Bing bing bing! rang a fork against a wineglass.

“Sirs … please,” said the obviously unnerved Doctor Firebaugh. “This is neither the time nor place for—”

“He and Brux murdered my employer,” Montague wheezed on, aiming his eyes at Lioness as if she might rise up with him to strike down the count. “Strangled him in his bedchamber! My golden goose! And for that I was behind the black balls for two years until I had atoned myself for their sin!”