For example she had told me she had visited him the day before he died but he hadn’t had time to see her. That much was true. What she hadn’t said was that she had returned the next day—shortly before he was killed. Why had she kept quiet about that? And then I remembered one more thing—she had asked me to lie and say that we had been together all the time she had been in Paris. At the time I had thought that was in case her fiancé worried she had gone around unchaperoned. Now it seemed she might have wanted me as her alibi.

I decided I had to see her right away. Liam would be well-fed by Celeste and his aunts if I didn’t return on time. So I set off to cross the river to the Left Bank and the Hôtel d’Alsace. I hoped she was still staying there and hadn’t moved to the more elevated world of the Ritz. I had no wish to seek her out there, with her most proper fiancé and his family. It would be rather awkward to have to question her about a possible involvement in a murder.

I crossed the Seine at the Pont des Invalides, then followed the quay until I came to the Boulevard Saint Germain. The fine day that had seemed so perfect this morning was now a little too warm for comfort and I could feel the fabric of my dress sticking to my back. One of the disadvantages of acquiring clothes from a rich acquaintance was that they weren’t as comfortable as the muslins and shirtwaists I was used to wearing before my marriage. At this moment I’d have given anything for a white cotton shirtwaist. And a pair of comfortable shoes. The road stretched on and on. I watched fishermen along the river, a tug pulling a string of barges. It all looked very cool and inviting. I tried to concentrate on the task at hand. Ellie had chosen to lie to me. She told me only about her meeting with Reynold Bryce the day before he died. Why was that? And why had she wanted me to be her alibi?