He was still disconcerting the man—even alarming him, he realized, and this was not what he wanted. He saw his eyes swivel and the color come and go in his face. With a quiet gesture Lazare pushed his chair back from the desk. He sighed.

“I’m now beyond reach of either alarm. You prefer that?”

“Sure I do. Stay like that.”

“Tell me who you are,” Lazare said. “I should tell you, I already know the part you played in Maria Cazarès’s death. It was you who told her about that chemist in Amsterdam, was it not? Your friend who could provide the one pill that would restore her happiness and enable her to work? Maria told me—oh, nearly a year ago now—that some friend had discovered this man. She told me it was another designer. I didn’t believe her—but that didn’t matter. I even believed in the man and his experiments for a while, which was why I was persuaded to help fund them. I wanted to believe, of course.”

“You did?” The young man stared at him. “Why?”

“Because we had tried everything else. Innumerable doctors, clinics, methods of treatment. I had spent five years exploring the further reaches of medicine, with the help of some arcane and semilegal practitioners as well as some of the finest doctors in Europe. I was—desperate.” He paused. “And when one is desperate, one will try anything. Is that not so?”

The man made a small convulsive gesture of the hand. Lazare frowned.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand, however. When you planted the idea in Maria’s mind that this chemist and these pills would be her salvation—did you realize they were lethal then?”

“They’re not lethal.” He gave Lazare a look of derision. “She was so fucking dumb. You were so dumb. You let her get hold of too many at once—and she took them. Four in one day, one from you, then three at Mathilde’s. No food. No water. She was sick already, very thin”—he gave a shrug—“so, what do you know? Cardiac arrest.” He paused. “But you’re smart, I’ll give you that. I didn’t want the pills to kill her. Quite the reverse.”

“You wanted them to ensure she was well enough to attend her collection today, is that it? I see. Of course.” Lazare gave a small frown. “You wanted her out on the runway.”

“Oh, I wanted you both out on the runway.” The young man gave a complacent smile. “You—no problem. But I could see she was cracking up fast. I could see that way back last year. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want her fucking up my plans. She had to appear. The White Doves should have fixed that…” His eyes narrowed. “It’s odd, isn’t it? You’re a careful man, a detail man—everyone says that about you. Every article I’ve ever read, that’s what it says. Yet you let her overdose. Why was that?”

A tiny flicker of emotion passed across Lazare’s impassive face. The young man was not so unintelligent, he thought.