Alistair said that he was especially interested in the source that John Peterson had consulted for the last chapter of his book. Alistair thought he might know him and would like to make contact while in France.

The woman had to retrieve her reading glasses to refresh her memory of the last chapter. “Oh, yes,” she said, tapping her finger on the final page. “I very much remember Jean telling me about the man who told him this story. He couldn’t believe his luck in meeting him. The rest of the chapters are made up, you see, figments of Jean’s imagination, but this one was true. He’d always wanted to write about spies, and talking with this man gave him the idea for the subject and title of his book. They met in a bar in Germany.”

“Do you know his name?”

“No. It’s been so long ago, but…” Raina Desjardins brightened. “I still have Jean’s journal of notes for his book,” she said. “Perhaps the name is in there. Would you like to see it?”

“Yes, I very much would like to see Mr. Peterson’s journal,” he said. “I am so fascinated with my fellow countryman’s work.”

Alistair accepted a cup of tea after all, and his hostess left him alone to read while she went out to check on her garden. The journal was a mess. It would take patience to slog through his scrawl, but his hopes were up at the woman’s mention of the man in the bar, and he owed it to Dragonfly to leave no stone unturned. They all had begun to believe there was definitely something to Peterson’s story. Even if Victoria did not show up at the tearoom, Alistair was willing to believe that didn’t mean she wasn’t still alive. If there was a chance of finding a name, a scrap of information that might lead to her current whereabouts, his time and effort in a house that smelled like a litter box would be worth it.