“Hello,” he said, his eyes traveling over her. “I believe we’ve met before, but I’m afraid I can’t remember your name.”

“It’s Belinda. Belinda Warburton-Stoke,” she said.

“Delightful. Another English rose.”

“In full bloom,” Belinda said in a way that only Belinda or my mother could say it.

“And are you enjoying all the delights the Riviera has to offer?”

“I’ve yet to experience all the delights,” she said, with an emphasis on the word “all.”

“I’m sure you will experience them all, given time.”

I watched this exchange, feeling uneasy and angry. Were they flirting, or was this normal fashionable society talk? Jean-Paul turned back to me. “You two are friends?”

“We were best friends at school,” I said.

“Ah. But I think that this young lady has led a more adventurous life than you since leaving school, ma petite.”

“Oh, absolutely,” I agreed. “My life has been rather dull.”

“Until now,” Jean-Paul said. “At the moment you must agree it is far from dull.” And he smiled at me, removing some of those fears. Neville joined Belinda, putting a protective arm around her shoulder and thus making sure that the flirtation with Jean-Paul didn’t continue.

“Awfully glad to see you here,” he said to me. “The last time we met you’d just fallen off a stage and been robbed. I was frightfully worried about you.”

“I’m fully recovered, as you can see,” I said. “I wish I could say the same for the necklace.”

“Lots of thieves and crooks on the Riviera,” Neville said. “Damned foreigners don’t have the same moral code as we do at home.”

“If you’ll excuse me, I should greet our hostess,” Jean-Paul said and melted away.

I was about to follow him, but a thought had been nagging at the back of my consciousness. I remembered Neville saying that he’d seen me before. And Coco and Vera thought they’d seen me too. Even Belinda. I needed to locate this mysterious double who had been seen entering Sir Toby’s house.

“‘Remember you said you’d seen me before?” I asked Neville.

“Riding your bike up near our villa,” he said.

“Where exactly is that?”

“Up in Cimiez, very near where Queen Victoria used to stay when she came here.”

I had never known that my austere great-grandmother enjoyed the delights of the Riviera. “She came here?”

“Every winter during the 1890s, I believe. Rented a whole wing of the hotel. They even changed the name to Regina to make her feel at home.”

“Goodness,” I said. “She must have been awfully old then.”

“Oh, she was. She thought sea bathing was good for her rheumatism.”

This went against the picture I had of the spartan life she led and the palace more freezing even than Castle Rannoch.

“So how does one get to Cimiez?” I asked.