“At the front?”

“Not exactly. He’s in the quartermaster’s department. Supplies. He’s good at that.” Thomas did not add that he and his family had benefited from the army’s food supplies now and then, on Luc’s visits to them.

“You were a good foreman, I remember. Do you ever do any work of that kind now?”

“Not recently, monsieur. Not much on offer.” He grinned. “Unless someone’s wanting to build another Eiffel Tower.”

You have no idea, Marc thought, how close to the truth you are. But when work began, Thomas Gascon might be a good foreman to use. He’d remember him.

“You have a family, I think.”

“My wife and daughter are next door, in the restaurant. My son Robert, with the wooden leg, served you coffee.”

“Any other sons?”

“I had. Pierre was my younger son. We lost him at Verdun.”

“I’m sorry.”

“And your family, monsieur?”

“My parents are down at Fontainebleau, getting old. My sister is well. But my elder brother died three months ago.” He smiled sadly. “That is why I must go to the office now—like you, to keep the family business running.”

Thomas Gascon wouldn’t take any money for the coffee. Marc made a mental note to go to the restaurant sometime, and leave a tip.

Gérard. Dead. Even now he could scarcely believe it. He’d been in the office when it happened. A clerk, ashen-faced, had come into his office and led him down the passage to Gérard’s. His brother had been sitting at his desk—almost as he usually did, except that he was leaning back at a strange angle in his big chair. The stroke had obviously killed him quite suddenly. There had been no warning at all.

And Marc had been obliged to take over in his place.

Looking back, it seemed to him that from the first day Gérard had asked him to join him, his brother had had an inkling of what was coming. He’d taken care that, little as it interested him, Marc obtained a good idea how the wholesale business worked, who the suppliers were, how to treat them and the workings of the distribution process. Though Gérard controlled the finances, including those of the department store, Marc understood how all the accounts were put together and where all the information was kept. He was quite surprised to discover, after the first shock of Gérard’s death, that he knew exactly what to do.

For the last three months, he’d kept everything in good order. Not only that, he’d made his own investigations into every corner of the businesses, just to make sure that some aspect of them didn’t suddenly take him unawares.

That was how, last week, he had made the two awful discoveries that had been haunting him ever since.

Gérard had known he’d discover those, too. In fact, Marc realized, he’d wanted him to.

He wondered what Aunt Éloïse would say when he told her.