Inside rested the ruins of what had once been a beautiful instrument. The body of the violin was splintered into three pieces, the neck sheared at the base. A length of pink satin ribbon had been tied sadly around the top.

Lia touched it gingerly. “Grandmère would have been beside herself if this was hers.”

“Maybe it belonged to someone else?”

“Why keep it, then?”

Gabriel shrugged, at a complete loss.

Lia snapped the lid shut as if she couldn’t stand to look at it any longer. “What else is left in the trunk?”

Gabriel reached inside and withdrew a leather-bound tool kit remarkably similar to his. With deft movements, he unrolled it to reveal not tools but a set of four wicked-looking blades that gleamed in the light, ranging from a long-bladed stiletto to a stubby knife no longer than his middle finger. A cord with loops at the end had been coiled and secured against the leather.

“This looks like a set of James Bond assassination tools,” Gabriel said, examining the blunt end of the small thumb dagger. “All of these weapons could be concealed in a pocket or a lapel or a handbag.” He gestured to the ringed cord. “Including the garrote. Do you think they might have belonged to your grandmother?”

“I don’t see how,” Lia mumbled. “She would leave the room if I was watching TV with any sort of violence. She hated it.”

“Perhaps this set belonged to one of the men she was hiding, then. Look.” He pointed to the lower corner of the leather sheathing. “There is an initial. S.”

“Are you suggesting that my grandmother hid an assassin?” Lia asked dubiously. “After what I just said about her abhorring violence?”

Gabriel sat back on his heels and stared at the array of items. “More likely is the possibility that one of the men she might have hidden was a special agent,” he suggested, warming to the idea. “There were people all over Paris who helped Allied intelligence.”

“If this was true—if she had helped the Allies during the war—why wouldn’t she have said something? Told her story?”

“Perhaps she was trying to forget?”

“Forget what?” She shook her head. “I just don’t understand. Any of this.”

Gabriel pushed himself to his feet and stepped toward the opening, running his fingers along the edge of the wardrobe’s false back where it had been cleverly cut.

“My grandfather,” he said after a moment, “the one who painted that little landscape, was an RAF pilot during the war. He spent almost five years in a POW camp after his plane was shot down. He has never spoken of those years—of the war and everything and everyone it cost him—to me. Ever.” He turned and leaned back against the wall. “Perhaps your grandmother was no different. Perhaps the cost of whatever she endured was too painful.”

“Perhaps.”