Henry addressed his son’s question: “It was her choice, very much so. Less her wish than her will, I would say. I was happy to go along with it—although the weather is so much warmer in Provence, of course. She said the Pays d’Auge was close enough to enjoy on a regular basis.” He looked quizzically at Alex. “Why do you ask?”

“OK—in at the deep end. Lucy and I realized today that she’d created her knot garden for a purpose. She explained to me and to Will—when we were little—about the significance of it as her moon garden, and that it was dedicated to her patron saint–cum-goddess, Diana. And the knot she laid out for the roses was the Stafford knot—so the whole place was like an Elizabethan rebus for her name.” His father was nodding. “But I think she meant it to be sacred, somehow—a reliquary. Am I making any sense?”

“Go on.” His father was quiet, reflective; and Grace and Simon sat motionless.

“I think there must have been something significant for her about the region itself—perhaps its proximity to Chartres. More by luck than intention, we discovered earlier today that the garden was a place of repose for…something. I’m not sure what. We found a loose tile with a space below it, large enough to put anything from a small statuette to another box perhaps—like the one Lucy scented out here under the mulberry.” Alex looked at Henry as evenly as possible, aware he would be surprised by his son’s interest. “Did you have any idea she’d planned something like this?”

“Alex,” Simon said, “your mother designed a garden just to hold a secret object—until some unspecified later time—and you and Will never knew about this?” He swallowed his champagne quickly.

“I have no way of knowing when it was thought out, but it looks like there was an object, or some information, that she was storing. And I have to say I knew nothing about it—nor, I should think, did Will. But I’m certain for reasons I’ll go into in a moment that he knew at the end, and that’s part of what he wanted to talk to me about so urgently.” He turned to his father. “Did you know of this?”