There was a knock on the door, so gentle it was almost a scrabble. They both looked towards the scrabble-knock, unsure if it had really been a knock at all, or just a noisy bit of air. Then a voice like tiny bells said, “Commandant?” – and air doesn’t do that. So Commandant Le Goff opened the door.

The woman who swept in was covered in lace and jewels. Her small, pointy face was set in a permanent half smile, and her bright little eyes darted constantly about the room. She wore a lot of rouge, and reminded Max forcefully of the pink sugar mice that were always in the window of a sweet shop near her school.

“Maximilienne! My, how like your maman you are!” she trilled, ignoring Le Goff entirely. “Now, what is going on, my dear? These silly policemen seem to think you have a diamond.” And she laughed – like glasses chinking, like icicles falling, like pixies crying.

“I don’t know what happened,” said Max. “It was in the hat you sent me.”

Le Goff, his egg-face full of huff over the “silly policemen” comment, indicated the table. “You are familiar with this bobble hat, madame?”

Great-Aunt Elodie looked at the hat. She darted her eyes to Max, Le Goff, the hat again, the window, Le Goff, Max, the hat – all in a speedy second – and blinked innocently.

“No,” she said.

Max found, to her surprise, that she was standing. “That is not TRUE!” she yelled. “You sent me that hat. And Marguerite is missing, Commandant, and somebody has to help. And Rupert was pushed off a train, and Celeste is actually called Suzanne, and…” Come on, Max scolded herself. Make sense.

“Commandant,” said Great-Aunt Elodie. She placed a gloved paw on Le Goff’s arm. “My great-niece is obviously distressed. May I have some time alone with her?”

She had a way of asking a question that wasn’t really asking. Le Goff was nodding before she had even finished the sentence. “Of course,” he said. “I’ll go and inform Madame Rosenkrantz of developments here. I’ll have to lock the door, I’m afraid.” He started towards the door, remembered something, and turned back to pocket the diamond and take it with him. Great-Aunt Elodie’s eyes followed every movement.

The door shut with a heavy bang.

Max’s great-aunt settled herself on the chair and looked up at Max. She made her voice even tinier and softer, so that it wouldn’t carry through the door.

“We set everything up perfectly,” she said. “You had one simple little thing to do, my dear. How precisely did you make such a mess of it?”