Marguerite ran to Max and enveloped her in a huge habit-hug. Max hugged tightly back, and despite all the steady breathing, she found that she was crying in extremely squiggly breaths now, gasping in and out.

Marguerite squeezed tightly. “I’m sorry I’m late, mon lapin!”

For a few moments, they just hugged, not speaking. Outside, Istanbul was waking. The sound of traffic was by now a steady thrum, and sometimes you could make out a raised voice – presumably speaking Turkish, but it was too far away for Max to hear any words.

“I came as soon as I could,” said Marguerite. “I got the first flight out of Bucharest.”

“I thought you were – that someone might have—”

“Well, I’m not and they didn’t,” said Marguerite, “so don’t go getting upset over what never happened, mon lapin.” She squeezed extra tightly, and explained, “Celeste jammed my toilet door at the station and trapped me inside. She must have realized I knew something was going on, when we guessed too quickly that it was Rupert who fell, and when I knew her name. Still, here I am now, so all’s well that ends well.” As she finished speaking she released Max from the hug, and got out the houseplant for the windowsill. She pulled two cakes out of her habit, and turned on the radiator below the window. “Goodness, is Le Goff trying to freeze us out? Right. Breakfast.”

Max started to say thank you, but she was worried it might set the squiggly breathing off again, and she’d only just stopped. So instead she said, “Actually, Klaus was right, Celeste isn’t Celeste. She’s Suzanne.” And while they ate she told Marguerite everything that she had learned, right up to Great-Aunt Elodie’s betrayal, and everything that had happened to her on the way. When she got to the part about climbing on the roof of the train, Marguerite turned very pale, and hugged her again for good measure.

“Well, mon lapin,” she said, when Max had finished, “I hope you don’t have your heart set on being a pop star or a vet or something, because I’ve never met a more natural detective. Well done.” She put her chin on her laced-up fingers to think. There wasn’t anything to lean on, but she did it anyway, elbows hanging in mid-air on some imaginary table. “I remembered meeting an Elodie Yavuz at that Berlin auction as soon as Ester mentioned it. She stopped buying a couple of decades ago – but no one just stops buying – if a collector vanishes, they’re probably buying on the black market. Or, in this case, stealing. I realized she might have planted it in your belongings somehow, but I didn’t know how. That’s why I left breakfast in such a hurry: I wanted to have a hunt through your things, but Klaus wouldn’t leave me alone.”