“We haven’t done anything,” said Max, for the hundredth time. She couldn’t work out what had happened, but she knew who had happened. “My great-aunt—”

At the mention of Great-Aunt Elodie, Le Goff managed to be furious and bored at the same time. “For goodness’ sake, Max. I returned the diamond to my pocket as Madame Morel was leaving the room, so she is ruled out. Whereas you –” he rounded on Marguerite “– conveniently fell on me.”

Marguerite looked indignant. “Elodie stepped on my hem. She set me up.”

“You are not five years old,” said Le Goff, rolling his eyes. “‘She stepped on my hem, sir’… Grow up.”

“Le Goff?” croak-yelled a voice outside the room – a voice accompanied by a click-click-click, with heavy footsteps close behind. “Le Goff, I tell you I want to speak to them! What is this delay?”

At the realization that he was going to have to deal with Sister Marguerite and Ester Rosenkrantz at the same time, Commandant Le Goff looked a bit ill. He shrugged, defeated, and Max could almost see him decide it was probably time for a coffee and a nice sit-down.

“I’ll be back,” he spat, and he marched out of the room. He marched right into Klaus, and stumbled backwards.

“Easy, now,” said Klaus, picking him up by the elbows and putting him in the doorway. “Are you OK?”

Le Goff resumed marching with as much dignity as possible, and locked the door with a haughty click. His footsteps tapped away. Marguerite and Max looked at Ester and Klaus. Ester and Klaus looked at Marguerite and Max.

“We believe you!” announced Ester.

“And we’re so sorry, Max, for getting you in trouble,” said Klaus earnestly. Ester’s eyebrows beetled upwards at that: she obviously hadn’t agreed to the “we”. But she didn’t object, either.

“Le Goff told us your story,” she went on, “and I say it makes sense. Elodie’s a nasty piece of work, and she’s tricked me more than once into a bad deal. But you, as a thief – that doesn’t make any sense. Klaus, check the hat.”

The room was a little too small for Klaus, who had to stoop. He made his way over to the hat like some enormous duck, his neck sticking out ahead of his body. He picked it up and studied the wool.

“Yup,” he said, “Turkish. Look, you can see a very typical Turkish pattern at the edge here, and the wool they’ve used is…”

“That will do, Klaus,” said Ester. “If I wanted to know about wool I would have been a sheep farmer. If that hat was sent from Turkey, that does it. We’re on your side.” And she slammed her stick on the ground, like a queen announcing her decree. Klaus nodded earnestly, and hit his head on the ceiling.