Ester cried “Ja!” and pounded the table, Klaus grinned, and Rupert gave a tired nod. “Absolutely, mon lapin,” said Marguerite. “Although, as ever, how is the interesting question. And –” she gave Rupert a steely stare “– we will not be keeping it.”

This had obviously been an earlier debate. Rupert stirred his tea mulishly.

“Don’t look so down,” said Salem, punching him lightly on the arm. “The reward for its return will be more than enough.”

“Enough for what?” asked Max.

“Rupert has taken some stupid risks,” explained Marguerite, “and now owes some very dangerous people a lot of money. Correct, mon poulet?”

Rupert rolled his eyes, but didn’t object. “They’re getting rather angry, Max. Caught up with me at the station in London as I was leaving, dumped everything out of my bag – which was everything I had left in the world by that point, apart from the contents of my pockets – and punched me on the nose, snapping the old glasses. All more to scare me rather than anything serious, but they’ve promised much worse if I don’t pay up soon. I promised them I was about to hit the jackpot, but they’re not exactly being patient.” He rubbed a hand through his hair. “Being frank, Max, it’s rather a pickle.”

So that’s why your case was empty, thought Max. And now the phone call she had heard from the Ister made sense too. Poor Rupert. He was having a lot of not-flies for one week.

Ester banged her stick impatiently, annoyed that none of this conversation was about her. “Come on!” she blared. “Enough, enough. I have drunk my own body weight in tea, and we still don’t have a plan.”

“Well said, mon chou,” said Marguerite. “Time for business. Rupert. What do you know about Morel’s house?”

Rupert rubbed his hair some more, helplessly. “Nothing good. She lives in a huge pile on the west bank of the Bosphorus Strait, with a butler and a whole pack of maids and cooks and so on.” (So much, thought Max, for Great-Aunt Elodie’s claim that she would be needing help around the house.) “Suzanne is there too for now. The whole house is alarmed. If you enter any way other than the front door, you trip the alarms, the whole place locks down, and the police are automatically summoned. Vicious guard dogs at the front door ready to savage anyone trying to sneak in that way unnoticed. There are cameras everywhere. All her safes are fingerprint-operated; no way to pick those locks. And the place is enormous, so even if you could get in unnoticed, you’d need to know exactly where to look.”