“Madame Morel,” said Le Goff, the flicker of suspicion returning, “why is your bird familiar with that word?”

Great-Aunt Elodie didn’t miss a beat. “I adopted it,” she said, “from a young man recently left by his lover.”

“Mine at last! Mine at last!” added the parrot.

“But then she came home,” she explained, “and promised to be his.”

A Turkish officer had been translating quietly to his boss, who now muttered something back. The translator leaned to Le Goff, and murmured that maybe, perhaps, this whole situation was a bit suspicious; and maybe, perhaps, they should check the secret safe that was deliberately missed by the security cameras and guarded by a parrot who said, “Heartbreak diamond, mine at last!”; and he was very sorry about brunch, but his boss would have to insist. Le Goff sighed.

“Madame Morel,” he said. “Open the safe.”

“No.”

“Then we will.” And he looked pleadingly at the Turkish officers, who came forward and tried, one by one. It was impossible. This suited Max: there was no way, now, that they could think she had opened the safe and planted the diamond. In the end they had no choice but to take Great-Aunt Elodie, squirming, by the arm, and force her hand towards the safe. She twitched and flapped like one of her own birds, while Suzanne argued furiously with them, but they didn’t back down. So in the end Great-Aunt Elodie announced, with great dignity, that she would open it herself. They let her go, and she put fingertip to pad.

The safe swung open. Something small and red twinkled at them, split down the centre by a streak of white.

“Oh,” said Le Goff. “Ah,” he said, sadly, as the implications sank in, and he thought of all the apologetic phone calls he was going to have to make. Then, “Madame Morel,” said Le Goff, “is there by any chance a good explanation for this situation?”

“Of course there is,” said Great-Aunt Elodie, straightening her sleeves. “I feared you might react badly, under the circumstances, so I wanted to keep this private – but it’s only a little hobby of mine. This is not the heartbreak diamond at all. It is a copy I had made.” They all looked at her doubtfully, but she said it so assuredly that it was almost convincing. Max was impressed. Her great-aunt was a quick liar.

But Max was quick, too. She was thinking about the copy of the heartbreak diamond that had been left at Fort Vaults, and everything Rupert had told them about it – or, rather, what he hadn’t been able to tell them. Could she lay another trap, before Great-Aunt Elodie could scheme her way out of this?

“Surely it can’t be a copy!” she said innocently. “It looks so real! What is it made of, then, if it isn’t a diamond?”

“It’s a very ordinary stone called quartz,” came the smooth reply.