MRS. GALLER WAS A steamship of a woman with a big white face, a plain brown hat and an enormous bosom, over which her blouse strained so that one caught glimpses of strong utilitarian underwear between buttons.

Before getting up from his chair, Robert turned the photograph of Genevieve in her wedding dress facedown so he didn’t have to look her in the eye. Then he came out from behind his desk, proffering a hand. “How do you do, ma’am. I’m very grateful to you for making the long journey.” And he was grateful, though he couldn’t help but blanch a little at the sum she’d demanded for her expenses. He still didn’t quite understand why they couldn’t simply have had this conversation on the telephone.

“She thinks it’s a new-fangled, untrustworthy machine,” Mr. Felperstone had explained. “She’s worried the operator may listen in. She wanted to speak to you in person. Wouldn’t tell me a single thing ahead of meeting you.”

She had a viselike handshake. “Not at all, sir. Pleased to meet you, I’m sure.”

He called out to Marie-Claire, his secretary, for coffee for the two of them. And one for Mr. Felperstone, who was waiting in an empty office down the corridor. Then he raised his eyebrows expectantly. “Right, then.”

The woman sat po-faced, her brown hat on her knees, silent.

Robert cleared his throat. “Perhaps you could tell me what you remember about my wife?”

“Well, sir. I’m the matron at the school, you see. I’m responsible for the girls outside of lessons. Their health, welfare, laundry and suchlike.”

“Yes, yes.” Robert knew this much already. “But what specific recollections do you have?”

Mrs. Galler looked put out at having been interrupted. She fiddled restlessly with her hat. “Miss Samuel was a pretty girl, very good with her lessons, but rather flighty, sir, if you’ll pardon me for saying so. And she did have her airs and graces. I mean, I know her father was nobility and everything, but she wasn’t the only Honourable in the school at that time.”

Robert wondered if she had an axe to grind. “Let’s leave the character assessment, shall we? Did she have many close friends?”

“Well, there was that little whatsname.”

She laid her hat on his desk. There was something nasty about that hat. It refused to make any concession to fashion or attractiveness. It was an obstinate, embittered hat, and it reminded him of his own school days—of women like her, women with bad tempers and rough hands and a military manner. Women with-out a single ounce of love in them. Who could blame his Genevieve for displaying certain airs and graces around Mrs. Galler? For thinking herself better than the matron?