“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said. “I’ve been to Monte Carlo several times, and divorce? I won’t pretend I was shattered by his death, but I’m not so ignorant I don’t know how the law looks on women who want to divorce their husbands.”

“Don’t dissemble, Sister; it’s not attractive in a woman. More important, it makes conversation more difficult. These facts are not in dispute.”

“I’m sure I have no—”

He sighed. “Fine, if you insist on a sordid recitation. Several months before Alain died, you visited a lawyer in Paris, using your maiden name. One of the clerks recalls being assigned research on your behalf—he was to look into both choice of law for divorce cases, given the international nature of your marriage, and, provisionally, recent divorce actions brought by women in New York State. I don’t know what came of this research, but I do know that two days before Alain’s death you checked into the Hotel de Beauchamps, in Monte Carlo, again using your maiden name. If you’ll permit a small criticism, my dear, Rensselaer is not a particularly common name in that part of the world. Perhaps something like Brun, or Bernard.”

“Alain wrote me,” Alva began. “He wanted—”

“I admit, I am not particularly interested in whatever story you choose to weave right now. Do you know, it never bothered me, his death. I think we can agree he wasn’t a very nice man; he certainly wasn’t a very good brother to me. I don’t mind that he’s dead. When the telegram came from my father—‘Alain killed stop Apparent robbery stop’—I was almost happy. It left me as the only remaining child, after all, and even if there’s not much left in the family pots, some inheritance is better than no inheritance at all. The problem, of course, is my father insists upon enjoying such extreme good health.”

“I’m very sorry to hear your father is unlikely to die soon,” Alva said. “But I’m afraid I don’t see what it has to do with me. We are no longer related.”

“That notion again,” he said, gently reprimanding. “I wish you would put it out of your head. It has no bearing on our conversation.”

“I—”

“How much money did you save with his death, Alva? I’m informed that in the case of a divorce he would have taken almost all of your original fortune.”

“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Alva whispered. She’d wondered if this day would ever come, if anyone would ever call on her to account for her whereabouts that warm May evening. No one had thought to look for enemies, or for wives staying under their maiden names.