“Forget it!” I grabbed Tim and we walked forward, continuing toward our hotel.

“But, Nick! He paid for the drinks on the train. Maybe he’d buy me a beer.”

“Yes, Tim. But think for a minute. What’s he doing at La Palette?” I looked at my watch. It was eleven o’clock exactly. “It could just be a coincidence. But maybe he’s waiting for someone. Maybe he’s waiting for us! Don’t you remember what Marc Chabrol said?”

“He asked us if we wanted to buy a Kit Kat.”

“Yes. But after that. In the station, he warned us about someone who he called ‘the mad American.’ Jed Mathis is American! He said he was from Texas.”

“You think Mathis killed Chabrol?”

“Mathis was on the train. And Chabrol ended up underneath it. I don’t know. But I don’t think we should hang around and have drinks with him. I think we should go home!”

We hurried on. Le Chat Gris loomed up ahead of us, but before we got there I noticed something else.

There was a man standing opposite the hotel. It was hard to recognize him because he was holding a camera up to his face, taking a picture. I heard the click of the button and the whir as the film wound on automatically. He wasn’t a tourist. That much was certain. Not unless his idea of a vacation shot was two English tourists about to check out. Because the photograph he had taken had been of us. There could be no doubt about it. I could feel the telephoto lens halfway up my nose.

He lowered the camera and now I recognized the man. He had been standing in the reception area that morning when we left: a dark-haired man in a gray suit.

Marc Chabrol, the steward.

Bastille and Lavache.

And now this.

Just what was happening in Paris and why did it all have to happen to us?

A car suddenly drew up, a blue Citroën. The man with the camera got in and a moment later they were roaring past us. I just caught a glimpse of the driver, smoking a cigarette with one hand, steering with the other. Then they were gone.

Tim had already walked into the hotel. Feeling increasingly uneasy, I followed him in.

We took the key from the squinting receptionist and took the stairs back to the top of the hotel. There were a lot of them and the stairway was so narrow that the walls brushed both my shoulders as I climbed. Finally we got to the last floor. Tim stopped for breath. Then he unlocked our door.