The phrase raison d’être is another one of those scraps of French that has been snatched up and swallowed by English speakers. It means, literally, “reason to be”—the thing a person is best at, the thing they are meant to do. This part of an investigation, the part where the detectives all sit around and look at evidence, was Phenomena’s reason to be. It played to her strengths: deduction, list-making, and looking at people as if they were a bit dim. Though, granted, that last one wasn’t deliberate.

For Shenanigan, it was her reason to be somewhere else.

If Pomme were here, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, she thought. She and Pomme could have snacks and make paper airplanes and amuse themselves. No one who knew Shenanigan would ever say she wasn’t clever, but it was a cleverness that turned up when it felt like it, and stubbornly stayed in a corner whenever math or logic were in the room.

From her notebook Phenomena took a swatch of the inflatable bird, bisected by a neat white seam. She pinned it to the canvas. Felicity offered up The Troubadour’s photograph of the puppet tableau from La Garde-robe, and Shenanigan handed over Pomme’s sketch from the Galerie Valerie. They regarded it, Souris for the first time.

“Bernard was in there?” he asked, pointing at the lump in the carpet.

“Yes,” said Phenomena. Then added, “Sorry.”

“I heard what you were saying about the bird that eats pine cones,” Souris said, staring at the sketch, “but finding Bernard’s body inside Ouvolpo’s tableau really, really makes them look guilty.”

“Maybe Bernard was working with Ouvolpo, as their man inside the Hôtel,” suggested Shenanigan. “He was going to help them steal Toujours j’attends, but they double-crossed him. Or he double-crossed them.”

Even as she said it, she didn’t believe it, and wasn’t surprised by the hiss of anger from Souris.

“Bernard Plourdes was a good man!” the bellboy said angrily. “He was kind, and he was going to teach me to repair the big washing machines so I could help Maman when they broke. You didn’t know him.”

Felicity patted his shoulder. “All right,” she said. “We believe you. You tried to warn us about his disappearance.”

Souris sagged. “I didn’t know it was a disappearance,” he muttered. “I thought Soufflé had finally pushed him too hard, and he’d quit. Bernard used to call Soufflé ‘Petit Tyran,’ the Petty Tyrant, because of the way he orders us all about. The leak in Pomme’s old room was too much for one person to fix, but Soufflé refused to hire any help, so—”

“Stop,” said Phenomena, not unkindly. “If our thinking is messy and disorganized, our investigation will be too. We have to proceed in order.”

“So where should we start?” groused Shenanigan, who didn’t know how to think in a way that wasn’t messy and disorganized.

“We should start with what we know.” Phenomena took a felt-tip pen from her pocket and began to write on the canvas, the others calling out suggestions as she went.

WHAT WE KNOW

Ouvolpo

1. Ouvolpo are stealing Pierrot artworks.
   They have three of four:

   • “A Clown Laments His Lot in Life,” taken from Swift House

   • “The Buildings in Their Finery,” taken from La Garde-robe

   • “The Crocodile Follows Wherever I Go,” taken from the Galerie Valerie

2. WE ASSUME they will go for the last Pierrot, “Always, I Am Waiting,” tomorrow at the Musée Deburau exhibition.

3. Ouvolpo believe Pierrot’s art was stolen by the Martinets, which is why they are taking it back.

Souris scowled at the final point.

“How?” he demanded. “Pierrot disappeared before Tyran even bought this building. Everyone knows the story!”

“Pierrot went missing in…?” Phenomena asked, pen hovering.

“The summer of 1926,” said Souris.

“How do we know that?”

“Because of the signature and date on the bottom of Toujours j’attends,” he said promptly. “That’s his last piece, and the last piece of him in the world.”

“I see. That was June. And Tyran bought the building in August?”

“That’s right. He began work immediately. Managed the renovation in four months, just in time for New Year’s Eve.”

Phenomena dutifully wrote this down.

Pierrot

1. Disappeared soon after June 1926—we know this from his sculpture.

2. Tyran Martinet bought 21 rue Regrette in August.

3. Tyran Martinet found Pierrot’s art abandoned in his old apartment.

4. He exhibited it himself, making Pierrot famous.

5. Three of the pieces were gradually sold off to pay for the upkeep of the Hôtel.

Phenomena stood back, tapping her pen against her chin. “If only it hadn’t happened so long ago,” she said, frustrated. “There’s no evidence. Nothing concrete to work from. No witnesses we can talk to.”

“What about the other tenants?” asked Felicity hesitantly.

Souris frowned. “What?”

“Well, it wasn’t just Pierrot who lived here,” said Felicity. “It was an apartment building. There would have been dozens of other people. Did anyone interview them? Where did they go?”

“I—” Souris frowned. “I don’t know. They moved out, I suppose.” But he looked uncomfortable. It was clear no one had ever questioned this before.

After another minute of chewing on her hair, Phenomena shook her head. “Let’s move on.”

She wrote:

Bernard

1. Bernard Plourdes, handyman at the Hôtel, disappeared a week ago.

2. He was found dead inside one of Ouvolpo’s tableaux.

3. Ouvolpo have never been known to harm anyone before now.

“Did Bernard say anything before he disappeared?” Phenomena asked Souris. “Did he seem worried to you, or secretive?”

“No. But we have all been working hard—I may have missed something.”

“There was something strange about the scene,” said Phenomena, frowning, “but I can’t put my finger on it. Shenanigan, what did you notice about the body?”

“He was in a green coverall. It was dirty, but not with blood. He had bruises round his neck—”

“What sort of bruises?” asked Phenomena. “Finger marks? Remember our lesson on wound patterns.”

“No, not fingers,” said Shenanigan. “The bruising was pretty even, in a regular line round the throat. Maybe he was strangled with something?”

She stared at the sketch. She had now seen three of Ouvolpo’s tableaux, and something about this one was wrong. Hadn’t Pomme said that too?

Shenanigan pictured the scene: the way the carpet had been fitted so perfectly over the chairs, the table, the wardrobe, even stitched in place around the lamp. She looked at the lump, swollen and out of place, like an unpopped pimple in the middle of the tableau.

“He doesn’t fit,” she murmured to herself.

The others nodded, as if they had been thinking the same thing. Then Felicity slapped her forehead with an open palm, making them all jump.

“Of course!” she cried. “It’s the needlework!”

They stared at her in bemusement.

“Look at this,” she said, picking up the scrap of fabric from Swift House. “See how neat these stitches are? And here”—she pointed at the photo of the Pierrot puppet at La Garde-robe—“it’s really, really hard to sew clothes that size. The tableau at the Galerie Valerie was just as neat, except for where Bernard had been covered by the carpet.” She pointed to the sketch, where Pomme had drawn thick black lines to represent the stitches. “I thought they were sloppy the moment I saw them. And the thread was different too—it didn’t match the rest.”

“They could have been in a hurry,” said Phenomena practically.

“They’re artists,” said Felicity impatiently. “If it looked bad to me, to them it would be unbearable. Artists are their own worst critics. They would never have left it that way, especially when everything else was measured perfectly to fit. The body looks like—like—”

“Like it was shoved in there afterwards,” said Erf, echoing Shenanigan’s thoughts.

Phenomena let out a long, slow breath. “All right,” she said. “A good investigator trusts the analysis of specialists, after all. When it comes to needle and thread, you’re the expert, Fliss.”

On the board, she wrote:

4. Cause of death unknown, but bruising around throat indicates strangulation.

5. Specialist opinion suggests the body was placed there by a third party AFTER Ouvolpo completed their tableau.

“But why?” asked Felicity. “It’s hardly the most logical place to dump a body.”

“The Seine is more traditional,” added Souris.

“Only if you don’t want it found. Isn’t it obvious?” Erf trembled with anger. “Someone is trying to frame Ouvolpo! We all saw the headlines this morning. By dinner, everyone will believe they’re murderers.”

“If that’s correct, then who’s trying to frame them?” asked Souris.

“In our experience,” said Phenomena, “the question to ask is: Who would have something to gain?”

Souris’s eyes went hard and flat as buttons. “There are plenty of people who hate Ouvolpo,” he said defensively. “People they’ve shamed, and museums they’ve robbed, and—”

“And the Martinets,” said Shenanigan. “You saw how they reacted to the news this morning.”

“Ouvolpo stealing the Pierrots was calling the wrong kind of attention to the Family,” said Erf. “People have already started asking questions about how Tyran got Pierrot’s art.”

“I told you, he found it abandoned when he bought the building!” said Souris, polishing a button on his uniform in agitation.

“The Martinets need to keep Toujours j’attends in the hands of your Family so they can make money with this exhibition,” said Felicity. “Soufflé told us himself—it’s the only way the Hôtel stays afloat. Ouvolpo’s actions threatened that, but if people think Ouvolpo are murderers, no one is going to listen to anything they say.”

“Look, Soufflé is un fanfaron, yes, but a murderer?” Souris shook his head. “That, I can’t believe.”

“ ‘Such a nice old lady,’ ” muttered Phenomena darkly. “ ‘But, oh, all those teeth!’ ”

“All right, then,” said Souris hotly, “answer me this: Why would anyone in my Family want Bernard dead? Surely there are better ways to discredit Ouvolpo than by killing a loyal employee!”

That brought them up short.

“If Bernard knew something—maybe about the Martinets, maybe about the Hôtel, maybe about Pierrot himself—that might be a reason to kill him,” said Felicity slowly. “If the exhibition and the Hôtel were at risk.”

“We are straying into the realm of conjecture. By which I mean we’re guessing.” Phenomena rubbed her temples. “This whole case is backwards,” she said crossly. “We don’t really have clues. We don’t have access to the crime scenes, and we don’t have any evidence. All we have is a list of questions.”

She turned back to the board.

WHAT DON’T WE KNOW?

• Who killed Bernard Plourdes?

• Why? Did he have information that would harm the Martinets, or Ouvolpo?

• Did the Martinets steal Pierrot’s work? How?

Phenomena wrote the final question on the board, and circled it once:

• What happened to Pierrot?

“The answer to that question may be the key to all of this. People don’t just disappear,” said Phenomena.

This was correct. A person only appears to disappear to the people who are used to them appearing in predictable places. In reality, that person is still appearing, just somewhere else—even if that somewhere else is, say, the bottom of a well, or the stomach of a shark, or the basement of an abandoned chocolate factory. Usually, at least one other person knows exactly where they are—they’re just not telling.

They stared at the canvas. There had to be some connection between Bernard’s death, Toujours j’attends, the Martinets, and the disappearance of Pierrot. But to Shenanigan it all felt like a ball of tangled thread.

Someone thumped on the door, making them jump.

“Ah!” said Souris, scrabbling up to open the vent. “Almost forgot! Bad idea to leave it closed for too long!”

He slid back the panel, and a familiar, irritated voice came echoing into the room.

“—hear me. Come on out,” said Mercredi crossly. “Un flic in a fancy coat is here, and he demands to talk to us.”

“Oh, I saw that one earlier,” said Erf, waving the phrase book. “Un flic means a cop.”

“And a fancy coat means Rousseau,” said Shenanigan.