For once, tourists and native Parisians were in agreement, and had turned up to the Musée Deburau together. The crowds were densely packed, jostling for position and trying to avoid being pushed into the fountain. The entrance was guarded by a forget-me-not-blue velvet rope and, in case that failed to strike fear into the heart of a potential trespasser, two large men in gray suits. Next to them were several uniformed police officers, and Rousseau. He did not look happy, though, in fairness, he never did.

“I want these men out of here,” Rousseau said as Soufflé and Monsieur Laurent the curator came out to meet them. “My officers cannot do their jobs effectively if they are watching their backs the entire time.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Soufflé mildly. “These men are employees of the Hôtel, given the day off to enjoy some art and culture.”

“They are private security,” Rousseau snapped. “I am not a fool, Monsieur Martinet. You have brought—what is that English word? Goons. They will get in our way.”

“Then, by all means, ask your officers to remove them,” said Soufflé. “Though you might find them…uncooperative. How was your talk with the commissioner, by the way?”

Rousseau was silent, though the disgust with which he looked at Soufflé spoke volumes.

Laurent unclipped the velvet rope with some ceremony and waved through the party from the Hôtel Martinet. Not all of them had wanted to come. Souris and Mercredi had stayed home, as had Débris. Contraire had changed his mind eleven times, but had eventually thrown himself into Silhouette’s car, wearing odd socks and no shoes.

Shenanigan let them all pass. She was watching Rousseau. His shoulders were rigid in his coat. When the others were out of sight, Soufflé sighed, reaching into his jacket.

“This doesn’t have to be a battle between us, Inspector,” he said. “My family and the Paris police have enjoyed a friendship going back many years, a friendship that is mutually beneficial—”

“Monsieur, I will assume you are reaching into your jacket to offer me a mint,” said Rousseau coldly. “Because if I see money in your hand, I will arrest you here and now for attempting to bribe an officer of the law.”

Soufflé froze. He withdrew his hand, empty.

“Well,” he said, and then, without anything further to add, walked past Rousseau and into the museum.

It wasn’t the bare white space of La Garde-robe, nor the marble-floored elegance of the Galerie Valerie. The Musée Deburau looked almost homey. The paintings on the walls were arranged in groups, as if they were clusters of friends at a party. The floor was dark, polished wood. The first room of the exhibition was a long corridor, dotted with large photographs, framed articles from old magazines and newsletters, and a few of the early advertisements Pierrot had designed. It was hard to build an exhibition around one sculpture, and they had clearly wanted to flesh it out a bit.

“We will admit our visitors in just a moment,” said Laurent, smiling, “but I wanted you all to see the space by yourselves first. I promise you that we researched meticulously. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was. It’s like all record of Pierrot’s life disappeared when he did! But, still, there were a few photographs from the estates of his artist friends, some descriptions in letters, and so on. We managed to re-create it as best we could.”

“Re-create what?” asked Soufflé, and then they turned into the main gallery space, and stopped dead.

The room reminded Shenanigan of Pomme’s. Every available surface was covered in paint, pots, bottles of dubious spirits, half-finished canvases, discarded pencils and brushes, all the mysterious instruments of art. A large easel stood in one corner. A painter’s smock hung on a nail.

The apartment was furnished in the style of the 1920s, but it clearly hadn’t been a nice place to live. There was a large brown patch of damp on the ceiling, and an ominous crack down one wall. The wallpaper was fly-specked and peeling, though someone had begun removing it in one corner, and testing swatches of cheerful yellow on the uneven plaster. There was no carpet, just bare, rough board, speckled with paint, and in the middle of the room one faded patterned rug tried valiantly to stretch its corners across as much of the floor as possible.

A camping stove had been placed in one tiny alcove, and this did for the kitchen, while on the other side of the cramped room a sagging mattress was what passed for a bedroom. There was a false window on one wall, and a hidden light filtered through handmade curtains, mimicking the sun of mid-summer, but the windowpanes were cracked and loose in their frames, and if this had been a real flat they would have had to be stuffed with newspaper come winter. A white ruff had been hung up to dry on a washing line, strung across the ceiling. There was an empty coal scuttle by the fireplace, a tap that dripped, and there was even a stuffed rat with a heel of bread in its mouth, running towards a hole in the skirting board.

The entire scene was flanked by two swathes of blue velvet, almost like a theater curtain.

“We really did try for realism,” said Laurent proudly. “We wanted to show the…the noble poverty Pierrot lived in. Terrible conditions, of course, but one must wonder: Would he have been as brilliant had he not suffered? Suffering creates art, after all. Hardship and poverty are often necessary for the artistic temperament.”

“Ah yes,” said Maelstrom flatly. “It’s a wonder more people don’t cut holes in their shoes and go without food to bring on that artistic temperament.”

In the center of Pierrot’s apartment, on an incongruous marble plinth, sat Toujours j’attends.

A spotlight lit him from above, highlighting all the curves and shadows of the sculpture. It made the Pierrot appear more severe, more like Art. It looked like the same sad little clown Shenanigan had seen in Grisaille’s room, but the odd feeling of melancholy she had experienced wasn’t there this time. Maybe it was the light.

“You haven’t put it in a case,” said Shenanigan, frowning. “I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to put art in a glass case so people can’t lick it or something.”

“Ah,” said Laurent, “that’s where we have been inventive. Look.”

He put out a hand and stepped towards a line on the floor, where the polished wood ended and the rough, paint-speckled floorboards began. When he was an inch away, the tips of his fingers flattened and paled, and Shenanigan realized that they were pressed against the clearest, cleanest glass she had ever not-seen. She reached out and tapped the surface, marveling at it. She breathed on it, and drew a smiley face in the fog her breath left behind.

“Please don’t do that,” said the curator, smiling tightly. “You wouldn’t believe how difficult it is to clean.” He cleared his throat. “This pane is an inch thick, and it spans the entire breadth of the apartment. The inside, as I told Monsieur Martinet, is temperature, light, and humidity controlled. There is access from, ah, backstage, as you would say, on the other side of the apartment door, but that is currently guarded by two police officers and two of your employees.”

He pulled a cord, and blue velvet curtains swept in to cover the exhibit.

“There will be champagne served, of course, and then you and I will say a few words, Soufflé…”

The kids all sat on a bench, not talking much. Soft, tinkling piano music played as the room began to fill with people, admiring the art on the walls, laughing, sipping champagne. Felicity fetched them all sparkling apple juice, so they looked occupied. They stared up towards the ceiling, where a network of pipes and air ducts criss-crossed above their heads.

“Ouvolpo won’t try and take Toujours now, surely?” murmured Felicity. “It’ll be later tonight, when the place is empty.”

Shenanigan shook her head. “No,” she said. “It’ll be now, in the middle of this party.”

“How do you know?” asked Phenomena.

“Because they want to steal it from right under the noses of the Martinets, and the police, and the snooty people of Paris. It’s what I— It’s what Pomme would do.”

Laurent tapped his champagne flute. Shenanigan tried not to jiggle her foot impatiently as he stood before the curtains, embarking on a long speech in French, and then starting the whole thing over in English. He thanked everyone for coming. He thanked the museum staff for their hard work. He thanked the Martinet Family for the generous lease of their prized possession. Shenanigan half expected him to start thanking his mother for always believing in him, but thankfully he stopped, and, “Without further ado—” took hold of the curtain cord.

Shenanigan was sure that when those curtains parted the statue would be gone. In her mind she could already see the curator’s double take, hear the gasps of shock from the crowd, the crash of someone dropping a champagne glass.

So it was a surprise when the curtains parted to reveal the false apartment, and the sculpture still on its pedestal. The gasp from the crowd was not one of shock, but wonder. Shenanigan frowned.

“Would you like to say anything, Monsieur Martinet?” asked Laurent.

“Well, perhaps a little,” said Soufflé. He reached into his jacket and brought out a thick stack of cue cards, which he promptly dropped on the floor. He fumbled for a moment, gathering them up, and when he stood upright again, his face was pink and shiny.

“Art lovers of Paris,” he began, “it is the honor of my Family to bring to you today Toujours j’attends, or Always, I Am Waiting, the final work of the celebrated artist known as Pierrot. You may be wondering how our Family came to acquire so much of Pierrot’s work. It’s a long tale”—he flipped to the next cue card—“and so, I hope you enjoy your evening! Ah—my sincere apologies, that is not the correct card…”

As Soufflé began to sort through his cue cards, Shenanigan shut her ears and opened her eyes as wide as she could. She was looking for…something. A shape, a shadow. Something incongruous. She was staring so hard at the apartment that she didn’t realize it was staring back at her, until it blinked.

She stopped breathing. Two eyes were peering out of the cracked blue tiles of the fireplace.

As subtly as she could, Shenanigan tugged Felicity’s sleeve. Felicity saw them too, and pinched Phenomena, who nudged Erf. The children stared at the eyes until they closed again, disappearing into the tiles. Now that she was looking properly, Shenanigan could see a slight warping to the blue-and-white pattern that might have been a painted arm, and a curve that might have been a knee. It was like a Magic Eye painting. With a jolt, she spied another pair of eyes peering out of the wallpaper, and another blinking up from the patterned carpet.

Then Erf nudged Phenomena, who pinched Felicity, who pulled on Shenanigan’s sleeve, all drawing each other’s attention to the rope of silken fabric slowly dropping into view behind Soufflé, inside the apartment. A whisper spread through the watching audience, but no one thought to alert Soufflé. He kept struggling with his cue cards as the silk fluttered lower and lower, stopping about a foot above the Pierrot. Erf gripped Shenanigan’s arm so tightly their bitten nails bit into her skin.

In a sudden flash of movement, a figure rolled smoothly down the length of silk. Their sequined leotard shone in the spotlight as they spun gracefully towards the floor, utterly silent. The crowd gasped as the figure stopped themself just above the statue, the silk looped about a thick waist and one ankle. People began to clap.

Soufflé looked up, smiling in surprise at this unexpected encouragement. But, when he realized they were not clapping for him, he spun round, dropping his cue cards all over again. The figure swayed gently, like a pendulum. Their face was masked in gold, only their eyes, a warm brown set off by gold eyeliner, showing. They waved at the audience.

“Is this part of the exhibition?” Soufflé asked faintly.

“No,” whispered the curator, stunned.

The acrobat casually plucked the Pierrot from its pedestal. One of those golden-lined eyes winked, and with a twitch of a thigh and a jerk from one round bicep, the thief and their prize rolled smoothly back up the silk and disappeared.