Blood dripped slowly onto the tiles. Soufflé and Beige ran forwards to tend to their mother’s hand. Grisaille ignored them. Her colorless eyes were fixed on Pomme.

“Where is the real Toujours j’attends?”

“In the hands of my comrades. They’ll be halfway across Paris by now.”

A wail of dismay rose from the gathered Martinets. Silhouette looked as if she might faint again. Débris sat down hard on the floor. Contraire applauded.

“But…how…” spluttered Soufflé.

“It’s really complicated,” said Pomme, “and I don’t feel like explaining. Do you, Shenanigan?”

“Nope.”

“I think we should play a game instead,” said Phenomena. “How about Interrogation? Soufflé, I think you know the rules.”

Soufflé scoffed, but his voice had a slight tremor when he said, “Don’t be ridiculous. My mother is hurt. I refuse to be baited like this.”

He and Beige helped Grisaille to her feet and led her back towards the restaurant. They were followed by a grim parade: the rest of the Martinets, the Swifts, Inspector Rousseau, Monsieur Laurent, and finally the Société des Pierrots, silent and accusing.

“Ouvolpo think Grand-père Tyran stole the Pierrots,” said Silhouette. “Soufflé, that’s not true, is it?”

“Of course not,” Soufflé snapped, his eyes flicking in the direction of Monsieur Laurent, who was looking very thoughtful. “This is gross slander, and—”

“And everyone knows Pierrot disappeared in June of 1926, right?” said Élan.

“Yes, of course!”

“And his signature in the guest book, from the Grand Opening—that’s obviously a forgery, yeah?” asked Erf.

“Ye— Excuse me, what signature?”

While Shenanigan and Souris had been fetching Toujours j’attends, Erf and Phenomena had been retrieving Guest Book 1926A. Erf held it up now, open to the page with Pierrot’s signature. They ignored Soufflé’s outstretched hand and passed it to Laurent instead. The Martinets crowded around.

“Oh…incroyable…my word…this is extraordinaire,” he babbled, too excited to separate his French from his English. “Yes, this is his signature and, oui, his ink. Monsieur Maelstrom, my tears are blurring my vision, can you confirm?”

Maelstrom leaned over. “Aye. Farfelou’s Forget-Me-Not 1922, mixed with Vendi’s Standard Blue,” he said. “That’s Pierrot all right.”

“Sacrebleu,” breathed Cliché.

“How did I miss this?” breathed Aunt Inheritance.

“That can’t be right,” insisted Soufflé. “He—he disappeared months before that. Everyone knows—”

“Everyone knows because Tyran spread that story as much as possible,” said Felicity. “After he’d killed Pierrot.”

“I’m sorry, after he what?” asked Laurent.

“Is this a joke?” asked Bouquet.

“Sorry, but it’s true,” said Pomme. “Our Family has a skeleton in the ceiling.”

“ ‘Skeleton in the closet,’ ” corrected Esprit.

“Not this time,” said Pomme. “Poor Bernard found him, and it cost him his life. Go and have a look above Room 415, if you don’t believe me.”

“You lie!” cried Soufflé, his cheeks bulging with anger. “Yes, Tyran did some…questionable things, but this! This is a trick! This…is Swift sabotage!”

“How dare you accuse—” began Aunt Inheritance, and there followed five minutes of incomprehensible shouting in French and English, in which accusations were hurled back and forth, and nothing very useful was yelled. Finally Aunt Schadenfreude brought her walking stick out of retirement, and hit the table with a resounding crack.

“I am too old to be surprised at an ancestor’s misdeeds,” she said into the sudden quiet. “I’m much more interested in the crimes of his descendants.”

“I did not kill Bernard!” Soufflé burst out. All attempt at composure was gone, and he shivered on the verge of collapse. “Ouvolpo did! I swear I did not kill him! If there is a body, as you say, then I can only assume Bernard was greedy, and tried to sell what he’d learned to those thieves! Don’t you think that if he found something, he would have come to me, his manager—”

He stopped. Shenanigan saw the confusion drain from his face. He turned to Beige.

“Et tu?” he whispered.

“You’ve been very busy lately, preparing for the exhibition,” said Beige. “Perhaps Bernard came to your office in a state of agitation, and found that you weren’t there. Perhaps he tried next door instead, where Maman and I were having tea. Perhaps”—and her lip curled with scorn—“he attempted to blackmail us with what he said he’d found in Room 515.”

One by one, the Martinets turned to Grisaille, small and gray and dignified in her comfortable chair.

“Maman?” whispered Soufflé, and now he did collapse, falling to his knees beside his mother. She sighed, and patted her son’s cheek, leaving a smear of blood.

“Oh, chéri.”

“Why did you— You never told me any of this,” he whined. “I’m supposed to be manager!”

Beige poured Grisaille a glass of water, and Shenanigan saw the normally blank-faced nurse roll her eyes, ever so slightly.

“You were never really suited to the position,” said Grisaille gently. “You flinch from making the hard decisions. I’m afraid that, despite your nickname, you are nothing like your grandfather.”

Her cool gray eyes surveyed the room, lingering briefly on Schadenfreude, on Pomme, and on Shenanigan.

“This has gone far enough,” she said. “People have been saying ugly things about my father’s art collection for years. They say it was stolen, or looted, or the spoils of imperial conquest, or whatever the fashionable phrase is nowadays. But I say the world belongs to those who have the courage to take what they want. I have always believed that a thing is owned by whoever has it in their hands. It’s why I never cared about AClown Laments His Lot in Life, you know,” she said to Schadenfreude. “Swindle Swift won it fair and square, through cheating.”

“That is not how the law works, Madame,” said Rousseau.

Shenanigan jumped. He was so still she had forgotten he was there.

“Really?” said Grisaille politely. “I have always found it to be precisely how the law works. If one has money, there are always ways to make a thing yours. You will find our papers in order, our documents of sale immaculate. You would have a hard time proving any theft in court. You say the Pierrot pieces were snatched when we bought the building; I say we took possession of belongings abandoned by the previous tenants. We will win.”

“There’s a body upstairs, Grand-mère,” Pomme reminded her.

“If there is, I have never seen it,” she said dismissively.

Grisaille knew the trick to lying too, Shenanigan realized. She had known Pierrot’s body was there. But she hadn’t ever seen it. She had chosen not to.

“I will say that my father was afraid of something. Yes, afraid,” Grisaille repeated, frowning. “And he only grew more afraid as he aged. He would…talk to himself sometimes. I’d catch him sitting on the floor of his bathroom, addressing the floorboards, holding Toujours j’attends. I was never sure who he was speaking to: the artist, or the art, or the Hôtel.” Her voice grew quiet. “It frightened me so, as a little girl.”

In the silence, Shenanigan could hear the gentle rush of many people breathing.

Grisaille blinked, and seemed to snap back to herself. “I did not kill Bernard,” she said. “You will find no proof to connect his death and my Family, other than an unfortunate sequence of events that ended in his demise. Inspector, I request that if you wish to question me further, you come back with someone willing to arrest me. Swifts”—her lip curled as she looked at Schadenfreude—“I remind you that your own branch of the Family has borne its share of rotten fruit. And to my Family, I say this.”

She turned to the stunned Martinets.

“Tyran Martinet was a great man, who loved beautiful things. Who built beautiful things. Everything we have, we owe to my father: the roof over our heads, the reputation our name carries in this city, the protection we have enjoyed for so many years. None of that just appeared. After everything that has happened today, I ask you: have you learned anything that you didn’t already know, deep down?”

Some of the Martinets looked at the floor, or at the Pierrots, or at their hands. Some of them still looked horrified. Some of them had carefully blank expressions, as if they were waiting for this unpleasant business to be over so they could forget it had ever happened. Souris stared between them all, hopeful and furious, as Pomme squeezed his hand.

Then Cook tapped Gourmet’s shoulder. They exchanged a few hushed words.

Gourmet stood up and approached the croquembouche.

The choux pom-pom on the tip of the hat was enormous, coated in black sugar a quarter of an inch thick. The chef cast around, and his eyes finally lit on Aunt Schadenfreude.

“Madame, si je peux me permettre?” he asked.

Aunt Schadenfreude proffered her stick. Gourmet raised it over his head, and brought it down hard on the croquembouche.

The sugar cracked like glass, and the confection split, splattering pastry and cream across the tablecloth. The hat sagged like a nightcap. Gourmet shoved his hand into the remains and shook out a brown greaseproof envelope, daubed with whipped cream. He pulled a small square of card from inside, yellowed with age and wrinkled along one corner from water damage. He thrust it into Grisaille’s face.

“Voilà,” he said disgustedly. “Proof.”

Soufflé reached for it, but Gourmet held it out of his reach, and passed it to Mercredi instead. The concierge looked at it.

“ ‘You are cordially invited to the Grand Opening of the Hôtel Martinet’, ” she translated. “Jazz band…elephant…What is this? Ah, there’s a handwritten note on the back.”

She turned the card. Her black eyebrows raised, then lowered, then raised again, vanishing beneath her lilac hair. She read:

“Monsieur Pierrot,

I have received your (numerous) letters with surprise and, I admit, growing admiration. You are correct: Your art has remained in my care since I took possession of 21 rue Regrette. My friend, there is no need to contact the press! I respect anyone willing to fight for what is theirs, and I will gladly return your property in person. Your work is exquisite, and I foresee great fame in your future. Please meet me at my Hôtel so we may discuss this unfortunate misunderstanding. A reservation has been made for you in Room 515.

Yours faithfully,
Tyran Martinet”

Mercredi looked up sharply. “What is this?”

“Yesterday, Gourmet arrived at Swift House,” said Fauna. “He told us he’d been worried about his friend Bernard’s disappearance, and had tried to find a way to speak covertly to my cousins, without luck. Bernard had left something in his possession. A sealed envelope, which he had instructed Gourmet not to open unless something happened to him.”

Gourmet wiped cream and sugar off the walking stick with the hem of his apron, and handed it back to Schadenfreude. He didn’t take his eyes off Grisaille.

“When he learned of Bernard’s death, he opened the envelope, but all he found inside was this. He realized why it was water damaged, and where it must have been found: Room 415, the last place he knew for certain Bernard had been. This was why Bernard had been killed—it had nothing to do with Ouvolpo. He wasn’t sure who in the Martinet Family he could trust. So he came to us.”

Mercredi held up the card before Rousseau. “Is this enough?” she asked.

Rousseau took it carefully. “To prove Tyran Martinet murdered Pierrot? I’m not sure,” he murmured, shaking his head. “Too much time has passed.”

“You’re joking!” shouted Shenanigan as Erf and Felicity cried out in protest. “His body is upstairs! Tyran’s cravat is round his neck! He killed him!”

“I believe it,” said Rousseau. “But the more time passes, the harder it is to prosecute something like this. I do not want you to get your hopes up.”

Grisaille smirked.

“Nevertheless,” he went on, “you will find building a case against them for Bernard’s murder will be much, much easier.”

Soufflé sank into a chair. “We are ruined,” he whispered.

“Quiet,” snapped Grisaille. She tightened a handkerchief round her bleeding hand, and turned to Pomme. “I should have spent more time with you as a child. You have intelligence, tenacity, and grit. You would have made an excellent manager. Instead, you grew into a naive little idealist, bent on destroying the very Family you belong to.”

“I don’t belong to you,” said Pomme. “And neither does Pierrot.”

“You caterpillar,” Grisaille spat.

Beige moved. One minute she was perfectly still, the next she was behind Pomme, and the necklace of pearls she wore was looped tight round Pomme’s neck. Beige’s hand twisted, and Shenanigan remembered the line of bruises round Bernard’s throat. Grisaille might have given the order for Bernard’s murder, but it was clear whose hands had held the garrote.

Cook lunged towards them, but Beige twisted her hand again, and Pomme made an awful choking sound that stopped Cook in her tracks.

Grisaille got to her feet and smoothed down her skirt. “My daughter and I are going to walk out now,” she said conversationally. “You will stay here for the next ten minutes, after which time we will be gone, and Pomme will be released.”

Gourmet moved forwards, but Beige tightened her grip, the pearls pressing further into Pomme’s skin. Her hands scrabbled weakly at her throat.

Soufflé looked sick. “Maman,” he said, “you’d kill your own—”

“No,” said Grisaille. “I wouldn’t. But your sister may. I defer to her judgment on such matters. She really has been indispensable in my twilight years.”

They backed out of the restaurant. Nobody dared move as the doors swung to and fro on their hinges. They heard the awkward shuffle of footsteps across the lobby, the faint creak of the Hôtel’s golden doors, then a soft commotion, like a fight between wood pigeons. And finally a hoarse cry.

They ran outside. Pomme had slumped to the pavement, her hand pressed to a line of purpling bruises across her neck. Halfway down the promenade surged a ragged crowd of Pierrots, pursuing a smudge of white and gray. Shenanigan had to squint to distinguish Beige’s nurse’s uniform among the clown costumes, pearls wrapped round her fist as she propelled her mother forwards. The Pierrots weren’t fighters, but there were dozens of them, and they moved in a quiet, intractable tide. In that moment Shenanigan was convinced that if they caught the fleeing Martinets, they would tear them apart.

Panicking, Beige veered towards the stone steps down to the river, where Maelstrom’s boat was docked. Shenanigan’s feet began to move before her brain gave the order. She could hear running footsteps behind her, but it didn’t matter who was following—if Maelstrom’s boat got going, Grisaille and Beige could sail to another part of the city, or downstream to a new town entirely, and disappear.

Shenanigan caught up just as Beige started the engine. As it coughed to life, Shenanigan vaulted over the railing of the promenade, landing on the deck with an impact that shuddered through her bones. She stumbled, knocking into Grisaille. They fell together against Maelstrom’s sample case. Vials of ink shattered around them, staining the wood as if a rainbow had been fished up and gutted on deck. Shenanigan felt Beige’s hand lock tight round her arm, and she was pulled to her feet.

Grisaille snatched up one of the broken vials. Her dress and skin were spattered with ink, like multicolored gore, and there was a long purple smear down one side of her face. Shenanigan was suddenly reminded of an old joke.

“What’s black and white and red all over?” she asked.

“What?” spat Grisaille.

“You are.”

Grisaille looked down at herself. She blinked. She blinked again. Then she made a guttural choking sound, as if her throat was swelling. After years of living without color, so much of it at once was overwhelming. Grisaille rubbed desperately at her arms, trying to get the ink off. Beige dropped Shenanigan’s arm and rushed to her mother’s side, but the old woman squeezed her eyes shut, and lurched towards Shenanigan with the shard of broken vial in hand. Shenanigan tried to dodge, but felt a sharp, burning pain as the glass sliced her arm.

Then there was a thud, and the boat rocked as two figures landed on deck. Inspector Rousseau grabbed Grisaille’s wrist, and with more effort than he had clearly expected to need, pried the broken vial from her grasp.

Beige lunged for Rousseau, but her arms were suddenly pinned to her sides. Maelstrom made a noise of warning.

“You are both under arrest,” said Rousseau. Grisaille hissed and spat, twisting in his grip like a cat, but Rousseau held firm. “I am remanding you into the custody of the Paris police—or I will, as soon as I find someone who is not in your employ.”

Grisaille sagged in Rousseau’s arms. “Please,” she said pitifully. “I am an old woman. I am confused.”

“Madame, I have just witnessed you attempting to filet a child with a broken bottle,” Rousseau said calmly. “While I admit that the child in question is troublesome”—and he allowed Shenanigan one of his not-really-there smiles—“I do think that’s a little extreme.”

Maelstrom had pulled one of his many scraps of rope from one of his many pockets and tied Beige’s wrists. Then he turned to Shenanigan, and gently took her bleeding arm in his hands. She had never in her life seen her uncle this angry. For a second, she was sure that she had finally done something bad enough to drive him away from her forever.

Then he gathered her up in a bone-crushing hug.