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“I don’t know. She just left her husband. He’s going to think twice now about paying a lawyer to get her off. And besides, that Inspector Giblet seemed absolutely convinced that she killed Astra.”

“Well, she was seen leaving the scene of the crime, her hands covered in the victim’s blood.”

“She explained that, Chase. She was looking for a pulse.”

Chase quirked a skeptical eyebrow.“Or so she says.”

Odelia frowned at her husband.“You don’t believe her?”

Chase lifted his broad shoulders.“You have to admit she’s got a solid motive. The woman was sleeping with her husband, for crying out loud. So what if she lost her temper and ended up stabbing her? She admitted that it was her knife.”

“Which is another thing that strikes me as odd. Why would she bring a knife to Paris? Who does that?”

“A woman who intends to murder her love rival?”

“So now you’re saying it was premeditated murder?”

“All I’m saying is it’s possible.”

“She’d have to be pretty stupid to bring her knife all the way from the States to kill Astra, and make sure she’s seen leaving the room, her hands covered in blood. If she really wanted to kill the woman she could have done it any number of ways that wouldn’t have pointed to her as the killer.” She shook her head. “No, something’s off, Chase. I can feel it in my bones.”

Chase gave her a lopsided grin.“Don’t tell me. You want to go and have a look at the crime scene.”

“Will you come with me?” asked Odelia, giving her husband an imploring look. “Two pairs of eyes can spot more than one. And you’re the detective, Chase.”

“Okay, fine, but I’m not getting involved. I have my conference to go to, and you have to rest and relax, babe, not traipse around catching killers.”

“Just taking a look can’t hurt, right?”

Chase rolled his eyes, but finally relented.“Just one look. But then we drop it.”

“Promised,” said Odelia happily. She then pointed to me and Dooley. “And you guys are also coming. And if you see or hear anything out of the ordinary, you tell me, all right? I got the impression this Inspector Giblet is like a dog with a bone. He’s got Agatha in his clutches and he won’t let go unless someone makes him.”

“I didn’t see a bone, Max,” said Dooley. “Did you see a bone?”

“It’s just an expression, Dooley,” I said. “It means that this Daniel Giblet character is tenacious and so pleased he nabbed his killer that he won’t change his mind unless we make him.”

“Oh, right,” said my friend. Then he shivered. “Do we really have to go? I’m not good with dead bodies, Max. They creep me out.”

“I know, Dooley, but if Agatha really is innocent, I’m afraid we’re going to have to prove it. And the only way to do that is to insert ourselves into the investigation and find something that proves without a shadow of a doubt that she’s innocent.”

“She didn’t look innocent. With all that blood on her hands. And then there’s that knife as well.”

“I know,” I said. “It certainly doesn’t look good for her.”

Still, Odelia had decided that she wanted to get involved, so getting involved is what we did. We headed out, Chase carefully closing the balcony window, then closing the room door behind us, just in case this cat burglar tried any funny business, and soon we all presented ourselves at the door to Astra’s room.

It wasn’t hard to know where it was, since about a dozen other hotel guests were falling over themselves to take a peek at the dead woman, only being held back by two members of Barnabas’s staff.

When we arrived there, Chase told one of them to deliver a message to the manager, which the man duly did. Moments later he returned and allowed us in, to much protest from the other guests, who clearly didn’t understand why we could enter and they could not.

“This is such a tragedy!” Barnabas cried the moment he caught sight of us. “The publicity is going to be brutal! Devastating! Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.”

“And of course there’s the fact that a life has been tragically lost,” Chase pointed out with a meaningful look at the hotel manager.

“Yes, there is that, too,” Barnabas allowed.

We’d entered the dead woman’s bedroom, and it was as Agatha had described: next to the bed, Astra was lying on her back, blood soaking the front of her satin dressing gown where she’d been stabbed in the stomach. Her lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling, and she was as pale as the Egyptian cotton sheets on the bed.

“She looks dead, Max,” Dooley commented in hushed tones.

“That’s probably because she is,” I returned.

“Isn’t there supposed to be a forensic team working the room?” asked Chase. “And why isn’t there a police presence guarding the door, keeping onlookers out?”

“Inspector Giblet has sent a team,” Barnabas explained, “but they’ve been delayed by traffic.”

“Traffic? At this hour of the night?”

“This is Paris,monsieur,” said the little manager, eyeing Chase as if he’d said the silliest thing. “There is always the traffic.”

Odelia had approached the body and crouched down next to the dead woman.“Is it just me or does she look surprised?”