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“But it must have been him,” Odelia insisted.

“Not me,” said the hardened criminal. “I promise you,Inspecteur Giblet.”

“Mh,” said Giblet.

“You don’t believe him, do you, Inspector?” Odelia insisted. “The man is a thief and a liar. And he’s lying right now.”

“No, I am not,” said Gilles virtuously. “It is not in my nature to lie.”

“Yeah, right,” said Chase, giving the man a slight shove.

“That’s enough of that,” said Giblet. “I’m inclined to believe you, Gilles, but only because I know you. You’re not the killer type. And besides,” he added for Odelia’s sake, “I already have Astra Jacobs’s killer locked up.”

“But Agatha is innocent!” Odelia insisted.

“So you say,” said the inspector, but he clearly wasn’t believing Odelia’s story that Gilbert Franck was the actual killer.

“The killer of Astra Jacob is this man!”

“No, it’s not,” said Gilles.

“Yes, it is! Two nights ago you snuck into her room and killed her!”

“Two nights ago, you say? I wasn’t even in Paris that night. I was—” But he immediately regretted his words, for he abruptly shut his mouth with a click.

“Yes?” said the Inspector, eyeing him keenly. “Go on. You know you’re going to tell me the truth sooner or later.”

The career criminal rolled his eyes.“Oh, okay. So I was in Orl?ans.”

“For a visit to your sister?”

The man’s eyes widened. “How did you know! That is exactly right.”

“Nonsense. Your sister doesn’t want to have anything to do with you.”

“That is not true!” Then he caught the steely look on the Inspector’s face, and relented. “Okay, so maybe it is true. But that is not my fault, is it? She believes I am a criminal, even though I have told her I am merely an enterprising businessman.”

“So what were you really doing out there, Gilles?”

“Fine, so I was casing a house. A friend of mine said he had this great job lined up, but it needed an expert to figure out how to get in and out of the place.”

“And that’s where you came in.” He turned to his audience. “Gilles is known as Mr. Invisible. He can get in and out of any place undetected. It’s a rare gift.”

“Thanks,Inspecteur,” said Gilles, well pleased with this compliment from an unsuspected source.

“Now if only you’d use that gift to do something useful for a change.” He addressed Odelia. “I’ll make sure to check his story, Mrs. Kingsley. But if he really was doing a job in Orl?ans two nights ago he can’t be our killer, now can he?”

“So at least he’s in the clear for that,” Chase said, nodding.

“Oh, this is just hopeless,” said Odelia, throwing up her hands. “Just when we think we’ve got our guy, he goes and produces the perfect alibi!”

“Yes, that is me,” said Gilles with a grin. “The man with the perfect alibi.”

“Except you’re going to jail for… how many breakins, Barney?”

“Four that I know of,” said Barney, still recovering from the shock.

“Four burglaries, Gilles. Do you hear that? Looks like you’re going away for a while.”

“Now that is a shame,” said Gilles, and allowed himself to be led away by his arresting officer.

“Wait!” Barney cried. “Who’s going to pay for his suite! And his expenses!”

Inspector Giblet turned.“Write it off, Barney. That money is gone, my friend.”

“Oh, mon dieu!” Barney lamented, his manager’s heart crying bitter tears.

CHAPTER 33

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“I don’t understand,” said Odelia. “Marion said she saw the cat burglar enter Astra’s room. So he can’t have been in Orl?ans.”

“Unless there are two cat burglars,” Chase said.

We were back in our room with our humans, discussing the dramatic end to our case. Or rather, the implosion of the case, since now it appeared as if this Gilles Franck had nothing to with Astra’s murder after all.

“Okay, so how do you know whether a person is a man or a woman or neither?” said Dooley, who clearly had his own troubles to deal with. “Sukey looked like a woman to me, but if she says she’s not a woman, I guess we have to accept that. Only how are we to know?”

“That’s why she said it,” I explained. “Otherwise we’d make the mistake of addressing her as a woman while she doesn’t want that, see.”

He clearly didn’t see, but that was all right.

Odelia was right, though. The case was at a dead end, more puzzling than before. She thought she had her killer, and Agatha would be freed, but now things looked just as bleak as before. Bleaker, even, for now there was no more hope.

“Dang it,” Chase grumbled, and lightly kicked the wastepaper basket. It toppled over and its contents spilled out across the carpet.

Amalia Pulpweed’s parking ticket, that Odelia had tossed, rolled to a stop between my paws. On the television, which stood blaring away in the living room, a story about the American ambassador to France was playing, the ambassador and his wife attending the opening of an exhibition of splendorous Louis XVI gems.