* * *
Later that night, while Hugh was in his study, she and Gillian had a tête à tête. She was still intrigued by the man in spite of her annoyance.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know much about him. He doesn’t live in Paris as far as I know. At any rate we never see him in society but Hugh has kept up with him in a vague sort of way. He may have come to our wedding but I have never seen the glamorous woman before; I would have remembered her! I seem to recall Hugh saying there had been a tragedy in his life and he dropped out of Parisian society, spending a lot of his time in Venice. It happened soon after we married and I was still getting to know the ropes as a diplomat’s wife, so I didn’t file any information about him in my scatterbrain! I’m sorry darling. I do know he’s a lawyer.’
‘Well, that figures. He told me he was here to interview a witness but he could have been a policeman!’ Libby giggled.
‘Why don’t you ask Hugh more about him?’
But Libby shook her head. What was the point? The next day a beautiful bouquet arrived for her which included a business card with a simple message on the back, ‘To Penny. From Michel’. She instructed the maid to throw the flowers and the card in the dustbin.