Read Chapter 7: The Alibi's Flaw

The documents room on the third floor of the Ministry of the Interior smelled of dust and old paper. Élise sat at the narrow oak table, the official timeline spread before her like a patient laid out for examination.

She had requested the file at seven that morning. It had taken four hours, two signatures, and one pointed telephone call from Commandant Renaud's office to produce it. The clerk who delivered it had worn the expression of a man handing over a live grenade.

The timeline was neat. Too neat.

*07:12 — His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is sighted entering his private study.* *07:15 — Servant confirms delivery of breakfast tray.* *07:30 — Security sweep of the gardens commences per standard rotation.* *07:44 — Gunfire reported by three witnesses.* *07:45 — Crown Prince found collapsed in the south garden path.* *07:48 — Medical team arrives. Prince transported to the Palace Infirmary.*

Élise read the lines again. The contradiction was there, waiting.

The prince had supposedly been in his study at 07:12. The attack occurred at 07:44. His body was found in the south garden—a distance of at least four minutes' fast walk from the study through the internal corridors, longer if one took the public routes. There was no notation of when he had left the study. No witness recorded his passage from study to garden.

She flipped through the accompanying witness statements. Most were identical in their vagueness—servants who heard the shots, guards who responded to the alarm, a gardener who saw a figure fleeing toward the east wall. All useless.

Then she found the second page, folded beneath the first batch. A single typed sheet with a handwritten annotation in the margin.

*Witness: Mademoiselle Claire Delorme, chambermaid, east wing.* *Statement: At approximately 07:35, while returning linens to the south corridor storage, the witness observed His Royal Highness passing through the service courtyard adjacent to the greenhouse.* *Annotation in red ink: Witness recanted under re-examination. Confirmed mistaken. Time discrepancy noted. File closed.*

Élise's finger traced the red ink. Someone had closed this file quickly. Too quickly. A chambermaid who saw the Crown Prince near the gardens at 07:35—nine minutes before the shooting—would place him exactly where he was found. And the official story, with its carefully vague study sighting at 07:12, suddenly had holes large enough to drive a carriage through.

She leaned back in her chair. The implication was stark.

If the prince had been near the gardens at 07:35, he had walked there voluntarily. The attack had not been a random strike on his person—it had been an ambush prepared for a route he was known to take. Someone inside the palace had known he would be there. Someone had arranged for the study sighting to be recorded, then conveniently forgotten when the recantation came through.

The question was whether the recantation was genuine.

Élise copied the chambermaid's name into her notebook, then slid the file back into its folder. She needed to see Mademoiselle Delorme herself. Not through official channels—those would only produce another carefully worded retraction—but quietly, person to person.

Her path to the records room exit took her past a window overlooking the ministry courtyard. Rain had begun to fall, thin and gray, and the light had that dull quality of early afternoon in late autumn. She checked her watch. Nearly noon. If she left now, she could reach the palace service entrance before the shift change.

She was reaching for the door when it opened.

Commandant Renaud stood in the frame, his hat in his hands, rain beading on the shoulders of his coat. He looked at her with an expression she had learned to recognize over the past weeks: amusement layered over calculation.

"Captain Moreau." He stepped inside, letting the door close behind him. "I heard you'd requisitioned the attack timeline. I thought I might save you the trouble of tracking down the irregular details."

Élise kept her face still. "I don't know what you mean."

"You found Claire Delorme's statement." It wasn't a question. "The one that was recanted and buried under two layers of administrative paperwork. I was wondering how long it would take you."

"You knew about it?"

Renaud shrugged, a gesture of practiced indifference. "I've been in palace security for eleven years, Captain. I know where the bodies are buried—sometimes literally." He moved past her, settling into one of the room's hard wooden chairs. "Delorme saw what she saw. The question isn't whether she was telling the truth. It's why the truth needed to be suppressed."

"A witness was pressured into recanting." Élise paused, watching his face. "By whom?"

"That's the interesting part." Renaud produced a folded paper from his coat pocket and set it on the table between them. "The recantation was filed by the Grand Chamberlain's office three days before his death. His signature, his seal. But I reviewed the chamberlain's correspondence logs—he was in Versailles on the day the document was supposedly signed."

Élise picked up the paper. The handwriting was neat, precise. The signature at the bottom was a tight, controlled script that would have been easy to forge.

"The chamberlain was murdered," she said slowly. "And before he died, someone used his name to bury a witness who could cast doubt on the official timeline."

Renaud's eyes held hers for a moment. Something passed between them—not trust, but recognition. The acknowledgment of shared hazard.

"The chamberlain was the one person in the palace who wanted this investigated properly," he said. "And now he's dead, and I'm standing in a records room with you, and we're both pretending we don't know what that means."

The silence stretched. Through the window, Élise could see rain running in rivulets along the glass, distorting the view of the ministry courtyard.

"Why are you telling me this now?" she asked.

"Because you're about to do something foolish." Renaud leaned forward. "You're going to find Delorme. You're going to ask her what she saw. And when you do, you'll be walking into a situation that's already cost one man his life."

"I'm aware of the risk."

"I don't think you are." His voice dropped. "I don't know what's at the center of this, Captain. But I know the pattern. The timeline was altered. A witness was silenced. A sympathetic official was removed. Every path this investigation takes leads to the same place—someone inside the palace is cleaning up loose ends, and they're doing it with more efficiency than the palace guards have ever shown."

He rose, collecting his hat. At the door, he paused.

"If you go to Delorme, don't go through official channels. She's been moved out of the east wing—the palace reassigned her to the servants' annex in the north courtyard, presumably to make her easier to find." He shook his head. "Or easier to silence. Either way, you'll have company."

The door closed behind him. Élise stood alone for a long moment, the paper still in her hand.

The recantation. The dead chamberlain. The servant who had seen something she wasn't supposed to see.

She folded the document and placed it inside her jacket. Then she walked out into the rain, toward the palace.

---

The north courtyard entrance was a service door, unremarkable and unguarded. Élise had used it twice before, years ago, in the early days of her career when she had been too junior to merit the front gates. It still opened onto the same narrow corridor, painted institutional green and lit by flickering fluorescents.

The servants' annex occupied the second floor. Élise climbed the stairs slowly, listening to her footsteps echo on the worn stone. The building had the quiet emptiness of midday, when most of the palace staff were at their duties.

She found the door marked with Delorme's name and raised her hand to knock.

Then she stopped.

The door was slightly ajar. Inside, a voice was speaking—low, urgent, female.

"—I told you, I don't know anything. I signed the paper. I said what they told me to say. That's all."

A second voice, male, clipped: "You said what you said. But the Captain has reopened the file. She's been asking questions. We need you to understand the importance of your continued silence."

Élise pressed her back against the wall beside the door. Her hand moved instinctively to the sidearm at her hip.

"Mademoiselle Delorme is no longer available for comment," the male voice continued. "You understand what that means."

There was a scuffle. A muffled cry.

Élise moved.

She pushed through the door in a single motion, her weapon drawn, the word "STOP" already forming on her lips.

The room was small, a servant's quarters neatly kept. Standing in the center was a man in a dark suit, his hand clamped over Delorme's mouth. The chambermaid was young, no more than twenty, her eyes wide with terror.

The man saw Élise and froze.

Then he moved—not to flee, but to drag Delorme toward the open window.