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“No. You’re thinking of the flophouse around the corner from the Quai des Orfèvres.”

“Right. The Gigi V,” said Armand.

As Dussault laughed, Armand caught Reine-Marie’s eyes, with another warning. But he could see it was no longer necessary.

Claude Dussault sat on the deep sofa and, putting the box on his knees, he opened it with all the anticipation of a child on Christmas morning.

“Let’s see what we have here. This’s a hospital container, non? Monsieur Horowitz’s belongings. Sealed. You haven’t opened it? But I thought—”

“We opened it,” said Armand. “And resealed it.”

He explained for Dussault and Jean-Guy what had happened at the George V.

“Bon,” said Dussault. “Good thinking. So everything’s in here? Laptop, phone, clothing?”

“Everything that Stephen had on him last night, and that I could find in his study.”

Dussault paused, his hand hanging into the box and a perplexed expression on his slender face. “It’s so strange, that he’d be staying at the hotel. You have no idea why?”

“None.”

Dussault brought out the laptop. “I don’t suppose you know his password for this?”

“No. Nor the phone. Though it’s smashed.”

“The SIM card?” Dussault asked.

“Broken.”

He sighed. “That’s a shame.”

“Oui.”

“What’s this?” Dussault asked.

“Looks like an Allen wrench,” said Reine-Marie.

She’d assembled enough big-box furniture for Daniel and Annie when they’d gone away to university to know an Allen wrench.

“That was on the desk beside the laptop,” said Armand. “I just swept everything into the box.”

“Including these,” said Dussault, holding a few screws in his palm. “All we need is a roll of duct tape and we’ll know more than we want to about the George V.”

“This’s interesting.” Jean-Guy picked up a couple of Canadian nickels. “They’re stuck together.”

“Ha,” said Reine-Marie, reaching for them. “That’s fun. One of them must be magnetized. I used to show Daniel and Annie that trick when they were kids.”

“What trick?”

“Older coins have a high nickel content, which means they can be turned into magnets.”

As she spoke, Jean-Guy tried to pull them apart. “They’re not magnetized, they’re glued. Now why would Stephen have two old nickels glued together?”

“He probably found them on the street and picked them up,” said Armand.

“As a good-luck charm?” asked Dussault.

“You would’ve hoped,” said Armand.