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every tribe uses a different kind of curare. Apparently, you can make the stuff from over seventy-five different plants.”
    â€œAnd when does the curare go on the dart?”
    The attaché rooted around in the jumble on the chair and produced an eight-inch quiver holding thirty or so darts. A blackened half jaw with long, thin razor-like teeth—certainly a piranha’s—and a six-inch orange gourd with a fibrous stopper dangled on thongs attached to the quiver.
    â€œThe piranha jaw is for a last-minute sharpening of the dart. The curare is kept in a gourd like this. The hunter dips his dart in there, twirls it around, and he’s good to go. This is what they wind up looking like.”
    He produced another display case. One end of the back had been pulled from the frame. The tips of the darts were jet black. It was apparent that three were missing from the side of the case that had been pried open.
    â€œThe missing ones were shot into the president’s portrait ?”
    â€œYes, I was mortified. Two waiters and I escorted the miscreants to the door. I rather lost my temper, I’m afraid.”
    â€œAnd when you got back, you recovered the darts?”
    â€œI pulled seven darts out of the portrait. All of them were plain tipped and had been taken from the quiver. But the three curare darts were no longer there. The worst part is that they would still be quite lethal, even if the curare had been applied long ago.” He was visibly abashed.
    â€œOh,” Capucine said tolerantly. “You know how exuberant the jeunesse dorée can be.”
    Mello smiled gratefully, entirely oblivious to the reference to his own persona.
    â€œSenhor de Mello, can I ask you for one more favor? Would you happen to have a list of the guests at the reception ?”
    â€œOf course, chère madame. The hostess made a check mark for the people who turned up. If they brought a guest, she made a note of the name.” Mello rooted around in the pile on his desk and produced a large folio-size piece of paper, which he folded, put in a large white envelope embossed with the seal and address of the embassy, and handed to her.
    â€œSenhor Mello, I think you just may have made my life a whole lot easier. I know I’m imposing, but do you think I could possibly borrow your display of darts for a week or ten days?”
    â€œBy all means. And when you’re done with it, I’d be delighted to come to your office to pick it up and, if you’re kind enough to allow me, to take you to lunch. I know a Brazilian restaurant that makes caipirinhas almost as good as the ones in Rio.”
    â€œWhat a charming idea. It would be a perfect occasion for my husband to meet you. He’s a food critic and particularly adores Brazilian food. I’m sure you’d love each other.”
    The attaché’s smile remained glowingly effusive. It would have taken the most observant eye to notice it had become just ever so slightly strained.

CHAPTER 7
    C apucine hadn’t set foot in Le Florian since she was ten. Of course, as it was located on the Champs-Elysées, she had passed it countless times, each time invaded by the damp aura of haunted-house gloom. As a child, her parents would take her there for special occasions. She would sit, itching in a stiff smocked frock that had been painstakingly hand pleated by her mother’s seamstress, struggling to swallow the over-seasoned adult food, listening to her parents talk over her head, ignoring her completely save for the one or two times they remembered her presence and made a production of how lucky she was to be sitting outside in the glassed-in terrace, reserved for those known to the management, and not inside in the gloomy gilt purgatory, where the ploucs were consigned. Even now, Le Florian represented the absolute epitome of the bourgeois life she had struggled so hard to reject.
    â€œMy editor cajoled me into this,” Alexandre said