Description:
On a fog-drenched Parisian night in 1954, Inspector Lucien Morel is called to investigate the sudden disappearance of a famous violinist. What seems like a simple case of stage fright quickly reveals the first crack in a much darker mystery.
Chapter 1: The Last Note
The rain had started before midnight — not the kind that sweeps across the streets in sheets, but a slow, persistent drizzle that made everything in Paris glisten and rot at the same time. The gas lamps along Rue Blanche flickered with fatigue, as if they too were tired of lighting shadows that only ever got darker.
Inspector Lucien Morel stood under the awning of a shuttered bakery, his collar turned up against the cold. A faint scent of stale croissants and damp stone lingered in the air. He lit a cigarette with practiced indifference, watching the smoke curl like a ghost above his hat brim.
He’d been summoned by a call from the Opéra Garnier. A missing musician. Nothing unusual. Artists vanished all the time — lovers, debts, a fit of nerves before opening night. But this one was different. Émile Vasseur wasn’t just any violinist. He was the headline act of tomorrow’s gala, and a favorite of half the cultural elite in Paris. His sudden absence had stirred more than worry. It had stirred whispers.
A black Citroën pulled up slowly to the curb, its tires hissing on the wet pavement. Morel stubbed out his cigarette and stepped into the street. The driver, a pale young officer in uniform, leaned out.
“Inspector Morel? They’re waiting for you inside. Room 3, backstage. His violin is still there… but he’s not.”
Morel nodded and adjusted his coat.
“Good,” he said flatly. “Let’s see what kind of music leaves without its instrument.”
He walked through the gilded doors of the opera house, past velvet curtains and golden busts, into the hollow silence of backstage. Somewhere in the dark, a violin case sat open on a dressing room table — and with it, the first thread of a puzzle no one wanted him to solve.