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eye on his ovens and the other at the judas in the kitchen door.
    They sat; the inevitable flutes of champagne arrived. The mood was glum.
    A fifty-year-old man announced to the table at large, “I lost my second star five years ago. If my wife hadn’t been so supportive, I would have thrown myself into the Seine.”
    A sveltely elegant woman with patrician features nodded vigorously in agreement. “I lost my second star last year, too. That reptilian Folon gloated. He said that my restaurant had never been at the two-star level, and that with only one star, I would relax, fit better into my skin, and become a happy woman. Quelle connerie! If I don’t get my second star back in a year or two, I really will throw myself in the Seine. Thank God I don’t have a husband who’ll try to stop me . ”
    As the conversation progressed to the alternative response to a lost star of refusing to be listed in the Guide—something both Maxim’s and the Tour d’Argent had done—Gautier’s tasting menu was unfolded like a hand of gilt-edged tarot cards laid out to tell a fortune. They started with spoonfuls of beluga caviar on halves of baked potato and smoked eel surrounded by dots of creamy horseradish sauce. That was followed by creamy asparagus velouté with nuggets of sorrel sprouts. Next came medallions of warm duck foie gras decorated with a sauce of cherry and fresh almond. Then soft-boiled eggs served in their own shells with a creamy sauce of girolle mushrooms. Once the appetizers were over, the meal shifted up a gear with sliced fillets of sole served with a creamy violet sauce. The next gear shift brought two main dishes, sweetbreads studded with little nails of fresh bay on a bed of romaine lettuce, followed by a quail stuffed with foie gras and accompanied by a caramelized apple and summer truffle sauce.
    The mood of the group remained somber even when the food arrived. Normally, the professionals of haute gastronomie felt it was as insulting to talk while eating as it was to check one’s BlackBerry while kissing a beautiful girl. Even though a hint of cheer eventually bubbled up through the semi-silence, gloom had jelled over the meal. The few exchanges were sorrowful ones of the sort that reposing in noble dignity at the bottom of the Seine was infinitely preferable to drifting ghostlike in the limbo of unlisted restaurants, to be noticed only by tourists. Gautier fretted at his judas window, wringing his hands in his apron and upbraiding his line chefs mercilessly.
    It wasn’t until the dessert was reached—a small scoop of cacao ice cream on a bed of creamy chocolate ganache made with Venezuelan Araguani chocolate—that the traditional ebullience of a pack of gastronomes at a renowned watering hole returned and the topics of abusive critics and suicides over lost stars were finally abandoned.
    Capucine was amazed that the police’s announcement that Brault had been murdered had had no effect whatsoever on the conventional wisdom that Brault had committed suicide as a result of Folon’s insinuations that he was about to lose a star.
    An anxious Gautier came out bearing a crystal decanter of alcool de framboise —raspberry liqueur. Four aide-serveurs followed him with tiny stemmed glasses and coffee, which they placed before each guest as Gautier searched their eyes, trolling for approval.
    He asked Labrousse, “ C’était? Was it?”
    Labrousse rose, beamed at him, and said, “ Rien à dire. Nothing to say.” It was the highest possible praise in the restaurant code. It had been so good, no criticism of any kind was possible.
    Labrousse gave Gautier a hug. “It fills me with pride to see cuisine of this excellence made in what used to be my restaurant. I used to feel in New York I had to live up to my Paris standards. Now I have even higher standards to live up to.”
    The entire table lit up with smiles. Still, as far as Capucine could tell, the group’s conviction was that while the only true