As they cleared the marina on engine Alyce said, ‘It’s time I knew where we’re going.’

‘To see the cell in which the man in the iron mask was actually held,’ announced Jordan. Her reaction was exactly the same as that of the two other women – one English, the other Australian ’ he’d taken on the same trip, hopefully this time with the same uncomplicated result of the previous two.

‘ What! ’

‘Alexander Dumas’s story is based on fact. One of the fictions was that the mask was iron. It wasn’t. It was black velvet.’

‘I can’t believe what you’re telling me!’

The catamaran cleared the immediate harbour and the sails billowed out above them. Jordan said, ‘Why don’t you relax in the webbing between the hulls?’

‘Because I want you to tell me what you’re talking about! It’s not really true, is it?’

‘Totally true. What no one has ever established is his real identity, although he’s buried as “M de Marshiel”. He was a state prisoner, of Louis XIV. For forty years he was held in jails all over France. He died in the Bastille in November, 1703. Whenever he was moved, from jail to jail, he had to wear the velvet mask to prevent anyone ever recognizing who he really was…’ Jordan waved his hand beyond her. ‘And one of those prisons was on the Ile St Marguerite, where we’re going.’

Alyce swivelled to look at the undulating smudge on the horizon. ‘We’re going to see the actual cell?’

‘The actual cell,’ echoed Jordan. It was going to work. It always had.

‘I don’t believe it!’ she said again.

‘You can use your schoolgirl French to read the memorial plaque. There’s a pamphlet, too.’