At the Villa Rose

Mr. Ricardo spends his August months in the fashionable spa town of Aix‑les‑Bains, drifting between morning water cures, afternoon drives, elegant dinners and the lively baccarat tables of the Villa des Fleurs. A widowed financier in his fifties, he relishes the genteel routine of high society while keeping a careful distance from both artists and businessmen, ever the polished dilettante.

One sultry evening, as he watches the garden’s lantern‑lit crowd, a nervous young woman in a white satin dress bursts onto a bench, her frantic gestures and trembling earrings hinting at a hidden distress. The onlookers dismiss her as a fleeting drama, yet Ricardo is struck by the intensity of her panic and the strange aura that surrounds her.

His curiosity pulls him deeper into the mystery, and the genteel veneer of the resort begins to crack, promising a tangled web of secrets that will test his keen eye for detail and force him to confront more than just idle amusement.