"The gendarme told me you wish to see me, Monsieur."

"That's so. Might I interest you in some tea, Madame?"

"You are most kind. I should consider it a greater kindness, however, if you would come at once to your business."

"Very well." With a f lourish, he blots his lips, f lings the napkin down. "Before this morning is out, Madame, I am fully prepared to take you under arrest. As an accomplice in a capital crime."

Her head rocks back an inch. Her eyes f lash with amusement.

"Accomplice?" she asks. "To whom?"

"The late Marquis de Monfort."

"For what crime?"

"Murder," Vidocq answers, easily. "To start with."

She knots her shawl round her. Glares him down.

"I can only conceive you are in jest, Monsieur."

"In these matters I never jest. Your friend the Marquis tried to kill Dr. Carpentier here. And Monsieur Charles, the young man you glimpsed in my office. Both of them managed to survive, but at least three other bodies may be laid at the Marquis's door." He waits. "One of them was your old friend Leblanc."

This takes the wind almost entirely out of her, as he must have guessed, for he is already guiding her toward the settee.

"Leblanc?" she whispers, sinking into the cushions.

"Oh, yes, Madame. We have all the confessions we need by now. To keep Monsieur Charles from claiming his crown, there was nothing the Marquis wouldn't do. But there's one thing he couldn't have done," Vidocq adds, in a quieter voice. "He couldn't have known about Charles in the first place unless someone told him."

She stares at him. "You believe that I was his informant?"

"You were the only one, Madame, who knew all the parties. The only one who stood at all the crossroads."

"But this is outrageous! "

"You deny it, then?"

Her face, credit her this, remains utterly impassive. It's her voice that begins to break down.

"I may have-mentioned certain things-in passing. . . ."

But she can't deceive herself for too long. As the memory of her actions washes over her, a look of fear steals in her eyes, and she cries out:

"But I meant no harm to anybody! You must believe me, Messieurs ! "

"That will surely depend," says Vidocq, "on how believable you are. Perhaps you could start by telling us how you knew the Marquis."

She studies her gloves a long while. Then, in a voice decidedly smaller:

"If you must know, he was an old admirer of mine. Not long after returning to Paris-in rather a weak moment-I called on him at his hotel."

"Why, Madame?"

"I confess I still clung to the-the entirely absurd hope, I know, that I might"-she gives her head a fierce shake-"might reclaim my former position. In what we call society. The Marquis seemed to me a useful champion in that cause."

"And how did he welcome you?"

"Coldly. I believe I may once have wounded his vanity. But he did call on me two days later, and he continued to call, on the order of once or twice a week. Naturally, he never promised me anything. No invitations were proffered, no introductions. But he was at pains never to dash my hopes, either."

"Of course not," says Vidocq. "He had use for you. When did you first tell him of the dauphin?"

"It was . . ." Her hands query the air. "I believe it was in the course of our very first conversation. Yes, we were discussing the royal family, and I let it drop that my dear friend Monsieur Leblanc had been- approached by someone-concerning Louis the Seventeenth. I can't remember what I said exactly, I-well, I considered it no more than an amusement."

"And was the Marquis amused?"