The door swings open, and out tumbles a man. The sort of man who could fit inside a furnace: small and wiry and jointy, with scabbed elbows and gray skin and eyelids squeezed so close together that even astonishment can't drag them apart.

Vidocq gazes down at him with a dotard's grin. "Ah, Poulain. What a stroke of luck! Say, you wouldn't mind having a drink with us, would you?" He crooks his thumb toward me. "Me and my pal here? We've come to toast the new baby. You're not too busy? Well, come on, then."

CHAPTE R 6.

The Incident of the Hobnailed Boot Th e re is nothing so sad, I've always thought, as wineshops in the middle of the afternoon. Or the women who run them. I submit to you the Widow Maltaise. A nest of white hair, uncertain in its provenance, woven into a large blue kerchief. A calico dress and a calico face, cottony with years. One eye droops low; the other draws itself imperiously high. The voice comes straight up from her feet, like coal from a seam.

"It's Vidocq again. Death of my trade."

He wraps his arms round her. "Ooh, I'll make it worth your while. Don't think I won't."

She fans us in the direction of a table. Minutes later: a carafe of blush, three pewter plates, and the remains of someone's veal, fringed with tooth marks. And, of course, her disapproval, settling over us in strands.

"Has to come here," she mutters. "Can't do his business at Pontmercy's. Always darkening my door . . ."

"Well, now, Poulain! " Vidocq cinches his arm round the man's tiny shoulder-ridges. "It's been too long, my friend! And how pale you are. Put some wine in the system, there's a good fellow."

A billiard table sits lost in shadows, one of the cues still cocked against the baize. On the bar there's a trough of snuff, lacquered over with spit. In the corner a cat, fumed in liver, nibbling on a rat bone.

"Wine's not bad," mumbles Vidocq. "Veal's a bit tough." From his mouth, he draws out a fragment of bone. "Maltaise must be leaving bits of herself in it. Now then, Poulain, I don't suppose you're familiar with a gentleman named Chretien Leblanc."

"Should I be?"

"No, it's just-sorry, got something stuck in my-seems Monsieur Leblanc met a final sort of end last Sunday. No, don't look like that, I'm not saying you had anything to do with it. Things happen in Paris, I know that. Doctor, you finished with your wine? You're sure?"

He drinks this one at a more deliberate pace. And with about a third still left, he does something unexpected: lowers the glass beneath the plane of the table and, when he's sure Poulain isn't looking, tips the rest of the wine onto the f loor.

"Here's my problem, Poulain. I've got this friend-Pomme Rouge, you know him? Over on the Rue de la Juiverie? Well, it seems yesterday morning Pomme Rouge was asked to fence a watch. Oh, I'm sorry, purchase. Not a very expensive watch, but then the watch's owner was not well off. He did have the wherewithal, though, to engrave his monogram on the case. CXL. Chretien Xavier Leblanc."

Vidocq inclines his head, as though he were still sounding it in his mind's chamber.

"Well, you can imagine my shock when I hear that this owner of dead men's watches goes by the name of Poulain, alias Coubert, alias Lamotte. Yes, my friend, all your names. Popping up, as they will do. Why, it was enough to make me wonder if you had some-some accidental connection to the deeply unfortunate Monsieur Leblanc.

"And wasn't I relieved to learn you were already spoken for that evening? Oh, yes, I asked around. Two extremely reliable gentlemen placed you at Mere Bariole's on Sunday evening, from six onward. It was Bariole's, wasn't it, Poulain?"

The smaller man stretches out his legs, contemplates his feet.

"Well, now," Vidocq continues, "you can guess what an ass I felt like. Even thinking you were-well, I won't say it. But then my good friend here-oh, I'm sorry, have you met Dr. Carpentier? I know, he looks twelve, but believe me, he's one of the most feared men in Paris. His testimony alone has sent more than a dozen men to the gallows. They call him God's Third Eye, don't they, Doctor? No, don't blush, it's true. Well, Dr. Carpentier tells me that Monsieur Leblanc, the illstarred Monsieur Leblanc, was likely killed-when was it, Doctor?- oh, that's right, early Sunday afternoon."

He pauses, as if the intelligence is still filtering through. Then, speaking in tones of deep abashment:

"And, Christ Almighty, didn't I feel even sillier! All this time, I was checking your whereabouts for Sunday evening, and it turns out the whole business went down in daylight." He raps himself on the head. "Knock knock! I say, Vidocq, is anybody home?" Chuckling, he slides his chair closer. "And the worst thing about it, my friend, is now there's no one to account for you. From, oh, let's say noon to threethirty." He strokes the end of his nose, smiles crookedly. "But maybe you can do that for us."

I will later learn this from Vidocq: A man either confesses on the spot or after great resistance. There are two paths only, and Poulain takes the second.

"I was with Jeanne-Victoire," he says.

"Naturally."

"She'll back me up."

"Of course."

"I was napping, Monsieur. A man like me needs his rest."

"Working nights as you do." And as if to demonstrate his allegiance, Vidocq lets out a hippopotamus yawn. "Doctor," he says, rubbing his eyes, "do you still have that bag with you?"

What a surprise to find it coiled round my ankle.

"Just set it on the table, would you?" drawls Vidocq.

He grabs a hunk of snuff from the common fund and takes a stroll across the Widow Maltaise's creaking f loorboards.

"Now it's an interesting thing," he says, circling back to us. "On the day in question, there was a fair amount of rain. Which, I don't need to tell you, leaves a bit of mud, eh?" He stares at Poulain, as if waiting for reassurance. "Oceans of mud. Now when I first made the acquaintance of the unfortunate Monsieur Leblanc, I noticed something rather curious. Not three feet from his person. Would you like to know what it was?"

"If you like."