Yesterday.

"Yesterday?"

Herbaux came by Noel's lodgings in the afternoon. Said the plan was a go. They were to reach Saint-Cloud that night and wait for Tepac in the King of France's park. As soon as they had a clean line on him, they were to bring him down.

"And so you did. Were you in charge of the throat or the gut, Noel? "

The throat. Doesn't make such a squooshy sound.

Noe l is de posi ted with the local constabulary. Attention then turns to Monsieur Tepac's maid, an Alsatian named Frieda, built along the lines of a dwarf pine, and dry down to the roots. Not a tear does she shed on behalf of her late employer . . . but then she hasn't cried, she tells us, since she was three. All the same, he was a good sort, Monsieur Tepac. Wages on time. Never dragged a lot of people home, never quibbled about afternoons off. You don't find many situations so nice.

"Did Tepac tell you where he came from?"

From his accent, she took him for Swiss.

"Did he tell you what business he had in Saint-Cloud?" No. Wasn't her place to ask.

"What about the young man, then? This Charles fellow." Why, Charles just came with the house.

"Was he a servant?"

Oh, no, indeed. Her very first day here, Tepac told her she was to

treat Monsieur Charles as a gentleman. Even if he didn't quite dress like one.

"And what did he tell you about this Charles?"

She figured him for some relation of Tepac's, but he never said one way or another, and it wasn't. . . .

"Your place to ask. I know."

Oh, but the boy's a joy to have around. Truly. Always willing to lend a hand with the dishes, loves to clip laundry to the line. Eats anything you give him. Really, the only bother is the shoes.

"The shoes . . ."

Well, he can't tie his own laces, can he? Strangest thing.

"Did you ever ask why?"

Guess he never learned. And, you know, he is a bit simple, so you can't expect too much.

His bedroom is no different from a peasant's. A cracked pitcher, a worm-riddled stool, a looking glass the size of a slipper. And a bed . . . which is, in all its essentials, a coffin, scarcely three feet wide, set on two half-barrels.

That's where we find him, perched on the straw mattress, his hands squeezed between his thighs. A cloud of sweat-musk rising off him.

From the start, I notice Vidocq taking a different tack: several feet of distance, a minimum of eye contact. And an entirely new tone: not gentle, exactly, but conversational, as if they had come across each other playing chess.

"Charles, is it?"

"Yes."

"This is Dr. Carpentier. And I'm Vidocq. Inspector Vidocq."

If he expects the name to make an impression . . . well, I don't think he does. He's already gliding forward.

"Do you have a last name, Charles?"

"Yes."

"Maybe you could tell us."

"Rapskeller."

His head is bowed. Not from grief, as I initially think, but to better follow the shuttlecock that he's passing between his feet.

"Do you have a mother, Charles Rapskeller? A father?"