"Monsieur Vidocq . . . what an honor!"

"You're too kind, my friend."

"Oh, my! Oh, this is-see here, Monsieur, I've got this brother. Been having a spot of wife trouble."

"Gone missing, has she?"

"Catting, more like. Was thinking one of your boys could follow her round, catch her midthrust, know what I'm saying. . . ."

"Mm." Vidocq gives the matter a juridical pause. "I'll tell you what. Have him come round next week. Mind he asks for me in person, eh?"

"Oh, Monsieur, my whole family is in your debt. Eternally." Grinning, he claps his hands to his cheeks. "I can't wait to tell my wife! The great Vidocq! "

The glow of his regard follows us all the way through the city gates, and it leaves Vidocq looking not so much f lushed as chaffed, like a bull swiping its tail at a f ly. For a full minute, he refuses to meet our eyes.

"Well," he says at last. "I saved myself thirty sous in bribes."

Then, rapping absently on the ceiling, he calls up to Goury.

"Headquarters! " Followed by this scarcely audible afterthought: "Please."

Th e b lood DOE S come off my hand, thanks to a toothbrush (supplied by Coco-Lacour) and a liberal application of Windsor soap. Monsieur Tepac won't scrub off so easily. The memory, I mean, of his skin, f lapping like a mouth-the pulse of his blood through the crevices of my fingers. Another man's life, yes, passing through mine. . . . "Listen, Hector."

With a quiet cuff to the jaw, Vidocq jars me back.

"We're going to send you back home in a cab, all right? But before

you go, I need to give you Charles' new identity. I'm going to give it to you once, and I need you to plaster it right in that noggin of yours, can you do that?"

In an instant, the old narrative-Tepac, Agatha, Saint-Cloud- gives way to the new. Charles Rapskeller is now the natural son of the Vicomte de Saint-Amand de Faral (by way of a chambermaid whose skirt caught fire one afternoon within the Vicomte's reach). The old hedgehog has at last succumbed to a heart inf lammation, and in the absence of legitimate heirs, his estate (if not his title) passes to Charles, who curtails his religious instruction in Strasbourg to hasten toward Paris. On the westward-bound stage, he encounters-me-returning in glory from my . . .

"Scrofula symposium," says Vidocq. "In Reims."

Charles confesses he has nowhere to stay, and I urge him to take a room at my mother's, where the rent is low but the tone high.

"But if he's coming into money," I say, "shouldn't he be staying somewhere . . ."

"Nicer? Yes, but the money hasn't quite landed, has it? Last-minute wrinkles, a long-lost nephew in the Massif Central, nothing serious. Lawyers will have it smoothed out in a matter of weeks."

Clicking his tongue, he counts five twenty-franc pieces into my palm.

"Living expenses, Hector. Courtesy of the Prefecture. Use 'em well and keep a good ledger, will you? I don't want those damned bookkeepers up my ass."

"But what about Charles?"

"What about him?"

"Somebody's bound to ask him questions. . . ."

"Well," says Vidocq, with a thin smile, "that would only be a problem if he had a fucking brain. As it is, the only thing I've ever heard him confess to is his own name. He'll be fine. And if folks get curious, tell 'em he was dropped by the midwife."

In my mo the r's case, the only thing I have to mention is the entirely fictional name of the Vicomte de Saint-Amand de Faral. This produces at first a f linching and then a ripening. By the time Charles has tendered her a bow and dropped three gold pieces in her hand- gaily, as if they were marbles-she is extending her hand in her best chatelaine fashion.

"Any friend of Hector's, Monsieur Rapskeller, is doubly welcome in this home. And how fortunate! You've arrived just in time for supper. Charlotte, my dear! A setting for our new guest, please. And perhaps some ices for dessert. . . ."

No one gives a rap where I've been. Even Charlotte, who normally peppers me with questions if I'm gone so much as an hour, has something else on her mind when she beckons me toward her just before dinner.

"Oh, Monsieur Hector! What a love he is ! "

"Who?"

"Your friend! He came in just now, the dear, and asked if he could

help set table. When he doesn't even know where a fork goes! Or a spoon. Oh, he was quite hopeless, but still he tried, didn't he?" She gives me a nod of boundless sagacity. "You can always tell a gentleman, Monsieur Hector. Blood will out."

CHAPTE R 2 5.

Mama Carpentier Stands Firm B lood, in fac t, is very much on my mind when I watch the three law students align themselves round the dinner table. Father Time is not here to def lect them, and there's something quite chilling in how they inspect the new guest for weaknesses. Any other man could be warned. Charles can only be watched, helplessly, from the other side of the table. As great a distance as the moon to the sun, or so it seems to me when Lapin, blotting the claret from his lips, sallies forth.

"Monsieur Charles, I believe our hostess has been too modest in her claims on your behalf. She speaks only of your coming into a fortune, when you appear already to have carved out a formidable military career."

And when Lapin receives (as he expected) a look of puzzlement from his prey, he says, as dryly as he dares:

"Those are spurs I see on your boots?"

Lifting his leg, Charles surveys his feet with unfeigned surprise (for these are not his boots).