"You think he'll remember who he is?"

Vidocq's face is so close now I can taste the herring on his breath.

"Hector, as far as the rest of the world, there's nothing to remember. Louis the Seventeenth is dead. Which means our Charles has to be someone else. The only question is who. Now I want you to take him round the city until he tips his hand-or has it tipped for him."

I look at him. Then I look down.

"So you can arrest him for fraud," I say. "Is that it? Throw him in La Force with all your precious thieves and murderers? He'd have a better chance in the Bois de Boulogne, I think."

Vidocq's voice wafts down to me.

"That's not my decision to make, Hector. Or yours."

And then his voice shifts into a sharper register.

"Of course, if you don't have the stomach for this work . . ."

"I have the stomach," I answer, lifting my face toward his. "It so happens I have a heart, too."

"Oh, yes," he says, breezily. "I've got one of those myself. I keep it in a box somewhere."

CHAPTE R 2 8.

A Disappearance Solved Th e las t thing Vidocq says to me is this:

"Never let Charles out of your sight, do you follow? Even if you

have to crawl up his asshole and stay through next Easter." Well, you can imagine my feelings on returning home and finding

Charles nowhere.

I run from garret to cellar. I squint under beds, peer into closets and

pantries. I jerk open casement windows. I rattle through that empty

house like a bird in a chimney.

He's lost.

I won't say it, I can't, and at some point, it ceases to matter, for another sound has stolen forth from the back of the house.

Why did it never occur to me to inspect the rear courtyard? I can

say only that it's been so many months since I wandered there-Mother

reserves it for wealthier lodgers-that it has long since dropped off my

map of the place. But Charles is there, all right. In the very position in

which I first met him: on his hands and knees, plunging his hands into

the earth.

Standing over him is my mother. Her tulle cap has been traded for a

blue calico bonnet. She is holding a parasol with a Chinese ivory handle-I'd no idea she owned such a thing-and someone (Charles?) has

woven a tendril of honeysuckle round her ear. She has kicked off her

slippers and left her feet to wander bare and white, like fallen clouds. And this, too: There is a smile on her face. Which cannot be diminished even by the sight of me.

"Hallo, Hector! At the laboratory, were we?"

"That's right," I say, haltingly.

"Oh, what a shame you couldn't join us ! We've been having the