He pulls the rest of the sheet off. He says:

"What do you see?"

No, this is what he says: "What do you see, Doctor?" "Well, now." Maybe you can hear it: my new baritone. "Judging

from the joints, rigor mortis has largely dissipated. Muscle proteins have begun to decompose. Which would indicate he's been dead at

least thirty-six hours. No, I'm sorry, make that forty-two." "Why forty-two?" he asks.

"I don't believe you've met," I answer, extending my hand toward

him.

Sitting on the tip of my finger is a f ly. Robed in emerald, drowsystill.

"Lucilia sericata," I say. "The greenbottle, to you and me. Usually

the first insect to arrive-thirty-eight hours at the earliest. This one

looks like he's had a few more hours to feast."

And as if on cue come the answering buzzes of other f lies, gathering at the same table. One of them even lands on the bridge of Vidocq's

nose. He pushes his lower lip out and sweeps the f ly away on a current

of air.

"Forty-two hours," he murmurs. "That means . . . dead before

nightfall . . . well, how do you . . ."

And suddenly: the first whisperings of piano from the next room.

Scales, executed with light precision. It could be anybody, but my mind

seizes for some reason on the image of a young girl. Ringleted and pinafored-the apple of the morgue keeper's eye.

"No signs of head trauma," I say. "The fatal blow must have

come-here-just beneath the left rib cage. A longish sort of thrust,

perhaps from a-a-"

"A poignard, I'm guessing. Or a dirk."

"Now this is curious." My fingers step across Leblanc's hairless

torso. "See these lacerations? No more than an inch in diameter. By

my count, there are a good half dozen on the chest alone." "Four more on the back," says Vidocq.

"Fairly shallow. No more than half an inch, as far as I can tell. You

might have done as much with a dinner knife." I frown, run my index

finger across the scapula and back to the neck. "I could almost . . ." "Yes ?"

"Assuming he didn't inf lict these himself . . ."

"Yes ?"

"I might almost believe they wanted him to bleed. Before they killed

him."