Dead Bones C harles is lu red to an adjoining room, the Baronne de Preval is hustled out back in a soft squall of wool, I'm tasked with replacing the Villon etching over the peephole, and Vidocq . . . well, he props his feet on the lip of the desk and bends his shoulders back and says: "The problem, Hector, the real problem is there's no body." "What do you mean?"

"Marie-Antoinette's remains, those were found. Same with the

King's. But they've never found Louis-Charles' body. And without a body . . ." He squints his eyes down. "Without a body, we can't say for sure the dauphin died all those years ago. We can't say anything for sure."

He swivels round in his chair and contemplates the pink penumbra around Sainte-Chapelle.

"The Baroness is right," he says at last. "The Duchess is the one woman who can tell us if our boy is the real article. And she's the last one I'd dare approach."

For another minute he sits there, weighing all the considerations. Then, with a slow-mounting growl, he says:

"Tell Charles he's going on another trip tomorrow. Northward this time."

"May I tell him where?"

"The abbey of Saint-Denis. See if that sets his balls aquiver."

C harles I can't speak for, but something in me certainly vibrates. How could it not? The town of Saint-Denis is the final resting place of France's rulers. Charles Martel, Henry the Second, Louis the Fourteenth . . . one by one, the mummified husks of our kings have been deposited in these dripping crypts.

For a time, it's true, the revolutionaries turned the basilica into a Temple to Reason, then a town hall, then a military hospital. Wheat was threshed on its f loors. But a Gothic church can never entirely escape its origins, and the Bourbons have had the good sense to make it once more the mausoleum it so devoutly wants to be.

Saint-Denis is only six miles from Paris, but the trip, in its early stages, is all hills. Vidocq's horse isn't used to them. It groans in its harness, lurches and slides, swallows down oceans of water. Some two hundred yards short of the Montmartre buttes, we have to get out of the carriage and walk. But the road decants as we pass through the Porte Saint-Denis, and the buildings fall away, and Charles is able at last to doze off-with the same unconditional surrender he showed on the trip from Saint-Cloud.

"Christ," says Vidocq. "Does he do anything but sleep?"

At a little after ten, the Seine crooks west, and before us spreads a plain, swirling round a walled town. From inside the walls come vendor cries, the stinging sound of a whip, the inquiries of cows. And then, when you least expect it, the abbey bells: shivering everything else into nothing.

"Time to get to work," says Vidocq.

Reaching under his seat, he draws out a cardboard tube, from which he extracts a map, marked at intervals with charcoal.

"The necropolis is there," he says, spreading the map between us. "You can't go straight in, you have to come at it through the abbey. Now this particular crypt has a gate leading out of the Lady Chapel . . . there, you see? The gate is locked, usually, but today the verger has orders to leave it open, from eleven to twelve."

"Why don't they just open it when she comes?"

"She hates calling attention to herself. It's why she dresses so drably, she wants to slip past with no one the wiser. Now listen to me. Under no circumstances are you to follow her. Your job is just to hang around till she comes out again."

"A nd t hen what ? "

"You fasten Charles onto your arm, you take a little stroll. Right in front of her, the quickest of passes. Say 'Good day, Madame' if you like, but don't mention her name or her title. Bow-smile-walk on. Is that clear?"

Through the morning musk, the town wall sharpens into view. Like something scissored out of an old codex.

"What if something goes wrong?" I ask.

"I'll be there in the nave with you. Something happens you can't handle, give me a signal."

"What signal?"

"How the fuck should I know? Pat your head, pinch your ass, will that do, Monsieur Give-Me-a-Signal?"

"There has to be an easier way," I murmur.

Frowning, he scrolls up the map, pushes it back into its tube.

"If she recognizes him, Hector, our job is going to be a lot easier. And if she doesn't recognize him-well, we'll come to that in due course."

Th e fi rs t c reatu re to greet us inside the town walls is an Ile-de-France ewe that clambers up the side of our carriage, giving a bleat of such unvarnished welcome that it jars Charles straight awake.

"Where are we?" he cries.

"In the graveyard of kings," Vidocq says. "You'll love it, I promise." Ten minutes later, Charles is tugging on my sleeve.

"Can we go now?"

Because there's nothing to see, really. Thanks to the carnage of the

Revolution, the niches are empty, the f loors are scarred, f lagstones are missing from the choir. There's no altar or organ or screen. I think that must be why I like the place. You can see it fresh.

"Well, we can't go just yet," I say. "There's a lady I want you to see."

"That old one, you mean? Saying all those Agnus Deis?"

"Another lady. She hasn't got here yet."

"Then how do you know she's coming?"