"D'you know, he said-he was staring into his cup, I remember- there's one thing I can never really forgive myself for. I asked him what that was, and he said: I actually believed that one boy's life was worth more than another's. And before we parted that morning, he said one more thing. He said, It's true what you used to tell me, Junius. I am no republican."

Th e light f rom the streetlamp at the corner is slowly dissolving into morning light. The abandoned well where Bardou used to sit is empty but for a pair of pigeons, picking at wood lice. The first cries of the chimney sweeps can be heard in the distance, and a quarrier's wagon comes trundling over the cobbles.

This is the last conversation I will ever have with Father Time. This is the last time I will ever look at this house. And yet the subject that's most weighing on me is something else entirely.

"What happened to Felicite Neveu?" I ask.

"I've no idea. I made a point of looking in on her a few days later, but there was no sign of her. Or her child. The neighbors seemed to think she'd f led town to avoid being arrested. It wouldn't do, you know, being a royalist in those days."

"And her son. What was his name?"

"Name," says Father Time. "Name . . ."

The light drains from his eyes, the cheeks droop . . . then from nowhere, a spark bursts forth, and the old man cackles to the sky:

"Ha! Virgil! That's it! What better sign that he was heaven-sent? Oh now, Hector, before you go, I don't suppose I could touch you for a-a coin or two? For the diligence to Vernon? Oh, that's very kind of you. As to the wedding, well, I'm desolate I can't invite you, but she prefers a small affair, my fiancee. Simple girl. Hope you understand. . . ."

CHAPTE R 42.

The Birthmark "No," says Vidocq. "It's too much to believe."

I come back just as he's sitting down to breakfast. Such a pacific scene. The Sevres coffeepot, the Sevres coffee bowl . . . the coil of steam . . . scents of lemon and orange pouring in through the French windows . . . Vidocq himself-sleep-softened, night-calmed-in an open dressing gown, a frieze shirt, and red trousers.

And here comes Hector. Rude and urgent, bristling with news. The reverie is over.

"A lookalike boy?" cries Vidocq. "Smuggled past two hundred guards? In a hobbyhorse? "

"That's what the professor said."

"And why the devil should we trust him?"

"Well, you've-you've met him. He doesn't have any reason to lie. And he's the last living eyewitness."

"Oh? And what did he witness, Hector? Did he ever actually see Louis-Charles? Of course not. If I'm going to take this matter to the minister of justice, I'll need more than the word of some gamy old partridge."

Vidocq stabs a brioche with a butter knife, swallows it in three bites. In the next instant, the bells of Saint-Severin come shimmering out. Followed by a chain of answering bells, fording back and forth across the river.

Sunday.

Which may be why Vidocq chooses this moment to invoke the deity.

"Lord above! Is it too much to ask for a little evidence? Something that won't get me laughed on my ass?"

"I don't know what more you can ask of me," I say. "I've given you eyewitness testimony. . . ."

"Hearsay."

"I've given you my father's personal account. . . ."

"Which leaves us just where we started, damn him."

Something in my expression, maybe, softens him into silence. Then, with a low grumble, he says:

"Very well. Get me the journal."

Not a speck of care in his fingers now as he whips back and forth through those calcified pages.

"Here's what's bothering me, Hector. That final line. Enough for now. Doesn't that sound to you like there's more to come?"

"There isn't. I've looked."

"But it doesn't make sense. We know your father wasn't interrupted. We know he didn't need to bury the thing in any haste-no one even knew it existed. So why didn't he stay to make a proper accounting?"

In the breeze from the French windows, the pages billow before him, like a meadow. Vidocq is just about to close them when something snags at his eye.

"Stop a bit," he mutters.

He raises the book to the sunlight. In the inside back f lap, a small crevice-a violation in the book's fabric-stands revealed.

288 Louis Bayard

"Christ," mutters Vidocq. "I can't believe I . . ."

His finger disappears into the opening . . . and reemerges seconds later with a tightly folded bundle. He lays it out before us on the breakfast table, next to the preserves and the honey.