Achille had no questions; as his chief had said, he knew the drill. And he was well aware of the urgency of the situation with the Universal Exposition ongoing and the fear whipped up by lurid newspaper accounts of Jack the Ripper. His wife and mother-in-law would ask, “Will Féraud permit you to eat and sleep?” But of course, the question was rhetorical. As the old boys said, your hours at the Sûreté were from midnight to midnight.

When he arrived at the police barricade Achille was relieved to find things quiet and orderly. He was greeted by Sergeant Rodin, a beefy man with a long, drooping red moustache, a gruff voice, and a gimlet eye. “There it is, Inspector.” Rodin pointed to a large lump on the pavement, covered by a white cloth splotched with ochre-colored stains, next to the cesspit. According to the report, the torso was found wrapped in the cloth. “No fuss, so far, but the landlady is upset.”

Achille made a quick mental note of the stains on the cloth: Could be paint—or blood. Then: “Does she know the cause of the stoppage?”

Rodin grinned and shook his head. “No, she doesn’t. The only ones who know about the stiff are me, my men, the night soil collectors, and the person, or persons, who dumped it.”

“That gives us a little time, I suppose, but sooner or later the press will get nosy, especially after we start questioning people. And there’s a damned dirty job ahead. Where are the sewer cleaners? We need them to pump and rake out the sludge. Then the muck must be searched for evidence.”

Rodin grimaced and checked his watch. “They should be here soon, Inspector.”

Achille glanced up. The gray clouds looked threatening; he and his crew would need to work fast. Rain could wash away clues. It had rained intermittently the past few days. God only knew what had already been lost. He continued with urgency. “Who lives here besides the landlady?”

“She’s the only one on the premises. The upper story is rented by a painter, Monsieur de Toulouse-Lautrec. He uses it as his studio.”

Achille raised his eyebrows. “Toulouse-Lautrec. Is he related to the Count?”

Rodin chuckled. “He’s the son and heir, Inspector. An odd fellow; if you saw him once you’d never forget him. He’s a sawed-off cripple, no more than 150 centimeters in his shoes, and he hobbles along with the aid of a tiny cane. Monsieur’s legs are stunted, but he has the body, arms, and hands of a normal man with better than average strength. He looks like a circus ape dressed in swell’s clothing. Black hair, thick black beard, dark brown eyes, and he peers through a pince-nez sort of like yours, Monsieur. Speaks like a toff, which is to say like the son of a count. Oh, and he’s got big ears, a bulbous nose, and thick, purplish lips. No mistaking him in a crowd.”

Achille commended the Sergeant for his portrait parlé. Then: “Does the gentleman live hereabouts?”

The Sergeant rubbed his chin. “Not too far, Monsieur. He rents an apartment on the Rue Pierre-Fontaine in the 9th arrondissement, near one of his hangouts, the Moulin Rouge. He goes there to drink and draw pictures, and you can find him doing the same in the cabarets, bal musettes, maisons close, and boîtes. He’s a well-known figure in Montmartre and Pigalle. And there’s more. Like most of these fellows, he likes to have a little sport with his models. No doubt, he pays well. And there’re rumors about shouting matches and violence between Monsieur and his lorettes.”

“Thank you, sergeant.” Achille asked Rodin to give Lautrec’s name and address to Rousseau for his list; he was definitely a person of interest.

“I hope we don’t have the Ripper on our hands. It would be awful if the butchering bastard turned out to be a stunted French aristocrat,” Rodin quipped with a sly wink.

Achille winced in response to his friend’s gallows humor. Then he left the sergeant and walked toward the cesspit and the corpse, where Gilles, the photographer, had set up his camera. Gilles was a dapper young man, blue-eyed and fair-haired with a neat little waxed moustache. Dressed unseasonably in a white suit with a straw boater set at a jaunty angle on his handsome head, he looked more like a flâneur at Le Touquet than a crime scene photographer, but that appearance was deceiving. Gilles was one of the best in his profession.

“Hey Inspector, I’ve already got several photographs of the scene. Is there anything else you want before I pack up my equipment?”

“Yes, there is.” Achille pulled a magnifying glass out of his jacket pocket and crouched beside the stained cloth covering the torso. He focused on the ochre stains; as he suspected, they were handprints. What’s more, the fingerprints were distinguishable, especially the thumb and forefinger of a right hand.

The prints intrigued Achille. Bertillon had not incorporated fingerprints in his identification method and neither Scotland Yard nor any other eminent criminal investigation division had a system for using them. Moreover, he was unaware of fingerprints having ever been admitted into evidence in a criminal case. But he had read a recently published paper by the English anthropologist Sir Francis Galton which made a persuasive argument for the unique individuality of prints and set forth a method for categorizing them that could prove useful in criminal cases. Achille lowered his glass, turned and looked up at Gilles. “Can you get a sharp image of the fingerprints?”

Gilles shook his head. “That’d be awfully tricky out here. I might do better back at headquarters with a change of lenses, faster plates, filters, and flash powder.”

“Very well, please do that.” Achille got up and circled the manhole cover. Something half-hidden by the cover caught his eye. Crouching, he spotted a cigarette butt smoked almost out of existence. “Gilles,” he cried, “Have you been smoking?”

“Of course not, Inspector; I know better than that.”

Achille lifted the butt with tweezers. He sniffed and eyed it carefully. “No, this was smoked some time ago. If it was the gendarme there’ll be hell to pay. Where’s Rodin?”

“Over there, by the meat wagon, talking to Rousseau and the Morgue attendant.”

Achille whistled to get the sergeant’s attention and then gestured for him to come over. “Hey Rodin, look at this cigarette butt. Have any of your men smoked around the barricade?”

“No Inspector, they’re under strict orders not to.”

“Do you think one of the night soil collectors could have dropped it?”

Rodin shook his head. “No, that’s a gentleman’s smoke. The ladies like them too.”

Achille smiled at the sergeant. “That’s very perceptive, Rodin. Have you ever thought of coming to work for us?”

The sergeant smiled broadly. “That’s kind of you Monsieur, but I’m quite happy where I am.”

“Well, that’s our loss, I guess.” Achille had learned that it paid to be friendly with the gendarmerie. They did their duty, but they would go the extra mile for an Inspector they liked. “Could you please ask Inspector Rousseau to come over here?” Rodin went to fetch Achille’s partner.

Achille dropped the cigarette butt in an evidence bag. He made a final inspection of the area. As he walked the perimeter of the barricade, he noticed a small pile of dung near the curb. It was not fresh and he had noticed it before, but now he suddenly realized he had missed something. One of the droppings had been flattened, or squashed. He knelt down, and almost stuck his nose in it.

“What’s the matter, professor, aren’t they feeding you enough at home?”

Achille turned and looked up at Rousseau’s grinning moon face. “Don’t you see it, Rousseau?”

“Yes, professor, I see it. It’s a pile of horseshit. Lots of them just like it on the streets of Paris.”