Rousseau sat on the edge of the bed in a small Montmartre flat. Louise, his mistress of twenty years, knelt behind him. Her strong hands kneaded his shoulders; her pendulous breasts rubbed against his broad back.

“You’re so tense, my dear,” she whispered. “Your muscles are like knotted ropes.”

“It’s this damned case,” he muttered.

Louise kissed his hairy neck. “You’ve worked hundreds of cases. I’ve never known one to bother you like this.”

Rousseau closed his eyes and had a vision of Féraud and Achille. After all his years of service, he was being cut out. There seemed to be nothing left for him but retirement and the life of an aging pensioner. He spoke without looking at her: “You don’t understand, my dear. I’m coming to the end of the line and I want to go out in style. And I want to do it my way—the old way. But the professor’s running the show. Féraud’s backing him and his newfangled methods to the hilt.”

Louise laughed. “Is that all? Lefebvre’s green as grass; you said so yourself. You can brush him away like a fly.”

Rousseau got up and turned on her with a scowl. “Achille’s a good man—he’s clever, honest, and decent. I admire the bastard, yet I hate him for showing me up. And I hate myself for hating him. I’m in hell, Louise.”

“I’m sorry, darling. What are you going to do?” She left the bed and put her arms around him.

Rousseau groped the familiar flesh of her behind and thighs. “I don’t know; I can’t think straight. I won’t hurt Lefebvre, but I don’t have to be too helpful. Maybe I’ll leave him on his own, and crack the case myself.” He paused a moment. Then: “I need you again, but first a drink.”

She smiled and rested her head on his chest. “Of course, darling; you’ll work it out, somehow. You always do.”

11

OCTOBER 19, MORNING, AFTERNOON, AND EVENING

About three hours before dawn. Jojo peered through the sooty window of his dark, fourth-floor garret. The moon was barely visible through a thick cloud cover; the only light source a flickering gas lamp on the other side of the narrow street. His sharp eyes scrutinized a cramped passageway between two buildings directly opposite, dimly lit by the lamp’s yellow glow. The snoop’s still there. I can smell your flat feet, you fool! Jojo had an appointment. He had some concern about the upcoming meeting, but little worry about shaking his too-conspicuous shadow.

Jojo opened the door and passed into the dank hallway, stepping lightly over the creaking, buckled floorboards. There was a rickety stepladder leaning against the damp, mold-splotched wall. The ladder led to a trapdoor that opened onto the roof. He scaled the ladder; his long arms pushed up on the door. The trap squeaked on rusty hinges; he propped it with a stick, swung up and popped through the tight opening with acrobatic ease.

Hunkering down, Jojo scampered across the iron roof to the cornice molding. He glanced back in the direction of the snoop, and then hauled himself over the cornice onto a ledge. Bracing himself, he took a deep breath before making a circus leap over the air space to the roof of the neighboring building, landing with a dull thud.

Grasping the tiles, he caught his breath, and then turned back toward the snoop. The detective half-emerged from his hiding place and looked up in the direction of the garret. Jojo grinned. He scuttled noiselessly to the other end of the roof. Grabbing hold of the guttering with his large, powerful hands, he went over the side, worked his way to the drainpipe, caught onto it and shinnied down to the alley below.

Dressed in black, lurking through shadows, he sneaked his way uphill along the byways and backstreets, climbing two steep stairways, until he reached an abandoned mill in a sparsely populated neighborhood hard by Sacré-Coeur at the summit of the butte. Jojo scurried round the back through a clump of tall weeds until he reached a boarded-up window. He gave a prearranged knock in code, and then waited until the board slid away.

The dirt-floored interior stank of rot and decaying rubbish, pitch dark except for a taper glimmering on a table on the other side of the millstone and cogwheels. Several dormant bats hung from the rafters.

“I trust you haven’t been followed?” The sotto voce question was posed by a man in a black cloak. A broad-brimmed slouch hat was pulled low over his forehead, and he concealed his identity behind a false beard and thick spectacles.

“No, monsieur. There’s a pig on my tail all right, but he’s an idiot. He’s picking his nose and staring up at my empty flat. But we do have a problem.”

“And what is that?”

“The cops picked up Lautrec, but they released him the same day. There’s been no arrest. And it appears I’m under suspicion.”

“That is a problem. And what do you hear from your friend, Inspector Rousseau?”

“Rousseau has nothing to say, and he isn’t running the investigation. He’s been put under Inspector Lefebvre. Lefebvre reports directly to Chief Féraud, and he’s as clean as they come. And he’s smart too; the cops call him ‘professor.’ But more than smart, they say he’s incorruptible.”

The cloaked man laughed; a dull, bitter rasp. “Incorruptible, eh? Just like old Robespierre, I suppose. Well, Jojo my lad, everyone’s got his price, but I’m not sure I’m willing to square the honorable Lefebvre; after all, there’s a limit to my resources. And how does Rousseau like working for this paragon of virtue?”

“Not at all. Rousseau’s been scrapping his way up for twenty years. Now he’s taking orders from a college boy.”

“Hmmm, I’m beginning to see a way of dealing with honest ‘professor’ pig.”

Jojo stared silently for a moment before asking: “What’s your plan, monsieur? If it involves my services, I’m afraid—”

“I know, I know,” he broke in,” you’ll be compensated. In the next day or two I’ll send you a message at the circus. Just keep cool and wait; that’s all you need to know for the present. Now, you best be off before the sun gets up.”

Jojo returned to his flat by a circuitous route varying from the one he had taken to the abandoned building. He lowered himself through the trapdoor and entered the hall outside his garret before first light. Once in his room he checked the window; the snoop hadn’t moved an inch. As stiff as a palace guard, and twice as stupid. Jojo laughed until he noticed a chiffonier working his way up the street, stopping and picking through the overflowing poubelles. Did he see me? He worried for just an instant, before answering himself with a shrug: Well, what if he did?

“Did you and the wife have a pleasant Sunday, rowing at Chatou? You certainly had perfect weather for it.”

“Thank you Chief; we did. And I also had an interesting encounter with the English doctor, Sir Henry Collingwood. He happened to be at the restaurant with Mlle Endicott, the rich American art collector.”

They had an early morning meeting in Féraud’s office. The chief seemed to be in a good mood, but he frowned at Achille’s reference to the Englishman and his wealthy, American companion. He leaned back in his chair, stared at the ceiling, and began fiddling with his death’s-head charm. “So tell me more about this ‘encounter’.”

Achille communicated the details concisely, focusing on how his attempt to get an impression of Sir Henry’s fingerprints had been thwarted by the Englishman’s gloves. He was beginning to relate his plan to obtain the prints when the chief interrupted:

“We have no legal basis for holding Sir Henry. He’s a British subject, and could hop on the boat train for Dover any time he pleased.” The chief leaned forward, planted his arms on the desk, and looked Achille in the eye.