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regenerating itself indefinitely in the same way it always had.”
    Martin found these ideas astounding. An English Lamarckian. He had thought that after Darwin, only the French would defend the eccentric ideas of their countryman, and only because he was one of their own. But then he knew little about these subjects, which had certainly not been taught in the Jesuit school he attended. He was, however, getting to know a great deal about Charles Westerbury, who felt a strong kinship with overlooked genius.
    “So this is why you prefer Lyell to Darwin—you think he offers a way of reconciling religion and science?”
    “Yes, he didn’t ask us to choose between God and Man. His views were larger than that. He was larger than that. He was, indeed, a greater man than Darwin. More generous, more able to change, to admit to others’ insights. He didn’t hole up in some country parish for most of his life. He traveled everywhere. Wrote for the common man. Talked to everyone.”
    “To you?” Now they were getting to it.
    “Yes,” Westerbury nodded. “Even to me. Once.”
    “And when was that? Were you one of his students?” Perhaps the Englishman had credentials after all.
    “No. It was at a public lecture. I was a boy. A poor boy.” Westerbury smiled to himself, as if recalling the innocence and possibility of that moment. “He patted me on the head.”
    “Oh?”
    “Yes, my guardian took me to see him. My guardian was a vicar, who was, like half the clergymen in England, an amateur geologist, always tramping about the countryside collecting rocks and stones. I carried the basket.” He smiled again. There were tears in his eyes.
    “Were you an orphan?” Where, Martin wondered, did this amalgam of sentimentality, hero worship, and megalomania come from?
    Westerbury paused for a moment, then came to a decision. “I might as well tell you. I am sure you have ways of finding out. My mother was his housekeeper. He took her in because she had been abandoned by the English sailor who brought her from France and left her pregnant, all alone, in the middle of Liverpool. Reverend Westerbury rescued her from the lying-in hospital. He was a very kind old man. He adopted me and gave me his name.”
    That explained Westerbury’s excellent French. And his resentments.
    “I see. Well, it’s best we move on to other, more relevant matters.” It was getting damnably hot. Whatever Westerbury’s origins, his intellectual interests seemed quite sincere, if a little mad. It remained to be seen what part Solange Vernet had played in all this.
    Martin loosened his own cravat a bit as he glanced at his notes. “You said before that you and Mme Vernet came to Aix to ‘start up again.’ Am I to understand that there was some trouble in Paris?”
    “No, no, none of that,” Westerbury gave him a defiant look. “I am sure you can check. And I’m sure you or your heavy-handed inspector will. But you won’t find anything. Not even,” more quietly, “not even trouble with the ladies. I’ve been entirely faithful to Solange. Entirely.” Desperation clouded over his face. He took a handkerchief out of his vest pocket and wiped his forehead. His hand was trembling harder than before.
    “All right, then, let’s talk about your life in Paris for a moment,” Martin said as he dipped his pen in the ink and wrote down a reminder to telegraph the police judiciaire in the capital, to see if they had anything on the suspect and the victim. “When did you meet Solange Vernet?”
    “I met her five years ago at one of my lectures. Her real name was Sophie Vernet. She was born in some wretched village on the Seine, and she came to Paris to be a milliner’s apprentice. When we met, she already owned her own shop.” Westerbury paused at the end of this recitation. Then he added, “She had taught herself to read and write. She was really a quite remarkable woman.”
    From the little he knew of Solange Vernet, Martin had little doubt that