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was getting dark, and he went by too fast.”
    “How tall was he?”
    “A little under medium height, I’d guess. Maybe a couple of fingers shorter than I am. He went by too fast—”
    “I understand. Tell me more about his clothing.”
    “Like I said, top boots and a dark coat.”
    “What color? What about his culotte and waistcoat?”
    The porter reached for the brandy bottle but Brasseur slid it smoothly away from him.
    “This won’t improve your memory, Grangier. Try to remember.”
    “Blue,” said Grangier, after a moment. “Maybe. It was getting dark in the hall. His coat was dark blue. Or it might have been dark green. His breeches were black. Didn’t see his waistcoat; he had his coat buttoned.”
    “Did he wear a hat?”
    “I saw dark hair and a ribbon, but … no, wait …” He screwed up his face, trying to summon the memory. Aristide waited silently, tapping his fingers on the tabletop. “He wasn’t wearing his hat when I saw him run out,” Grangier said at last. “Must have been carrying it under his arm. But he wore it when he came back. A round one, low-crowned, with a wide brim. Dark. That’s why I couldn’t see his face so well, because the brim threw a shadow on his face.”
    Brasseur added a few more notes in his own notebook. “Good. Let’s go through your statement again. At about six o’clock in the evening, you heard someone running up the stairs, but didn’t see him. Then, a little while later—How long? Ten minutes? Twenty minutes?”
    “Maybe ten minutes.”
    “Ten minutes later, you heard footsteps running down the stairs, and you saw a young man rushing out the street door, but only from the back. Twenty or thirty minutes later, he returned, and you saw his face briefly as he ran past you and up the stairs.” Grangier nodded.
    “Did you see him leave again?”
    Grangier opened his mouth, considered a moment, and frowned. “No, come to think of it, I didn’t. I’d gone back in here for another dram of eau-de-vie. I don’t meddle with the tenants’ business.”
    “In other words,” Aristide said dryly, “you don’t trouble yourself keeping watch on the house unless you’re asked?”
    “Well, I’ve a bad knee, rheumatism, and I don’t fancy climbing the stairs unless I have to.”
    “So you don’t know when he left.”
    “No. He must have come back down, though, mustn’t he? There’s no other staircase. But if he was running and making a racket I’d have heard him, what with the echo. He must have walked down, quiet. I wouldn’t notice that if the door was closed.”
    “Which, of course, it was, while you were having your second, or third, glass of brandy.”
    “Yes, citizen.”
    Brasseur sighed. “All right, then. You saw a young man of about twenty-five, dark-haired, wearing a dark blue or green coat, and black culotte, top boots, and a dark-colored round hat with a wide brim. He was pale and seemed upset, and took the stairs running. And you’ve not seen him since he ran up the staircase for the second time.”
    “No.”
    “You’ll take an oath to all this you’ve told me?” The porter nodded. “Very well, you’ll be summoned to the justice of the peace shortly to give an official statement.” He pushed the brandy bottle back to Grangier, who took it with immense relief.

CHAPTER 4
    The autumn dusk was closing in by the time they were done interrogating possible witnesses, and Brasseur had sealed the apartment. Few people had been about, owing to the fine weather and the day of rest, décadi , which in the republican calendar now occurred only every ten days instead of every seven, and none had provided them with anything as useful as the porter’s information.
    “A young man,” Aristide said to Brasseur as they strolled back to the commissariat through the swarming streets of the Butte-des-Moulins section, past peddlers, sightseers, hack drivers awaiting fares, and a few early prostitutes. “That could mean nearly anyone. A victim