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Catherine de Médicis didn’t just poison rivals, she turned perfuming gloves into a high art.”
    Aimée had had no idea. “Fascinating, monsieur, but—”
    “We work in close collaboration with the most famous glovemaking houses. Our perfume mixes with the natural scent of leather, producing a new olfactory combination as it mingles with the scent of one’s own skin.”
    To forestall a further sales pitch, she showed him her PI license with its unflattering photo, her mouth pursed as if tasting a lemon. “May I review your video surveillance footage from yesterday noon?”
She took out her checkbook. “Of course, I’m prepared to pay.”
“It’s important, Mademoiselle?”
“Four hundred francs,” she said without skipping a beat.
    A minor dent in the price of the gloves she admired. “That would, of course, include the tape itself, Monsieur.”
    * * *
    H ILAIRE , THE NOSE , led her beyond packing cases to a dark back room. Corked glass bottles containing floral essences, a glass beaker, and crushed gardenia petals in a mortar and pestle stood on a work table.
    “Of course our scents come from Grasse, but I like to experiment,” Hilaire said.
    Mounted in a niche in the wall were two screens. One viewed the shop interior, the other rue Capuchines. The latter had a clear shot of ToutMoto’s entrance.
    “You’re looking for something or someone, Mademoiselle?”
    Wasn’t she always looking? She suppressed a sigh. The elusive bad boy, always out of reach.
    “Aah . . . I see.” He gave a knowing smile and adjusted his cravat. “Aren’t we all?”
    “A woman, my height, dark glasses, scarf,” she said. “Let’s try from 11:30 A.M. onward.”
    He hit a button. She heard a click and the whirr of rewind. The crushed gardenia petal scent hung in the small room. Hilaire stopped the tape, then hit PLAY. The time counter in the right corner read 11:00. Passersby moved in slow motion.
    “Fascinating, non? ” Then he sped it up.
    Aimée concentrated on each woman entering ToutMoto. None wore dark glasses. The time counter showed noon, then 12:10, 12:20; still no one. Had the woman at ToutMoto lied to get rid of her?
    “I’ll need to change the tape at 12:30,” Hilaire said. “That one?” he asked. Hilaire was pointing to a figure. “Her?”
    He hit PAUSE. On the screen she saw a figure in a raincoat like the one she’d worn yesterday. Tall, thin, with a scarf over her head, wearing large sunglasses.
    “She looks like you,” he said.
    From a distance, she did. Maybe she was a tad shorter. Aimée’s hands trembled.
    “Can you fast-forward?”
    A whirr. Now the door opened and the woman emerged from the shop, her back to the camera, clutching a large shopping bag. The helmet, Aimée figured. The woman stepped off the pavement into a taxi. A matter of seconds, and she was gone.
    “Monsieur, can you replay that in slow motion?”
    Aimée studied the woman and the taxi. After the seventh replay, she’d made out the taxi company logo and the taxi number, 1712 or 1713. With this information, she had a lead.
    * * *
    O UT ON RUE Capuchines, heading to the Métro, she called the taxi dispatch office. “I’m enquiring about the destination of the passenger picked up at 5 rue des Capuchines at 12:20 yesterday, by either taxi number 1712 or 1713.”
    “We don’t give out that information to the public.”
    “ Bien sûr. ” She reached in her bag for her worn Vuitton wallet and read off her father’s police badge number. “But I’m a policier involved in an investigation. Could you hurry, please?”
    “We comply of course, but regulations require that this request be made in person.”
    Some new regulation? Or a ploy by the taxi service to discourage any follow-up?
    “I’m on surveillance,” she said. “Can’t you help me out this once?”
    She heard an expulsion of breath over the line.
    “ En fait, we don’t like it either, but the dispatch log is kept in my supervisor’s office.”
    “Your