As I shook Balthazar’s hand, I suppressed a shudder at the thought of what might happen if Artopoulos were to divine that this was not the man he was after. I knew I must once again vanish. I didn’t want to lose the advantage I had over Artopoulos—he didn’t know what I looked like. I fled the Villejuif military asylum with nothing more than the clothes on my back. I caught a suburban train to the center of Paris and went to a shirtmaker’s workshop in the Arts et Métiers neighborhood run by a Saigonese family I knew from my childhood. They did not turn me away. I stayed with them until after the war. I burned my identity papers and took on the surname Blanc.

From that day on, I lived in hiding—and with good cause. Two weeks later, I learned that Hippolyte Balthazar had been murdered in his own bed. According to the newspapers, his body was found with the eyes removed. My grief was compounded by guilt. There could be no doubt about his killer. As with Édmonde and Lucien, Artopoulos had either had Balthazar murdered by proxy or done the deed himself. I could not know if he had discovered my deception, but I assumed the worst. Either way, the removal of the eyes felt more than just a message or a demonstration of power, I interpreted it as a kind of macabre vow. From now on, the price I would have to pay for my freedom was the torture and murder of innocents.

In ordinary circumstances, such a murder would have scandalized Paris. But the relentless slaughter occurring only a day’s drive away had inoculated Parisians to individual acts of violence. Balthazar’s death was soon forgotten. Artopoulos had him buried with Édmonde and Lucien in the Baudelaire Society crypt at the Montparnasse cemetery—yes, at the very spot we were to meet, you and I, twenty-three years later. It isn’t every day one has the occasion to attend one’s own funeral. It was a modest affair held on a rain-soaked morning. I stood at the back of the small gathering, my identity vouchsafed by my veil. There were barely more than a dozen mourners, all of whom I recognized: clients of Balthazar’s and members of the Baudelaire Society. Artopoulos was there, of course, standing by the graveside. He had given up feigning the tremors of shellshock. Beside him was a striking, square-jawed woman I’d never seen before. Later, I would learn that her name was Gabrielle Chanel, better known by her nickname Coco.

Shortly before Christmas 1920 at the Saint-Quentin market, I spied Renand, the Baudelaire Society’s valet, from across a crowd. We locked eyes momentarily before I managed to duck out of the way. Thankfully, the Christmas throng was thick enough for me to make my getaway before he could catch me. I’d been shopping there since my flight from the asylum, knowing Renand normally went to the Place Maubert market on the other side of the river to buy provisions for Artopoulos and the Baudelaire Society. The encounter rattled me for months. I could not be sure that Renand had been there looking specifically for me—he’d never seen me, after all, and I’d taken care to avoid all cameras in the intervening years—but I haven’t been back to the Saint-Quentin market since.