I went to Vennet’s side, called his name and shook him gently. The bed hadn’t been slept in. His body, lying on its side, was cool. He was fully dressed, in the same clothes he’d worn the previous day, minus the trench coat. He wasn’t breathing. In fact, rigor mortis had set in and at his chest his shirt was soaked in congealed blood. Blood had trickled through the thin mattress and formed a little pool of crimson under the bed. There were traces of blood on the floor, and a jet of it had squirted across the room as far as the opposite wall. I turned my attention to Vennet’s face. Where the eyes ought to have been were two voids underscored by tentacles of dried blood. His eyeballs had been removed. I turned away, stomach heaving, leaning against a wall to regain my composure. I thought of Madeleine. She’d warned me about this.

I heard a rustle behind me. I spun around to see, standing in the doorway, the thin, bespectacled man in the gray homburg hat I’d seen the previous day. “Looking for someone?” he said.

“I found him.”

“He doesn’t look in great shape.” The man stepped over some books and into the apartment. “I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

“The auction, yesterday.”

“Ah yes, and afterward in the Passage Jouffroy. What did you say to Vennet that alarmed him so?”

“I gave him a warning.”

“You told him his life was in danger,” he said. “Rather prescient, wouldn’t you say?”

“A lucky guess,” I replied.

“Who are you and how did you come to be muddled in this business?”

“Who wants to know?”

“Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu of the Police Judiciaire.”

“You’re from the Quai des Orfèvres?”

“Indeed. Do you know it?”

“Only from pulp novels.”

“That’s a pity. They don’t do it justice. It really is worth a visit. In fact, why don’t we go there now? I have a car waiting outside.” He stood to one side of the doorway and beckoned to me. “You know,” said Massu, “they say you haven’t really seen Paris until you’ve seen the Quai des Orfèvres.”

“Who says that?”

“Everyone and no one.”