‘Well, you’re in luck. He’s not a visitor to this theatre – or any theatre – but one of my patrons is a medical man and had heard of him. Seems he was a minor noble who used his money to fund his anatomy hobby. Never any success as a practising physician, thought himself too rich to slog it out at the medical schools with the riffraff, but had the king’s favour so ended up as the court’s pet scientist. Bit of a crank, by all accounts. Self-professed visionary without the talent to back it up, that sort of thing. It’s said he packed up and fled north when the king lost his head, but appears that was a false alarm. Been spotted out in the Faubourg Saint Martin.’ He offered Camille the snuffbox, then when she shook her head, passed it to Al. ‘Anyway, what do you want with him?’

Camille shifted her weight. ‘Better for you if you don’t know.’

Léon laughed. ‘Oh, you are charming.’

‘Faubourg Saint Martin, you said?’

‘Yes. Slinking about the Saint-Lazare prison, I believe. Rumour has it he was asking for the bodies of dead prisoners.’

‘Oh?’

‘Standard anatomist practice. Hard to scrounge enough bodies to experiment on through legitimate means. They usually leave off in summer – can you imagine trying to dissect a body rotting faster than you can cut it? But this year the body snatchers say they’re doing a brisk trade.’

Al and Camille exchanged a glance.

‘Do you know who they’re selling to?’ asked Al.

Léon pursed his lips. ‘If you’re asking me whether the duc is their customer, then I can’t tell you for sure. Don’t have anything to do with the snatchers if I can help it.’

Camille sagged in disappointment. They were so close.

‘There is one thing,’ said Léon. ‘They say they’re delivering all the bodies to one address.’

He named an abbey on the main road out of Paris that passed through the Faubourg Saint Martin.

‘I can’t promise anything. But it seems an odd coincidence. And if someone were to investigate, I imagine they might find quite a lot of interesting things.’

Camille smiled, a flare of hope catching in her chest.

‘Thank you.’

She tossed him a small bag of coins.

‘Much obliged.’

They left, Léon blowing a kiss to Al, who turned a furious pink and dashed back to kiss him properly before finally being dragged out by Camille.

The theatre was emptying, and they blended into the crowds flooding onto the Boulevard du Temple with its chaotic mix of carriages and promenaders and street performers. Camille stopped at the turning that went towards the city centre and bought a news-sheet. The story of the balloon crash was still plastered across the front. Al snatched it off her before she could read very far.

‘Hey! Buy your own.’