This didn’t mean he wasn’t in Paris. Telepathy is extremely hit or miss; and Paris was a vast city, teeming with citizens of all the countries of the world.

At last I came back to the hotel, discovered David had already checked out, leaving all his various phone numbers with me for fax, computer, and regular calls.

“Please contact me tomorrow evening,” he’d written. “I shall have some information for you by then.”

I went upstairs to prepare for the journey home. I couldn’t wait to see this lunatic mortal again. And Louis—I had to lay it all before Louis. Of course he wouldn’t believe it was possible, that would be the first thing he’d say. But he would understand the lure. Oh, yes, he would.

I hadn’t been in the room a minute, trying to determine if there was anything here I needed to take with me—ah, yes, David’s manuscripts—when I saw a plain envelope lying on the table beside the bed. It was propped against a great vase of flowers. “Count van Kindergarten” was written on it in a firm, rather masculine script.

I knew the minute I saw it that it was a note from him. The message inside was handwritten, in the same firm, heavily engraved style.

Don’t be hasty. And don’t listen to your fool friend from the Talamasca either. I shall see you in New Orleans tomorrow night. Don’t disappoint me. Jackson Square. We shall then make an appointment to work a little alchemy of our own. I think you understand now what’s at stake.

Yours sincerely,
Raglan James

“Raglan James.” I whispered the name aloud. Raglan James. I didn’t like the name. The name was like him.

I dialed the concierge.

“This fax system which has just been invented,” I said in French, “you have it here? Explain it to me, please.”

It was as I suspected, a complete facsimile of this little note could be sent from the hotel office over a telephone wire to David’s London machine. Then David would not only have this information, he would have the handwriting, for what it was worth.

I arranged to have this done, picked up the manuscripts, stopped by the desk with the note of Raglan James, had it faxed, took it back, and then went to Notre Dame to say good-bye to Paris with a little prayer.

I was mad. Absolutely mad. When had I ever known such pure happiness! I stood in the dark cathedral, which was now locked on account of the hour, and I thought of the first time I’d ever stepped into it so many, many decades ago. There had been no great square before the church doors, only the little Place de Grève hemmed in with crooked buildings; and there had been no great boulevards in Paris such as there are now, only broad mud streets, which we thought so very grand.

I thought of all those blue skies, and what it had felt like to be hungry, truly hungry for bread and for meat, and to be drunk on good wine. I thought of Nicolas, my mortal friend, whom I’d loved so much, and how cold it had been in our little attic room. Nicki and I arguing the way that David and I had argued! Oh, yes.