There were no trees. With the sun beating down on the roof of the old Volks and the heat rising from the pavement, it was like being in an oven. On the other hand, they were near the spot where they were supposed to meet the reporter who had read the article about Théo. The meeting was to take place in Independence Square, in the premises occupied by the Jackson County Historical Society on the second floor of the Court House.

Independence Square was lined with shops, houses, restaurants and stores; in the centre a number of sidewalks and staircases, along which public benches were set out, led to an old building surmounted by a steeple: the Court House.

It was three p.m. when Jack and the girl arrived at the Court House. An attendant told them where the historical society was located. They were greeted very amiably by a woman whose grey hair was tinged with blue; she telephoned the reporter, who arrived fifteen minutes later.

The reporter kissed La Grande Sauterelle on both cheeks. He addressed her by her Montagnais name, Pitsémine. He was a tall man with red hair and a heavy moustache in the shape of a circumflex accent. He spoke French very well. His name was Ernest Burke, but in his opinion that was a corruption of “Bourque,” the name of his French-speaking ancestors. The woman with the blue-grey hair suggested that everyone sit around a long table, and she asked the secretary to bring refreshments.

The Examiner had not been put on microfilm; it was simply bound in volumes, each of which contained the issues for a three-month period. The article on Théo, said the reporter, was near the end of a volume. So they all began to look through the last pages of each volume, and after a mere half hour’s research, La Grande Sauterelle found the article.

She read it aloud. The article said that Théo was being held on suspicion of a break-and-entry committed at the Kansas City Museum of History and Science. The museum guard, an old man of sixty-eight, had been struck on the head with a blunt instrument; he had suffered a concussion and was in critical condition in hospital. The thief had tried to make off with an old map, hand-drawn in 1840 by a Jesuit of French origin, Père Nicolas Point. The map was labelled Plan de Westport. It was reproduced at the end of the article.

“Westport was a village around twenty kilometres west of Independence,” the journalist explained. “You could say that it’s the cradle of Kansas City. How would you say that in French?”

“Le berceau de Kansas City,” said La Grande Sauterelle. “So the map Théo wanted to make off with was a very important document?”

“Yes and no.”

“How’s that?”

“It was a reproduction. Apparently the original map is in Montreal, in the archives of a Jesuit college.”

“Maybe Théo didn’t know that.”

“It’s possible . . . Was he a historian?”