“I’ll explain,” he said, “but not till you’ve told me what this business of Jesse James and his brother Frank is all about.”

“What business about Jesse James and . . .”

“Don’t play innocent,” he broke in. “You left your book on the table, open precisely at the page that has the story of the two brothers, Frank and Jesse James.”

“Sheer coincidence,” she said.

“It wouldn’t by any chance be a way of telling me something about my brother?”

“Such as what, for instance?”

“For instance, the idea that even if you love your brother very much that doesn’t stop him from being a bandit.”

“It never crossed my mind.”

She appeared to be as serious as he had been when he told her about his deep-sea diver’s complex. There was no way of knowing if she was telling the truth.

“In any case,” he said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about that business of the stolen document, and I came to the conclusion that Théo was a Quebec nationalist. Maybe even a member of the FLQ. He thought the map was an original document, and he wanted to get it back from the Americans and bring it home.”

He watched the girl to see what she was thinking, but her expression was still serious and impenetrable. In her black eyes there might have been a little gleam like the one in the eyes of mother hens, but he wasn’t sure.

“So tell me about the deep-sea diver’s complex: what is it exactly?” she asked.

“Well, it’s not all that easy to explain,” he said, “but I’ll try.”

He began to speak slowly, searching for his words, elbows on the table, head in his hands.

“The deep-sea diver’s complex,” he said, “is . . . It’s a pathological state in which a person withdraws into himself when he’s faced with problems that seem insurmountable. But in fact the person doesn’t really know what’s going on, and his behaviour is . . . instinctive. He senses that he absolutely has to protect himself, so he withdraws into the diving suit: first he pulls on the rubber suit that looks like the costume on the character in the Michelin tire ads, then the bronze helmet that’s as round as a ball and has three little windows covered with a mesh, and finally he puts on his heavy lead soles, otherwise . . .”

“I know, I know,” said the girl. “And then?”