either.
He struggled with the top drawer of the teak chest, and eventually wrenched it open, ferreting in the depths for the bare essentials of Phillipe's comfort: a clean undershirt, a pair of socks, initialed handkerchiefs, beautifully pressed.
He sneezed. The chilly weather had thickened the catarrh on his chest and the mucus in his sinuses. A handkerchief was to hand, and he blew his nose, clearing his blocked nostrils. For the first time the smell of the room came to him.
One odour predominated, above the damp, and the stale vegetables. Perfume, the lingering scent of perfume.
He turned into the darkened room, hearing his bones creak, and his eyes fell on the shadow behind the bed. A huge shadow, a bulk that swelled as it rose into view.
It was, he saw at once, the razor-wielding stranger. He was here: in waiting.
Curiously, Lewis wasn't frightened.
'What are you doing?' he demanded, in a loud, strong voice.
As he emerged from his hiding place the face of the stranger came into the watery light from the street; a broad, flat-featured, flayed face. His eyes were deep-set, but without malice; and he was smiling, smiling generously, at Lewis.
'Who are you?' Lewis asked again.
The man shook his head; shook his body, in fact, his gloved hands gesturing around his mouth. Was he dumb? The shaking of the head was more violent now, as though he was about to have a fit.
'Are you all right?'
Suddenly, the shaking stopped, and to his surprise Lewis saw tears, large, syrupy tears well up in the stranger's eyes and roll down his rough cheeks and into the bush of his beard.
As if ashamed of his display of feelings, the man turned away from the light, making a thick noise of sobbing in his throat, and exited. Lewis followed, more curious about this stranger than nervous of his intentions.
'Wait!'
The man was already half-way down the first flight of stairs, nimble despite his build.
'Please wait, I want to talk to you,' Lewis began down the stairs after him, but the pursuit was lost before it was started. Lewis' joints were stiff with age and the cold, and it was late. No time to be running after a much younger man, along a pavement made lethal with ice and snow. He chased the stranger as far as the door and then watched him run off down the street; his gait was mincing as Catherine had said. Almost a waddle, ridiculous in a man so big.
The smell of his perfume was already snatched away by the north-east wind. Breathless, Lewis climbed the stairs again, past the din of the party, to claim a set of clothes for Phillipe.
The next day Paris woke to a blizzard of unprecedented ferocity. The calls to Mass went unrequited, the hot Sunday croissants went un-bought, the newspapers lay unread on the vendors' stalls. Few people had either the nerve or the motive to step outside into the howling gale. They sat by their fires, hugging their knees, and dreamt of spring.
Catherine wanted to go to the prison to visit Phillipe, but Lewis insisted that he go alone. It was not simply the cold weather that made him cautious on her behalf; he had difficult words to say to Phillipe, delicate questions to ask him. After the previous night's encounter in his room, he had no doubt that Phillipe had a rival, probably a murderous rival. The only way to save Phillipe's life, it seemed, was to trace the man. And if that meant delving into Phillipe's sexual arrangements, then so be it. But it wasn't a conversation he, or Phillipe, would have wanted to conduct in Catherine's presence.
The fresh clothes Lewis had brought were searched, then given to Phillipe, who took them with a nod of thanks.
'I went to the house last night to fetch these for you.'
'Oh.'
'There was somebody in the room already.' Phillipe's jaw muscle began to churn, as he ground his teeth together. He was avoiding Lewis's eyes.
'A big man, with a beard. Do you know him, or of him?'
'No.'
'Phillipe -'
'No!'
'The same man attacked Catherine,' Lewis said.
'What?' Phillipe had begun to tremble. 'With a razor.'
'Attacked her?' Phillipe said. 'Are you sure?'
'Or was going to.'
'No! He would never have touched her. Never!'
'Who is it Phillipe? Do you know?'
'Tell her not to go there again; please, Lewis —' His eyes implored. 'Please, for God's sake tell her never to go there again. Will you do that? Or you. Not you either.'
'Who is it?'
'Tell her.'
'I will. But you must tell me who this man is, Phillipe.' He shook his head, grinding his teeth together audibly now.
'You wouldn't understand, Lewis. I couldn't expect you to understand.'
'Tell me; I want to help.'
'Just let me die.'
'Who is he?'
'Just let me die... I want to forget, why do you try to make me remember? I want to —'
He looked up again: his eyes were bloodshot, and red-rimmed from nights of tears. But now it seemed there were no more tears left in him; just an arid place where there had been an honest fear of death, a love of love, and an appetite for life. What met Lewis's eyes was a universal indifference: to continuation, to self- preservation, to feeling.
'She was a whore,' he suddenly exclaimed. His hands were fists. Lewis had never seen Phillipe make a fist in his life. Now his nails bit into the soft flesh of his palm until blood began to flow.
'Whore,' he said again, his voice too loud in the little cell.
'Keep your row down,' snapped the guard.
'A whore!' This time Phillipe hissed the accusation through teeth exposed like those of an angry baboon.
Lewis could make no sense of the transformation.
'You began all this -' Phillipe said, looking straight at Lewis, meeting his eyes fully for the first time. It was a bitter accusation, though Lewis didn't understand its significance.
'Me?'
'With your stories. With your damn Dupin.'
'Dupin?'
'It was all a lie: all stupid lies. Women, murder—'
'You mean the Rue Morgue story?'
'You were so proud of that, weren't you? All those silly lies. None of it was true.'
'Yes it was.'
'No. It never was, Lewis: it was a story, that's all. Dupin, the Rue Morgue, the murders...'
His voice trailed away, as though the next words were unsayable.
'The ape.'
Those were the words: the apparently unspeakable was spoken as though each syllable had been cut from his throat.
'The ape.'
'What about the ape?'
