“I’ll be off then,” Dillon said.

“You’re not coming in?” the big man asked. “Then Gaston can run you home.”

Dillon smiled. “No one’s ever taken me home in my life.”

He walked away, turning into a side street, and Pierre said to his brother, “After him and don’t lose him.”

“But why?” Gaston demanded.

“Because I want to know where he’s staying, that’s why. It stinks, this thing, Gaston, like bad fish stinks, so get moving.”

Dillon moved rapidly from street to street, following his usual pattern, but Gaston, a thief since childhood and an expert in such matters, managed to stay on his trail, never too close. Dillon had intended returning to the warehouse in rue de Helier, but pausing on the corner of an alley to light a cigarette, he glanced back and could have sworn he saw a movement. He was right, for it was Gaston ducking into a doorway out of sight.

For Dillon, even the suspicion was enough. He’d had a feeling about Pierre all night, a bad feeling. He turned left, worked his way back to the river and walked along the pavement and past a row of trucks, their windshields covered with snow. He came to a small hotel, the cheapest sort of place, the kind used by prostitutes or truckers stopping overnight and went in.

The desk clerk was very old and wore an overcoat and scarf against the cold. His eyes were wet. He put down his book and rubbed them. “Monsieur?”

“I brought a load in from Dijon a couple of hours ago. Intended to drive back tonight, but the damn truck’s giving trouble. I need a bed.”

“Thirty francs, monsieur.”

“You’re kidding,” Dillon said. “I’ll be out of here at the crack of dawn.”

The old man shrugged. “All right, you can have number eighteen on the second landing for twenty, but the bed hasn’t been changed.”