We return a second day, but it’s clear by then that whether we want them or not the papers are ours. Reluctantly, I have to agree with Legrand. The man can live without his manuscripts. To someone who can’t make sense of letters, letting go of words is unimaginable.

“There’s only one thing left to do.”

“Yes,” Raymond agrees. “We get ready to work the blue train. A better class of clientèle. Its passengers will probably pay thirty francs to retrieve a three-franc purse.”

“Not yet. Legrand said there was an address on those papers. We’ll go track the man down and ransom the valise in person.”

The man can live without his manuscripts. To someone who can’t make sense of letters, letting go of words is unimaginable.

So we cross the river following the quai along to the Jardin des Plantes and around to the Place de la Contrescarpe. Every few feet the sidewalks are clogged with flower sellers standing on purple patches of dye whose splatter dribbles over the street curbs. Autobuses rumble by, choking the air with the heat of exhaust. At least the smell of burnt metal and gasoline is preferable to the odor of the drunks tottering to keep their marc from leaking out their lips. The trees, too, seem to sprawl, their foliage covering tall, cheap buildings topped by white plaster buttressed beneath with brown, with mismatched curtains in every window. Suddenly our poverty doesn’t seem so overwhelming.

“Oh, look,” Raymond says, pointing to the Boucherie Chevaline across the street. “When we’re through conducting our business we can gorge on horse.…”

I ignore him as I rap on the entry to No. 74. The door pulls back, and we’re greeted with the smell of a lavatory, which I determine is the door next to the first-floor landing. A large stairway corkscrews the height of the building’s interior, dwarfing the woman who scowls at us as if we are a pair of unwanted solicitors. But when I ask if an American lives in her building, her eyes widen.

“Oh, it’s so horrible! My husband and I adored them so much. My husband operates a cab and took the poor girl to the station himself — he’s apologized over and over since the Monsieur came back last night. But the man won’t speak. We will be surprised — yes, very surprised — if they return from their vacation as a couple. One can’t lose something so important to another and think it will be forgiven….”

Raymond and I pretend we don’t know what she’s talking about. We tell her we’ve stopped by to return money the man had kindly lent us.

“You’re almost too late then. He has already taken his suitcase to return to Switzerland. He said there was no point in staring into an empty drawer. But his train isn’t until later this afternoon. My husband offered to drive him to the gare, but he declined. He said he was going to the Café des Amateurs first. That’s how I know he’s despondent, no matter how he tries to hide it. He’s not the kind of man to wade in that cesspool….”

When we press the woman, she directs us to the café. The instructions aren’t complicated because it’s located right around the corner on the rue Mouffetard. And it, too, smells like a toilet. Raymond and I hold our breath as we poke our heads in, peering past chalk slates and fliers advertising strangely named apéritifs. The American isn’t hard to pick out. For one thing, he sits alone. For another, he’s the only one who doesn’t look like he’s content to luxuriate in a pissoir. The man’s table is cluttered with as many empty glasses as the debauchees populating the place, but his eyes are fixed to its center. As we watch, he lifts a pencil, writes what can’t be more than four words in a notebook, and then sets the pencil down. Then he just stares at his handiwork.