Javert opened his eyes sleepily. It was barely morning, and not yet light. He looked around, wondering what had woken him. Valjean was curled up on the other end of the couch, deeply asleep under a blanket. The fire was out, but the house was warm. The Inspector was about to bed down again when he heard a quiet knock on the door. Rising to his feet, Javert pulled on his jacket, still lying on the floor, and took hold of an iron fireplace poker. Cautiously, he made his way to the front of the room. There was another knock, slightly louder than before. Gripping the metal bar tightly, the Inspector opened the door - only to find a very tired-looking Commissaire about to knock again.

"Commissaire Chassé?" Javert relaxed his hold on the poker. "What's wrong? Come in."

"I woke you, didn't I? I'm sorry. I just felt that this couldn't wait until morning."

Javert guided Chassé to the armchair. Stirring slightly, Valjean woke much the same as Javert had, pulling himself up into a sitting position.

"Wha's goin' on?" he yawned.

Embarrassed, Chassé said "I really am sorry. Now I've gone and got both of you up early. I just needed to pick this over with someone, and Javert was the first person to come to mind."

Settling on the couch, Javert folded his hands. "News on the case?" he guessed.

Chassé nodded glumly. "We finished the inventory of small objects, as you suggested. However, I can't for the life of me guess which of these was the gift from the murderer." He handed Javert a long sheet meticulously listing everything from combs to stale bread.

"I think most of this can be ruled out on sight," the Inspector said. "Bread, plain cups - none of this is unique enough to well-mark a target." Turning to Valjean, he said "Do you have a pen?"

Five minutes later, all three were crowded around the paper, Javert crossing items off with Valjean's pen. "Candle stub - no. Quill - no. Plain brass ring - possibly, but it would be expensive to get one for every victim, so that seems unlikely. Well, now, this is interesting." He indicated the next item on the list. "Carved wooden disk, one inch diameter."

The Commissaire looked over the sheet. "It's odd that you mention that," he said slowly. "That was my guess, too. The thing of it is, though, well -" He pulled a small round of wood from his shirt pocket. "Look at this. A sun setting over Paris, with 'p.m.' under it. It looks more like a chip from a game than anything."

Javert was curious. Taking the chip from Chassé, he looked it over carefully. "This reminds me of something," he said, "but I can't quite remember what."

Chassé shook his head. "It's hopeless. I've asked every man who's at the depot right now, and it means nothing to any of them. If you don't know either..."

"I didn't say I didn't know," Javert replied sharply. "I only said that I can't remember at this godforsaken hour of the morning. If you've already shown the chip to everyone else, you might leave it here to see if it might jog my memory. At any rate, if this isn't the murderer's marker, then your men missed something - everything left on the list is extremely improbable."

"My officers missing something is equally improbable. They were very thorough, knowing that more lives depend on their work."

"Then there are two possibilities," the Inspector told him. "Either this is the murderer's token or the object was taken from the house by the killer. By the way," he added, "where did you find this chip, anyway?"

"That's the funny thing, isn't it?" Chassé said. "It was sitting right in the middle of the table."

"A little too deliberate to be unconnected, don't you think?" Javert was more than a bit smug, and the Commissaire waved him off.

"You certainly make a fair argument, Inspector. Let me know if you think of anything else." Chassé stood. "Gentlemen, thank you for your time." In making for the door, Chassé turned once to Valjean. "You've taken up with a good man, you know."

Valjean smiled. "I know."

Nodding, Chassé left Number 55, Rue Plumet.

"How did you hear him to let him in?" Valjean suddenly wondered aloud. "If he'd called, and you heard him from the gate, it should have woken me as well."

"He didn't call from the gate," Javert said, somewhat distractedly. "He just knocked on the door."

As what he'd said sunk in, the Inspector cursed softly. "I must have left the damn gate unlocked when I got home. I wanted to see you and forgot..."

Valjean laughed. "Ah well, the door was locked, and after all, it was only Commissaire Chassé. No harm done."

Of course, that wasn't entirely true. Another figure had entered the garden behind the Commissaire, silent and unseen. A dark cloak, borrowed from Brujon, blended into the shadowy garden trees. Outside the window, Montparnasse watched Chassé, Valjean, and Javert pore over the parchment, and then the wooden disk. He smirked to himself - the bait had worked, just as he had said. It wouldn't take Javert long to unravel the chip's cryptic message, and in his haste to catch the murderer, he would make a mistake. It only took one.

Long after Chassé had returned to the depot and Valjean and Javert to sleep, the ruffian vanished over the garden wall, melting into Paris as day dawned red.


Thenardiér was renting out a large first-story tenement at the end of the Rue Monge, one of those streets wrapping in a dead end around a stone cul-de-sac. The street was decrepit, shutters rotting, stones deeply pitted, and was vacant of other renters. A combination of disease and crime had driven all but the most desperate from the vicinity, and the Patron-Minette gang had made short work of those who remained. The government owned the properties now, and it was from the government that Thenardiér rented his wicked establishment under the name Jondrette, a pseudonym that had served him well in the past.

It was true that he rented the place, but he did not live there. His wife and daughter, Azelma, still occupied their proper place in the sewers. The Rue Monge was no house to Thenardiér, but more like the office of an extremely disreputable businessman. While Montparnasse slipped out by night to slit throats, Babet and Brujon labored by day to turn the tenement house into a waking nightmare. The wooden flooring was pulled up to reveal the stone foundation, and the wall plaster was likewise torn down. Furniture was removed, a half-dozen locks were added to a new front door, and metal cuffs and bars were driven into the stone. A single cast iron stove was left in the room's corner, but it provided the room no warmth. One would have done well to wonder exactly what sort of business Monsieur Jondrette was conducting in such a place.

Of the three in the tenement, only one room was not thus altered: the back room, containing a second door, the only window in the building, and a desk, which today was covered by dozens of wooden disks, some inscribed with the same sun design that Commissaire Chassé had indicated. This was Thenardiér's personal workshop, and today he was casually whittling more tokens. He heard a gentle thump in the tenement's back yard as someone climbed over the high wall. Moments later, Montparnasse breezed through the entrance and dropped onto a low chair by the desk, grinning jauntily.

"Morning, sunshine," he said, trading Brujon's cloak for his own motley top-hat.

"It went well, I take it?" Thenardiér was used to Montparnasse's insolence, and it was not lost on him that the lad, barely twenty years of age, had comfortably assassinated half a dozen people in the last week. He was one to watch, certainly, lest Thenardiér wake up with a knife between his own ribs.

"Very. The gate wasn't even locked."

Thenardiér paused his whittling. "That is unlike Javert. Either you were expected, or he is really slipping in his old age."

Montparnasse leaned forward in a manner much like a young lady on the verge of revealing the latest gossip. "Or maybe his common sense has been clouded by a love interest."

Thenardiér stopped whittling altogether. "Are you saying that the dear Inspector has a lady-friend?"

Montparnasse shook his head, smothering a burst of laughter. "No. But I am saying that I don't think I've ever seen two unrelated adults go to sleep together who weren't romantically involved, and, well Thenardiér, I've seen whores who don't kiss as well as that Jean Valjean."

Much like Javert, Thenardiér was not one easily astonished. Montparnasse's little revelation, though, surprised him. Even as he recovered from his initial shock, Thenardiér's mind started scheming.

Twirling a quill between well-groomed fingers, Montparnasse looked his employer over carefully. "Do you want to change plans and get them accused of sodomy? There's plenty of prejudice against it still - the revolution couldn't change that - and total social humiliation has some appeal to it."

"True," Thenardiér conceded, "But it does not fill stomachs. My thought is this - we continue with the original plan. I admit, I had had some reservations - Valjean might not be willing to pay out a huge sum of money for a friend, but if the two are a couple..."

"...then the possibilities become much more interesting," Montparnasse finished. "I'm glad we see eye to eye on this."

"You never did tell me - what did Javert make of your little 'token' design?"

Montparnasse laughed again. "He hasn't quite gotten there yet, the old dog. Give him another day or two, and he'll figure it out."

"Were you going out again tonight?"

"I was planning to - another death might bring back Monsieur the Inspector's memory."

When night fell, Montparnasse made a casual sweep of the docks, his go-to facility, but all the lovely ladies seemed to have been scooped up by other clientele. The Rue Delôme would still be crawling with officers, he knew, so it was time to branch out into another street. Suddenly, the Patron-Minette's leader was struck with inspiration.

As one will remember, the Rue Coquille branches into many side streets, one of which is the Rue Plumet. It was there, on this small thoroughfare, that Montparnasse decided to make his move. If the intent was to grab the Inspector's full attention, an attack closer to home might prove more effective. A raven-haired girl was tracing circles around a lamppost, dressed in a close-fitting black dress and corset. When she saw the young dandy in his top-hat, she beckoned him closer. Montparnasse took the proffered hand.

"My lady," he touched his lips to her skin. "My business card, so to speak -" he handed her a carved wooden chip, "- and your fee," he added, dropping a ten franc note into her hand. The two disappeared into the dark building behind them.

An hour later, only Montparnasse reappeared, though the girl would usually have gone back to her lamppost. He tucked his ten franc note back into his pocket and strode whistling down the street.

Inside the building, a disk inscribed with a sun lay amidst a pool of blood.