A/N: Here we go! Thanks to everyone who's read this tale so far. Please feel free to leave reviews!

Chapter 2: The Faces at the Prefecture

The bells at Saint Sulpice were tolling the hour as seven in the evening when Gavroche made his way to the Prefecture's office at the Rue de Pontoise. 'The Odeon is in order while the Sorbonne has opened the doors of the coop,' he thought as he stepped into the Place Saint Michel, which at this hour was bustling with two sorts of passers-by: those strolling and enjoying the pleasures of a twilight promenade, and the regular patrons of the Cafe Musain and other smaller establishments. It was a tableau that would have had most other agents standing still in one place, on the lookout for wayward hands and shifty eyes, however for Gavroche this was the sort of scene he moved best in.

As he passed by the entrance of the Musain he heard a giggle followed by shushing sounds. "Stop that, Colombe! Everyone is going to look!" a dark haired girl scolded her tall companion.

"That's exactly what I'm doing-just looking!" the girl named Colombe tittered as she toyed with a frill on the bonnet that covered her curled golden hair. She lowered her gaze quickly as Gavroche passed by. "Good evening Inspector," she murmured.

Gavroche merely tipped his hat by way of reply, only to see Colombe turn red and grab onto her friend's arm. "Is your friend well?" he asked the other young lady.

"Oh I am," Colombe interrupted. "You look very well, Citizen."

The shorter girl elbowed her companion. "Oh hush" Her eyes, which were a startling shade of green even in the twilight, narrowed as she looked up at Gavroche. "Your hat is askew and that would look sloppy at the Prefecture," she pronounced.

"Minette!"

"Why, can't you see it?"

Gavroche snorted at this backhanded commentary. "It's worn more easily than your headdresses, that's all," he said before tipping his hat again and making a show of donning it so easily before continuing on his way down the street. He clucked his tongue at the rapidly fading chatter of Colombe remonstrating with her companion; if there was one thing he had learned to expect from the ladies of the Latin Quartier, it was in their ability to make such scenes.

It was another half hour before he arrived at 14 Rue de Pontoise, by which time there were already lamplighters turning up the gas jets on the street lights in the vicinity. This stark illumination was almost blinding in contrast to the flickering glow from the candles in the foyer of the Prefecture's headquarters, such that Gavroche found himself squinting as he crossed this hall towards where his friend Frassin was nervously chewing on the end of a baguette. "Now have you suddenly turned into a mouse?" Gavroche greeted jovially.

Frassin wiped his mouth. "Inspector Bahorel has some questions about the Rue Bourgogne."

"Another mouser at play," Gavroche mused softly as he and Frassin walked down a corridor leading to a side office. The door was already ajar, allowing the two young men to distinctly catch the sound of conversation. "Watch for swells," he warned Frassin just a moment before the Prefect, Gabriel Delessert, exited the room followed by several other senior officials of the Prefecture.

Delessert suddenly stopped in his tracks and eyed Gavroche and Frassin. "Did you say something, detectives?" he asked sharply.

Gavroche saluted snappily. "It was only a reminder, Citizen," he said, taking care not to even make eye contact with a now pale looking Frassin.

The Prefect nodded slowly. "They would do well to learn a little more of silence," he said to a bristly-haired, burly man bringing up the rear of the group. "Make sure of that, Inspector Bahorel."

"They will, in good time," Damien Bahorel replied, giving Gavroche a look that would have been stern if not for the conspiratorial quirk to his lip. He waited for Delessert and his companions to leave the corridor before he clapped Gavroche's back. "He will let that pass. It was only for the sake of his companions, visitors from other prefectures."

Frassin dusted some crumbs off his cuffs. "You said you wanted to speak to us?"

Bahorel motioned for the two younger men to follow him into the office that the Prefect had just quitted. He took off his greatcoat and draped it across the back of a large armchair, which he then occupied with great aplomb. He waited as Gavroche and Frassin seated themselves on two wooden stools before he spoke. "I read your preliminary report on the scene, and it's as true as any sacred oath, I'm certain," he said to Frassin. He nodded to Gavroche. "Did you note anyone else entering or exiting the building before the alarm was raised?"

"No one, by the front exit. There was no one either on the stairs," Gavroche replied.

Bahorel's moustache twitched at this. "The body was undisturbed till you stepped in?"

"I did not note any marks to suggest that he'd been bothered with-unless throwing sheets atop of him counts," Gavroche answered. In his opinion this was the sloppiest aspect of the entire job, perhaps more of a tactic to scare off the neighbours.

"I figured they'd been used to wipe him up. The body had smudges," Frassin volunteered.

"No identifying marks as well-yet Gavroche, you signified that you knew him?" Bahorel inquired.

'Knowing of him is more like it,'' Gavroche thought. He had only been a small boy, no older than his nephews were now, when he was first pulled into his father's cons, and then later into more and more complicated schemes on the streets of Paris. To the main players of these crimes, he'd merely been a useful child, not a comrade. "They called him Mangedentelle, the Lace-Eater. His ambuscades were often on ladies in shops and carriages," he said. "My old man didn't do much business with him."

Bahorel nodded slowly. "Was the Invalides part of his usual territory?"

"No, he was rather far out. He always preferred the other bank," Gavroche said.

"So it is true that he was new to that neighbourhood, or to the house at the very least," Bahorel commented as he looked through Frassin's report once more. "There was no grudge or grievance he raised during his tenure in the area."

"With all due respect, it is not known if any followed him there either," Gavroche pointed out. "If he was called on any sort of job, shouldn't the Prefecture have heard of him sooner?"

"That is one of the startling sides to this case," Bahorel said as he slammed his hands on the desk. "There's mischief here and there, but his gang's hold is broken. Most of them such as Gueuleumer, all the Magnons, Mamselle Miss, Deux Millards, and at least one Brujon are behind bars. Your family saw to that, rather thoroughly."

Frassin scratched his head. "A successor. Some of them have children, protégés-"

"That is the first thing to consider, but I am not inclined to pursue that avenue too relentlessly," Bahorel said. "There is a new job afoot, and it will be our business to undo that. You gentlemen will go on patrol at the Halle Aux Vins and see if there is anything unusual there. I will have someone else set on the Rue Bourgogne and the Invalides tonight."

Gavroche and Frassin saluted. "We will leave right away," Frassin said.

"You will go with Tolbert since that is his usual route; right now though he is in the upstairs office with all the mouldering paperwork," Bahorel suggested. He motioned for Gavroche to remain standing while Frassin exited the room. "Frassin also said that Laure saw the body. Poor little chick," he muttered once the other detective closed the door.

"She did not cry or run away," Gavroche said. All the same he could only imagine the queries that his niece probably had for her parents. "Eponine remembers Mangedentelle. I haven't asked Azelma about him yet."

The older detective smiled ruefully. "She also stood as lookout for him too?"

"Once till they had a squabble. He tried to cut her of her part of the job, so she gave him this." Gavroche made a slashing motion across his hand. "The mark is probably mentioned in Frassin's report."

"Now there is the story," Bahorel chortled. "It would appear that he kept out of the business of the counterrevolutionaries on the west bank of the Seine."

"He was never of that sort of dealing," Gavroche said. "You could ask Ponine more about it."

Bahorel shook his head. "I would, but I am not asking her to come forward." His hand went to a drawer in his desk, where he kept a daguerreotype of his wife Therese and their three sons. "This is too dangerous for civilians, no matter how willing they are to show a bit of red for it."

"Especially when there are little ones about," Gavroche said before saluting once more. "Let's hope nothing goes crowing about," he added before quitting the room.

Back in the hallway he caught sight of Frassin conversing with their fellow detective Tolbert, a tall, brown haired man who hailed from one of the military families based in the city. His handsome profile took an imperious cast when he caught sight of Gavroche. "You're placing yourself in too high a place, Thenardier," he greeted coldly.

"I was only conversing, not squawking," Gavroche replied, squaring his shoulders. "Good evening to you by the way, Tolbert."

Tolbert snorted. "Perhaps Inspector Bahorel lets you get away with that but your being too familiar will trip up your tongue-maybe in front of the Prefect. That never looks good."

"The Inspector asked him to stay for a bit," Frassin said, placing a hand on Tolbert's shoulder.

"Precisely the problem," Tolbert grumbled. He sneered as he looked Gavroche over once more. "You're wearing those street boots again. How unbecoming."

"Let's see what the rain has to say," Gavroche retorted, making sure to also cast a glance at Tolbert's newly polished black shoes. As far as he was concerned his heavy brown boots served him well in treading on everything from marble to sewer muck. 'There are also other uses that do not involve stepping,' he reminded himself as he and his comrades headed out into the night.

From the Rue de Pontoise it was only a short walk to the wine market and the adjoining promenades of the Jardin Royal des Plantes. As they walked, Frassin pulled Gavroche aside, letting Tolbert walk on ahead. "So is it true what they say about your family—that they once gave the Prefecture a good shakedown because of being falsely charged for murder?"

"That was only my oldest sister and my brother-in-law Enjolras. They weren't married yet then," Gavroche said.

Frassin's eyes widened. "They say they argued their way out of prison."

"Not together. My sister was taken to Saint Lazare; Enjolras was brought to La Force. That was the message that reached me and my brothers at our old tenement-my friend Navet brought it. So I went out right away and looked for Bahorel-the Inspector to you, but the detective then," Gavroche explained with a smile. "We had quite a merry chase figuring out who did it-it was the manservant of a terrible jeweller we had all crossed. So we waited at the Cafe du Foy for the culprit to show up since he was known to take a drink or two there."

"Then what happened?"

"There wasn't much left to happen. Ponine said they had no evidence to hold them in, Enjolras told the jailers that they were wrong to grab the two of them in the first place. I don't know who told them to go to the Cafe du Foy. My sister got there first-with the aim to steal a journalist friend of ours so she could tell the proper account of the day." Gavroche laughed to himself at the memory of that raucous evening. "Meaning she stole him from his drink-the paper men are never good after a few glasses."

Frassin was quiet. "So everyone was at the cafe-even the man who did it?"

"He'd been taking in the vapours at the back. We missed him till Enjolras came along and spotted him. You should have seen the chairs upset at that," Gavroche finished triumphantly.

"The Prefecture talks about the first part," Frassin noted ruefully. He whistled as Tolbert suddenly walked on ahead. "What's the matter?"

"What you lost him? How can you with those shining buttons of his?" Gavroche asked.

"He's seen someone."

"Some hen," Gavroche muttered, seeing that Tolbert had clearly caught the attention of a young lady standing at the entrance to the wine market. Her face was hidden by her bonnet, which was a pale but tasteful variation on puce. 'Not exactly a grisette,' he noted as he watched this stranger make a more restrained nod by way of greeting the officer instead of giggling or moving away fretfully. As he saw Tolbert take this woman's arm it became clear to him that she was no mere acquaintance. "Good evening Citizenness," he said clearly over Frassin's mumbling.

"Citizens, may I introduce Citizenness Minette Debault," Tolbert said in an officious tone even as he smiled at the lady. "Citizenness, my fellow detectives Thenardier and Frassin."

Frassin was quicker to shake the lady's proffered hand while Gavroche merely stood aside to take in the sight of her delicate features, especially her full lips that only seemed more sensuous with her smile. 'What doings for such a minx!' he couldn't help thinking even as he saw her place her free hand on Tolbert's arm. This newfound demureness was rather unlike how she'd been so blunt with him at the Place Saint-Michel.

Judging by the surprised amusement in her eyes when she met his gaze, it was clear she remembered this as well. "Are you well, Detective Thenardier?" she asked him lightly.

"Yes I am, Citizenness. I am only surprised that you are in Detective Tolbert's notice," Gavroche replied.

"I noticed him first," Minette said. "I have for a couple of months now."

"As you can see, she has a good eye," Tolbert remarked smugly as he adjusted his grip on his sword cane. "You'd better run on home, Minette. We are out on patrol."

"I wouldn't run," Minette pouted haughtily. "I see you only asked me to meet you here since this is your usual route."

"It is right next to the gardens," Tolbert argued.

Frassin snickered and shook his head. "Given this weather perhaps we are best walking you to someplace safe, like your lodgings?" he asked Minette.

"I do not live far off," Minette said, throwing a cross look at Tolbert.

Tolbert cleared his throat and held out his arm to Minette. "If you will excuse us-we're only at the Rue des Boulangers," he said, pointing to a curving side street some paces away. "I'll see you both in half an hour at the market."

Gavroche shot an indignant glance at Frassin. "What and he gets to sail off like that?" he hissed.

"We can't tell Inspector Bahorel a word!" Frassin protested. "Tolbert would never forgive us!"

Gavroche scowled as he watched Tolbert and Minette till they disappeared around the corner of the Rue des Boulangers. "He's only a booby, that's what."

"At least all that brass-"Frassin began before an indignant shriek pierced the evening. "That couldn't have been-"he muttered as he pulled out a billystick.

"That won't do!" Gavroche snapped as he now bolted down towards the Rue des Boulangers. Just as he suspected, he found two men laughing to themselves, one of them already holding up Tolbert's sword cane. A third was searching both Tolbert and Minette; the police officer was insensible in the murk but the woman was feebly trying to fight the man pawing at her skirt. Gavroche motioned for Frassin to hold both ends of his billystick and then pointed at the assailant closest to them. In the meantime he crept up behind the robber holding the sword cane and dealt him a fouette to the back of his head.

The searcher swore at the sight of his companions suddenly falling to the ground. "Help, police!" he shouted just a moment before Minette kicked him in the shin. Enraged, he grabbed at her again with every intention of pushing her into the dirt, but he stopped when Gavroche and Frassin hauled him to his feet and slammed him against a wall. "Why you-"

"You called, we answer," Gavroche said with a feral grin as he pointed Tolbert's sword cane at this robber's throat. "Empty your pockets."

"I don't have anything."

"Then drop your trousers. I know your tricks."

The robber scowled as he reached into a hidden compartment and dropped Tolbert's watch, a few coins, as well as a ladies' reticule on the ground. "You're that little dog, aren't you? The pup from the streets, the innkeeper's brat-"

"I'd save that for in front of the inspector, if I were you!" Gavroche shouted. He looked to where Frassin was checking on Tolbert and Minette. "How are they?"

"Bruised up," Frassin replied. He steadied Tolbert with a hand on the shoulder when the latter tried to sit up. "Easy there, my friend. You've had it rough."

Tolbert groaned and blinked at the scene before him. "How did you do that?" he asked, glancing at the sword cane that Gavroche held.

Gavroche smirked as he handed the weapon back to him, all the while keeping one hand around the robber's collar. "With my boots, if you please."

"Dirty gutter work," Tolbert muttered. He looked to Minette, who was cursing as she pocketed her reticule. "Are you hurt?"

"My slippers are torn," the girl griped. "You shall have to carry me to my door, just there."

"Oh not as badly as that, Citizenness," Frassin said. He looked at the criminal struggling in Gavroche's grip. "Have you brought manacles with you?"

Gavroche nodded, gesturing to his belt. In a few minutes they had chained the three criminals together and secured them to a post. "That will do till we can get help at the Rue de Pontoise." He looked to Minette. "Do you still need help?"

"Now don't you touch her!" Tolbert growled.

"You aren't much help to me at the moment," Minette retorted. She looked to Gavroche. "It's only there. Tolbert can watch us."

Gavroche grinned as he took off his coat and spread it over a puddle. "This, then to the sidewalk."

"Charming!" Minette huffed as she stepped on the coat and then onto the curb. "You are not a dandy, Citizen Thenardier. I can see that."

Gavroche scoffed. "There are too many of that sort."

"Good for you," Minette said, balling up the coat and tossing it back at him. "Good evening to all of you gentlemen!"

Gavroche could already feel Tolbert's withering glare even before he could turn his back. "I did not lay a hand on her. You saw that very well."

Tolbert went very red. "I'd have you for that cheek, Thenardier!"

"He saved your life," Frassin pointed out. "You'd better run to the Rue de Pontoise and get the wagon. We'll watch them," he offered.

'He is merely ending a scene,' Gavroche thought as he made a mocking bow to the criminals and then hurried back towards the wine market and the main road. He cast a look over his shoulder at the assailants, wondering if he'd ever seen them before. 'But talk goes further than eyes,' he thought as he walked quickly back to the Rue de Pontoise, now with much more to ponder than he cared for.