January's mother, when the first cases of cholera were rumored in June. But the cottage, given to Agnes by her protector with a sizable annuity-when they had terminated their relationship upon the occasion of his second marriage, had undergone a number of remodelings in the years before Agnes owned it. One of these had included the erection of an outside stairway up the rear wall of the building and the enlargement of one of the attic gable windows to form a door.
That door was kept firmly locked, but the window of the gable beside it had only a catch. He might be perilously close to his forty-first birthday, but January was fairly sure he could make the short scramble across the roof to effect an entrance.
Whether he could do so with sufficient speed to trap his pursuer was, of course, another question.
He counted steps in his mind, tallied details. The possibility that whoever dogged him might be armed tugged uncomfortably; so did the thought that there might be more than one of them.
He carried his medical bag, part of his persona as surgeon, like the tall-crowned beaver hat or the threadbare black wool coat that became a portable bake oven in heat like this. Casually he brought the bag up under his arm and fumbled at the catch like an absentminded man trying to open it while pondering something else, just as he turned into the pass-through that led to the Pellicot yard. The moment he was out of sight of the street he bolted down the narrow space like a spurred horse, tearing off his hat as he ran, clutching the black leather satchel tight. He whipped through the wooden gate and shucked his coat as he darted across the dusty yard, flung himself up the outside stairs as though the Platt-Eye Devil of childhood legends ran behind. At the top he paused only long enough to find his longest-bladed scalpel, then tossed bag and hat and coat on the topmost step to make the quick, careful scramble across twenty feet of roof to the other gable.
With the back edge of the scalpel it was ridiculously easy to Hip the window catch. All these cottages were built the same, and he knew the layout of the Pellicot attic was identical to that of his mother's home. Two chambers and a perilously steep wooden stairway that led down through the cabinet tacked onto the back of the house, a little pantry-cum-warming room opening in its turn into the rear parlor, which served as a dining room. Within moments January crossed through the dining room, through the archway to the front parlor, and flipped the catch on the shutters of the tall French doors that looked onto the street. Stepping out, he closed the shutters silently behind him and rounded the corner of the house into the pass-through again.
"You wanted to have a word with me?"
The woman-girl-who stood peeking cautiously through the gate into the yard spun, her hand flying to her mouth. She blundered back against the fence, catching the gate for support. January said, "There's no way out, that way."
He walked down the passage, more wary that she'd try to bolt past him or that someone else might come in behind, than from any fear that she might be armed. As he got close he saw that her clothing was plain but very well cut. The dark red cotton gown, high waisted and with narrow sleeves made down to the wrists, was the kind a young girl of good family might wear. By the fit of the bust, it hadn't been made for her. The headcloth mandated by law for all black or colored women was- dark red too, but tied as a servant, or a country-bred slave, would tie it. His younger sister Dominique had tried to initiate him into the intricacies of the proper tying of tignons into fanciful, seductive, or outrageous styles in defiance of the law, but without much success. January knew a confection when he saw one, though, and this wasn't a confection. It was a headcloth, the mark of a slave's humility.
"Why did you follow me?"
"Are you M'sieu Benjamin Janvier?" The girl spoke the sloppy Creole French of the plantations, more than half African. Any town mother would have whaled the life out of a girl who used vo for vous, at least any mother who'd have been able to afford that dress.
"That's me." He kept his voice as unalarming as possible. At