The rain had been falling all night, slicking the cobblestones of Rue Saint-Antoine until the whole street gleamed like a black mirror. Émile Corvin—known to Parisian gossip as The Peacock—leaned on his ebony cane, silver tip gleaming in the dim corridor of the Banque Nationale. The vault loomed ahead, a great iron promise, and he felt the thrill ripple up his spine.

He had planned this for months. The night watch bribed with a bottle of absinthe. The clerk’s mistress persuaded to leave a ledger where Émile could find it. Blueprints stolen from the city’s archives, traced in the candlelight of his Montmartre townhouse. Even the date had been carefully picked so the weather could hinder any possible police pursuit. He even paid street urchins to smash windows the week before, so the sound of breaking glass tonight would mean nothing. Every detail arranged, rehearsed, perfected—his magnum opus of larceny.

“Gentlemen,” he told his two hired men, voice as smooth as the silk lining of his cloak, “what we do tonight is not theft. It is poetry. Paris will remember this stanza forever.”

The lockpick knelt, sweat trickling down his temples as the tumblers groaned. Émile inhaled cigarette smoke, watching the vault’s dial turn like a dancer spinning. The cane clicked softly against marble as he paced, the limp in his step turning into rhythm, into ceremony. He imagined the headlines, the whispers in cabarets, and—most deliciously—the scowl on a certain inspector’s lips when news reached him too late.

The final tumbler gave way. A moan of steel, then the vault door’s teeth bared open. Gold gleamed in neat stacks, ledger books fat with secrets, diamonds twinkling thanks to the little light making its way inside. One of the men whistled lowly. Émile laughed, quietly but no less triumphant.

And then—movement. A shadow, framed by rain-smeared glass at the far end of the hall.

Émile froze. His associates muttered, reaching for sacks, but the thief raised his hand with almost tender authority. “Go. Flee. The stage is no longer yours.”

He stepped forward, cane tapping, smile curling as he recognized the silhouette. “Ah. Of course. My nemesis, my confessor, my undoing. I should have known you’d find me, even here, in the womb of my perfection.”

The vault behind him, the inspector before him. Émile’s pulse pounded with dread and something far sweeter. He spread his arms as though baring his chest to an executioner.

“Tell me, Inspector,” he purred, eyes fever-bright, “how? Every piece set, every witness bought, every step rehearsed. And yet—you. Always you.” His breath hitched on a laugh. “What flaw did you read in me this time? Was it my coin dropped on the stairwell? The false ledger planted on my desk? Or do you divine my thoughts before I think them?”

He leaned on the cane, cigarette ash trembling at his lips, eyes locked in hungry surrender.

“Please,” Émile murmured, voice breaking, “delight me with the answer.”