One morning, Boulatruelle, while on his way as was his wont, to his work, and possibly also to his ambush, a little before daybreak caught sight, through the branches of the trees, of a man, whose back alone he saw, but the shape of whose shoulders, as it seemed to him at that distance and in the early dusk, was not entirely unfamiliar to him. Boulatruelle, although intoxicated, had a correct and lucid memory, a defensive arm that is indispensable to anyone who is at all in conflict with legal order.

“Where the deuce have I seen something like that man yonder?” he said to himself. But he could make himself no answer, except that the man resembled someone of whom his memory preserved a confused trace.