Rue de la Manticore

Rue de la Manticore is a nearly unfindable Paris alley whose number 3 becomes the designated meeting place in the trap set for Belbo. When Casaubon follows him there, the street’s cramped geography and the bookshop’s occult stock make the promised address feel less like a point on a map than an entrance into the network closing around them.

An Address Used to Lure Belbo

After a threatening telephone call, Belbo is told that his predicament can be resolved if he cooperates and reveals the Templars’ map. Milan is described as too exposed, so the caller proposes neutral territory: Librairie Sloane, at number 3 Rue de la Manticore, at noon on Wednesday, June 20. A bearded man Belbo had met on the train will direct him to others, and the matter will supposedly be settled in time for the summer solstice. The address is repeated as easy to remember, a striking assurance attached to a place that proves difficult to locate.

The invitation disguises coercion as courtesy and choice. Belbo is already compromised by the train affair and is warned that his identity as the unidentified occupant of seat number 45 could be reported to the police. The Paris rendezvous is therefore not an ordinary appointment: it offers a way out only on the condition that he enter the callers’ territory and submit to their demands.

The Alley and Librairie Sloane

Casaubon travels to Paris because he cannot abandon Belbo, though he is uncertain what he can do to help. A taxi driver cannot find Rue de la Manticore in the guides and leaves him at the corner. Casaubon discovers that it is a narrow alley near the old Bièvre, behind Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre; the taxi cannot enter, and the passage is scarcely wider than a train aisle.

Number 3 identifies Librairie Sloane, although there is no visible number 1 or 2—or any other street number. The grimy shop is lit by a single bulb. Its display includes pendulums, dusty incense boxes, small amulets described as Oriental or South American, and tarot decks among its books. Inside, volumes crowd the walls and floor; an apparently decrepit bookseller sits behind a ledger while the other customers handle dusty, mostly unbound books without seeming likely to buy them. The shop’s mixed stock and disorder make the address feel tailored to the occult traffic surrounding the rendezvous.

Casaubon’s Failed Search

After the two customers leave, Casaubon asks the bookseller for Aglie, suggesting that he may instead be known as Rakosky or Soltikoff. The bookseller reacts with apparent shock, remarks on the curious names of Casaubon’s friends, and says that his partner may know the person being sought. He offers Casaubon a chair in the back, then makes a quiet telephone call.

Casaubon recognizes the danger in staying. He leaves abruptly, crosses another alley, and reaches the Seine, realizing that the people at the shop may now know he has arrived. Rue de la Manticore thus fails as a place of rescue or explanation: Belbo has been summoned there by a threat, while Casaubon’s attempt to locate Aglie ends with exposure and renewed uncertainty. The alley’s obscure address, the shop’s occult wares, and the bookseller’s call turn the geography of Paris into part of the plot’s machinery of concealment and pursuit.