I trudged wearily up those flights of stairs and let myself in to the silent apartment. Dust motes danced in slanted evening sunlight. Gus’s shawl still lay over the back of the chair, her painting still half finished, the paint dried out on her palette. I went into their bedroom and opened the wardrobe. There was Sid’s favorite velvet smoking jacket. There was Gus’s fur-lined opera cape. All their clothing was here. They had not gone anywhere intentionally. I realized I should have to go back to Inspector Henri and give him a description of them, and.… I hardly dared to form the thought … have him check against bodies of females that had recently come to the morgue. But surely that wasn’t possible, I said to myself. I was being overly dramatic. Sid and Gus were brave and healthy women. A woman alone might be lured into a dark alley and murdered, but there is safety in numbers. Any miscreant would find them formidable foes.
But that didn’t rule out the possibility of an automobile or carriage accident outside the city. I closed the wardrobe door and paced to the window and back. The sun’s last rays were making the white stone of that half-built dome at the top of the hill glow pink, as if it was on fire. Such a beautiful, inspiring scene. No wonder Gus had wanted to paint it. I turned away again. It was the not knowing that was so hard. I couldn’t just sit here and wait for news. And I certainly didn’t feel like doing the things one should in Paris—enjoying myself at the cafés or the Louvre—while my friends were missing, and also never knowing when I might run into the Hartleys.
“Who else might have any idea where they went, Liam?” I asked my son who was crawling across the wood floor to me with a look of determination on his face. I tried to think whom they might have mentioned in their letters. Gus’s cousin Willie Walcott for a start. I had no idea where I might find him but he was an artist who knew Reynold Bryce. American artists obviously met at the same establishments. One of those would be the American Club but I would only go back there to face the rude porter again as a last resort. And it wasn’t likely that Willie Walcott was a member. It didn’t look like the sort of place that accepted young art students. The Walcotts were a wealthy family, but surely a young artist would find the formality horribly stuffy. There must be places where he would congregate with other art students. Hadn’t they mentioned something about the other bank of the Seine? Perhaps my new artist friends from the café in Pigalle would know. I didn’t think I should go to seek them out this evening. From the little I had seen, the Place Pigalle was not a suitable environment for a woman alone after dark.
I bent to pick up Liam before he knocked over a table with a plant on it. “Time to feed you, my love,” I said. I made him some bread and milk then attempted to nurse him, but he was quickly bored with both, indicating that my friend in the bakery had indeed shared her own milk with him. Ah, well, rich children had wet nurses, didn’t they? I bet the Hartleys had a wet nurse. I shivered as this amusing thought rapidly became serious. To know that Justin Hartley was in the same town compounded the worry that already threatened to engulf me. Surely I was worrying for nothing over that, I told myself. Paris was a big city. It wasn’t as if I was likely to bump into them dining at Maxim’s. They probably weren’t staying long and I’d be too busy with my own matters to want to make the round of the tourist sites at this moment.
I washed Liam and dressed him for bed. He no longer wanted to go down but to play, so we stacked blocks and played peekaboo for a while until I began to feel really hungry myself. My body was now ready to catch up after all those days without food. I went into the kitchen and looked at the remains of the ham, the bread, the eggs. None of them had much appeal and the bread was already too hard. I decided that I would put Liam down for the night and then treat myself to a meal out. The little brasserie at the bottom of the Rue des Martyrs had seemed wholesome enough. I put Liam into his crib, sang to him, and then when he fell asleep I tiptoed out. I didn’t like to leave him but no harm could come to him in a crib he couldn’t climb out of and Madame Hetreau was just downstairs.
Madame Hetreau must have been preparing her own meal because she didn’t leap out on me when I went past. Outside the street was bathed in deep twilight. The brasserie was still almost deserted at this hour. I scanned the menu for something inexpensive. The owner recommended his onion soup. I wasn’t sure that a soup would fill me up but when it came it was encrusted with bubbling cheese and crispy bread—hearty enough for a meal.
“Some wine, madame?” he asked, and not being too confident about the water in this part of the city, I allowed him to bring me an eighth of a liter. Then, already having been daring I ordered a coffee. “But you must have my baba au rhum,” the owner said. He had already plied me with questions as he served and discovered I was newly arrived from America and here alone. I couldn’t quite tell if he was being friendly or had something else in mind, but he brought the dessert and did not let me refuse. It was delicious and laced with rum too. I hadn’t quite counted on the alcohol in that dessert and was feeling pleasantly squiffy when I paid my bill and got up to leave. At that moment the door opened and a couple came in.