“Not at all. I quite enjoy a little drama. Write down your name and address, and I’ll let you know if I hear anything. You’re welcome to come on Saturday night and ask people yourself. You never know. It’s a small community here. We enjoy minding each other’s business.”

I wrote on the back of my American calling-card and handed it to her.

“We may see you on Saturday then,” she said.

“I’m not sure about that. I can’t leave my son in the evening.”

“Bring him with you. We’ll find a closet to put him in.” Then she laughed at my shocked face. “Other parents have done it before now. In my experience, which isn’t great, I confess, babies can survive almost anywhere.”

“Unfortunately mine has already learned to crawl and is turning into an escape artist,” I said. “But thank you all the same. I’ll see when it comes to Saturday.”

She held out her hand to me and pumped mine heartily. “Best of luck to you. I’m sure it will all turn out all right. Things usually do.”

Not for Reynold Bryce, I thought as I walked down the stairs.

Chapter 18

Eighteen

I was in the right part of the city to go immediately to seek out Willie Walcott, but Miss Stein had created a new fear for me—that Sid and Gus’s disappearance might have something to do with my “spot of trouble” in New York. Surely an Italian gang couldn’t have found out about my trip to Paris and sent someone to harm my friends? And even if they’d heard that I was to be sent to Paris, how could they have discovered Sid and Gus’s address? Then I realized that an Italian gang in New York might well have affiliates back in Europe. If they were resourceful and powerful enough they might have infiltrated the New York police, or bribed someone there to report on the doings of Captain Sullivan and his family. Someone could have seen the cable, addressed to my friends. It was entirely possible that they now knew where I was and were watching me, waiting to strike.