Duty calls, I repeated to myself as I went up the stairs. It seemed as if life these days was one long round of duty: to my husband, my child, and now to my friends. I tried to remember if ever there was a time when I was carefree. Not for many years, if ever. How I had envied Sid and Gus their freedom to do exactly what they chose on a whim. Well, at this moment I didn’t envy them, and it was my duty to help them.

After I had fed Liam and we had taken our own midday meal Mary contacted some friends about borrowing a baby carriage. I went to pick it up and then Mary and I took Liam for a stroll along the Seine. Liam was enthralled by the traffic on the river and Mary and I enjoyed the lively Saturday afternoon scene—families picnicking on the grass, lovers walking arm in arm, a brightly decorated pleasure craft going past.

“How I love Paris,” Mary said. “It’s always so full of life and people know how to enjoy themselves. In America work always comes first. Never in France.” She turned to look at me. “Now your friends have the right idea. They have learned how to live for the moment.”

“They have money. It helps,” I said. “Without it I imagine they’d have very different lives.”

Mary paused, looking out across the Seine to the Eiffel Tower. “Do you think you’ll be able to help them?” she asked. “I can’t bear the thought of Sid shut in a French jail. She’d go mad.”

“I’ll do what I can,” I said. “But I can’t possibly do as good a job as the police. I have no access to any evidence they took from Mr. Bryce’s house. What if someone had been blackmailing him? Or he had just broken up with an unsuitable woman? I have no way of finding out those things. In fact I’m beginning to think that their best hope is to leave the country. If Sid dresses properly as a woman again, who would think of stopping them?”

“Unless the police have their names by now. A woman who goes around dressed in male garb does attract attention, you know. I think they are quite safe for the moment in my house.”

“It’s very good of you to take this risk,” I said.

She smiled. “We women have to stick together,” she said.

Chapter 28

Twenty-eight

That evening we dined early and then Mary and I set off for the Steins’ apartment on Rue de Fleurus. I was prepared to take the Métro and then walk but Mary insisted on hiring a cab. “The Métro on Saturday night is full of undesirables,” she said, “and later on, when we return, it will be full of drunks.”