As I walked over to examine the painting I spotted Gus’s favorite black fringed shawl thrown carelessly over the back of the sofa. A book lay open on a side table. Sid’s ebony-and-silver cigarette holder lay across an ashtray. There was a loaf of bread on the table, crumbs on plates, fruit in the fruit bowl, a cheese board with rind lying on it. Everything about the scene indicated that this was a room in which people had been living until very recently. More than that—as if people were in the process of living in it at this moment. I half expected them to come leaping out from that door on the left, laughing at my face. “Surprised you, didn’t we, Molly. How did you like our little trick?”

But then I reasoned that they were playful but not cruel. Surely they would not have put me through something as harrowing as this, knowing I had been ill. And anyway, the concierge had said they were not here. Presumably she had checked before she locked the door last night. And the messenger boy had been sent away with the telegram undelivered. Then I noticed that among the correspondence on the mantelpiece there was another telegram—the one I sent from the dock saying that I was unfit to travel on from Le Havre.

Could it be that they went to meet me there after all? And couldn’t find me for some reason? Perhaps they mistook the name of the pension in which I was staying, or… I broke off this train of thought as I tried to remember… did I actually say I was docking in Le Havre? Surely Daniel had done so in his cable to them. But what if neither of us had spelled it out and they had mistakenly gone to Cherbourg instead? I gave a sigh of relief at having come up with a plausible explanation and went to explore the rest of the apartment. There was a small kitchen to one side of the living room. On the other was a hallway with a large but rather primitive bathroom containing an enormous claw-footed tub, a lavatory, and a bidet. Beyond it was a bedroom with a ridiculously ornate bed and a chest that might have come from Versailles, and finally a small box room containing a narrow bed, made up with fresh linens, and beside it a baby’s crib. Seeing this brought tears to my eyes. They were expecting me. They did know I was coming. I’d have to show this to the hostile concierge woman to prove that I had a right to be here.