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.