Reaching the rue de Rennes, he was astonished to find that no search for Gini would be necessary. Turning the corner, he saw her waiting on the sidewalk opposite Helen’s apartment building, standing in the same place he had glimpsed her the night before. When she caught sight of him, she ducked back into a doorway. He followed.

To see her was like a blow direct to the heart. It did not occur to him for one second that she could have any purpose here except to see him—but that supposition proved wrong.

She claimed she was there to watch an apartment; she was there to work, and she would prefer it if he would leave. Another man might have argued, but Pascal, who could read her eyes, did not. He turned away, collected Marianne, and left with her, hand in hand.

As Pascal and his daughter rounded the far corner and passed out of sight, Gini watched their departure from the doorway of the apartment building opposite.

Her vision blurred. She retreated a little farther back. When she was calmer, she examined her watch.

It was nine thirty-five when Pascal disappeared around the corner. At nine-forty she finally saw Star for the first time.

He drew up opposite in a large black Mercedes sedan, parked in a restricted zone, and climbed out. He looked up and down the boulevard. Just prior to entering Mathilde Duval’s apartment building, he consulted his watch.

Chapter 18

AT TEN ON THAT Wednesday morning, Rowland still believed that this story might take weeks, at best days, to unravel. By ten-thirty he saw just how wrong he was. The countdown had already begun; by the time he realized that, it was just thirty minutes before the start of the Cazarès couture show, and he feared he was too late.

At ten that morning he was on the telephone, still trying to locate Gini, who was not in her room—he had already been down twice to check—who was not in the restaurant, or the lobby, and who was not replying when she was paged. This desk clerk, the third to whom he had spoken, said he wasn’t certain, but he thought he had seen her go out.

“When?” Rowland said. “What time?”

Eight, maybe eight-thirty, the desk clerk said, sounding harassed.

Rowland slammed down the telephone. He stared at the wall. He was at once certain that only one person could explain this sudden disappearance: it had to be Pascal Lamartine. It couldn’t be work: if it had been work, Gini would have informed him of where she was going, and why. So it had to be Lamartine. He began pacing, then stopped: of course—he saw it now. They must have contacted each other the previous night. Had Lamartine telephoned—perhaps even seen Gini then? Rowland watched the hours he had spent alone, since last seeing Gini, open up. Hour upon hour, and every minute of those hours, was suddenly filled with doubts.

During the time he had spent in conversation with Juliette de Nerval, Gini, as agreed, had returned to her new room here. Rowland, hastening back, had had a brief conversation with her in the doorway of that room, shortly before nine o’clock. Rowland had known he might have gained admittance to that room, and he had wanted admittance—passionately. Watching her pale face, and her wide, dark eyes, Rowland had thought that one touch, one word, might make her relent. Fighting the desire he felt, respecting something in her eyes, sensing that this issue might be forced on another occasion but not now, he had finally withdrawn, and spent much of the night arguing with himself as to whether that restraint had been correct.