“Well, they don’t like the hoi polloi,” Markov said, pointing. “Watch the back row, Lindy. That’s the second one they’ve yanked out.”

Lindsay narrowed her eyes, shading them from the lights, and watched another young man being hustled away. He was tall, with long, dark hair, dressed in black jeans; he was wearing a red bandanna around his neck.

The collection finally began half an hour late. By then, the activities in the back row had almost ceased. The room was settling, and expectation was in the air. Attention was returning to the runway. Gradually, the room hushed. Lindsay glanced up at that back row once more. Whatever had been the cause for alarm, precautions were still being taken. At the very back of the ranked tiers, and at intervals down the central aisle that led to the photographers’ pit, were police operatives. A solid line of flak-jacketed black-helmeted men ringed the rear tier. She gave a small shiver, then glanced down at her program. Maria Cazarès’s last three designs would punctuate the show. One would be the first shown; one would mark its midpoint; the third would be the collection’s finale.

Lazare, who had always come out just before Maria Cazarès herself and stood next to her while she took her bow, would on this occasion appear last of all, and, of course, alone.

The lights dimmed; there was a sudden and glorious burst of Bach. Lindsay and Markov lifted their faces to the runway. Just before the first model appeared—Quest, swinging along at top speed, glaring at audience and cameras with her customary disdain, half-veiled, hatted, dressed in a magnificent confection of eye-blindingly assertive fuchsia-violet—just before this Lindsay thought she glimpsed the figure of Rowland McGuire. She caught sight of him for an instant, standing in an aisle on the far side, talking to a man who might have been police. Then the music and the movement and the loveliness of this Cazarès dress distracted her attention. A small sigh of collective delight rose from the room. When Lindsay next remembered to look across at the aisle, Rowland was nowhere in sight.

She focused on clothes, and the details of the clothes. She made her customary quick sketches and notes. She felt excitement, nostalgia, sadness, and elation begin to fill the air.

Afterward, when it was all over, both she and Markov would have to admit until the very end that they had heard and sensed nothing. Quest knew; one or two of the other models knew; the directrice backstage knew; the police knew. But this was theater, and the show went on—as Lazare and Maria Cazarès would have wished.

Jean Lazare first saw the young man by Mathilde Duval’s side at eleven-ten. He was first brought to Lazare’s attention by Juliette de Nerval, who explained that he was Madame Duval’s great-nephew, and that the old woman, tearful and nervous, had telephoned her early that morning, insisting that she could not face this sad occasion alone, and saying that her beloved great-nephew had traveled up from the country especially to assist her at this time of trial. Without him Mathilde would not attend, so Juliette had given her reluctant consent She hoped, she said, eyeing Lazare nervously, that she had been correct.