Then, suddenly, it was over. The second policeman slammed the passenger door; the first folded up the documents and handed them back.

“Under the circumstances…”

He left the sentence unfinished, but Bertrand understood; he felt a dizzying relief. They were letting him off—not even a fine! He was safe. The second officer was already returning to his car. The first was also turning away, then stopped.

“Cazarès…” he said.

Bertrand tensed.

“You’ve worked there long?”

“Four years.”

There was a pause. Bertrand stared at the policeman uncertainly, trying to read his expression. It looked less officious now, almost reverential, he judged.

“Then you must have met her—Cazarès herself?”

Certainly reverential now, even awed. Bertrand relaxed.

He was off the hook. This question was familiar enough. He encountered it at dinners, at parties, at business meetings in Paris, in London, in Rome, in New York. It had its uses, working for a legend: little ripples of the glamour associated with Cazarès spread outward, touching all those who worked for her, whether executives or seamstresses. He smiled. He said that he had seen Cazarès, of course, on those celebrated occasions twice a year when she came out of seclusion to take her applause at the end of her couture shows. He paused, lowering his tone to one more confidential: and, he added, he had had the privilege of meeting her. He had been introduced, two years before, at a reception in her honor, by Jean Lazare himself.

“You mean you actually spoke to her?”

“A brief exchange, yes. Mademoiselle Cazarès is very shy, as you know, very sensitive. She didn’t remain for that reception, of course, so I was exceptionally fortunate. A woman who dreads her own fame—an artist—so beautiful. An encounter I’ll never forget…”

The lies tripped from his tongue; they were well rehearsed, for they were company policy, and he had given this same answer, or variations upon it, on many occasions before. It had to be made known that while Cazarès was shrouded in mystery, she did function, she did continue to design. Other senior Cazarès personnel might choose to stress her appearance, or her charm, or her degree of inspiration: Bertrand, who had never spoken to Cazarès, had always found that tortured artistry went down best.

“An extraordinary woman,” the policeman said now, and shook his head.

Bertrand solemnly agreed, but offered no further information, since the more extraordinary aspects of Maria Cazarès—and he knew of them only by deduction in any case—could be imparted to no one, not even his own wife.

The incident was over. The police car departed. Bertrand, still shaken, returned to his Mercedes, smoked a cigarette to calm himself, and decided that he would not, under the circumstances, mention this little incident to Monsieur Lazare.

By the time he reached the courtyard of the beautiful seventeenth-century hôtel particulier which Lazare had purchased for the Cazarès business headquarters fifteen years before, he was nervous again. Lazare’s dislike of being kept waiting, and his temper when delayed, were notorious. He prepared himself for the tongue-lashing that would certainly come. He pushed past the doorman, waved the elevator attendant aside, made for the stairs, and broke into a run as soon as he was out of sight.