They continued to discuss the matter, suggesting and discarding ideas until they had thrashed out a plan that might work. They all agreed Annette and Hélène would be safest in Paris, where they could get lost in the bustle of the city, but there was no question of using the house in the Avenue Ste Anne.

‘That’s the first place he would look,’ said Pierre.

‘To her brother? He lives in Versailles. Would he take her in?’

‘Same thing,’ Pierre said. ‘Too obvious. We need somewhere quite different.’

‘I have an apartment,’ Agathe said quietly. ‘You could go there.’

‘You have?’ Annette cried in amazement. ‘Where? When did you get it?’

‘You remember my sister Fleur, Annette? She died several months ago and Madame gave me two days off to go to Paris to settle her affairs. Well, she had many more affairs than I knew about. She had been left very comfortably off by her husband, with property and some money in the bank, and when she died she left it all to me, including the apartment where you and I stayed. No one here knows anything about it, so that’s where you can go. You’d be quite safe. No one would be looking for you in that part of the town.’

‘But who lives there now?’ asked Annette. ‘I mean, haven’t you let the apartment?’

‘Not yet,’ replied Agathe. ‘Because of the property, the proving of the will took the lawyer, Monsieur Colet, longer than he had thought, but it’s all done now and everything is transferred into my name. I can write a note to him and he’ll give you the key; you can stay as long as is necessary. And don’t worry about money, there’s plenty for now.’

‘If you leave very early in the morning,’ Pierre suggested, ‘you can take the footpath to the village and catch the first train to Paris before anyone here realises that you’ve gone. I’ll come with you and once I’ve seen you safely onto the train, I’ll come straight back. No one will know I’ve even been out.’

‘Suppose someone sees us leaving?’ worried Annette.

‘That’s a risk we’ll have to take,’ replied Pierre, ‘but it isn’t a big one. It’s very cold these winter mornings and still dark for a while. No one gets up early, as they might in the summer. They stay in bed and keep their curtains drawn against the cold outside. To catch that first train we shall have to leave in the dark. No one will see us go.’

It was agreed that this was the best plan they could come up with. All of them were fond of Hélène, had known her from childhood, and they were all prepared to risk helping her escape marriage with an abusive husband. Now all they had to do was convince Hélène.

Annette carried the plan up to Hélène when she attended her at bedtime.

‘It will be easy enough,’ she explained. ‘While it’s still dark we’ll take the back stairs down to the kitchen and leave the house that way. It is only Miss Louise’s window that looks out over the stable yard, and she is never one to leave her bed before she has to.’