Her watch showed it was almost twenty to eight. A brass band in blue and gold uniforms was just striking up as she arrived at the platform. Cases and carpetbags were being carried onto the train. Inside, passengers were settling down with their newspapers. A boy was drawing with his finger in the filth of the window—a smiley face—until someone told him to stop, and he shrank, scowling, into his seat.

Quarter to eight. Some shouting at the head of the neighboring platform made Genevieve turn and peer. Someone famous had gotten off the train. Newspaper photographers were crowding in from nowhere with a series of flashbulb explosions, along with a gaggle of autograph hunters, fascinated children and other desperate types drawn like moths.

Josephine Baker came clearly into view, mobbed by photographers and fans. Since her triumphant debut in La Revue Nègre at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, she was known to every man and woman in the city. Even those who’d never seen a show in their lives couldn’t possibly have missed her wickedly sensual face and criminally short dress plastered on every kiosk on every street corner in Paul Colin’s poster. Now she strode down the platform with her pet leopard Chiquita on a leash, flashing a white smile, followed by several handsome men who could easily have been minders, managers, lawyers or lovers.

Paul Poiret, concluded Genevieve as she examined Miss Baker’s slinky, gorgeous pink gown. She got on her tiptoes to peer at her feet—pink and silver and sparkling; yes, those shoes could easily be Paolo’s. She must ask him when he arrived. He really ought to be here by now.

Ten to eight and the Baker entourage had moved on and away. Genevieve was trying hard not to fret.

“Madame?” An elderly train guard tapped her on the shoulder. “Perhaps you would like to board now?”

“I’m waiting for someone.”

“Perhaps you would like to wait on the train?”

“No.”

Five to eight and the doors were slamming, each bang sending a shock wave through Genevieve’s body. Her head was filled with disaster scenarios. Zachari lying under the front wheels of a taxi in the Rue Denain within sight of the station, her name on his dying lips. Zachari in a dark alleyway, falling backward with blood streaming from his head while Robert stood over him, the gun still smoking. And perhaps worst of all—Zachari in his workroom, hammering away at Violet de Frémont’s latest pair of shoes, stoically ignoring the clock on the wall.

“Madame?” That guard again. They were the only two people on the platform. Alone with the hiss of steam. The boy in the nearby carriage was drawing another face in the window filth, the mouth turned down in simplified sadness.

“Madame, you must get on the train now.”