Lulu sipped her brandy. “Let me think a minute.” Absently, she ate another petal from the rose and glanced again at Betterson, a man she’d rarely given a thought to. Then, inadvertently, she caught Genevieve’s eye. Something rather like panic had come over Genevieve. Her hand had flown to her throat, her movements were edgy and nervous and all in all she looked as though she wanted to escape. But the room was crowded—there was barely standing room, let alone a clear passage to the door.

“Very mysterious,” said Lulu.

“What? Do I know that one?” Marcel was rustling through his music sheets.

A tall man in a cream suit had appeared at Genevieve’s table. He was talking to Betterson, and Betterson was laughing at some remark he’d made, trying to include Genevieve in the joke. Genevieve was ashen-faced.

“Well, well,” muttered Lulu. “Genevieve and Guy Monteray…what’s all this?”

“Lulu?”

“All right, Marcel. I’m going to try something new. Forget the set list. Play that slow old Lyonnaise number you like so much, and keep playing it until I’m done.”

Marcel nodded, and his fingers touched down on the piano keys, rippling back and forth. The melody was melancholy and complex. Instead of singing, Lulu started to speak across the music in a dry, rasping voice that made the bar fall instantly quiet.

“On the Rue de la Huchette stands a hotel called Sadness,” she began. “The rooms are small and dark and the people stay inside them all day to hide from the sun. The owner beats his wife every night and then goes to the next room to make love to a girl who likes men and money and cherries, but can’t hold on to anything in her life. While the owner makes love to her, the girl can hear his wife crying through the wall. She moans louder to block out the sound. The wife hears the girl’s moans of pleasure and this makes her cry all the more. It’s very loud at night in the Hotel called Sadness.”

“Why did you run away?” Monteray whispered into Genevieve’s ear. Genevieve darted a look across the table at Betterson, hoping he would rescue her. But he was watching Lulu.

“Women don’t usually run out on me quite so literally. I had rather thought you were enjoying yourself. I know I was…”

“There’s someone in the bathtub at the Hotel called Sadness,” spoke Lulu. “She’s been lying there a long time. First there was a lot of steam, and some of it was her breath. But now the steam has gone and the water is cold…”

Genevieve tried not to let herself think about that gun. Perhaps it wasn’t real, she told herself. Just a stupid prank.