She fell asleep with her head resting on her husband’s chest and didn’t wake up when he slid out of the small bed and went up to the plane’s conference room. Gordon Frier and Robert Leavitt were both aboard, and they joined Andrews for an all-nighter. They were all red-eyed when the plane landed in Paris.
They checked into the Hôtel George V, where Bill had caught her coming out of the shower, and were escorted to a penthouse suite that seemed to be his regular quarters. They slept for a few hours and then had a breakfast of cheese and ham brought to their room. At nine-thirty, Bill donned his suit, picked up his briefcase, and kissed her good-bye like a commuter going off to the train station. Jane slipped into jeans and a sweater, applied a little makeup, and put on her most comfortable walking shoes. She stopped at a shop in the lobby and bought a pair of oversize sunglasses.
She walked several blocks away from the hotel, down to the Seine and the Place de l’Alma. She got into a taxi at the foot of the bridge and asked for the Place de l’Opéra. Then she walked west on Boulevard Haussmann until she reached Selina Royce’s address.
There was a fashionable shop on the street level, with exquisite lingerie and beautiful dresses in the window. At another time the shop would have been irresistible, but she was on a very different mission. There was an insignificant doorway to one side, serving the four residential floors above. Each French window led to an iron-railing balcony. Shutters were closed over most of the windows to ensure privacy from the identically styled buildings across the wide street.
She pushed the door open and stepped into a hallway that led to a large and elegant lobby behind the shops. At the end of the lobby were doors opening out onto a garden with a central fountain. To the left were two brass-cage elevators. A uniformed concierge, seated at a desk near the elevators, rose to greet her.
He glanced at her hand, found the wedding ring, and asked “Madame?” His bow indicated that he was waiting to be helpful.
Jane answered in English. “I seem to be lost. Does Arthur Keene live here?”
“Monsieur Keene?” He looked puzzled. If he had known Art, he probably would have broken out in laughter. “No, I don’t think so,” he said politely in heavily accented English. “Perhaps you have the wrong address.”
She showed him the paper she had written the address on. He squinted at it, shrugged, and announced that this was indeed the address she was looking for. “But, unfortunately, no Monsieur Keene.”
“Sorry,” she said. “I must have copied it wrong.” On her way out she stole a glance at the brass postal boxes. Just as Roscoe had told her, Selina Royce’s name filled one of the slots. She went down the hallway and back onto the street. It was a luxury building, apparently catering to those with more money than they needed. Selina would fit that description. She looked around and spotted a café across the street, just a few storefronts down. Jane crossed over, took a seat by the sidewalk, pulled her sweater tight against the fall chill, and settled down for what might be a long wait. If she had guessed correctly, Andrews would be stopping by for a visit. She hoped she was wrong, but the fact that she was watching the doorway meant that she thought she was right.
She ordered a small baguette sandwich and a bottle of water, then sat back to watch. The busy thoroughfare, with its glamorous pedestrian traffic, presented constant distractions, and it wasn’t easy to keep her attention focused. An hour passed. Maybe he wasn’t coming. Maybe the rendezvous was all in her imagination. She ordered coffee and sipped it slowly; then when the waiter seemed to hover, she added a pastry. It was past midday, and there had been no sign of her husband. People had gone in and come out of the doorway, a middle-aged man and two women who were too old to fit a profile of Selina.
Jane began to feel conspicuous. She was starting her third hour at the café and was the only one using the outdoor tables. She paid her bill, got up, and found a store window directly across the boulevard from the doorway. For another hour she pretended to window-shop, always keeping the entrance in sight. A woman came out, this one more in keeping with Selina’s age and general description. The woman began walking toward the opera house. Jane was tempted to follow her. Maybe it was Selina, on her way to a meeting with Bill. Very possible! Why had she assumed that he would visit her apartment? But on closer inspection, the girl seemed wrong. Tall and skinny rather than statuesque, and probably too young to have been a news anchor eight years ago. Jane gambled, and stayed put. She had lost confidence that her husband would be coming to the apartment. What had seemed to be a perfect plan now seemed ridiculous.
Maybe she should go back to the lobby and simply ask for Selina Royce. “Whom shall I say is calling?” the concierge would certainly ask. And then tell him, “Mrs. William Andrews.” But then what would the other woman do? Invite her up for coffee? That didn’t seem likely. What was more probable was that she would send word that she was not at home and then call Bill to warn him off. She wandered back to the café and sat in the chair she had abandoned. The waiter probably recognized her, but he gave no sign of it as he took her order for a glass of wine.
She began another vigil, sipping the wine and nibbling on a dish of peanuts. The young woman she had almost followed returned, far too quickly to have been at a midafternoon liaison.
A taxi maneuvered to the curb a few doors away from her, attracting her attention because of the horn blasts from the cars it cut off. She had almost turned away when William Andrews stepped out. He leaned into the window to pay his fare and, without looking either left or right, bounded into the doorway of Selina Royce’s building. She swallowed hard. Her worst fears were playing out in front of her.
What now? Jane hadn’t planned that far. He was inside with his mistress. Should she charge across the street, push past the guard, and then confront them together? She had a delicious moment thinking of catching the two of them together, but then she realized how ridiculous she would look, standing in the doorway and screaming, “J’accuse!” Especially if he was simply dropping off a check. She decided to wait and ordered another glass of wine.
Now the waiting became unbearable. Half an hour was more than enough time for him to pay hush money. As her wait drifted toward an hour, she did battle with the images of what might be going on in the apartment. She couldn’t believe that her husband could be making love to another woman. Why would he keep a mistress a continent away? But, of course, he flew to Europe several times a month. With his resources, Paris was just the next town.
She fantasized about other cities. Was this the only one, or did he keep women in other places that he frequented? She stopped just short of entertaining the notion that he might be an international philanderer. But it wasn’t easy to sit watching the doorway he had entered, realizing that nearly two hours had passed with no sign of his return.
She felt a lump in her throat when he appeared at the doorway, glanced around furtively, and then rushed off toward the opera house. He could find a taxi to take him back to the critical meeting that had been his excuse for flying across the Atlantic. Or he might just go back to the hotel and await her return from her museum jaunt.
She realized she was crying.