“It’s strange on what small coincidences our fate hangs,” Gus said.
On that profound note Mary Cassatt came back into the room.
Twenty-four
“I thought I’d stay out of it and give you time to explain everything to your guest,” Mary Cassatt said. She came over to us and pulled up one of the curly-backed gilt chairs beside me. “A horrible business, is it not, Mrs. Sullivan?”
“The worst,” I said.
“They tell me that you are a real and proper detective,” Miss Cassatt said, giving me an encouraging smile. “We’re all hoping that you’ll be able to help them.”
“Neither real nor very proper, I’m afraid,” I said. “I gave up my business when I married…”
“See, Sid, what we were talking about earlier today,” Mary Cassatt turned to Sid, wagging a finger at her. “Marriage is the biggest restrictor of women’s freedom and progress and creativity. Look at Berthe Morisot. She was producing the most exciting paintings, then she married Manet’s brother and then what?” She turned back to me. “Sorry, Mrs. Sullivan. As you can see we were discussing this very subject earlier today. Please do continue. Even if you’ve given up your profession, you still possess the skills, don’t you?”
“I don’t really see what I can do,” I said. “I won’t be allowed access to anything they found in that room and the police certainly won’t share with me what line their investigation has been taking, if in fact they are pursuing a line of investigation.”
“Molly thinks he must have known the killer,” Sid said. “He was sitting in his chair and he would have been standing if taken by surprise by an intruder.”
“The inspector said there were no signs of a break-in and no signs of a struggle,” I said, “which probably means that Bryce let in the murderer himself through the front door, given that his housekeeper had gone out. They came back to his studio. Bryce sat while they talked and then was caught completely by surprise and stabbed.”
“There was an open window,” Sid said. “Someone could have entered and left that way as I did with relative ease.”
That was true.
“I’ll go and have a chat with the housekeeper if she’s still there and the police have gone,” I said. “Maybe I can get her to tell me something. And then there are Bryce’s fellow artists.” I turned to Miss Cassatt. “I know that there was a lot of ill feeling between the Impressionists and those coming after them. I’ve met several of the new generation—a young man called Picasso from Spain who seems quite a violent type.”
“Ah, yes. Strange little man. He has some talent if only he’d paint some real pictures.” Mary Cassatt laughed.
“And I met your cousin, Sid.”
“You have a cousin here too?” Mary Cassatt asked, looking inquiringly at Sid.
“I just discovered him. He’s also a painter. His name is Maxim Noah.”
“I don’t think I know of him,” Mary said. “Another of the new breed?”
“He showed me his paintings,” I said, without further comment.
Sid’s face lit up. “Isn’t he wonderful? So full of passion and his paintings are so expressive. Gus and I were talking about bringing him back to New York for an exhibition. He has no family here any longer, you know. My mother would be thrilled.”
“Maybe we could ask him to help us,” Gus suggested. “He is obviously right at the heart of the artistic community, and perhaps he also mixes with fellow Jews.”
“Reynold Bryce had certainly made himself unpopular with both communities,” Miss Cassatt said. “Artists and Jews. As you know he ran the most influential exhibition in the city every summer, the one all the foreign buyers come to. And he had virtually shut out all those young painters who call themselves Fauves or Modernists. To him art had to be representational. I can’t say I disagree with him. But unlike him I admit that we are in a new century, a century of automobiles and electricity and telephones. There must always be progress.”
“So do you think it’s possible that a young painter who was thwarted by Bryce would come to kill him?” Gus asked.
“You were thwarted by him, my dear,” Mary Cassatt said. “Did your thoughts turn to murder?”
Gus laughed. “Of course not, although Sid was so angry that…” And she turned to look at Sid.
“I went to give him a piece of my mind, not a piece of steel in his gut. There is a difference,” Sid said.
“But some of those young artists are not so controlled,” I pointed out. “Picasso was itching to fight a duel and complained he hadn’t shot his pistol for several days.”
“Ah, duels. They are different,” Mary Cassatt said. “Among the young men of Paris they are a major form of sport. They will fight duels on the least little excuse. Usually over a woman, but an insult to a painting might do as well.”