“So if a painter challenged Reynold Bryce to a duel but he laughed and refused, might the challenger feel affronted and come to stab him?” I asked.
“Unlikely. The heat of the moment would have passed. The challenger would shrug and go his merry way. None of them takes anything too seriously for too long.”
“Miss Cassatt, do you know of any particular painters who have crossed swords with Reynold Bryce recently?” I asked.
“I am afraid I am a trifle out of touch these days.” Miss Cassatt gave an apologetic smile then reached to pour herself a cup of coffee from the tray. “An aging has-been. I was never allowed into the cafés with them, of course.”
“Why ever not?” I asked.
“Women are not part of café society in Paris. At least, not respectable women. Artists’ models are sometimes permitted.”
“I’ve been into several cafés,” I said. “There was never any indication that I was about to be flung out.”
“Ah, but you’re a novelty. A visitor from abroad. Should you want to join them on a regular basis I can assure you it would be different.”
“Perhaps I could go and ask more questions. You have not heard any gossip about anyone else with whom Reynold Bryce might have fallen out? Outside the art fraternity, I mean.”
Mary Cassatt shrugged. “Again that is the problem with being a woman. Bryce’s life revolved around the American Club where they don’t admit women. He was quite chummy with the American ambassador and went to diplomatic functions—he was the poster boy of American art, of course; unlike me, hardly recognized in my own country. So I really can’t tell you too much about his private life. All I can say is I was never invited to dinner with him.”
“What about women?” Sid asked suddenly. “Don’t they say cherchez la femme?”
“I haven’t heard of a mistress,” Mary said. “His wife is still back in America—amicably separated all these years, so one understands, but not divorced. But I was once at a gathering in which someone said, ‘If Bryce is coming, lock up your daughters.’”
“So he had a bit of a roving eye,” I said.
“What one might call a roué,” Mary said, “Which of course is quite acceptable in Paris. Their sexual mores are certainly not ours. Any man who doesn’t have a mistress is considered odd, even a pansy.”
“His housekeeper will know about that,” I said. “If I can get her to talk. Is there anyone else who might be conversant with his personal life?”
Mary Cassatt shook her head, then said, “Of course there was his good friend Monet, but he has now forsaken Paris for his home in Normandy. I understand that Bryce often used to spend his weekends out there. It really is a delightful spot, so I’m told. I’ve never been invited personally.”
“I’ll write to Monsieur Monet and ask if I might visit him,” I said. “Old friends confide secrets to each other, don’t they?”
“I also understand that they had fallen out recently over Reynold Bryce’s anti-Semitic rants. He was always prejudiced, of course, but recently he had become so extreme and outspoken against the attempts to reinstate Dreyfus. It’s as if these attempts to give him back his old rank in the army have lit a flame under anyone with anti-Semitic leanings. All that fraternity feel that Jews are gaining too much power in banking and commerce in Europe and must be stopped. Ridiculous really when you realize that most Jews in the city are poor immigrants who have arrived from Russia or Poland with nothing and only want a safe place to feed their families.”
“If it was a Jewish rabble-rouser who had come to confront Bryce, he would certainly not have let him in,” Gus said. “He’d have had to climb in through a window and somebody might have seen that.”
“I don’t think there would be much point in my asking questions among the Jewish communities here,” I said. “If there are certain places where Jewish immigrants gather regularly. You’d know that, Sid.”
“I went to several synagogues but it would be no use, Molly. They’d never confide anything to an outsider. They didn’t even want to talk to me, a fellow Jew.” She got up from the sofa and walked across the room, pulling back the drape to peer out. “But I could have given it another try. I wish there was something I could do. I hate being cooped up here.”
“I trust I am not making your stay too unpleasant,” Mary said dryly.
We laughed. “You are being wonderful to us, Mary,” Gus said. “We can never thank you enough for taking us in and we only hope you are not compromising yourself by having us here.”
“Speaking of which,” Mary said. “The first order of business would be to send for Mrs. Sullivan’s things and have her move in with us.”