“I think we’re in danger of being trampled if we stand here,” I said. I noticed he was carrying a plate piled with vol-au-vents, oysters, cheeses in one hand, and a glass of champagne in the other. “Here, let me take your glass before you find the contents of your plate plastered to your front.”
He grinned, handed me the glass, then followed me to a less crowded corner. “It is extra full tonight, isn’t it?” he said. “Word got around that Vollard was coming and everyone wants to get into his good books.”
“Why is that?”
“His exhibition is the one that counts.”
“More than Reynold Bryce’s?” I asked.
A spasm of pain or annoyance, I couldn’t really tell which, crossed his face. “Well, Reynold won’t be holding an exhibition this year, will he? Vollard will be the only show in town this summer.”
“Will you have any paintings in it?”
“No. I’m not, shall we say, in fashion, so it seems. One is expected to hurl paint at a canvas and paint a rhinoceros with a baby sitting on it if one wants to be noticed. I simply can’t do that. That’s why Reynold’s death was such a shock. At least I could usually count on being part of his shows.”
“I’m glad to see you here,” I said.
“You are? Why?”
“I got the impression the other day that his death had really upset you. So it’s good to see you’re out and about in company and not moping at home.”
“It was a bit of a shock, that’s all.” His face colored again. “I mean, who would have expected old Reynold…”
“I don’t think he expected it either,” I said. “Do you have any idea who might have killed him? What is the general opinion among your crowd at the cafés?”
“We heard it was a Jewish fanatic. Why, did you hear something different?”
“I’m a newcomer here,” I said. “I don’t know anybody. But obviously one is intrigued when a prominent member of an expatriate community is murdered. I wondered if there was more to it.”
“I think a Jewish fanatic is the most likely,” he said carefully. “He did say some absolutely damning things about Jews and what should happen to them. Tact was never Reynold’s stong point. If he didn’t like something, he said so, and loudly. Someone once commented that he really thought that God created him and then He rested.”
“You were a close friend of his, weren’t you?”
Again the pink cheeks. “Not really,” he said. “When I first arrived he was kind to me. Took me under his wing, you know. And he was decent about including my paintings when he had a showing. But he was like a little boy, really—easily bored. If he found a new toy, he dropped the old one and forgot about it.”
“Like Pauline?” I asked.
He looked startled. “Pauline? How did you hear about her?”
“Some of the people here mentioned her. They said Reynold Bryce had broken with her because she was too old.”
He looked amused now. “Is that what they said? How funny. Anyway that was ages ago.”
“So had he found a new toy more recently?” I asked.
“So one heard.”
“A who or a what?”
“Both, I think I can safely say. But I’d prefer not to discuss this subject any further, if you don’t mind. I find it highly distasteful, especially with one who didn’t even know him. And I would like to eat my food before it gets cold.” He looked around. “What happened to my glass?”
“I put it down on that table,” I said. “One of the waiters must have cleared it away.”
“Damn. I’d better go and get another one. I need a steady supply of alcohol to keep me going.”
With that he turned his back on me. Interesting, I thought. Willie Walcott had been that new toy once. Had he been angry at being cast aside? Or had there been more new toys since him? And Willie was impoverished, so I had heard. Had he been relying on some kind of financial help from Reynold Bryce? And if Reynold had cut off that help … I paused, trying to picture the innocent-looking Mr. Walcott plunging a kitchen knife into Bryce’s chest. It didn’t seem likely, and yet I had learned by now that murderers are often the most unlikely of people.
I wondered who might know about the details of Reynold Bryce’s private life and be willing to talk about it. I tried moving about the room, invisible, and listening in with the hope of overhearing gossip, but I didn’t hear his name mentioned once. This was the Parisian art world of today, I gathered. Reynold Bryce belonged to yesterday and as such he had become irrelevant. But one thing I could surmise—they didn’t think that one of their own might be responsible or they’d have been discussing it.
I tried infiltrating groups and asking questions but at any gathering where people know each other intimately they showed no interest in an outsider. I was looking for Mary, hoping that we could make an early exit when I felt someone take my hand. It was that rather frightening Creole man, Vollard.
“You are looking for something, madame,” he said. “And you do not find it. A lost lover, maybe? A new lover?”
I laughed. “I am happily married, monsieur.”