by Rhys Bowen
Mary shook her head. “And to think I had a quiet life until you ladies descended on me.” But she was smiling.
As we came down the steps and out into the night air I opened my purse. “I did manage to pull off one thing,” I said. And I held up a champagne glass.
“You stole a glass from the Steins? Why?”
“It was Willie Walcott’s glass. I offered to hold it for him, but I hid it behind a curtain until he went for another one. Then I tipped out the remainder of the champagne and stuffed it into my purse. So if the police want to match fingerprints, we now have a set of Willie Walcott’s.”
A worried frown came over her face. “You really suspect Willie of doing this horrible deed?”
“He had a lot to lose. If I can just find out from the housekeeper when she saw him last at Bryce’s apartment and what she overheard between them. I imagine she would be the type that listens at keyholes. Whether she’ll confide in me is another matter. I may have to suggest that the police suspect her.…”
“I’m glad I only paint pictures for a living,” Mary said as she hailed a cab. “Such a peaceful occupation compared to yours.”
Twenty-nine
I was awoken to the sound of bells, ringing out all over the city. I lay, watching stripes of early sunlight on my wall, listening first to the sweet chime of a nearby bell, then the deep reverberating hum of more important bells until the whole city seemed to be enveloped in sound. Liam stirred, turned over, and pulled himself up on the side of his crib.
“Ma!” he said. “Ma ma ma ma.”
“Liam, you’re standing,” I exclaimed. And almost talking too, I realized. I felt guilty that I was spending so much time apart from him and had missed his acquiring of two new skills. I picked him up.
“Can you say, ‘Mama’?” I asked.
He looked pleased with himself. “Ma ma ma ma ma,” he repeated.
“How about ‘Dada’?”
He looked concerned. Obviously the word stirred a memory of a man he hadn’t seen recently. “Dada will be so proud when he sees Liam can stand and talk and maybe even walk soon.” As I said the words I felt a terrible tug at my heart. How long before we saw Daniel again? Was he safe? When would I hear from him?
After I had taken care of Liam’s needs and had a quick breakfast of croissant and apricot jam I changed into a pair of Sid’s trousers, tucked my unruly hair into a beret that Sid had bought as a souvenir, and set off, carrying a stepladder that Celeste used to dust the picture rails. I didn’t think the outfit would convince anybody that I was a young male gardener, but in fact I didn’t pass anyone as I walked down the Rue François Premier. Mary had surmised that Parisians were either at mass or sleeping in late on Sunday mornings and this seemed to be the case. I reached the circle with the fountain at its center and made my way to the little garden outside Reynold Bryce’s window, unlatched the gate, and slipped inside. Still nobody was in sight, unless someone was observing me from an upstairs window. That thought had never occurred to me before—had the police checked who lived in Reynold Bryce’s building? Did he get on well with his neighbors? Did he get on too well with a neighbor’s wife?
I set up the stepladder behind the lilac bush so that I would be unseen by all but the most prying eyes. I was glad that the shutters on the downstairs windows were hooked open. One less step to gain entry. I was about to go up the stepladder to the most likely of the windows when I heard the light click of footsteps approaching. Immediately I turned my back away from the street and pretended to be pruning the lilac bush. The footsteps stopped.
“Shame on you,” a scratchy voice said in French. I half-turned to see a shrunken old woman in that fearsome black favored by French widows. She clutched a missal and wore a lace mantilla, proving she had just been to mass. She wagged a finger at me. “It is wrong to work on the Lord’s day, young man. If your master makes you do it, then shame on him.”
Then she set off again, light feet tapping on the deserted sidewalk.
I let out a huge sigh of relief then quickly went up the ladder and out of sight into the lilac branches. Twigs and leaves got into my way, but I pushed through them until I was level with the base of the window. It was a push-up sash and it appeared that either the wood of the frame had buckled or the paint had blistered, not allowing it to close completely. The blinds were drawn so I couldn’t see into the room beyond. I removed the kitchen knife I had purloined from Celeste’s kitchen and eased it under the frame. Then I levered as hard as I could. I felt the window judder but didn’t move. I jiggled as I levered, felt the catch give and the window begin to move upward. A little more effort and it was wide enough open for me to crawl inside.
I pushed the blind aside, closed the window after me, and stepped into the darkened room. With all the blinds closed it was like stepping into the depths of the ocean. The room had that closed-up, musty smell, tinged with the odors of oil paint, linseed oil, and turpentine, with which I had now become familiar. I moved cautiously to the door, which was closed, opened it and listened. Complete silence. I ventured forth and moved through a dining room, a library, a parlor before I found myself in the front foyer where I had spoken with Inspector Henri. I was about to open one of the doors leading from the foyer when I realized that I had failed the most basic test of breaking and entering—I was not wearing gloves. Hastily I felt for a pocket handkerchief, but I realized that these were not my clothes and thus I had no handkerchief with me. So I used the fabric of my shirt to hold the door handle. This door led to a hallway with two bedrooms leading from it. I looked around them, opened a top drawer, and extracted a handkerchief monogrammed RB and used it to wipe the drawer pull clean. I didn’t think anyone would have counted the handkerchiefs at this point and Reynold Bryce no longer needed it.
Thus armed with the handkerchief to prevent fingerprints, I now looked around the room. It was a typical man’s room—silver-backed brushes on the dresser, various jars of pomade and even hair dye, showing that he was more than a little vain, but no other adornments. No photographs, no letters; nothing to give a clue as to who lived there, or what kind of person he was—except there were good paintings on the walls. After going through a few rooms I realized that Reynold Bryce had a fine collection of Impressionist art. Worth a pretty penny, I decided. Enough to make his wife decide to kill him off? Had the police checked whether she might be in France herself? Then I decided that she would not have stabbed her husband if she’d come over to kill him. Stabbing is always too risky. Unless you strike at exactly the right spot the victim may well live. The knife could hit against one of the ribs and not penetrate far enough. Or a strong person could wrestle the knife away before one has time to deliver the blow. It takes skill or luck to kill with a knife. Which did Bryce’s murderer have?
I prowled the other rooms, even pulled out drawers in his desk, but I didn’t know what I was looking for. Surely important papers would have been removed? Last of all I located the kitchen, now looking neat but forlorn with its bare scrubbed pine table and pans hanging above the stove. An unpleasant smell of stuffiness and rotting vegetables lingered in the air. It appeared that the housekeeper had only taken the good stuff yesterday. I opened a door that led to a pantry with well-stocked shelves, and beyond it a dark square of hallway leading to a pitifully small room that must have been occupied by the housekeeper. All that remained now was an unmade bed, a thin upright chest, and a wardrobe with the door hanging open to reveal no clothes inside. She had definitely taken all her things yesterday. I wondered whether the police would mind. Then I made my way back through the dining room to the room into which I had entered, Reynold Bryce’s studio. I didn’t want to betray my presence by pulling up any of the blinds so I groped about on the wall until I discovered an electric light switch. Thank heavens he was a modern man and I didn’t need to light the gas.
Harsh light now bathed the room. I saw that it was barely furnished. There was a long unpolished wooden table on which painting equipment still st
ood. Beside it a captain’s chair, in which presumably Reynold Bryce died. At the far end a blue velvet drape was hung as a backdrop, cascading like a waterfall over steps of various height. And beside this was the painting he must have been working on when he died. I stopped short, staring in surprise. This was no landscape. The painting was of a young girl with huge dark eyes, staring out with a half-frightened, half-curious expression. She was naked with the neat little breasts of an adolescent. The painting was by no means finished with a large area below the breasts only vaguely sketched in.
As I stood there examining it I realized that I had seen her before. She was the same girl from Gus’s painting—the one painted by Sid’s cousin Maxim Noah. What’s more the paint on the canvas wasn’t even completely dry where he had daubed it on thickly. There were blobs of paint on his palette and brushes standing in turpentine or lying on the table. One was now hard and stiff with paint. He hadn’t cleaned his brush. That must mean that he had been in the middle of painting when he was killed.
Why had nobody mentioned the model? Had the police now questioned her? Surely she must have been here, in this room, when his assailant came in. I looked around. There was a narrow space behind the velvet hangings. Had she hidden herself there when there was a ring of the doorbell … and … I took this one stage further.… Had she witnessed the whole thing from behind this drape? Or, the other possibility … had she been the one who had stabbed the painter?
I was examining the room, inch by inch, when I heard a sound. It was the clatter of something being dropped nearby. In an instant I crossed the room and flicked down the light switch, leaving me blundering in darkness. I opened the door an inch or two and listened. Somebody was definitely moving about the apartment. I knew I should make for the window as quickly as possible, but curiosity made me hesitate. I eased the door open and started to tiptoe across the dining room. There was another clunk, this time sounding dangerously close, probably inside the kitchen. The kitchen door was now closed and I didn’t dare to open it.
Much as I wanted to see who was in there, common sense won out. If it was the police I had no way to explain my presence. If it was the murderer returned to retrieve something incriminating, I’d be the next victim and if it was the housekeeper, making another raid on her master’s belongings, then there was no way I could pump her for information in the future if she encountered me here. I felt my way back across the studio, eased myself out of the window onto the stepladder, then folded it up, and let myself out of the garden as silently as possible. The street was still deserted. I crossed the circle and went to stand behind the fountain that graced the middle. After what seemed like hours of standing and holding a stepladder, I saw a figure emerge from Reynold Bryce’s building. It was the housekeeper again and this time she was carrying two bulging canvas bags.
I smiled to myself as I watched her scurry off. She’d cleared out her room of her own possessions yesterday, so today she was clearly stealing. It might be a good piece of knowledge to hold over her when I went back tomorrow to find out more about that model. I walked back to Mary’s house, returned the stepladder, and changed into more normal garb.
“We’re glad to see you in one piece,” Sid said as I appeared in the salon where they were drinking coffee. “We half expected to hear you’d been dragged away in chains.”
“It was touch and go for a while,” I said. “The housekeeper returned while I was there. Luckily she was so intent on helping herself to Mr. Bryce’s things that I was able to slip away again.”
“Mercy me,” Mary said. “And did you learn anything important from this risky endeavor?”
“Yes, I did, actually. Reynold Bryce was painting a portrait of a young girl when he died. The paint was still slightly wet. And it was the same girl that Maxim Noah painted in your picture, Gus.”
“Really? You think she was in the house when he died?” Gus asked. “Or—you don’t think she killed him, do you?”
“That’s what we have to find out. I thought I’d go and seek out Maxim Noah and get the name of the young woman from him. I wish I’d known this last night because I could have asked him at the Steins’ party.”
“He was there?” Sid’s expression brightened.
“He was, and he sent you his best regards.”
“You didn’t tell him where we were?”
“Of course not. I stuck to our story that you had been taken ill while visiting the countryside and were still there, recuperating.”
“That’s good,” Sid smiled again.
“And I also tried to ask him what the Jewish community was saying about the death of Reynold Bryce.”
“That was smart of you, Molly,” Sid said. “And what did he say?”
“He said he never attended a synagogue and wanted nothing to do with his religion. He said he was stuck with his race, but his real religion was art.”
“That’s a lot of help,” Gus said. “Still we now have a real lead to follow, don’t we? If Molly can track down the model we might be getting close to the truth.”
“Isn’t that a little dangerous?” Mary asked. “I mean, if she did kill Reynold, or she was in cahoots with who did it, you’re running an awful risk, Molly. Some of these models—well, they aren’t the best sort of girls. They can also work as prostitutes by night, you know. She could be involved with a criminal type who came there to rob Reynold, or blackmail him.…”
“She’s right, Molly.”
“Don’t worry. I said I was going to ask Maxim Noah about her. He’ll know what sort of girl she is. And I expect the police must have checked her out by now. If she has criminal connections they’ll have taken her in.” I took the cup of coffee that Gus had poured for me. “I wish I could find an excuse to go and talk to Inspector Henri. I’m dying to find out how far along they are with their investigation.”
“The French police don’t take kindly to interference,” Mary said.
“Neither do the New York police,” I said. “My husband will never share details of any crime he’s working on with me.”
“That’s because you’d run straight out and try to solve it before him,” Sid said, with a grin.
“Contrary to popular belief I do not go around looking for trouble,” I said. “Trouble just seems to come and find me.”
“Do be careful, Molly,” Gus said. “Maybe it would be a good idea to ask the police how they are getting along, and if they are making good progress, then you can stop taking these risks.”
“Don’t worry, I’ve several things planned that won’t involve risk,” I said. “If I go and find Maxim this afternoon and get the model’s name from him, I can find out more about her. And then I’m going to talk to the housekeeper in the morning, when she’s cleaning up Mr. Bryce’s apartment. I want to hear what she’s got to say about the model, and whether she was in the studio when the housekeeper left to go shopping. I’d also like her opinion on your cousin, Gus.”
“On Willie? What’s he got to do with this?”
“Nothing, I hope. But he fell out of favor with Mr. Bryce recently and I just wondered … well, what sort of relationship he had had with him, and whether…” I stumbled, not knowing how to put this without offending.
“We asked ourselves the same thing,” Sid said. “But we didn’t know about his lack of money at the time. You want to know whether Mr. Bryce was supporting him financially and thus—”
“Hold on a minute,” Gus said. “You’re not suggesting that my cousin might have anything to do with Reynold Bryce’s death, are you? I’ve known Willie all my life. We used to play together at their summer cottage in Maine. He’s a good bit younger than I, but a sweet and funny kid. I’d say there was no malicious bone in him.”
“I’m sure he had nothing to do with the murder, Gus,” I said hastily, although I wasn’t so sure. I suspected that Willie Walcott did have a few malicious bones in him, given the right circumstances. Maybe tomorrow I’d learn whether he had been to visit Reynold Bryce recently and w
hat had transpired between them.
Thirty
That afternoon, after I had put Liam down for his nap, I took the Métro back to my old neighborhood in Montmartre. The cafés were full but I saw no sign of Maxim or any of his artist friends. So I trudged up the many steep alleyways and steps until I reached the very summit of the hill and found Le Bateau-Lavoir building. The front door, as usual, was half-open. I stepped inside and heard no sound of voices.
“Hello?” I called. “Bonjour?”
Nobody answered me. The place was as still as a morgue. I came out again. An old man was sitting on the fence opposite, smoking a long, old-fashioned pipe. He looked up at me and grinned, revealing a toothless mouth. “You won’t find them there on a Sunday afternoon,” he said. “They’ll be at the Moulin, with everyone else.”
Of course. The afternoon dance at the Moulin de la Galette. I followed the lane around, past gardens where people were working or just enjoying the fresh air, until I came to the windmill. It was in a garden, surrounded by a high wall. I heard the thump of lively music long before I reached the entrance. The place was packed. I could hardly squeeze up the steps and in through the narrow opening in the wall.
“Two francs, mademoiselle,” a voice to my right said in my ear and I saw that there was a gatekeeper.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not staying. I’m just looking for someone who might be here.”
He gave me a patronizing smirk. “You are not the only person who tries that, mademoiselle. If you wish to enter, you must pay the same as everyone and that is two francs.”
Grudgingly I fished two coins from my purse. “Enjoy yourself,” he said. “But beware of pickpockets. Guard your wallet, eh?”
I clutched the purse to me as I forced my way into the crowd. All over the grounds tables were spread with picnics and wine, and families sat around them, laughing, talking, eating. They seemed to be mainly working-class people, dressed in their Sunday best: women in big hats, children in white lace, men in straw boaters. But among them were also young men and women dressed in the latest fashion who had chosen to escape to this environment where class didn’t matter. Those not lucky enough to secure a table stood together with glasses of wine or beer in their hands. And in the middle was the dance floor, also packed with couples dancing a suggestive dance I had never seen before. I started to thread my way between groups, looking carefully for any sign of Maxim. I remembered also the young waiter at the café who had invited Ellie to join him. I wondered if she’d be daring enough to come to something like this alone or whether her fiancé had arrived in Paris yet. But as I made painfully slow progress I saw nobody that I recognized.