She led me through to a light and airy drawing room. It was elegantly but sparsely furnished. I couldn’t tell what the wallpaper looked like because every inch of the walls was covered in paintings—some of them quite lovely—portraits of young women with flowing hair, ballerinas on stage, picnics in a park, and some quite incomprehensible—wild daubs of bright color with cats hanging in midair and women with two faces. I wrenched my gaze away as she said, “Well, sit down then. What was it you wanted?”

I perched on the edge of a brocade sofa. “I wondered if you had come across two friends of mine. American women—Miss Walcott and Miss Goldfarb.”

“Yes, I met them when they first got here,” she said brusquely. “Why, have they sent you with the olive branch? Are you supposed to mediate a peace between us?”

“A peace between you? Had you quarreled?”

“Let’s just say there was a parting of the ways. They came to one of my Saturday night salons. I rather liked Goldfarb—got a good brain, one could tell. Didn’t think so much of the other one. A bit wishy-washy. She brought a couple of her paintings to show me. I thought she might have a smidgeon of talent and told her so, but she needed to take some lessons in the handling of color. Hadn’t got a clue about mixing shades. I said I could recommend someone to tutor her. I guess she didn’t care for that too much because the next time I met them she said she had been promised an introduction to Bryce. I pointed out that if she went to Bryce she would no longer be welcome at my place. ‘You have to choose carefully,’ I said. She replied that she didn’t wish to offend me but was hopeful he would include her in his upcoming exhibition.”

Miss Stein paused, leaning forward toward me in her chair as she continued rubbing her hair inside the towel. “Personally I didn’t think she had much of a chance with him. ‘He’s stuck in the depths of Impressionism,’ I said, ‘and he thinks women only belong in the kitchen or the bedroom.’ Besides, what about Miss Goldfarb? We know what his opinion was about Jews. Exactly why I broke off all contact with him. Still, he got his just desserts in the end, didn’t he, although I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, I suppose.”

“You know about Reynold Bryce’s death?” I asked cautiously.

“Of course. It was in the International Herald this morning. Stabbed by a hotheaded young Jew, so they surmise.”

“They know who killed him?”