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.”