He nodded carefully, managing to do so without dislodging his violin, which he continued to play.

“Of course you were.”

Chaplin rubbed his hands together and grimaced. “Aren’t you cold?”

The boy looked left and right, nervous he was being spied upon. He nodded.

“You are cold? I’m sure they have some tea inside. Wait here. Oh, yes, of course, you have to wait here. But—yes.”

Chaplin returned to the house. There was a small foyer currently lined by banks of coatracks, and the passage between them was narrow. Owen Moore was still there, shaking hands as if this were his own circle of hell— helping guests with their coats left him with no hands free for a drink.

He and Chaplin gave each other the nod of professional dislike, on one side indicating, “Yes, I know your best friend is sleeping with my wife,” and on the other, “You’re a mean drunk living off your wife’s money,” and then they shook hands.

When Chaplin emerged on the far side of the coatracks, there was a living room in which a dozen people stood with drinks, in clutches of three or four. The outfits on men with excellent physiques varied from casual linen to bathing suits that would shame a lifeguard. He did not see any women dressed for swimming, which was a little disappointing. But there were several men in uniform. Jack Pickford was not among them. It was hard to tell if any were bound for overseas duty, or if they were in the mysterious local corps that provided army officers with important morale-boosting visits to film sets. He heard laughter and murmurs, colliding conversations that made up the strange music of parties: boasts, secrets told, lies, exaggerations, all cloaking the humbling, frightened desire to be found interesting.

The setting was less a beach house than the idea of a beach house lifted from the Atlantic states and dropped in Santa Monica, with fireplaces in every room and overwrought shutters and storm doors for nor’easters that would never come. The current residents had stolen what they could from studio property rooms and thrown haphazard couches and tables wherever they now sat. But original to the house were, Chaplin guessed, the scissored crew-boat oars, the life preservers, the shellacked grouper, and the sign over the bay window that read “Nantucket 5 Mi.” He wasn’t sure who was supposed to be reassured—guests from the East? the house itself?— but the display suggested that even though the house was in California, it was still a legitimate child of the ocean life.

He was sure there would be tea in the kitchen, wherever it was. He walked down the hall, nodding and smiling vaguely as people met his—