"Boche," said somebody in the crowd. Somebody else said, "Hush." The children stared but made no move toward him. Saulnay nodded calmly and limped on by.
Then the auditorium door swung open again and Elsie Short stepped out.
This time most of the children rushed forward to greet her, so that she stopped, knelt, shook hands with two or three dolls held up for her inspection. From her knees she threw me a look of surprise.
"You came! Do you have my duck?"
"No soap, no duck," I said. "Soupel wasn't there."
"But they promised! You promised!"
"My name is Vincent Armus," said a man in a Homburg hat. "I'm with Miss Short."
I had seen Vincent Armus inside, off in a corner, and I had disliked his hat. Now I disliked the rest of him. I nodded brusquely and moved forward to help Elsie to her feet, but Armus stepped masterfully in front of me. He took her elbow and steered her toward the stairs. Like an automaton, I followed.
Vincent Armus, Elsie explained over her shoulder, was a family friend. He lived in Paris. She was staying at his house. And he was very upset that the police had taken her duck—Mr. Edison's legal property—for no good reason at all.
"And I am too," she added. "You told me you would get the duck today. And you spoke such good French to the police, I thought it was just a formality."
"What in the world were you doing interfering, Mr.—"
"Keats," Elsie said. "Toby Keats. I told you that." We were out of the museum by now, passing through the courtyard by the church, into the bright lights of the rue Vaucanson. "Like the poet, 'Hail to thee, Blithe Spirit.'"
"That's Shelley," Armus said, giving me either an amused or a disdainful look. "Keats wrote, 'For many a year I have been half in love with easeful death.'"
There were really only two kinds of Americans in Paris in 1926, apart from the drunken vacationers reeling around Montmartre on what the French called "Whoopee Tours." There were the vaguely literary, vaguely bohemian expatriates like myself and Root, mostly poor and hung over, who had left home for all kinds of personal reasons, including a deeply felt discontent with life in Mr. Coolidge's America. And then there were the older, richer, decidedly un-bohemian residents, mostly in business, who never thought of themselves as expatriates, who lived in private hôtels and grand apartments along the boulevard Haussmann or the Champ-de-Mars and who could summon with a flick of the finger, as Armus did now, limousines out of the dark.
"There's no need for you to be involved further, Keats," he said. A long, thunderous Mercedes, big enough to have a steam engine under the hood, rolled elegantly up to the curb.
"I know some very competent lawyers," he added. "Miss Short is an American citizen, a completely respectable person. I've advised her to turn this matter over to them. You should never have let them take her property away, certainly not as 'evidence' in a so-called crime."
"I think so too," Elsie said.
"It was obviously the work of some kind of juvenile gang or common thug."
Out in the cold night, under a street lamp, I could see Vincent Armus more clearly than I had upstairs in the museum. He was thin, angular, slightly hawkish-looking, in his late forties
or early fifties. Under his topcoat I could make out a stiff white shirt collar whose creases bit into his neck, and a red silk tie and diamond stick pin that would have cost two years of a Trib reporter's salary. I do not like thee, Doctor Fell, I thought, the reason why I cannot tell.
Elsie was already in the backseat of the big car, under a lap robe that the chauffeur had given her. She was saying something else to me, but her voice was frozen out in the cool precision of Vincent Armus's. "What did you say was the name of the French police inspector, Keats? I'll call him
Then the auditorium door swung open again and Elsie Short stepped out.
This time most of the children rushed forward to greet her, so that she stopped, knelt, shook hands with two or three dolls held up for her inspection. From her knees she threw me a look of surprise.
"You came! Do you have my duck?"
"No soap, no duck," I said. "Soupel wasn't there."
"But they promised! You promised!"
"My name is Vincent Armus," said a man in a Homburg hat. "I'm with Miss Short."
I had seen Vincent Armus inside, off in a corner, and I had disliked his hat. Now I disliked the rest of him. I nodded brusquely and moved forward to help Elsie to her feet, but Armus stepped masterfully in front of me. He took her elbow and steered her toward the stairs. Like an automaton, I followed.
Vincent Armus, Elsie explained over her shoulder, was a family friend. He lived in Paris. She was staying at his house. And he was very upset that the police had taken her duck—Mr. Edison's legal property—for no good reason at all.
"And I am too," she added. "You told me you would get the duck today. And you spoke such good French to the police, I thought it was just a formality."
"What in the world were you doing interfering, Mr.—"
"Keats," Elsie said. "Toby Keats. I told you that." We were out of the museum by now, passing through the courtyard by the church, into the bright lights of the rue Vaucanson. "Like the poet, 'Hail to thee, Blithe Spirit.'"
"That's Shelley," Armus said, giving me either an amused or a disdainful look. "Keats wrote, 'For many a year I have been half in love with easeful death.'"
There were really only two kinds of Americans in Paris in 1926, apart from the drunken vacationers reeling around Montmartre on what the French called "Whoopee Tours." There were the vaguely literary, vaguely bohemian expatriates like myself and Root, mostly poor and hung over, who had left home for all kinds of personal reasons, including a deeply felt discontent with life in Mr. Coolidge's America. And then there were the older, richer, decidedly un-bohemian residents, mostly in business, who never thought of themselves as expatriates, who lived in private hôtels and grand apartments along the boulevard Haussmann or the Champ-de-Mars and who could summon with a flick of the finger, as Armus did now, limousines out of the dark.
"There's no need for you to be involved further, Keats," he said. A long, thunderous Mercedes, big enough to have a steam engine under the hood, rolled elegantly up to the curb.
"I know some very competent lawyers," he added. "Miss Short is an American citizen, a completely respectable person. I've advised her to turn this matter over to them. You should never have let them take her property away, certainly not as 'evidence' in a so-called crime."
"I think so too," Elsie said.
"It was obviously the work of some kind of juvenile gang or common thug."
Out in the cold night, under a street lamp, I could see Vincent Armus more clearly than I had upstairs in the museum. He was thin, angular, slightly hawkish-looking, in his late forties
or early fifties. Under his topcoat I could make out a stiff white shirt collar whose creases bit into his neck, and a red silk tie and diamond stick pin that would have cost two years of a Trib reporter's salary. I do not like thee, Doctor Fell, I thought, the reason why I cannot tell.
Elsie was already in the backseat of the big car, under a lap robe that the chauffeur had given her. She was saying something else to me, but her voice was frozen out in the cool precision of Vincent Armus's. "What did you say was the name of the French police inspector, Keats? I'll call him
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