“Because he had a beard, and he wore glasses, and his hair was slick and parted on the left side. That sounds like a freak, but Uncle Paul would know better than to look freaky. The beard was trimmed, and somehow it didn’t make him conspicuous. It was lucky I didn’t completely recognize him when I first saw him, or I would probably have stood and gawked at him. Later in the dressing room Polly Zarella asked Bernard — that’s Bernard Daumery, Jean’s nephew — who was the man that was growing his own wool, and Bernard said he didn’t know, probably from the Daily Worker. Of course we know most of the guests at a press showing, but not all of them. When I modeled another number — a full-back calf-covering coat in tapestry tones of Kleinsell ratiné — I took him in without being obvious about it, and all of a sudden I knew who it was — I didn’t guess, I knew. It staggered me so that I had to get off quick, quicker than I should have, and in the dressing room it was all I could do to keep them from seeing me tremble. I wanted to run out and speak to him, but I couldn’t because it would have ruined the show. I had four more numbers to model — one of them was our headliner, a tailored dress and jacket in black with white stripes, with slightly bouffant sleeves and a double hemline — and I had to go on to the end. When it was over I hurried out front and he was gone.”
“Indeed,” Wolfe muttered.
“Yes. I went outside, to the elevators, but he was gone.”
“You haven’t seen him since?”
“No. Just that one time.”
“Did anyone else recognize him?”
“I don’t think so. I’m sure they didn’t, or there would have been a noise. A dead man come back to life?”
Wolfe nodded. “Many of those present had known him?”
“Certainly, nearly all of them. He was famous, as famous as you are.”
Wolfe skipped that one. “How sure are you it was he?”