Gretel and the Case of the Missing Frog Prints (24 page)

“
Wolfie
has a hobgoblin?”

“ . . . but no, it can't be. He's smiling. He looks positively happy.”

“But . . . you just said they are all happy.”

“
Ordinarily
I said. It is Wolfie's misfortune to share his abode with the only miserable example of the breed I have ever met. Except that now he is smiling.”

“Could you be mistaken? Might it be another one? That would be dashed peculiar though, to see
three
of the things. A clutch of hobgoblins. A herd. What is the collective term, d'you think? A huddle, perhaps? Yes, I rather like that. A huddle of hobgoblins.”

“There are only two. And both are smiling. Cheerfully,
joyfully
smiling!” Gretel lowered her glasses and gave a sigh of relief. “Well, there it is. The final proof I was in search of.”

“It is? There? With those little fellows? How so?”

“If I had ever doubted my hypothesis, those doubts are now dispelled. I believed I had the ‘who' and the ‘how,' what I lacked was the ‘why.'”

“And you have it now, the ‘why?'”

“I do.” She stood up straight, declaring boldly to her brother. “I know who stole the paintings, I know how they did it, and I know why they did it. I am also confident I know where to find them.”

“Good grief—a ‘who,' a ‘how,' a ‘why,'
and
a ‘where!' Herr Durer's certainly getting his money's worth, isn't he?”

As they watched the hobgoblins opened the door in the stones and disappeared into the passageway.

“I must return to the apartment forthwith,” Gretel said. “As soon as you can, extract yourself and Wolfie from sausage tending duties and meet me there. I may need your assistance.”

“Really? You may?” Hans dithered between feeling pleased at being wanted and disgruntled at being told to leave his precious wurst. Pride won out. “Rest assured, you can count on us.”

Gretel gave him a look that seemed to doubt this before she hurried away, scrambling over the cobbles in the direction of the square.

The daytime commotion had been replaced by an evening one of similar frenetic activity, but the crowd had thinned out a little. Gretel scanned the area but could not spy Strudel lying in wait for her anywhere. She shimmied along the front of the Grand, staying in the shadows.

Even in her haste, Gretel was forced to pause for a moment to take in the sheer loveliness of the plaza now. Each side, and every shop front and stall, was liberally strung with fairy lights of all colors. The stage was currently home to a small orchestra, which was apparently tuning up, about to begin playing. The center of the square had been cleared for dancing. Around it were placed floral displays of white and cream, all the blooms clearly chosen for the way their petals would glow in the lamplight, and the sweet scents that they gave off.

Jesters jested.

Jugglers juggled.

The atmosphere was a holiday one, and people milled about in their best clothes, each one trying to outdo the other, so that they presented a parade of glamor and sophistication. Gretel sighed for her lost wig and the sorry state of her new outfit. When all this was over, she promised herself, she would somehow go somewhere with someone specifically so that she could wear beautiful things and remain polished, clean, and elegant for whole days at a time. For now, however, duty called.

She took a breath to aid the effort that would be required to push her way through the throng and across the square, but before she could move a trumpet blast practically in her very
ear rendered her temporarily quite deaf. She staggered to one side, clutching at the wall, as out of the Grand Hotel came the royal entourage. The princesses and their chaperone had changed from their expensive daywear into even more expensive evening clothes. They were a moving bouquet of colors, of shimmering silk and twinkling jewels, elaborate wigs and rouged cheeks. Ferdinand walked beside them. Gretel was at once doubly conscious of her own disheveled condition. She kept her head down and began to slink past the royal party, hoping that the cheering subjects who had surged forward would keep her hidden. She had not reckoned with Princess Charlotte's sharp eye and even sharper memory. She noticed Gretel, and signaled to a guard to fetch her. Gretel had no choice but to allow herself to be taken by the arm, pulled through the crowd, and made to stand before the princess.

“Well, well, well. Fraulein Gretel.” The princess's smile was not a warm one. “I had not thought to meet you so far from Gesternstadt.”

Gretel curtseyed stiffly and avoided meeting the princess's eye. “I am here on business, Your Highness.”

“Indeed? One of your crime cases to solve, I suppose. Has there been a grisly murder? Do tell.”

Baroness Schleswig-Holstein stepped forward and spoke brusquely to her charge. “Princess, you and your sisters are expected to open the dancing. Better not to waste your time on this . . . woman.”

“Oh but Aunt, do you not know who this is?” Charlotte feigned awe. “This is none other than Gretel of Gesternstadt, the private detective. She is renowned for solving the most perplexing of cases. Is this one perplexing?” she asked.

“Some have found it so,” Gretel chose her words with care. The last time she had had anything to do with Princess Charlotte she had found herself thrown in a dungeon and facing
torture and then execution. It was true that matters had been smoothed over a little since then, but relations had taken another downward turn when Gretel had failed to attend the princess's recent birthday ball. She was in no doubt that the young woman would enjoy teasing her at best, and humiliating her if at all possible.

“Surely you are not too busy to take time to join in the festival fun?”

“Regrettably, Your Highness, I am at this moment engaged in my investigations.”

“Oh, I see,” Princess Charlotte's expression was one of hurt. “So you are refusing my invitation to a dance for a second time in as many weeks!”

“Forgive me, Princess. On both occasions it has been business that has called me away. Nothing would give me greater pleasure, of course, than to join you and your noble sisters . . .”

“Then I insist that you do so! It is unbecoming for a woman to be seen always at work. It makes her appear harsh and unlovely. Do you wish to appear harsh and unlovely?”

“Indeed, I do not.”

Unbidden, Gretel's glance found Ferdinand. It was a tiny gesture, a silly slip, but it did not go unnoticed by the princess.

“Well then, you will be our guest for the evening and enjoy the dancing. General Ferdinand will partner you. He is only a soldier, it is true, but he can be quite gallant when he tries.”

Gretel knew better than to openly defy a Findleberg. “You are too kind, Highness. I shall return to my apartment for a few swift moments so that I might change my clothes for something more fitting for such an occasion,” she said, backing slowly away.

“Oh, there is no time for that. You will have to do as you are.”

Even the baroness saw the madness in this.

“Princess,” she hissed in the girl's ear, “you surely cannot mean her to dance beside yourself and your sisters. I mean to say . . . look at the state of her.”

“Do not concern yourself, Aunt. Fraulein Gretel is a woman of action. This,” here she waved her arm expansively, taking in Gretel's grubby and crumpled blue ensemble, her filthy shoes still covered in damp sawdust from the butchers, and her wild and frizzing hair, “is a common condition for her, I assure you.”

Smiling, Gretel tried another tack. “Your understanding does you great credit, Your Highness, but the baroness sees the plainer picture. What would people think, to see one so shabbily turned out in your close company? What will His Majesty the King think, when word reaches him, as it surely must?”

Charlotte pursed her lips and Gretel feared she had gone too far. Her question sounded horribly as if it contained a veiled threat, which had not been her intention at all.

Suddenly, the princess's face brightened. Laughing, she reached up and unclasped the heavy diamond necklace she was wearing. She stepped forward and, to the gasps of all who were watching, fastened it around Gretel's neck. “There!” she declared. “Now when my father is told of this he will hear only that you wore the most fabulous diamonds anyone in Nuremberg had ever seen!” Laughing merrily—and thus ensuring that everyone around her laughed too—Princess Charlotte turned about in a dizziness of silk and clapped her hands brightly. “To the dance!” she cried, leading the party toward the al fresco dance floor.

Ferdinand bowed low and offered Gretel his arm. Frowning deeply, she took it, and they followed the others. She wanted to find something cutting to say to him, something to make him realize he was the last person in the city she wished to dance with, but the heaviness of the diamonds, their cool smoothness against her skin, was too heavenly. Words had fled. She had
never in her life so much as touched a single diamond the size of the smallest in this necklace. To have such an abundance of them upon her, to wear them whilst dancing in the arms of the handsomest man she had encountered for a very long time . . . well, it was not a moment to spoil with harsh comments. She would savor it, and then slip away at the first opportunity. Princess Charlotte would no doubt quickly tire of her game of Gretel-baiting, and then she could melt into the gathering and not be missed.

The princesses took up their positions for the first dance. A quadrille. The baroness was included too. Nameless courtiers, apparently chosen for their pleasant faces, long legs, and ability to dance, partnered the royals. Ferdinand stood opposite Gretel and smiled his most charming smile. The crowd quietened. The conductor raised his baton, and the music began, fluttering out tunefully in the soft night air. Ferdinand proved himself a more than adequate dancer, and Gretel was able to follow his lead without effort or stumbling, and soon found the urge to stamp on his feet had receded. She was, in fact, just on the point of admitting to herself that she was actually having a Lovely Time when her attention was snagged by the squinty eyes of Kapitan Strudel peering at her from among those watching the dancing.

“Rats!” she said.

“I'm sorry?” Ferdinand asked as they stepped toward one another.

“Oh, no, nothing,” Gretel assured him as they stepped away again. But it was not nothing. This time Strudel was taking steps of his own, to ensure she did not get away from him. She saw him signaling to two, three, four local kingsmen, whom he had evidently persuaded to assist him. The last thing Gretel needed was an unseemly tussle and ultimately her arrest in front of Ferdinand, the princesses, and the whole of Nuremberg, preventing her from getting to
the apartment and once and for all solving the case. It was too bad—to have come so far, to be so close. She attempted to manoeuver in the direction of Wolfie's mansion block, but this meant shifting the direction of all the dancers in the quadrille. When Strudel tried to jump from the crowd and put hands on her she was forced to add a pirouette and two large leaps to the dance. Her partner looked amazed, but did his best to keep up. The princesses and their courtiers were thrown into disarray, each doing their utmost to hold the pattern of the dance, stamping on each other's toes and losing the shape of the thing terribly. At one point Gretel found herself dancing with the baroness.

“What do you think you are doing?” the fearsome old woman demanded as Gretel took her in her arms and whirled her about.

“Forgive me, Baroness. Oops, sorry. The Nuremberg Quadrille. Very new. Have you not tried it before? Ah, here we go, this way I think,” she said nimbly, ducking beneath the baroness's arm and taking four speedy strides toward Wolfie's front door. It was then that she felt a bony hand grasp her shoulder.

“Gretel of Gesternstadt!” Strudel screeched at her. “I am arresting you on suspicion of involvement in the unexplained death of . . .”

“Oh,
please
. Is that the best you can come up with?”

“And in any case for leaving town before attending an interview designated by . . .”

The kingsman might have gone on in this fashion for some time had not a member of the Uber Weisswurstfest Organization Committee chosen that very second to put a flame to the first of the evening's fireworks. The whooshing and exploding of a dozen rockets all at one time was so unexpected and so loud that everyone in the square screamed and ducked. Everyone except Gretel, whose hearing was still slightly dulled
from the earlier trumpet blast. She saw her moment, she seized it, she hitched up her skirts and she ran. She heard the baroness's shrill voice alerting the king's guard to the fact that the Findleberg diamonds were being stolen. Before Strudel knew what was happening she had slipped from his grasp, dashed the few remaining strides across the square, whipped out the key Wolfie had given her, and flung herself through the door to the apartment block, locking it behind her.

There was not time to wait for the lift. Breathing hard she hauled herself up the stairs, well aware that, with the local kingsmen on his team, it would not take long for Strudel to effect entry into the building. By the time Gretel staggered into her bedchamber she was wheezing and puffing heavily. She took a moment to steady herself against the half-tester, then summoned her voice.

“Gottfried!” she called. “Gottfried, where are you? Come out, do. I need you. Gottfried!”

There was a faint scratching sound from behind the wood paneling, a pause, and then a drowsy voice responded.

“Fraulein, would you mind not making so much noise? My family is sleeping.”

“Forgive me for disturbing you, but the matter is urgent.”

Gottfried yawned, long and slow. He muttered something further, but it was too sleep-ridden to make out. Gretel pressed her ear to the wall. After a while there came the sound of a high-pitched whistling snore.