Snow White Red-Handed (A Fairy Tale Fatal Mystery) (12 page)

He struck a match and lit a lamp.

It was a small, neat room with sloped ceilings and worn, rustic furnishings. The window was open, and a cold wind fluttered the embroidered white curtains.

He’d left that window shut.

The one piece of luggage he’d brought, a brown leather valise that he’d hastily packed in Heidelberg, sat on a chair in the corner. It gaped open, and upon closer inspection he saw that it had been rifled through. Nothing, however, seemed to be missing. Not even his pair of Webley Longspur revolvers in their felt-lined case.

He closed the window, drew the curtains, and sank onto the bed. He pulled off his boots and inspected the nasty, raised welt that Herz’s man-trap had left on his shin. Then he crawled beneath the eiderdown and fell instantly to sleep.

*   *   *

“Ma’am,” Ophelia said
to Mrs. Coop in the morning, “might you be wanting mourning things?” She winched Mrs. Coop to a seated position in bed, plumped up the pillows behind her, and handed her a steaming cup of Darjeeling.

“Mourning things?” Mrs. Coop sipped her tea.

There was no telltale glimmer in her eye to suggest she knew anything about Ophelia’s run-in with Herz the night before. Her hair was like a scarecrow’s, and her eyes had a rabbity, red appearance.

Ophelia glanced at the bedside table. The bottle of hysteria drops was already half empty.

“I know,” Ophelia said, bustling across the chamber to open the drapes, “you’ve some black gowns to wear—once you’re up and about—but there are certain fashionable things a lady ought to have when in mourning.”

“Please!” Mrs. Coop raised her arm to shield her eyes. “Please, leave the drapes drawn. I cannot bear to see the sunlight yet. It reminds me so of poor Homer and the sunlit life we led together.”

Sunlit life? Golly, how memory did play tricks.

Ophelia pulled the drapes shut.

“What is this,” Mrs. Coop said, “about mourning things? Do you mean black fans and reticules? Because I have those.”

“Those things, yes. But all of the choicest ladies of fashion—I read this in a Paris magazine, see—also wear brooches of jet beads, made to look like flowers.”

“Black flowers?”

“That’s right,” Ophelia fibbed. “And you’ll need a likeness of poor Mr. Coop, rest his soul, painted up in a nice locket for you to wear.” This last bit wasn’t a lie, although the smartness of such an item was questionable. Ophelia had only seen dreary old dames wearing the things. Old dames with hair parted like two lank beaver pelts. “After your bath, ma’am, I will be happy to go into Baden-Baden and purchase these things for you.”

“Well, if you say they’re fashionable. . . .”

“You simply couldn’t leave the castle without them. Or receive visitors. I understand the funeral is set for tomorrow?”

“Oh!” Mrs. Coop flung her head back against her pillows. Her tea sloshed. “How my heart shall ache to see Homer sent to his final rest.”

“Will Princess Verushka attend the funeral, ma’am?” Ophelia tidied the bric-a-brac on the mantelpiece. “And . . . Mr. Hunt?”

“The princess?” Mrs. Coop’s voice was suddenly shrill. “Why ever would I invite
her
?”

“I beg your pardon, ma’am. I was given to understand she was—”

“She is only the most casual of acquaintances. You wouldn’t know it by the way she clings to me like a leech. She’s a guest for the season at the Hotel Europa in Baden-Baden, you see, and I met her purely by happenstance. Why, the poor thing grasped at me as though I were her first-class ticket.” Mrs. Coop fiercely slurped her tea. “It positively makes me cringe that she told that officer of the police—what was his name?”

“Inspector Schubert?” Ophelia was rearranging a vase of roses on the mantel, but she was all ears.

“Yes, Schubert—well, Princess Verushka told him that she was with me during the hour before tea that—that afternoon.”

Ophelia turned to face Mrs. Coop. “Wasn’t she with you?”

“Oh, she was. But the way she
announced
it to everyone, as though to suggest we were the closest of friends. She is desperate to create the appearance of intimacy with me. To elevate her own position, you see.”

Elegant Princess Verushka using Mrs. Coop in a game of society leapfrog? Not likely.

“But Mr. Hunt will attend the funeral,” Ophelia said. “He is surely a closer acquaintance.”

“That dear, dear gentleman. I hadn’t thought to ask him. He was ever so solicitous to me the day Homer died.”

Mr. Hunt hadn’t seemed concerned about anything beyond sugared almonds, the contents of his cigarette case, and the arrangement of his Grecian curls. Should she ask how Mrs. Coop had made his acquaintance? No. Better not press her luck.

“I shall write Mr. Hunt,” Mrs. Coop said, “and request his presence at the funeral. And Flax—”

“Yes, ma’am?” Ophelia knew exactly what Mrs. Coop would say next.

“I simply must have one of those jet flower brooches. And a locket. You are to order the coachman to take you shopping in Baden-Baden this morning.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

On her way down to the kitchens with Mrs. Coop’s tray, Ophelia took a circuitous route in order to pass by the breakfast room.

The door was ajar, and she caught a glimpse of Amaryllis, sitting at the big table all alone, nipping into a triangle of toast.

She’d returned from her nocturnal rendezvous, then.

W
hen Prue woke up, she felt brittle, chilled, and hungry enough to take fork and knife to Moby-Dick. Straw from the mattress was stuck to her cheek. She picked the straw off, with beady-eyed sparrows looking down. Whippersnappers.

She polished off two of the raisin buns, four sausages, one pear, and the entire pot of tea that someone had left for her on a tray inside the door. Then she felt a little less like kicking the wall. She washed herself with cold water in the basin in the corner and set about cleaning the comb she’d found on the cliff last night.

It was a pretty trinket—or it had been, once. It was made of tarnished metal, all carved with frail vines and flowers. Tiny red stones were inlaid to look like berries.

Ma had taught Prue a lot of things, some of them more useful than others. One thing Prue knew was how to spot real gems. These were genuine rubies. Not glass.

She’d forgotten to mention the comb to Ophelia last night. Well,
almost
forgotten. Surely Ophelia didn’t need to know that Prue had reached the rank of grave robber.

Prue’s hair was a tangly mess and it was going greasy at the roots, so she set to work.

She was just fastening her hair into a complicated plait that hid the greasy bits when she heard a faint crunching sound. She dragged the stool to the iron-barred window and looked down.

It was that lady again, the one with the dun-colored walking costume and the straw hat. She was directly below and the brim of her hat was wide, so Prue couldn’t see her face. But Prue recognized her purposeful stride, girthy middle, and swinging satchel before she disappeared into the trees.

Downright peculiar.

Prue picked up the earthen water jug. She scurried to the tower’s other window and plunked the jug on the sill.

*   *   *

“Girthy?” Ophelia said.
“Straw hat?” She was out of breath after the sprint from her bedchamber. She’d seen the jug in Prue’s window from her window and had skedaddled as fast as she could to the tower door.

“That’s right,” Prue said through the keyhole. “It’s the second time I’ve seen her, now, and it seems a sight suspicious.”

A lady. In the woods. “I wonder,” Ophelia said slowly, “if she might be the lady whose shoe prints you spied at the graveside last night.”

“Could be!”

“And what might she be doing in the wood? I had supposed, until now, that the suspicious folks were limited to those we already know—to persons residing in the castle. But what if . . . ?”

“You giving me your blessing to have another sneak out of this dump?”

Ophelia sighed. “I fancy I sound like a door hinge that wants oiling, but please,
do
take care.”

*   *   *

At a quarter
past ten, Gabriel paced back and forth in front of the inn.

He’d told Professor Winkler that he had a few items of business to attend to, so Winkler had gone up to the castle without him. First, Gabriel had walked down to the telegraph office and sent a message to his landlady in Heidelberg requesting that his clothing trunk be sent. Then he’d arranged for a hired carriage.

Now the carriage stood waiting, but Miss Flax hadn’t turned up.

He took one last look up and down the village lane. Two small boys romped with a yipping dog in front of the butcher’s shop, and a few women strolled with wicker baskets on their arms, doing the day’s shopping. A wiry chap of middle years strode down the lane in a woolen walking costume and bowler hat.

Another British tourist, no doubt. Gabriel pushed the brim of his hat further down, not wishing to engage in pleasantries.

No go.

The chap slowed as he drew near. “Lovely morning, isn’t it?” he said in a crisp British accent, lifting his bowler.

“Indeed.”

The chap stopped.

Bother.

He wore gold-rimmed spectacles, and his side-whiskers were graying. “Have you,” he said, “hired a carriage?”

“I beg your pardon. I’m not certain we’ve met.”

The chap waggled one of his bushy eyebrows.

“Now see here,” Gabriel said, “I don’t—” He paused. He’d noticed that, behind his spectacles, the chap had rather beautiful dark brown eyes.

“Miss Flax,” Gabriel said, straightening his tie and gazing past her shoulder. “Good morning.”

She tossed him a toothy, triumphant smile that was out of keeping with her side-whiskers.

Miss Flax’s smile was, admittedly, charming. But Gabriel didn’t wish to find Coop’s killer for Miss Flax; he wished to find the killer in order to get those stolen relics back.

And then, of course, there was the matter of someone searching his chamber last night. Gabriel had, albeit reluctantly, entered the fray.

“You didn’t think,” Miss Flax said, “I could go dressed as myself, did you? What would people think, seeing an unmarried lady sashaying around with a gentleman?”

“Are we to sashay?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“Well, then, I am ashamed to admit I hadn’t given the matter a thought.” He studied her. The transformation was remarkable. “Didn’t anyone in the castle notice that something was amiss?”

“Sneaked out.”

“Naturally.” He led the way to the waiting carriage. He was no longer limping. “No sign of Herz, I trust?”

“None.”

“Good. And I am almost frightened to ask—how is it that you were able to put together such a cunning disguise?”

“I found this suit of clothes in a storeroom of the castle—they’re a decade out of mode. I reckoned you wouldn’t mind.”

“And your face? You seem to have aged forty years.”

“I’m a lady’s maid. It’s my business to be clever with cosmetics. You don’t think all those rich ladies happen to be more lovely than poor ladies by coincidence, now do you?”

“I never once thought that rich ladies
were
more lovely than poor ladies.” He moved to hand her into the carriage but stopped himself just in time.

“Well, they are.” She stepped up into the carriage and took a seat.

Gabriel seated himself across from her, shut the door, and the carriage creaked into motion.

“It’s because,” she said, “rich ladies have got more time and money to spend on pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes.”

“Then their beauty is a put-up job? A confidence game?”

“You could say that.”

“What about your British accent? I must concede it’s convincing.”

She paused just a tick too long. “I was practically raised by an English lady.”

Gabriel tried to read the expression in her eyes, but she’d turned her face away.

*   *   *

Ophelia concentrated on
the scenery. It was time to shut her mouth about her disguise before she gave too much away.

“Prue’s been doing a little sleuth hounding,” Ophelia said.

“You don’t mean—”

“Sneaking out of the tower. Yes. With Hansel, the castle gardener.”

“Ah. Hansel seemed a good lad, at least—helped carry the relics out of the wood and to the castle.”

Ophelia told Penrose about the bone, the cliff, the grave, the footprints, and the brandy bottles.

Penrose’s eyes gleamed. “An uncommonly small bone, you say?”

“Oh criminy—you don’t think it’s really a
dwarf’s
—”

“I merely wished for verification with regards to its purported dimensions.”

There he went again: wheeling out the fancy terminology to cover up the fact that he was a grown man who believed in fairy stories. “He said it was small. Oh, and there’s more.” Ophelia told Penrose about the straw-hatted lady Prue had seen in the forest.

Penrose knitted his brows. “I have seen that lady.”

“Indeed!”

“Once on the path leading up to the cottage, the day that Coop died. And again just this morning—she is staying at the Schilltag inn.”

“Wonder what she’s about.”

“Simply another British tourist, from what I gather. Surely she has nothing to do with anything.”

Their carriage followed the winding road down through the valley. They passed more and more houses, and then they were in Baden-Baden.

The town was built of meandering streets and filled with sparkling walled villas and hoity-toity hotels, shops, and restaurants. The sidewalks bustled with smartly dressed people, and the streets were crowded with rich carriages, many of them open. There were flowers everywhere—in window boxes, on balconies, in public gardens.

They even passed, in one of the public gardens, an orchestra playing in an outdoor pavilion. Ophelia’s ear caught a few snatches of
La traviata
. Howard DeLuxe’s Varieties had performed an abridged—and distinctly saucy—version of the opera a few years ago.

“This is,” Ophelia said, “one of the prettiest places I’ve ever seen.” The green mountains of the Black Forest reminded her a little of New England, but New England’s sleepy hamlets and simple wooden buildings didn’t hold a candle to this.

“They call it Europe’s summer capital,” Penrose said. “It’s been quite the most fashionable town on the Continent ever since the gaming rooms opened up ten years ago. The czar banned gambling, you see, and gambling is illegal in France as well, so the Russians and French flock here. Invalids come here to take the waters and bathe, too. Sadly, countless people have ruined themselves and their families in the gaming rooms and at the races in Iffezheim. And some of these ladies parading about . . . well, they aren’t the sort of ladies you were acquainted with in New York.”

Oh, if he only knew.

“Let’s alight here.” Penrose rapped on the ceiling.

The carriage rolled to stop on a street marked
Küferstrasse
.

*   *   *

“I thought we’d
have a good chance of sighting Hunt here,” Penrose said a little later. They were seated in an outdoor café that was shaded by a large tree. “This is one of the more fashionable streets. He’s a gallant, you understand.”

“Right. A dandy.” Ophelia surveyed the promenaders on the sidewalk and the other patrons in the café. All the ladies were got up like bonbons in pastel summer walking gowns and hats with flowers, and the gentlemen wore tailored suits. There was a lot of laughter and animated chatter, mostly in French.

“Hunt is not
only
a dandy.”

“No?”

“Do you remember,” Penrose said, “how Hunt insinuated that it was within his power to obtain an invitation for Mrs. Coop to be presented at court in England?”

“It isn’t?” Ophelia straightened her cufflinks.

The professor’s eyebrows twitched.

“You’ve
got
,” she whispered, “to look at me as though I were a gentleman. Not the bearded lady in the circus.”

“I beg your pardon. Your disguise is somewhat . . . disconcerting.” Penrose
ahem
ed. “As I was saying, the odd thing is, I’ve never heard of Hunt.”

“Do you know everyone in England, then?”

He adjusted his spectacles.

Annoying him was far too easy.

“He’s pretending,” he said, “to be something he’s not.”

Ophelia glanced away.
Not
a welcome topic of conversation.

The waiter brought thimble-sized coffees. They watched and waited.

Ophelia was broiling beneath the wig and bowler. Worse, her left muttonchop was coming unglued from her cheek. She twiddled her spoon on the tablecloth.

“There,” Penrose murmured eventually, “is our man.”

“Where?”

“Across the street. Walking arm-in-arm with the lady in pink.”

Ophelia squinted through her false spectacles. Mr. Hunt was strolling with a rather plump lady who appeared, at least from this distance, to be approaching her middle years. Madam Pink wore a beautifully cut walking gown of seashell pink and a big hat piled with white roses, and she carried a parasol. “She looks mighty pleased to be with him.”

“And he appears pleased with himself.” Penrose was on his feet, placing some coins on the tablecloth. “Shall we follow?”

*   *   *

When Hansel turned
up in the garden after lunchtime and started hoeing, Prue pelted him with the raisin bun she’d saved from her breakfast tray. It had gone nice and hard.

He sauntered over, hoe in hand, rubbing his crown where the bun had hit. “I intended to come over,” he called up to her.

She leaned over the sill. “Why’d you start hoeing, then?”

He glanced over at the door in the wall. “I did not wish to arouse suspicions. Speaking to prisoners is frowned upon in some circles.”

Prue’s cheeks flamed.
Prisoner
. She stuck out her tongue to hide her shame.

He grinned.

Prue told him about the girthy woman in the dun-colored walking costume and the straw hat. “That’s two times I’ve seen her so far. Ophelia said we ought to investigate.”

“Miss Flax said that?” Hansel’s eyebrows drew together.

“Ophelia’s looking into things. She’s going to get me out of here. So. Who is the lady in the walking costume?”

Hansel scratched his ear. “I do not know anyone in Schilltag who matches that description. She is most likely a tourist, staying at the inn. I will go ask the innkeeper’s wife if she knows. But first I must finish hoeing those beans, or Frau Holder will wring my neck.”