Snow White Red-Handed (A Fairy Tale Fatal Mystery) (34 page)

“It was a sacrifice I was willing to make.”

“Is that how you would describe tormenting Smith, here?”

“I am not tormenting him, Penrose—he knows, of course, that he shall get a smart thrashing if he resists, but dwarves have thick skins. They are different from us. No, it is not torment. I am merely measuring his cranium.”

“Phrenology?”

“I
am
a scientist.”

“W
hy is Smith injured?” Gabriel demanded.

“Oh, he did that to himself,” Winkler said, “when I captured him. Flailed about like a slippery little toad.”

“If you are only measuring his cranium, then what are those?” Gabriel pointed to a pair of nasty-looking steel pinchers.

Winkler chuckled. “Do not be naïve, Penrose. Dwarves never willingly tell where they have hidden their gold. But I mean to find that mine. I shall not let him go until he tells me.”

“Smith doesn’t know where the mine is.”

“Of course he does.”

“He’s been searching for it, just like so many others have, but he doesn’t know where it is.”

“He does!”

“No.” Gabriel paused. “But
I
do.”

Winkler flushed. “How?”

“The tapestry.”

“Tapestry?” Winkler looked angry; he’d missed something.

“All those silly cuckoo clocks you bought up only contained part of a design—clever, by the way, opening the window of my chamber at the inn the night you stole my clock, even though you’d entered through the door. At any rate, the entire design was to be found on an ancient tapestry in the
schloss
, which gives a clear indication of where the mine is located.”

Winkler loomed forward. “Tell me where.”

“Only if you tell me what you’ve done with the young ladies.”

Winkler jerked his chins back. “I assure you, I have very little time for young ladies.”

Gabriel frowned. Winkler seemed to be telling the truth. But, then, where was Miss Flax? Where was Miss Bright? And Hansel?

His thoughts flew to Ghent and his ogres, to Herz and his axe.

“Tell me where the mine is,” Winkler said. Then he was upon Gabriel like a huge, whiskered animal, grabbing his throat and puffing his stale, sausagey breath into Gabriel’s face. They collapsed to the stone floor.

“
Tell me
!” Winkler shrieked. His sweaty hands closed around Gabriel’s throat.

Gabriel, choking, dug into his breast pocket, patting about for his revolver. His peripheral vision closed in.

He felt the cold handle of his gun, pulled it out, and thrust it against Winkler’s temple.

Winkler released his hands.

“Kindly dismount,” Gabriel said.

Winkler heaved himself off.

Gabriel leapt to his feet and pressed the barrel of the revolver into Winkler’s back. He nudged him towards the cage. “Unlock it.”

Winkler unlocked it.

“Smith,” Gabriel said, “Come on.”

Smith stared, motionless.

“Come on,” Gabriel repeated.

At last, Smith rose stiffly to his feet and hobbled out of the cage.

Gabriel pushed Winkler inside and locked it. “The cage,” he said, “rather suits you, you beast.”

*   *   *

There was blackness.
It had been there for ages. Heavy and honey thick, seductive yet headachey, too. She only wished to keep still, in that blackness, until the throbbing in her temples went away.

But light pressed through her eyelids. And there was all that giggling.

Ophelia cracked open her eyes and winced. Golden light flooded her vision, blinded her. She saw fluttering silhouettes up above. Tree leaves. Then a fat little face appeared above her. It was grubby, with sparkling green eyes and an impish grin.

“Who are you?” Ophelia mumbled.

The creature only laughed.

Another chubby face popped into her vision, and another and another, until she was lying there on the forest floor with a total of seven little faces giggling and staring down at her, wearing expressions that ranged from diabolical to—in the case of the smallest one—cherubic.

“Mama!” one of them called over its shoulder.
“Hier!”

Ophelia squeezed her eyes shut. Did fairy tale dwarves have mothers?

“Good heavens,” someone else was saying.

A gentleman’s voice, with a British accent. Warm, familiar. Yet there was something irksome about it, too.

“Miss Flax.”

Then there were warm lips pressed against her forehead. Another torrent of giggles. She opened her eyes again and found herself staring up into Professor Penrose’s shining hazel eyes. She boosted herself on her elbows.

“Thank God you’re all right,” Penrose murmured. “I’ve been worried sick.”

“Where—where’s Prue?” Memories flooded back.

“She’s fine. She’s at the castle, resting. Come, let’s see if you can stand—Frau Herz has brought a horse for you.”

Ophelia looked blearily around. They were in a mossy clearing. She saw a plump, smiling woman surrounded by seven urchins.

Then she noticed her feet, poking up from the muddy hem of her dress. On her left foot, she wore her boot. From her right toes dangled a dainty, yellow silk slipper.

“Where did that come from?” she said.

Penrose smiled. “Miss Amaryllis’s slipper, which you dropped in the orchard. Herz picked it up, it seems, and gave it to his children as a plaything. They decided it was Cinderella’s slipper, I believe, and when they found you out here this morning, they thought they’d see if you were its missing princess.”

“Not this time, I’m afraid,” Ophelia said, and sighed. “It’s at least two inches too small.”

*   *   *

“They found her,”
Hansel said to Prue.

Prue jerked her chin up from her chest. She’d been snoozing upright in an armchair in the castle’s blue salon, too worried about Ophelia to think of going to bed, and too spent to care that she wasn’t supposed to loiter in velvet chairs. “Where?” She staggered to her feet.

“In the wood.”

“And she is—”

“She suffered a blow to the head, but it does not appear to be serious. The doctor is going to look her over.”

Prue sank back into the chair. “I thought maybe. . . .”

“I know.” Hansel crossed the carpet and took her hand. “But she is not. And you two shall return to America, safe and sound. Well, almost sound.” He motioned towards Prue’s neck.

She touched her throat, where a linen bandage covered the cut from Franz’s sword. It stung a little, but it was nothing to write home about.

“What about Franz? Oh, crackers—what about Miss Gertie? She ain’t still in that tunnel, is she?”

“Franz is at Gasthaus Schatz, in the village, resting. He shall be fine. But Miss Darling is . . . there has been an accident.”

“Oh no.”

“Yes. The tunnel collapsed. The village men are still searching for her, but I believe she is . . . she shall not be found.”

“Buried in the mountain with her treasure.” Prue shuddered.

“The tunnel Miss Darling discovered seems to have been one of the shafts of a gold mine.”

“Gold mine! Then your pa was right.”

“Yes. Grandmother told me that Father read about an ancient mine in the Grunewald forest once, in a volume of
Schwarzwald
history somewhere in the castle library, but he could never find the passage again amid all those thousands of books. Yet, recalling the suggestion of the gold mine, he guessed that was what Coop and Smith were searching for.”

“Why didn’t he just come right out and tell you instead of sending you on a wild-goose chase after Snow White’s tomb?”

“Father did not feel it was safe to put it in writing in the event that he was mistaken in his suspicions. He confided in grandmother about the mine—fortuitously, it turns out, since grandmother provided Professor Penrose with the clue he needed to lead him to the murderer.”

Prue’s eyes grew wide. “Who?”

“Professor Winkler.”

“Ugh. I should’ve known. He set me up, too?”

Hansel nodded. “At any rate, the mine, as it is on castle land, now belongs to Mrs. Coop.”

That was that, then. Hansel was still a poor fellow. Only Prue didn’t give a monkey’s peanut.

She stared down at their entangled fingers, his strong and brown, hers small, chapped, with a border of grime under the nails. Ashamed, she tugged her hand, but he didn’t let go.

“Prue,” he said gently. “I also wish to tell you that. . . .”

She swallowed. She couldn’t lift her eyes to his.

“I wish to tell you,” he said, “that Professor Penrose has offered me a substantial sum for an old tapestry belonging to my grandmother. It seems he collects such things. Antiquities and relics and so forth. With that money, I shall be able to establish my grandmother in a cottage with a servant to care for her. And I shall be able to return to university and complete my medical studies.”

“You’ll be a doctor,” Prue said. “A doctor
and
a count.” She tried to smile, but her face wouldn’t move. “And I’ll just be a—” What would she be? An out-of-work actress who, at the grand old age of nineteen, had already lost her looks? Who everyone said was simple and ill-spoken?

“It seems, Prue, that you have been taught to view yourself as no more than a beauty. And I have been, for most of my life, regarded as a landed and wealthy aristocrat. You knew me at first as only a gardener, yet still, you . . . you
saw
me. As I, perhaps, have truly seen you. Not simply your outward beauty.” His voice was husky now. “If you are able to—willing, I should say—willing to wait a few years and carry out a correspondence with me, until I have completed my studies, perhaps you would consent, at a later date, of course, for I do not wish to burden one so young with weighty promises, well. . . .” He cleared his throat.

Prue lifted her eyes to his. “What sort of promise you angling at?”

“The promise to consider the possibility of, one day, becoming a doctor’s wife.”

Prue bit down on her lower lip to keep it from wobbling. “Sure,” she said, her throat tight. “Sure I’ll consider it.”

Hansel smiled, but his brown eyes were grave, and he lifted her chapped hand to his lips and kissed it.

*   *   *

The doctor from
Schilltag set to work on Ophelia’s head wound in the castle kitchen. While the doctor worked, Penrose sat with her and told her how Professor Winkler had murdered both Coop and Count Grunewald, kidnapped Mr. Smith, and caged him in the hunting lodge.

Cook was bustling around in the kitchen, baking.

“Winkler struck me in the head?” Ophelia said to Penrose, wincing under the doctor’s ministrations.

“Yes. He heard you following him—this was when he was taking Smith out to the lodge—and he came round behind you and hit you with a rock. He’s been hauled off to jail in Baden-Baden.”

“I’d have guessed it was Herz who struck me.”

“Herz was working for Coop and, after Coop died, for Smith. He was merely protecting the estate from interlopers as Smith searched for the mine. Although he did kidnap us that night, I don’t think, now, that he would’ve done us any real harm. Evidently, Smith told him to leave us in peace, because Smith suspected we might lead him to the gold mine. Which, as a matter of fact, I did.”

“Tea, Miss Flax?” Cook said, proffering a cup.

“Please, Miss Flax,” the doctor said, snipping a length of gauze with tiny scissors. “Stay still.”

Ophelia took the tea and tried not to move her head. Cook trundled back to her oven.

“You found the gold mine?” Ophelia said to Penrose. “It really exists?”

“Yes, I believe it does. Only time will tell whether it contains the riches Ghent claimed it does. The main entrance, inside the very cave where you and I hid, has fallen in. Another shaft was discovered, too, on a cliff higher up, but it collapsed last night as well. And also. . . .”

“You have such a peculiar look on your face.”

“What appears to be Snow White’s tomb was discovered.”

“Oh.” Probably wisest not to make a detour into any more fairy tale business. “Will Smith work in the gold mine?”

“No. He wishes to return to America.”

“Does Mrs. Coop know about the mine?”

“She’s been informed, yes. She shall have to contend with Ghent, of course. Perhaps she’ll agree to sell him the mountain. But I understand her time shall be taken up with a still more pressing piece of business.”

“Oh?”

“Mr. Hunt!” Cook called over her shoulder, as she pulled a cake pan from the oven. “He arrived at the castle yesterday evening—he said he wished to return a handkerchief—and Mrs. Coop was gussied up like Snow White when he arrived. Black hair, red lips, skin like chalk, and a gown suited to a girl of twelve. She said he was her prince, come at last. Says she means to marry him.”

“Marry him!” Ophelia said. “Someone ought to warn her that he’s pretty keen on her fortune.”

“I suspect she knows,” Penrose said, “and that she doesn’t mind.”

“That hankie,” Ophelia said, “belongs to Miss Amaryllis. Why did Hunt have it? And why was he returning it to Mrs. Coop?”

“Hunt is ever so fond of sugared almonds,” Cook said. “Madam had bundled up a few of them for him. As a token of her regard.”

“But why in Miss Amaryllis’s hankie?”

Cook tipped the cake pan onto a rack. “Did not wish to spoil her own, I fancy. Probably demanded Miss Amaryllis hand hers over.”

“Poor Miss Amaryllis.” Ophelia toyed with her teacup. “I know she’s not the sweetest posy in the garden, but what’ll become of her?”

“She means to return to New York,” Cook said. “She says she has friends there, and she cannot sit idly by while her mother weds another monster.”