by Maia Chance
She gulped away the nasty notion that she’d just crushed some half-pint skull, and lifted her foot.
Something glittery was down there. She scooped it up, scraped away the earth clumped over it.
A little comb. It was heavy for its size, and there were designs along its spine and some kind of dirt-crusted stones inlaid. Her heel had bent some of the teeth, but it was still intact. It could still be useful for fixing her hair in the tower, once she cleaned it up. Then she wouldn’t have to be such a Medusa in front of Hansel. She flicked away a few more particles of dirt, and slid the comb inside her bodice.
A few moments later, Hansel returned to her side. “I did not see anything else,” he said. “Did you?”
“Nope.”
“Are you ready?”
Prue nodded.
* * *
Ophelia and the professor had been waiting for what felt like an hour. The moon arced across the sky. Ophelia rested her elbows on her knees and propped her chin in her hand. She watched the horses’ restless treading, the breeze-blown treetops. She peered through the undergrowth, up and down the track—
“I see someone,” she whispered.
It wasn’t Herz. It was a slighter person, flitting through the tall flowers and grasses of the track towards the coach. There was something familiar about the person’s uncertain step. “Miss Amaryllis!”
“So it is,” Penrose whispered.
Amaryllis wore a billowing cloak and a bonnet. She minced her way, now and then pausing to chipmunk-glance around, before proceeding forward again.
The coachman lifted his head.
Amaryllis reached the coach. A door swung open. An arm—a fellow’s arm, in a dark coat—extended to help her inside.
The door slammed shut, and the coachman cracked his whip. The coach rumbled away towards Schilltag and was enfolded into the night.
“Miss Amaryllis, abroad in the wee hours?” Penrose got up from the log and helped Ophelia to her feet.
“I can’t think who she’d be meeting at this hour, or, for that matter, at all. But I’m fair certain she killed Mr. Coop, and now it looks as though she might’ve had help.”
They stepped onto the track and started in the direction of the village. They spoke in undertones and searched the edges of the trees for signs of Herz.
“Miss Amaryllis a murderess?” Penrose said.
“For revenge, see. You saw how Mr. Coop belittled her.”
“I did.”
“And did you notice the way she regarded Mr. Hunt?”
“I do recall some languishing stares, yes.”
“Well, she could have killed Mr. Coop and fixed things up for Prue to take the blame.”
“Have you any proof?”
“Well, that’s what I was looking for.” Ophelia told him all about the soiled slipper. “She’d only go out in good slippers like those if she was up to something.”
Penrose was silent, but Ophelia could almost hear him thinking, like gears and cogs whirring along.
“Perhaps,” he said, “her slippers bear marks of having been in the out of doors because she wore them on past occasions for a rendezvous, like the one we just witnessed. When did you discover the slipper?”
“This morning.”
“Then they could have been soiled on the afternoon of the murder or yesterday evening.”
Why did he have to be so dratted logical?
“The dilemma,” he said, “is that nearly everyone in the castle had the opportunity to plant a poisoned apple in the urn before tea.”
“Everyone? Even you?”
“During the hour in question, between the conclusion of Winkler’s tests and tea, I returned to the cottage for another look round. Hunt and the ladies went off somewhere—I know not where—Winkler remained in the library to record the results of his tests, and Coop’s secretary, Smith, was holed up with him in the study, working. However, I have no firsthand knowledge of any of this. And then, of course, there are all the servants to be accounted for.” He cast her a glance.
“You don’t suppose I—”
“No.” He paused. “Where is the slipper now?”
“Dropped it in my tussle with Herz.”
Penrose stopped walking. “We ought to fetch it. No sense in leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, so to speak.” He turned on the track. “We’ll return to the castle by way of the orchard—it is at the rear, is it not?”
“Yes.” Ophelia dreaded revisiting the scene of her recent kidnapping, but the professor had a point. She caught up to him. “Maybe that was Mr. Hunt in the coach.”
“Hunt? I never noticed him so much as glance in Miss Amaryllis’s direction. Could it not have been one—or both—of the mysterious gentlemen you saw in the courtyard? If Miss Amaryllis is meeting with the same gentlemen who stole the relics from the cottage, and she is indeed the murderess, it resolves the rather untenable theory that the thefts and Mr. Coop’s death are not related.”
“But what would Miss Amaryllis want with a parcel of bones and a dirty old beam?” They walked in silence for a few moments. “If,” Ophelia said, “Miss Amaryllis has her heart set on Mr. Hunt, maybe she had the relics stolen for him.”
“Forgive me, but is it not a bit far-fetched to assume that Hunt returns Miss Amaryllis’s regard?”
“You can’t conceive of a plain girl being loved by someone as handsome as Mr. Hunt? Plain girls have the same sort of hearts as pretty girls. Maybe even more tender.”
“I would not venture to challenge that point, having neither the inclination nor the knowledge, except to say that Miss Amaryllis, if she indeed harbors a tender heart, keeps it remarkably well hidden.”
“Well, who else could it have been? Don’t forget we arrived in Germany only a fortnight ago. Miss Amaryllis has very few acquaintances here.”
“We must learn more of Mr. Hunt. That much is clear.”
Because of the castle hulking above them, they easily found the bottom of the orchard. Ophelia led the way to the spot where Herz had captured her.
The slipper was nowhere to be found.
“Are you certain,” Penrose said, “this is the place?”
“I’m not liable to forget the greatest fright of my life. Someone’s taken the slipper.” Ophelia stared down the slope into the pointed black wall of trees. Herz could be there, at the edge of the wood, watching them right now. She shivered.
Penrose took her elbow and steered her farther up the slope to the gate in the wall.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said, “I shall go to Baden-Baden and attempt to learn more of Hunt. It is, at least, a place to begin. You, in the meantime, must exercise the utmost caution. Stay inside the castle, and if you see Herz, stay well clear. We don’t know who he’s working for or what he might do next. As for Hunt—do you know how Mrs. Coop made his acquaintance?”
“I don’t.” Ophelia tugged her elbow free of Penrose’s hand. “I’ll go with you to town.”
“Nonsense.”
“You said we’d work together.”
“I said nothing of the sort. Are all American maids so high-handed?”
“A bargain’s a bargain.”
“You seem to have acquired your lady’s maid training aboard one of those famed gambling boats on the Mississippi River.”
“Americans aren’t the only ones who don’t like being double-crossed. And are you suggesting I’m not a proper lady’s maid?”
“Now that you mention it—”
She shot him a dark look. “I am going with you. Where are you staying?”
“At Gasthaus Schatz. In the village. But you really mustn’t—”
“Mustn’t isn’t a word I fancy.”
“That doesn’t come as an immense surprise.”
“I’ll meet you at your inn at ten o’clock in the morning. If
I can’t get away, I’ll send word. But I mean to be there.” Ophelia pushed the gate open.
“I don’t doubt it for an instant,” Penrose said.
She slipped through the gate.
* * *
Ophelia closed the gate behind her and set forth across the kitchen gardens.
Hmph. That Professor Penrose was as bossy as a—
Her eyes lifted to Prue’s tower window.
Uh-oh.
Ophelia could just discern the silhouette of a jug, sitting on the windowsill. The signal!
She hitched her skirts and broke into a jog. She thrust through the barred door at the bottom of the battlement, flew up the dank stairs, and thudded her fist on the tower door. “Prue! Prue, are you all right?”
“Keep your bonnet on!” came the muted reply. “I’m just dandy.”
“What was—the jug—did you—”
“Ophelia.” Prue’s voice was closer now. “I’ve got a sort of, um, confession to make.”
Ophelia frowned at the door. “Oh?”
Ophelia listened in silence as Prue described her outing with Hansel. A cliff in the forest. A tale about a dwarf’s bone. A dug-up grave on a cliff. Empty brandy bottles and footprints—multiple men’s and at least one lady’s.
“Ophelia?” Prue said, when she’d finished. “Are you awful steamed?”
“Steamed doesn’t even—Prue! You’re placing yourself in unnecessary danger, and all for—for what?”
“Them things on the cliff could have something to do with Mr. Coop’s murder!”
“Perhaps. But if Inspector Schubert—”
“Aw, to Timbuktu with Inspector Schubert!”
Well, Ophelia couldn’t argue with that sentiment.
“Hansel thinks,” Prue said, “that the dwarf bones that were in the cottage came from that grave on the cliff. So that means—well, I’m not so sure.”
Ophelia turned it over in her mind. “It means,” she finally said, “that since the skeleton was stolen from the castle, along with the other relics—did you hear about that?”
“Hansel told me.”
“All right—so it means that the folks who stole the skeleton and the relics might be the same folks who dug them up in the first place.”
“Makes sense.”
“But there is nothing to suggest that the skeleton and the relics had anything to do with Mr. Coop’s murder. It’s only a case of two different—and I’ll admit, peculiar—events happening around the same time.”
“A mighty big coincidence.”
“True. But stranger things have happened. Now listen here, Prue. Don’t leave the tower again, because I—”
“No.”
Ophelia rolled her eyes at the keyhole.
“It’s my freedom we’re talking on,” Prue said. “Not yours. I have a right to take a fair crack at helping myself—why, you’d say the same thing yourself, Ophelia Flax.”
Once again, Ophelia couldn’t rightly argue. “Fine,” she said. “But we’ve got to work together on this, understand? No more sneaking behind my back. If I’ve got one leg and you’ve got the other, we need to share what we learn so we can put the thing together again. Promise?”
“Pinky swear.”
* * *
When Gabriel entered his chamber at the inn that night, the air pulsated with a sense of intrusion.
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, dea
r 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.
12
When 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.
