by Maia Chance
Ophelia scrutinized them with eagle eyes.
Mrs. Coop wore a black crepe gown and a complicated black veiled hat, and her plump shoulders heaved with silent sobs. Now and then, she stole a sidelong glance at Hunt—gauging, by the looks of it, what effect her display of grief had on him.
Amaryllis, in a nun-like gown of black wool, a plain black shawl, and a close, spinsterly hat, now and then cast vitriolic glances at her elder sister. Ophelia saw, in profile, her carrot-like nose and curled upper lip.
Hunt, dressed to crisp perfection in a dark suit, merely seemed bored and paid neither lady any heed.
Yet he had accepted Miss Amaryllis’s scented hankie and Mrs. Coop’s invitation to the funeral. Why would he have done those things, if not to further his sinister plot?
* * *
Karl and Wilhelm, the two footmen, with the aid of Hansel and a burly gent from Schilltag, hauled Mr. Coop’s coffin down the stone stairs to the crypt beneath the chapel.
Everyone followed.
The stairwell was covered with lacework patches of lichen, and the air smelled of cold minerals.
Inside the crypt, with its arched ceiling and marble pillars, there were rows of carved stone sarcophagi with the blank eyes and crossed hands of generations of Grunewalds.
Ophelia tasted in the back of her throat, rather than smelled, decay. She drew closer to Cook and Freda.
The men slid the coffin onto a stone dais. Mrs. Coop launched into a fresh bout of weeping, and the priest started up with more Latin.
Ophelia had a better view of Hunt now, which was only somewhat obstructed by short Mr. Smith just in front of her.
Hunt stood partially behind one of the marble pillars, and his sculpted features were as empty as those of the sarcophagi. Yet he seemed to be fidgeting with something inside his breast pocket.
Ophelia’s heart squeezed. He wouldn’t dare murder Mrs. Coop in front of all these people, would he?
She stood on tiptoe, straining to see better. That would foil his carefully laid plans, and—
“Ach,” Cook hissed in Ophelia’s ear. “You trod on my toe, clumsy girl.”
Ophelia gave her a sheepish smile. “Sorry,” she whispered.
Cook sniffed, and Katrina threw her the evil eye.
Mr. Smith glanced back with a sharpness in his usually mild blue eyes. Ophelia saw that his eyes were reddened. She gave him an apologetic smile.
When she looked over to Hunt again, he was no longer fidgeting with his pocket.
But—she glimpsed a flash of white a few steps from Hunt—Amaryllis was furtively edging an envelope beneath her black shawl.
* * *
Gabriel hiked with Winkler to the site in the wood.
Gabriel was in an ill temper, and hot, and furious with Hansel. The lad’s directions had sent Gabriel on a wild goose chase that led him right back to where he had started, at the bottom of the orchard. Hansel did not, it seemed, wish for Gabriel to go anywhere near that cliff. Like every other local resident, Hansel was hiding something.
The thicket around the cottage had been almost completely cleared, leaving the cottage exposed to the late morning sunlight. From behind the house, echoes of chopping rose up.
“Herz is still cutting away,” Winkler said in response to Gabriel’s quizzical look. “He claims that he shall finish today, although he seemed reluctant to be done with it.”
“That is . . . all he said?”
“He did mutter something about payment, too—these peasants are always begging for handouts, are they not?—but I suggested he take that up with the lady of the castle.”
Good. Gabriel tossed his knapsack onto the mossy ground. Herz had not thought it fit to mention having captured Gabriel in a steel man-trap in the wood the night before last. Perhaps whomever Herz was working for had thought it best to simply watch and wait.
They approached the cottage. It was of half-timbered construction, and the spaces between the wooden beams were filled in with what appeared to be wattle and daub, a substance of slats, straw, and clay. Flecks of gold winked in the clay.
The cottage could be very, very old. Wattle and daub was a building technique that had been used for eons.
The chopping noise stopped. Herz emerged from behind the house, beetle-browed and perspiring, with his sleeves rolled back.
Gabriel met his stare. Herz’s lips peeled back.
“Good morning,” Gabriel said to him in a genial tone. “Splendid work on clearing the place.”
Herz said nothing in response but turned to Winkler. “I am finished.”
Then he looked back at Gabriel as he swung his axe, with rather more force than necessary, over his shoulder.
“I shall just go look it over,” Winkler said, toddling round the corner of the cottage.
As soon as Winkler was out of earshot, Gabriel said softly, “Not especially gallant of you, Herz, to have hauled a lady about like you did two nights ago. And Miss Flax is, if you weren’t aware, Mrs. Coop’s maid. She could have your head for that.”
“The fräulein will not say anything, if she is not stupid.”
“Who are you working for?”
Herz sneered. “Ha! You think I am stupid?”
“Not at all. But it’s clear you are patrolling the castle estate for someone, and I’d like to know who.”
“Someone,” Herz said, “who has forbidden me to do what I would like to you.” His calloused fist squeezed the axe handle as though he were snapping a rabbit’s neck.
“Ah,” Gabriel said. “I see.”
Just then, Winkler emerged from behind the cottage. “It is,” he said, “quite as good as may be expected, Herz. You may go.”
Herz gave Gabriel one last sneer before he strutted away into the trees.
“What an unpleasant specimen,” Winkler said. He was unrolling a bundle of paper. “Shall we draw and measure the house, then?”
* * *
Hansel delivered a ball gown to Prue in the tower around midday. It was stuffed in a sack. He said he’d found it in a storeroom in the castle.
“Wish I didn’t have to meet Franz tonight,” Prue said to Hansel, taking the sack off his hands. Guilt smacked her, but she ignored it. It was none of Ophelia’s beeswax if she was going to the ball with Hansel. “I’ve never been to a ball before, and he’ll be like an ant at my picnic. Annoying and small. And crawly.” She studied Hansel. “Seemed like there was something funny between you two last night.”
“Funny?” Hansel scratched an eyebrow. “No. It is only that we were such friends as boys, and we have grown distant. Such circumstances are always awkward.”
Prue wished she could believe him.
“Meeting Franz at the ball,” Hansel said, “is an opportunity to learn if he had anything to do with Mr. Coop’s death or the thefts. You must not forget that Franz told us he remembered discovering that bone with me when we were younger. And last night, I could tell he was quite interested in the skeleton and the cottage—”
“But he was trying to hide it. I know. What if them boot prints up by that cliff grave were his?”
“They very well might have been. Though there were the footprints of other people there, as well. Of at least one other man.”
“And a lady. Maybe even Miss Gertie.”
Hansel nodded. “I thought we might stop again at the sanatorium, before we go to the ball, and make another attempt to enter her chamber. Whatever she was writing in her notebook will doubtless shed light on her motives for spying on Mr. Smith.”
Prue spent the afternoon primping for the ball the best she could. First, she laboriously washed her hair in the basin with cold water and a cake of castile soap. After that, she spent all afternoon drying individual locks with a linen towel that gave off more moisture than it took in. Then she combed her hair out, strand by strand, with t
he ruby comb she’d found on the cliff. There had been porridge on her breakfast tray, and since Ophelia always said oatmeal was good for the complexion, Prue dabbed some on her percolating pimple. It seemed to help. Tough to be certain when your only mirror was the back of a spoon.
The ball gown made up for all that. It was a princess getup of apricot brocade and whipped cream lace. It was a hundred years out of fashion with a square neckline, deep V waist, drapey bits at the elbows, and big poofs on the hips. But it fit pretty well, and so did the matching Louis-heeled slippers.
Whose gown was it? Not, hopefully, one of those Coop shrews. The very thought made Prue’s skin itch. Although she would’ve been willing to wear burlap from the Bible days if it meant getting out of the ugly brown dress.
17
Ophelia had to get hold of that envelope Mr. Hunt had passed to Amaryllis. It could contain, in plain writing, the evidence she needed to convince Inspector Schubert that the murderer was not Prue, but Mr. Hunt.
The hitch was, Amaryllis no longer allowed Ophelia in her bedchamber, and it was risky to sneak in. And what if Amaryllis chose to carry the envelope around rather than hide it?
When Mrs. Coop sent Ophelia to fetch smelling salts and bring them to the drawing room, she saw her chance.
Mrs. Coop, Amaryllis, Hunt, and Smith were draped drearily on the furniture. No one appeared to be speaking. Hunt was smoking, and Smith stared bleakly out the window.
The servants had set out a cold collation in lieu of luncheon, but the meats, cheeses, fruits, and goose liver pie were untouched. A fly buzzed over the table.
Ophelia crept in.
“What took you so long?” Mrs. Coop said.
Ophelia passed her the vial of smelling salts, which she’d carried on a small silver tray. “Sorry, ma’am.” Her eyes stole to Amaryllis.
“It’s terribly warm in here,” Mrs. Coop complained.
Amaryllis was staring at the wainscoting—doing a mighty convincing job of ignoring her beloved Mr. Hunt—and her black shawl was draped loosely around her waist.
Ophelia spotted the corner of the envelope. Amaryllis must’ve been holding it, but in her state of melancholy it lay, forgotten, on her lap.
“It is indeed warm,” Ophelia murmured. She swooped close to Amaryllis with her tray. “Allow me, miss, to take your shawl.”
Before Amaryllis could respond, Ophelia had tugged the shawl free of her waist and pretended to drop it on the floor. The envelope tumbled down beside it, just as Ophelia said, “Oh! What a peculiar bird outside the window!”
“You clumsy fool!” Amaryllis’s eyes were on the window as she sprang to her feet.
“I beg your pardon.” Ophelia knelt, placed the silver tray on top of the envelope, and gathered up the shawl. “Here, miss. Forgive me for my clumsiness.”
Amaryllis snatched the shawl and slumped away to the windows.
Ophelia picked up the tray, holding the envelope tight against its underside, and glided out of the drawing room.
She opened the envelope—the wax seal had already been broken—in the servants’ stair.
There was a handwritten note inside. The script was elegant but masculine.
My Tender Little Swallow:
My heart palpitates in joy, anticipating the delights in store for us tonight! I shall wait in the coach for you this evening at nine o’clock. Pray do not forget your mask!
Your H.
Mask? Ophelia frowned.
Then she remembered the colorful advertisement she’d seen in Baden-Baden yesterday. The downtrodden stepsister was off to the fairy tale ball. And, it appeared, with none other than the handsome prince Hunt himself.
She slid the note back in the envelope.
After the ladies, Hunt, and Smith had left the drawing room, Ophelia tiptoed back in and wedged the envelope behind a cushion of the sofa Amaryllis had been sitting on.
* * *
The innkeeper’s wife brought Gabriel a note early in the afternoon, moments after he’d returned from the cottage site. He and Winkler had spent hours mapping and making pencil drawings of the cottage. It wasn’t the same as having the missing relics in hand, but at least they wouldn’t return to Heidelberg empty-handed when all this was done.
The note was from Miss Flax.
They plan to attend ball in B-B tonight. Am going with you. Please advise regarding transport.
Gabriel went downstairs to speak with the innkeeper’s wife. She told him his trunk had arrived from Heidelberg, and she assisted him in hiring a carriage for the evening. Then he sent a handwritten note up to the castle with the lad who worked in the Schilltag telegraph office, which read:
Did not doubt for a moment you would come. Have hired a carriage. Shall be waiting at the inn at ten o’clock.
Gabriel knew it was all very scandalous, arranging meetings like this with a maidservant. To an outsider, it wouldn’t appear any different from the sort of thing the more unconscionable gentlemen of his class had dragged pretty serving girls into since time immemorial. It had taken him two hours of blind wandering about Baden-Baden yesterday to come to the conclusion that he must be far more cautious in his dealings with Miss Flax.
Yet now, he couldn’t help but feel that it was she who was doing most of the dragging.
* * *
Prue and Hansel rode the farmer’s hay cart into Baden-Baden again. The scene at the sanatorium was the same as the evening before: the consumptive tremblies were all at their soup in the grand dining room, and at the rear of the building, the kitchens were going full chisel.
Prue and Hansel talked things over behind some flowery shrubs.
“I’m thinking,” Prue said, “that we ought to just waltz in through the front doors like we own the place.” Acting like she owned the place had worked a couple of times in the past. Course, it had gotten her thrown out on her rump a couple of other times, too. “How about it?”
“I cannot think of another way to enter Miss Darling’s chamber, short of scaling the vines.”
“There ain’t any vines.”
“Precisely.”
They started jostling out from the shrubs, and Prue’s poufy left hip caught on a branch. She lost her balance and took Hansel down with her. He landed on his back with Prue piled on top of him.
“Good evening,” he said, half whisper and half croak. His eyes were inches from hers, and their noses nearly touched.
She hoped to horseradish he couldn’t see the pimple.
His eyes were coffee-bean black in the shadows. She felt the puff of his breath right on her lips, saw the fine golden stubble on his chin.
She didn’t want to leave.
She could just picture Ma’s mouth-pucker. Hansel had calloused gardener’s hands. Probably kept his life savings under the mattress.
But Hansel was, despite all that, so confounded interesting.
“We should go,” Hansel murmured. He didn’t move a muscle. He was fixing on Prue’s eyes like he was curious what was stacked up inside her brains.
Funny. Nobody had ever wondered that before. It made something kind of unspool in her chest.
She wiggled her waist away from his nice, warm hands and clambered to her feet. She shook out her layers of skirts, trying to hide her consternation. “Got two left feet tonight. Me, I mean. Not you.”
Hansel was brushing leaves off his tailcoat. He didn’t look her way. And suddenly, his profile was the most beautiful, heart-wrenching sight Prue had ever laid eyes on.
Was there a word for that?
A minute later, they burst right through the sanatorium’s front doors, into the foyer. They were very majestic, at least to Prue’s way of thinking, in their ball togs.
A squirrelly man with a moustache like a charcoal smudge came rushing at them from behind a desk.
Hansel said something to him
in German, in the snootiest voice Prue had ever heard. The squirrelly gent wrung his fingers, made a wheedling reply, and backed off.
Hansel led Prue up the stairs, which had a bannister polished to a spit shine, into an upper corridor that was all soothing floral wallpaper and carpet like quicksand.
“What did you say to that feller down there?” Prue whispered.
“I told him I am a prince of Prussia, and we are here to collect Miss Darling for the ball at the Conversationshaus.”
“Worked like a charm.”
“Perhaps. But we must hurry. I believe this is Miss Darling’s door. The gentleman downstairs said it was number twenty-one.” Hansel tried the knob. The door swished inward.
Miss Darling and her old trout lived well, in a medicinal sort of way. There were two mahogany beds, with a table in between. The table had lots of tonic bottles—brown, blue, and clear glass, with labels in English and German—along with smelling salts and an ample stack of clean hankies. For all that coughing. The wardrobe was filled with thick crocheted shawls and bombazine gowns. Everything was of the first quality, but plain. Nothing seemed out of keeping with what Prue knew about Gertie, though she wouldn’t have been surprised to see a gnarled walking stick or maybe a meerschaum pipe.
Hansel was flicking though the opened mail on the desk.
Prue looked around his shoulder. “Anything?”
“Letters to the old lady—her name is Miss Abigail Upton—from doting nieces in England. Accounts are all tidy. They have been staying here at the sanatorium for some two weeks. It appears that before that, they were in Switzerland.”
“What’s this?” Prue had opened a desk drawer, and she pulled out a book. It had a leather cover worn soft with use. “Ain’t this what Miss Gertie was writing in when she was spying on Mr. Smith with her binoculars?”
Prue flipped through the pages. The notebook was half filled with scribbly, cramped writing in pencil. There were rough sketches sprinkled in, too. The second half of the notebook was still blank.
