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

by Maia Chance

  “You look like someone nicked your hot-cross-bun money,” Prue said.

  “Did you learn anything?”

  “Only that Franz and Gertie have never laid eyes on each other before. And that he likes to boast.” She frowned. Hansel was still searching the dance floor. “What’s the matter?”

  “It is . . . would you like to view the gaming rooms?” He offered his arm.

  “All right.”

  * * *

  Ophelia was beginning to despair of spotting Amaryllis and Mr. Hunt.

  “Miss Flax,” Penrose said suddenly, “if you would be so kind as to direct your gaze in the direction of the orchestra.”

  Ophelia squinted over the swaying mob of dancers. “Oh! That’s her.”

  Miss Amaryllis, her frail form bedecked in a lavish—although rather ill-fitting—gown of robin’s egg blue, fanned herself near the orchestra. She wore a mask, which she’d pushed up over her coif, and a pair of feathery wings.

  “That’s one of her sister’s gowns,” Ophelia said. “She must’ve taken it in herself. No wonder she didn’t leave her chamber last night. And she’s dressed her own hair, too.”

  Penrose was staring intently. “Here is a gentleman, bringing her something to drink.”

  Ophelia followed his gaze. “Mr. Hunt.” He wore a furry beast’s mask and a red martial costume, complete with medals, epaulets, gold braid, and tall, shiny boots.

  Amaryllis accepted the glass with a dazzling smile.

  “I’ve never,” Ophelia said, “seen her so . . . happy. She’s transformed.”

  “We’ve only to wait for Hunt to unmask himself—surely he’ll need some fresh air—”

  “Or to smoke a cigarette.”

  “Yes, I hadn’t thought of that—and our task is complete.”

  This, however, proved less simple than Ophelia had hoped. She and Penrose loitered and strolled, even had glasses of champagne, all the while keeping Amaryllis and her beastly squire in sight. But although Amaryllis and Hunt danced waltz after waltz and went out onto the terrace for a breath of air, Hunt never removed his mask.

  Ophelia was getting antsy. “We can’t wait all night,” she said. Amaryllis and Hunt were chatting and laughing just inside the terrace doors. “And what if he never removes his mask?” Before Penrose could respond, she handed him her empty champagne glass. “I’ve had a notion.”

  “Miss Flax,” Penrose warned.

  But Ophelia was already limping her way through the throng with her crutch, in the direction of Amaryllis and Hunt. Her hunchback leaned perilously to one side, but she didn’t slow down.

  When she reached them, she moved as though to dodge past Hunt, through the doors, and out onto the terrace. It was more crowded than ever, so it was simple enough to run into him, as though she’d tripped or been shoved.

  Amaryllis squealed.

  Hunt gasped as Ophelia, pretending to be off balance, caught at his arm. This threw him off balance. As he stumbled forward, she grabbed the edge of his beast’s mask and pulled.

  He landed on the floor with a thud. Ophelia held the mask in her hands.

  “Darling!” Amaryllis cried, hurling herself down at his side.

  Ophelia looked at the mask in her hand. Then she looked down at the gentleman she’d been so certain was Hunt.

  She blinked. She was looking at none other than the first footman, Karl.

  * * *

  “You poor poppet,” Miss Amaryllis said, helping Karl to his feet. She threw Ophelia a grimace that could’ve curdled milk. “You. Flax. What are you doing here? Did my—did Mrs. Coop send you to spy on me?”

  Ophelia touched her face. She’d lost her wax nose in the scrimmage.

  Then Penrose was at her side, still wearing his mask. “A mere coincidence. It is Miss Flax’s evening off, and I thought I’d bring her to see the famous social whirl of Baden-Baden. Terribly sorry for the accident.” He attempted to edge Ophelia away.

  “Wait a moment,” Amaryllis said. “You’re that professor, aren’t you? What are you doing with my maid?”

  “Little swallow,” Karl said in Amaryllis’s ear. His sparse gray hair had tufted up, and he was smoothing it over his balding dome. “There is no need for a scene.” He scanned the ballroom, looking twitchy. However, no one was paying them the least bit of attention anymore.

  Amaryllis ignored Karl. “Well? Explain yourself.”

  “I was,” Penrose said, “most gratified to make Miss Flax’s acquaintance and, as I already mentioned, I wished for her to see the sights.”

  “But her horrid little friend is locked up for murder.”

  “I wished to take her mind off things.”

  “But she ought to be at the castle. In mourning.”

  “As,” Penrose said, “should you. Now. I’m certain we may all agree not to mention this unfortunate incident to anyone.’

  “You mean”—Amaryllis narrowed her eyes—“to Inspector Schubert?”

  “As much as that good officer of the police would, doubtless, be interested to hear that the young lady of the castle has taken up with the footman—what an intriguing turn of events—”

  “Of course, of course, no need for that.” Karl swabbed his brow with a handkerchief. “Come, little swallow. Let us go for some air.”

  “Quite right.” Amaryllis straightened her feathery wings. “I won’t allow a wretched maidservant and a moldy professor to spoil my evening.” She hooked her arm through Karl’s. They made for the doors that led to the foyer.

  19

  “Bold move, Miss Flax,” Penrose said. His eyes glittered behind his mask. “Admittedly, it had all the grace of elephants dancing a pas de deux.”

  “I’ve always been one to rise to the occasion.”

  “And rise you did. Although I can’t say the same for your hunchback.” He gestured with his chin to her middle.

  Ophelia looked down. The hunchback had come unfastened and had migrated to the front of her bodice. She appeared to have a ponderous belly.

  She sighed. “Nothing to do about it now.”

  “I admire your fortitude. Many ladies would dissolve into a mortified puddle.”

  “I’m not prone to dissolving.”

  “True enough. Miss Amaryllis and the footman—I must confess, I am surprised.”

  “We’ve been blind. All those times I thought she was staring moon-eyed after Mr. Hunt, she was really staring at Karl. He’s always just standing in the background, see. When Mr. Hunt was fiddling with his waistcoat pocket in the crypt this morning, he must’ve been checking for his cigarette case. Meanwhile, I didn’t even notice Karl pass Amaryllis the note.”

  “I wonder how Hunt came to have her handkerchief in his hotel chamber. Are you certain it was hers?”

  “Yes. There must be some explanation.”

  “Did you observe,” he said, “the way Karl was looking about so anxiously just now?”

  Ophelia nodded. “As soon as I removed his mask—”

  “Removed. What a delicate way to put it.”

  “—he got as jumpy as a cricket.”

  “His eyes were rather as big and wary as a cricket’s, too. I suspect he’s afraid of being spotted by someone. Let’s follow them.”

  * * *

  In the foyer, it was blessedly cooler and far less crowded. Ophelia and Penrose spotted Amaryllis and Karl behind one of the huge pillars. They were bickering.

  Ophelia and Penrose darted behind another pillar. They strained their ears.

  “—you said you’d stop—” Amaryllis’s voice was squeaky.

  Karl’s deeper voice rumbled something unintelligible, but his tone was not as placating as it had sounded inside the ballroom.

  “—and they’ll find you and—” Amaryllis said.

  There was a clatter of heels.

&
nbsp; Ophelia peeked around the pillar. “They’re leaving,” she whispered.

  Karl was stalking away across the expanse of marble floor. Amaryllis scurried after him.

  “That didn’t sound like a lover’s quarrel,” Ophelia said.

  “And Karl isn’t going outside. He’s headed for the gaming rooms.”

  “Judging from the way Miss Amaryllis was protesting, gambling seems to be a sore point.”

  “I agree. And not only between Miss Amaryllis and Karl. Look.”

  Ophelia saw a towering gentleman in black evening clothes watching Karl as he passed through the gaming room doors. Amaryllis trailed after Karl. Then the black-clad gentleman smoothly followed.

  Ophelia frowned. “Do you reckon Karl owes that gentleman money?”

  “I suspect that Karl owes not that gentleman but the gaming establishment a great deal of money.” Penrose removed his mask and placed his spectacles on his nose. “That gentleman has the look of a guard. Shall we?” He proffered his arm.

  * * *

  The gaming room was, like the ballroom, large and crowded with richly dressed ladies and gentlemen. The walls were hung with scarlet damask, and the ceiling was all gold moldings and tubby cherubs.

  But unlike the ballroom, the gaming room was hushed, and the atmosphere, punctuated by nervous or relieved bursts of laughter, was charged. Croupiers murmured in French, and ivory balls bounced with fragile clicks in the spinning roulette wheels. Coins jingled and cash rustled.

  Ophelia held Penrose’s arm as they wound their way between the gaming tables, searching for Amaryllis and Karl.

  Ophelia made a point of ignoring all the furtive glances at her crutch and belly.

  Through the phantasmagoric swirl of tobacco smoke, she saw faces clustered around the roulette tables in all species of ecstasy and torment: a plump gentleman in Russian officer’s clothes dabbed his streaming forehead with a hankie; a lady in a scandalously décolleté gown giggled as she ran her fingers through a mound of gold coins; a threadbare gentleman laid down a thick stack of paper notes before a croupier; a handsome youth in evening clothes plucked a glass of brandy from a passing waiter’s tray—

  Ophelia gasped.

  Penrose glanced down. “Do you see them?”

  “No, but”—Ophelia steered him behind a crowded roulette table—“that’s Hansel, the castle gardener, over there. I nearly didn’t recognize him in those evening clothes.”

  “Has the entire castle staff decided to duck off to Baden-Baden this evening?”

  “It’s not funny! I can’t be seen by him. If Cook—or, heaven forbid, Mrs. Coop—finds out I’ve been here, I’ll be out on my ear.”

  Penrose’s smile evaporated.

  “What is it?”

  “It seems Miss Bright has accompanied Hansel.”

  * * *

  “Prue?” Ophelia’s belly plummeted. “Prue didn’t tell me she was coming here tonight! Why, anyone might see her. Even Inspector Schubert could be here!”

  Ophelia no longer cared who saw her. She tucked her crutch under her arm, held fast to the pillow at her waist, and marched around the crowded roulette table.

  And there was Prue, decked out in an antique-looking gown of apricot-colored brocade. Her golden hair fell in cascading ringlets, and she clung to Hansel’s arm.

  Neither Hansel nor Prue noticed Ophelia, so absorbed were they in the roulette game.

  Almost everyone around the table cheered as the ball fell home. Hansel, however, was grim.

  Ophelia followed Hansel’s eyes. They were locked on Karl, who was in the thick of the crowd, Amaryllis at his side. While everyone else at the table was jubilant, Karl was misery itself, and Amaryllis looked like she could bite through a ten-penny nail.

  But Ophelia couldn’t get in a lather over Karl and Amaryllis. Not now. She reached Prue’s side. “If it isn’t,” she said through the din, “Cinderella herself.”

  “Ophelia!”

  “Where’d you get that gown?”

  “Hansel dug it up in some old storeroom in the castle attic.”

  Ophelia’s breath caught. She wasn’t the only one rooting around up there, then. What if Hansel found her theatrical case?

  Hansel disengaged his arm from Prue’s and gulped.

  “Prudence Deliverance Bright,” Ophelia said, “what are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in the tower! Don’t you remember”—she glanced around and lowered her voice—“you’ve been accused of murder?”

  “You can’t think what it’s like in that old tower.” Prue’s lower lip quivered. “It’s chock-full of bird droppings, it’s as cold as the Antarctic, and—”

  “I’m not saying it’s the Astor House Hotel, but you need to stay put in that tower for a little while longer while I sort things out, or we shall have the mischief to pay.”

  Prue’s eyes welled up.

  “Miss Bright only wished to get out for an evening,” Hansel said. He sounded distracted; he was still watching Karl.

  Karl reached into his pockets for money to place a fresh stake.

  “Get out for an evening!” Ophelia said. “Why, Prue’s been more out than in.”

  At that moment, Hansel stepped forward and tapped Karl’s shoulder. Karl turned. When he saw who it was, he made a grimace that was part smile, part guilty cringe. Ophelia couldn’t understand what Hansel was saying, but he appeared to be dead earnest.

  “What’s happening?” Ophelia asked Prue.

  “I—I don’t know.”

  Now Hansel was speaking to Karl more emphatically, and people were beginning to stare. Amaryllis fanned herself in nervous bursts. Her feathery wings were askew. Hansel placed a hand on Karl’s sloping shoulder.

  Karl shook it off, suddenly angry. The hairs he’d so carefully arranged over his balding pate came loose. “Nein, nein, nein!” he said.

  Then the gentleman in black, the one who’d followed Karl in from the foyer, appeared. A second black-clad gentleman was with him.

  Ophelia gasped. The two guards were heart-stoppingly familiar. They were the same gentlemen she’d seen skulking across the castle courtyard with the ceiling beam. She was sure of it. One of them had a chin like an anvil, and the other had a single black eyebrow sprawled across his forehead.

  One of the guards pushed Hansel aside. They each grabbed one of Karl’s arms and drew him away from the roulette table.

  “Darling!” Amaryllis wailed.

  The room erupted in gasps and chatter as Karl was ushered to the doors. Amaryllis skittered at his heels, snarling imprecations at the two guards. Hansel strode just behind, with Ophelia, Prue, and Penrose not far after.

  The guards dragged Karl through the foyer and out the front doors, down the Conversationshaus steps, and thrust him out onto the gravel drive.

  “Gehen Sie aus, Graf Grunewald,” one of them said, “oder Sie werden ausweisen von Baden sein!” They climbed up the steps and disappeared through the doors.

  Karl, his hair and clothing in disarray, made a show of tidying his cuffs.

  “I told you,” Amaryllis said to him, “you oughtn’t go in there.”

  Karl smoothed one of his epaulettes.

  “Father,” Hansel said. “I did not believe it when they told me you had been coming back here—”

  “Father?” Ophelia said.

  “Be quiet!” Amaryllis said to Hansel.

  “Hansel,” Ophelia said, “Karl is your father?”

  Hansel sighed. “Yes.”

  “I’m rather more curious, Karl,” Penrose said, “as to why those guards addressed you as Count Grunewald.”

  Karl suddenly seemed shabby and defeated. Moonlight bounced off his bald head. He parted his lips as if to speak, but before he could utter a word, Amaryllis turned him around and they marched off across the gravel, disappearing behind a ro
w of waiting carriages.

  * * *

  “Your pa is the count?” Prue said to Hansel. “Don’t that mean you’re a prince or something?”

  Hansel jammed his hands in his trouser pockets. “I am able to explain all of this—well, I cannot explain why my father was accompanied by Miss Amaryllis. But for the rest, there is a rational explanation.”

  “Go on,” Penrose said.

  “My father, Heinrich von Förster, Count Grunewald, was the owner of Schloss Grunewald until he sold it to Homer T. Coop four months ago.”

  Ophelia thought hard. Heinrich. That explained the H. on the note to Amaryllis.

  “I am sorry”—Hansel looked softly at Prue—“that I deceived you, Miss Bright. He is my father. I shall inherit his title.”

  “What about your mother?” Prue asked.

  “She died years ago.”

  “How come you’re only a gardener?”

  “I was forced to discontinue my studies at Heidelberg University when”—he stared down at the ground—“when funding ran out.” He lifted his chin again. “But I plan to return, as soon as I find a way, and study medicine.”

  “Gambling,” Ophelia said. “Count Grunewald lost everything here in the gaming rooms?”

  “At first, he played with his aristocratic friends. When they refused to play anymore, out of conscience or, more usually, because Father owed them too much, they disappeared like smoke. Then he turned to the gaming rooms.”

  That had to be why those two guards stole the ceiling beam and the skeleton—probably as some sort of debt collection for the gaming establishment.

  “Slowly,” Hansel said, “everything drained away. My mother’s jewels, the silver plate, the valuable pieces of furniture, carpets, tapestries.”

  Ophelia and Penrose exchanged a glance. Tapestries.

  “Finally,” Hansel said, “he sold the castle to that upstart Coop.”

  “It is remarkable,” Penrose said, “to say the least, that a count and his son stayed on as servants in the castle they were forced to sell.”

  “That was part of the agreement. Father sold the castle to Coop only on the condition that he and I, and Grandmother, could stay on as long as we wished as domestic servants in our ancestral home.”