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

by Maia Chance

  “Grandmother?” Ophelia said. But she’d already guessed the answer.

  “Matilda.” Hansel shook his head. “To think that a gräfin—a countess—should be reduced to peeling apples in a chimney corner.”

  Ophelia glanced again at Penrose. His eyes glowed.

  He was thinking of the tapestry.

  “Homer T. Coop,” Hansel said, kicking the gravel, “cheated us. Schloss Grunewald is worth far more than he paid for it, but he took advantage of my father’s desperate circumstances to strike a scoundrel’s bargain. I can easily understand how Coop amassed such a fortune. He doubtless cheated and tricked for every penny of it.” Hansel’s boyishly handsome face was suddenly altered. Maybe it was a trick of the moonlight, but his eyes were too bright, his lips tight, as he said, “Homer T. Coop deserved to die.” He dug something from his waistcoat pocket. A key. He placed it in Prue’s hand.

  Then, hands still in his trouser pockets, he slouched off into the night without even saying good-bye.

  * * *

  Ophelia and Penrose herded Prue towards their hired carriage, which was waiting at the far end of the Conversationshaus drive.

  “You ought not speak to Hansel again,” Ophelia said to her. “He could be dangerous.”

  “Don’t be a looney. He’s about as dangerous as a new-hatched chick.”

  “A chick? He could have killed Mr. Coop!”

  Prue spun to face her. “How could you?”

  “How could I? I’ll tell you how. If Karl is Count Grunewald and Hansel is his heir, then they were both, at least the way Hansel tells it, cheated by Mr. Coop.”

  “Making a deal for yourself ain’t the same as straight-up fleecing. Hansel and his pa wouldn’t kill Mr. Coop over that.”

  “Perhaps,” Penrose said, “the count did not foresee the humiliation entailed in performing the duties of a domestic in one’s own ancestral home.” He paused. “At this juncture I should mention that young Hansel has been unaccountably obstructive with regard to the location of the cliff gravesite. Now I understand, at least in part, why: he wished to protect his family’s estate from further investigation by outsiders. The question remains, however, what precisely is he protecting?”

  “He wouldn’t tell you where the cliff is?” Ophelia said.

  “Sent me off in quite the wrong direction, I’m afraid.”

  “Maybe it’s only that you ain’t too good with your geographies, professor,” Prue said. She twisted her lips. “Is that Hansel’s fault? Anyway, Miss Amaryllis is a sight more suspicious than Hansel or Karl. I’ll bet she killed Mr. Coop. To get at the castle and money.”

  “Mrs. Coop inherited her husband’s castle and money,” Ophelia reminded her. “Not Miss Amaryllis.”

  “Unless,” Prue said darkly, “Mrs. Coop was to kick the bucket.”

  That’s exactly what Ophelia was afraid of.

  20

  They’d reached the carriage. Ophelia climbed inside—no easy feat with her pillow belly and crutch. Prue, still standing on the drive, hesitated.

  “Miss Bright,” Penrose said, just behind her. “Be reasonable. If you attempt to bolt now, the entire Baden-Baden police force will be after you. You are an accused murderess.”

  Prue burst into tears. “I’m ever so fond of Hansel! I don’t mind he’s a count. I’ve got to go find him.”

  Ophelia met Penrose’s eyes.

  “Come, now,” Penrose said. He helped Prue into the carriage.

  As the carriage left the lights of Baden-Baden behind and began its ascent into the dark mountains, Prue’s weeping faded to sniffs and hiccups.

  “Prue,” Ophelia said, “you’ve got to listen to me. I’m not saying Hansel did anything wrong—but he could have.”

  Prue gave her a sullen look through the shadows.

  “We’re caught in a mess,” Ophelia said, “and the only way to get out is to be very careful.”

  “What”—Prue gestured towards Penrose—“does he know?”

  “Know?” Penrose’s voice was pleasant, but the glance he threw at Ophelia was thorn-sharp.

  “Only,” Ophelia said quickly to Prue, “that we are servants, professional servants, with very little money to our names.” She swallowed. “What does Hansel know?”

  Prue hesitated. “About the same.”

  Ophelia felt Penrose’s eyes on her. She tried to ignore them.

  “If Hansel would only tell the police that he is Count Grunewald’s son,” Ophelia said, “maybe they’d believe him.”

  “I wouldn’t,” Penrose said, “be too confident of that. If the police knew that the count, his mother, and his son were all still in residence at the castle—all of them bearing, mind you, a sizeable grudge—it could cause suspicion to fall still more heavily on Prue.”

  Both Ophelia and Prue stared at him in surprise.

  “Inspector Schubert,” Penrose said, “believes Prue is a gullible creature—”

  “Thinks I’m a numskull,” Prue said.

  “—and so he might surmise that Prue, taken with the handsome young son of the disgraced count, was working in tandem with him. Or even. . . .” He paused.

  “Yes?” Ophelia said.

  “Or even covering his tracks.”

  “You mean to say I’m lying about something?” Prue said.

  Was Prue really capable of lying for Hansel? That was difficult to believe. But then, she’d said she was ever so fond of him.

  “Hansel is hiding something,” Penrose said. “He is hiding the location of the cliff gravesite—”

  “Not from me!” Prue swung to face Ophelia. “You’re buying this claptrap?” She was crying again, but she sounded angry. “Maybe you are a wicked old witch, just like your costume.”

  A lump like a goose egg filled Ophelia’s throat. “Let’s just get you back to the tower,” she said, “before anything else happens.” She kept her spine as straight as a broomstick and stared out the carriage window, into the night.

  * * *

  Prue went with Ophelia willingly, although silently, back to the tower.

  Off to the side, the battlement plunged down into a tar pit of darkness. A cold night wind whipped their hair.

  Prue unlocked the door with the key Hansel had given her. Through the open door, Ophelia saw the outlines of a stool, a chamber pot, a mattress.

  It really was a dungeon.

  “Prue,” Ophelia said. “I’m sorry. Don’t—”

  “I thought we was friends, but I guess not. I reckon you want this?” Prue passed over the key and shut the door right in Ophelia’s nose.

  * * *

  Ophelia hurried up to her chamber, changed out of her crone’s costume, and cleaned off the greasepaint.

  Prue being so angry pained Ophelia to be sure. But she couldn’t dwell on that just now. Everyone seemed to be lying about everything. This puzzle was beginning to have too many threads flapping in the breeze, like a sweater come unraveled. She must do things with great care now, and one thing at a time, or . . . well, what might happen next didn’t bear contemplation. She only hoped Prue would have the sense to stay away from Hansel.

  Ophelia replaced the tower key on its hook in the kitchen, so the maids could bring Prue her breakfast in the morning. Then she went to check on Mrs. Coop.

  No lights burned in her bedchamber, but the drapes hung open and moonlight leaked through. Mrs. Coop was a snoring mound, sprawled diagonally across the twisted bedclothes. Her face seemed oddly radiant. Ophelia crept closer.

  Eek! She recoiled.

  Mrs. Coop’s face was paper white, her lips unnaturally dark. She’d used powder and paint to make her face as white as snow and her lips cherry red. Surely the intent had been Snow White, but it was verging on Parisian mime. The lip paint had smudged across her cheek, giving her the look of some bloodsucking ghoul.
/>   And the bottle of hysteria drops on the table—Ophelia picked it up—was empty.

  That was the last of those, then.

  But until they wore off, if anyone felt inclined to do Mrs. Coop in, she’d have no way of defending herself.

  Ophelia pulled an extra quilt from a cupboard in the boudoir and curled up on the sofa by Mrs. Coop’s fireplace.

  Just as Ophelia dropped into a black, restless sleep, she thought of Prue, of Hansel. Of fierce Amaryllis, and of Karl’s tragic eyes.

  * * *

  “Did you really sleep on that sofa like a pet poodle?” Mrs. Coop said.

  Ophelia’s eyes flew open, and she struggled upright beneath the quilt. “I beg your pardon, ma’am. I wished to watch over you last night. You did not seem quite well.”

  Mrs. Coop was sitting up in bed. Her face was a disaster of caked powder and smeared red paint, and her hair was a haystack. “I can’t think why that would cause you to hole up in my chamber as though we were Irish piled in a tenement.”

  Ophelia was on her feet and folding the quilt. “Forgive me, ma’am. Shall I fetch your breakfast?”

  “Well, of course! Professor Winkler said he would pay me a visit this morning to apprise me of the progress of his investigation of Snow White’s cottage. And Princess Verushka is calling on me this morning, too, the silly cow. Said it was to pay her respects, but it’s more likely another of her attempts to cultivate a friendship that is quite out of her league. I must bathe and dress.” Mrs. Coop smeared her fingertips across her cheek. “What is this on my face?”

  * * *

  While Mrs. Coop received her visitors in the morning room, Ophelia stripped the linens from Mrs. Coop’s bed. They were damp and sour smelling with perspiration, and streaked with red face paint. Changing the linens was, strictly speaking, the chore of a chambermaid, but there was no chambermaid at the castle, and Freda had been engrossed in a lurid-looking novel and hazelnut breakfast buns in the kitchen.

  Ophelia stuffed the linens into a basket and set off for the laundry.

  She was nearing the bottom of the servants’ stair when she heard, a long way off, a marrow-chilling scream.

  She froze, listening. Another scream, coming from somewhere in the upper rooms. She dropped the basket and tore up the stairs.

  She burst out of the door that led from the servants’ stair to the family chambers. There were pounding footsteps.

  Katrina was running down the corridor. Her face was a mask of fright, and she clutched at her apron bodice like it was choking her. “Mein Gott, mein Gott im Himmel! I cannot go back in there!”

  “In where? What is it?”

  Katrina stopped, panting through her mouth like a sick animal. “I went to the smoking room to brush the carpets—Frau Holder said I ought to—and—and—ach, I am afraid he is dead.”

  Ophelia felt dizzy. “Who?”

  “Karl.”

  Ophelia stared at her. “In the smoking room?”

  “Ja—but I cannot go back!” Katrina’s hand, still clasping her bodice, shook. Her finger was still wrapped in gauze.

  “Go to the kitchens and send someone for the doctor.”

  “He shall not need a doctor. Not ever again.”

  “Well, then, send for the police.”

  Ophelia went to the smoking room by herself. Her spine prickled. But what if Karl was only ill? He’d need help.

  The door was ajar. Karl was seated, slumped over a table with his face on his arm. He wore his green footman’s livery, and the balding back of his head was neatly combed.

  Ophelia forced herself to approach.

  She couldn’t see his face, but one touch at his wrist assured her that he was dead as a doornail.

  A delicate, gold-rimmed teacup sat on the table at his elbow. Inside the teacup was a deep brown liquid. It was too reddish to be coffee, too murky looking to be tea.

  Ophelia leaned forward and sniffed it. It smelled of twigs and dirt, and also of mold.

  She frowned, took another sniff.

  It smelled like nothing so much as . . . mushrooms.

  “I heard a scream,” a man said.

  Ophelia jumped back from the teacup. Wilhelm, the second footman, stood in the doorway. His eyes were as big as dinner plates.

  “I think he’s been poisoned,” Ophelia said.

  * * *

  There were a few minutes of calm. Then the castle burst into a tizzy like an overturned wasp’s nest.

  Ophelia lingered by the bells in the corridor outside the kitchen, waiting for Mrs. Coop to ring for her and trying to stay out of the way. A weeping Katrina was being consoled by Freda in the kitchen, Cook was searching for Hansel out in the gardens, and Wilhelm had gone to break the news to Mrs. Coop, Smith, and Amaryllis. Old Matilda was missing from her customary chimney corner.

  The village doctor came and went, and then the village constable.

  Mrs. Coop never rang. Ophelia loitered in the kitchen. She thought of making herself some tea but, remembering the weird mushroom brew in Karl’s cup, changed her mind.

  Presently, Hansel, pale and stricken, sprinted through the kitchen.

  He’d be heading to his dead father’s side. How terrible that she had suspected him! He was innocent, a victim. Surely.

  Ophelia hugged her own elbows. This storybook castle was starting to feel like one of Freda’s gothic horror novels.

  * * *

  Prue lay curled up on her mattress in the tower. Cherry pies and gingersnaps cavorted with flapjacks and bacon in her head.

  No one had come with her breakfast tray today. She didn’t know why. No one had come to haul her chamber pot away, either. She’d thought about dumping its contents overboard, out the window. Instead, she’d settled on covering it with the washbasin and pushing it to the farthest corner of the tower. And, to take the cake, Freda had carried away Prue’s earthen water jug, so she couldn’t even send a signal to Ophelia for help.

  It was impossible for Prue to sort out all she’d learned about Hansel last night with an empty belly and a sandpaper throat.

  What she did know was that him being a—what was it?—right, a future count, explained a bundle. The hoity-toity voice, the gentleman’s manners, the way he’d gazed so bleakly into that pawnbroker’s window. It also explained why he’d been so bent on figuring out who had dug up that skeleton and who had stolen the cottage furnishings. Those things, after a fashion, belonged to him. Or, they had once. What she didn’t understand was the scary look in his eyes when he’d said that Mr. Coop had deserved to die.

  Or the way she still yearned to see him, despite that scary look.

  * * *

  Around teatime, the police arrived and set up shop in the library.

  “Unlock Miss Bright?” Inspector Schubert said, after Ophelia had been shown into the library and demanded that Prue be released. “What a fine joke.”

  “But she couldn’t have killed Karl. She has been locked up in the tower all this time.”

  “That does not negate the possibility—and, indeed, the probability—that she killed Mr. Coop.”

  “It’s not likely,” Ophelia said, “that there are two different murderers stalking the corridors of this castle.”

  “You shall leave considerations of likelihood to my professional judgment.”

  Ophelia’s shoulders wilted. She’d been sure, in the light of Karl’s death, that Prue would be released from suspicion. Especially since Schubert didn’t seem to know about Prue’s escape to the ball last night or that Karl had really been Count Grunewald.

  “Until I have communicated with the crew of the Leviathan,” Schubert said, “I shall not release her.”

  Benjamin sneezed into his hankie.

  “The crew?” Ophelia asked. “Of the Leviathan?”

  “The steamship in which you sailed from New
York to Southampton. Surely you have not forgotten it.”

  Forgetting wasn’t the problem. If Schubert spoke with the ship’s crew, he’d figure out pretty quickly that Prue and Ophelia had been traveling as actresses in Howard DeLuxe’s Varieties. That they were liars. Confidence tricksters.

  “When I telegraphed the shipping company’s offices in England,” Schubert said, “they confirmed that you and Miss Bright were indeed on the voyage from New York. But I was not able to ask questions of the crew as the ship had already sailed on a new passage back to New York.”

  “When”—Ophelia’s throat was scratchy—“when will it land?”

  “Is that a concern?”

  “I merely wish to know when Miss Bright will be released from her unjust bondage.”

  “I would not, if I were you, Miss Flax, be very certain of her release. Indeed, you might do well to prepare yourself for joining Miss Bright in her tower.”

  Ophelia’s chest felt too tight.

  “Miss Flax,” Schubert said in a musing tone to Benjamin, “appears worried, does she not?”

  “Why should I be worried?” Ophelia was holding on to the table’s edge so hard her fingernails went white. “I haven’t got a thing to hide.”

  “No? Mrs. Coop informed me that she took you and Miss Bright on as domestics solely upon the written recommendations addressed to one Lady Cheshingham of Shropshire, England.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Yet, oddly, a perusal of Burke’s Peerage indicates that there is no such lady. Oh, my, Herr Benjamin. Miss Flax looks as though she’s seen a ghost.”

  Benjamin smirked as he dabbed his pink nose.

  “You must’ve made a mistake.” Ophelia stood, but her knees felt like corn puddings. “You ought to check again. Is there anything else?”

  “No.” Schubert dismissed her with a flicking motion. But as she was walking out the library door, he called after her, “Prepare yourself, Miss Flax. The Leviathan shall land in New York in two days’ time.”

  * * *

  Ophelia trudged up the spiraling stair to Mrs. Coop’s chamber. Stony determination settled around her heart. She would not let Inspector Schubert get the better of her. She’d find a way to crowbar herself out of this corner if it was the last thing she did.