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

by Maia Chance

  He strode over to her and crouched down. She shrank back. He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, and lifted her face so he could see into her eyes. “Gather your things together,” he said. He stood, opened the door. “I will arrange for us to ride in the greengrocer’s cart into Baden-Baden in the morning. We will take the railway from there. I will come for you when the way is clear.”

  Then he was gone.

  As soon as Hansel was gone, Prue polished off the jug of water. She set the empty jug on the windowsill and roosted down to wait for Ophelia.

  * * *

  Ophelia saw the jug. As soon as she was able to peel herself away from Mrs. Coop, she made slam-bang for the tower.

  “I know about Karl,” Prue said through the door. “Dead.”

  “Are you—you aren’t still cross about last night, are you?”

  A pause. “You can’t still think Hansel’s a murderer, can you?”

  Ophelia could. A little. Anyone could be a murderer, it seemed.

  “Well, this’ll go down like medicine,” Prue said, “but I’m going to Heidelberg in the morning. With Hansel.”

  “What?”

  Prue, breathless and taking lots of hairpins and forks in the road, told Ophelia about Hansel’s claims: Karl’s letter, the Grunewalds’ supposed ancestry, and Hansel’s conviction that Snow White lay buried in a church in Heidelberg.

  Ophelia rubbed her temples. “Hold it. First of all—Snow White was the Grunewalds’ ancestress? You aren’t going to start believing this—”

  “What if it’s true?” Prue’s voice was shrill. “Ever stopped to consider that?”

  Ophelia thought about it. “No. I haven’t.”

  “Well, why not? Believing Snow White was a real lady, back in them knights-and-castles times, don’t mean you need to believe in magic.”

  “Perhaps not magic. But I’d have to believe in the seven dwarves.”

  “You’ve seen the dwarf bones, Ophelia. With your own eyes. What more do you want?”

  What more did she want?

  Ophelia was suddenly afflicted with unfamiliar—and shockingly impractical—notions creeping into the back of her mind. Unwelcome, these notions were, like tiny intruders sneaking in through a rusted trapdoor. Maybe Professor Penrose was right. Maybe fairy tales were real. Ophelia gave her head a shake.

  “Karl’s letter,” Prue said, “made it out that he was killed because of this tomb of Snow White’s. And he mentioned thieving Americans—”

  “So, Mr. Coop’s death had something to do with this tomb, as well,” Ophelia said. “According, anyway, to Karl’s letter.”

  “According to common sense!”

  Ophelia pressed her lips tight. She didn’t wish to give Prue’s trip to Heidelberg her stamp of approval. No, she most assuredly did not. But that unraveling-sweater feeling was getting stronger by the hour.

  And if Ophelia admitted to herself that maybe, just maybe, there was a twinkle of truth to the notion of Snow White being a real lady, well, one thing was blindingly obvious: finding Snow White’s tomb, and whatever secrets it held, just might lever Prue and her out of this mess.

  “It isn’t proper,” Ophelia finally said. “You going about with a gentleman without a chaperone.” The hypocrisy of that statement made her cheeks warm up.

  “Know what else isn’t proper?” Prue said. “Going to prison.”

  True enough. True enough.

  “Hurry,” was all Ophelia could say.

  * * *

  “Have a look at these,” Gabriel said to Winkler in the morning. “But you’d better wear gloves.” He placed the bottle of mushrooms beside Winkler’s coffee cup and lowered himself into the opposite chair in the inn’s dining room.

  “Allow me to guess,” Winkler said. “It is another specimen of fool’s gold.” He took an enormous bite of a roll that dribbled blueberry jam.

  Gabriel poured cream into his coffee. “If I recall rightly, the last specimens of fool’s gold proved to be genuine.”

  Winkler twiddled sausage-like fingers. “A rarity, professor, a rarity.”

  “Those,” Gabriel said, “are dried mushrooms. I wonder if you could—since you are, after all, a trained chemist—determine if they are a poisonous variety.”

  “Easily done. I know all the wild mushrooms in the Schwarzwald.”

  And every edible one, too, no doubt.

  “Speaking of poison,” Winkler said, “Inspector Schubert told me that the footman who died in the castle yesterday was poisoned. I had my money on apoplexy. The man was red in the face.”

  “As a matter of fact, that’s what intrigues me so about these mushrooms. I wish to know if they could have been used to poison him.”

  Winkler guffawed. “Poisoned by mushrooms! Mein Gott, what a folkloric way to die! These peasants are true to the woodland soil to the end, are they not?”

  Evidently, Winkler didn’t know that Karl had been the disgraced Count Grunewald. Gabriel wouldn’t tell him just yet.

  Winkler forked up a rasher of bacon. “I shall examine your mushrooms with pleasure,” he said.

  * * *

  Ophelia helped Mrs. Coop breakfast and bathe—she’d had another difficult night under the influence of the hysteria drops—and then dashed up to the lumber room to put on her disguise in preparation for her trip to Baden-Baden with the professor. True, Mrs. Coop had given her leave to go to the apothecary’s shop, but a disguise would come in handy should she cross paths with Inspector Schubert.

  Ophelia fretted as she buttoned up her gentleman’s shirt. Had she erred, allowing Prue to go off with Hansel? No. Life was like a trapeze act: you had to take risks or the show never got off the ground. Only thing was—Ophelia shrugged on her waistcoat—in this case there was no safety net below. Only the prospect of prison. Or worse.

  She crouched on the rolled-up rug and inspected herself in the tarnished wardrobe mirror. She’d use a double helping of glue on her muttonchops today. The strain of them threatening to come undone last time had been awful.

  As she bent to rummage in her theatrical case for the glue, something shiny caught her eye. It was the corner of the rolled-up rug, just barely jutting out. It appeared to be woven with gold thread.

  She hadn’t noticed that before.

  She stood up and, with great effort, because the rug was enormously long and heavy, pushed it like a log to unroll it.

  Holy Moses.

  * * *

  The Baden-Baden railway station was all abuzz. Folks with harried faces dashed hither and thither; peddlers yelled about rolls, fruits, and newspapers; and everyone chattered too quickly in German, Russian, English, and Italian. A black train hulked and hissed alongside the platform, ready to go.

  Prue and Hansel slipped through the crowd. Neither of them carried a bag or a bundle. Prue had brought nothing but the clothes on her back and the ruby comb, stuffed in her bodice. She reckoned they looked like a couple of servants on their day off, him in his shabby clothes and her in her brown dress, knitted shawl, and the close straw bonnet Hansel had given her to hide her face.

  Maybe they even looked like sweethearts, with her shoulder pressed tight against his. Prue’s belly was full of knots, though. Probably on account of the fact that she was traipsing off to unknown parts with a handsome count who had a barbarous glint in his eye.

  Still, it felt good to be out of the tower again. Maybe if she left the castle and Baden-Baden behind, all the trouble she was in might vanish in a puff of smoke.

  They plowed their way across the platform, towards their railway carriage.

  All of a sudden, something caught Prue’s eye. A dark suit of clothes, shiny shoes, a black bowler hat. Her heart tripped over itself.

  “It’s Franz.” She elbowed Hansel.

  Hansel didn’t hear. He was too busy trying to squeeze betwe
en a man with a push-broom moustache and a girl holding a basket of apples.

  Prue craned her neck around the girl’s apple basket. It was Franz, all right. He didn’t appear to have seen them. He bent to flick something off his trouser leg. As he did so, his jacket fell open and there was a flash of red, black, and white. That striped bit of ribbon again, wrapped around his belt. Then the crowd closed, and he disappeared from view.

  Prue had not once mentioned Franz to Ophelia. Explaining things about Franz would surely have made Hansel seem bad in Ophelia’s eyes. But . . . what if Franz had something to do with the murders?

  Hansel helped Prue up into the railway carriage. It was bursting with babies, wicker cages of ducks, and roly-poly women in kerchiefs. Third class.

  Soon, the train was chugging along through picture-postcard hills, and Prue was munching on the shelled walnuts Hansel had bought for her at the station. She asked him about the ribbon on Franz’s belt. “Is it some kind of German fashion? Because American men don’t ever wear ribbon, unless they’re soldiers or something. Or somebody died.”

  Hansel’s brow furrowed. “You are certain you saw this ribbon?”

  “Saw it twice, clear as day.”

  “With three stripes.”

  “Red, white, and black.”

  Hansel stared out the window, still scrunching his brow. “It sounds like one of the symbols used to identify a member of a Studentverbindung.”

  “What’s that?”

  “About fifty years ago, many student societies were formed at European universities. Secret societies, with membership oaths, intricate—even occult—rituals, and such. They still exist to this day. Mostly they are, I suspect, an excuse for young men to enjoy glass after glass of beer. Still, they are quite secretive, and one must be initiated into them.”

  “Did you belong to one? When you were studying at college?”

  “No. I was too occupied with my books.”

  Since Hansel was being loose-lipped, Prue went on and asked, “Why is Franz always going on about you being reduced in circumstances?”

  Hansel rubbed his eye sockets and sighed. “Franz’s family were servants at the castle—at Schloss Grunewald. Franz’s father was my father’s valet, and even though Franz was my boyhood playmate, he was also in training to become my valet. But when Father ruined our fortune and so many servants were forced to leave, Franz went to make his way in the world.”

  “You traded places, then.”

  Hansel nodded. “After Franz left the castle, he started out working as a croupier in the gaming rooms in Baden-Baden. That is when he began to take on those gentlemanly airs.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with coming up in the world,” Prue said, “but Franz carries on about it. Never can resist a dig at you. There’s something just not—not right about him.”

  “I agree. Little remains of the gentle boy I used to play with. I worry what he has done to fund his gentleman’s habits.”

  Prue paused her walnut chewing. There it was again. That haunted gleam in Hansel’s eyes.

  Did he think Franz had something to do with his pa’s death?

  “I cannot,” Hansel said, “envision Franz as a member of a Studentverbindung. He is not really the sort that is attracted to those societies. Although he did seem rather drunk when we encountered him that evening in Baden-Baden.”

  “Funny you say that, because I didn’t reckon he was really, truly soaked that night. He was only playacting.”

  Hansel met her eyes. “For what purpose?”

  “Don’t know. To cover something up, I’d wager.” Prue crunched down on another walnut.

  * * *

  “I found the tapestry,” Ophelia told Professor Penrose, just as soon as she’d hopped into the hired carriage in front of the inn.

  “You found it! Where?”

  “In a sort of attic lumber room, all rolled up. You didn’t tell me what a whopper it’d be.”

  “And you saw the design? Of the seven dwarves marching with their shovels and pickaxes?”

  “That’s just the border—the same group of seven dwarves goes around and around the edge—at least, where it isn’t so faded you can’t tell what’s there.”

  “And the middle?”

  “It’s a beauty, and colorful.” The tapestry had reminded Ophelia of the fanciful theatrical set of Howard DeLuxe’s Varieties’ A Damsel in Distress. But she couldn’t tell Penrose that. He had already thrown her too many suspicious, penetrating glances. “Green-wooded mountains, a river, a castle, men on horseback, and hunting dogs. Deer and bears.”

  “Typical medieval motifs.” Penrose slouched back against the carriage seat.

  “Don’t look so disappointed. There was storybook gimcrackery, too.”

  He lifted an eyebrow.

  “You’re hiding your excitement,” she said, “about as well as a little boy on Christmas morning.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Fairies,” she said. “A dragon.” She paused for dramatic effect.

  “Enjoying yourself?”

  “Very much.” She smiled. “Snow White’s cottage in the trees. Snow White herself.”

  “On the tapestry?”

  “Yes.”

  “I must examine it,” Penrose said, almost to himself.

  “There was also something much more peculiar. In the background, behind the castle, the cottage, and the trees was something, well, I couldn’t make out if it was a mountain or a sort of man’s face. Near the top, to the left of the castle. It looked more like a face the more I backed away, but seeing as it was spread out on the floor, and all wrinkled, I couldn’t be exactly sure.”

  “A face or a mountain?”

  “That’s the thing. I couldn’t say.”

  They rolled along for a few minutes. Ophelia had been chewing over whether or not to tell Professor Penrose about Prue and Hansel going off searching for Snow White’s tomb. She knew the professor would be intrigued. That was the problem—he’d be too intrigued. And she also dreaded anyone telling her I told you so. Still, he was helping her out. She ought to come clean.

  “Professor,” she said. “There’s something else. Something about a tomb.” She told him all she knew.

  “Of course,” Penrose said, when she’d finished. His eyes glowed in that special way. “The Church of the Holy Spirit. It is a wonder I did not think of it before. She must have married one of the electors of the Rhine Palatinate.”

  How did he know these things? It was too annoying by half. “Don’t tell me you’re itching to traipse off to Heidelberg now,” Ophelia said.

  Penrose quirked a corner of his lips. “I’d be lying if I said no. But we’ve somewhat more pressing business to attend to today.”

  * * *

  “I meant to tell you,” Gabriel said to Miss Flax, once they were seated in the tearoom at the Conversationshaus, “your British gentleman’s disguise is, if possible, still more convincing than the last time. Your side-whiskers seem . . . fuller. Grayer.”

  She laughed. “I’m most obliged.”

  Jesting helped to take Gabriel’s mind off all that Miss Flax had told him in the carriage. The tapestry, found. Snow White’s burial place, perhaps identified. He burned to simply go. To see for himself, to touch. But discerning whether or not the gaming establishment was tied to the murders was, at this point, essential to proving Miss Flax’s and Miss Bright’s innocence.

  The tearoom was filled with swaying palms, tall hat plumes, and tinkling china. After they ordered coffee, they asked their waiter where they might find the owner of the gaming establishment.

  The waiter’s eyes bulged. “The owner? Herr Ghent?”

  “Yes,” Gabriel said. “You are surprised.”

  The waiter’s gaze shifted. “I have never met him. He does not—we do not speak to him directly. I am not ce
rtain that even the manager has made his acquaintance.”

  “And where is the manager?”

  The waiter cringed, as though Gabriel were waving dentist’s pliers before his nose.

  Gabriel slipped a coin onto his tray. “For your trouble.”

  The waiter jerked his head towards the corner of the tearoom, where a man in a waistcoat and glossy moustache hovered over a table of ladies. “There.” He rushed away.

  When the manager drew near, Gabriel signaled to him.

  “Is everything to your satisfaction, sir?” the manager said. He wrung his gloved hands.

  “Everything except, well, a rather delicate matter has emerged, which involves the gaming rooms.”

  The manager’s face froze in a humorless grin. “Yes?”

  “And I wished to speak with Herr Ghent of the matter.”

  “Herr Ghent does not speak to public persons regarding”—he cleared his throat—“accounts.”

  “It is not a matter of debt.”

  “One of Herr Ghent’s famous wagers, then?”

  Intriguing. He’d have to bluff his way through this.

  Gabriel scratched his temple. “I wasn’t aware that Herr Ghent’s wagers were famous. I was under the impression that only I knew of them.”

  “Only you? No, no, no. Last week, sir, he forgave a Florentine viscount an immense debt on a single round of roulette. The gentleman stood to lose his ancestral villa.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Herr Ghent enjoys the excitement, you see, and he can afford to lose. I suspect”—the manager lowered his voice, leaned forward—“it might afford him pleasure at times, too.”

  “Pleasure?”

  The manager’s eyes were steely, now. “To see desperate people lose everything.”

  “Ah.” This explained, perhaps, how Count Grunewald had become so mired in debt to the gaming establishment. “Well, at any rate, I must speak with him.”

  The manager straightened, all business again. “I simply cannot—”

  “Perhaps this”—Gabriel extracted a small card from a case in his breast pocket—“will vouch for my sincerity.”