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

by Maia Chance

  The manager took the card between his thumb and forefinger, as though it were soiled. But as he read the card, his face wreathed into smiles. “I apologize, sir. I was not aware. Please forgive me.”

  “Herr Ghent’s office is on the premises?”

  “Indeed, indeed. On the third floor—there is a long corridor at the top of the stair. At the end, go left, and follow that corridor to the end, where there is a set of doors. That is where you should knock.” He reverently placed the card back in Gabriel’s hand.

  23

  “Allow me to take a gander at your magical card,” Ophelia said.

  “I’m afraid not.” Gabriel withdrew the card case from his jacket.

  Before he could put the card away, Ophelia leaned across the tea table and plucked it from his fingers.

  “Not very gentleman-like of you,” he said.

  “It’s awful easy to slip out of character.”

  The card’s elegant script read, Gabriel Augustus Penrose, Fifth Earl of Harrington.

  “Well, aren’t you grand,” Ophelia said. “Is this a forgery?”

  Penrose sipped his tea.

  “It’s not?” Ophelia stared down at the card and then back at Gabriel. “Earl of Harrington? You’ve been lying about being a professor? I knew you were a sham! As soon as—”

  “I am a professor. And an earl. I prefer the former occupation immensely, however, and I’m more than a little embarrassed to have wheeled out my title. But we must see Ghent, and a title does come in handy in a pinch.”

  Ophelia was deflating like a squashed sofa cushion. It had been one thing to go gadding around with a professor of crinkumcrankumology. But it was quite another to gad around with an earl.

  Poppycock, Ophelia Flax. When did a Yankee ever quiver before an English blue blood? He was still just a man. She’d seen his bare feet, too.

  “We’ve not a moment to lose,” Penrose said. He paid for their tea.

  They made their way out to the foyer and up a grand staircase.

  * * *

  The third floor’s wide, carpeted corridor was hushed. No one was about. They found the set of doors the manager had mentioned, and Gabriel rapped twice.

  There was a long silence. Then, a rustling. At last, a man opened the doors just a crack. He was small and papery-looking, and the eye he put up to the crack was blue and watery, with a purplish pouch beneath.

  “What is it?” he said in German. His voice was creaky.

  “Good afternoon,” Gabriel said. “I am Lord Harrington, and this is my assistant, Mr. Beals. I wonder if I might have a brief word with Herr Ghent?”

  The eye bulged. “Who sent you here?” He now spoke English.

  “I come of my own accord.”

  “But who told you where to find this door?”

  The manager in the tearoom would be out on his ear if he were betrayed. “I deduced it.”

  “Deduced?” The eye bulged still more. “Herr Ghent does not accept visitors.”

  “You are his—secretary?”

  “Correct. But he does not accept visitors.”

  Gabriel tried to peer over the secretary’s head, through the crack. “He’s here, then?”

  “No. No, he is not here. He is afflicted with rheumatism. He visits the thermal baths every afternoon for his cure.”

  There were footsteps behind them. Ophelia glanced over her shoulder; Gabriel heard her gasp. He turned.

  The two guards. They drew closer. He saw the one’s heavy cleft chin, the other’s black slash of eyebrow.

  His belly clenched for battle.

  But the guards’ faces remained impassive as they arrived at the door.

  They didn’t recognize them from two evenings ago, then.

  The papery little secretary opened the door to admit the guards. “Go away,” he said to Gabriel and Ophelia. “Do not come back.”

  * * *

  “If Herr Ghent is at the thermal baths,” Ophelia said, once they were outside on the steps of the Conversationshaus, “you might go there and speak to him directly.”

  “That’d be more efficient, I agree, than attempting to circumvent those guards.”

  They crossed the white gravel drive, towards the promenade. The colorful gowns and parasols of the strolling ladies stood out like airy confections against a rich green backdrop of shade.

  “I believe,” Penrose said, “if we follow the promenade to the end, and then climb one of those cobbled streets that go up the hillside, we’ll find the baths.”

  * * *

  The newly constructed Friederichsbad was a stately stone building halfway up the hill, with large, arching windows and Romanesque caryatids. Miss Flax stayed behind on a bench on the expanse of lawn in front of the baths, and Gabriel went inside.

  In the lofty foyer, a porter greeted him with a bow. He was ushered to a table at which sat a fat lady whom Gabriel paid for a ticket. He was led by a serving man down a long marble corridor to a private chamber. There was a red sofa, a washstand, a gilt mirror, and a velvet curtain.

  “Bath’s behind the curtain,” the serving man said. He turned to leave.

  “I beg your pardon—”

  The man turned back. “Yes?”

  “Have you any idea if Herr Ghent is here at the baths?”

  Something unreadable flickered across the man’s eyes.

  Good lord. Was every last soul in Baden-Baden tasked with protecting Ghent’s privacy? Perhaps that wasn’t surprising. Ghent was surely one of the most powerful men in a town clogged with the titled, the influential, and the wealthy.

  “I know,” Gabriel said, “that Herr Ghent suffers from rheumatism, and I am a sufferer myself.”

  “Not a very bad case,” the man said. His eyes traveled with unmasked suspicion up and down Gabriel’s frame.

  “It’s worse than it looks. I am particularly pained in my knees. My doctor, who once treated Herr Ghent in London, suggested I speak to him in person about the efficacy of the waters here.”

  “Everyone here has rheumatism. That is why they come.”

  “My doctor said Herr Ghent was the man to speak to.”

  “Very well.” The serving man’s face was unreadable. “I shall make inquiries and return presently.”

  Gabriel investigated behind the velvet curtains while he waited. There was a large white bathtub sunk into the marble floor, filled with steaming water. Snowy towels were stacked beside it.

  Several minutes later, there was a thud on the door.

  Gabriel swung the door wide, expecting to see the serving man again. Instead, there stood an enormous gentleman, built rather like a prizefighter, with a neck as wide as his bald head and a water barrel of a chest. He wore a tailored black suit of capacious dimensions.

  “Yes?” Gabriel ignored the menacing look in the man’s eye.

  By way of answering, the man pushed into the chamber. He slammed the door behind him and thrust his face right into Gabriel’s. His breath stank of rancid meat; it was all Gabriel could do to stand his ground.

  “I suspect,” Gabriel said, “you have the wrong chamber. This is—”

  “You have been asking for Herr Ghent.”

  “Well, yes. I desired to converse with him briefly regarding a matter of mutual interest. You aren’t Ghent, are you?”

  “Do not be coy.” The man rammed his smashed nose still closer—if that was possible—to Gabriel’s. “If you ask about Herr Ghent again, or enter his gaming rooms, or even speak his name, you will regret it.”

  What was so important about protecting this Ghent fellow?

  “Do you understand?” the man said.

  “Quite. Although one might inquire why.”

  “You know why.”

  “Do I?”

  “Prying where you do not belong.” He grabbed Gabrie
l’s lapel, twisted. “Meddling in business that you do not understand.” He shoved Gabriel against the wall.

  Gabriel resisted the urge to free himself. The man had an ogre’s strength, and going about with a broken arm or a black eye was not a savory prospect.

  He needed to keep him talking. Perhaps bluffing would do the trick.

  “I don’t understand the connection between the murders at the castle and the gaming establishment.”

  “What do you know?” the ogre roared.

  Ah. So that was it. This was all, somehow, about the castle, rather than simply having to do with the lately departed Count Grunewald and his gambling debts.

  He only needed the ogre to give him some clue.

  “I confess I do not know very much,” Gabriel said, “but I shall soon enough.”

  “You must not! Herr Ghent will have our heads!”

  “Your heads,” Gabriel said, eyeing the ogre’s massive bald dome. “No simple task.”

  The ogre’s hand fell from Gabriel’s lapel.

  What sort of monster was Ghent, if the thought of his displeasure could make this one kowtow?

  “The head.” The ogre clenched and unclenched his teeth. “Do you know where the head is?”

  He’d gone off his onion. Dangerous in a gentleman of those proportions.

  “I don’t,” Gabriel said, “know about any heads.”

  “You do not?” The ogre appeared, for a second, as relieved as a child who’d been reassured of a biscuit. But he abruptly reassumed his menacing air. “If you search for Herr Ghent again or poke your nose in business that is not yours, I will kill you.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” Gabriel said, adjusting his spectacles.

  The ogre crashed out of the bathing chamber.

  * * *

  “I don’t know if Herr Ghent was really in there, steeping his rheumatism away,” Penrose said to Ophelia, as they hurried away from the Friederichsbad, “or if being sent there was a setup.”

  “It had to be a setup,” Ophelia said. “The two guards at the Conversationshaus must’ve recognized us. Otherwise, how would that roughneck have known you were a meddler?”

  “You say that as though it were a fact.”

  “You are a meddler—and he threatened you. He threatened to kill you.”

  “Whoever Ghent is, he’s got his henchmen cowed. Although I must say this particular specimen wasn’t up to scratch in the intellect department. In fact, I suspect he was a bit mad. Said something about finding heads or some such rot.”

  Ophelia stopped on the steep, cobbled street in front of a florist’s shop. “What did you say?”

  “You’re quite rosy under your whiskers.”

  She gave him a stern look.

  Penrose smiled. “He said, ‘Do you know where the head is?’ or something to that effect—after, mind you, we’d been discussing Ghent having his head if he—”

  “But don’t you see? The head! They’re looking for the head!”

  “I fail to see your point.”

  “On the tapestry. Remember I told you about the peculiar thing that looked a little like a mountain but also like a man’s face?”

  “Good God.” Gabriel shook his head. “That’s it. For some reason, Ghent’s guards are searching for that head.”

  “You mean, they’re searching for the tapestry.”

  “Perhaps.” His eyes shone. “But if the castle depicted on that tapestry were a representation of Schloss Grunewald and its surrounding environs, would it be unreasonable to surmise that there is also an actual mountain, somewhere out there in the woods, that resembles in some way a man’s face?”

  “But the castle on the tapestry didn’t look like Schloss Grunewald. It looked more, well, square. Plainer.”

  “The schloss was rebuilt about fifty years ago. That tapestry is much, much older.”

  “Are you saying that the tapestry is some kind of . . . map?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Herz,” Ophelia said.

  Penrose met her eyes. “Yes. He’s guarding that mountain.”

  “Maybe he works for Herr Ghent. What do you reckon is out there?”

  “That I cannot say, although my suspicion would be some sort of site or relic that solves the puzzle of the cottage and the skeleton.”

  “Not,” Ophelia said, “Snow White’s favorite picnicking spot?”

  He lifted a shoulder.

  She pursed her lips. Was she, Ophelia Flax, practical to her marrow, really entertaining the notion that that cottage had belonged to Snow White? That the skeleton was not some hoax, but an important relic?

  She pictured the Leviathan foaming across the Atlantic towards New York. Inspector Schubert’s slippery sneers. Prue—now ranging heaven only knew where, doing who knew what.

  Beggars couldn’t be choosers.

  “Let’s go find the mountain,” she said. “I saw the tapestry, and Herr Ghent’s guards haven’t, so we’ve got a head start.”

  “Gone are the days when you thought relic-hunting was a waste of time, then?”

  “Mrs. Coop gave me leave today. She sent me to purchase ingredients for black hair coloring at the apothecary’s shop.”

  “She means to dye her hair black?”

  Ophelia told him about the hysteria drops and how Mrs. Coop seemed to fancy, at least when she was under the influence of the medicine, that she was Snow White. “For once,” she said, starting off down the street, “I’m not sneaking around, and I mean to make the most of it.”

  * * *

  “I suspect,” Gabriel said, having gained her side in a few strides, “I ought to save my breath regarding the matter of you not participating in risky excursions? We must go into the wood, you understand. I assume you haven’t forgotten Herz’s rifle? His traps?”

  “Nightmares of them every night.” Miss Flax nestled her bowler down on her head.

  “And we needn’t discuss the impropriety of a young, delicate lady elbowing through the brush?”

  “I’m not delicate. And you may have noticed that I’ve got on a pair of sturdy tweed britches and a pair of boots that would be equal to an expedition in deepest Africa.”

  “Yes. I won’t inquire where you got those.”

  “Good.”

  She tossed him what he would’ve sworn, under any other circumstances, was a coquettish smile.

  For God’s sake. Why must she always be got up like a gentleman pheasant-shooter? He had the disconcerting urge to rip off her wig and whiskers. Perhaps tear off that cravat for good measure.

  * * *

  By the time Prue and Hansel’s train puffed and squealed into Heidelberg, it was afternoon. Prue’s spine felt like a clothespin bent the wrong way.

  They stepped down onto the mobbed platform in a swirl of steam. The sky had gone pewter-colored, threatening rain. Everyone was shoving, and Prue stumbled. Hansel caught her hand to steady her. Then he didn’t let go.

  It felt nice. But her palm was sweaty, the pimple on her nostril was starting to throb again, and she was still in the ugly brown dress. She glanced up at Hansel. He didn’t seem to give a fig about how she looked. In fact, it didn’t seem like he was thinking about her at all. His dark brows, under his woolen cap, were drawn together; his gold-stubbled jaw was locked; and his eyes were fixed on the pavement. Even though he was in his gardener’s clothes—work boots, brown trousers, loose white shirt, and a patched homespun jacket—he strode along with an air of grandeur, Prue’s hand fast in his grip.

  They walked like that all the way out of the station and into the streets of the town.

  Heidelberg was snug in a steep gorge that billowed with greenery. It stretched along a river in a network of streets and stone buildings with tile roofs. A huge, ruined castle sprawled above the town. The ruin looked haunted, with empty archways and
crumbly towers, especially under the roily sky.

  They followed a twisting main street, bustling with shoppers and carts and, several blocks in, college boys with knapsacks and books tucked under their arms. The rain started with a few fat drops.

  The only thing amiss, if you forgot for a minute about pimples and greasy hair and sweaty hands, was the tickle between Prue’s shoulder blades.

  Just like someone was following them.

  24

  After a brief stop at an apothecary’s shop in Baden-Baden, Ophelia and Professor Penrose rode the hired carriage back to Schilltag under a glowering gray sky. By the time they reached Gasthaus Schatz, a misty sideways rain had started. They left the carriage at the inn’s stables, made their way on foot to the old mill track, and plunged into the forest.

  It was still afternoon, but by the time they had turned off the forest track and onto a footpath, a dense gloom had settled under the trees. They went carefully, keeping an eye out for traps and keeping their eyes and ears open for signs of Herz.

  It was raining harder, too. Drops fell from the brim of Ophelia’s bowler, making it hard to see.

  Maybe that accounted for her tingling unease.

  “I recall,” Penrose said over his shoulder, “that this path opens out, presently. This is the same way I came when I followed Herz. We’re gaining elevation, and the trees will thin out when we near the top. It was dark then, but I expect we’ll have a vista of sorts today, despite the rain.”

  Ophelia staunchly followed. The rain pounded harder, and water seeped through the seams of her tweed jacket.

  A sizzle of lightning made the forest white. There was a boom of thunder.

  Ophelia jumped. She lost her footing on the muddy path and was about to pitch face-first into the brush, when Penrose grabbed her arm and steadied her.

  “Are you all right?” Penrose said. His voice sounded far away. Now the rain was coming down in blinding buckets.

  “I think so,” she called.

  “We ought to turn back.”

  “It’s just a cloudburst. It’ll let up soon.”

  “We could return tomorrow.”