by Maia Chance
Gabriel bounded out of the carriage, instructed the driver to follow Grant, and leapt back in. They were off. But only one block later, Grant got in line to board an omnibus.
“Dash it,” Gabriel said. “Come on.” He helped Miss Flax out, paid the driver, and they climbed onto the packed omnibus just before it reeled forward.
“There he is,” Miss Flax whispered. “He’s going upstairs.” A curved flight of steps at the back of the omnibus led to the open-air level.
“Good, then. He won’t see us, and we will be able to see him exit if we keep watching the stair.”
The omnibus traveled a few blocks, made a turn, and then lurched and stopped all the way down the Rue de Rivoli until they had almost arrived in Le Marais. But it turned again and passed over the Seine and alongside Notre Dame, and then they were in the Latin Quarter.
At the Rue Saint-Séverin stop, Grant hurried down the omnibus stairs and into the street. Gabriel and Miss Flax followed.
The streets here were narrow and the old, mismatched buildings somehow suggested a child’s toy blocks. Cramped shops displayed dingy wares, and cafes emanated cigarette fumes and bitter coffee. Presently, Grant pushed through a pair of chipped blue doors.
Miss Flax stopped. Rain dripped from her bonnet brim onto her nose. Gabriel ignored the urge to wipe the drop gently away.
“If this is where Mr. Grant lives,” Miss Flax said, “why, we might be waiting here all day for him to come back outside.”
“Perhaps we might learn the number of his apartment. That would be a start.”
“A start to what? You don’t mean you would housebreak?”
“I prefer to call it reconnaissance. And I seem to recall that you, Miss Flax, are not entirely ill-disposed towards the practice yourself.”
The doors weren’t locked, and they went into a dark little vestibule that smelled of mildew and garlic. An iron railing marked the foot of a staircase.
A squat lady, hands on her hips and her back to them, was bickering with a man. She was doubtless the concierge. Parisian concierges were like dragons guarding the mouths of caves, only instead of breathing fire, they breathed gossip. Luckily, the concierge was too consumed by her tirade, and the man was too frightened of the concierge, for either to notice Gabriel and Miss Flax.
“What’s she going on about?” Miss Flax whispered.
“Something about burst pipes.”
Gabriel was prepared to wait and then simply ask the concierge where Caleb Grant’s apartment was located. But Miss Flax disappeared through a doorway on the other side of the vestibule and returned a few moments later. She tugged his sleeve, saying, “I’ve got a notion.”
“Not another one.”
“Don’t be such a curmudgeon.”
Gabriel hid his smile and followed Miss Flax through the door. A dank flight of stairs led to a cellar cluttered with mops, buckets, and rags, lit only by one high window. Cobwebs swagged the corners. Water pooled across the floor.
“What are we doing down here?” Gabriel asked. “Not everything need be so very theatrical, you realize.”
“I’m not being theatrical. We cannot very well rap upon Mr. Grant’s door and announce that we’ve followed him all the way across the city, that we suspect him of murder, and that he’d better hand over his parcel.”
“I had conceived a somewhat subtler plan, but I do see your point.”
Miss Flax pulled some sort of filthy garment from a peg on the wall.
“You don’t mean to disguise yourself,” Gabriel said.
“No. I don’t need a disguise, because Mr. Grant only saw me dressed as Mrs. Brand. I mean to disguise you.”
* * *
Two minutes later, Gabriel’s Savile Row suit was covered by a damp, gray workman’s smock that smelled of either underarms or overripe Gruyère, and baggy drawstring trousers. He had changed from his own gleaming shoes into muddy-soled boots, and stashed his kidskin gloves, felt hat, and greatcoat in an empty crate.
“Are you able to see without those goggles, Professor?”
“Goggles? Oh. I suppose so, but—”
“Good.” Miss Flax removed Gabriel’s spectacles and slid them into his smock pocket. “I don’t fancy they go with the plumber’s costume.” She passed him a wooden toolbox. Then she reached up, mussed his hair, and smudged some grease from a pipe joint on his cheeks.
Gabriel attempted not to enjoy her efficient touch.
They went upstairs.
Miss Flax loitered in the background while Gabriel spoke to the concierge. He convinced her that Caleb Grant had sent for him to look at the pipes under his lavatory sink, and that Miss Flax was his assistant. The concierge didn’t appear the least bit surprised about any of this—although Gabriel had never heard of a lady plumber’s assistant—and led the way to the topmost floor.
When the concierge rapped on the door, there was no answer.
“Must have gone out,” she said in French. “No matter. I have my keys right here. I shall just let you in. Sacredieu, I am sick to death of these pipes.” She left.
Inside, a quick survey confirmed that indeed, no one was home.
“He must’ve gone out again while we were in the cellar,” Gabriel said.
“Well, let’s see if he took his parcel with him.”
Grant’s apartment was the shabbily elegant variety favored by artists and writers. Threadbare carpets of wild arabesque designs overlapped on stained parquet floors. Windows were draped in mismatched silks. The furniture ranged from Oriental lacquered to Chippendale, littered with books, overflowing ashtrays, primitive pottery, and half-empty wine goblets. There was no kitchen, only a copper teakettle hanging from a small marble fireplace. Watercolors of stage scenery designs filled one wall. Grant had probably gotten those from the opera house. A tiny lavatory lurked under the eaves.
“Ah,” Gabriel said, setting the toolbox down. “La vie de bohème.”
“What’s that?”
“The artist’s life.”
“Oh. Not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“I’m rather enjoying my stint as an actor.”
“Well, we’d better hurry up or it could be your last.”
A tall, skinny Siamese cat slunk down from a shelf, yowling.
“Here kitty, kitty,” Miss Flax said. The cat galloped towards her.
“Animals seem to like you,” Gabriel said, scanning a jumbled bookshelf.
“I’ve always had a way with animals.” She stroked the cat.
“So I’ve noticed.” An image of the loutish Count de Griffe rose, unbidden, in Gabriel’s mind. He moved to the mantel. Dust-coated miniatures, wax-caked candelabras, and a brass mail rack cluttered the ledge. “Here’s the post.”
Most of the envelopes were addressed to M. Caleb Grant, but a few were addressed to Mme. Clara Babin.
“A lady lives here?” Miss Flax said. “How very French.”
Gabriel cleared his throat. Of course, now that Miss Flax knew about Gabriel’s understanding (of sorts) with Miss Ivy Banks, speaking of these indelicate kinds of things did not bother him.
He flipped through the envelopes. Bills, bills, bills, invitations to lectures, soirées, art exhibitions. No passionate letters. No blackmail notes. He replaced the envelopes in the rack.
14
Ophelia looked through curtains into an alcove. A lumpy, unmade bed sat under the sloped ceiling. Petticoats were flung over the bedframe. Books towered up on the nightstand and the air was headachey with patchouli.
A large oil painting filled one wall. It depicted a long-limbed woman lounging on a chaise. Her back was turned to the viewer and bare all the way down to her bottom, which was, blessedly, swathed in diaphanous green. Her profile displayed a pearl drop earring, upswept mahogany hair, flower-stem neck, striking black eyebrows, pointy nose.
&nb
sp; “Professor,” Ophelia called.
Penrose appeared. He followed her gaze and then coughed.
He had been doing an awful lot of coughing and throat-clearing today, starting at the Louvre.
“It is only that the French, Miss Flax, have rather different views on, ah, states of undress than those found in the Puritan regions of America and in—”
“Not that. Doesn’t this painted lady look an awful lot like the lady Miss Austorga was speaking with backstage at the opera house last night?”
“I had but the briefest glimpse of her, but I suppose she might be the same.”
“I’d wager it’s the lady to whom those letters on the mantel are addressed.” Ophelia preferred not to take a crack at pronouncing Babin, so she left it to the professor.
“Madame Clara Babin,” he said.
Sounded like the noise a French sheep would make. “Right. Not many ladies would cotton to having such a great quantity of another lady’s bare back dangling over their bed.”
“I suppose not. This, then, connects Austorga to Caleb Grant, via this lady.”
“How peculiar.” Ophelia frowned. “Austorga is a deep one. Between the two sisters, she seems by far and away the more forthright one. The nicer one, too, if a bit of a, well, dingbat.”
“There is always the possibility that she simply found herself lost backstage at the opera house.”
“On an expedition to the powder room? I reckon that’s possible, but it’s a little too coincidental for my palate. If Mr. Grant killed Sybille, he would have needed help from someone inside Hôtel Malbert. Austorga was inside. She could have easily stolen the carriageway key to let Grant through to place the body. What if Austorga and Mr. Grant—and Madame Babin, too—were in cahoots?”
“We still cannot account for why Grant would have placed Miss Pinet’s body in the Malberts’ garden. And have you any theory as to why Miss Austorga would wish to do away with Miss Pinet?”
“Well, if Austorga knew Sybille was her stepsister, maybe she was, I don’t know, envious?”
Penrose smiled. “Envious of her beautiful stepsister? Perhaps Prince Charming preferred her?”
“You don’t have to put it like that.”
“Don’t I? I have another theory: if Austorga did indeed help to kill Miss Pinet—”
“Which, I allow, is hard to picture.”
“—she did it for the stomacher.”
“Why?”
“Because the stomacher—if it indeed exists—would be a precious family heirloom.”
It made sense—just so long as you believed that flapdoodle about Cinderella being a real lady. Ophelia hated to believe that. It went against every particle of common sense she possessed.
“Would you ask the Mademoiselles Malbert if they know of the stomacher?” Penrose said.
“I’ll add it to my list.”
They searched the apartment high and low and they did not discover the brown paper parcel, although they found one more Siamese cat under the bed.
“All right then, we ought not tempt fate,” Penrose said. “Should we go?” He held open the apartment’s front door.
Ophelia made one last rummage through the pockets of a greatcoat that hung by the door. “Wait. What’s this?” She pulled out a small, black-bound book. She flipped through it. Minute penciled handwriting filled ten or twelve pages. “Look. Lists of names.”
“Gentlemen’s names.”
“Wait. No—not exactly. Look. For every gentleman’s name there is at least one girl’s name in the second column. See? Duke of Strozzi, and then, Adele and Diana.”
“Duke of Strozzi. English. I assume this is Grant’s book, then, and not Madame Babin’s.”
“The girls haven’t got surnames. That’s funny.”
“I do not suppose it’s really very humorous.”
Ophelia glanced up. “You’ve got that sickly grimace on again. The one that says you’re afraid of tarnishing my innocence and you might start coughing.”
Penrose didn’t answer. He’d taken the notebook. “I don’t see Sybille listed anywhere.” He scanned the rest of the pages, squinting because he didn’t have his spectacles on. “Ah,” he said. “Here is a gentleman I am acquainted with. Lord Dutherbrook.”
“You know him?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“He’s matched up with someone by the name of Clotilde.”
Penrose slid the book back into the greatcoat pocket. “I believe Lord Dutherbrook haunts the Jockey Club.”
“Jockey? A shrimp, is he?”
“Quite the contrary. No. The Jockey Club is merely a gentleman’s club that, among other things, has rather equine propensities.”
* * *
“I’ve been thinking—what if Caleb Grant is Sybille’s father?” Ophelia said, once Penrose had crept back down to the cellar to change and they’d gone back outside to the street. “He is an American.”
“But she grew up in an orphanage. And didn’t you say that Sybille’s father was a French diplomat?” Penrose smeared grease off his cheeks with his handkerchief.
“Well, that’s what Henrietta told Prue. But Henrietta isn’t known for her sterling word. And if he’s Sybille’s father, then he’d know Henrietta, too—even though he said he didn’t when I asked him yesterday. What if Henrietta looked him up when she arrived in Paris, and something went wrong?”
“I suspect that learning precisely what Grant was doing, matching gentlemen’s names with girl’s names in his notebook, will shed a good deal of light on the matter. I’ll speak to Lord Dutherbrook. From what I recall, he rarely stirs from his chair in his club.”
“Do you reckon he’s there now?”
“Very likely. He’s a bit like a beached whale. However, Miss Flax, the Jockey Club is no place for a lady.”
“Oh, I don’t mind. I’m not known for my retiring and ladylike nature.” How had that slipped out?
“No, what I mean to say is, ladies are not allowed inside the club.”
“Oh.”
“I shall send a note along to you—to Madame Brand—and apprise you of anything that I learn at the club. Now—shall I hire a carriage to take you back to Hôtel Malbert?”
“No, thank you.” Ophelia had already dug out the Baedeker from her reticule, and she popped open her umbrella. “I’ll walk.”
* * *
As soon as Ophelia had tumbled through Hôtel Malbert’s cellar window, bent her umbrella back into shape, and dusted herself off, she went in search of Prue. Once again, she found Prue scrubbing away—this time at a dented copper pot—in the kitchen. Beatrice was nowhere to be seen, so Ophelia crept in.
“Still at your housewifing then?” Ophelia said.
Prue shrugged.
“Are you well, Prue? You look a little peaked. Should you take a rest?”
“Too much to do. Sleuthing with the professor again?”
“Yes.”
“Learn anything?”
Ophelia told her about Madame Fayette and the stomacher, but Prue seemed distracted. “Prue, the kitchen work is not your responsibility. Where does Beatrice take herself off to, anyway?”
“Market, she says. Course, she smells like a saloon every time she comes back, and one time she clean forgot to even buy any food. Are you hungry? There’s cold beef in the pantry, and a nice onion tart I helped make.”
“Sounds lovely.” Ophelia was ravenous; she hadn’t had a bite to eat since breakfast. Although she and the professor had passed countless cafes and bakeries today, she hadn’t suggested they stop to eat. That would have led to him paying for things.
Ophelia sat at the table and dug into the food Prue brought. The onion tart was surprisingly tasty, and only a little burnt. Prue even served her a cup of tea. Sitting here in the kitchen without the Mrs. Brand disguise was
risky, but Ophelia was too hungry to care.
“Well, I do hope you’ll come upstairs, come dinnertime,” Ophelia said to Prue, once she’d washed her fork, plate, and teacup.
“Not in these dirty duds. My stepsisters would turn up their noses at me.”
* * *
Ophelia tiptoed up to her chamber the back way. The first thing she did was write a note to Madame Fayette requesting that she cancel Lord Harrington’s order for the gowns. Ophelia would rather have a tooth pulled than accept handouts. She remembered to sign the note Miss Stonewall, and sealed it in an addressed envelope. Then she hurried into her Mrs. Brand disguise. She meant to locate Malbert and have a cozy chat with him, as the professor had suggested. She just might be able to squeeze something from him about Henrietta and divorce.
Ophelia was just replacing her theatrical case in the wardrobe when a rap sounded on her door.
She shut the wardrobe. “Enter.”
The stepsisters’ maid, Lulu, cracked the door. “Mademoiselle Eglantine wishes to speak with you in the salon.”
Ophelia looked hard at Lulu. Lulu was spotty, true, but had her cheeks always been so pink? So . . . carnation pink?
Yet Lulu gave no hint that she knew about Ophelia’s theatrical case. Her face was guileless.
“Very well, Lulu. You may go.”
Downstairs in the salon, Eglantine sat on a sofa, rubbing at her upper lip. When she saw Ophelia, she kept her fingertips on her lip. “Madame Brand, there you are. Lulu and Baldewyn have been searching the house up and down for you for hours.”
“I must take frequent walks, my dear. My digestion is simply not what it used to be.”
“Well, if you are free this afternoon, might I beg of you to act as chaperone for Mademoiselle Smythe, my sister, and me? We had so hoped to attend an exhibition, but Madame Smythe is abed with a sick headache.”
An afternoon in the company of that particular trio could give anyone a sick headache. However, it would present an opportunity to quiz Austorga about her backstage chat with Madame Babin, and at least one of the sisters about the stomacher.
