Cinderella Six Feet Under (17 page)

But . . .
there
.

Miss Flax, in her green evening gown, crawled on all fours towards the wings. A mouse hopped over her.

“Why the deuce is she onstage?” Gabriel muttered.

“She
has
got rather nice ankles,” Prince Rupprecht said.

“She is a lady,” Gabriel said coldly. “Pray do not speak of her in that fashion.”

Prince Rupprecht turned to Griffe. “She is onstage to impress
you
, you must understand. Wishes to stand out in your mind as a daredevil—and to show off her fine stems and flower petals, too.” He chortled.

Gabriel was just weighing the cost of cuffing a prince on the nose—and perhaps a count, too—when Miss Flax crawled out of sight into the wings.

The usher poked his head through the curtains at the rear of the box and gave a tactful cough.

All three men swiveled around.

“I regret to say,” the usher said, “that Monsieur Grant is dead.”

G
abriel found Miss Flax in a backstage corridor surrounded by a ring of dancers and theater workers, all berating her in French. She caught sight of Gabriel.

“Get me out of this, won't you?” she called.

Gabriel strode through the ring of people, grabbed Miss Flax's hot, gloved hand, and pulled her away through the still-yelling group—they were all going on about her ruining the performance, with a few accusations thrown in that she was some sort of anarchist or else a saboteur sent from the ballet company in London.

“Where are we going?” she asked as he whisked her along.

“I'm taking you home. What were you
thinking
?”

“It wasn't my fault! I was pushed onstage! I was trying to save that ballerina! And did she demonstrate even the smallest bit of gratitude? No!”

“Caleb Grant is dead.”

“What?”
Miss Flax stopped walking.

Footsteps clattered towards them, and a harried little fellow in side-whiskers and two uniformed gendarmes burst around a corner. Gabriel and Miss Flax pressed themselves against the wall so the men could pass.

Miss Flax's eyes met Gabriel's.

“No,” he said.

“We've
got
to.”

“I cannot continue to enable your harebrained schemes—”

“Hurry, before it's too late. And I'm
not
harebrained, if you don't mind. Merely resourceful.”

“Resourceful?” Somehow, Gabriel found himself following Miss Flax as she hurried down the corridor after the men. How precisely did she convince him, against his better judgment, time after time? “You are not simply
resourceful
, my dear. I daresay you will stop at nothing.”

*   *   *

They followed the
clattering footsteps of Side-Whiskers and the gendarmes, and caught sight of them in the dressing rooms corridor. The performance was still going onstage, so dancers darted here and there.

The men did not stop there, but continued down a twisty flight of stairs into the bowels of the theater.

The three men didn't notice Ophelia and Penrose, following at a distance. They spoke in low, anxious tones. They came to an open doorway. Beyond lay a huge, dim room filled with costume-stuffed racks. The three men went inside.

Ophelia and Penrose hid themselves just outside the doorway.

“The wardrobe,” Ophelia whispered. “In the theater it's a
room
, not a piece of furniture.”

“Ah.”

They looked in.

The three men stood between two rows of garment racks straight ahead, looking down at a heap of something on the floor. No, not a heap of something. A heap of some
one
. Of Caleb Grant.

“They are saying that he has been shot in the heart,” Penrose whispered to Ophelia.

One of the gendarmes whipped out a handkerchief, crouched, and picked up something.

“He says that is the murder weapon,” Penrose whispered.

The gendarme held up a small, silver-colored pistol. The cylinder flopped open and a bullet clinked on the floor.

“We had better go,” Penrose said.

*   *   *

Truth be told,
when Prue escaped the Cruthlach mansion it wasn't the first time she'd snuck out a window. But the first time had been with Hansel, and she'd been in love. Seemed it wasn't exactly right to go sneaking out windows with a feller you
weren't
in love with. Or—wait. Did that rule only apply when the feller was sneaking
in
?

Dalziel had placed a ladder outside—it seemed he was as capable as a soldier—and then he'd come to the chamber where Prue was locked up and helped her down to the murky courtyard. A carriage was waiting in the street. Dalziel handed her up.

“That was as easy as falling off a log,” Prue said, breathless.

Dalziel stepped up into the carriage beside her and slammed the door. The carriage started forward. “I've had a bit of practice.”

“You don't say so!”

Dalziel smiled in the dark. “Grandmother has always desired to keep a close watch on me, ever since I was a baby. She said she was afraid the fairies were going to steal me back.”

Fairies
?

The drive to the cemetery took only ten minutes or so. Prue had just nodded off when the carriage stopped and Dalziel said, “We are here.”

*   *   *

“It is a
lady we want,” Professor Penrose said.

Ophelia and Penrose stood in the shadows on an uneven cobbled sidewalk. Across the street, the opera house blazed with light. Only a few carriages rolled by. Overhead, the moon floated behind quick, silvery clouds.

“Because of the lady's handwriting on the death threat, you mean,” Ophelia said.

“Yes. We are able to rule out the derelict the police are after, for surely he doesn't have the foresight to write letters in a feigned hand, let alone deliver them.”

“The police said that man preys upon ladies of ill-repute, too. Which Mr. Grant wasn't.”

“We are also able to rule out Madame Babin and Polina Petrov . . . Miss Flax, you are shaking. Might I lend you my greatcoat?”

“I've got my mantle. Well, Henrietta's mantle.” Ophelia held it up. “It's only nerves. I always used to get nerves onstage, too, whenever I had a big role. It'll pass.” She blotted the lumpy shape of Caleb Grant's corpse from her mind, along with the notion that if she hadn't gotten sidetracked by Madame Babin in the wings, she might've prevented his death. “It looked like a lady penned the death threat, but couldn't a lady have written it out
for
a gentleman murderer? Or couldn't a gentleman have pretended a feminine hand?”

“Yes. Although it is noteworthy that Grant was shot with a lady's pistol—did you see how dainty it was? I believe I even glimpsed floral décor carved on the barrel.”

“A gentleman could shoot a lady's pistol.”

“True. Did you see how the cylinder fell open to the right when the gendarme held it up?”

“I'm no crackerjack sharpshooter, Professor.”

“It was a left-handed pistol.”

“Oh.”

“The cylinder opens on the right because the shooter holds the gun and pulls the trigger with the left hand, and loads with the right.”

“So the murderer is a southpaw.”

“Perhaps. Or simply a person who possessed, for some reason, a southpaw's gun.”

The professor's accent made
southpaw
sound like the name of a fancy aperitif.

“One thing is certain,” Ophelia said. “The murderer is killing because of the stomacher.”

“It does seem so.”

“Do you think Henrietta is dead?”

Penrose studied her, concern shining in his eyes. “Perhaps,” he finally said. “She might have gained access to the stomacher herself at one point, and paid the price.”

Ophelia hugged Henrietta's mantle and caught a faint whiff of Henrietta's perfume. If Ophelia
could
have cried, now would've been a fine time. But she hadn't shed a tear for longer than she could remember.

She must've made a face, though, because Penrose frowned. “Miss Flax, perhaps it would be wise if you ceased poking about in this affair.”

“Now is the time to buckle down and go at it even harder.”

“You might place yourself in unnecessary danger.”

“I'll be the judge. I'm not a child.”

“The police—”

“They're incompetent. Stubborn. Blind! I told you what Inspector Foucher wrote about our discovery of Sybille's identity. He ought to be a circus sideshow: The Insensible Man. No. I've undertaken to figure out what happened to Henrietta, and I'm not about to stop now simply on account of the water's gotten higher.”

“And finding this—this murderer, of
two
people now, if it is indeed the same culprit, that will bring you to the solution of Henrietta's disappearance?”

“Looks that way.”

Penrose gazed at Ophelia for such a long moment, she wondered if she had chocolate somewhere on her face. At last, he said, “I told you that I would help you, and so I shall. I must have time to think of what is the wisest course.”

“
We
must have time to think.”

He smiled a little. “
We
. Now, won't you please allow me to hire a carriage to return you to Hôtel Malbert? Then you must rest. The past two days have been fatiguing for you. I see it in your face.”

Ophelia wasn't what you'd call a vain lady. Years of experience in the circus ring and on the stage had taught her that beauty is an illusion, as fleeting as a magic lantern show. But still, did she really look
so
tuckered out?

“I'll walk.”

“At this time of the evening?”

“Can't be more than two miles.” Ophelia's pinched toes, in Henrietta's tiny slippers, cursed her.

“Then I shall walk with you. A murderer is afoot, my dear.”

Yes, and Ophelia's feet were murder.

*   *   *

A high, moon-sheened
stone wall surrounded the Montparnasse Cemetery. Dalziel instructed the driver to wait. He led Prue through iron gates that hung, half open, from thick pillars. Beyond the gates sprawled gravestones, tombs, and statues, glowing pale against the shadows.

Wind rippled. Bare trees rattled. The air smelled of fresh-dug dirt—or was that just Prue's fancy? She shivered, despite the shawl that Dalziel had brought for her. Or maybe
because
of the shawl, which stank a little of camphor and probably belonged to Lady Cruthlach.

“I confess I took the liberty of visiting here earlier, after I called upon the convent,” Dalziel said. His voice was carried off by a twirl of wind. “Her grave is along this way.”

“All right,” Prue said. She swallowed. “Sure.”

She stuck close to Dalziel all the way along a cobble-paved avenue, and then down a smaller, sandy path that sliced through rows of graves like an aisle in a shop. Moonlight brightened the sky and bounced off the statues—mostly of dead bodies and cherubs and such. She nearly jumped out of her boots when a cat skittered across the way.

A few raindrops started smacking down.

“Here,” Dalziel said softly. He slowed, and pushed his hands in his pockets.

A big, stone rectangle lay between two others, piled around with fresh, black dirt. A bunch of lilies drooped on top. The headstone said—Prue could see it clearly in the moonlight—

Ici Repose

Sybille Pinet

1846–1867

“She must have been beloved by the sisters in the convent,” Dalziel said. “This is a costly grave.”

Prue nodded, numb. Now it felt—what? More real? That couldn't be it. Nothing had felt more real than Sybille's chilly, rained-on skin in the garden that night.

“It's the end,” Prue said. “I never got to meet her, and now it's the end.” Cold tears dripped down her face along with the rainwater.

Dalziel wrapped his arms about her and although he was not a large fellow, he felt wiry and strong under the soft wool of his greatcoat. He smelled a little like cinnamon, too. Prue started sobbing. For herself, but also for her missing ma, and for Sybille, forever lost.

After a few minutes, the sobs left off and Prue opened her eyes. Her breath caught. “
Someone's here
,” she mumbled against Dalziel's shoulder.

He spun around, placing himself in front of Prue.

A figure with an umbrella stepped out from behind a marble angel. Something white flashed around the face.

By gum, it was a nun. A nun in a flowing black habit and a white—what was it? Oh, yes—a white wimple. Once in Howard DeLuxe's Varieties, Prue had been one of a whole chorus line of naughty nuns who favored red stockings. But surely
this
nun wouldn't be caught dead in anything but soot-black socks.

The nun drew close and spoke briskly in French. Her eyes fixed on Prue's face. Sourness puckered her mouth, yet her eyes were kind.

Dalziel turned to Prue. “She says her name is Sister Alphonsine, of the Pensionnat Sainte Estelle. She came here to lay flowers upon the grave and hid when she saw us coming. She asks if you are the twin sister of Sybille, because she prepared Sybille with her own hands for burial, so she knows that she is truly dead. Shall I tell her that you are her sister?”

“Sure. Tell her everything.” Everyone trusted nuns, right?

Sister Alphonsine gripped her umbrella hard as she spoke with Dalziel, and her eyes kept darting back to Prue.

“She says you are in danger,” Dalziel said.

“Danger! Does she know anything about my ma?”

“No. I asked her. But she says that because you look so much like Sybille, the murderer could strike again.”

“That's what the police said. Wait. Ask her why she didn't tell the police who Sybille was.”

Dalziel asked her. Sister Alphonsine did some more sharp talking.