Cinderella Six Feet Under (25 page)

She'd never experienced such luxury. It gave her the jitters.

But she took a hot bath and scrubbed away the face paint. Pity she couldn't scrub away the guilt. Guilt at having this, enjoying this, while Prue was missing. Not to mention the green-at-the-gills fact that Professor Penrose was footing the bill.

After she dried off, she filled the bathtub again with cool water and let the turtle have a swim. While he did so, Ophelia inspected her run-over toe. Still swollen, purple, and shiny. She might've broken it. She dug through her theatrical case and rubbed some of her calendula flower salve on her foot. She really could've used a cup of the birch bark tea her mother used to boil, but this was Paris, not the New Hampshire hills.

Presently, a waiter rolled in a trolley piled with enough food for ten people: roast chicken, buttery potatoes and yellow beans, bread, more butter (this was, after all, France), fish and greens and salads and gelatin molds and chocolate cake, strawberries, and iced cream. She placed the turtle on the carpet next to the table and offered him greens and strawberries. He liked both.

Clean, warm—a little too warm—and stuffed like a Christmas goose, Ophelia curled up on the bed. She was practically in a stupor, she was so exhausted from the last few days. She'd just have a little shut-eye . . .

When she woke, night had fallen. The trolley and all the dishes and silver domes were gone. The turtle sat in the corner, and it was past nine o'clock.

Ophelia tied on her boots, pulled on her black bombazine gown, black bonnet, and cloak, but did not bother with the Mrs. Brand face. She went downstairs.

“
I
believed you had a plan,” Ophelia whispered to Professor Penrose. They huddled over the handle of the door in the rear courtyard of Colifichet & Fils
.
The door was locked. A fine mist twirled through the dark air, and Ophelia's heart thudded.

“Have faith, my dear.” Penrose pulled a pointed bit of iron from his inner jacket pocket and fitted it into the lock.

“Professor!”

“You've seen me pick a lock before, Miss Flax. Have you forgotten?”

“I reckon I blotted it out.”

“Mm.”

The lock caught and tumbled. But when Penrose pushed, the door did not give.

“It's bolted from the inside.” Penrose scanned the windows at first-story height.

So did Ophelia. They were all barred.

“We'll find another entrance,” Penrose said. He slipped his lock-picking tool in his pocket and started across the courtyard.

“Hold your hat on. Look. That window above this door is ajar—and it hasn't got bars.”

Penrose looked up at the window, then threw a glance down at Ophelia. “You do realize that that window is at least twelve feet above us.”

“Sure. But
that
one isn't.” She pointed to another window, on the opposite side of the courtyard.

“Miss Flax.” Penrose sounded impatient. “That window is
not
ajar and, furthermore, as it is on the other side of the courtyard, there could be any number of locked doors inside the building that would impede our progress to the workshop. No, we must—”

“Oh, just button it and
listen
.”

Penrose lifted an eyebrow.

He'd probably never been told to
button it
in his life.

“Here is what I'm thinking,” Ophelia said. She pointed to the window across the courtyard. “You could help me get up onto that windowsill. Then I might cross over this clothesline there”—she traced its sagging length with a pointed finger—“that leads straight to the open window. I'll climb through the window, go downstairs, and unbolt the door from inside.”

Penrose stared at her. “You'll walk on the clothesline?”

“It's a circus trick. Tightrope. Heard of it?”

“Yes. But this clothesline is anything but tight.”

“But I'll have that other clothesline to hold on to—see?”

“And if it were to collapse? Those two clotheslines, in addition to being flimsy and possibly decayed, are weighted down with what appears to be three weeks' worth of some rather large infant's nappies.”

“I guess you'll have to catch me, Professor.” Ophelia hurried across the courtyard.

Penrose grumbled something, but he followed her. He hoisted her up by having her step into his hooked-together hands. After a few tries—with crashing and flailing—Ophelia got her boot-toe wedged onto the windowsill. With a last heave, she had both feet on the sill, and then—with a mighty stretch—both of her hands were wrapped tight around the upper clothesline.

“Steady now,” Penrose whispered.

Ophelia bit her lower lip, and with great care stepped her left foot onto the lower clothesline. The line sagged under her weight and swung from side to side.

“I have never attended a circus, I allow,” Penrose said below her, “but I gather that tightropes do not typically swing like hammocks.”

“Do you wish for me to attempt this, or not?”

“I suppose it is worth—”

“Then
shush
. I must concentrate.” Ophelia brought her right foot up the clothesline, too. The upper clothesline hung at about rib-height. The lines wobbled, but she told her body to stay at once relaxed and springy, in the manner she'd always used while trick riding. The clotheslines went still.

Ophelia edged along, stepping carefully around wooden clothespins and flapping laundry. It would be a shame to mess up some poor lady's work. Her crinoline swayed like a big bell and her injured little toe pulsed.

She reached the center of the courtyard, which was the droopiest, swingiest point of the clothesline. She lost her balance. Her feet, on the bottom clothesline, went one way. Her hands, clinging to the top clothesline, went the other. She squawked.

“Miss Flax!” Penrose exclaimed.

Her skirts sagged, pulling her. Her muscles strained.

“I'll catch you.” Penrose opened his arms.

“I'm
not
going to fall.” With a great heave, Ophelia got herself vertical again. She inched forward. She breathed hard, and sweat trickled from her hairline. Her corset stuck like glue to her damp middle. However, she reached the window.

She went through headfirst, and her hands hit the floorboards. Her ankles and feet stuck up into the air, and her skirts puffed around her hips. It was too dark for the professor to see anything, wasn't it?

She collapsed on the floor, sat up, and looked around. Weak moonlight illuminated piles of crates. This was some sort of storeroom.

She gathered herself up and hurried to the door. Unlocked, thank goodness. She groped along a corridor, lit dimly from the storeroom window behind her, and found a flight of stairs leading downward. Once the stair hooked around a landing, the darkness was so thick she had to feel along the wall. At the bottom, she felt for the courtyard door.

The door seemed to be fastened with three sliding bolts and a latch.
Bang-bang-bang-clack
. She opened the door.

“Brilliant.” Penrose slid inside. They left the door open for light, and crept to the workshop door.

Penrose peered at the four brass locks on the workshop door. “These are moving combination locks, I'm afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“One cannot pick them.”

Cripes.

“These small dials—with letters, see?—twist about,” Penrose said. “You've got to line up the correct sequence of letters on the lock, and then it falls open.”

Ophelia peered closely. Tiny carved letters went around each of the dials. The top two locks had only three dials, but the third one had six, and the fourth had five. “But there are five or six letters on each dial. It looks impossible.”

“That is precisely the point. However, there are certain things to be observed about these locks.”

“Like what?”

“First, they appear to have been made—or at least, designed—by Colifichet himself. Do you see how finely they are wrought? In addition, he chose to make the dials with letters rather than numbers.”

“What's the difference?”

“None, from a mechanical standpoint. Yet, from the standpoint of cryptography—code breaking—letters are, or I ought to say,
might
be, more easily broken than numbers, because letters suggest that the locks spell out words. My suspicion of the existence of words is further augmented by the irregular number of dials on the locks—three, three, six, and five.”

“
How
is it you know about all this?”

“The cavalry,” Penrose said vaguely. He fiddled with the top lock. “There is, of course, the question of language. Colifichet is a Frenchman.” He tried a few combinations:
MOI
,
CLE
,
ECU
. The lock held fast. “But he also speaks English.”
AGE
,
RID
. No go.

“On the other hand,” Ophelia said, “Monsieur Colifichet is not only a Frenchman, he's a snob.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, do you fancy he knows Greek or something?”

“Latin,” Penrose murmured. He tried a few combinations that Ophelia could not read, and then there was a gratifying, sighing
snap
, and the top lock fell open.

“What does
that
mean?” Ophelia squinted at the winning combination:
ARS
.

“Art. Colifichet does indeed hold his art—or industry—in the highest esteem.”

“By golly, he does. What's next? Beauty? Science? God?”

“It's another three-letter word. If it is a sentence, I suppose the next word would be a verb of some kind.” Penrose tried a few words, and then—snap!—it was open.
EST
. “That means
it is
.”

“Art it is?” Ophelia frowned.

“Well, there are considerations of syntax.” Penrose studied the third lock, the one with six letters. He fussed and twirled. Ophelia stood; the crouching was too much for her tender toe. She limped around, peered over the professor's shoulder, and anxiously out into the courtyard—

Another
snap
.

She darted over. “You've got it!” The dials spelled
CELARE
.

“To conceal.” Penrose was quickly turning the dials of the last lock.

“You know what it says?”

“Yes. A common saying.” Penrose positioned the final dial on
M
. The lock spelled
ARTEM
. “
Ars est celare artem
. It is art to conceal art.”

“Art to conceal . . .” Ophelia's eyes narrowed. “Aha. Quite the jokester, that Colifichet. He made these locks—they are artworks, in a sense—to conceal the artworks in his workshop.”

“Precisely.” Penrose pushed into the dim workshop. “Well, Miss Flax. After all is said and done, we make rather a fine housebreaking team, do we not? Or, I ought to say,
shop
breaking.”

Ophelia hurried through just behind him.

The workshop felt bigger than it had before. Light seeped through tall windows, but the ceilings and corners disappeared in shadow. They picked their way towards the draughtsman's table. Whatever it was that Colifichet had been laboring over was no longer there. When they inspected the workbenches, there was no sign of any finished projects, or even works in progress. Only delicate hand tools lined up in neat rows or hanging from brackets on the walls.

And those big, shrouded shapes in the corner.

Penrose headed for them.

From somewhere behind her, Ophelia heard an
almost
-sound. Like another person's breath in the dark, or the faint rustle a sleeve makes when it brushes against one's side. She froze and strained her ears.

Nothing. Only Penrose's soft footfalls and her own wheezy pulse.

Ophelia hurried to Penrose's side, feeling sheepish.

The shrouded shapes—there were four of them—stood about as tall as Ophelia. Drop cloths covered them from top to bottom. Behind them was a cupboard.

Penrose took hold of one of the drop cloths and pulled.

Something clicked, followed by a soft, rhythmical gear-grinding. The drop cloth swished to the floor.

They stood face-to-face with a man. Ophelia stepped back. No, not a
man
, exactly. A sort of mechanical person, with ivory-white skin, a curly white wig, and knee breeches. In one hand it held a bottle and in the other a tray with a champagne glass. It grinned, its eyes shifted back and forth, and it lifted and lowered the champagne bottle.

“I don't fancy the look in his eye,” Ophelia said.

“It's merely a charming trifle.” Penrose unveiled another of the shrouded shapes.

This automaton was meant to resemble, Ophelia fancied, a man of Chinese extraction. It wore a toggle-buttoned blue suit, a round, pointy hat, and a droopy black moustache. It held a long-stemmed pipe. With that grinding-gears hum, it brought the pipe to its lips.

“Ingenious,” Penrose murmured. “Human-sized automatons. Now I understand what Colifichet was suggesting when he said he'd like to replace the ballerinas with mechanical dancers.” He reached for the third shrouded shape.

“Why don't you leave the other two alone, Professor?” Ophelia swallowed. “We don't know how to stop them. Colifichet will know we've been here.”

“I'm certain there is a crank or something that will quickly send them back to sleep.” Penrose unveiled a third automaton.

Ophelia took another step back.

A bear stood on its hind legs, claws outstretched, teeth bared, eyes rolling. It lurched forward.

“It's on wheels,” she said. “And I think that's a real bear hide. And real claws and teeth—watch out!”

Penrose dodged to the side just as the bear bent and took a chomp at the air where Penrose's shoulder had been.

“Behind you!” Ophelia cried. The footman had wheeled up behind Penrose, holding the champagne bottle high. It brought the bottle down with a jerky swing, narrowly missing Penrose's skull.

Ophelia heard a sinister little chugging next to her. She spun. The Chinese automaton had rolled close, puffing some kind of steam from its pipe. Ophelia coughed. She took another breath, and suddenly felt woozy. Things went slow and sideways.

“There's something wrong with this smoke,” she said, doubling over. She could feel the Chinese man's eyes on her. But how could that be? A mechanical contrivance couldn't
see
. Could it? She coughed again, and her eyes streamed.

Penrose drew up his lapel to cover his face and darted around the bear—which was still chomping and tearing the air—and tried the cupboard doors. They didn't give, and so Penrose rammed his shoulder against them two, three, four times. Wood splintered, and the doors opened. Penrose reached in and rummaged around.