Cinderella Six Feet Under (28 page)

C
hâteau de Roche was a six-hour drive from Paris. By the time the hired coach turned down the château's drive, Ophelia felt crabby and her crunched toe felt close to popping. Prue, wearing her nun's habit, was asleep on Ophelia's shoulder—Ophelia's bear-scratched shoulder. Dalziel, on the opposite seat, gazed at Prue. Professor Penrose had been reading a book the entire journey. The book was called
Lectures on the Science of Language
by Max Müller, and although that sounded dull as dishwater, Penrose seemed awfully interested in it. Well, he might've only been pretending interest; Ophelia kept catching him looking at her.

What did he think of her forest green visiting gown and black velvet paletot? Probably, that it didn't go with her battered boots or the turtle on her lap.

Bare trees with gray, jigsaw puzzle bark edged the drive. They looked like sycamores, but earlier Penrose had called them plane trees. Beyond the trees farmland sloped, brown and muddy.

Prue snuffled awake and righted her wimple. Without a word, Dalziel took a packet of boiled sweets from inside his jacket and offered her one. Penrose closed his book. Their coach burst out into an open space ringed by white statuary and lawns like green baize tablecloths.

“Golly,” Prue said, “another palace.” The boiled sweet clacked against her teeth.

Château de Roche was preposterously large. Milky stone, tall, glittering windows, roofs shining with last night's rain. Several coaches queued in the drive. Folks in traveling costumes and footmen in yellow livery rushed up and down double front stairs that curved like crab's pincers. Their coach got in line.

“Ready, Prue?” Ophelia hefted her theatrical case onto her lap and opened it. “What will it be? Mouse-brown bun?” She lifted up a wig. Prue had to go in disguise to Miss Stonewall's chamber in the château or their plan would be foiled. Of course, she
was
wearing a nun's habit. Yet still.

“I've always wanted to wear this thing.” Prue nestled the wig over her bright curls. “How about them specs, too?”

Ophelia passed spectacles over.

Prue put them on, and drew her wimple back around her face.

Dalziel stared. Penrose smiled.

Their coach rolled forward and stopped. Footmen darted forward to open their doors.

“We will see you presently,” Ophelia said to Penrose and Dalziel. She clasped the turtle to her chest. “Keep your fingers crossed that this show goes off without a hitch.”

Ophelia was handed down by a footman with yellow livery, a white curly wig, and a stubbly jaw dusted with face powder. Ophelia hooked her arm in Prue's, with the idea that the faster she got Prue hidden in Miss Stonewall's guest chamber, the better.

They were just climbing the steps when Ophelia spotted Malbert in the drive, arguing with a footman—or so it seemed—about a traveling trunk.

“We can't risk Malbert seeing us,” Ophelia whispered.

There was something peculiar about Malbert's trunk. It was the usual size, with brass girding and a domed lid. However, one side seemed to have . . . airholes. Ophelia could've sworn she saw a flash of motion inside.

Malbert glanced in Ophelia's direction. Ophelia turned her head away and dragged Prue up the steps and inside.

“Do you reckon the little doughball recognized us?” Prue whispered.

“I hope not.”

What did Malbert need airholes in his trunk for? Ophelia didn't like it. Not one bit.

*   *   *

An hour later,
Prue found herself sprawled on a divan alone in Miss Stonewall's guest chamber. Well,
almost
alone; the turtle paddled in a washbasin on the floor. Ophelia said she wished to set the little feller free in a country pond.

Prue had taken off the mouse-brown wig and fake spectacles, but she still wore the nun's habit. She reckoned
this
chamber had never seen a nun's habit before. Everything was blue velvet, gold paint, and plaster crustings of cherubs and seashells. The furniture was so fancy you could probably live in comfort for years just by pawning off the pieces, one by one.

Prue sighed. The clock on the mantel—gold flowers and enameled bluebirds—said it was headed towards five o'clock. Which meant she had to twiddle her thumbs in here for seven more hours. Seven!

Dalziel was supposed to keep her company, but he hadn't shown up yet. Ophelia had gone off for her promenade with the Count de Griffe, and Professor Penrose was to chaperone. Prue would've paid a quarter to see
that
. Penrose was just about as in love with Ophelia as a feller could be before he dissolved into a puddle on the floor.

Which reminded her. Prue got up, dug through a writing desk, and found a sheet of paper, pen and ink, and an envelope. In the past few days, she had realized a couple things. For starters, she had realized that Hansel wasn't exactly doing the right thing by her. He wouldn't claim her, and he wouldn't acknowledge her shaky position in life that didn't allow for waiting around for gents to make up their minds. But he hadn't set her loose, either.

Dalziel was right; she need someone to take care of her. So Prue was going to tell Hansel to cut dirt.

She dipped the pen into the bottle of ink and began writing.

Dear Hansel,

I have always wanted for a real family, and for so to find real people who wanted me, dearly. My ma is gone, maybe forever, and in late days I did spend some times with a cluster of nuns who were ever so good to me and took me under their wings. I wanted to tell you, Hansel, that everything between us or that I reckoned was between us, well, I am calling it off and you are free. I wont ever be a fine housewife like I fancied I might learn to be for you, I must face it now. But after all is done here tonight I will join a convent, see, and live amid ladys who want me, without making me wonder if it's true or not.

Sincerely,

Prudence Bright

A couple tears plopped on the page, but they dried quickly. Prue folded the letter and slid it into an envelope. She'd figure a way to send it first thing in the morning.

Then she took Hansel's letter to
her
from her bodice, the one she'd carried from Germany and all over Paris, and burned it.

*   *   *

The promenade with
Griffe was interminable. Griffe practically wallowed in the pleasure of pointing out to Miss Flax (whom he of course addressed as Miss Stonewall) the beauties of the formal gardens behind Château de Roche. The great lout made even tall Miss Flax seem as dainty as a Dresden doll. Gabriel was doomed to slouch behind them at a cousinly distance, hands in trouser pockets and irritation lapping over him in waves.

Gabriel watched as Miss Flax and Griffe bent their heads over a dormant rosebush. Miss Flax said something, and Griffe chortled.

Gabriel realized he must do something about this, once and for all.

Tonight.

*   *   *

“Why so grumpy?”
Ophelia edged close to the professor. Griffe had been waylaid by two ladies and a gentleman of his acquaintance, who were also enjoying the sunset light in the formal gardens.

“Grumpy?” Penrose straightened his spectacles. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I figured you were getting peckish for dinner.”

“Oh. No. Well, perhaps.”

“I've been perishing to speak with you and I haven't had a chance.” Ophelia glanced at Griffe. Still talking. She lowered her voice. “Did you happen to see Monsieur Malbert's traveling trunk in the drive?”

“No.”

“Well, it had breathing holes in it.”

“Breathing holes? Whatever do you—”

“And it was big enough for, well, for a
person
.”

“Good God—but that is preposterous!”

“Henrietta's still missing. Malbert is mad. I've got to check it. I hope I've made a mistake, but I can't rest easy till I see with my own eyes.” Ophelia paused. “So. Will you help me?”

“You mean, help you sneak into Malbert's chamber?”

“Yes.”

“All right. But you've got to disentangle yourself from Griffe. Tell him you're having one of those fits you ladies have, why don't you?”

“I'll leave the fits to the grand ladies of the world. I don't have the time.”

*   *   *

Ten minutes later,
Ophelia hid behind a huge, blue-and-white vase in the corridor outside Malbert's chamber. They had learned the location of Malbert's chamber easily enough; Penrose had simply greased a footman's palm.

Penrose rapped on the door. It opened. Penrose and Malbert held a brief exchange in French, and then the door hit home.

Penrose came to Ophelia. “No luck.”

“He didn't buy your line about wishing to borrow a cufflink?”

“I'm afraid not, and he was rather suspicious that I had asked. We've never met, you realize.”

“Did you see the trunk?”

“He blocked my view.”

“Then we must wait till he leaves, and then go in.”

“You're determined to do this?”

“The last time I saw him he was waving a meat cleaver at me!”

“Fair enough.”

They hid behind the vase for more than twenty minutes. At last, Malbert's door opened. They looked around the vase. Malbert waddled down the corridor in the opposite direction, pulling his traveling trunk behind him. Wheels were affixed to the bottom and Malbert held it by a hand strap. The wheels squeaked softly.

“What in Godfrey's green
earth
?” Ophelia whispered. “I knew he was up to something. I
knew
it!”

They crept along after Malbert, through a puzzle of richly decorated corridors and into a bare, spiraling stairwell. Malbert took great care to gently bump the trunk down each step. On the ground floor, a door led outside. Malbert had left it ajar.

He was setting off across a twilit side garden when Ophelia and Penrose dared to look out the door.

“Where is he going?” Penrose murmured.

“Hopefully not to bury anything.” Ophelia swallowed. “Or anyone.” She sure as sheep-dip didn't want to see
that
.

Malbert wheeled the trunk swiftly through the network of low, geometrical hedges and sandy paths. Ophelia and Penrose skulked at a distance. The sun was below the horizon now, and Malbert was a black blotch. But if he were to turn around, there wasn't a place to hide.

Ophelia heard crunching footfalls behind them. She glanced over her shoulder to see two
other
black blotches, walking beside a fountain.

Penrose had seen them, too. “Keep on,” he whispered. “I fancy they're only out for a stroll.”

Malbert veered to the side and disappeared through an archway cut into a tall line of shrubbery.

“Bother,” Penrose said. “We'll lose him. Hurry.”

Ophelia and Penrose passed under the archway through which Malbert had disappeared, and emerged at the top of a terraced slope. At the bottom of the terraces, a ring of bare trees stood out against the purple sky. Behind the trees, a lake shone like a large, tarnished coin. Cold wind gusted up.

“There he is!” Ophelia pointed. Malbert was gently bumping his trunk down the steps.

Once Malbert reached the bottom, he headed towards the lakeshore and vanished into a dark clump of weeping willows.

When Ophelia and Penrose reached the shore, the sky had deepened to indigo. Frogs peeped, water lapped, and tall reeds rustled in the breeze. From the clump of willows came crunching sounds. Then the sounds stopped.

Ophelia and Penrose crept behind a thick willow trunk and peered around it.

At first, Ophelia saw nothing but blurs of gray and black. But she stared harder and made out the form of Malbert. He knelt before the trunk. He opened the lid, its hinges creaking.

“
Adieu, mes mignons
,” Malbert murmured in a singsong tone.
“Adieu.”

Ophelia forgot to breathe.

Penrose shook with silent laughter.

Ophelia frowned. Malbert was placing tiny things onto the ground. Tiny things that streamed away into the shadows, one by one.

“
Mice
?” Ophelia whispered.

“
Qui est là
?” Malbert asked, scrambling to his feet.

Penrose stepped out from behind the tree. Ophelia decided she may as well follow. Malbert wasn't a murderer. He was only . . . off his rocker.

“Lord Harrington, is it? Why have you followed me here? I knew you were not being honest when you said you wished to borrow a cufflink. And who is this young lady with you?” Malbert's spectacles shone like little moons.

“Miss Stonewall and I were merely out for a stroll, and we happened to notice you and your rather fascinating wheeled trunk. I confess that our curiosity got the better of us. I do beg your pardon. Releasing mice?”

Malbert dabbed his face with a hankie. “Please do not tell my daughters. They will laugh. But you see, my home is infested with the poor little creatures and I cannot bear to destroy them. I take away the poison and the deadly traps my servants set out for them, and catch them instead with traps of my own design and manufacture that will not harm them—”