Snow White Red-Handed (A Fairy Tale Fatal Mystery) (22 page)

Prue licked her lips. “Knowledge?”

“The Grunewalds—my family—are directly descended from Snow White.” Hansel turned to face Prue. “I have heard fanciful stories about this since I was a baby. That the original Schloss Grunewald was Snow White’s childhood home, and that her son returned here as the first Count Grunewald.”

“Snow White was your . . . ancestor?”

“Yes.”

“Does your gran know? Matilda?”

“It was from her, I think, that I first heard the stories. She is very distraught. Father was her only child—” Hansel’s voice broke up. “In the letter, there was more that I did not know. Father beseeched me to find Snow White’s burial place. He wrote that he did not wish to relay, in the letter, precisely why, because he feared his letter would fall into the wrong hands. Only that I should find her tomb before the thieving Americans did. And that if I found her tomb, it would somehow change everything for me and for Grandmother.”

Prue considered for a long moment. “So you’re heading out to search for . . . Snow White.”

“
We
are. You shall come with me.”

“I
ain’t going anywhere until you explain things out, Hansel,” Prue said.

“Very well. Snow White lived in the days of the Holy Roman Empire—”

Prue blinked.

“In the middle ages. Knights in armor and castles and so on.”

“Dragons?”

For the first time, Hansel smiled a little. Or maybe it was just a trick of the moonlight. “Sometimes. Snow White’s prince was the youngest son of one of the electors of the Rhine Palatinate.”

“Pala-what?”

“The elector was a grand nobleman who oversaw a region called a palatine. A bit like a duke in England nowadays. What this means is that Snow White’s prince—whatever his name truly was—would have lived in Heidelberg, where I attended university up until last year.”

“Heidelberg. That’s where Franz is going to college, too.”

“Yes. It is about fifty miles from here.”

“I still don’t know what you’re slanting at.”

“If Snow White’s prince belonged to a powerful Heidelberg family, there is a good possibility that he is buried in Heidelberg, in the Church of the Holy Spirit. Snow White would be buried beside her husband. We must go there to search the tombs. I will take you with me. I do not believe it is safe for you to stay here. Two people have been murdered. More may follow. You are unprotected. Vulnerable.”

“Horsefeathers,” Prue said. Inside, she was shaking like a leaf. Because of the two murders, yes. But also because Hansel seemed . . . dangerous. Just like Ophelia had said.

And because, notwithstanding Hansel’s lion-in-a-cage routine, Prue knew she’d follow him to the ends of creation.

“Why are you doing this?” she whispered.

“I must honor my father’s wishes. And if I were to find the tomb, it would point the way to his killer.”

“They’ll notice I’m gone. Katrina and Freda. When they come with my tray.”

“I shall pay Katrina and Freda to keep silent. They will be only too happy to oblige. They are greedy girls, and idle.”

Prue had never heard Hansel speak ill of anyone before. He’d changed.

He strode over to her and crouched down. She shrank back. He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger, and lifted her face so he could see into her eyes. “Gather your things together,” he said. He stood, opened the door. “I will arrange for us to ride in the greengrocer’s cart into Baden-Baden in the morning. We will take the railway from there. I will come for you when the way is clear.”

Then he was gone.

As soon as Hansel was gone, Prue polished off the jug of water. She set the empty jug on the windowsill and roosted down to wait for Ophelia.

*   *   *

Ophelia saw the
jug. As soon as she was able to peel herself away from Mrs. Coop, she made slam-bang for the tower.

“I know about Karl,” Prue said through the door. “Dead.”

“Are you—you aren’t still cross about last night, are you?”

A pause. “You can’t still think Hansel’s a murderer, can you?”

Ophelia
could
. A little. Anyone could be a murderer, it seemed.

“Well, this’ll go down like medicine,” Prue said, “but I’m going to Heidelberg in the morning. With Hansel.”

“What?”

Prue, breathless and taking lots of hairpins and forks in the road, told Ophelia about Hansel’s claims: Karl’s letter, the Grunewalds’ supposed ancestry, and Hansel’s conviction that Snow White lay buried in a church in Heidelberg.

Ophelia rubbed her temples. “Hold it. First of all—Snow White was the Grunewalds’ ancestress? You aren’t going to start believing this—”

“What if it’s true?” Prue’s voice was shrill. “Ever stopped to consider that?”

Ophelia thought about it. “No. I haven’t.”

“Well, why not? Believing Snow White was a real lady, back in them knights-and-castles times, don’t mean you need to believe in
magic
.”

“Perhaps not magic. But I’d have to believe in the seven dwarves.”

“You’ve
seen
the dwarf bones, Ophelia. With your own eyes. What more do you want?”

What more
did
she want?

Ophelia was suddenly afflicted with unfamiliar—and shockingly impractical—notions creeping into the back of her mind. Unwelcome, these notions were, like tiny intruders sneaking in through a rusted trapdoor. Maybe Professor Penrose was right. Maybe fairy tales were real. Ophelia gave her head a shake.

“Karl’s letter,” Prue said, “made it out that he was killed because of this tomb of Snow White’s. And he mentioned thieving Americans—”

“So,
Mr. Coop’s
death had something to do with this tomb, as well,” Ophelia said. “According, anyway, to Karl’s letter.”

“According to common sense!”

Ophelia pressed her lips tight. She didn’t wish to give Prue’s trip to Heidelberg her stamp of approval. No, she most assuredly did not. But that unraveling-sweater feeling was getting stronger by the hour.

And if Ophelia admitted to herself that maybe, just
maybe
, there was a twinkle of truth to the notion of Snow White being a real lady, well, one thing was blindingly obvious: finding Snow White’s tomb, and whatever secrets it held, just might lever Prue and her out of this mess.

“It isn’t proper,” Ophelia finally said. “You going about with a gentleman without a chaperone.” The hypocrisy of that statement made her cheeks warm up.

“Know what
else
isn’t proper?” Prue said. “Going to prison.”

True enough. True enough.

“Hurry,” was all Ophelia could say.

*   *   *

“Have a look
at these,” Gabriel said to Winkler in the morning. “But you’d better wear gloves.” He placed the bottle of mushrooms beside Winkler’s coffee cup and lowered himself into the opposite chair in the inn’s dining room.

“Allow me to guess,” Winkler said. “It is another specimen of fool’s gold.” He took an enormous bite of a roll that dribbled blueberry jam.

Gabriel poured cream into his coffee. “If I recall rightly, the last specimens of fool’s gold proved to be genuine.”

Winkler twiddled sausage-like fingers. “A rarity, professor, a rarity.”

“Those,” Gabriel said, “are dried mushrooms. I wonder if you could—since you are, after all, a trained chemist—determine if they are a poisonous variety.”

“Easily done. I know all the wild mushrooms in the
Schwarzwald
.”

And every edible one, too, no doubt.

“Speaking of poison,” Winkler said, “Inspector Schubert told me that the footman who died in the castle yesterday was poisoned. I had my money on apoplexy. The man was red in the face.”

“As a matter of fact, that’s what intrigues me so about these mushrooms. I wish to know if they could have been used to poison him.”

Winkler guffawed. “Poisoned by mushrooms!
Mein Gott
, what a folkloric way to die! These peasants are true to the woodland soil to the end, are they not?”

Evidently, Winkler didn’t know that Karl had been the disgraced Count Grunewald. Gabriel wouldn’t tell him just yet.

Winkler forked up a rasher of bacon. “I shall examine your mushrooms with pleasure,” he said.

*   *   *

Ophelia helped Mrs.
Coop breakfast and bathe—she’d had another difficult night under the influence of the hysteria drops—and then dashed up to the lumber room to put on her disguise in preparation for her trip to Baden-Baden with the professor. True, Mrs. Coop had given her leave to go to the apothecary’s shop, but a disguise would come in handy should she cross paths with Inspector Schubert.

Ophelia fretted as she buttoned up her gentleman’s shirt. Had she erred, allowing Prue to go off with Hansel? No. Life was like a trapeze act: you had to take risks or the show never got off the ground. Only thing was—Ophelia shrugged on her waistcoat—in this case there was no safety net below. Only the prospect of prison. Or worse.

She crouched on the rolled-up rug and inspected herself in the tarnished wardrobe mirror. She’d use a double helping of glue on her muttonchops today. The strain of them threatening to come undone last time had been awful.

As she bent to rummage in her theatrical case for the glue, something shiny caught her eye. It was the corner of the rolled-up rug, just barely jutting out. It appeared to be woven with gold thread.

She hadn’t noticed
that
before.

She stood up and, with great effort, because the rug was enormously long and heavy, pushed it like a log to unroll it.

Holy Moses.

*   *   *

The Baden-Baden railway
station was all abuzz. Folks with harried faces dashed hither and thither; peddlers yelled about rolls, fruits, and newspapers; and everyone chattered too quickly in German, Russian, English, and Italian. A black train hulked and hissed alongside the platform, ready to go.

Prue and Hansel slipped through the crowd. Neither of them carried a bag or a bundle. Prue had brought nothing but the clothes on her back and the ruby comb, stuffed in her bodice. She reckoned they looked like a couple of servants on their day off, him in his shabby clothes and her in her brown dress, knitted shawl, and the close straw bonnet Hansel had given her to hide her face.

Maybe they even looked like sweethearts, with her shoulder pressed tight against his. Prue’s belly was full of knots, though. Probably on account of the fact that she was traipsing off to unknown parts with a handsome count who had a barbarous glint in his eye.

Still, it felt good to be out of the tower again. Maybe if she left the castle and Baden-Baden behind, all the trouble she was in might vanish in a puff of smoke.

They plowed their way across the platform, towards their railway carriage.

All of a sudden, something caught Prue’s eye. A dark suit of clothes, shiny shoes, a black bowler hat. Her heart tripped over itself.

“It’s Franz.”
She elbowed Hansel.

Hansel didn’t hear. He was too busy trying to squeeze between a man with a push-broom moustache and a girl holding a basket of apples.

Prue craned her neck around the girl’s apple basket. It was Franz, all right. He didn’t appear to have seen them. He bent to flick something off his trouser leg. As he did so, his jacket fell open and there was a flash of red, black, and white. That striped bit of ribbon again, wrapped around his belt. Then the crowd closed, and he disappeared from view.

Prue had not once mentioned Franz to Ophelia. Explaining things about Franz would surely have made Hansel seem bad in Ophelia’s eyes. But . . . what if Franz had something to do with the murders?

Hansel helped Prue up into the railway carriage. It was bursting with babies, wicker cages of ducks, and roly-poly women in kerchiefs. Third class.

Soon, the train was chugging along through picture-postcard hills, and Prue was munching on the shelled walnuts Hansel had bought for her at the station. She asked him about the ribbon on Franz’s belt. “Is it some kind of German fashion? Because American men don’t ever wear ribbon, unless they’re soldiers or something. Or somebody died.”

Hansel’s brow furrowed. “You are certain you saw this ribbon?”

“Saw it twice, clear as day.”

“With three stripes.”

“Red, white, and black.”

Hansel stared out the window, still scrunching his brow. “It sounds like one of the symbols used to identify a member of a
Studentverbindung
.”

“What’s that?”

“About fifty years ago, many student societies were formed at European universities. Secret societies, with membership oaths, intricate—even occult—rituals, and such. They still exist to this day. Mostly they are, I suspect, an excuse for young men to enjoy glass after glass of beer. Still, they are quite secretive, and one must be initiated into them.”

“Did you belong to one? When you were studying at college?”

“No. I was too occupied with my books.”

Since Hansel was being loose-lipped, Prue went on and asked, “Why is Franz always going on about you being reduced in circumstances?”

Hansel rubbed his eye sockets and sighed. “Franz’s family were servants at the castle—at Schloss Grunewald. Franz’s father was my father’s valet, and even though Franz was my boyhood playmate, he was also in training to become
my
valet. But when Father ruined our fortune and so many servants were forced to leave, Franz went to make his way in the world.”

“You traded places, then.”

Hansel nodded. “After Franz left the castle, he started out working as a croupier in the gaming rooms in Baden-Baden. That is when he began to take on those gentlemanly airs.”

“There’s nothing wrong with coming up in the world,” Prue said, “but Franz carries on about it. Never can resist a dig at you. There’s something just not—not
right
about him.”

“I agree. Little remains of the gentle boy I used to play with. I worry what he has done to fund his gentleman’s habits.”

Prue paused her walnut chewing. There it was again. That haunted gleam in Hansel’s eyes.

Did he think Franz had something to do with his pa’s death?

“I cannot,” Hansel said, “envision Franz as a member of a
Studentverbindung
. He is not really the sort that is attracted to those societies. Although he did seem rather drunk when we encountered him that evening in Baden-Baden.”