Snow White Red-Handed (A Fairy Tale Fatal Mystery) (21 page)

“When”—Ophelia’s throat was scratchy—“when will it land?”

“Is that a concern?”

“I merely wish to know when Miss Bright will be released from her unjust bondage.”

“I would not, if I were you, Miss Flax, be very certain of her release. Indeed, you might do well to prepare yourself for joining Miss Bright in her tower.”

Ophelia’s chest felt too tight.

“Miss Flax,” Schubert said in a musing tone to Benjamin, “appears worried, does she not?”

“Why should I be worried?” Ophelia was holding on to the table’s edge so hard her fingernails went white. “I haven’t got a thing to hide.”

“No? Mrs. Coop informed me that she took you and Miss Bright on as domestics solely upon the written recommendations addressed to one Lady Cheshingham of Shropshire, England.”

“That’s correct.”

“Yet, oddly, a perusal of Burke’s Peerage indicates that there is no such lady. Oh, my, Herr Benjamin. Miss Flax looks as though she’s seen a ghost.”

Benjamin smirked as he dabbed his pink nose.

“You must’ve made a mistake.” Ophelia stood, but her knees felt like corn puddings. “You ought to check again. Is there anything else?”

“No.” Schubert dismissed her with a flicking motion. But as she was walking out the library door, he called after her, “Prepare yourself, Miss Flax. The
Leviathan
shall land in New York in two days’ time.”

*   *   *

Ophelia trudged up
the spiraling stair to Mrs. Coop’s chamber. Stony determination settled around her heart. She would
not
let Inspector Schubert get the better of her. She’d find a way to crowbar herself out of this corner if it was the last thing she did.

However: double drat! She’d been so certain Schubert would let Prue out of the tower. In her head she’d already had Prue and herself buttoned into their traveling dresses and their trunks all packed up, even though they hadn’t a penny to pay for the train out of Baden-Baden.

But things had gone from bad to worse. When the
Leviathan
anchored in New York and Schubert was able to telegraph its crew, it’d be curtains for Ophelia and Prue. Never mind that they’d had no reason to kill Karl. And did Schubert even know it was probably poisonous mushroom tea that had done Karl in? Because—

Ophelia froze on the stair. Her heart jigged forward.

Mushrooms
. Of course.

O
phelia spun around and flew down the stairs to the ground floor of the castle.

She poked her head into the kitchen. Cook and Freda talked softly as they kneaded bread dough at one of the tables. They didn’t notice Ophelia.

Good.

She stole down the corridor in the opposite direction, past the scullery and the pantries, and, after a glance over her shoulder, she darted into old Matilda’s herb closet.

Late afternoon light seeped through a slitted window. The cramped space was lined from floor to ceiling with shelves, which were cluttered with bottles and earthen jars in all shapes and sizes. Dry plants were strung from the ceiling, and the table that took up all the floor space was strewn with bottles, jars, and loose herbs.

Where to begin? The place was a pigsty.

She closed the door and started rummaging through the shelves.

Nothing was labeled. Matilda probably knew each leaf and twig by sight and smell, and where to forage for them in the woods and hedges. Everything was dusty, though. There were even delicate cobwebs woven into the bunches of hanging flowers and roots.

Ophelia’s fingers shook as she squinted and sniffed through bottles and jars, and her ears were pricked for sounds out in the corridor. Dried mushrooms would be easy enough to spot, but if they had been ground into a powder—

Hold your horses.

One corner of the worktable had been cleared of clutter. There, shining in the dim light, was an ornate silver tea strainer, one of those used for tea service upstairs.

The strainer was filled with a brown, mushy substance that—Ophelia leaned her nose close—smelled exactly like the tea Karl had drunk. Twiggy and moldy. It was still wet.

A small, corked glass bottle next to the tea strainer was full of what had to be dried mushrooms.

Ophelia slipped the bottle into the pocket of her gown and tiptoed out of the closet.

*   *   *

“What’s this?” Professor
Penrose said. He stood in the doorway of his chamber at the inn, staring down at the bottle Ophelia had thrust into his hand. He looked up. “And what are you doing here?”

“Know anything about mushrooms?” Ophelia had had all the puff taken out of her, trotting down the steps from the castle. “Besides that elves use them for umbrellas.”

Penrose glanced down the corridor, and then said, “Perhaps you ought to come in. I’ll leave the door ajar.”

For the first time since Ophelia had bolted from Matilda’s herb closet, she realized how crackpot this was. Then again, she was about to become a confirmed confidence slicker and maybe an accused murderess in the bargain. She had bigger fish to fry than a tarnished reputation and an unexplained absence from the castle.

“Thank you,” she said. She followed him into the chamber.

She also noticed for the first time that Penrose was barefoot, that his white shirt was rumpled, untucked, and open at the throat, and that his hair was tousled.

Her ears scorched.

He closed the door all but a few inches. Then he drew his spectacles from his shirt pocket, put them on, and studied the bottle again. “I assume this has to do with Count Grunewald’s death?”

“You’ve heard.”

“Winkler told me. He was at the castle this morning to speak with Mrs. Coop, evidently. Said the count had died.”

“Murdered. With mushroom tea.” Ophelia told him how she’d discovered the mysterious brew beside Karl, how it had smelled like mushrooms, and how she’d gone to Matilda’s herb closet to find evidence.

Penrose frowned. “You suspect Matilda?”

“Maybe. The paring knife that was used to doctor the poisoned apple was just like the one Matilda uses.”

“It is within the realm of possibility that Matilda might’ve wished to kill Coop. But would a mother kill her own son?”

“She was displaced and humiliated by a wastrel son who squandered the ancestral fortune. Besides, she isn’t exactly a darling old granny, not as far as I can make out.”

“What about Hansel?”

“It’s possible. But these are Matilda’s mushrooms.”

“If it was Matilda, then why today of all days?”

“Maybe she discovered that Karl had taken up with Miss Amaryllis. Hansel could’ve told her. Hansel just found out about that last night, remember.”

“Miss Amaryllis would not make the most appealing of daughters-in-law, true.”

“I came here for you to help me. Not laugh at me.”

“Miss Flax, I assure you, I am not laughing.”

“Your eyes have always got this—this infernal
gleam
to them. Course, you’re not the one who’s locked up in the tower, like Prue, and you’re not the one who’s been threatened by the police that you might get locked up, too.”

“Schubert said that?”

“Yes.”

“He said you killed Count Grunewald?”

“Hinted at it.”

“That’s absurd.” Penrose sank into a flower-painted, ladder-back chair. “It is also more serious than I thought. Did he say why?”

She waited too long to respond.

His mouth tightened.

“No,” she said. “He’s just bent on Prue and me being murderers for, I suppose, the sake of convenience.”

He rolled the bottle of mushrooms thoughtfully between his palms. “You didn’t happen to see a tapestry rolled up in the corner of Matilda’s little room, did you?” One corner of his mouth twitched north.

“The tapestry? Is that all you care about? Your everlasting moldy old storybook relics?”

It was all starting to fall into place. The mad glint in Penrose’s eye whenever the topic of fairy tales came up. The way he so easily did things like pick locks and creep around in the forest. He was some sort of criminal. An antiquities thief, maybe.

“They are not,” he said, “all I care about.” He paused, watching her. Then he stretched his long legs in front of him, crossed his bare ankles, and clasped his hands behind his head.

He was infuriating.

“But, yes,” he said, “I do care about the tapestry, and the relics from the cottage, and the skeleton. I thought I had made that perfectly clear from the outset. And the fact that they have all gone missing seems to indicate that I am not the only one who cares about them.”

Ophelia smacked a palm across her mouth.

“What is it?” he said.

“I nearly forgot. Last night, in the gaming rooms—remember those two guards who threw Karl out?”

“Yes.”

“Those are the gentlemen I saw stealing the ceiling beam.”

Penrose dropped his arms and leaned forward tensely in his chair. “Are you certain?”

“Fair certain. I wouldn’t swear on a stack of Bibles about it, but that’s more on account of an aversion to swearing.”

“Very funny. Miss Flax, don’t you see? There is some connection between the gaming establishment and the murders. Herz may be linked to that establishment, too. That would explain why no one at the castle seems to know anything about how he caught us in the wood or about that slipper you dropped in the orchard. And Count Grunewald could’ve been killed by those guards.” Penrose was on his feet.

“What’re you going to do—go take them on? I don’t know if you noticed, but they were built like brick barns.”

Penrose was pulling on boots. “Do you doubt my vigor and brawn?”

“Let’s just say I’ll include you in my prayers tonight.” Ophelia paused. “Wait a minute. You’re only keen because you think you’re going to get those relics back.”

“I admit the idea does considerably brighten the prospect of a run-in with two professional thugs.”

“Then I’m going with you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I don’t trust you to find out about the murders. All you care about are those relics.”

“That’s a dagger to my heart.”

“You’ll need help with those two hooligans.”

Penrose laughed. “I suppose you could take swings at their kneecaps with your reticule. As a matter of fact, I thought I’d go have a word with the owner of the gaming establishment.”

“That’s all? Why, that’s as safe as Sunday school. It’s decided, then.” Ophelia opened the door. “I’ll go with you. But I won’t be able to devise a way to sneak out again until tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock?”

Penrose sighed and sank back down in the chair. “Has anyone ever said no to you?”

She smiled over her shoulder as she left. “Not successfully.”

*   *   *

Ophelia went straight
back to Mrs. Coop’s chamber. The climb up the castle bluff had made her perspire right through her linen chemise, and her bun was coming unraveled.

Mrs. Coop didn’t seem to notice. She was slumped at her dressing table in the boudoir.

“Flax. You naughty girl. Naughty. Sneaking off when I need you most.” Her words were clumsy, as though her tongue was too big for her mouth.

She’d been at the face paint again, and she wore, instead of mourning black, a girlish afternoon gown of white muslin.

“Allow me, ma’am,” Ophelia said, “to assist you with your toilette.”

“Ass-assist me? If you’d only whiten my complexion the way you’d promised, I wouldn’t have to use this powder. I’d have the real thing. Lovely, young, white skin.” She dragged her fingers down her cheeks. “Why are you looking at my gown like that? I’m out of mourning. I’ve decided. We can’t have two of us sulking. Amaryllis is soured by the death of that footman. He wasn’t even young. Not handsome.” She leaned close to her reflection, her face screwed up. “My complexion is as—as earthy as a bit of shoe leather. Isn’t it? Isn’t it?”

“Of course it isn’t, ma’am. You are ever so careful to avoid the sun—why, you almost never set a foot out of doors, and when you do, well, you’ve always got your sunbonnet, gloves, a parasol, and—”

“Don’t lie to me, Flax! Fix my hair.”

Funny. She usually liked to be lied to.

Ophelia reached for the tortoiseshell hairbrush. There was a brown glass bottle beside it.

Dr. Alcott’s Celebrated Hysteria Drops.

The bottle was almost full.

“Did the doctor give you some more medicine?” Ophelia began to untangle Mrs. Coop’s yellow hair.

“Doctor? That doctor’s useless.”

“I suppose that’s all very well, if one had the foresight to bring medicine with them from America, and—”

“Quit prattling. My complexion is too dark. Fix it. Concoct me one of your preparations with the juice of a lemon or whatever it is you use. And I wish you to make my hair the color of ebony. You are capable of that, aren’t you?”

This was as good an opportunity as she was going to get.

“Yes, ma’am,” Ophelia said. “I can surely dye your hair. If you’ll give me leave to travel to the apothecary’s shop in Baden-Baden in the morning, I’ll mix you up something nice and strong.”

*   *   *

The day came
and went in the tower. By the time evening rolled in, Prue was near frantic with hunger and thirst. She tried pacing, to get her mind off things, and talking to the sparrows. She pounded on the door and shouted out the windows. No one came.

She huddled down on the mattress in the dark. She was too hungry and parched to cry, even.

There was a thud on the door.

Prue bolted upright.

“Who is it?” she called.

“Hansel,” came the muffled reply.

Crackers. “Just a minute!” She nudged the chamber pot further into the shadows. There was nothing to do about the straw in her hair, the shine on her chin, or the way the ugly brown dress was starting to smell a little ripe.

“What’s happening?” she said through the keyhole. “Thought everyone forgot about me.”

“May I come in?”

She swallowed. “Course.”

Hansel unlocked the door and stepped inside. In the darkness, he seemed bigger than she remembered, and something ferocious thrummed in the air around him. His hair stuck out like a lion’s mane.

He shut the door behind him. “Here.” He passed her a jug and a plate of—oh heavenly!—hazelnut buns and sausages. “I was told you were forgotten today.”

She grabbed the plate and jug and sank to the stone floor. To heck with Ma’s lectures about ladies pretending they hadn’t got appetites. She uncorked the jug and took several gulps of cool water.

“We are leaving in the morning,” Hansel said.

Prue sputtered on water. “Leaving! What’s the matter? Where?”

“My father is dead.”

“What?” Prue’s first thought was the booze. Maybe Karl drank himself under the daisies after the humiliations of last night.

“Poisoned.”

“Like Mr. Coop?”

“Not precisely.” Hansel began pacing back and forth, making the tower feel even more like a cage. He described how Katrina had discovered Karl collapsed beside a teacup.

Prue sat still on the floor, the buns and sausages forgotten. Her heart was pumping fast.

“I went through my father’s things,” Hansel said. He stopped to stare out the iron-barred window. “To see if I might find some clue as to why anyone would kill him. I suspected it might have something to do with his gambling debts. Instead, I found a letter. Addressed to me.”

Prue waited.

“He wrote that he feared he might be killed soon, although he did not say by whom. And that he wished to relay to me important knowledge, in the event that he was killed.”