Cinderella Six Feet Under(108)

“No, you won’t,” Ophelia said. “You’re done with murder, aren’t you, Josie?”

“I thought I was finished already, but you! Whoever you are—”

“Miss Flax will do.”

“You and your silly disguises, all your questions and prying and stirring of the hornet’s nest! You could not let things be.”

“An innocent derelict is in jail. Give me the gun.” Ophelia held out her hand.

Josie hung on to the pistol, but her hands trembled.

Ophelia carefully plucked the gun from Josie’s grasp, and Josie sagged in relief or defeat.

A few gentlemen guests arrived at the bottom of the steps. Ophelia held up a hand. “Please. Allow me to ask her a few questions. She cannot flee now. And, please, someone go and try to discover if Inspector Foucher of the Paris police has arrived yet.” She turned to Josie, who had sunk to her knees on the gravel path. Her ivory skirts pooled around her. Her delicate head hung, and the diamonds on her stomacher glittered. “Josie, why? Why did you shoot Prince Rupprecht?”

“Why?” Josie jerked her head up. “Because he did not deserve to live! Because I have nowhere left to run, nothing left for me. I killed two people and would soon be caught—because of you. You!—by the police. I would not go to prison without destroying the prince, first.”

“But did you know him?”

“Oui. Knew, yes, knew. I first encountered him at Maison Fayette four months ago, when he came to order a special gown to be made for one of his lady friends. He brought the stomacher. He wished to have a special gown made to incorporate it. The next day, Monsieur Grant came to the shop. I had never met him before, but when Madame Fayette could not hear, he offered me money. Money simply to dine with the prince. I thought of poor Maman and her fading eyes . . . I said yes. We dined, and the prince was so kind. He gave me flowers, and no one has ever done that. We dined again, and then he—his hands—” Josie’s voice cracked.

“I think I understand,” Ophelia said softly. Josie was a murderess, so was it right to pity her? “Did you sew the Cinderella ballet costume?”

“Oui, and another one very like it, but to my own measurements.” Josie touched her gauzy skirts. “This. For him. To please him. He called me Cendrillon. But soon he grew tired of me, told me I was imperfect, cast me aside. My ears. My ears are too big, he said. But when the time came for Prince Rupprecht to order another Cinderella gown for his next girl, I had to sew it.”

How humiliating.

“I decided to have my revenge. I stole Madame Fayette’s revolver and went to the prince’s mansion. I found him in that sickening chamber with his newest Cendrillon and, oh mon Dieu, I meant to kill him then, but I saw her in his arms, in the gown I had sewn, in the diamond stomacher he had given to me, and I . . .”

“Did you shoot Sybille?” Ophelia asked.

“I did not mean to, but when it happened I felt like a rotten tooth had been pulled out. The prince saw everything. I threatened to go to the police and say he killed Sybille, and he grew mad with alarm. He agreed to help me get rid of the body. I had overheard during a fitting at Maison Fayette that Sybille was Henrietta’s daughter, so together, the prince and I placed Sybille’s body in the garden of H?tel Malbert to draw suspicion to the Malbert family.”

Ophelia’s pity for Josie faded. “You took the stomacher from Sybille’s body?”

“Oui. The prince, he had forgotten it in his haste and worry.”

“That was you I saw that night, riding back and forth in the carriage in front of H?tel Malbert.”

“I watched from a hired carriage to see when the police arrived. I wanted to be certain that the body was found.” Josie’s voice lilted with what sounded like . . . pride.

Well, murdering Sybille was probably the boldest thing she had ever done, and probably the first time in her life that she had stood up for herself. “Then you told your brother, Pierre, what you had done.”

“After the police arrived, I asked the driver to take me to Colifichet’s workshop. Pierre was working late. He devised the plan to blame a madman of the streets for the crime. Pierre went to the police and gave them his story about a madman fleeing the scene of the crime. The police seemed to know of a man who fit that description, and Pierre listened carefully as they spoke of him.”

Foucher. The Insensible Man, indeed.

“After I shot Monsieur Grant,” Josie said, “Pierre caught the madman, with blood on his hands, fleeing the opera house.”