Cinderella Six Feet Under(18)

Gabriel translated for Miss Flax.

“Ask her where Sybille lived,” Miss Flax said.

Gabriel asked.

“In a boardinghouse in the Quartier Pigalle—”

“Pigalle!” Gabriel said. “Good heavens.”

“Yes, well, that is where many of our girls live. It is fairly close by, and inexpensive.” The lady rose, and found a card in one of the filing cabinets. “Sixteen Rue Frochot.”

*

Outside, the rain had let up. Sunlight bounced off the wet square in front of the opera house. Carriages, delivery wagons, and omnibuses slopped by in the street.

“We ought to go to Sybille’s boardinghouse,” Ophelia said. “Surely someone there will know something about the night she died.”

“Should you perhaps return to H?tel Malbert? Won’t you be missed?”

Ophelia rummaged around in her reticule. “You aren’t going to do that old routine, are you? Nudging me in the direction of propriety?” She pulled out her Baedeker.

“Would it make a difference if I did?”

“No.” Ophelia checked the index and flipped to a map captioned Place Pigalle & Environs. She scoured the map for Rue Frochot. “There. Ought to be an easy walk.”

“It’s well over a mile, surely.”

Ophelia bookmarked the map with a red ribbon. “I used to walk three miles to the schoolhouse every morning as a girl.”

“We’ll hire a cabriolet.”

“I won’t have you paying for things.” Ophelia turned in what she hoped was the direction of Place Pigalle.

She stopped. Once again, the fanciful placard decorated with mice, rats, and lizards caught her eye. She pointed it out to Penrose. “What does that placard say?”

“Good heavens. Cendrillon.”

“Sendry-what?”

He paused. “Cinderella.”

Ophelia’s jaw dropped. She swung on Penrose. “Cinderella? Cinderella? Why, you low-down, deceitful, double-crossing, two-faced scallywag! I knew it. I knew it!”

“I fail to grasp your meaning.”

“Fail to—humbug! I knew you were fibbing about why you’re here in Paris. And now”—she jabbed her umbrella at the placard—“I’ve got proof.”

“That I’ve traveled hundreds of miles to take in a ballet?”

“That you’re here on account of your everlasting, crumbly—and, might I add, downright nutty fairy tale obsession.” Ophelia thought of Sybille in that dress, missing a shoe. In a pumpkin patch. “To think I swallowed that line about you coming here to help me. You’re only in Paris on account of this ballet, and the way Sybille died.” She barged off across the square. Pigeons scattered.

Ophelia hadn’t believed for a second that the professor was in Paris because of her. But she’d wished to believe it. Ugh.

Penrose caught up and stopped her with a firm grip around her upper arm.

She wouldn’t look at him.

“Miss Flax,” Penrose said in a rough, low voice. “Please. Look at me.”

Ophelia breathed in and out three times. She lifted her gaze. The professor’s eyes, a clear, bright hazel behind his spectacles, looked like . . . they looked like home.

Madness. Home was four walls and a roof. Home couldn’t be a man. And what was wrong with her to think for even a second that home could be a man?

She wriggled her arm from his grasp. “What was it you wished to say?”

“You have made rather a large leap of logic, assuming that this ballet has anything to do with the murder.”

“But don’t you see? Sybille’s death must have had something to do with the ballet.”

“Because she was a dancer within the institution in which a Cinderella ballet is being performed? That hardly seems—”

“Don’t you know? Sybille, when we found her in the garden . . . she wore a fancy ball gown. Like Cinderella in the story. And there were squashes there, too—pumpkins, don’t you see? I hadn’t realized it until now, but . . . And her foot—well, she was missing her shoe.”

“Good God.”

“Quit pretending you didn’t know. Like I said, your acting isn’t exactly top rail.” Why did everything she said come out so ornery? Ophelia found herself fidgeting with the umbrella handle.

“How could I have known? I saw but one report in the newspaper. It made no mention of what the girl wore. My interest in the murder stemmed solely from a concern for your safety. Pray, listen. Allow me to assist you, Miss Flax. I shall stay in Paris as long as it takes to locate the marquise.”