Cinderella Six Feet Under(25)

*

“I traveled to Paris after reading an astonishing report in The Times of a murder in Le Marais,” Gabriel said to Lady Cruthlach after interminable and antiquated pleasantries. “I wished to meet you, to learn what you know of the matter and, perhaps, to propose another . . . exchange.”

“Oh yes, Lord Harrington,” Lady Cruthlach said, treacle-sweet. “Our last trade was most beneficial.”

For her, perhaps. The Tyrolean black wolf’s tooth they had given him, in exchange for a rare specimen of Siberian Amanita muscaria, had been a fraud.

“However, I know not of the astonishing newspaper report to which you refer,” Lady Cruthlach said.

“You did not notice the report of the girl found murdered in the garden of a house in Le Marais?”

“We do not worry ourselves with the rush and stew of the present day. You know as well as we do that the past is everything and all.”

Lady Cruthlach didn’t know about the house, then. Gabriel could continue to guard the secret. On the other hand, she might know something that he did not.

Gabriel drew the Charles Perrault volume from his jacket. He slid out the loose sheet, and unfolded it.

“Well?” Lady Cruthlach said. “What is this?”

Lord Cruthlach wheezed softly.

“My notes,” Gabriel said. “A transcription, rather, of an excised passage from Perrault’s ‘Cendrillon.’” There was actually more than one passage, but he would begin with this one.

“Excised passage?” Lady Cruthlach licked the corner of her mouth. “I knew not of such—such treasure. How did you come by this?”

“I stumbled upon it a few years ago, quite by chance, whilst researching ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ in a rare first-edition housed in the Sorbonne.”

“Well? Come now, don’t be a tease. Read it aloud. My eyesight is no longer good.”

“The excised passage was appended to the moral at the end of the tale. It denotes the address of the Cendrillon house—the house, that is, in which Cinderella dwelled with her father, stepmother, and stepsisters. The address was removed from subsequent editions of the volume, no doubt in order to protect the privacy of the Roque-Fabliau family.”

“Roque-Fabliau? Of H?tel Malbert? You must be mistaken. That pitiful little marquis, up to his fat chins in debt? His two daughters were thrust upon me at a lecture on Pliny the Elder not long ago. Ugly, grasping creatures. Surely they cannot be descendants of Cinderella.”

“If the manuscript is to be believed, then they are not descendants of Cinderella, but descendants of Cinderella’s father and stepmother.”

Lord Cruthlach’s mouth opened and shut like a carp fish.

“What is it that you know?” Gabriel asked.

“Know?” Lady Cruthlach smoothed the blanket on her knees. “We know nothing, my dear.”

“Perhaps, then, it would be best if we forego any trades in the future.” Gabriel replaced the sheet of paper in the book and snapped it shut. He stood.

“No!” Lady Cruthlach cried. “Stay. I shall tell you. I shall tell you! You are the most diligent, the most resourceful and adventurous collector that we are acquainted with, Lord Harrington. I would so hate to see the last of you.”

Gabriel remained standing, and he tucked the book into his jacket.

“We have heard tell, for many years past, of a most extraordinary relic hidden in the Cendrillon house,” Lady Cruthlach said. “The queen mother of all other fairy tale relics.”

“I don’t quite follow.”

“My lord Athdar is dying, Lord Harrington. Surely that is apparent. But there is something hidden in the Cendrillon house that will change that. Something of such fantastical power that my lord will be restored. And he will live. Yes, he will live.”

“What is the nature of this relic?”

“We know not.” Lady Cruthlach’s eyes glittered. “Yet.”

Had Miss Flax been present, she would have doubtless remarked that Lady Cruthlach wasn’t a very fine actress.

Gabriel gave Lady Cruthlach his card with the name of his hotel written on the back. He left the mansion with the uneasy sense that he had somehow revealed too much.





8




Ophelia had never laid eyes on the Malberts’ coachman, who the girls had called Henri, because she had never ridden in their equipage. She did know that Eglantine and Austorga kept him busy day and night with their chock-full social calendars and that he must, then, be always at the ready.