Cinderella Six Feet Under(45)

When the concierge rapped on the door, there was no answer.

“Must have gone out,” she said in French. “No matter. I have my keys right here. I shall just let you in. Sacredieu, I am sick to death of these pipes.” She left.

Inside, a quick survey confirmed that indeed, no one was home.

“He must’ve gone out again while we were in the cellar,” Gabriel said.

“Well, let’s see if he took his parcel with him.”

Grant’s apartment was the shabbily elegant variety favored by artists and writers. Threadbare carpets of wild arabesque designs overlapped on stained parquet floors. Windows were draped in mismatched silks. The furniture ranged from Oriental lacquered to Chippendale, littered with books, overflowing ashtrays, primitive pottery, and half-empty wine goblets. There was no kitchen, only a copper teakettle hanging from a small marble fireplace. Watercolors of stage scenery designs filled one wall. Grant had probably gotten those from the opera house. A tiny lavatory lurked under the eaves.

“Ah,” Gabriel said, setting the toolbox down. “La vie de bohème.”

“What’s that?”

“The artist’s life.”

“Oh. Not all it’s cracked up to be.”

“I’m rather enjoying my stint as an actor.”

“Well, we’d better hurry up or it could be your last.”

A tall, skinny Siamese cat slunk down from a shelf, yowling.

“Here kitty, kitty,” Miss Flax said. The cat galloped towards her.

“Animals seem to like you,” Gabriel said, scanning a jumbled bookshelf.

“I’ve always had a way with animals.” She stroked the cat.

“So I’ve noticed.” An image of the loutish Count de Griffe rose, unbidden, in Gabriel’s mind. He moved to the mantel. Dust-coated miniatures, wax-caked candelabras, and a brass mail rack cluttered the ledge. “Here’s the post.”

Most of the envelopes were addressed to M. Caleb Grant, but a few were addressed to Mme. Clara Babin.

“A lady lives here?” Miss Flax said. “How very French.”

Gabriel cleared his throat. Of course, now that Miss Flax knew about Gabriel’s understanding (of sorts) with Miss Ivy Banks, speaking of these indelicate kinds of things did not bother him.

He flipped through the envelopes. Bills, bills, bills, invitations to lectures, soirées, art exhibitions. No passionate letters. No blackmail notes. He replaced the envelopes in the rack.





14




Ophelia looked through curtains into an alcove. A lumpy, unmade bed sat under the sloped ceiling. Petticoats were flung over the bedframe. Books towered up on the nightstand and the air was headachey with patchouli.

A large oil painting filled one wall. It depicted a long-limbed woman lounging on a chaise. Her back was turned to the viewer and bare all the way down to her bottom, which was, blessedly, swathed in diaphanous green. Her profile displayed a pearl drop earring, upswept mahogany hair, flower-stem neck, striking black eyebrows, pointy nose.

“Professor,” Ophelia called.

Penrose appeared. He followed her gaze and then coughed.

He had been doing an awful lot of coughing and throat-clearing today, starting at the Louvre.

“It is only that the French, Miss Flax, have rather different views on, ah, states of undress than those found in the Puritan regions of America and in—”

“Not that. Doesn’t this painted lady look an awful lot like the lady Miss Austorga was speaking with backstage at the opera house last night?”

“I had but the briefest glimpse of her, but I suppose she might be the same.”

“I’d wager it’s the lady to whom those letters on the mantel are addressed.” Ophelia preferred not to take a crack at pronouncing Babin, so she left it to the professor.

“Madame Clara Babin,” he said.

Sounded like the noise a French sheep would make. “Right. Not many ladies would cotton to having such a great quantity of another lady’s bare back dangling over their bed.”

“I suppose not. This, then, connects Austorga to Caleb Grant, via this lady.”

“How peculiar.” Ophelia frowned. “Austorga is a deep one. Between the two sisters, she seems by far and away the more forthright one. The nicer one, too, if a bit of a, well, dingbat.”

“There is always the possibility that she simply found herself lost backstage at the opera house.”