Cinderella Six Feet Under(54)

“Her grave! How do you—”

“It troubled me when you said that you knew nothing of her burial place. I took the liberty of visiting the morgue today, on the ?le de la Cité. That is where all the unidentified or unclaimed deceased are brought and where, I knew, the newspaper artist must have seen her laid out—forgive me for my bluntness. I discovered that Sybille’s earthly remains, after the police agreed to her release, were taken away by nuns from the Pensionnat Sainte Estelle. That is a convent not far from here.”

Prue nodded. “Nuns. Ophelia—that’s my friend—told me that my sister had grown up in a nunnery.”

“I called upon the convent. I was told that Sybille was buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery yesterday.”

“I missed it.” Prue’s voice wobbled.

“I might take you there this evening, before I return you to your home.”

“Ain’t much of a home.” Going to the graveyard after dark with a strange feller? Even Ma would’ve balked at that one. Prue didn’t care, though. Her whole life was already in the spittoon. Besides, Dalziel was offering her a free ticket out of this hellhole. “Sure.”

“Good. I shall return soon. The cover of darkness will allow us to elude Hume and our wretched domestique, Marguerite. Grandfather is abed and Grandmother never looks out of the windows. She cannot bear sunlight, or even intense moonlight.”

“Why do you call her Grandmother? She told me you was her ward. An orphan.”

“I am, from a legal vantage point, a ward, yes.”

Prue waited for more, but Dalziel only stared into the candle flame.

Prue’s breathing ironed out. “Why do they want to keep me here? Is it because of that book she had me nick? Because I can’t even read that consarned thing! Hume can read it, I warrant, since he took it off to the kitchens to cook up one of the receipts she found. Soup, most like.”

“I don’t believe it is soup that Hume will prepare.”

“One of those medicine receipts, then? Hold it—you don’t think they meant to, I don’t know, give their medicines a tryout on me, do you?”

Dalziel didn’t answer.

“They planned to make me some kind of medicinal what-you-call-it?”

“An experiment? No. I suspect that Grandmother wishes to keep you here for other reasons altogether. Reasons that might have nothing at all to do with that receipt book. Stand up, Miss Prudence, and have a look about this chamber.”

Prue frowned. “I ain’t saying changing up the topic now and then don’t keep a conversation fresh”—Ma had taught her that—“but that’s a mighty sharp roundabout you’re making.”

“I enjoy the way you speak, Miss Prudence.”

“Beg your pardon?” No one had ever complimented Prue on her grammar, pronunciation, elocution, or poetical whatsits. Not even Hansel.

“Go,” Dalziel said. “Take the candle. Look.”

Prue took the candle and stood. Her bones were rattled and her head felt light.

The chamber was not large, but its corners and ceiling were swallowed in shadow. It held a canopied bed and pieces of dignified, dark wood furniture, all cluttered up with bric-a-brac. Two windows, draperies mostly shut.

Prue finished a loop around the chamber. “All right, then. I’ve had a look-see. Nothing peculiar, as far as my knowing of grand Continental houses goes.”

“You did not look closely enough, then.” Dalziel sprang to his feet and led her to a chest of drawers. “Hold the flame close. Closer.”

Candlelight bounced off small statues—a dozen or more of them—all lined up. Some of them were made of porcelain, others metal, wood, or even what looked to be ivory. But they all had one thing in common: they were all doll-sized likenesses of a yellow-haired girl in a shimmering ivory gown.

“Cendrillon,” Dalziel said. “Cinderella. And they all resemble, to an uncanny degree, you.”

Prue smeared her nose on her cuff. “Not me. My sister.”

“Very well, then, your sister. But to Grandmother, you must understand, there is no difference. To her, the important thing is that you—and your sister—look like Cinderella.”

Dalziel picked up one of the doll-things. Its face and hands were porcelain, just like any old doll, its yellow hair swept under a tiara. The doll wore a tiny, gauzy-skirted dress embroidered with silver and gold.