Cinderella Six Feet Under(64)

“These were delivered to the front desk,” the waiter said. He poured coffee from a silver pot, and left.

One envelope was stark white, with a tidy, clerical hand that read Lord Harrington. The second envelope was damp and slightly crumpled. Professor Penrose, it read, and Gabriel recognized Miss Flax’s uneven handwriting.

There. You see? She even had flawed penmanship. Better to think of Miss Ivy Banks’s hand, which might’ve been in a schoolroom primer.

Gabriel tore open Miss Flax’s envelope with the butter knife.

Strange developments. Must speak with you. Will be waiting in the Place des Vosges at ten o’clock.—O.F.

Place des Vosges was a small park a few blocks from H?tel Malbert. Miss Flax had doubtless looked it up in that Baedeker she was forever lugging about. He was somewhat alarmed at her message, but surely if it was an emergency she would have said so.

Gabriel sliced open the second envelope.

An excessively grand letterhead, with a scrolled design of waves and dolphins, declared M. T. S. Cherrien (Avocat) 116 Avenue des Champs-élysées.

Ah. Perhaps Cherrien had found a spare moment before January, then.

The note was in English.

Lord Harrington,

I expect your presence at my office this morning at nine o’clock, regarding a most pressing matter. Your discretion is necessary.

—M. Cherrien

Oh-ho! He expected Gabriel’s presence, did he? Gabriel was accustomed to persons, if not scraping before him, at least addressing him as a respected equal. This Cherrien chap deserved to have his insulting summons crumpled and abandoned among the bread crusts.

Yet curiosity trumped pride. Gabriel glanced at his pocket watch. Eight thirty-seven. He downed the last of his coffee and stood.

*

Ophelia had been up since the crack of dawn. Once she’d sent off the note to the professor at his hotel, she’d fallen to pacing and fretting in her chamber. The vision of those white feet bobbing in the brining vat was just about enough to make her pack up Prue and their carpetbags and put them on the first train to anywhere.

But Ophelia had never been one to run from problems. They usually caught up to you again, anyway. And Henrietta was yet to be found.

Ophelia looked through the window into the sky. Gray clouds bulged. Another rainy day. She glanced down into the garden, and averted her eyes from the vegetable patch.

Motion caught her eye, over by the carriage house.

Good gracious. There was the coachman Henri, standing in the carriage house doorway. He spoke with a lady whose back was turned. A slim lady in a hooded cloak. Eglantine, maybe?

Ophelia watched. Henri’s exchange with the lady was brief. His shoulders hunched, and the lady kept glancing over her shoulder. Then Henri went inside and the lady hurried towards the house.

Her hood fell back in her haste.

It wasn’t Eglantine. It was Miss Seraphina Smythe.

She disappeared through the carriageway arch.

Ophelia checked the mantelpiece clock. Almost nine o’clock. She went to fetch Prue.

Prue was still abed.

“Prue? Prue, wake up. Don’t you want breakfast?” Ophelia wiggled Prue’s shoulder.

The fat ginger cat on the pillow yawned and stretched a foreleg. Prue muttered something, rolled over, and went back to sawing gourds.

Petered out from all that house drudgery. Ophelia would leave her to sleep. She went downstairs to the breakfast room.

Ophelia’s stomach lurched at the sight of Malbert’s bald head gleaming above a newspaper at the head of the table. Eglantine and Austorga slumped across from each other, eating in silence. They both wore irritable expressions, and each had a peculiar oily sheen to her face.

Where was Miss Smythe?

“Good morning, everyone!” Ophelia said, forcing a cheery, matronly tone. She plopped down next to Eglantine.

Malbert peeped over his newspaper but said nothing.

Those pickled feet. Ugh.

“Good morning, Madame Brand,” Austorga said. She took a bite of pastry—holding it, Ophelia noted, with her right hand. Not her left. A few pastry flakes clung to her oily cheeks.

“Mm,” Eglantine sighed, stirring her coffee. She held her spoon with her right hand. Not her left.

Beatrice plodded in. She brought the coffeepot from the sideboard and poured Ophelia a cup. Greasy hairs hung loose from her bun, and she smelled faintly of soured wine. She flung a pastry on a plate in front of Ophelia, and left.

The family crunched and sipped in silence. Malbert turned a page of his newspaper. With his right hand, not his left.