Cinderella Six Feet Under(81)

“Why would I lie? It makes me ill to admit it.”

“All right then. As the marquise, you must have been aware of your husband’s family’s rather unusual claim to share an ancestor with the lady called Cinderella.”

Ophelia tapped her toe. How did the professor always manage to steer the ship into the fairy tale channel?

“Isabeau d’Amboise,” Clara said. “Yes. I never heard the end of it. But they always left out the bit about being descended from the wicked stepmother, too.”

“Then you were also aware of the provenance of the diamond stomacher,” Penrose said.

Clara picked up a half-empty wineglass and sniffed it. “Yes.”

“Surely you noticed that the bodice of the ballet costume replicated the stomacher.”

“I did. But I thought nothing of it.” She polished off the wine.

“Why not?”

“Does it surprise you that I do not much care about that foolish tale and that dreary old stomacher? If you wish to know why the ballet costume replicated the stomacher, you must go and ask Prince Rupprecht. He commissioned the ballet, you know. Caleb told me that he took an inordinate interest in all of the scenery and costume design.”

Ophelia leaned forward. “Really? Prince Rupprecht?”

“Would you please leave, now?” Clara rose from her stool and stretched out on the sofa. “I am tired, and weary of this game. Go and play detective somewhere else.”

*

“Well, scratch the notion of Henrietta wishing to divorce Malbert,” Ophelia said, once they were back in the hired carriage parked in the street. “Because a lady can’t divorce a fellow she’s never been married to.”

“Perhaps Henrietta had enlisted the lawyer for other reasons entirely.”

“You mean, maybe Henrietta is the lawyer’s client?”

“She is connected to him somehow, judging by the half-burned envelope bearing his address in her grate.”

“But what would Henrietta want with that stomacher?”

“It is valuable.”

“But she’s got no right to it, no legal right, since she’s not really Malbert’s wife. Besides, if Henrietta is the lawyer’s client, that would make her the murderer, right? And I can’t see it. Henrietta would double cross anyone, but she wouldn’t kill anyone. Especially not her own daughter.”

“If Henrietta was not legally married to Malbert, the Misses Eglantine and Austorga, and Malbert himself, do not have credible motives for doing away with Henrietta. They were not bound to her in any way.”

“You mean to say, they could have simply kicked her out.”

“Yes. And now they are keeping it quiet.”

“Why?”

“Because it is shameful in more than one way. Bigamy. Cruelty. And then Henrietta’s daughter found dead in their garden soon after.”

“I can’t help thinking about those feet, Professor.” Ophelia bent to look at the turtle on the seat. He’d peeked out of his shell, and his curved snout and beady eyes were somehow comforting. “Where is Prue? We aren’t getting any closer to finding her.”

“I believe we are. Prince Rupprecht commissioned the ballet. He may know why the ballet costume resembled Sybille Pinet’s gown and why it incorporated a replica of the stomacher.”

“He might know all right, but there’s something in the air. Everyone’s lying like dogs on the floor. Do you know where the prince lives?”

“No. But I suspect that the Misses Malbert do.”

*

H?tel Malbert was quiet when Baldewyn let Ophelia in the front door. Penrose was waiting in the carriage since they had no way to explain his presence.

“Madame,” Baldewyn muttered as he stalked away.

“Are the mademoiselles at home?” Ophelia called after him.

“Non, madame.”

“What of Monsieur le Marquis?”

“I could not say, madame.” Baldewyn disappeared through the library door.

Ophelia thought fast. She had once seen Eglantine writing letters at a desk in the ladies’ salon. Perhaps she kept an address book of some kind there. She hurried to the salon.

Empty. The remnants of a ladylike repast littered the coffee table. A mouse sat on its haunches beside a half-filled coffee cup, nibbling a pink macaron. Another mouse went at a chocolate bonbon. An obese cat dozed on a nearby chair.