Cinderella Six Feet Under(86)

Presently, a waiter rolled in a trolley piled with enough food for ten people: roast chicken, buttery potatoes and yellow beans, bread, more butter (this was, after all, France), fish and greens and salads and gelatin molds and chocolate cake, strawberries, and iced cream. She placed the turtle on the carpet next to the table and offered him greens and strawberries. He liked both.

Clean, warm—a little too warm—and stuffed like a Christmas goose, Ophelia curled up on the bed. She was practically in a stupor, she was so exhausted from the last few days. She’d just have a little shut-eye . . .

When she woke, night had fallen. The trolley and all the dishes and silver domes were gone. The turtle sat in the corner, and it was past nine o’clock.

Ophelia tied on her boots, pulled on her black bombazine gown, black bonnet, and cloak, but did not bother with the Mrs. Brand face. She went downstairs.





26




“I believed you had a plan,” Ophelia whispered to Professor Penrose. They huddled over the handle of the door in the rear courtyard of Colifichet & Fils. The door was locked. A fine mist twirled through the dark air, and Ophelia’s heart thudded.

“Have faith, my dear.” Penrose pulled a pointed bit of iron from his inner jacket pocket and fitted it into the lock.

“Professor!”

“You’ve seen me pick a lock before, Miss Flax. Have you forgotten?”

“I reckon I blotted it out.”

“Mm.”

The lock caught and tumbled. But when Penrose pushed, the door did not give.

“It’s bolted from the inside.” Penrose scanned the windows at first-story height.

So did Ophelia. They were all barred.

“We’ll find another entrance,” Penrose said. He slipped his lock-picking tool in his pocket and started across the courtyard.

“Hold your hat on. Look. That window above this door is ajar—and it hasn’t got bars.”

Penrose looked up at the window, then threw a glance down at Ophelia. “You do realize that that window is at least twelve feet above us.”

“Sure. But that one isn’t.” She pointed to another window, on the opposite side of the courtyard.

“Miss Flax.” Penrose sounded impatient. “That window is not ajar and, furthermore, as it is on the other side of the courtyard, there could be any number of locked doors inside the building that would impede our progress to the workshop. No, we must—”

“Oh, just button it and listen.”

Penrose lifted an eyebrow.

He’d probably never been told to button it in his life.

“Here is what I’m thinking,” Ophelia said. She pointed to the window across the courtyard. “You could help me get up onto that windowsill. Then I might cross over this clothesline there”—she traced its sagging length with a pointed finger—“that leads straight to the open window. I’ll climb through the window, go downstairs, and unbolt the door from inside.”

Penrose stared at her. “You’ll walk on the clothesline?”

“It’s a circus trick. Tightrope. Heard of it?”

“Yes. But this clothesline is anything but tight.”

“But I’ll have that other clothesline to hold on to—see?”

“And if it were to collapse? Those two clotheslines, in addition to being flimsy and possibly decayed, are weighted down with what appears to be three weeks’ worth of some rather large infant’s nappies.”

“I guess you’ll have to catch me, Professor.” Ophelia hurried across the courtyard.

Penrose grumbled something, but he followed her. He hoisted her up by having her step into his hooked-together hands. After a few tries—with crashing and flailing—Ophelia got her boot-toe wedged onto the windowsill. With a last heave, she had both feet on the sill, and then—with a mighty stretch—both of her hands were wrapped tight around the upper clothesline.

“Steady now,” Penrose whispered.

Ophelia bit her lower lip, and with great care stepped her left foot onto the lower clothesline. The line sagged under her weight and swung from side to side.

“I have never attended a circus, I allow,” Penrose said below her, “but I gather that tightropes do not typically swing like hammocks.”

“Do you wish for me to attempt this, or not?”

“I suppose it is worth—”