Cinderella Six Feet Under (31 page)

Ophelia nodded. She looked back to the dais and saw Colifichet standing up close, narrow arms folded, smug.

The crowd babbled. Ophelia stood on tiptoe to see a footman pushing something up a ramp and onto the dais. Shrouded in a white sheet, it glided as though on wheels.

“She arrives,” Prince Rupprecht said, watching the thing approach with a look of boyish anticipation.

It
couldn't
be.

The footman parked the thing beside the prince. Then he bowed to his master and whipped off the sheet.

The crowd gasped.

Standing beside the prince was a beautiful automaton in a sumptuous gown of ivory tulle, embroidered all over with gold and silver threads. The Cinderella gown, except it didn't have a stomacher. The waist was plain ivory silk. The automaton's hair was heaped upon its head in a profusion of shining, diamond-studded cornsilk that looked too heavy to be supported by such a slender neck. Its demure lips and alabaster arms curved in permanent perfection.

“He means to marry a doll?” Ophelia whispered. “An enormous
doll
?”

Prince Rupprecht caressed the side of the automaton's neck. He must've touched some kind of spring, because it jolted into motion. It gracefully moved its head on its filigree neck. One hand lifted to touch its throat in a maidenly gesture of surprise, and back again.

The crowd was having forty fits, but Prince Rupprecht seemed to be deaf and blind to his guests. He knelt before the automaton. He gazed up at it, still holding the glass slipper.

“He truly seems . . .
jumpy
,” Ophelia said. “As though it were a real lady who might turn him down.”

“I always suspected it would come to something like this with him,” Griffe said. “He is not right in the head.”

There was a delicate chime, and then another and another. The crowd fell silent.

The clock was striking midnight.

Where was Prue?

Just as the clock chimed twelve, the automaton kicked out a bare foot from under its tulle hem. Prince Rupprecht attempted to place the slipper onto the foot. He wiggled and shoved, but he could not get it on. All the while, the automaton went on swiveling its head and touching its throat. The prince leapt to his feet, cursing and ranting in French.

“What's he saying?” Ophelia asked Griffe.

“He asks if this is a joke. He demands to know who has tampered with his Cendrillon and replaced her foot with a larger one. He says someone will be punished.”

Someone had replaced the automaton's foot? Yes. The feet in Malbert's workshop cupboard must have been the automaton's original feet. But how had they come to be in that brining vat?

Prince Rupprecht yelled and pointed at someone standing to the side of the dais.

“He says, ‘You! You destroyed her, you ditch rat!'” Griffe said.

“Who?” Ophelia struggled to see. Her breath caught.

Prince Rupprecht was pointing at Pierre, Colifichet's apprentice.

G
abriel stood in a doorway to the side of the dais only a few yards away from Pierre. Where were Inspector Foucher and his men? Gabriel had received word that they were on their way from Paris, but he had not seen them yet.

Pierre had appeared downtrodden and flimsy the few times Gabriel had seen him before. Now he exuded a vicious power.

“Yes,” Pierre said in loud, clear French, addressing the shushing crowd as well as Prince Rupprecht. “It was I who altered your automaton.”

“You replaced her foot with another!” Prince Rupprecht yelled. “A large, ugly foot, like any
ordinary
woman's. You destroyed her—her
perfection
!”

“No lady is perfect,” Pierre said. “Not even a clockwork lady, it seems. You thought you would destroy my sister for her imperfections, did you?”

Sister?

Understanding hit Gabriel. It hadn't been Lord and Lady Cruthlach on the lake. It had been Pierre—slightly built, vengeful Pierre. But who was his sister? Surely not Sybille.

“You thought,” Pierre said, stalking forward, “you would not pay the price for sullying my sister, for discarding her like a soiled rag? No, altering this automaton was only a little joke, Prince. Only the beginning of what we have in store for you.”

The two men locked eyes, Prince Rupprecht large, opulent, and looking like he was about to erupt, Pierre cool and crackling with hatred.

Where was Miss Bright? Had she forgotten her role? Because an entrance on her part at this moment would be theatrical indeed.

The crowd parted for a figure barging towards the dais. Not Prue, but Miss Austorga in a puffy, pollen-yellow gown. She hitched her skirts and tromped up the dais steps. Redness mottled her upper lip, complexion spots dotted her forehead, and she was out of breath. “You say, Prince Rupprecht, that your intended, your bride, your true love, is the only one in the world who would fit that slipper?”

“Yes,” Prince Rupprecht said with a scornful glance.

“And you promise to marry she who fits the slipper?”

“That was the idea, yes. But it has been ruined, and I—”

“But do you
promise
?”

“If her foot had been small enough, then yes, I would have promised to marry she of the tiny foot. But this grotesque thing”—Prince Rupprecht sneered at the automaton—“is
imperfect
.”

Austorga dragged one of the musician's chairs to the center of the dais. She plopped herself in the seat, skirts puffing like a cheese soufflé
,
and pried off one of her slippers. She thrust out her foot. “I am ready.”

“You cannot be serious,” Prince Rupprecht said. He addressed the sea of faces. “
This
creature?”

“Her foot appears to be quite dainty,” a gentleman near the dais said. “Why do you not make an attempt?”

“Try,” another gentleman said. Then the whole crowd was urging him on.

Prince Rupprecht shook his head with disgust. He bent before Austorga and affixed the glass slipper to her foot. It slid on neatly.

The crowd cheered.

Prince Rupprecht's jaw went slack.

Lord Cruthlach, in a wheelchair, rolled up beside Gabriel. He was wheezing for breath. Lady Cruthlach, also wheezing, emerged beside her husband.

What had they been doing? Playing badminton?

“Where is she?” Lady Cruthlach whispered. “I cannot see her.”

On the dais, Prince Rupprecht looked ill. Austorga looked like she'd just broken the bank at Monte Carlo.

*   *   *

The gas chandeliers
sank to blackness. The only light came from paper lanterns on the terrace outside. For a moment, Ophelia was blind. Ladies yipped. Gentlemen made indignant noises.

A lady screamed, “
Un fantôme!
”

A lone figure stood outside on the terrace, staring through an open door. A young, fair-haired girl, lovely to see in her ivory tulle gown that seemed to shimmer with stars. But there was something wrong, very wrong, with her chest: her ivory bodice had a dark stain around a small, black hole.

The girl's face was expressionless. Slowly, she lifted a bare arm and pointed at Prince Rupprecht.

“Sybille?” the prince croaked. “
Mon Dieu
, Sybille!” His eyes were wild as he clung to Austorga's arm for support.

He'd fallen for it. “Translate for me,” Ophelia whispered to Griffe. He nodded.

“I beg of you, have mercy,” Prince Rupprecht said to the apparition. “I did not mean for it to—oh, Sybille, your grave is too fresh!”

The apparition did not move.

“You know that it was not I who pulled the trigger!” Prince Rupprecht said. “I only meant to lift you up from misery, to bring your beauty into the light, to polish it. I did not intend for you to—
mon Dieu
, say something, Sybille!”

The specter said nothing. Somewhere in the ballroom, a lady wept.

“I did not kill you!” the prince roared. “You cannot torment me so! You saw that it was that little wretch, Josie!”

Josie?
Ophelia blinked. There was another fair-haired young woman, this one more willowy, in yet another ivory tulle gown. She glided through the dim ballroom. The crowd parted so she could pass. She ascended the dais, exuding a riveting power that belied her slight frame. The diamond stomacher on her bodice sparkled in the gloom.

A gunshot cracked out. Screams. A thud. Ophelia smelled gunpowder.

The chandeliers flared back up. Prince Rupprecht lay in a lifeless heap on the dais. Austorga wept over him.

Josie rushed out to the terrace, clutching a pistol, and the stunned crowd let her pass.

“I'm not going to let her get away after all of this,” Ophelia muttered, hitching her skirts. She pushed through the staring guests. By the time she reached the terrace, Josie was heading down the steps into the formal gardens. Ophelia dashed after her, dimly aware that others were following.

She grabbed Josie's arm at the bottom of the steps.

Josie squealed and fumbled with the pistol. “I will shoot!” She aimed at Ophelia's face.

“No, you won't,” Ophelia said. “You're done with murder, aren't you, Josie?”

“I thought I was finished already, but you! Whoever you are—”

“Miss Flax will do.”

“You and your silly disguises, all your questions and prying and stirring of the hornet's nest! You could not let things be.”

“An innocent derelict is in jail. Give me the gun.” Ophelia held out her hand.

Josie hung on to the pistol, but her hands trembled.

Ophelia carefully plucked the gun from Josie's grasp, and Josie sagged in relief or defeat.

A few gentlemen guests arrived at the bottom of the steps. Ophelia held up a hand. “Please. Allow me to ask her a few questions. She cannot flee now. And, please, someone go and try to discover if Inspector Foucher of the Paris police has arrived yet.” She turned to Josie, who had sunk to her knees on the gravel path. Her ivory skirts pooled around her. Her delicate head hung, and the diamonds on her stomacher glittered. “Josie, why? Why did you shoot Prince Rupprecht?”

“Why?” Josie jerked her head up. “Because he did not deserve to live! Because I have nowhere left to run, nothing left for me. I killed two people and would soon be caught—because of you. You!—by the police. I would not go to prison without destroying the prince, first.”

“But did you know him?”

“
Oui
. Knew, yes,
knew
. I first encountered him at Maison Fayette four months ago, when he came to order a special gown to be made for one of his lady friends. He brought the stomacher. He wished to have a special gown made to incorporate it. The next day, Monsieur Grant came to the shop. I had never met him before, but when Madame Fayette could not hear, he offered me money. Money simply to dine with the prince. I thought of poor
Maman
and her fading eyes . . . I said yes. We dined, and the prince was so kind. He gave me flowers, and no one has ever done that. We dined again, and then he—his hands—” Josie's voice cracked.

“I think I understand,” Ophelia said softly. Josie was a murderess, so was it right to pity her? “Did you sew the Cinderella ballet costume?”

“
Oui
, and another one very like it, but to my own measurements.” Josie touched her gauzy skirts. “This. For him. To please him. He called me Cendrillon. But soon he grew tired of me, told me I was imperfect, cast me aside. My ears. My ears are too big, he said. But when the time came for Prince Rupprecht to order another Cinderella gown for his next girl,
I
had to sew it.”

How humiliating.

“I decided to have my revenge. I stole Madame Fayette's revolver and went to the prince's mansion. I found him in that sickening chamber with his newest Cendrillon and, oh
mon Dieu
, I meant to kill
him
then, but I saw her in his arms, in the gown I had sewn, in the diamond stomacher he had given to
me
, and I . . .”

“Did you shoot Sybille?” Ophelia asked.

“I did not mean to, but when it happened I felt like a rotten tooth had been pulled out. The prince saw everything. I threatened to go to the police and say
he
killed Sybille, and he grew mad with alarm. He agreed to help me get rid of the body. I had overheard during a fitting at Maison Fayette that Sybille was Henrietta's daughter, so together, the prince and I placed Sybille's body in the garden of Hôtel Malbert to draw suspicion to the Malbert family.”

Ophelia's pity for Josie faded. “You took the stomacher from Sybille's body?”

“
Oui
. The prince, he had forgotten it in his haste and worry.”

“That was you I saw that night, riding back and forth in the carriage in front of Hôtel Malbert.”

“I watched from a hired carriage to see when the police arrived. I wanted to be certain that the body was found.” Josie's voice lilted with what sounded like . . .
pride
.

Well, murdering Sybille was probably the boldest thing she had ever done, and probably the first time in her life that she had stood up for herself. “Then you told your brother, Pierre, what you had done.”

“After the police arrived, I asked the driver to take me to Colifichet's workshop. Pierre was working late. He devised the plan to blame a madman of the streets for the crime. Pierre went to the police and gave them his story about a madman fleeing the scene of the crime. The police seemed to know of a man who fit that description, and Pierre listened carefully as they spoke of him.”

Foucher. The Insensible Man, indeed.

“After I shot Monsieur Grant,” Josie said, “Pierre caught the madman, with blood on his hands, fleeing the opera house.”

“But how?”

“Pierre had listened carefully to the police description of the madman they suspected. Pierre agreed that I should kill Monsieur Grant, and Pierre found the madman, gave him money, brought him to the opera house, spilled pig's blood on his hands. Then Pierre ‘caught' him.”

“That man is innocent!”

Josie lifted a shoulder. “He had to be sacrificed. Pierre and I would have been safe, we could have sold this stomacher and gone away, to America, perhaps. We might have begun a new life where there are no cruel masters, no princes. But you could not leave things alone, could you?”

“You put me off the scent time and again, Josie. To think I felt pity for you! You set me up to see Grant taking the parcel from Maison Fayette, didn't you?”

“You were so forthcoming,” Josie said. “Stupid. And it was not even the stomacher in that parcel. It was a scrap of cloth.”

“Grant never had the stomacher?”

“Never!” Josie's fingers spread across the stomacher.

“What about that note, threatening to kill for it?”

“I meant for Monsieur Grant to suppose that he might receive the stomacher by meeting me that night.”

The wording of the note had been ambiguous. Ophelia realized she must have misinterpreted it. “Why did Grant desire the stomacher?”

“He had seen it before. He understood its value.”

“But in the end, he was merely a pawn in your game, Josie. Why did you kill him?”

“For revenge. He procured me like a—a
whore
for Prince Rupprecht. He was responsible for my degradation.”

“Why did you kill him at the opera house?”

“Pierre said we should have many witnesses when he caught the madman.”

“And why on that particular night?”

“Because of you.”

Oh, no.

“Once I became aware of your investigation—”

“How?”

“I could easily tell that Mrs. Brand and Miss Stonewall were one and the same. I saw you in both disguises. Once I learned that you were prying, I knew that Monsieur Grant must die. If I did not kill him, you see, you would sooner or later discover that he introduced me to the prince. I would become an obvious suspect.”