Gretel and the Case of the Missing Frog Prints (2 page)

The next day, having sent something of a holding letter to her prospective new client, Gretel hurried to Madame Renoir's establishment. She had informed Herr Durer about the demise of his messenger, expressing her sympathies, and telling him that the body would reside at the local undertaker's until he sent for it. She had side-stepped the matter of dealing with the local law enforcement by arranging to be out when news of the corpse from out of town broke, which had necessitated putting off informing anyone until the morning dawned. Hans had jibbed at the idea of having a dead guest for the night, but Gretel had simply topped her brother up with schnapps and by the time he had headed for the stairs it was after midnight and he had forgotten all about the body in the hall. She had tried bribing him over breakfast to get him to agree to stay home and await the arrival of the undertaker and kingsman, but when he had resisted and she had argued he had become so confused that no inducement was necessary; in the end he merely complied because he was too baffled to do otherwise.

The sun was shining in a pristine sky of such an attractive blue that Gretel made a note to order some Chinese silk of the same shade the minute she received payment for her new case. The thought of purchasing a gown cheered her immensely. She would employ the apothecary's wife, Frau Klimt, to copy one of the very latest designs she had seen in a fashion plate at the salon. One day, she promised herself, she would be able to
send to Paris for an original Gulley suit or dress. One day. For now, she would have to content herself with a copy brought into being by the considerable skills of Frau Klimt.

As she made her way through the cobbled streets of her small home town Gretel tried her best, just this once, not to let the sugary tweeness of Gesternstadt wreck her mood. The wooden houses with their twiddly gables and generous eaves and floriferous window boxes and jolly paintwork, the rosy-cheeked children and the genial grandfathers and the bright-eyed young maids in their picturesque peasant attire, presented a picture of life so sweet, so cozy, so lovely, so unremittingly nice and relentlessly cheerful it made Gretel want to scream. Very, very loudly. For a full minute and a half. What bliss it would be to spend a week or two surrounded by the sophistication of Nuremberg.

“Good morning, Fraulein Gretel!” sang out Frau Hapsburg from her garden.

Gretel nodded her acknowledgement, not wishing to encourage an exchange that might, heaven forbid, develop into a full blown conversation given half a chance.

“Beautiful day, Fraulein,” enthused Herr Schmitt from the door of his workshop.

“Set fair for the week,” Frau Klein assured her as she passed the Kaffee Haus.

“Spring is in the air, Fraulein Gretel,” declared a woman Gretel was certain she had never seen in her life before, and despite it being noticeably chillier than the preceding day. Would nothing ever dent the enthusiasm and cheeriness of these people, she wondered. If a calamity of the hugest proportions were to strike the entire town, would its inhabitants wait until they were shut away in the privacy of their own lovely homes before falling into despair? Were they all under some manner of spell which compelled them to grin like imbeciles
during daylight hours, perhaps? Or was there something in the water that bubbled down from the mountains to the pumps and taps of Gesternstadt that kept everyone so maddeningly chipper? Whatever the answer, Gretel often felt she was alone in noticing the insanity of such dauntless cheer. Head down, she hastened to the sanctuary of Madame Renoir's salon.

“Aaah, Fraulein Gretel,
bonjour
and
beinvenue
!” Madame Renoir snapped her fingers and a girl removed her client's jacket and took her hat. The aroma of expensive unctions and ointments had an immediate calming effect upon Gretel. She allowed herself to be conducted to a booth and submitted happily to the treatments she had booked. Her eyebrows were plucked and shaped, wax was applied to her bothersomely hirsute legs, her skin was pummeled and anointed with oils, her hair washed and trimmed. After two hours of hard work on the part of Madame Renoir's girls, Gretel was seated on a pink velvet chair in front of a gilt-framed mirror. Her shiny new self gazed back at her. She picked up a pamphlet extolling the qualities and delights of wigs made by the renowned wigmaker of Nuremberg. That she should be about to visit the very birthplace of such high fashion thrilled her.

Madame Renoir appeared at her shoulder, carrying a tall box that could only contain one thing. Seeing what Gretel was reading she exclaimed, “Oh! The wigs of Monsieur Albert—such creations!
Alors
, I am certain the fraulein will not be disappointed with our own range. More modest,
oui
, but still
très elegant
.” She removed the lid and, with a flourish, lifted out and held aloft the wig. It was a little under a yard high, a glorious confection of white and silver strands whipped into swirls and curls, piled one upon the other, and pinned here and there with tiny satin bows.

Gretel struggled to catch her breath. Partly because of the cloud of powder drifting off the thing, but mostly because she
thought it quite the most splendid apparition she had ever considered putting on her head.

Recognizing rapture when she saw it, and being an astute saleswoman, Madame Renoir pressed home her advantage. “The workmanship is very fine, and the finish excellent quality. The silver threads . . . so delicate . . . so flattering to certain skin tones . . . Would the fraulein like to try it on?”

The fraulein nodded fit to give herself whiplash. She readied herself. She closed her eyes. The beautician lowered the revered object upon her head as if it were a crown of high office. Gretel opened her eyes. The reflection before her had, it seemed to her, been transformed from workaday woman to Lady of Society. No matter that she was still in her salon robe. No matter that she was devoid of make-up. No matter that the face beneath the wig was that of a thirty-something woman with a fondness for food and a devotion to sloth that showed itself in the fullness of her jowls—in such a wig she was elevated, she was reborn high-born, the epitome of high fashion.

“It suits you so very well, Fraulein Gretel. Though of course, it could be a little higher . . . ?”

“You think so?”

“Some teasing and backcombing, a little lacquer, perhaps a string of tiny silver bells . . . ?”

“Silver bells,” echoed Gretel wistfully. “Yes. Yes. But, I am short of time. I must leave for Nuremberg very soon.”

“Do not concern yourself, the wig will be my priority, and will be ready for collection by the end of today. Nuremberg! How I envy you, Fraulein. You will be staying at the Grand Hotel, no doubt?”

“No doubt. I mean, of course. Where else would one stay?”

“There can be no other residence for a person of quality visiting the city.”

“Quite so,” Gretel agreed. Indeed, the question of the Grand Hotel had occupied her mind in the small hours of the night. Herr Durer lived in a suite there, and it was, therefore, the scene of the crime she would be investigating. It made sense to take a room on the premises. But—and it was a big, fat, costly “but”—such luxury came at a price. As yet, no fees had been agreed on, no expenses listed, no contract of employment drawn up. Would Herr Durer really stump up sufficient funds to cover a stay at the Grand? Could she risk being out of pocket if the case came to naught? She feared she could not. Good sense told her to look for somewhere cheaper to stay. But, if she was to truly experience Nuremberg, if she was to wear the wig, and be seen wearing the wig, she would need to be in the right place, surrounded by the right sort of people . . .

By the time she left the salon Gretel was still in something of a dither regarding possible accommodation. So much so, in fact, that she had almost forgotten about the irksome business of the dead messenger and the fact that Kapitan Strudel might use him to make trouble for her. The matter was brought back sharply into focus by what she saw as she rounded the corner into Uber Strasse. Herr Schwarz, the undertaker, was engaged in something of a tug of war involving a coffin and Kapitan Strudel. The cart on which the coffin sat had come to a halt, with Strudel clutching the bridle of the hairy horse that pulled it.

“The body must go direct to Kingsman Headquarters!” Strudel insisted, his habitually sour face made even nastier by indignation. Indeed, the single characteristic that might have redeemed him in Gretel's eyes was the honest grumpiness the man perpetually exuded, in contrast to the rest of Gesternstadt's inhabitants. Might have, but did not quite. “This is a suspicious death,” he went on, “and as such the victim—for victim he is—comes under my jurisdiction.”

The undertaker, who knew how quickly people could take their business elsewhere if they felt they could not entrust their departed loved ones into his care, was not about to start handing over bodies to irate kingsmen. He shook his head emphatically. “I was engaged to remove, house, and care for the deceased. He was handed over to me at the house of Fraulein Gretel, and thus is now in my custody. Until I receive instructions requesting otherwise, he will remain with Schwarz, Schwarz, and Schwarz.”

“But
I
am instructing you otherwise. This is a suspicious death . . .”

“So you keep saying, but I have a certificate from the apothecary confirming that this unfortunate Nuremberger died of natural causes. Nothing suspicious was mentioned.” The undertaker lifted the reins and urged the sleepy carthorse to plod on.

Strudel was forced to step aside, but continued to rail against the wrongness of what was taking place. “Fraulein Gretel has no right to ignore my authority!” he yelled. “I will obtain a summons this very afternoon. The removal of a body from a potential crime scene is a serious business. She will answer to me for this, and you will be named as her accomplice, along with that simpleton brother of hers!”

Gretel flattened herself, largely unsuccessfully, against the wall of the Kaffee Haus, but she need not have worried. Kapitan Strudel was so steamed up with fury he strode down the street looking neither to left nor right. As soon as he was out of sight she scurried home. It seemed her departure had become a matter of some urgency, and it was no small task to mobilize Hans into being of some use. It was a little alarming that she would need to rely upon his help at all, but needs must. The prospect of being shut up and interrogated by Strudel was, in the stark glare of the Bavarian sunshine, too dreadful to contemplate.

TWO

G
retel had intended to start packing the moment she arrived home, but the sight of her beloved daybed, coupled with the realization that if she left for Nuremberg at once she would miss the ball, brought her to a halt. She lay on the tapestry sofa, safe in the embrace of silk bolster and cushions, sipping on a brandy-laced hot chocolate. She had to acknowledge that she was seriously out of sorts. Normally a woman of action, the weight of worry about spending money she did not have on a venture that might yield no return, added to the thought that Strudel was out to cause trouble for her, mixed in with the disappointment at not being waltzed and polkaed by General Ferdinand had worn her down. She was
in thrall to ennui. Enervation ruled her. Inertia had her by the throat. The physical pain induced by the thought of parting with such sums of money as would be demanded by the Grand Hotel for a week or two rendered her incapable of action. Hans only compounded her suffering by whining on about not being taken with her, though his attempts to win her over with tasty snacks provided some solace.

“I still think it dashed stingy of you, Gretel. I mean to say, the Nuremberg Weisswurstfest is the envy of the sausage-eating world. It's on the week after next—when will such a chance ever come my way again?”

“Really, Hans, once you've seen one sausage, you've surely seen them all.”

“That's where you're wrong. This is the Uber Weisswurstfest, only happens once every seventeen years. There is to be an attempt to build the world's biggest ever weisswurst. Show me the person who could fail to be impressed by that!”

“You're looking at her.”

“You've grown cynical in your old age, sister mine.”

“Calling me old will not help your case.” Seeing her brother's lip begin to wobble Gretel charged on. “Look, it's no good getting silly about it. As I said, this is business, not an opportunity for you to wander round the city spending fistfuls of money on chocolate cake, getting drunk in expensive city inns when there is a perfectly good cheap one here you have been successfully getting drunk in for years.”

‘But . . . the Uber wurstfest . . . ?” Hans raised his arms in a heartfelt appeal, before letting them drop to his sides as despair threatened. “The biggest ever . . .”

“What is this obsession our country has with superlatives? Every town boasts something that is the tallest, the deepest, the oldest . . . nothing wrong with a bit of mediocrity if you ask me. And anyway, I shall need to take a room at the Grand, and
the tariffs are eye-wateringly high. Ha,” she gave a mirthless laugh, “perhaps they were attempting to be the
most
expensive hotel, with the
costliest
room rate.”

“The Grand! Now I know you're being deliberately unkind. Wolfie's flat is directly opposite. I could stay with him, and be just across the square from you, and then all I'd need is my stagecoach fare and a little bit of spending money.”

“Wolfie?”

“Wolfie Pretzel. From school. You remember.”

“Directly opposite the Grand, you say?”

“Directly. I recall going to visit him one Easter hols and sitting on his balcony and being able to look straight into the hotel dining room. Splendid menu they had. Don't know if it'd be the same, mind you, it was a few years ago. A decade or two, most likely.”

Gretel felt the soft breeze of hope start to fill her sails, hinting at fair winds at last come to rescue her from the doldrums.