by Maia Chance
“Man? He is hardly a man. As you have probably deduced by now—because I do, Penrose, despite everything, have the most reverential respect for your intellect—Mr. Smith here, or, shall we say, Mr. Ghent, is not a man at all. He is a dwarf.”
“Is that why you’ve got him caged like an animal?”
“He is skittish, like most creatures, even the domesticated ones, and he would not allow me to study him. After he carelessly revealed to me yesterday that he’d been a California gold miner—a forty-niner, I believe he termed it—my suspicions were at last confirmed. I was forced to capture and cage him. Do not look at me like that, Penrose—I shall not eat him. I fully intend to release him when I am through.”
Gabriel scanned the chamber. Winkler’s black bag squatted on a table. Various unidentifiable items were arranged beside it. “I think, Winkler, that you’re already quite through with him.”
“Oh, but you are wrong. I have only just begun.” Winkler’s piggy eyes burned. “Do you not comprehend what an opportunity this is? I have waited and searched my whole life for a dwarf—a real dwarf! And at last I have succeeded.”
“I was given to understand that you were a dyed-in-the-wool skeptic,” Gabriel said. “As are all of our colleagues. As I am.”
“As you are? Now, that is a laugh. You had me fooled, I confess, until we began to study Snow White’s cottage. Your eyes were too bright, my dear professor. They held the gleam of the fanatic.”
“Which, I take it, is what you are?”
“I am far older than you, Penrose. I have had decades to perfect the ruse. We both know what is at stake if our colleagues discover that we are not cold, disinterested scientists, but believers.”
We. Gabriel looked at Winkler, at Smith huddled in his cage, at the scientific instruments arrayed on the tabletop. Was this what he’d become? A fanatic with a hot gleam in his eye? He’d always felt his belief in the inexplicable, in the possibility of enchantment, had been something beautiful. But Winkler made it seem, suddenly, diseased.
“You shall come round,” Winkler said, studying his face. “If you truly believe, you will understand that, now and then, small sacrifices have to be made in the name of truth.”
“Sacrifices. Is that how you’d describe your murders of Homer T. Coop and Count Grunewald?”
“Coop was greedy, as you doubtless noticed. It was clear that he purchased the schloss only to gain access to the gold mine. He planned to cut those trees in his search for the mine, and he sent for me because the dwarf—”
“Smith.”
“—told him the cottage might contain clues to the location of the mine.”
“And because Coop knew about the mine, you killed him.”
“Well, yes. Of course. That, and because he had not the least respect for Snow White’s cottage. Philistine. He intended to have it razed. Surely you are able to sympathize with me, Penrose. I saw the way you touched that dwarf’s spoon. As though it were the Holy Grail.”
“How did you pull it off?”
“It was simple, really. At least, it was for me. I have always been two paces ahead of everyone else. It is lonely—”
“You overheard, I assume, Coop speaking to the scullery maid, Miss Bright, and alluding to his suspicions regarding the virtue of his wife and to his newfound knowledge that Miss Amaryllis was his wife’s daughter.”
“Indeed. I overheard that exchange by chance. When the same maid arrived at the library with the washing powder, and looking like such a stupid little parcel, I saw that I had been presented with a valuable opportunity. I had noticed Coop eating green apples, and before tea, I simply asked him for one. He gave it to me from his own pocket! Then I went to the kitchens to find the scullery maid. Unseen, of course. Servants, being of peasant stock, have no powers of observation. I hid myself in a cupboard filled with dried herbs. When I saw her, I followed her up to her chamber door. I concealed myself, and when she came out again—she had gone in for only a few minutes for a new apron, it seemed—I went into her chamber, poisoned the apple, and left behind the incriminating objects. At teatime, I took the apple from my pocket and placed it in the urn. Elegant.”
“What about the green-handled paring knife? The English book of fairy tales?”
“I took the knife when I was in the kitchens. The book came from the castle library.” Winkler beamed, as though Gabriel ought to give him a gold star.
“Why did you kill Count Grunewald?” Gabriel said. “Because you discovered he knew of the gold mine?”
“I always did believe Oxford recruited England’s best and brightest. Yes. When it came to my attention that the first footman was the disgraced count—”
“Who told you?”
“Miss Amaryllis. She was distraught that morning when I arrived to call on Mrs. Coop. I feigned sympathy, and she confided to me the circumstances of the previous evening’s masquerade ball. Both of those American ladies are credulous fools, you understand. Mrs. Coop accepted the laudanum I gave her without question.”
“You gave it to her, then? Whatever for?”
“To keep her out of the way.”
“Were those bottles not from America?”
“There was but one bottle, which belonged to Mrs. Coop, so I suppose she had indeed brought it from America—a quack cure, by all appearances. I refilled the bottle, twice, with something rather stronger that I had in my bag.”
“No one could accuse you of being ill-prepared, could they?”
Winkler smiled again. “Well. I ascertained that Miss Amaryllis knew nothing of the mine. But I decided Count Grunewald, his son, and his mother must all die to keep the secret safe. I could not kill them all at once, however. Recalling the herb closet I had hidden myself in a few days earlier, I decided I would do well to find my next batch of poison there. The mushrooms presented themselves. Imagine my delight when, later, I learned that the herb closet belonged to the old countess and that suspicion would eventually fall on her. All that remained, then, was killing the son. Hansel.”
“This gold mine,” Gabriel said, “was worth killing for?”
“It was a sacrifice I was willing to make.”
“Is that how you would describe tormenting Smith, here?”
“I am not tormenting him, Penrose—he knows, of course, that he shall get a smart thrashing if he resists, but dwarves have thick skins. They are different from us. No, it is not torment. I am merely measuring his cranium.”
“Phrenology?”
“I am a scientist.”
34
“Why is Smith injured?” Gabriel demanded.
“Oh, he did that to himself,” Winkler said, “when I captured him. Flailed about like a slippery little toad.”
“If you are only measuring his cranium, then what are those?” Gabriel pointed to a pair of nasty-looking steel pinchers.
Winkler chuckled. “Do not be naïve, Penrose. Dwarves never willingly tell where they have hidden their gold. But I mean to find that mine. I shall not let him go until he tells me.”
“Smith doesn’t know where the mine is.”
“Of course he does.”
“He’s been searching for it, just like so many others have, but he doesn’t know where it is.”
“He does!”
“No.” Gabriel paused. “But I do.”
Winkler flushed. “How?”
“The tapestry.”
“Tapestry?” Winkler looked angry; he’d missed something.
“All those silly cuckoo clocks you bought up only contained part of a design—clever, by the way, opening the window of my chamber at the inn the night you stole my clock, even though you’d entered through the door. At any rate, the entire design was to be found on an ancient tapestry in the schloss, which gives a clear indication of where the mine is located.”
Winkler loomed forward. “T
ell me where.”
“Only if you tell me what you’ve done with the young ladies.”
Winkler jerked his chins back. “I assure you, I have very little time for young ladies.”
Gabriel frowned. Winkler seemed to be telling the truth. But, then, where was Miss Flax? Where was Miss Bright? And Hansel?
His thoughts flew to Ghent and his ogres, to Herz and his axe.
“Tell me where the mine is,” Winkler said. Then he was upon Gabriel like a huge, whiskered animal, grabbing his throat and puffing his stale, sausagey breath into Gabriel’s face. They collapsed to the stone floor.
“Tell me!” Winkler shrieked. His sweaty hands closed around Gabriel’s throat.
Gabriel, choking, dug into his breast pocket, patting about for his revolver. His peripheral vision closed in.
He felt the cold handle of his gun, pulled it out, and thrust it against Winkler’s temple.
Winkler released his hands.
“Kindly dismount,” Gabriel said.
Winkler heaved himself off.
Gabriel leapt to his feet and pressed the barrel of the revolver into Winkler’s back. He nudged him towards the cage. “Unlock it.”
Winkler unlocked it.
“Smith,” Gabriel said, “Come on.”
Smith stared, motionless.
“Come on,” Gabriel repeated.
At last, Smith rose stiffly to his feet and hobbled out of the cage.
Gabriel pushed Winkler inside and locked it. “The cage,” he said, “rather suits you, you beast.”
* * *
There was blackness. It had been there for ages. Heavy and honey thick, seductive yet headachey, too. She only wished to keep still, in that blackness, until the throbbing in her temples went away.
But light pressed through her eyelids. And there was all that giggling.
Ophelia cracked open her eyes and winced. Golden light flooded her vision, blinded her. She saw fluttering silhouettes up above. Tree leaves. Then a fat little face appeared above her. It was grubby, with sparkling green eyes and an impish grin.
“Who are you?” Ophelia mumbled.
The creature only laughed.
Another chubby face popped into her vision, and another and another, until she was lying there on the forest floor with a total of seven little faces giggling and staring down at her, wearing expressions that ranged from diabolical to—in the case of the smallest one—cherubic.
“Mama!” one of them called over its shoulder. “Hier!”
Ophelia squeezed her eyes shut. Did fairy tale dwarves have mothers?
“Good heavens,” someone else was saying.
A gentleman’s voice, with a British accent. Warm, familiar. Yet there was something irksome about it, too.
“Miss Flax.”
Then there were warm lips pressed against her forehead. Another torrent of giggles. She opened her eyes again and found herself staring up into Professor Penrose’s shining hazel eyes. She boosted herself on her elbows.
“Thank God you’re all right,” Penrose murmured. “I’ve been worried sick.”
“Where—where’s Prue?” Memories flooded back.
“She’s fine. She’s at the castle, resting. Come, let’s see if you can stand—Frau Herz has brought a horse for you.”
Ophelia looked blearily around. They were in a mossy clearing. She saw a plump, smiling woman surrounded by seven urchins.
Then she noticed her feet, poking up from the muddy hem of her dress. On her left foot, she wore her boot. From her right toes dangled a dainty, yellow silk slipper.
“Where did that come from?” she said.
Penrose smiled. “Miss Amaryllis’s slipper, which you dropped in the orchard. Herz picked it up, it seems, and gave it to his children as a plaything. They decided it was Cinderella’s slipper, I believe, and when they found you out here this morning, they thought they’d see if you were its missing princess.”
“Not this time, I’m afraid,” Ophelia said, and sighed. “It’s at least two inches too small.”
* * *
“They found her,” Hansel said to Prue.
Prue jerked her chin up from her chest. She’d been snoozing upright in an armchair in the castle’s blue salon, too worried about Ophelia to think of going to bed, and too spent to care that she wasn’t supposed to loiter in velvet chairs. “Where?” She staggered to her feet.
“In the wood.”
“And she is—”
“She suffered a blow to the head, but it does not appear to be serious. The doctor is going to look her over.”
Prue sank back into the chair. “I thought maybe. . . .”
“I know.” Hansel crossed the carpet and took her hand. “But she is not. And you two shall return to America, safe and sound. Well, almost sound.” He motioned towards Prue’s neck.
She touched her throat, where a linen bandage covered the cut from Franz’s sword. It stung a little, but it was nothing to write home about.
“What about Franz? Oh, crackers—what about Miss Gertie? She ain’t still in that tunnel, is she?”
“Franz is at Gasthaus Schatz, in the village, resting. He shall be fine. But Miss Darling is . . . there has been an accident.”
“Oh no.”
“Yes. The tunnel collapsed. The village men are still searching for her, but I believe she is . . . she shall not be found.”
“Buried in the mountain with her treasure.” Prue shuddered.
“The tunnel Miss Darling discovered seems to have been one of the shafts of a gold mine.”
“Gold mine! Then your pa was right.”
“Yes. Grandmother told me that Father read about an ancient mine in the Grunewald forest once, in a volume of Schwarzwald history somewhere in the castle library, but he could never find the passage again amid all those thousands of books. Yet, recalling the suggestion of the gold mine, he guessed that was what Coop and Smith were searching for.”
“Why didn’t he just come right out and tell you instead of sending you on a wild-goose chase after Snow White’s tomb?”
“Father did not feel it was safe to put it in writing in the event that he was mistaken in his suspicions. He confided in grandmother about the mine—fortuitously, it turns out, since grandmother provided Professor Penrose with the clue he needed to lead him to the murderer.”
Prue’s eyes grew wide. “Who?”
“Professor Winkler.”
“Ugh. I should’ve known. He set me up, too?”
Hansel nodded. “At any rate, the mine, as it is on castle land, now belongs to Mrs. Coop.”
That was that, then. Hansel was still a poor fellow. Only Prue didn’t give a monkey’s peanut.
She stared down at their entangled fingers, his strong and brown, hers small, chapped, with a border of grime under the nails. Ashamed, she tugged her hand, but he didn’t let go.
“Prue,” he said gently. “I also wish to tell you that. . . .”
She swallowed. She couldn’t lift her eyes to his.
“I wish to tell you,” he said, “that Professor Penrose has offered me a substantial sum for an old tapestry belonging to my grandmother. It seems he collects such things. Antiquities and relics and so forth. With that money, I shall be able to establish my grandmother in a cottage with a servant to care for her. And I shall be able to return to university and complete my medical studies.”
“You’ll be a doctor,” Prue said. “A doctor and a count.” She tried to smile, but her face wouldn’t move. “And I’ll just be a—” What would she be? An out-of-work actress who, at the grand old age of nineteen, had already lost her looks? Who everyone said was simple and ill-spoken?
“It seems, Prue, that you have been taught to view yourself as no more than a beauty. And I have been, for most of my life, regarded as a landed and
wealthy aristocrat. You knew me at first as only a gardener, yet still, you . . . you saw me. As I, perhaps, have truly seen you. Not simply your outward beauty.” His voice was husky now. “If you are able to—willing, I should say—willing to wait a few years and carry out a correspondence with me, until I have completed my studies, perhaps you would consent, at a later date, of course, for I do not wish to burden one so young with weighty promises, well. . . .” He cleared his throat.
Prue lifted her eyes to his. “What sort of promise you angling at?”
“The promise to consider the possibility of, one day, becoming a doctor’s wife.”
Prue bit down on her lower lip to keep it from wobbling. “Sure,” she said, her throat tight. “Sure I’ll consider it.”
Hansel smiled, but his brown eyes were grave, and he lifted her chapped hand to his lips and kissed it.
* * *
The doctor from Schilltag set to work on Ophelia’s head wound in the castle kitchen. While the doctor worked, Penrose sat with her and told her how Professor Winkler had murdered both Coop and Count Grunewald, kidnapped Mr. Smith, and caged him in the hunting lodge.
Cook was bustling around in the kitchen, baking.
“Winkler struck me in the head?” Ophelia said to Penrose, wincing under the doctor’s ministrations.
“Yes. He heard you following him—this was when he was taking Smith out to the lodge—and he came round behind you and hit you with a rock. He’s been hauled off to jail in Baden-Baden.”
“I’d have guessed it was Herz who struck me.”
“Herz was working for Coop and, after Coop died, for Smith. He was merely protecting the estate from interlopers as Smith searched for the mine. Although he did kidnap us that night, I don’t think, now, that he would’ve done us any real harm. Evidently, Smith told him to leave us in peace, because Smith suspected we might lead him to the gold mine. Which, as a matter of fact, I did.”
“Tea, Miss Flax?” Cook said, proffering a cup.
“Please, Miss Flax,” the doctor said, snipping a length of gauze with tiny scissors. “Stay still.”
Ophelia took the tea and tried not to move her head. Cook trundled back to her oven.