Malbert wheeled the trunk swiftly through the network of low, geometrical hedges and sandy paths. Ophelia and Penrose skulked at a distance. The sun was below the horizon now, and Malbert was a black blotch. But if he were to turn around, there wasn’t a place to hide.
Ophelia heard crunching footfalls behind them. She glanced over her shoulder to see two other black blotches, walking beside a fountain.
Penrose had seen them, too. “Keep on,” he whispered. “I fancy they’re only out for a stroll.”
Malbert veered to the side and disappeared through an archway cut into a tall line of shrubbery.
“Bother,” Penrose said. “We’ll lose him. Hurry.”
Ophelia and Penrose passed under the archway through which Malbert had disappeared, and emerged at the top of a terraced slope. At the bottom of the terraces, a ring of bare trees stood out against the purple sky. Behind the trees, a lake shone like a large, tarnished coin. Cold wind gusted up.
“There he is!” Ophelia pointed. Malbert was gently bumping his trunk down the steps.
Once Malbert reached the bottom, he headed towards the lakeshore and vanished into a dark clump of weeping willows.
When Ophelia and Penrose reached the shore, the sky had deepened to indigo. Frogs peeped, water lapped, and tall reeds rustled in the breeze. From the clump of willows came crunching sounds. Then the sounds stopped.
Ophelia and Penrose crept behind a thick willow trunk and peered around it.
At first, Ophelia saw nothing but blurs of gray and black. But she stared harder and made out the form of Malbert. He knelt before the trunk. He opened the lid, its hinges creaking.
“Adieu, mes mignons,” Malbert murmured in a singsong tone. “Adieu.”
Ophelia forgot to breathe.
Penrose shook with silent laughter.
Ophelia frowned. Malbert was placing tiny things onto the ground. Tiny things that streamed away into the shadows, one by one.
“Mice?” Ophelia whispered.
“Qui est là?” Malbert asked, scrambling to his feet.
Penrose stepped out from behind the tree. Ophelia decided she may as well follow. Malbert wasn’t a murderer. He was only . . . off his rocker.
“Lord Harrington, is it? Why have you followed me here? I knew you were not being honest when you said you wished to borrow a cufflink. And who is this young lady with you?” Malbert’s spectacles shone like little moons.
“Miss Stonewall and I were merely out for a stroll, and we happened to notice you and your rather fascinating wheeled trunk. I confess that our curiosity got the better of us. I do beg your pardon. Releasing mice?”
Malbert dabbed his face with a hankie. “Please do not tell my daughters. They will laugh. But you see, my home is infested with the poor little creatures and I cannot bear to destroy them. I take away the poison and the deadly traps my servants set out for them, and catch them instead with traps of my own design and manufacture that will not harm them—”
Traps. Harmless mousetraps! That was what Malbert was forever tinkering on in his workshop. That was what those odd metal boxes were.
“—and I set them free, in the countryside. Usually in the evenings, when my daughters are out.”
“Do you feed the cats, too?” Ophelia asked.
“How do you know of my cats?”
“Oh. Well, you must have mousers.”
“I feed the cats, oui, I feed them amply so that they might not murder the poor little mice.” Malbert bent over the trunk, scooped a mouse out, and placed it on the ground. “Adieu.” He closed the trunk. “That was the last one for today. Good evening, Lord Harrington, and Mademoiselle—”
“Stonewall,” Ophelia said quickly. She ducked into deeper shadow.
Malbert, pulling his empty trunk, left.
*
Ophelia and Penrose waited for Malbert to get a nice long start back to the chateau. There was no point in crumbling the little fellow’s dignity any further. He may have brandished a cleaver at Ophelia, but she had been a disguised stranger under his roof.
“We should have asked him about the feet in the pickling vat,” Ophelia said.
“I cannot imagine how you might’ve woven that into the conversation, Miss Flax.” Penrose smiled.