“That was Austorga,” Eglantine said.
Austorga sat on a sofa. Her sturdy shoulders rose and fell. Like her sister, she clutched a ripped piece of paper. In her other hand she held a large, square envelope.
“Was the screaming not Austorga, Mademoiselle Smythe?” Eglantine asked.
Miss Seraphina Smythe was the frail girl in owlish spectacles who had been playing the piano when Sybille’s body had been discovered. She sat beside Austorga on the sofa and she had just bitten into a chocolate bonbon. At Eglantine’s question, her jaws froze. She nodded.
“Screaming?” Mrs. Smythe, Seraphina’s mother, said in a vague voice, from the opposite sofa. She looked up from the pages of a book. “I did not hear anything.” Mrs. Smythe had also been in attendance at the stepsisters’ soirée on the evening of the murder. She was a stout lady with bleary blue eyes, attired in a smart visiting gown.
“You never do hear anything, Mother,” Seraphina said.
Mrs. Smythe did not seem to have heard. She resumed reading.
Mr. Smythe, Ophelia had been told, was some sort of diplomatic attaché from England. Seraphina and her mother, who had met Eglantine and Austorga at a public concert, spent a great deal of their time in the company of the stepsisters. Mrs. Smythe served as chaperone, and the stepsisters always spoke English in the presence of the Smythe ladies.
“Madame Brand,” Austorga said, “we have just been apprised of some most stimulating news.” She waved her piece of paper.
“Madame Brand does not wish, you uncouth twit, to hear of all the dull details of the, well, you know,” Eglantine said.
“It is not dull,” Austorga said. “You said yourself you thought you might swoon—”
“Oh, for pity’s sake, you ninny!” Eglantine shouted. It was unclear if she was speaking to her sister or to one of the seamstresses.
The company of Prue’s stepsisters was intolerable. Ophelia had dined enough with them in the past few days to be convinced of it. However, she had questions to ask.
She sat down next to Mrs. Smythe. Mrs. Smythe did not look up from her book. Ophelia glanced at the top of a page. Pride and Prejudice.
“Oh!” Seraphina cried. “Do be careful of Réglisse.”
“Réglisse?” Ophelia said.
A roly-poly black cat yawned beside Ophelia on the sofa.
“Good heavens,” Ophelia said. “I had taken him for a cushion. He is quite . . . well-fed.”
“Surely, Madame Brand,” Eglantine said, “you are able to sympathize.”
“So I can,” Ophelia said. “So I can. My dear, I have been meaning to ask, is there any news in the disappearance of your stepmother, Henrietta?”
“No,” Eglantine said.
“And no arrest of the murderer?”
“Must we speak of this?” Seraphina whispered.
“No arrest,” Eglantine said.
“And no more news of the dead girl’s identity?”
“What do we care of that little tart?” Eglantine said.
Seraphina gasped.
“I do wish you had not torn the letter!” Austorga shouted to Eglantine.
“It would not have torn if you had simply let go, as I instructed!” Eglantine shouted back.
Seraphina cowered. Mrs. Smythe turned a page of her book.
“He knows that I adore cream-colored paper,” Eglantine said, adopting a dreamy tone. “I told him last week when we sat in his box at the opera.”
“I said that I adored cream-colored paper, too!” Austorga said. “I said that cream was my very favorite color for theater programmes.”
“You said that Don Carlos was the dullest opera you had ever attended. You said it made you feel as though you were coming down with paralysis of the mind.”
“Not to him.”
“I believed you already had paralysis of the—”
“Pray tell,” Ophelia said, “of which gentleman do you girls speak?”
“No one,” Eglantine said.
“Prince Rupprecht,” Austorga said. “Simply the most handsome, cleverest gentleman in all of Europe.”