“Oui. And I have key in waistcoat pocket always.”
Ophelia glanced at his waistcoat. A button fastened the small pocket at the front. “Then did you notice anything? Hear anything?”
“Only when la jolie mademoiselle, the daughter of marquise, begin screaming. I was sleeping.”
“Oh, I see.” Ophelia peered past Henri into the dim carriage house. She saw straw on the floor, and smelled horse. His quarters would be upstairs.
“Is there a groom?” she asked.
“I do all the work. Horses, everything, and harnesses aussi.”
“And is there any way to reach the courtyard through the carriage house? From whatever street or alleyway lies behind, I mean.”
“Non. The carriage house was built without doors other than these.” He patted the doorjamb. “To keep family safe, oui? City very big all around.”
“Thank you, Henri.”
Ophelia went back inside. If Henri was telling the truth, then there was only the key that had gone missing from the kitchen to wonder about. Someone had stolen it. Either the murderer, or someone aiding the murderer.
*
Ophelia returned to her chamber, finished writing her note to Inspector Foucher, and took it downstairs to Baldewyn. She asked him to have a delivery boy take it to the commissaire’s office.
“Very well, madame,” Baldewyn said.
She gave him a few coins.
Baldewyn looked insulted, but kept the money.
Ophelia waited about an hour, and Baldewyn brought her Inspector Foucher’s reply. She read it in her chamber.
Madame Brand: Thank you for your message with regards to the identity of the murdered girl. Although your fortitude and resourcefulness are to be commended, your efforts are entirely misplaced, and I would be obliged if you would not continue to misuse the valuable time of the police. Mademoiselle Pinet’s identity has been duly noted but, as I informed you this morning, her identity is not relevant in this case, as the murderer has been identified. I will reveal to you, to put your evidently nervous mind at ease, that the murderer was spotted near the Pont Marie this morning, and we expect to apprehend him at any moment.
M. Foucher
Sybille’s identity wasn’t relevant? Ophelia crumpled the note and threw it into the fireplace. It caught fire on a smoldering coal and quickly turned to ash. Sybille’s identity would have been relevant had she a family, or position in society.
Ophelia felt a kinship with Sybille. Ophelia had no family, no position in society, either. Her mother was dead, her father had scarpered when she was only four, and her brother, Odie, well, she’d lost sight of him after he’d enlisted during The War Between the States. In her heart of hearts, she knew Odie was a goner, but that never stopped her from picturing him walking through a door one day with a big smile on his face.
Ophelia looked up Pont Marie in her Baedeker. Her stomach sank. It was a bridge a mere five or six blocks from H?tel Malbert. If the police were after the right man, he was lurking close by.
*
Beatrice had shown up just long enough to slap together luncheon for the upstairs crowd, and then she ankled it out of the house again.
Prue got to work sprucing up the broom closet beneath the kitchen stairs. Maybe if everything was shipshape when Beatrice returned, she’d show Prue how to cook something Hansel might like.
When Prue darted outside the kitchen door to dump yet another dustpan full of mouse berries into the rubbish bin, she saw the man.
He was bulky. Uncommonly bulky, carrot-topped, and wearing drab, patched workman’s clothes, a woolen cap, and leather boots that fit snug around hamlike calves. Peculiar, too: it seemed, somehow, that Prue laying eyes on him startled him into motion. As though he’d been waiting for her to come out.
Prue dumped the dustpan and went back inside. Before she could slam the door, the man called out, “Wait.” In English. Not French.