“I had but the briefest glimpse of her, but I suppose she might be the same.”
“I’d wager it’s the lady to whom those letters on the mantel are addressed.” Ophelia preferred not to take a crack at pronouncing Babin, so she left it to the professor.
“Madame Clara Babin,” he said.
Sounded like the noise a French sheep would make. “Right. Not many ladies would cotton to having such a great quantity of another lady’s bare back dangling over their bed.”
“I suppose not. This, then, connects Austorga to Caleb Grant, via this lady.”
“How peculiar.” Ophelia frowned. “Austorga is a deep one. Between the two sisters, she seems by far and away the more forthright one. The nicer one, too, if a bit of a, well, dingbat.”
“There is always the possibility that she simply found herself lost backstage at the opera house.”
“On an expedition to the powder room? I reckon that’s possible, but it’s a little too coincidental for my palate. If Mr. Grant killed Sybille, he would have needed help from someone inside H?tel Malbert. Austorga was inside. She could have easily stolen the carriageway key to let Grant through to place the body. What if Austorga and Mr. Grant—and Madame Babin, too—were in cahoots?”
“We still cannot account for why Grant would have placed Miss Pinet’s body in the Malberts’ garden. And have you any theory as to why Miss Austorga would wish to do away with Miss Pinet?”
“Well, if Austorga knew Sybille was her stepsister, maybe she was, I don’t know, envious?”
Penrose smiled. “Envious of her beautiful stepsister? Perhaps Prince Charming preferred her?”
“You don’t have to put it like that.”
“Don’t I? I have another theory: if Austorga did indeed help to kill Miss Pinet—”
“Which, I allow, is hard to picture.”
“—she did it for the stomacher.”
“Why?”
“Because the stomacher—if it indeed exists—would be a precious family heirloom.”
It made sense—just so long as you believed that flapdoodle about Cinderella being a real lady. Ophelia hated to believe that. It went against every particle of common sense she possessed.
“Would you ask the Mademoiselles Malbert if they know of the stomacher?” Penrose said.
“I’ll add it to my list.”
They searched the apartment high and low and they did not discover the brown paper parcel, although they found one more Siamese cat under the bed.
“All right then, we ought not tempt fate,” Penrose said. “Should we go?” He held open the apartment’s front door.
Ophelia made one last rummage through the pockets of a greatcoat that hung by the door. “Wait. What’s this?” She pulled out a small, black-bound book. She flipped through it. Minute penciled handwriting filled ten or twelve pages. “Look. Lists of names.”
“Gentlemen’s names.”
“Wait. No—not exactly. Look. For every gentleman’s name there is at least one girl’s name in the second column. See? Duke of Strozzi, and then, Adele and Diana.”
“Duke of Strozzi. English. I assume this is Grant’s book, then, and not Madame Babin’s.”
“The girls haven’t got surnames. That’s funny.”
“I do not suppose it’s really very humorous.”
Ophelia glanced up. “You’ve got that sickly grimace on again. The one that says you’re afraid of tarnishing my innocence and you might start coughing.”
Penrose didn’t answer. He’d taken the notebook. “I don’t see Sybille listed anywhere.” He scanned the rest of the pages, squinting because he didn’t have his spectacles on. “Ah,” he said. “Here is a gentleman I am acquainted with. Lord Dutherbrook.”
“You know him?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“He’s matched up with someone by the name of Clotilde.”
Penrose slid the book back into the greatcoat pocket. “I believe Lord Dutherbrook haunts the Jockey Club.”
“Jockey? A shrimp, is he?”
“Quite the contrary. No. The Jockey Club is merely a gentleman’s club that, among other things, has rather equine propensities.”