Ophelia scowled. She’d paid a pretty penny for this wig.
“I allow, your application of cosmetics is remarkably cunning,” Madame Fayette said. “But that bust? Those padded hips? Laughable!”
“I reckon if it’s your calling in life to measure busts and hips, then you might discern a—”
“My calling, you vicious little impostor, is to create works of art that may be worn—”
“Sure. On ladies’ busts and hips.”
Madame Fayette’s face turned a shade of puce.
Ophelia felt Penrose’s eyes on her. She wouldn’t look at him. Surely the ladylike, retiring Miss Ivy Banks would never, ever say busts and hips.
But it turned out that Penrose had his mind on something else.
“Madame Fayette, this watercolor”—he gestured to the painting he’d been staring at—“it is a stage scenery design, no? With rather a distinctive style to the trees.”
“That dingy little thing? I mean to be rid of it. It doesn’t go at all with the rest of the décor.”
“I saw many quite like it at the apartment of the late Caleb Grant. These are at times quite valuable, I understand—”
“No, no, that is only a cheap reproduction. And I must protest that this interrogation, in my own home no less, is quite impermissible!” Madame Fayette stood. “If that will be all, I really must ask that you leave—ah, Odile! There you are. Where have you been?” She scolded the maid in French and kept at it even when Ophelia and Penrose were walking out the front door.
23
“You’re certain that bracelet belonged to Henrietta?” Penrose asked Ophelia as they trotted down the stairs.
“If not, then one just like it.”
“If Madame Fayette received Henrietta’s bracelet in exchange for keeping a secret . . .”
“I’d reckon it had to do with a fellow. With Henrietta, it always has to do with a fellow. And you’re certain that watercolor painting was like those in Mr. Grant’s apartment?”
“Yes. Which in itself would not be strange, because surely they both could own paintings by the same artist, particularly by a scenery designer from the opera house where they were both employed at one time.”
“Except Madame Fayette said it’s only a cheap reproduction. Which sounded like a tall tale to me, because nothing in her apartment looked cheap.”
Penrose nodded.
“Do you suppose Madame Fayette is a blackmailer?” Ophelia asked. “Finds out her customers’ secrets and then squeezes them for jewelry and paintings and things?”
“It certainly seems a plausible conjecture.”
“Maybe she knew why Mr. Grant had that gown made for Sybille, and took a painting or two to stay mum.”
They reached the bottom of the stairs and hurried through the black-and-white marble vestibule and out into the street. They paused on the sidewalk. Pedestrians streamed around them.
Ophelia raised her voice over the clamor of traffic. “All right, then, let’s make a list. Madame Fayette blackmails her customers—maybe. She knows plenty about the stomacher since she designed the ballet costume and the gown, and the stomacher was even in her shop yesterday morning, before Mr. Grant took it away. Madame Fayette is a lefty, and she even admitted to having owned a lefty’s pistol. Does that mean she’s the murderer?”
“What of a motive? And opportunity?”
“Motive? The stomacher.”
“She voluntarily handed the stomacher over to Grant, remember—”
“But then he was shot that very night, maybe for the stomacher.”
“Why would Madame Fayette devise such a maneuver? Giving the stomacher to Grant only to kill him for it the same day?”