Free Another Scandal in Bohemia by Carole Nelson Douglas Page B

the Courts of St. Petersburg and St. James, to Vienna, Madrid, Rome.”
    I studied a pale bisque face with rounded cheeks and chin both tinted dawn-pink, with round blue-glass eyes and painted lashes and brows. This fat, waxy doll seemed cruelly complacent keeping guard over the spare form of the dead girl. Her yellowish lean hand stretched toward a feeble trail of tawdry glitter, toward the heavy blue satin hem of the gown that clothed the doll, the raw, needle-pierced fingertips still ruddy despite the clutch of pale death’s chill hand.
    The doll’s toy fingers were the color of ivory, each tiny nail sculpted into place. One finger wore a miniature ring of gold and topaz.
    “No rings,” Irene said, taking inventory of the corpse as if it were a different kind of doll. “She was not engaged, but that doesn’t rule out a rival among her sister sewers. Stab wounds usually indicate a crime of passion—and opportunity. The fatal weapon was near at hand.”
    She looked up at Mad am e Marie. “Surely there were witnesses.”
    The Frenchwoman shrugged. “Their work is taxing and leaves little time to take their eyes from it. According to what the other girls said when I was called, they heard only a deep intake of breath, a gasp, and looked up to find Berthe slumped among them. They, also, suspected sleep at first. One even shook Berthe’s shoulder before she saw the shears.”
    “I would speak to that one,” Irene said.
    Madame Marie looked to the open door crowded with worried faces. “We have twelve hundred such girls working here. I do not know their names—”
    “Twelve hundred?” Irene recovered from her surprise. “Ask the one who first noticed to step forward.”
    Initially Madame Worth’s request was met by dropped eyes and shuffling feet. Then a harsh wave of whispering agitated the girls who stood askance with the haunted eyes of a Greek chorus.
    Finally one of them limped forward, her body twisted into a hunchback. I could see why she sat at a table all day and strung beads; what other work could such a one seek? She approached reluctantly, and gave her name even more reluctantly to Madame Worth.
    “Genevieve Pascal,” Madame Worth repeated, turning to Irene, who had already heard the name forced from those bloodless lips.
    “Mademoiselle Pascal,” Irene began with great politeness. “First tell me, please, who she is.”
    Genevieve’s lusterless hazel eyes lifted to Irene, first traveling over the intricacies of her gown. Such humble seamstresses seldom saw the full results of their labor, I realized, or the women who wore them.
    “Berthe Brascasat,” Genevieve whispered.
    “What of her family? Who must be notified?”
    The girl shrugged one already high shoulder. “Who knows? She came each dawn to sew, and left each sunset with the rest of us.”
    Irene ran a hand over the glittering Braille of her necklace. “I understand that she made this wonderful piece.”
    “Part of it, the center. Others did the fringe.”
    “And this doll, she was working on the skirt?”
    “Berthe was given the most challenging work. Her eyesight was perfect and no one was so delicate with a needle. She could anchor a bead to a single thread.”
    Madame Marie nodded heavily. “Our best bead-girl. I saw that she received the most demanding work.”
    Irene glanced toward the doll. “This porcelain face is oddly familiar.”
    Madame Marie smiled ruefully. “The gown is destined for Maria Feodorovna, Empress of the all the Russias.”
    “The doll is a double!” I blurted out, despite my swearing only twenty-four hours before that I did not blurt under any circumstances. “A doll double.”
    “Exactly, Miss Hussey,” Madame Marie agreed. “We have many such.”
    “Did Berthe work on other dolls?” Irene asked.
    “But of course. She was superlative at her work. She beaded many a miniature skirt as well as the yards and yards of a full-size one, such as yours.”
    “Mine,” Irene repeated with some