Free Snow White Red-Handed (A Fairy Tale Fatal Mystery) by Maia Chance Page B

well.”
    “But that,” Gabriel said, “could’ve been the key to verifying the significance of the cottage.” It was a struggle to sound disinterested. “What about the furnishings from inside the house—the beds and dishes and such that we placed in the library alcove?”
    “Alas, also gone.”
    “What a terrible loss to science.”
    “Science? My dear Penrose, this cottage shall prove to be a hoax, mark my words. I fancy whichever peasant dug up a child’s grave to obtain that skeleton began to grow anxious about vengeful spirits or the like, and decided to rebury it.”
    Gabriel set his jaw. Thank God he’d found that cuckoo clock with the same design as the ceiling beam. Not all was lost.

8

    “P erhaps,” Winkler called to the woodsman, Herz, “you ought to find some village men to assist you. At this rate, the thicket will have grown back by the time you are finished.”
    Herz paused, panting, and wiped the sweat from his brow. The look he gave Winkler could’ve withered grapes on the vine.
    “I wished to ask you,” Gabriel said to Herz, “when you first began to clear the brambles from about the cottage, were there any signs of recent entry?”
    Herz glared out at him from the shade of his brow. Then he licked his lips. “No.”
    Winkler swiveled his chins to regard Gabriel quizzically. “Recent entry?”
    “The skeleton had been positioned there more recently than the rest of the contents of the cottage. It hadn’t the same coating of dirt.”
    Winkler treated Gabriel’s shoulder to a hearty slap. “You have come round then—you agree that it is a hoax. I must say, I am relieved.”
    Herz was still staring at them with the sort of expression a cook might’ve worn while observing a plump goose’s neck. Unnerving, considering the chap was brandishing an axe.
    “Well then,” Winkler said to him. “What are you waiting for? Go away and fetch some men to assist you.”
    “I,” Herz said, swinging the axe over his brawny shoulder, “go to village now.” He slouched away.
    “Well then,” Winkler said to Gabriel, “surely, despite the unfortunate death yesterday, they shall put something out for luncheon in the castle. Perhaps some of that delicious liver. Shall we go eat?”
    *   *   *
    Herz the woodsman, Gabriel learned from the castle’s first footman after luncheon, lived with his wife and an indeterminate number of offspring in the castle’s rear gatehouse.
    “Not,” Karl said, “the main gatehouse above the road from the village, mind. There’s another, at the back, below the castle orchard. This gatehouse is built over a road that leads far, far back into the forest.”
    “Thank you,” Gabriel said, slipping a coin into Karl’s hand.
    The coin disappeared beneath Karl’s wine-stained cuff.
    *   *   *
    Mrs. Coop dozed and thrashed against her pillows all day. Her glazed eyes and half-conscious yelps reminded Ophelia of Dolly, the trained seal in P. Q. Putnam’s Traveling Circus.
    It was not until late afternoon that Ophelia, as she was tidying up the water glasses, crumpled handkerchiefs, and smelling salts on the table beside Mrs. Coop’s bed, noticed the brown glass bottle.
    She picked it up, keeping one eye on Mrs. Coop. Mrs. Coop’s eyes were shut and her mouth was open, but like Dolly, she was proving herself disposed to sudden fits of snarling.
    The label was not, as Ophelia had expected, in handwritten apothecary’s script. Nor was it in German. The label displayed an etching of a girl’s plump-cheeked face surrounded by rose blossoms, and it read:
    Dr. Alcott’s Celebrated Hysteria Drops
    For the cure of hysteria and all manner of feminine complaints
    Dose: A teaspoon full in a little water, to be taken every three to four hours
    Theodosius Alcott, Pharmacist
Rochester, NY
    Rochester, New York? These drops hadn’t been dispensed by the village doctor, after all. Mrs. Coop must’ve brought them from America. The only thing was, Ophelia had never