Read Online Cinderella Six Feet Under by Maia Chance - Free Book Online

employment at the opera house, informing me that she had been murdered.”
    â€œYes, murdered.” The landlady almost smiled.
    â€œFor how long did she let a room here?”
    â€œNear two years—no, a year and a half. Would have been two years in the spring.”
    â€œAlmost two years,” Gabriel murmured to Miss Flax.
    The landlady led them across the courtyard, through a low doorway, and into a murky room that was half office and half refuse heap.
    â€œI remember Sybille as a meek young girl,” Gabriel said.
    â€œThey always turn out that way from those convent orphanages. She grew up in one of those since the age of four, she told me. Mild as a little lamb she was, and always paid her rent on time and kept her room clean. Scarcely made friends with the other girls. Never a peep out of that one. No trouble at all. Well, until lately.”
    â€œOh?” Gabriel said, ignoring Miss Flax’s glare. She did not like being left out of things, but he sensed the landlady was in a hurry to be rid of them. He wished to learn all that he could from her while he had the chance.
    The landlady dug through boxes and buckets on the floor. “In this month or so past, she stayed out past curfew several times. I insist upon a strict curfew. Even these ballet girls who work late can be in by midnight, and I will not have my establishment going to the dogs like
some
. Mademoiselle Pinet claimed to have lost track of time, but that was not
like
her, you see, and she also seemed, as of late . . . haunted.”
    â€œHaunted?”
    Miss Flax pursed her lips with exasperation.
    â€œ
Wait
,” Gabriel whispered to her.
    â€œNerves,” the landlady said. “Almost on the verge of tears over her bread in the mornings, for no reason! And those dark circles round her eyes.” The landlady clucked her tongue. “Mixed up in bad business, sorry to say. Ah. Here we are.” She picked up a small wooden crate.
    â€œDid you see her with any strange persons? Did she mention anything at all to you?”
    â€œNo. But it was as though all the color drained right out of her, and then . . . she was dead. Killed by a madman of the streets, I saw in the newspaper.”
    â€œWhat was the name of the convent orphanage from which Mademoiselle Pinet came?”
    The landlady passed Gabriel the crate. “I do not quite remember, but I fancy it had something to do with stars.”
    *   *   *
    â€œStop keeping me out of the conversation,” Ophelia grumbled to Penrose, once they were back on the street.
    â€œShe was anxious to be rid of us.”
    â€œWhat did she say?”
    He told her.
    This time, Ophelia allowed Penrose to hire a carriage. She was eager to look into the crate of Sybille’s possessions. Also, her feet were sore, but she’d never admit to
that
.
    Once they’d climbed inside a carriage, Penrose lifted the crate’s lid.
    A woman’s garments lay folded in a stack. Threadbare gowns, dingy petticoats, darned stockings, and a sad little pair of button boots that had been resoled even more times than Ophelia’s own. Beneath the clothes, a tarnished hairbrush and comb, a few stray ribbons and buttons, a tiny French prayer book, and a wooden rosary. That was all.
    â€œGuess they don’t pay the ballet girls much,” Ophelia said. Sadness fell around her. Poor Sybille. Ophelia’s life had been just as humble, but she had never been so desperately
alone
.
    â€œThere is nothing here to suggest that Miss Pinet had . . . admirers.”
    â€œNo. She probably would have had finer things, wouldn’t she? Wait. What’s this?” A bit of paper stuck against the inside of the crate. Ophelia wiggled it loose. A lavish engraving of flowers and lettering—all in French—covered one side.
    â€œA florist’s trade card. It lists its name and address, here in Paris.”
    Ophelia