Once Upon a Crime by P. J. Brackston Page A

a river, too. And a place beginning ‘Per . . . ’”
    Hans could be heard rooting in the dining room for some time before he appeared with an armful of badly folded papers.
    â€œThis is the lot,” he said. “Can’t promise you a troll, but there are plenty of lakes and rivers.”
    â€œHere, help me spread them out on the floor.”
    â€œIt’s not much to go on, is it?”
    â€œWe’ll just have to make a start.” Gretel peered at the expanse of lines and symbols that now carpeted the room. “Where are you, Mr. Troll? Where are you?”
    â€œThere are lakes everywhere. And rivers.”
    â€œIt can’t be very many leagues’ distance. I mean, why would anyone more than a day from Gesternstadt even know about Frau Hapsburg’s cats?”
    â€œYou may have a point.” Hans knelt solidly beside her on the floor and gesticulated with his smoldering cigar. “What about there? Look, Lake Lipstein—looks lovely, all those littlevillages about the place. Alpine meadows. Quite fancy a holiday there myself.”
    â€œMy idea of a holiday does not include trolls.”
    â€œOr how about there—Bad am Zee. Oh yes, a spa.”
    â€œDo trolls use spas?”
    â€œNo, but you do, given the chance.”
    â€œThis is a business trip,” she reminded him.
    â€œMaybe so, but . . .”
    Gretel stopped squinting at squiggles on the map and refocused on her brother. It had been many years since they had holidayed together, and she couldn’t help noticing the wistful tone in his voice. There was no denying he could do with a break from his inn-home-inn routine. A spa did sound devilishly tempting. And the “Zee” upon whose shores the spa was built was a very large lake, after all.
    â€œBad am Zee it is, then,” she said, making a poor job of folding up the maps. “You get yourself off to the stagecoach office and purchase a couple of tickets, and then see if you can’t dig the suitcases out of the attic.”
    â€œAnd what will you be doing all this time?”
    â€œI shall be at Madame Renoir’s Beauty Parlor.”
    â€œIsn’t that a bit like cleaning the house before you get the cleaners in?”
    â€œI don’t expect you to understand, Hans, being a man, but if I am to bare my carcass to strangers for all manner of intimate and stimulating treatments, there is work to be done. I’ll give you the money for the fares but do not, I repeat, do not, call in at the inn before you’ve bought them. Get the tickets and come straight home. Have you got that?”
    â€œTickets. Home.” He attempted a boyish and winsome look. “And then inn?”
    Gretel grimaced. “If it’ll stop you making that deeply disturbing face at me, yes.”
    Madame Renoir’s Beauty Parlor was a relatively recently established business in Gesternstadt, and one that Gretel had been delighted to patronize from the first day it opened its fragrant doors. It was as if a tiny speck of Paris sophistication had alighted upon the town, and the place was immeasurably improved by it. Gretel had always found routine maintenance of her womanly physique a chore, but had long ago realized that, if she were to present a professional and polished front to the world, effort had to be expended. She was, therefore, pleased beyond measure that she could place herself in the capable, manicured hands of Madame Renoir and her staff, and let the effort be all theirs.
    She was soon reclining in a purpose-built chair beneath an unsympathetic gaslight while the proprietor deftly plucked at her eyebrows.
    â€œ Mon dieu , Fraulein Gretel, your appointment has not come a moment too soon.”
    Gretel spoke through gritted teeth as the tweezers did their work. “I have been extremely busy of late.”
    â€œAh, another of your interesting cases to solve, per’aps?”
    â€œ Ouch! Quite so.”
    â€œ