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

Alors! What an exciting life you lead. Hold still, please.”
    â€œ Ouch! ” Gretel was as fond of a bit of showing off as the next person and felt that escaping lions must carry some worth as an anecdote, but the memory of Bruder’s death rattle was too fresh in her mind for her to talk about it comfortably.
    â€œOh, you know. Ouch! One rises to the challenge. Good grief!”
    â€œ Eh donc! Now you are perfect.”
    â€œI doubt it.”
    â€œWell, your eyebrows, at least.”
    Gretel dabbed tears from her eyes. As she sat up, she noticed a particularly pretty girl tidying up the towels. She recognizedher as the same girl she had spotted on her visit to Frau Hapsburg.
    â€œI see you have a keen new employee,” she said.
    Madame Renoir tutted loudly. “New she may be, keen she most decidedly is not,” she said.
    â€œOh?”
    â€œShe came with good references, and does her work well enough, but, mon dieu , her humor! Never have I encountered such a morose creature.”
    Gretel looked again at the girl and could see now that her eyes were puffy and red from crying, and there was indeed a sadness emanating from her.
    â€œWhen clients come to our establishment,” Madame Renoir went on, “they do not wish to find a person who is moping and sniveling.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter with her?”
    â€œ Je ne sais pas. She will not say. But I suspect a man.”
    â€œAh.”
    â€œWhatever it is, if she continues in this manner, I will be forced to ask her to leave. I would be sorry to add to her troubles, mais, voilà .”
    Gretel thought there was something familiar about the girl, and yet she could not place her. The face, the features, seemed to ring some distant bell, more distant than a few days ago. Once again her brain began whirring, sifting through dusty files of memory, attempting to ascertain what it was about the girl that was intriguing.
    â€œWhat did you say her name was?” she asked.
    â€œJohanna. I really know nothing more about her, save for her work references. She is not from this town. Now, fraulein, if you would step into the cubicle, I have the hot wax ready for you.”
    â€œOh good,” said Gretel, her mind for once not fully taken up with the torture to come, but busy trying to place themysterious weeping girl. It was only as she lifted herself from her chair and looked properly about her that she noticed every seat in the house was taken. “You are unusually busy for a work a day Thursday, Madame Renoir.”
    â€œWhy, fraulein, can you have forgotten? Tomorrow is no ordinary day. Tomorrow is Starkbierfest!”

FOUR
    G retel had forgotten. Indeed, she had been doing her utmost to forget the existence of Starkbierfest ever since Hans had succeeded in talking her into taking part in the wretched event. Ordinarily, the wildest of wild horses would not induce her to set foot outside her own front door while the rest of the inhabitants of Gesternstadt abandoned any pretense of being intelligent human beings and gave themselves over to the raucous and rowdy celebration of the tradition of the Lenten beer. Ordinarily, those same wild horses would certainly have had to call upon far wilder and stronger distant cousins to get her to actually attend the festival. Hans, in Gretel’s opinion, had not played fair. He had been determinedthat he should, just this once, have his much-beloved sister—his description, not one Gretel would have chosen, but there it was—there to witness the occasion when he took his place beside the revered beer barrel, and before the assembled townsfolk, had the honor of tapping the thing.
    â€œWhy do you even want to do it?” Gretel had asked him, “Let alone drag me into the whole sorry business.”
    â€œTo be chosen to tap the Lenten beer barrel? It is an honor! The highest privilege the brewery can bestow upon a person!” he had insisted, puffing out his