by Kim Newman
The Persian took a drink – champagne sacrilegiously diluted with Scotch whisky – and attached himself to the group. The Phantom might have refused the request of the Grand Vampire, but it was a good idea for the Agency to keep up on the latest Parisian crimes.
None of d’Aubert’s cronies were suspicious characters – which, experience suggested, was what made them worth watching.
The Viennese wore a smart black cloak. A fanged bat-mask was pushed up into his hair so he could drink. He had a pencil-stroke moustache and arched eyebrows. Beside him was a square-faced, square-shouldered woman in middle-age with iron-grey hair, determined eyes and pince-nez. The Austrian was affable and easily distracted but this lady – whom the Persian took to be Dutch – was grimly intent on pinning the policeman down.
‘My learning I have placed at the disposal of the Sûreté,’ she said, ‘but my letters unanswered go. Impertinent sergeants turn me aside when in person I call on your office. Realise you not how ridiculous is your theory of vampires? Why, a fact accepted by all European science is that… such things, they cannot be!’
D’Aubert looked trapped. He must have hoped for a nice evening off at the opera.
The blonde in green rescued the Inspector by talking to the Persian.
‘We haven’t met,’ she said, ‘but I know who you are. You are a retired police chief from the East, aren’t you?’
The Persian was surprised. Few noticed him as more than a slinking background figure.
This lady was rather dazzling, too. Very sharp smile. Pearly teeth.
‘I’m the new coroner,’ she said, extending her dainty hand, ‘Geneviève Dieudonné.’
The Persian clicked his heels and pressed his moustache to her knuckles. Her fingers were slightly cool.
‘A retired police chief,’ snarled d’Aubert. ‘I suppose you’ve a theory about the de Rosillon murder too. A great many amateurs buzz about this case, like flies on… on substances flies like to buzz on.’
‘I only know what I read in the papers, Inspector,’ the Persian said. ‘I am happily retired and content to leave murders and vampires to active officers.’
‘An example it would do some very well to follow,’ responded the policeman, looking pointedly at the Dutch woman.
‘I am Michel Falke,’ announced the Viennese. ‘Dr Falke.’
‘Another coroner?’
‘A lawyer, though I do not practice. I have an interest in crimes of this stripe. Twenty-five years ago, when I was first in Paris, vampire rumours were rife. Doubtless you remember, Raoul? Mysteries were a passion with our little circle at the Sorbonne. Even then, you were a bloodhound.’
Inspecteur d’Aubert was eager for those old rumours to be aired. Or perhaps he didn’t care to be reminded of his student enthusiasms.
Beneath his suavity, Falke was taut as a bowstring. His eyes gleamed when he spoke. The Persian wondered if he were another adept of mesmerism.
‘There are vampires, you know,’ Falke continued. ‘In my homeland, the Karnsteins preyed for centuries on the peasants around their estate… and the undead stalk Europe still.’
‘Nonsense and stuff,’ said the older woman. ‘Such rot I have heard from my deluded husband these many years long. We have no place for folkish tales in this Century Nineteen.’
‘This is Professor Van Helsing,’ explained Dr Dieudonné.
‘I have heard of—’
‘Not him,’ said the woman. ‘You are thinking of my mad husband, the head-of-fatness who sets stock in such things. Abraham is in the news often, for breaking into churchyards and abominably mistreating the dead. I am Professor Madame Saartje Van Helsing, occupant of the Erasmus Chair of Rational Philosophy at the University of Leiden.’
‘The Professor is a debunker,’ said Dr Dieudonné. ‘She banishes ghosts not with bell, book and candle but with the clear light of logic.’
‘Is not this house haunted?’ asked Falke. ‘One hears stories of a Phantom.’
The Persian choked a little on his drink.
Madame Van Helsing took in a deep breath, obviously to deliver a stern lecture on the non-existence of phantoms… when a fanfare sounded. All attention was drawn to the top of the stairs.
Erik made an entrance.
The Persian was astonished. The Macbeth craze had reached further than he would have thought possible.
The Phantom wore a kilt, a sporran, a tartan sash and a tam o’ shanter with a feather stuck in it. Dirk and claymore were thrust in his belt. Even his tartan socks had little tartan tags on them. His mask was red and trailed blood-coloured ribbons over his mouth.
He was accompanied by three pretty witches. Unorna wore a papier-mâché nose and a stuck-on wart to set off her pointy hat. Sophy was green in the face and showed striped stockings. La Marmoset had sculpted her hair up into horns and sported black lipstick and cheeks hollowed by paint.
They were an extraordinary group, but no more than any other present.
As Erik descended the stairs, the crowd’s attention was drawn to the scandalous Countesses’ latest jape. Having dropped the used-up Gravelle on a divan, they were swarming all over Franz Liszt. Tugging at his long white hair and fumbling with his cassock, they hissed impertinent questions about how a heroic libertine of his reputation could in old age become a monk. The Persian recalled that the composer, now extremely infirm, was an ordained exorcist. Could he get rid of these tantalising temptations with holy water and the sign of the cross? Or would he even want to?
Upstaged, Erik stood in a corner, looking ominous – his usual trick at masked balls.
The Angels scurried over to the Persian and his new acquaintances.
VI
THEY WERE NOT on a case, but minds could not be turned off like gaslights.
La Marmoset was in costume, but not in disguise. No imaginary person buzzed around in her brain. It was rather soothing. Was this how Erik felt with his mask on, in his shadows, untroubled by the need to show a face to other people?
Unorna and Sophy kept quiet, but took in tiny details. They were learning the method from her.
‘Now that’s suspicious activity,’ said the Queen of Detectives.
‘What is?’ asked the Persian.
‘Everything…’
She made a gesture which encompassed the whole room.
‘Those Romanians…’ said Unorna. ‘Tchah! We know of them in Prague. Tsigane, harlots and thieves!’
Unorna meant the Countesses, who had abandoned an elderly composer to rush at a young army officer. They took turns trying on his helmet and fiddling with his sword-handle, while laughing so shrilly that his gold braid and medals shook.
‘They are thoughtless and foolish,’ said Sophy. ‘They should have a care not to be presumed upon by scoundrels.’
All three women had jewels stuck randomly in their hair and hung off their persons, like ripe red apples hung from Christmas trees. The coffers of their husband must be deep… and he must be a tolerant, careless fellow to let such kittens off the leash. Or else he didn’t yet know about his ladies’ Paris holiday.
‘I believe that’s why they are here,’ said the Persian. ‘They can afford to be presumed upon and so are…’
The Persian introduced Inspector d’Aubert, Dr Dieudonné, Professor Van Helsing and Dr Falke.
‘I know La Marmoset of old,’ said d’Aubert. ‘How are you, Madame?’
The policeman looked sheepish. He probably expected aggressive advice on catching the murderer. From experience, she guessed he had long since exceeded his annual quota of listening politely to important people who would easily solve the case themselves if only they would lower themselves to take such a poorly paid position as policeman.
‘I say, Inspecteur, isn’t that one of those vampires,’ she said.
D’Aubert looked around, just in time to miss Ayda Heidari absconding. She had stolen the champagne glass from out of his hand – just for practice, La Marmoset suspected.
‘There are not suc
h things as…’ began Madame Van Helsing.
‘Professor, in Paris we have another type of vampire,’ said Dr Dieudonné. ‘A notorious band of criminals. They call themselves Les Vampires.’
Madame Van Helsing smiled in thin-lipped triumph.
‘My point is made and lined underneath,’ she told Falke. ‘This is how notions get put about. Brigands claim to be blood-drinking spooks when perfectly ordinary men they are. Your Countess Mircalla Karnstein, for one, was a pathological erotomane with a fixation on young girls.’
‘…Who committed crimes over four hundred years.’
‘Her descendants inherited her delusion.’
‘Camille de Rosillon was drained of blood,’ said Dr Dieudonné. ‘I should know. I looked for it.’
‘It is my belief that the Count was murdered in a butcher shop, hung up and bled out into a trough.’
‘You can’t prove that,’ said Falke.
‘And you can’t prove otherwise,’ said the Professor.
Madame Van Helsing was so sensible it might count as a form of madness. La Marmoset wondered how she would react to the sort of magic Erik was capable of. The Phantom could make a long-dead parent whisper a forgotten childhood endearment in her ear trumpet. Would she simply be blind and deaf to things in which she did not believe? Or would her mind crack, sending her off to the nearest asylum?
Falke was diffident and distracted, but only on the surface. He slouched, as if trying to seem shorter than he was, and gave off the air of being puffy and out of shape. When La Marmoset brushed his arm while reaching for champagne, she felt an electric tingle. He had solid muscle. She knew the type. The skin on his knuckles, though expertly made up, was broken. This was a man who got into – and won – fights, not just a fellow who scored points in drawing room arguments and won settlements in petty sessions court.
Dr Dieudonné was too young to have been through medical school – no easy task for a woman, even in this changing century – and had risen to the trusted position of coroner in Paris without having a powerful patron. Someone considerably better connected than an inspecteur de la Sûreté. She was new to her post too. Camille de Rosillon was the first important corpse to show up on her slab. They had only the doctor’s word that the Count arrived in her morgue without blood.
If La Marmoset were on a case, she would say she had three fine, plump suspects.
The Countesses let up a shriek of laughter as another hapless man escaped from them. Their kisses left raw, angry marks on his neck. He would have trouble explaining the love-nips to his wife and his mistress.
Six fine suspects, La Marmoset corrected herself.
She mentally added the Marquis de Coulteray, who was waving bloody hands at the Princess Addhema and Countess Cagliostro… then gave up. She had been right earlier. Everyone was a suspect, and there were unsolved crimes enough to go round.
A hush spread through the crowd as the chamber orchestra who had supplanted the piper stopped playing. Glasses clinked and conversations dwindled. Even the Countesses stopped laughing and paid attention. A lone jeer came from Giovanni Jones, who got self-conscious as people stared at him and shut up.
Eventually, there was appropriate quiet.
Firmin Richard, Director of the Opéra, stood halfway up the stairs, a full glass in his hand. Beside him, out of make-up and giddy with success, was a broadly grinning Anatole Garron.
‘Our old friend is finally living up to his potential, Raoul,’ said Falke to Inspecteur d’Aubert. ‘Well I remember how Anatole and Jones strove to top each other in the bars and salons around the Sorbonne, duelling not with pistols but Schubert lieder. Strange to think that all these years later, the old rivalry persists. One up, the other down…’
D’Aubert was somewhat chilly at Falke’s mention of their student days – which, it seems, involved a number of now-prominent people.
La Marmoset scented a mystery there. And added two more suspects to her list.
She must stop this. She should be Queen of Not On Duty tonight.
Yet what Unorna had said about Macbeth stuck in her mind. The ‘Scottish play’ was often connected with strange events.
Crimes had been committed, perhaps.
M. Richard proposed a toast…
‘All hail Anatole, Thane of Glamis…’
‘Hip hip…’ cried the crowd, raising high their glasses.
‘All hail Anatole, Thane of Cawdor…’
‘Hop hop…’
‘All hail Anatole Garron, Vampire Hereafter!’
‘Hurrah,’ responded the hall before they realised quite what they were hurrahing.
Only Madame Van Helsing didn’t drink. Her glass froze on its way to her mouth.
‘A vam-pire!’ she expostulated. ‘A VAM-pire!’
Inspecteur d’Aubert reached into his tunic and pulled out a crucifix. He then put it back again and continued as if nobody had noticed.
Everybody had.
Dr Dieudonné shrugged and tossed back her drink.
The Countesses whooped and called for more champagne and tossed coins and trinkets at waiters. Their lips got redder as the evening wore on, La Marmoset noticed. Bluestockings tutted at their antics and were seen off with thumb-through-the-fist salutes.
M. Richard continued, explaining what he meant.
La Marmoset looked at Garron, who was quite flushed – or else hadn’t scrubbed off all the stage blood.
‘With our star ascendant, it has been a matter of some urgency – and heated discussion – in the offices of the Paris Opéra as to how the Great Anatole might follow up the triumph of Macbeth. After consideration, and in full consultation with the man himself, we have decided the next production of this house will be an entirely fresh staging of Marschner’s Le Vampire… and Anatole Garron has agreed to take again the leading role of Lord Ruthven.’
Black banners unfurled from the ceiling to reveal fifty-foot tall long-faced caricatures of Anatole Garron with red eyes and fangs. A thousand black paper bats powered by elastic bands fluttered down onto the heads of the delighted, alarmed, surprised assembly. The Countesses leaped in the air and caught the toys in their little fists and mouths like children playing with snowflakes.
Cleaners sighed. La Marmoset knew they’d be finding the blessed bats in unlikely places for months.
‘If I have stirred you as Macbetto,’ began Garron, slightly hoarse, ‘I shall terrify you as Ruthven. All Paris will learn to tremble in fear at the scratch at the window, the shadow in the corner, the soft breath at the throat… for this is to be the Age of the Vampire!’
Cheers rose – suggesting a greater general enthusiasm for the opera than Erik had shown. What would the Phantom think? Would he be torn between admiration for the singer and concern over his indifferent taste in vehicles?
Still, what else was there for the Great Anatole? He couldn’t play Marguerite.
‘I say,’ drawled Dr Falke, ‘not to be cynical, but do you think the Paris Opéra might be – ahem – cashing in on this vampire murder? If so, an argument could be made that it’s in rather poor taste. What with poor Camille’s killer still on the loose. Irresponsible, even.’
‘It’ll all have blown over before Le Vampire opens,’ said Inspecteur d’Aaubert.
Giovanni Jones slunk by, dagger bent out of shape, openly weeping. Des Esseintes, Queen of the Nile, had a comforting, bloody arm draped across the eclipsed baritone’s shoulders.
La Marmoset watched them go.
‘We know what Garron did to play Macbeth,’ said Dr Dieudonné. ‘What do you think he would do to play Le Vampire?’
VII
AT THE END of each evening, the rubbish of the Palais Garnier – champagne bottles, torn programs, scribbled-on scores, broken toy bats – was carried to a yard behind the building. By dawn, a pack of children would have picked through the garbage for saleable or edible scraps. These efficient, meticulous, cunning little creatures could turn a profit from almost anything discarded by the Paris Opér
a. Sometimes, little remained to be carted off to the barges which went up and down the river, removing the detritus of the greatest city in the world to foul islands of refuse upwind of fastidious folk who didn’t want to know of such places.
The Opéra yard was the sweetest-smelling rubbish tip in Paris, thanks to the heaps of discarded flowers. Many of the corps de ballet simply returned to florists at quarter-price the nightly bouquets sent by their admirers in the Jockey Club. More sentimental girls let tributes adorn their dressing rooms a few days before tossing them away. The children were careful with the flowers. Single uncrushed blooms were prized. They could be sold on the streets as boutonnières – or, if cadet vampires were involved, waved in front of the noses of tourists to distract them while tiny hands lifted watches and purses.
On the morning after the Macbeth ball, the children discovered a man among the flowers. Nothing more could be stolen from him. He was white as marble, naked, smiling. A deep red crescent was cut across his throat.
The children all recognised the dead man…
Around the corner, Simon Buquet was sharing a smoke with Macquart, the old soldier who kept the stage-door. A rag-picker marched up, tugged Buquet’s sleeve and offered to sell him some news. It was, she said, very important news. The little perisher’s solemn look persuaded him not to cuff her round the ear. He dropped a few coins into her outstretched hand.
‘The Great Anatole is dead, m’sieur,’ she said. ‘Killed by the vampire!’
Knowing the child wouldn’t dare make up something like that, Buquet allowed her to lead him to the rubbish yard. Though white as a fish belly, the dead man was who she said he was. Buquet judged that he had bled out, but no blood pooled around him. As one would expect of a vampire’s victim. Buquet crossed himself and paid the bearer of bad news again. She ran off with her tribe.
Buquet found a horse blanket to throw over poor Garron.
Officially in charge of a scenery construction gang, Simon Buquet was the house’s top bully-boy. A less-refined establishment would call him a chucker-outer or a trouble-stopper. A patron who tossed bottles at an unpopular comedian found an interview with Monsieur Buquet but a brief stop-off en route to an urgent appointment with his dentist. He was kept busy ensuring that the house was relatively free of posh tarts, pickpockets, bogus performers’ agents, embittered former employees and the more obvious ticket touts. Vendors of pirated song-sheets, pesterers of ballerinas and troublemakers in the employ of rival houses knew to stay well out of his way. The house was still haunted, but Buquet’s crew could do little about that. A wary truce existed between them and the Opera Ghost.