The Angel of the Opera

by Sam Siciliano

  “You are too generous, Mr. Holmes.”

  “Not in the least.”

  “Besides, I was the accompanist, not you. Your violin was the hero of the piece. I had no idea.... Your reputation as a detective preceded you, but I had never imagined you could be a musical genius as well.”

  Perhaps because she could not see him, Sherlock let his face briefly reveal his satisfaction. “Now it is you who are too generous.”

  She smiled so warmly, her face so radiant, that I wanted to whisper to him to squeeze her hand or at least touch her shoulder, but he stood rather stiffly and again wiped his brow with the handkerchief.

  “I feel so happy, and yet...” The tears slipped down the dark skin of her cheeks. “It is wrong with father... But I know he would want me to–and after all, you are leaving tomorrow. Oh, blast it all.” Abruptly she sat down on the piano bench and began to weep in earnest.

  Since I had been expecting some such outburst of grief, I was not surprised. The night before last, after Holmes and I had cut down her father, we agreed, with the concurrence of the butler Russell, that the Major’s bad heart was to be the cause of his death. My being a physician made the matter quite simple. We had broken the news to her yesterday morning, and she had born it courageously, shedding until now only a few tears.

  Sherlock and I stared at each other, then I lay my hand gently on her shoulder. “We are very sorry, Miss Lowell.”

  “You have both been very kind to me.” She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “I... I am being very selfish.”

  My brow wrinkled. “How so?”

  “I loved father, and I shall miss him, but... I fear... I worry more for myself. The days–the years–seem so long at times, so very long. Sometimes I... I fear for my sanity, and I pray for death.” Her voice was almost a whisper.

  “You cannot mean that, Miss Lowell.”

  “Can I not? What have I to live for?”

  I opened my mouth, then hesitated. I loathed physicians who mouthed Polonian platitudes and gave false reassurances, but nothing else came to mind. “You... you...”

  “Tell me truly, Doctor Vernier, and you, Mr. Holmes, are we of Indian descent... repugnant? Let me know the truth, as you are my friends. Do you find me so very ugly?”

  A pained laugh slipped from my lips. “Miss Lowell, you are far from ugly. Who has told you such lies?”

  “Why, then, do so many shun my company? We have had few visitors and little mingling with our neighbors, but I could hear the coldness in their voices. My father claimed I was beautiful, but I knew he would do anything to shelter my feelings. I feared... I must be ugly compared to others, either my race or my features making me despicable. As you are my friends, I beg of you not to spare my feelings–I must know the truth.”

  I squeezed her shoulder gently. “In God’s name, Miss Lowell, you are one of the most beautiful women I have ever known.”

  Her blind eyes stared into the shadowy part of the room, and you could see confusion writ upon her lovely face. She was silent, then said, “Mr. Holmes?”

  Sherlock’s fists were clenched, and his own eyes were filled with a strange passion. “Henry–Doctor Vernier–has spoken the truth. You are... beautiful.”

  Her astonishment seemed genuine. Over the years she must have pondered the matter deeply, seeking to comprehend her isolation. Since she could see neither herself nor others, she could not judge for herself. Little wonder she had come to consider herself ugly.

  “Can this be true...?” she whispered.

  “Yes, Miss Lowell.”

  She began to cry again. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand.”

  I hesitated, then asked, “What is it?” Sherlock’s eyes blazed at me, and I could tell he wanted us to leave the room.

  “Why am I so alone? If I am no freak, why must I be so alone? Why are the consolations, the affections, granted to other women, denied to me?”

  “Prejudice and stupidity, Miss Lowell–they blind others to your attractions. Believe me, if...”

  “I thought also that it might be my wickedness.”

  “Wickedness?”

  “Yes. I... I have strange, morbid thoughts and... wicked longings. Oh, why must life be so wretched–why?”

  Again I could not bring myself to utter some hearty banality. I glanced at Holmes. His face was pale and pained. He motioned toward the door, but I could not leave her so desolate.

  “Please, Miss Lowell. Don’t... We have not known you for long, but we do consider ourselves your friends.”

  She drew in her breath, straightening her spine, then let out a final shaky sob. “Thank you, I am being very selfish, I know, but...”

  “No.” Sherlock’s voice was very loud, and she turned her head in his direction.

  “I shall be... fine,” she said. “I have–there is my music, after all. When I play as we did, Mr. Holmes, I forget everything else. There is no suffering, no blindness, no time, only the music everywhere, washing over everything, even my troubled spirit. How foolish I must sound to you both. I am sorry if... Please leave me alone for a while. I feel such a fool, but the time which lies before me–the hours, days and years which stretch into the darkness of the future–it seems so vast and empty, such an abyss.”

  “Miss Lowell...”

  “Please leave me, Doctor Vernier.”

  She regained her composure, and I felt I must honor her request. Sherlock’s mouth twitched. He had grown more and more agitated as he had listened to her.

  “Very well,” I said. Sherlock and I started for the door.

  Suddenly he stopped and turned. “Miss Lowell.” His voice was so loud the words had a faint echo in the vast stone chamber.

  She raised her head, held her handkerchief loosely in her right hand.

  “Yes?”

  “We are indeed your friends. I–I am your friend. You can count on periodic visits, and if you ever require anything, you need only ask for it. My cases require much of my time, and often the fate of men or nations hang in the balance. All the same, if you summon me, I shall come as quickly as I possibly can. I hope you understand.”

  “Oh, Mr. Holmes–you offer me more than I have any right to expect.”

  “Also, once your period of mourning is at an end, you might consider moving to London. A musician such as yourself is wasted here. I know many in the London musical circles and could introduce you to those who could not fail to recognize your talent.”

  She began to cry again, but now her face was joyful. “I do not deserve such kindness. Oh thank you, thank you both.”

  Holmes clenched both hands into fists, took one step forward toward her, then stopped. “We will speak of this later... when your sorrow has abated.” He whirled about, then strode toward the door without looking at me. I followed him. In the hallway he took out a cigarette and lit it, his hands trembling slightly.

  “You seem greatly moved.” My voice had a faint tinge of irony.

  “Not really. I... human suffering always discomforts me, especially unnecessary suffering.”

  “To think that all these years she has considered herself some homely freak. Strange, is it not, when she is so beautiful?”

  He exhaled a cloud of smoke. “Very.”

  “You seemed quite interested in Miss Lowell, and she in turn seemed particularly interested in what you had to say. You do not believe in ‘tainted blood,’ do you? The sins of the fathers being passed on to the children, and so on.”

  “Utter rubbish.”

  “Then you might be of more direct assistance to the lady.”

  “You know my views on the fair sex.”

  “Come now, I am not Watson. Do you think I, too, am blind? It did not require your fabulous powers of deduction to see something of your feelings just now.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Henry. I have no need of an alienist to sort out my mental states. Kindly keep such counsels to yourself. Tomorrow we return to London, where I have some other business to finish. Can
you be ready to leave for Paris in ten days time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. The situation at the Opera sounds most interesting, and Paris will be a welcome change after this Welsh desolation.” He dropped his cigarette, then with the toe of his boot crushed out the butt on the gray stone.

  One

  Holmes and I paused before the portal to Le Palais Garnier, the Paris Opera House. The February sun illuminated the columns, arches, busts, friezes and reliefs, shone on marble, bronze, stone, and wood. Along the very top of the building was a row of masks, their grotesque faces with black O’s for mouths and eyes gazing down upon the Place de l’Opéra. Their oddly abstract faces did not match the style of the conventional representations covering the facade. Just below the words ACADEMIE NATIONALE DE MUSIQUE was a row of busts, Mozart above our doorway, Beethoven to his left, Spontini to his right.

  “Who was Spontini?” I muttered.

  “A minor opera composer who was briefly court musician to Louis XVIII, two of his better known works being La Vestale and Fernand Cortez.”

  I wondered briefly at Holmes’s capacity for remembering trivia. The Opera was clearly a secular temple, another of the monuments Napoleon the Third wished to erect to himself and Paris. Determined that his capital should have the largest, most splendid theater in the world, he had chosen Jean-Louis Charles Garnier as architect and builder, then lavished huge sums on its construction. Ironically, although begun in 1861, it was not completed until 1875, some five years after the collapse of the Second Empire. All the same, it remained a monument to that period between 1850 and 1870 when Louis Napoleon had transformed Paris into the modern city of today. Even a person of socialist or republican leanings such as myself could not help but admire the results.

  However, the Opera was another matter. It was not to my taste. The style was so ornate, there was such a surfeit of sculpture and design, that the eye soon grew weary. It was cloying in the same way as Saint Peter’s in Rome, another example of excess and the determination to create the greatest specimen of its kind. Also, one need not see much of Paris before tiring of bronze female representations of la France, la Liberté, la Justice, la République, la Musique, la Poésie, all those sisters with the same formidably muscular bosoms and limbs, robes flowing, their stalwart faces uplifted to the heavens.

  “I see you do not care for the grand style,” Holmes said. “Think, however, of the many artists and masons kept gainfully employed for so long.”

  “Some of whom were second rate.”

  “Nevertheless, the Paris Opera will endure long after we have shuffled off this mortal coil.” He opened his coat and withdrew his watch from his waistcoat. “Nine fifty-five, Henry. We shall judge something of the seriousness of this matter by the length of time we are kept waiting.”

  Holmes was dressed formally: black overcoat, top hat, and frock coat, gray striped waistcoat and trousers, gold watch in one gloved hand, a fine walking stick with a silver handle in the other. As he was already tall, the top hat further added to his stature and made his nose appear smaller–imposing, rather than merely large. Having decided to play a subordinate part, I wore more casual garb, a tailored suit of heavy gray tweed.

  Sherlock placed one hand on the massive iron door handle. “Behold the fatal portal. ‘Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.’”

  “Dante, at the gates of Hell?”

  “Yes. Come, Henry; we have our own fearful specter with whom to do battle.”

  “‘Into the valley of death rode the six hundred.’”

  Holmes grimaced. “Quoting bad Tennyson will surely irritate both the shade of Dante and that of the Opera, our mysterious ghost.”

  Inside an attendant awaited us. “Monsieur Holmes? Ah, Messieurs Richard et Moncharmin vous attendent. Suivez-moi, s’il vous plaît.”

  “Merci bien,” Holmes said.

  Our footsteps echoed faintly as we went up that grandest of all grand stairways. Inside was the same abundance of sculpture, ornamentation and riches, with elaborate paintings on the dome high overhead. Again, the similarity to a church struck me. Once past the stairway, the interior had a certain labyrinthine quality; one could easily lose oneself in the Opera.

  Messieurs Moncharmin and Richard awaited us in an office as grandiose as the rest of the edifice. Our interview was conducted in French and began with a round of facile introductions. Holmes had told me that Firmin Richard was a mediocre composer of martial airs. He was a large, burly man who seemed out of place in formal attire. Although his ruddy face was youthful, his hair and beard were white, his joviality forced. Armand Moncharmin was short and slight with a dandyish air. His frock coat, his cravat, his white cuffs were elegant and absolutely spotless. He wore a monocle in his left eye, and as he spoke, the waxed ends of his black mustache moved up and down.

  “Eh bien, Monsieur Holmes, you have read our letter about this embarrassing business of the ghost.” For ghost he used the word revenant. “My partner and I are not superstitious. When we took over the Opera last October and the former managers, Messieurs Poligny and Debienne, told us about an opera ghost, we assumed this was a good-natured jest on their part.”

  Richard smiled, but something cruel showed in the set of his mouth. “I enjoy a good trick myself, and I thought this was one.”

  “However,” continued Moncharmin, “certain events have transpired which, while not completely convincing us that supernatural entities exist, do suggest some malevolent agency at work. Imagine our surprise when our predecessors showed us certain documents demanding payment of several thousand francs a month.”

  Richard nodded curtly. “You English have a word, ‘blackmail,’ I believe.”

  Holmes had sat drumming at the chair arm with the fingers of his right hand. “Documents? Where are these documents?”

  Moncharmin handed him a thick stack of papers. “This is the complete contract between the Opera and the Government of France. On page thirty-seven is a list of four conditions which may cause the termination of the agreement.”

  I leaned over so I could see the paper Holmes held. At the bottom, scrawled in red, was a fifth condition: “Or if said management delay beyond a fortnight the monthly payment of twenty-thousand francs to the Opera Ghost.” Here the word used was not revenant but Fantôme.

  “Further on,” noted Holmes, “certain boxes are reserved for the President of the Republic and various ministers. Notice the addition on page ninety-two.”

  In the same red scrawl had been added, “Box Five on the grand tier shall be reserved in perpetuity for the Opera Ghost.”

  “Le Fantôme de l’Opéra,” Holmes said. “What remarkably crude and childish handwriting. This could not have been done with a regular pen, and the source of the ink is a mystery to me.”

  I sat back in my chair. “Obviously it is meant to represent blood.”

  Holmes raised one hand. “The intent is clear, but actual blood would be brownish.”

  “I know that. I am a physician.”

  Moncharmin laughed nervously, a flowing sound which recalled a harp too tightly strung. “It is a relief to hear you say that it is not real blood. We could not help but wonder...”

  “Are there other amendments, Monsieur Moncharmin? No. Well, thus far this does resemble the common garden variety of blackmail, although the request for a box is curious.”

  “As I said, Monsieur Holmes, we assumed this was a joke. However, since then, so many odd occurrences have happened that...”

  “Such as?”

  “Some are rather trivial. The principal white horse, César, has disappeared.”

  “A horse?” I said.

  Richard nodded. “The opera has a stable of ten. This one starred recently in Meyerbeer’s Le Prophète.

  “There have been difficulties with Box Five. At first, the superstitious old woman who acted as box keeper, a Madame Giry, kept it vacant. When we discovered this, we dismissed her. She seemed to consider the ghost her employer rather than us.
However, after several disturbances, we have again left Box Five vacant. Its occupants complained of mysterious voices and laughter, hardly conducive to watching a performance. Our patrons’ well-being is always a major concern. And now, one of our employees, Monsieur Buquet, has been... been... deceased.”

  Holmes frowned, whether at the fact or the twisted syntax I was not sure. “How did he die?”

  Moncharmin flinched at the word “die.” Richard said, “We think he hanged himself. He was found in the third cellar near a scene from Le Roi de Lahore. Most people think the Phantom murdered him.”

  “Did the police not look into this matter?”

  Richard and Moncharmin again eyed each other. Moncharmin managed a tepid smile. “Their determination was that it was suicide. The whole business was most embarrassing, and if not handled with great delicacy, could have affected box rentals very adversely. We understand, Monsieur Holmes, that you can be relied upon for discretion, and we hope...”

  Holmes had been drumming at the chair arm again. “I do not speak with newspaper reporters, and I keep everything completely confidential. In return, I require the utmost frankness from my clients. I will tolerate nothing less than the absolute truth.”

  The managers regarded each other again, then Moncharmin laughed weakly. “Of course, Monsieur Holmes. That goes without saying. There have also been... letters.”

  Holmes sat up. “Let me see them.”

  Richard opened a desk drawer, took out some papers, and handed Holmes the top one. “This is the most recent one.” I leaned over again; the handwriting and red ink were unmistakable.

  Gentlemen,

  So it is to be war between us? You have repeatedly ignored my requests that you honor our contract. You are now two months in arrears on your payments, and Madame Giry has left your services. This is insufferable. Here are my demands:

  1. You will immediately reinstate Madame Giry and have her leave my full payment in Box Five.

  2. You will never again attempt to avoid paying my monthly fee, nor will you ever again rent out my box to usurpers.