by Paul Kane
We found a staircase. Narrow. Badly lit. And descended.
I made to speak, but Poe raised a finger to his lips. We entered the auditorium and the music swelled louder.
* * *
We crept nearer to the stage, where Laurent Loubatierre, the tenor playing Alfredo, stood delivering an aria. We settled into a couple of seats off the central aisle, far enough back not to be noticed by the several people with their backs to us who formed a meager audience—costumier, copyist, dramaturge, dance manager, and so on. Or so we thought.
Poe sank in his chair, thin neck disappearing into his collar, long white hair sitting on his shoulders, and eyes heavy-lidded like those of a slumbering owl. I had placed my notebook on my knee, when I was aware that the tenor’s notes were falling flat, and looked up to see Loubatierre pinching the bridge of his nose, blinking furiously, then shading his eyes with his hand as he advanced to the footlights.
“I am sorry, Maestro! But this is impossible! I cannot work with such distractions!” He peered out, pointing in our exact direction, straight past the hapless conductor. “Who are these people? You! Yes, you sir! Both of you! Who invited you here? On what authority...?” He became apoplectic. “Somebody fetch Guédiguian! Fetch him immediately!” The assorted lackeys threw looks at each other and one, by some mute agreement, ran out to do his bidding. “I cannot continue—I refuse to continue—until you reveal yourselves!”
“I shall, gladly.” Poe spoke calmly, examining his fingernails. “When the cast of this opera reveal themselves and give a true account of their movements on the day Madame Jolivet was attacked.”
“How dare you! This is outrageous!”
“The ravaging of a beautiful woman’s face is outrageous, Monsieur Loubatierre. Your indignation merely ludicrous.” A couple of ballerinas in the background looked at each other, open-mouthed. And if Loubatierre was already red-faced with anger, he was now virtually foaming at the mouth.
“You told the police you visited Monsieur Rodin the sculptor at his atelier on the Left Bank to sit for him, but according to my enquiries Monsieur Rodin has been in Italy and only returned yesterday, for the unveiling of his L’ge d’Airain at the Paris Salon.”
“I don’t have to account for my whereabouts to you!”
“You might find that you do.”
“Who is this man? That is an unspeakable accusation! I have a good mind to thrash him within an inch of his life!”
“I would very much prefer an answer,” said Poe with lugubrious contempt. “Need I point out the truism that a man who has recourse to violence usually has something to hide?”
“Beckstein!” Loubatierre, supremely flustered, addressed the most smartly dressed and rotund of the assembled, whom we later came to understand was the opera house’s dramaturge. “Throw him out this instant! I insist! I insist!”
The singer turned his back sharply, appealing with extravagant gestures to the gods. Other members of the cast hurried on in their tights, bustles, and blouses, trying their best to placate him, though he shrugged off, equally extravagantly, any attempt to do so. Poe, to my amazement, started to applaud and shout “Bravo! Bravo!” which served only to agitate the performer further. The poor man was incandescent to the point of immobility.
“Monsieur!” Guédiguian arrived, puffing. “What is the cause of all this—?”
“Exactly.” Poe rose to his feet and shot his cuffs. “Monsieur Loubatierre’s behavior is inexcusable.”
The tenor rounded on him now, head down and ready to charge off the stage, had he not been held back.
“Monsieur Dupin! Really!” blubbered Guédiguian, whose own cheeks were reddening. “Perhaps you can explain—”
Poe cut in before he could finish, with his habitual air of distraction. “Perhaps you can explain, monsieur, why we were able to wander every floor of this building with impunity, not once being asked our identity or purpose of our visit till now. But to wander with impunity is one thing, to escape the building without being seen by the watchmen at every exit, quite another. If we solve that conundrum, we solve the crime. Now, I should like to question the understudy. What is her name?”
Bamboozled, Guédiguian could do nothing better than to answer the question directly. “Marie-Claire Chanaud.”
“Excellent. Where is she?”
Guédiguian appealed to his staff for an answer.
“She... she is not here, monsieur,” said Beckstein in a thick German accent.
“Not here?” Poe approached the orchestra pit, and I with him. “Then where? Backstage? Bring her out. It is imperative.”
“No, monsieur. She has been working very hard. She complained of a dry throat. With nerves, as you know, the throat tightens. And a singer is an athlete. They must take care of their most delicate instrument. We thought it best she went to the dressing room to rest...”
“You left her alone? Unprotected?”
I barely had time to register the ferocity in Poe’s face as a clatter of footsteps drew my eyes with a whiplash to the wings, where a small boy ran onto the boards, almost tripping over his clogs in his haste. The entrance was so dramatic that for a split second I took it for a part of the rehearsal, until I saw his blanched face and the tiny hand pressed to his chest as he tried to catch breath, ripping the cloth cap from his tousled head as he cried out to Guédiguian:
“Monsieur! Monsieur! He’s struck again, sir! The Phantom!” His eyes were unblinking and his lip quivering. “He’s struck again!”
Alarm taking hold in the auditorium, Poe and I wasted not an instant in thundering downstairs and through coffin-narrow corridors in pursuit of the lad, who moments later stood aside in terror of seeing what revolting scene might confront him in the dressing room.
Inside, we saw what he had seen—a large bunch of flowers tied in a red bow propped against the mirror, shriveling on bending, blackening stalks as we stared at them—a sickening picture of decay seen through some kaleidoscope free of the strictures of time, speeding toward dissolution. Beside it, the open pages of a poetry book lay sizzling, Gérard de Nerval’s Les Chimères turning to acrid vapor in the air. Poe coughed into his handkerchief. I moved forward to enter, but he extended an arm across my body to block the way.
The chair was overturned.
The dressing room—empty.
With a terrible, rising certainty that the understudy had been abducted, I ran to the Stage Door, only to find it bolted.
“Here!”
Returning, I saw that Poe had whisked aside the curtain of an alcove to reveal the trembling singer standing there in nothing but her underwear, having narrowly escaped having her face ravaged by the same demon who had attacked Madame Jolivet. He picked up a cloak and wrapped it round her shoulders.
“Did any of it touch you? Madame? Are you hurt in any way?” She shook her head. “Are you sure? If it fell on your skin... or eyes...” He turned to the loons congregated at the door. “Water! Get water! Now!” She stepped forward, but sagged into his arms.
I grabbed the chair to prop it under her before she fell. “Stand back! She needs air, can’t you see? Clear the way. We need to get her out of here.”
The two of us lifted her under the armpits and knees and deposited her gently on a wicker basket in the corridor. She was light as a feather.
“Open the Stage Door and let the fumes out. And nobody go in that room. Be careful how you touch anything.”
In a few moments water came, and a sponge, and I ran it over her forehead and cheeks. “Did you breathe it in?”
Again the young soprano shook her head, her blue-black curls, which fell considerably below her shoulders, shining. In this semi-swoon, with her almost painted eyebrows and porcelain skin, extreme thinness, and long neck, I suddenly thought her the perfect picture of the phthisic beauty of consumption. Uncomfortably, it made me look over at Poe, who was glaring at her.
“There was no note with the flowers. Who sent them?”
“Dupin!” I protested.
“Allow her to answer, Holmes, please.”
“In truth, I do not know,” Marie-Claire said. “I simply came to my dressing room and there they were.”
“From an admirer,” I suggested.
“Precisely,” said Poe, crouching at her side, resting the flats of his hands on the silver wolf’s head of his walking cane.
“The door was bolted!” snapped the stage doorman, Christophe. “You saw it yourself, monsieur. Nobody could have left without me seeing them, I stake my life on it! Nobody living!”
“Tell me what happened,” said Poe to the young woman.
“My dresser, Rosa, helped me change out of my costume.” Marie-Claire regained her composure admirably, perhaps because her leading man, Loubatierre, now held her hand. “The girls took it away to do some alterations. I ate some fruit and felt a little better, but didn’t want to sleep any more so I read my book and combed my hair. It is foolish, but that has always calmed me, ever since Maman used to do it when I was little. I think the motion is soothing; it clears the mind. Well, I was gazing at my own reflection, not especially thinking about anything. Perhaps I was wondering who sent the flowers. Many things. Or perhaps nothing. Sometimes nothing at all goes through this head of mine.” A smile flickered, accompanying the most nervous of giggles. “Then...”
“You monster,” snarled Loubatierre. “Is it really necessary to put Madame through such torture?”
“It is,” insisted Poe. “Continue.”
“Then I dropped my bookmark and bent to pick it up. I heard a splash, sat up straight again wondering what it was, and I saw this most horrible sight, of the flowers dying, evaporating right before my eyes. Something prevented me from touching them. Thanks be to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. And in the mirror I saw behind me, perched on my reflection’s shoulder, such a face— indescribable! With holes for eyes. Empty sockets, and... and a beak, like some storybook witch, not even human at all, more like a bird—a bird with green scales and no eyes. I don’t know what it was, but it was the face of some kind of devil, of... of pure darkness...”
Loubatierre kissed her tiny fist.
“I dare not even think what might have happened if I wasn’t wearing this.” Marie-Claire touched the crucifix on a chain around her neck then kissed it. “It saved me.”
Loubatierre, the bear, embraced her.
“In the name of Pity,” said Poe, “please do not burst into song.” He turned to me. “The flowers were not from an actor. To an actor, flowers before a performance mean bad luck. But they’re from someone who knows this opera enough to send camellias. So he is someone already in the building. But that is not our culprit. Come with me.” He strode to Christophe and addressed him: “Look directly into my eyes and tell me, what color are the buttons on my assistant’s waistcoat?”
“Brown.”
“And how many are buttoned? Keep looking into my eyes.”
“Two.”
“There is nothing wrong with your vision. Where were you standing or sitting?” The man shuffled into his position behind the shelf of his booth. “And you did not leave? Nothing distracted you?” The man screwed up his beret in his fists and shook his head. “Then if someone entered you would have seen them.”
“Madame saw nobody. I saw nobody. The thing cannot be seen. Doors and walls are nothing to the Phantom. That much is certain.”
“Nothing is certain,” said Poe.
An hour later we were in the Opéra manager’s office. His hand shook as he poured brandies, and to my astonishment expressed concern that the production would be ready for opening night in a few days time.
“Monsieur.” I stepped forward to stand beside the chair in which Marie-Claire sat. “You cannot seriously be considering that can happen, even as the remotest possibility, while this criminal is at large and his intent against Madame could hardly be more clear.”
“Please, Monsieur Holmes, do not impugn my sensitivity. No man could be more appalled than I, but my position here means I have to think of the Palais Garnier.”
“You value the fortunes of the Palais Garnier above a life?”
“Of course not. I nevertheless have to bear in mind that if opening night is canceled, people will ask why. The natural consequence of that is the future of the Opéra may be called into question. The government is all too eagerly looking for the appropriate excuse to shut us down. I have to think not only of Madame—with the greatest respect—but every soul working under this roof.”
“In any case...” Marie-Claire rose to her feet. “I’m sorry gentlemen, but there is no question of my not playing Violetta on opening night. Monsieur Dupin, I appreciate your efforts as a detective, and those of Monsieur Holmes today, but I have waited my entire life for the opportunity to sing this part.” Her back ramrod-straight, from a frail, petite girl she took on the aspect of an Amazon. “As I see it, if we let the fiend stop us, whoever or whatever he might be, then the fiend has won.”
“Admirable,” said Poe, resisting a smile as well as the brandy snifter. “Foolish, but admirable.”
“But be under no illusion regarding our gratitude, Monsieur Dupin, nor our desperation. Our safety—Madame’s safety—is now entirely in your hands.” Guédiguian let the import sink in as the golden liquid trailed down his throat, and my own. Marie-Claire had downed hers in one gulp and returned the glass to its tray before we did.
“My father taught me that.”
“My father taught me Shakespeare,” said Poe. “He was an actor, but a bad one. You should always have enough gum on your beard when you play Lear, or hilarity ensues. Not what the Bard of Avon had in mind. Though entertaining enough to a four-year-old standing in the wings.”
Marie-Claire smiled, but I thought of Poe’s mother, an actress too, he’d once told me. I didn’t know why I hadn’t thought before of his obvious connection to the world of theater. It was in his blood: literally so. She too had died of consumption—his “Red Death” to be—coughing up blood on stage as little Eddie watched, mouthing her lines, the audience not even knowing something was wrong as she slumped in agony, thinking the acting peculiarly good that night in Richmond during Romeo and Juliet. Inconceivable to think of it other than as a ghastly foretaste of Virginia and the tragedy to come. The first of a catalogue of losses that were to blight Poe’s life, and to this mind, the anvil that forged him. The reward being a great writer. But what a price. Too, too much a price, for any man...
C. Auguste Dupin took the fingers of Marie-Claire Chanaud and pressed his lips to them. Her arm was barely bone in her sleeve, the hand itself as fragile as the skeleton of a bird. Her skin white and untarnished, the perfection of a tombstone freshly carved. Her eyes lustrous with the burning of night.
“The curtain will rise,” said Guédiguian.
“The curtain has risen,” corrected my friend the detective with an expression I could not decide was one of fear or of singular anticipation. “Our characters are on stage. Our villain is waiting in the wings. After the interval, we shall begin Act Three. I simply hope we have not paid to watch a tragedy.”
* * *
I knew things were amiss whenever he asked me to talk rather than listen, and that night as the gliding Le Bon lit candles and Madame L’Espanaye served us a supper of oven-warm bread and Normandy camembert so ripe it ran from its skin, he demanded to hear my theory.
“Theory?”
“Yes, Holmes. Theory. Of this elusive Phantom. You have been silent. I hope you have been thinking, but possibly I’m in for a disappointment.”
“Well...” I had been caught on the hop. Again the schoolmaster and pupil. I lit a pipe of Altadis Caporal, an earthy tabac gris. “I think there’s a productive line of enquiry in the fact that Guédiguian, the manager, comes from Corsica. From what I have read, certain Corsican families who get money by extortion and intimidation operate within a secret code called vendetta—members are obliged to kill not only anyone who besmirches the family honor, but anyone in their family, too
. Slights and grievances go back decades. There have been four thousand murders—”
“Mostly garrottings and stabbings, with the odd blinding.” Poe took the pipe from my mouth, filled his cheeks, and handed it back without a word. “The Corsicans are a predictable bunch. And they like the victim to know precisely why they’re doing it. Rarely cultivate a sense of mystery. Quite the opposite. But well done. We can now rule that out. Anything else?” He descended low into his armchair, crossed his legs and put his hands behind his head before expelling the smoke, which rose in an undulating cloud to the ceiling.
“I noticed a proliferation of tattoos amongst the men working behind the scenes. Also the swaying gait common to seamen. According to my researches, many of the stage crew are traditionally hired from ships in port. If a seafarer was seeking revenge against somebody—a captain perhaps, responsible for the loss of a ship... We could look at the records of shipwrecks, the names—”
“And entirely waste our time.”
“Forgive me, but why ask for my deductions, if you seek only to dismiss them?”
“I seek only to arrive at the truth. And they are not deductions, Holmes, they are suppositions. Flights of fancy. I have told you before that guesswork is the recourse of the buffoon or the police inspector. When we use my methods, we build our house on sound foundations or none at all.”
Poe flicked the tails of his coat and sat on the piano stool at his writing desk with his back to me. He lifted a candle-stick to his elbow, unscrewed an ink pot, and started to scratch with his pen, but the real purpose, I knew, was just that—to have his back to me.
I tapped my pipe bowl against the fire surround, but did not take myself off to bed as he perhaps wished. Stubbornly, I stayed. I hoped he might, as a clever man, draw some conclusion from that. But his pride excelled his wisdom that night.
“This Phantom...”
“Phantoms! Demons! Ghosts!” He rubbed the back of his neck without turning. “Do not desert C. Auguste Dupin for the realm of actors and unreason. If that is your desire, Holmes, I tell you now—go home to London. I have no more to teach you.”