Tales of the Shadowmen 2: Gentlemen of the Night

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Tales of the Shadowmen 2: Gentlemen of the Night Page 24

by Jean-Marc Lofficier


  Clawnails passed Irene’s face, and she took hold of cold, unliving wrists. An implacable mask of beauty loomed close to her, chin dropped to show rows of sharp ceramic teeth. These dolls were designed for murder as much as marriage.

  Erik–for it was he!–raised a tube to his mouth. It was about the size of a piccolo, but with fewer holes. He sounded three distinct notes, shrill and dissonant, unknown to music or nature. Irene had heard them once before this evening, and again her teeth were set on edge.

  Christine and Trilby reacted at once to the signal. Their eyes became fixed, almost as glassy as the mannequins’. Ignoring aches and bruises, they cartwheeled into the fray, arms and legs scything through the cadre of wives, fetching off dolls’ heads and limbs, spilling clockwork innards and horse-hair stuffing.

  Irene, whose head hurt from the shrilling, concentrated on wrestling the contraption which was trying to shred her. She battered its wax-and-china face with her forehead, and tried to break its wrists.

  Erik had his temporary mask back in place. He threw a lever, and the clockwork orchestra began to play Tartini’s The Devil’s Trill–but with strange lapses and lacunae, filled by the crackling of electrical arcs.

  The Countess looked at Erik, mask to mask.

  From the podium, Erik picked up a box, which trailed wires deep into the orchestra’s innards and the barrels of explosive. Surmounting the box was a metal switch in the form of a frog.

  Christine danced, whirling swords taken from a toy soldier’s wooden fist and a sleeping senior officer’s scabbard, cutting through mannequins. She fought like an eight-armed Hindu goddess with a scimitar in each hand. She heard music, and the music directed her actions. Lady Galatea, Duchess of Omnium, hurled herself at Christine, foot-long porcupine spines stuck out of her chest and back, arms wide for a deadly, skewering hug. Christine stepped under the embrace and used her swords like scissors, snipping the Duchess in half length-wise. Without breaking her movement, she hurled the two halves of the broken thing at two more of the wives, sticking them through with the spines, then stepping down with a heavy boot-heel on their fallen faces.

  Trilby fought less elegantly, with feet and fists, delivering savate kicks and powerful fist-blows. She wrenched the arms off Madame Venus de l’Isle del Gardo, and whirled them about, raking their claws across the toys. Madame del Gardo hopped comically from side to side, off balance, trailing wires from her shoulders twitching and sparking, lubricational fluids spurting from ruptured rubber tubes like yellow blood. The armless doll, momentarily the image of a more famous Venus, collided with a toy soldier, and its head flew apart in a puff of flame, burning wig shot across the room, metal and china shrapnel ripping through the soldier. With Venus’ arms, Trilby battered away several more of the wives.

  It was a dazzling performance. Within moments, the floor was strewn with spasming, broken things. Springs and cogs scattered underfoot. Pools of yellow liquid formed, and electrical sparks set light to them. Flames ran quickly, spreading from doll to doll, melting wax prettiness away from metal skulls, crumpling lacework and human hair wiggery in instants, taking hold on torn and oily dresses. Some of the husbands sat up, awake, patting at scorching patches on their evening clothes, yelping in pain at the rude disturbance to their dreams.

  Irene still wrestled with her single opponent, Madame Gerard, née Francis-Pierre.

  Trilby stepped up, and wrenched off Poupée’s head. Her body went limp.

  Irene looked at Trilby, holding the head up like Perseus with the Medusa. Its eyes still rolled and it tried several sweet smiles before its internal mechanisms wound down and the lids fell shut.

  The last of the wives had fallen back to the throne, to protect the Countess, who was trying to make herself heard above the racket. The orchestra broke down, and the Tartini shut off. The wives were assembling themselves into some many-legged war machine, directed by the Countess.

  The trio stood before the throne. Trilby and Christine opened their mouths and ululated, a high, clear, pure, penetrating sound that rose. Irene clapped her hands over her ears, but couldn’t completely shut out the sound.

  The Countess halted her work on the machine, a trickle of blood leaking from one of her eyeholes.

  The voices soared, a wordless sound, two tones entwined. Edison bulbs burst. Champagne flutes flew to splinters. The faceplates of the last brides shattered, showing the intricate works beneath. Even their glass eyes burst.

  Irene jammed her fingers into her ears, trying to shut out the pain.

  Trilby and Christine, unaffected, seeming to be able to do without breath, took the sound up to a peak. Somewhere on the barge, something major broke.

  Another shrill note came, from Erik’s flute–cutting through his protegées’ voices, shutting them off.

  And Christine and Trilby were fully awake, bleeding and puzzled.

  “What happened?” Trilby asked Irene.

  “You went away for a while,” she said. “Everything’s fine now.”

  Trilby realized she was holding a broken head, had a moment of disgust, and dropped the thing.

  “Zut alors,” said Christine. “What a shambles!”

  The Countess was gone, her throne descended into a trapdoor, a smear of thick blood marking her trail. Erik was vanished too. During the mêlée, he had fixed his detonator-box to a clockwork percussionist, wiring its hand to the frog switch and setting an hour-glass timer which was already close to running out.

  “Abandon ship,” ordered Irene.

  Most of the company were in the main ballroom when Erik’s explosives went off. There was a vast grinding sound as the greater works of the barge misaligned and tore themselves to pieces, wrecking whatever purpose they might have had. More explosions followed.

  Christine, Trilby and Irene were in a corridor, which ought to lead up to the deck and safety. They found the doorway barred and bolted. The Countess evidently took the ruin of her schemes personally. The incandescent lamps wavered, and they were ankle-deep in cold water. Then the floor listed, and the water flowed away. The girls found things to hang onto.

  “I think our music master might have planned this phase of the evening rather better,” observed Irene. “We’re quite likely to drown.”

  “Have more faith, Irène,” said Christine, cheerfully. “Something will turn up.”

  They were looking at a foaming torrent advancing up the corridor. Something broke the surface angrily–one of the toy soldiers, or at least the top half of one. It thumped against a wall, turned over, and sank.

  “How sad,” said Christine. “I love a man in uniform.”

  One of the porthole windows broke inwards, and a rope ladder descended.

  A familiar face loomed through the aperture, a beckoning arm extended.

  It was the Persian! Alive!

  “Ladies, time leave this playroom.”

  He did not have to say it twice.

  Only two or three of the Marriage Club were drowned, and they weren’t among those who’d be most missed. The hero of the hour, fêted as such in the popular press, was the aged Etienne Gerard. Shocked to his senses by cold water, the one-time Brigadier labored fearlessly at great risk to his own life to aid his fellow guests in their escapes from the fast-sinking barge. Some wondered why such a noted gallant managed only to rescue wealthy, famous, male members of the party from the depths, leaving scores of poor, obscure, young wives to the Seine. No corpses were ever recovered, though broken mannequin parts washed up on the mudbanks for months. It was another of the Mysteries of Paris, and soon everyone had other scandals, sensations and strangenesses to cluck over.

  The Persian reported that he had been fished out of the river by his old friend, Erik–who effected emergency medical assistance, before taking the unusual step of venturing himself onto the field of battle.

  Back at the Opéra, quantities of brandy were consumed, and repairs were made to the persons of the lovely ladies who had done so much for a world which would never know
what services had been rendered. As dawn broke, baskets of fruit and pastries were delivered, with a note of thanks from Madame Sabatier, who also enclosed a satisfactory bankers’ draught.

  After hauling cardinals and bankers out of the cold water, the newly-widowed Grand Maréchal Gerard–if one could be widowed after marriage not to a human woman but a long-case clock with a prettily painted face–repaired to the Salon Sabatier, paid in advance for the exclusive company of three of la Présidente’s most alluring filles de joie, and promptly fell into a deep sleep that might last for days. That certainly counted as a happy outcome.

  The only pall cast over celebrations came when Irene announced that she felt it was time she quit the Phantom of the Opéra’s Agency to venture out on her own. Christine and Trilby wept to hear the news, and bestowed many embraces on their friend, not noticing that she was unable to control a shudder when they touched her. Irene could not look at their active, lovely, characterful faces without recalling the expressionless, bloodied masks of skin that took their place when three shrill notes sounded. Not to mention the proficiencies in arts devastating and deadly they exhibited under the fluence.

  The Persian understood and conveyed M. Erik’s good wishes.

  “He suggests, however, that you limit your field of operations.”

  “I should stay out of Paris?”

  “He thinks… France.”

  “Very well. There’s Ruritania, and Poland and London. All a-swim with opportunities.”

  Irene left the building.

  Behind his mirror, Erik knew regret. But he understood the American was not like his other girls. There was a steel in her core, which made her unsuitable for “music lessons,” the specialized training he deemed necessary in his most useful Agents. That steel would never be bent entirely to his purpose, and might eventually bring them into conflict… as he had been brought into conflict with Josephine Balsamo.

  The Countess Cagliostro was, of course, still at large, and liable to be unforgiving now her carefully-contrived plan of world domination was sunk. She would quite probably be suffering from a splitting headache, too, and be unhappy at the loss of her marvelous barge and so many toys, either. This was no time for the Agency to be under-strength.

  This feuilleton was not over.

  For days, Christine and Trilby moped, and were inconsolable. Everything said to them was a reminder of something Irene had said or done, and would set them off in further floods of tears. Other ladies of the chorus assumed their hearts had been ordinarily broken, and dispensed wisdoms about the untrustworthiness of the perfidious male sex.

  Then, the bell sounded. Not for “music lessons,” not for an exploit, but a simple summons.

  As they walked down the corridor to their dressing room, they came upon a familiar, shambling, bent-over figure. Christine, acting on instinct, took him by the throat and shoved him rudely against the wall.

  “No more, please,” said Cochenille, squirming.

  Temporary repairs had been made to the mannequin, and he was coming apart again. As Christine pinned him, Trilby rolled up her sleeves, intent on smashing his face to bits again.

  “Ladies, let him be,” said the Persian, looking out of the dressing room. He had been in a conference with Spalanzani and Coppélius. “These gentlemen have split with their former employer.”

  Christine dropped the gasping Cochenille. His hand came off, and he picked it up and stuck it into his pocket. Trilby gave him a kick, and he scurried away, followed by the doll-makers, who gave the girls a wide berth as they passed out of sight. Trilby gave their backs the Evil Eye Stare.

  “We have come to an arrangement,” said the Persian. “Advantageous for our Agency.”

  Trilby and Christine entered the dressing room.

  On the divan sat a small blonde girl, dressed all in white, posed like a ballerina in a tableau.

  “She’s not a doll,” said Christine. “She can’t be.”

  The girl’s head moved and she blinked. There was no clicking or whirring.

  “She must be the original, from which the mannequin-makers copied,” said Trilby.

  The girl’s chest swelled and contracted with breath. She gestured, showing the suppleness of her fingers. She picked up an apple from la Présidente’s basket, flicked out her nails and rolled the fruit in her hand, letting the peel slither away from the flesh in an unbroken ribbon, then crushed it to juice with a sudden, powerful squeeze.

  Christine and Trilby walked around the divan, observing the newcomer from all angles, wondering at the ingenuity of her manufacture.

  “This is Olympia,” said Erik, from behind the mirror. “She will be joining us for ‘music lessons,’ and taking the departed Miss Adler’s place in our roster of agents.”

  Olympia curtseyed.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you,” she said. “I hope we shall be the best of friends.”

  John Peel continues to thrill us by crafting clever little crime thrillers. After his story, last year, of the duel between the Count of Monte-Cristo and the Black Coats, this time, it is the sagacious Rouletabille, the most Cartesian of all French detectives, that warrants his attention. Gaston Leroux’s detective here shares the limelight with master showman Serge Diaghilev, impresario and manager of the famed Ballets Russes, which entranced the West with their revolutionary and exotic performances. And, as Peel demonstrates, in this instance, they are quite dramatic...

  John Peel: The Incomplete Assassin

  Paris, 1910

  The premiere of any new form of art in Paris is always an occasion for extravagance and celebration, and that of the 1910 season of the celebrated Ballets Russes was certainly no exception. As the grand evening dawned, I considered myself quite fortunate in having a friend who had secured us tickets for this new production, but as the evening drew on and the fresh corpse turned up, I was no longer as certain of my good luck.

  Nothing of this will be found in the official accounts of the premiere, for reasons that will shortly become apparent. Not even a hint of it can be delved from the report delivered by my good friend Joseph Rouletabille, reporter, who was the prime mover in resolving the strange mystery.

  I had known my peculiar friend some ten years before these events, and had never noted in him any particular love of music. Oh, on an evening in Maxim’s, he would enjoy a gypsy violinist, or a performance of the can-can, but they can hardly be considered serious music–more frivolity than virtuosity. So when he mentioned to me that he had two tickets, and asked me to accompany him, I was both pleased and surprised. Naturally, I questioned his motives, and he smiled at me over his freshly-lit briarwood pipe.

  “Music is always interesting,” he explained. “Though I am not certain that I quite like the trends some composers are taking. But this performance is reputed to be something quite special. As you know, in their first season, the Ballets Russes took Paris by storm, so the second is a highly anticipated event, which in itself makes for news. Add to that the fact that this production, The Firebird, is their first with freshly-composed music, and it becomes more important. And since most of the people, including the composer, are still young, my editor felt that a young man’s opinions on the night’s performance would be of interest. And I am to be allowed backstage after the performance to conduct interviews, which I felt you might enjoy.” He laughed. “There really is no mystery in this at all, my friend.”

  In that prediction, he was to be proven quite incorrect.

  It seemed that everyone who was anyone in Paris was at the Théâtre du Châtelet. Though not as well-known as the Opera House–or as infamous, as the celebrated case of the Phantom of the Opera has shown–it is to my mind one of the most pleasing of the city’s many temples of culture. Set a little back from the Seine, it is perhaps a trifle square and straightforward by day. But at night, illuminated from within and without, it captivates the senses. The main entrance, through five arched doorways surmounted by five equally-large arched windows, greets with warmth and
a promise of the grandeur within. Pass the steps crowded with the elite of Paris society, festooned in jewels, perfumes and expensive clothing. Go through the throng in the lobby indulging in their last cigarettes before taking their seats, and into the sumptuous hall–well, it raises the excitement level, and hones the anticipation of a grand evening.

  And such it proved to be. It was perhaps a trifle avant-garde for my tastes, but the staging could not be faulted. Parisiennes have become accustomed to horses upon their stages, and the Ballets used theirs sparingly. But at the point when the magician’s spells are broken, and the long-frozen, gray, cobweb-festooned statues came to life, a collective gasp sped through the audience. Michel Fokine, the young choreographer, also danced superbly. I was a trifle disappointed that it was not the prodigy Nijinsky who was dancing–as, too, were many of the women in the audience. Anna Pavlova, my companion informed me, had been intended to dance the title role, but had refused, claiming the music to be undanceable. True, the music I found a trifle grating, but the main themes were certainly harmonious enough. Pavlova was replaced by Tamara Karsavina, who may not have had the same reputation, but who clearly did not find the ballet unperformable. At the end of the performance, the audience gave vent to its pleasure, and Rouletabille and I cheerfully joined in the applause.

  “What do you think, Sainclair?” my companion asked me.

  “Another triumph, of course,” I replied.

  “But not quite your taste, I take it?”

  “I’m not as young as you, my friend,” I replied honestly. “And consequently, I am a little stuck in my ways. Tschaikovsky is about as advanced as I can thoroughly enjoy these days.” We had seen a performance of Swan Lake by the Kirov whilst on a recent adventure in Russia, and that still lingered favorably in my memory.

  Rouletabille laughed. “And this upstart Stravinsky simply will not do, eh? Well, shall we go and hear what the upstart has to say about his success?” He led me through the maze of corridors out of the public areas of the theater and into the performers’ and managers’ sections. To my surprise, we were not challenged by any of the attendants whose task it was to prevent the over-zealous from mobbing Nijinsky or any of the other performers. As had happened before, it seemed that the staff here knew my companion by sight. Naturally, Rouletabille did not explain, and I knew that questioning him would be fruitless. Doubtless he had performed some service here in the past.

 

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