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.”