Poe, stern-faced, handed me one. “I can think of no man I would rather trust when cogent thinking runs aground and the only logical recourse is to a lead ball and gunpowder.” This was as much as I could expect as an apology for his recent behavior, and rather more than I was accustomed to. “My home country is big on these things. I hear they often use them in lieu of democratic debate.” He blew down one barrel, then squinted along the length of the other. “I’d have picked up a gun for the South in the war, had I been on the right continent.”
“No you wouldn’t.”
He pouted indignantly. “I went to West Point, I’ll have you know.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Kicked out for insubordination.”
“Now I’m starting to believe you.”
Dressed for the opera in top hats and capes, we joined the milling throng and were carried by the flow of the crowd up the Grand Staircase. It was mildly ironic to think all these theater-goers done up to the nines were coming to see a tale about disease, death, and prostitution, but such is the wonder of art— or of beautiful music, anyway — to make anything palatable.
We met Bermutier in Box “C,” as planned, from which we could watch the seats filling below. If the policeman had nerves half as frayed as I did, he concealed it well. He reported that, according to “Dupin’s” explicit instructions, there were thirty men in plain clothes placed in strategic positions around the building. Poe repeated his insistence that they be in sight or earshot of each other and Bermutier confirmed that they were, several with Garde du Corps du Roi firearms secreted about their persons, and all with batons and whistles. The one thing they lacked, he said, was any rough description of what this malefactor might look like.
“Monsieur Holmes will tell you,” said Poe, to my evident surprise.
“Me?”
“Yes, my friend. I guarantee that within the minute you will be telling Bermutier here exactly what our criminal looks like.” He looked down upon the audience as he spoke. “What manner of man could hide in a room unnoticed? Hide under the dressing room table, perhaps, invisible? Slip under the Stage Door shelf, unseen by an eagle-eyed doorman? And slip away again, below the eye-line of you or me?”
“Someone of exceptionally, I don’t know — small stature…” An idea went off in my mind like a struck match. “Good God! You can’t mean — a dwarf!”
“Yes. A dwarf. When you remove the impossible… What was your phrase, Holmes? I thought it was rather good…” Poe unfolded a large sheet of paper from his inside pocket and thrust it at Bermutier. “Holmes and I are going to take up position outside the dressing rooms. Your men are covering the back-stage areas and front of house. I’ve marked this architectural plan with red crosses where I’ve seen trapdoors or manholes down to the underworld. That’s where he will make his escape.”
“Underworld?” I was shocked.
“There is a subterranean lake under this building. A labyrinth of canals and vaults almost the equal of that which is above ground. His hiding place, if not his habitation.”
“The Phantom was under our feet all the time!” I said.
Bermutier folded the plans and stuffed them in his pocket, tugging the brim of his hat as he headed to the door.
“Take the utmost care, Bermutier,” said Poe. “He does not want Violetta to sing tonight. He intends his desecration of beauty to be complete.”
The dressing rooms were busy as we took up our positions near the Stage Door. Loubatierre, in his wig as Alfredo, emerged to make his way upstairs, taken aback to see C. Auguste Dupin, detective, walking toward him.
“Merde,” said Poe. The traditional “break a leg” of French actors.
“Merde,” repeated the primo tenore grudgingly, and was gone.
Dressers and wardrobe mistresses with peacock feathers and robes flitted to and fro. A man in a waistcoat continually checked his watch. Christophe was ensconced in his position. I casually asked after the small boy. “We never saw him again. His mother sent a letter saying he was too afraid to come back.” Neither of us found that wholly surprising.
“We would do best to split up,” Poe said to me. “You stay here, outside the door. I shall position myself in the dressing room with Madame Chanaud.” He checked the hammer action of his pistol, turning to go, but I caught his arm.
“You do not believe in demonic forces, and neither do I. But these acts are no less than atrocities. Mindless atrocities. Is it conceivable that pure evil can manifest in a human being?”
“Evil is a convenient label invented by the sanctimonious to describe the unfathomable.” He walked to the dressing room door and knocked. “There are only deeds, which we may define as good or bad according to our nursery training and the books we read. The deeds of human beings upon each other and the infinitely complex or infinitesimally simple reasons they commit them.” He knocked a second time and entered.
I felt strangely alone. As if by magic the corridor was deserted. The chaotic movement of figures all round us had abated: they had all flown to their posts. Actors waiting in the wings for the action to begin — as were we all. Nervous — as were we all. Fearful — as were we all.
Now the man checking his pocket watch was me.
Above, muffled by distance and woodwork, I heard the orchestra practicing in short, unpredictable bursts. Discordant notes seeped through the building and into my bones.
Walking to the Stage Door to test the bolt, I passed the dressing room door, but could hear no voices within. Christophe’s chalky pallor matched my own.
I heard a clatter of footsteps from the dark. I caught a rake of a man by the wrist and asked his name. He said, “Rennedon.” He stuttered that he had to give Madame her fifteen-minute call. I told him to do it quickly and go.
When he came a second time he looked frightened of me and retreated a step or two. He held up the five fingers of one hand. I jerked my head with approval. He rapped on the door and delivered his message.
“Five minutes on stage, Madame Chanaud!”
Again, I heard no voices from within.
I wondered whether the two were talking in the dressing room or sitting in silence, Edgar Allan Poe and his new dark maiden, the uncanny mirror of his beloved. He could not save his sick wife, and now another young woman played a dying consumptive. Could she be saved? And if not, if he failed, if his old enemy, Death, took her, as well…
The strings, having tuned up, fell into a chasm of silence.
At that point my concern became acute. Minutes had elapsed since the rake-like man had rattled off. Why did Marie-Claire not emerge? Surely she would be late for her all-important entrance. What was delaying her? It was then that I heard, as if in answer to my unspoken query, the loud bang! of the Stage Door.
I spun round. Saw it swing back into place. The chill draft of night hit me. In the same instant, paralyzed, I saw that the bolt had been lifted.
My hand pulled out my flintlock and held it at arm’s-length. My mind was racing. Had they not been speaking because the fiendish assailant was already in the room? Had I been pacing, stupidly, and checking my watch while — God in Heaven, was I already too late?
“Holmes! Holmes!”
Poe’s cry was one of — what?
I ran to the door, pistol outstretched, and kicked it wide—
The sight that confronted me shocked me to my core. Never, in the many cases I have encountered over the years as a consulting detective in London, in Sussex, or on Dartmoor, was I more stricken by utter horror.
Marie-Claire stood facing me, immobile. I recognized the lilac “courtesan” gown worn by Violetta in Act One, the bell-like shape of the crinoline, the tight-fitting lavender bodice with pagoda sleeves buttoned to the pit of the throat in a white collar, the leghorn hat ribboned in silver-gray tilted off her braided sausage curls. Yet it was not the lack of movement that pinned me to the spot, for she stared at me from a face not merely painted with the stark white of greasepaint, but a face that bubbled and collapsed, the hissing of a deadly steam rising not only from the cheeks and withering locks, but from the breast of the bodice itself, swathing the entire head in a pall of vapor.