Angels of Music (28 page)

The Persian let her in. He was Erik’s cat’s paw. Few took his master for more than a myth, but the Persian was familiar around the Opéra and the city, trusted to collate reports from the songbirds, often an intermediary or bill-collector. One theory was that he was a ventriloquist, and the mask behind the dressing room mirror simply an articulated puppet. Kate knew that wasn’t true, but saw how the notion could get about.

Olive-skinned and unostentatious, the Persian was sometimes addressed as
Daroga
. That wasn’t his name but a title – police chief. Erik and he had served the Mazanderan Court many years ago, though they were no longer welcome there. Far-fetched rumours of their doings in Persia had reached the Diogenes Club. Reputedly, Erik fled the Court with a potion of longevity stolen from the Khanum, the Shah’s mother. That would explain how the Director of the Opera Ghost Agency seemed not to get older over the decades. Another fine wheeze for not seeming to age would be to wear a mask and seldom even show that in public.

Clara and Yuki took tea.

‘So, ladies,’ Kate asked, ‘what did we think of the play?’

Clara Watson grimaced. ‘I was bored… except for the eye-gouged dwarf. He was adorable.’

Yuki shook her head, rattling tiny bells set among her flowers. ‘I did not understand much. There was no honour, just wasted effort. And to cut off a head… it is not so easy as they make out. Even with a sharp sword. The head does not come off like a doll’s, at the merest love tap.’

Kate didn’t want to know how Yuki came to have an expert’s knowledge of decapitation. No, she corrected herself mentally, she
did
want to know. She wanted to know
everything
, even if uncomfortable and upsetting. That made her a good reporter and qualified her as an Angel of Music. Still, Yuki’s history – a tale of blood and fire suitable for the
Théâtre des Horreurs
– was not her present concern.

She poured herself a cup of tea, and added milk and sugar – which made her a barbarian to everyone else in the room, except perhaps the dolls.

‘Can’t say I found the performance dull, myself,’ Kate admitted. ‘Though it did get a teensy wee bit monotonous after the fourth or fifth disembowelling. It was, in its own ghastly fashion, entertaining. Guignol, horrid though he is, has that
quality
. Whoever he might be, he’s a star. At least in his own house. Grotesque, but a star. As for everything else… well, no one goes to the
Théâtre des Horreurs
for the stirring drama, the lavish sets, the witty scripts or even the acting – though, under the circumstances that’s more convincing than is comfortable. The place says what it is in the name, and it’s peddling a very old act. Gladiatorial combat to the death and public executions were entertainments once…’

‘Only in Europe have those arts become lost,’ said Clara. ‘In China…’

Kate had heard quite enough from the English woman about the delightful pastimes of China.

The Persian intervened before the Angels fell to squabbling. He had his notebook open and a pencil in his hand.

‘Miss Reed, Mrs Watson… in your expert opinion, did any real crimes take place on the stage tonight?’

‘Only against art,’ said Kate.

The Persian was pensive. Kate reckoned the management of the
Théâtre des Horreurs
actively encouraged rumours connecting the Montmartre disappearances with their show of horrors. Everyone in the performing arts knew the expression ‘dying to please the public’.

‘It is not Max Valentin’s Canary Cage illusion,’ said Clara.

Kate didn’t know what she meant.

‘Maximilian the Great is a stage magician,’ Clara explained. ‘A very inferior one. Most of his act is old tricks, borrowed or stolen and performed indifferently. He had one illusion, though, that puzzled his rivals. Magicians are competitive and take pride in seeing through sleights of hand or mechanical devices. Prizes were offered to anyone who could duplicate Maximilian’s illusion. None could manage it. Max holds up a square-sided cage, in which a dear little canary sings, then folds the cage flat. Off comes the top. Down go the sides. Poof! The canary is gone. And yet the birdie sings again. Each night, from a different place – the back of the stalls, the cleavage of a female assistant, the pocket of a patron on the front row. Each night, a disappearance and an appearance.’

‘I think I can guess the trick,’ said Kate. ‘Canaries are cheap, right?’

‘Yes, that is it. In the end, the escape artist Janus Stark saw through it. The springs that collapse the cage are unusually powerful. Each night, a canary is crushed – killed in an instant. And another canary takes its place, only to have its moment in the cage at the next performance. Once word got out, Maximilian’s bookings dried up. Europeans profess to be foolishly sentimental. For my part, I believe many canaries would choose a moment of public transcendence – singing and dying – over living on unheard. Before this evening, I entertained the notion – indeed, I hoped it was the case – that the
Théâtre des Horreurs
was offering a chance to make such an ascension. That would have been, in an oriental manner, magnificent. Reality, as so often, is a disappointment.’

Kate knew Mrs Clara Watson was no canary. She was too busy being absolutely cuckoo.

The Persian pressed his point. ‘So, no harm is done in the performance?’

‘Everything we saw was faked,’ said Clara. ‘Oh, animals died to supply meat for the trickery… but no human blood was spilled. Human blood has a particular tang, and a look that can’t be mistaken. What we saw was conjuring – dollops of red paint slapped onto the face while the audience is distracted by Guignol’s patter, thin strips of flesh-toned gauze pasted over fake wounds and torn off to let the stage blood show… and a great deal of shouting and straining.’

For a while, Kate had also tried to distance herself from Guignol’s show by looking for the joins, trying to see how the illusions were accomplished. But the performance bombarded the audience with so many horrors it was impossible not to surrender, to cease caring about fakery and reality and just to react to what was there before you. She would remember Guignol, the Life of Bertrand Caillet and the
Légion d’Horreur
.

‘I did wonder about the
concierge
whose head got bashed in at the beginning,’ Kate said. ‘She matches some descriptions on the list of the missing.’

‘She came back as the dog-faced woman in the freak show segment,’ said Clara.

That was one of the giveaways. Guignol’s company was quite small. Parts were doubled, tripled, quadrupled and more. If Don Bartolome and Isabella were really murdered before the audience’s very eyes, how did Phroso and Berma return as so many other doomed characters? A wild-eyed matron billed as Malita played the
concierge
, the dog-faced woman and the mourner attacked by Caillet. Actors were not as interchangeable as canaries.

‘But
someone
is snatching people in the vicinity of Impasse Chaplet,’ said the Persian. ‘Witnesses attest this Guignol is almost always about when the crimes take place.’

‘Guignol is a mask,’ Kate said. ‘Anyone can wear a mask. Especially in Paris. This city has more masks than Venice during carnival.’

‘It’s true,’ said Clara. ‘Guignol masks are everywhere.’

The English woman took a cardboard mask from her reticule and held it up in front of her face.

‘They sell these at the theatre,’ she squawked, trying to imitate Guignol’s voice. ‘For two francs.’

‘It might be that the real Guignol is not only innocent, but the true culprit or culprits are trying to throw suspicion on him,’ said Kate. ‘Any place as successful as the
Théâtre des Horreurs
must have enemies. Attendance at Le Chat Noir and La Gaîté Montparnasse is down. One way to scare off audiences is to put it about that they’re likely to be killed if they go near the Guignol show…’

‘You don’t understand people, Katie?’ said Clara. ‘Since the murders began, ticket sales at the
Théâtre des Horreurs
have soared. I’d argue that the
only
thing that makes paint spilled on that stage interesting is the association with blood spilled on the streets.’

‘You’re getting your personal proclivities mixed up with general principle, Clara. People are not all like you.’

‘Oh yes they are, dear. Most just don’t like to admit it.’

Kate looked at Yuki, who kept quiet for most of their discussions.

‘You know what
she’s
done,’ Clara said. ‘Yuki’s more like me than I am myself. I’ve mostly watched. She’s
acted
… That parasol of hers has put men in their graves.’

The Japanese woman sipped tea, without comment.

‘You’re the freak here, Katie.’

Kate blushed again. She held her cup tight.

‘There now, see,’ said Clara, sweetly. ‘Wouldn’t you like to slap my face silly? Perhaps take that spoon to my eyes? Break that cup and grind that china into my neck?’

The English woman simpered, as if she’d won an argument. Kate knew a lost cause – after all, she was Irish. She recognised a distraction too.

Yuki finished her tea and contemplated a pair of
apache
dolls, which she manipulated while humming. Daintier than the couple Kate had seen perform at the café, but still… in this affair, even children’s playthings had slit-skirts and knives in their garters. Clara would say that was just honesty.

Lord, perhaps Clara was right? She was the freak, and
Guignol
was normal.

Nobody important – or even noticeable – had been killed yet, so there was no general outcry. The victims were drudges, drunks, old whores, foreigners and idiots. Corpses found in the river, the sewers or piles of garbage were rotten, and got at by rats, birds or fish. That parts were missing was expected. That victims were tortured before death was impossible to confirm. The police had other priorities.

‘I don’t understand the lack of press coverage,’ said Kate.

The Persian and Clara shrugged.

‘In London, a story like this would catch fire. It’s not just the murders, but their proximity to the
Théâtre des Horreurs
. That would be a gift to a British editor. Think of it: an opportunity to take a lofty stand against the decline of public morals exemplified by the appalling spectacle of Guignol’s show, while at the same time having an excuse to describe in lurid detail the atrocities on and off stage, with illustrations of Berma in torn clothes being prettily abused. It’d run for weeks,
months
. There’d be protests outside the theatre, questions in the House, bans on advertising, petitions for increased censorship. Of course, in London, the Lord Chamberlain would never allow anything like the
Théâtre des Horreurs
.’

‘Now who’s the cynic, Katie?’

‘Paris can’t be that much more blasé, Clara. Montmartre may be
toujours gai
, but France has no shortage of bluestockings, hypocrites and moralists.’

‘What are you suggesting, Miss Reed?’ asked the Persian.

‘A fix is in. I know how it works in Dublin and London. I doubt Paris is different. Newspaper proprietors are in competition with each other but belong to the same clubs. If they agree a story should be buried, it sort of goes away. No matter what reporters think or feel. Sit in the Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street and any scribbler will give you a long list of startling stories he’s had spiked. The owners horse-trade, of course. You don’t cover my brother’s arrest at a boy-brothel in Bayswater and I’ll drop the investigation of the fraudulent stock company which lists you among the directors. We’ll not mention the peaceful natives your old regiment massacred in the Hindu Kush… providing you spike the exposé of the gambling ring which paid my school’s old boys’ cricket side to drop easy catches three times in a row. A discussion between gentlemen. It’s in the interests of gentlemen, which is to say the powerful, that things stay this way. I’ve read the French papers since I got here, and – though the battles between Dreyfusard and Anti-Dreyfusard factions are more bitter than any London press feud – I sense the same system running smoothly. If the “Guignol Murders” isn’t a story – and that’s the headline it’d get in Britain – then it’s in the interests of well-placed individuals that it not be.’

The Persian looked at her closely. He had been quietly sceptical of her value to the Agency. The more usual Angel of Music, Kate understood, had Yuki’s experience with head-severing or Clara’s taste for blood. The rolls included adventuresses, amazons, girl wonders, savages and divas of diverse deviltry. She must seem an ink-stained step down from such formidable women.

But she had just demonstrated why Erik took her on.

‘Do you have any theories as to who these “well-placed individuals” might be?’

‘Funny you should ask… and funnier no one else has thought to, eh? As I said, I’ve been looking at the Paris press. I can’t believe there’s
really
a serious publication called
The Anti-Jew
, by the way. I’ve read society pages and the sensation papers, the heavy journals and the frothy dailies, the
échos
and the classifieds. The
Théâtre des Horreurs
gets surprisingly good press… it’s an amusement, looked down on but talked about. A sight of Paris, like the Folies Bergère or that hideous ironwork erection on Champ de Mars. It gets poor notices from drama critics, of course – with some enthusiastic, if demented exceptions. I expect the management courts bad reviews. Who’d want to attend an
inoffensive
Theatre of Horrors? The matters that interest us – the murders – are never mentioned on the same pages as Guignol’s gaggery. The connection which is so obvious to us, and to the people who have engaged the Agency, is ignored by the press and, as a consequence of what I referred to as “a fix”, also by the police. Everyone knows of the crimes around the theatre, but it’s down to us to look into them… that in itself tells you how well-placed our phantom – excuse me, our
other
phantom – might be.’

‘Not just a newspaper proprietor, then?’

‘No. We are looking at someone with political connections. Probably, this being as priest-ridden a country as my own, the Catholic Church too. Oh, and “pull” in the army. I imagine you can name someone who fits that bill.’