It must have been past noon already, but the morning fog was still hanging over the churchyard. It was quite a bit larger than I would have imagined. We wandered past monuments and statues that would have made any aristocrat proud to be deceased. Marble angels gazed down on us. Marble urns spilled endless marble willow branches. A hundred marble mourners wept silent marble tears in the mist. In short, it was both beautiful and ridiculous.
The Daaé tomb towered over everything. I was at a loss to figure out why Christine Daaé was being buried in a little plot near the church when her family had already purchased this monstrosity, complete with marble columns and a complement of marble hangers-on that would have made an emperor happy to be moldering within. How could a penniless violinist afford something like this? If Daddy Daae had this kind of money, why did he blow it all on the Taj Majal of tombs, leaving his beloved daughter to make her living as an opera girl? It boggled the imagination.
The Shade held Madame Giry's key up to the decorative carving around the base of one of Daaé's many stone angels. The design matched the shape of the key perfectly. "Have you tried the lock yet?" I asked.
The Shade shook his head, "Yes, but I couldn't open the doors alone. I think the hinges have rusted into place. Hopefully, the three of us," he glanced down at my dress, "Make that two of us, will be enough to break the door down."
Roule took off his dress sword and handed it to me for safekeeping. He'd dressed to the nines for the funeral, but it wasn't a convenient gear for wrestling with a heavy door. I stepped out of the way while the two men used their combined weight against the copper paneling. There was probably some kind of oak underneath. The Daaé tomb had been built to last for a very long time. The door budged a few inches with a heavy groan. The rusted hinges were breaking. I thought about shouting something largely useless such as, "Be careful!" or "I think the entire thing is going to fall down so maybe you two might want to step back!" but I didn't see much point in it. In general, people are smart enough to figure these things out without the assistance of a bystander who isn't actually doing any of the work.
The door came down with a crash that sent up a billowing cloud of what I could only hope was dust and cobwebs. The hinges had broken off completely. As far as I was aware, there were no zombies, vampires or any hint of a possibility that such things ever did or ever could exist in Leroux's novel. If the Daaé tomb was, contrary to all logic, crawling with any such things, there was nothing to be done about it now. There was no way we could repair the door even if we wanted to.
I gathered up my skirts and joined the men in peering into the Daaé tomb. It was dark and smelled of damp and age. I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and stepped back quickly. There were spiders everywhere- crawling on the walls, skittering across the floor and stretching their webs across every which way. I can handle demented cellar-dwelling sociopaths, but I draw the line at getting spiders in my hair. Unfortunately, if I came out and admitted that I was stone petrified, I might well never hear the end of it. I had insisted on coming here, after all. I decided that this would be a very good time to let the men lead the way without comment.
Roule and the Shade had already stepped inside the tomb. They were looking for some kind of light. Whoever had been there last had left some candles behind in wrought iron holders. In my experience of tombs, people generally don't leave a great deal of furniture and fixtures in them. There really wouldn't be any point to it. However, in books, tombs are always fixed up with torches or candles or even electric lighting. We were in a book, so there you are. The Shade produced a box of matches from one of his pockets.
There were bones everywhere. Skulls were piled up against the opposite wall. Skeletons rested haphazardly in recessed catacombs. It was as if this place was being used as a catch all for any excess dead who happened to be in need of a resting place.
"Roule," I ventured, "Do you remember the chapter where you follow Christine to Perros and Erik is hiding there? Is this the place?"
"I don't remember any of it, actually," admitted Roule, "It's as if it never happened."
"Or it happened, but you weren't there." The Shade suggested. "Raoul goes to Perros. I don't know where Roule goes."
"What exactly are you trying to say?" Roule bristled.
"I'm not even sure myself", the Shade admitted.
I decided it was time to change the subject, "I don't see anything out here that looks like a clue, unless there's something in that big coffin over there."
There was one huge coffin, right in the center of the room. It was covered in dust, but even so I could see that it was made from expensive ebony and decorated in intricate silver filigree. I used Roule's sword to sweep some of the larger spider webs out of my path, but I couldn't quite muster up the guts to step forward. If you've ever been bitten by a spider, then you understand my dilemma.
The Shade walked past me, and held a candle over the plaque on the coffin. "This is Daaé's coffin, the answer must be inside."
Roule ran over to help the Shade lift the lid. I hovered nearby with candles in one hand and Roule's sword in the other. There was a sharp sound as the lid gave way suddenly. I came closer with the light to get a better look. There was a skeleton in rotting clothes, covered in dust. It looked like it had been there for a hundred years, but Daaé had been dead for no more than six years, if I was remembering rightly. The skeleton clutched something in its hands. The Shade reached in and dislodged something smallish and white from the corpse's grasp.
"It's a mask!" Roule cried.
"No," said the Shade, "It's a piece of a mask."
Roule began to say something, but I put my hand up to silence him. I heard something outside. Carefully, I laid down my candle and gathered up my skirts. I still had Roule's sword and I was prepared to use it, if need be. Peeking outside of the door, I realized what the sound was. It was singing. I moved as quietly and cautiously as possible.
The imposter Christine was wandering in the churchyard, singing a tuneless little song to herself. I didn't want to disturb whatever she thought she was doing, on the other hand this wasn't a safe place for a young woman alone even if she was an imposter on the other hand I had just helped break into "her father's" tomb and it wasn't something that I could explain adequately.
I hesitated for a moment too long. The imposter Christine saw me. Her features twisted into a look that I couldn't quite decipher. She pointed a finger at me and yelled, "You! What are you doing here!"
I was about to reply when I heard a noise above me. I looked up and saw a dark figure standing on the roof of the Daae tomb. It leapt down, black cape billowing out behind it and for a moment, I thought we might have actually disturbed a real ghost… but real ghosts don't generally brandish swords.
I prepared to defend myself.