September 18th 1892: Christine
The moment Erik spotted the first policemen, the atmosphere changed completely. The mutual feelings of sadness and uncertainty gave way to a wave of feverish activity on his side.
"I have to go," he said, pulling his hand out of mine. "If they'll find me here, it'll cause a lot of trouble… not only for me."
"But you didn't do anything bad," I protested. I didn't want him to leave me alone. "On the contrary: You saved us."
"Do you really think they care about what I've done or haven't done this time?" he asked, and I was shocked about the bitterness in his voice. "To them, I'm just a criminal, a dangerous madman, no matter how many years have passed since I committed the last crime."
"Perhaps they won't remember you," I argued, trying my best to sound hopeful, even though I already knew what his reply would be.
"The younger policemen probably won't," he admitted. "But the older ones will, and they'll show no mercy. I'm sure that there are a few among them who still hold an old grudge against me because I went into hiding after the incident at the opera and they never managed to send me to prison. This time, I would end up there, and it would be the death of me."
Swallowing hard, I made no attempt to seize his hand again. I didn't want to hold him back if that was the price he'd pay for it. I couldn't be that selfish.
Erik leaned over Marielle's father and removed the Punjab Lasso.
"The strangulation marks are hardly visible," he remarked matter-of-factly, suddenly sounding much more like the man who did dissections with absolute indifference than the one who had held my hand minutes before. "If the police asks why he's lying on the ground, you can say that he attacked you, and you pushed him, making him fall backwards. No one will be able to tell the difference on the first glance. Look… he's already stirring again."
The man was indeed stirring, moving his head and limbs slowly, like a person dreaming. Yet unlike Erik, I didn't regard that development as something positive.
"But what will happen if he wakes up before the police will be here?" I asked in a small voice. "I don't want to be alone with him."
Erik let his gaze wander over the lawn for a moment. Nearly all the policemen had disappeared. I couldn't see it, but I assumed that they had gone to the house first to look what they could do there. Perhaps they hadn't even spotted us behind the trees yet, but it was only a matter of time till they'd search the garden, especially once Raoul would have told them that his wife and several other people were there. I could only hope he wouldn't mention Erik.
"I'll fetch Marielle and Pierre," he offered. "They can come over and wait for the police with you here. Then you won't be alone. But first…"
He leaned over and kissed me on the lips. It was a long, passionate kiss that made my body hum with pleasure. It was a kiss that could have led to much more if circumstances had been different. And oh… how I wished that circumstances had been different! I wished I could just lie in bed with Erik. I wished the fire and everything else were nothing but an unpleasant dream, to be forgotten five minutes after getting up.
Our lips parted, and I blinked several times, as if I were indeed waking up from a dream.
"I have to go now," Erik said quietly. "But I'll come and see you later. You can also tell it to Philippe if he asks about me."
"You won't even know where to find us," I argued. "I don't even know where we'll be. I mean, we can hardly stay here, can we? It's all… gone. Erik, we don't have a home anymore!" The realisation hit me with the intensity of a bolt of lightning. A wave of panic spread through my body. We didn't have a home. We had nowhere to go.
"I'll go to the opera and talk to Meg," he assured me, stroking my hair. "She'll surely take you in. I'll meet you there later. But you have to promise me that you'll all see a doctor first, espcecially you. You still look so very pale."
"I promise," I breathed, barely holding back tears. Erik kissed my forehead one last time and got to his feet. I looked after him till he had vanished behind the trees.
Just one or two minutes later, I was joined by Marielle, Pierre and the two other men. The latter were looking around anxiously, apparently waiting for the police to come and arrest them any moment, but Marielle seemed to be more interested in me.
"Is everything all right?" she asked gently. "There are tears in your eyes… Here." She took out a less-than-clean handkerchief and gave it to me. If she had dared dab at my eyes herself, she'd have probably done so, but her respect was still bigger than her motherly feelings.
"I'm fine," I assured her, wiping my eyes. "It's just… it has all been too much for me." It wasn't even a lie. Losing Erik, if only for a while, had been but the final straw on a terrible day. It was no wonder that I was close to tears, was it?
Marielle nodded sympathetically.
"M.Erik – that's how he introduced himself to Pierre and me – seemed rather upset as well, if you don't mind me saying so," she remarked cautiously.
"Well, it has been a difficult day for him as well," I muttered, not sure what else to say. Of course I was aware that leaving me behind when I needed him had been one of the reasons for Erik's bad mood, but I wasn't going to tell them about it. It would have been too complicated, and I probably wouldn't have managed to have such a conversation without bursting into tears.
Marielle and Pierre exchanged a glance, and it occurred to me that perhaps they already knew that Erik and I were more than friends. Wel, Pierre certainly knew about it, for he had read Jacqueline's note… or rather, it had been read out to him. So it was possible that he had told Marielle about it. In that case, a conversation about the topic would have been even more difficult. I decided not to say anything.
Marielle's father have a faint moan, and his eyelids fluttered.
"I'm sorry about what Erik did to him, but we couldn't help it," I told her with a lopsided smile. "He just wouldn't be quiet."
"I know the problem," Marielle stated dryly. "Do you think M.Erik could show me the trick how to keep him quiet one of these days? But then, it will no longer be necessary, will it?"
Pierre put an arm around her shoulder and patted her awkwardly.
"You made the right decision," he said seriously. "You saved everyone… especially me. You were very brave."
"Most of the time, I was very scared," she admitted. "But the knowledge that I was doing the right thing helped me. That was what I always thought of. No matter what happened between us in the past, murder can never be the solution." She looked down at her father, shaking her head.
"You have been brave," I assured her.
"I had a lot of help," she muttered.
"But without you, that help wouldn't have been worth anything," I reminded her. "If you wouldn't have kept talking to your father, Erik and Raoul would have arrived here too late to help us."
Marielle's cheeks flushed deeply, and I realised that we had to change the subject, lest we made her even more embarrassed. It was clear that she wasn't used to being praised.
"If the police asks, I'll say that your father attacked me and I pushed him to the ground," I informed her. "And Erik has never been here."
"Why not?" Pierre asked instantly. "He helped everyone so much. Why can't we tell the police about him? And why did he leave at all? Is there something I should know? A secret? Has it something to do with the mask?"
"Have you never heard of the Phantom of the Opera?" I asked him, surprised to hear him ask so many questions about a topic that I thought perfectly clear. Somehow I always assumed everyone knew those stories. But then, Marielle's father had oviously not known who Erik was either.
"Pierre only came to Paris two years ago," Marielle explained. "He doesn't know anything about it. I hardly know anything about it either, even though I've been here much longer. Perhaps you could tell us…"
I gave a sigh.
"We'll talk about it another time," I promised. "At the moment, it's enough to know that the police must never know that he was here." They both nodded.
We waited in silence for a few minutes before three men came out from behind the trees.
"Ah, here you are," one of them said. "Are you the other victims M. le Comte mentioned?"
"Yes, we are," I replied, stepping forwards. "I am the Comtess de Chagny, and that is Marielle. She used to work for me and has come to visit the children and me today. And that man… I don't know his name, I'm afraid… he just came and helped us. It was very brave of him, wasn't it?"
I was talking quickly, hoping the policemen wouldn't have time to ask questions. It seemed to work, for they were nodding. One of them was taking notes.
"The other three are criminals whom we managed to keep here till you arrived," I went on, turning around to the others. To my relief, it was Pierre who was holding the pistol now. It would have been very hard to explain why Marielle had taken a weapon with her to visit her former employer. "But what about my husband and everyone else?" I then changed the subject. "Are they all right?"
"Your husband is fine, Madame," the youngest policeman told me, looking up from his notes. "You'll be able to see him soon, once they've taken away the bodies."