A/N: Prompted by the odd number of hits and alerts (which, YAY!) this story has been getting lately… I can make this five or six chapters, I suppose. Review if you have suggestions?

Irene stood on the wings of the stage, before requesting a solid walking stick. One was hastily procured, and Irene thumped the innocent walking stick on the wooden stage, listening carefully to the sound it produced. She placed a small marker on corners of what I presumed to be trapdoors.

"Madame Norton, if you wished to see a schematic of the stage, you only had to ask," Mssr. Fermin pointed out.

"I have a theory," Irene said absently. "This building was built during the Commune, was it not?" She turned to one of the firemen curiously.

"Yes, madam," he said. "It took years, on account of the siege."

"And the construction was a disjointed affair, then?" Irene asked, looking up quickly, as if searching for something. Perhaps this mischief maker.

"Yes," he said.

"So it would be quite easy for a skilled builder to have made himself a haven," Irene asked. I looked up from my note taking at that, beginning to see what Irene was thinking.

"And never left?" I asked. "But why?"

"He'd have spent over a decade with this place, through many troubles," Irene mused. "I'd imagine he would have grown quite attached to it." She turned all of her not inconsiderable charm on the poor fireman. "Have you noticed any repairs your coworkers claimed not to do?"

"A few," the man said. "The riggings are never shoddy, even when due for some work. And there was an incident with a trapdoor- the hinges were a mess, figured some idiot stagehand had botched it. One of the men was tasked to fix it, but his wife had just had their first son, so his mind was on other things."

"Quite understandable," I said.

"Yeah, he forgot to do it, and he asked me to do it real early. Only it was already done. Good thing, too. It was one of the spots the dancers land on." He added.

"Which one?" Irene asked. He pointed at one near the center. "I see." She frowned. "Mssrs, I fear you have been paying a bill for a very expensive carpenter."

"He does music, as well," the fireman pointed out. "All the rats talk about it."

"The rats?" I asked in surprise.

"It's what we call the dancers," he explained. "Because they squeak and run whenever one of us comes near."

"Ah," I said from my position near the wings.

Irene looked up at the boards on ropes, which I learned were flies. "Could someone pass through undetected?" she asked.

"If he was quick," a stagehand volunteered. "Or if he hid that death's head of his."

"A man with a cloth cap, then, and a mask," Irene mused. "With athletism… perhaps he was disfigured during the Commune? It would be a good reason to hide from the rest of the world… you have been open fifteen years? Plus eleven more… this man must be at least in his late fifties, most likely in his sixties… Quite remarkable. I assume the money is for some form of security. I presume the tricks have had their recent upsurge due to the change in ownership, then, to insure he gets his money. I doubt he would be pushing for Miss Daae to have such roles otherwise."

"Why is that?" Andre, the other manager, asked.

I knew that one. "She is very inexperienced on stage, projecting, especially the heavier roles."

"It could damage her voice," Irene added sternly. "Ensure she takes care of it. The woman has a gift."

During the carriage ride back to our villa, Irene lit one a lucifer and cigarette, content to watch the vile thing smoke away into cinders. "There are other things I declined to mention," she admitted with a sigh.

"Such as?" I asked. Irene flicked the smoking, loathsome device in her hand.

"This man is a genius," Irene started. "He knows the Opera by heart, is quite possibly obsessed with Miss Daae, and I doubt he truly was disfigured in the Commune."

I pushed the rather worrying conclusions out of mind for now. "Perhaps he was burned by shrapnel in the Commune?"

"No, the man I interviewed described his face clearly- to be frank, my first thought was leprosy, but I suppose that he could not manage his tricks half as well to be that severely ill. I suppose some sort of birth defect?"

I nodded. "I heard horrifying stories in my childhood of babies born who looked not human."

Godfrey, who was working on a paper, looked at me with a slightly amused expression. "So your taste for the macabre goes back to when you were young?"

I remembered the Ripper story and shuddered. "I prefer it without actually witnessing it, still." At least he could jest about our captivity, I suppose, even if Irene looked regretful.