AUTHOR'S NOTE: At last, more time. I passed my Civil Litigation exam today with good marks, so there'll be more updating now. (If you review, that is…)
For this chapter, I thank Professor Manfred Hochmeister of the Institute of Forensic Pathology of the university of Vienna for the valuable information on how long the marks of hanging will show up after a man's death; he was present as an assistant in the experiment described in that chapter, as it was conducted by Professor Dirnhofer from Berne, back in the 80s (no, scientists did not know of this back in 1870 actually, but never mind, Maurice is a clever man, after all…). He was kind enough to grant me a private little interview after a lecture even though he had enough t do still.
jtbwriter: I'm glad to hear it's believable, I always wonder whether I'll manage to pull stuff off believably.
Beregond's Girl: Ah, good. Then Créon holds no more terror for you, right? The pronunciation problems seemed very plausible to me, because it's that way with me with English often enough. Ah yes, I wanted to make Nordstedt impressive and at the same time likeable. As for the bit about Nordstedt's right hand remaining on the sabre hilt while he accepts the letter with his left: No, it's no error, and he wears the sabre on the left side – otherwise it wouldn't be a threat, since you can't draw a sabre properly with the hand on the side where you wear it. His right hand remains on the left side while he holds out his left, so he is forced to cross his arms, so to say. But thanks for being nitpicky; I should have specified probably. I wasn't very clear.
Pertie: The mind connection still works, though with a greater distance the awareness of each other is weakened. You'll learn more about Nordstedt later on… after all, he's high up on the "cast list", isn't he?
Autumn smell: Hello, thanks for reviewing, and thanks for the sympathy. There'll be more of Hugh Jackman and his ferret friend in this chapter, so have fun…
Bea: Missed an update? Really? Well, you're forgiven this time. (lol) You know, you said something very clever in that review, something I would turn into a spoiler if I said anything more…

-.-.-

IV. That Shape in the Shadows

"If you haven't guessed this is about last week's murders, you're stupid." Delannay always thought that being blunt when opening a discussion with people he did not like could be useful sometimes. It certainly was unexpected.

Madame Giry snorted, and Delannay had to restrain himself not to bellow any kind of insult at her. One day, this woman was going to get into trouble… and sooner than later, if she did that one more time.

The managers just looked at him blankly, though he was certain he could detect nervousness on André's features and in his bearing. And Reyer wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. Precisely as he wanted them, those three.

And now, another surprise attack. "Tell me, do you still believe in the Opera Ghost?"

They all nodded in unison, though the woman more decidedly than the three men. Of course, they would stick with their silly story.

"Allow me to introduce Maurice Bracy." He nodded towards the man standing beside his desk and was a little disappointed when Bracy did not acknowledge at the slightest that he had not given his stupid nobleman's name quite correctly. No matter, though. That Bracy did not look like a nobleman at all with his shoulder-length dark hair and his rough black coat, and he did not behave like one, too, he was quite direct. And that little beast – some kind of weasel, perhaps? – poking its nose out of his coat pocket certainly was unconventional. "He's from the criminal police, and he's the one handling our case."

Murmurs and nods of greetings were exchanged, none of them very enthusiastic. Delannay almost smiled at that.

"So we have a trail to someone already?" Firmin asked, and Delannay suddenly suspected the man was pretending to be more stupid than he really was. He might have nothing to do with those murders of his men… but then again, he might…

"I'm saying nothing as yet," Bracy answered calmly. "Monsieur Delannay wants me to fill you in on some of the finer details, though."

Did they look eager? The conductor rather appeared scared, and Firmin's expression certainly was faked. No normal man's corners of the mouth could go that far down! But André looked genuinely curious, it seemed. Madame Giry's features were unreadable, though. Damn that woman! Back then when they had followed his summons to this office the first time, it had been her as well who had caught his attention by her behaviour – and who had played that trick with that one invisible tenor on him, however she had done it. He would not forget that.

But he would yet have his chance to take his revenge. He only had to wait for the right occasion, and then… one word from him, and she would be dead. It was a very satisfying concept. And while he was at it, he might get rid of Firmin as well. And of Chateaupers, but that was an entirely different matter. And he might substitute Bracy for Chateaupers if the man's work continued to convince him.

The worse for LaCroix, he thought, scrubbing a hand through his close-cropped blond bristles, already thinning at the front of his head. But LaCroix should see that he could not have everything.

When Delannay said nothing, Bracy continued. "As you probably know, five of Monsieur Delannay's guardsmen were found dead in the auditorium, dangling from the chandelier by their necks, to be precise." He spoke quite matter-of-factly, as if explaining the rules of a card game. "It's a peculiar case in many ways, but first things first. Apart from their being hanged, three of those five show wounds in the region of the heart, unusually deep and narrow, as if stabbed forcefully with a weapon in the form of a stick. One of those three additionally has a broken neck and several other fractured bones as well as internal injuries, which leads our physicians to the assumption that he fell from some height, though we cannot determine whether it happened before or after his death. In those three cases, it seems that the wound in the chest was lethal, and we tend to assume that their bodies were hanged after they were dead. The other two, however, show no serious injuries apart from the mark the rope left around their necks. All bodies bear a handful of scratches and similar, which probably come from their being dragged to the place where they were found."

"So you mean to say that they all were not, in fact, killed in the auditorium." Somehow, André seemed relieved. Relieved? Was it a sacrilege to kill someone in the auditorium, or what? Oh, those crazy, crazy opera people!

"We tend to believe that none of them were."

Now this was a point on which Bracy had not elaborated the day before, when he had first presented his results to Delannay. "Wait," he interrupted. "That they were dragged does not necessarily mean they were dead, especially in the case of those two otherwise unharmed men." He wrinkled his nose at André for a moment for being illogical, and in response the little man's bushy grey eyebrows went downwards as he scowled back at him. "Yet you say that they all were? Why? You did not say so yesterday."

Bracy raised a hand in what seemed to be an assuaging way, but which came across as a lazy gesture at the same time, however he managed that. Maybe the arrogance of nobility had not entirely left him. "Certainly you are right, Councillor Delannay." It was the first time he used a title when addressing him, Delannay noticed. Could it be that he did so because he would have to admit a mistake? "The reason is that we did not know one thing yesterday, which we know now. You see, I took the liberty of arranging a little experiment. I had my men bring in the bodies of a handful of men freshly executed and ordered them hanged."

There was a sharp intake of breath from Reyer, and André's eyes widened. Firmin's steel-grey eyebrows wandered downwards as his features formed a scowl at what he had just heard. Madame Giry's expression, serious yet calm, did not change, though. Could that woman never be unsettled? "What did you go and hang dead bodies for?" Delannay asked sharply, sharper than intended because of his slight annoyance at the ballet instructor's lack of reaction.

Bracy could not be unsettled just as well, it seemed. "To prove whether a man who is already dead will show the marks of hanging, and for how long after his death this will still work. Our physicians came up with the theory that it might be possible, and since it is very important for this case, I had them try it out. And we came to the conclusion that those five men murdered last week most probably were all dead before their bodies were hanged – or hung, in that case." For a moment, his lips shifted into an unpleasant little smile, and Delannay had to admit to himself that he was quite impressed by the police officer's unemotional, scientific approach; when merely thinking of how those killings had happened, a slight shudder caught him. "It took the murderer half an hour at the most, because this is the time we measured in our experiment. We must assume that they were all killed in the main staircase, where traces of blood were found, and that they were then dragged along to the auditorium; we can follow the trails of blood as well here.

"Why they were killed," he continued after a brief pause in which he scratched the thing peeking out of his coat pocket between the tiny ears hidden under the fur, "we cannot say with certainty, except that the murderer in question intended to kill only one man, most likely, and that the others, who were on duty nearby, were alerted by either his calls for help or else the sounds of combat, though there does not seem to have been much combat in the case of the men with those narrow stab wounds."

And what a stealthy man this murderer must be, Delannay thought, an unpleasant feeling of chill creeping along his spine. He had killed all those five guardsmen on his own… But there was a loophole in the policeman's logic, Delannay noticed, and a large one. "And how, in your opinion, did those two men otherwise unharmed die, if not by hanging?" One of them had been one of his personal bodyguards, damn it! And bodyguards did not die so easily!

"It is a mystery not entirely solved," Bracy replied calmly, "but it has occurred before. And it identifies the murderer, just like the wounds do."

"So you know who did it, then?" Delannay interjected. He would have the swine shot, and then hanged when he was dead! Or hung, in that case, he thought grimly. Dead meat is hung, after all, as Bracy just reminded us…

"We are pretty sure, yes, and it all fits. We know that the murderer in question is unusually strong, because the traces of blood in the corridors show that he dragged along two bodies at once, one in each hand, and a corpse is not a light thing to carry. And he only put them down for a longer time, it seems from the traces, at their destination, so he could return to get the rest, though we don't know whether he got all three remaining bodies at once or went twice more. And as I said, he only had half an hour for all that. This leads us to the assumption that he is male."

"Obvious," Delannay grumbled. "Why would a woman kill anyone?"

Bracy smiled. "Oh, never underestimate women, Monsieur Delannay. Some will kill you as soon as look at you." He flashed Madame Giry a grin, and the ballet mistress rolled her eyes at him. At least some reaction from her. "We had many cases already in which the murderer was a woman, and not only murders by poison. Women who stabbed their husbands, for example."

"Very well." That was not a pleasant idea. Suddenly Delannay was very glad indeed that he had never married. "Continue."

"Our murderer also knows his way around in here very well," Bracy went on as if he had never been interrupted. "For example, how many know how to get up to the chandelier? A couple of stagehands, no more. Besides, the door to that little room above the chandelier might have been locked, but we can't ascertain that, since the testimonies of the stagehands we asked differ on that matter. Moreover, he is a very agile man. From where precisely the ropes were placed, we tried to reconstruct how he did it, and we came to the conclusion that he had to perform a handful of dangerous climbing tricks, each time while carrying one of the bodies, since the ropes are not long enough to allow them to lie ready above while he affixed the ends. And once again it is the traces of blood that tell us that it truly was done that way, and that the chandelier was not lowered to the auditorium floor, which would have been easier, but apparently more bothersome for our murderer. Besides, he most probably was alone, and it is practically impossible for one single man to work all the mechanics involved to lower the chandelier all at once. So he chose to come from above and climb around it, part of the time probably hanging head down while tying the knots. And, surprisingly, the chandelier suffered no damage at all, so he did not only know how much weight it would support, but also at which points – where it was safe to hold on while he climbed."

"One of your employees," Delannay shot at the stony-faced managers. "I'll have them all shot!"

"Oh, he's not precisely an employee," Bracy put in easily. "But we'll come to that. His choice of weapons is another hint. From comparison with previous cases, all attributed to the same man, we know that those wounds were made by arrows."

"You can't be serious," Delannay broke in. Oh, how he hated it all, this mad murder story and this crazy place! "Nobody uses arrows nowadays."

"Almost nobody," Bracy corrected, as calm as ever. "This one man does, and they do have advantages. A bow is a very quiet weapon, and nonetheless efficient. Besides, with a little skill you can make all you need yourself."

Still a primitive thing, in Delannay's opinion. He would not fear a man who still used bow and arrows, even if he succeeded in killing with them! "So how do you explain the other two victims?" he demanded, growing a little impatient. If Bracy had a name to put to this mysterious killer, why couldn't he just give it?

"As I said, it's a mystery how he does it." Why was Madame Giry looking so peculiar, so disgustingly… knowing? Did she perhaps know anything she shouldn't? Was she involved in this? "People sometimes say it's the fire of his eyes that kills, which is, of course, superstition, but one of our physicians has recently been wondering if a man can die of terror."

"Terror?" It did not sound very likely. "Of the murderer?"

"Yes, indeed. He can be quite terror-inspiring. I know many who are mortally frightened of him."

Delannay suppressed a snort. People and their superstitions! "So who is this scary man who can make men drop dead by just looking at them?" He had a very nasty suspicion what the answer would be…

Bracy's face betrayed nothing, and neither did Madame Giry's. "He is most commonly known as the Opera Ghost, Monsieur Delannay."