Friday: Introductions

The sound of the exploding piano was nothing compared to the aftermath. Brook fainted and the smelling salts had to be brought out. Marguerite threw a fit of hysterics and departed for the Other Theatre. She had decided that the falling spotlight which had punched a hole in my piano was really meant for her, despite the fact she was standing way upstage when the spotlight dropped into the pit. Mr. Squires got an earful when he went to reason with her. The part of Layla then fell to Brook, who was overjoyed once she came around.

Word traveled fast in the circles of the Opera, and it wasn't long before stagehands, ballerinas and chorus members were arriving to gape at the destruction. The body of the piano had absorbed the brunt of the force, though there was a crack on the wooden floor that marked the final resting place of the spotlight. Alex was the hero of the stagehands for pulling off a rescue worthy of the stage. They kept clapping him on the back, saying "Good on yer," and offering to buy him a pint.

Both Alex and I were badly shaken, though Alex revived a bit under the continuous congratulations of his coworkers. I told everyone I was going to lie down for a bit and made an escape to Box Eight. I couldn't keep my hands from shaking, so I kept them tightly clenched on the gilt railing surrounding the box. Somehow, the damage looked less severe from up here.

I heard footsteps in the carpeted hallway, like someone trying very hard to be heard without being too obvious about it.

"Thought I'd find you up here." Alex said from the doorway. He flopped down into one of the ornate chairs.

"You were right. Sort of. Seems kinda obvious now."

"What?"

"The saboteur went Phantom–style. Destroying the instruments. No music, no opera, right? And since most people take their instruments home with them, the piano is a logical target."

"I just happened to glance up and I saw some movement in the flies." Alex said, resting his chin on the railing and staring down at the orchestra pit. "The chains holding the spotlight had given way and it was just hanging there by the last one. There was someone up there. I couldn't see him very well. He might have been trying to repair it or destroy it, I couldn't tell."

"Well, I kinda doubt he was up there for the view."

"When I looked back up he was gone. No surprise."

"I'd almost rather have an Opera Ghost. This place is insane," I sighed.

"I know."

"I mean, this Opera is like a train wreck. The cars have already jumped the tracks, and there's no stopping it until it runs out of momentum." I stopped abruptly, realizing that I was beginning to rant.

"Interesting metaphor," Alex said mildly.

"Yeah, well, it works."

We sat in silence for a few moments, watching the people down below attempting to clear away the wreckage of the piano. It would be just my luck that after all my work I wouldn't get to perform. I bet not many people have learned an entire opera in one week; although that's mainly 'cause most people aren't that stupid.

"At least we can eliminate Virgil from the list of suspects," Alex said. "He was sitting in the stalls, so he couldn't have possibly dropped a spotlight on you."

"I guess he was telling the truth last night. Weird. Think he'll turn out to be a police detective like in Phantom?"

"I doubt it."

"Five bucks?"

"Ahem."

"Oh, all right. Five pounds?"

"Done." He said and we shook hands on it. "C'mon. Let's go have a look at the crime scene."

"Hey, Alex? Thanks."

"Any time, mate."

By this time the curious had cleared out, so we could investigate the area of the flies where the spotlight had dropped from. The spotlights were attached to a framework suspended from the ceiling, which could be raised or lowered for maintenance. A narrow catwalk was suspended just above the framework so stagehands could operate the lights during performances.

"Nice view," I commented. We were perched directly above the orchestra pit, though anyone looking up would see only the metal catwalk and gantries. It was the perfect place to hide.

"Here's where it fell from," Alex called from further along the catwalk.

"Never would have noticed that," There was a gaping hole left between two other stage lights. The spotlight had been secured by four bolts and a chain. Three of the four bolts had been unscrewed and the fourth looked as if it had been sheared off.

"The real question is, how did he do it?" Alex replied, nodding at a wrench on the catwalk a few feet away.

"Okay," I said, trying to organize my thoughts. "So the saboteur decides he's going to drop a spotlight into my piano. So he comes up here with a wrench and starts unscrewing the bolts. Why didn't he screw all of them? That other one looks like the weight of the spotlight sheared it off."

"Something prevented him," Alex answered. "Like the appearance of three members of the Opera. He stayed up here for awhile, waiting for you to leave. See, he even smoked a cigarette." Alex pointed to a cigarette butt wedged in a metal joint.

"So he's sitting up here, waiting for you to leave, and all the while the stress on the bolt is increasing until it finally gives way. But the light is still attached to this chain, right? But the chain wasn't designed to hold any weight at all, so it's starting to give way too. See?" Alex held up the end of a length of chain for inspection. The final link was twisted apart.

"So he's trying frantically to keep the spotlight from falling, and this is when I notice the movement. So either he sees the coast is clear or he loses his grip and, boom! No more piano."

"The saboteur freaks out. What he intended to be a quiet job, just became very loud. So he runs for it, leaving behind his wrench, half a cigarette and these brown threads from his trousers."

"A masterly summation, I must say." A voice called from the end of the catwalk. I jumped and clung onto the grating for dear life.

"Who's that?" Alex called, trying to look around me. I carefully turned around. The end of the catwalk was a platform bolted to the side wall of the house. Standing there were two men, barely visible in the dim light.

"Virgil?" I asked.

"Yes, and no," I recognized his voice now, and was not really in the mood for a verbal fencing match.

"One or the other dude, or else we're getting into metaphysics territory," The other man muttered something that I couldn't make out, but Virgil nodded.

"An excellent point, my friend." He said, then called to us. "Let us talk about this on terra firma, shall we?"

I turned to Alex, who shrugged, then I began to crawl along the catwalk to the platform. The ceiling was so close here that if I stood up I would whack my head on it, something which I had just found out through experience about ten minutes ago. I slid onto the platform and down the ladder to the stage; not an easy trick in a sari and bare feet.

While Alex made his way down, I sized up Virgil and the new arrival. Virgil looked different; his clothes were of a noticeable higher quality and less covered in dirt and paint than his usual outfit, and he stood with a commanding air instead of his usual good-natured calm. The friend was a bit shorter than Virgil, but considerably bulkier, especially across the shoulders. He reminded me of an old high school English teacher who was ex-Air Force.

"Care to explain, Virgil?" Alex said as he jumped down to the stage. "And at the risk of sounding like a bad novel I add, if that is your real name?"

"I suppose introductions are in order," Virgil said. "You are correct. My true name is Sherlock Holmes, this is my associate Dr. John Watson."

"At your service," Watson said, with a brief bow in my direction. Alex choked. My jaw literally dropped. A lie that big had to be the truth. It was like bluffing with a royal flush; why would you need to? It was insane, but no more so than anything else that had happened this week.

"One moment," Alex said and grabbed me by the elbow. We moved off a couple steps. Holmes and Watson waited patiently while we conferred.

"Did you hear what I heard?" Alex hissed at me.

"I heard Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson."

"But that's impossible. Fiction is fiction, isn't it?"

"Except when it's science fiction," I replied. "We've just traveled back a hundred years, I'm willing to go on a little faith here."

We turned back to two of the most famous men in Western literature.

"I'm Solei, this is Alex. Uh, hi."

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.•´¨•»¦«•Kerowyn•»¦«•´¨•.