Chapter 20: The Chase
"It was Erik! He murdered Captain Lefevre!" Alice cried, unaware of how loudly she shouted.
"Come Mademoiselle, we must get away!" The Persian guided her away from their gruesome discovery. "Surely someone has heard us. We might be discovered any moment…and I don't mean by the Sûreté! I warned you about Erik's habits!"
She took one last look at what was left of Lefevre. Would his own wife even recognize him?
Above them, the orchestra continued without interruption.
Suddenly, they heard a voice from the other end of the cellar: "This way, Officer! I heard a strange noise behind that stage set."
"Quickly!" the Persian commanded. They ran to a staircase leading down to the second cellar.
"Monsieur, I must speak with my father!"
"And what will he think when he finds that you and I have been exploring the cellars ourselves? We'll be suspects!"
"Then let's go back to the dressing room! I don't want to descend any further!"
"We have no choice! The Sûreté already has us cornered! Down the stairs, before they see us!"
They could hear more voices in the cellar now, all shouting at once as the stage set was removed and the police discovered their fallen comrade. Making her choice, Alice ducked her head and took the stairs, charging into the cellar below. Somehow the Persian passed her on the staircase; she could make out his form, waiting for her at the bottom.
As she approached, however, she realized it was not the Persian. The man at the landing was taller, and wore a top hat, not an astrakhan hat.
His eyes glowed a smoldering golden color in the dark.
"Alice," Erik whispered, "I didn't mean for you to…find the captain. I'm sorry, my dear—he got too close to Erik's house, and he really shouldn't have been trespassing!"
"Erik!" cried the Persian's voice from above her on the staircase. "Don't touch her!"
The cacophony of footsteps on the stairs now drowned out the sounds of the début. Officers were shouting, and Alice recognized her father's voice above them all. Someone directed a gas lantern down the steps.
Alice screamed to attract an officer's attention. In a flash, the Phantom covered her mouth to stifle her screams, and lifted her in his arms with his powerful strength. He sprinted for the other side of the cellar, even as the police came pouring down the stairs like a cascade. The wall opened before him, and he leapt inside with Alice still in his arms. The boards returned to their place, sending the pair into total darkness.
Baffled, the officers in the cellar slowed their pace, shining their lanterns into the shadowed corners of the cellar.
"Did you see him? Did you see his face?" Mifroid shouted.
"He wore a mask, M. Commissioner," an officer answered.
"Where the Devil did he go?"
"Through the wall!" responded another.
"How did he go through the wall? Where's the door?"
"As we explained to you before, Monsieur," Richard replied as he came down with another lantern, "he is the Opera Ghost, and he goes through the walls and floors of this building as though they obey his every command!"
"Well, tonight they will obey my command, Monsieur! I have a key that might take me straight to his hiding place! Come upstairs!"
"Charging the gates at this time would be most unwise," said a strange, foreign voice from the shadows.
"Who said that?"
An officer directed his lantern to a corner by the staircase, revealing a man dressed in evening wear and sporting a very odd hat.
"The Persian!" Mifroid cried. "What are you doing here? You're wherever that confounded Ghost is too, aren't you?"
"I'm here to help you, Monsieur. Far beneath our feet, the Opera Ghost has a Communard arsenal powerful enough to destroy half of Paris. If you provoke him with an attack, he might use it, with no regard for his own life."
"Mon Dieu!"
"But that is not the worst of it. Monsieur Commissioner, the Ghost has just abducted your daughter."
"Alice? Here, in the Opera? ….What do you suggest?"
The Persian smiled. "A trap."
Alice felt herself falling. For what seemed like several minutes, the air rushed past her as she and the Phantom dropped from another trapdoor in the floor just behind the cellar wall. He still held her tightly in her arms; she couldn't get free. Even if she could escape, she saw nothing but darkness. She was too frightened to scream.
Erik landed on his feet with the agility of a cat. At last he released her, and she mustered enough courage to slap him in the face.
"You monster!" she growled, her voice echoing in empty space. "How could you murder a captain of the Sûreté!"
"Captain Lefevre trespassed too close to Erik's home! Those who go where they are not wanted get what they deserve!"
He took hold of her wrist, and she drew back. "Let go of me!"
"Oh, would you rather stay here, alone in the dark? Alright then, adieu." He released her arm, and she heard his footsteps as he walked away.
The darkness was stifling; the passage smelling of damp earth. She put her hands out in front of her… and was reminded of her encounter in the catacombs. "Wait! I can't see! I'll be trapped down here!"
His answer came from close in front of her: "Then keep quiet and follow me."
As she hurried towards the sound of his voice, she heard a familiar scraping noise as a wall moved aside. She allowed him to take her hand and guide her down a hidden stairwell. All around them, she could hear the sounds of the début performance in the theater.
Her hand was soft in his, and he tried his best to hold her gently. His golden eyes were so accustomed to the dark, that he could see the frightened tears tracing paths down her pale cheek. This was not the rendezvous that he had planned.
"It doesn't sound like they followed us," he said at last. "We can walk a little more slowly, if you feel tired."
"They aren't following you through the cellar wall because they have the key for the Rue Scribe gate. They're going straight for your house!"
"What?" he cried, releasing her arm. He turned to stare at her in the dark. "I should have known that you were conspiring with the Commissioner all along! How stupid of me not to realize that you were only seducing me like a harlot, for the police!"
"I didn't give them the key! But if I had, it would have been no less than you deserve!"
"Yes, you think me a monster—you and all the rest!"
She threw up her hands. "What am I supposed to think? You murdered in cold blood!"
"You didn't mind so much when it was a nameless tramp in the entrance of the catacombs! Why should it matter that it was Captain Lefevre?"
"How could you have no regard for the Sûreté? What if it had been my father, the commissioner of the Sûreté?"
Erik blinked. "Do you really think I would murder your father? Do you even realize how often that opportunity has presented itself, and how often I've refrained?" He turned on his heels and continued down the dark corridor, faster than before.
She ran to catch up, and to avoid being swallowed up by the darkness. "Should I be thankful that you've spared my family? Shall I get on my knees and bless you for your mercy?"
"Rather I should thank you for putting on such airs of affection! You really had me convinced that I was finally loved. For a few days, Erik was actually happy to be alive!... But you never returned," he sighed. "My headstrong mademoiselle, in the end you never returned to see me."
He had again come to a halt. The grind of a key entering a lock echoed in the darkness, and then the lock was turned with a hollow clack. A door opened, and warm, inviting light spilled out into the dark hallway. Alice followed into his living room.
When they were inside, he faced the wall and operated a mechanism that slid the grandfather clock in front of the door they had just used. Then he crossed the room and hung his top hat on the hook by the door to the lake. With slow breaths, he sank into the sofa and crossed his long legs.
Alice remained where she was, standing beside the clock. Above them, a flute began the opening movements of the Procession of the Sardar, the whimsical piece that the Opera Ghost had performed at the séance.
"It's impossible for you to understand," he said softly. He stretched his hands in front of him, cupped as though catching drops of rain. "These hands were made for Music and Art, not for killing. But my face rivals that of the Devil himself!" His hands fell to his lap. "Do you know what the Sûreté will do when they capture me? They'll strip off my mask, put me in a cage for the entire city to gawk at. My execution will be a public fanfare—they'll leave me hanging in the gallows so that passersby can examine the face of the freak of nature…. or perhaps my fate is with the guillotine, and then my head will be mounted on a pike on the side of the Boulevard des Capucines, to give the travelers a thrill!"
Alice grimaced at this morbid prediction and put her hand on the clock's wooden casing for support. Would this really be Erik's fate?.. or was it a lie, to regain her sympathy?
He continued, as though guessing her thoughts, "You are perhaps too innocent to understand how cruel the world really is, but Erik knows all too well ….I was in a cage once, and treated like an animal—worse than a slave! My humility was their entertainment. Why do you suppose I wish so much for death? Except for beauty, there's no enjoyment for me in this life.
"Yet still I fear death. It will be my final exhibition—made more pathetic by the absence of anyone to cry over the fate of poor Erik… My passing will be a relief to all. Hasn't Mademoiselle Daaé confirmed that? Lonely even in death—that is my greatest fear."
Overcome with confusion as her pity for Erik warred with her anger over what he had done, Alice slid to the floor as a silent tear slid down her cheek.
Erik hadn't noticed. His eyes remained fixed on his hands, as they had been since he'd begun his soliloquy. "Until you entered my life, Alice, I didn't know what I was. I really am sorry for all I've done. When we ate in my garden, and you said to me words that I never dreamed I'd ever hear, I realized then that killing Captain Lefevre—or anyone else, for that matter—had been a mistake. It's too late for me to change…. but better to go to the gallows in shame than to go with a mistaken conviction of righteousness!"
A mechanical bell interrupted his musings and drowned out the sounds of the orchestra. Alice jumped to her feet. Erik lifted his eyes to the face of the grandfather clock and calmly tracked the motion of its hands.
"That was the doorbell," he explained. "They are coming through the gate. It won't be long, now."