VI
The old soldier was the opening act.
The orchestra played a march as he saluted the audience with his remaining arm – the left. He sat on a stool and, with practised ease, worked off his left boot with his right foot. With rather more difficulty, he peeled off his sock one-handed and tried to roll up his trouser-leg, which kept snagging on his knee and rolling down again.
Mortain's blonde roared with laughter. De Kern swivelled his head almost entirely around, like a snake or an owl, and stared her into silence. She needed a swift pull from the flask after that. The priest's head turned back and he gave a 'pray continue' gesture with his free hand. The other was tucked under his robe and horribly busy.
Malita came to the Old Soldier's rescue with a jack-knife and slit his britches for him, from the ankle-cuff to well above the knee. The cloth parted and flapped aside. For such an obvious invalid, the soldier had a healthy-looking leg.
'Vive la France,' he said. 'Vive la République.'
The orchestra played 'La Marseillaise', with some deliberate, comic wrong notes.
Dr Orloff gave the Old Soldier a saw and he got to work.
He fought valiantly against the urge to scream and only whimpered as he performed the auto-amputation. He chewed his long moustache. He had once been right-handed, Kate realised. His left-hand strokes were awkward. The saw kept slipping in its red groove. Nevertheless, he hit bone and parted cartilage before passing out.
Mortain's mistress stuck her fist in her mouth. Mortain took her neck like a kitten's and forced her to keep watching.
The Old Soldier fell off the stool. Sundered veins pulsed and spurted. Kate saw a flash of yellowish bone and clumps of gristle.
Morpho stepped in, with an executioner's axe raised.
'No,' insisted Du Roy. 'He must be awake.'
Dr Orloff applied a tourniquet to stem the flow of blood, then used smelling salts to wake the Old Soldier.
'I am sorry,' he said, through tears of pain. 'I have had… a momentary lapse.'
Morpho brought the axe down. The angle was awkward and the cut not clean.
The Old Soldier screamed. And apologised again.
Dr Orloff positioned the sundered knee over the stool, which made a decent chopping block. Morpho finished the job and tore away the leg, which he then tossed at Guignol, who flinched as he was kicked in the face by a disembodied foot.
The doctor tightened the tourniquet.
It was touch and go for a moment, but the bleeding was stopped and Orloff worked fast with hot irons and needle and thread.
The audience, bored by this, gossiped. The musicians played a cake-walk.
Blood pooled on the oilskin, creeping closer to Kate's toes. Her fellow performers were either in shock or insane.
His life saved, the Old Soldier was carried away… perhaps considering a fourth appearance, though for the life of her Kate couldn't imagine how he'd come up with a new turn.
The Red Circle weren't that impressed.
Stage Door Jeannot, sober at last, tried to make a run for freedom. He slipped in the blood. A crack sounded and a rifle bullet smashed his skull. Instantly dead, he somersaulted in the air and landed in a messy heap of tangled limbs.
There was weak applause at his impromptu performance.
Malita bit her cheek in disappointment. Kate supposed she'd expected to have the fellow to herself in a later, scheduled act.
She smelled gunpowder. A cartridge-case pinged on the stage.
Guignol struggled with his collar, trying to pull free. Mortain's doxy was shocked silent. De Kern moaned with pleasure. Assolant furiously muttered, 'Can't abide a coward – should be shot, the lot of 'em!' Du Roy looked bored – he had said murder wasn't enough for him anymore.
Someone had died in front of her. Kate was beyond fury and terror.
was less expert than Guignol as a master of ceremonies. He hemmed and lectured, playing for time while the next act was setting up.
Stage Door Jeannot threw him off his script.
The corpse had to be removed and a pool of blood mopped, then the wet patch scattered with sand.
Orloff fussed as all this happened in front of the audience.
Du Roy glared at him. Kate supposed artistes who fell out of favour with the Red Circle got to make one last spectacular exit.
Malita pulled her out of the line of waiting performers. One of the orphans clung to Kate's skirt. Malita was about to slap the little girl. Kate deflected the blow with her arm and told the child everything would be all right. Her tongue went like leather as she lied. Malita led her to the props table.
The prop-master held up a stiletto and stabbed it into the meat of his hand. The blunt-tipped blade slid into the handle. He gave the trick knife to her. Would it be any use? Malita impatiently showed her how to holster it in the top of her boot.
'In the spirit of Montmartre, we present the famous apache dance,' announced Orloff. 'Performed by our own celebrated Morpho and a special guest… Miss Katharine Reed of Dublin.'
So this was why she was dressed as a French streetwalker.
The orchestra began the 'Valse des Rayons'.
Malita dragged her onto the stage. Morpho was waiting. The one-eyed ox now wore a tight, striped shirt and a red neck-scarf. A cigarette was stuck in the corner of his sneer. Red and yellow war paint striped his cheeks, as if he had Apache and apache mixed up.
She'd seen this act the other night – the mock-fight of rough dance, as the ponce slings his tart around, miming slaps and kicks, with kisses between the blows. For the benefit of the Red Circle, she guessed the fight wouldn't be mock and the slaps and kicks wouldn't be pulled. The idea of being kissed by Morpho wasn't too appealing either.
No wonder they hadn't given her a knife that would stick in anything.
Morpho adopted an odd pose, like a matador – fists at his sides, up on his toes, bottom tucked in, chest puffed out, looking at her sideways with his single eye. There was a touch of vanity in his plumped-up self-regard. Only now, with Guignol tied up, was Morpho a real star.
'Dance, girl,' whispered Malita in her ears. 'If you disappoint, they'll go after your family.'
Malita shoved Kate at Morpho.
She slammed against his chest and he grabbed her hair, which hurt enough to get her attention.
The herky-jerky music continued, with pauses Offenbach hadn't written, as she was rattled around the stage. She struggled, but Morpho was strong and had done this before. He let her go and slapped her face hard, snapping her head around – a few more like that, and her neck would break.
She aimed a kick at his shin. Make use of the damned boots!
Deftly, he got out of her way and she fell over. Sliding on the still-wet oilskin, she got a sandpapery burn on her bare thigh. He jammed a boot in her ribs and she rolled over, trying to ignore the burst of pain.
At this rate, her debut would be over in no time at all.
Morpho took her arms and hauled her up again, lifting her off her feet and over his head, then wheeling her around in the air. She was dizzy. Flashes went off in her eyes.
Up in the flies, she saw Sultan the Gorilla, rifle-barrel moving as he kept his bead drawn on her…
…and, above him, a black shape, descending silently on the ape sniper. A dangling loop of cord hooked around Sultan's throat. The Punjab lasso!
She had only a glimpse, but it was enough. She had not been abandoned. A Phantom watched over her…
…though she couldn't help wishing Erik had got his act together a little earlier.
Now, she had to get through this pas de deux without being killed.
Morpho held her by an arm and an ankle and spun like a top. Her hair came loose and flapped like a flag in the wind. A panorama rushed past, faster and faster.
The Red Circle. The orchestra. The prop table. The stagehands. Guignol, chained. The black chasm of the auditorium. The painted pastoral scene, streaked with blood. The waiting victims.
She tried to look up.
Morpho let go and she slid across the stage, scraping her side raw, ripping her costume. Her shawl came loose and she skidded to a stop.
A breathing moment.
Above on a wildly swinging gangway, unnoticed by everyone else, a slender, cloaked, white-masked figure exchanged savate kicks with Sultan the Gorilla. Erik had entered the field.
Morpho mockingly beckoned to Kate.
At this point in the dance, the apache girl usually crawled on hands and knees back to her pimp to take more medicine. The little fool would try to stick him with her garter-knife but he'd bend her wrist back contemptuously until she dropped it.
Kate pulled the toy stiletto from her boot-top. It had an edge but no point. Could she jam its spring?
No time.
Malita kicked her rump and propelled her towards Morpho.
Mortain laughed and applauded. A particular aficionado of this act, it seemed. His blonde was watching again, almost lulled.
If she tried to stab Morpho in the chest, the blade would do no harm.
Determined not to die on her knees, she stood and countered his come-hither gesture with one of her own, summoning him to a fight.
He brought out his own knife. A blade sprang from its handle. Not a prop.
She flicked a glance upwards. Erik's lasso was tight around the gorilla's neck. She didn't dare look too long, for fear of drawing attention to the show above the stage.
Morpho puffed smoke and danced towards her.
She slashed at his face, catching his cheek with the knife-edge. Used to scythe rather than stab, the blade didn't retract. She barely scratched him, but a runnel of blood dripped from his face. He gulped and swallowed his dog-end. Coughing and choking, he thumped his own chest.
Now, she got a good strong kick to his shins.
More applause.
'I love it when they fight back,' said Mortain, loosening his sash. 'Encore, encore!'
Morpho, unhappy with the way this was going, came at her like a wrestler, arms out. If he caught her now, he'd break her spine over his knee.
Sultan's rifle fell from above and slammed butt-first into Morpho's head. His skull audibly cracked and his one eye went red then dull. He collapsed like a sack of bricks. The gun discharged as it hit the floor. Malita yelped, shot in the ankle. The ditchwater Duchess grabbed her by the hair and hauled her into the wings. Her screams grew higher in pitch.
At this point, the orphans – very sensibly – ran off. Slipping between stagehands' legs, they zigzagged to avoid capture. Henriette and Louise barrelled through the blindfolded orchestra. The musicians made a racket as they missed their places, then stopped playing and tumbled into each other. In the kerfuffle, the children disappeared backstage.
Kate wished them luck and hoped they'd make a better choice for their next circus.
Now, everyone looked up. Kate smelled paraffin.
M. Erik had returned to his shadows.
Sultan was lowered slowly, in lurches, on a rope looped around his ankle. He twisted in the air, human hands stuck out of hampering hairy arms. He shook his head, as if trying to get his mask off. He yowled, throwing his voice – his cries seemed to come from all over the auditorium. Drops of liquid spattered on the oilcloth. The gorilla was soaked in paraffin.
'What is this?' cried Pradier.
'It's Poe,' squawked Guignol. 'The tale of "Hop-Frog"!'
Once, Erik had appeared at a masked ball as Edgar Allan Poe's Red Death. Like Guignol, who'd written Dr Tarr and Professor Fether into his show, the Director of the Opera Ghost Agency was an admirer of the gloomy, sickly American poet. Kate preferred Walt Whitman, herself.
She remembered the story of 'Hop-Frog'. The abused jester tricks the cruel king and his toadying courtiers into disguising themselves as orangutans with flammable pitch and flax, and then touches a torch to them.
A ribbon of flame ran down the rope and caught the fur of the paraffin-sodden gorilla man. With a whump, Sultan was enveloped in fire. Burning fur stank. A screech sounded, and was cut off as the ape-man sucked fire into his lungs. He kicked and struggled, swinging like a pendulum…
…then the rope burned through. Sultan fell, cracking boards. The props-master had the presence of mind to throw a bucket of water on the dead man. The fire hissed out. Smoke and steam rose. Pradier, an idiot, chittered in delight, taking this for part of the show.
Du Roy stood. He appeared calm, yet a vein throbbed in his forehead.
He looked around for the phantom who had wrecked the performance, then turned – suspicion pricked – to the veiled woman at his side. Kate wasn't the only person who'd forgotten not to trust Clara Watson.
Du Roy drew a small pistol from inside his jacket. A ladies' model. He jammed it up under the scarlet widow's chin and ripped off her veil.
The Master of the Red Circle beheld a face he didn't know.
Yuki shrugged out of the hooded cloak. She wore her kimono.
She even carried her parasol.
'Surprise,' gloated Guignol.
The select audience shrank away from Yuki. Gripped by a premonition.
'Find the lady,' said Guignol.
Mortain's doxy pulled off her stiff yellow wig and shook out red hair.
So, Yuki was Clara and Clara was the blonde.
Only Kate was who she said she was – even in this apache outfit.
'Whoever you are,' said Du Roy, 'you'll die now…'
Du Roy stood back and straightened his arm, steadying his gun. The barrel was an inch from Yuki's nose.
Faster than the eye could register, Yuki unsheathed a sword from her parasol and made a forceful, yet elegant, pass.
Du Roy looked at a red line around his wrist. His brows knit as he tried to pull the trigger. Wires were cut and the impulse from his brain couldn't reach his fingers. Puzzled, airily irritated, he didn't yet feel the pain.
His hand slid off his wrist and thumped on the floor, letting go of the gun.
Blood gouted like a fountain, which Yuki side-stepped.
'Musicians,' said Guignol, sharply. 'Selection Thirteen, andante.'
The ensemble took heed, adjusted their blindfolds and assumed their playing positions, instruments ready.
They launched into Guignol's idea of an appropriate tune. 'Three Little Maids from School' by Gilbert and Sullivan, from
The Mikado.
Yuki set about her precise, bloody work – more surgery than butchery.
Among the Red Circle, she lashed out. She held her sword hilt up and struck down, adopting a series of poses, face impassive, ignoring the gouts of gore. She was not hobbled by her dress which, Kate only now realised, was slit to the waist to allow for ease of movement. Her habitual tiny Japanese steps were misdirection.
Screams. Intestines uncoiled. Limbs and heads flew.
The Red Circle got their fill of horrors now.
Three little maids from school are we,
Pert as a schoolgirl well can be,
Filled to the brim with girlish glee,
Three little maids from school!
Père de Kern tried to flee, but his imps gripped his train and he was tugged back onto the killing floor. Yuki laid open his spine. He bucked like a cut-open caterpillar.
Everything is a source of fun…
Mortain lost his innards. Pradier lost his head.
Nobody's safe for we care for none!
Assolant stood up and slid his face onto Yuki's sword-edge. His domino mask fell apart. He detached his skull from the blade, hand pressed over the spurting slice.
Life is a joke that's just begun!
Kate picked up Sultan's rifle. She worked the bolt, ejected the spent cartridge, chambered another. She covered the stagehands.
Morpho and Malita were dead.
Dr Orloff watched, open-mouthed, as his patrons fell.
Three little maids from school! Three little maids from school!
Yuki didn't waste effort. She maimed and killed as she would compose a haiku– in seconds, with strictly limited moves.
The orchestra finished the tune.
Yuki sheathed her blade and opened the parasol. She gave a tiny, formal curtsey.
Only now did Kate remember to be terrified.
But not incapacitated. She took a bucket of water from a stagehand and scrubbed the backs of de Kern's imps, scraping enough paint so the children wouldn't die of clogged pores. Whoever they were, she trusted they'd be grateful.
Assolant and Du Roy were still alive.
'Katie dear,' said Clara, sweetly. 'Would you free our client?'
Catching on at once, Kate helped Guignol get loose. He got the enforced straightness out of his bones and kinked up properly.
'That's the way to do it,' he swazzled.
So, Guignol had been coerced into letting the Red Circle take over his theatre. He had taken steps to break their hold over his company.
'You're finished, Hulot,' spat Du Roy.
Guignol mimed a shrug.
Another mystery solved – the secret identity of Guignol. He was Jacques Hulot, once hailed as the funniest man in France, then believed a suicide. Reborn as the maestro of horrors.
'Comedy didn't pay,' he explained to Kate. 'The mob wanted gore, and gore encore… So I got a new act. I told truths, showed the world the way it was.'
He capered over to Du Roy.
'But the mob are less bloodthirsty than you, you pathetic wretch. My horrors are a mirror – they do not represent the world as I wish it to be. They are a caution, not a blueprint. Only a few mistake it for one. And few of them have the want of feeling that would admit them to your circle. It takes refinement to be so dreadful. Are you satisfied now? Have you finally had your fill of blood, you monster of France?'
Du Roy let go of his seeping wrist and died.
So there were no heirs of Monsieur Hulot. Guignol, the management of the theatre, was Hulot himself, transformed … and the Théâtre des Horreurs was the risen spectre of the Théâtre des Plaisantins.
Amid all the carnage, the clown couldn't help himself. Guignol was still funny.
The tableau at the end of his show, the waxworks of the Légion d'Horreur, was a specific charge, accusing the Brothers of the Red Circle. Another living signpost, marking the way for the Angels of Music. These are the guilty men, these are your guilty men. Come and stop them, for I – Guignol – am in their power and cannot. Kate had looked for hidden meaning, when it was obvious enough to be understood in the rear stalls.
General Assolant still stood, half his face red. His famous battles were fought and finished well before he arrived at the bloody field to supervise the executions. Now, he'd have real scars to go with his medals.
The officer who despised cowards was trembling.
'Don't be alarmed, General,' said Clara. 'You must remain alive, to tell any others… any of the Red Circle not present, any who might share its inclinations. Your run is over. The show is closed by the order of… Messieurs Guignol and Erik. You understand? Your marching orders are given. Now get out of this place before my dainty friend changes her mind and plays parasol games again.'
Assolant didn't need to be told twice. He scarpered, the sword he hadn't thought to draw rattling at his side.
Kate took a moment and put all her weight into slapping Clara.
The English widow licked a bead of blood from her lip and shrugged.
'You couldn't be told, Katie. You're a good journalist, but no actress.'
'Why didn't you stop the show before it began?' she asked, as much of Yuki as Clara. 'Before anyone was hurt.'
'Your friend Sultan had to be removed,' said Clara. 'A tricky situation.'
Kate saw the sense, but still burned. Stage Door Jeannot had paid for Erik's tardiness.
Nini, the Aztec princess, came forward. She'd taken off her headdress.
'My father's letters?'
'Will be returned to you,' said Guignol, kissing her hand.
Satisfied, Nini left the stage.
Guignol looked at the smiling props-master, the nervous stagehands and the now-sighted orchestra.
I know you were suborned to this by Orloff. You are on probation, but you keep your jobs… except you, Rollo. You enjoyed this too much. Go find other employment and take your knives with you.'
Rollo shrugged, gathered up a selection of implements and departed.
'Orloff,' said Guignol, drawing out the name, 'you are a mockery of a man, barely a human creature. We have a vacancy for you. You'll find your gorilla suit in the costumes closet. It'll be sewn on. The mask will be fixed to your face with glue, permanently. And you'll gibber amusingly, play the star role when we stage "Murders in the Rue Morgue" and submit entirely to my will… or else you'll share the fate of your predecessor Sultan. Do you understand me?'
Orloff, white with terror, sank to his knees, surrounded by parts of his patrons. They were now literally a Red Circle.
'Now, I want this stage washed and this mess cleared,' ordered Guignol. 'Tomorrow night, and every night, we have a show to put on. The Théâtre des Horreurs does not go dark!'