Chapter 4

Firmin Richard was considered to be a very accomplished composer; particularly admired for the charming impromptus he was often called upon to produce at salon parties. He was widely known for his great and almost entirely undiscriminating love of music of every sort. He had many musician friends, and his own published compositions had seen much success. Richard's opinions in regard to music, though sometimes quite harsh, were respected in Parisian musical circles. Yet, of late, he had found that even his love of music was hard pressed to be any consolation in the face of every disaster that seemed to occur at the Garnier.

As his eyes fell on the seemingly innocent object, which lay on his mahogany desk, he wondered how much more his nerves could possibly take. Sweat broke out on his forehead as he slowly removed his coat and top-hat, set them on the coat-hanger by the door, and warily approached the desk. He dabbed his forehead with a white handkerchief, staring at the envelope for a moment, before venturing to pick it up. The rich, cream-coloured envelope had clearly come from an expensive stationery set. He scanned it for any clue of the sender, but concluded that it must have been hand-delivered for it bore no trace of a stamp or any writing. He could feel dread rising as he slit it open with his silver letter opener, a Christmas gift from Moncharmin two years prior.

Unfolding the letter and scanning the contents anxiously, the active-manager sagged with relief. It was merely a correspondence from the chief opera patron, the Comte de Chagny. The ancient de Chagny coat of arms sat proudly at the top of the letter. Before he could read the letter properly, however, a ballerina burst into his office, nearly without knocking, and quickly informed him that he was needed in the auditorium. Urgently. She looked wide-eyed and jumpy.

Richard regarded the girl with dislike for a moment, before heaving a tired sigh and motioning for her to lead the way. The feeling of dread had come back as he wondered what catastrophe awaited him this time. It had not taken him long to learn that in the world of opera nearly everything was regarded as a catastrophe, but his particular opera house seemed much more susceptible than most. He wished Moncharmin had not taken the morning off so that he could have been there to share the burden of the latest calamity.

He entered the carefully restored auditorium through one of the doors that led to the stalls and made his way past the many rows of seats, which had recently been re-upholstered to replace those damaged or destroyed in the fire. He could see that a small crowd was gathered on the stage, consisting of stage hands, dancers, singers, chorus members and a few musicians. Holding court in the midst of the congregation was La Carlotta, the prima donna who had been persuaded to come back to the Académie Nationale de Musique for the forthcoming season only when the Comte de Chagny had offered to almost double her fee. The opera house was regarded with some unease by singers, after rumours had spread, and it would otherwise have been impossible to replace the prima donna on such short notice. After all, the Comte had married Carlotta's understudy and he felt a little guilty at leaving them without a leading lady.

On closer inspection, the Spanish diva's complexion was a rather unflattering shade of grey. Her imperious demeanour was replaced by a somewhat nauseous expression as she stared at a familiar-looking card in her hand. Wondering if it was too late to turn around, leave at speed and hail a hansom to take him home, Richard cautiously ascended the stage from the left, and a glance downstage revealed what appeared to be a burst sand bag. No one had attended to sweeping away the sand.

A loud and rather aggrieved conversation coming from the orchestra pit caught his attention. He looked over the edge of the stage to see his secretary, Remy, talking animatedly with Monsieur Reyer, the aging conductor. Richard had always liked Reyer, who had struck him as a very sensible gentleman and an excellent conductor. He couldn't help but notice that Reyer was looking tired and frail as he argued with Remy, who appeared to be attempting to pacify him. Seeing the expression on Remy's face, Richard had a very good idea as to the identity of culprit in the latest 'accident'.

"…you swore it was over!" the conductor could be heard saying, "Now we are all of us subject to his whim again! I am too old for this! Don't pretend, monsieur, that you don't know who's responsible! We are all cursed. Again!"

A few musicians remaining in the pit nodded their agreement, and Richard turned his attention to the prima donna.

"What has happened here, signora?" Richard asked, "You look very pale."

Carlotta's dark eyes fixed on him angrily, and her voice held a note of quiet fury, which made her accent more pronounced. "You wish to know what happened here? Well, I shall tell you! He was here! Again! That Ghost of yours has returned and he is up to his old tricks! He dropped the sandbag and he left this." She shoved the card at him, railing at him in Spanish.

Richard took the card out of her hand, recognising the childish red handwriting and the stationery. He read it, his frown deepening,

Dear Signora,

I find that I must welcome you back to my opera house. I trust that I find you in good health? I must say that it was most unexpected to learn that you are to return to this stage, but I daresay that particular deficiency in taste belongs to the messieurs managers much more than it does you.

I thought that I should also offer some warnings, in the spirit of good will. You shall take care not to overstep your bounds, signora, lest tragedy should follow. You should know that I have recently grown rather short of temper, and it would be a pity for you to find yourself singing your swan song quite so soon. You might have gathered that I have a pronounced dislike for scandal.

Perhaps you should also be aware that I never miss unintentionally.

Kind Regards,

O.G.

"La Carlotta had just finished a run through Caro nome, when the sandbag fell. It barely missed her!" cried Mlle Julienne Erwin, the mezzo-soprano singing Maddalena.

"Then it is true?" asked a ballerina whose name quite escaped Richard, but whom he had seen in the company of little Jammes. "The Ghost has returned?"

Neither Richard nor Remy, who had arrived onto the stage with Reyer in tow, replied. The manager tried to ignore his audience, who watched him with baited breath.

"I told you!" the ballerina exclaimed to the other dancers milling on stage, "I told you he has come back!"

"Signora, monsieur," began Remy, looking at the soprano and the conductor. "Please, keep in mind that no real harm has been done! You have contracts to which you must hold."

"Contracts! Are our lives worth only a scrap of paper?" demanded Carlotta. "Very well! I shall not leave the production. Not yet. But keep in mind, Monsieur Richard, that I shall not be intimidated and threatened again. Keep your Ghost under control, or you shall hear from my solicitors! And now, I am going home. I have had enough of your accidents and your sandbags for one day." With that, the diva swept majestically off stage. Silence hung in her wake.

"What is to be done now?" Reyer finally asked, with a sigh of resignation. "I cannot work like this."

Richard exchanged unhappy glances with his secretary. "Now, we must devise a course of action."

OOO

But there was little to be done against a threat they could not even see, as the managers knew quite well. The Ghost seemed always at least a step ahead of them, and as word of his return spread around the opera, no one wanted to earn his wrath. The staff were more convinced than ever of his unholy power, and Moncharmin found himself writing a very grudging cheque to the Opera Ghost, while Richard watched him glumly. They could think of no new way to stop or catch the Phantom, for they had tired it all before to no avail.

The days wore on, and as the rehearsals continued, so did the notes. To his credit, the Ghost left La Carlotta alone for the most part, though occasionally she found snide little notes waiting in her dressing room. The Ghost seemed to hold her vibrato in particular dislike and never hesitated to express his feelings on the matter in writing. Richard wondered if the Ghost realised that they had no time to replace the soprano. Her new understudy, hired at the last minute and the niece of someone or other at the opera, was green and entirely inadequate.

Instead, the Phantom seemed to find great enjoyment in tormenting the prima ballerina. He took shameless advantage of her reserved, melancholy mien. She was frequently subject to pranks. The rest of the corps the ballet also provided a fair bit of sport – they could always be relied upon to react theatrically.

As the Opera Ghost indulged in his little cruelties, Hero Winterwood grew steadily more irritated. Her sleep was often disturbed by some commotion and she found herself spending unprecedented amounts of time consoling distressed ballerinas, listening to their tales of woe at the latest prank. She wondered if one person could possibly be responsible for every little thing that got put down to his name.

Few of the notes she had seen had been direct threats. Some had been snide or critical, and she was surprised to learn that some had held praise. A few of the notes had simply been cryptic. These turned out to be the worst as the inability to make sense of them caused even more furore, because the recipient was instantly convinced that the note had to be a most dreadful threat.

Everyone at the opera was working harder than ever, in an effort to have the place ready to open at the start of the winter season in a month's time. The rehearsals for Rigoletto were well underway. Hero learned that the singers were expected to know their parts before commencement of rehearsals, so that rehearsals themselves consisted of ensemble run-throughs and tailoring the roles to the wishes of the conductor, musical director and acting-manager.

Curious at Meg's markedly unfazed reaction to the return of the Ghost, Hero made a particular effort to be friendly to the ballet rat. She was disappointed to find that, despite being amiable and perfectly forthcoming on other issues pertaining to the opera, Meg betrayed nothing which might have explained her curious unconcern. Hero did learn from Suzanne, however, that Mme Giry had been the caretaker of the Ghost's opera box before his disappearance, and was expected to resume her duties once again.

OOO

"I heard from one of the scene shifters that he heard Sorelli tell her maid that she was thinking of leaving the Garnier," said Germaine, taking a sip of her spicy tea.

It had been an unexpectedly sunny day, and no snow had fallen since the previous night, so some of the rats had decided to bundle up and brave the outside world. They had decided to venture out to the fashionable café across the Place de l'Opera. It was near enough to the theatre that they would have no trouble getting back for their evening rehearsal.

Even away from the opera, the ballet rats indulged in speculation about the Phantom. Hero turned her head slightly where she sat, to catch a glimpse of the opera house.

"Leave? But why would she leave? She has such a fine position. Mind you, I don't suppose Sorelli would have any trouble securing the position of prima ballerina elsewhere," said Suzanne.

"She says she cannot stay because of the Ghost."

"Yes," confirmed Germaine, "she says that she is sure to go insane if the letters and the pranks should go on much longer. I don't suppose she's at all recovered from the strain of the comte's death."

Vivienne nodded. "The Ghost even went so far as to send her two dead roses. An even number for death, you know. She found them this morning in her dressing room. She took it as mockery of her grief. Her maid said that she even threw the vase at the wall. And no wonder."

Hero shook her head regretfully. "I know she was supposed to have been quite difficult at times, but you all seem to agree that she has been very reserved since her return. And I don't imagine she could have done much to offend the Ghost in the past few weeks. Why go on tormenting her? It's in very bad form."

"It might be because he didn't like the comte or his brother. Perhaps he resents the fact that she mourns him so. Or perhaps he has just singled her out as the subject of his malevolence," ventured Jammes.

"Do you suppose she would really leave?" asked Hero, who found Sorelli to be pleasant conversation when the prima ballerina had been inclined to talk. The woman possessed a rather biting sense of humour.

"I imagine that depends entirely on the Ghost," said Meg. "No one else can do much about it. I don't see how anyone could force him to desist upsetting Sorelli. He can only be seen when he wishes to show himself, after all."

"Well, the managers tried to send a few gendarmes to have a look about the building, and I heard that they saw a spectre appear right next to them, its glowing eyes like coals, only to disappear just as suddenly," said Jammes, crumbling a bit of the lemon biscuit that had come with her hot chocolate.

"Did he?" asked Hero interestedly, "I wonder how he did that."

Suzanne laughed at her. "Really, my dear Hero! He is a ghost. A fiend from Hell, by all accounts. You cannot possibly expect a reasonable explanation."

But a reasonable explanation was just what Hero expected. "I'm not so sure that he is. I've never quite believed in ghosts. And if he isn't a ghost, then there must be some trick to it." Hero shook her head thoughtfully, "besides, you told me yourselves that Christine Daae said that he was a man."

Jammes patted Hero's arm, looking both amused and pitying. "She also said he was an angel. And the ghost of her dead father. At some point, I recall her insisting he was the master of her mind and heart. I don't expect she knew herself. He might have put some spell over her. Don't forget that he was vanquished by Christine's husband, and now he has returned from the dead."

"If he had ever been dead at all. Or vanquished for that matter," Hero pointed out dryly, curiously noting the sharp look Meg shot her at her words.

"It's no good arguing about it," said Germaine reasonably. "What does it matter what he is, if there is no way to stop him? Come, let's not discuss this any longer. It chills me to think of it, even out of the Opera. What do you think of our new dance for the duke's feast in Act I? It was very difficult to learn."

"Well, you all make it look a trifle, which I suppose is testament to your skill," complimented Hero, though her mind was not quite on the conversation that ensued. She could feel the beginnings of an idea starting to come together. It promised to be quite risky, but that had never been much of a deterrent.

OOO

That night, despite her earlier enthusiasm, Hero found the task more daunting than she had expected. Tired from the day's work, she struggled not to fall asleep herself as she waited for the other girls to drift off. Her eider-down duvet and blanket were temptingly warm. As soon as she was sure that they were all asleep, Hero rose from her bed. She dressed quickly and quietly, pulling a dark dress over her chemise and forgoing her dreaded corset. Having neither patience nor time for hair pins, she tied her hair back from her face with a ribbon. She pulled on the flat, well-worn boots she always wore when she expected a long walk or tricky footing. They had the advantage of sturdy grip and the soft soles muffled the sound of her footsteps.

Pulling a small bag out of the valise next to her bed, she put it on over her shoulder and across her chest. Having wrapped herself in her warmest shawl and a cloak, she slipped silently out of the room, careful to step lightly in case the floorboards should creak and wake one of the rats. She hoped she wouldn't run into anyone on her little expedition.

Hero had always been somewhat impulsive, often recklessly heeding her own spur-of-the-moment ideas. On occasion this meant she ended up in the kind of situations she would probably have been better-off avoiding. That night, she had been swayed by a combination of curiosity, boredom, and a genuine desire not to have to spend half of her nights trying to help one of the rats puzzle out a cryptic note. She also wanted to test her theory regarding the mysterious Ghost.

She had made a point of sneaking into Box Five on several occasions, in the hopes of finding some clue as to the identity of the Phantom, but her search hadn't yielded anything useful. Luckily, where she lacked any concrete fact or evidence, opera lore was there to fill in the gaps. She had heard several people discourse at length on the secret tunnels under the opera, and how far they went. She was quite surprised that no one seemed to connect the tunnels with the Ghost, who was in the habit of appearing out of solid walls and disappearing through the floors. A supernatural explanation made for a much better story, she supposed.

Hero was determined to solve the mystery and learn the truth about the so-called Ghost. She was also quite interested in the tunnels. In her experience, it paid to have some knowledge of hidden passages and escape routes.

Still, her task might have been easier if she had any idea where she might find the Ghost or his tunnels. She knew there was a staircase down to the basement under the stage, but that seemed too obvious a place. Meg had said something about a mirror in Christine Daae's old dressing room, but when she'd tried to find a catch or lever to shift it, she's come up empty-handed. On closer inspection, the mirror seemed to be leaning against solid wall, and she wondered if the Ghost had somehow blocked that way.

As she debated her route, Hero lit a stubby candle, and the pale orange light flickered around the empty corridor. It was not much better than the reddish gas lighting to be found in other parts of the Opera, which cast more shadows than light. She decided that the most logical place to look for hidden underground passages was the network of cellars under the theatre, and so she made her careful, quiet way down to the bowels of the opera.

The door to the first cellar was locked with a big, rusted lock. Rusted locks were difficult to open without a key, and Hero examined it for a moment. She carefully set her candle on the concrete floor, and pulled a slim set of lock picks from her little bag.

After a moment of consideration, she selected a long, thin rake pick, which had a jagged tip. Then she pulled out an L-shaped tension wrench, securing it into the lock with her left hand.

Using the pick and wrench in unison with practiced ease, Hero carefully listened to the lock. Thirty minutes later, all she could hear were the unpleasant scratching sounds coming from the lock mechanism. Ten minutes after that, and after the fruitless application of oil from a thin vial, she was ready to accept that the lock was in too poor a state for her to be able to open as is. Frowning, she gave the pick a final jiggle in the lock, wondering if she would be able to locate one of the other entrances to the cellars in the vast gloomy opera house. The oil, however, must have finally worked its way into the rust, because she heard a pleasant clicking sound as the lock released.

With a sigh of relief Hero removed the tools from the lock, wiping the oil on the underside of her black skirt. She put the tools back into her bag and stood up.

Hero took the lock off the door, and set it on an up-turned wooden crate placed against one wall. Bushing the dust and rusty streaks off her hands with a clean handkerchief, she returned to the heavy door. Regarding it for a moment, she listened for any stray sounds. The Rat Catcher was often to be found wandering the opera house at night, and Hero did not wish for an audience. She had never spoken to the Rat Catcher herself and had only glimpsed him once in a shadowed passageway. He was an odd character who kept to himself and had a roomful of cages and strange devices near the cellars.

She could hear no sign of life in the oppressive silence. Turning the handle with bated breath, and listening to the door creak sharp protest, Hero carefully walked through it. Cold, damp air hit her on the other side of the door.

The rest of the cellars were guarded by simpler locks, and she had no trouble picking them. The odd collection of old backdrops and scenery, crates and props looked eerie in the flickering light of the candle. The door to the fifth cellar was not locked at all. Hero supposed that people hardly ever made it that far, since even the fourth cellar had been largely unused.

The further she walked, the more convinced Hero became that the fifth cellar resembled a stone maze much more than it did a storage room. She wondered if it was wise going in without a map of the cellars or a guide, but decided to trust to her innate and surprisingly reliable sense of direction. A few times she was sure she heard a scuffling sound in the dark. Though she was quite certain that it was nothing but a rat or two and the acoustics of bare stone, she still pulled a short, plain dagger out of her bag, holding it in her right hand, and the candle in her left. She was also careful to watch her step in the tricky, uneven passages. The ballet girls had mentioned something about traps, and though she was not sure she believed them, it paid to be careful.

The necessary caution considerably slowed Hero's progress. It was this that saved her from tripping a thin length of tripwire stretched across the floor at ankle height. However, her quick movement out of the way caused her to bump a slight protrusion in the stone wall with her shoulder, which in turn set off something that whooshed overhead. Ducking just in time, she avoided whatever it had been. Her candle had flickered at her movement, and dripped hot wax on her hand, causing Hero to hiss in pain at the burn, and miss taking a look at the projectile. Still, whatever it was, it had sounded unpleasantly sharp.

Rising to her feet, careful to touch nothing, Hero shook her left hand, to relieve the sting. She moved her shoulder experimentally, feeling sure that it would feel stiff in the morning.

At least, Hero decided, there were real traps. She was beginning to feel somewhat like Alan Quartermain and that meant that her little adventure promised to be an interesting one. Maybe even interesting enough to make up for her sleep-deprived bad humour come morning.

The cobwebs, on the other hand, rather lessened her enjoyment. Hero had a robust aversion to spiders, which could sometimes be a problem when she had to sneak around somewhere dark and favoured by arachnids. Steeling herself for the inevitable, Hero still cringed when more sticky web stuck to her face and hair. She was quick to brush it off her face with the back of her hand, hoping there wouldn't be any spiders still attached. The spider webs were a good sign really, telling her that no one had been down that passage in quite some time.

As she moved through the darkness, every move Hero made was slow and deliberate, careful to avoid setting off any more traps, and prepared to avoid any which she did. Whoever had set the traps was abnormally fond of tripwire. She was just beginning to think herself well on her way when she heard a soft, brushing sound behind her. She froze in place and listened, but silence hung in the empty tunnels like a thick curtain and she heard nothing more. Still, she felt the unpleasant prickling of being watched from somewhere in the darkness behind her and the silence failed to convince her.

Muscles tense, and her grip secure on her dagger, Hero turned around, slowly and carefully, her candle flickering.

OOO

The Opera Ghost had been making a very futile attempt to rest. For many years now, rest did not come easily to him – his mind would race on and on and he would be unable to find any peace from himself. He had been about to get up and return to his piano when he heard it. An alarm. One of many he had scattered around the perimeter of his abode, which could only mean that an intruder had somehow got through all of his traps and was coming devilishly close to his inner sanctum.

Swiftly, Erik leapt out of the coffin in which he slept out of sheer morbidity, and strode across the house on the lake, picking up a cloak and his lasso as he went. His first thought had been Ayesha, but the cat did not wander his maze. Neither could it have been the Persian, who always used the Rue Scribe entrance and tutted at Erik's traps.

The lasso was gripped tightly in one of his deceptively thin hands, as he strode swiftly through his domain, expertly avoiding his own traps, selecting short-cuts which were second nature to him in his maze. His black cloak billowed behind him as he walked and his feet made no sound on the stone floor.

For the briefest of moments, he allowed himself to contemplate the possibility, however fanciful, that is might be she, come back to him after all. He cut that line of thought to the quick, however. No, such a possibility could never be, except in his own imagination, and he could not now afford to dwell on it. No. It was probably a vagabond, one of the many paupers starving on the streets of Paris, who had sought shelter and had wandered too far into the catacombs.

Wandered to their doom, as it happened, for the Opera Ghost would stand no more trespassers on his privacy. His eyes glowed faintly yellow in the dark as he walked.