Maskerade

THANK YOU, said Death. The scythe moved.

'Bugger!'

A moment later the swan stepped out of its body and ruffled fresh but slightly transparent wings.

'Now what?' it said.

THAT'S UP TO YOU. IT'S ALWAYS UP TO YOU.

Mr Bucket leaned back in his creaky leather chair with his eyes shut until his director of music had finished.

'So,' Bucket said. 'Let me see if I've got this right. There's this Ghost. Every time anyone loses a hammer in this place, it's been stolen by the Ghost. Every time someone cracks a note, it's because of the Ghost. But also, every time someone finds a lost object, it's because of the Ghost. Every time someone has a very good scene, it must be because of the Ghost. He sort of comes with the building, like the rats. Every so often someone sees him, but not for long because he comes and goes like a... well, a Ghost. Apparently we let him use Box Eight for free on every first‑night performance. And you say people like him?'

' "Like" isn't quite the right word,' said Salzella. 'It would be more correct to say that... well, it's pure superstition, of course, but they think he's lucky. Thought he was, anyway.'

And you wouldn't understand a thing about that, would you, you coarse little cheesemonger, he added to himself. Cheese is cheese. Milk goes rotten naturally. You don't have to make it happen by having several hundred people wound up until their nerves go twang...

'Lucky,' said Bucket flatly.

'Luck is very important,' said Salzella, in a voice in which pained patience floated like ice cubes. 'I imagine that temperament is not an important factor in the cheese business?'

'We rely on rennet,' said Bucket. ,

Salzella sighed. 'Anyway, the company feel that the Ghost is... lucky. He used to send people little notes of encouragement. After a really good performance, sopranos would find a box of chocolates in their dressing-­room, that sort of thing. And dead flowers, for some reason.'

'Dead flowers?'

'Well, not flowers at all, as such. Just a bouquet of dead rose‑stems with no roses on them. It's something of a trademark of his. It's considered lucky.'

'Dead flowers are lucky?'

'Possibly. Live flowers, certainly, are terribly bad luck on stage. Some singers won't even have them in their dressing-­room. So... dead flowers are safe, you might say. Odd, but safe. And it didn't worry people because everyone thought the Ghost was on their side. At least, they did. Until about six months ago.'

Mr Bucket shut his eyes again. 'Tell me,' he said.

'There have been... accidents.'

'What kind of accidents?'

'The kind of accidents that you prefer to call... accidents.'

Mr Bucket's eyes stayed closed. 'Like... the time when Reg Plenty and Fred Chiswell were working late one night up on the curdling vats and it turned out Reg had been seeing Fred's wife and somehow–' Bucket swallowed –'somehow he must have tripped, Fred said, and fallen–'

'I am not familiar with the gentlemen concerned but... that kind of accident. Yes.'

Bucket sighed. 'That was some of the finest Farmhouse Nutty we ever made.'

'Do you want me to tell you about our accidents?'

'I'm sure you're going to.'

'A seamstress stitched herself to the wall. A deputy stage manager was found stabbed with a prop sword. Oh, and you wouldn't like me to tell you what happened to the man who worked the trapdoor. And all the lead mysteriously disappeared from the roof, although personally I don't think that was the work of the Ghost.'

'And everyone... calls these... accidents?'

'Well, you wanted to sell your cheese, didn't you? I can't imagine anything that would depress the house like news that dead bodies are dropping like flies out of the flies.'

He took an envelope out of his pocket and placed it on the table.

'The Ghost likes to leave little messages,' he said. 'There was one by the organ. A scenery painter spotted him and ....nearly had an accident.'

Bucket sniffed the envelope. It reeked of turpentine.

The letter inside was on a sheet of the Opera House's own notepaper. In neat, copperplate writing, it said:

Ahahahahaha! Ahahahaha! Aahahaha!

BEWARE!!!!!

Yrs Sincerely,

The Opera Ghost

'What sort of person,' said Salzella patiently, 'sits down and writes a maniacal laugh? And all those exclamation marks, you notice? Five? A sure sign of someone who wears his underpants on his head. Opera can do that to a man. Look, at least let's search the building. The cellars go on for ever. I'll need a boat–'

'A boat? In the cellar?'

'Oh. Didn't they tell you about the sub‑basement?'

Bucket smiled the bright, crazed smile of a man who was nearing double exclamation marks himself.