Maskerade (23 page)

‘That
is
good news.'

‘Yes, and it must be, oh, at least ten past twelve,' said Salzella with an irony that Bucket quite failed to notice. ‘I will go and fetch him up so that we can have lunch, shall I? It must be a good half an hour since he had a snack.'

Bucket nodded. After the director had gone he surreptitiously checked his desk drawers again. There was no letter. Perhaps it
was
over … Perhaps it was true what they were saying about the late doctor.

Someone knocked at the door, four times. Only one person could achieve four knocks without any rhythm whatsoever.

‘Come in, Walter.'

Walter Plinge stumbled into the room. ‘There's a lady!' he said. ‘She's to see Mr Bucket!'

Nanny Ogg poked her head around the door. ‘Coo-ee,' she said. ‘It's only me.'

‘It's … Mrs Ogg, isn't it?' said Mr Bucket.

There was something slightly worrying about the woman. He didn't recall her name on the list of employees. On the other hand, she was clearly around the place, she wasn't dead, and she made a decent cup of tea, so was it his worry if she wasn't getting paid?

‘Good gracious, I'm not the
lady
,' said Nanny Ogg. ‘I'm as common as muck, me, on the highest authority. No,
she's
waiting down in the foyer. I thought I'd better nip round here and warn you.'

‘Warn me? Warn me about what? I don't have any other appointments this morning. Who is this lady?'

‘Have you ever heard of Lady Esmerelda Weatherwax?'

‘No. Should I?'

‘Famous patron of the opera. Conservatories all over the place,' said Nanny. ‘Pots of money, too.'

‘Really? But I'm due to—'

Bucket looked out of the window. There was a coach and four horses outside. It had so much rococo ornamentation on it that it was surprising it ever managed to move.

‘Well, I—' he began again. ‘It is really very incon—'

‘She ain't the sort of person who likes to be kept
waiting,' said Nanny, with absolute honesty. And then, because Granny had been getting on her nerves all morning and the initial embarrassment at Mrs Palm's still rankled and there was a streak of mischief in Nanny a mile wide, she added, ‘They say she was a famous courtesan in her younger days. They say she didn't like to be kept waiting then, either. Retired now, of course. So they say.'

‘You know, I've visited most of the major opera houses and I've never heard the name,' mused Bucket.

‘Ah, I heard she likes to keep her donations secret,' said Nanny.

Mr Bucket's mental compass once again swung around to point due Money.

‘You'd better show her up,' he said. ‘I could perhaps give her a few minutes—'

‘No one ever gave Lady Esmerelda less than half an hour,' said Nanny, and gave Bucket a wink. ‘I'll go and fetch her, shall I?'

She bustled away, towing Walter behind her.

Mr Bucket stared after her. Then, after a moment's thought, he got up and checked the set of his moustache in the mirror over the fireplace.

He heard the door open and turned with his finest smile in place.

It faded only slightly at the sight of Salzella, ushering the impressive bulk of Basilica in front of him. The little manager and interpreter fussed along beside him, like a tugboat.

‘Ah, Señor Basilica,' said Bucket. ‘I trust the dressing-rooms are to your satisfaction?'

Basilica gave him a blank smile while the interpreter spoke in Brindisian, and then replied.

‘Señor Basilica says they are fine but the larder isn't big enough,' he said.

‘Haha,' said Bucket, and then stopped when no one else laughed.

‘In fact,' he said hurriedly, ‘Señor Basilica will I'm sure be very happy to hear that our kitchens have made a special effort to—'

There was
another
knock at the door. He hurried across and opened it.

Granny Weatherwax stood there, but not for long. She pushed him aside and swept into the room.

There was a choking noise from Enrico Basilica.

‘Which one of you is Bucket?' she demanded.

‘Er … me …'

Granny removed a glove and extended her hand. ‘So sorry,' she said. ‘Ai am not used to important people opening their own doors. Ai am Esmerelda Weatherwax.'

‘How charming. I've heard so much about you,' lied Bucket. ‘Pray let me introduce you. No doubt you know Señor Basilica?'

‘Of course,' said Granny, looking Henry Slugg in the eye. ‘I'm sure Señor Basilica recalls the many happy times we've had in other opera houses whose names I can't quite remember at the moment.'

Henry grimaced a smile, and said something to the interpreter.

‘That is astonishing,' said the interpreter. ‘Señor Basilica has just said how fondly he recalls meeting
you many times before at opera houses that have just slipped his mind at present.'

Henry kissed Granny's hand, and looked up at her with pleading in his eyes.

My word, thought Bucket, that look he's giving her … I wonder if they ever—

‘Oh, uh, and this is Mr Salzella, our director of music,' he said, remembering himself.

‘Honoured,' said Salzella, giving Granny a firm handshake and looking her squarely in the eye. She nodded.

‘And what's the first thing you'd take out of a burning house, Mr Salzella?' she enquired.

He smiled politely. ‘What would you like me to take, madam?'

She nodded thoughtfully and let go of his hand.

‘May I get you a drink?' said Bucket.

‘A small sherry,' said Granny.

Salzella sidled up to Bucket as he was pouring the drink. ‘Who the hell is she?'

‘Apparently she's rolling in money,' whispered Bucket. ‘And very keen on opera.'

‘Never heard of her.'

‘Well, Señor Basilica has, and that's good enough for me. Make yourself pleasant to them, will you, while I try to sort out lunch.'

He pulled open the door and tripped over Nanny Ogg.

‘Sorry!' said Nanny, standing up and giving him a cheerful grin. ‘These doorknobs are a bugger to polish, aren't they?'

‘Er, Mrs—'

‘Ogg.'

‘—Ogg, could you run along to the kitchens and tell Mrs Clamp there will be another one for lunch, please.'

‘Right you are.'

Nanny bustled away. Bucket nodded approvingly. What a reliable old lady, he thought.

It wasn't exactly a
secret
. When the room had been divided a space had been left between the walls. At the far end it opened on to a staircase, a perfectly ordinary staircase, which even had some grubby daylight via a dirt-encrusted window.

Agnes was vaguely disappointed. She had expected, well, a
real
secret passage, perhaps with a few torches flickering secretly in rather valuable secret wrought-iron holders. But the staircase had just been walled off from the rest of the place at some time. It wasn't secret – it had merely been forgotten.

There were cobwebs in the corners. The cocoons of extinct flies hung down from the ceiling. The air smelled of long-dead birds.

But there was a clear track through the dust. Someone had used the stairs several times.

She hesitated between up and down, and headed up. That was no great journey – after one more flight it ended at a trapdoor that wasn't even bolted.

She pushed at it, and then blinked in the unaccustomed light. Wind caught at her hair. A pigeon stared at her, and flew away as she poked her head into the fresh air.

The door had opened out on to the Opera
House's roof, just one more item in a forest of skylights and airshafts.

She went back inside and headed downwards. And became aware, as she did so, of the voices …

The old stairs hadn't been
totally
forgotten. Someone had at least seen their usefulness as an airshaft. Voices filtered up. There were scales, distant music, snatches of conversation. As she went down she passed through layers of noise, like a very carefully made sundae of sound.

Greebo sat on top of the kitchen cupboard and watched the performance with interest.

‘Use the ladle, why don't you?' said a scene-shifter.

‘It won't reach! Walter!'

‘Yes Mrs Clamp?'

‘Give me that broom!'

‘Yes Mrs Clamp!'

Greebo looked up at the high ceiling, to which was affixed a sort of thin, ten-pointed star.

In the middle of it was a pair of very frightened eyes.

‘“Plunge it into boiling water”,' said Mrs Clamp, that's what it said in the cook-book. It never said “Watch out, it'll grip the sides of the pot and spring straight up in the air”—'

She flailed around with the broom-handle. The squid shrank back.

‘And that pasta's all gone wrong,' she muttered. ‘I've had it grilling for hours and it's still hard as nails, the wretched stuff.'

‘Coo-ee, it's only me,' said Nanny Ogg, poking her head around the door, and such was the all-embracing nature of her personality that even those who didn't know who she was took this on trust. ‘Having a bit of trouble, are you?'

She surveyed the scene, including the ceiling. There was a smell of burning pasta in the air.

‘Ah,' she said. ‘This'd be the special lunch for Senior Basilica, would it?'

‘It was
meant
to be,' said the cook, still making ineffectual swipes. ‘Blasted thing won't come down, though.'

Other pots were simmering on the long iron range. Nanny nodded towards them. ‘What's everyone else having?' she said.

‘Mutton and clootie dumplings, with slumpie,' said the cook.

‘Ah. Good honest food,' said Nanny, speaking of wall-to-wall suet oiled with lard.

‘And there's supposed to be Jammy Devils for pudding and I've been so tied up with this wretched thing I haven't even made a start!'

Nanny carefully took the broom out of the cook's hands. ‘Tell you what,' she said, ‘you make enough dumplings and slumpie for five people, and I'll help by knocking up a quick pudding, how about that?'

‘Well, that's a very handsome offer, Mrs—'

‘Ogg.'

‘The jam's in the jar by—'

‘Oh, I won't bother about jam,' said Nanny. She looked at the spice-rack, grinned, and then stepped behind a table for modesty—

—twingtwangtwongtwang—

—‘Got any chocolate?' she said, producing a slim volume. ‘I've got a recipe right here that might be fun …'

She licked her thumb and opened the book at page 53. Chocolate Delight with Special Secret Sauce.

Yes, thought Nanny, that
would
be fun.

If people wanted to go around teaching people lessons, other people should remember that those people knew a thing or two about people.

Scraps of conversation floated out of the walls as Agnes wound her secret way down the forgotten stairs.

It was … thrilling.

No one was saying anything important. There were no convenient guilty secrets. There were just the sounds of people getting through the day. But they were
secret
sounds.

It was wrong to listen, of course.

Agnes had been brought up in the knowledge that a lot of things were wrong. It was wrong to listen at doors, to look people directly in the eye, to talk out of turn, to answer back, to
put yourself forward …

But behind the walls she could be the Perdita she'd always wanted to be. Perdita didn't care about anything. Perdita got things done. Perdita could wear anything she wanted, Perdita X Nitt, mistress of the darkness, magdalen of cool, could listen in to other people's lives. And never, ever have to have a wonderful personality.

Agnes knew she should go back up to her room. Whatever lay in the increasingly shadowy depths was probably something she ought not to find.

Perdita continued downwards. Agnes went along for the ride.

The pre-luncheon drinks were going quite well, Mr Bucket thought. Everyone was making polite conversation and absolutely no one had been killed up to the present moment.

And it had been very gratifying to see the tears of gratitude in Señor Basilica's eyes when he was told that the cook was preparing a special Brindisian meal, just for him. He'd seemed quite overcome.

It was reassuring that he knew Lady Esmerelda. There was something about the woman that left Mr Bucket terribly perplexed. He was finding it a little difficult to converse with her. As a conversational gambit, ‘Hello, I understand you have a lot of money, can I have some please?' lacked, he felt, a certain subtlety.

‘So, er, madam,' he ventured, ‘what brings you to our, er, city?'

‘I thought perhaps I could come and spend some money,' said Granny. ‘Got rather a lot of it, you know. Keep havin' to change banks 'cos they get filled up.'

Somewhere in Bucket's tortured brain, part of his mind went ‘whoopee' and clicked its heels.

‘I'm sure if there's anything I can do—' he murmured.

‘As a matter of fact, there is,' said Granny. ‘I was thinking of—'

A gong banged.

‘Ah,' said Mr Bucket. ‘Luncheon is served.'

He extended his arm to Granny, who gave it an odd look before remembering who she was and taking it.

There was a small exclusive dining-room off his office. It contained a table set for five and, looking rather fetching in a waitress's lacy bonnet, Nanny Ogg.

She bobbed a curtsey.

Enrico Basilica made a tiny strangling noise at the back of his throat.

‘'Scuse me, there's been a bit of a problem,' said Nanny.

‘Who's dead?' said Bucket.

‘Oh, no one's dead,' said Nanny. ‘It's the dinner, it's still alive and hangin' on to the ceiling. And the pasta's all gone black, see. I said to Mrs Clamp, I said, it may be foreign but I don't reckon it should be crunchy—'