Maskerade (25 page)

Nanny looked at the empty dish in front of Basilica.

‘Or perhaps some fruit?' said the tenor. ‘A few nuts?'

‘How much has he had?' she whispered.

‘Best part of half,' said Granny. ‘But I don't reckon it's having any effect on account of not touching the sides.'

Nanny turned her attention to Granny's plate. ‘How about you?' she said.

‘Two helpings,' said Granny. ‘With
extra
sauce, Gytha Ogg, may you be forgiven.'

Nanny looked at her with something like admiration in her eyes. ‘You ain't even sweating!' she said.

Granny picked up her water glass and held it at arm's length.

After a few seconds, the water began to boil.

‘All right, you're getting really good, I've got to admit it,' said Nanny. ‘I reckon I should have to get up real early to put one over on you.'

‘I reckon you should never go to sleep,' said Granny.

‘Sorry, Esme.'

Señor Basilica, at a loss to follow the conversation, realized with reluctance that the meal was probably over.

‘Absolutely superb,' he said. ‘I just
loved
that pudding, Mrs Ogg.'

‘I should just jolly well expect you did, Henry Slugg,' said Nanny.

Henry carefully removed a clean handkerchief from his pocket, put it over his face, and leaned back in his chair. The first snore occurred a few seconds later.

‘He's easy to have around, isn't he?' said Nanny. ‘Eat, sleep and sing. You certainly know where you are with him. I've found Greebo, by the way. He's still following Walter Plinge around.' Her expression became a little defiant. ‘Say what you like, young Walter's all right by me if Greebo likes him.'

Granny sighed. ‘Gytha, Greebo would like Norris the Eyeball-Eating Maniac of Quirm if he knew how to put food in a bowl.'

*  *  *

And now she was lost. She'd done her best not to be. As Agnes had walked through each dank room she'd thoughtfully taken note of details. She'd carefully remembered right and left turns. And yet she was lost.

Here and there were steps down to lower cellars, but the water-level was so high that it was lapping at the first step. And it stank. The candle burned with a greenish-blue edge to the flame.

Somewhere, said Perdita, there
was
the secret room. If there wasn't a huge and glittering secret cavern, what on earth was life for? There
had
to be a secret room. A room, full of … giant candles, and enormous stalagmites …

But it certainly isn't
here
, said Agnes.

She felt a complete idiot. She'd gone through the mirror looking for … well, she wasn't quite prepared to admit what she might have been looking for, but whatever it was it certainly wasn't this.

She'd have to shout for help.

Of course, someone might hear, but that was always a risk when you shouted for help.

She coughed.

‘Er … hello?'

The water gurgled.

‘Er … help? Is there anyone there?'

A rat ran over her foot.

Oh,
yes
, she thought bitterly with Perdita's part of her brain, if
Christine
had come down here there probably
would
have been some great glistening cave and delicious danger. The world saved up rats and smelly cellars for Agnes, because she had such a wonderful personality.

‘Um … anyone?'

More rats scuttled across the floor. There was a faint squeaking from the side-passages.

‘Hello?'

She was lost in some cellars with a candle getting shorter by the second. The air was foul, the flagstones were slippery, no one knew where she was, she could die down here, she could be—

Eyes glowed in the darkness.

One was green-yellow, the other pearly white.

A light appeared behind them.

Something was coming along the passageway, casting long shadows.

Rats tumbled over themselves in their panic to get away …

Agnes tried to press herself into the stone.

‘Hello Miss Perdita X Nitt!'

A familiar shape juddered out of the darkness, just behind Greebo. It was all knees and elbows; it carried a sack over one shoulder and held a lantern in its other hand. Something fled from the darkness. The terror leached out of it …

‘You don't want to be down here Miss Nitt with all the rats!'

‘Walter!'

‘Got to do Mister Pounder's job now the poor man is passed away! I am a person of all jobs! No peas for the wicked! But Mister Greebo just hits them with his paws and they're off to rat heaven in a jiff!'

‘Walter!' repeated Agnes, out of sheer relief.

‘Come for an explore have you? These ole tunnels
goes all the way to the river! You have to keep your wits about you not to get lost down here! Want to come back with me?'

It was impossible to be frightened of Walter Plinge. Walter attracted a number of emotions, but terror wasn't among them.

‘Er … yes,' said Agnes. ‘I got lost. Sorry.'

Greebo sat down and started to wash himself in what Agnes considered to be a supercilious way. If a cat could snigger, he would be sniggering.

‘Now I've got a full sack I have to take it to Mister Gimlet's shop!' announced Walter, turning around and loping out of the cellar without bothering to see if she was following him. ‘We get a ha'penny each which is not to be sneezed at! The dwarfs think a rat is a good meal which only goes to show it would be a strange world if we were all alike!'

It seemed a ridiculously short journey to the foot of some different stairs, which had a well-used look to them.

‘Have you ever seen the Ghost, Walter?' said Agnes, as Walter put his foot on the first step.

He didn't turn around. ‘It is wrong to tell lies!'

‘Er … yes, so I believe. So … when did you last see the Ghost?'

‘I last saw the Ghost in the big room in the ballet school!'

‘Really? What did he do?'

Walter paused for a moment, and then the words came out all together. ‘He ran off!'

He stamped up the stairs in a way that suggested very emphatically that the exchange was over.

Greebo sneered at Agnes and followed him.

The stairs went up just one flight and came out through a trapdoor backstage. She had been lost only a door or two from the real world.

No one noticed her emerge. But then no one noticed her at all. They just assumed that she'd be around when she was needed.

Walter Plinge had already loped off, in something of a hurry.

Agnes hesitated. They probably wouldn't even notice she wasn't there, right up to the point when Christine opened her mouth …

He hadn't wanted to answer, but Walter Plinge spoke when spoken to and she had a feeling that he wasn't able to lie. Telling lies would be being bad.

She'd never seen the ballet school. It wasn't far backstage, but it was a world of its own. The dancers issued from it every day like so many very thin and twittering sheep under the control of elderly women who looked as though they breakfasted on pickled limes. It was only after she'd timidly asked a few questions of the stage-hands that she'd realized that the girls had joined the ballet because they'd
wanted
to.

She
had
seen the dancers' dressing-room, where thirty girls washed and changed in a space rather smaller than Bucket's office. It bore the same relationship to ballet as compost did to roses.

She looked around again. Still no one had paid any attention to her.

She headed for the school. It was up a few steps, along a foetid corridor lined with notice-boards and
smelling of ancient grease. A couple of girls fluttered past. You never saw just one: they went around in groups, like mayflies. She pushed open the door and stepped into the school.

Reflections of reflections of reflections …

There were mirrors on every wall.

A few girls, practising on the bars that lined the room, looked up as she entered.

Mirrors …

Out in the passage she leaned against the wall and got her breath back. She'd
never
liked mirrors. They always seemed to be laughing at her. But didn't they say it was the mark of a witch, not liking to get between two mirrors? It sucked out your soul, or something. A witch would never get between two mirrors if she could help it …

But, of course, she
very definitely
wasn't a witch. So she took a deep breath, and went back into the room.

Images of herself stretched away in every direction.

She managed a few steps, then wheeled around and groped for the doorway again, watched by the surprised dancers.

Lack of sleep, she told herself. And general over-excitement. Anyway, she didn't
need
to go right into the room, now that she knew who the Ghost was.

It was so
obvious
. The Ghost didn't require any mysterious nonexistent caves when all he needed to do was hide where everyone could see him.

*  *  *

Mr Bucket knocked at the door of Salzella's office. A muffled voice said, ‘Come in.'

There was no one in the office, but there was another closed door in the far wall. Bucket knocked again, and then rattled the door handle.

‘I'm in the bath,' said Salzella.

‘Are you decent?'

‘I'm fully clothed, if that's what you mean. Is there a pail of ice out there?'

‘Was it you who ordered it?' said Bucket guiltily.

‘Yes!'

‘Only I, er, I had it taken to my office so I could stick my feet in it …'

‘Your
feet
?'

‘Yes. Er … I went for a brisk run around the city, don't know why, just felt like it …'

‘Well?'

‘My boots caught fire on the second lap.'

There was a sloshing noise and some
sotto voce
grumbling and then the door swung open, revealing Salzella in a purple dressing-gown.

‘Has Señor Basilica been safely tethered?' he said, dripping on the floor.

‘He's going through the music with Herr Trubelmacher.'

‘And he's … all right?'

‘He sent along to the kitchen for a snack.'

Salzella shook his head. ‘Astonishing.'

‘And they've put the interpreter in a cupboard. They don't seem to be able to get him unfolded.'

Bucket sat down carefully. He was wearing carpet slippers.

‘And—' Salzella prompted.

‘And what?'

‘Where did that
dreadful
woman go?'

‘Mrs Ogg is showing her around. Well, what else could I do? Two thousand dollars, remember!'

‘I am endeavouring to forget,' said Salzella. ‘I promise never to talk about that lunch ever again, if you don't either.'

‘What lunch?' said Bucket innocently.

‘Well done.'

‘She does seem to have an amazing effect though, doesn't she …'

‘I don't know who you are talking about.'

‘I mean, it's not hard to see how she made her money …'

‘Good heavens, man, she's got a face like a hatchet!'

‘They say that Queen Ezeriel of Klatch had a squint, but that didn't stop her having fourteen husbands, and that was only the official score. Besides, she's knocking on a bit …'

‘I thought she'd been dead for two hundred years!'

‘I'm talking about Lady Esmerelda.'

‘So am I.'

‘At least try to be civil to her at the soirée before the performance tonight.'

‘I'll try.'

‘The two thousand might be only the start, I hope. Every time I open a drawer there are more bills! We seem to owe money to everyone!'

‘Opera
is
expensive.'

‘You're telling me. Whenever I try to make a start on the books, something dreadful happens. Do you think I might just have a few hours without something awful happening?'

‘In an opera house?'

The voice was muffled by the half-dismantled mechanism of the organ.

‘All right – give me middle C.'

A hairy finger pressed a key. It made a thudding noise and somewhere in the mechanism something else went
woing
.

‘Blast, it's come off the peg … hold on … try again …'

The note rang out sweet and clear.

‘O
-kay
,' said the voice of the man hidden in the exposed entrails of the organ. ‘Wait until I tighten the peg …'

Agnes stepped closer. The hulking figure seated at the organ turned around and gave her a friendly grin, which was much wider than the average grin. Its owner was covered in red hair and, while short-changed in the leg department, had obviously been first in the queue when the arm counter opened. And had also been given a special free offer of lip.

‘André?' said Agnes weakly.

The organist extracted himself from the mechanism. He was holding a complicated wooden bar with springs on it. ‘Oh, hello,' he said.

‘Er … who is this?' said Agnes, backing away from the primaeval organist.

‘Oh, this is the Librarian. I don't think he
has
a name. He's the Librarian at Unseen University but, much more importantly, he's their organist and it turns out our organ is a Johnson,
⁸
just like theirs. He's given us some spare parts—'

‘Ook.'

‘Sorry,
lent
us some spare parts.'

‘He plays the organ?'

‘In an amazingly prehensile way, yes.'

Agnes relaxed. The creature didn't seem about to attack.

‘Oh,' she said. ‘Well … I suppose it's natural, because sometimes barrel-organ men came to our village and they often had a dear little mon—'

There was a crashing chord. The orang-utan raised its other hand and waved a finger politely in front of Agnes's face.

‘He doesn't like being called a monkey,' said André. ‘And he likes you.'