Maskerade (27 page)

She backed away further as the figure advanced. The eyes, in the dark hollows of the mask, glinted like tiny jewels.

‘I'm your
friend
, don't you see? Please, Walter!
Walter
!'

There was, far off, an answering sound that seemed as loud as thunder and as impossible, in the circumstances, as a chocolate kettle.

It was the clank of a bucket handle.

‘What's the matter Miss Perdita Nitt?'

The Ghost hesitated.

There was the sound of footsteps. Irregular footsteps.

The Ghost lowered the sword, opened a door in a
piece of scenery painted to represent a castle wall, bowed ironically and slipped away.

Walter rounded a corner.

He was an unlikely knight errant. For one thing, he had on evening dress obviously designed for someone of a different shape. He was still wearing his beret. He also wore an apron and was carrying a mop and bucket. But no heroic lance-wielding rescuer ever galloped over a drawbridge more happily. He was practically surrounded by a golden glow.

‘… Walter?'

‘What's the matter with Miss Christine?'

‘She … er … she fainted,' said Agnes. ‘Er. Probably … yes, probably the excitement. With the opera. Tonight. Yes. Probably. The excitement. Because of the opera tonight.'

Walter gave her a slightly worried look. ‘Yes,' he said, and added patiently, ‘I know where there's a medicine box shall I get it?'

Christine groaned and fluttered her eyelashes. ‘Where am I?'

Perdita gritted Agnes's teeth.
Where am I?
That didn't sound the sort of thing someone said when they woke up from a faint; it sounded more like the sort of thing they said because they'd heard it was the sort of thing people said.

‘You fainted,' she said. She looked hard at Walter. ‘Why were you in here, Walter?'

‘Got to mop out the stage-hands' privy Miss Nitt. Always having trouble. I've been working on it for months!'

‘But you're wearing evening dress!'

‘Yes then I got to be a waiter afterwards because we're short-handed and there's no one else to be a waiter when they have drinks and sausages on poles before the opera.'

No one could have moved that fast. True, Walter and the Ghost hadn't both been in the room at the same time, but she'd heard his voice. No one could have had time to duck around behind the piles of flats and turn up at the opposite side of the room in seconds, unless they were some sort of wizard. Some of the girls
did
say the Ghost could almost seem to be in two places at once. Perhaps there were other secret places like the old staircase. Perhaps he—

She stopped herself. Walter Plinge wasn't the Ghost, then. There was no sense in trying to find some excitable explanation to prove wrong right.

She'd told Christine. Well, Christine was giving her just a slightly bemused look as Walter helped her up. And she'd told André, but he hadn't seemed to believe her so probably that was all right.

Which meant that the Ghost was …

… someone else.

She'd been so
certain
.

‘You'll enjoy it, mother. You really will.'

‘'Tain't for the likes of us, Henry. I don't see why Mr Morecombe couldn't give you tickets to see Nellie Stamp at the music hall. Now that's what I call music. Proper tunes you can understand.'

‘Songs like “She Sits Among the Cabbages and Leeks” are not very cultural, mother.'

Two figures wandered through the crowds heading for the Opera House. This was their conversation.

‘'S a good laugh, though. And you don't have to hire suits. Seems daft to me, havin' to wear a special suit just to listen to music.'

‘It enhances the experience,' said young Henry, who had read this somewhere.

‘I mean, how does the music know?' said his mother. ‘Now, Nellie Stamp—'

‘Come
along
, mother.'

It was going to be one of those evenings, he knew it.

Henry Lawsy did his best. And, given the starting point, it wasn't a bad best. He was a clerk in the firm of Morecombe, Slant & Honeyplace, a somewhat old-fashioned legal partnership. One reason for its less-than-modern approach was the fact that Messrs Morecombe and Honeyplace were vampires and Mr Slant was a zombie. The three partners were, therefore, technically dead, although this did not prevent them putting in a proper day's work – normally during the night, in the case of Mr Morecombe and Mr Honeyplace.

From Henry's point of view the hours were good and the job was not onerous, but he chafed somewhat about his promotion prospects because clearly dead men's shoes were being fully occupied by dead men. He'd decided that the only way to succeed was to better himself by Improving His Mind, which he tried to do at every opportunity. It is probably a full description of Henry Lawsy's mind that if you
had given him a book called
How to Improve Your Mind in Five Minutes
, he would have read it with a stopwatch. His progress through life was hampered by his tremendous sense of his own ignorance, a disability which affects all too few people.

Mr Morecombe had given him two opera tickets as a reward for sorting out a particularly problematical tort. He'd invited his mother because she represented 100 per cent of all the women he knew.

People tended to shake Henry's hand cautiously, in case it came off.

He'd bought a book about the opera and read it carefully, because he'd heard that it was absolutely unheard-of to go to an opera without knowing what it was about, and the chance of finding out while you were actually watching it was remote. The book's reassuring weight was in his pocket right now. All he needed to complete the evening was a less embarrassing parent.

‘Can we get some peanuts before we go in?' said his mother.

‘Mother, they don't sell peanuts at the opera.'

‘No peanuts? What're you supposed to do if you don't like the songs?'

Greebo's suspicious eyes were two glows in the gloom.

‘Poke him with a broom-handle,' suggested Granny.

‘No,' said Nanny. ‘With someone like Greebo you have to use a little bit of kindness.'

Granny closed her eyes and waved a hand.

There was a yowl from under the kitchen's dresser and a sound of frantic scrabbling. Then, his claws scoring tracks in the floor, Greebo came out backwards, fighting all the way.

‘Mind you, a lot of cruelty does the trick as well,' Nanny conceded. ‘You've never been much of a cat person, have you, Esme?'

Greebo would have hissed at Granny, except that even his cat brain was just bright enough to realize this was not the best move he could make.

‘Give him his fish eggs,' Granny said. ‘He might as well have them now as later.'

Greebo inspected the dish. Oh, this was all right, then. They wanted to give him food.

Granny nodded at Nanny Ogg. They held out their hands, palm-up.

Greebo was halfway through the caviar when he felt It happening.

‘Wrrroowlllll—' he wailed, and then the voice went deeper as his chest expanded, and rose physically as his back legs lengthened under him.

His ears flattened against his head, and then crept down the sides.

‘—llllwwaaaa—'

‘The jacket's a forty-four-inch chest,' said Nanny. Granny nodded.

‘—aaaaoooo—'

His face flattened. His whiskers spread out. Greebo's nose developed a life of its own.

‘—oooooss … sshit!'

‘He certainly gets the hang of it quicker these days,' said Nanny.

‘You put some clothes on right now, my lad,' said Granny, who had shut her eyes.

Not that this made much difference, she had to admit later. Greebo fully clothed still managed to communicate the nakedness beneath. The insouciant moustache, the long sideburns and the tousled black hair combined with the well-developed muscles to give the impression of the more louche kind of buccaneer or a romantic poet who'd given up on the opium and tried red meat instead. He had a scar running across his face, and a black patch now where it crossed the eye. When he smiled, he exuded an easy air of undistilled, excitingly dangerous lasciviousness. He could swagger while asleep. Greebo could, in fact, commit sexual harassment simply by sitting very quietly in the next room.

Except as far as the witches were concerned. To Granny a cat was a damn' cat whatever shape it was, and Nanny Ogg always thought of him as Mister Fluffy.

She adjusted the bow-tie and stood back critically. ‘What do you think?' she said.

‘He looks like an assassin, but he'll do,' said Granny.

‘Oh, what a nasty thing to say!'

Greebo waved his arms experimentally and fumbled with the ebony cane. Fingers took a bit of getting used to, but cat reflexes learned fast.

Nanny waved a finger playfully under his nose. He took a half-hearted swipe at it.

‘Now you just stay with Granny and do what she tells you like a good boy,' she said.

‘Yess, Nan-ny,' said Greebo reluctantly. He managed to grip the stick properly.

‘And no fighting.'

‘No, Nan-ny.'

‘And no leaving bits of people on the doormat.'

‘No, Nan-ny.'

‘We'll have no trouble like we did with those robbers last month.'

‘No, Nan-ny.'

He looked depressed. Humans had no
fun
. Incredible complications surrounded the most basic activities.

‘And no turning back into a cat again until we say.'

‘Yess, Nan-ny.'

‘Play your cards right and there could be a kipper in this for you.'

‘Yess, Nan-ny.'

‘What're we going to call him?' said Granny. ‘He can't just be Greebo, which I've always said was a damn' silly name for a cat.'

‘Well, he looks aristocratic—' Nanny began.

‘He looks like a beautiful brainless bully,' Granny corrected her.

‘Aristocratic,' repeated Nanny.

‘Same thing.'

‘We can't call him Greebo, anyway.'

‘We'll think of something.'

Salzella leaned disconsolately against the marble banister of the foyer's grand staircase and stared gloomily into his drink.

It had always seemed to him that one of the major flaws in the whole business of opera was the audience. They were quite unsuitable. The only ones worse than the ones who didn't know anything at all about music, and whose idea of a sensible observation was ‘I liked that bit near the end when her voice went wobbly', were the ones who thought they did …

‘Want a drink do you Mister Salzella? There's lots you know!'

Walter Plinge ambled by, his black suit making him look like a very good class of scarecrow.

‘Plinge, you just say “Drink, sir?”' said the director of music. ‘And please take off that ridiculous beret.'

‘My mum made it for me!'

‘I'm sure she did, but—'

Bucket sidled up to him. ‘I thought I told you to keep Señor Basilica away from the canapés!' he hissed.

‘I'm sorry, I couldn't find a big enough crowbar,' said Salzella, waving away Walter and his beret. ‘Anyway, isn't he supposed to be communing with his muse in his dressing-room? The curtain goes up in twenty minutes!'

‘He says he sings better on a full stomach.'

‘Then we're in for a big treat tonight.'

Bucket turned and surveyed the scene. ‘It's going well, anyway,' he said.

‘I suppose so.'

‘The Watch are here, you know. In secret. They're mingling.'

‘Ah … let me guess …'

Salzella looked around at the crowds: There was, indeed, a very short man in a suit intended for a rather larger man; this was especially the case with the opera cloak, which actually trailed on the floor behind him to give the overall impression of a superhero who had spent too much time around the Kryptonite. He was wearing a deformed fur hat and trying surreptitiously to smoke a cigarette.

‘You mean that little man with the words “Watchman in Disguise” flashing on and off just above his head?'

‘Where? I didn't see that!'

Salzella sighed. ‘It's Corporal Nobby Nobbs,' he said wearily. ‘The only known person to require an identity card to prove his species. I've watched him mingle with three large sherries.'

‘He's not the only one, though,' said Mr Bucket. ‘They're taking this seriously.'

‘Oh, yes,' said Salzella. ‘If we look over there, for example, we see Sergeant Detritus, who is a troll, and who is wearing what in the circumstances is actually a rather well-fitting suit. It is therefore, I feel, something of a pity he has neglected to remove his helmet. And these, you understand, the Watch has chosen for their ability to blend.'

‘Well, they'll certainly be useful if the Ghost strikes again,' said Bucket, hopelessly.

‘The Ghost would have to—' Salzella stopped. He blinked. ‘Oh, good grief,' he whispered. ‘What
has
she found?'

Bucket turned. ‘That's Lady Esmerelda … oh.'

Greebo strolled in alongside her with the gentle swagger that makes women thoughtful and men's knuckles go white. The buzz of conversation was momentarily hushed, and then rose again to a slightly shriller buzz.

‘I'm impressed,' said Salzella.

‘He certainly doesn't look like a
gentleman
,' said Bucket. ‘Look at the colour of that eye!' He set his face into what he hoped was a smile, and bowed.

‘Lady Esmerelda!' he said. ‘How pleasant to see you again! Won't you introduce us to your … guest?'

‘This is Lord Gribeau,' said Granny. ‘Mr Bucket, the owner, and Mr Salzella, who seems to run the place.'

‘Haha,' said Salzella.

Gribeau snarled, revealing longer incisors than any that Bucket had seen outside a zoo. And Bucket had never seen such a greenish-yellow eye. The pupil was all wrong …