Maskerade

Nanny Ogg looked around the shop. “Tell you what,” she said, “you sell me something that looks about right and we'll adjust him to fit. “Souse me…”

She turned away demurely—

—twingtwangtwong—

—and turned back, smoothing down her dress and holding a leather bag.

“How much'll it be?” she said.

The tailor looked blankly at the bag. “I'm afraid we won't be able to have all that ready until at least next Wednesday,” he said.

Nanny Ogg sighed. She felt she was becoming familiar with one of the most fundamental laws of physics. Time equalled money. Therefore, money equalled time.

“I was sort of hoping to get it all a bit quicker than that,” she said, jingling the bag up and down.

The tailor looked down his nose at her. “We are craftsmen, madam. How long did you think it should take?”

“How about ten minutes?”

Twelve minutes later she left the shop with a large packet under one arm, a hatbox under the other, and an ebony cane between her teeth.

Granny was waiting outside. “Got it all?”

“Ess.”

“I'll take the eye?patch, shall I?”

“We've got to get a third witch,” said Nanny, trying to rearrange the parcels. “Young Agnes has got good strong arms.”

“You know if we was to drag her out of there by the scruff of her neck we'd never hear the last of it,” said Granny. “She'll be a witch when she wants to be.”

They headed for the Opera House's stage?door.

“Afternoon, Les,” said Nanny cheerfully as they entered. “Stopped itching now, has it?”

“Marvellous bit of ointment that was you gave me, Mrs Ogg,” said the stage?doorkeeper, his moustache bending into something that might have been a smile.

“Mrs Les keeping well? How's her sister's leg?”

“Doing very well, Mrs Ogg, thank you for asking.”

“This is just Esme Weatherwax who's helping me with some stuff,” said Nanny.

The doorkeeper nodded. It was clear that any friend of Mrs Ogg was a friend of his. “No trouble at all, Mrs Ogg.”

As they passed through into the dusty network of corridors Granny reflected, not for the first time, that Nanny had a magic all of her own.

Nanny didn't so much enter places as insinuate herself; she had unconsciously taken a natural talent for liking people and developed it into an occult science. Granny Weatherwax did not doubt that her friend already knew the names, family histories, birthdays and favourite topics of conversation of half the people here, and probably also the vital wedge that would cause them to open up. It might be talking about their children, or a potion for their bad feet, or one of Nanny's really filthy stories, but Nanny would be in and after twenty?four hours they'd have known her all their lives. And they'd tell her things. Of their own free will. Nanny Got On with people. Nanny could get a statue to cry on her shoulder and say what it really thought about pigeons.

It was a knack. Granny had never had the patience to acquire it just occasionally, she wondered whether it might have been a good idea.

“Curtain up in an hour and a half,” said Nanny. “I promised Giselle I'd give her a hand…”

“Who's Giselle?”

“She does makeup.”

“You don't know how to do makeup!”

“I distempered our privy, didn't I?” said Nanny. “And I paint faces on eggs for the kiddies every Soul Cake Tuesday.”

“Got to do anything else, have you?” said Granny sarcastically. “Open the curtains? Fill in for a ballet dancer who's been taken poorly?”

“I did say I'd help with the drinks at the swarray,” said Nanny, letting the irony slide off like water on a red?hot stove. “Well, a lot of the staff have buggered off 'cos of the Ghost. It's in the big foyer in half an hour. I expect you ought to be there, being a patronizer.”

“What's a swarray?” said Granny suspiciously.

“It's a sort of posh party before the opera.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Drink sherry and make polite conversation,” said Nanny. “Or conversation, anyway. I saw the grub being done for it. They've even got little cubes of cheese on sticks stuck in a grapefruit, and you don't get much posher than that.”

“Gytha Ogg, you ain't done any… special dishes, have you?”

“No, Esme,” said Nanny Ogg meekly.

“Only you've got an imp of mischief in you.”

“Been far too busy for anything like that,” said Nanny.

Granny nodded. “Then we'd better find Greebo,” she said.

“You sure about this, Esme?” said Nanny.

“We might have a lot to do tonight,” said Granny. “Maybe we could do with an extra pair of hands.”

“Paws.”

“At the moment, yes.”

It was Walter. Agnes knew it. It wasn't knowledge in her mind, exactly. It was practically something she breathed. She felt it as a tree feels the sun.

It all fitted. He could go anywhere, and no one took any notice of Walter Plinge. In a way he was invisible, because he was always there. And, if you were someone like Walter Plinge, wouldn't you long to be someone as debonair and dashing as the Ghost?

If you were someone like Agnes Nitt, wouldn't you long to be someone as dark and mysterious as Perdita X Dream?

The traitor thought was there before she could choke it off. She added hurriedly: But I've never killed anyone.

Because that's what I'd have to believe, isn't it? If he's the Ghost, then he's killed people.

All the same… he does look odd, and he talks as if the words are trying to escape…

A hand touched her shoulder. She spun round.

“It's only me!” said Christine.

“…Oh.”

“Don't you think this is a marvellous dress!?”

“What?”

“This dress, silly!!”

Agnes looked her up and down. “Oh. Yes. Very nice,” she said, disinterest lying on her voice like rain on a midnight pavement.

“You don't sound very impressed!! Really, Perdita, there's no need to be jealous!!”

“I'm not jealous, I was thinking…”

She'd only seen the Ghost for a moment, but he certainly hadn't moved like Walter. Walter walked as though his body were being dragged along by his head. But the certainty was as hard as marble now.

“Well, you don't seem very impressed, I must say!!”

“I'm wondering if Walter Plinge is the Ghost,” said Agnes, and immediately cursed herself, or at least pooted.