Maskerade

She felt embarrassed enough about Andre's reaction.

Christine's eyes widened. “But he's a clown!!”

“He walks odd and he talks odd,” said Agnes, “but if he stood up straight—”

Christine laughed. Agnes felt herself getting angry. “And he practically told me he was!”

“You believed him, did you?!” Christine made a little tutting sound that Agnes considered quite offensive. “Really, you girls believe the strangest things!!”

“What do you mean, we girls?”

“Oh, you know! The dancers are always saying they've seen the Ghost all over the place—”

“Good grief! Do you think I'm some sort of impressionable idiot? Think for a minute before answering!”

“Well, of course I don't, but—”

“Huh!”

Agnes strode off into the wings, concerned more with effect than direction. The background noise of the stage faded behind her as she stepped into the scenery store. It didn't lead anywhere except to a pair of big double doors opening to the world outside. It was full of bits of castles, balconies and romantic prison cells, stacked any old how.

Christine hurried up behind her.

“I really didn't mean… look, not Walter… he's just a very odd odd-job man!”

“He does all kinds of jobs! No one ever knows where he is — they all just assume he's around!”

“All right, but you don't have to get so worked up—”

There was the faintest of sounds behind them.

They turned.

The Ghost bowed.

“Who's a good boy, then? Nanny's got a bowl of fish eggs for a good boy,” said Nanny, trying to see under the big dresser in the kitchen.

“Fish eggs?” said Granny, coldly.

“I borrowed them from the stuff they've done for the swarray,” said Nanny.

“Borrowed?” said Granny.

“That's right. Come along, Greebo, who's a good boy then?”

“Borrowed. You mean… when the cat's finished with them, you're going to give them back?”

“It's only a manner of speaking, Esme,” said Nanny in a hurt little voice. “It's not the same as stealing if you don't mean it. Come along, boy, here's some lovely fish eggs for you…”

Greebo pulled himself further into the shadows.

There was a little sigh from Christine and she folded up into a faint. But she managed, Agnes noticed sourly, to collapse in a way that probably didn't hurt when she hit the ground and which showed off her dress to the best effect. It was beginning to dawn on Agnes that Christine was remarkably clever in some specialized ways.

She looked back at the mask.

“It's all right,” she said, her voice sounding hoarse even to her. “I know why you're doing it. I really do.”

No expression could cross that ivory face, but the eyes flickered.

Agnes swallowed. The Perdita part of her wanted to give in right now, because that would be more exciting, but she stood her ground.

“You want to be something else and you're stuck with what you are,” said Agnes. “I know all about that. You're lucky. All you have to do is put on a mask. At least you're the right shape. But why did you have to go and kill people? Why? Mr Pounder couldn't have done you any harm! But… he poked around in odd places, didn't he, and he… found something?”

The Ghost nodded slightly, and then held out his ebony cane. He grasped both ends and pulled, so that a long thin sword slid out.

“I know who you are!” Agnes burst out, as he stepped forward. “I… I could probably help you! It might not have been your fault!” She backed away. “I haven't done anything to you! You don't have to be afraid of me!”

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 Andre, but he hadn't seemed to believe her so probably that was all right.

Which meant that the Ghost was…

…someone else.