cellars.
She landed a few feet away, still holding the rope.
“Mr Salzella?”
Nanny stuck two fingers in her mouth and let out a whistle that could have melted ear?wax.
She let go of the rope.
Salzella glanced up at her as he raised the trapdoor, and then saw the shape dropping out of the roof.
One hundred and eighty pounds of sandbag hit the door, slamming it shut.
“Watch out!” said Nanny, cheerfully.
Bucket waited nervously in the wings. Unnecessarily nervously, of course. The Ghost was dead. There couldn't be anything to worry about. People said they'd
Nothing to worry about.
Not a thing.
Nothing whatsoever in any way.
Everything was absolutely nothing to worry about in any way.
He ran a finger around the inside of his collar. It hadn't been such a bad life in wholesale cheese. The most you had to worry about was ogle of poor old Reg Plenty's trouser buttons in the Farmhouse Nutty and the time young Weevins minced his thumb in the stirring machine and it was only by luck they happened to be doing strawberry yoghurt at the time–
A figure loomed up beside him. He clutched at a curtain for support and then turned to see, with relief, the majestic and reassuring stomach of Enrico Basilica. The tenor looked magnificent in a huge cockerel costume, complete with giant beak, wattles and comb.
“Ah, senor,” Bucket burbled. “Very impressive, may I say.”
“Si,” said a muffed voice from somewhere behind the beak, as other members of the company hurried past on to the stage.
“May I say how sorry I am about all that business earlier. I can assure you that it doesn't happen every night, ahahah…”
“Si?”
“Probably just high spirits, ahaha…”
The beak turned towards him. Bucket backed away.
“Si!”
“…yes… well, I'm glad you're so understanding…”
Temperamental, he thought, as the tenor strode on to the stage and the overture to Act Three drifted to its close. They're like that, the real
“Where'd he go? Where'd he go?”
“What? Oh… Mrs Ogg…”
The old woman waved a saw in front of his face. It was not, in Mr Bucket's current state of mental tension, a helpful gesture.
He was suddenly surrounded by other figures, equally conducive to multiple exclamation marks.
“Perdita? Why aren't you on stage… oh, Lady Esmerelda, I didn't see you there, of course if you want to come backstage you only have to—”
“Where's Salzella?” said Andre.
Bucket looked around vaguely. “He was here a few minutes ago… That is,” he said, pulling himself together, “
“I demand you stop the show
“Oh, you do, do you? And by what authority, may I ask?”
“He's been sawing through the rope!” said Nanny.
Andre pulled out a badge. “This!”
Bucket looked closely. “ 'Ankh?Morpork Guild of Musicians member z 244'?”
Andre glared at him, then at the badge, and started to pat his pockets urgently. “No! Blast, I know I had the other one a moment ago… Look, you've got to clear the theatre, we've got to search it, and that means—”
“Don't stop the show,” said Granny.
“I won't stop the show,” said Bucket.
“ 'Cos I reckon he'd like to see the show stopped. The show must go on, eh? Isn't that what you believe? Could he have got out of the building?”
“I sent Corporal Nobbs to the stage?door and Sergeant Detritus is in the foyer,” said Andre. “When it comes to standing in doorways, they're among the best.”
“Excuse me, what's happening?” said Bucket.
“He could be anywhere!” said Agnes. “There're hundreds of hiding?places!”
“Who?” said Bucket.
“How about these cellars everyone talks about?” said Granny.
“Where?”
“There's only one entrance,” said Andre. “He's not stupid.”
“He can't get into the cellars,” said Nanny. “He ran off? Probably in a cupboard somewhere by now!”
“No, he'll stay where there's crowds,” said Granny. “That's what I'd do.”
“What?” said Bucket.
“Could he have got into the audience from here?” said Nanny.
“Who?” said Bucket.
Granny jerked a thumb towards the stage. “He's somewhere on there. I can
“Then we'll wait until he comes off!”
“Eighty people coming off stage all at once?” said Agnes. “Don't you know what it's
“And we don't want to stop the show,” Granny mused.
“No, we don't want to stop the show,” said Bucket, grasping at a familiar idea as it swept by on a tide of incomprehensibility. “Or give people their money back in any fashion whatsoever. What are we talking about, does anyone know?”
“The show must go on…” murmured Granny Weatherwax, still staring out of the wings. “Things have to end right. This is an opera house. They should end… operatically…”
Nanny Ogg hopped up and down excitedly. “Oo, I know what you're thinking, Esme!” she squeaked. “Oo, yes! Can we? Just so's I can say I done it! Eh? Can we? Go on! Let's!”
Henry Lawsy peered closely at his opera notes. He had not, of course, fully understood the events of the first two acts, but knew that this was perfectly OK because one would have to be quite naive to expect good sense as well as good songs. Anyway, it would all be explained in the last act, which was the Masked Ball in the Duke's Palace. It would almost certainly turn out that the woman one of the men had been rather daringly courting would be his own wife, but so cunningly disguised by a very small mask that her husband wouldn't have spotted that she wore the same clothes and had the same hairstyle. Someone's serving man would turn out to be someone else's daughter in disguise; someone would die of something that didn't prevent them from singing about it for several minutes; and the plot would be resolved by some coincidences which, in real life, would be as likely as a cardboard hammer.
He didn't know any of this for a fact. He was making a calculated guess.
In the meantime Act Three opened with the traditional ballet, this time apparently a country dance by the
