The Phantom Of Manhattan Part 5

ROOFTOP TERRACE, E.M. TOWER, MANHATTAN, 29 NOVEMBER 1906.

I SAW HER. AFTER ALL THESE YEARS I SAW HER AGAIN and my heart made as if to burst inside me. I stood atop the warehouse near the dock and looked down and there she was, on the quay. Until I caught the glitter of light on the lens of a telescope and had to slip away.

So I went down to the crowd below and fortunately there was such a chill in the air that no-one thought anything of a man with his head swathed in a woolly m.u.f.fler. Thus I was able to approach the brougham, to see her lovely face just a few yards away and to slip my old cloak into the hands of a fool reporter l.u.s.ting only for his interview.

She was as beautiful as ever: the tiny waist, the tumbling hair tucked up beneath her Cossack hat, the face and smile to break a block of granite clean in two.

Was I right? Was I right to open all the old wounds again, to force myself to bleed again as in that cellar twelve long years ago? Have I been a fool to bring her here when eight score of months had almost cured the pain?

I loved her then, in those fearful hunted years in Paris, more than life itself. The first, and the last, and the only love I shall ever have or know. When she rejected me in that cellar for her young vicomte I almost killed them both. The great rage came over me again, that anger that has always been my only companion, my true friend who has never let me down, that rage against G.o.d and all His angels that He could not even give me a human face like others, like Raoul de Chagny. A face to smile and please. Instead He gave me this molten mask of horror, a life sentence of isolation and rejection.

And yet I thought, foolish stupid wretch, that she could even love me just a little, after what had happened between us in that hour of madness while the avenging mob came down to lynch me.

When I knew my fate, I let them live, and glad that I did. But why have I done this now? Surely it can only bring me more pain and rejection, disgust, contempt and repugnance yet again. It is the letter, of course.

Oh, Mme Giry, what am I to think of you now? You were the only person who ever showed me kindness, the only one who did not spit upon me or run screaming from my face. Why did you wait so long? Am I to thank you that in the final hours you sent me the news to change my life again, or to blame you for keeping it from me these past twelve years? I could be dead and gone, and would never have known. But I am not, and now I know. So I take this crazy risk.

To bring her here, to see her again, to suffer again, to ask again, to plead yet again ... and be rejected yet again? Most probably, most likely. And yet, and yet ...

I have it here, memorized already word for word; read and reread in dizzy disbelief until the pages are spoiled with finger sweat and crumpled by trembling hands. Dated in Paris, late in September, just before you died ...

My dear Erik,By the time you receive this letter, if you ever do, I shall be gone from the earth and to another place. I wrestled long and hard before deciding to write these lines and only did so because I felt that you, who have known so much misery, should learn the truth at last; and that I could not easily meet my Maker knowing that to the end I had deceived you.Whether the news contained herein will bring you joy or yet again give only anguish, I cannot tell. But here is the truth of events that were once very close to you and yet of which you could then and since know nothing. Only I, Christine de Chagny and her husband Raoul are aware of this truth and I must beg you to handle it with gentleness and care ...Three years after I found a poor wretch of sixteen chained in a cage at Neuilly I met the second of those young men I later came to call my boys. It was by accident, and a dreadful tragic accident it was.It was late at night in the winter of 1885. The opera had finally finished, the girls had gone to their quarters, the great building had closed its doors and I was walking home alone through the darkened streets towards my apartment. It was a short cut, narrow, cobbled and black. Unknown to me, there were other people in that alley. Ahead a serving maid, late-dismissed from a house near by, was trotting fearfully through the dark towards the brighter boulevard ahead. In a doorway a young man whom I later learned to be no more than sixteen was saying farewell to the friends with whom he had spent the evening.Out of the shadows came a ruffian, a footpad such as haunted the back streets looking for a pedestrian to rob of his wallet. Why he picked the little serving girl I shall never know. She could not have had more than five sous on her person. But I saw the rogue run out of the shadows and throw his arms around her throat to stop her screaming while he went for her purse. I yelled, 'Leave her alone, brute. Au secours! Au secours!'The sound of racing male boots went past me, I caught the glimpse of a uniform and a young man had thrown himself on the footpad, carrying him to the ground. The midinette screamed and ran headlong for the lights of the boulevard. I never saw her again. The footpad tore himself loose from the young officer, got to his feet and began to run. The officer rose and went after him. Then I saw the ruffian turn, draw something from his pocket and point it at his pursuer. There was a bang and a flash as he fired. Then he ran through an arch to disappear in the courtyards behind.I went over to the fallen man and saw that he was little more than a boy, a brave and gallant child, in the uniform of an officer cadet from the Ecole Militaire. His handsome face was white as marble and he was bleeding profusely from a bullet wound in the lower stomach. I tore strips from my petticoat to staunch the bleeding and screamed until a householder looked out from above and asked what was the matter. I urged him to run to the boulevard and hail a cab urgently, which he did in his nights.h.i.+rt.It was too far to the Hotel-Dieu, much closer to the Hopital St Lazare, so that was where we went. There was one young doctor on duty but when he saw the nature of the wound and learned the ident.i.ty of the cadet, scion of a most n.o.ble family from Normandy, he sent a porter running for a senior surgeon who lived near by. There was nothing more I could do for the lad, so I went home.But I prayed that he would live and in the morning, it being a Sunday and no work for me at the Opera, I went back to the hospital. The authorities had already sent for the family from Normandy and, seeing me approach, the senior surgeon on duty must have taken me for the cadet's mother when I asked for him by name. His face was a mask of gravity and he invited me to come to his private office. There he told me the dreadful news.The patient would live, he said, but the damage caused by the bullet and its removal had been terrible. Major blood vessels in the upper groin and lower stomach had been torn beyond repair. He had had no choice but to suture them. Still I did not understand. Then I realized what he meant, and asked in plain language. He nodded solemnly. 'I am devastated,' he said. 'Such a young life, such a handsome boy, and now alas only half a man. I fear he will never be able to have a child of his own.''You mean', I asked, 'that the bullet has emasculated him?' The surgeon shook his head. 'Even that might have been a mercy, for then he might have felt no desire for a woman. No, he will feel all the pa.s.sion, the love, the desire that any young man may feel. But the destruction of those vital blood vessels means that ...''I am no child myself, M'sieur le Docteur,' I said, wis.h.i.+ng to spare his embarra.s.sment though I knew with awful dread what was coming.'Then, madame, I must tell you that he will never be able to consummate any union with a woman and thus create a child of his own.''So he can now never marry?' I asked. The surgeon shrugged.'It would be a strange and saintly woman, or one with a powerful other motive, who could accept such a union with no physical dimension,' he said. 'I am truly sorry. I did what I could to save his life from the haemorrhage.'I could hardly keep from weeping at the tragedy of it. That such a foul fiend could inflict so dreadful a wound on a boy on the threshold of life seemed impossible. But I went to see him anyway. He was pale and weak, but awake. He had not been told. He thanked me prettily for helping him in the alley, insisting that I had saved his life. When I heard his family arriving hotfoot from the Rouen train I left.I never thought to see my young aristocrat again but I was wrong. Eight years later, grown handsome as a Greek G.o.d, he began to frequent the Opera night after night, hoping for a word and a smile from a certain understudy. Later, finding her with child, good, kind and decent man that he was, he confessed all to her and with her agreement married her, giving her his name, his t.i.tle and a wedding band. And for twelve years he has given to the son all the love a real father could ever give.So there you have the truth my poor Erik. Try to be kind and gentle.From one who tried to help you in your pain,A dying kiss,Antoinette Giry.

I will see her tomorrow. She must know it by now. The message to the hotel was plain enough. She would know that musical monkey anywhere. The place of my choosing, of course; the hour of my selection. Will she be frightened of me still? I suppose so. Yet she will not know how fearful I will be of her; of her power to deny me again some tiny measure of the happiness most men can take for granted.

But even if I am to be repulsed yet again, everything has changed. I can look down from this high eyrie onto the heads of that human race I so loathe, but now I can say: you can spit on me, defile me; jeer at me, revile me; but nothing you can do will hurt me now. Through the filth and through the rain, through the tears and through the pain, my life's not been in vain; I HAVE A SON.

11.

THE PRIVATE DIARY OF MEG GIRY.

WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL, MANHATTAN, 29 NOVEMBER 1906.

DEAR DIARY, AT LAST I AM ABLE TO SIT DOWN IN peace and confide to you my inner thoughts and worries, for it is now the small hours of the morning and everyone is abed.

Pierre is fast asleep, quiet as a lamb, for I peeped in ten minutes ago. Father Joe I can hear snoring away in his cot next to where I am sitting and even the thick walls of this hotel do not deny his farm-boy snorts. And Madame is at last asleep also with a cachet to help her find rest. For in twelve years I have never seen her so distressed.

It all had to do with that toy monkey that some anonymous donor sent to Pierre here in the suite. There was a reporter here also, very nice and helpful (and who flirted with his eyes at me) but that was not what upset Madame so badly. It was the toy monkey.

When she had heard it play its second tune - the sounds of which came straight through the open door into the boudoir where I was brus.h.i.+ng her hair - she became like one possessed. She insisted on finding out from where it came, and when the reporter M. Bloom had traced it and arranged a visit, she insisted that she be left alone. I had to ask the young man to leave, and get Pierre protesting into bed.

After that, I found her at her dressing-table, staring at the mirror but making no attempt to complete her toilette. So I cancelled dinner in the restaurant with Mr Hammerstein also.

Only when we were alone could I ask her what was going on. For this journey to New York, which started so well and saw such a fine reception at the quay earlier in the day, had turned to something dark and sinister.

Of course, I too recognized the strange monkey-doll and the haunting tune it played, and it brought back a tidal wave of frightening memories. Thirteen years ... that was what she kept repeating as we talked, and truly it has been thirteen years since those strange events that culminated in the terrible descent to the lowest and darkest cellar beneath the Paris Opera. But though I was there that night, and have tried to question Madame since, she has always kept her silence and I never did learn the details of the relations.h.i.+p between her and the frightening figure we chorus girls used to refer to simply as the Phantom.

Until this night when at last she told me more. Thirteen years ago she was involved in a truly remarkable scandal at the Paris Opera when she was abducted right from the centre of the stage during the performance of a new opera, Don Juan Triumphant Don Juan Triumphant, which has never been repeated since.

I was myself in the corps de ballet corps de ballet that night, though I was not on stage at the moment the lights fused out and she disappeared. Her abductor carried her from the stage down to the deepest cellars of the Opera, where she was later rescued by the gendarmes and the rest of the cast, headed by the Commissaire de Police who happened to be in the audience. that night, though I was not on stage at the moment the lights fused out and she disappeared. Her abductor carried her from the stage down to the deepest cellars of the Opera, where she was later rescued by the gendarmes and the rest of the cast, headed by the Commissaire de Police who happened to be in the audience.

I was there too, trembling with fear as we all came down with burning torches, through cellar after cellar until we reached the lowest catacomb by the underground lake. We expected to find at last the dreaded Phantom but all we and the gendarmes found was Madame, alone and shaking like a leaf, and later Raoul de Chagny who had come ahead of us and seen the Phantom face to face.

There was a chair, with a cloak thrown over it, and we thought the monster might be hiding underneath. But no. Just a monkey-toy, with cymbals and a musical box inside. The police took it away as evidence and I never saw such a one again, until this night.

That was the time she was being daily courted by the young Vicomte Raoul de Chagny and all the girls were so envious of her. Had it not been for her beautiful nature she might well have invited hostility too, for her looks, her sudden leap to stardom and the love of the most eligible bachelor in Paris. But no-one hated her; we all loved her and were delighted to see her restored to us. But though we became closer over the years, she never mentioned what happened to her in the hours that she was missing, and her only explanation was that 'Raoul rescued me.' So what was the significance of the toy monkey?

This night I knew better than to ask her directly, so I fussed about and brought her a little food, which she refused to eat. When I had persuaded her to take her sleeping-draught she became drowsy and let slip for the first time a few details of those bizarre events.

She told me there had been another man, a strange elusive creature who frightened, fascinated, overawed and helped her, but who had an obsessional love for her that she could not repay. Even as a chorus girl I had heard tales of a strange phantom who haunted the lower cellars of the Opera and had amazing powers, being able to come and go unseen and inflict his will on the management by threats of retribution if they did not obey him. The man and his legend frightened us all, but I never knew he loved my mistress of today in such a manner. I asked about the monkey that played a haunting tune.

She said she had only seen such a creature once before, and I am sure that it must have been during those hours in the cellars with the monster, the same one I myself found on the empty chair.

As the sleep came over her, she kept repeating that 'he' must be back: alive and close, moving behind the scenes as ever, a terrifying genius of a man, fearsomely ugly as her Raoul was handsome, the one she had rejected and who had now lured her to New York to confront her again.

I will do everything I can to protect her, for she is my friend as well as my employer and she is good and kind. But now I am frightened, for there is something or someone out there in the night and I fear for all of us: for me, for Father Joe, for Pierre and most of all for her, Madame.

The last thing she said to me before she slipped away into sleep was that for the sake of Pierre and of Raoul she must find the strength to refuse him again, for she is convinced that soon he will at last appear and demand her again. I pray that she has that strength and I pray that these next ten days will hurry past so that we may all return safely to the security of Paris and away from this place of monkeys that play long-ago tunes and the unseen presence of the Phantom.

12.

THE JOURNAL OF TAFFY JONES.

STEEPLECHASE PARK, CONEY ISLAND, 1 DECEMBER 1906.

MINE IS A STRANGE JOB AND SOME WOULD SAY NOT for a man of some intelligence and no small ambition. For this reason I have often been tempted to give it up and move on to something else. Yet I have never done so in the nine years since I have been employed here at Steeplechase Park.

Part of this reason is that the job offers security for me and my wife and brood, with an excellent income and comfortable living conditions. Another part is that I have simply come to enjoy it. I enjoy the laughter of the children and the pleasure of their parents. I take satisfaction in the simple off-duty happiness of those all around me during the summer months and the contrasting peace and quiet of the winter season.

As for my living conditions, they could hardly be more comfortable for a man of my station. My princ.i.p.al dwelling is a snug cottage in the respectable middle-cla.s.s community of Brighton Beach, barely a mile from my place of work. Add to that, I have a small cabin here in the heart of the funfair to which I can repair for a rest from time to time, even at the height of the season. As for my salary, it is generous. Ever since, three years ago, I negotiated a reward based on a tiny fraction of the gate money I have been able to take home over one hundred dollars a week.

Being a man of modest tastes and not much of a drinker, I am able to put a good part of it by, so that one day and not so many years from now I shall be able to retire from all this, with my five children off my hands and making their way in the world. Then I shall take my Blodwyn and we will find a small farm, perhaps by a river or a lake or even by the sea, where I can farm and fish as the mood takes me, and go to chapel on the Sabbath and be a regular pillar of the local society. And so I stay and do my job, which most say I do very well.

For I am the official Funmaster of Steeplechase Park. Which means that with my extra-long shoes on my feet, my baggy trousers in a violent check, my stars-and-stripes weskit and my tall top hat I stand at the entrance gate to the park and welcome all visitors. More, with my bushy sideburns and handlebar moustache and a smile of cheerful welcome on my face, I bring many of them in who would otherwise have pa.s.sed by.

Using my megaphone I cry constantly, 'Roll up, roll up, all the fun of the fair, thrills and spills, strange and wonderful things to see, come in my friends and have the time of your lives ...' and so on and on. Up and down outside the gate I go, greeting and welcoming the pretty girls in their best summer frocks and the young men trying so hard to impress them in striped jackets and straw boaters; and the families with their children clamouring for the many and special treats that I tell them are in store once they have persuaded their parents to take them in. And in they go, paying their cents and dollars at the pay-booths, and of every fifty cents there is one for me.

Of course, this is a summer job, lasting from April until October, when the first cold winds come in off the Atlantic and we close down for the winter.

Then I can hang the Funmaster's suit in the closet and drop the Welsh lilt that the visitors find so charming, for I was born in Brooklyn City and have never seen the land of my father and his fathers before him. Then I can come to work in a normal suit and supervise the winter programme when all the sideshows and rides are dismantled and stored; when the machinery is serviced and greased, worn parts replaced, timber sanded and repainted or varnished, carousel horses regilded and torn canvas st.i.tched. By the time April comes again all is back where it should be and the gates open with the first warm and sunny days.

So it was with some amazement that two days ago I received a letter from Mr George Tilyou personally, he being the gentleman who owns the park. He dreamed up the idea in the first place, with a partner who exists only in rumour and whom the world has never seen, at least not down here. It was Mr T's energy and vision that brought it all into being nine years ago and since then the park has made him a very rich man indeed.

His letter came by personal delivery and was clearly very urgent. It explained that on the following day, which of course is now yesterday, a private party would be visiting the park and for these people the place should be opened up. He said he knew the rides and carousels could not function in time, but stressed that the Toyshop should be open and fully staffed and so also should the Hall of Mirrors. And this letter led to the strangest day I have ever known in Steeplechase Park.

Mr Tilyou's instructions that the Toyshop and the Hall of Mirrors should be fully staffed put me in the very devil of a fix. For both my key staff in these areas are on vacation and far away.

Nor are they easily replaceable. The mechanical toys in the shop, the very speciality of that emporium, are not only the most sophisticated in all America but are also very complicated. It takes a real expert to understand them and explain their workings to the young people who come by to wonder, to explore and to buy. I am certainly not that expert. I could only hope for the best - or so I thought.

Of course the place is bitter cold in winter but I took kerosene warmers in to heat up the shop on the evening before the visit so that by dawn it was warm as a summer's day. Then I removed all the dust-sheets from the shelves to reveal the ranks of clockwork soldiers, drummers, dancers, acrobats and animals that sing, dance and play. But that was as far as I could go. I had done all I could in the toyshop by eight in the morning before the private party was due to arrive. Then something most strange happened.

I turned around to find a young man staring at me. I do not know how he had got in, and was about to tell him that the place was closed when he offered to operate the Toyshop for me. How did he know I had visitors coming? He did not say. He just explained that he had worked here once and understood the mechanics of all the toys. Well, with the regular Toyman missing, I had no choice but to accept. He did not look like the Toyman, all jovial and welcoming and a favourite with the kids. He had a bone-white face, black hair and eyes and a black formal coat. I asked for his name. He paused for a second and said, 'Malta.' So that is what I called him until he left, or rather vanished. But more later.

The Hall of Mirrors was another matter. It is a most amazing place and though, in off-duty hours, I have been inside it myself, I have never been able to understand how it works. Whoever designed it must have been a sort of genius. All visitors have come out after a ritual stroll through the many constantly changing mirror-rooms convinced they have seen things they could not have seen and not seen things that must have been there. It is a house not just of mirrors but of illusion. In case, years from now, any soul should read this journal, having some interest in the Coney Island that once was, let me try to explain the Hall of Mirrors.

From the outside it appears a simple, low-built square building with one door for going in and out. Once inside, the visitor sees a corridor running to his left and right. It matters not which way he turns. Both walls of the corridor are sheeted with mirror and the pa.s.sage is exactly four feet wide. This is important, for the inner wall is not unbroken but comprised of vertical sheets of mirror exactly eight feet wide and seven high. Each plate is on a vertical axis, so that when one is turned by remote control half of it will completely block the pa.s.sage, but reveal a new pa.s.sage heading into the heart of the building.

He has no choice but to follow this new pa.s.sage which, as the plates turn on a secret command, becomes more and more pa.s.sages, small rooms of mirrors that appear and disappear. But it gets worse. For nearer the centre many of the eight-feet-wide sheets are not only axled top-to-bottom but stand on eight-feet-diameter discs which themselves revolve. A visitor standing on a semicircular but unseen disc with his back to a mirror may find himself turned through ninety, a hundred and eighty or two seventy degrees. He thinks he is stationary and only the mirrors are turning, but to him other people suddenly appear and disappear; small rooms are created then dissolve; he addresses a stranger who appears before him only to realize he is talking to the image of someone behind him or to his side.

Husbands and wives, lovers and sweethearts are separated in seconds, stumble forward to be reunited - but with someone quite different. Screams of fright and laughter echo throughout the hall when a dozen young couples have ventured in together.

Now all this is controlled by the Mirror Man, who alone understands how it all works. He sits in a raised booth above the door and by glancing upwards can see a roof mirror, angled to give him alone a bird's-eye view of the whole floor, so that with a bank of levers under his hand he can create and dissolve the pa.s.sages, rooms and illusions. My problem was that Mr Tilyou had insisted the lady visitor should under all circ.u.mstances be urged to visit the Hall of Mirrors, but the Mirror Man was on holiday and could not be contacted.

I had to try to understand the controls myself so that I could operate them for the lady's amus.e.m.e.nt, and to this end spent half the night inside the building with a paraffin lantern, testing and experimenting with the levers until I was sure I could guide the lady for a quick tour inside and yet show her the way out when she cried for release. For with the rooms of mirrors all open-topped, the sound of voices is quite clear.

By nine yesterday morning I had done the best I could and was waiting to greet Mr Tilyou's personal guests. They came just before the hour of ten. There was virtually no traffic on Surf Avenue and when I saw the brougham coming past the offices of Brooklyn Eagle, past the entrances to Luna Park and Dreamland and on towards me down the avenue, I presumed it must be they. For the brougham was the smartly painted hack that waits outside the Manhattan Beach Hotel for those descending from the El-train from Brooklyn Bridge, though few enough there are in December.

As it approached and the driver reined in his pair I stepped forward with the megaphone up. 'Welcome, welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Steeplechase Park, first and finest of the funfairs on Coney Island,' I boomed, though even the horses gave me a glance as if looking at a madman dressed in all his finery at the end of November.

The first out of the coach was a young man who turned out to be a reporter from the New York American New York American, one of Hearst's yellow-press rags. Very full of himself he was and apparently the visitors' guide to New York. Next out came a most beautiful lady, a true aristocrat - oh yes, you can always tell - whom the reporter presented as the Vicomtesse de Chagny and one of the leading opera singers in the world. Of course, I did not need to be told this, for I read the New York Times New York Times, being myself a man of some education, even though self-taught. Only then did I understand why Mr Tilyou wished to indulge the wishes of such a lady. She descended to the rain-slick boardwalk, supported on the arm of the reporter; I laid down the megaphone - no further use for it - gave her a most sweeping bow and welcomed her again to my domain. She replied with a smile to melt the stone heart of Cader Idris and said in a delightful French accent that she regretted having to disturb my winter hibernation. 'Your devoted servant, ma'am,' I replied to show that behind my Funmaster clothes I was aware of proper forms of address.

Next came a small boy of about twelve or thirteen, a good-looking lad who was also French like his mother but spoke excellent English. He was clutching a toy monkey-c.u.m-musical box of the type I saw at once must have come from our own Toyshop, the only place in all New York to provide them. For a moment I was worried: had it broken down? Were they here to complain?

The reason for the boy's good English emerged last, a stocky and fit-looking Irish priest in black ca.s.sock and broad hat. 'A good morning to you Mr Funmaster,' said he. 'And a cold one for the likes of us to bring you out.'

'But not cold enough to chill a warm Irish heart,' said I, not to be outdone, for as a chapel-going man I do not normally have much to do with Papist priests. But he threw back his head and roared with laughter, so I reckoned he was perhaps a good fellow after all. It was thus in a merry mood that I led the party of four up the boardwalk, through the gates, past the open turnstile and towards the Toyshop for it was plain this was what they wished to see.

Thanks to the heaters it was pleasantly warm inside and Mr Malta was waiting to greet them. At once the boy, whose name turned out to Pierre, was entranced by the shelves and shelves of mechanical dancers, soldiers, musicians, clowns and animals that are the glory of the Steeplechase Park Toyshop and not to be found anywhere else in the city and perhaps not in all the country. He was racing up and down the alleys asking to be shown them all. But his mother was only interested in one type - the rack of music-playing monkeys.

We found them on a rear shelf, right at the back, and she at once asked Mr Malta to make them play.

'All of them?' he asked.

'One after the other,' she said firmly. So it was done. One after the other the keys in the backs were wound up and the monkeys began to bang their cymbals and play their tune. 'Yankee Doodle Dandy', always the same. I was puzzled. Did she want a subst.i.tute? And did not they all sound the same? Then she nodded at her son and he produced a penknife with a screwdriver attachment. Malta and I looked on stunned as the boy eased away a flap of cloth at the back of the first monkey, then undid a small panel and put his hand inside. He took out a dollar-sized disc, flipped it over and put it back. I raised my eyebrows to Malta and he did the same. The monkey began to play again. 'Song of Dixie'. Of course, one tune for the North and one for the South.

He soon replaced the disc the way it had been, and started on the second. Same result. After ten his mother signalled at him to stop. Malta began to replace the wares as they had been before. Clearly not even he knew there were two tunes inside the monkey. The vicomtesse was very pale. 'He has been here,' she said to no-one in particular. Then to me, 'Who designed and made these monkeys?'

I shrugged in ignorance. Then Malta said, 'They are made by a small factory in New Jersey, all of them. But under licence and from patented designs. As for who designed them, I do not know.'

Then the lady asked, 'Have either of you ever seen a strange man here? A man in a wide hat, with most of his face covered by a mask?'

At this last question I felt Mr Malta, who was standing beside me, stiffen like a ramrod. I glanced at him but his face was set as stone. So I shook my head and explained to her that in a funfair there are many masks: clown masks, monster masks, Hallowe'en masks. But a man who wore a mask all the time, just to cover his face? No, never. At this point she sighed and shrugged, then wandered off down the aisles between the shelves to look at the other toys on offer.

Malta beckoned to the boy and led him away in the other direction, apparently to show him a display of clockwork marching soldiers. But I was beginning to have my doubts about this icy young man so I slipped after them while keeping a rack of toys between us. To my surprise and annoyance my unexpected and mysterious helper began quietly to interrogate the child, who answered innocently enough.

'Just why has your mama come to New York?' he asked.

'Why, to sing in the opera, sir.'

'Indeed. And no other reason? Not to meet anyone special?'

'No, sir.'

'And why is she interested in monkeys that play tunes?'

'Only one monkey, monsieur, and one tune. But that is the one she is holding now. No other monkey plays the tune she seeks.'

'How sad. And your papa, is he not here?'

'No, sir. Dear Papa was detained in France. He arrives by sea tomorrow.'

'Excellent. And he really is your papa?'

'Of course. He is married to Mama and I am his son.'

At this point I felt the impudence had gone far enough and was about to intervene when something strange happened. The door came open, admitting a blast of cold air off the sea, and in the frame was the stocky figure of the priest, who I had learned was called Father Kilfoyle. Feeling the chill air, the boy Pierre and Mr Malta came into sight from around the corner of one of the display racks. The priest and the white-faced one were ten yards apart and stared at each other. At once the priest raised his right hand and made the sign of the cross over his forehead and chest. As a good chapel man, I do not go along with this, but I know that for Catholics it is a sign of seeking the Lord's protection.

Then the priest said, 'Come now, Pierre,' and held out his hand. But he was still staring at Mr Malta.

The clear confrontation between the two men, which was to be the first of two that day, had cast as good a chill as the wind off the sea, so in an attempt to restore the mood of merriment of just an hour before, I said: 'Your Ladys.h.i.+p, our pride and joy here is the Hall of Mirrors, a true wonder of the world. Please allow me to show it to you, it will restore your spirits. And Master Pierre can amuse himself with the other toys, for as you see he is quite enchanted as are all young people who come in here.'

She seemed undecided and I recalled with some trepidation how insistent Mr Tilyou had been in his letter that she should see the mirrors, though I could not discern why. She glanced at the Irishman who nodded and said, 'Sure, see the wonder of the world for a while. I'll look after Pierre, and we have the time. Rehearsals are not till after lunch.' So she nodded and came with me.

If the episode in the Toyshop was strange, the boy and his mother seeking a tune that none of the monkeys could play, what followed was truly bizarre and explains why I have been at pains to describe exactly what I saw and heard that day.

We entered the hall together through the only door and she saw the corridor left and right. I gestured that she should make her choice. She shrugged, smiled most prettily and turned to the right. I climbed to the control box and glanced into the upper mirror. I could see she had reached a point halfway down one of the side walls. I moved a lever to turn a mirror and direct her towards the centre. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still nothing. The controls did not work. I could see her still moving between the mirror walls of the outer pa.s.sage. Then a mirror swung of its own accord, blocking her path and forcing her towards the centre. But I had moved nothing. Clearly the controls were malfunctioning and for her own safety it was time to let her out before she became trapped. I moved the levers to create a straight pa.s.sage back to the door. Nothing happened, but inside the maze mirrors were were moving, as if under their own control or that of someone else. I could see twenty images of the young woman as more and more mirrors spun, but now I could not work out which was the real person and which the image. moving, as if under their own control or that of someone else. I could see twenty images of the young woman as more and more mirrors spun, but now I could not work out which was the real person and which the image.

Suddenly she stopped, trapped in a small centre room. There was another movement in one wall of that room and I caught a swirl of a cloak, replicated twenty times, just before it vanished again. But it was not her cloak, for it was black while hers was of plum velvet. I saw her eyes open wide and her hand flew to her mouth. She was staring at something or someone standing with his back to a mirror plate, but in the one blind spot that my observation gla.s.s could not cover. Then she spoke. 'Oh, it is is you,' she said. I realized that somehow another person had not only entered the hall but found a way to the centre of the maze without being observed by me. This was impossible, until I saw that the angle of the tilted mirror above and ahead of me had been altered in the night so that it covered only one half of the hall. The other half was out of vision. I could see her, but not the phantom to whom she spoke. And I could hear them, so I have tried to recall and note down exactly what was said. you,' she said. I realized that somehow another person had not only entered the hall but found a way to the centre of the maze without being observed by me. This was impossible, until I saw that the angle of the tilted mirror above and ahead of me had been altered in the night so that it covered only one half of the hall. The other half was out of vision. I could see her, but not the phantom to whom she spoke. And I could hear them, so I have tried to recall and note down exactly what was said.

There was something else. This woman from France, rich, famous, talented and poised, was actually trembling. I sensed her fear but it was mixed with a dreadful fascination. As the later overheard conversation showed, she had met someone from her past, someone she had thought to be free from, someone who had once held her in a web ... of what? Fear, yes, that I could feel in the air. Love? Perhaps, once, long ago. And awe. Whoever he was, whoever he had once been, she still stood in awe of his power and personality. Several times I could see her s.h.i.+vering and yet he offered her no threat that I could hear. But this is what they said:

HE.