with imagination and ingenuity. That was why she had employed a skull-faced foreign freak in the first place – to build palaces of the perverse and mazes of murder, for her own entertainment and that of her favourite daughter-in-law, the giggling, bloodthirsty little Sultana. Nothing he had seen during the Paris Commune was worse than the Red Nights of Mazenderan.
Then, the Persian had been
Daroga
, a humble chief of police – something detectives, criminals and assassins of his current acquaintance tended to forget. He knew all too keenly that a trained detective of the Dunsinane Constabulary might look askance at a witness who claimed to have found the victim’s butchered body then impulsively executed the nearest suspects before they could be questioned. He also knew such a solution would be a tricky sell to superior officers when time came to write out an arrest warrant – especially if the person of interest happened to be a newly crowned king. In his experience, absolutist tyrants didn’t bother even with transparent cover-ups like smearing blood on the dead patsies. The Khanum wanted her people to know how messily her enemies died. She made no song and dance about regretting her crimes or getting bloodstains off her nightgown.
* * *
The after-show ball was held in the great foyer of the Palais Garnier so members of the company – and special guests – could make entrances at the top of the imposing marble staircase then descend at an even pace so all eyes could admire their costumes. All well and good for those who had been in the opera, but guests from outside had to be spirited through the stage doors and the wings up to the first floor so they could appear as if by magic and parade down to the party.
A lone bagpiper – who said he was Scotch, though his hair was dyed red and he spoke with an Albanian accent – stood at the foot of the stairs, setting distant dogs to whining with tuneless skirls. Eventually, Monsieur Rémy, secretary to the Director, paid the piper to stop. The Persian was grateful the functionary got to him with coin before Erik did with a strangling cord.
With a simple tartan eye-mask and matching sash, the Persian mingled with the celebrants. All around were people in costume – Macbettos, Lady Macbettos, witches in sets of three, the odd Hecate (not actually present in the opera), Bancos, Duncanos, chieftains, ladies in waiting, ladies who were fed up and no longer waiting, ghosts of kings despatched and apparitions of kings yet to come.
The Persian counted seven sets of witches… including competing trios of artistes from the Alcazar d’Hiver and Le Chat Noir who were certain to belabour each other’s tall hats with prop besoms before chucking-out time.
The most entertainingly ill-behaved
beldames
were tourists from out of town, the consorts – some said wives – of an Eastern European nobleman. According to the weekly gazetteer of notable visitors, they were the Countesses Dorabella, Clarimonde and Géraldine. Two dark, one fair, all surpassingly beautiful. Their Count was on a boring business trip to London. Determined not be seen dead in that drizzly hole, they occupied an entire floor of Le Grand Hôtel. With a line of credit from the House of de Rothschild Frères, the red-lipped hoydens haunted the high-priced shops of Paris, a city worth the sacking. They reputedly picked up and tossed aside lovers the way other women went through hairpins. A rash of mystery illnesses, nervous collapses and religious conversions afflicted their cast-offs.
There were surely enough unattached – indeed,
suddenly
unattached – politicians, guardsmen, poets and financiers in the house to keep the Countesses busy for a few nights. But if one sighted a likely prospect, they all were interested and fellows were being forever nipped and pinched and dragged into antechambers for brief, debilitating liaisons. The three wore long white shrouds and jewelled headdresses and went barefoot on
Then, the Persian had been
Daroga
, a humble chief of police – something detectives, criminals and assassins of his current acquaintance tended to forget. He knew all too keenly that a trained detective of the Dunsinane Constabulary might look askance at a witness who claimed to have found the victim’s butchered body then impulsively executed the nearest suspects before they could be questioned. He also knew such a solution would be a tricky sell to superior officers when time came to write out an arrest warrant – especially if the person of interest happened to be a newly crowned king. In his experience, absolutist tyrants didn’t bother even with transparent cover-ups like smearing blood on the dead patsies. The Khanum wanted her people to know how messily her enemies died. She made no song and dance about regretting her crimes or getting bloodstains off her nightgown.
* * *
The after-show ball was held in the great foyer of the Palais Garnier so members of the company – and special guests – could make entrances at the top of the imposing marble staircase then descend at an even pace so all eyes could admire their costumes. All well and good for those who had been in the opera, but guests from outside had to be spirited through the stage doors and the wings up to the first floor so they could appear as if by magic and parade down to the party.
A lone bagpiper – who said he was Scotch, though his hair was dyed red and he spoke with an Albanian accent – stood at the foot of the stairs, setting distant dogs to whining with tuneless skirls. Eventually, Monsieur Rémy, secretary to the Director, paid the piper to stop. The Persian was grateful the functionary got to him with coin before Erik did with a strangling cord.
With a simple tartan eye-mask and matching sash, the Persian mingled with the celebrants. All around were people in costume – Macbettos, Lady Macbettos, witches in sets of three, the odd Hecate (not actually present in the opera), Bancos, Duncanos, chieftains, ladies in waiting, ladies who were fed up and no longer waiting, ghosts of kings despatched and apparitions of kings yet to come.
The Persian counted seven sets of witches… including competing trios of artistes from the Alcazar d’Hiver and Le Chat Noir who were certain to belabour each other’s tall hats with prop besoms before chucking-out time.
The most entertainingly ill-behaved
beldames
were tourists from out of town, the consorts – some said wives – of an Eastern European nobleman. According to the weekly gazetteer of notable visitors, they were the Countesses Dorabella, Clarimonde and Géraldine. Two dark, one fair, all surpassingly beautiful. Their Count was on a boring business trip to London. Determined not be seen dead in that drizzly hole, they occupied an entire floor of Le Grand Hôtel. With a line of credit from the House of de Rothschild Frères, the red-lipped hoydens haunted the high-priced shops of Paris, a city worth the sacking. They reputedly picked up and tossed aside lovers the way other women went through hairpins. A rash of mystery illnesses, nervous collapses and religious conversions afflicted their cast-offs.
There were surely enough unattached – indeed,
suddenly
unattached – politicians, guardsmen, poets and financiers in the house to keep the Countesses busy for a few nights. But if one sighted a likely prospect, they all were interested and fellows were being forever nipped and pinched and dragged into antechambers for brief, debilitating liaisons. The three wore long white shrouds and jewelled headdresses and went barefoot on
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