the marble floor. The Persian wondered why they didn’t freeze their toes off. He kept well out of their way.
The decadent Des Esseintes had got his Shakespeare mixed up and come as Cleopatra, attended by bare-chested pageboys painted gold. Louis-Amédée, Marquis de Coulteray, was the most impressive Duncano, blood-boltered from head to foot and licking gory lips. On his arm, got up as Hecate, was Joséphine Balsamo, Countess Cagliostro. The Persian still instinctively put her first on the list of suspects for any and all mysterious crimes committed in Paris. She never apparently aged, which was one of the characteristics of the traditional vampire – though he couldn’t imagine her lowering herself to drink anything less effervescent than champagne or putting on bat-wings and hopping from one chimney pot to the next.
Giovanni Jones stalked through the crowd with an oversized cardboard dagger stuck out of his back. In a company where several guests dressed as the proverbial spectre at the feast, the baritone made the extra effort to secure the role for his own.
The Persian recognised a comely Prince Hamlet as Ayda Heidari and patted his pockets to make sure his wallet and watch were still about his person. Then he remembered
Les Vampires
liked to send an obvious thief into a crowd to make people do exactly what he had just done so the pickpocket you
didn’t
recognise knew where to strike. Ayda saw his aghast look and came over to say she was off-duty tonight.
‘Did you enjoy the opera?’ he asked.
‘Too much blood,’ she said, and was whirled away, pounced on by a duchess of a certain age who mistook her for a young lad – or perhaps didn’t much care who was inside the doublet and hose. Opera balls were notoriously licentious.
With a threefold pincer movement, the Countesses trapped the singer Gravelle under a twenty-foot statue of Salome holding a severed head on a plate. As they competed to lick him all over, his bass baritone rose to tenor yelps. One of the Countesses bit his earlobe too enthusiastically. A knot of gawkers obscured the view, which was just as well.
The Persian was surprised to see the bold vampire hunter Inspecteur d’Aaubert holding court by the buffet table, in full dress uniform with plumed hat and sword. A very fair woman in a simple green dress was at his side.
Making it his business to drift closer to the group, the Persian overheard the Inspector expressing confidence in the likeliness of an early arrest in the stone-cold murder at the Hôtel Meurice.
‘The nights of
Les Vampires
are numbered.’
‘Our old friend must be missed,’ suggested a tall gentleman who had a Viennese accent.
‘Of course,’ said d’Aubert. ‘The Count de Rosillon was a fine fellow, very high up in… you know… intelligence.’
The policeman made gestures which suggested but did not outright state that the victim was a dauntless servant of the state murdered for getting too close to exposing a treasonous conspiracy.
‘You surprise me, Raoul,’ said the tall gentleman. ‘The Camille I remember would be the least likely to be accused of association with… intelligence.’
The Persian took a drink – champagne sacrilegiously diluted with Scotch whisky – and attached himself to the group. The Phantom might have refused the request of the Grand Vampire, but it was a good idea for the Agency to keep up on the latest Parisian crimes.
None of d’Aubert’s cronies were suspicious characters – which, experience suggested, was what made them worth watching.
The Viennese wore a smart black cloak. A fanged bat-mask was pushed up into his hair so he could drink. He had a pencil-stroke moustache and arched eyebrows. Beside him was a square-faced, square-shouldered woman in middle-age with iron-grey hair, determined eyes and pince-nez. The Austrian was affable and easily distracted but this lady – whom the Persian took to be Dutch – was grimly intent on pinning the policeman down.
‘My
The decadent Des Esseintes had got his Shakespeare mixed up and come as Cleopatra, attended by bare-chested pageboys painted gold. Louis-Amédée, Marquis de Coulteray, was the most impressive Duncano, blood-boltered from head to foot and licking gory lips. On his arm, got up as Hecate, was Joséphine Balsamo, Countess Cagliostro. The Persian still instinctively put her first on the list of suspects for any and all mysterious crimes committed in Paris. She never apparently aged, which was one of the characteristics of the traditional vampire – though he couldn’t imagine her lowering herself to drink anything less effervescent than champagne or putting on bat-wings and hopping from one chimney pot to the next.
Giovanni Jones stalked through the crowd with an oversized cardboard dagger stuck out of his back. In a company where several guests dressed as the proverbial spectre at the feast, the baritone made the extra effort to secure the role for his own.
The Persian recognised a comely Prince Hamlet as Ayda Heidari and patted his pockets to make sure his wallet and watch were still about his person. Then he remembered
Les Vampires
liked to send an obvious thief into a crowd to make people do exactly what he had just done so the pickpocket you
didn’t
recognise knew where to strike. Ayda saw his aghast look and came over to say she was off-duty tonight.
‘Did you enjoy the opera?’ he asked.
‘Too much blood,’ she said, and was whirled away, pounced on by a duchess of a certain age who mistook her for a young lad – or perhaps didn’t much care who was inside the doublet and hose. Opera balls were notoriously licentious.
With a threefold pincer movement, the Countesses trapped the singer Gravelle under a twenty-foot statue of Salome holding a severed head on a plate. As they competed to lick him all over, his bass baritone rose to tenor yelps. One of the Countesses bit his earlobe too enthusiastically. A knot of gawkers obscured the view, which was just as well.
The Persian was surprised to see the bold vampire hunter Inspecteur d’Aaubert holding court by the buffet table, in full dress uniform with plumed hat and sword. A very fair woman in a simple green dress was at his side.
Making it his business to drift closer to the group, the Persian overheard the Inspector expressing confidence in the likeliness of an early arrest in the stone-cold murder at the Hôtel Meurice.
‘The nights of
Les Vampires
are numbered.’
‘Our old friend must be missed,’ suggested a tall gentleman who had a Viennese accent.
‘Of course,’ said d’Aubert. ‘The Count de Rosillon was a fine fellow, very high up in… you know… intelligence.’
The policeman made gestures which suggested but did not outright state that the victim was a dauntless servant of the state murdered for getting too close to exposing a treasonous conspiracy.
‘You surprise me, Raoul,’ said the tall gentleman. ‘The Camille I remember would be the least likely to be accused of association with… intelligence.’
The Persian took a drink – champagne sacrilegiously diluted with Scotch whisky – and attached himself to the group. The Phantom might have refused the request of the Grand Vampire, but it was a good idea for the Agency to keep up on the latest Parisian crimes.
None of d’Aubert’s cronies were suspicious characters – which, experience suggested, was what made them worth watching.
The Viennese wore a smart black cloak. A fanged bat-mask was pushed up into his hair so he could drink. He had a pencil-stroke moustache and arched eyebrows. Beside him was a square-faced, square-shouldered woman in middle-age with iron-grey hair, determined eyes and pince-nez. The Austrian was affable and easily distracted but this lady – whom the Persian took to be Dutch – was grimly intent on pinning the policeman down.
‘My
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