Haunted Castles by Ray Russell Page B

affaires
—Business is business.”
    Sellig was waiting for us in the foyer. His height, and his great beauty of face, made him stand out. Our two pretty companions took to him at once, for his attractive exterior was supplemented by waves of charm.
    â€œDid you enjoy the programme?” he asked of me.
    I did not know exactly what to reply. “Enjoy? . . . Let us say I found it fascinating, M’sieu’ Sellig.”
    â€œIt did not strike you as tawdry? cheap? vulgar?”
    â€œAll those, yes. But at the same time, exciting, as sometimes only the tawdry, the cheap, the vulgar, can be.”
    â€œYou may be right. I have not watched a Guignol production for several years. Although, surely, the acting . . .”
    We were entering a carriage, all five of us. I said, “The acting was unbelievably bad—with one exception.”
    â€œReally? And the exception?”
    â€œThe actor who played Bluebeard in a piece called
La Septième Porte
. His name is—” I turned to my companion again.
    â€œLaval,” she said, and the sound became a viscous thing.
    â€œAh yes,” said Sellig. “Laval. The name is not entirely unknown to me. Shall we go to Maxime’s?”
    We did, and experienced a most enjoyable evening. Sellig’s fame and personal magnetism won us the best table and the most efficient service. He told a variety of amusing—but never coarse—anecdotes about theatrical life, and did so without committing that all-too-common actor’s offense of dominating the conversation. One anecdote concerned the theatre we had just left:
    â€œI suppose César has told the story of the Guignol doctor. No? Ah then, it seems that at one point it was thought a capital idea to hire a house physician—to tend to swooning patrons and so on, you know. This was done, but it was unsuccessful. On the first night of the physician’s tour of duty, a male spectator found one particular bit of stage torture too much for him, and he fainted. The house physician was summoned. He could not be found. Finally, the ushers revived the unconscious man without benefit of medical assistance, and naturally they apologized profusely and explained they had not been able to find the doctor. ‘I know,’ the man said, rather sheepishly, ‘
I
am the doctor.’”
    At the end of the evening, César and I escorted our respective (but not precisely respectable) young ladies to their dwellings, where more pleasure was found. Sellig went home alone. I felt sorry for him, and there was a moment when it crossed my mind that perhaps he was one of those men who have no need of women—the theatrical profession is thickly inhabited by such men—but César privately assured me that Sellig had a mistress, a lovely and gracious widow named Lise, for Sellig’s tastes were exceedingly refined and his image unblemished by descents into the dimly lit world of the sporting house. My own tastes, though acute, were not so elevated, and thus I enjoyed myself immensely that night.
    Ignorance, they say, is bliss. I did not know that my ardent companion’s warmth would turn unalterably cold in the space of a single night.

IV
FACE OF EVIL
    T he
commissaire de police
had never seen anything like it. He spoke poor English, but I was able to glean his meaning without too much difficulty. “It is how you say . . .”
    â€œHorrible?”
    â€œAh, oui, mais . . . étrange, incroyable . . .”
    â€œUnique?”
    â€œSi! Uniquement monstrueux! Uniquement dégoûtant!”
    Uniquely disgusting. Yes, it was that. It was that, certainly.
    â€œThe manner, M’sieu’ . . . the method . . . the—”
    â€œMutilation.”
    â€œOui, la mutilation . . . est irrégulière, anormale . . .”
    We were in the morgue—not that newish Medico-Legal