Angels of Music (43 page)

‘Isn’t Fantômas an
imitator
of Erik?’ said Kate. ‘He wears evening clothes and a mask. He strikes from the shadows and issues press releases, just like Erik’s black-edged notes. Even the
name
sounds like Phantom.’

‘Once an imitation has been perfected, it makes sense to smash the original,’ said Elizabeth. ‘So there is only one.’

‘It is a pleasure to meet you,’ said Olympia. ‘I hope we shall be the best of friends.’

The doll sounded distressed. Or was she the same every time, like a wax cylinder? One heard her differently, depending on mood or context.

‘I understand that this Fantômas used to go by the absurd name of Gurn,’ said Elizabeth. ‘He may well have been born with it. I can conceive of no reason anyone who didn’t have to would call themselves Gurn. When I was an Angel, the Agency had a
contretemps
or two with him. He came off poorly, which might be a spur to his present mission against us. Then, he was little more than a common ruffian. Before he put on a mask and took up all this nihilist nonsense.’

Irene had heard of an incident at Royale-les-Eaux. Half the villains of the world blamed the other half for what happened in the casino there, but she’d discerned the dainty beating of Angels’ wings. Gurn had lost his first stolen fortune in that debacle – which was enough to put the Agency in his sights.

‘How do you
know
Fantômas killed the Persian?’ asked Kate.

‘He has issued threats,’ said Alraune. ‘Sent letters to the Opera House… put notices in the papers… painted his mark up all over the city. He accuses Erik of being a creature of the 19th century, who deserves to be swept away with the debris of the old world. Fantômas is a spectre of the New Age. No opera… just Phantom. He wants to see civilisation burn and dance in the ruins.’

‘Or flood,’ said Irene. ‘And splash about.’

‘He has strangled before,’ said Elizabeth. ‘You recall the case of Lord Beltham. Fantômas is a master of the night-time noose.’

‘So is Erik,’ said Irene. ‘Remember the Punjab lasso?’

The Phantom learned rope tricks from the Thuggee in India, during his youthful grand tour. Most people look at the Taj Mahal, visit art galleries, have unwise love affairs and send home cheerful postcards. Wherever he visited, Erik picked up ingenious murder methods.

‘You’re not suggesting Erik killed his only friend?’ said Kate.

‘His only
male
friend,’ corrected Irene. ‘And no… this is another player of the great game issuing a challenge, knocking over a pawn so as to get his attention. Using Erik’s trademark as a taunt. I am only surprised Fantômas didn’t get the Persian under a chandelier and drop it on him.’

Kate looked disgusted.

‘This isn’t how I think,’ said Irene. ‘It’s how
they
do. Masterminds.’

Unorna nodded her agreement. She understood the shadow worlds, perhaps more than any other Angel.

‘Erik used to make explosive devices like that music box too,’ said the witch.

‘So far as this Fantômas is concerned, we’re not even on the board,’ Irene continued. ‘Or else he’d have fitted us for red rope chokers. He thought Erik wouldn’t care enough if he only downed an Angel… so he killed a man. They’re fighting a duel.’

‘And we’re supposed to do what?’ said Kate. ‘Hold coats?’

‘Wait meekly – put in our place by that firework in the Persian’s grave – and sign up with whoever wins,’ suggested Irene. ‘And Fantômas says
Erik
is the 19th-century man.’

Red highlights burned on the Irish woman’s cheeks. Irene had known she would feel the sting at the oversight. Kate Reed, of all women, was offended at
not
being picked to be a murder victim.

Irene was angry too. She hadn’t expected that.

‘This will not pass,’ said Kate. ‘The Persian meant as much to us – more, I daresay! – as to Erik. Would any of us have stayed with the Agency for more than five minutes if we just had to take orders from behind that mirror? Despite what the world says, we did what we did for the Persian – not the Phantom! With Sophy Kratides retired and Lady Yuki in Japan, we lack our Angel of Vengeance and Angel of the Sword… but Erik called me the Angel of Truth.’

‘He called me the Angel of Larceny,’ said Irene, smirking.

‘Angel of Ill Fortune,’ said Alraune.

‘He called us all Angels of Something,’ said Kate. ‘Here’s my Truth – we won’t sit this out. Erik might be clinging to flotsam, for all we know… or washed down river and stuck in a midden. Unable to take his part in this duel that has cost us so dearly. So we shall find this Fantômas gobshite and bring him to book.’

‘It is a pleasure to meet you,’ said Olympia, with steely determination. ‘I hope we shall be the best of friends.’

‘What she said, sister,’ said Irene.

‘
That’s
the Irene Adler I was expecting,’ said Kate.

Irene had the feeling she’d been rooked. But she was angry and inspired too.

T
HE
M
ÉTRO WAS
fermé
. Parisians were leerier of travelling underground than Londoners. It might be partially Erik’s fault. There was no risk of running into a Phantom on the Tube – though the Lord (and the Diogenes Club) knew horrors enough squirmed under London. Black swine in the sewers of Hampstead. Sawney Beane in brick caves below Russell Square. Paris had more prosaic doubts about its still-novel Métro. A fire on a recently opened line had trapped and killed eighty travellers. Gloomy commentators talked of ‘the Nécro’ and swore to stick to omnibuses. They weren’t running either, of course. Kate supposed folk like that had to stay home, hoping the waters receded before their larders emptied.

If time and a working international wire could be found, she should cable
The Clarion
to offer news and notes. All the other British dailies had correspondents here, snug on the upper floors of good hotels, firing off stories overheard in bars. Rescued animals were always popular. Papers which usually ran editorials calling for war against the degenerate French set up appeals, exhorting the generous public to donate used clothes to Parisians whose wardrobes were underwater. Kate thought a mountain of odd socks and worn-out mufflers would be little appreciated. It would take more than forty days of rain to make the average French citizen wear something unfashionable, let alone something British. If the baskets of clothes ever arrived, they would end up stuffed into holes to plug leaks.

The rain stopped for the moment, but vicious cold winds still blew. Dangerous-looking, improvised plank-and-trestle walkways called
passerelles
stretched across flooded streets. Determined souls grimly tottered on these like high-wire walkers with umbrellas and bulky coats. Lampposts tilted at strange angles, lights out.

The Angels made their way from Père Lachaise in fiacres. When horses baulked at flooded streets, they had to get out and consider other transport options. The master of a small boat offered to row them along a canal-like stretch of Boulevard Montmartre for an extortionate fare.

With each disaster, opportunists sprung up to make a fast franc. Or pursue other ends.

Had their anarchist enemy waited for this moment – while
le tout Paris
was waterlogged and distracted – to strike? Kate wouldn’t have put it past him to dynamite riverbanks and stop up sewers to make the flood worse. But even Fantômas couldn’t summon the rain.

At the crossroads of Boulevard Montmartre, Boulevard Haussmann, Rue Drouot, Rue de Richelieu and Boulevard des Italiens, a makeshift dam barred the way. Made of carts, broken furniture, barrels and an inside-out grand piano, it resembled the barricades the Paris mob put up in times of insurrection. A miserable gendarme sat on a lopsided rocking chair atop the pile, as if manning a position – but the personnel stopping boats and interrogating passersby were civilians. Well-dressed in blazers and student caps. Generally well-spoken, if irritatingly cheerful.

Jules, their pop-eyed boatman, grumbled and gnawed his beard. Kate wondered if he’d be done for price-gouging. Profiteers were hated more than looters. A centime on the price of a loaf of bread was cause for lynching.

The dam didn’t completely block the way. A narrow gap was left for vessels to pass through once they’d been looked over.

‘Welcome to Suez,’ Kate said.

Two young men with hooks on poles pulled the boat towards an improvised quay.

‘What treasure have we here, Max?’ said one. ‘A cargo of fair rewards for our hard-working lads?’

‘Indeed, Oscar, indeed,’ responded Max. His straw hat was probably not suitable for the weather. ‘A most welcome relief.’

Kate recognised the badges on their breast-pockets. Max and Oscar were Camelots du Roi. The fellowship of rowdy conservative students was affiliated to
L’Action Française
, a well-connected, wealthy faction of Catholics, anti-Semites and Bourbon restorationists. Before this week, the Camelots were best known for affray masquerading as patriotism. To defend the honour of Joan of Arc, they disrupted the lectures of a Sorbonne professor who dared suggest a girl who heard voices was more deranged than saintly. During the flood, the Camelots had sobered up and volunteered to help police, fire brigades and army. Usually intent on overthrowing the Republic with flung beer bottles and obscene songs, the students had won over a sceptical public by tirelessly rescuing old ladies from sinking tenements (except Jewish old ladies, who could drown like cats) and delivering food to convents and orphanages. That said, Kate wondered what right they had to set up a road-block and quiz people about their business.

Besides their student insignia, they wore green armbands.

‘Seven lovelies in a boat,’ said Oscar. ‘A rich prize, to be sure.’

He consulted a leather-bound book, as if looking up rules of conduct for this situation.

‘Where are you going this fine afternoon?’ asked Max.

‘The opera house,’ said Kate.

‘Alas – there is no performance tonight,’ said Oscar.

‘We are aware of that, my good man,’ said Mrs Eynsford Hill.

Thi Minh made a sad, determined face.

‘You’re not French,’ said Max.

‘I’ll say we’re not,’ said Irene. ‘I am American… my friends are Irish, English, German, Annamite and Bohemian. Olympia was made in France, I suppose.’

‘Olympia?’ asked Max, craning his head. ‘Which delight is she?’

The Angels parted to let the Camelots see the doll. Her end of the boat sat lower in the water. Her works weighed more than human insides.

‘It is a pleasure to meet you,’ said Olympia. ‘I hope we shall be the best of friends.’

Max and Oscar laughed. If old enough to grow proper moustaches, they’d have twirled them like stage roués. Oscar snuck a peek at his book.

‘It’s a pleasure to meet
you
,’ said Max.

Olympia was blankly pretty. Kate remembered her crushing grip.

‘I’ve an idea, Max
mon brave
,’ said Oscar, snapping his book shut.

‘An idea, Oscar! Do tell.’

‘I believe this boatman guilty of foul offences against the city… to whit, the crimes of
looting
and
hoarding
. He has carried off these young ladies and now keeps them to himself. Do you call that social behaviour?’

‘Indeed not, Oscar, indeed not. His name should be taken down. Lists must be kept of the enemies of France, foreign and domestic.’

Kate had little patience with silly young men in any country – and the glint of delight in bullying brought her colour up.

‘I propose we tithe the fellow, Max. We should relieve him of
two
of his ill-gotten girls… the fair flower of France, of course, and… the sausage-eater with the lovely hair.’

Alraune shrugged. Kate suspected that if she
were
handed over as tribute, Max and Oscar would be floating face-down within the hour. That sort of thing happened often around the Angel of Ill Fortune.

Irene looked piqued – at being passed over.

Jules lowered his head and kept quiet to avoid a dunking. Kate began to feel protective of the boatman. He might be a profiteer, but he was
their
profiteer. And he only wanted money.

These Camelots du Roi were unreformed rotters, it seems. How disappointing.

There was something else. Oscar and his mysterious book, for a start. Max kept darting glances over his shoulder, as if a superior –
not
the gendarme on the dam – were monitoring him and harsh punishments were dished out for bungling.

Most of the Angels could have trounced Max and Oscar by themselves – but a fight would escalate. Plenty more Camelots were around. At best, a skirmish with posh vigilantes would be a waste of time. At worst, the Agency’s real enemy would have another opening to strike.

But they were held up.

Oscar, marginally in charge, relaxed his grip on his leather book. A bookmark fell out and fluttered down into the boat.

Kate picked it up and was shocked. It was a photograph of her – taken recently, outside a London restaurant. She hadn’t known she was posing.

‘I wish that hadn’t happened,’ said Oscar.

He put away his book and produced a revolver. Max was surprised by the appearance of the gun.

‘These are the Angels,’ Oscar told him.

Max didn’t understand. Kate, with a lurch in her stomach, did.

‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ said Unorna.

‘Ho, who spoke up?’ asked Oscar, waving the revolver.

‘The blonde,’ said Max, cheerfully. ‘Perhaps we chose unwisely. What do you say we tithe this rascal three out of seven?’

‘Forget that,’ snapped Oscar. ‘We’ll need them all.’

‘We aren’t the Angels you seek,’ said Unorna, low and even.

There was a pause. Kate fancied she heard a humming sound. Unorna made a small, precise gesture which drew the eye in.

‘These aren’t the Angels we seek,’ said Max, waving them on.

‘You should let us pass freely,’ said Unorna.

‘We should let them pass freely,’ said Oscar, pocketing his gun.

Kate felt Unorna in her mind too. She radiated persuasiveness.

‘You should mend your manners,’ said Mrs Eynsford Hill.