Page 79 of Angel's Kiss
“I felt a sense of responsibility, Monsieur. As both a patron and the one to discover the body,” the boy replied. Now that was interesting.
“So you’ve mentioned,” Richard sighed.
“Any idea if the man had family?” Mifroid asked. “The body will need to be claimed within a day, or it’s into a pauper’s grave for the poor soul.”
“At least you won’t need to call a priest for the burial,” Richard noted. “Suicides do save on that expense.”
“Monsieur Richard!” the boy gasped. Erik rolled his eyes in the shadows.
“I will investigate,Monsieur Inspecteur, and send word.” For the first time it was Moncharmin who spoke. He sounded utterly exhausted.
“Good day, Messieurs,” Mifroid said with a click of his heels and Erik heard his steps depart. “I’ll be waiting by the wagon for it. You can cut him down now.”
Erik looked up reflexively to see Buquet still swinging above, paler and more bloated than he had been hours before.
“You heard the man! Get this thing down and out to the cart!” Richard yelled, and there was a scuttle of movement. Erik retreated further backstage, as steps approached him as well, all the while looking for the gun anywhere it might have fallen. It would not do to have a weapon lying about or leave a clue that Buquet had gone to the flies with more on his mind than ending his life.
“The exit is this way, Monsieur de Chagny,” Moncharmin’s voice came, firm but insistent near where Erik hid on stage left. “You can use the stage door. The same one I will assure youagainyour dear friend Mademoiselle Daaé was seen leaving last night.”
“Will she be returning here today?” the boy asked, trying to sound casual but failing.
“No, not for a few days,” Moncharmin replied.
“You’re honestly going to keep the Opera open when a man has died in your theater?” The churl sounded so offended. How did he survive in the world?
“Some of us cannot afford to mourn for long,” Moncharmin replied. “Good day, sir.”
Too slowly, the boy’s footsteps faded. Erik turned back towards the stage, wishing there was more light so he could search, and that everyone else would just leave.
“Monsieur le Fantôme, are you near?”
Erik startled at the sound of Moncharmin’s question. What on earth?
“I should like to speak with you, if I may.”
“Then speak,” Erik replied, stepping from behind the curtain to face Moncharmin. To the manager’s credit, he did not jump at the sight of the ghost.
“I have much to do today, Monsieur, as I am sure you do as well,” Moncharmin said with a sigh. “I have to track down Cécile Jammes, who was there with the Vicomte when the body was found. Make sure nothing is in the press. You understand.”
“Of course,” Erik replied, squinting at the man as he fumbled in the pockets of his coat.
“I only wish to know if this incident was...a beginning or an end.”
“It was a suicide,” Erik corrected. Moncharmin nodded politely.
“Of course, the police agree, but my question still stands, out of an abundance of caution.” Erik stared at the man. There was very little fear in his tired eyes, just a sort of resigned sadness.
“It was the end, Monsieur. I assure you,” Erik said slowly.
“That is a relief,” the manager sighed as he pulled something from his pocket and placed it on the ground. It was the pistol Buquet had used. And now that Erik could see it better, it was familiar. “I hope this does not fall into the wrong hands again.”
“I will see it disposed of. You have my word.”
Moncharmin turned with a stiff nod and retreated, leaving Erik alone in the wings of their theater. The gun was lighter in his hand than he would have expected. In truth, he handled firearms rarely. They were cruel, inelegant weapons that gave the power of death to so many who did not deserve it. He examined the handle, worn from many years of use and confinement in a coat pocket. The inscription on the wood confirmed what he suspected, a character that meant ‘justice’ in Farsi. But how had Shaya Motlagh’s gun come into Joseph Buquet’s hands?
Erik stole into the shadows, his mind full of scenarios and suspicion. But the sound of voices above brought him back. He looked up from his hiding place to watch as a crew of stagehands lowered their former compatriot’s body towards the stage. It took a while, and the men grew silent as they cut the rope and the limp corpse flopped to the stage, its head lolling to the side unnaturally. Alonzo, the largest of the stagehands yet somehow the gentlest, was the one to pick up the thing and wrap it in a sheet, a makeshift shroud, then lift it onto the ladder that had been brought to carry Joseph Buquet on his final journey from the Opera.
Erik watched as they carried him on the temporary ramp set up above the orchestra pit, into the audience of empty seats of red velvet, beneath golden lyres and laughing muses. So strange that the man would leave the Opera by a route he had likely taken only a few times in his miserable life, if at all.
