The Opera Ghost

 'Mr Salzella!'

Salzella was eventually located. He read the note. 'You do not intend to accede to this?' he said.

'She does sing superbly, Salzella.'

'You mean the Nitt girl?'

'Well... yes... you know what I mean.'

'But this is nothing less than blackmail!'

'Is it? He's not actually threatening anything.'

'You let her... I mean them, of course... you let them sing last night, and much good it did poor Dr Undershaft.'

'What do you advise, then?'

There was another series of disjointed knocks on the door.

'Come in, Walter,' said Bucket and Salzella together.

Walter jerked in, holding the coalscuttle.

'I've been to see Commander Vimes of the city Watch,' said Salzella. 'He said he'll have some of his best men here tonight. Undercover.'

'I thought you said they were all incompetent.'

Salzella shrugged. 'We've got to do this properly. Did you know Dr Undershaft was strangled before he was hung?'

'Hanged,' said Bucket, without thinking. 'Men are hanged. It's dead meat that's hung.'

'Indeed?' said Salzella. 'I appreciate the information. Well, poor old Undershaft was strangled, apparently. And then he was hung.'

'Really, Salzella, you do have a misplaced sense–'

'I've finished now Mr Bucket!'

'Yes, thank you, Walter. You may go.'

'Yes Mr Bucket!'

Walter closed the door behind him, very conscientiously.

'I'm afraid it's working here,' said Salzella. 'If you don't find some way of dealing with... are you all right, Mr Bucket?'

'What?' Bucket, who'd been staring at the closed door, shook his head. 'Oh. Yes. Er. Walter...'

'What about him?'

'He's... all right, is he?'

'Oh, he's got his... funny little ways. He's harmless enough, if that's what you mean. Some of the stage-hands and musicians are a bit cruel to him... you know, sending him out for a tin of invisible paint or a bag of nail-holes and so on. He believes what he's told. Why?'

'Oh... I just wondered. Silly, really.'

'I suppose he is, technically.'

'No, I meant- Oh, it doesn't matter...'

Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg left Goatberger's office and walked demurely down the street. At least, Granny walked demurely. Nanny leaned somewhat.

Every thirty seconds she'd say, 'How much was that again?'

'Three thousand, two hundred and seventy dollars and eighty-seven pence,' said Granny. She was looking thoughtful.

'I thought it was nice of him to look in all the ashtrays for all the odd coppers he could round up,' said Nanny. 'Those he could reach, anyway. How much was that again?'

'Three thousand, two hundred and seventy dollars and eighty-seven pence.'

'I've never had seventy dollars before,' said Nanny.

'I didn't say just seventy dollars, I said–'

'Yes, I know. But I'm working my way up to it gradual. I'll say this about money. It really chafes.'

'I don't know why you have to keep your purse in your knicker leg,' said Granny.

'It's the last place anybody would look.' Nanny sighed. 'How much did you say it was?'

'Three thousand, two hundred and seventy dollars and eighty-seven pence.'

'I'm going to need a bigger tin.'

'You're going to need a bigger chimney.'

'I could certainly do with a bigger knicker leg.' She nudged Granny. 'You're going to have to be polite to me now I'm rich,' she said.

'Yes, indeed,' said Granny, with a faraway look in her eyes. 'Don't think I'm not considering that.'

She stopped. Nanny walked into her, with a tinkle of lingerie.

The frontage of the Opera House loomed over them.

'We've got to get back in there,' Granny said. 'And into Box Eight.'

'Crowbar,' said Nanny, firmly. 'A No. 3 claw end should do it.'

'We're not your Nev,' said Granny. 'Anyway, breaking in wouldn't be the same thing. We've got to have a right to be there.'

'Cleaners,' said Nanny. 'We could be cleaners, and... no, 's not right me being a cleaner now, in my position.'

'No, we can't have that, with you in your position.'

Granny glanced down at Nanny as a coach pulled up outside the Opera House. 'O' course,' she said, artfulness dripping off her voice like toffee, 'we could always buy Box Eight.'

'Wouldn't work,' said Nanny. People were hurrying down the steps with the cuff-adjusting, sticky looks of welcoming committees everywhere. 'They're scared of selling it.'

'Why not?' said Granny. 'There's people dying and the opera goes on. That means someone's prepared to sell his own grandmother if he'd make enough money.'

'It'd cost a fortune, anyway,' said Nanny.

She looked at Granny's triumphant expression and groaned. 'Oh, Esme! I was going to save that money for me old age!' She thought for a moment. 'Anyway, it still wouldn't work. I mean, look at us, we don't look like the right kind of people...'

Enrico Basilica got out of the coach.

'But we know the right kind of people,' said Granny.

'Oh, Esme!'

The shop bell tinkled in a refined tone,, as if it were embarrassed to do something as vulgar as ring. It would have much preferred to give a polite cough.

This was Ankh-Morpork's most prestigious dress shop, and one way of telling was the apparent absence of anything so crass as merchandise. The occasional carefully placed piece of expensive material merely hinted at the possibilities available.

This was not a shop where things were bought. This was an emporium where you had a cup of coffee and a chat. Possibly, as a result of that muted conversation, four or five yards of exquisite fabric would change ownership in some ethereal way, and yet nothing so crass as trade would have taken place.

'Shop!' yelled Nanny.

A lady appeared from behind a curtain and observed the visitors, quite possibly with her nose.

'Have you come to the right entrance?' she said. Madame Dawning had been brought up to be polite to servants and tradespeople, even when they were as scruffy as these two old crows.

'My friend here wants a new dress,' said the dumpier of the two. 'One of the nobby ones with a train and a padded bum.'

'In black,' said the thin one.

'And we wants all the trimmings,' said the dumpy one. 'Little handbag onna string, pair of glasses onna stick, the whole thing.'

'I think perhaps that might be a leetle more than you're thinking of spending,' said Madame Dawning.

'How much is a leetle?' said the dumpy one.

'I mean that this is rather a select dress shop.'

'That's why we're here. We don't want rubbish. My name's Nanny Ogg and this here is... Lady Esmerelda Weatherwax.'

Madame Dawning regarded Lady Esmerelda quizzically. There was no doubt that the woman had a certain bearing. And she stared like a duchess.

'From Lancre,' said Nanny Ogg. 'And she could have a conservatory if she liked, but she doesn't want one.'

'Er...'Madame Dawning decided to play along for a while. 'What style were you considering?'

'Something nobby,' said Nanny Ogg.

'I perhaps would like a leetle more guidance than that–'

'Perhaps you could show us some things,' said Lady Esmerelda, sitting down. 'It's for the opera.'

'Oh, you patronize the opera?'

'Lady Esmerelda patronizes everything,' said Nanny Ogg stoutly.

Madame Dawning had a manner peculiar to her class and upbringing. She'd been raised to see the world in a certain way. When it didn't act in that certain way she wobbled a bit but, like a gyroscope, eventually recovered and went on spinning just as if it had. If civilization were to collapse totally and the survivors were reduced to eating cockroaches, Madame Dawning would still use a napkin and look down on people who ate their cockroaches the wrong way round.

'I will, er, show you, some examples,' she said. 'Excuse me one moment.'

She scuttled into the long workrooms behind the shop, where there was considerably less gilt, and leaned against the wall and summoned her chief seamstress.

'Mildred, there are two very strange–'

She stopped. They'd followed her!

They were wandering down the aisle between the rows of dressmakers, nodding at people and inspecting some of the dresses on the dummies.

She hurried back. 'I'm sure you'd prefer–'

'How much is this one?' said Lady Esmerelda, fingering a creation intended for the Dowager Duchess of Quirm.

'I am afraid that one is not for sale–'

'How much would it be if it was for sale?'

'Three hundred dollars, I believe,' said Madame Dawning.

'Five hundred seems about right,' said Lady Esmerelda.

'Does it?' said Nanny Ogg. 'Oh, it does, does it?'

The dress was black. At least, in theory it was black. It was black in the same. way that a starling's wing is black. It was black silk, with jet beads and sequins. It was black on holiday.

'It looks about my size. We'll take it. Pay the woman, Gytha.'

Madame's gyroscope precessed rapidly. 'Take it? Now? Five hundred dollars? Pay? Pay now? Cash?'

'See to it, Gytha.'

'Oh, all right.'

Nanny Ogg turned away modestly and raised her skirt. There was a series of rustlings and elasticated twangings, and then she turned around, holding a bag.

She counted out fifty rather warm ten-dollar pieces into Madame Dawning's unprotesting hand.

'And now we'll go back into the shop and have a poke around for the other stuff,' said Lady Esmerelda. 'I fancy ostrich feathers myself. And one of those big cloaks the ladies wear. And one of those fans edged with lace.'

'Why don't we get some great big diamonds while we're about it?' said Nanny Ogg sharply.

'Good idea.'

Madame Dawning could hear them bickering as they ambled away up the aisle.

She looked down at the money in her hand.

She knew about old money, which was somehow hallowed by the fact that people had hung on to it for years, and she knew about new money, which seemed to be being made by all these upstarts that were flooding into the city these days. But under her powdered bosom she was an Ankh-Morpork shopkeeper, and knew that the best kind of money was the sort that was in her hand rather than someone else's. The best kind of money was mine, not yours.

Besides, she was also enough of a snob to confuse rudeness with .good breeding. In the same way that the really rich can never be mad (they're eccentric), so they can also never be rude (they're outspoken and forthright).

She hurried after Lady Esmerelda and her rather strange friend. Salt of the earth, she told herself.

She was in time to overhear a mysterious conversation.

'I'm being punished, ain't I, Esme?'

'Can't imagine what you're talking about, Gytha.'

'Just 'cos I had my little moment.'

'I really don't follow you. Anyway, you said you were at your wits' end with thinking what you'd do with the money.'

'Yes, but I'd have quite liked to have been at my wits' end on a big comfy chase longyou somewhere with lots of big strong men buyin' me chocolates and pressin' their favours .on me.'

'Money don't buy happiness, Gytha.'

'I only wanted to rent it for a few weeks.'

Agnes rose late, the music still ringing in her ears, and dressed in a dream. But she hung a bedsheet over the mirror first, just in case.

There were half a dozen of the chorus dancers in the canteen, sharing a stick of celery and giggling.

And there was André. He was eating something absentmindedly while staring at a sheet of music. Occasionally he'd wave his spoon in the air with a faraway look on his face, and then put it down and make a few notes.

In mid-beat he caught sight of Agnes, and grinned. 'Hello. You look tired.'

'Er... yes.'

'You've missed all the excitement.'

'Have I?'

'The Watch have been here, talking to everyone and asking lots of questions and writing things down very slowly.'

'What sort of questions?'

'Well, knowing the Watch, probably "Was it you what did it, then?" They're rather slow thinkers.'

'Oh dear. Does that mean tonight's performance is cancelled?'

André laughed. He had a rather pleasant laugh. 'I don't think Mr Bucket could possibly cancel it!' he said. 'Even if people are dropping like flies out of the flies.'

'Why not?'

'People have been queuing for tickets!'

'Why?'

He told her.

'That's disgusting!' said Agnes. 'You mean they're coming because it might be dangerous?'

'Human nature, I'm afraid. Of course, some of them want to hear Enrico Basilica. And... well... Christine seems popular...' He gave her a sorrowful look.

'I don't mind, honestly,' lied Agnes. 'Um... how long have you worked here, André?'

'Er... only a few months. I... used to teach music to the Seriph's children in Klatch.'

'Um... what do you think about the Ghost?'

He shrugged. 'Just some kind of madman, I suppose.

'Um... do you know if he sings? I mean, is good at singing?'

'I heard that he sends little critiques to the manager. Some of the girls say they've heard someone singing in the night, but they're always saying silly things.'

'Um... are there any secret passages here?'

He looked at her with his head on one side. 'Who've you been talking to?'

'Sorry?'

'The girls say there are. Of course, they say they see the Ghost all the time. And sometimes in two places at once.'

'Why should they see him more?'

'Perhaps he just likes looking at young ladies. They're always practising in odd corners. Besides, they're all halfcrazed with hunger anyway.'

'Aren't you interested in the Ghost? People have been killed!'

'Well, people are saying it might have been Dr Undershaft.'

'But he was killed!'

'He might have hanged himself. He'd been very depressed lately. And he'd always been a bit strange. Nervy. It's going to be a bit difficult without him, though. Here, I've brought you a stack of old programmes. Some of the notes may help, since you haven't been in the opera long.'

Agnes stared at them, unseeing.

People were disappearing and the first thought that everyone had was that it was going to be inconvenient without them.

The show must go on. Everyone said that. People said it all the time. Often they smiled when they said it, but they were serious all the same, under the smile. No one ever said why. But yesterday, when the chorus had been arguing about the money, everyone knew that they weren't actually going to refuse to sing. It was all a game.

The show went on. She'd heard all the stories. She'd heard about shows continuing while fire raged around the city, while a dragon was roosting on the roof, while there was rioting in the streets outside. Scenery collapsed? The show went on. Leading tenor died? Then appeal to the audience for any student of music who knew the part, and give him his big chance while his predecessor's body cooled gently in the wings. Why? It was only a performance, for heaven's sake. It wasn't like something important. But... the show goes on. Everyone took this so much for granted that they didn't even think about it any more, as though there were fog in their heads.

On the other hand... someone was teaching her to sing at night. A mysterious person sang songs on the stage when everyone had gone home. She tried to think of that voice belonging to someone who killed people. It didn't work. Maybe she'd caught some of the fog and didn't want it to work. What sort of person could have that feel for music and kill people?

She'd been idly turning the pages of an old programme and a name caught her eye.

She quickly shufed through the others beneath. There it was again. Not in every performance, and never in a major role, but it. was there. Generally it played an innkeeper or a servant.

'Walter Plinge?' she said. 'Walter? But... he doesn't sing, does he?'

She held up a programme and pointed.

'What? Oh, no!' André laughed. 'Good heavens... it's a... a kind of convenient name, I suppose. Sometimes someone has to sing a very minor part... perhaps a singer is in a role that they'd rather not be remembered in... well, here, they just go down on the programme as Walter Plinge. Lots of theatres have a useful name like that. Like A. N. Other. It's convenient for everyone.'

'But... Walter Plinge?'

'Well, I suppose it started as a joke. I mean, can you imagine Walter Plinge on stage?' André grinned. 'In that little beret he wears?'

'What does he think about it?'

'I don't think he minds. It's hard to tell, isn't it?'

There was a crash from the direction of the kitchen, although it was really more of a crashendo the longdrawn-out clatter that begins when a pile of plates begins to slip, continues when someone tries to grab at them, develops a desperate counter-theme when the person realizes they don't have three hands, and ends with the roinroinroin of the one miraculously intact plate spinning round and round on the floor.

They heard an irate female voice.

'Walter Plinge!'

'Sorry Mrs Clamp!'

'Damn' thing keeps holding on to the edge of the pan! Let go, you wretched insect–'

There was the sound of crockery being swept up, and then a rubbery noise that could approximately be described as a spoing.

'Now where's it gone?'

'Don't know Mrs Clamp!'

'And what's that cat doing in here?'

André turned back to Agnes and flashed her a sad smile. 'It is a little cruel, I suppose,' he said. 'The poor chap is a bit daft.'

'I'm not at all sure,' said Agnes, 'that I've met anyone here who isn't.'

He grinned again. 'I know,' he said.

'I mean, everyone acts as if it's only the music that matters! The plots don't make sense! Half the stories rely on people not recognizing their servants or wives because they've got a tiny mask on! Large ladies play the part of consumptive girls! No one can act properly! No wonder everyone accepts me singing for Christine-that's practically normal compared to opera! It's an operatic kind of idea! There should be a sign on the door saying "Leave your common sense here"! If it wasn't for the music the whole thing would be ridiculous!'

She realized he was looking at her with an opera face.

'Of course, that's it, isn't it? It is the show that matters, isn't it?' she said. 'It's all show.'

'It's not meant to be real,' said André. 'It's not like theatre. No one's saying, "You've got to pretend this is a big battlefield and that guy in the cardboard crown is really a king." The plot's only there to fill in time before the next song.'

He leaned forward and took her hand. 'This must be wretched for you,' he said.

No male had ever touched Agnes before, except perhaps to push her over and steal her sweets.

She pulled her hand away.

'I, er, better go and practise,' she said, feeling the blush start.

'You really picked up the role of Iodine very well,' said André.

'I, er, have a private tutor,' said Agnes.

'Then he's really studied opera; that's all I can say.'

'I... think he has.'

'Esme?'

'Yes, Gytha?'

'It's not that I' m complaining or anything...'

'Yes?'

'...but why isn't it me who's being the posh opera patronizes?'

'Because you're as common as muck, Gytha.'

'Oh. Right.' Nanny subjected this statement to some thought and couldn't see any point of inaccuracy that would sway a jury. 'Fair enough.'

'It's not as though I like this.'

'Shall I do madam's feet?' said the manicurist. She stared at Granny's boots and wondered if it might be necessary to use a hammer.

'I got to admit, it's a nice hairstyle,' said Nanny.

'Madam has marvellous hair,' said the hairdresser. 'What is the secret?'

'You've got to make sure there's no newts in the water,' said Granny. She looked at her reflection in the mirror over the washbasin, and went to look away... and then sneaked another glance. Her lips pursed. 'Hmm,' she said.

At the other end, the manicurist had succeeded in getting Granny's boots and socks off. Much to her amazement there was revealed, instead of the corned and bunioned monstrosities she'd been expecting, a pair of perfect feet. She didn't know where to start because there was nowhere to begin, but this manicure was costing twenty dollars and in those circumstances you damn well find something to do.

Nanny sat beside their pile of packages and tried to work everything out on a scrap of paper. She didn't have Granny's gift for numbers. They tended to writhe under her gaze and add themselves up wrong.

'Esme? I reckon we've spent... probably more'n a thousand dollars so far, and that's not including hirin' the coach, and we haven't paid Mrs Palm for the room.'

'You said nothing was too much trouble to help a Lancre girl,' said Granny.

But I didn't say nothing was too much money, thought Nanny, and then scolded herself for thinking like that. But she was definitely feeling a little lighter in the underwear regions.

There seemed to be a general consensus among the artisans of beauty that they'd done what they could. Granny swivelled the chair around.

'What do you think?' she said.

Nanny Ogg stared. She'd seen many strange things in her life, some of them twice. She'd seen elves and walking stones and the shoeing of a unicorn. She'd had a farmhouse dropped on her head. But she'd never seen Granny Weatherwax in rouge.

All her normal expletives of shock and surprise fused instantly, and she found herself resorting to an ancient curse belonging to her grandmother.

'Well, I'll be mogadored!' she said.

'Madam has extremely good skin,' said the cosmetics lady.

'I know,' said Granny. 'Can't seem to do anything about it.'

'I'll be mogadored!' said Nanny again.

'Powder and paint,' said Granny. 'Huh. Just another kind of mask. Oh, well.' She gave the hairdresser a dreadful smile. 'How much do we owe you?' she said.

'Er... thirty dollars?' said the hairdresser. 'That is...,

'Give the w... man thirty dollars and another twenty to make up for his trouble,' said Granny, clutching at her head.

'Fifty dollars? You could buy a shop for–'

'Gytha!'

'Oh, all right. 'Scuse me, I'm just going to the bank.'

She turned away demurely, raised the hem of her skirt

-twangtwingtwongtwang

-and turned back with a handful of coins.

'There you go, my good wo... sir,' she said sourly.

There was a coach waiting outside. It was the best Granny had been able to hire with Nanny's money. A footman held open the door as Nanny helped her friend aboard.

'We'll go straight to Mrs Palm's so's I can change,' said Granny as they pulled away. 'And then to the Opera House. We ain't got much time.'

'Are you all right?'

'Never felt better.' Granny patted her hair. 'Gytha Ogg, you wouldn't be a witch if you couldn't jump to conclusions, right?'

Nanny nodded. 'Oh, yes.' There was no shame in it. Sometimes there wasn't time to do anything else but take a flying leap. Sometimes you had to trust to experience and intuition and general awareness and take a running jump. Nanny herself could clear quite a tall conclusion from a standing start.

'So I've no doubt at all that there's some kind of idea floating around in your mind about this Ghost. . .'

'Well... sort of an idea, yes...'

'A name, perhaps?'

Nanny shifted uncomfortably, and not only because of the moneybags under her skirt.

'I got to admit something crossed my mind. A kind of... feeling. I mean, you never can tell...'

Granny nodded. 'Yes. It's all neat, isn't it? It's a lie.'

'You said last night you saw the whole thing!'

'It's still a lie. Like the lie about masks.'

'What lie about masks?'

'The way people say they hide faces.'

'They do hide faces;' said Nanny Ogg.

'Only the one on the outside.'

No one took much notice of Agnes. The stage was being set for the new performance tonight. The orchestra was rehearsing. The ballerinas had been herded into their practice-room. In various other rooms people were singing at cross-purposes. But no one seemed to want her to do anything.

I'm just a wandering voice, she thought.

She climbed the stairs to her room and sat on the bed. The curtains were still drawn and, in the gloom, the strange roses glowed. She had rescued them from the bin because they were beautiful, but, in a way, she'd have been happier if they weren't there. Then she could have believed she'd imagined the whole thing.

There was no sound from Christine's room. Telling herself that it was really her room anyway, and Christine had just been allowed to borrow it, Agnes went in.

It was a mess. Christine had got up, got dressed either that or a thorough but overenthusiastic burglar had gone through every drawer in the place–and gone. The bouquets that Agnes had put into whatever receptacles she could find last night were where she had left them. The others were where she had left them, too, and they were already dying.

She caught herself wondering where she could find some jars and pots for them, and hated herself for it. It was as bad as saying 'poot!' You might as well paint WELCOME on yourself and lie down on the doorstep of the universe. It was no fun at all, having a wonderful personality. Oh... and good hair.

And then she went and found pots for them anyway.

The mirror dominated the room. It seemed to grow a little larger each time she looked at it.

All right. She had to know, didn't she?

Heart pounding, she felt around the edges of it. There was a little raised area that might have looked like part of the frame, but as her fingers moved across it there was a 'click' and the mirror swung inwards a fraction of an inch. When she pushed at it, it moved.

She breathed out. And stepped in.

'It's disgusting!' said Salzella. 'It's pandering to the most depraved taste!'

Mr Bucket shrugged. 'It's not as though we're putting "Good Chance of Seeing Someone Throttled on Stage" on the posters,' he said. 'But news has got around. People like... drama.'

'You mean the Watch didn't want us to shut down?'

'No. They just said we should mount guards like last night and they'd take steps.'

'Steps to the nearest place of safety, no doubt.'

'I don't like it any more than you do, but it's gone too far. We need the Watch now. Anyway, there'd be a riot if we closed. Ankh-Morpork has always enjoyed... excitement. We're completely sold out. The show must go on.'

'Oh, yes,' said Salzella nastily. 'Would you like me to slit a few throats in the second act? Just so no one feels disappointed?'

'Of course not,' said Bucket. 'We don't want any deaths. But...'

The 'but' hung in the air like the late Dr Undershaft.

Salzella threw up his hands.

'Anyway, I believe we are past the worst,' said Mr Bucket.

'I hope so,' said Salzella.

'Where's Senor Basilica?' said Bucket.

'Mrs Plinge is showing him his dressing-room.'

'Mrs Plinge hasn't been murdered?'

'No, no one has been found dead so far today,' said Salzella.

'That is good news.'

'Yes, and it must be, oh, at least ten past twelve,' said Salzella with an irony that Bucket quite failed to notice. 'I will go and fetch him up so that we can have lunch, shall I? It must be a good half an hour since he had a snack.'

Bucket nodded. After the director had gone he surreptitiously checked his desk drawers again.

There was no letter. Perhaps it was over... Perhaps it was true what they were saying about the late doctor.

Someone knocked at the door, four times. Only one person could achieve four knocks without any rhythm whatsoever.

'Come in, Walter.'

Walter Plinge stumbled into the room. 'There's a lady!' he said. 'She's to see Mr Bucket!'

Nanny Ogg poked her head around the door. 'Coo-ee,' she said. 'It's only me.'

'It's... Mrs Ogg, isn't it?' said Mr Bucket.

There was something slightly worrying about the woman. He didn't recall her name on the list of employees. On the other hand, she was clearly around the place, she wasn't dead, and she made a decent cup of tea, so was it his worry if she wasn't getting paid?

'Good gracious, I'm not the lady,' said Nanny Ogg. 'I'm as common as muck, me, on the highest authority. No, she's waiting down in the foyer. I thought I'd better nip round here and warn you.'

'Warn me? Warn me about what? I don't have any other appointments this morning. Who is this lady?'

'Have you ever heard of Lady Esmerelda Weatherwax?'

'No. Should I?'

'Famous patron of the opera. Conservatories all over the place,' said Nanny. 'Pots of money, too.'

'Really? But I'm due to–'

Bucket looked out of the window. There was a coach and four horses outside. It had so much rococo ornamentation on it that it was surprising it ever managed to move.

'Well, I–' he began again. 'It is really very incon–'

'She ain't the sort of person who likes to be kept waiting,' said Nanny, with absolute honesty. And then, because Granny had been getting on her nerves all morning and the initial embarrassment at Mrs Palm's still rankled and there was a streak of mischief in Nanny a mile wide, she added, 'They say she was a famous courtesan in her younger days. They say she didn't like to be kept waiting then, either. Retired now, of course. So they say.'

'You know, I've visited most of the major opera houses and I've never heard the name,' mused Bucket.

'Ah, I heard she likes to keep her donations secret,' said Nanny.

Mr Bucket's mental compass once again swung around to point due Money.

'You'd better show her up,' he said. 'I could perhaps give her a few minutes–'

'No one ever gave Lady Esmerelda less than half an hour,' said Nanny, and gave Bucket a wink. 'I'll go and fetch her, shall I?'

She bustled away, towing Walter behind her.

Mr Bucket stared after her. Then, after a moment's thought, he got up and checked the set of his moustache in the mirror over the fireplace.

He heard the door open and turned with his finest smile in place.

It faded only slightly at the sight of Salzella, ushering the impressive bulk of Basilica in front of him. The little manager and interpreter fussed along beside him, like a tugboat.

'Ah, Senor Basilica,' said Bucket. 'I trust the dressingrooms are to your satisfaction?'

Basilica gave him a blank smile while the interpreter spoke in Brindisian, and then replied.

'Senor Basilica says they are fine but the larder isn't big enough,' he said.

'Haha,' said Bucket, and then stopped when no one else laughed.

'In fact,' he said hurriedly, 'Senor Basilica will I'm sure be very happy to hear that our kitchens have made a special effort to–'

There was another knock at the door. He hurried across and opened it.

Granny Weatherwax stood there, but not for long. She pushed him aside and swept into the room.

There was a choking noise from Enrico Basilica.

'Which one of you is Bucket?' she demanded.

'Er... me...'

Granny removed a glove and extended her hand. 'So sorry,' she said. 'Ai am not used to important people opening their own doors. Ai am Esmerelda Weatherwax.'

'How charming. I've heard so much about you,' lied Bucket. 'Pray let me introduce you. No doubt you know Senor Basilica?'

'Of course,' said Granny, looking Henry Slugg in the eye. 'I'm sure Senor Basilica recalls the many happy times we've had in other opera houses whose names I can't quite remember at the moment.'

Henry grimaced a smile, and said something to the interpreter.

'That is astonishing,' said the interpreter. 'Senor Basilica has just said how fondly he recalls meeting you many times before at opera houses that have just slipped his mind at present.'

Henry kissed Granny's hand, and looked up at her with pleading in his eyes.

My word, thought Bucket, that look he's giving her... I wonder if they ever–

'Oh, uh, and this is Mr Salzella, our director of music,' he said, remembering himself.

'Honoured,' said Salzella, giving Granny a firm handshake and looking her squarely in the eye. She nodded.

'And what's the first thing you'd take out of a burning house, Mr Salzella?' she enquired.

He smiled politely. 'What would you like me to take, madam?'

She nodded thoughtfully and let go of his hand.

'May I get you a drink? said Bucket.

'A small sherry,' said Granny.

Salzella sidled up to Bucket as he was pouring the drink. 'Who the hell is she?'

'Apparently she's rolling in money,' whispered Bucket. 'And very keen on opera.'

'Never heard of her.'

'Well, Senor Basilica has, and that's good enough for me. Make yourself pleasant to them, will you, while I try to sort out lunch.'

He pulled open the door and tripped over Nanny Ogg.

'Sorry!' said Nanny, standing up and giving him a cheerful grin. 'These doorknobs are a bugger to polish, aren't they?'

'Er, Mrs–'

,Ogg.,

'--Ogg, could you run along to the kitchens and tell Mrs Clamp there will be another one for lunch, please.'

'Right you are.'

Nanny bustled away. Bucket nodded approvingly. What a reliable old lady, he thought.

It wasn't exactly a secret. When the room had been divided a space had been left between the walls. At the far end it opened on to a staircase, a perfectly ordinary staircase, which even had some grubby daylight via a dirt-encrusted window.

Agnes was vaguely disappointed. She had expected, well, a real secret passage, perhaps with a few torches flickering secretly in rather valuable secret wrought-iron holders. But the staircase had just been walled off from the rest of the place at some time. It wasn't secret–it had merely been forgotten.

There were cobwebs in the corners. The cocoons of extinct flies hung down from the ceiling. The air smelled of long-dead birds.

But there was a clear track through the dust. Someone had used the stairs several times.

She hesitated between up and down, and headed up. That was no great journey–after one more flight it ended at a trapdoor that wasn't even bolted.

She pushed at it, and then blinked in the unaccustomed light. Wind caught at her hair. A pigeon stared at her, and flew away as she poked her head into the fresh air.

The door had opened out on to the Opera House's roof, just one more item in a forest of skylights and airshafts.

She went back inside and headed downwards. And became aware, as she did so, of the voices...

The old stairs hadn't been totally forgotten. Someone had at least seen their usefulness as an airshaft. Voices filtered up. There were scales, distant music, snatches of conversation. As she went down she passed through layers of noise, like a very carefully made sundae of sound.

Greebo sat on top of the kitchen cupboard and watched the performance with interest.

'Use the ladle, why don't you?' said a scene-shifter.

'It won't reach! Walter!'

'Yes Mrs Clamp?'

'Give me that broom!'

'Yes Mrs Clamp!'

Greebo looked up at the high ceiling, to which was affixed a sort of thin, ten-pointed star.

In the middle of it was a pair of very frightened eyes.

' "Plunge it into boiling water",'said Mrs Clamp, 'that's what it said in the cook-book. It never said "Watch out, it'll grip the sides of the pot and spring straight up in the air"–'

She flailed around with the broom-handle. The squid shrank back.

'And that pasta's all gone wrong,' she muttered. 'I've had it grilling for hours and it's still hard as nails, the wretched stuff.'

'Coo-ee, it's only me,' said Nanny Ogg, poking her head around the door, and such was the allembracing nature of her personality that even those who didn't know who she was took this on trust. 'Having a bit of trouble, are you?'

She surveyed the scene, including the ceiling. There was a smell of burning pasta in the air.

'Ah,' she said. 'This'd be the special lunch for Senior Basilica, would it?'

'It was meant to be,' said the cook, still making ineffectual swipes. 'Blasted thing won't come down, though.'

Other pots were simmering on the long iron range. Nanny nodded towards them. 'What's everyone else having?' she said.

'Mutton and clootie dumplings, with slumpie,' said the cook.

'Ah. Good honest food,' said Nanny, speaking of wall-towall suet oiled with lard.

'And there's supposed to be Jammy Devils for pudding and I've been so tied up with this wretched thing I haven't even made a start!'

Nanny carefully took the broom out of the cook's hands. 'Tell you what,' she said, 'you make enough dumplings and slumpie for five people, and I'll help by knocking up a quick pudding, how about that?'

'Well, that's a very. handsome offer, Mrs–'

'Ogg.'

'The jam's in the jar by–'

'Oh, I won't bother about jam,' said Nanny. She looked at the spice-rack, grinned, and then stepped behind a table for modesty

-twingtwangtwongtwang

–'Got any chocolate?' she said, producing a slim volume. 'I've got a recipe right here that might be fun...'

She licked her thumb and opened the book at page 53. Chocolate Delight with Special Secret Sauce.

Yes, thought Nanny, that would be fun.

If people wanted to go around teaching people lessons, other people should remember that those people knew a thing or two about people.

Scraps of conversation floated out of the walls as Agnes wound her secret way down the forgotten stairs.

It was... thrilling.

No one was saying anything important. There were no convenient guilty secrets. There were just the sounds of people getting through the day. But they were secret sounds.

It was wrong to listen, of course.

Agnes had been brought up in the knowledge that a lot of things were wrong. It was wrong to listen at doors, to look people directly in the eye, to talk out of turn, to answer back, to put yourself forward...

But behind the walls she could be the Perdita she'd always wanted to be. Perdita didn't care about anything. Perdita got things done. Perdita could wear anything she wanted. Perdita X Nitt, mistress of the darkness, magdalen of cool, could listen in to other people's lives. And never, ever have to have a wonderful personality.

Agnes knew she should go back up to her room. Whatever lay in the increasingly shadowy depths was probably something she ought not to find.

Perdita continued downwards. Agnes went along for the ride.

The pre-luncheon drinks were going quite well, Mr Bucket thought. Everyone was making polite conversation and absolutely no one had been killed up to the present moment.

And it had been very gratifying to see the tears of gratitude in Senor Basilica's eyes when he was told that the cook was preparing a special Brindisian meal, just for him. He'd seemed quite overcome.

It was reassuring that he knew Lady Esmerelda. There was something about the woman that left Mr Bucket terribly perplexed. He was finding it a little difficult to converse with her. As a conversational gambit, 'Hello, I understand you have a lot of money, can I have some please?' lacked, he felt, a certain subtlety.

'So, er, madam,' he ventured, 'what brings you to our, er, city?'

'I thought perhaps I could come and spend some money,' said Granny. 'Got rather a lot of it, you know. Keep havin' to change banks 'cos they get filled up.'

Somewhere in Bucket's tortured brain, part of his mind went 'whoopee' and clicked its heels.

'I'm sure if there's anything I can do–' he murmured.

'As a matter of fact, there is,' said Granny. 'I was thinking of–'

A gong banged.

'Ah,' said Mr Bucket. 'Luncheon is served.'

He extended his arm to Granny, who gave it an odd look before remembering who she was and taking it.

There was a small exclusive dining-room off his office. It contained a table set for five and, looking rather fetching in a waitress's lacy bonnet, Nanny Ogg.

She bobbed a curtsey.

Enrico Basilica made a tiny strangling noise at the back of his throat.

' 'Scuse me, there's been a bit of a problem,' said Nanny.

'Who's dead?' said Bucket.

'Oh, no one's dead,' said Nanny. 'It's the dinner, it's still alive and hangin' on to the ceiling. And the pasta's all gone black, see. I said to Mrs Clamp, I said, it may be foreign but I don't reckon it should be crunchy

'This is terrible! What a way to treat an honoured guest!' said Bucket. He turned to the interpreter. 'Please assure Senor Basilica that we will send out for fresh pasta straight away. What were we having, Mrs Ogg?'

'Roast mutton with clootie dumplings,' said Nanny.

Behind the face of Senor Basilica the throat of Henry Slugg made another little growling sound.

'And there's some nice slumpie with a knob of butter,' Nanny went on.

Bucket looked around, puzzled. 'Is there a dog somewhere in here?' he said.

'Well, I for one don't believe in pandering to singers,' said Granny Weatherwax. 'Fancy food, indeed! I never heard the like! Why not give him mutton with the rest of us?'

'Oh, Lady Esmerelda, that's hardly a way to treat–' Bucket began.

Enrico's elbow nudged his interpreter, with the special nudge of a man who could see clootie dumplings vanishing into the long grass if he weren't careful. He rumbled out a very pointed sentence.

'Senor Basilica says he would be more than happy to taste the indigenous food of Ankh-Morpork,' said the interpreter.

'No, we really can't–' Bucket tried again.

'In fact Senor Basilica insists that he tries the indigenous food of Ankh-Morpork,' said the interpreter.

'S' right. Si,' said Basilica.

'Good,' said Granny. 'And give him some beer while you're about it.' She gave the tenor's stomach a playful poke, losing her finger down to the second joint. 'Why, in a day or two I expect you could practically turn him into a native!'

The wooden stairs gave way to stone.

Perdita said: He'll have a vast cave somewhere under the Opera House. There will be hundreds of candles, casting an exciting yet romantic light over the, yes, the lake, and there will be a dinner-table shining with crystal glass and silverware, and of course he will have, yes, a huge organ–

Agnes blushed hotly in the darkness.

–on which, that is to say, he will play in a virtuoso style many operatic classics.

Agnes said: It'll be damp. There will be rats.

'Another clootie dumpling, Senior?' said Nanny Ogg.

'Mmfmmfmmf!'

'Take two while you're about it.'

It was an education watching Enrico Basilica eat. It wasn't as though he gobbled his food, but he did eat continuously, like a man who intends to go on doing it all day on industrial lines, his napkin tucked neatly into his collar. The fork was loaded while the current consignment was being thoroughly masticated, so that the actual time between mouthfuls was as small as possible. Even Nanny, no stranger to a metabolism going for the burn, was impressed. Enrico Basilica ate like a man freed at last from the tyranny of tomatoes with everything.

'I'll order another mint-sauce tanker, shall I?' she said.

Mr Bucket turned to Granny Weatherwax. 'You were saying that you might be inclined to patronize our Opera House,' he murmured.

'Oh, yes,' said Granny. 'Is Senor Basilica going to sing tonight?'

'Mmfmmf'

'I hope so,' muttered Salzella. 'That or explode.'

'Then I shall definitely want to be there,' said Granny. 'A little more lamb here, my good woman.'

'Yes ma'am,' said Nanny Ogg, making a face at the back of Granny's head.

'Er... seats for tonight, in fact, are–' Bucket began.

'A Box would do me,' said Granny. 'I'm not fussy.'

'In fact, even the Boxes are–'

'How about Box Eight? I've heard as Box Eight is always empty.'

Bucket's knife rattled on his plate. 'Er, Box Eight, Box Eight, you see, we don't...'

'I was thinking of donating a little something,' said Granny.

'But Box Eight, you see, although technically unsold, is...'

'Two thousand dollars was what I had in mind,' said Granny. 'Oh, dear me, your waitress has let her dumplings go all over the place. It's so difficult to get reliable and polite staff these days, ain't it... ?'

Salzella and Bucket stared at one another across the table.

Then Bucket said, 'Excuse me, my lady, I must just have a brief discussion with my director of music.'

The two men hurried to the far end of the room, where they began to argue in whispers.

'Two thousand dollars!' hissed Nanny, watching them.

'It might not be enough,' said Granny. 'They're both looking very red in the face.'

'Yes, but two thousand dollars!'

'It's only money.'

'Yes, but it's only my money, not only your money,' Nanny pointed out.

'We witches have always held everything in common, you know that,' said Granny.

'Well, yes,' said Nanny, and once again cut to the heart of the sociopolitical debate. 'It's easy to hold everything in common when no one's got anything.'

'Why, Gytha Ogg,' said Granny, 'I thought you despised riches!'

'Right, so I'd like to get the chance to despise them up close.' ,

'But I knows you, Gytha Ogg. Money'd spoil you.'

'I'd just like the chance to prove that it wouldn't, that's all I'm saying.'

'Hush, they're coming back–'

Mr Bucket approached, smiled uneasily, and sat down. 'Er,' he began, 'it has to be Box Eight, does it? Only we could perhaps persuade someone in one of the other–'

'Wouldn't hear of it,' said Granny. 'I've heard that there's no one ever seen in Box Eight.'

'Er... haha... it's laughable, I know, but there are some old theatrical traditions associated with Box Eight,, absolute rubbish of course, but...'

He left the 'but' hanging there hopefully. It froze in the face of Granny's stare.

'You see, it's haunted,' he mumbled.

'Oh lawks,' said Nanny Ogg, vaguely remembering to stay in character. 'Another vat of slumpie, Senior Basilica? And how about another quart of beer?'

'Mmfmmf,' said the tenor encouragingly, taking time out from his eating to point a fork at his empty mug.

Granny went on staring.

'Excuse me,' said Bucket again.

He and Salzella went into another huddle, out of which came sounds like 'But two thousand dollars! That's a lot of shoes!'

Bucket surfaced again. His face was grey. Granny's stare could do that to people.

'Er... because of the danger, er, which of course doesn't exist, haha, we... that is, the management... feel it incumbent on us to insist, that is, politely request, that if you do enter Box Eight you do so in company with a... man.'

He ducked slightly.

'A man?' said Granny.

'For protection,' said Bucket in a little voice.

'Although who'd protect him we really couldn't say,' said Salzella under his breath.

'We thought perhaps one of the staff...' Bucket mumbled.

'Ai am quate capable of finding my own man should the need arise,' said Granny, in a voice with snow on it.

Bucket's polite reply died in his throat when he saw, just behind Lady Esmerelda, Mrs Ogg grinning like a full moon.

'Anyone for pudding?' she said.

She held a big bowl on a tray. There seemed to be a heat haze over it.

'My word,' he said, 'that looks delicious!'

Enrico Basilica looked over the top of his food with the expression of a man who has had the amazing privilege of going to heaven while still alive.

'Mmmf!'

It was damp. And, with the demise of Mr Pounder, there were indeed rats.

The stone looked old, too. Of course, all stone was old, Agnes told herself, but this had grown old as masonry. Ankh-Morpork had been here for thousands of years. Where other cities were built on clay or rock or loam, Ankh-Morpork was built on Ankh-Morpork. People constructed new buildings on the remains of earlier ones, knocking out a few doorways here and there to turn ancient bedrooms into cellars.

The stairs petered out on damp flagstones, in almost total darkness.

Perdita thought it looked romantic and gothic.

Agnes thought it looked gloomy.

If someone used this place they'd need lights, wouldn't they? And a fumbling search confirmed it. She found a candle and some matches tucked into a niche in the wall.

That was sobering for Agnes and Perdita together. Someone used this prosaic book of matches with a picture of a grinning troll on the cover, and this piece of perfectly ordinary candle. Perdita would have preferred a flaming torch. Agnes didn't know what she would have preferred. It was just that, if a mysterious person came and sang in the walls, and moved around the place like a ghost, and possibly killed people... well, you'd prefer a bit more style than a box of matches with a picture of a grinning troll on it. That was the sort of thing a murderer would use.

She lit the candle and, in two minds about it all, went on into the dark.

Chocolate Delight with Special Secret Sauce was a great success and heading down the little red lane as though hotwired.

'More, Mr Salzella?' said Bucket. 'This really is first-class stuff; isn't it? I must congratulate Mrs Clamp.'

'There is a certain piquancy, I must say,' said the director of music. 'How about you, Senor Basilica?'

'Mmmf.'

'Lady Esmerelda?'

'I don't mind if I do,' said Granny, passing her plate across.

'I'm sure I detect a hint of cinnamon,' said the interpreter, a brown ring around his mouth.

'Indeed, and possibly just a trace of nutmeg,' said Mr Bucket.

'I thought... cardamom?' said Salzella.

'Creamy yet spicy,' said Bucket. His eyes unfocused slightly. 'And curiously... warming.'

Granny stopped chewing, and looked down suspiciously at her plate.

Then she sniffed at her spoon.

'Is it, er...is it just me, or is it a trifle... warm in here?' said Bucket.

Salzella had gripped the arms of his chair. His forehead glistened. 'Do you think we could open a window?' he said. 'I feel a little... strange.'

'Yes, by all means,' said Bucket.

Salzella half-rose, and then a preoccupied expression suffused his features. He sat down suddenly.

'No, I rather believe I'll just sit quietly for a moment,' he said.

'Oh, dear,' said the interpreter. There was a hint of vapour around his collar.

Basilica tapped him politely on the shoulder, grunted hopefully, and made pass-it-here motions in the direction of the half-finished dish of chocolate pudding.

'Mmmf?' he said.

'Oh, dear,' said the interpreter.

Mr Bucket ran a finger around his collar. Sweat was beginning to roll down his face.

Basilica gave up on his stricken colleague and reached across in a businesslike way to hook the dish with his fork.

'Er... Yes,' said Bucket, trying to keep his eyes away from Granny.

'Yes... indeed,' said Salzella, his voice coming from a long way away.

'Oh, dear,' said the interpreter, his eyes watering.

'Ai! Meu Deus! Dio Mio! O Goden! D'zuk f't! Aagorahaa!'

Senor Basilica upended the rest of the Special Secret Sauce on to his plate and carefully scraped out the dish with his spoon, holding it upside-down to reach the last little bit.

'The weather has been a little... cool of late,' Bucket managed. 'Very cold, in fact.'

Enrico held the sauce-dish up to the light and regarded it critically in case there was any drop hiding in a corner.

'Snow, ice, frost... that sort of thing,' said Salzella. 'Yes, indeed! Coldness of all descriptions, in fact.'

'Yes! Yes!' said Bucket gratefully. 'And at a time like this I think it is very important to try to remember the names of, say, any number of boring and hopefully chilly things!'

'Wind, glaciers, icicles–'

'Not icicles!'

'Oh,' said the interpreter, and slumped forward into his plate. His head hit a spoon, which cartwheeled into the air and bounced off Enrico's head.

Salzella started to whistle under his breath and pound the arm of his chair.

Bucket blinked. In front of him was the water jug. The cold water jug. He reached out...

'Oh, oh, oh, dear me, what can I say, I seem to have spilled it all over myself,' he said, through the rising clouds of steam. 'What a butterfingers I am, to be sure. I shall ring for Mrs Ogg to bring us another one.'

'Yes, indeed,' said Salzella. 'And perhaps you would care to do it soon? I am also feeling very... accident-prone.'

Basilica, still chewing, lifted his interpreter's head off the table and carefully tipped the man's unfinished pudding into his own plate.

'In fact, in fact, in fact,' said Salzella, 'I think I shall just... have a brisk... have a nice cold...if you would excuse me a minute...'

He pushed back his chair and fled the room in a kind of crouching gait.

Mr Bucket glistened. 'I'll just, I'll just, I'll just... be back quite shortly,' he said, and scurried away.

There was silence, broken only by the scrape of Senor Basilica's spoon and a sizzling noise from the interpreter.

Then the tenor belched baritone. 'Whoops, pardon my Klatchian,' he said. 'Oh... damn.'

He appeared to notice the depleted table for the first time. He shrugged, and smiled hopefully at Granny. 'Is there a cheeseboard, do you think?' he said.

The door flew open and Nanny Ogg burst in, holding a bucket of water in both hands.

'All right, all right, that's–' she began, and then stopped.

Granny dabbed primly at the corners of her mouth with her napkin. 'I'm sorry, Mrs Ogg?' she said.

Nanny looked at the empty dish in front of Basilica.

'Or perhaps some fruit?' said the tenor. 'A few nuts?'

'How much has he had?' she whispered.

'Best part of half,' said Granny. 'But I don't reckon it's having any effect on account of not touching the sides.'

Nanny turned her attention to Granny's plate. 'How about you?' she said.

'Two helpings,' said Granny. 'With extra sauce, Gytha Ogg, may you be forgiven.'

Nanny looked at her with something like admiration in her eyes. 'You ain't even sweating!' she said.

Granny picked up her water glass and held it at arm's length.

After a few seconds, the water began to boil.

'All right, you're getting really good, I've got to admit it,' said Nanny. 'I reckon I should have to get up real early to put one over on you.'

'I reckon you should never go to sleep,' said Granny.

'Sorry, Esme.'

Senor Basilica, at a loss to follow the conversation, realized with reluctance that the meal was probably over.

'Absolutely superb,' he said. 'I just loved that pudding, Mrs Ogg.'

'I should just jolly well expect you did, Henry Slugg,' said Nanny.

Henry carefully removed a clean handkerchief from his pocket, put it over his face, and leaned back in his chair. The first snore occurred a few seconds later.

'He's easy to have around, isn't he?' said Nanny. 'Eat, sleep and sing. You certainly know where you are with him. I've found Greebo, by the way. He's still following Walter Plinge around.' Her expression became a little defiant. 'Say what you like, young Walter's all right by me if Greebo likes him.'

Granny sighed. 'Gytha, Greebo would like Norris the Eyeball-Eating Maniac of Quirm if he knew how to put food in a bowl.'

And now she was lost. She'd done her best not to be. As Agnes had walked through each dank room she'd thoughtfully taken note of details. She'd carefully remembered right and left turns. And yet she was lost.

Here and there were steps down to lower cellars, but the water-level was so high that it was lapping at the first step. And it stank. The candle burned with a greenish-blue edge to the flame.

Somewhere, said Perdita, there was the secret room. If there wasn't a huge and glittering secret cavern, what on earth was life for? There had to be a secret room. A room, full of... giant candles, and enormous stalagmites...

But it certainly isn't here, said Agnes.

She felt a complete idiot. She'd gone through the mirror looking for... well, she wasn't quite prepared to admit what she might have been looking for, but whatever it was it certainly wasn't this.

She'd have to shout for help.

Of course, someone might hear, but that was always a risk when you shouted for help.

She coughed.

'Er... hello?'

The water gurgled.

'Er... help? Is there anyone there?'

A rat ran over her foot.

Oh, yes, she thought bitterly with Perdita's part of her brain, if Christine had come down here there probably would have been some great glistening cave and delicious danger. The world saved up rats and smelly cellars for Agnes, because she had such a wonderful personality.

'Um...anyone?'

More rats scuttled across the floor. There was a faint squeaking from the side-passages.

'Hello?'

She was lost in some cellars with a candle getting shorter by the second. The air was foul, the flagstones were slippery, no one knew where she was, she could die down here, she could be–

Eyes glowed in the darkness.

One was green-yellow, the other pearly white.

A light appeared behind them.

Something was coming along the passageway, casting long shadows.

Rats tumbled over themselves in their panic to get away...

Agnes tried to press herself into the stone.

'Hello Miss Perdita X Nitt!'

A familiar shape juddered out of the darkness, just behind Greebo. It was all knees and elbows; it carried a sack over one shoulder and held a lantern in its other hand. Something fled from the darkness. The terror leached out of it...

'You don't want to be down here Miss Nitt with all the rats!'

'Walter!'

'Got to do Mister Pounder's job now the poor man is passed away! I am a person of all jobs! No peas for the wicked! But Mister Greebo just hits them with his paws and they're off to rat heaven in a jiff!'

'Walter!' repeated Agnes, out of sheer relief.

'Come for an explore have you? These ole tunnels goes all the way to the river! You have to keep your wits about you not to get lost down here! Want to come back with me?'

It was impossible to be frightened of Walter Plinge. Walter attracted a number of emotions, but terror wasn't among them.

'Er... yes,' said Agnes. 'I got lost. Sorry.'

Greebo sat down and started to wash himself in what Agnes considered to be a supercilious way. If a cat could snigger, he would be sniggering.

'Now I've got a full sack I have to take it to Mister Gimlet's shop!' announced Walter, turning around and loping out of the cellar without bothering to see if she was following him. 'We get a ha'penny each which is not to be sneezed at! The dwarfs think a rat is a good meal which only goes to show it would be a strange world if we were all alike!'

It seemed a ridiculously short journey to the foot of some different stairs, which had a well-used look to them.

'Have you ever seen the Ghost, Walter?' said Agnes, as Walter put his foot on the first step.

He didn't turn around. 'It is wrong to tell lies!'

'Er... yes, so I believe. So... when did you last see the Ghost?'

'I last saw the Ghost in the big room in the ballet school!'

'Really? What did he do?'

Walter paused for a moment, and then the words came out all together. 'He ran off?'

He stamped up the stairs in a way that suggested very emphatically that the exchange was over.

Greebo sneered at Agnes and followed him.

The stairs went up just one flight and came out through a trapdoor backstage. She had been lost only a door or two from the real world.

No one noticed her emerge. But then no one noticed her at all. They just assumed that she'd be around when she was needed.

Walter Plinge had already loped off, in something of a hurry.

Agnes hesitated. They probably wouldn't even notice she wasn't there, right up to the point when Christine opened her mouth...

He hadn't wanted to answer, but Walter Plinge spoke when spoken to and she had a feeling that he wasn't able to lie. Telling lies would be being bad.

She'd never seen the ballet school. It wasn't far backstage, but it was a world of its own. The dancers issued from it every day like so many very thin and twittering sheep under the control of elderly women who looked as though they breakfasted on pickled limes. It was only after she'd timidly asked a few questions of the stage-hands that she'd realized that the girls had joined the ballet because they'd wanted to.

She had seen the dancers' dressing-room, where thirty girls washed and changed in a space rather smaller than Bucket's office. It bore the same relationship to ballet as compost did to roses.

She looked around again. Still no one had paid any attention to her.

She headed for the school. It was up a few steps, along a foetid corridor lined with notice-boards and smelling of ancient grease. A couple of girls fluttered past. You never saw just one: they went around in groups, like mayflies. She pushed open the door and stepped into the school.

Reflections of reflections of reflections...

There were mirrors on every wall.

A few girls, practising on the bars that lined the room, looked up as she entered.

Mirrors...

Out in the passage she leaned against the wall and got her breath back. She'd never liked mirrors. They always seemed to be laughing at her. But didn't they say it was the mark of a witch, not liking to get between two mirrors? It sucked out your soul, or something. A witch would never get between two mirrors if she could help it...

But, of course, she very definitely wasn't a witch. So she took a deep breath, and went back into the room.

Images of herself stretched away in every direction.

She managed a few steps, then wheeled around and groped for the doorway again, watched by the surprised dancers.

Lack of sleep, she told herself. And general over-excitement. Anyway, she didn't need to go right into the room, now that she knew who the Ghost was.

It was so obvious. The Ghost didn't require any mysterious nonexistent caves when all he needed to do was hide where everyone could see him.

Mr Bucket knocked at the door of Salzella's office. A muffled voice said, 'Come in.'

There was no one in the office, but there was another closed door in the far wall. Bucket knocked again, and then rattled the door handle.

'I'm in the bath,' said Salzella.

'Are you decent?'

'I'm fully clothed, if that's what you mean. Is there a pail of ice out there?'

'Was it you who ordered it?' said Bucket guiltily.

'Yes!'

'Only I, er, I had it taken to my office so I could stick my feet in it...'

'Your feet?'

'Yes. Er... I went for a brisk run around the city, don't know why, just felt like it...'

'Well?'

'My boots caught fire on the second lap.'

There was a sloshing noise and some sotto voce grumbling and then the door swung open, revealing Salzella in a purple dressing-gown.

'Has Senor Basilica been safely tethered?' he said, dripping on the floor.

'He's going through the music with Herr Trubelmacher.'

'And he's... all right?'

'He sent along to the kitchen for a snack.'

Salzella shook his head. 'Astonishing.'

'And they've put the interpreter in a cupboard. They don't seem to be able to get him unfolded.'

Bucket sat down carefully. He was wearing carpet slippers.

'And–' Salzella prompted.

'And what?'

'Where did that dreadful woman go?'

'Mrs Ogg is showing her around. Well, what else could I do? Two thousand dollars, remember!'

'I am endeavouring to forget,' said Salzella. 'I promise never to talk about that lunch ever again, if you don't either.'

'What lunch?' said Bucket innocently.

'Well done.'

'She does seem to have an amazing effect though, doesn't she...'

'I don't know who you are talking about.'

'I mean, it's not hard to see how she made her money...'

'Good heavens, man, she's got a face like a hatchet!'

'They say that Queen Ezeriel of Klatch had a squint, but that didn't stop her having fourteen husbands, and that was only the official score. Besides, she's knocking on a bit...'

'I thought she'd been dead for two hundred years!'

'I'm talking about Lady Esmerelda.'

'So am I.'

'At least try to be civil to her at the soiree before the performance tonight.'

'I'll try.'

'The two thousand might be only the start, I hope. Every time I open a drawer there are more bills! We seem to owe money to everyone!'

'Opera is expensive.'

'You're telling me: Whenever I try to make a start on the books, something dreadful happens. Do you think I might just have a few hours without something awful happening?'

'In an opera house?'

The voice was muffled by the half-dismantled mechanism of the organ.

'All right–give me middle C.'

A hairy finger pressed a key. It made a thudding noise and somewhere in the mechanism something else went woing.

'Blast, it's come off the peg... hold on again...

The note rang out sweet and clear.

'O-kay,' said the voice of the man hidden in the exposed entrails of the organ. 'Wait until I tighten the peg...'

Agnes stepped closer. The hulking figure seated at the organ turned around and gave her a friendly grin, which was much wider than the average grin. Its owner was covered in red hair and, while short-changed in the leg department, had obviously been first in the queue when the arm counter opened. And had also been given a special free offer of lip.

...try

'André?' said Agnes weakly.

The organist extracted himself from the mechanism. He was holding a complicated wooden bar with springs on it. 'Oh, hello,' he said.

'Er... who is this?' said Agnes, backing away from the primaeval organist.

'Oh, this is the Librarian. I don't think he has a name. He's the Librarian at Unseen University but, much more importantly, he's their organist and it turns out our organ is a Johnson[8], just like theirs. He's given us some spare parts–'

'Ook'

'Sorry, lent us some spare parts.'

'He plays the organ?'

'In an amazingly prehensile way, yes.'

Agnes relaxed. The creature didn't seem about to attack.

'Oh,' she said. 'Well... I suppose it's natural, because sometimes barrel-organ men came to our village and they often had a dear little mon–'

There was a crashing chord. The orangutan raised its other hand and waved a finger politely in front of Agnes's face.

'He doesn't like being called a monkey,' said André. 'And he likes you.'

'How can you tell?,

'He doesn't usually go in for warnings.'

She stepped back quickly and grabbed the boy's arm. 'Can I have a word with you?' she said.

'We've got only a few hours and I'd really like to get this–'

'It's important.'

He followed her into the wings. Behind them, the Librarian tapped a few keys on the half-repaired keyboard and then ducked underneath.

'I know who the Ghost is,' whispered Agnes.

André stared at her. Then he pulled her further into the shadows. 'The Ghost isn't anybody,' he said softly. 'Don't be silly. It's just the Ghost.'

'I mean he's someone else when he takes his mask off.'

Who.

'Should I tell Mr Bucket and Mr Salzella?'

'Who? Tell them about who?'

'Walter Plinge.'

He stared at her again.

'If you laugh I'll... I'll kick you,' said Agnes.

'But Walter isn't even–'

'I didn't believe it either but he said he saw the Ghost in the ballet school and there's mirrors all over the walls and he'd be quite tall if he stood up properly and he roams around in the cellars–'

'Oh, come on...'

'The other night I thought I heard him singing on the stage when everyone else had gone.'

'You saw him?'

'It was dark.'

'Oh, well. . .' André began dismissively.

'But afterwards I'm certain I heard him talking to the cat. Talking normally, I mean. I mean like a normal person, I mean. And you've got to admit... he is strange. Isn't he just the sort of person who'd want to wear a mask to hide who he is?' She sagged. 'Look, I can see you don't want to listen–'

'No! No, I think... well...'

'I just thought I'd feel better if I told someone.'

André smiled in the gloom. 'I wouldn't mention it to anyone else, though.'

Agnes looked down at her feet. 'I suppose it does sound a bit far-fetched...'

André laid a hand on her arm. Perdita felt Agnes draw herself back. 'Do you feel better?' he said.

'I... don't know... I mean... I don't know... I mean, I just can't imagine him hurting anyone... I feel so stupid...'

'Everyone's on edge. Don't worry about it.'

'I'd... hate you to think I was being silly–'

'I'll keep an eye on Walter, if you like.' He smiled at her. 'But I'd better get on with things,' he added. He gave her another smile, as fast and brief as summer lightning.

'Thank y–'

He was already walking back to the organ.

This shop was a gentlemen's outfitters.

'It's not for me,' said Nanny Ogg. 'It's for a friend. He's six foot tall, very broad shoulders.'

'Inside leg?'

'Oh, yes.'

She looked around the store. Might as well go all the way. It was her money, after all.

'And a black coat, long black tights, shoes with them shiny buckles, one of those top hats, a big cloak with a red silk lining, a bow-tie, a really posh black cane with a very nobby silver knob on it... and... a black eye-patch.'

'An eye-patch?'

'Yes. Maybe with sequins or something on it, since it's the opera.'

The tailor stared at Nanny. 'This is a little irregular,' he said. 'Why can't the gentleman come in himself?'

'He ain't quite a gentleman yet.'

'But, madam, I meant that we have to get the size right.'

Nanny Ogg looked around the shop. 'Tell you what,' she said, 'you sell me something that looks about right and we'll adjust him to fit. 'Souse me...'

She turned away demurely

-twingtwangtwong

-and turned back, smoothing down her dress and holding a leather bag.

'How much'll it be?' she said.

The tailor looked blankly at the bag. 'I'm afraid we won't be able to have all that ready until at least next Wednesday,' he said.

Nanny Ogg sighed. She felt she was becoming familiar with one of the most fundamental laws of physics. Time equalled money. Therefore, money equalled time.

'I was sort of hoping to get it all a bit quicker than that,' she said, jingling the bag up and down.

The tailor looked down his nose at her. 'We are craftsmen, madam. How long did you think it should take?'

'How about ten minutes?' '

Twelve minutes later she left the shop with a large packet under one arm, a hatbox under the other, and an ebony cane between her teeth.

Granny was waiting outside. 'Got it all?'

'Ess.'

'I'll take the eye-patch, shall I?'

'We've got to get a third witch,' said Nanny, trying to rearrange the parcels. 'Young Agnes has got good strong arms.'

'You know if we was to drag her out of there by the scruff of her neck we'd never hear the last of it,' said Granny. 'She'll be a witch when she wants to be.'

They headed for the Opera House's stage-door.

'Afternoon, Les,' said Nanny cheerfully as they entered. 'Stopped itching now, has it?'

'Marvellous bit of ointment that was you gave me, Mrs Ogg,' said the stage-doorkeeper, his moustache bending into something that might have been a smile.

'Mrs Les keeping well? How's her sister's leg?'

'Doing very well, Mrs Ogg, thank you for asking.'

'This is just Esme Weatherwax who's helping me with some stuff,' said Nanny.

The doorkeeper nodded. It was clear that any friend of Mrs Ogg was a friend of his. 'No trouble at all, Mrs Ogg.'

As they passed through into the dusty network of corridors Granny reflected, not for the first time, that Nanny had a magic all of her own.

Nanny didn't so much enter places as insinuate herself; she had unconsciously taken a natural talent for liking people and developed it into an occult science. Granny Weatherwax did not doubt that her friend already knew the names, family histories, birthdays and favourite topics of conversation of half the people here, and probably also the vital wedge that would cause them to open up. It might be talking about their children, or a potion for their bad feet, or one of Nanny's really filthy stories, but Nanny would be in and after twenty-four hours they'd have known her all their lives. And they'd tell her things. Of their own free will. Nanny Got On with people. Nanny could get a statue to cry on her shoulder and say what it really thought about pigeons.

It was a knack. Granny had never had the patience to acquire it. just occasionally, she wondered whether it might have been a good idea.

'Curtain up in an hour and a half,' said Nanny. 'I promised Giselle I'd give her a hand...'

'Who's Giselle?'

'She does makeup.'

'You don't know how to do makeup!'

'I distempered our privy, didn't I?' said Nanny.

'And I paint faces on eggs for the kiddies every Soul Cake Tuesday.'

'Got to do anything else, have you?' said Granny sarcastically. 'Open the curtains? Fill in for a ballet dancer who's been taken poorly?'

'I did say I'd help with the drinks at the swarray,' said Nanny, letting the irony slide off like water on a red-hot stove. 'Well, a lot of the staff have buggered off 'cos of the Ghost. It's in the big foyer in half an hour. I expect you ought to be there, being a patronizer.'

'What's a swarray?' said Granny suspiciously.

'It's a sort of posh party before the opera.'

'What do I have to do?'

'Drink sherry and make polite conversation,' said Nanny. 'Or conversation, anyway. I saw the grub being done for it. They've even got little cubes of cheese on sticks stuck in a grapefruit, and you don't get much posher than that.'

'Gytha Ogg, you ain't done any... special dishes, have you?'

'No, Esme,' said Nanny Ogg meekly.

'Only you've got an imp of mischief in you.'

'Been far too busy for anything like that,' said Nanny.

Granny nodded. 'Then we'd better find Greebo,' she said.

'You sure about this, Esme?' said Nanny.

'We might have a lot to do tonight,' said Granny. 'Maybe we could do with an extra pair of hands.'

'Paws.'

'At the moment, yes.'

It was Walter. Agnes knew it. It wasn't knowledge in her mind, exactly. It was practically something she breathed. She felt it as a tree feels the sun.

It all fitted. He could go anywhere, and no one took any notice of Walter Plinge. In a way he was invisible, because he was always there. And, if you were someone like Walter Plinge, wouldn't you long to be someone as debonair and dashing as the Ghost?

If you were someone like Agnes Nitt, wouldn't you long to be someone as dark and mysterious as Perdita X Dream?

The traitor thought was there before she could choke it off. She added hurriedly: But I've never killed anyone.

Because that's what I'd have to believe, isn't it? If he's the Ghost, then he's killed people.

All the same... he does look odd, and he talks as if the words are trying to escape...

A hand touched her shoulder. She spun round.

'It's only me!' said Christine.

'...Oh.'

'Don't you think this is a marvellous dress!?'

'What?'

'This dress, silly!!'

Agnes looked her up and down. 'Oh. Yes. Very nice,' she said, disinterest lying on her voice like rain on a midnight pavement.

'You don't sound very impressed!! Really, Perdita, there's no need to be jealous!!'

'I'm not jealous, I was thinking...'

She'd only seen the Ghost for a moment, but he certainly hadn't moved like Walter. Walter walked as though his body were being dragged along by his head. But the certainty was as hard as marble now.

'Well, you don't seem very impressed, I must say!!'

'I'm wondering if Walter Plinge is the Ghost,' said Agnes, and immediately cursed herself, or at least pooted. She felt embarrassed enough about André's reaction.

Christine's eyes widened. 'But he's a clown!!'

'He walks odd and he talks odd,' said Agnes, 'but if he stood up straight–'

Christine laughed. Agnes felt herself getting angry. 'And he practically told me he was!'

'You believed him, did you?!' Christine made a little tutting sound that Agnes considered quite offensive. 'Really, you girls believe the strangest things!!'

'What do you mean, we girls?'

'Oh, you know! The dancers are always saying they've seen the Ghost all over the place–'

'Good grief! Do you think I'm some sort of impressionable idiot? Think for a minute before answering!'

'Well, of course I don't, but–'

'Huh!'

Agnes strode off into the wings, concerned more with effect than direction. The background noise of the stage faded behind her as she stepped into the scenery store. It didn't lead anywhere except to a pair of big double doors opening to the world outside. It was full of bits of castles, balconies and romantic prison cells, stacked any old how.

Christine hurried up behind her.

'I really didn't mean... look, not Walter... he's just a very odd odd-job man!'

'He does all kinds of jobs! No one ever knows where he is–they all just assume he's around!'

'All right, but you don't have to get so worked up–'

There was the faintest of sounds behind them.

They turned.

The Ghost bowed.

'Who's a good boy, then? Nanny's got a bowl of fish eggs for a good boy,' said Nanny, trying to see under the big dresser in the kitchen.

'Fish eggs?' said Granny, coldly.

'I borrowed them from the stuff they've done for the swarray,' said Nanny.

'Borrowed?' said Granny.

'That's right. Come along, Greebo, who's a good boy then?'

'Borrowed. You mean... when the cat's finished with them, you're going to give them back?'

'It's only a manner of speaking, Esme,' said Nanny in a hurt little voice. 'It's not the same as stealing if you don't mean it. Come along, boy, here's some lovely fish eggs for you...'

Greebo pulled himself further into the shadows.

There was a little sigh from Christine and she folded up into a faint. But she managed, Agnes noticed sourly, to collapse in a way that probably didn't hurt when she hit the ground and which showed off her dress to the best effect. It was beginning to dawn on Agnes that Christine was remarkably clever in some specialized ways.

She looked back at the mask.

'It's all right,' she said, her voice sounding hoarse even to her. 'I know why you're doing it. I really do.'

No expression could cross that ivory face, but the eyes flickered.

Agnes swallowed. The Perdita part of her wanted to give in right now, because that would be more exciting, but she stood her ground.

'You want to be something else and you're stuck with what you are,' said Agnes. 'I know all about that. You're lucky. All you have to do is put on a mask. At least you're the right shape. But why did you have to go and kill people? Why? Mr Pounder couldn't have done you any harm! But... he poked around in odd places, didn't he, and he... found something?'

The Ghost nodded slightly, and then held out his ebony cane. He grasped both ends and pulled, so that a long thin sword slid out.

'I know who you are!' Agnes burst out, as he stepped forward. 'I... I could probably help you! It might not have been your fault!' She backed away. 'I haven't done anything to you! You don't have to be afraid of me!'

She backed away further as the figure advanced.

The eyes, in the dark hollows of the mask, glinted like tiny jewels.

'I'm your friend, don't you see? Please, Walter! Walter!'

There was, far off, an answering sound that seemed as loud as thunder and as impossible, in the circumstances, as a chocolate kettle.

It was the clank of a bucket handle.

'What's the matter Miss Perdita Nitt?'

The Ghost hesitated.

There was the sound of footsteps. Irregular footsteps.

The Ghost lowered the sword, opened a door in a piece of scenery painted to represent a castle wall, bowed ironically and slipped away.

Walter rounded a corner.

He was an unlikely knight errant. For one thing, he had on evening dress obviously designed for someone of a different shape. He was still wearing his beret. He also wore an apron and was carrying a mop and bucket. But no heroic lance-wielding rescuer ever galloped over a drawbridge more happily. He was practically surrounded by a golden glow.

'...Walter?'

'What's the matter with Miss Christine?'

'She... er... she fainted,' said Agnes. 'Er' Probably... yes, probably the excitement. With the opera. Tonight. Yes. Probably. The excitement. Because of the opera tonight.'

Walter gave her a slightly worried look. 'Yes,' he said, and added patiently, 'I know where there's a medicine box shall I get it?'

Christine groaned and fluttered her eyelashes. 'Where am I?'

Perdita gritted Agnes's teeth. Where am I? That didn't sound the sort of thing someone said when they woke up from a faint; it sounded more like the sort of thing they said because they'd heard it was the sort of thing people said.

'You fainted,' she said. She looked hard at Walter. 'Why were you in here, Walter?'

'Got to mop out the stage-hands' privy Miss Nitt. Always having trouble I've been working on it for months!'

'But you're wearing evening dress!'

'Yes then I got to be a waiter afterwards because we're short-handed and there's no one else to be a waiter when they have drinks and sausages on poles before the opera.'

No one could have moved that fast. True, Walter and the Ghost hadn't both been in the room at the same time, but she'd heard his voice. No one could have had time to duck around behind the piles of flats and turn up at the opposite side of the room in seconds, unless they were some sort of wizard. Some of the girls did say the Ghost could almost seem to be in two places at once. Perhaps there were other secret places like the old staircase. Perhaps he–

She stopped herself. Walter Plinge wasn't the Ghost, then. There was no sense in trying to find some excitable explanation to prove wrong right.

She'd told Christine. Well, Christine was giving her just a slightly bemused look as Walter helped her up. And she'd told André, but he hadn't seemed to believe her so probably that was all right.

Which meant that the Ghost was...

...someone else.

She'd been so certain.

'You'll enjoy it, mother. You really will.'

' 'Tain't for the likes of us, Henry. I don't see why Mr Morecombe couldn't give you tickets to see Nellie Stamp at the music hall. Now that's what I call music. Proper tunes you can understand.'

'Songs like "She Sits Among the Cabbages and Leeks" are not very cultural, mother.'

Two figures wandered through the crowds heading for the Opera House. This was their conversation.

' 'S a good laugh, though. And you don't have to hire suits. Seems daft to me, havin' to wear a special suit just to listen to music.'

'It enhances the experience,' said young Henry, who had read this somewhere.

'I mean, how does the music know?' said his mother. 'Now, Nellie Stamp–'

'Come along, mother.'

It was going to be one of those evenings, he knew it.

Henry Lawsy did his best. And, given the starting point, it wasn't a bad best. He was a clerk in the firm of Morecombe, Slant & Honeyplace, a somewhat oldfashioned legal partnership. One reason for its less-than-modern approach was the fact that Messrs Morecombe and Honeyplace were vampires and Mr Slant was a zombie. The three partners were, therefore, technically dead, although this did not prevent them putting in a proper day's work–normally during the night, in the case of Mr Morecombe and Mr Honeyplace.

From Henry's point of view the hours were good and the job was not onerous, but he chafed somewhat about his promotion prospects because clearly dead men's shoes were being fully occupied by dead men. He'd decided that the only way to succeed was to better himself by Improving His Mind, which he tried to do at every opportunity. It is probably a full description of Henry Lawsy's mind that if you had given him a book called How to Improve Your Mind in Five Minutes, he would have read it with a stopwatch. His progress through life was hampered by his tremendous sense of his own ignorance, a disability which affects all too few people.

Mr Morecombe had given him two opera tickets as a reward for sorting out a particularly problematical tort. He'd invited his mother because she represented 100 per cent of all the women he knew.

People tended to shake Henry's hand cautiously, in case it came off.

He'd bought a book about the opera and read it carefully, because he'd heard that it was absolutely unheard-of to go to an opera without knowing what it was about, and the chance of finding out while you were actually watching it was remote. The book's reassuring weight was in his pocket right now. All he needed to complete the evening was a less embarrassing parent.

'Can we get some peanuts before we go in?' said his mother.

'Mother, they don't sell peanuts at the opera.'

'No peanuts? What're you supposed to do if you don't like the songs?'

Greebo's suspicious eyes were two glows in the gloom.

'Poke him with a broom-handle,' suggested Granny.

'No,' said Nanny. 'With someone like Greebo you have to use a little bit of kindness.'

Granny closed her eyes and waved a hand.

There was a yowl from under the kitchen's dresser and a sound .of frantic scrabbling. Then, his claws scoring tracks in the floor, Greebo came out backwards, fighting all the way.

'Mind you, a lot of cruelty does the trick as well,' Nanny conceded. 'You've never been much of a cat person, have you, Esme?'

Greebo would have hissed at Granny, except that even his cat brain was just bright enough to realize this was not the best move he could make.

'Give him his fish eggs,' Granny said. 'He might as well have them now as later.'

Greebo inspected the dish. Oh, this was all right, then. They wanted to give him food.

Granny nodded at Nanny Ogg. They held out their hands, palm-up.

Greebo was halfway through the caviar when he felt It happening.

'Wrrroowlllll–' he wailed, and then the voice went deeper as his chest expanded, and rose physically as his back legs lengthened under him.

His ears flattened against his head, and then crept down the sides.

'–llllwwaaaa–'

'The jacket's a forty-four-inch chest,' said Nanny. Granny nodded.

'–aaaaoooo–'

His face flattened. His whiskers spread out. Greebo's nose developed a life of its own.

'–oooooss... sshit!'

'He certainly gets the hang of it quicker these days,' said Nanny.

'You put some clothes on right now, my lad,' said Granny, who had shut her eyes.

Not that this made much difference, she had to admit later. Greebo fully clothed still managed to communicate the nakedness beneath. The insouciant moustache, the long sideburns and the tousled black hair combined with the well-developed muscles to give the impression of the more louche kind of buccaneer or a romantic poet who'd given up on the opium and tried red meat instead. He had a scar running across his face, and a black patch now where it crossed the eye. When he smiled, he exuded an easy air of undistilled, excitingly dangerous lasciviousness. He could swagger while asleep. Greebo could, in fact, commit sexual harassment simply by sitting very quietly in the next room.

Except as far as the witches were concerned. To Granny a cat was a damn' cat whatever shape it was, and Nanny Ogg always thought of him as Mister Fluffy.

She adjusted the bow-tie and stood back critically. 'What do you think?' she said.

'He looks like an assassin, but he'll do,' said Granny.

'Oh, what a nasty thing to say!'

Greebo waved his arms experimentally and fumbled with the ebony cane. Fingers took a bit of getting used to, but cat reflexes learned fast.

Nanny waved a finger playfully under his nose. He took a half-hearted swipe at it.

'Now you just stay with Granny and do what she tells you like a good boy,' she said.

'Yess, Nan-ny,' said Greebo reluctantly. He managed to grip the stick properly.

'And no fighting.'

'No, Nan-ny.'

'And no leaving bits of people on the doormat.'

'No, Nan-ny.'

'We'll have no trouble like we did with those robbers last month.'

'No, Nan-ny.'

He looked depressed. Humans had no fun. Incredible complications surrounded the most basic activities.

'And no turning back into a cat again until we say.'

'Yess, Nan-ny.'

'Play your cards right and there could be a kipper in this for you.'

'Yess, Nan-ny.'

'What're we going to call him?' said Granny. 'He can't just be Greebo, which I've always said was a damn' silly name for a cat.'

'Well, he looks aristocratic–' Nanny began.

'He looks like a beautiful brainless bully,' Granny corrected her.

'Aristocratic,' repeated Nanny.

'Same thing.'

'We can't call him Greebo, anyway.'

'We'll think of something.'

Salzella leaned disconsolately against the marble banister of the foyer's grand staircase and stared gloomily into his drink.

It had always seemed to him that one of the major flaws in the whole business of opera was the audience. They were quite unsuitable. The only ones worse than the ones who didn't know anything at all about music, and whose idea of a sensible observation was 'I liked that bit near the end when her voice went wobbly', were the ones who thought they did...

'Want a drink do you Mister Salzella? There's lots you know!'

Walter Plinge ambled by, his black suit making him look like a very good class of scarecrow.

'Plinge, you just say "Drink, sir?" ' said the director of music. 'And please take off that ridiculous beret.'

'My mum made it for me!'

'I'm sure she did, but–'

Bucket sidled up to him. 'I thought I told you to keep Senor Basilica away from the canapes!' he hissed.

'I'm sorry, I couldn't find a big enough crowbar,' said Salzella, waving away Walter and his beret. 'Anyway, isn't he supposed to be communing with his muse in his dressing-room? The curtain goes up in twenty minutes!'

'He says he sings better on a full stomach.'

'Then we're in for a big treat tonight.'

Bucket turned and surveyed the scene. 'It's going well, anyway,' he said.

'I suppose so.'

'The Watch are here, you know. In secret. They're mingling.'

'Ah... let me guess...'

Salzella looked around at the crowds. There was, indeed, a very short man in a suit intended for a rather larger man; this was especially the case with the opera cloak, which actually trailed on the floor behind him to give the overall impression of a superhero who had spent too much time around the Kryptonite. He was wearing a deformed fur hat and trying surreptitiously to smoke a cigarette.

'You mean that little man with the words "Watchman in Disguise" flashing on and off just above his head?'

'Where? I didn't see that!'

Salzella sighed. 'It's Corporal Nobby Nobbs,' he said wearily. 'The only known person to require an identity card to prove his species. I've watched him mingle with three large sherries.'

'He's not the only one, though,' said Mr Bucket. 'They're taking this seriously.,

'Oh, yes,' said Salzella. 'If we look over there, for example, we see Sergeant Detritus, who is a toll, and who is wearing what in the circumstances is actually a rather well-fitting suit. It is therefore, I feel, something of a pity he has neglected to remove his helmet. And these, you understand, the Watch has chosen for their ability to blend.'

'Well, they'll certainly be useful if the Ghost strikes again,' said Bucket, hopelessly.

'The Ghost would have to–' Salzella stopped. He blinked. 'Oh, good grief,' he whispered. 'What has she found?'

Bucket turned. 'That's Lady Esmerelda... oh.'

Greebo strolled in alongside her with the gentle swagger that makes women thoughtful and men's knuckles go white. The buzz of conversation was momentarily hushed, and then rose again to -a slightly shriller buzz.

'I'm impressed,' said Salzella.

'He certainly doesn't look like a gentleman,' said Bucket. 'Look at the colour of that eye!' He set his face into what he hoped was a smile, and bowed.

'Lady Esmerelda!' he said. 'How pleasant to see you again! Won't you introduce us to your... guest?'

'This is Lord Gribeau,' said Granny. 'Mr Bucket, the owner, and Mr Salzella, who seems to run the place.'

'Haha,' said Salzella.

Gribeau snarled, revealing longer incisors than any that Bucket had seen outside a zoo. And Bucket had never seen such a greenish-yellow eye. The pupil was all wrong...

'Ahaha...' he said. 'And may I order you something?'

'He'll have milk,' said Granny firmly.

'I expect he has to keep up his strength,' said Salzella.

Granny spun around. Her expression would have etched steel.

'Anyone for a drink?' said Nanny Ogg, appearing out of nowhere with a tray and adroitly stepping between them like a very small peace-keeping force. 'Got a bit of everything here...'

'Including a glass of milk, I see,' said Bucket.

Salzella looked from one witch to the other. 'That's remarkably foresighted of you,' he said.

'Well, you never know,' said Nanny.

Gribeau took the glass in both hands and lapped at it with his tongue. Then he looked at Salzella.

'What yourrr lookin aat? Neverrr seem mil-uk drun beforr?'

'Never quite...like that, I must admit.'

Nanny winked at Granny Weatherwax as she turned to scurry away.

Granny caught her arm. 'Remember,' she whispered, 'when we go into the Box... you keep an eye on Mrs Plinge. Mrs Plinge knows something. I ain't sure what's going to happen. But it is going to happen.'

'Right,' said Nanny. She bustled off, muttering under her breath, 'Oh, yes... do this, do that–'

'Drink here, please, ma'am.'

Nanny looked down. 'Good grief,' she said. 'What are you?'

The apparition in the fur hat winked at her. 'I'm the Count de Nobbs,' it said, 'and this here,' it added, indicating a mobile wall, 'is the Count de Tritus.'

Nanny glanced at the troll. 'Another Count? I'm sure there's unaccountably more Counts here than I can count. And what can I get you, officers?' she said.

'Officers? Us?' said the Count de Nobbs. 'What makes you think we're Watchmen?'

'He's got a helmet on,' Nanny pointed out. 'Also, he's got his badge pinned to his coat.'

'I told you to put it away!' Nobby hissed. He looked at Nanny and smiled uneasily. 'Milit'ry chic,' he said. 'It's just a fashion accessory. Actually, we are gentlemen of means and have nothing to do with the city Watch whatsoever.'

'Well, gentlemen, would you like some wine?'

'Not while we on duty, yanks,' said the troll.

'Oh, yes, thank you very much, Count de Tritus,' said Nobby bitterly. 'Oh, yes, very undercover, that is! Why don't you just wave your truncheon around where everyone can see it?'

'Well, if you t'ink it'd help–'

'Put it away!'

The Count de Tritus's eyebrows met with the effort of thought. 'Dat was irony, den, was it? To a superior officer?'

'Can't be a superior officer, can you, 'cos we ain't Watchmen. Look, Commander Vimes explained it three times...'

Nanny Ogg tactfully moved away. It was bad enough watching them blow their cover without sucking at it as well.

This was a new world, all right. She was used to a life where the men wore the bright clothes and the women wore black. It made it a lot easier to decide what to put on in the mornings. But inside the Opera House the rules of clothing were all in reverse, just like the laws of common sense. Here the women dressed like frosted peacocks and the men looked like penguins.

So... there were coppers here. Nanny Ogg was basically a law-abiding person when she had no reason to break the law, and therefore had that kind of person's attitude to law-enforcement officers, which was one of deep and permanent distrust.

There was their approach to theft, for example. Nanny had a witch's view of theft, which was a lot more complicated than the attitude adopted by the law and, if it came to it, people who owned property worth stealing. They tended to wield the huge blunt axe of the law in circumstances that required the delicate scalpel of common sense.

No, thought Nanny. Policemen with their great big boots were not required here on a night like this. It would be a good idea to put a thumbtack under the ponderous feet of Justice.

She ducked behind a gilt statue and fumbled in the recesses of her clothing while people nearby looked around in puzzlement at the erratic twanging of elastic. She was sure she had one around somewhere–she'd packed it in case of emergencies...

There was the clink of a small bottle. Ah, yes.

A moment later Nanny Ogg emerged decorously with two small glasses on her tray, and headed purposefully for the Watchmen.

'Fruit drink, officers?' she said. 'Oh, silly me, what am I saying, I didn't mean officers. Home-made fruit drink?'

Detritus sniffed suspiciously, immediately clearing his sinuses. 'What's in it?' he said.

'Apples,' said Nanny Ogg promptly. 'Well... mainly apples.'

Under her hand, a couple of spilt drops finished eating their way through the metal of the tray and dropped on to the carpet, where they smoked.

The auditorium buzzed with the sound of operagoers settling down and Mrs Lawsy trying to find her shoes.

'You really shouldn't have taken them off, mother.'

'My feet are giving me gyp.'

'Did you bring your knitting?'

'I think I must've left it in the Ladies.'

'Oh, mother.'

Henry Lawsy marked his place in his book and raised his runny eyes heavenward, and blinked. Right above him–a long way above him–was a glittering circle of light.

His mother followed his gaze. 'What's that, then?'

'I think it's a chandelier, mother.'

'It's a pretty big one. What's holding it up?'

'I'm sure they've got special ropes and things, mother.'

'Looks a bit dangerous, to my mind.'

'I'm sure it's absolutely safe, mother.'

'What do you know about chandeliers?'

'I'm sure people wouldn't come into the Opera House if there was any chance of a chandelier dropping on their heads, mother,' said Henry, trying to read his book.

Il Truccatore, The Master of Disguise. Il Truccatore (ten.), a mysterious nobleman, causes scandal in the city when he woos high-born ladies while disguised as their husbands. However, Laura (sop.), the new bride of Capriccio (bar.), refuses to give in to his blandishments–

Henry put a bookmark in the book, took a smaller book from his pocket, and carefully looked up 'blandishments'. He was moving in a world he wasn't quite sure of; embarrassment lay waiting at every turn, and he wasn't going to get caught out over a word. Henry lived his life in permanent dread of Being Asked Questions Later.

–and with the help of his servant Wingie (ten.) he adopts a subterfuge–

The dictionary came out again for a moment.

--culminating–

And again.

–in the scene at the famous Masked Ball at the Duke's Palace. But Il Truccatore has not reckoned with his old adversary the Count de–

'Adversary'...Henry sighed, and reached for his pocket.

Curtain up in five minutes...

Salzella reviewed his troops. They consisted of scenebuilders and painters and all those other employees who could be spared for the evening. At the end of the line, about fifty per cent of Walter Plinge had managed to stand to attention.

'Now, you all know your positions,' said Salzella. 'And if you see anything, anything at all, you are to let me know at once. Do you understand ?'

'Mr Salzella!'

'Yes, Walter?'

'We mustn't interrupt the opera Mr Salzella!'

Salzella shook his head. 'People will understand, I'm sure–'

'Show must go on Mr Salzella!'

'Walter, you will do what you're told!'

Someone raised a hand. 'He's got a point, though, Mr Salzella...'

Salzella rolled his eyes. 'Just catch the Ghost,' he said. 'If we can do it without a lot of shouting, that's good. Of course I don't want to stop the show.' He saw them relax.

A deep chord rolled out over the stage.

'What the hell was that?'

Salzella strode behind the stage and was met by André, looking excited.

'What's going on?'

'We repaired it, Mr Salzella! Only... well, he doesn't want to give up the seat...'

The Librarian nodded at the director of music. Salzella knew the orang-utan, and among the things he knew was that, if the Librarian wanted to sit somewhere, then that was where he sat. But he was a first-class organist, Salzella had to admit. His lunchtime recitals in the Great Hall of Unseen University were extremely popular, especially since the University's organ had every single sound-effect that Bloody Stupid Johnson's inverted genius had been able to contrive. No one would have believed, before a pair of simian hands had worked on the project, that something like Doinov's romantic Prelude in G could be rescored for Whoopee Cushion and Squashed Rabbits.

'There's the overtures,' said André, 'and the ballroom scene...'

'At least get him a bow-tie,' said Salzella.

'No one can see him, Mr Salzella, and he hasn't really got much of a neck...'

'We do have standards, André.'

'Yes, Mr Salzella.'

'Since you seem to have been relieved of employment this evening, then perhaps you could help us apprehend the Ghost.'

'Certainly, Mr Salzella.'

'Fetch him a tie, then, and come with me.'

A little later, left to himself, the Librarian opened his copy of the score and placed it carefully on the stand.

He reached down under the seat and pulled out a large brown paper bag of peanuts. He wasn't entirely sure why André, having talked him into playing the organ this evening, had told the other man that it was because he, the Librarian, wouldn't budge. In fact, he'd got some interesting cataloguing to do and had been looking forward to it. Instead, he seemed to be here for the night, although a pound of shelled peanuts was handsome pay by any ape's standards. The human mind was a deep and abiding mystery and the Librarian was glad he didn't have one any more.

He inspected the bow-tie. As André had foreseen, it presented certain problems to someone who'd been behind the door when the necks were handed out.

Granny Weatherwax stopped in front of Box Eight and looked around. Mrs Plinge wasn't visible. She unlocked the door with what was probably the most expensive key in the world.

'And you behave yourself,' she said.

'Ye-ess, Gran-ny,' moaned Greebo.

'No going to the lavatory in the corners.'

'No, Gran-ny.'

Granny glared at her escort. Even in a bow-tie, even with his fine moustaches waxed, he was still a cat. You just couldn't trust them to do anything except turn up for meals.

The inside of the Box was rich red plush, picked out with gilt decoration. It was like a soft little private room.

There were a couple of fat pillars on either side, supporting part of the weight of the balcony above. She looked over the edge and noted the drop to the Stalls below. Of course, someone could probably climb in from one of the adjacent Boxes, but that'd be in full view of the audience and would be bound to cause some comment. She peeked under the seats. She stood on a chair and felt around the ceiling, which had gilt stars on it. She inspected the carpet minutely.

She smiled at what she saw. She'd been prepared to bet that she knew how the Ghost got in, and now she was certain.

Greebo spat on his hand and tried ineffectually to groom his hair.

'You sit quiet and eat your fish eggs,' said Granny.

'Ye-ess, Gran-ny.'

'And watch the opera, it's good for you.'

'Ye-ess, Gran-ny.'

'Evenin', Mrs Phnge!' said Nanny cheerfully. 'Ain't this excitin'? The buzz of the audience, the air of expectation, the blokes in the orchestra findin' somewhere to hide the bottles and tryin' to remember how to play... all the exhilaration an' drama of the operatic experience waitin' to unfold...'

'Oh, hello, Mrs Ogg,' said Mrs Plinge. She was polishing glasses in her tiny bar.

'Certainly very packed,' said Nanny. She looked sidelong at the old woman.[9] 'Every seat sold, I heard.'

This didn't achieve the expected reaction.

'Shall I give you a hand cleaning out Box Eight?' she went on.

'Oh, I cleaned it out last week,' said Mrs Plinge. She held a glass up to the light.

'Yes, but I heard her ladyship is very particular,' said Nanny. 'Very picky about things.'

'What ladyship?'

'Mr Bucket has sold Box Eight, see,' said Nanny.

She heard a faint tinkle of glass. Ah.

Mrs Plinge appeared at the doorway of her nook. 'But he can't do that!'

'It's his Opera House,' said Nanny, watching Mrs Plinge carefully. 'I suppose he thinks he can.'

'It's the Ghost's Box!'

Opera-goers were appearing along the corridor.

'I shouldn't think he'd mind just for one night,' said Nanny Ogg. 'The show must go on, eh? Are you all right, Mrs Plinge?'

'I think I'd just better go and–' she began, stepping forward.

'No, you have a good sit down and a rest,' said Nanny, pressing her back with gentle but irresistible force.