I have now told the singular, but veracious story of the Opera ghost.
As I declared on the first page of this work, it is no longer possible
to deny that Erik really lived. There are to-day so many proofs of his
existence within the reach of everybody that we can follow Erik's
actions logically through the whole tragedy of the Chagnys.
There is no need to repeat here how greatly the case excited the
capital. The kidnapping of the artist, the death of the Comte de
Chagny under such exceptional conditions, the disappearance of his
brother, the drugging of the gas-man at the Opera and of his two
assistants: what tragedies, what passions, what crimes had surrounded
the idyll of Raoul and the sweet and charming Christine! ... What had
become of that wonderful, mysterious artist of whom the world was
never, never to hear again? ... She was represented as the victim of a
rivalry between the two brothers; and nobody suspected what had really
happened, nobody understood that, as Raoul and Christine had both
disappeared, both had withdrawn far from the world to enjoy a happiness
which they would not have cared to make public after the inexplicable
death of Count Philippe ... They took the train one day from "the
northern railway station of the world." ... Possibly, I too shall take
the train at that station, one day, and go and seek around thy lakes, O
Norway, O silent Scandinavia, for the perhaps still living traces of
Raoul and Christine and also of Mamma Valerius, who disappeared at the
same time! ... Possibly, some day, I shall hear the lonely echoes of
the North repeat the singing of her who knew the Angel of Music! ...
Long after the case was pigeonholed by the unintelligent care of M. le
Juge d'Instruction Faure, the newspapers made efforts, at intervals, to
fathom the mystery. One evening paper alone, which knew all the gossip
of the theaters, said: "We recognize the touch of the Opera ghost."
And even that was written by way of irony.
The Persian alone knew the whole truth and held the main proofs, which
came to him with the pious relics promised by the ghost. It fell to my
lot to complete those proofs with the aid of the daroga himself. Day
by day, I kept him informed of the progress of my inquiries; and he
directed them. He had not been to the Opera for years and years, but
he had preserved the most accurate recollection of the building, and
there was no better guide than he possible to help me discover its most
secret recesses. He also told me where to gather further information,
whom to ask; and he sent me to call on M. Poligny, at a moment when the
poor man was nearly drawing his last breath. I had no idea that he was
so very ill, and I shall never forget the effect which my questions
about the ghost produced upon him. He looked at me as if I were the
devil and answered only in a few incoherent sentences, which showed,
however--and that was the main thing--the extent of the perturbation
which O. G., in his time, had brought into that already very restless
life (for M. Poligny was what people call a man of pleasure).