Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 203, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1912 — The PHANTOM OF THE OPERA [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

by Gaston Leroux

rlut/ior THE • MYSTERY •Of • THE • YELLOW ROOMana TME-PERFUME-Of-THE-LADY- IN bLACKlllustration»i>y MG-Kettner Copyright by 77>e bobbs-Merri// Company

u SYNOPSIS. Consternation Is caused on the last ntgth that the Opera Is managed by Debienne and Poligny because of the appearance of a ghost, said to have been in evidence on several previous occasions. Christine Daae, a member of the opera company, is called upon to fill a very Important part and scores a great success. Count d« Chagny and his brother Raoul are among those who applaud the Binger. Raoul tries to see Christine in the dressing room, but is unable to do so and later discovers that some one is making love to her. She emerges alone, and upon entering the room he nnds it empty. While the farewell ceremony for the retiring managers is going on, the Opera Ghost appears and informs the new managers that Box No. 5 is reserved for him. Box No. 6 is sold with disastrous results. The managers receive a letter from the Opera Ghost calling attention to the error. Christine Daae writes Raoul that she has gone to visit the grave of her father. He goes also, and in the night follows her to the church. Wonderful violin music is heard. Raoul visits a graveyard. Raoul is found next morning almost frozen. Moncharmin and Richard Investigate Box No. 5 and decide to see the performance of "Faust” from front seats of that box. Carlotta, who sings the leading part In "Faust,’ is warned to give the part to Christine. Carlotta.refusing, loses h£r voice in the middle df a song and the main chandelier crashes down, killing a woman and wounding many. Raoul searches for Christine, who has disappeared. He sees her at last, but does not speak, and later a note Is received from her making an appointment for a masked ball. Raoul meets Christine at the ball. He sees a person in the disguise of Red Death. He hears her conversing with some one whom she calls Erik. Raoul visits Christine and tells her he knows the name of the unseen man whom she calls the Angel of Music. Christine and Raoul become secretly engaged prior to a polar expedition that Raoul is to make. Christine relates a strange adventure with -.the ‘ unseen Erik an<U promises to run away with Raoul. RaMil announces his intention of marrying Christine, which displeases Philippe. In the midst of a performance the stage is enveloped in darkness and Christine disappears. No trace of her is found. Moncharmin and Richard behave strangely. Raoul searches madly for the missing singer. The Opera Ghost demands the first installment of his allowance, »n<f when it is left at an appointed place the sum mysteriously disappears. Raoul goes tn search of Christine. He meets a mysterious person known as the Persian. CHAPTER XIX. The Viscount and the Persian. Raoul now remembered that his brother had once shown him that mysterious person, of whom nothing was known except that he was a Persian and that he lived in a little oldfashioned’ flat in the Rue de Rivoli. The man with the ebony skin, the eyes of jade and the astrakhan cap bent over Raoul. "I hope, M. de Chagny,” he said, _ "that you have not betrayed Erik's secret?” "And why should I hesitate to betray that monster, sir?” Raoul rejoined haughtily, trying to shake on the intruder. “Is he your friend, by any chance?” ”1 hope that you said nothing about Erik, sir, because Erik’s secret is also Christine Daae’s and to talk about one is to talk about the other!” "Oh, sir,” said Raoul, becoming more and more Impatient, “you seem to know about many things that interest me; and yet I have no time to listen to you!”. "Once more, M. de Chagny, where are you going so fast?” "Cannot you guess? To Christine Daae’s assistance. . . .” , "Then, sir, stay here, for Christine Daae is here!” “With Erik?”. "With Erik.” "How do you know?" "I was at the performance and no one in the world but Erik could contrive an abduction like that! . . . Oh,” he said, with a deep sigh, ”1 recognized the monster’s touch!” "You know him then?” The Persian did not reply, but heaved a fresh sigh. "Sir,” said Raoul, “I do not know what your intentions are, but can you do anything to help me? 1 mean, to help Christine Daae?" “I think so, M. de Chagny, and that 4s why I spoke to you.” "What can you do?" "Try to take you to her . . . and to him ” "If you can do me that service,- sir, my life is yours! . . . One word more: the commissary of police tells me that Christine Daae has been carried off by my brother. Count Philippe.” “Oh, M. de Chagny. I don’t believe a word of it.” "It’s not possible, is it?" "I don’t know if it is possible or not; but there are ways and ways of carrying people off; and M. le Comte Philippe has never, so far as 1 know, had anything to do with witchcraft.” “Your arguments are convincing, sir, and lam a fool! ... Oh, let us make haste! I place myself entirely In your hands! . . . How should I not believe you, when you are the only one to believe me . . whenSfyou are the only one not to smile when Erik's name Is menAnd the young man impetuously seized the Persian’s hands. They said the Persian, stop-

ping and listening to the distant sounds of the theater. "We must not mention that name here. Let us say 'he* and ’him’; then there will be less danger of attracting his attention." “Do you think he is near us?” “It Is quite possible, sir, if he is not, at this moment, with his victim, in the house on the lake.” "Ah, so. you know that house, too?" "If he is not there, he may be here, in this wall, in this floor, in this ceiling! . . . Come!” And the Persian, asking Raoul to deaden the sound of his footsteps, led him down passages which Raoul had never seen before, even at the time when Christine used to take him for walks through that labyrinth. “If onl/Darius has come!” said the Persian. “Who is Darius?” “Darius? My servant.” They were now in the center of a real deserted 7 square, an Immense apartment ill-lit by a small lamp. The Persian stopped Raoul and, in the softest of whispers, asked: “What did you say to the commissary?" “1 said that Christine Daae’s abductor was the Angel of Music, alias the opera ghost, and that the real name was . . .” “Hush! . . . And did he believe you?” "No." “He attached no importance to what you said?” "No." "He took you for a bit of a madman?” "Yes." •- “So much the better!" sighed the Persian. And they continued their road After going up and down several staircases which Raoul had never seen before, the two men found them selves In front of a door which the Persian opened with a master-key The Persian and Raoul were both, ot course, in dress-clothes; but, whereas Raoul had a tall hat, the Persian wore the astrakhan cap which 1 have already mentioned. It was an Infringement of the rule which Insists upon the tall hat behind the scenes; but in France foreigners are allowed every license; the Englishman his traveling cap, the Persian his cap of astrakhan. “Sir,” said the Persian, "your tall hat will be in your way; you would do well to leave it in the dressingroom.” “What dressing - room?” a§ked Raoul. "Christine Daae’s.” And the Persian. letting Raoul, through the door which he had just opened, showed him the actress’ room opposite. They were at the end of the passage the whole of which Raoul had been" accustomed to traverse before knocking at Christine’s door. ~ “How well you know the opera, sir!” “Not so well as ‘he’ does!” said the Persian modestly. And he pushed the young man Into Christine’s dressing-room, which was as Raoul had left It a few minutes earlier. Closing the door, the Persian went to a very thin partition that sep arated the dressing-room from a big lumber-room next to it. He listened and then coughed loudly. There was a sound of some one stirring in the lumber-room; and, a few seconds later, a finger upped at the door. “Come in,” said the Persian. A man entered, also wearing an astrakhan cap and dressed in a long overcoat. He bowed and took a richly carved case from under his coat, put It on the dressing-table, bowed once again and went to the door. "Did no one see you come in, Darius?” “No, master." "Let no one see you go out." The servant glanced down the passage and swiftly disappeared. The Persian opened the case, it contained a pair of long pistols. “W'hen Christine Daae was carried off, sir, I sent word to my servant to bring me these pistols. I have had them a long time and they can De relied upon.” “Do you mean to fight a duel?" asked the young man. rvit will certainly be a duel which we shall have to fight,” said the other, examining the priming of his pistols- “ And what a duel!” Handing one of the pistols to Raoul, he added: “In this duel, we shall be two to one; hilt you must be prepared for everything, for we shall be fighting the most terrible adversary that you can imagine. But you love Christine Daae, do you not?” “I worship the ground she elands on! But you, sir, who do not love her, tell me why I find you ready to

risk your life for her! You must certainly hate Erik!” “No, sir,” said the Persian sadly, ”1 do not hate him. If I hated him, he would long ago have ceased doing harm.” “Has he done you harm?” “I have forgiven him the harm which be has done me." "I do not understand you. You treat him as a monster, you speak of his crime, he has done you harm and I find in you the same inexplicable pity that drove me to despair when 1 saw it in Christine!" The Persian did not reply. He fetched a stool and set it against the wall facing the great mirror that .filled the whole of the wall-space opposite. Then he climbed on the stool, and, with his nose to the wall-paper, seemed to be looking for something. “I have It!” And, raising his finger above bls head, he pressed against a corner in the pattern of the paper. Then he turned round and jumped off the stool. “In half a minute,” he said, “we shall be on his road!” and crossing the whole length of the dressingroom he felt the great mirror. "No, it is not yielding yet,” he muttered. “Oh, are we going out by the mirror?” asked Raoul. "Like Christine Daae.” “So you knew that Christine Daae went out by that mirror?” “She did so before my eyes, sir! 1 was hidden behind the curtain of the inner room and I saw her vanish not by the glass, but in the “And what did you do?” "I thought it was an aberration ot my senses, a mad dream. . . ." “Or some pew fancy of the ghost’s!” chuckled the Persian. “Ah, M. de Chagny." ne continued, still with his hand on the mirror, “would that we had to do with a ghost! We could then leave our pistols in their case. . . . Put down your hat, please . . . there . . . and now cover your shirt-front as much as you can with your coat ... as I am doing. . . . Bring the lapels forward . . . turn up the collar. . . . We must make ourselves as invisible as possible. . . .” Bearing against the mirror, after a short silence, he said: “It takes some time to release the counterbalance, when you press on

the spring from the inside of tha room. It is different when you are behind the wall and can act directly on the counterbalance. Then the mirror turns at once and is moved with Incredible rapidity.” "What counterbalance?" asked Raoul. "Why, the counterbalance that lifts the whole of this wall on to its pivot. You surely donjt expect it to move of Itself, by enchantment! If you .wafch, you will see the mirror first rise an Inch or two and then shift an inch or two from left to right. It will then be on a pivot and will swing round.” “It’s not turning!” said Raoul impatiently. "Oh. wait! You have time enough to be Impatient, sir! The mechanism has obviously become rusty, or else the spring isn’t working. . . . Unless it is something else.” added the Persian anxiously. "What?” “He may simply have cut the cord of the counterbalance and. blocked the whole apparatus. “Why should he? He does not know that we are coming this way!” "I dare say he suspects It, for he knows that I understand the system."

“It’s not turning! . . . And Christine, sir, Christine?” The Persian said coldly: “We shall do all that It is humanly possible to do! . . . But he may stop us at the first step! ... He commands the walls, the doors aiftt the trap-doors. In my country, he was known by a name which means the ‘trap-door lover.’" “But why do these walls obey him alone? He did not-build them!” “Yes, sir, that is just what he did!” Raoul looked at him in amazement: but the Persian made a sign to him to be silent and pointed to the glass. . . . There was a sort of shivering reflection. Their image was troubled as In a rippling sheet of water and then all became stationary again. "You see, sir, that it is not turning! Let us take another road!” “Tonight, there is no other!” declared the Persian, in a singularly mournful voice. “And now, look out! And be ready to fire.” He himself raised his pistol opposite the glass. Raoul Imitated his movement. With his free arm, the Persian drew the young man to his chest and, suddenly, the mirror turned, In a blinding daze of crosslights; it turned like one of those revolving doors which have lately been fixed to the entrances of most restaurants, it turned, carrying Raoul and the Persian with It and suddenly hurling them from the full light Into the deepest darkness. CHAPTER XX. In the Cellars of the Opera. “Your hand high, ready to fire!” repeated Raoul’s companion quickly. The wall, behind them, having completed the circle which it described upon Itself, closed again; and the two men stood motionless tor a moment, holding their breath. At last, the Persian decided to makea movement; and Raoul heard him slip on his knees and feel for something in the dark with his groping hands. Suddenly, the darkness was made visible by a small® dark lantern and Raoul Instlnctly stepped backward as though to escape the scrutiny of a secret enemy. But he soon perceived that the light belonged to the Persian, whose movements he was closely observing. The little red disk was turned In every direction and Raoul saw that the floor, the walls and the celling were all

formed of planking. It. must have been the ordinary road taken by Erik to reach Christine’s dressing-room and impose upon her Innocence. And Raoul, remembering the Persian’s remark, thought that it had been mysteriously constructed by the ghost himself. Later, he learned that Erik had found, all prepared for him.

a secret passage, long known to himself alone and contrived at Um time of the Parts Commune to allow the jailers to convey their prisoners straight to the dungeons that had been constructed for them in the cellars; for the Federates had occupied the opera-house immediately after the eighteenth of March and had made a starting-place right at the' top for their Mongolfler balloons, which carried their incendiary proclamations to the departments, and a state prison right at the bottom. The Persian wont on his knees and put his lantern on the ground. Ho seemed to be working at the floor; and suddenly he turned off his light Then Raoul heard a faint click and saw a very pale luminous square in the floor of the passage. It was as though a window had opened on the opera cellars, which were still lit. Raoul no longer saw the Persian, but he suddenly felt him by his side and heard him whisper: “Follow -me and do all that 1 do.” Raoul turned to the luminous aperture. Then he saw the Persian, who was still on his knees, hang by his hands from the rim of the opening, with his pistol between his teeth, and slide Into the cellar below. Curiously enough, the viscount had absolute confidence In the Persian, though be knew nothing about him. His emotion when speaking of the “monster” struck him as sincere; and, if the Persian had cherished any sinister designs against him, he would not have armed him with his own hands. Besides, Raoul must reach Christine at all costs. He therefore went on his knees also and hung from the trap with both hands. “Let go!” said a voice. And he dropped into the arms of the Persian, who told hi-i to lie down fiat, closed the trap-door above him and crouched down beside him. Raoul tried to ask a question, but the Persian’s hand was on his mouth and be heard a voice which he recognized as that of the commissary ot police. Raoul and the Persian were completely hidden behind a wooden partition. Near them, a small staircase led to a little room in which the commissary appeared to be walking up and down, asking questions. The faint light was just enough to enable Raoul to distinguish the shape of things around him. And he could not restrain a dull cry: there were three corpses there. The first lay on the narrow landing of the little staircase; the-two others had rolled to the bottom of the Staircase. Raoul could have touched one of the two poor wretches by passing his fingers through the partition. “Silence!” whispered the Persian. He too had seen the bodies and he gave one word in explanation: “He!” The commissary’s voice was now heard, more distinctly. He was asking for information about the system of lighting, which the stage-manager supplied. The commissary therefore must be in the “organ” or Its Immediate neighborhood. - (TO BE CONTINUED.)

"Do You Mean to Fight a Duel?” Asked the Young Man.