Maskerade

to the cellars sometimes and I’m sure he’s stealing money. But the Ghost has been seen when Salzella is perfectly visible. So now I think—”
    “Think? Think?” said Granny. “Someone thinking around here at last? How’d you recognize the Ghost, Mister Policeman?”
    “Well…he’s got a mask on…”
    “Really? Now say it again, and listen to what you say. Good grief! You can recognize him because he’s got a mask on? You recognize him because you don’t know who he is? Life isn’t neat! Whoever said there’s only one Ghost?”

    The figure ran through the shadows of the fly loft, cloak billowing around it. Nanny Ogg was outlined against the light, peering down.
    She said, without turning her head: “Hello, Mr. Ghost. Come back for your saw, have you?”
    Then she darted around behind the cable until she faced the shadow. “Millions of people knows I’m up here! You wouldn’t hurt a little old lady, would you? Oh, dear…me poor old heart!”
    She keeled over backward, hitting the floor hard enough to make the cable swing.
    The figure hesitated. Then it took a length of thin rope from a pocket and advanced cautiously toward the fallen witch. It knelt down, wound an end of the rope around each hand, and leaned forward.
    Nanny’s knee came up sharply.
    “Feels a lot better now, mister,” she said, as he reared backward.
    She scrambled up again and grabbed the saw.
    “Come back to finish it, eh?” she said, waving the implement in the air. “Wonder how you’d blame that on Walter! Make you happy, would it, the whole place burning down?”
    The figure, moving awkwardly, backed away as she advanced. Then it turned, lurched along the wobbling catwalk and disappeared into the gloom.
    Nanny pounded after him and saw the figure climbing down a ladder. She looked around quickly, grabbed a rope to slide after him, and heard a pulley somewhere above start to clatter.
    She descended, skirts billowing around her. When she was about halfway down, a bunch of sandbags went upward past her in a hurry.
    As she rattled onward she saw, between her boots, someone struggling with the trapdoor to the cellars.
    She landed a few feet away, still holding the rope.
    “Mr. Salzella?”
    Nanny stuck two fingers in her mouth and let out a whistle that could have melted earwax.
    She let go of the rope.
    Salzella glanced up at her as he raised the trapdoor, and then saw the shape dropping out of the roof.
    One hundred and eighty pounds of sandbag hit the door, slamming it shut.
    “Watch out!” said Nanny, cheerfully.

    Bucket waited nervously in the wings. Unnecessarily nervously, of course. The Ghost was dead. There couldn’t be anything to worry about. People said they’d seen him killed, although they were, Bucket had to admit, a bit hazy on the actual details.
    Nothing to worry about.
    Not a thing.
    Nothing whatsoever in any way.
    Everything was absolutely nothing to worry about in any way.
    He ran a finger around the inside of his collar. It hadn’t been such a bad life in wholesale cheese. The most you had to worry about was one of poor old Reg Plenty’s trouser buttons in the Farmhouse Nutty and the time young Weevins minced his thumb in the stirring machine and it was only by luck they happened to be doing strawberry yogurt at the time—
    A figure loomed up beside him. He clutched at a curtain for support and then turned to see, with relief, the majestic and reassuring stomach of Enrico Basilica. The tenor looked magnificent in a huge cockerel costume, complete with giant beak, wattles and comb.
    “Ah, señor,” Bucket burbled. “Very impressive, may I say.”
    “Si,” said a muffled voice from somewhere behind the beak, as other members of the company hurried past onto the stage.
    “May I say how sorry I am about all that business earlier. I can assure you that it doesn’t happen every night, ahahah…”
    “Si?”
    “Probably just high spirits, ahaha…”
    The beak turned toward him. Bucket backed away.
    “Si!”
    “…yes…well, I’m glad you’re so understanding…”
    Temperamental, he thought, as the tenor strode onto the stage and the overture to Act Three drifted to its close. They’re like that, the real artistes . Nerves stretched like rubber bands, I expect. It’s just like waiting for the cheese, really. You can get really edgy waiting to see whether you’ve got half a ton of best blue-vein or just a vat full of pig food. It’s probably like that when you’ve got an aria