It would explain why she gave such lumpy cuddles, thought Maximilian, but still…
He was puzzling this interesting development when Agnes dashed over to them.
“How’s the ankle, old bean? Honestly, if Madame Emerald doesn’t appear, we’ll be here till curtain-up on opening night!” she said.
On stage, Archibald was gathering himself in for his big song, puffing out his chest like a huge penguin and waving an arm around in circles in front of his face as though sniffing in the most divine scent on earth. Maximilian smiled. Sylvia was right. The man was very pompous indeed. He looked over to Miss Julier, who was rolling her eyes.
Archibald was about to sing when Madame swept in, her vast silk robe lifting the dust off the stage so that it burned against the footlights. Agnes jumped off the table she had been perched on and dashed forwards, eager to hear Madame’s beautiful voice shown off in the wonderful acoustics of the grand theatre.
“Madame,” Miss Julier cried, half bobbing her head in greeting. “Welcome to our little stage! Should we start with the party scene? Your duet with Mr Otranto?”
Madame Emerald looked over at Archibald and frowned. “If we must,” she said.
Miss Julier motioned towards the pianist, who struck up the opening bars of the Duke and Duchess’s duet. He had barely played two notes when Madame Emerald flung her hands to her ears.
“Stop!” she cried in alarm.
Miss Julier looked puzzled. “Stop?” she asked. “But why?”
“Oh, can you not hear it?” Madame exclaimed. “That pianoforte, it is an entire semitone flat! How can anyone be expected to sing to that?”
Miss Julier frowned. It was true that in the winter months the piano did have a tendency to go flat, but in the height of the summer it could be relied upon to keep good tone. Besides, she had tested it herself with her tuning fork that very morning.
“I think, Madame—” she began.
“You do not agree?” Madame Emerald demanded. “I cannot believe that you do not agree! Can you not hear it? What sort of musical director could not hear a flat piano! I cannot work with this.”
“But, Madame—”
“And another thing,” Madame continued, glaring at Miss Julier. “Where is my water? The water that I expressly said I must have with me at all rehearsals. I cannot see my water.”
“Madame, we can—”
“And I do NOT like this light! This light in my eyes, it is so bright, so painful. I must have this light turned off or I do not sing. I do not sing a note.”
“Bill?” called Miss Julier to the fly gallery, her voice slightly strangled. “We need to turn out—”
“And I do not have a chair!” Madame finished. “I will not stay where I am expected to stand up. This place, it is full of amateurs!”
And with that she swept off the stage again, like a silken whirlwind.
Miss Julier’s mouth fell open in a startled little “O”.
Agnes’s mouth was pursed into a tiny little bow.
Archibald’s mouth fell open in admiration. “What a woman!” he cried out. “That’s how to behave.”
And he tried to sweep out too, but tripped over a stage weight and fell on his face in the wings.
“Oh, the silly old fool,” Sylvia laughed, but Maximilian was only half listening. Madame had sung so beautifully only the day before. Why would she refuse to sing now? Would she not want to show off that wonderful voice of hers? It was a puzzle, and Maximilian was beginning to rather like puzzles. Leaving Sylvia giggling over Archibald, he sprinted off after Madame.
Madame was very quick on her feet and she had almost reached the dressing room when Maximilian caught up with her. He managed, by a whisker, to dart in between her feet. Jeanette scowled at Maximilian and aimed a kick at him but he was too quick for her.
“Stupid animal,” she snapped.
Madame slammed the door shut and leaned against it. Gone was the fury that she had shown on the stage. She wore a broad smile and her eyes were sparkling. She began to laugh.
“Oh, Jeanette, you should have seen their faces,” she giggled. “I threw the most wonderful tantrum right in the middle of that silly woman’s rehearsal. She fussed and bothered about it and tried to make everything all right, but I just walked out.”
She swept Maximilian up into her arms and began to step out a waltz with him around the dressing room. Maximilian was struck again by how lumpy Madame was, not soft and cuddly like Mrs Garland or angular like Agnes. Madame Emerald seemed to be made entirely of pockets and rolls of things. Being cuddled by her was most uncomfortable. Maximilian thought back to what Sylvia had said about the small bag of something that had fallen from Madame’s dress. It was all most puzzling. Could Madame be hiding things under her dresses? But if that was the answer, it only lead to another question – why?
Oblivious to Maximilian’s discomfort, Madame whirled around the room with him in her arms, humming softly. Then she started to sing, not one of the great pieces from The Duchess’s Jewels, but a coarse, rude song that Maximilian had once heard one of the tradesmen’s boys sing. Madame’s voice was terrible. It was nothing like the gorgeous voice that they had all heard from behind her dressing-room door. It was little wonder that she had refused to sing in rehearsal, but it was still a puzzle. Why was her voice in the dressing room so different from the voice they had all heard that first time they listened outside it?
“And if you marry me-eeeee,” she wailed. Maximilian miaowed his “pardon me, but that is not the sort of song I appreciate” miaow, but Madame ignored him.
Jeanette huffed and stamped her feet on the floor.
“And what if someone hears you?” she snapped.
Madame stopped whirling and turned to face Jeanette. The smile left her face and she glared at Jeanette, her eyes furious. “I’ll just tell them that it was you singing, sweetie.” She spoke the final word with a hiss and Jeanette dropped her gaze to the floor.
“I’m sorry. I just think we’re taking too many risks,” she said.
Madame sighed and dropped Maximilian carelessly on to a chair. Dizzy from the spinning, he almost lost his footing, which would have been most embarrassing.
Shrugging her shoulders as if she was carrying a heavy weight, Madame slipped behind a wooden screen painted with a Chinese water garden that stood at the end of the dressing room. It was in three pieces, made of exquisite lacquerwork and was there so that the leading lady could change in peace and quiet. Maximilian wondered whether he should leave. It did not seem the act of a gentleman to be in a lady’s dressing room while she was changing. He opted for looking steadfastly at the opposite end of the room, as if particularly interested in the etching of the theatre’s plans that hung on the wall.
Madame stepped out from behind the screen in a pair of day pyjamas, an elegant trousers and kimono suit made of cream silk and richly embroidered with orchids and hummingbirds in pink and magenta. Maximilian gave a little jump of surprise. Where on earth had Madame (or rather, about half of Madame) gone? She seemed to have shrunk to a fraction of her usual size.
“That’s better,” she breathed. “That costume. I can’t bear it. It will be a relief when this job is over and done with and I stop being Madame Emerald for good.”
She ran her fingers up through her hair and gave a sharp tug. Her glossy dark locks came away, revealing golden hair tucked away in a silk net. Madame dropped the dark wig she had been wearing on the dressing-room table, removed a hairnet and shook her hair out. Blonde curls cascaded down over her shoulders.
I knew something odd was going on here, Maximilian thought. Some more puzzles to solve. Why was Madame Emerald in disguise? And what did she mean by “stop being Madame Emerald?” How could anyone stop being themselves? It was all most peculiar. Maximilian felt the fur on the tip of his tail give that telltale tingle that the mystery was deepening.
Maximilian stuck his head out of the skylight and miaowed his “are you there, I have news and would like
some advice” miaow.
Over on the other side of the roof, Oscar stopped washing his paws and padded over.
“They’re late starting,” he said. “The chorus sound wonderful as always. Who is that soloist?”
“That’s Agnes,” said Maximilian, climbing on to the roof. “She doesn’t practise enough, but she’s very good.”
Oscar shook his head. “Laziness,” he said. “It’s the curse of the talented.”
He whisked his tail across the roof tiles to clear away some dust and then motioned for Maximilian to sit down. Maximilian looked a little pained at this. How Oscar could be so careless with his tail he really did not know. The thought of all that dust made Maximilian wince but Oscar did not seem to mind it one bit.
“If you’re hoping to hear Madame Emerald, then you’re wasting your time,” Maximilian said. “She had a tantrum and refused to sing.”
“Rather an odd occurrence,” Oscar murmured.
“And that’s not the only odd thing she’s done today,” Maximilian said.
He told Oscar everything that he had learned in Madame Emerald’s dressing room. How she was wearing wigs, and a costume to make herself look bigger than she really was, how she couldn’t wait for her time at the theatre to be over, and, most mysteriously of all, how her voice in the dressing room was very different from her voice outside it.
Oscar listened politely, nodding his head now and again and looking thoughtful. Sometimes he raised an eyebrow in surprise. Other times he tutted at Madame and Jeanette’s behaviour.
“Something is most definitely going on,” Maximilian said. “And I need to get to the bottom of it.”
“Then I offer my services as assistant,” said Oscar. “I was once assistant to a great detective in the case of the kidnapped poodle—”
Maximilian cut him short. From a window below them they heard the wonderful sound of Madame’s singing, quite unlike the rough, common song that she had been wailing out in the dressing room when she whirled Maximilian around.
“She didn’t sound like that five minutes ago!” Maximilian said.
Oscar looked at him thoughtfully.
“And no one else has ever seen her sing?” he said.
Maximilian nodded. He dashed over to where the sound was coming from and looked down at the window sill outside Madame’s dressing room. It made his whiskers curl to think of what he was about to suggest. To spy on a lady was distinctly ungallant, but if he was to solve this mystery…
“Do you think we could get down there?” he asked.
Oscar looked at the brickwork and the criss-cross of fire escapes that hung off the building.
“Most certainly,” he said. “Follow me.”
A few minutes later they were hanging by their paws from an ironwork fire escape near Madame’s dressing room. Maximilian was beginning to think this was a bad idea after all. What would happen if he let go?
Oscar hauled himself up and leapt easily across the window sills until he was outside Madame’s window.
How I wish I was that brave, thought Maximilian. He tiptoed carefully to the edge of the fire escape and then jumped nervously over to join Oscar. With each leap Oscar whispered “Come on, you can do this,” but Maximilian’s heart was still in his mouth.
The most wonderful sound cascaded from Madame’s window and people in the street below paused to listen. Maximilian and Oscar craned their heads round to look into Madame’s window.
Madame was lying on a chaise longue, her head lolling back and her mouth wide open.
What a peculiar position to sing in, thought Maximilian.
Madame shuddered slightly and gave out a great snort. She wasn’t singing at all.
“She’s snoring!” hissed Oscar.
“So who is doing the singing?” asked Maximilian. He poked his head into the dressing room but he could see no one. The Chinese screen at the end of the room might be hiding someone, he supposed, but who?
He reached a paw inside the room.
“What are you doing?” asked Oscar.
“I’ll only be a minute,” Maximilian said, and jumped down into the room.
Keeping one eye on Madame, he padded over to the Chinese screen and sneaked a look round the side, but there was no one there.
How peculiar, thought Maximilian. He was about to investigate the costume rails in the corner of the room when he spotted a pair of boots sticking out from under them and a voice said, “Is that you, miss?”
It was Jeanette!
There was barely time for Maximilian to scoot across the room and up on to the sill before she was out from behind the rail, a plumed hat in her hand. His heart beating like an express train, Maximilian followed Oscar’s lead and sped across the window sills, barely noticing how high up they were as he leapt from sill to sill. All he could think of was the new mystery. If Madame was not singing those beautiful songs, then who was?
Maximilian had little time to puzzle over all this in the next few days. The whole theatre was abuzz with preparations for the royal performance. The chorus were called in for double rehearsals, which made them all a little tired and grumpy. Monsieur Lavroche went through an entire rainbow of waistcoats in one week and grew more and more frazzled, to the great concern of Mrs Garland. Only the doorman, Fred, was not bothered by all the activity. As long as he had his afternoon cuppa and “that ’orrible cat” kept out of his way, Fred was quite happy. Every day Monsieur Lavroche would dash down to the box office and collect the latest news of the ticket sales. Every day he became more and more excited about how everyone in London was booking to come to the royal concert.
Agnes and Sylvia were doubly excited at the prospect of dancing in front of the King and Queen. They spent a busy half-hour in between rehearsals every day practising their curtseys in front of a mirror in the dressing room.
Maximilian stepped up his efforts as Theatre Royal Mouser. The day before the performance he discovered that a family of mice had made their home under the table in the box office. It would never do if a viscount or Member of Parliament had to book their royal gala tickets while mice ran back and forth across the counter.
As he passed Monsieur Lavroche’s office on his way to the lobby, Maximilian heard raised voices. He paused. He knew that it was rude to listen at doors, and he was quite well aware of that distasteful little saying about cats and curiosity! Still, he paused.
“She is utterly impossible!” cried Mrs Garland’s voice. “I have not been able to fit a single costume to her. She has to go!”
“And I can barely get her to attend rehearsals!” Miss Julier’s voice despaired. “The only times she turns up she refuses to sing. There is always some excuse or another! She is rude to the chorus and horrible to the stage crew. She has to go!”
“The show is tomorrow night and the house is packed,” Monsieur Lavroche’s voice said calmly. “She has to stay.”
“A leading lady who won’t sing! How can we even be sure that she will know what to do? Put her understudy on. Agnes. I have been training her and she knows the part inside out,” Miss Julier said, her soft voice rising to a shrillness Maximilian had not heard before.
“Perhaps we should work together,” snapped Mrs Garland. “You get her to stand still to sing and I’ll fit a dress round her while she’s distracted.”
“If you lend me one of your dressmaking pins, I could at least get her to make some noise,” muttered Miss Julier, and Mrs Garland snorted with laughter.
“Ladies, please!” Monsieur Lavroche said. “Madame Emerald has charmed theatres and even royal palaces the world over. We know that she has learned her songs. Have we not heard them sung to us, beautifully, every note a treasure.”
“And every note, so far, heard only through her dressing-room door,” snapped Miss Julier.
“Madame has played every great role that there is,” Monsieur Lavroche said, trying to soothe both women. “Please, do not worry. I will talk with her. I will see what I can do.”
Maxi
milian heard mutterings from the two women but could not make out what they were saying. He leaned his head closer to the door just in time for it to open and for Mrs Garland to almost trip over him.
“What on earth are you doing there?” she chided. “I hope you’re not listening at doors. Curiosity killed the…”
Maximilian did not stay to listen!
He went up to the dressing room to see if Agnes and Sylvia had perfected their curtseys. Agnes was playing with her make-up, drawing ice-blue swirls across her brows and accenting them with touches of glitter. They were to be fairies in the ballet sequence of the show. Sylvia, as lead dancer, had the largest wings, made from wiring and silver gauze, and Mrs Garland had given her rhinestone crystals to sew on to them. The crystals would catch the light as she danced, sending it sparkling around the theatre.
On the floor by the mirror was one of Agnes’s newspapers, open at a page of photos of a society party. At the top of the page, a beautiful girl smiled out of a picture. Her hair was cropped short in the latest style, one curl curving over her brow and held in place by a diamond and jet clip. She was dressed in a shimmering satin gown, a beaded flower at one shoulder and another on the dark sash around her hips.
She held a glass of champagne up to the camera and looked sideways at the handsome man beside her. What had made Maximilian stop and stare was her jewellery. Round her neck was a glittering necklace of black and white pearls, with a centrepiece of a large, seven-pointed star. Maximilian blinked. He was sure it was the necklace that he had seen in Madame Emerald’s jewel case, the one she had held up to the light. The one that he had thought was her favourite.
Maximilian let out a loud “miaow”. What on earth was Madame Emerald’s necklace doing being worn by someone else?
“What’s up, puss?” Agnes asked, joining him by the mirror. “Found one of those horrid mice, have you?”
The Disappearing Diva Page 5
