One winter evening Monsieur Debienne and Monsieur Poligny, the managers of the Paris Opera House, were hosting a gala performance to celebrate their retirement.
Mademoiselle Sorelli, one of the ballerinas, was in her dressing room, rehearsing her speech in their honor.
Suddenly four young dancers rushed in, shrieking.
"What are you doing here?" Sorelli asked, annoyed at the interruption.
"It's the phantom of the opera!" Cecile Jammes said in a trembling voice as she locked the door.
"What do you mean?" Sorelli asked. "Have you seen him?"
"Yes! As clearly as I see you now!"
All the girls began talking at once. The phantom had appeared to them in one of the opera house's many passages.
The opera house was a vast building with 17 floors aboveground and 5 floors of cellars below.
For months everyone had been discussing the figure who stalked the building from top to bottom like a shadow.
People said the ghost dressed in evening clothes, comparing him to a man of fashion or an undertaker.
And almost everyone claimed to have seen the phantom—although no one dared to speak to him.
"Did he say anything?" Sorelli asked.
"You know he never speaks," Cecile said. "He appears out of nowhere and then vanishes without saying a word."
"Hush! Listen!" little Meg Giry whispered, tilting her head toward the door. "Someone's coming!"
Everyone strained their ears, but there were no footsteps in the passage.
The only sound was a light rustling as if someone wearing a silk gown were passing by.
Sorelli was determined to get to the bottom of the situation.
She approached the door and boldly called out, "Who's there?"
Nobody answered, so she called again. "Is anyone on the other side of this door?"
"Of course there is!" Meg grabbed Sorelli by her skirt to keep her from moving. "Whatever you do, don't open the door!"
Although Sorelli was nervous, she didn't want the younger girls to know she was afraid.
She threw open the door and looked up and down the empty passage, which was illuminated by only one gaslight.
"No one's there," she reported to the girls.
"But we saw the phantom!" Cecile insisted. "He must be prowling around somewhere."
"Be serious," Sorelli said. "No one has really seen the ghost."
"We did!" the girls cried as one.
"And Joseph Buquet saw him on one of the staircases that lead to the cellars!" Cecile said.
Buquet, the chief stagehand, had been the first to encounter the ghost.
He described the phantom's head as skull-like with black holes for the eyes and nose and a pale complexion.
Some people thought Buquet's assistants were playing a trick on him.
But Buquet was a serious, sober man, so not everyone dismissed his horrifying description.
People also gave him the benefit of the doubt because he was a popular fellow backstage.
"My mother thinks Buquet shouldn't talk about the ghost." Meg spoke quietly as if she feared being overheard.
Her mother worked as an usher at the opera house.
"And why does your mother say that?" Sorelli demanded.
"Because of his private box."
"The phantom has a private box?" Sorelli raised an eyebrow.
"Not so loud!" Meg said. "My mother is in charge of box five on the grand tier, and no one has used it for over a month except the ghost.
The box office has orders that the seats in box five must never be sold to the public."
"So, your mother has actually seen him at the opera?" Cecile said.
"No! She's never seen him, but she's heard him, and she gives him his program."
"All right, Meg, that's enough. Stop fooling with us," Sorelli said.
Meg began to cry. "I shouldn't have said anything, even though I'm right, and Joseph Buquet shouldn't talk about things that don't concern him. Just last night Mother was saying—"
There was the sound of footsteps in the passage, and a voice cried, "Meg! Meg! Are you in there?"
"Open the door!" Meg cried. "It's my mother!"
Sorelli opened the door, and a plump woman in a faded black dress and shawl entered the room, her eyes searching frantically for Meg.
"It's terrible, just terrible!" The black feathers on Madame Giry's bonnet bobbed as she shook her head.
"I heard all about it as soon as the performance ended, and I came to make sure you were all right."
Meg hurried to comfort her mother, who sank into a chair, breathing heavily. "What are you talking about, Mother?"
"Joseph Buquet is dead!"
The girls screamed and clutched each other's hands.
"What happened?" Sorelli asked.
"No one knows. He was found dead in the third cellar underneath the stage, where the scenery is stored.
He was lying between the farmhouse and the throne room."
"It's the phantom!" Meg said, and then immediately corrected herself. "No, no, I didn't mean that."
"Yes, it must be the phantom," Cecile said. "We all know he's to blame whenever anyone has an accident.
Just yesterday the chorus master was so frightened by the ghost that he tripped and fell down a flight of stairs.
He said the ghost matched Buquet's description, except the head was a skull without skin.
And last week a fireman was inspecting the cellars when he went a little farther than usual and saw a flaming head!
No body, just a head. The fireman emerged onto the stage so frightened that he practically passed out in Buquet's arms."
"Maybe the ghost has several heads that he changes whenever he pleases," Meg suggested.
"Hush, Meg!" Madame Giry warned.
Sorelli, who had turned quite pale, quietly touched the horseshoe she'd hung up for good luck.
"I'll never be able to give my speech now."
Suddenly there was a knock on the door, and everyone fell silent.
"Hurry up, ladies, it's time to meet your admirers in the ballet foyer," a man's voice said. "Is your speech ready, Sorelli?"
The ballerina breathed a sigh of relief when she recognized the voice of the managers' assistant. "We'll be out in a minute, Monsieur Mercier."
The ballet girls surrounded Sorelli like sheep around their shepherdess.
As she led them to the ballet foyer, they trotted along the dim passages and staircases as fast as their little pink legs could carry them, while Madame Giry struggled to keep up.
