(Third Person.)
No one paid any heed to the shadow which skulked between the walls of Paris's buildings, down the alleys and side roads.
No one stopped to stare or ask questions when it slipped from its hiding place, broke free from its confines of the darkness, and crept over to the line of unfortunate souls piled by the roadside.
No one spared a second glance as the shadow hoisted a limp body, a pale yet sooty hand trailing by its side, into its spindly arms and draped it in its darkness, shielding it from any uninterested, wandering view.
No one noticed the missing corpse when the shadow retreated to the safety of the velvety blackness of the streets, away from the garish light that threatened to expose its secrets.
No one was any the wiser. No one but the peculiar man in the astrakhan-cap, who had been watching these going-ons since the shadow first appeared, who was fully intent on following it into the realms of darkness once more.
No one would know. Indeed, no one, amongst their grief and condolence, would care.
For, in the end, a shadow was a shadow, the simple absence of light; an untouchable, unscented, unfeeling ghost. A spectre and a phantom.
The Phantom of the Paris Opera.
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Beneath the Porcelain Mask
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