Gary Corby: Death Ex Machina

“Don’t worry, Sophocles,” I said. “We’ll help you.”

“So you will tell the men the ghost is gone?” Sophocles said.

I thought about the bottles of tainted water, the broken props, and the damaged balcony.

I said, “The problem is, I think the ghost might be real.”

“Nο, I don’t think there’s an evil spirit haunting the theater,” I said. “But I’m sure there’s a mortal man of ill will. Someone’s trying to wreck the play.”

Diotima and I had left the theater, leaving behind Socrates, who was still prodding and poking the machine. We had stopped only long enough to tell the men waiting outside that we had detected clear signs of a malign presence (which was true), that we knew how to deal with it (which was also true), and that by the time we were finished there would be no ghost in the theater (take that one as you will).

“They all look like accidents, Nico. You can’t prove otherwise,” said my wife, who is the logical one in our partnership.

“Yes, but there’ve been too many to call it coincidence. The best explanation is sabotage,” I told her. I’m the cynical, suspicious one.

Diotima bit her lip while she thought about it. “I was wondering the same thing,” she admitted. “But I’m less certain than you are. Why would someone want to wreck the Dionysia?”

I had no idea.

I said, “Maybe he’s merely an idiotic prankster. Do we necessarily have to know his motive? Or even find him? The job after all is to get the actors and crew back to work. We can expel the imaginary ghost without having to find the real culprit.”

“But if you’re right, the saboteur will try again,” Diotima said.

“So we’ll be on the lookout for him. We’ll watch every rehearsal, check everything every morning. If he tries again, we’ll catch him.”

We had stopped on the corner of Theater Street and Tripod Road. The backstage of the theater was clearly visible from there, including the wide-open side entrance.

Diotima pointed and said, “Anyone could walk in there, any time they wanted. You can guard the theater all day, Nico, but your prankster could sneak in at night, no trouble.”

That was true.

“I’ll arrange for a watchman,” I said.

“How?” she asked dubiously.

“I’ll think of something. We have to stop him.”

“You really think these are pranks then?” Diotima asked.

“A troublemaker, for sure.”

“Sophocles called one of the stage crew a troublemaker,” Diotima said.

“The one with the muscles. Akamas. We’ll have to look into him.”

“Then this is the perfect moment,” Diotima said. “Because here he comes.”

Which indeed he did. Akamas was walking down Theater Road, swinging his arms with a slight swagger.

I held up my hand as he passed and said, “Akamas, I’d like a word.”

He stopped and stared at us. “Yeah? I got business to attend to.”

I was surprised. “You do? But rehearsals are stopped until the ghost is gone.”

“That don’t stop me drinking. There’s a decent tavern over there.” He pointed to a place across the street.

It wasn’t even lunchtime yet. The value of anything Akamas had to say was going rapidly downhill.

“Sophocles told us you saw the ghost.”

“Yeah.”

I waited. Akamas had nothing else to say.

“What happened?” I prompted.

“I saw the ghost. It was nighttime.”

“What were you doing in the theater at night?” I asked.

He spat on the ground. “Kiron made me work late after everyone else had gone.”

“Kiron’s the stage manager?”

“Yeah. He said one of the actors had complained about the footing on the stage. Said it was too slippery. I had to grind it rougher. That was when I saw it.”

“The ghost?”

“I was down on my hands and knees, scrubbing the stage floor with a stone, you know? I looked up, there it was.”

“Standing in front of you?”

“No. On the balcony. Way above me. I don’t know what made me look up that high. Maybe some movement.”

“What did it look like?”

Akamas scratched his head. “It was getting dark, you know? With the festival so close they work until it’s too dark to see. I saw the outline and I saw it was acting, but no sound was coming out.”

This was interesting. “Acting how?” I asked.

Akamas shrugged. “I dunno. You know how actors move around. They exaggerate everything? It was like that. It was like there was an audience there and the ghost was acting to it.”

“But no sound,” I repeated.

“Totally silent,” he agreed. “Until the whistle.”

“Whistle?” I repeated.

“Yeah. The ghost kind of disappeared. Just faded away. Then from nowhere I heard this ghostly whistle.”

“What were you doing while all this happened?” Diotima asked.

“I was … er …”

“Backing away?” I suggested. It was obvious Akamas had been terrified, but as a proper man he would never admit to it.

“Getting ready to attack the ghost if it came my way,” Akamas said.

Diotima said, “Was the noise in front or behind you?”

“In front.”

“So from where the ghost had been standing?”

“Maybe from behind the skene,” Akamas said. “I dunno. It was dark.”

“Anything else?” I asked.

“Sophocles said it was the ghost of Thespis.”

That wasn’t quite the way Sophocles had explained it. “Sophocles told me he made a joke about this Thespis.”

Akamas shrugged. “Same thing. If Thespis can be a ghost, and I saw a ghost, then it must be Thespis, right? That’s logic.”

“I know you said it was getting dark, but did you see its face?”

“No. I told you it was acting. The ghost wore a mask.”

“What mask?”

“The mask of comedy.”

“It’s a man for sure,” I said, after Akamas had departed for the wine. We had extracted only one extra piece of information: that the well-muscled man had run away from the ghost.

“Let’s go back to the theater for a moment. There’s something I want to see.” I led Diotima to the balcony on the stage. This was where the ghost had appeared.

I stared at the wall, saw what I expected to see, and walked behind the skene to backstage. Built into the skene was a small door, exactly where the balcony stood on the other side, and below the door a small ladder for access.

“This is how the actors exit the balcony, isn’t it?” I asked Kiron the stage manager. He was still there, tidying up.

“Yes, it is,” Kiron said. “The door is low so the audience can’t see it.”

“This is how our ‘ghost’ exited,” I said to Diotima, after Kiron departed. “I’ll bet he wore a black cloak. When he was done, he swirled the cloak over himself and crouched down. From the audience side, in the dark, it would look like he disappeared, just faded away. He opens the door, crawls through to backstage, and then he wanders off, whistling.”

“Whistling because he’s of a happy disposition?” Diotima asked.

“Or for the effect,” I said. “It really would sound eerie, coming from out of sight, echoing around the empty theater.”

Diotima nodded. “Your theory of a prankster sounds good, Nico.”

“We’ll stop him,” I said. “We’ll watch like hungry hawks.”

The destruction of the ghost went without a hitch. There was already a sacrificial altar installed at the theater, in front of the stage. The altar was made from quality marble. It was a permanent fixture of the theater that saw frequent use, because every day of the Great Dionysia begins and ends with a sacrifice.