(GIRY is hurrying across. RAOUL appears and calls after her)

RAOUL

Madame Giry. Madame Giry . . .

GIRY

Monsieur, don't ask me - I know no more than

anyone else.

(She moves off again. He stops her)

RAOUL

That's not true. You've seen something, haven't you ?

GIRY (uneasily)

I don't know what I've seen . . . Please don't ask me,

monsieur . . .

RAOUL (desperately)

Madame, for all our sakes . . .

GIRY (She has glanced nervously about her and suddenly deciding to trust him, cuts in)

Very well. It was years ago. There was a travelling

fair in the city. Tumblers, conjurors, human

oddities . . .

RAOUL

Go on . . .

GIRY (trance-like, as she retraces the past)

And there was . . . I shall never forget him: a man . .

Iocked in a cage . . .

RAOUL

In a cage . . ?

GIRY

A prodigy, monsieur! Scholar, architect, musician .

RAOUL (piecing together the jigsaw)

A composer . . .

GIRY

And an inventor too, monsieur. They boasted he

had once built for the Shah of Persia, a maze of

mirrors . . .

RAOUL (mystified and impatient, cuts in)

Who was this man . . .?

GIRY (with a shudder)

A freak of nature . . .

more monster

than man . . .

RAOUL (a murmur)

Deformed . . .?

GIRY

From birth, it seemed . . .

RAOUL

My God . . .

GIRY

And then . . . he went missing. He escaped.

RAOUL

Go on.

GIRY

They never found him

it was said he

had died . . .

RAOUL (darkly)

But he didn't die, did he?

GIRY

The world forgot him,

but I never can . . .

For in this darkness

I have seen him again . . .

RAOUL

And so our

Phantom's this man . . .

GIRY (starts from her daze and turns to go)

I have said too much, monsieur.

(She moves off into the surrounding blackness)

And there have been too many accidents . . .

RAOUL (ironical)

Accidents?!

GIRY

Too many . . .

(And, before he can question her further, she has disappeared)

RAOUL (running after her)

Madame Giry . . .!