Episode 1: The Coronet, Act I

0:02 the pallid mask contains mature themes which some listeners may find disturbing. A full list of content warnings can be found in our episode guides.

0:13 Stop that man. It's all for the bluster now, Grandpa. Oh, we're gonna have some fun. Get out of the way. Enjoy yourself, there we go.

0:38 I got it.

0:56 the Pallid Mask. An audio drama by Jordan Acosta. Episode one. I am great Ozymandius, saith the stone. the king of kings. This mighty city shows the wonders of my hand. the city's gone. Naught but the leg remaining to disclose the sight of this forgotten Babylon. Horace Smith. Ozymandius.

1:32 Happy Halloween, Andrew.

1:34 One moment, Maul. Can I call you back, Kirsty? One of my clients has been out of tat early.

1:40unknown Yes, yes, of course.

1:43 Yes, all right. Toodles, toodles, bite. Molly, how are we?

1:49 I'm good, thanks.

1:50 Good, good, good, good, good, good. Anything to drink?

1:53 Um, I'll have a Coke, thanks.

1:55 We only have Pepsi, is that okay?

1:58 Uh, you know what? Um, uh, I'll I'll just have a water.

2:01 Steel sparkling or tap. We'll have tap with ice, thank you very much. Of course. I'll be back with your drinks shortly. Today's special is pumpkin truffle and borada pizza and a creamy prawn rigatoni. Do you have any allergies? No, no, no, no, no, allergies, thank you so much.

2:21 I must say, Andrew, I I didn't think you ate a place like this.

2:25 Cost of living crisis and all that mold. the Adrix is cut back on client entertainment, so I'll take what I can get. Besides, the uh prawn and pesta romana is actually pretty good here.

2:37 How's Claire and uh the kids?

2:40 Oh, fine, fine, fine, fine. Yes, all things considered, we're getting by. Abby's just been accepted at Bristol. So we're pleased about that. And Ellie keeps threatening to enter the publishing industry to the point where she wants to move home so she can get an internship and commute in. Oh, joy of joys.

2:57 I suppose I should pull a few strings, really. How's academia?

3:02 Goodness, it really has been a while, hasn't it? I've been lecturing at Xavier's now for the past 18 months.

3:09 In fact, I uh Here's your tap water. I've just bought the jog out with some ice and a glass. Are you ready to order? If not, you can scan the QR code on the table.

3:19 Bloody COVID, not a chance. Uh right, um, I'll have the padana and a side of salad, thanks.

3:26 Oh, um you're not having a starter, Andrew?

3:29 Watching the waistline. They won't give me a zempic.

3:32 Uh calamare to start and uh quattro formaggi, please.

3:36 So one calamare, and for the mains, we have one padana with salad and a quattro formagie. Anything else? A side of fries, perhaps, more tap water for the table. I think we're set. Okay. I've sent that through to the kitchen. Thank you so much.

3:54 As I was saying, my lecturing job has actually given me some ideas for my next book.

4:00 Look, I think we might have our wires crossed as to why I've asked you to come today, Mom. I mean, probing Blake's prophecies.

4:08 Proving Blake's prophecies didn't meet expectations. I get it. Especially if those emails from the team at Maze were anything to go why, but I assure you, this one will be of interest to my audience.

4:22 I'll cut to the chase. Sales have flopped since your debut. Decrypting Dante's circle sold gangbusters off the back of the Da Vinci Code.

4:29 But those two books weren't related, Andrew. the marketing they did for it wasn't remotely what I pitched and actually wrote, was it? I mean, did you see that god-awful cover for Dante? There were loads of one-star reviews from pissed-off readers thinking that the Ninth Circle of Hell was somehow located in the basement of the British Museum.

4:48 But two and three didn't hit Maze's sales projections either. Mastering Milton's Matrix barely cracked Smith's or whatever they're calling it nowadays, let alone the Sunday Times bestseller list.

4:58 Oh, well, TikTok wasn't a thing when they came out.

5:00 On that subject, no.

5:02 Don't. Don't even think about it.

5:04 Have you given any thoughts to the fact that you might be too old for the genre?

5:15 Wow, you you cannot be serious, Andrew. I'm 48. I'm hardly getting up.

5:20 But what's her name? Had 50,000 followers on Instagram, and she's only 24. Publishers like the reassurance. There's a built-in audience, you know. Platforms, Andrew, they tell me. Everyone needs a platform these days. I cannot believe I am hearing this. Look, you're a bright girl, a dab hand of anything which interests you.

5:39 Besides, you're out of contract, and that's a good thing for once. We could pitch publishers' fiction through a change under a pen name, of course. Something with a romantic subplot, maybe. Enemies to lovers, that kind of thing.

5:56 Absolutely not. Okay. I'm a scholar, first and foremost. I write narrative non-fiction.

6:05 Yes, yes, as we all know infinitely well. Yes. But in a post-truth world, my dear, readers want entertainment and escapism. Not being lectured to by Dr. So-and-so with a PhD in equine biomechanic.

6:18 My PhD was in comparative literature, Andrew! And if we kept up a little more.

6:24 Comparative literature, equine biomechanics, you know what I mean.

6:30 Just hear me out. If you don't like it, then we can part ways, no harm done. It's just business after all, right? I get I've not bought any commissions for the agency in a while. I'm dead weight, commercially speaking, mid-list death spiral, etc., etc.

6:52 I'm listening.

6:55 Did you read the email I sent you a fortnight ago?

7:00 Remind me. Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Something about uh potted history of banned books and stage plays. I'm not entirely sure how I can sell that to publishers in this political climate. Well Sorry, I need to take this. Hello, this is Tollivan.

7:17unknown Andy's Roger.

7:18 Oh, Roger, I'm just out with a client at the moment, but I'm back in the office after lunch.

7:23 They're going full crap.

7:27 Look, I'm sure we can get them to take out the audio narration rights if we put our foot down. Give me 15 minutes, okay? Thanks. Ta-ta for now.

7:34 Not just any band stage play, Andrew. the band stage play. Have you ever heard of the King in Yellow?

7:42 The King in What? Sounds like a lost Shakespeare.

7:45 No one knows where it came from. It made the rounds across Europe in the 19th and early 20th century, banned from press to pulpit, according to contemporaneous sources. From Budapest to Paris to London, then across the pond by the 1920s.

8:01 Go on.

8:03 Well, from all the accounts I found, anyone who's read it or seen it in its entirety has gone completely mad. And here's the thing fragments appear in multiple languages, and yet there appears to be no complete surviving copy of it anywhere in the world. And the recorded deaths surrounding it are strange, to say the least.

8:28 Look, darling, I'd hate to be the bearer of bad news, but readers are bouncing off history at the moment. Unless it's Churchill, or sexy, like Bridgerton. Could you write something like that? What?

8:39 No! I mean, it it could be uh a book with podcast series potential, but not a bodice riffer.

8:49 Ah, more like a true crime sort of thing. Those are doing numbers on the Spotify. Why didn't you say so?

8:54 I'm being serious, Andrew. Though that's not half bad. I won't believe what I've dug up already. Scrap the banned books idea. the King in Yellow alone is a whole book if my preliminary research is anything to go by.

9:09 Yes! A podcast to accompany the book. They'll love that. Oh, we can get what's her name with uh the Instagram followers to be a co-host. More relatable. I mean, if you're open to it, of course.

9:19 Oh what? No. I'm not really thinking about a podcast. So we would stop harping on about it. What I am telling you is there is loads of bizarre happenings all linked to this stage play. I reckon with enough time and a bit of field research, I can probably track down the play and pad the narrative with all of these weird deaths.

9:40 One calamari, madam, and nothing else to do.

9:44 Thank you, but no.

9:45 I'll be back with your mains shortly.

9:48 Sorry, sorry. Yes, this is Tullivan. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Lit RPG is huge now. Go back to them and see if they can tack on another 20% to their offer. And give them 48 hours with a revised. 18%.

10:05unknown How about that? How would that be?

10:06 I said at least 20%. No, scratch that. 30%. With the right scrap they're demanding off this insane boilerplate contract. All right. Yes, alright. Cheerio. Hmm. Well, it's it's something well, I'll admit. We can steer away from Maze and pitch it elsewhere, but you do need a proposal, and a good one, along with a chapter or three.

10:28 Make it hooky. Maybe lean into the human angle more.

10:32 Okay. I can do that, but it's going to take a while. I can probably rope in Carl and Z to do more dog work for me, but I'm going to need an advance.

10:44 With your track record? I mean, it's it's been a pretty dismal year. the book fair last week was a washout. Can't you get the university to fund it? Or at least some of it. Enough to do some initial research in the proposal. Once we get a bit of meat on it, I think I could maybe shop it to a few friendly editors.

11:04 No guarantees, mine.

11:06 I can probably rustle something up, though funding's shrunk again. They're going all in on AI.

11:12 Remember, it has to be hooky, Mom. Hookie. Human angle, remember.

11:20 All right then. How about this? Ever heard of Eugene Bardin?

11:27 Should I?

11:28 Remember that TV show set on Coney Island in the 19 somethings?

11:32 Oh yes, um, Thingy Empire with uh what's his name as Al Capone.

11:36 Yeah! Yes, yes, yes, that's the one. Uh picture this: post-war New York, 1919. Vaudeville's the big draw for the masses, and Coley Island is bursting at the seams with entertainment, the first roller coasters, candy floss, penny arcades.

11:52 I'm with you.

11:53 Go on. Well, when I started looking into the King in Yellow, I had Z poke around the NYPD archives. We found recordings and documents, Andrew. Enough to piece together the bizarre events leading up to Barden's strange demise.

12:19 When you are in the trade, it pays to be unremarkable. My work demands a singular force of will to annihilate the ego, to forsake boldness for blandness, to disassemble so completely you become invisible. This social camouflage compounds over time to become your greatest asset. For the simple reason your marks will cheerfully divulge their dirty laundry when they think nobody's listening.

12:53 There's a subtle art to having a discreet conversation here or brokering vital information there. And I maintain Mr. Wilde chose wisely when he recruited me to the Imperial cause from his cover office in Manhattan.

13:23 Jonathan Keatley, proprietor of the Coronet Theater on Coney Island, called August 8th. Reputation to be repaired by Christmas Day. Retainer $50. the prince in waiting has commanded that you be installed as the Coronet's new house manager, Mr. Barden, to act as his eyes and ears. Indeed. Coney Island.

13:50 That nexus of New York's pleasure seekers is frequented by military officers and prominent politicians propping up Winthrop's administration. You shall learn their secrets as they carouse and cavort.

14:05 And this Mr. Keatley is amiable to this new arrangement?

14:15 He will serve the Imperial cause. Besides, I have in my possession a number of incriminating documents linking Keatley to a nasty case of insurance fraud. Yes, Jonathan Keatley is a Welcher of the First Order, and from tomorrow he, or rather, his employee, the sight of Mr.

14:36 Wilde still confounded me. He was very short in stature, like a dwarf who could have passed off in a freak show. His ears were discolored, and from my discreet observations, appeared to be carved from wax.

14:52 Take the IRT to Brooklyn and then the West End line to Coney Island, Mr. Barden. You will take up residence at the Coronet and Collate, evaluate, and personally relay your intelligence back here on a weekly basis, or as circumstances allow.

15:36 A clandestine crusade to topple the federal government after a great and pointless war with Germany, swiftly followed by the establishment of the Imperial Dynasty of America. Such a grand stratagem required the coordination of a small legion of loyal subjects operating in utmost secrecy. It was mid-September, the 17th, I recall.

16:06 A Wednesday. By then, I had installed hidden microphones in three of the coronet's four theater boxes. Committing sensitive conversations to paper from a one-use Edison cylinder often left me working into the night. Long after the evening's entertainment had ended.

16:24 You promise you'd take me to Paris on your next work. I want to see the sights, Henry. Rolesque in Monmouth. Stroll along the sun at sunset. Oh. An excursion to Maple Quarry for a bottle of real food chime on the decks by a stuff.

16:40 Yes, Marie, dearest. I'll make the arrangements.

16:44 You better not be making eyes of our quiz, Henry. Otherwise, I'll spill the beams next time I see you a lovely glass of bridge.

16:50 I was transcribing a tryst between the Secretary of Fine Arts and his occasional mistress in my basement office when I heard a soft knock on the door. Yes.

17:06 Hello. I'm looking for Mr. Biden.

17:10 From the murk of the corridor, I made out a pretty face and dark hair. Come on in.

17:16 I didn't mean to disturb you, Mr. Boydon.

17:19 Eugene, please. Call me Eugene.

17:22 I'm Magdalene, Maggie Collins. I'm new to the review.

17:26 Vaudeville, actually. It's an art form for the masses. Don't you agree?

17:32 I suppose so, Mr. Borden, but I'm just a dancer.

17:36 Eugene. And you're not just anything, Miss Collins. Theaters like the coronet do important work. the arts are a soothing bomb for society's ills.

17:48 I never thought of it that way. I guess even janitors make a contribution too.

17:54 House manager.

17:58unknown Mr.

17:58 Keatley says there's a blown fuse in the control booth. He needs you to fix it.

18:03 Of course. I'll confess Maggie Collins stirred my interest by dint of her innocent charm. I made a great fuss of finding the fuse, knowing full well where it was, but affected ignorance, taking my time to learn more about her. Where are you from, Maggie?

18:24 I grew up in Motthaven, but I'm now rooming with Alice Matthews in Gravesend.

18:29 It's been a long time since I've been to Motthaven. How long have you been a dancer?

18:34 Oh, maybe two, three years. I got my start at the passing show with Adele Stair. She's a knockout. What's this? I can't read the title.

18:45 Maggie was pulling on the corner of a book I used to weigh down the receipts. It was well thumbed, filled with my own scribbled notations in the margins.

18:56 the king in yellow. Are you a playwright, Eugene? Or an actor?

19:02 Once, perhaps, in life.

19:08 Along the shore, the cloud waves great. the twin suns sink behind the lake. the shadows lengthen. Not upon us. Oh king. Not upon us. Sounds like a load of ovalone, if you ask me.

19:41 I restrained my distress to her unwitting dismissal of such a sublime work. How I desired to elucidate upon that forbidden tome. To glimpse again into the occluded metropolis on the shores of Lake Halley and the living god who ruled over it, constrained within the literary structure of a stage play without equal.

20:07 How I longed to show Maggie the rapture and purity of dread I myself experienced reading the second act, and my emphatic rejection to the scorn heaped upon it by an ignorant public. If only they had eyes to see.

20:25 Your face, Eugene! Oh, it's a picture, all right.

20:36 Maggie's abrupt teasing dispelled my vexation. And we presently found ourselves meandering towards the control room in good humor. Shortly after the auditorium emptied itself of patrons.

20:52 And you said this auditorium's geometry disperses voices and music more evenly? And remind me, the thick curtains are acoustic absorbers.

21:03 She had insisted on escorting me under the pretense of familiarizing herself with the theater. I wasn't going to argue with her.

21:11 Who's that over there?

21:14 We were halfway up the stalls when I noticed a solitary figure observing us from the upper circle. His face was shadowed by a flat cap.

21:24 Show's over! Time to go home.

21:28 That's right, the show's over.

21:32 the figure stood. I caught a fleeting impression of a stevador's build, and maybe a crimson complexion.

21:40 Are you showing me this control booth or what? Come on.

21:47 All right, all right.

22:00 People. And the mystery man became a fixture at the coronet over those next weeks. Redface, as I began to call him, chose a different spot every other night. Always in the upper circle or the galleries where the seats were cheapest. Even from afar, I could sense his baleful presence whenever I stood in the wings.

22:24 One Sunday, I noticed him follow me on an errand for Mr. Wilde, and I had to double back to shake him off. the technique was poor, but his persistence was concerning. I relayed this development to Mr. Wilde that same evening.

22:53 Be careful, Mr. Bargan. It would appear the Bureau has taken an interest in our affairs. the Bureau? the great work is a worthy endeavor. It's hardly surprising President Winthrop's government has turned its beady eye to the intrigues of the Imperial Court. Continue as normal, but observe and evade. They mustn't know where on to them.

23:21 Exercise caution, Mr. Barden. They have the means, the men, and the motivation to destroy everything we have worked towards.

23:49 Across the bay, the dull crust of New Jersey straddled the horizon toward Sandy Hook's former arsenal. Its ruins erupted plumes of black smoke for weeks as the United States battled the German war fleets. Now, a Navy flotilla patrolled the lower bay. From my vantage, I traced their gradual drift east, then north towards General Blout's fortress on Governor's Island, plotting positions and trajectories on a map 30 years out of date.

24:29 I spied a sword-gray hulk I knew to be the battleship Dakota, escorted by a trio of dazzle-striped monitors. Behind them, a cluster of sleek torpedo boats brought up the rear, but their identities were obscured by the distance, even through the binoculars. I made a careful note of the camouflaged vessels, for Mr.

24:51 Wilde would find this latest development of great interest.

24:57 Mr. Barton? Is that you?

25:01 Miss Collins! To what do I owe this pleasure?

25:04 I stooped ostensibly to pick up my pencil, combing the vicinity for Winthrop's men. the bureau's presence in recent weeks had put me on edge. Sure enough, I spotted the flat-capped spectre of Redface among the distant crowd, watching us intently. This chance meeting had to look exactly as it appeared.

25:27 Mr. Keatley gave me the morning off. Didn't I tell you to call me Maggie?

25:33 Maggie, Maggie, of course. Uh and didn't I tell you to call me Eugene?

25:38 You're such a tease, Eugene. Are you looking for someone?

25:43 No, you took me by surprise, is all. She laughed at my mishap before gently prizing it away.

26:07 What you doing?

26:09 Um, charting a boat. There's some good fishing out at Monmouth. Of course, I couldn't let her into my confidence, especially with Redface looking on. But when one is caught out in the cold, it's best to be daring. I needed to buy some time to work a quick exit and lose our unwelcome observer. Here, have a peek.

26:39 What am I supposed to be looking at?

26:42 the Lake of Halley. Straight ahead of you.

26:46 the Lake of what? You mean the bay, surely?

26:51 I said the bay!

26:52 Oh I misheard.

26:58 If she'd seen the warships, she made no remark. See how the coast veers off there? That's the Jersey Shore. All the way down to Cape May. With Maggie distracted, I scanned the crowds. To my relief, Redface had vanished. But where?

27:20 I see it! I didn't take you for a sailor, Eugene.

27:25 As Maggie appeared to be alone and Redface was nowhere in sight, I proposed we take lunch together. I led her on a circuitous route to shake off our unelected chaperone for good. Chatting idly about the weather and the show. I recalled she was still finding her feet at the coronet, so I took to pointing out Coney's more exotic attractions and their sordid operators.

27:51 It gave me ample pause to mark any other bureau hoods tailing us. Feltman's Pavilion was doing a fine Friday trade. And we took seats at the edge of the Deutsche Garden, treating Maggie to a red hot and a glass of beer.

28:10 Da stepped off the steamer in 99 on a standby with Uncle Ronan for a do-over in America. They got work appeals, which is where he met Ma, who worked as a store girl nearby.

28:21 You up close with your father?

28:22 No, they fizzled out after a couple years after they had me because of his drinking. He ran off with some floozy, but he didn't get a divorce, so he was in and out as I was growing up. Haven't seen Don in a long while. Last I heard, he landed some work as a stevedor at the Navy Yard. You spoiled me rotten.

28:42 Say, I saw a Nickelodeon on the way here. Let me pay for a show as a thank you for lunch.

28:48 I agreed, of course. Despite her interruption to the great work, Maggie was a welcome companion. Besides, neither of us would do back at the theater before five. We had not walked long before I saw it. the yellow sign had been hastily daubed over an advertisement for a kinetoscope caller nearby. It seemed to stretch and swirl even as I tried to fixate on it.

29:29 Its instruction was urgent. Can you see that?

29:35 See what?

29:36 the sign. It's right there.

29:39 I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be. Is everything alright?

29:45 Concern was writ upon Maggie's face. But how could I possibly explain the yellow sign? She'd have no notion or comprehension of the occluded metropolis on the shore of Lake Halley, lit by the black stars of the Hyades, nor the dread memory of the pallid mask. How about we try the kinetoscopes instead?

30:09 It's been a while since I've watched one of those.

30:13 Late on then, I guess. Are you sure about this? I think I rather fancy the Nickelodeon after all.

30:34 We're here now. Might as well try our luck.

30:37 I pushed a dime into the slot of the nearest booth, whose title card simply read, Serpentine Dance. Through the peephole, I watched a raven-haired beauty sweeping her arms and cavorting across the frame, her billowing dress flowing like water in her wake. Someone had hand-tinted the dress in a violent shade of lemon, and the overall effect was mesmerizing.

31:04 Before long, the superimposed color began to ripple of its own accord, no longer constrained to the flickering fabric. Smudge curdled into the yellow sky, followed by blinking letters which dissolved into nothing. the moving picture ended before I could comprehend what I had just seen. I could hear Maggie complaining behind me, but despite my best efforts, I could not tear myself away from the beephole.

31:45 I fished out my last dime and fed it through the point slot. the seductive dance resumed, and I resolved to memorize the secret message.

31:58 I don't know what you're talking about. What are you talking about?

32:17 I vigorously resumed my efforts, knowing the bureau's men would no doubt be converging on the power.

32:34 1001 19.

32:38 the dispatch was signed with a foreign character, which I somehow interpreted as Fang or Fong. I don't know any Chinese, and yet the phonetic was clear as day in my mind. the name sounded vaguely familiar, and I recalled a Chinese man introduced to me in passing by Mr. Wilde during my last visit to Bleakestre, who described Fong as a trusted operator in service to the prince in waiting.

33:10 I've not crossed paths with him since that brief encounter. But I correctly inferred Fong's absence culminated with this vital piece of naval intelligence. Maggie? Are you there? Maggie was gone. With Maggie's last dime, I returned to the booth to double-check my handiwork, enraptured by the sultry woman performing her serpentine dance.

33:51 On my mother's life, I could have sworn it was Maggie Collins.

34:03 Episode 1, the Coronet, Act One, was written by Jordan Acosta. In order of appearance in this episode, you heard Jeremy Pack Nelson as Fong, Kyle Katzmarchek as Eugene Barden, Missly Rose as Molly Bedrock and Maggie Collins, George Waitland as Andrew Tolliver, Alistair Bucken as Mr. Wilde, Elizabeth Kate Weather as Marie, and Tim Goddard as Henry.

34:30 All the other voices were played by members of the cast. the Pallad Mask was written by Jordan Acosta and directed by Chris Gregory, Emily Inkpen, and Jordan Acosta. Our script editors are Michael Dodd and Catherine Fairweather. Production, sound design, and editing were by Chris Gregory for Alternative Stories, with original music composed by Adele Etheridge Woodson.

34:53 the Pallad Mask was recorded on location at Orpheus Studio London by Richard Campbell. the Pallid Mask was produced by Alternative Stories for Hallberg, written, performed, and produced by humans. Full cast biographies, episode guides, and more can be found at thepalladmask.online