Joseph Buquet Found Hanged

The ballet girls are thrown into further panic when Mme. Giry bursts into the dressing-room with the news that Joseph Buquet has been found hanged in the third cellar. The girls immediately attribute his death to the ghost, and little Giry blurts out that it must be the ghost, though she quickly tries to retract. The death is later ruled a suicide, but the circumstances are mysterious: when the managers went to cut him down, the rope had disappeared. This event deepens the superstition surrounding the ghost and sets the stage for the mystery.