*.*.*

Sometime late during the past hour, M had walked through and bid Miss Moneypenny good night. The secretary hadn't even looked up, since she had just reached the part where Verne learns of Count Gregory's plan. The lights were dimming in some of the other offices. The evening fog would soon be creeping down London's crowded streets. Miss Moneypenny's mind, however, was still in Paris 140 years ago.

She hesitated. There were three documents that covered the end of the mission. Which of the three should she use? Verne? No, too sad, almost unbearably so, while Rebecca's had returned to a "saw sub, sank same" writing style, perhaps to hide deep emotions. Phileas Fogg's entry, though very long, continued to reveal the man with his words. Phileas was rapidly replacing double oh seven in Miss Moneypenny's heart. She spread out Fogg's journal and began to type.

*.*.*

We are back on the Aurora, floating a thousand feet above the cold waters of the English Channel. The sun breaks the eastern horizon and sends brilliance to illuminate us this morning. I have seen Aurora as she must look this moment, a firebrand of orange floating against a gray-blue sky. All is silence except for my dirigible's usual creaks and groans. I run not the propeller as today's wind blows the direction desired.

We are wind running before wind -- the poetry of this ship has charmed me every since I won it. It has become my home even more than the London house or Shillingworth Magna. It is my refuge, and I bring here those I would protect. Today they are gathered to me and I am content.

Passepartout still sleeps in his cabin having taken last watch. Rebecca dozes on a bench here in the observation room. Verne lies with his head in her lap, asleep as well. Rebecca and Verne half reclined like that all this past night. Last evening she could not bear the bleakness in his eyes and told the boy we would always be there to love him, which quite naturally led to his outpouring of grief. His tears exhausted him. I envy Verne that. I have never been able to cry my losses.

Cynara I count not a loss. Would that I had never met her. She almost cost me more than I can bear. She and that monster Count Gregory suit well each other. I'm sure she'll go far in the League.

Had I not gone to the Bonander house yesterday . . . no, that path is false to follow. I did go, and all that passed cannot be repaired.

Yesterday I sought Rebecca throughout Paris, at Verne's garret, the Hotel Royal she sometimes favors, and the hiding crannies she thinks I know not. I even went to Service headquarters and demanded they summon Rebecca forth. They had not her situation. She, Passepartout and even Verne could not be found. My heart lay most uneasy.

Finally, I stood on the steps of the Bonander townhouse, more from recent habit than any true purpose. Perhaps I hoped to repair the breach with Cynara if I could find no other to mend.

When Gordon, her butler, blocked my entry, I knew my worst fears realized. The surly, insolent thug attempted to toss me out the door. I knocked him unconscious to the carpet, and advanced rapidly into the house, cursing myself for once again going about unarmed. (Although Thompson revolvers do so spoil the line of one's coat!)

I found Cynara in the parlor, a dark room in the back of house overlooking a sliver of dead garden. I burst into an extraordinary scene. Cynara's red-haired niece rested stiffly in a chair whilst the baroness and a hunchbacked man stood closer to me. The man held a pistol. It appeared he had been about to place it in Clarice's hand, but upon my sudden entry he turned it on me.

"Ah, Cynara, is this Mr. Verne?" he asked.

"Phileas! You shouldn't be here!" the Baroness exclaimed.

"You bastard, let them go!" was my answering cry. Cynara looked taken aback and I shortly learned why. She was no innocent prisoner but the hunchback's compatriot.

"Ah, Mr. Fogg, of course," the hunchback continued. "Well, I would have preferred Verne. However, I can use this intrusion to good advantage. I shall test my theory that a mesmerized subject can be persuaded to kill. Cynara, give Clarice the other pistol, if you please."

Clarice had stared blankly ahead throughout this exchange. Under mesmerization, I realized. "Cynara!" I appealed to my erstwhile lover. But she replied not, and retrieving a second pistol began to wrap it with a soft settee pillow to muffle the report. Her face inclined away from me, but I could see the tightness of her mouth and knew no help would she offer.

Now clear on where matters stood, I glanced about for some means of retreat or attack. I knew on the far side of the room near Miss Bonander a second door led to the kitchens. A lighted oil lamp stood on a table close at hand. What other possibilities? Could I leap through the window? Behind the settee? Back through the door I had entered? And how could I save Miss Clarice as well? With the hunchback sharply watching me, I would receive a bullet however I moved. And clearly also one if I waited. I tensed, ready to make my leap. But Rebecca's entrance through the far door, deus ex machina, forestalled my half-formed, desperate plan.

That cousin of mine! Instinctive timing, a little known asset of the ideal agent, has always been one of Rebecca's strongest points. In it, she is damn near perfect.

The balance of threat shifted dramatically in the parlor. The startled Cynara spun around and was about to fire on the intruding Rebecca, Passepartout and Jules, when I knocked her down from behind. Unfortunately, as she fell the lighted lamp fell also, and immediately an oily blaze cut me off from my cousin, my friends and Clarice.

Amazingly Miss Bonander still sat rigidly quiet, the fresh blaze just licking at her feet. Verne tried to pull her up and away, but a lack of active cooperation hindered his effort so Passepartout sought to help him. Rebecca seemed to look for a way to my side through the flames. Meanwhile, the hunchbacked man had not stood idle. Whilst the attention of all had elsewhere focused, he had sidled around behind me to the hall door, a condition that I noticed too late.

"Release Cynara!" the hunchback ordered, "or I shall start shooting you and your friends!"

Thus threatened and unarmed, I stood back, and permitted the Baroness to struggle up. Her skirt hoops swung wildly about as she ran to her partner's side.

A rising wall of flame and smoke almost hid Passepartout, Verne and Clarice from my sight. They must evacuate very shortly or risk being trapped by the fire. Of Rebecca, there was no sign.

I began coughing as the roiling smoke reached my lungs.

"What a shame!" the hunchback was saying to me, "now I cannot prove my theory! Oh well!" Raising his pistol he pulled off a shot that I easily dodged. Bending down I recovered the firearm Cynara had dropped, but by the time I straightened, she and the hunchback were gone. Passepartout and the others had disappeared in the smoke. I knew that my manservant's fireman skills would save them, in the meantime I had two miscreants to pursue.

In the smoke-filled hall I found Rebecca, who had circled around through the kitchen. She pointed down the passage where a door was just closing a few feet away. When we arrived there, only walnut paneling we faced. A concealed door then. I fired a shot where I judged the mechanism to be. Luck was with me and the door sprung open. Beyond a dimly lit stairwell sank into Parisian earth.

"An access to the sewer system!" Rebecca exclaimed and I nodded. We peered into the gloom, trying to distinguish shape or form. A miasma of stale air arose. Rebecca drew her lips tight into her mouth, an expression she uses when something has offended her nose. It did reek down there, but it would at least be an escape from the smoke. We both stepped down slowly, expecting an ambush, our revolvers at ready, our backs sliding along the moisture be-dewed walls.

However, Cynara and her compatriot's interest lay in flight. Once underground, they disappeared. We sought them for what I judged to be a mile. At one point, Rebecca suggested we split up and pursue two of four possible branches, but I refused to let her out of my sight.

When last I ventured those tunnels, we chased the mole machine of Verne's design. Although not long ago, it felt a lifetime. Verne no longer poses a question mark but ranks a close, trusted friend. Feeling nostalgic I sloshed through smelly sewage. Fortunately, sunlight leaked weakly through street drains or we might still be down there.

"Phileas," Rebecca requested my attention, "I think we've lost them."

We had no clue of direction or possible routes. "Well enough then, dear cousin," I answered. It was after all her case to pursue. Rebecca holstered her weapon and I thrust mine in a pocket and we clambered up the next access out to fresh air. Identifying our location, the intersection of Rue de L____ and Rue de M___, we headed back to the Bonander house, Jules and Passepartout.

"The Bonanders are League, aren't they, Rebecca?" I asked.

"Yes, League. I'm sorry you should have known," she was about to say more, but I stopped her. I wanted to make the apology I had so carefully rehearsed. I said, "No, stop, Rebecca. Listen to me for once, will you? I have something to say to you and I've waited all day."

Her face iced up, "Speak, Phileas. I can imagine what's on your mind."

"You can? Tell me then. I would be interested to know my thoughts."

We stopped. Bypassers carefully circumnavigated us. Rebecca's unfeminine garb and our generally filthy state did not encourage closer acquaintance. Rebecca turned toward me, "You want me to return to the Aurora and forget this morning's disagreement."

I said, "Well, I will admit that's a start." She made a sound and started to turn away. I seized her right wrist and detained her. She did not struggle. That surprised me. Generally, Rebecca detests being compelled. I placed in her hand the revolver from my pocket saying, "There is something more I would ask you. If I ever again say things as stupid as this morning, please take this pistol and shoot me. It would be less painful than the day I just spent. I've missed you so."

Her quick, sweet smile answered my request for forgiveness, and I bent to give a cousinly kiss on the cheek. But rotating her head, Rebecca intercepted my mouth. I am not ashamed to say my heart hammered while our lips held together. "Oh Rebecca, my love," I whispered and caught her up close for a moment, until the offended stare of a female pedestrian put me off. Turning quickly away, I pointed at the skyline, "I think we're close. Look there's smoke from a fire!"

When we reached the former Bonander residence, it was to find it completely involved in flames. The household's escaped servants and a crowd of onlookers milled in the streets. Fire wagons and firemen made hopeless battle against the well-advanced blaze, whilst drifting smoke hazed the air all about.

Far down the block Verne knelt on the cobbled street cradling an indistinct form. "Not Passepartout!" I shouted and began to run, fear speeding my feet.

But it was not my manservant, whom I later learned was exercising his firefighting skills alongside old friends. Verne held the small, lifeless body of Miss Clarice. The bullet I had so skillfully avoided had instead struck her. Blood streaked the dark dress she wore, and her head lolled against Verne's chest.

I was caught in a mixture of guilt and relief, relief that Passepartout lay not there and guilt for my part in yet another meaningless tragedy. I recollected Verne's smitten expression last night when Clarice was first introduced, their shy handholding with heads close together, his desperate earlier effort to save her from today's fire. Fate had dealt Jules a hand I recognized well, as Saratoga Browne was lost to me in much the same way. Verne's eyes stared emptily at the fire and people moving about. He rocked back and forth just a little. He seemed not to know we were there.

I knelt and wrapped Verne's shoulders with my arm. "Verne, man, they eluded us. I'm sorry." Rebecca silently stood by, her eyes clouding with tears.

Verne gently lowered the slim little body to the ground. We stood up together, and he began to push me about, repeatedly smacking me on the shoulders, saying, "Damn you! Damn you to bloody hell! She's dead! She loved me and she's dead! And you couldn't even catch her murderer!" And more in that vein. His lips were drawn away from his teeth. His eyes flashed helpless rage. Not wanting to hurt him, I backed away with each push. If it hadn't been so sad, it might have been amusing to watch, the bantam cockerel Verne pushing about me, a good half foot taller.

Finally, having said enough, Verne returned to Miss Clarice's body and with some effort picked her up. At the medical wagon the surgeon relieved him of his sad burden and stretched her out next another, the body of a short plump older man.

Rebecca bent over this second corpse. "Mabius Bonander," she said, and indicating his blood soaked jacket, "bullet to the heart, I would guess."

"The League man, hmm?" I commented and asked her if she had recognized our elusive hunchbacked quarry, but she shook her head and answered, "Not a clue. A free agent though, I saw no cortical stud."

Verne had begun to walk away. Indicating his retreating back, I said to my cousin, "Stop him, will you, Rebecca? I don't think he'll listen to me. Persuade him to go to London with us. Please."

Rebecca trotted after Verne. After she left, Passepartout came running up. He was preposterously glad to see me. "I thought you and Miss Rebecca burn to crisp!" he cried, happily thumping my back.

I smiled and answered, "No, not crisp, only medium well, Passepartout."

By then Rebecca returned, Verne on her arm, a very shaken, sad man. He stretched out a hand to me and said, "Sorry, Fogg. I didn't mean any of that. You did your best." It hurt me to see him so cast down.

"Do not regard it, Verne," I told him and clasped the proffered hand, perhaps a little too heartily. Then Verne's Gallic blood manifested and he hugged me tightly for the space of a moment. "Do not regard it, man," I repeated. "We are as brothers, you know."

*.*.*

Miss Moneypenny rubbed her eyes and was surprised to find them a bit damp with unshed tears. She sat quietly for a moment, looking out at the velvety gray fog swirling in the light from her window. It was late, and the night watchman, Harold, had already looked in on her twice. Like everyone at headquarters he knew of her long-time crush on double oh seven. He chuckled at her late hours and said, "Well, he's coming in, is he? You won't get him home any faster by muddling around here so late. Best go home yourself."

"Oh, I will soon," she replied. "I've just a few more pages to go. Could you come back in a half hour, please? I'll be ready then."

If Miss Moneypenny didn't complete this chest tonight, she would never fall asleep. The final snippet came from the captured League journal of Doctor Garridan, but it was dated almost eight months after the Fogg entry she'd just typed. The Doctor's words chilled her.

*.*.*

My successful return with the pregnant Baroness Cynara Bonander greatly advanced my position here in the League of Darkness. Count Gregory defers all medical questions to me.

Cynara wears a special cortical lobe stud. With it not only does Count Gregory transmit his every sensation, but the Baroness reciprocates as well. The Count desired to experience the growth and birth of this baby. He has great plans for it in the League of Darkness and already declares it his adoptive son. (And fortunately, from what I can judge it will be male.) If the babe emulates the cunning of his Fogg sire, our efforts will be well served. Daily Cynara reclines next the Count's chair, caressing whichever of his arms hang free. Her belly swells roundly, near ripe for picking. Soon this project will reach a new stage. Until then I will continue my studies. A new field called phrenology shows promise. I am concentrating there.

*.*.*

That was it. Miss Moneypenny had entered the last document in the chest. Outside the Big Ben chimes rang midnight faintly. Harold peeked in at the door. Miss Moneypenny waved and said she was done. He waited patiently while she put on her raincoat and grabbed her bag. Per Secret Service regulations, the night watchman had to escort her off the floor.

Miss Moneypenny vowed that tomorrow she would make the dead storage floor her first stop. She definitely wanted to find the remaining Fogg chests before anyone else claimed them.

As they walked toward the elevator, Harold asked, "And when is James due in, ma'am?"

Her mind still in Nineteenth Century Paris, Miss Moneypenny's brow wrinkled and she said, "James who?"

FINIS.
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