Chapter 6

A Discovery

Clouseau and Raoul continued to walk through the sewers, both still recovering from the sight of the fiery face they had seen. Clouseau walked slowly, looking for clues every step of the way, but Raoul tried to make him move faster. "We need to save Christine!" he continued to protest.

"Well, we might not be able to if we don't have any clues. Oh, look, a damburgah!" Clouseau had found half a hamburger on the ground. He picked it up and dusted it off with his coat.

"You're not going to eat that, right?" Raoul asked nervously.

"Of course I am!" Clouseau stuffed the hamburger in his mouth, but ended up spitting most of it out of his mouth. "Disgusting! I prefer Burger King!"

"Could it possibly have something to do with it being on the ground of the sewers?" Raoul suggested.

"Possibly," Clouseau said, tilting his said to one side, then continued to move around slowly. Before long, they were in the huge cellars below the stage of the Opera. They could hear some singing, probably a rehearsal.

"This is crazy music!" Clouseau screamed.

"No it's not!" Raoul argued. "It's beautiful."

"Nonsense! How do you call this beautiful? I'll show you some real music!"

"That won't be necessary. Let's keep going."

"No, no, no!" Clouseau then cleared his voice and began to break out into the Partridge Family theme song, singing in a very bad voice.

Hello world, here's a song that we're singing.

Come on get happy!

A whole lotta lovin' is what we'll be bringing

We'll make you happy!

We had a dream we'd go travelin' together

And spread a little lovin' if we'll keep movin' on.

Somethin' always happens whenever we're together

We get a happy feelin' when we're singing a song.

Come on get happy!

"How did you like it?" Clouseau asked.

"If that's how music from the future sounds, I don't want to live for the future," Raoul replied.

"What's the year?"

"1882."

"Then you won't have to worry about it. That song won't be playing until the 1960's or 70's."

"Good. Now let's continue on."

They did, and before long, Clouseau ran into a wall.

"Good job, Inspector," Raoul told him.

"But I ran into a wall."

"Yes, but remember how I said Erik has house by the lake? This could be a wall from it. It sticks out from nowhere." Raoul put his ear up to the wall along with Clouseau. They listened, but only heard distant footsteps. Raoul shook his head. "This isn't going to help."

"Yes it is!" Clouseau exclaimed.

"Exactly how?"

Clouseau didn't respond, though. He continued to listen to the footsteps, then repeated the patterns they made. He did this for many minutes, making his footsteps louder and louder, but he soon lost his patience. "You idiot! Don't you hear I'm repeating your footsteps? Exactly as you're doing, to!"

"Inspector," Raoul said.

"You idiot wall!"

"Inspector."

"Are you deaf? Yes?"

"Inspector!"

"What? No need to yell!"

"Inspector, I don't think that's going to work. How about we try something else."

"Why didn't I think of that?" The two continued to walk through the sewers, and once again, Clouseau bumped into something else, but not a wall. This time it was a staircase. They went up it, which lead them to the Third Cellar of the Opera. There wasn't much room to stand up, so they began to crawl on their hands and knees. Against one of the walls was a scene from the Roi de Lahore, which was where Joseph Buquet had been hanged mysteriously a while ago. Raoul explained this to Clouseau, but soon regretted it.

"This place is haunted! Haunted!" Clouseau tried to stand up, but hit his head on the ceiling. "Oh! See, I told you this place was haunted! That was a ghost with three heads and three tails! It just hit me!"

"Inspector, it's fine. And that wasn't a ghost. It was the ceiling."

"Sure, it isn't haunted." Clouseau was using a mocking voice. "Then tell me why there is this narrow passageway in the wall. Is it for ghosts to go through? Or is it for little midgets to play in? Huh?"

"A narrow passageway?" Raoul asked, crawling over to where Clouseau was. He saw it, but it hardly looked big enough to fit in.

"Or are there haunted mice in there?" Clouseau asked. "Here micey, micey! Come here and show my partner that he has a brain the size of a minkey's!"

"A minkey? What's that?"

"A minkey, you fool!"

"Oh, a monkey." Raoul rolled his eyes. "Should have known all along," he said sarcastically. "Come on, Inspector. We should see what's in this passageway. I bet you fifty francs we won't see a haunted mouse."

"Remember I don't have any money because of our stupid bets?"

"Oh, yes." Raoul and Clouseau began to squeeze through the passageway, Clouseau singing a stupid little song about going through narrow passageways and finding damburgers. Before long, they found a small hole made from a brick misplaced. Clouseau, who was leading the way, fell through it. Raoul jumped through, curious to see what was down there. (He had thought about turning back, leaving Clouseau, and trying to find Christine himself.) Then, moments later, Clouseau screamed, "AHHHHH! I heard about this from a Chief Inspector Dreyfus! He said he heard it rumored that there was once a room like this called the Torture Chamber! AHHHHH!"

"This is bad," Raoul sighed.

"They're going to lock us in here with no hamburgers for weeks! AHHHH!"

"I think they'll do worse than that." Just as Raoul finished this statement, the room began to get warmer, and warmer, and warmer.

A/N: thanks to Double Agent 007, phantomphan1992, and Chloe Rides a Land Shark for the reviews. Please review!