Chapter 42

There is no one I can trust...

-The Barber of Seville

The question now was how to get out of here. Christine dared not go back through the tunnels that led toward her dressing-room. There might still be traps. And now that there was a chance she might find Erik, she had a great desire to live. Indeed, she reflected, her desire to live had never gone away. She had simply forgotten it for a moment.

She began prowling through the tunnels, looking for some way out. Zenaida followed after her, periodically offering small mews to guide her in the right direction. At length, Christine saw something that made her jump back in surprise. The red thread was still very much there, just where it had always been.

Why - to think all that trouble with sneaking behind the Roi de Lahore set and jumping into the torture-chamber was unnecessary! she thought furiously. Then, Why did Mère say it was gone?

Never mind. She could worry about that later. She had no way of getting to the bottom of it at the moment.

Before she departed, she gathered some of Erik's most precious things - some drawings of his, and a few music manuscripts he had been working on; it saddened her to think he had left them behind - and bundled them into a battered valise she found.

Then, eagerly, she followed the thread through the tunnels. Zenaida walked beside her with silent footfalls.

"We have a saying about this in Sweden, you know, Zenaida," she said. "Following the red thread. Den Röda Tråden. It means going in the right direction, keeping to a consistent purpose, not allowing one's self to become distracted… It is curious, isn't it? I hope Erik is the red thread for me… That have I not been mistaking myself all this time…"

Zenaida, being French, looked unimpressed by this display of Scandinavian wisdom, but merely regarded her with her usual inscrutable blue stare.

In any case, this particular röda tråden did not steer her wrong, but was the same reliable guide as always.

When she reached the street, she was obliged to leave the gate open behind her. That didn't matter, she reasoned. The police would find Erik's lair soon anyway. Still, the thought made despair steal through her.

A chill wind greeted her outside. She bundled Zenaida into her arms, sought out a cab, and gave the driver the address.

He was intensely curious about what a skinny, sweaty, badly dressed and dirt-encrusted girl and an equally bedraggled cat had in an elegant neighborhood like that at this time of night, but something in her eyes made him decide it was safer not to inquire.

The cab bore Christine south, toward the river, toward the Louvre and the Jardins des Tuileries. She practically bounced in her seat with impatience. At last they pulled up to the curb. Christine leapt out as though a spring had ejected her and paid the driver with shaking hands.

Once he was gone, she walked two blocks; she had told him the wrong address on purpose, wanting to muddy the waters as much as possible in case by some chance anyone was coming after her.

Her mind whirled with confusion. Rue de Rivoli was a first-rate address, a stone's throw from the Louvre. She couldn't imagine what connection Erik could have to such a place. He didn't exactly move in the most illustrious circles.

What if she was walking into a trap? The Vicomte had gotten hold of Zenaida somehow, perhaps, and was using her as bait to make her reveal her connection to Erik…

She realized, however, that she did not care. What was there to fear? Erik was long-gone, safe. And they would never get a shred of information about him out of her. She would let them torture her, kill her, first.

Number 226 was even more imposing than she had expected. A handsome apartment block of cream-colored limestone with delicate wrought-iron balconies, typical to Paris' wealthier neighborhoods, it overlooked the Jardins de Tuileries on one side. People would pay a fortune for that view. There was scarcely a more expensive address to be found in the whole city.

The hairs stood up on the back of Christine's neck. This didn't make sense. Mon amour, how did you get yourself friends like these?

"Is this right, Zenaida?" she said aloud.

She looked up to the second floor, but could see nothing that offered any clue. Every window was the same as the next, each one showing only a sliver of elegantly moulded ceiling in a brightly-lit room.

She would have to go in, she decided, and looked about for the entrance. Set between an expensive boutique and an expensive café was a vast, dark-blue door that looked like it belonged on some palace in Bohemia. Christine knew, from visits to musical salons hosted by some of the Opéra's wealthy subscribers who lived in similar buildings, that it would open onto a private carriage yard, with most likely a concierge's lodge to one side.

Hoping someone would be there at this hour to hear her, she gathered her courage and knocked. She felt rather like a peasant standing at the door to a lord's castle, hoping the drawbridge would be let down. Just as she was beginning to fear no-one had heard, the door creaked open.

Christine found herself facing a tall, dour-looking concierge of fifty or so, and next to him a thin woman who must have been his wife, in a severe, stiffly starched charcoal-grey gown. She could not have been more than forty, and might have been handsome had her hair not been scraped back in a severe bun. But the irritable look on her face would not have been out of place on an eighty-year-old.

They eyed Christine up and down. Fortunately, it was too dark to see that the hem of her dress was soaked through and her coat was smeared with mud. Still, they could see enough - simple clothes, no hat, no gloves, bedraggled hair, to say nothing of the cat - to decide she was an undesirable.

"What do you want?" said the concierge.

"I am sorry to disturb you," Christine said, after stumbling impatiently through the usual pleasantries, "My name is Mademoiselle, ah, François, and-" Oh, dear, she thought. That is as convincing as a cardboard cutout. Christine, you really must think of a better alias. And then, out of nowhere, My name should have been Masson by now. No - no. She shoved the thought away. She could not afford to give in to emotion right now.

"-François, eh?" The man squinted at her. "Hmph."

"Number 22, if you please?" Christine said. "I found their cat." She held out the aforementioned feline with her tag as proof, then quickly pulled her away again for fear that they might simply take her and shut the door in her face.

"Do I recognize you from somewhere?" the woman said.

Christine blanched. "I don't believe so."

"Haven't I seen you in the papers?"

"No, that could not be," Christine said.

"You look an awful lot like that singer... or was it an actress... what's-her-name. The Danish one... Or was it Norwegian?"

Swedish! Christine thought irately. Swedish! Why is it so difficult to remember? Scandinavia isn't all one country! But she could not say that. "I am not Norwegian. Or Danish," she said instead. Well, at least that was true. When you had to lie, lie as little as possible, she had always thought. "And I have not been in any newspapers. I keep to myself. I am a respectable girl, Madame."

"Very well, very well. I meant no offense, you know." She pursed her lips. "Number 22." She turned to her husband. "Hmm, I do recall the fellow decided to get himself a cat, didn't he?"

"Mm," he grunted his agreement.

"Where did you find her?"

"I... am a cleaner at the Opéra." This was the explanation she had settled on. It accounted for what a poor girl in a ragged dress was doing in this expensive, staid part of the city at this time of night. "I found her wandering outside."

"Hm," the woman said. "He does go to the Opéra quite a bit." She still looked confused, however.

"Perhaps she was looking for him there," Christine suggested. "Cats do wander."

"Mm. Why bring her so late?"

"The night is young for me," Christine said. "I work til all hours."

"Hm."

The conversation was disintegrating rapidly. "Shall I go up, then?" Christine said impatiently.

The concierge squinted at her. "Hmh. You know he's foreign?"

"I am foreign," Christine said before she could stop herself.

"I thought you said your name was François."

"Ah... yes." She flushed. "My father's name was François. My mother was Swedish. I was brought up there." Hang it all, Christine, you must learn to hold your tongue!

"Ah." The concierge squinted at her. "Yes, well, this is different - he's from Arabia or someplace unnatural like that."

"Persia," his wife supplied.

He snorted. "All the same."

Christine imagined the withering remarks Erik would make about this man's knowledge of geography, and had to hide a smile.

"Monsieur Khan, as he calls himself," the concierge went on. He made a face, as though the name tasted bad.

Christine blinked in surprise. She knew a Monsieur Khan, as it happened. He was often to be found drifting around the Opéra at odd hours and in remote parts of the building; not a soul knew why, but he had season tickets and made sizeable donations and was said to be related to the shah of Persia, so no-one stopped him. No-one knew anything about him beyond his name. She had tried to engage him in conversation a few times, but though his French was good, he never offered more than a few abrupt words, and always hurried away as quickly as possible.

"From where in Persia, Madame, do you know?" Christine asked. "From Tehran - the capitol?"

"Don't know," she sniffed.

"Don't like having people like that living here," the concierge explained apologetically.

"He makes me uneasy," said his wife. "Wouldn't like to think of my girls being around him."

"Can't trust people like that," the concierge grunted.

Christine could not restrain herself any longer. "That seems rather unfair, surely. I am sure he is perfectly respectable." That is, if any friend of Erik's could be described as respectable, which, come to think of it, was a dubious question. Erik is not respectable. Why... perhaps I am not respectable! To her surprise, the thought amused her.

The concierge, who had been staring at the ground, looked up at her, unused to being disagreed with, and his eyes widened with anger. "They're not like us, you know!" he cut her off, and she realized with alarm that he was gearing up for a speech. "Don't go getting mixed up with them!"

She shuffled her feet. Was she ever to be allowed through?

"Now, Clarence, she's young yet," his wife said in a soothing tone. "She'll come round."

"Yes, well," Clarence muttered irritably, and at least he seemed to make up his mind not to pursue the argument.

Christine hid a sigh of relief.

"Anyway, he's richer than a prince, so they can charge him twice as much as the others," Clarence finished. "Apparently he's related to the shah of someplace-or-other. Friends in high places. So it's best to humor him, you know."

"I see," Christine said hastily. There must be some connection, she thought. There were too many coincidences for this to be a coincidence. "Quite so. May I go up, Monsieur, Madame? I don't like to keep you here."

He squinted at her. "Wouldn't you rather I fetch him for you?"

"No!" She had to speak with him alone; that was essential. "I wouldn't dream of it. You must have had a long day."

He softened a little. "Up the stairs, second door on your left."

"Take care, Mademoiselle," his wife called as Christine walked away. "It's no good, young girls like you being around them. It's not safe."

Feeling sorry for Khan, Christine ascended the stairs.

She found number twenty-two at the end of a long hallway, dimly lit and richly carpeted, and raised her hand to knock as softly as she could.

After the six years he had been acquainted with Erik, Mohamed Ismaël Khan, known to his few remaining friends as Ismaël - except for Erik, who maddeningly still insisted on calling him the Daroga, even though he was not the chief of police and had not been for years, and Erik of all men ought to remember that unfortunate fact, since he had something to do with it - had thought himself immune to surprises.

But one thing he had never expected to see was Christine Daae, who he had thought didn't know who he was, standing on his doorstep at eleven o'clock at night, holding the cat who he hadn't been able to bring himself to tell Erik had been missing for two days.

To make matters still more peculiar, the young lady looked as though she had just emerged from a hurricane. Her coat was smeared with mud, she had no hat or gloves - two things no Parisian lady would stir out-of-doors without - and her hair was all but finished escaping from whatever style she had worked it into that morning, and stood out around her in a cloud. Most of her nails were bruised and broken, at least six inches of her hem was wet through, and jagged cuts crisscrossed her hands.

What in God's name was he to make of this? He found himself momentarily at a loss for words.

Fortunately, she spoke first. "Monsieur Khan," she said. "I have Zenaida. I was wondering if I might come in for a moment."

"Mademoiselle." He looked up and down the hall before continuing. "What has happened to you? Are you all right? You have found Zenaida? Thank you. I shall order my coupé to take you home."

He pulled a few bills from his breast pocket, held them out to her, and reached out for the little animal.

The Daae girl had quite a firm grip on her, however.

"Wait!" she said. "Please - I don't want your money - I need to ask you - can you tell me anything of Erik? He-"

Damn! "-Do not throw that name about in public!" Ismaël hissed, and was obliged to bundle her inside, while Darius hastily shut the door behind her.

"Forgive the melodramatics," Ismaël said, a little worried the girl might do something stupid like scream, and bring the vindictive wrath of a dozen already-hostile neighbors down upon his head.

She was made of firmer stuff than that, however. "Not at all," she said evenly, wiping her boots on the doormat. "I am pleased to see you taking precautions to protect... him."

Ismaël nodded uncertainly.

His valet Darius hastily divested Daae of her filthy coat before she could drop dirt onto the immaculate rug, and hung it on a coatrack in the entryway. She thanked him awkwardly. It seemed that despite her celebrity, she was still not accustomed to being waited upon.

"I have seen you at the Opéra," she ventured.

"Yes," Ismaël said.

"I tried to speak with you, but you always ran away. I did not know you knew him."

"Forgive me," he said. "He thought it safer for you and I not to be acquainted."

"How did you come to know one another?"

"It is a long story, and rather unpleasant."

"Oh," she said. The exhaustion in her voice and in her eyes was obvious.

Ismaël's eyes were drawn again to her bedraggled appearance. He did not trust her for a moment; indeed, his first instinct was still to send her away, but he was unable not to be worried about a young lady in such a disheveled state. Whatever her purpose in coming here, she had obviously had a most trying night.

"Come and sit by the fire," he said. "Darius will bring you some tea."

Darius duly evaporated, and Christine Daae gratefully situated herself on a chair near the fireplace.

The cat leapt from her arms with a happy meow and ran around the large room, rubbing her chin on various articles of furniture in case anyone should have forgotten that they belonged to her.

"I thought you would know not to mention his name in public," Ismaël ventured.

She tore her gaze away from the wandering flames of the fire and looked up at him. "Forgive me," she said. "I didn't have a choice. I needed to speak with you. I have been frantic."

And yet you could not manage even to send a telegram? A number of scathing replies rose to his lips, but he bit them back. "Frantic?" he said guardedly instead.

"I thought you might know something," she said. "I have not heard a word from him since he left France."

"Indeed?" he said. "And you think I can tell you where he is?"

"He trusts you - he left Zenaida with you, and she means the world to him. I thought perhaps you might know something. Any information you could give me would be most welcome," she said in her soft, musical voice.

Ismaël studied her in silence for a moment. He did not sit; that would put them on equal footing, and he needed to keep the upper hand.

He still did not know what to make of her.

He thought back to the night Erik had dragged himself to his doorstep, hysterical and desperate, wailing about how he had ruined his Christine's life and begging him to look after the cat. Back then, Ismaël had still believed Christine loved Erik. She had, it seemed, been ready to give up her position and leave all her friends behind just to remain by his side. (Erik had been a selfish brute to ask it of her, Ismaël privately thought, but then, no one had asked him, and it wasn't his affair).

Ismaël thought Erik had been a fool to interpret the situation in the dressing-room as a betrayal. Indeed, after a lengthy discussion and two bottles of his best wine, most of which had gone into Erik, Ismaël had managed to nearly convince him of that as well. Things between them had seemed stronger than ever. Ismaël had thought he would be hearing a happy announcement any day now, and had looked forward to handing all of Erik's ill humors off to someone else and finally getting to enjoy a peaceful life with his wife, who had been more patient about the whole affair than any human being could reasonably be expected to be.

But then days had gone by and Christine Daae had not answered any of Erik's mountain of letters, or left her job at the Opéra or in any other way stirred one finger to leave Paris.

And then, most damningly of all, the Vicomte had found Erik in Stockholm. He could only have done that if, in one way or another, he had seen Erik's letter to Christine.

Ismaël could still recall every word of the telegram that had nearly frozen his blood.

Vicomte found me in Stockholm tried to capture me STOP Failed of course but must flee STOP More soon

After which, Erik had apparently washed up in Constantinople, and still, as usual, not managed to offer a single piece of helpful or useful information, other than a general reassurance that he wasn't dead.

There were a number of explanations that fit the facts Ismaël was acquainted with. In some of them, it was true, Christine Daae was innocent. But the one he kept coming back to, the simplest explanation, was that she wanted to see Erik dead or captured.

Ismaël was getting tired of soothing Erik's endless ill humors, tired of constantly fretting for his safety, and he was disposed to be very angry with the woman who, it seemed more and more likely, was responsible for all the misery he had suffered these past few weeks.

'No, I have not heard a word from him', he ought to say, and send her away, ignoring any tears or other histrionics she might affect. He should have been able to do it without compunction. He was a seasoned officer of the law. He had shown no mercy to prisoners in a far worse state than she was.

But it was not in his nature to be hardhearted to a woman.

And of course there was also the intervening factor that Erik was still in love with her - so much in love, in fact, that Ismaël feared he might do himself a harm if she were not restored to him.

And so he was obliged to try to feel the matter out a little further, while in possession of far fewer of the facts than he was comfortable with.

"Isn't there anyone else you could talk to?" he asked. "Madame Giry?"

"I asked her. She has not heard a word from him," Christine Daae said. "Not as of this morning, at least."

Ismaël's brow furrowed. This was still more peculiar. Had Erik not tried to reach her through Madame Giry? Or had he tried to write, and that woman had been keeping his letters from Christine?

Or, again, the girl might simply be lying. Impossible to know who Erik had spoken to, and who he had told what. There were far too many variables. Ismaël had spent years spying for the Shah and the Khanum, playing the most cunning of men against one another, acting as a double, a triple, and even, in one particularly nerve-wracking episode, a quadruple agent. And yet he had never been presented with a conundrum as convoluted as this.

"What exactly is it you want me to tell you?" he said.

"As I said, anything," she said, looking desperate. "I have been sick with worry. I fear some terrible fate has befallen him… As you said, there are so many people who would wish him harm… and alas, so many who would attack him just for being what he is… Please, if you know anything at all that you can share…"

At last, reluctantly, Ismaël reached a decision.

On the off-chance that she really did love Erik, it would be inexcusably cruel not to at least tell her that he was well. And surely she couldn't do any harm with that information.

He sighed. "I heard from him yesterday. He is safe," he said. "That is all you need to know."

Perhaps I am growing soft in my old age, he thought. This was a joke, of course; he was only thirty-five, though after the life he had lived, he felt much older.

Christine bent her head and wept.

Awkwardly, he handed her his handkerchief.

"Thank God," she said when she could speak. "Thank God. Monsieur, I am more grateful than I can express. And… did he say anything about me? Did he ask after me?"

"No."

He saw her wince. "I see. And… Do you have some way to contact him?"

"No," he said. He hated to lie, but he hardly had a choice. If he admitted to knowing where Erik was, the police might use him for information.

Christine swallowed. "Suppose for a moment," she said slowly, "That you are lying to me because you do not trust me - that in fact you do have a way to contact him, and you don't want to give it to me because you think I would go to the Vicomte with it."

"I-" he began to protest.

She held up a hand. "-I would not blame you. Now, supposing you are keeping something from me-"

"-I am not," he insisted. She is clever, he thought irritably. Erik would have been safer falling in love with a stupid woman.

"But if you were," she pressed.

"It is a hypothetical without any basis in reality, but pray do continue." This was beginning to feel like a fencing match, he thought.

"-Supposing you do have a way to contact him - I hope you will consider writing to him anyway, regardless of what you tell me," she said. "I know you mean to protect Erik, and I am grateful for your loyalty to him - he has few enough friends as it is - but the question of whether to trust me should be left to him and him alone."

He has lost his head over you! Ismaël wanted to say. He has no judgment left! Someone must protect him! But he could not say any of that.

"You are a man of honor," Christine went on. "Your loyalty to Erik proves that. I believe you know in your heart of hearts that it would be wrong to conceal from him that I came here asking about him."

She is right! I do have to tell him! Ismaël scowled. This whole affair was beginning to give him a headache. At last, reluctantly, he nodded.

"Thank you," Christine said, rightfully interpreting this as an acquiescence. "Then for now that must be enough for me." Suddenly her eyes widened. "Oh! I almost forgot! - There is something else I ought to tell you. The Vicomte found the passage behind my dressing-room."

A chill ran through him. And at the same time, he wondered, Why would she tell me that if she were not on Erik's side?

Darius chose this moment to reappear, bearing a silver tray with a teapot and two glass cups.

"Consuming caffeine at this hour may be unwise," Ismaël reflected, "But based on what you have just told me, I fear this may be a long night for the both of us."

"Yes," Christine said miserably.

"How do you like yours?" Ismaël asked. "Milk, sugar?"

"Strong, please," she said. "And no, thank you. Just black."

"That was how Erik always took his," he reflected.

She smiled. "He makes Persian tea for me sometimes. Thank you," she added, as Darius handed her her cup.

Makes, Ismaël thought. Not made. Perhaps that meant she hoped it had not happened for the last time, that she hoped they would be together again. Or perhaps he was being a fool and it meant nothing. He wanted to believe Christine loved Erik, and he feared that hope would lead him astray, make him see clues where there weren't any.

"When did they find the passage?" Ismaël prompted, stroking the cat, who had wandered up and was rubbing against their legs in the hope of treats.

"It was today- no, yesterday," Christine said, and then hesitated, looking over at Darius.

"You may rely upon Darius' discretion," he assured her.

She nodded. "It won't be long before the Vicomte, or the police, find the grotto, and Erik's home."

"Yes, I imagine not."

"They will search it," she said.

"No doubt."

She seemed to have forgotten about her tea. "What most worries me," she said, "is the matter of the gunpowder. Is there some way to dispose of it?"

"I don't know what you are talking about," he said.

"Yes, you do," she protested. "I can see it on your face. There is no use feigning ignorance. And you know as well as I that it will go badly for him if the police find it."

At last, he sighed. That fool! Damn him! How stupid, to tell her about the gunpowder! "First of all, Mademoiselle," he said at last, "I would like to make very clear that I did not know anything about the gunpowder until Erik came here the other night and told me about it."

"I am not accusing you of anything, Monsieur," Christine said.

"Very well, then," he said. "Yes, I know about it. Erik asked me to go and dispose of it, as a matter of fact." He snorted. "Yes, the police would like that, a Persian mucking about with gunpowder under one of the Emperor's favorite buildings- the cousin of the shah, no less - that is the kind of thing that could start a war! That fool."

"Is there a way of getting rid of it, then?" Christine said hopefully. "I tried, but it would have taken me days to dispose of it all."

"You did?" he said, surprised and impressed. "How? I suppose you tried to empty it all into the lake?"

"Yes. I had to break the kegs open." She held up her hands with their mangled nails as proof.

"Oh." Now it began to make sense, he reflected. He pictured her stumbling through the lair with kegs of gunpowder, tripping, scraping her hands, and the mud would be from the lake shore.

He wanted to trust her...

"Unless you suppose I tore my nails to shreds to support my story," she snipped.

"No, it seems unlikely," he admitted.

"How kind of you to say so."

He ignored this. "Well, fortunately for you," he said, "there is another way."

"Oh, thank Heaven!" she said. "What do I need to do?"

"He tells me there is a spring on the floor of the…" He paused. "The hexagonal room with the mirrors - do you know it?"

"The torture-chamber," Christine supplied with a wry smile.

Darius bowed out of the room again, the perfect valet.

Ismaël sighed, shaking his head. "I wasn't going to say it, but yes. When the spring is triggered, apparently it opens into some kind of hatch that releases into an underground tributary of the Seine - that is what feeds the lake, as you will have guessed- so the gunpowder will be washed away."

"How remarkable," she said. "Under other circumstances, I might be impressed."

"Yes," he said, almost amused. "I understand the spring is very difficult to find, however."

"No matter," she said. "I will find it. I must have some amount of wit, or I daresay Erik would not have fallen in love with me."

He couldn't keep back a smile. "I daresay you are right." I only hope you don't mean to use it against him…

"Thank you for telling me," she said.

"You are really going back down there?"

"Of course I am." Her face was resolute.

"Very well," he said, deep in thought. "Then let me offer a suggestion - if you will wait a few minutes, I shall order my coupé to take you there." That way, his driver Mercier could report back to him on where she'd been. A pity he could not trust Mercier enough to tell him the whole story. Then he could have had him wait, and make sure Mademoiselle Daae came back out as planned and went directly home afterwards.

"I would be very grateful," she said.

He summoned the long-suffering Darius and sent him to tell Mercier to prepare the coupé.

"Thank you," Christine said.

"You are welcome," Ismaël replied. "But beyond that, understand, I wash my hands of this madness." And then, as he said it, he realized he couldn't do that. He could not let the stupid girl fall into one of Erik's traps and perish. "I shall be at the Opéra tomorrow; shall I send for the police if you are not at rehearsal?"

"Thank you, but I won't be at rehearsal anyway," she said with a sigh.

"Aren't you the star?"

"Not anymore," she said bitterly. "As it happens, Richard Firmin fired me because I wouldn't become the Vicomte's maîtresse."

"Did he indeed?" Ismaël said, startled. "That is despicable. Well, I am very sorry for your trouble, Mademoiselle." Well, this warranted looking into further… It would be easy enough to affirm that it had happened. "Please let me know if I can be of any assistance."

"Thank you," she said sadly.

"If you do not cable me by, say, seven o'clock tomorrow morning, then?" he suggested. "Shall I report you missing?"

At last, she nodded. "Yes. But, please, tell the police as little as possible of this whole affair as you can."

Well, he thought, he would say this for her: If she was working against Erik, she was making it very easy to find her out.

"Here," Christine said. She took a piece of notepaper from her reticule, bent over a table and wrote a note. "Please, if you hear from him, if he gives you a way to contact him, will you send him this?"

"I don't think it will do much good," he said, but it was playacting, and he suspected she knew it.

"Still," she said, "it is worth hoping. Well, I ought to be going. I have taken up enough of your time. Thank you again for your help." She scooped Zenaida, who had been lounging on a nearby cushion, into her arms.

"You should leave her here," Ismaël said.

"Forgive me, but I will take her with me," Christine said, gently but firmly. "She is my cat now, really - or ought to be. And she is all I have left. If they find me in Erik's lair, you may come collect her from me at the police station."

"Erik entrusted her to me," he protested.

Christine studied him for a moment. "Let her decide," she said after a moment, putting Zenaida down.

"What?"

"Animals can be quite remarkably perceptive," she said. "She will not choose me if I mean any harm."

"What makes you think I suspect you of-"

She almost laughed. "It was rather obvious."

I am getting out of practice, he thought woefully. There had been a time when no one could guess his thoughts. Out loud he said, "Very well. I suppose you are right. Let us see what she has to tell us."

Christine collected her coat. "I am going now, sweet kitten," she said in a gentle voice, giving Zenaida's soft grey fur one last caress. "You may do as you wish." Shrugging the sleeves on, she went to the door.

Zenaida ran after her, crossing in front of her and pressing an entreating paw against her leg. Christine smiled.

Then, however, the little cat turned and ran back across the room, disappearing from sight.

Christine's smiled faded. "Oh. Well… Very well, then," she said with a heavy heart. "She has made her choice."

Ismaël peered after Zenaida. "No," he said after a moment.

"No?"

"I think she wants her carrier," he said, getting up. "Clever animal."

"Her carrier?"

"Yes- Erik brought her in it. Just a moment." He went in the direction Zenaida had gone, disappeared into a closet on the other side of the room, and returned with the article in question.

Christine broke into peals of laughter when she saw it. "That… do you mean Erik brought her in that?"

"Yes."

"Do you mean to say he came here, with his hat and his long black cloak and his leather gloves and his… air of menace, carrying a dainty little wicker cat-carrier that looks like it belongs to a little old lady?" She tried to stifle her giggles and failed.

It was impossible not to like her, he admitted begrudgingly to himself. And why not? He had had plenty of enemies he liked. "I am pleased to say that it happened precisely as you describe it. Simply add that the carrier was emitting periodic small meows, and you shall have it exactly right."

Christine burst into laughter once more.

Zenaida came up to her and rubbed against her legs.

Christine knelt down and happily stroked her fur, cooing delighted nonsense at her. "Clever kitten. Dear sweet pretty girl. Maman loves you. What beautiful blue eyes you have - like blue diamonds. They remind me of your Papa." Her face grew sad again.

"I thought Erik's eyes were green," Ismaël said.

"Mm, it depends on the light." Christine, after kissing the top of Zenaida's head - an indignity which the regal feline bore with grace - stood up.

Ismaël set the little box on the floor.

Zenaida got inside it with only a minimum of coaxing and looked up at Christine with an expression of great trust.

Christine, blinking back tears which may or may not have been genuine, fastened the door shut and picked it up.

Ismaël had a sudden vision of having to tell Erik that he had given his beloved cat away to the woman who had betrayed him with a man who was trying to kill him. That would be awkward to explain! He could only pray he had judged correctly.

Either way, he had a very interesting note to write…

End of Chapter 42.

Thank you so much for reading! Thank you to afaiths, StrangeLove, WolfShadow, WSZ, Marzz, IndyBean, and the lovely guest(s) for the reviews! Love you guys!