Author's note: This is an excellent chapter for jumping to conclusions. But I have to warn you: Things are not always the way they seem... especially not in my stories.

Chapter One Hundred and Eleven

September 17th 1892: ???

My lips were curled into a thin smile as I left the house. Once more, I had been right: One could find out everything, if only one had the right methods. Money was an incentive that made almost all people talk. Yet ever since I had paid the beggars, there wasn't much money left in my pocket. The area in which I earned a living wasn't exactly one that came with a regular income.

Anyway, since money had been out of the question, I had used my favourite way of persuasion: threats. Recalling the little scene made my smile widen. ´I've heard you have a small daughter,´ I had said, opening my jacket casually, just long enough for the housekeeper to see the shining metal of my pistol in the inner pocket. The woman had grown pale. ´W-what do you w-w-want?" she had stammered. ´Information,´ I had replied simply. And that was what I had got.

It never ceased to amaze me how easy it was to scare people. One just had to know what frightened them most. Usually threats involving children worked best, closely followed by husbands and wives. I had so much experience in that kind of thing that I could have written a book about it… if I had known how to write, that was.

I had found out everything I had wanted to. Once her fear had worn off enough to allow her to speak complete sentences, the housekeeper had answered all my questions. She had told me that her employer was currently visiting his wife in hospital because she had given birth the day before. Of course I didn't care about some man and his brat, but only about his business partner, Comte Raoul de Chagny. Yet I had also found out that he was staying in Oslo at the moment and that no one knew exactly when he'd come back to France.

Walking into a narrow side street to avoid the afternoon traffic, I realised this left me with one question unanswered: Who was the man who was staying with Mme. de Chagny and the children? I hadn't seen him arrive at the house, so I assumed it had happened in the afternoon the day before yesterday, when I had been gone for a couple of hours because I had had other business to do.

Involuntarily I reached down and rubbed my bruised ribcage, wincing softly. My master had not been pleased about my absence at such an important event. If I didn't tell him the man's identity soon… I shuddered. It was better not to think about it. The housekeeper had said she were in the dark about a man in the de Chagny house, and I didn't think she'd have dared lie to me.

Unfortunately I hadn't even seen the man properly yet. In the park I had only been able to hide behind a few bushes far away from the bench where the man had been sitting with Mme. de Chagny, so I had only seen him from behind. So far, I knew that he was very tall, had dark hair and wore black clothes. That wasn't enough to ask around in the street. Even my cousin, who knew everyone in Paris, had only shaken his head about such vague a description.

At the moment, Victor was following them. Perhaps he'd be luckier than me or the other men who had tried to catch a glimpse of the mysterious companion of Mme. de Chagny. Of course this was not about moral or similar nonsense. We didn't care about who that woman took to her bed when her husband wasn't around. I grinned. She was a pretty little thing. I certainly wouldn't have minded being taken to her bed. Yet those were just my private thoughts, fuelled by the long hours I had spent in her garden last night, watching the windows.

My master, however, was only interested in whether the man was hired to guarantee the family's safety. If he was a policeman, for example, we couldn't just kill him and proceed with our plans as if nothing had happened. Killing a policeman would get us into deep trouble. Usually I didn't care about a bit of trouble. Yet my master had explained that we had to be careful not to draw too much attention on ourselves. Once the police was involved, things would get much harder for us.

Sometimes I thought that my master already had a suspicion who the man was. Yet I never asked him. I might have been stupid, but I wasn't that stupid. I wasn't being paid for curiosity. Besides, asking too many questions had caused many shattered bones among our people, and I wasn't too keen on having my nose broken a second time within three months.

It was true that I didn't have the nicest company possible, but it could have been worse. Who else would have hired a man who had spent a few years in prison? I had to be happy about what I had, even if it meant doing things that were simply disgusting. I was glad that Victor had taken over the task involving the intestines. When he had told me about it over lunch, I had nearly thrown up, which probably was what he had wanted. No, I clearly preferred threatening people. It meant much less blood… at least most of the time.

Even though the payment wasn't too bad, I'd have turned my back on my master by now… if it hadn't been for my mistress. I gave a little sigh, left the side street and crossed the street so suddenly that I was almost hit by a passing coach. I yelled a few curses and continued my way on the other side of the road.

It was always like that: Thinking of my mistress meant trouble. It had made me miss the window I had been supposed to smash and put only a small dead bird into the box, giving the cat I should have killed to my mistress as a present. Fortunately those actions had still had the intended effect, so that my master hadn't punished me… mainly because he hadn't found out about my mistakes yet.

But all that would be nothing compared to his fury if he found out about my feelings for my mistress. I'd be a dead man. No one was supposed to know about my secret, yet I thought my companions suspected something. ´You're growing all misty-eyed again,´ they teased me every now and then. ´What's the matter with you lately?´ I never gave an answer, afraid my voice would tremble and give away my feelings.

So often I had tried to pull myself together, to look into the other direction when she passed me, to keep my heart from beating wildly, but it had never worked. I had seen quite a few women in my life, yet not even Mme. de Chagny, who was a particularly fine one, could be compared to my mistress. I loved everything about her: her hair, her eyes, her voice, the way she walked… everything.

She was the most important reason why I was still working for my master. The de Chagnys had insulted her, and we were there to take revenge. I didn't know how they had insulted her, but it had surely been terrible, or my master wouldn't have been forced to start all this. When I was lying on my stinking mattress at night, I often imagined the things that had happened to my mistress. It made me very angry. If only I could have been there for her at that time! Maybe she'd have even been grateful enough to fall in love with me.

I had to fulfil my tasks in the best way possible. It was my only chance to attract the attention of my mistress. I imagined her running to me, taking me into her arms and kissing me in front of everybody else. It was one of my more pleasant day-dreams. Before I had met her, I hadn't been one to dream a lot, yet that was one of the many things which had changed under that woman's influence.

It all depended on what my master called ´the big finale´. So far, I only knew that it would mean the end of what we had been doing for the last days, and that it would probably happen at night-time. None of us knew the whole plan. According to my master, it was like that because he didn't want to risk one of us betraying him at the last second, yet personally I suspected he wasn't sure about it himself. The love for my intact nose, however, made me remain silent about that, too.

Finally I had reached my destination and entered a small shop. There were a few things I had to get for the big finale… whatever that was.