Duke Elric - Michael Moorcock [108]
It did not take long to elicit from the print seller the secret of Mrs. Persson's ability to vanish. Behind à large cabinet of prints, he revealed another door with steps leading down into dank darkness which echoed as if into the infinite cosmos. “She—she insisted, messieurs. She knew my shop had once been a gate into the labyrinth. It is by no means the only one leading from the arcades. As I am sure you are aware, the labyrinth has long served as a sanctuary for those who do not wish to be apprehended for a variety of reasons. I wanted nothing to do with it, thus the cabinet pushed against the wall, but the Englishwoman—she knew what was hidden. She demanded to be shown the gate.” Again he began to weep. “She knew about my—little business. She threatened to expose me. The photographs. I was greedy. I should have known not to trust such degenerates.”
Commissaire Lapointe was counting the large denomination banknotes he had discovered in the old man's safe. “Degenerates who were apparently helping to make you rich, m'sieu! We also know about your arms brokering.” He replaced the money in the safe and locked it, pocketing the key. “Have you told us everything? Have the passages been used by members of the German ‘underground’? Is it they who gave you the photographs? In exchange for guns?”
“I don't know who they were. They appeared in this room one day, having pushed aside the cabinet. It's true they had come to know of me through my interest in perfectly legal discontinued ordnance. They supplied the photographs in return for using the door occasionally. They were foreign civilians, they assured me. They spoke poor French, but I could not recognize the accents. As for the woman, she came and went only by day. She only occasionally used my premises out of normal hours. I never saw her with anyone else. She was never below for very long. This is, I promise you, the longest she has ever been d-down there …” With a shudder he turned his back on the mysterious doorway.
“Well,” Lapointe decided, “we shall have to wait for her, I think. Meanwhile, m'sieu, you will be charged with distributing pornography. Take him away.”
After the terrified proprietor had been led off still sniveling, the metatemporal detectives replaced the door and cabinet exactly as they had discovered it and settled down to await Mrs. Persson's return. But the afternoon turned to evening, hours after the print seller would have closed his shop, and still she made no appearance.
Eventually LeBec was dispatched to Mrs. Persson's apartments and soon returned to report that they were unoccupied save for two somewhat hungry and outraged Siamese cats. “I fed them and cleaned their litter, of course, but…” He shrugged.
This news brought a look of concern to Begg's aquiline features. “I think I know Mrs. Persson pretty well. She would not desert her cats, especially without making arrangements to have them fed. She has not only broken her usual habits, but perhaps not willingly.”
“My God, Begg! Do you mean she has been captured by whoever it was she has been seeing in the labyrinth? Murdered. By Zenith, perhaps? Could he be playing a double game?”
“Possibly, old man. Instinct tells me that if she is not found soon, she will be in no condition to help us with our enquiries.”
“Maybe her paymasters have turned against her? Or Zenith has betrayed her?” Lapointe drew a deep breath of air.
“Monsieur le Commissaire, time is in all likelihood running out for Mrs. Persson, if she still lives. We could be further away than we thought from discovering