Maxim Jakubowski - Paris Noir

‘I would be unable to resist such an invitation,’ said Begg, while Sinclair assented by lowering his magnificent head.

’I think you are right, old friend, in your interpretation of Monsieur Zenith’s communication,’ added Lapointe. ‘Not only will Hitler’s plot be realised in a crowded part of Paris, it will occur before next Sunday.’

’So he suggested. But whether Mrs Persson is party to this plot, we still do not know. The sooner we can question her, I think, the better.’

’Precisely!’ Lapointe inspected his watch. ’Come, gentlemen, there is a powerful car awaiting us! Her batteries are charged and ready!’

So it was that the four men, accompanied by two uniformed sergeants, arrived at the Galerie de I’Horloge with its magnificent glass and wrought-iron roofs and ornate gas lamps, its rows of small shops on either side, and crowded into M. Caron’s little establishment carrying a search warrant, on the excuse that he was known to be selling forbidden material.

Begg felt almost sorry for the little plump, grey-haired print-seller, who visibly shivered in terror at the understanding he was threatened with arrest. When, however, the material which was the excuse for the raid was revealed, Begg’s sympathy disappeared. These were almost certainly pictures taken from the infamous Stadelheim fortress, where prisoners had been tortured, humiliated and subjected to unmentionable sexual horrors. Caron swore that he was not responsible for the material being in his office. ‘It was the woman, I assure you, gentlemen. The Englishwoman. She knows… she…’ And the little man broke down, weeping.

It did not take long to elicit from the print-shop proprietor the secret of Mrs Persson’s ability to vanish. Behind a 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 so-called ”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 gave me the photographs in return for using the door occasionally. They were foreign civilians, they assured me. They spoke poor French, but I could not recognise the accents. As for the woman, she came and went only by day. She never asked to use my premises out of normal hours. I never saw her with anyone else. She was never gone 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. For the moment you will be charged with distributing pornography. Take him away.’

After the proprietor had been led off, still snivelling, the metatemporal detectives settled down to await Mrs Persson’s return, having replaced the door and cabinet exactly as they had discovered it. But the afternoon turned to evening, long after the print-seller would have closed up, and still she made no appearance.

Eventually, Bardot was dispatched to Mrs Persson’s apartments and soon returned to report that her apartment was unoccupied, save for two somewhat hungry and outraged Siamese cats. ‘I fed them and changed their litter, of course, but…’ He shrugged.

This news brought a frown to Begg’s aquiline features. ‘I think I know Mrs Persson pretty well. She would not desert her cats, especially without making arrangements to feed them. She has not only broken her usual habits, but probably did not do so willingly.’

‘My God, Begg! Do you mean she has been captured by whoever it was she has been seeing behind that cabinet? 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.’

‘Her paymasters? They have turned against her? Or did Zenith betray her?’ Lapointe drew a deep breath.

‘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 which public place is under threat. And we have, if Monsieur Zenith told me what I think he did, only three more days at most before they strike! Come on, gentlemen! Help me shift his cabinet.’

The doorway again revealed, Begg took a small but powerful electric lantern from his overcoat pocket and, a serviceable Webley.45 revolver in his other hand, led the way down into the echoing darkness. The two sergeants were left behind to guard the entrance.

From somewhere below there came a slow, rhythmic, almost tuneful booming as if of some great clock. It was a sound familiar to three of the detectives and there was not one in whom it did not cause a thrill of horror. For a second Begg hesitated, and then continued down the long flight of stone steps which revealed, by the marks in the mould which grew inches thick upon them, signs of recent usage.

Only Bardot had not heard the sound before. ‘What on earth is it?’ he enquired of Sinclair.

The pathologist frowned, clearly wondering if he should reply. Then he made up his mind, speaking rapidly and quietly: ‘Well, firstly, old man, it is not exactly of our earth. We believe it is a regulator of sorts. It is what we, who have travelled frequently between the worlds, sometimes refer to as the Cosmic Regulator. Others know it as the Grand Balance. I have heard it more than once, but never seen it. There are many conflicting descriptions. I have wondered if every person who has seen it has imposed their own image upon it. The Regulator is said to lie at the very centre of the multiverse, if the multiverse can be said to possess a centre.’

’Have you ever known anyone who has seen it?’ whispered Bardot, wiping cold sweat from his brow. He had only recently been transferred to the STP.

Sinclair nodded. ‘I believe Begg has set eyes on it, and perhaps Lapointe. But even they, articulate as they are, have never described it. It is often represented in mythological iconography as a kind of scale, with one side representing Chaos and the other Law, but nobody knows its true form, if it has one at all.’

‘Law and Chaos? Are those not Zoroastrian conceptions? The forces which war for control of the world?’

‘So far nobody has ever managed to gain power over the Balance, but should someone eventually succeed, it will mean the end of Time but not of consciousness. If Chaos or Law controls existence, we shall continue to live at the exact moment before the extinction of everything. For eternity! Or so the theory goes. But there will always be madmen to challenge that conception, to believe that by controlling the Cosmic Balance they can exert their own desired reality upon the multiverse. Heaven help us if Hitler and his lunatics are close to making such an attempt!’