Let's play along for now, but trick him when we get the chance.

Dark and dank again down in the catacombs, through the twisting tunnels and back across the underground lake, and this time William had an unhelpful passenger dangling limply across his shoulder and tied up in a curtain. It was annoying.

There was the Phantom up ahead, lantern in hand, long black cape fluttering in a draft William could not detect. Somehow his unmoving mask looked downright eager as he ushered William into his lair again. "Put her down" he said, "don't cart her around like a sack." William obliged, gently lowering his burden to the table. "She had better not be bruised," the Phantom said.

"Don't worry," said William. "She's tougher than she looks." And the figure in the curtain sat up, and the Phantom was staring down the barrel of a gun.

"Ne bouge pas," said the man on the table, kicking away the remains of the curtain. Contrary to the order, the Phantom's hand went to his dagger, though he didn't draw it.

"Vicomte de Chagny," he said. Then, to William: "You've betrayed me. You'll never leave this place alive..."

But at that very moment, blue-jacketed men with rifles poured into the Phantom's lair, barrels trained on him. "Vous êtes en état d'arrestation!" they cried. The Phantom spun around, looking left and right, but he was surrounded. He reached under the folds of his cape, and every finger tightened on its trigger...

And then he was gone! He winked out of sight as if he were nothing but a soap bubble bursting apart. The policemen gasped and spun around, certain he'd reappear behind them, but nothing was there. The Vicomte ordered a search of the entire lair, but William shook his head. "You'll never find him."

"Stage tricks aren't enough to keep him hidden forever," said the Vicomte.

"Maybe, maybe not," said William. "But I brought you here all the same, so I expect to be compensated. That was the deal: I show you to his hideout, you give me the relic." Indeed, during the search, the police found exactly what William had expected to see: A heavy bronze chest, and inside it a splintering wooden one, and inside that, wrapped in cloth, a scroll of papyrus.

"The Scroll of Thoth," the Vicomte said, surprising William by recognizing it. "It seems a crime in itself to let someone like you walk out of here with this, Talbot...but a deal is a deal."

"My thoughts exactly," said William, sliding the scroll into a hard case and tucking it under his arm. "As for me, I'm getting the hell out of Paris for good. The last thing I need is a noose in the middle of the night."

The Vicomte looked as if he didn't entirely agree, but William didn't care. After all, he reminded himself, this was about business.