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“ No , ” said the Persian sadly . “ I do not hate him . If I hated him , he would have stopped doing harm long ago . ” He climbed onto a stool and pressed a point in the pattern of the wallpaper . Then he crossed the room and put his hand on the great mirror . For a long time nothing happened . “ He knows that I understand his tricks , ” said the Persian , “ and he may have blocked it . In my country he was called the trapdoor lover , because he commands the walls , the doors and the trapdoors . ” “ But why do these walls obey him ? He did not build them ! ” “ Yes , sir , that is exactly what he did . Now hold your pistol up and be ready to fire ! ” Suddenly the mirror turned like a revolving door , and it carried them with it out of the bright light into the deepest darkness . XI . Under the Stage The wall closed behind them . The Persian lit a small dark lantern , and Raoul saw that they were standing in a narrow passage made of wooden boards . This was the secret road which Erik used to reach Christine’s dressing room . It had been built years earlier , during the fighting in Paris in 1871 , when part of the building had been used as a prison . The Persian opened a trapdoor in the floor , and they dropped down into one of the cellars below the stage . Behind a wooden wall they lay flat and listened , because the commissary and the managers were in the next room . Close beside them lay three men . They were not dead , only asleep : they were the men who controlled the gas lights of the stage , and someone had given them a drug . That was how the stage had gone dark at the very moment when Christine disappeared . When the police had gone , the Persian made Raoul stand up . “ Hold your hand in front of you , at the level of your eyes , ” he said , “ with your arm bent , as if you were waiting for the order to fire in a duel . Keep it there , whatever happens . ” “ But it makes my hand tired . If I have to shoot , I shall miss . ” “ It is not a question of shooting . You can put the pistol in your pocket . But keep your hand up ! It is a matter of life and death ! ” They went down from cellar to cellar , past old workmen who spent their lives shutting doors and past firemen on their rounds . As they walked , the Persian explained in a whisper . Years before , he had been the chief of police , the daroga , in the Persian province of Mazenderan . The Shah had heard about a strange man who was showing his magic tricks at fairs in Russia , a man who sang as nobody on earth had ever sung and who could throw his voice anywhere he liked . That man was Erik . The daroga himself had brought him to Persia . There Erik had amused the little queen of the Shah with his terrible games , and he had learned to kill men with a thin rope called the Punjab lasso . He threw it from behind , round a man’s neck , and nobody could escape it .
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