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Back at the Stalactite Saloon, I was once again talking to the old doorman at the stage door. "Good morning, Mister Gask," he said, touching his hat in salute. "And good morning to you," I responded in my best cheery voice, "I'm here to see Mister Broxden again." "Yes, of course sir. You'll find him in his office," he said, opening the door for me politely, "Can you find your way?" "I'm sure I can," I answered, "And thank you." So I'm now part of the family, I thought, at least as far as he's concerned. Come and go as I please, I expect, with no questions asked. Excellent. I followed my nose along the corridors, following the route that Broxden had led me yesterday, while trying to get a feel for the layout of the place. It was a bit of a warren down here, I concluded, and probably worth exploring more carefully when I got the opportunity. But it was clearly a busy space, a place where people did things at speed, even though they also tended to leave a fair amount of junk - or at least, currently surplus to requirements - cluttering up the place. It was relatively quiet in the corridors at this late-morning hour. I guess that stage performers and nightclub staff are unlikely to be early birds, after all. I attracted no more than a handful of glances as I strode along, looking as if I knew where I was going - mostly true - and nobody seemed to express any surprise at my actions. I reached the door of Broxden's office and was about to knock when I heard the sound of the bossman's voice coming from another room, one with an open door just across the corridor. I put my head inside. This was some kind of administration area. There were several desks, lots of filing cabinets and the kind of paraphernalia which accumulates in offices everywhere, in my experience. The desks were manned, for want of a better word, by a trio of middle-aged female Goblins who looked as if they had each made "administrative efficiency" their life's work, with a side-order of down-to-earth no-nonsense attitude to boot. Broxden seemed to be engaged in a detailed debate over a thick document or report of some kind, with the slight suggestion that he was being instructed on the correct outcome. Almost certainly, these matrons really did run the show, at least as far as the business side was concerned: they paid the salaries, kept the books, balanced the budgets and managed the petty cash. These ladies were the ones who were making sure Broxden made money from his business activities. I knocked politely on the inside of the open door and stepped through. "Ah, Mister Gask," Broxden said, straightening up as he saw me. He nodded to the matron with whom he had been tussling over the report, then walked quickly in the direction of his own office. I followed closely. Once inside, he closed the door firmly and spun around to face me. "Are you getting anywhere?" he asked urgently, "I don't want Machany getting upset. Or the other performers, for that matter. I need some good news." "I'm on the trail of where the cameras are coming from, up on the surface," I said blandly, "And I remain convinced it's an inside job. I believe I'm on the verge of identifying the person hiding them." I carefully omitted to tell him that the best candidate for the pervert hiding the cameras in the first place had been found lying dead in an alley. I figured that news could keep, especially if there were bigger things going on around here. Besides, Drumfin might not have been working alone; there could be a whole cadre of Peeping Toms sweating over images of lovely ladies wearing very little. "Okay," Broxden said, "I need you to wrap this up quickly. Whatever it takes." I nodded in agreement.
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Part 37