Janson’s pulse quickened as he stood before the door. The lock was many decades old, and more of a formality than anything. If an intruder had got this far, a lock on a door was unlikely to stop him. It was, as a quick inspection confirmed, a wafer tumbler lock, probably of mid-century design. Such locks, Janson knew, used flat rectangles of metal, not pins, and the springs were placed inside the cylinder itself rather than in the lock shell. He produced a small tension wrench; in shape it resembled a dental pick, but was little larger than a matchstick. He placed the bent end of the wrench in the keyway, pushing on its far end, so as to maximize both the torque and his tactile sensitivity. Each would be important. One by one, he pulled each tumbler away from the shear line. After ten seconds, the tumblers had been picked. The lock was not yet ready to open, however. Now he inserted a second tool, a pick of carbide steel, thin yet inflexible, and began applying clockwise torque.

Holding his breath, he kept both instruments in the keyway as he heard the tongue withdraw and used the tension to pull the door toward him, just a few inches. The door swung easily on well-oiled hinges. Those hinges had to be well oiled: as it opened, he saw that the door was fully eighteen inches thick. The governor general may have placed a dungeon beneath his feet, but he wished to be spared even the faintest echoes of whatever cries might come from it.

Janson opened the door a few more inches, standing now a foot away from the entrance, in case someone was lying in wait.

Slowly, carefully, he verified that at least the immediate passageway was clear. Now he walked through the door, to a stone landing worn smooth with time, and, using his electrical tape, he secured the brass tongue to the door so that it would not relock.

And he began to make his way down the stairs. At least they were stone, not creaking wood. A few more steps down the landing led to a second impediment, a hinged grate of steel bars.

The portcullis-like grate succumbed to his slim tools without difficulty; unlike the stone door above, however, it was far from soundless.

It opened with a distinct scraping noise, of metal against stone—one that the assembled guards could not have failed to hear.

Astonishingly, they did not react. Why? Another decoy? Birds on a wire—this time a flock of them?

A flurry of thoughts ran though Janson’s mind. Then he caught the word Theyilai!

Even with his guidebook Anuran, he knew that word: tea. The guards were expecting somebody—somebody coming with a samovar of tea for them. That was why they did not start at the noise. On the other hand, if that tea did not arrive soon, they would grow suspicious.