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I stepped lively, striding along swinging the featherweight burgundy briefcase jauntily, as if I didn't have a care in the world. No-one seemed to be following me, and I was careful to make sure that this actually was the case. I stopped at irregular intervals to admire the view, or to sniff at a particularly fragrant display of decorative fungi emerging from the walls and window-boxes of dwellings of the more house-proud local residents. I also stopped at a telephone box, not actually to make a call, although any bystander might have thought that I had spent several minutes in animated conversation. In truth, for anyone I wanted to speak to right now I would have to do so in person. They would not be the kind of individual who would respond to a letter or even answer a telephone call. Appear in the flesh and they might consider talking to you, if they felt like it; if they didn't feel like it, then you wouldn't see them at all, or even realise that someone actually lived at that particular address. None of my senses indicated that anyone was following me or giving me anything more than the most cursory of glances. It was time, I thought, to stow the bag in some secure repository and then go see someone I could rely on, someone who owed me a favour or two. Some of my best hidey-holes are well out of the way of everyday Goblin territories, or even awareness. The one I had in mind was actually in the surface world, the human world. Transport to and from the surface is easy enough to arrange, for those with the right level of clearance. This is something that goes with the territory in my case, as well as with the official Private Investigator's badge I carry in my wallet at all times. The vertical transits are commonplace, being just a re-oriented version of the transit tubes used to link the populated caverns together. Of course, you have to pick the right exit point. I made my way swiftly through a couple of the entrances and exits of the everyday transit system to the exit I had in mind, flashed my badge casually at the two uniformed border guards and stepped into the opening that would magically - and swiftly - propel me to the surface. I emerged in a quiet corner of an otherwise bustling concourse, the clatter of wheels and the buzz of conversation echoing off the concrete arches of the ceiling. The noise and movement served to mask my sudden arrival from an unremarked area of blank wall. I slipped on my sunglasses and pulled my hat down over my eyes and ears, and buttoned my coat up to the chin. I stood as straight as I could, hunching my shoulders to shorten the appearance of my arms, and moved swiftly across the open-plan plaza of the Swiss railway station terminus. It was a roofed space that a human would probably describe as 'vast', although it was a pale shadow of the truly huge caverns which make up the lower world. No-one was paying me any particular attention as I stopped in front of a bank of left luggage lockers, the triple row of stainless steel doors stretching away on either side. Some years before, I had surreptitiously modified one of the secure lockers in this bank with a couple of items of Goblin magic. The first replaced the crude human-made mechanical lock with a much more cunning magical one, although of course it appeared identical from the outside. The other glamour added a degree of reinforcement that made that particular flimsy metal locker highly resistant to attack from jemmy or crowbar, or even oxy-acetylene torches. I took a small flat piece of polished metal from my pocket. It might have been a key of some sort once, although nothing to do with the locker in front of me. It was just for show, in case some inquisitive human glanced in my direction at the wrong moment. The lock opened as it recognised my hand, and I swung up the briefcase and slotted it neatly inside. I pushed the door closed, listening for the triple click that indicated that all of the protections had re-engaged themselves, then strode back to the hidden exit I had used just a few minutes before. Oh, and perhaps I should mention, that expression about the Gnomes of Zurich? It's not just a metaphor, you know. Goblins do indeed have interests, even now, in human financial circles. But that must be a story for another time. Now it was time to see a man about a proper key.
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Part 23