tells him that it is Erik, not Raoul's brother Philippe, who has carried off Christine. He leads Raoul through the passages of the Opera House to Christine's dressing room, where they go through the revolving door hidden in Christine's mirror and travel down through the passages under the Opera. Raoul is very confused as to the purpose of the long pistol the Persian has given him, as he is only instructed to keep his hand as if he were ready to fire - and that it does not even matter whether he is holding the weapon. The Persian eventually reveals that keeping the hand at the level of the eyes is a defense against the Punjab lasso. No matter how expert the thrower is, the lasso cannot be tightened around a neck with a hand blocking its path. When they finally reach the back entrance to Erik's house, where Joseph Buquet was found hanged, they drop into what turns out to be Erik's torture-chamber. This chamber contains heat-reflecting mirrors that reach from floor to ceiling, with an iron tree in a corner, making its occupant feel like he or she is in an unending forest of trees made of iron. (Buquet had stumbled into this room and used a Punjab lasso hanging from a tree branch to commit suicide.) The Persian finds a hidden exit that allows him and Raoul to drop into a still-lower room filled with gunpowder; unless Christine agrees to marry Erik, he will blow up the Opera House. She accepts this offer and water floods into the powder room, nearly drowning Raoul and the Persian. The novel concludes 30 years after these events, with the Persian - now old and sick, and still attended by Darius - telling how he and Raoul were saved from the flood by Erik, who allowed all three captives to go free. He dies five months after giving this account. Adaptations In the 1925 silent film The Phantom Of The Opera, his character was changed into an inspector for the secret police named "Ledoux" who had been investigating Erik for months. He still helps and accompanies Raoul to rescue Christine. Originally, the character was meant to be more like in the novel but his background was changed during the creation of the intertitles for the movie. He still appears to be of Persian descent in the final film, though. In the