The mouth that spoke those words seemed to spit the three teeth
that were left to it into Richard's face.
M. Richard behaved like a hero. He retreated no farther.
His threatening forefinger seemed already to be pointing out
the keeper of Box Five to the absent magistrates.
"I am going to have you arrested, Mme. Giry, as a thief!"
"Say that again!"
And Mme. Giry caught Mr. Manager Richard a mighty box on the ear,
before Mr. Manager Mencharmin had time to intervene. But it
was not the withered hand of the angry old beldame that fell on
the managerial ear, but the envelope itself, the cause of all the trouble,
the magic envelope that opened with the blow, scattering the bank-notes,
which escaped in a fantastic whirl of giant butterflies.
The two managers gave a shout, and the same thought made them both
go on their knees, feverishly, picking up and hurriedly examining
the precious scraps of paper.
"Are they still genuine, Moncharmin?"
"Are they still genuine, Richard?"
"Yes, they are still genuine!"
Above their heads, Mme. Giry's three teeth were clashing in a
noisy contest, full of hideous interjections. But all that could
be dearly distinguished was this LEIT-MOTIF:
"I, a thief!...I, a thief, I?"
She choked with rage. She shouted:
"I never heard of such a thing!"
And, suddenly, she darted up to Richard again.
"In any case," she yelped, "you, M. Richard, ought to know better
than I where the twenty thousand francs went to!"
"I?" asked Richard, astounded. "And how should I know?"
Moncharmin, looking severe and dissatisfied, at once insisted
that the good lady should explain herself.
"What does this mean, Mme. Giry?" he asked. "And why do you say that
M. Richard ought to know better than you where the twenty-thousand
francs went to?"
As for Richard, who felt himself turning red under Moncharmin's eyes,
he took Mme. Giry by the wrist and shook it violently. In a voice
growling and rolling like thunder, he roared:
"Why should I know better than you where the twenty-thousand francs
went to? Why? Answer me!"
"Because they went into your pocket!" gasped the old woman,
looking at him as if he were the devil incarnate.
Richard would have rushed upon Mme. Giry, if Moncharmin had not
stayed his avenging hand and hastened to ask her, more gently:
"How can you suspect my partner, M. Richard, of putting twenty-thousand
francs in his pocket?"
"I never said that," declared Mme. Giry, "seeing that it was myself
who put the twenty-thousand francs into M. Richard's pocket."
And she added, under her voice, "There! It's out!...And may
the ghost forgive me!"
Richard began bellowing anew, but Moncharmin authoritatively ordered
him to be silent.
"Allow me! Allow me! Let the woman explain herself. Let me
question her." And he added: "It is really astonishing that you
should take up such a tone!...We are on the verge of clearing
up the whole mystery. And you're in a rage!...You're wrong
to behave like that... I'm enjoying myself immensely."
Mme. Giry, like the martyr that she was, raised her head, her face
beaming with faith in her own innocence.
"You tell me there were twenty-thousand francs in the envelope
which I put into M. Richard's pocket; but I tell you again that I
knew nothing about it... Nor M. Richard either, for that matter!"
"Aha!" said Richard, suddenly assuming a swaggering air which
Moncharmin did not like. "I knew nothing either! You put
twenty-thousand francs in my pocket and I knew nothing either!
I am very glad to hear it, Mme. Giry!"
"Yes," the terrible dame agreed, "yes, it's true. We neither of us
knew anything. But you, you must have ended by finding out!"
Richard would certainly have swallowed Mme. Giry alive,
if Moncharmin had not been there! But Moncharmin protected her.
He resumed his questions:
"What sort of envelope did you put in M. Richard's pocket?
It was not the one which we gave you, the one which you took to Box
Five before our eyes; and yet that was the one which contained
the twenty-thousand francs."
"I beg your pardon. The envelope which M. le Directeur gave
me was the one which I slipped into M. le Directeur's pocket,"
explained Mme. Giry. "The one which I took to the ghost's box was
another envelope, just like it, which the ghost gave me beforehand
and which I hid up my sleeve."
So saying, Mme. Giry took from her sleeve an envelope ready prepared
and similarly addressed to that containing the twenty-thousand francs.
The managers took it from her. They examined it and saw that it
was fastened with seals stamped with their own managerial seal.
They opened it. It contained twenty Bank of St. Farce notes like
those which had so much astounded them the month before.
"How simple!" said Richard.
"How simple!" repeated Moncharmin. And he continued with his eyes
fixed upon Mme. Giry, as though trying to hypnotize her.
"So it was the ghost who gave you this envelope and told you to
substitute it for the one which we gave you? And it was the ghost
who told you to put the other into M. Richard's pocket?"
"Yes, it was the ghost."
"Then would you mind giving us a specimen of your little talents?
Here is the envelope. Act as though we knew nothing."
"As you please, gentlemen."
Mme. Giry took the envelope with the twenty notes inside
it and made for the door. She was on the point of going
out when the two managers rushed at her:
"Oh, no! Oh, no! We're not going to be ‘done' a second time!
Once bitten, twice shy!"
"I beg your pardon, gentlemen," said the old woman, in self-excuse,
"you told me to act as though you knew nothing....Well,
if you knew nothing, I should go away with your envelope!"
"And then how would you slip it into my pocket?" argued Richard,
whom Moncharmin fixed with his left eye, while keeping his right on
Mme. Giry: a proceeding likely to strain his sight, but Mon-MME. GIRY'
charmin was prepared to go to any length to discover the truth.
"I am to slip it into your pocket when you least expect it, sir.
You know that I always take a little turn behind the scenes,
in the course of the evening, and I often go with my daughter
to the ballet-foyer, which I am entitled to do, as her mother;
I bring her her shoes, when the ballet is about to begin...in fact,
I come and go as I please....The subscribers come and go too.
... So do you, sir....There are lots of people about...
I go behind you and slip the envelope into the tail-pocket of your
dress-coat....There's no witchcraft about that!"
"No witchcraft!" growled Richard, rolling his eyes like Jupiter Tonans.
"No witchcraft! Why, I've just caught you in a lie, you old witch!"
Mme. Giry bristled, with her three teeth sticking out of her mouth.
"And why, may I ask?"
"Because I spent that evening watching Box Five and the sham envelope
which you put there. I did not go to the ballet-foyer for a second."
"No, sir, and I did not give you the envelope that evening, but at
the next performance...on the evening when the under-secretary
of state for fine arts..."
At these words, M. Richard suddenly interrupted Mme. Giry:
"Yes, that's true, I remember now! The under-secretary went behind
the scenes. He asked for me. I went down to the ballet-foyer
for a moment. I was on the foyer steps....The under-secretary
and his chief clerk were in the foyer itself. I suddenly turned
around...you had passed behind me, Mme. Giry... You seemed
to push against me....Oh, I can see you still, I can see you still!"
"Yes, that's it, sir, that's it. I had just finished my little business.
That pocket of yours, sir, is very handy!"
And Mme. Giry once more suited the action to the word, She passed
behind M. Richard and, so nimbly that Moncharmin himself was impressed
by it, slipped the envelope into the pocket of one of the tails
of M. Richard's dress-coat.
"Of course!" exclaimed Richard, looking a little pale. "It's very
clever of O. G. The problem which he had to solve was this:
how to do away with any dangerous intermediary between the man
who gives the twenty-thousand francs and the man who receives it.
And by far the best thing he could hit upon was to come and take
the money from my pocket without my noticing it, as I myself did not
know that it was there. It's wonderful!"
"Oh, wonderful, no doubt!" Moncharmin agreed. "Only, you forget,
Richard, that I provided ten-thousand francs of the twenty
and that nobody put anything in my pocket!"