Books: The Phantom of the Opera
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Gaston Leroux >> The Phantom of the Opera
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1885. Meg Giry, Empress!
Exhausted by this supreme effort, the box-keeper fell into
a chair, saying:
"Gentlemen, the letter was signed, `Opera Ghost.' I had heard much
of the ghost, but only half believed in him. From the day when he
declared that my little Meg, the flesh of my flesh, the fruit
of my womb, would be empress, I believed in him altogether."
And really it was not necessary to make a long study of Mme. Giry's
excited features to understand what could be got out of that fine
intellect with the two words "ghost" and "empress."
But who pulled the strings of that extraordinary puppet?
That was the question.
"You have never seen him; he speaks to you and you believe all he says?"
asked Moncharmin.
"Yes. To begin with, I owe it to him that my little Meg was promoted
to be the leader of a row. I said to the ghost, `If she is to be empress
in 1885, there is no time to lose; she must become a leader at once.'
He said, `Look upon it as done.' And he had only a word to say
to M. Poligny and the thing was done."
"So you see that M. Poligny saw him!"
"No, not any more than I did; but he heard him. The ghost said
a word in his ear, you know, on the evening when he left Box Five,
looking so dreadfully pale."
Moncharmin heaved a sigh. "What a business!" he groaned.
"Ah!" said Mme. Giry. "I always thought there were secrets between
the ghost and M. Poligny. Anything that the ghost asked M. Poligny
to do M. Poligny did. M. Poligny could refuse the ghost nothing."
"You hear, Richard: Poligny could refuse the ghost nothing."
"Yes, yes, I hear!" said Richard. "M. Poligny is a friend of
the ghost; and, as Mme. Giry is a friend of M. Poligny, there we are!
... But I don't care a hang about M. Poligny," he added roughly.
"The only person whose fate really interests me is Mme. Giry.
... Mme. Giry, do you know what is in this envelope?"
"Why, of course not," she said.
"Well, look."
Mine. Giry looked into the envelope with a lackluster eye,
which soon recovered its brilliancy.
"Thousand-franc notes!" she cried.
"Yes, Mme. Giry, thousand-franc notes! And you knew it!"
"I, sir? I?...I swear..."
"Don't swear, Mme. Giry!...And now I will tell you the second
reason why I sent for you. Mme. Giry, I am going to have you arrested."
The two black feathers on the dingy bonnet, which usually affected
the attitude of two notes of interrogation, changed into two notes
of exclamation; as for the bonnet itself, it swayed in menace
on the old lady's tempestuous chignon. Surprise, indignation,
protest and dismay were furthermore displayed by little Meg's mother
in a sort of extravagant movement of offended virtue, half bound,
half slide, that brought her right under the nose of M. Richard,
who could not help pushing back his chair.
"HAVE ME ARRESTED!"
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 Moncharmin 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 clearly 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 Moncharmin
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!"
Chapter XVII The Safety-Pin Again
Moncharmin's last phrase so dearly expressed the suspicion in which he
now held his partner that it was bound to cause a stormy explanation,
at the end of which it was agreed that Richard should yield to all
Moncharmin's wishes, with the object of helping him to discover
the miscreant who was victimizing them.
This brings us to the interval after the Garden Act, with the strange
conduct observed by M. Remy and those curious lapses from the dignity
that might be expected of the managers. It was arranged between
Richard and Moncharmin, first, that Richard should repeat the exact
movements which he had made on the night of the disappearance
of the first twenty-thousand francs; and, second, that Moncharmin
should not for an instant lose sight of Richard's coat-tail pocket,
into which Mme. Giry was to slip the twenty-thousand francs.
M. Richard went and placed himself at the identical spot where he
had stood when he bowed to the under-secretary for fine arts.
M. Moncharmin took up his position a few steps behind him.
Mme. Giry passed, rubbed up against M. Richard, got rid of her
twenty-thousand francs in the manager's coat-tail pocket
and disappeared....Or rather she was conjured away.
In accordance with the instructions received from Moncharmin a few
minutes earlier, Mercier took the good lady to the acting-manager's
office and turned the key on her, thus making it impossible
for her to communicate with her ghost.
Meanwhile, M. Richard was bending and bowing and scraping and
walking backward, just as if he had that high and mighty minister,
the under-secretary for fine arts, before him. Only, though these
marks of politeness would have created no astonishment if the
under-secretary of state had really been in front of M. Richard,
they caused an easily comprehensible amazement to the spectators
of this very natural but quite inexplicable scene when M. Richard
had no body in front of him.
M. Richard bowed...to nobody; bent his back...before nobody;
and walked backward...before nobody....And, a few steps
behind him, M. Moncharmin did the same thing that he was doing
in addition to pushing away M. Remy and begging M. de La Borderie,
the ambassador, and the manager of the Credit Central "not to touch
M. le Directeur."
Moncharmin, who had his own ideas, did not want Richard to come
to him presently, when the twenty-thousand francs were gone,
and say:
"Perhaps it was the ambassador...or the manager of the Credit
Central...or Remy."
The more so as, at the time of the first scene,
as Richard himself admitted, Richard had met nobody
in that part of the theater after Mme. Giry had brushed up against him. ...
Having begun by walking backward in order to bow, Richard continued
to do so from prudence, until he reached the passage leading
to the offices of the management. In this way, he was constantly
watched by Moncharmin from behind and himself kept an eye on any
one approaching from the front. Once more, this novel method
of walking behind the scenes, adopted by the managers of our
National Academy of Music, attracted attention; but the managers
themselves thought of nothing but their twenty-thousand francs.
On reaching the half-dark passage, Richard said to Moncharmin,
in a low voice:
"I am sure that nobody has touched me....You had now better
keep at some distance from me and watch me till I come to door
of the office: it is better not to arouse suspicion and we can
see anything that happens."
But Moncharmin replied. "No, Richard, no! You walk ahead and I'll
walk immediately behind you! I won't leave you by a step!"
"But, in that case," exclaimed Richard, "they will never steal
our twenty-thousand francs!"
"I should hope not, indeed!" declared Moncharmin.
"Then what we are doing is absurd!"
"We are doing exactly what we did last time....Last time,
I joined you as you were leaving the stage and followed close behind
you down this passage."
"That's true!" sighed Richard, shaking his head and passively
obeying Moncharmin.
Two minutes later, the joint managers locked themselves into
their office. Moncharmin himself put the key in his pocket:
"We remained locked up like this, last time," he said, "until you
left the Opera to go home."
"That's so. No one came and disturbed us, I suppose?"
"No one."
"Then," said Richard, who was trying to collect his memory, "then I
must certainly have been robbed on my way home from the Opera."
"No," said Moncharmin in a drier tone than ever, "no, that's impossible.
For I dropped you in my cab. The twenty-thousand francs disappeared
at your place: there's not a shadow of a doubt about that."
"It's incredible!" protested Richard. "I am sure of my servants...
and if one of them had done it, he would have disappeared since."
Moncharmin shrugged his shoulders, as though to say that he
did not wish to enter into details, and Richard began to think
that Moncharmin was treating him in a very insupportable fashion.
"Moncharmin, I've had enough of this!"
"Richard, I've had too much of it!"
"Do you dare to suspect me?"
"Yes, of a silly joke."
"One doesn't joke with twenty-thousand francs."
"That's what I think," declared Moncharmin, unfolding a newspaper
and ostentatiously studying its contents.
"What are you doing?" asked Richard. "Are you going to read
the paper next?"
"Yes, Richard, until I take you home."
"Like last time?"
"Yes, like last time."
Richard snatched the paper from Moncharmin's hands.
Moncharmin stood up, more irritated than ever, and found himself
faced by an exasperated Richard, who, crossing his arms on his chest, said:
"Look here, I'm thinking of this, I'M THINKING OF WHAT I MIGHT
THINK if, like last time, after my spending the evening alone
with you, you brought me home and if, at the moment of parting,
I perceived that twenty-thousand francs had disappeared from my
coat-pocket...like last time."
"And what might you think?" asked Moncharmin, crimson with rage.
"I might think that, as you hadn't left me by a foot's breadth
and as, by your own wish, you were the only one to approach me,
like last time, I might think that, if that twenty-thousand francs
was no longer in my pocket, it stood a very good chance of being
in yours!"
Moncharmin leaped up at the suggestion.
"Oh!" he shouted. "A safety-pin!"
"What do you want a safety-pin for?"
"To fasten you up with!...A safety-pin!...A safety-pin!"
"You want to fasten me with a safety-pin?"
"Yes, to fasten you to the twenty-thousand francs! Then, whether
it's here, or on the drive from here to your place, or at your place,
you will feel the hand that pulls at your pocket and you will
see if it's mine! Oh, so you're suspecting me now, are you?
A safety-pin!"
And that was the moment when Moncharmin opened the door
on the passage and shouted:
"A safety-pin!...somebody give me a safety-pin!"
And we also know how, at the same moment, Remy, who had no safety-pin,
was received by Moncharmin, while a boy procured the pin so eagerly
longed for. And what happened was this: Moncharmin first locked
the door again. Then he knelt down behind Richard's back.
"I hope," he said, "that the notes are still there?"
"So do I," said Richard.
"The real ones?" asked Moncharmin, resolved not to be "had" this time.
"Look for yourself," said Richard. "I refuse to touch them."
Moncharmin took the envelope from Richard's pocket and drew
out the bank-notes with a trembling hand, for, this time,
in order frequently to make sure of the presence of the notes,
he had not sealed the envelope nor even fastened it. He felt
reassured on finding that they were all there and quite genuine.
He put them back in the tail-pocket and pinned them with great care.
Then he sat down behind Richard's coat-tails and kept his eyes
fixed on them, while Richard, sitting at his writing-table, did
not stir.
"A little patience, Richard," said Moncharmin. "We have only
a few minutes to wait....The clock will soon strike twelve.
Last time, we left at the last stroke of twelve."
"Oh, I shall have all the patience necessary!"
The time passed, slow, heavy, mysterious, stifling. Richard tried
to laugh.
"I shall end by believing in the omnipotence of the ghost," he said.
"Just now, don't you find something uncomfortable, disquieting,
alarming in the atmosphere of this room?"
"You're quite right," said Moncharmin, who was really impressed.
"The ghost!" continued Richard, in a low voice, as though fearing lest
he should be overheard by invisible ears. "The ghost! Suppose, all
the same, it were a ghost who puts the magic envelopes on the table
... who talks in Box Five...who killed Joseph Buquet...
who unhooked the chandelier...and who robs us! For, after all,
after all, after all, there is no one here except you and me,
and, if the notes disappear and neither you nor I have anything to
do with it, well, we shall have to believe in the ghost...in the ghost."
At that moment, the clock on the mantlepiece gave its warning click
and the first stroke of twelve struck.
The two managers shuddered. The perspiration streamed from
their foreheads. The twelfth stroke sounded strangely in their ears.
When the clock stopped, they gave a sigh and rose from their chairs.
"I think we can go now," said Moncharmin.
"I think so," Richard a agreed.
"Before we go, do you mind if I look in your pocket?"
"But, of course, Moncharmin, YOU MUST!...Well?" he asked,
as Moncharmin was feeling at the pocket.
"Well, I can feel the pin."
"Of course, as you said, we can't be robbed without noticing it."
But Moncharmin, whose hands were still fumbling, bellowed:
"I can feel the pin, but I can't feel the notes!"
"Come, no joking, Moncharmin!...This isn't the time for it."
"Well, feel for yourself."
Richard tore off his coat. The two managers turned the pocket
inside out. THE POCKET WAS EMPTY. And the curious thing was
that the pin remained, stuck in the same place.
Richard and Moncharmin turned pale. There was no longer any doubt
about the witchcraft.
"The ghost!" muttered Moncharmin.
But Richard suddenly sprang upon his partner.
"No one but you has touched my pocket! Give me back my twenty-thousand
francs!...Give me back my twenty-thousand francs!..."
"On my soul," sighed Moncharmin, who was ready to swoon, "on my soul,
I swear that I haven't got it!"
Then somebody knocked at the door. Moncharmin opened it automatically,
seemed hardly to recognize Mercier, his business-manager, exchanged
a few words with him, without knowing what he was saying and,
with an unconscious movement, put the safety-pin, for which he
had no further use, into the hands of his bewildered subordinate....
Chapter XVIII The Commissary, The Viscount and the Persian
The first words of the commissary of police, on entering
the managers' office, were to ask after the missing prima donna.
"Is Christine Daae here?"
"Christine Daae here?" echoed Richard. "No. Why?"
As for Moncharmin, he had not the strength left to utter a word.
Richard repeated, for the commissary and the compact crowd which
had followed him into the office observed an impressive silence.
"Why do you ask if Christine Daae is here, M. LE COMMISSAIRE?"
"Because she has to be found," declared the commissary of police solemnly.
"What do you mean, she has to be found? Has she disappeared?"
"In the middle of the performance!"
"In the middle of the performance? This is extraordinary!"
"Isn't it? And what is quite as extraordinary is that you should
first learn it from me!"
"Yes," said Richard, taking his head in his hands and muttering.
"What is this new business? Oh, it's enough to make a man send in
his resignation!"
And he pulled a few hairs out of his mustache without even knowing
what he was doing.
"So she...so she disappeared in the middle of the performance?"
he repeated.
"Yes, she was carried off in the Prison Act, at the moment when she
was invoking the aid of the angels; but I doubt if she was carried
off by an angel."
"And I am sure that she was!"
Everybody looked round. A young man, pale and trembling
with excitement, repeated:
"I am sure of it!"
"Sure of what?" asked Mifroid.
"That Christine Daae was carried off by an angel, M. LE COMMISSAIRE
and I can tell you his name."
"Aha, M. le Vicomte de Chagny! So you maintain that Christine Daae
was carried off by an angel: an angel of the Opera, no doubt?"
"Yes, monsieur, by an angel of the Opera; and I will tell you
where he lives...when we are alone."
"You are right, monsieur."
And the commissary of police, inviting Raoul to take a chair,
cleared the room of all the rest, excepting the managers.
Then Raoul spoke:
"M. le Commissaire, the angel is called Erik, he lives in the Opera
and he is the Angel of Music!"
"The Angel of Music! Really! That is very curious!...The
Angel of Music!" And, turning to the managers, M. Mifroid asked,
"Have you an Angel of Music on the premises, gentlemen?"
Richard and Moncharmin shook their heads, without even speaking.
"Oh," said the viscount, "those gentlemen have heard of the Opera ghost.
Well, I am in a position to state that the Opera ghost and the Angel
of Music are one and the same person; and his real name is Erik."
M. Mifroid rose and looked at Raoul attentively.
"I beg your pardon, monsieur but is it your intention to make fun
of the law? And, if not, what is all this about the Opera ghost?"
"I say that these gentlemen have heard of him."
"Gentlemen, it appears that you know the Opera ghost?"
Richard rose, with the remaining hairs of his mustache in his hand.
"No, M. Commissary, no, we do not know him, but we wish that we did,
for this very evening he has robbed us of twenty-thousand francs!"
And Richard turned a terrible look on Moncharmin, which seemed
to say:
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