Mme Giry arrives, brushes against M. Richard, divests herself of the 20,000 by slipping the envelope into his back pocket, then disappears.
Or rather she was removed.
Carrying out orders given him a few moments earlier, before this scene was re-enacted, Mercier now took her away and locked her up in his office. It was thus impossible for her to communicate with her Phantom. She put up no resistance, for Mme Giry now cut a sorry, shabby figure, flustered, frightened, eyes staring like a startled chicken under its ragged comb, already hearing the echoing corridor outside ring with the heavy tread of the Inspector with whom she had been threatened, and heaving sighs deep enough to shatter the columns supporting the Opera’s grand staircase.
Meanwhile, M. Richard leaned forward, bowed, greeted his guest and withdrew backwards as if the Under-Secretary for Art and Culture, a high and almighty public servant, had really been there in person.
The difference was that such courtesies would have elicited no surprise if the aforesaid Under-Secretary had been physically present and the Director had been receiving him. But now, since there was no one to respond to the Director’s civilities, observers of a scene which was as natural as it was inexplicable were left understandably baffled.
M. Richard gave a welcome to empty space… bowed to nobody… and withdrew, backwards, in honour of a vacuum.
And then, a few steps away, M. Moncharmin did exactly the same, but also pushing M. Rémy away and begging Ambassador La Borderie and the head of Crédit Central ‘not to touch the Director’.
Moncharmin, who still harboured his suspicions, had no intention of letting Richard come to him later when the 20,000 francs had vanished and say: ‘Maybe it was the Ambassador… or the head of Crédit central … or even M. Rémy…’ All the more so since, by his own account of the first time his pocket was picked, Richard had had no further contact with anyone else in that part of the theatre after Mme Giry had brushed past him… So I ask you: if the idea was to reproduce exactly the same movements, where was the logic in letting anyone near him now?
Having begun walking ceremonially backwards, Richard continued in the same careful manner all the way to the corridor where the Directors had their office… In this way, he was constantly watched from behind by Moncharmin while he was able to see anyone approaching from the front.
But again, this novel style of perambulation adopted by the Directors of the National Academy of Music obviously could not pass unremarked.
And remarked it had been.
But while this picturesque scene was unfolding, it was fortunate for Messrs Richard and Moncharmin that the girls of the ballet school were nearly all in their dressing rooms under the eaves, for the Directors would have been a great success with them.
But all they could think about was their 20,000 francs.
When they got to the dimly lit corridor leading to their office, Richard whispered to Moncharmin:
‘I’m positive no one’s touched me… now, you stand back from me in the shadow and watch me until I get to the door… We mustn’t do anything to put anyone on their guard… Then we’ll see what’s what.’
But Moncharmin said: ‘No, Richard! You walk on ahead… and I’ll be just behind you! I’ll cling to you like a limpet!’
‘But that way,’ objected Richard, ‘no one will ever steal our twenty thousand francs!’
‘I sincerely hope they don’t!’ said Moncharmin.
‘In that case, what we’re doing is pointless!’
‘We are doing exactly what we did last time… Then, I caught up with you as you walked off the stage and started walking along the corridor… and I followed you from behind!’
‘You’re quite right!’ sighed Richard with a shake of the head, passively deferring to Moncharmin.
Two minutes later both Directors were locked in their office. Moncharmin pocketed the key.
‘That night, we both stayed locked in like this,’ he said, ‘and remained here until you left the building to go home.’
‘That’s right! And we weren’t disturbed by anyone.’
‘No one.’
‘In that case,’ said Richard, making a great effort to gather his memories, ‘I was obviously robbed as I made my way from the Opera to my house.’
‘No!’ said Moncharmin even more sharply than before. ‘No!… that’s not possible, because I dropped you off in my cab. So the twenty thousand must have vanished after you got home, in your house!… I can’t see that there’s any doubt about it!’
This is what had been in Moncharmin’s mind all along.
‘Poppycock!’ cried Richard… ‘I trust all the servants!… Besides, if one of them did it, he’d have made himself scarce by now!…’
Moncharmin shrugged as if to say he had no intention of arguing about it.
This gave Richard the idea that Moncharmin was adopting a very high-handed attitude towards him.
‘I’ve had enough of this, Moncharmin!’
‘And I, Richard, have had more than enough!’
‘You have the nerve to suspect me?’
‘Yes, of playing a tasteless joke!’
‘Nobody jokes about twenty thousand francs!’
‘Exactly my view!’ declared Moncharmin, opening a newspaper which he proceeded to read with studied care.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Richard. ‘Surely you’re not going to read the paper now?’
‘Yes, Richard, I am, until it’s time to take you home.’
‘Like last time?’
‘Exactly like last time.’
Richard tore the paper from Moncharmin’s hands. Moncharmin got to his feet, angrier than ever. Before him stood Richard who, also more furious than ever, folded his arms over his chest in a gesture which has been a provocation since the beginning of time and said:
‘Listen, I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about what I might think if, like last time, I were to spend the evening here alone with you and you took me home, and if, as we said goodnight, I discovered that the twenty thousand had disappeared from my coat pocket… like last time.’
‘And what might you think?’ said Moncharmin, turning red in the face with anger.
‘I might think that since you’d never left me alone for a single moment, and that by your own wish you were the only one to come anywhere near me, like last time, I might very well think that if the twenty banknotes were no longer in my pocket, there was a good chance they were in yours!…’
Hearing the charge, Moncharmin leaped to his feet.
‘Wait!’ he cried. ‘A safety pin!’
‘What do you want with a safety pin?’
‘To pin you with it!… If only I had a safety pin!’
‘You want to stick a safety pin in me?’
‘No, I want to pin you to the twenty thousand francs! That way, whether it happens here or on the way to your house or inside your house, you’ll feel it if any hand tries to pick your pocket… that way, Richard, you’ll know if it’s mine!… So now you suspect me!… A safety pin!’
That was the moment when Moncharmin opened the door and bellowed down the corridor:
‘A safety pin! Someone get me a safety pin!’
But we also know how at the same instant, Rémy, the secretary, who did not have a safety pin about his person, was shouted at by M. Moncharmin while an office boy came running up with the much-coveted object.
And this is what happened next: Moncharmin shut and locked the door then got down on both knees to inspect the tails of Richard’s coat.
‘I trust’, he said, ‘that the twenty thousand francs are still there?’
‘Me too,’ said Richard.
‘The genuine ones?’ asked Moncharmin who was determined that he was not going to be ‘had’ a second time.
‘You look! I don’t want to touch them,’ said Richard.
Moncharmin pulled the envelope from Richard’s pocket and took out the banknotes. His hand trembled because this time, so that they could
keep checking that the notes were all there, they hadn’t sealed the envelope or even stuck the flap down. He was relieved to find they were all present, correct and genuine. He put them back in the tail-pocket and pinned them to it securely.
Then he sat down behind Richard and kept his eyes firmly fixed on his coat-tails while Richard never stirred from behind his desk.
‘A little patience, Richard’ said Moncharmin. ‘It won’t be long now… The clock will start chiming midnight very soon. Last time, we left the building on the final stroke of twelve.’
‘I’ve got all the patience in the world!’
Time passed slowly, heavily, mysteriously, oppressively. Richard tried to laugh it off.
‘I do believe that I might come round yet to believing that the Phantom is omnipotent,’ he said. ‘For instance, don’t you sense something uneasy, unsettling, frightening in the air in this room?’
‘You’re right,’ admitted Moncharmin who was genuinely on edge.
‘The Phantom!’ continued Richard in a whisper, as if he feared being overheard by invisible ears… ‘What about this Phantom! Because if after all it was a ghost who gave those three loud knocks we heard distinctly… if it was a ghost who left magic envelopes for us… who was heard talking in Box 5… killed Joseph Buquet… unhooked the chandelier… and steals our money, just think a minute… There’s only the two of us here!… So if the money vanishes and neither of us has anything to do with it… we’ll have no option but to believe in a ghost, in the Phantom of the Opera!’
Just then, the clock on the mantelshelf began to whirr and the first stroke of midnight sounded.
Both Directors jumped. They were gripped by a sudden fear which they could not account for and fought vainly to control. They broke into a cold sweat. And the final stroke of twelve rang hollowly in their ears.
When the sound of the chimes had died away, they both heaved a relieved sigh and got to their feet.
‘I think we can go now,’ said Moncharmin.
‘I think so too,’ acquiesced Richard.
‘Before we leave, do you mind if I look in your pocket?’
‘But of course, Moncharmin. You must!’
While Moncharmin felt his pocket, Richard said: ‘Well?’
‘I can still feel the pin.’
‘It goes without saying, as you so rightly said, that nobody can rob us without my noticing.’
But Moncharmin, still busy feeling Richard’s coat-tails with his hands, suddenly cried out:
‘I can feel the pin, but I can’t feel the notes!’
‘Stop it, Moncharmin! Please, no jokes!… This isn’t the time for it!’
‘Well, see for yourself!’
With one quick movement, Richard removed his coat. Both Directors rummaged for the pocket!… But the pocket was empty!’
But most puzzling of all, the safety pin was still in the place where it had been put.
Richard and Moncharmin both turned pale. There was no way of avoiding the conclusion that here was witchcraft!
‘The Phantom!’ murmured Moncharmin.
But Richard suddenly turned to his colleague and snarled:
‘You’re the only one who’s touched my pocket!… Give me back my twenty thousand francs!… I want my money back!…’
‘On my life,’ groaned Moncharmin who looked as if he was about to collapse… ‘I swear I haven’t got it!’
Then there was a knock on the door. He went to open it, his movements almost mechanical, and hardly seemed to recognize Mercier, the Administrator, with whom he exchanged a few desultory words but without understanding what was being said to him. Then, scarcely knowing what he was doing, into the hand of his loyal but totally bewildered subordinate he thrust the safety pin which was now of no further use to him.
CHAPTER 19
The Police Inspector, the Viscount and the Persian
THE first thing Inspector Mifroid said as he entered the Directors’ office was to ask if there was any news of the missing diva.
‘Is Christine Daaé here?’
As I told you, a tight-knit group of men followed him in.
‘Christine Daaé? Here? No. Why?’
Moncharmin, meanwhile, was too weak to string two words together. He was considerably more subdued than Richard, for Richard was still capable of suspecting Moncharmin whereas Moncharmin had been left staring at a great enigma, the great riddle which has perplexed mankind since its birth: the mystery of the Unknown.
Since the crowd around the two Directors and Inspector Mifroid were observing an impressive silence, Richard went on:
‘Why are you asking me, Inspector, if Christine Daaé is here?’
‘Because you are the Directors of the National Academy of Music,’ the Inspector said soberly. ‘She must be found.’
‘What do you mean, she must be found? Has she disappeared?’
‘Yes, in the middle of the performance!’
‘In the middle of the performance? But that’s astonishing!’
‘Quite so! And what is no less astonishing than her disappearance is the fact that I should have to break the news to you!’
‘You’re right,’ agreed Richard, taking his head in both hands and muttering: ‘Not another disaster! Oh! It’s enough to make a man want to hand in his resignation!…’
And he plucked hairs from his moustache without realizing what he was doing.
‘So,’ he went on, as if in a waking dream, ‘she disappeared in the middle of the performance?’
‘Yes, she vanished in the prison act just as she was invoking the help of the angels, though I don’t think it was an angel who took her.’
‘And I’m sure it was!’
Everyone turned. A young man, pale-faced and shaking with emotion, repeated:
‘I’m sure of it!’
‘Sure of what?’
‘That Christine Daaé was taken by an angel, Inspector. I can even tell you his name!’
‘Ah, good evening, Viscount. So you claim Christine Daaé was abducted by an angel. Would that be an Opera angel?’
Raoul looked around him, obviously looking for someone. At that instant, when it seemed so vital that the police should be mobilized to help his fiancée, he would have been glad of a glimpse of the enigmatic man who had warned him to be careful. But he was nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, he had to say something… But he couldn’t answer questions in front of a crowd of men staring at him with tactless curiosity.
‘Yes, Inspector, by an angel from the Opera,’ he said. ‘If we could have a word in private, I will tell you where you can find him.’
‘Very well, sir,’ said Mifroid who, inviting Raoul to take a chair next to him, waved everyone else away, except the Directors who would not have objected to being dismissed, so out of their depth did they feel.
Raoul took the plunge:
‘Listen, Inspector. The angel’s name is Erik. He lives here in the Opera House. He is the Angel of Music!’
‘The Angel of Music! Really? Is that so?…
The Angel of Music!’
The Inspector turned to the Directors and asked:
‘Do you know of any such angel on the premises?’
Both men shook their heads. They did not smile.
‘Oh,’ said Raoul, ‘these gentlemen have heard a great deal about the Phantom of the Opera. Well, I can confirm that the Phantom of the Opera and the Angel of Music are one and the same. His real name is Erik.’
Mifroid stood up and stared intently at Raoul.
‘I’m sorry to ask this, sir, but are you trying to make a fool of the law?’
‘No!’ protested Raoul with a sinking heart. ‘Here’s someone else’, he thought, ‘who isn’t going to believe me!’
‘Then what’s all this nonsense about a Phantom of the Opera?’
‘I’ve told you: these gentlemen are well acquainted with the stories.’
‘Well, gentlemen,’ said Mifroid turning to the Directors, ‘it seems you know this Phantom of the
Opera?’
Richard tugged at the few remaining hairs of his moustache.
‘No, Inspector, we don’t know him but we would very much like to! Why, only this evening he stole twenty thousand francs from us!’
And he turned and gave Moncharmin a threatening look which seemed to say: ‘Give me back my twenty thousand francs or I’ll tell him the whole story!’ Moncharmin understood him only too well and, with a gesture of defeat, said:
‘Go ahead! Tell him everything!’
Mifroid looked from Raoul to the Directors and back again. He was wondering if he’d strayed into a madhouse. He ran his hand through his hair.
‘A ghost’, he said, ‘who, in the same evening, snatches an opera singer and steals twenty thousand francs, is a very busy ghost! Now, if you don’t mind, we’ll take them one at a time. The singer first and then the money. Now, M. de Chagny, would you try to take this seriously? Do you really believe Mlle Christine Daaé was abducted by an individual named Erik? Do you know this man? Have you seen him?’
‘Yes, Inspector.’
‘Where?’
‘In a graveyard.’
Mifroid gave a start, looked hard at Raoul for a moment, then said:
‘But of course!… Where else do you get ghosts? What were you doing in this graveyard?’
‘Inspector,’ began Raoul, ‘I am quite aware how strange my answers must seem and of the effect they’re probably having on you. But you must believe that I have not gone mad. What’s at stake here is the safety of a person who is closer to me than even my dear brother Philippe. I wish I could convince you in a few words, for time is passing and every minute is precious. But unfortunately, unless I tell you the whole incredible story from the beginning, you’ll never believe me. I shall tell you all I know about the Phantom of the Opera, Inspector. Not that I know that much…’
‘Fire away! Fire away!’ said Richard and Moncharmin, their curiosity suddenly roused. But unfortunately, despite a passing hope that they might learn something which would put them on the track of the extortionist, they were soon forced to accept the sad fact that M. Raoul de Chagny was off his head. His ramblings about Perros-Guirec, death-heads and an enchanted fiddler could only be the product of the deluded brain of a young man in love.
The Phantom of the Opera (Oxford World's Classics) Page 24
