"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!" [1] Flash notes drawn on the "Bank of St. Farce" in France correspond
with those drawn on the "Bank of Engraving" in England.--Translator's
Note. 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!"