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 Iknew 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.
