XVII. RÉVÉLATIONS ÉTONNANTES DE Mme GIRY, RELATIVES À SES RELATIONS

XVII

ASTONISHING REVELATIONS OF Mme GIRY, CONCERNING HER PERSONAL RELATIONS WITH THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

Before following M. the police commissioner Mifroid to the Messieurs the directors, the reader will permit me to acquaint him with certain extraordinary events which had just unfolded in that office where the secretary Rémy and the administrator Mercier had tried in vain to enter, and where MM. Richard and Moncharmin had so hermetically locked themselves in with a design still unknown to the reader, but which it is my historical duty—I mean my duty as an historian—no longer to conceal from him.

I have had occasion to say how disagreeably the temper of the Messieurs the Directors had altered of late, and I have hinted that this transformation could not have had as its sole cause the fall of the chandelier in the circumstances known to us.

Let the reader then learn—despite all the wish of the Messieurs the directors that such an event should remain forever hidden—that the Phantom had come to collect his first twenty thousand francs quite tranquilly. Ah! there had been tears and gnashing of teeth! The thing, however, had been done in the simplest manner in the world:

One morning the Messieurs the directors had found a ready-prepared envelope upon their desk. This envelope bore as superscription: _To M. F. of the O._ (personal) and was accompanied by a little note from F. of the O. himself: "The moment to execute the clauses of the specifications has come: you will slip twenty banknotes of a thousand francs into this envelope which you will seal with your own seal and you will hand it to Mme Giry who will do what is needful."

The Messieurs the Directors did not need to be told twice; without losing time to ask themselves again how these diabolical missives could reach a cabinet they took great care to lock, they found the occasion good to lay hands on the mysterious blackmailer. And after having told everything under the seal of the greatest secrecy to Gabriel and to Mercier, they put the twenty thousand francs in the envelope and entrusted it without asking explanations to Mme Giry, reinstated in her functions. The box-keeper showed no astonishment. I need scarcely say if she was watched! Moreover, she went immediately to the phantom's box and deposited the precious envelope on the ledge of the rail. The two directors, as well as Gabriel and Mercier, were hidden in such a way that this envelope was not out of their sight for a second during the whole course of the performance and even after, for, as the envelope had not moved, those who watched it did not move either, and the theatre emptied and Mme Giry went away while the Messieurs the Directors, Gabriel and Mercier were still there. Finally they wearied and opened the envelope after noting that its seals had not been broken.

At first sight, Richard and Moncharmin judged that the notes were still there, but at second sight they perceived that they were no longer the same. The twenty true notes had departed and had been replaced by twenty notes of the "Holy Farce"! There was rage and then also dread!

"It is stronger than at Robert Houdin's!" cried Gabriel.

"Yes," replied Richard, "and it costs more!"

Moncharmin wanted them to run for the commissioner; Richard opposed it. He no doubt had his plan; he said: "Let us not be ridiculous! all Paris would laugh. F. of the O. has won the first round, we shall win the second." He was evidently thinking of the next monthly payment.

Still, they had been so perfectly fooled that they could not, during the weeks that followed, overcome a certain dejection. And that, faith, was quite understandable. If the commissioner was not called upon then, it is because one must not forget that the Messieurs the directors kept deep within themselves the thought that so bizarre an adventure might be but a hateful jest contrived, no doubt, by their predecessors and of which it behooved them to divulge nothing before knowing "the last word." This thought, moreover, was troubled at times in Moncharmin by a suspicion that came to him regarding Richard himself, who sometimes had burlesque fancies. And thus, ready for all eventualities, they awaited events while watching and having watched the mother Giry, to whom Richard wished nothing be said. "If she is an accomplice," said he, "the notes have long been far away. But, for me, she is only a fool!"

"There are many fools in this affair!" replied the thoughtful Moncharmin.

"Could one have suspected?..." groaned Richard "but do not fear... next time all my precautions will be taken..."

And thus the next time had arrived... it fell on the very day that was to see the disappearance of Christine Daaé.

In the morning, a missive from the Phantom who reminded them of the deadline: "Do as last time," taught amiably F. of the O. _It went very well._ "Hand the envelope, in which you will have slipped the twenty thousand francs, to that excellent Mme Giry."

And the note was accompanied by the customary envelope. There was nothing left but to fill it.

This operation was to be accomplished that very evening, a half-hour before the show. It is therefore about a half-hour before the curtain rises on that too famous performance of _Faust_ that we enter the directorial den.

Richard shows the envelope to Moncharmin, then he counts before him the twenty thousand francs and slips them into the envelope, but without closing it.

"And now," said he, "call me the mother Giry."

They went for the old woman. She entered making a fine reverence. The lady still wore her black taffeta dress whose hue was turning to rust and lilac, and her hat with soot-colored plumes. She seemed in good humor. She said at once:

"Good evening, gentlemen! It is no doubt again for the envelope?"

"Yes, Madame Giry," said Richard with great amiability... "It is for the envelope... And for something else also."

"At your service, Monsieur le Directeur: At your service!... And what is this other thing, if you please?"

"First, Madame Giry, I should have a little question to put to you."

"Ask, Monsieur le Directeur, Mame Giry is there to answer you."

"Are you still on good terms with the phantom?"

"Could not be better, Monsieur le Directeur, could not be better."

"Ah! you see us delighted... Say then, Madame Giry," pronounced Richard taking the tone of an important confidence... "Between ourselves, we may well tell you... You are no fool."

"But, Monsieur le Directeur!..." exclaimed the box-keeper, arresting the amiable swaying of the two black plumes of her soot-colored hat, "I pray you believe that has never been in doubt for anyone!"

"We are agreed and we shall understand each other. The story of the phantom is a good joke, is it not?... Well! still between ourselves... it has lasted long enough."

Mme Giry looked at the directors as if they had spoken Chinese to her. She approached Richard's desk and said, rather uneasy:

"What do you mean?... I do not understand you!"

"Ah! you understand us very well. In any case, you must understand us... And, first, you will tell us what his name is."

"Who then?"

"The one of whom you are the accomplice, Mame Giry!"

"I am the accomplice of the phantom? Me?... The accomplice of what?"

"You do all he wishes."

"Oh!... he is not very burdensome, you know."

"And he still gives you tips!"

"I do not complain!"

"How much does he give you to carry him this envelope?"

"Ten francs."

"My word! That is not dear?"

"Why so?"

"I shall tell you that presently, Mame Giry. At this moment, we should like to know for what... extraordinary... reason you have given yourself body and soul to that phantom rather than to another... It is not for a hundred sous or ten francs that one may have the friendship and devotion of Mame Giry."

"That is true!... And, faith, that reason I can tell you, Monsieur le Directeur! Certainly there is no dishonor in that!... on the contrary."

"We do not doubt it, Mame Giry!"

"Well, here it is... the phantom does not like that I tell his stories."

"Ah! ah!" sneered Richard.

"But, that one, it concerns only me!..." resumed the old woman... "therefore, it was in box no. 5... one evening, I find there a letter for me... a sort of note written in red ink... That note there, Monsieur le Directeur, I should not need to read it to you... I know it by heart... and I shall never forget it... even if I lived a hundred years!..."

And Mme Giry, quite straight, recites the letter with a touching eloquence:

"Madame.--1825, Mlle Ménétrier, coryphée, became marquise de Cussy.--1832, Mlle Marie Taglioni, dancer, is made comtesse Gilbert des Voisins.--1846, the Sota, dancer, marries a brother of the king of Spain.--1847, Lola Montés, dancer, marries morganatically King Louis of Bavaria and is created countess of Landsfeld.--1848, Mlle Maria, dancer, becomes baroness d'Hermeville.--1870, Thérèse Hessler, dancer, marries Don Fernando, brother of the king of Portugal..."

Richard and Moncharmin listen to the old woman, who, as she advances in the curious enumeration of these glorious marriages, grows animated, straightens up, takes boldness, and finally, inspired like a sibyl upon her tripod, hurls in a voice ringing with pride the last phrase of the prophetic letter:

"_1885. Meg Giry, empress!_"

Exhausted by this supreme effort, the box-keeper falls back upon her chair saying: "Gentlemen, this was signed: '_The Phantom of the Opera!_' I had already heard speak of the phantom, but I only half believed it. From the day he announced to me that my little Meg, the flesh of my flesh, the fruit of my loins, would be empress, I believed it entirely."

Truly, truly, there was no need to consider long the exalted physiognomy of mam' Giry to understand what had been obtained from that fine intelligence with those two words: "Phantom and empress."

But who then pulled the strings of this extravagant puppet?... Who?

"You have never seen him, he speaks to you, and you believe all he tells you?" asked Moncharmin.

"Yes; first, it is to him I owe that my little Meg passed coryphée. I had said to the phantom: For her to be empress in 1885, you have no time to lose, she must be coryphée at once. He answered me: It is understood. And he had but a word to say to M. Poligny, it was done..."

"You see well that M. Poligny saw him!"

"No more than I, but he heard him! The phantom said a word in his ear, you know well! the evening he came out so pale from box no. 5."

Moncharmin utters a sigh.

"What a story!" he groans.

"Ah!" replies mame Giry, "I have always believed there were secrets between the Phantom and M. Poligny. All the Phantom asked of M. Poligny, M. Poligny granted... M. Poligny had nothing to refuse the Phantom."

"You hear, Richard, Poligny had nothing to refuse the Phantom."

"Yes, yes, I hear well!" declared Richard. "M. Poligny is a friend of the Phantom! and, as Mme Giry is a friend of M. Poligny, we are well arrived there," he added in a very harsh tone. "But M. Poligny does not concern me... The only person whose fate truly interests me, I hide it not, is Mme Giry!... Madame Giry, do you know what is in this envelope?"

"Good heavens, no!" said she.

"Well! look!"

Mme Giry slips into the envelope a troubled glance, which at once recovers its brilliance.

"Banknotes of a thousand francs!" she cries.

"Yes, Mme Giry!... yes, notes of a thousand!... And you knew it well!"

"I, Monsieur le Directeur... I! I swear to you..."

"Do not swear, Madame Giry!... And now, I am going to tell you this other thing for which I had you come... Madame Giry, I am going to have you arrested."

The two black plumes of the soot-colored hat, which ordinarily affected the form of two question marks, were at once changed into exclamation points; as for the hat itself, it oscillated, threatening above her tempestuous chignon. Surprise, indignation, protest and dread were moreover expressed in the mother of little Meg by a sort of extravagant pirouette "jeté glissade" of offended virtue which brought her in one bound under the nose of M. le Directeur, who could not refrain from pushing back his armchair.

"Have me arrested!"

The mouth that said this seemed about to spit into M. Richard's face the three teeth of which it still disposed.

M. Richard was heroic. He recoiled no more. His threatening forefinger already designated to the absent magistrates the box-keeper of box no. 5.

"I am going to have you arrested, Madame Giry, as a thief!"

"Say that again!"

And Mme Giry slapped with all her might M. le Directeur Richard before M. le Directeur Moncharmin had had time to interpose. Vengeful riposte! It was not the withered hand of the choleric old woman that came down upon the directorial cheek, but the envelope itself, cause of all the scandal, the magic envelope which opened of itself to let escape the notes that flew off in a fantastic tournament of giant butterflies.

The two directors uttered a cry, and a single thought threw them both to their knees, feverishly gathering and hastily thumbing the precious papers.

"_Are they still genuine?_ Moncharmin."

"_Are they still genuine?_ Richard."

"They are still genuine!!!"

Above them, the three teeth of Mme Giry clash in a resounding melee, full of hideous interjections. But one perceives quite well only this "leit motiv":

"Me, a thief!... A thief, me?"

She chokes.

She cries:

"I am ravaged by it!"

And, suddenly, she rebounds under Richard's nose.

"In any case," she squalls, "you, Monsieur Richard, _you must know better than I where the twenty thousand francs have gone!_"

"I?" asks Richard stupefied. "And how should I know?"

Thereupon, Moncharmin, severe and uneasy, would have the good woman explain herself.

"What does this mean?" he asks. "And why, Madame Giry, do you pretend that M. Richard must know better than you where the twenty thousand francs have gone?"

As for Richard, who feels himself redden under Moncharmin's gaze, he has taken mame Giry's hand and shakes it violently. His voice imitates thunder. It grumbles, it rolls... it strikes with lightning...

"Why should I know better than you where the twenty thousand francs have gone? Why?"

"Because they went into your pocket!..." breathes the old woman looking at him now as if she beheld the devil.

It is M. Richard's turn to be thunderstruck, first by this unexpected reply, then by Moncharmin's increasingly suspicious gaze. Thereupon, he loses the strength he would need in this difficult moment to repel so contemptible an accusation.

Thus the most innocent, surprised in the peace of their heart, appear suddenly guilty because the blow that strikes them makes them pale, or redden, or stagger, or straighten up, or sink, or protest, or say nothing when they should speak, or speak when they should say nothing, or remain dry when they should mop their brow, or sweat when they should remain dry—appear suddenly, I say, guilty.

Moncharmin has arrested the vengeful impulse with which Richard, who was innocent, was about to throw himself upon Mme Giry and he hastens, encouraging, to question her... with gentleness.

"How could you suspect my associate Richard of putting twenty thousand francs in his pocket?"

"I never said that!" declares mame Giry, seeing that it was myself in person who put the twenty thousand francs into M. Richard's pocket."

And she added in a low voice:

"Too bad! It is done!... May the Phantom forgive me!"

And as Richard begins again to roar, Moncharmin authoritatively orders him to be silent:

"Pardon! Pardon! Pardon! Let this woman explain herself! Let me question her."

And he adds:

"It is truly strange that you take it on such a tone!... We approach the moment when all this mystery will clear up! You are furious! You are wrong... I, I am much amused."

Mame Giry, martyr, raises her head where shines faith in her own innocence.

"You tell me there were twenty thousand francs in the envelope that I put into M. Richard's pocket, but, I repeat, I knew nothing of it... Nor M. Richard either, moreover!"

"Ah! ah!" made Richard, affecting suddenly an air of bravado which displeased Moncharmin. "I knew nothing of it either! You put twenty thousand francs in my pocket and I knew nothing of it! I am very glad of it, Madame Giry."

"Yes," agreed the terrible lady... "it is true!... We knew nothing of it, neither one nor the other!... But you, you must surely have ended by noticing it."

Richard would certainly devour Mme Giry if Moncharmin were not there! But Moncharmin protects her. He precipitates the interrogation.

"What sort of envelope were you then putting into M. Richard's pocket? It was not the one we gave you, the one you carried, before us, into box no. 5, and yet, that one alone contained the twenty thousand francs."

"Pardon! It was indeed the envelope Monsieur le Directeur gave me that I slipped into Monsieur le Directeur's pocket," explains the mother Giry. "As for the one I deposited in the phantom's box, it was another envelope exactly alike, and which I had, all prepared, in my sleeve, and which was given me by the phantom!"

Saying this, mame Giry draws from her sleeve a ready-prepared envelope identical in superscription with the one containing the twenty thousand francs. The Messieurs the directors seize it. They examine it, they note that seals stamped with their own directorial seal close it. They open it... It contains twenty notes of the Holy Farce, like those that had so stupefied them a month before.

"How simple it is!" says Richard.

"How simple it is!" repeats Moncharmin, more solemn than ever.

"The most illustrious tricks," replies Richard, "have always been the simplest. A confederate suffices..."

"Or a confederate woman!" adds Moncharmin in his pale voice.

And he continues, eyes fixed upon Mme Giry, as if he would hypnotize her:

"It was indeed the phantom who had this envelope reach you, and it was indeed he who told you to substitute it for the one we gave you? It was indeed he who told you to put this last into M. Richard's pocket?"

"Oh! it was indeed he!"

"Then, could you show us, madame, a sample of your little talents?... Here is the envelope. Do as if we knew nothing."

"At your service, gentlemen!"

The mother Giry has taken again the envelope charged with its twenty notes and heads for the door. She prepares to leave.

The two directors are already upon her.

"Ah! no! Ah! no! We are not 'had' again! We have had enough! We are not going to begin again!"

"Pardon, gentlemen," excuses the old woman, "pardon... You tell me to do as if you knew nothing!... Well, if you knew nothing, I should go off with your envelope!"

"And then, how would you slip it into my pocket?" argues Richard, whom Moncharmin does not quit with his left eye, while his right eye is much occupied by Mme Giry—a difficult position for the gaze; but Moncharmin is resolved to anything to discover the truth.

"I am to slip it into your pocket at the moment you least expect it, Monsieur le Directeur. You know I always come, in the course of the evening, to take a little turn in the wings, and often I accompany, as is my right as a mother, my daughter to the dancers' foyer; I bring her her slippers, at the time of the divertissement, and even her little watering-can... In short, I go and come at my ease... The gentlemen subscribers come too... You also, Monsieur le Directeur... There is a crowd... I pass behind you, and, I slip the envelope into the back pocket of your coat... It is no sorcery!"

"It is no sorcery," rumbles Richard rolling the eyes of thundering Jupiter, "it is no sorcery! But I catch you in flagrant lie, old sorceress!"

The insult strikes less the honorable lady than the blow aimed at her good faith. She straightens up, bristling, the three teeth out.

"Wherefore?"

"Wherefore that that evening I spent in the house watching box no. 5 and the false envelope you had deposited there. I did not go down to the dancers' foyer for a second..."

"Also, Monsieur le Directeur, it was not that evening that I gave you the envelope!... But at the following performance... See, it was the evening M. the under-secretary of State for Fine Arts..."

At these words, M. Richard abruptly stops Mme Giry...

"Eh! it is true," said he, thoughtful, "I recall... I recall now! M. the under-secretary of State came into the wings. He had me sent for. I went down a moment to the dancers' foyer. I was on the steps of the foyer... M. the under-secretary of State and his chief of cabinet were in the foyer itself... Suddenly I turned round... It was you who passed behind me... madame Giry... It seemed to me you had brushed me... There was only you behind me... Oh! I still see you... I still see you!"

"Well, yes, that is it, Monsieur le Directeur! that is indeed it! I had just finished my little business in your pocket! That pocket there, Monsieur le Directeur, is very handy!"

And Mme Giry once more joins gesture to word. She passes behind M. Richard and so nimbly that Moncharmin himself, who looks with both eyes, this time, is impressed by it, she deposits the envelope in the pocket of one of the skirts of M. le Directeur's coat.

"Evidently!" exclaims Richard, a little pale... "It is very clever of F. of the O. The problem, for him, posed itself thus: suppress all dangerous intermediary between him who gives the twenty thousand francs and him who takes them! He could not better find than to come take them from my pocket without my noticing, since I did not even know they were there... Is it not admirable?"

"Oh! admirable! no doubt," outdoes him Moncharmin... "only, you forget, Richard, that I gave ten thousand francs of those twenty thousand and nothing was put in my pocket, mine!"

“Stories of the world, in your language.”