XVIII. SUITE DE LA CURIEUSE ATTITUDE d'une épingle DE NOURRICE

XVIII

CONTINUATION OF THE CURIOUS ATTITUDE OF A SAFETY PIN

The last words of Moncharmin expressed too plainly the suspicion in which he now held his colleague for there not to result at once a stormy explanation, at the end of which it was agreed that Richard would submit to all of Moncharmin's wishes, with the aim of helping him discover the wretch who was making sport of them.

Thus we arrive at the "garden intermission" during which Mr. Secretary Rémy, who misses nothing, so curiously observed the strange conduct of his directors, and from then on nothing will be easier for us than to find a reason for attitudes so exceptionally bizarre and above all so little in keeping with the idea one should have of directorial dignity.

The conduct of Richard and Moncharmin was plainly marked out by the revelation that had just been made to them: 1° Richard was to repeat exactly, that evening, the gestures he had performed at the disappearance of the first twenty thousand francs; 2° Moncharmin was not to lose sight for a second of the back pocket of Richard's coat, into which Mme Giry would have slipped the second twenty thousand.

At the exact spot where he had been when bowing to the Under-Secretary of State for Fine Arts, Mr. Richard took his place, with, a few steps away behind his back, Mr. Moncharmin.

Mme Giry passes by, brushes against Mr. Richard, slips the twenty thousand into the pocket of the director's coat-tail and disappears...

Or rather she is made to disappear. Carrying out the order Moncharmin had given him a few moments before, before the reconstruction of the scene, Mercier goes to lock the worthy lady in the administration office. Thus it will be impossible for the old woman to communicate with her ghost. And she let it happen, for mame Giry is now but a poor plucked figure, terrified with fright, opening the eyes of a bewildered fowl beneath a disordered crest, already hearing in the resonant corridor the sound of the commissioner's steps with which she is threatened, and uttering sighs enough to split the columns of the great staircase.

Meanwhile, Mr. Richard bends, makes his bow, salutes, walks backwards as if he had before him that high and all-powerful functionary that is the Under-Secretary of State for Fine Arts.

Only, if such marks of politeness would have raised no astonishment in the case where before Mr. the director stood Mr. the Under-Secretary of State, they caused the spectators of this scene so natural yet so inexplicable a quite understandable stupefaction when before Mr. the director there was no one.

Mr. Richard saluted into empty space... bent before nothingness... and retreated—walked backwards—before nothing...

... Finally, a few steps away, Mr. Moncharmin was doing the same as him.

... And pushing back Mr. Rémy, he begged Mr. the ambassador de Le Borderie and Mr. the director of the Crédit central not to "touch Mr. the director."

Moncharmin, who had his idea, did not wish that, a moment later, Richard should come to tell him, the twenty thousand francs having disappeared: "It may be Mr. the ambassador or Mr. the director of the Crédit central, or even Mr. Secretary Rémy."

All the more so since, at the first scene, by Richard's own admission, after being brushed by Mme Giry, Richard had met no one in that part of the theater... Why then, I ask you, since the same gestures were to be exactly repeated, would he meet anyone today?

Having first walked backwards to salute, Richard continued walking that way out of caution... as far as the administration corridor... Thus he was always watched from behind by Moncharmin and he himself watched "his approaches" from the front.

Once again, this entirely new way of walking about in the wings adopted by the directors of the Académie nationale de musique obviously could not pass unnoticed.

It was noticed.

Fortunately for MM. Richard and Moncharmin that at the moment of this so curious scene, the "little rats" were almost all up in the attics.

For the directors would have been a success with the young girls.

... But they thought only of their twenty thousand francs.

Having arrived in the half-dark administration corridor, Richard said in a low voice to Moncharmin:

--I am sure no one has touched me... now you will keep far enough from me and watch me in the shadows up to the door of my office... we must not alert anyone and we shall see what happens.

But Moncharmin replies:

--No, Richard! No!... Walk ahead... I walk _immediately_ behind! I do not leave you for a step!

--But, cries Richard, never like this will anyone be able to steal our twenty thousand francs!

--I should hope not! declares Moncharmin.

--Then what we are doing is absurd!

--We are doing exactly what we did last time... Last time, I rejoined you at your exit from the stage, at the corner of this corridor... and I followed you _from behind._

--That is quite true! sighs Richard, shaking his head and passively obeying Moncharmin.

Two minutes later the two directors locked themselves in the director's office.

It was Moncharmin himself who put the key in his pocket.

--We remained locked in like this both last time, he said, until the moment you left the Opera to return home.

--That is true! And no one came to disturb us?

--No one.

--Then, asked Richard, who strove to gather his memories, then I must surely have been robbed on the way from the Opera to my dwelling...

--No! said Moncharmin in a sharper tone than ever... no... that is not possible... It was I who drove you home in my carriage. The twenty thousand francs _disappeared at your home_, there is not the shadow of a doubt for me.

That was the idea Moncharmin now had.

--That is incredible! protested Richard... I am sure of my servants!... and if one of them had done that, he would have disappeared since.

Moncharmin shrugged his shoulders, as if to say he did not go into such details.

Whereupon Richard begins to find that Moncharmin is treating him in a most insufferable tone.

--Moncharmin, that is enough!

--Richard, that is too much!

--You dare suspect me?

--Yes, of a deplorable joke!

--One does not joke with twenty thousand francs!

--That is my view exactly! declares Moncharmin, unfolding a newspaper into the reading of which he plunges with ostentation.

--What are you going to do? asks Richard. You are going to read the newspaper now!

--Yes, Richard, until the hour I take you home.

--Like last time?

--Like last time.

Richard snatches the newspaper from Moncharmin's hands. Moncharmin rises, more irritated than ever. He finds before him an exasperated Richard who says to him, crossing his arms on his chest—a gesture of insolent defiance since the beginning of the world:

--See here, says Richard, I am thinking of this. _I am thinking of what I might think_, if, as last time, after spending the evening tête-à-tête with you, you took me home, and if, at the moment of parting, I found that the twenty thousand francs had disappeared from my coat pocket... as last time.

--And what might you think? exclaimed Moncharmin, crimson.

--I might think that, since you have not left my side, and that, according to your wish, you alone approached me as last time, I might think that if those twenty thousand francs are no longer in my pocket, they stand a good chance of being in yours!

Moncharmin started at the hypothesis.

--_Oh!_ he cried, _a safety pin!_

--What do you want with a safety pin?

--To pin you!... A safety pin!... a safety pin!

--You want to pin me with a safety pin?

--Yes, pin you with the twenty thousand francs!... That way, whether here, or on the way from here to your home or at your home, you will feel the hand that pulls your pocket... and you will see if it is mine, Richard!... Ah! it is you who suspect me now... A safety pin!

And it is at this moment that Moncharmin opened the corridor door crying:

--A safety pin! who will give me a safety pin?

And we also know how, in that same instant, Secretary Rémy, who had no safety pin, was received by Director Moncharmin, while an office boy procured for the latter the much-desired pin.

And here is what came to pass:

Moncharmin, having closed the door again, knelt behind Richard.

--I hope, he said, the twenty thousand francs are still there?

--I hope so too, said Richard.

--The real ones? asked Moncharmin, who was quite determined this time not to be "taken in."

--Look! I do not want to touch them, declared Richard.

Moncharmin withdrew the envelope from Richard's pocket and drew out the bills trembling, for, this time, so as to be able to verify the presence of the bills frequently, they had neither sealed the envelope nor even glued it. He was reassured on noting that they were all there, quite authentic. He gathered them in the coat-tail pocket and pinned them with great care.

After which he sat behind the coat-tail which he no longer took his eyes off, while Richard, seated at his desk, did not make a move.

--A little patience, Richard, ordered Moncharmin, we have but a few minutes left... The clock will soon strike the twelve strokes of midnight. It was at the twelve strokes of midnight that last time we left.

--Oh! I shall have all the patience needed!

The hour passed, slow, heavy, mysterious, stifling. Richard tried to laugh.

--I shall end up believing, he said, in the almighty power of the ghost. And at this moment in particular, do you not find that there is in the atmosphere of this room a something that worries, that discomposes, that frightens?

--That is true, admitted Moncharmin, who was genuinely impressed.

--The ghost! resumed Richard in a low voice, as if he feared being heard by invisible ears... the ghost! If after all it were a ghost who formerly struck on this table the three dry knocks we heard so well... who deposits the magic envelopes there... who speaks in box no. 5... who kills Joseph Buquet... who lowers the chandelier... and who robs us! for in the end! for in the end! for in the end! There is only you here and me!... and if the bills disappear without our having anything to do with it, neither you nor I... we shall just have to believe in the ghost... in the ghost...

At that moment, the clock on the mantelpiece made its release heard and the first stroke of midnight sounded.

The two directors shuddered. An anguish gripped them, whose cause they could not have told and which they tried in vain to combat. Sweat ran down their foreheads. And the twelfth stroke rang strangely in their ears.

When the clock had fallen silent, they sighed and rose.

--I think we may go, said Moncharmin.

--I think so, obeyed Richard.

--Before leaving, you permit me to look in your pocket?

--But of course! Moncharmin! it is necessary!

--Well? asked Richard of Moncharmin, who was feeling.

--Well! I still feel the pin.

--Evidently, as you put it so well, one can no longer rob us without my noticing.

But Moncharmin, whose hands were still busy around the pocket, yelled:

--_I still feel the pin, but I no longer feel the bills._

--No! do not joke, Moncharmin!... This is no time.

--But, feel for yourself.

With a gesture, Richard has freed himself of his coat. The two directors tear at the pocket!... _The pocket is empty._

The curious thing is that the pin remained stuck in the same place.

Richard and Moncharmin grew pale. There was no longer any doubting the spell.

--The ghost, murmurs Moncharmin.

But Richard suddenly leaps upon his colleague.

--There is only you who touched my pocket!... Give me back my twenty thousand francs!... Give me back my twenty thousand francs!...

--Upon my soul, sighs Moncharmin, who seems ready to faint... I swear to you I do not have them...

And as someone was again knocking at the door, he went to open it, walking with a near-automatic step, seeming scarcely to recognize the administrator Mercier, exchanging trivial remarks with him, understanding nothing of what the other said; and depositing, with an unconscious gesture, in the hand of that completely dumbfounded faithful servant, the safety pin which could no longer serve him any purpose...

“Stories of the world, in your language.”