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!"

"We are doing exactly what we did last time ... Last time, I joined

you as you were leaving the stage and followed close behind you down

this passage."

"That's true!" sighed Richard, shaking his head and passively obeying

Moncharmin.

Two minutes later, the joint managers locked themselves into their

office. Moncharmin himself put the key in his pocket: "We remained locked up like this, last time," he said, "until you left

the Opera to go home."

"That's so. No one came and disturbed us, I suppose?"

"No one."

"Then," said Richard, who was trying to collect his memory, "then I

must certainly have been robbed on my way home from the Opera."

"No," said Moncharmin in a drier tone than ever, "no, that's

impossible. For I dropped you in my cab. The twenty-thousand francs

disappeared at your place: there's not a shadow of a doubt about that."

"It's incredible!" protested Richard. "I am sure of my servants ...

and if one of them had done it, he would have disappeared since."

Moncharmin shrugged his shoulders, as though to say that he did not

wish to enter into details, and Richard began to think that Moncharmin

was treating him in a very insupportable fashion.

"Moncharmin, I've had enough of this!"

"Richard, I've had too much of it!"

"Do you dare to suspect me?"

"Yes, of a silly joke."

"One doesn't joke with twenty-thousand francs."

"That's what I think," declared Moncharmin, unfolding a newspaper and

ostentatiously studying its contents.

"What are you doing?" asked Richard. "Are you going to read the paper

next?"

"Yes, Richard, until I take you home."

"Like last time?"

"Yes, like last time."

Richard snatched the paper from Moncharmin's hands. Moncharmin stood

up, more irritated than ever, and found himself faced by an exasperated

Richard, who, crossing his arms on his chest, said: "Look here, I'm thinking of this, I'M THINKING OF WHAT I MIGHT THINK

if, like last time, after my spending the evening alone with you, you

brought me home and if, at the moment of parting, I perceived that

twenty-thousand francs had disappeared from my coat-pocket ... like

last time."

"And what might you think?" asked Moncharmin, crimson with rage.




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