said Remy. "They did not answer. Perhaps
they are not in the office. In any case, it's impossible to find out,
for they took the keys with them."

"They" were obviously the managers, who had given orders, during the
last entr'acte, that they were not to be disturbed on any pretext
whatever. They were not in to anybody.

"All the same," exclaimed Gabriel, "a singer isn't run away with, from
the middle of the stage, every day!"

"Did you shout that to them?" asked Mercier, impatiently.

"I'll go back again," said Remy, and disappeared at a run.

Thereupon the stage-manager arrived.

"Well, M. Mercier, are you coming? What are you two doing here?
You're wanted, Mr. Acting-Manager."

"I refuse to know or to do anything before the commissary arrives,"
declared Mercier. "I have sent for Mifroid. We shall see when he
comes!"

"And I tell you that you ought to go down to the organ at once."

"Not before the commissary comes."

"I've been down to the organ myself already."

"Ah! And what did you see?"

"Well, I saw nobody! Do you hear--nobody!"

"What do you want me to do down there for{sic}?"

"You're right!" said the stage-manager, frantically pushing his hands
through his rebellious hair. "You're right! But there might be some
one at the organ who could tell us how the stage came to be suddenly
darkened. Now Mauclair is nowhere to be found. Do you understand
that?"

Mauclair was the gas-man, who dispensed day and night at will on the
stage of the Opera.

"Mauclair is not to be found!" repeated Mercier, taken aback. "Well,
what about his assistants?"

"There's no Mauclair and no assistants! No one at the lights, I tell
you! You can imagine," roared the stage-manager, "that that little
girl must have been carried off by somebody else: she didn't run away
by herself! It was a calculated stroke and we have to find out about
it ... And what are the managers doing all this time? ... I gave
orders that no one was to go down to the lights and I posted a fireman
in front of the gas-man's box beside the organ. Wasn't that right?"

"Yes, yes, quite right, quite right. And now let's wait for the
commissary."

The stage-manager walked away, shrugging his shoulders, fuming,
muttering insults at those milksops who remained quietly squatting in a
corner while the whole theater was topsyturvy{sic}.

Gabriel and Mercier were not so quiet as all that. Only they had
received an order that paral