do you, sir ... There are lots
of people about ... I go behind you and slip the envelope into the
tail-pocket of your dress-coat ... There's no witchcraft about that!"

"No witchcraft!" growled Richard, rolling his eyes like Jupiter Tonans.
"No witchcraft! Why, I've just caught you in a lie, you old witch!"

Mme. Giry bristled, with her three teeth sticking out of her mouth.

"And why, may I ask?"

"Because I spent that evening watching Box Five and the sham envelope
which you put there. I did not go to the ballet-foyer for a second."

"No, sir, and I did not give you the envelope that evening, but at the
next performance ... on the evening when the under-secretary of state
for fine arts ..."

At these words, M. Richard suddenly interrupted Mme. Giry:

"Yes, that's true, I remember now! The under-secretary went behind the
scenes. He asked for me. I went down to the ballet-foyer for a
moment. I was on the foyer steps ... The under-secretary and his
chief clerk were in the foyer itself. I suddenly turned around ... you
had passed behind me, Mme. Giry ... You seemed to push against me ...
Oh, I can see you still, I can see you still!"

"Yes, that's it, sir, that's it. I had just finished my little
business. That pocket of yours, sir, is very handy!"

And Mme. Giry once more suited the action to the word, She passed
behind M. Richard and, so nimbly that Moncharmin himself was impressed
by it, slipped the envelope into the pocket of one of the tails of M.
Richard's dress-coat.

"Of course!" exclaimed Richard, looking a little pale. "It's very
clever of O. G. The problem which he had to solve was this: how to do
away with any dangerous intermediary between the man who gives the
twenty-thousand francs and the man who receives it. And by far the
best thing he could hit upon was to come and take the money from my
pocket without my noticing it, as I myself did not know that it was
there. It's wonderful!"

"Oh, wonderful, no doubt!" Moncharmin agreed. "Only, you forget,
Richard, that I provided ten-thousand francs of the twenty and that
nobody put anything in my pocket!"

[1] Flash notes drawn on the "Bank of St. Farce" in France correspond
with those drawn on the "Bank of Engraving" in England.--Translator's
Note.

Chapter XVII The Safety-Pin Again

Moncharmin's last phrase so dearly expressed the suspicion in which he
now held his partner that it was bound to cause a stormy expl