`Yes, I have,' M. Lachenel declared. `I have an idea and I'll tell you what it is. There's no doubt about it in my mind.' He walked up to the two managers and whispered. `It's the ghost who did the trick!'

Richard gave a jump.

`What, you too! You too!'

`How do you mean, I too? Isn't it natural, after what I saw?'

`What did you see?'

`I saw, as clearly as I now see you, a black shadow riding a white horse that was as like César as two peas!'

`And did you run after them?'

`I did and I shouted, but they were too fast for me and disappeared in the darkness of the underground gallery.'

M. Richard rose. `That will do, M. Lachenel. You can go.... We will lodge a complaint against the ghost.'

`And sack my stable?'

`Oh, of course! Good morning.'

M. Lachenel bowed and withdrew. Richard foamed at the mouth.

`Settle that idiot's account at once, please.'

`He is a friend of the government representative's!' Mercier ventured to say.

`And he takes his vermouth at Tortoni's with Lagrene, Scholl and Pertuiset, the lion-hunter,' added Moncharmin. `We shall have the whole press against us! He'll tell the story of the ghost; and everybody will be laughing at our expense! We may as well be dead as ridiculous!'

`All right, say no more about it.'

At that moment the door opened. It must have been deserted by its usual Cerberus, for Mme. Giry entered without ceremony, holding a letter in her hand, and said hurriedly:

`I beg your pardon, excuse me, gentlemen, but I had a letter this morning from the Opera ghost. He told me to come to you, that you had something to...'

She did not complete the sentence. She saw Firmin Richard's face; and it was a terrible sight. He seemed ready to burst. He said nothing, he could not speak. But suddenly he acted. First, his left arm seized upon the quaint person of Mme. Giry and made her describe so unexpected a semicircle that she uttered a despairing cry. Next, his right foot imprinted its sole on the black taffeta of a skirt which certainly had never before undergone a similar outrage in a similar place. The thing happened so quickly that Mme. Giry, when in the passage, was still quite bewildered and seemed not to understand. But, suddenly, she understood; and the Opera rang with her indignant yells, her violent protests and threats.

About the same time, Carlotta, who had a small house of her own in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, rang for her maid, who brought her letters to her bed. Among them was an anonymous missive, written in red ink, in a hesitating, clumsy hand, which ran:

If you appear to-night, you must be prepared for a great misfortune at the moment when you open your mouth to sing...a misfortune worse than death.
The letter took away Carlotta's appetite for breakfast.

  By PanEris using Melati.

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