But who pulled the strings of that extraordinary puppet? That was the question.

`You have never seen him; he speaks to you and you believe all he says?' asked Moncharmin.

`Yes. To begin with, I owe it to him that my little Meg was promoted to be the leader of a row. I said to the ghost, `If she is to be empress in 1885, there is no time to lose; she must become a leader at once.' He said, `Look upon it as done.' And he had only a word to say to M. Poligny and the thing was done.'

`So you see that M. Poligny saw him!'

`No, not any more than I did; but he heard him. The ghost said a word in his ear, you know, on the evening when he left Box Five, looking so dreadfully pale.'

Moncharmin heaved a sigh. `What a business!' he groaned.

`Ah!' said Mme. Giry. `I always thought there were secrets between the ghost and M. Poligny. Anything that the ghost asked M. Poligny to do M. Poligny did. M. Poligny could refuse the ghost nothing.'

`You hear, Richard: Poligny could refuse the ghost nothing.'

`Yes, yes, I hear!' said Richard. `M. Poligny is a friend of the ghost; and, as Mme. Giry is a friend of M. Poligny, there we are! ... But I don't care a hang about M. Poligny,' he added roughly. `The only person whose fate really interests me is Mme. Giry....Mme. Giry, do you know what is in this envelope?'

`Why, of course not,' she said.

`Well, look.'

Mine. Giry looked into the envelope with a lackluster eye, which soon recovered its brilliancy.

`Thousand-franc notes!' she cried.

`Yes, Mme. Giry, thousand-franc notes! And you knew it!'

`I, sir? I?...I swear...'

`Don't swear, Mme. Giry!...And now I will tell you the second reason why I sent for you. Mme. Giry, I am going to have you arrested.'

The two black feathers on the dingy bonnet, which usually affected the attitude of two notes of interrogation, changed into two notes of exclamation; as for the bonnet itself, it swayed in menace on the old lady's tempestuous chignon. Surprise, indignation, protest and dismay were furthermore displayed by little Meg's mother in a sort of extravagant movement of offended virtue, half bound, half slide, that brought her right under the nose of M. Richard, who could not help pushing back his chair.

`Have me arrested!'

The mouth that spoke those words seemed to spit the three teeth that were left to it into Richard's face.

M. Richard behaved like a hero. He retreated no farther. His threatening forefinger seemed already to be pointing out the keeper of Box Five to the absent magistrates.

`I am going to have you arrested, Mme. Giry, as a thief!'

`Say that again!'