fact, I come and go as I please....The subscribers come and go too....So 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!'