rancs went to!"

"I?" asked Richard, astounded. "And how should I know?"

Moncharmin, looking severe and dissatisfied, at once insisted that the
good lady should explain herself.

"What does this mean, Mme. Giry?" he asked. "And why do you say that
M. Richard ought to know better than you where the twenty-thousand
francs went to?"

As for Richard, who felt himself turning red under Moncharmin's eyes,
he took Mme. Giry by the wrist and shook it violently. In a voice
growling and rolling like thunder, he roared:

"Why should I know better than you where the twenty-thousand francs
went to? Why? Answer me!"

"Because they went into your pocket!" gasped the old woman, looking at
him as if he were the devil incarnate.

Richard would have rushed upon Mme. Giry, if Moncharmin had not stayed
his avenging hand and hastened to ask her, more gently:

"How can you suspect my partner, M. Richard, of putting twenty-thousand
francs in his pocket?"

"I never said that," declared Mme. Giry, "seeing that it was myself who
put the twenty-thousand francs into M. Richard's pocket." And she
added, under her voice, "There! It's out! ... And may the ghost
forgive me!"

Richard began bellowing anew, but Moncharmin authoritatively ordered
him to be silent.

"Allow me! Allow me! Let the woman explain herself. Let me question
her." And he added: "It is really astonishing that you should take up
such a tone! ... We are on the verge of clearing up the whole mystery.
And you're in a rage! ... You're wrong to behave like that... I'm
enjoying myself immensely."

Mme. Giry, like the martyr that she was, raised her head, her face
beaming with faith in her own innocence.

"You tell me there were twenty-thousand francs in the envelope which I
put into M. Richard's pocket; but I tell you again that I knew nothing
about it ... Nor M. Richard either, for that matter!"

"Aha!" said Richard, suddenly assuming a swaggering air which
Moncharmin did not like. "I knew nothing either! You put
twenty-thousand francs in my pocket and I knew nothing either! I am
very glad to hear it, Mme. Giry!"

"Yes," the terrible dame agreed, "yes, it's true. We neither of us
knew anything. But you, you must have ended by finding out!"

Richard would certainly have swallowed Mme. Giry alive, if Moncharmin
had not been there! But Moncharmin protected her. He resumed his
questions:

"What sort of envelope did you put in M. Richard's pocket? I