EMPTY. And the curious thing was that the pin
remained, stuck in the same place.

Richard and Moncharmin turned pale. There was no longer any doubt
about the witchcraft.

"The ghost!" muttered Moncharmin.

But Richard suddenly sprang upon his partner.

"No one but you has touched my pocket! Give me back my twenty-thousand
francs! ... Give me back my twenty-thousand francs! ..."

"On my soul," sighed Moncharmin, who was ready to swoon, "on my soul, I
swear that I haven't got it!"

Then somebody knocked at the door. Moncharmin opened it automatically,
seemed hardly to recognize Mercier, his business-manager, exchanged a
few words with him, without knowing what he was saying and, with an
unconscious movement, put the safety-pin, for which he had no further
use, into the hands of his bewildered subordinate ...

Chapter XVIII The Commissary, The Viscount and the Persian

The first words of the commissary of police, on entering the managers'
office, were to ask after the missing prima donna.

"Is Christine Daae here?"

"Christine Daae here?" echoed Richard. "No. Why?"

As for Moncharmin, he had not the strength left to utter a word.

Richard repeated, for the commissary and the compact crowd which had
followed him into the office observed an impressive silence.

"Why do you ask if Christine Daae is here, M. LE COMMISSAIRE?"

"Because she has to be found," declared the commissary of police
solemnly.

"What do you mean, she has to be found? Has she disappeared?"

"In the middle of the performance!"

"In the middle of the performance? This is extraordinary!"

"Isn't it? And what is quite as extraordinary is that you should first
learn it from me!"

"Yes," said Richard, taking his head in his hands and muttering. "What
is this new business? Oh, it's enough to make a man send in his
resignation!"

And he pulled a few hairs out of his mustache without even knowing what
he was doing.

"So she ... so she disappeared in the middle of the performance?" he
repeated.

"Yes, she was carried off in the Prison Act, at the moment when she was
invoking the aid of the angels; but I doubt if she was carried off by
an angel."

"And I am sure that she was!"

Everybody looked round. A young man, pale and trembling with
excitement, repeated:

"I am sure of it!"

"Sure of what?" asked Mifroid.

"That Christine Daae was carried off by an angel, M. LE COMMISSAIRE and
I can tell you his name."

"