en able to find the house on the lake, Erik having
blocked up all the secret entrances.[1] On the other hand, I have
discovered the secret passage of the Communists, the planking of which
is falling to pieces in parts, and also the trap-door through which
Raoul and the Persian penetrated into the cellars of the opera-house.
In the Communists' dungeon, I noticed numbers of initials traced on the
walls by the unfortunate people confined in it; and among these were an
"R" and a "C." R. C.: Raoul de Chagny. The letters are there to this
day.

If the reader will visit the Opera one morning and ask leave to stroll
where he pleases, without being accompanied by a stupid guide, let him
go to Box Five and knock with his fist or stick on the enormous column
that separates this from the stage-box. He will find that the column
sounds hollow. After that, do not be astonished by the suggestion that
it was occupied by the voice of the ghost: there is room inside the
column for two men. If you are surprised that, when the various
incidents occurred, no one turned round to look at the column, you must
remember that it presented the appearance of solid marble, and that the
voice contained in it seemed rather to come from the opposite side,
for, as we have seen, the ghost was an expert ventriloquist.

The column was elaborately carved and decorated with the sculptor's
chisel; and I do not despair of one day discovering the ornament that
could be raised or lowered at will, so as to admit of the ghost's
mysterious correspondence with Mme. Giry and of his generosity.

However, all these discoveries are nothing, to my mind, compared with
that which I was able to make, in the presence of the acting-manager,
in the managers' office, within a couple of inches from the desk-chair,
and which consisted of a trap-door, the width of a board in the
flooring and the length of a man's fore-arm and no longer; a trap-door
that falls back like the lid of a box; a trap-door through which I can
see a hand come and dexterously fumble at the pocket of a swallow-tail
coat.

That is the way the forty-thousand francs went! ... And that also is
the way by which, through some trick or other, they were returned.

Speaking about this to the Persian, I said:

"So we may take it, as the forty-thousand francs were returned, that
Erik was simply amusing himself with that memorandum-book of his?"

"Don't you believe it!" he replied. "Erik wanted money. Thin