The Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux (bill gates best books .TXT) 📗

sigh and seemed about to speak⁠ ⁠… but, meeting Gabriel’s eye, said nothing.

However, Mercier felt his responsibility increased as the minutes passed without the managers’ appearing; and, at last, he could stand it no longer.

“Look here, I’ll go and hunt them out myself!”

Gabriel, turning very gloomy and serious, stopped him.

“Be careful what you’re doing, Mercier! If they’re staying in their office, it’s probably because they have to! O. G. has more than one trick in his bag!”

But Mercier shook his head.

“That’s their lookout! I’m going! If people had listened to me, the police would have known everything long ago!”

And he went.

“What’s everything?” asked Rémy. “What was there to tell the police? Why don’t you answer, Gabriel?⁠ ⁠… Ah, so you know something! Well, you would do better to tell me, too, if you don’t want me to shout out that you are all going mad!⁠ ⁠… Yes, that’s what you are: mad!”

Gabriel put on a stupid look and pretended not to understand the private secretary’s unseemly outburst.

“What ‘something’ am I supposed to know?” he said. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Rémy began to lose his temper.

“This evening, Richard and Moncharmin were behaving like lunatics, here, between the acts.”

“I never noticed it,” growled Gabriel, very much annoyed.

“Then you’re the only one!⁠ ⁠… Do you think that I didn’t see them?⁠ ⁠… And that M. Parabise, the manager of the Crédit Central, noticed nothing?⁠ ⁠… And that M. de La Borderie, the ambassador, has no eyes to see with?⁠ ⁠… Why, all the subscribers were pointing at our managers!”

“But what were our managers doing?” asked Gabriel, putting on his most innocent air.

“What were they doing? You know better than anyone what they were doing!⁠ ⁠… You were there!⁠ ⁠… And you were watching them, you and Mercier!⁠ ⁠… And you were the only two who didn’t laugh.⁠ ⁠…”

“I don’t understand!”

Gabriel raised his arms and dropped them to his sides again, which gesture was meant to convey that the question did not interest him in the least. Rémy continued:

“What is the sense of this new mania of theirs? Why won’t they have anyone come near them now?”

“What? Won’t they have anyone come near them?”

“And they won’t let anyone touch them!”

“Really? Have you noticed that they won’t let anyone touch them? That is certainly odd!”

“Oh, so you admit it! And high time, too! And then, they walk backward!”

“Backward! You have seen our managers walk backward? Why, I thought that only crabs walked backward!”

“Don’t laugh, Gabriel; don’t laugh!”

“I’m not laughing,” protested Gabriel, looking as solemn as a judge.

“Perhaps you can tell me this, Gabriel, as you’re an intimate friend of the management: When I went up to M. Richard, outside the foyer, during the Garden interval, with my hand out before me, why did M. Moncharmin hurriedly whisper to me, ‘Go away! Go away! Whatever you do, don’t touch M. le directeur!’ Am I supposed to have an infectious disease?”

“It’s incredible!”

“And, a little later, when M. de La Borderie went up to M. Richard, didn’t you see M. Moncharmin fling himself between them and hear him exclaim, ‘M. l’ambassadeur, I entreat you not to touch M. le directeur’?”

“It’s terrible!⁠ ⁠… And what was Richard doing meanwhile?”

“What was he doing? Why, you saw him! He turned about, bowed in front of him, though there was nobody in front of him, and withdrew backward.”

“Backward?”

“And Moncharmin, behind Richard, also turned about; that is, he described a semicircle behind Richard and also walked backward!⁠ ⁠… And they went like that to the staircase leading to the managers’ office: backward, backward, backward!⁠ ⁠… Well, if they are not mad, will you explain what it means?”

“Perhaps they were practising a figure in the ballet,” suggested Gabriel, without much conviction in his voice.

The secretary was furious at this wretched joke, made at so dramatic a moment. He knit his brows and contracted his lips. Then he put his mouth to Gabriel’s ear:

“Don’t be so sly, Gabriel. There are things going on for which you and Mercier are partly responsible.”

“What do you mean?” asked Gabriel.

“Christine Daaé is not the only one who suddenly disappeared tonight.”

“Oh, nonsense!”

“There’s no nonsense about it. Perhaps you can tell me why, when Mother Giry came down to the foyer just now, Mercier took her by the hand and hurried her away with him?”

“Really?” said Gabriel, “I never saw it.”

“You did see it, Gabriel, for you went with Mercier and Mother Giry to Mercier’s office. Since then, you and Mercier have been seen, but no one has seen Mother Giry.”

“Do you think we’ve eaten her?”

“No, but you’ve locked her up in the office; and anyone passing the office can hear her yelling, ‘Oh, the scoundrels! Oh, the scoundrels!’ ”

At this point of this singular conversation, Mercier arrived, all out of breath.

“There!” he said, in a gloomy voice. “It’s worse than ever!⁠ ⁠… I shouted, ‘It’s a serious matter! Open the door! It’s I, Mercier.’ I heard footsteps. The door opened and Moncharmin appeared. He was very pale. He said, ‘What do you want?’ I answered, ‘Someone has run away with Christine Daaé.’ What do you think he said? ‘And a good job, too!’ And he shut the door, after putting this in my hand.”

Mercier opened his hand; Rémy and Gabriel looked.

“The safety-pin!” cried Rémy.

“Strange! Strange!” muttered Gabriel, who could not help shivering.

Suddenly a voice made them all three turn round.

“I beg your pardon, gentlemen. Could you tell me where Christine Daaé is?”

In spite of the seriousness of the circumstances, the absurdity of the question would have made them roar with laughter, if they had not caught sight of a face so sorrow-stricken that they were at once seized with pity. It was the Vicomte Raoul de Chagny.

XV Christine! Christine!

Raoul’s first thought, after Christine Daaé’s fantastic disappearance, was to accuse Erik. He no longer doubted the almost supernatural powers of the Angel of Music, in this domain of the Opera in which he had set up his empire. And Raoul rushed on the stage, in a mad fit of love and despair.

“Christine! Christine!” he moaned, calling to her as he felt that she