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Updated: June 7, 2025
"For the envelope ... and something else besides." "At your service, M. Richard, at your service. And what is the something else, please?" "First of all, Mme. Giry, I have a little question to put to you." "By all means, M. Richard: Mme. Giry is here to answer you." "Are you still on good terms with the ghost?" "Couldn't be better, sir; couldn't be better."
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'll tell you that presently, Mme. Giry. Just now we should like to know for what extraordinary reason you have given yourself body and soul, to this ghost ... Mme. Giry's friendship and devotion are not to be bought for five francs or ten francs." "That's true enough ... And I can tell you the reason, sir. There's no disgrace about it... on the contrary." "We're quite sure of that, Mme. Giry!"
A silence followed, while Sorelli polished her nails in great excitement. It was broken by little Giry, who said: "Joseph Buquet would do better to hold his tongue." "Why should he hold his tongue?" asked somebody. "That's mother's opinion," replied Meg, lowering her voice and looking all about her as though fearing lest other ears than those present might overhear.
"Whose name?" "The name of the man whose accomplice you are, Mme. Giry!" "I am the ghost's accomplice? I? ... His accomplice in what, pray?" "You do all he wants." "Oh! He's not very troublesome, you know." "And does he still tip you?" "I mustn't complain." "How much does he give you for bringing him that envelope?" "Ten francs." "You poor thing! That's not much, is it? "Why?"
"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."
Moncharmin, who had his own ideas, did not want Richard to come to him presently, when the twenty-thousand francs were gone, and say: "Perhaps it was the ambassador ... or the manager of the Credit Central ... or Remy." The more so as, at the time of the first scene, as Richard himself admitted, Richard had met nobody in that part of the theater after Mme. Giry had brushed up against him...
"Then the ghost had not broken his leg?" asked M. Moncharmin, a little vexed that his figure had made so little impression on Mme. Giry. "He did break it for him, sir," replied Mme. Giry haughtily. "He broke it for him on the grand staircase, which he ran down too fast, sir, and it will be long before the poor gentleman will be able to go up it again!"
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