You know the lake I mean? ... Yes, the underground lake ... under the Opera."
"Yes, sir, I know there is a lake under the Opera, but I don't know which door leads to it. I have never been there!"
"And the Rue Scribe, madame, the Rue Scribe?
Have you never been to the Rue Scribe?"
The woman laughed, screamed with laughter!
Raoul darted away, roaring with anger, ran up-stairs, four stairs at a time, down-stairs, rushed through the whole of the business side of the opera-house, found himself once more in the light of the stage.
He stopped, with his heart thumping in his chest: suppose Christine Daae had been found?
He saw a group of men and asked:
"I beg your pardon, gentlemen. Could you tell me where Christine Daae is?"
And somebody laughed.
At the same moment the stage buzzed with a new sound and, amid a crowd of men in evening-dress, all talking and gesticulating together, appeared a man who seemed very calm and displayed a pleasant face, all pink and chubby-cheeked, crowned with curly hair and lit up by a pair of wonderfully serene blue eyes.
Mercier, the acting-manager, called the Vicomte de Chagny's attention to him and said:
"This is the gentleman to whom you should put your question, monsieur.
Let me introduce Mifroid, the commissary of police."
"Ah, M. le Vicomte de Chagny!
Delighted to meet you, monsieur," said the commissary.
"Would you mind coming with me? ... And now where are the managers? ...
Where are the managers?"
Mercier did not answer, and Remy, the secretary, volunteered the information that the managers were locked up in their office and that they knew nothing as yet of what had happened.
"You don't mean to say so!
Let us go up to the office!"
And M. Mifroid, followed by an ever-increasing crowd, turned toward the business side of the building.
Mercier took advantage of the confusion to slip a key into Gabriel's hand:
"This is all going very badly," he whispered.
"You had better let Mother Giry out."
And Gabriel moved away.
They soon came to the managers' door.
Mercier stormed in vain: the door remained closed.
"Open in the name of the law!" commanded M. Mifroid, in a loud and rather anxious voice.
At last the door was opened.
All rushed in to the office, on the commissary's heels.
Raoul was the last to enter.
As he was about to follow the rest into the room, a hand was laid on his shoulder and he heard these words spoken in his ear:
"ERIK'S SECRETS CONCERN NO ONE BUT HIMSELF!"
He turned around, with a stifled exclamation.
The hand that was laid on his shoulder was now placed on the lips of a person with an ebony skin, with eyes of jade and with an astrakhan cap on his head: the Persian!
The stranger kept up the gesture that recommended discretion and then, at the moment when the astonished viscount was about to ask the reason of his mysterious intervention, bowed and disappeared.
Chapter XVI Mme.
Giry's Astounding Revelations as to Her Personal Relations with the Opera Ghost
Before following the commissary into the manager's office I must describe certain extraordinary occurrences that took place in that office which Remy and Mercier had vainly tried to enter and into which MM.
Richard and Moncharmin had locked themselves with an object which the reader does not yet know, but which it is my duty, as an historian, to reveal without further postponement.
I have had occasion to say that the managers' mood had undergone a disagreeable change for some time past and to convey the fact that this change was due not only to the fall of the chandelier on the famous night of the gala performance. The reader must know that the ghost had calmly been paid his first twenty thousand francs.
Oh, there had been wailing and gnashing of teeth, indeed! And yet the thing had happened as simply as could be.
One morning, the managers found on their table an envelope addressed to "Monsieur O. G. (private)" and accompanied by a note from O. G. himself:
The time has come to carry out the clause in the memorandum-book.
Please put twenty notes of a thousand francs each into this envelope, seal it with your own seal and hand it to Mme. Giry, who will do what is necessary.
The managers did not hesitate; without wasting time in asking how these confounded communications came to be delivered in an office which they were careful to keep locked, they seized this opportunity of laying hands, on the mysterious blackmailer.
And, after telling the whole story, under the promise of secrecy, to Gabriel and Mercier, they put the twenty thousand francs into the envelope and without asking for explanations, handed it to Mme. Giry, who had been reinstated in her functions.
The box-keeper displayed no astonishment.
I need hardly say that she was well watched.