Gaston Leroux: The Phantom of the Opera

Chapter 14. The Singular Attitude of a Safety-Pin (continued)

"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 Remy. "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."

Remy 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 Credit 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 any one 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!"