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.
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