“And what might you think?” asked Moncharmin, crimson with rage.
“I might think that, as you hadn’t left me by a foot’s breadth and as, by your own wish, you were the only one to approach me, like last time, I might think that, if that twenty-thousand francs was no longer in my pocket, it stood a very good chance of being in yours!”
Moncharmin leaped up at the suggestion.
“Oh!” he shouted. “A safety-pin!”
“What do you want a safety-pin for?”
“To fasten you up with! … A safety-pin! … A safety-pin!”
“You want to fasten me with a safety-pin?”
“Yes, to fasten you to the twenty-thousand francs! Then, whether it’s here, or on the drive from here to your place, or at your place, you will feel the hand that pulls at your pocket and you will see if it’s mine! Oh, so you’re suspecting me now, are you? A safety-pin!”
And that was the moment when Moncharmin opened the door on the passage and shouted:
“A safety-pin! … Somebody give me a safety-pin!”
And we also know how, at the same moment, Rémy, who had no safety-pin, was received by Moncharmin, while a boy procured the pin so eagerly longed for. And what happened was this: Moncharmin first locked the door again. Then he knelt down behind Richard’s back.
“I hope,” he said, “that the notes are still there?”
“So do I,” said Richard.
“The real ones?” asked Moncharmin, resolved not to be “had” this time.