Well, M. de Chagny, allow me to inform you that your brother has been smarter than you! It is he who has carried off Christine Daaé!”
“Oh, impossible!” moaned Raoul, pressing his hand to his heart. “Are you sure?”
“Immediately after the artist’s disappearance, which was procured by means which we have still to ascertain, he flung into his carriage, which drove right across Paris at a furious pace.”
“Across Paris?” asked poor Raoul, in a hoarse voice. “What do you mean by across Paris?”
“Across Paris and out of Paris … by the Brussels road.”
“Oh,” cried the young man, “I shall catch them!”
And he rushed out of the office.
“And bring her back to us!” cried the commissary gaily. … “Ah, that’s a trick worth two of the Angel of Music’s!”
And, turning to his audience, M. Mifroid delivered a little lecture on police methods.
“I don’t know for a moment whether M. le Comte de Chagny has really carried Christine Daaé off or not … but I want to know and I believe that, at this moment, no one is more anxious to inform us than his brother. … And now he is flying in pursuit of him! He is my chief auxiliary! This, gentlemen, is the art of the police, which is believed to be so complicated and which, nevertheless, appears so simple as soon as you see that it consists in getting your work done by people who have nothing to do with the police.”
But M. le Commissaire de Police Mifroid would not have been quite so satisfied with himself if he had known that the rush of his rapid emissary