“That’s so. No one came and disturbed us, I suppose?”

“No one.”

“Then,” said Richard, who was trying to collect his memory, “then I must certainly have been robbed on my way home from the Opera.”

“No,” said Moncharmin in a drier tone than ever, “no, that’s impossible. For I dropped you in my cab. The twenty-thousand francs disappeared at your place: there’s not a shadow of a doubt about that.”

“It’s incredible!” protested Richard. “I am sure of my servants⁠ ⁠… and if one of them had done it, he would have disappeared since.”

Moncharmin shrugged his shoulders, as though to say that he did not wish to enter into details, and Richard began to think that Moncharmin was treating him in a very insupportable fashion.

“Moncharmin, I’ve had enough of this!”