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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13058 ***
+
+                         THE TEETH OF THE TIGER
+
+                           An Adventure Story
+
+                           BY MAURICE LEBLANC
+
+   Author of "Arsène Lupin," "The Hollow Needle," "The Crystal Stopper"
+
+                                  1914
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER
+
+    I. D'ARTAGNAN, PORTHOS ... AND MONTE CRISTO
+   II. A MAN DEAD
+  III. A MAN DOOMED
+   IV. THE CLOUDED TURQUOISE
+    V. THE IRON CURTAIN
+   VI. THE MAN WITH THE EBONY WALKING-STICK
+  VII. SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS, VOLUME VIII
+ VIII. THE DEVIL'S POST-OFFICE
+   IX. LUPIN'S ANGER
+    X. GASTON SAUVERAND EXPLAINS
+   XI. ROUTED
+  XII. "HELP!"
+ XIII. THE EXPLOSION
+  XIV. THE "HATER"
+   XV. THE HEIR TO THE HUNDRED MILLIONS
+  XVI. WEBER TAKES HIS REVENGE
+ XVII. OPEN SESAME!
+XVIII. ARSÈNE I EMPEROR OF MAURETANIA
+  XIX. "THE SNARE IS LAID. BEWARE, LUPIN!"
+   XX. FLORENCE'S SECRET
+  XXI. LUPIN'S LUPINS
+
+
+
+
+The Teeth of the Tiger
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE
+
+D'ARTAGNAN, PORTHOS ... AND MONTE CRISTO
+
+
+It was half-past four; M. Desmalions, the Prefect of Police, was not yet
+back at the office. His private secretary laid on the desk a bundle of
+letters and reports which he had annotated for his chief, rang the bell
+and said to the messenger who entered by the main door:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet has sent for a number of people to see him at five
+o'clock. Here are their names. Show them into separate waiting-rooms, so
+that they can't communicate with one another, and let me have their cards
+when they come."
+
+The messenger went out. The secretary was turning toward the small door
+that led to his room, when the main door opened once more and admitted a
+man who stopped and leaned swaying over the back of a chair.
+
+"Why, it's you, Vérot!" said the secretary. "But what's happened? What's
+the matter?"
+
+Inspector Vérot was a very stout, powerfully built man, with a big neck
+and shoulders and a florid complexion. He had obviously been upset by
+some violent excitement, for his face, streaked with red veins and
+usually so apoplectic, seemed almost pale.
+
+"Oh, nothing, Monsieur le Secrétaire!" he said.
+
+"Yes, yes; you're not looking your usual self. You're gray in the
+face.... And the way you're perspiring...."
+
+Inspector Vérot wiped his forehead and, pulling himself together, said:
+
+"It's just a little tiredness.... I've been overworking myself lately: I
+was very keen on clearing up a case which Monsieur Desmalions had put in
+my hands. All the same, I have a funny sort of feeling--"
+
+"Will you have a pick-me-up?"
+
+"No, no; I'm more thirsty."
+
+"A glass of water?"
+
+"No, thank you."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"I should like--I should like--"
+
+His voice faltered. He wore a troubled look, as if he had suddenly lost
+his power of getting out another word. But he recovered himself with an
+effort and asked:
+
+"Isn't Monsieur Desmalions here?"
+
+"No; he won't be back till five, when he has an important meeting."
+
+"Yes ... I know ... most important. That's what I'm here for. But
+I should have liked to see him first. I should so much have liked
+to see him!"
+
+The secretary stared at Vérot and said:
+
+"What a state you're in! Is your message so urgent as all that?"
+
+"It's very urgent, indeed. It has to do with a crime that took place a
+month ago, to the day. And, above all, it's a matter of preventing two
+murders which are the outcome of that other crime and which are to be
+committed to-night. Yes, to-night, inevitably, unless we take the
+necessary steps."
+
+"Sit down, Vérot, won't you?"
+
+"You see, the whole thing has been planned in such an infernal manner!
+You would never have imagined--"
+
+"Still, Vérot, as you know about it beforehand, and as Monsieur le Préfet
+is sure to give you full powers--"
+
+"Yes, of course, of course. But, all the same, it's terrible to think
+that I might miss him. So I wrote him this letter, telling him all I know
+about the business. I thought it safer."
+
+He handed the secretary a large yellow envelope and added:
+
+"And here's a little box as well; I'll leave it on this table. It
+contains something that will serve to complete and explain the contents
+of the letter."
+
+"But why don't you keep all that by you?"
+
+"I'm afraid to. They're watching me. They're trying to get rid of
+me. I shan't be easy in my mind until some one besides myself knows
+the secret."
+
+"Have no fear, Vérot. Monsieur le Préfet is bound to be back soon.
+Meanwhile, I advise you to go to the infirmary and ask for a pick-me-up."
+
+The inspector seemed undecided what to do. Once more he wiped away the
+perspiration that was trickling down his forehead. Then, drawing himself
+up, he left the office. When he was gone the secretary slipped the letter
+into a big bundle of papers that lay on the Prefect's desk and went out
+by the door leading to his own room.
+
+He had hardly closed it behind him when the other door opened once again
+and the inspector returned, spluttering:
+
+"Monsieur le Secrétaire ... it'd be better if I showed you--"
+
+The unfortunate man was as white as a sheet. His teeth were chattering.
+When he saw that the secretary was gone, he tried to walk across to his
+private room. But he was seized with an attack of weakness and sank into
+a chair, where he remained for some minutes, moaning helplessly:
+
+"What's the matter with me? ... Have I been poisoned, too? ... Oh, I
+don't like this; I don't like the look of this!"
+
+The desk stood within reach of his hand. He took a pencil, drew a
+writing-pad toward him and began to scribble a few characters. But he
+next stammered:
+
+"Why, no, it's not worth while. The Prefect will be reading my
+letter.... What on earth's the matter with me. I don't like this at all!"
+
+Suddenly he rose to his feet and called out:
+
+"Monsieur le Secrétaire, we've got ... we've got to ... It's for
+to-night. Nothing can prevent--"
+
+Stiffening himself with an effort of his whole will, he made for the door
+of the secretary's room with little short steps, like an automaton. But
+he reeled on the way--and had to sit down a second time.
+
+A mad terror shook him from head to foot; and he uttered cries which were
+too faint, unfortunately, to be heard. He realized this and looked round
+for a bell, for a gong; but he was no longer able to distinguish
+anything. A veil of darkness seemed to weigh upon his eyes.
+
+Then he dropped on his knees and crawled to the wall, beating the air
+with one hand, like a blind man, until he ended by touching some
+woodwork. It was the partition-wall.
+
+He crept along this; but, as ill-luck would have it, his bewildered brain
+showed him a false picture of the room, so that, instead of turning to
+the left as he should have done, he followed the wall to the right,
+behind a screen which concealed a third door.
+
+His fingers touched the handle of this door and he managed to open it. He
+gasped, "Help! Help!" and fell at his full length in a sort of cupboard
+or closet which the Prefect of Police used as a dressing-room.
+
+"To-night!" he moaned, believing that he was making himself heard and
+that he was in the secretary's room. "To-night! The job is fixed for
+to-night! You'll see ... The mark of the teeth! ... It's awful! ... Oh,
+the pain I'm in! ... It's the poison! Save me! Help!"
+
+The voice died away. He repeated several times, as though in a nightmare:
+
+"The teeth! the teeth! They're closing!"
+
+Then his voice grew fainter still; and inarticulate sounds issued from
+his pallid lips. His mouth munched the air like the mouth of one of those
+old men who seem to be interminably chewing the cud. His head sank lower
+and lower on his breast. He heaved two or three sighs; a great shiver
+passed through his body; and he moved no more.
+
+And the death-rattle began in his throat, very softly and rhythmically,
+broken only by interruptions in which a last instinctive effort appeared
+to revive the flickering life of the intelligence, and to rouse fitful
+gleams of consciousness in the dimmed eyes.
+
+The Prefect of Police entered his office at ten minutes to five. M.
+Desmalions, who had filled his post for the past three years with an
+authority that made him generally respected, was a heavily built man of
+fifty with a shrewd and intelligent face. His dress, consisting of a gray
+jacket-suit, white spats, and a loosely flowing tie, in no way suggested
+the public official. His manners were easy, simple, and full of
+good-natured frankness.
+
+He touched a bell, and when his secretary entered, asked:
+
+"Are the people whom I sent for here?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, and I gave orders that they were to wait in
+different rooms."
+
+"Oh, it would not have mattered if they had met! However, perhaps it's
+better as it is. I hope that the American Ambassador did not trouble to
+come in person?"
+
+"No, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Have you their cards?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The Prefect of Police took the five visiting cards which his secretary
+handed him and read:
+
+"Mr. Archibald Bright, First Secretary United States Embassy; Maître
+Lepertuis, Solicitor; Juan Caceres, Attaché to the Peruvian Legation;
+Major Comte d'Astrignac, retired."
+
+The fifth card bore merely a name, without address or quality of
+any kind--
+
+DON LUIS PERENNA
+
+"That's the one I'm curious to see!" said M. Desmalions. "He interests me
+like the very devil! Did you read the report of the Foreign Legion?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, and I confess that this gentleman
+puzzles me, too."
+
+"He does, eh? Did you ever hear of such pluck? A sort of heroic madman,
+something absolutely wonderful! And then there's that nickname of Arsène
+Lupin which he earned among his messmates for the way in which he used
+to boss them and astound them! ... How long is it since the death of
+Arsène Lupin?"
+
+"It happened two years before your appointment, Monsieur le Préfet. His
+corpse and Mme. Kesselbach's were discovered under the ruins of a little
+chalet which was burnt down close to the Luxemburg frontier. It was found
+at the inquest that he had strangled that monster, Mrs. Kesselbach, whose
+crimes came to light afterward, and that he hanged himself after setting
+fire to the chalet."
+
+"It was a fitting end for that--rascal," said M. Desmalions, "and I
+confess that I, for my part, much prefer not having him to fight against.
+Let's see, where were we? Are the papers of the Mornington inheritance
+ready for me?"
+
+"On your desk, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Good. But I was forgetting: is Inspector Vérot here?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. I expect he's in the infirmary getting
+something to pull him together."
+
+"Why, what's the matter with him?"
+
+"He struck me as being in a queer state--rather ill."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+The secretary described his interview with Inspector Vérot.
+
+"And you say he left a letter for me?" said M. Desmalions with a worried
+air. "Where is it?"
+
+"Among the papers, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Very odd: it's all very odd. Vérot is a first-rate inspector, a very
+sober-minded fellow; and he doesn't get frightened easily. You might go
+and fetch him. Meanwhile, I'll look through my letters."
+
+The secretary hurried away. When he returned, five minutes later,
+he stated, with an air of astonishment, that he had not seen
+Inspector Vérot.
+
+"And what's more curious still," he added, "is that the messenger who saw
+him leave this room saw him come in again almost at once and did not see
+him go out a second time."
+
+"Perhaps he only passed through here to go to you."
+
+"To me, Monsieur le Préfet? I was in my room all the time."
+
+"Then it's incomprehensible."
+
+"Yes ... unless we conclude that the messenger's attention was distracted
+for a second, as Vérot is neither here nor next door."
+
+"That must be it. I expect he's gone to get some air outside; and he'll
+be back at any moment. For that matter, I shan't want him to start with."
+
+The Prefect looked at his watch.
+
+"Ten past five. You might tell the messenger to show those gentlemen
+in.... Wait, though--"
+
+M. Desmalions hesitated. In turning over the papers he had found Vérot's
+letter. It was a large, yellow, business envelope, with "Café du
+Pont-Neuf" printed at the top.
+
+The secretary suggested:
+
+"In view of Vérot's absence, Monsieur le Préfet, and of what he said, it
+might be as well for you to see what's in the letter first."
+
+M. Desmalions paused to reflect.
+
+"Perhaps you're right."
+
+And, making up his mind, he inserted a paper-knife into the envelope and
+cut it open. A cry escaped him.
+
+"Oh, I say, this is a little too much!"
+
+"What is it, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+"Why, look here, a blank ... sheet of paper! That's all the envelope
+contains!"
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"See for yourself--a plain sheet folded in four, with not a word on it."
+
+"But Vérot told me in so many words that he had said in that letter all
+that he knew about the case."
+
+"He told you so, no doubt, but there you are! Upon my word, if I
+didn't know Inspector Vérot, I should think he was trying to play a
+game with me."
+
+"It's a piece of carelessness, Monsieur le Préfet, at the worst."
+
+"No doubt, a piece of carelessness, but I'm surprised at him. It doesn't
+do to be careless when the lives of two people are at stake. For he must
+have told you that there is a double murder planned for to-night?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, and under particularly alarming conditions;
+infernal was the word he used."
+
+M. Desmalions was walking up and down the room, with his hands behind his
+back. He stopped at a small table.
+
+"What's this little parcel addressed to me? 'Monsieur le Préfet de
+Police--to be opened in case of accident.'"
+
+"Oh, yes," said the secretary, "I was forgetting! That's from Inspector
+Vérot, too; something of importance, he said, and serving to complete and
+explain the contents of the letter."
+
+"Well," said M. Desmalions, who could not help laughing, "the letter
+certainly needs explaining; and, though there's no question of
+'accident,' I may as well open the parcel."
+
+As he spoke, he cut the string and discovered, under the paper, a box, a
+little cardboard box, which might have come from a druggist, but which
+was soiled and spoiled by the use to which it had been put.
+
+He raised the lid. Inside the box were a few layers of cotton wool, which
+were also rather dirty, and in between these layers was half a cake of
+chocolate.
+
+"What the devil does this mean?" growled the Prefect in surprise.
+
+He took the chocolate, looked at it, and at once perceived what was
+peculiar about this cake of chocolate, which was also undoubtedly the
+reason why Inspector Vérot had kept it. Above and below, it bore the
+prints of teeth, very plainly marked, very plainly separated one from the
+other, penetrating to a depth of a tenth of an inch or so into the
+chocolate. Each possessed its individual shape and width, and each was
+divided from its neighbours by a different interval. The jaws which had
+started eating the cake of chocolate had dug into it the mark of four
+upper and five lower teeth.
+
+M. Desmalions remained wrapped in thought and, with his head sunk on his
+chest, for some minutes resumed his walk up and down the room, muttering:
+
+"This is queer ... There's a riddle here to which I should like to know
+the answer. That sheet of paper, the marks of those teeth: what does it
+all mean?"
+
+But he was not the man to waste much time over a mystery which was bound
+to be cleared up presently, as Inspector Vérot must be either at the
+police office or somewhere just outside; and he said to his secretary:
+
+"I can't keep those five gentlemen waiting any longer. Please have them
+shown in now. If Inspector Vérot arrives while they are here, as he is
+sure to do, let me know at once. I want to see him as soon as he comes.
+Except for that, see that I'm not disturbed on any pretext, won't you?"
+
+        *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two minutes later the messenger showed in Maître Lepertuis, a stout,
+red-faced man, with whiskers and spectacles, followed by Archibald
+Bright, the Secretary of Embassy, and Caceres, the Peruvian attaché. M.
+Desmalions, who knew all three of them, chatted to them until he stepped
+forward to receive Major Comte d'Astrignac, the hero of La Chouïa, who
+had been forced into premature retirement by his glorious wounds. The
+Prefect was complimenting him warmly on his gallant conduct in Morocco
+when the door opened once more.
+
+"Don Luis Perenna, I believe?" said the Prefect, offering his hand to a
+man of middle height and rather slender build, wearing the military medal
+and the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour.
+
+The newcomer's face and expression, his way of holding himself, and his
+very youthful movements inclined one to look upon him as a man of forty,
+though there were wrinkles at the corners of the eyes and on the
+forehead, which perhaps pointed to a few years more. He bowed.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Is that you, Perenna?" cried Comte d'Astrignae. "So you are still among
+the living?"
+
+"Yes, Major, and delighted to see you again."
+
+"Perenna alive! Why, we had lost all sight of you when I left Morocco! We
+thought you dead."
+
+"I was a prisoner, that's all."
+
+"A prisoner of the tribesmen; the same thing!"
+
+"Not quite, Major; one can escape from anywhere. The proof stands
+before you."
+
+The Prefect of Police, yielding to an irresistible attraction to resist,
+spent some seconds in examining that powerful face, with the smiling
+glance, the frank and resolute eyes, and the bronzed complexion, which
+looked as if it had been baked and baked again by the sun.
+
+Then, motioning to his visitors to take chairs around his desk, M.
+Desmalions himself sat down and made a preliminary statement in clear and
+deliberate tones:
+
+"The summons, gentlemen, which I addressed to each of you, must have
+appeared to you rather peremptory and mysterious. And the manner in which
+I propose to open our conversation is not likely to diminish your
+surprise. But if you will attach a little credit to my method, you will
+soon realize that the whole thing is very simple and very natural. I will
+be as brief as I can."
+
+He spread before him the bundle of documents prepared for him by his
+secretary and, consulting his notes as he spoke, continued:
+
+"Over fifty years ago, in 1860, three sisters, three orphans, Ermeline,
+Elizabeth, and Armande Roussel, aged twenty-two, twenty, and eighteen
+respectively, were living at Saint-Etienne with a cousin named Victor,
+who was a few years younger. The eldest, Ermeline, was the first to leave
+Saint-Etienne. She went to London, where she married an Englishman of the
+name Mornington, by whom she had a son, who was christened Cosmo.
+
+"The family was very poor and went through hard times. Ermeline
+repeatedly wrote to her sisters to ask for a little assistance. Receiving
+no reply, she broke off the correspondence altogether. In 1870 Mr. and
+Mrs. Mornington left England for America. Five years later they were
+rich. Mr. Mornington died in 1878; but his widow continued to administer
+the fortune bequeathed to her and, as she had a genius for business and
+speculation, she increased this fortune until it attained a colossal
+figure. At her decease, in 1900, she left her son the sum of four hundred
+million francs."
+
+The amount seemed to make an impression on the Prefect's hearers. He saw
+the major and Don Luis Perenna exchange a glance and asked:
+
+"You knew Cosmo Mornington, did you not?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet," replied Comte d'Astrignac. "He was in Morocco
+when Perenna and I were fighting there."
+
+"Just so," said M. Desmalions. "Cosmo Mornington had begun to travel
+about the world. He took up the practise of medicine, from what I hear,
+and, when occasion offered, treated the sick with great skill and, of
+course, without charge. He lived first in Egypt and then in Algiers and
+Morocco. Last year he settled down in Paris, where he died four weeks ago
+as the result of a most stupid accident."
+
+"A carelessly administered hypodermic injection, was it not, Monsieur le
+Préfet?" asked the secretary of the American Embassy. "It was mentioned
+in the papers and reported to us at the embassy."
+
+"Yes," said Desmalions. "To assist his recovery from a long attack of
+influenza which had kept him in bed all the winter, Mr. Mornington, by
+his doctor's orders, used to give himself injections of glycero-phosphate
+of soda. He must have omitted the necessary precautions on the last
+occasion when he did so, for the wound was poisoned, inflammation set in
+with lightning rapidity, and Mr. Mornington was dead in a few hours."
+
+The Prefect of Police turned to the solicitor and asked:
+
+"Have I summed up the facts correctly, Maître Lepertuis?"
+
+"Absolutely, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+M. Desmalions continued:
+
+"The next morning, Maître Lepertuis called here and, for reasons which
+you will understand when you have heard the document read, showed me
+Cosmo Mornington's will, which had been placed in his hands."
+
+While the Prefect was looking through the papers, Maître Lepertuis added:
+
+"I may be allowed to say that I saw my client only once before I was
+summoned to his death-bed; and that was on the day when he sent for me to
+come to his room in the hotel to hand me the will which he had just made.
+This was at the beginning of his influenza. In the course of conversation
+he told me that he had been making some inquiries with a view to tracing
+his mother's family, and that he intended to pursue these inquiries
+seriously after his recovery. Circumstances, as it turned out, prevented
+his fulfilling his purpose."
+
+Meanwhile, the Prefect of Police had taken from among the documents an
+open envelope containing two sheets of paper. He unfolded the larger of
+the two and said:
+
+"This is the will. I will ask you to listen attentively while I read it
+and also the document attached to it."
+
+The others settled themselves in their chairs; and the Prefect read out:
+
+"The last will and testament of me, Cosmo Mornington, eldest son of
+Hubert Mornington and Ermeline Roussel, his wife, a naturalized citizen
+of the United States of America. I give and bequeath to my adopted
+country three fourths of my estate, to be employed on works of charity in
+accordance with the instructions, written in my hand, which Maître
+Lepertuis will be good enough to forward to the Ambassador of the United
+States. The remainder of my property, to the value of about one hundred
+million francs, consisting of deposits in various Paris and London banks,
+a list of which is in the keeping of Maître Lepertuis, I give and
+bequeath, in memory of my dear mother, to her favourite sister Elizabeth
+Roussel or her direct heirs; or, in default of Elizabeth and her heirs,
+to her second sister Armande Roussel or her direct heirs; or, in default
+of both sisters and their heirs, to their cousin Victor Roussel or his
+direct heirs.
+
+"In the event of my dying without discovering the surviving members of
+the Roussel family, or of the cousin of the three sisters, I request my
+friend Don Luis Perenna to make all the necessary investigations. With
+this object, I hereby appoint him the executor of my will in so far as
+concerns the European portion of my estate, and I beg him to undertake
+the conduct of the events that may arise after my death or in consequence
+of my death to consider himself my representative and to act in all
+things for the benefit of my memory and the accomplishment of my wishes.
+In gratitude for this service and in memory of the two occasions on which
+he saved my life, I give and bequeath to the said Don Luis Perenna the
+sum of one million francs."
+
+The Prefect stopped for a few seconds. Don Luis murmured:
+
+"Poor Cosmo! ... I should not have needed that inducement to carry out
+his last wishes."
+
+M. Desmalions continued his reading:
+
+"Furthermore, if, within three months of my death, the investigations
+made by Don Luis Perenna and by Maître Lepertuis have led to no result;
+if no heir and no survivor of the Roussel family have come forward to
+receive the bequest, then the whole hundred million francs shall
+definitely, all later claims notwithstanding, accrue to my friend Don
+Luis Perenna. I know him well enough to feel assured that he will employ
+this fortune in a manner which shall accord with the loftiness of his
+schemes and the greatness of the plans which he described to me so
+enthusiastically in our tent in Morocco."
+
+M. Desmalions stopped once more and raised his eyes to Don Luis, who
+remained silent and impassive, though a tear glistened on his lashes.
+Comte d'Astrignac said:
+
+"My congratulations, Perenna."
+
+"Let me remind you, Major," he answered, "that this legacy is subject to
+a condition. And I swear that, if it depends on me, the survivors of the
+Roussel family shall be found."
+
+"I'm sure of it," said the officer. "I know you."
+
+"In any case," asked the Prefect of Police of Don Luis, "you do not
+refuse this conditional legacy?"
+
+"Well, no," said Perenna, with a laugh. "There are things which one
+can't refuse."
+
+"My question," said the Prefect, "was prompted by the last paragraph of
+the will: 'If, for any reason, my friend Perenna should refuse this
+legacy, or if he should have died before the date fixed for its payment,
+I request the Ambassador of the United States and the Prefect of Police
+for the time being to consult as to the means of building and maintaining
+in Paris a university confined to students and artists of American
+nationality and to devote the money to this purpose. And I hereby
+authorize the Prefect of Police in any case to receive a sum of three
+hundred thousand francs out of my estate for the benefit of the Paris
+Police Fund.'"
+
+M. Desmalions folded the paper and took up another.
+
+"There is a codicil to the will. It consists of a letter which Mr.
+Mornington wrote to Maître Lepertuis some time after and which explains
+certain points with greater precision:
+
+"I request Maître Lepertuis to open my will on the day after my death, in
+the presence of the Prefect of Police, who will be good enough to keep
+the matter an entire secret for a month. One month later, to the day, he
+will have the kindness to summon to his office Maître Lepertuis, Don Luis
+Perenna, and a prominent member of the United States Embassy. Subsequent
+to the reading of the will, a cheque for one million francs shall be
+handed to my friend and legatee Don Luis Perenna, after a simple
+examination of his papers and a simple verification of his identity. I
+should wish this verification to be made as regards the personality by
+Major Comte d'Astrignac, who was his commanding officer in Morocco, and
+who unfortunately had to retire prematurely from the army; and as regards
+birth by a member of the Peruvian Legation, as Don Luis Perenna, though
+retaining his Spanish nationality, was born in Peru.
+
+"Furthermore, I desire that my will be not communicated to the Roussel
+heirs until two days later, at Maître Lepertuis's office. Finally--and
+this is the last expression of my wishes as regards the disposal of my
+estate and the method of proceeding with that disposal--the Prefect of
+Police will be good enough to summon the persons aforesaid to his office,
+for a second time, at a date to be selected by himself, not less than
+sixty nor more than ninety days after the first meeting. Then and not
+till then will the definite legatee be named and proclaimed according to
+his rights, nor shall any be so named and proclaimed unless he be present
+at this meeting, at the conclusion of which Don Luis Perenna, who must
+also attend it, shall become the definite legatee if, as I have said, no
+survivor nor heir of the Roussel sisters or of their cousin Victor have
+come forward to claim the bequest."
+
+Replacing both documents in the envelope the Prefect of Police concluded:
+
+"You have now, gentlemen, heard the will of Mr. Cosmo Mornington, which
+explains your presence here. A sixth person will join us shortly: one of
+my detectives, whom I instructed to make the first inquiries about the
+Roussel family and who will give you the result of his investigations.
+But, for the moment, we must proceed in accordance with the testator's
+directions.
+
+"Don Luis Perenna's papers, which he sent me, at my request, a fortnight
+ago, have been examined by myself and are perfectly in order. As regards
+his birth, I wrote and begged his Excellency the Peruvian minister to
+collect the most precise information."
+
+"The minister entrusted this mission to me," said Señor Caceres, the
+Peruvian attaché. "It offered no difficulties. Don Luis Perenna comes of
+an old Spanish family which emigrated thirty years ago, but which
+retained its estates and property in Europe. I knew Don Luis's father in
+America; and he used to speak of his only son with the greatest
+affection. It was our legation that informed the son, three years ago, of
+his father's death. I produce a copy of the letter sent to Morocco."
+
+"And I have the original letter here, among the documents forwarded by
+Don Luis Perenna to the Prefect of Police. Do you, Major, recognize
+Private Perenna, who fought under your orders in the Foreign Legion?"
+
+"I recognize him," said Comte d'Astrignac.
+
+"Beyond the possibility of a mistake?"
+
+"Beyond the possibility of a mistake and without the least feeling of
+hesitation."
+
+The Prefect of Police, with a laugh, hinted:
+
+"You recognize Private Perenna, whom the men, carried away by a sort of
+astounded admiration of his exploits, used to call Arsène Lupin?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet," replied the major sharply, "the one whom the
+men called Arsène Lupin, but whom the officers called simply the Hero,
+the one who we used to say was as brave as d'Artagnan, as strong as
+Porthos...."
+
+"And as mysterious as Monte Cristo," said the Prefect of Police,
+laughing. "I have all this in the report which I received from the Fourth
+Regiment of the Foreign Legion. It is not necessary to read the whole of
+it; but it contains the unprecedented fact that Private Perenna, in the
+space of two years' time, received the military medal, received the
+Legion of Honour for exceptional services, and was mentioned fourteen
+times in dispatches. I will pick out a detail here and there."
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, I beg of you," protested Don Luis. "These are
+trivial matters, of no interest to anybody; and I do not see the
+reason...."
+
+"There is every reason, on the contrary," declared M. Desmalions. "You
+gentlemen are here not only to hear a will read, but also to authorize
+its execution as regards the only one of its clauses that is to be
+carried out at once, the payment of a legacy of a million francs. It
+is necessary, therefore, that all of you should know what there is to
+know of the personality of the legatee. Consequently, I propose to
+continue ..."
+
+"In that case, Monsieur le Préfet," said Perenna, rising and making for
+the door, "you will allow me ..."
+
+"Right about turn! Halt! ... Eyes front!" commanded Major d'Astrignac in
+a jesting tone.
+
+He dragged Don Luis back to the middle of the room and forced him
+into a chair.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet," he said, "I plead for mercy for my old
+comrade-in-arms, whose modesty would really be put to too severe a test
+if the story of his prowess were read out in front of him. Besides, the
+report is here; and we can all of us consult it for ourselves. Without
+having seen it, I second every word of praise that it contains; and I
+declare that, in the course of my whole military career, I have never met
+a soldier who could compare with Private Perenna. And yet I saw plenty of
+fine fellows over there, the sort of demons whom you only find in the
+Legion and who will get themselves cut to bits for the sheer pleasure of
+the thing, for the lark of it, as they say, just to astonish one another.
+
+"But not one of them came anywhere near Perenna. The chap whom we
+nicknamed d'Artagnan, Porthos, and de Bussy deserved to be classed with
+the most amazing heroes of legend and history. I have seen him perform
+feats which I should not care to relate, for fear of being treated as an
+impostor; feats so improbable that to-day, in my calmer moments, I wonder
+if I am quite sure that I did see them. One day, at Settat, as we were
+being pursued--"
+
+"Another word, Major," cried Don Luis, gayly, "and this time I really
+will go out! I must say you have a nice way of sparing my modesty!"
+
+"My dear Perenna," replied Comte d'Astrignac, "I always told you that you
+had every good quality and only one fault, which was that you were not a
+Frenchman."
+
+"And I always answered, Major, that I was French on my mother's side and
+a Frenchman in heart and temperament. There are things which only a
+Frenchman can do."
+
+The two men again gripped each other's hands affectionately.
+
+"Come," said the Prefect, "we'll say no more of your feats of prowess,
+Monsieur, nor of this report. I will mention one thing, however, which is
+that, after two years, you fell into an ambush of forty Berbers, that you
+were captured, and that you did not rejoin the Legion until last month."
+
+"Just so, Monsieur le Préfet, in time to receive my discharge, as my five
+years' service was up."
+
+"But how did Mr. Cosmo Mornington come to mention you in his will, when,
+at the time when he was making it, you had disappeared from view for
+eighteen months?"
+
+"Cosmo and I used to correspond."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Yes; and I had informed him of my approaching escape and my return
+to Paris."
+
+"But how did you manage it? Where were you? And how did you find the
+means? ..."
+
+Don Luis smiled without answering.
+
+"Monte Cristo, this time," said M. Desmalions. "The mysterious
+Monte Cristo."
+
+"Monte Cristo, if you like, Monsieur le Préfet. In point of fact, the
+mystery of my captivity and escape is a rather strange one. It may be
+interesting to throw some light upon it one of these days. Meanwhile, I
+must ask for a little credit."
+
+A silence ensued. M. Desmalions once more inspected this curious
+individual; and he could not refrain from saying, as though in obedience
+to an association of ideas for which he himself was unable to account:
+
+"One word more, and one only. What were your comrades' reasons for giving
+you that rather odd nickname of Arsène Lupin? Was it just an allusion to
+your pluck, to your physical strength?"
+
+"There was something besides, Monsieur le Préfet: the discovery of a very
+curious theft, of which certain details, apparently incapable of
+explanation, had enabled me to name the perpetrator."
+
+"So you have a gift for that sort of thing?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, a certain knack which I had the opportunity of
+employing in Africa on more than one occasion. Hence my nickname of
+Arsène Lupin. It was soon after the death of the man himself, you know,
+and he was much spoken of at the time."
+
+"Was it a serious theft?"
+
+"It was rather; and it happened to be committed upon Cosmo Mornington,
+who was then living in the Province of Oran. That was really what started
+our relations."
+
+There was a fresh silence; and Don Luis added:
+
+"Poor Cosmo! That incident gave him an unshakable confidence in my little
+detective talents. He was always saying, 'Perenna, if I die murdered'--he
+had a fixed notion in his head that he would meet with a violent
+death--'if I die murdered, swear that you will pursue the culprit.'"
+
+"His presentiment was not justified," said the Prefect of Police. "Cosmo
+Mornington was not murdered."
+
+"That's where you make a mistake, Monsieur le Préfet," said Don Luis.
+
+M. Desmalions gave a start.
+
+"What! What's that? Cosmo Mornington--?"
+
+"I say that Cosmo Mornington did not die, as you think, of a carelessly
+administered injection, but that he died, as he feared he would, by
+foul play."
+
+"But, Monsieur, your assertion is based on no evidence whatever!"
+
+"It is based on fact, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Were you there? Do you know anything?"
+
+"I was not there. A month ago I was still with the colours. I even admit
+that, when I arrived in Paris, not having seen the newspapers regularly,
+I did not know of Cosmo's death. In fact, I learned it from you just now,
+Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"In that case, Monsieur, you cannot know more about it than I do, and you
+must accept the verdict of the doctor."
+
+"I am sorry, but his verdict fails to satisfy me."
+
+"But look here, Monsieur, what prompts you to make the accusation? Have
+you any evidence?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What evidence?"
+
+"Your own words, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"My own words? What do you mean?"
+
+"I will tell you, Monsieur le Préfet. You began by saying that Cosmo
+Mornington had taken up medicine and practised it with great skill;
+next, you said that he had given himself an injection which,
+carelessly administered, set up inflammation and caused his death
+within a few hours."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, Monsieur le Préfet, I maintain that a man who practises medicine
+with great skill and who is accustomed to treating sick people, as Cosmo
+Mornington was, is incapable of giving himself a hypodermic injection
+without first taking every necessary antiseptic precaution. I have seen
+Cosmo at work, and I know how he set about things."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, the doctor just wrote a certificate as any doctor will when there
+is no sort of clue to arouse his suspicions."
+
+"So your opinion is--"
+
+"Maître Lepertuis," asked Perenna, turning to the solicitor, "did you
+notice nothing unusual when you were summoned to Mr. Mornington's
+death-bed?"
+
+"No, nothing. Mr. Mornington was in a state of coma."
+
+"It's a strange thing in itself," observed Don Luis, "that an injection,
+however badly administered, should produce such rapid results. Were there
+no signs of suffering?"
+
+"No ... or rather, yes.... Yes, I remember the face showed brown patches
+which I did not see on the occasion of my first visit."
+
+"Brown patches? That confirms my supposition Cosmo Mornington was
+poisoned."
+
+"But how?" exclaimed the Prefect.
+
+"By some substance introduced into one of the phials of
+glycero-phosphate, or into the syringe which the sick man employed."
+
+"But the doctor?" M. Desmalions objected.
+
+"Maître Lepertuis," Perenna continued, "did you call the doctor's
+attention to those brown patches?"
+
+"Yes, but he attached no importance to them."
+
+"Was it his ordinary medical adviser?"
+
+"No, his ordinary medical adviser, Doctor Pujol, who happens to be a
+friend of mine and who had recommended me to him as a solicitor, was ill.
+The doctor whom I saw at his death-bed must have been a local
+practitioner."
+
+"I have his name and address here," said the Prefect of Police, who had
+turned up the certificate. "Doctor Bellavoine, 14 Rue d'Astorg."
+
+"Have you a medical directory, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+M. Desmalions opened a directory and turned over the pages. Presently
+he declared:
+
+"There is no Doctor Bellavoine; and there is no doctor living at 14 Rue
+d'Astorg."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO
+
+A MAN DEAD
+
+
+The declaration was followed by a silence of some length. The Secretary
+of the American Embassy and the Peruvian attaché had followed the
+conversation with eager interest. Major d'Astrignac nodded his head with
+an air of approval. To his mind, Perenna could not be mistaken.
+
+The Prefect of Police confessed:
+
+"Certainly, certainly ... we have a number of circumstances here ... that
+are fairly ambiguous.... Those brown patches; that doctor.... It's a case
+that wants looking into." And, questioning Don Luis Perenna as though in
+spite of himself, he asked, "No doubt, in your opinion, there is a
+possible connection between the murder ... and Mr. Mornington's will?"
+
+"That, Monsieur le Préfet, I cannot tell. If there is, we should have to
+suppose that the contents of the will were known. Do you think they can
+have leaked out, Maître Lepertuis?"
+
+"I don't think so, for Mr. Mornington seemed to behave with great
+caution."
+
+"And there's no question, is there, of any indiscretion committed in
+your office?"
+
+"By whom? No one handled the will except myself; and I alone have the
+key of the safe in which I put away documents of that importance
+every evening."
+
+"The safe has not been broken into? There has been no burglary at
+your office?"
+
+"No."
+
+"You saw Cosmo Mornington in the morning?"
+
+"Yes, on a Friday morning."
+
+"What did you do with the will until the evening, until you locked it
+away up your safe?"
+
+"I probably put it in the drawer of my desk."
+
+"And the drawer was not forced?"
+
+Maître Lepertuis seemed taken aback and made no reply.
+
+"Well?" asked Perenna.
+
+"Well, yes, I remember ... there was something that day ... that
+same Friday."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Yes. When I came in from lunch I noticed that the drawer was not locked,
+although I had locked it beyond the least doubt. At the time I attached
+comparatively little importance to the incident. To-day, I understand, I
+understand--"
+
+Thus, little by little, were all the suppositions conceived by Don Luis
+verified: suppositions resting, it is true, upon just one or two clues,
+but yet containing an amount of intuition, of divination, that was really
+surprising in a man who had been present at none of the events between
+which he traced the connection so skilfully.
+
+"We will lose no time, Monsieur," said the Prefect of Police, "in
+checking your statements, which you will confess to be a little
+venturesome, by the more positive evidence of one of my detectives who
+has the case in charge ... and who ought to be here by now."
+
+"Does his evidence bear upon Cosmo Mornington's heirs?" asked the
+solicitor.
+
+"Upon the heirs principally, because two days ago he telephoned to me
+that he had collected all the particulars, and also upon the very points
+which--But wait: I remember that he spoke to my secretary of a murder
+committed a month ago to-day.... Now it's a month to-day since Mr. Cosmo
+Mornington--"
+
+M. Desmalions pressed hard on a bell. His private secretary at
+once appeared.
+
+"Inspector Vérot?" asked the Prefect sharply.
+
+"He's not back yet."
+
+"Have him fetched! Have him brought here! He must be found at all costs
+and without delay."
+
+He turned to Don Luis Perenna.
+
+"Inspector Vérot was here an hour ago, feeling rather unwell, very much
+excited, it seems, and declaring that he was being watched and followed.
+He said he wanted to make a most important statement to me about the
+Mornington case and to warn the police of two murders which are to be
+committed to-night ... and which would be a consequence of the murder of
+Cosmo Mornington."
+
+"And he was unwell, you say?"
+
+"Yes, ill at ease and even very queer and imagining things. By way of
+being prudent, he left a detailed report on the case for me. Well, the
+report is simply a blank sheet of letter-paper.
+
+"Here is the paper and the envelope in which I found it, and here is a
+cardboard box which he also left behind him. It contains a cake of
+chocolate with the marks of teeth on it."
+
+"May I look at the two things you have mentioned, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+"Yes, but they won't tell you anything."
+
+"Perhaps so--"
+
+Don Luis examined at length the cardboard box and the yellow envelope,
+on which were printed the words, "Café du Pont-Neuf." The others awaited
+his words as though they were bound to shed an unexpected light. He
+merely said:
+
+"The handwriting is not the same on the envelope and the box. The writing
+on the envelope is less plain, a little shaky, obviously imitated."
+
+"Which proves--?"
+
+"Which proves, Monsieur le Préfet, that this yellow envelope does not
+come from your detective. I presume that, after writing his report at a
+table in the Café du Pont-Neuf and closing it, he had a moment of
+inattention during which somebody substituted for his envelope another
+with the same address, but containing a blank sheet of paper."
+
+"That's a supposition!" said the Prefect.
+
+"Perhaps; but what is certain, Monsieur le Préfet, is that your
+inspector's presentiments are well-grounded, that he is being closely
+watched, that the discoveries about the Mornington inheritance which he
+has succeeded in making are interfering with criminal designs, and that
+he is in terrible danger."
+
+"Come, come!"
+
+"He must be rescued, Monsieur le Préfet. Ever since the commencement of
+this meeting I have felt persuaded that we are up against an attempt
+which has already begun. I hope that it is not too late and that your
+inspector has not been the first victim."
+
+"My dear sir," exclaimed the Prefect of Police, "you declare all this
+with a conviction which rouses my admiration, but which is not enough to
+establish the fact that your fears are justified. Inspector Vérot's
+return will be the best proof."
+
+"Inspector Vérot will not return."
+
+"But why not?"
+
+"Because he has returned already. The messenger saw him return."
+
+"The messenger was dreaming. If you have no proof but that man's
+evidence--"
+
+"I have another proof, Monsieur le Préfet, which Inspector Vérot himself
+has left of his presence here: these few, almost illegible letters which
+he scribbled on this memorandum pad, which your secretary did not see him
+write and which have just caught my eye. Look at them. Are they not a
+proof, a definite proof that he came back?"
+
+The Prefect did not conceal his perturbation. The others all seemed
+impressed. The secretary's return but increased their apprehensions:
+nobody had seen Inspector Vérot.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet," said Don Luis, "I earnestly beg you to have the
+office messenger in."
+
+And, as soon as the messenger was there, he asked him, without even
+waiting for M. Desmalions to speak:
+
+"Are you sure that Inspector Vérot entered this room a second time?"
+
+"Absolutely sure."
+
+"And that he did not go out again?"
+
+"Absolutely sure."
+
+"And your attention was not distracted for a moment?"
+
+"Not for a moment."
+
+"There, Monsieur, you see!" cried the Prefect. "If Inspector Vérot were
+here, we should know it."
+
+"He is here, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Excuse my obstinacy, Monsieur le Préfet, but I say that, when some one
+enters a room and does not go out again, he is still in that room."
+
+"Hiding?" said M. Desmalions, who was growing more and more irritated.
+
+"No, but fainting, ill--dead, perhaps."
+
+"But where, hang it all?"
+
+"Behind that screen."
+
+"There's nothing behind that screen, nothing but a door."
+
+"And that door--?"
+
+"Leads to a dressing-room."
+
+"Well, Monsieur le Préfet, Inspector Vérot, tottering, losing his head,
+imagining himself to be going from your office to your secretary's room,
+fell into your dressing-room."
+
+M. Desmalions ran to the door, but, at the moment of opening it, shrank
+back. Was it apprehension, the wish to withdraw himself from the
+influence of that astonishing man, who gave his orders with such
+authority and who seemed to command events themselves?
+
+Don Luis stood waiting imperturbably, in a deferential attitude.
+
+"I cannot believe--" said M. Desmalions.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, I would remind you that Inspector Vérot's
+revelations may save the lives of two persons who are doomed to die
+to-night. Every minute lost is irreparable."
+
+M. Desmalions shrugged his shoulders. But that man mastered him with the
+power of his conviction; and the Prefect opened the door.
+
+He did not make a movement, did not utter a cry. He simply muttered:
+
+"Oh, is it possible!--"
+
+By the pale gleam of light that entered through a ground-glass window
+they saw the body of a man lying on the floor.
+
+"The inspector! Inspector Vérot!" gasped the office messenger,
+running forward.
+
+He and the secretary raised the body and placed it in an armchair in the
+Prefect's office.
+
+Inspector Vérot was still alive, but so little alive that they could
+scarcely hear the beating of his heart. A drop of saliva trickled from
+the corner of his mouth. His eyes were devoid of all expression. However,
+certain muscles of the face kept moving, perhaps with the effort of a
+will that seemed to linger almost beyond life.
+
+Don Luis muttered:
+
+"Look, Monsieur le Préfet--the brown patches!"
+
+The same dread unnerved all. They began to ring bells and open doors and
+call for help.
+
+"Send for the doctor!" ordered M. Desmalions. "Tell them to bring a
+doctor, the first that comes--and a priest. We can't let the poor man--"
+
+Don Luis raised his arm to demand silence.
+
+"There is nothing more to be done," he said. "We shall do better to
+make the most of these last moments. Have I your permission, Monsieur
+le Préfet?"
+
+He bent over the dying man, laid the swaying head against the back of the
+chair, and, in a very gentle voice, whispered:
+
+"Vérot, it's Monsieur le Préfet speaking to you. We should like a few
+particulars about what is to take place to-night. Do you hear me, Vérot?
+If you hear me, close your eyelids."
+
+The eyelids were lowered. But was it not merely chance? Don Luis went on:
+
+"You have found the heirs of the Roussel sisters, that much we know; and
+it is two of those heirs who are threatened with death. The double murder
+is to be committed to-night. But what we do not know is the name of those
+heirs, who are doubtless not called Roussel. You must tell us the name.
+
+"Listen to me: you wrote on a memorandum pad three letters which seem to
+form the syllable Fau.... Am I right? Is this the first syllable of a
+name? Which is the next letter after those three? Close your eyes when I
+mention the right letter. Is it 'b?' Is it 'c?'"
+
+But there was now not a flicker in the inspector's pallid face. The head
+dropped heavily on the chest. Vérot gave two or three sighs, his frame
+shook with one great shiver, and he moved no more.
+
+He was dead.
+
+The tragic scene had been enacted so swiftly that the men who were
+its shuddering spectators remained for a moment confounded. The
+solicitor made the sign of the cross and went down on his knees. The
+Prefect murmured:
+
+"Poor Vérot!... He was a good man, who thought only of the service, of
+his duty. Instead of going and getting himself seen to--and who knows?
+Perhaps he might have been saved--he came back here in the hope of
+communicating his secret. Poor Vérot!--"
+
+"Was he married? Are there any children?" asked Don Luis.
+
+"He leaves a wife and three children," replied the Prefect.
+
+"I will look after them," said Don Luis simply.
+
+Then, when they brought a doctor and when M. Desmalions gave orders for
+the corpse to be carried to another room, Don Luis took the doctor
+aside and said:
+
+"There is no doubt that Inspector Vérot was poisoned. Look at his
+wrist: you will see the mark of a puncture with a ring of inflammation
+round it."
+
+"Then he was pricked in that place?"
+
+"Yes, with a pin or the point of a pen; and not as violently as they may
+have wished, because death did not ensue until some hours later."
+
+The messengers removed the corpse; and soon there was no one left in the
+office except the five people whom the Prefect had originally sent for.
+The American Secretary of Embassy and the Peruvian attaché, considering
+their continued presence unnecessary, went away, after warmly
+complimenting Don Luis Perenna on his powers of penetration.
+
+Next came the turn of Major d'Astrignac, who shook his former subordinate
+by the hand with obvious affection. And Maître Lepertais and Perenna,
+having fixed an appointment for the payment of the legacy, were
+themselves on the point of leaving, when M. Desmalions entered briskly.
+
+"Ah, so you're still here, Don Luis Perenna! I'm glad of that. I have an
+idea: those three letters which you say you made out on the
+writing-table, are you sure they form the syllable Fau?"
+
+"I think so, Monsieur le Préfet. See for yourself: are not these an 'F,'
+an 'A' and a 'U?' And observe that the 'F' is a capital, which made me
+suspect that the letters are the first syllable of a proper name."
+
+"Just so, just so," said M. Desmalions. "Well, curiously enough, that
+syllable happens to be--But wait, we'll verify our facts--"
+
+M. Desmalions searched hurriedly among the letters which his secretary
+had handed him on his arrival and which lay on a corner of the table.
+
+"Ah, here we are!" he exclaimed, glancing at the signature of one of the
+letters. "Here we are! It's as I thought: 'Fauville.' ... The first
+syllable is the same.... Look, 'Fauville,' just like that, without
+Christian name or initials. The letter must have been written in a
+feverish moment: there is no date nor address.... The writing is shaky--"
+
+And M. Desmalions read out:
+
+"MONSIEUR LE PRÉFET:
+
+"A great danger is hanging over my head and over the head of my son.
+Death is approaching apace. I shall have to-night, or to-morrow morning
+at the latest, the proofs of the abominable plot that threatens us. I ask
+leave to bring them to you in the course of the morning. I am in need of
+protection and I call for your assistance.
+
+"Permit me to be, etc. FAUVILLE."
+
+"No other designation?" asked Perenna. "No letter-heading?"
+
+"None. But there is no mistake. Inspector Vérot's declarations agree too
+evidently with this despairing appeal. It is clearly M. Fauville and his
+son who are to be murdered to-night. And the terrible thing is that, as
+this name of Fauville is a very common one, it is impossible for our
+inquiries to succeed in time."
+
+"What, Monsieur le Préfet? Surely, by straining every nerve--"
+
+"Certainly, we will strain every nerve; and I shall set all my men to
+work. But observe that we have not the slightest clue."
+
+"Oh, it would be awful!" cried Don Luis. "Those two creatures doomed to
+death; and we unable to save them! Monsieur le Préfet, I ask you to
+authorize me--"
+
+He had not finished speaking when the Prefect's private secretary entered
+with a visiting-card in his hand.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, this caller was so persistent.... I hesitated--"
+
+M. Desmalions took the card and uttered an exclamation of mingled
+surprise and joy.
+
+"Look, Monsieur," he said to Perenna.
+
+And he handed him the card.
+
+ _Hippolyte Fauville,
+   Civil Engineer.
+14 bis Boulevard Suchet._
+
+"Come," said M. Desmalions, "chance is favouring us. If this M. Fauville
+is one of the Roussel heirs, our task becomes very much easier."
+
+"In any case, Monsieur le Préfet," the solicitor interposed, "I must
+remind you that one of the clauses of the will stipulates that it shall
+not be read until forty-eight hours have elapsed. M. Fauville, therefore,
+must not be informed--"
+
+The door was pushed open and a man hustled the messenger aside and
+rushed in.
+
+"Inspector ... Inspector Vérot?" he spluttered. "He's dead, isn't he? I
+was told--"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur, he is dead."
+
+"Too late! I'm too late!" he stammered.
+
+And he sank into a chair, clasping his hands and sobbing:
+
+"Oh, the scoundrels! the scoundrels!"
+
+He was a pale, hollow-cheeked, sickly looking man of about fifty.
+His head was bald, above a forehead lined with deep wrinkles. A
+nervous twitching affected his chin and the lobes of his ears. Tears
+stood in his eyes.
+
+The Prefect asked:
+
+"Whom do you mean, Monsieur? Inspector Vérot's murderers? Are you able to
+name them, to assist our inquiry?"
+
+Hippolyte Fauville shook his head.
+
+"No, no, it would be useless, for the moment.... My proofs would not be
+sufficient.... No, really not."
+
+He had already risen from his chair and stood apologizing:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, I have disturbed you unnecessarily, but I wanted to
+know.... I was hoping that Inspector Vérot might have escaped.... His
+evidence, joined to mine, would have been invaluable. But perhaps he was
+able to tell you?"
+
+"No, he spoke of this evening--of to-night--"
+
+Hippolyte Fauville started.
+
+"This evening! Then the time has come!... But no, it's impossible, they
+can't do anything to me yet.... They are not ready--"
+
+"Inspector Vérot declared, however, that the double murder would be
+committed to-night."
+
+"No, Monsieur le Préfet, he was wrong there.... I know all about
+it.... To-morrow evening at the earliest ... and we will catch them in a
+trap.... Oh, the scoundrels!"
+
+Don Luis went up to him and asked:
+
+"Your mother's name was Ermeline Roussel, was it not?"
+
+"Yes, Ermeline Roussel. She is dead now."
+
+"And she was from Saint-Etienne?"
+
+"Yes. But why these questions?"
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet will tell you to-morrow. One word more." He opened
+the cardboard box left by Inspector Vérot. "Does this cake of chocolate
+mean anything to you? These marks?"
+
+"Oh, how awful!" said the civil engineer, in a hoarse tone. "Where did
+the inspector find it?"
+
+He dropped into his chair again, but only for a moment; then, drawing
+himself up, he hurried toward the door with a jerky step.
+
+"I'm going, Monsieur le Préfet, I'm going. To-morrow morning I'll show
+you.... I shall have all the proofs.... And the police will protect
+me.... I am ill, I know, but I want to live! I have the right to
+live ... and my son, too.... And we will live.... Oh, the scoundrels!--"
+
+And he ran, stumbling out, like a drunken man.
+
+M. Desmalions rose hastily.
+
+"I shall have inquiries made about that man's circumstances.... I shall
+have his house watched. I've telephoned to the detective office already.
+I'm expecting some one in whom I have every confidence."
+
+Don Luis said:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, I beg you, with an earnestness which you will
+understand, to authorize me to pursue the investigation. Cosmo
+Mornington's will makes it my duty and, allow me to say, gives me the
+right to do so. M. Fauville's enemies have given proofs of extraordinary
+cleverness and daring. I want to have the honour of being at the post of
+danger to-night, at M. Fauville's house, near his person."
+
+The Prefect hesitated. He was bound to reflect how greatly to Don Luis
+Perenna's interest it was that none of the Mornington heirs should be
+discovered, or at least be able to come between him and the millions
+of the inheritance. Was it safe to attribute to a noble sentiment of
+gratitude, to a lofty conception of friendship and duty, that strange
+longing to protect Hippolyte Fauville against the death that
+threatened him?
+
+For some seconds M. Desmalions watched that resolute face, those
+intelligent eyes, at once innocent and satirical, grave and smiling, eyes
+through which you could certainly not penetrate their owner's baffling
+individuality, but which nevertheless looked at you with an expression of
+absolute frankness and sincerity. Then he called his secretary:
+
+"Has any one come from the detective office?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet; Sergeant Mazeroux is here."
+
+"Please have him shown in."
+
+And, turning to Perenna:
+
+"Sergeant Mazeroux is one of our smartest detectives. I used to employ
+him together with that poor Vérot when I wanted any one more than
+ordinarily active and sharp. He will be of great use to you."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux entered. He was a short, lean, wiry man, whose drooping
+moustache, heavy eyelids, watery eyes and long, lank hair gave him a most
+doleful appearance.
+
+"Mazeroux," said the Prefect, "you will have heard, by this time, of your
+comrade Vérot's death and of the horrible circumstances attending it. We
+must now avenge him and prevent further crimes. This gentleman, who knows
+the case from end to end, will explain all that is necessary. You will
+work with him and report to me to-morrow morning."
+
+This meant giving a free hand to Don Luis Perenna and relying on his
+power of initiative and his perspicacity. Don Luis bowed:
+
+"I thank you, Monsieur le Préfet. I hope that you will have no reason to
+regret the trust which you are good enough to place in me."
+
+And, taking leave of M. Desmalions and Maître Lepertuis, he went out with
+Sergeant Mazeroux.
+
+As soon as they were outside, he told Mazeroux what he knew. The
+detective seemed much impressed by his companion's professional gifts and
+quite ready to be guided by his views.
+
+They decided first to go to the Café du Pont-Neuf. Here they learned that
+Inspector Vérot, who was a regular customer of the place, had written a
+long letter there that morning. And the waiter remembered that a man at
+the next table, who had entered the café at almost the same time as the
+inspector, had also asked for writing-paper and called twice for yellow
+envelopes.
+
+"That's it," said Mazeroux to Don Luis. "As you suspected, one letter has
+been substituted for the other."
+
+The description given by the waiter was pretty explicit: a tall man, with
+a slight stoop, wearing a reddish-brown beard cut into a point, a
+tortoise-shell eyeglass with a black silk ribbon, and an ebony
+walking-stick with a handle shaped like a swan's head.
+
+"That's something for the police to go upon," said Mazeroux.
+
+They were leaving the café when Don Luis stopped his companion.
+
+"One moment."
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"We've been followed."
+
+"Followed? What next? And by whom, pray?"
+
+"No one that matters. I know who it is and I may as well settle his
+business and have done with it. Wait for me. I shall be back; and I'll
+show you some fun. You shall see one of the 'nuts,' I promise you."
+
+He returned in a minute with a tall, thin man with his face set in
+whiskers. He introduced him:
+
+"M. Mazeroux, a friend of mine, Señor Caceres, an attaché at the Peruvian
+Legation. Señor Caceres took part in the interview at the Prefect's just
+now. It was he who, on the Peruvian Minister's instructions, collected
+the documents bearing upon my identity." And he added gayly: "So you were
+looking for me, dear Señor Caceres. Indeed, I expected, when we left the
+police office--"
+
+The Peruvian attaché made a sign and pointed to Sergeant Mazeroux.
+Perenna replied:
+
+"Oh, pray don't mind M. Mazeroux! You can speak before him; he is the
+soul of discretion. Besides, he knows all about the business."
+
+The attaché was silent. Perenna made him sit down in front of him.
+
+"Speak without beating about the bush, dear Señor Caceres. It's a subject
+that calls for plain dealing; and I don't mind a blunt word or two. It
+saves such a lot of time! Come on. You want money, I suppose? Or, rather,
+more money. How much?"
+
+The Peruvian had a final hesitation, gave a glance at Don Luis's
+companion, and then, suddenly making up his mind, said in a dull voice:
+
+"Fifty thousand francs!"
+
+"Oh, by Jove, by Jove!" cried Don Luis. "You're greedy, you know! What do
+you say, M. Mazeroux? Fifty thousand francs is a lot of money. Especially
+as--Look here, my dear Caceres, let's go over the ground again.
+
+"Three years ago I had the honour of making your acquaintance in Algeria,
+when you were touring the country. At the same time, I understood the
+sort of man you were; and I asked you if you could manage, in three
+years, with my name of Perenna, to fix me up a Spanish-Peruvian identity,
+furnished with unquestionable papers and respectable ancestors. You said,
+'Yes,' We settled the price: twenty thousand francs. Last week, when the
+Prefect of Police asked me for my papers, I came to see you and learned
+that you had just been instructed to make inquiries into my antecedents.
+
+"Everything was ready, as it happened. With the papers of a deceased
+Peruvian nobleman, of the name of Pereira, properly revised, you had
+faked me up a first-rate civic status. We arranged what you were to say
+before the Prefect of Police; and I paid up the twenty thousand. We were
+quits. What more do you want?"
+
+The Pervian attaché did not betray the least embarrassment. He put his
+two elbows on the table and said, very calmly:
+
+"Monsieur, when treating with you, three years ago, I thought I was
+dealing with a gentleman who, hiding himself under the uniform of the
+Foreign Legion, wished to recover the means to live respectably
+afterward. To-day, I have to do with the universal legatee of Cosmo
+Mornington, with a man who, to-morrow, under a false name, will receive
+the sum of one million francs and, in a few months, perhaps, the sum of a
+hundred millions. That's quite a different thing."
+
+The argument seemed to strike Don Luis. Nevertheless, he objected:
+
+"And, if I refuse--?"
+
+"If you refuse, I shall inform the solicitor and the Prefect of Police
+that I made an error in my inquiry and that there is some mistake about
+Don Luis Perenna. In consequence of which you will receive nothing at all
+and very likely find yourself in jail."
+
+"With you, my worthy sir."
+
+"Me?"
+
+"Of course: on a charge of forgery and tampering with registers. For you
+don't imagine that I should take it lying down."
+
+The attaché did not reply. His nose, which was a very big one, seemed to
+lengthen out still farther between his two long whiskers.
+
+Don Luis began to laugh.
+
+"Come, Señor Caceres, don't pull such a face! No one's going to hurt you.
+Only don't think that you can corner me. Better men than you have tried
+and have broken their backs in the process. And, upon my word, you don't
+cut much of a figure when you're doing your best to diddle your
+fellowmen.
+
+"You look a bit of a mug, in fact, Caceres: a bit of a mug is what you
+look. So it's understood, what? We lay down our arms. No more base
+designs against our excellent friend Perenna. Capital, Señor Caceres,
+capital. And now I'll be magnanimous and prove to you that the decent man
+of us two is--the one whom any one would have thought!"
+
+He produced a check-book on the Crédit Lyonnais.
+
+"Here, my dear chap. Here's twenty thousand francs as a present from
+Cosmo Mornington's legatee. Put it in your pocket and look pleasant. Say
+thank you to the kind gentleman, and make yourself scarce without turning
+your head any more than if you were one of old man Lot's daughters. Off
+you go: hoosh!"
+
+This was said in such a manner that the attaché obeyed Don Luis Perenna's
+injunctions to the letter. He smiled as he pocketed the check, said thank
+you twice over, and made off without turning his head.
+
+"The low hound!" muttered Don Luis. "What do you say to that, Sergeant?"
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux was looking at him in stupefaction, with his eyes
+starting from his head.
+
+"Well, but, Monsieur--"
+
+"What, Sergeant?"
+
+"Well, but, Monsieur, who are you?"
+
+"Who am I?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Didn't they tell you? A Peruvian nobleman, or a Spanish nobleman, I
+don't know which. In short, Don Luis Perenna."
+
+"Bunkum! I've just heard--"
+
+"Don Luis Perenna, late of the Foreign Legion."
+
+"Enough of that, Monsieur--"
+
+"Medaled and decorated with a stripe on every seam."
+
+"Once more, Monsieur, enough of that; and come along with me to
+the Prefect."
+
+"But, let me finish, hang it! I was saying, late private in the Foreign
+Legion.... Late hero.... Late prisoner of the Sureté.... Late Russian
+prince.... Late chief of the detective service.... Late--"
+
+"But you're mad!" snarled the sergeant. "What's all this story?"
+
+"It's a true story, Sergeant, and quite genuine. You ask me who I am; and
+I'm telling you categorically. Must I go farther back? I have still more
+titles to offer you: marquis, baron, duke, archduke, grand-duke,
+petty-duke, superduke--the whole 'Almanach de Gotha,' by Jingo! If any
+one told me that I had been a king, by all that's holy, I shouldn't dare
+swear to the contrary!"
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux put out his own hands, accustomed to rough work, seized
+the seemingly frail wrists of the man addressing him and said:
+
+"No nonsense, now. I don't know whom I've got hold of, but I shan't let
+you go. You can say what you have to say at the Prefect's."
+
+"Don't speak so loud, Alexandre."
+
+The two frail wrists were released with unparalleled ease; the sergeant's
+powerful hands were caught and rendered useless; and Don Luis grinned:
+
+"Don't you know me, you idiot?"
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux did not utter a word. His eyes started still farther
+from his head. He tried to understand and remained absolutely dumfounded.
+
+The sound of that voice, that way of jesting, that schoolboy playfulness
+allied with that audacity, the quizzing expression of those eyes, and
+lastly that Christian name of Alexandre, which was not his name at all
+and which only one person used to give him, years ago. Was it possible?
+
+"The chief!" he stammered. "The chief!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"No, no, because--"
+
+"Because what?"
+
+"Because you're dead."
+
+"Well, what about it? D'you think it interferes with my living,
+being dead?"
+
+And, as the other seemed more and more perplexed, he laid his hand on his
+shoulder and said:
+
+"Who put you into the police office?"
+
+"The Chief Detective, M. Lenormand."
+
+"And who was M. Lenormand?"
+
+"The chief."
+
+"You mean Arsène Lupin, don't you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, Alexandre, don't you know that it was much more difficult for
+Arsène Lupin to be Chief Detective--and a masterly Chief Detective he
+was--than to be Don Luis Perenna, to be decorated in the Foreign Legion,
+to be a hero, and even to be alive after he was dead?"
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux examined his companion in silence. Then his lacklustre
+eyes brightened, his drab features turned scarlet and, suddenly striking
+the table with his fist, he growled, in an angry voice:
+
+"All right, very well! But I warn you that you mustn't reckon on me. No,
+not that! I'm in the detective service; and in the detective service I
+remain. Nothing doing. I've tasted honesty and I mean to eat no other
+bread. No, no, no, no! No more humbug!"
+
+Perenna shrugged his shoulders:
+
+"Alexandre, you're an ass. Upon my word, the bread of honesty hasn't
+enlarged your intelligence. Who talked of starting again?"
+
+"But--"
+
+"But what?"
+
+"All your maneuvers, Chief."
+
+"My maneuvers! Do you think I have anything to say to this business?"
+
+"Look here, Chief--"
+
+"Why, I'm out of it altogether, my lad! Two hours ago I knew no more
+about it than you do. It's Providence that chucked this legacy at me,
+without so much as shouting, 'Heads!' And it's in obedience to the
+decrees of--"
+
+"Then--?"
+
+"It's my mission in life to avenge Cosmo Mornington, to find his natural
+heirs, to protect them and to divide among them the hundred millions
+that belong to them. That's all. Don't you call that the mission of an
+honest man?"
+
+"Yes, but--"
+
+"Yes, but, if I don't fulfil it as an honest man: is that what you mean?"
+
+"Chief--"
+
+"Well, my lad, if you notice the least thing in my conduct that
+dissatisfies you, if you discover a speck of black on Don Luis Perenna's
+conscience, examined under the magnifying glass, don't hesitate: collar
+me with both hands. I authorize you to do it. I order you to do it. Is
+that enough for you?"
+
+"It's not enough for it to be enough for me, Chief."
+
+"What are you talking about?"
+
+"There are the others."
+
+"Explain yourself."
+
+"Suppose you're nabbed?"
+
+"How?"
+
+"You can be betrayed."
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"Your old mates."
+
+"Gone away. I've sent them out of France."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"That's my secret. I left you at the police office, in case I should
+require your services; and you see that I was right."
+
+"But suppose the police discover your real identity?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"They'll arrest you."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"They can't arrest me."
+
+"For what reason?"
+
+"You've said it yourself, fat-head: a first-class, tremendous,
+indisputable reason."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"_I'm dead_!"
+
+Mazeroux seemed staggered. The argument struck him fully. He at once
+perceived it, with all its common sense and all its absurdity. And
+suddenly he burst into a roar of laughter which bent him in two and
+convulsed his doleful features in the oddest fashion:
+
+"Oh, Chief, just the same as always!... Lord, how funny!... Will I come
+along? I should think I would! As often as you like! You're dead and
+buried and put out of sight!... Oh, what a joke, what a joke!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hippolyte Fauville, civil engineer, lived on the Boulevard Suchet, near
+the fortifications, in a fair-sized private house having on its left a
+small garden in which he had built a large room that served as his study.
+The garden was thus reduced to a few trees and to a strip of grass along
+the railings, which were covered with ivy and contained a gate that
+opened on the Boulevard Suchet.
+
+Don Luis Perenna went with Mazeroux to the commissary's office at Passy,
+where Mazeroux, on Perenna's instructions, gave his name and asked to
+have M. Fauville's house watched during the night by two policemen who
+were to arrest any suspicious person trying to obtain admission. The
+commissary agreed to the request.
+
+Don Luis and Mazeroux next dined in the neighbourhood. At nine o'clock
+they reached the front door of the house.
+
+"Alexandre," said Perenna.
+
+"Yes, Chief?"
+
+"You're not afraid?"
+
+"No, Chief. Why should I be?"
+
+"Why? Because, in defending M. Fauville and his son, we are attacking
+people who have a great interest in doing away with them and because
+those people seem pretty wide-awake. Your life, my life: a breath, a
+trifle. You're not afraid?"
+
+"Chief," replied Mazeroux, "I can't say if I shall ever know what it
+means to be afraid. But there's one case in which I certainly shall
+never know."
+
+"What case is that, old chap?"
+
+"As long as I'm by your side, Chief."
+
+And firmly he rang the bell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE
+
+A MAN DOOMED
+
+
+The door was opened by a manservant. Mazeroux sent in his card.
+
+Hippolyte received the two visitors in his study. The table, on which
+stood a movable telephone, was littered with books, pamphlets, and
+papers. There were two tall desks, with diagrams and drawings, and some
+glass cases containing reduced models, in ivory and steel, of apparatus
+constructed or invented by the engineer.
+
+A large sofa stood against the wall. In one corner was a winding
+staircase that led to a circular gallery. An electric chandelier hung
+from the ceiling.
+
+Mazeroux, after stating his quality and introducing his friend Perenna
+as also sent by the Prefect of Police, at once expounded the object of
+their visit.
+
+M. Desmalions, he said, was feeling anxious on the score of very serious
+indications which he had just received and, without waiting for the next
+day's interview, begged M. Fauville to take all the precautions which his
+detectives might advise.
+
+Fauville at first displayed a certain ill humour.
+
+"My precautions are taken, gentlemen, and well taken. And, on the other
+hand, I am afraid that your interference may do harm."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"By arousing the attention of my enemies and preventing me, for that
+reason, from collecting proofs which I need in order to confound them."
+
+"Can you explain--?"
+
+"No, I cannot ... To-morrow, to-morrow morning--not before."
+
+"And if it's too late?" Don Luis interjected.
+
+"Too late? To-morrow?"
+
+"Inspector Vérot told M. Desmalions's secretary that the two murders
+would take place to-night. He said it was fatal and irrevocable."
+
+"To-night?" cried Fauville angrily. "I tell you no! Not to-night.
+I'm sure of that. There are things which I know, aren't there, which
+you do not?"
+
+"Yes," retorted Don Luis, "but there may also be things which Inspector
+Vérot knew and which you don't know. He had perhaps learned more of your
+enemies' secrets than you did. The proof is that he was suspected, that a
+man carrying an ebony walking-stick was seen watching his movements,
+that, lastly, he was killed."
+
+Hippolyte Fauville's self-assurance decreased. Perenna took advantage of
+this to insist; and he insisted to such good purpose that Fauville,
+though without withdrawing from his reserve, ended by yielding before a
+will that was stronger than his own.
+
+"Well, but you surely don't intend to spend the night in here?"
+
+"We do indeed."
+
+"Why, it's ridiculous! It's sheer waste of time! After all, looking at
+things from the worst--And what do you want besides?"
+
+"Who lives in the house?"
+
+"Who? My wife, to begin with. She has the first floor."
+
+"Mme. Fauville is not threatened?"
+
+"No, not at all. It's I who am threatened with death; I and my son
+Edmond. That is why, for the past week, instead of sleeping in my regular
+bedroom, I have locked myself up in this room. I have given my work as a
+pretext; a quantity of writing which keeps me up very late and for which
+I need my son's assistance."
+
+"Does he sleep here, then?"
+
+"He sleeps above us, in a little room which I have had arranged for him.
+The only access to it is by this inner staircase."
+
+"Is he there now?"
+
+"Yes, he's asleep."
+
+"How old is he?"
+
+"Sixteen."
+
+"But the fact that you have changed your room shows that you feared some
+one would attack you. Whom had you in mind? An enemy living in the house?
+One of your servants? Or people from the outside? In that case, how could
+they get in? The whole question lies in that."
+
+"To-morrow, to-morrow," replied Fauville, obstinately. "I will explain
+everything to-morrow--"
+
+"Why not to-night?" Perenna persisted.
+
+"Because I want proofs, I tell you; because the mere fact of my talking
+may have terrible consequences--and I am frightened; yes, I'm
+frightened--"
+
+He was trembling, in fact, and looked so wretched and terrified that Don
+Luis insisted no longer.
+
+"Very well," he said, "I will only ask your permission, for my comrade
+and myself, to spend the night where we can hear you if you call."
+
+"As you please, Monsieur. Perhaps, after all, that will be best."
+
+At that moment one of the servants knocked and came in to say that his
+mistress wished to see the master before she went out. Madame Fauville
+entered almost immediately. She bowed pleasantly as Perenna and Mazeroux
+rose from their chairs.
+
+She was a woman between thirty and thirty-five, a woman of a bright and
+smiling beauty, which she owed to her blue eyes, to her wavy hair, to all
+the charm of her rather vapid but amiable and very pretty face. She wore
+a long, figured-silk cloak over an evening dress that showed her fine
+shoulders.
+
+Her husband said, in surprise
+
+"Are you going out to-night?"
+
+"You forget," she said. "The Auverards offered me a seat in their box at
+the opera; and you yourself asked me to look in at Mme. d'Ersingen's
+party afterward--"
+
+"So I did, so I did," he said. "It escaped my memory; I am working so
+hard."
+
+She finished buttoning her gloves and asked:
+
+"Won't you come and fetch me at Mme. d'Ersingen's?"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"They would like it."
+
+"But I shouldn't. Besides, I don't feel well enough."
+
+"Then I'll make your apologies for you."
+
+"Yes, do."
+
+She drew her cloak around her with a graceful gesture, and stood for a
+few moments, without moving, as though seeking a word of farewell.
+Then she said:
+
+"Edmond's not here! I thought he was working with you?"
+
+"He was feeling tired."
+
+"Is he asleep?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I wanted to kiss him good-night."
+
+"No, you would only wake him. And here's your car; so go, dear. Amuse
+yourself."
+
+"Oh, amuse myself!" she said. "There's not much amusement about the opera
+and an evening party."
+
+"Still, it's better than keeping one's room."
+
+There was some little constraint. It was obviously one of those
+ill-assorted households in which the husband, suffering in health and not
+caring for the pleasures of society, stays at home, while the wife seeks
+the enjoyments to which her age and habits entitle her.
+
+As he said nothing more, she bent over and kissed him on the forehead.
+Then, once more bowing to the two visitors, she went out. A moment later
+they heard the sound of the motor driving away.
+
+Hippolyte Fauville at once rose and rang the bell. Then he said:
+
+"No one here has any idea of the danger hanging over me. I have confided
+in nobody, not even in Silvestre, my own man, though he has been in my
+service for years and is honesty itself."
+
+The manservant entered.
+
+"I am going to bed, Silvestre," said M. Fauville. "Get everything ready."
+
+Silvestre opened the upper part of the great sofa, which made a
+comfortable bed, and laid the sheets and blankets. Next, at his master's
+orders, he brought a jug of water, a glass, a plate of biscuits, and a
+dish of fruit.
+
+M. Fauville ate a couple of biscuits and then cut a dessert-apple. It was
+not ripe. He took two others, felt them, and, not thinking them good, put
+them back as well. Then he peeled a pear and ate it.
+
+"You can leave the fruit dish," he said to his man. "I shall be glad of
+it, if I am hungry during the night.... Oh, I was forgetting! These two
+gentlemen are staying. Don't mention it to anybody. And, in the morning,
+don't come until I ring."
+
+The man placed the fruit dish on the table before retiring. Perenna, who
+was noticing everything, and who was afterward to remember every smallest
+detail of that evening, which his memory recorded with a sort of
+mechanical faithfulness, counted three pears and four apples in the dish.
+
+Meanwhile, Fauville went up the winding staircase, and, going along the
+gallery, reached the room where his son lay in bed.
+
+"He's fast asleep," he said to Perenna, who had joined him.
+
+The bedroom was a small one. The air was admitted by a special system of
+ventilation, for the dormer window was hermetically closed by a wooden
+shutter tightly nailed down.
+
+"I took the precaution last year," Hippolyte Fauville explained. "I used
+to make my electrical experiments in this room and was afraid of being
+spied upon, so I closed the aperture opening on the roof."
+
+And he added in a low voice:
+
+"They have been prowling around me for a long time."
+
+The two men went downstairs again.
+
+Fauville looked at his watch.
+
+"A quarter past ten: bedtime, I am exceedingly tired, and you will
+excuse me--"
+
+It was arranged that Perenna and Mazeroux should make themselves
+comfortable in a couple of easy chairs which they carried into the
+passage between the study and the entrance hall. But, before bidding them
+good-night, Hippolyte Fauville, who, although greatly excited, had
+appeared until then to retain his self-control, was seized with a sudden
+attack of weakness. He uttered a faint cry. Don Luis turned round and saw
+the sweat pouring like gleaming water down his face and neck, while he
+shook with fever and anguish.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked Perenna.
+
+"I'm frightened! I'm frightened!" he said.
+
+"This is madness!" cried Don Luis. "Aren't we here, the two of us? We can
+easily spend the night with you, if you prefer, by your bedside."
+
+Fauville replied by shaking Perenna violently by the shoulder, and, with
+distorted features, stammering:
+
+"If there were ten of you--if there were twenty of you with me, you need
+not think that it would spoil their schemes! They can do anything they
+please, do you hear, anything! They have already killed Inspector
+Vérot--they will kill me--and they will kill my son. Oh, the blackguards!
+My God, take pity on me! The awful terror of it! The pain I suffer!"
+
+He had fallen on his knees and was striking his breast and repeating:
+
+"O God, have pity on me! I can't die! I can't let my son die! Have pity
+on me, I beseech Thee!"
+
+He sprang to his feet and led Perenna to a glass-fronted case, which
+he rolled back on its brass castors, revealing a small safe built
+into the wall.
+
+"You will find my whole story here, written up day by day for the past
+three years. If anything should happen to me, revenge will be easy."
+
+He hurriedly turned the letters of the padlock and, with a key which he
+took from his pocket, opened the safe.
+
+It was three fourths empty; but on one of the shelves, between some piles
+of papers, was a diary bound in drab cloth, with a rubber band round it.
+He took the diary, and, emphasizing his words, said:
+
+"There, look, it's all in here. With this, the hideous business can
+be reconstructed.... There are my suspicions first and then my
+certainties.... Everything, everything ... how to trap them and how
+to do for them.... You'll remember, won't you? A diary bound in drab
+cloth.... I'm putting it back in the safe."
+
+Gradually his calmness returned. He pushed back the glass case, tidied a
+few papers, switched on the electric lamp above his bed, put out the
+lights in the middle of the ceiling, and asked Don Luis and Mazeroux to
+leave him.
+
+Don Luis, who was walking round the room and examining the iron shutters
+of the two windows, noticed a door opposite the entrance door and asked
+the engineer about it.
+
+"I use it for my regular clients," said Fauville, "and sometimes I go out
+that way."
+
+"Does it open on the garden?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is it properly closed?"
+
+"You can see for yourself; it's locked and bolted with a safety bolt.
+Both keys are on my bunch; so is the key of the garden gate."
+
+He placed the bunch of keys on the table with his pocket-book and, after
+first winding it, his watch.
+
+Don Luis, without troubling to ask permission, took the keys and
+unfastened the lock and the bolt. A flight of three steps brought him to
+the garden. He followed the length of the narrow border. Through the ivy
+he saw and heard the two policemen pacing up and down the boulevard. He
+tried the lock of the gate. It was fastened.
+
+"Everything's all right," he said when he returned, "and you can be easy.
+Good-night."
+
+"Good-night," said the engineer, seeing Perenna and Mazeroux out.
+
+Between his study and the passage were two doors, one of which was padded
+and covered with oilcloth. On the other side, the passage was separated
+from the hall by a heavy curtain.
+
+"You can go to sleep," said Perenna to his companion. "I'll sit up."
+
+"But surely, Chief, you don't think that anything's going to happen!"
+
+"I don't think so, seeing the precautions which we've taken. But,
+knowing Inspector Vérot as you did, do you think he was the man to
+imagine things?"
+
+"No, Chief."
+
+"Well, you know what he prophesied. That means that he had his reasons
+for doing so. And therefore I shall keep my eyes open."
+
+"We'll take it in turns, Chief; wake me when it's my time to watch."
+
+Seated motionlessly, side by side, they exchanged an occasional remark.
+Soon after, Mazeroux fell asleep. Don Luis remained in his chair without
+moving, his ears pricked up. Everything was quiet in the house. Outside,
+from time to time, the sound of a motor car or of a cab rolled by. He
+could also hear the late trains on the Auteuil line.
+
+He rose several times and went up to the door. Not a sound. Hippolyte
+Fauville was evidently asleep.
+
+"Capital!" said Perenna to himself. "The boulevard is watched. No one can
+enter the room except by this way. So there is nothing to fear."
+
+At two o'clock in the morning a car stopped outside the house, and one of
+the manservants, who must have been waiting in the kitchen, hastened to
+the front door. Perenna switched off the light in the passage, and,
+drawing the curtain slightly aside, saw Mme. Fauville enter, followed by
+Silvestre.
+
+She went up. The lights on the staircase were put out. For half an hour
+or so there was a sound overhead of voices and of chairs moving. Then all
+was silence.
+
+And, amid this silence, Perenna felt an unspeakable anguish arise within
+him, he could not tell why. But it was so violent, the impression became
+so acute, that he muttered:
+
+"I shall go and see if he's asleep. I don't expect that he has bolted
+the doors."
+
+He had only to push both doors to open them; and, with his electric
+lantern in his hand, he went up to the bed. Hippolyte Fauville was
+sleeping with his face turned to the wall.
+
+Perenna gave a smile of relief. He returned to the passage and,
+shaking Mazeroux:
+
+"Your turn, Alexandre."
+
+"No news, Chief?"
+
+"No, none; he's asleep."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I've had a look at him."
+
+"That's funny; I never heard you. It's true, though, I've slept
+like a pig."
+
+He followed Perenna into the study, and Perenna said:
+
+"Sit down and don't wake him. I shall take forty winks."
+
+He had one more turn at sentry duty. But, even while dozing, he remained
+conscious of all that happened around him. A clock struck the hours with
+a low chime; and each time Perenna counted the strokes. Then came the
+life outside awakening, the rattle of the milk-carts, the whistle of the
+early suburban trains.
+
+People began to stir inside the house. The daylight trickled in
+through the crannies of the shutters, and the room gradually became
+filled with light.
+
+"Let's go away," said Sergeant Mazeroux. "It would be better for him not
+to find us here."
+
+"Hold your tongue!" said Don Luis, with an imperious gesture.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You'll wake him up."
+
+"But you can see I'm not waking him," said Mazeroux, without
+lowering his tone.
+
+"That's true, that's true," whispered Don Luis, astonished that the sound
+of that voice had not disturbed the sleeper.
+
+And he felt himself overcome with the same anguish that had seized upon
+him in the middle of the night, a more clearly defined anguish, although
+he would not, although he dared not, try to realize the reason of it.
+
+"What's the matter with you, Chief? You're looking like nothing on earth.
+What is it?"
+
+"Nothing--nothing. I'm frightened--"
+
+Mazeroux shuddered.
+
+"Frightened of what? You say that just as he did last night."
+
+"Yes ... yes ... and for the same reason."
+
+"But--?"
+
+"Don't you understand? Don't you understand that I'm wondering--?"
+
+"No; what?"
+
+"If he's not dead!"
+
+"But you're mad, Chief!"
+
+"No.... I don't know.... Only, only ... I have an impression of death--"
+
+Lantern in hand, he stood as one paralyzed, opposite the bed; and he
+who was afraid of nothing in the world had not the courage to throw the
+light on Hippolyte Fauville's face. A terrifying silence rose and
+filled the room.
+
+"Oh, Chief, he's not moving!"
+
+"I know ... I know ... and I now see that he has not moved once during
+the night. And that's what frightens me."
+
+He had to make a real effort in order to step forward. He was now almost
+touching the bed.
+
+The engineer did not appear to breathe.
+
+This time, Perenna resolutely took hold of his hand.
+
+It was icy cold.
+
+Don Luis at once recovered all his self-possession.
+
+"The window! Open the window!" he cried.
+
+And, when the light flooded the room, he saw the face of Hippolyte
+Fauville all swollen, stained with brown patches.
+
+"Oh," he said, under his breath, "he's dead!"
+
+"Dash it all! Dash it all!" spluttered the detective sergeant.
+
+For two or three minutes they stood petrified, stupefied, staggered at
+the sight of this most astonishing and mysterious phenomenon. Then a
+sudden idea made Perenna start. He flew up the winding staircase, rushed
+along the gallery, and darted into the attic.
+
+Edmond, Hippolyte Fauville's son, lay stiff and stark on his bed, with a
+cadaverous face, dead, too.
+
+"Dash it all! Dash it all!" repeated Mazeroux.
+
+Never, perhaps, in the course of his adventurous career, had Perenna
+experienced such a knockdown blow. It gave him a feeling of extreme
+lassitude, depriving him of all power of speech or movement. Father and
+son were dead! They had been killed during that night! A few hours
+earlier, though the house was watched and every outlet hermetically
+closed, both had been poisoned by an infernal puncture, even as Inspector
+Vérot was poisoned, even as Cosmo Mornington was poisoned.
+
+"Dash it all!" said Mazeroux once more. "It was not worth troubling about
+the poor devils and performing such miracles to save them!"
+
+The exclamation conveyed a reproach. Perenna grasped it and admitted:
+
+"You are right, Mazeroux; I was not equal to the job."
+
+"Nor I, Chief."
+
+"You ... you have only been in this business since yesterday evening--"
+
+"Well, so have you, Chief!"
+
+"Yes, I know, since yesterday evening, whereas the others have been
+working at it for weeks and weeks. But, all the same, these two are dead;
+and I was there, I, Lupin, was there! The thing has been done under my
+eyes; and I saw nothing! I saw nothing! How is it possible?"
+
+He uncovered the poor boy's shoulders, showing the mark of a puncture at
+the top of the arm.
+
+"The same mark--the same mark obviously that we shall find on the
+father.... The lad does not seem to have suffered, either.... Poor little
+chap! He did not look very strong.... Never mind, it's a nice face; what
+a terrible blow for his mother when she learns!"
+
+The detective sergeant wept with anger and pity, while he kept on
+mumbling:
+
+"Dash it all!... Dash it all!"
+
+"We shall avenge them, eh, Mazeroux?"
+
+"Rather, Chief! Twice over!"
+
+"Once will do, Mazeroux. But it shall be done with a will."
+
+"That I swear it shall!"
+
+"You're right; let's swear. Let us swear that this dead pair shall be
+avenged. Let us swear not to lay down our arms until the murderers of
+Hippolyte Fauville and his son are punished as they deserve."
+
+"I swear it as I hope to be saved, Chief."
+
+"Good!" said Perenna. "And now to work. You go and telephone at once to
+the police office. I am sure that M. Desmalions will approve of your
+informing him without delay. He takes an immense interest in the case."
+
+"And if the servants come? If Mme. Fauville--?"
+
+"No one will come till we open the doors; and we shan't open them except
+to the Prefect of Police. It will be for him, afterward, to tell Mme.
+Fauville that she is a widow and that she has no son. Go! Hurry!"
+
+"One moment, Chief; we are forgetting something that will help us
+enormously."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"The little drab-cloth diary in the safe, in which M. Fauville describes
+the plot against him."
+
+"Why, of course!" said Perenna. "You're right ... especially as he
+omitted to mix up the letters of the lock last night, and the key is on
+the bunch which he left lying on the table."
+
+They ran down the stairs.
+
+"Leave this to me," said Mazeroux. "It's more regular that you shouldn't
+touch the safe."
+
+He took the bunch, moved the glass case, and inserted the key with a
+feverish emotion which Don Luis felt even more acutely than he did. They
+were at last about to know the details of the mysterious story. The dead
+man himself would betray the secret of his murderers.
+
+"Lord, what a time you take!" growled Don Luis.
+
+Mazeroux plunged both hands into the crowd of papers that encumbered the
+iron shelf.
+
+"Well, Mazeroux, hand it over."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The diary."
+
+"I can't Chief."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"It's gone."
+
+Don Luis stifled an oath. The drab-cloth diary, which the engineer had
+placed in the safe before their eyes, had disappeared.
+
+Mazeroux shook his head.
+
+"Dash it all! So they knew about that diary!"
+
+"Of course they did; and they knew plenty of other things besides.
+We've not seen the end of it with those fellows. There's no time to
+lose. Ring up!"
+
+Mazeroux did so and soon received the answer that M. Desmalions was
+coming to the telephone. He waited.
+
+In a few minutes Perenna, who had been walking up and down, examining
+different objects in the room, came and sat down beside Mazeroux. He
+seemed thoughtful. He reflected for some time. But then, his eyes falling
+on the fruit dish, he muttered:
+
+"Hullo! There are only three apples instead of four. Then he ate
+the fourth."
+
+"Yes," said Mazeroux, "he must have eaten it."
+
+"That's funny," replied Perenna, "for he didn't think them ripe."
+
+He was silent once more, sat leaning his elbows on the table, visibly
+preoccupied; then, raising his head, he let fall these words:
+
+"The murder was committed before we entered the room, at half-past
+twelve exactly."
+
+"How do you know, Chief?"
+
+"M. Fauville's murderer or murderers, in touching the things on the
+table, knocked down the watch which M. Fauville had placed there.
+They put it back; but the fall had stopped it. And it stopped at
+half-past twelve."
+
+"Then, Chief, when we settled ourselves here, at two in the morning, it
+was a corpse that was lying beside us and another over our heads?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But how did those devils get in?"
+
+"Through this door, which opens on the garden, and through the gate that
+opens on the Boulevard Suchet."
+
+"Then they had keys to the locks and bolts?"
+
+"False keys, yes."
+
+"But the policemen watching the house outside?"
+
+"They are still watching it, as that sort watch a house, walking from
+point to point without thinking that people can slip into a garden
+while they have their backs turned. That's what took place in coming
+and going."
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux seemed flabbergasted. The criminals' daring, their
+skill, the precision of their acts bewildered him.
+
+"They're deuced clever," he said.
+
+"Deuced clever, Mazeroux, as you say; and I foresee a tremendous battle.
+By Jupiter, with what a vim they set to work!"
+
+The telephone bell rang. Don Luis left Mazeroux to his conversation with
+the Prefect, and, taking the bunch of keys, easily unfastened the lock
+and the bolt of the door and went out into the garden, in the hope of
+there finding some trace that should facilitate his quest.
+
+As on the day before, he saw, through the ivy, two policemen walking
+between one lamp-post and the next. They did not see him. Moreover,
+anything that might happen inside the house appeared to be to them a
+matter of total indifference.
+
+"That's my great mistake," said Perenna to himself. "It doesn't do to
+entrust a job to people who do not suspect its importance."
+
+His investigations led to the discovery of some traces of footsteps on
+the gravel, traces not sufficiently plain to enable him to distinguish
+the shape of the shoes that had left them, yet distinct enough to confirm
+his supposition. The scoundrels had been that way.
+
+Suddenly he gave a movement of delight. Against the border of the path,
+among the leaves of a little clump of rhododendrons, he saw something
+red, the shape of which at once struck him. He stooped. It was an
+apple, the fourth apple, the one whose absence from the fruit dish he
+had noticed.
+
+"Excellent!" he said. "Hippolyte Fauville did not eat it. One of them
+must have carried it away--a fit of appetite, a sudden hunger--and it
+must have rolled from his hand without his having time to look for it and
+pick it up."
+
+He took up the fruit and examined it.
+
+"What!" he exclaimed, with a start. "Can it be possible?"
+
+He stood dumfounded, a prey to real excitement, refusing to admit the
+inadmissible thing which nevertheless presented itself to his eyes
+with the direct evidence of actuality. Some one had bitten into the
+apple; into the apple which was too sour to eat. And the teeth had
+left their mark!
+
+"Is it possible?" repeated Don Luis. "Is it possible that one of them
+can have been guilty of such an imprudence! The apple must have
+fallen without his knowing ... or he must have been unable to find it
+in the dark."
+
+He could not get over his surprise. He cast about for plausible
+explanations. But the fact was there before him. Two rows of teeth,
+cutting through the thin red peel, had left their regular, semicircular
+bite clearly in the pulp of the fruit. They were clearly marked on the
+top, while the lower row had melted into a single curved line.
+
+"The teeth of the tiger!" murmured Perenna, who could not remove his eyes
+from that double imprint. "The teeth of the tiger! The teeth that had
+already left their mark on Inspector Vérot's piece of chocolate! What a
+coincidence! It can hardly be fortuitous. Must we not take it as certain
+that the same person bit into this apple and into that cake of chocolate
+which Inspector Vérot brought to the police office as an incontestable
+piece of evidence?"
+
+He hesitated a second. Should he keep this evidence for himself, for the
+personal inquiry which he meant to conduct? Or should he surrender it to
+the investigations of the police? But the touch of the object filled him
+with such repugnance, with such a sense of physical discomfort, that he
+flung away the apple and sent it rolling under the leaves of the shrubs.
+
+And he repeated to himself:
+
+"The teeth of the tiger! The teeth of the wild beast!"
+
+He locked the garden door behind him, bolted it, put back the keys on the
+table and said to Mazeroux:
+
+"Have you spoken to the Chief of Police?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Is he coming?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Didn't he order you to telephone for the commissary of police?"
+
+"No."
+
+"That means that he wants to see everything by himself. So much the
+better. But the detective office? The public prosecutor?"
+
+"He's told them."
+
+"What's the matter with you, Alexandre? I have to drag your answers out
+of you. Well, what is it? You're looking at me very queerly. What's up?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"That's all right. I expect this business has turned your head. And no
+wonder.... The Prefect won't enjoy himself, either, ... especially as he
+put his faith in me a bit light-heartedly and will be called upon to give
+an explanation of my presence here. By the way, it's much better that you
+should take upon yourself the responsibility for all that we have done.
+Don't you agree? Besides, it'll do you all the good in the world.
+
+"Put yourself forward, flatly; suppress me as much as you can; and, above
+all--I don't suppose that you will have any objection to this little
+detail--don't be such a fool as to say that you went to sleep for a
+single second, last night, in the passage. First of all, you'd only be
+blamed for it. And then ... well, that's understood, eh? So we have only
+to say good-bye.
+
+"If the Prefect wants me, as I expect he will, telephone to my address,
+Place du Palais-Bourbon. I shall be there. Good-bye. It is not necessary
+for me to assist at the inquiry; my presence would be out of place.
+Good-bye, old chap."
+
+He turned toward the door of the passage.
+
+"Half a moment!" cried Mazeroux.
+
+"Half a moment?... What do you mean?"
+
+The detective sergeant had flung himself between him and the door and was
+blocking his way.
+
+"Yes, half a moment ... I am not of your opinion. It's far better that
+you should wait until the Prefect comes."
+
+"But I don't care a hang about your opinion!"
+
+"May be; but you shan't pass."
+
+"What! Why, Alexandre, you must be ill!"
+
+"Look here, Chief," said Mazeroux feebly. "What can it matter to you?
+It's only natural that the Prefect should wish to speak to you."
+
+"Ah, it's the Prefect who wishes, is it?... Well, my lad, you can tell
+him that I am not at his orders, that I am at nobody's orders, and that,
+if the President of the Republic, if Napoleon I himself were to bar my
+way ... Besides, rats! Enough said. Get out of the road!"
+
+"You shall not pass!" declared Mazeroux, in a resolute tone,
+extending his arms.
+
+"Well, I like that!"
+
+"You shall not pass."
+
+"Alexandre, just count ten."
+
+"A hundred, if you like, but you shall not...."
+
+"Oh, blow your catchwords! Get out of this."
+
+He seized Mazeroux by both shoulders, made him spin round on his
+heels and, with a push, sent him floundering over the sofa. Then he
+opened the door.
+
+"Halt, or I fire!"
+
+It was Mazeroux, who had scrambled to his feet and now stood with his
+revolver in his hand and a determined expression on his face.
+
+Don Luis stopped in amazement. The threat was absolutely indifferent to
+him, and the barrel of that revolver aimed at him left him as cold as
+could be. But by what prodigy did Mazeroux, his former accomplice, his
+ardent disciple, his devoted servant, by what prodigy did Mazeroux dare
+to act as he was doing?
+
+Perenna went up to him and pressed gently on the detective's
+outstretched arm.
+
+"Prefect's orders?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," muttered the sergeant, uncomfortably.
+
+"Orders to keep me here until he comes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And if I betrayed an intention of leaving, to prevent me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"By every means?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Even by putting a bullet through my skin?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Perenna reflected; and then, in a serious voice:
+
+"Would you have fired, Mazeroux?"
+
+The sergeant lowered his head and said faintly:
+
+"Yes, Chief."
+
+Perenna looked at him without anger, with a glance of affectionate
+sympathy; and it was an absorbing sight for him to see his former
+companion dominated by such a sense of discipline and duty. Nothing was
+able to prevail against that sense, not even the fierce admiration, the
+almost animal attachment which Mazeroux retained for his master.
+
+"I'm not angry, Mazeroux. In fact, I approve. Only you must tell me the
+reason why the Prefect of Police--"
+
+The detective did not reply, but his eyes wore an expression of such
+sadness that Don Luis started, suddenly understanding.
+
+"No," he cried, "no!... It's absurd ... he can't have thought
+that!... And you, Mazeroux, do you believe me guilty?"
+
+"Oh, I, Chief, am as sure of you as I am of myself!... You don't take
+life!... But, all the same, there are things ... coincidences--"
+
+"Things ... coincidences ..." repeated Don Luis slowly.
+
+He remained pensive; and, in a low voice, he said:
+
+"Yes, after all, there's truth in what you say.... Yes, it all fits
+in.... Why didn't I think of it?... My relations with Cosmo Mornington,
+my arrival in Paris in time for the reading of the will, my insisting on
+spending the night here, the fact that the death of the two Fauvilles
+undoubtedly gives me the millions.... And then ... and then ... why, he's
+absolutely right, your Prefect of Police!... All the more so as.... Well,
+there, I'm a goner!"
+
+"Come, come, Chief!"
+
+"A dead-goner, old chap; you just get that into your head. Not as Arsène
+Lupin, ex-burglar, ex-convict, ex-anything you please--I'm unattackable
+on that ground--but as Don Luis Perenna, respectable man, residuary
+legatee, and the rest of it. And it's too stupid! For, after all, who
+will find the murderers of Cosmo, Vérot, and the two Fauvilles, if they
+go clapping me into jail?"
+
+"Come, come, Chief--"
+
+"Shut up! ... Listen!"
+
+A motor car was stopping on the boulevard, followed by another. It
+was evidently the Prefect and the magistrates from the public
+prosecutor's office.
+
+Don Luis took Mazeroux by the arm.
+
+"There's only one way out of it, Alexandre! Don't say you went to sleep."
+
+"I must, Chief."
+
+"You silly ass!" growled Don Luis. "How is it possible to be such an ass!
+It's enough to disgust one with honesty. What am I to do, then?"
+
+"Discover the culprit, Chief."
+
+"What! ... What are you talking about?"
+
+Mazeroux, in his turn, took him by the arm and, clutching him with a sort
+of despair, said, in a voice choked with tears:
+
+"Discover the culprit, Chief. If not, you're done for ... that's
+certain ... the Prefect told me so. ... The police want a
+culprit ... they want him this evening.... One has got to be
+found.... It's up to you to find him."
+
+"What you have, Alexandre, is a merry wit."
+
+"It's child's play for you, Chief. You have only to set your mind to it."
+
+"But there's not the least clue, you ass!"
+
+"You'll find one ... you must ... I entreat you, hand them over
+somebody.... It would be more than I could bear if you were arrested.
+You, the chief, accused of murder! No, no.... I entreat you, discover the
+criminal and hand him over.... You have the whole day to do it in...and
+Lupin has done greater things than that!"
+
+He was stammering, weeping, wringing his hands, grimacing with every
+feature of his comic face. And it was really touching, this grief, this
+dismay at the approach of the danger that threatened his master.
+
+M. Desmalions's voice was heard in the hall, through the curtain that
+closed the passage. A third motor car stopped on the boulevard, and a
+fourth, both doubtless laden with policemen.
+
+The house was surrounded, besieged.
+
+Perenna was silent.
+
+Beside him, anxious-faced, Mazeroux seemed to be imploring him.
+
+A few seconds elapsed.
+
+Then Perenna declared, deliberately:
+
+"Looking at things all round, Alexandre, I admit that you have seen the
+position clearly and that your fears are fully justified. If I do not
+manage to hand over the murderer or murderers of Hippolyte Fauville and
+his son to the police in a few hours from now, it is I, Don Luis Perenna,
+who will be lodged in durance vile on the evening of this Thursday, the
+first of April."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR
+
+THE CLOUDED TURQUOISE
+
+
+It was about nine o'clock in the morning when the Prefect of Police
+entered the study in which the incomprehensible tragedy of that double
+murder had been enacted.
+
+He did not even bow to Don Luis; and the magistrates who accompanied him
+might have thought that Don Luis was merely an assistant of Sergeant
+Mazeroux, if the chief detective had not made it his business to tell
+them, in a few words, the part played by the stranger.
+
+M. Desmalions briefly examined the two corpses and received a rapid
+explanation from Mazeroux. Then, returning to the hall, he went up to a
+drawing-room on the first floor, where Mme. Fauville, who had been
+informed of his visit, joined him almost at once.
+
+Perenna, who had not stirred from the passage, slipped into the hall
+himself. The servants of the house, who by this time had heard of the
+murder, were crossing it in every direction. He went down the few stairs
+leading to a ground-floor landing, on which the front door opened.
+
+There were two men there, of whom one said:
+
+"You can't pass."
+
+"But--"
+
+"You can't pass: those are our orders."
+
+"Your orders? Who gave them?"
+
+"The Prefect himself."
+
+"No luck," said Perenna, laughing. "I have been up all night and I am
+starving. Is there no way of getting something to eat?"
+
+The two policemen exchanged glances and one of them beckoned to Silvestre
+and spoke to him. Silvestre went toward the dining-room, and returned
+with a horseshoe roll.
+
+"Good," thought Don Luis, after thanking him. "This settles it. I'm
+nabbed. That's what I wanted to know. But M. Desmalions is deficient in
+logic. For, if it's Arsène Lupin whom he means to detain here, all these
+worthy plain-clothesmen are hardly enough; and, if it's Don Luis Perenna,
+they are superfluous, because the flight of Master Perenna would deprive
+Master Perenna of every chance of seeing the colour of my poor Cosmo's
+shekels. Having said which, I will take a chair."
+
+He resumed his seat in the passage and awaited events.
+
+Through the open door of the study he saw the magistrates pursuing
+their investigations. The divisional surgeon made a first examination
+of the two bodies and at once recognized the same symptoms of poisoning
+which he himself had perceived, the evening before, on the corpse of
+Inspector Vérot.
+
+Next, the detectives took up the bodies and carried them to the adjoining
+bedrooms which the father and son formerly occupied on the second floor
+of the house.
+
+The Prefect of Police then came downstairs; and Don Luis heard him say to
+the magistrates:
+
+"Poor woman! She refused to understand.... When at last she understood,
+she fell to the ground in a dead faint. Only think, her husband and her
+son at one blow!... Poor thing!"
+
+From that moment Perenna heard and saw nothing. The door was shut. The
+Prefect must afterward have given some order through the outside, through
+the communication with the front door offered by the garden, for the two
+detectives came and took up their positions in the hall, at the entrance
+to the passage, on the right and left of the dividing curtain.
+
+"One thing's certain," thought Don Luis. "My shares are not booming. What
+a state Alexandre must be in! Oh, what a state!"
+
+At twelve o'clock Silvestre brought him some food on a tray.
+
+And the long and painful wait began anew.
+
+In the study and in the house, the inquiry, which had been adjourned for
+lunch, was resumed. Perenna heard footsteps and the sound of voices on
+every side. At last, feeling tired and bored, he leaned back in his chair
+and fell asleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was four o'clock when Sergeant Mazeroux came and woke him. As he led
+him to the study, Mazeroux whispered:
+
+"Well, have you discovered him?"
+
+"Whom?"
+
+"The murderer."
+
+"Of course!" said Perenna. "It's as easy as shelling peas!"
+
+"That's a good thing!" said Mazeroux, greatly relieved and failing to see
+the joke. "But for that, as you saw for yourself, you would have been
+done for."
+
+Don Luis entered. In the room were the public prosecutor, the examining
+magistrate, the chief detective, the local commissary of police, two
+inspectors, and three constables in uniform.
+
+Outside, on the Boulevard Suchet, shouts were raised; and, when the
+commissary and his three policemen went out, by the Prefect's orders, to
+listen to the crowd, the hoarse voice of a newsboy was heard shouting:
+
+"The double murder on the Boulevard Suchet! Full particulars of the death
+of Inspector Vérot! The police at a loss!--"
+
+Then, when the door was closed, all was silent.
+
+"Mazeroux was quite right," thought Don Luis. "It's I or the other one:
+that's clear. Unless the words that will be spoken and the facts that
+will come to light in the course of this examination supply me with some
+clue that will enable me to give them the name of that mysterious X,
+they'll surrender me this evening for the people to batten on. Attention,
+Lupin, old chap, the great game is about to commence!"
+
+He felt that thrill of delight which always ran through him at the
+approach of the great struggles. This one, indeed, might be numbered
+among the most terrible that he had yet sustained.
+
+He knew the Prefect's reputation, his experience, his tenacity, and the
+keen pleasure which he took in conducting important inquiries and in
+personally pushing them to a conclusion before placing them in the
+magistrate's hands; and he also knew all the professional qualities of
+the chief detective, and all the subtlety, all the penetrating logic
+possessed by the examining magistrate.
+
+The Prefect of Police himself directed the attack. He did so in a
+straightforward fashion, without beating about the bush, and in a rather
+harsh voice, which had lost its former tone of sympathy for Don Luis. His
+attitude also was more formal and lacked that geniality which had struck
+Don Luis on the previous day.
+
+"Monsieur," he said, "circumstances having brought about that, as the
+residuary legatee and representative of Mr. Cosmo Mornington, you spent
+the night on this ground floor while a double murder was being committed
+here, we wish to receive your detailed evidence as to the different
+incidents that occurred last night."
+
+"In other words, Monsieur le Préfet," said Perenna, replying directly to
+the attack, "in other words, circumstances having brought about that you
+authorized me to spend the night here, you would like to know if my
+evidence corresponds at all points with that of Sergeant Mazeroux?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Meaning that the part played by myself strikes you as suspicious?"
+
+M. Desmalions hesitated. His eyes met Don Luis's eyes; and he was visibly
+impressed by the other's frank glance. Nevertheless he replied, plainly
+and bluntly:
+
+"It is not for you to ask me questions, Monsieur."
+
+Don Luis bowed.
+
+"I am at your orders, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Please tell us what you know."
+
+Don Luis thereupon gave a minute account of events, after which M.
+Desmalions reflected for a few moments and said:
+
+"There is one point on which we want to be informed. When you entered
+this room at half-past two this morning and sat down beside M. Fauville,
+was there nothing to tell you that he was dead?"
+
+"Nothing, Monsieur le Préfet. Otherwise, Sergeant Mazeroux and I would
+have given the alarm."
+
+"Was the garden door shut?"
+
+"It must have been, as we had to unlock it at seven o'clock."
+
+"With what?"
+
+"With the key on the bunch."
+
+"But how could the murderers, coming from the outside, have opened it?"
+
+"With false keys."
+
+"Have you a proof which allows you to suppose that it was opened with
+false keys?"
+
+"No, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Therefore, until we have proofs to the contrary, we are bound to believe
+that it was not opened from the outside, and that the criminal was inside
+the house."
+
+"But, Monsieur le Préfet, there was no one here but Sergeant Mazeroux
+and myself!"
+
+There was a silence, a pause whose meaning admitted of no doubt.
+M. Desmalions's next words gave it an even more precise value.
+
+"You did not sleep during the night?"
+
+"Yes, toward the end."
+
+"You did not sleep before, while you were in the passage?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And Sergeant Mazeroux?"
+
+Don Luis remained undecided for a moment; but how could he hope that the
+honest and scrupulous Mazeroux had disobeyed the dictates of his
+conscience?
+
+He replied:
+
+"Sergeant Mazeroux went to sleep in his chair and did not wake until Mme.
+Fauville returned, two hours later."
+
+There was a fresh silence, which evidently meant:
+
+"So, during the two hours when Sergeant Mazeroux was asleep, it was
+physically possible for you to open the door and kill the two Fauvilles."
+
+The examination was taking the course which Perenna had foreseen; and
+the circle was drawing closer and closer around him. His adversary was
+conducting the contest with a logic and vigour which he admired
+without reserve.
+
+"By Jove!" he thought. "How difficult it is to defend one's self when one
+is innocent. There's my right wing and my left wing driven in. Will my
+centre be able to stand the assault?"
+
+M. Desmalions, after a whispered colloquy with the examining magistrate,
+resumed his questions in these terms:
+
+"Yesterday evening, when M. Fauville opened his safe in your presence and
+the sergeant's, what was in the safe?"
+
+"A heap of papers, on one of the shelves; and, among those papers, the
+diary in drab cloth which has since disappeared."
+
+"You did not touch those papers?"
+
+"Neither the papers nor the safe, Monsieur le Préfet. Sergeant Mazeroux
+must have told you that he made me stand aside, to insure the regularity
+of the inquiry."
+
+"So you never came into the slightest contact with the safe?"
+
+"Not the slightest."
+
+M. Desmalions looked at the examining magistrate and nodded his head. Had
+Perenna been able to doubt that a trap was being laid for him, a glance
+at Mazeroux would have told him all about it. Mazeroux was ashen gray.
+
+Meanwhile, M. Desmalions continued:
+
+"You have taken part in inquiries, Monsieur, in police inquiries.
+Therefore, in putting my next question to you, I consider that I am
+addressing it to a tried detective."
+
+"I will answer your question, Monsieur le Préfet, to the best of
+my ability."
+
+"Here it is, then: Supposing that there were at this moment in the safe
+an object of some kind, a jewel, let us say, a diamond out of a tie pin,
+and that this diamond had come from a tie pin which belonged to somebody
+whom we knew, somebody who had spent the night in this house, what would
+you think of the coincidence?"
+
+"There we are," said Perenna to himself. "There's the trap. It's clear
+that they've found something in the safe, and next, that they imagine
+that this something belongs to me. Good! But, in that case, we must
+presume, as I have not touched the safe, that the thing was taken from me
+and put in the safe to compromise me. But I did not have a finger in this
+pie until yesterday; and it is impossible that, during last night, when I
+saw nobody, any one can have had time to prepare and contrive such a
+determined plot against me. So--"
+
+The Prefect of Police interrupted this silent monologue by repeating:
+
+"What would be your opinion?"
+
+"There would be an undeniable connection between that person's presence
+in the house and the two crimes that had been committed."
+
+"Consequently, we should have the right at least to suspect the person?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That is your view?"
+
+"Decidedly."
+
+M. Desmalions produced a piece of tissue paper from his pocket and took
+from it a little blue stone, which he displayed.
+
+"Here is a turquoise which we found in the safe. It belongs, without a
+shadow of a doubt, to the ring which you are wearing on your finger."
+
+Don Luis was seized with a fit of rage. He half grated, through his
+clenched teeth:
+
+"Oh, the rascals! How clever they are! But no, I can't believe--"
+
+He looked at his ring, which was formed of a large, clouded, dead
+turquoise, surrounded by a circle of small, irregular turquoises, also of
+a very pale blue. One of these was missing; and the one which M.
+Desmalions had in his hand fitted the place exactly.
+
+"What do you say?" asked M. Desmalions.
+
+"I say that this turquoise belongs to my ring, which was given me by
+Cosmo Mornington on the first occasion that I saved his life."
+
+"So we are agreed?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, we are agreed."
+
+Don Luis Perenna began to walk across the room, reflecting. The movement
+which the two detectives made toward the two doors told him that his
+arrest was provided for. A word from M. Desmalions, and Sergeant Mazeroux
+would be forced to take his chief by the collar.
+
+Don Luis once more gave a glance toward his former accomplice. Mazeroux
+made a gesture of entreaty, as though to say:
+
+"Well, what are you waiting for? Why don't you give up the criminal?
+Quick, it's time!"
+
+Don Luis smiled.
+
+"What's the matter?" asked the Prefect, in a tone that now entirely
+lacked the sort of involuntary politeness which he had shown since the
+commencement of the examination.
+
+"The matter? The matter?--"
+
+Perenna seized a chair by the back, spun it round and sat down upon it,
+with the simple remark:
+
+"Let's talk!"
+
+And this was said in such a way and the movement executed with so much
+decision that the Prefect muttered, as though wavering:
+
+"I don't quite see--"
+
+"You soon will, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+And, speaking in a slow voice, laying stress on every syllable that he
+uttered, he began:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, the position is as clear as daylight. Yesterday
+evening you gave me an authorization which involves your responsibility
+most gravely. The result is that what you now want, at all costs and
+without delay, is a culprit. And that culprit is to be myself. By way of
+incriminating evidence, you have the fact of my presence here, the fact
+the door was locked on the inside, the fact that Sergeant Mazeroux was
+asleep while the crime was committed, and the fact of the discovery of
+the turquoise in the safe. All this is crushing, I admit. Added to it,"
+he continued, "we have the terrible presumption that I had every interest
+in the removal of M. Fauville and his son, inasmuch as, if there is no
+heir of Cosmo Mornington's in existence, I come into a hundred million
+francs. Exactly. There is therefore nothing for me to do, Monsieur le
+Préfet, but to go with you to the lockup or else--"
+
+"Or else what?"
+
+"Or else hand over to you the criminal, the real criminal."
+
+The Prefect of Police smiled and took out his watch.
+
+"I'm waiting," he said.
+
+"It will take me just an hour, Monsieur le Préfet, and no more, if you
+give me every latitude. And the search of the truth, it seems to me, is
+worth a little patience."
+
+"I'm waiting," repeated M. Desmalions.
+
+"Sergeant Mazeroux, please tell Silvestre, the manservant, that Monsieur
+le Préfet wishes to see him."
+
+Upon a sign from M. Desmalions, Mazeroux went out.
+
+Don Luis explained his motive.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, whereas the discovery of the turquoise constitutes
+in your eyes an extremely serious proof against me, to me it is a
+revelation of the highest importance. I will tell you why. That turquoise
+must have fallen from my ring last evening and rolled on the carpet.
+
+"Now there are only four persons," he continued, "who can have noticed
+this fall when it happened, picked up the turquoise and, in order to
+compromise the new adversary that I was, slipped it into the safe. The
+first of those four persons is one of your detectives, Sergeant Mazeroux,
+of whom we will not speak. The second is dead: I refer to M. Fauville. We
+will not speak of him. The third is Silvestre, the manservant. I should
+like to say a few words to him. I shall not take long."
+
+Silvestre's examination, in fact, was soon over. He was able to prove
+that, pending the return of Mme. Fauville, for whom he had to open the
+door, he had not left the kitchen, where he was playing at cards with the
+lady's maid and another manservant.
+
+"Very well," said Perenna. "One word more. You must have read in this
+morning's papers of the death of Inspector Vérot and seen his portrait."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you know Inspector Vérot?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Still, it is probable that he came here yesterday, during the day."
+
+"I can't say," replied the servant. "M. Fauville used to receive many
+visitors through the garden and let them in himself."
+
+"You have no more evidence to give?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Please tell Mme. Fauville that Monsieur le Préfet would be very much
+obliged if he could have a word with her."
+
+Silvestre left the room.
+
+The examining magistrate and the public prosecutor had drawn nearer in
+astonishment.
+
+The Prefect exclaimed:
+
+"What, Monsieur! You don't mean to pretend that Mme. Fauville is
+mixed up--"
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, Mme. Fauville is the fourth person who may have seen
+the turquoise drop out of my ring."
+
+"And what then? Have we the right, in the absence of any real proof,
+to suppose that a woman can kill her husband, that a mother can
+poison her son?"
+
+"I am supposing nothing, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Then--?"
+
+Don Luis made no reply. M. Desmalions did not conceal his irritation.
+However, he said:
+
+"Very well; but I order you most positively to remain silent. What
+questions am I to put to Mme. Fauville?"
+
+"One only, Monsieur le Préfet: ask Mme. Fauville if she knows any one,
+apart from her husband, who is descended from the sisters Roussel."
+
+"Why that question?"
+
+"Because, if that descendant exists, it is not I who will inherit the
+millions, but he; and then it will be he and not I who would be
+interested in the removal of M. Fauville and his son."
+
+"Of course, of course," muttered M. Desmalions. "But even so, this
+new trail--"
+
+Mme. Fauville entered as he was speaking. Her face remained charming and
+pretty in spite of the tears that had reddened her eyelids and impaired
+the freshness of her cheeks. But her eyes expressed the scare of terror;
+and the obsession of the tragedy imparted to all her attractive
+personality, to her gait and to her movements, something feverish and
+spasmodic that was painful to look upon.
+
+"Pray sit down, Madame," said the Prefect, speaking with the height
+of deference, "and forgive me for inflicting any additional emotion
+upon you. But time is precious; and we must do everything to make
+sure that the two victims whose loss you are mourning shall be
+avenged without delay."
+
+Tears were still streaming from her beautiful eyes; and, with a sob, she
+stammered:
+
+"If the police need me, Monsieur le Préfet--"
+
+"Yes, it is a question of obtaining a few particulars. Your husband's
+mother is dead, is she not?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Am I correct in saying that she came from Saint-Etienne and that her
+maiden name was Roussel?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Elizabeth Roussel?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Had your husband any brothers or sisters?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Therefore there is no descendant of Elizabeth Roussel living?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Very well. But Elizabeth Roussel had two sisters, did she not?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Ermeline Roussel, the elder, went abroad and was not heard of again. The
+other, the younger--"
+
+"The other was called Armande Roussel. She was my mother."
+
+"Eh? What do you say?"
+
+"I said my mother's maiden name was Armande Roussel, and I married my
+cousin, the son of Elizabeth Roussel."
+
+The statement had the effect of a thunderclap. So, upon the death of
+Hippolyte Fauville and his son Edmond, the direct descendants of the
+eldest sister, Cosmo Mornington's inheritance passed to the other
+branch, that of Armande Roussel; and this branch was represented so far
+by Mme. Fauville!
+
+The Prefect of Police and the examining magistrate exchanged glances
+and both instinctively turned toward Don Luis Perenna, who did not
+move a muscle.
+
+"Have you no brother or sister, Madame?" asked the Prefect.
+
+"No, Monsieur le Préfet, I am the only one."
+
+The only one! In other words, now that her husband and son were dead,
+Cosmo Mornington's millions reverted absolutely and undeniably to her, to
+her alone.
+
+Meanwhile, a hideous idea weighed like a nightmare upon the magistrates
+and they could not rid themselves of it: the woman sitting before them
+was the mother of Edmond Fauville. M. Desmalions had his eyes on Don Luis
+Perenna, who wrote a few words on a card and handed it to the Prefect.
+
+M. Desmalions, who was gradually resuming toward Don Luis his courteous
+attitude of the day before, read it, reflected a moment, and put this
+question to Mme. Fauville:
+
+"What was your son Edmond's age?"
+
+"Seventeen."
+
+"You look so young--"
+
+"Edmond was not my son, but my stepson, the son of my husband by his
+first wife, who died,"
+
+"Ah! So Edmond Fauville--" muttered the Prefect, without finishing
+his sentence.
+
+In two minutes the whole situation had changed. In the eyes of the
+magistrates, Mme. Fauville was no longer the widow and mother who must on
+no account be attacked. She had suddenly become a woman whom
+circumstances compelled them to cross-examine. However prejudiced they
+might be in her favour, however charmed by the seductive qualities of her
+beauty, they were inevitably bound to ask themselves, whether for some
+reason or other, for instance, in order to be alone in the enjoyment of
+the enormous fortune, she had not had the madness to kill her husband and
+to kill the boy who was only her husband's son. In any case, the question
+was there, calling for a solution.
+
+The Prefect of Police continued:
+
+"Do you know this turquoise?"
+
+She took the stone which he held out to her and examined it without the
+least sign of confusion.
+
+"No," she said. "I have an old-fashioned turquoise necklace, which I
+never wear, but the stones are larger and none of them has this
+irregular shape."
+
+"We found this one in the safe," said M. Desmalions. "It forms part of a
+ring belonging to a person whom we know."
+
+"Well," she said eagerly, "you must find that person."
+
+"He is here," said the Prefect, pointing to Don Luis, who had been
+standing some way off and who had not been noticed by Mme. Fauville.
+
+She started at the sight of Perenna and cried, very excitedly:
+
+"But that gentleman was here yesterday evening! He was talking to my
+husband--and so was that other gentleman," she said, referring to
+Sergeant Mazeroux. "You must question them, find out why they were here.
+You understand that, if the turquoise belonged to one of them--"
+
+The insinuation was direct, but clumsy; and it lent the greatest weight
+to Perenna's unspoken argument:
+
+"The turquoise was picked up by some one who saw me yesterday and who
+wishes to compromise me. Apart from M. Fauville and the detective
+sergeant, only two people saw me: Silvestre, the manservant, and Mme.
+Fauville. Consequently, as Silvestre is outside the question, I accuse
+Mme. Fauville of putting the turquoise in the safe."
+
+M. Desmalions asked:
+
+"Will you let me see the necklace, Madame?"
+
+"Certainly. It is with my other jewels, in my wardrobe. I will go for
+it."
+
+"Pray don't trouble, Madame. Does your maid know the necklace?"
+
+"Quite well."
+
+"In that case, Sergeant Mazeroux will tell her what is wanted."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not a word was spoken during the few minutes for which Mazeroux was
+absent. Mme. Fauville seemed absorbed in her grief. M. Desmalions kept
+his eyes fixed on her.
+
+The sergeant returned, carrying a very large box containing a number of
+jewel-cases and loose ornaments.
+
+M. Desmalions found the necklace, examined it, and realized, in fact,
+that the stones did not resemble the turquoise and that none of them was
+missing. But, on separating two jewel cases in order to take out a tiara
+which also contained blue stones, he made a gesture of surprise.
+
+"What are these two keys?" he asked, pointing to two keys identical in
+shape and size with those which opened the lock and the bolt of the
+garden door.
+
+Mme. Fauville remained very calm. Not a muscle of her face moved. Nothing
+pointed to the least perturbation on account of this discovery. She
+merely said:
+
+"I don't know. They have been there a long time."
+
+"Mazeroux," said M. Desmalions, "try them on that door."
+
+Mazeroux did so. The door opened.
+
+"Yes," said Mme. Fauville. "I remember now, my husband gave them to me.
+They were duplicates of his own keys--"
+
+The words were uttered in the most natural tone and as though the speaker
+did not even suspect the terrible charge that was forming against her.
+
+And nothing was more agonizing than this tranquillity. Was it a sign of
+absolute innocence, or the infernal craft of a criminal whom nothing is
+able to stir? Did she realize nothing of the tragedy which was taking
+place and of which she was the unconscious heroine? Or did she guess the
+terrible accusation which was gradually closing in upon her on every side
+and which threatened her with the most awful danger? But, in that case,
+how could she have been guilty of the extraordinary blunder of keeping
+those two keys?
+
+A series of questions suggested itself to the minds of all those present.
+The Prefect of Police put them as follows:
+
+"You were out, Madame, were you not, when the murders were committed?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You were at the opera?"
+
+"Yes; and I went on to a party at the house of one of my friends, Mme.
+d'Ersingen."
+
+"Did your chauffeur drive you?"
+
+"To the opera, yes. But I sent him back to his garage; and he came to
+fetch me at the party."
+
+"I see," said M. Desmalions. "But how did you go from the opera to Mme.
+d'Ersingen's?"
+
+For the first time, Mme. Fauville seemed to understand that she was the
+victim of a regular cross-examination; and her look and attitude betrayed
+a certain uneasiness. She replied:
+
+"I took a motor cab."
+
+"In the street?"
+
+"On the Place de l'Opéra."
+
+"At twelve o'clock, therefore?"
+
+"No, at half-past eleven: I left before the opera was over."
+
+"You were in a hurry to get to your friend's?"
+
+"Yes ... or rather--"
+
+She stopped; her cheeks were scarlet; her lips and chin trembled; and
+she asked:
+
+"Why do you ask me all these questions?"
+
+"They are necessary, Madame. They may throw a light on what we want to
+know. I beg you, therefore, to answer them. At what time did you reach
+your friend's house?"
+
+"I hardly know. I did not notice the time."
+
+"Did you go straight there?"
+
+"Almost."
+
+"How do you mean, almost?"
+
+"I had a little headache and told the driver to go up the Champs
+Elysées and the Avenue du Bois--very slowly--and then down the Champs
+Elysées again--"
+
+She was becoming more and more embarrassed. Her voice grew indistinct.
+She lowered her head and was silent.
+
+Certainly her silence contained no confession, and there was nothing
+entitling any one to believe that her dejection was other than a
+consequence of her grief. But yet she seemed so weary as to give the
+impression that, feeling herself lost, she was giving up the fight. And
+it was almost a feeling of pity that was entertained for this woman
+against whom all the circumstances seemed to be conspiring, and who
+defended herself so badly that her cross-examiner hesitated to press her
+yet further.
+
+M. Desmalions, in fact, wore an irresolute air, as if the victory had
+been too easy, and as if he had some scruple about pursuing it.
+
+Mechanically he observed Perenna, who passed him a slip of paper, saying:
+
+"Mme. d'Ersingen's telephone number."
+
+M. Desmalions murmured:
+
+"Yes, true, they may know--"
+
+And, taking down the receiver, he asked for number 325.04. He was
+connected at once and continued:
+
+"Who is that speaking?... The butler? Ah! Is Mme. d'Ersingen at
+home?... No?... Or Monsieur?... Not he, either?... Never mind, you can
+tell me what I want to know. I am M. Desmalions, the Prefect of Police,
+and I need certain information. At what time did Mme. Fauville come last
+night?... What do you say?... Are you sure?... At two o'clock in the
+morning?... Not before?... And she went away?... In ten minutes
+time?... Good ... But you're certain you are not mistaken about the
+time when she arrived? I must know this positively: it is most
+important.... You say it was two o'clock in the morning? Two o'clock in
+the morning?... Very well.... Thank you."
+
+When M. Desmalions turned round, he saw Mme. Fauville standing beside him
+and looking at him with an expression of mad anguish. And one and the
+same idea occurred to the mind of all the onlookers. They were in the
+presence either of an absolutely innocent woman or else of an exceptional
+actress whose face lent itself to the most perfect simulation of
+innocence.
+
+"What do you want?" she stammered. "What does this mean? Explain
+yourself!"
+
+Then M. Desmalions asked simply:
+
+"What were you doing last night between half-past eleven in the evening
+and two o'clock in the morning?"
+
+It was a terrifying question at the stage which the examination had
+reached, a fatal question implying:
+
+"If you cannot give us an exact and strict account of the way in which
+you employed your time while the crime was being committed, we have the
+right to conclude that you were not alien to the murder of your husband
+and stepson--"
+
+She understood it in this sense and staggered on her feet, moaning:
+
+"It's horrible!... horrible!"
+
+The Prefect repeated:
+
+"What were you doing? The question must be quite easy to answer."
+
+"Oh," she cried, in the same piteous tone, "how can you believe!... Oh,
+no, no, it's not possible! How can you believe!"
+
+"I believe nothing yet," he said. "Besides, you can establish the truth
+with a single word."
+
+It seemed, from the movement of her lips and the sudden gesture of
+resolution that shook her frame, as though she were about to speak that
+word. But all at once she appeared stupefied and dumfounded, pronounced a
+few unintelligible syllables, and fell huddled into a chair, sobbing
+convulsively and uttering cries of despair.
+
+It was tantamount to a confession. At the very least, it was a confession
+of her inability to supply the plausible explanation which would have put
+an end to the discussion.
+
+The Prefect of Police moved away from her and spoke in a low voice to the
+examining magistrate and the public prosecutor. Perenna and Sergeant
+Mazeroux were left alone together, side by side.
+
+Mazeroux whispered:
+
+"What did I tell you? I knew you would find out! Oh, what a man you are!
+The way you managed!"
+
+He was beaming at the thought that the chief was clear of the matter and
+that he had no more crows to pluck with his, Mazeroux's, superiors, whom
+he revered almost as much as he did the chief. Everybody was now agreed;
+they were "friends all round"; and Mazeroux was choking with delight.
+
+"They'll lock her up, eh?"
+
+"No," said Perenna. "There's not enough 'hold' on her for them to issue
+a warrant."
+
+"What!" growled Mazeroux indignantly. "Not enough hold? I hope, in any
+case, that you won't let her go. She made no bones, you know, about
+attacking you! Come, Chief, polish her off, a she-devil like that!"
+
+Don Luis remained pensive. He was thinking of the unheard-of
+coincidences, the accumulation of facts that bore down on Mme. Fauville
+from every side. And the decisive proof which would join all these
+different facts together and give to the accusation the grounds which it
+still lacked was one which Perenna was able to supply. This was the marks
+of the teeth in the apple hidden among the shrubs in the garden. To the
+police these would be as good as any fingerprint, all the more as they
+could compare the marks with those on the cake of chocolate.
+
+Nevertheless, he hesitated; and, concentrating his anxious attention, he
+watched, with mingled feelings of pity and repulsion, that woman who, to
+all seeming, had killed her husband and her husband's son. Was he to give
+her the finishing stroke? Had he the right to play the part of judge? And
+supposing he were wrong?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Meantime, M. Desmalions had walked up to him and, while pretending to
+speak to Mazeroux, was really asking Perenna:
+
+"What do you think of it?"
+
+Mazeroux shook his head. Perenna replied:
+
+"I think, Monsieur le Préfet, that, if this woman is guilty, she is
+defending herself, for all her cleverness, with inconceivable lack
+of skill."
+
+"Meaning--?"
+
+"Meaning that she was doubtless only a tool in the hands of an
+accomplice."
+
+"An accomplice?"
+
+"Remember, Monsieur le Préfet, her husband's exclamation in your office
+yesterday: 'Oh, the scoundrels! the scoundrels!' There is, therefore, at
+least one accomplice, who perhaps is the same as the man who was present,
+as Sergeant Mazeroux must have told you, in the Café du Pont-Neuf when
+Inspector Vérot was last there: a man with a reddish-brown beard,
+carrying an ebony walking-stick with a silver handle. So that--"
+
+"So that," said M. Desmalions, completing the sentence, "by arresting
+Mme. Fauville to-day, merely on suspicion, we have a chance of laying our
+hands on the accomplice."
+
+Perenna did not reply. The Prefect continued, thoughtfully:
+
+"Arrest her ... arrest her.... We should need a proof for that.... Did
+you receive no clue?"
+
+"None at all, Monsieur le Préfet. True, my search was only summary."
+
+"But ours was most minute. We have been through every corner of
+the room."
+
+"And the garden, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+"The garden also."
+
+"With the same care?"
+
+"Perhaps not.... But I think--"
+
+"I think, on the contrary, Monsieur le Préfet, that, as the murderers
+passed through the garden in coming and going, there might be a chance--"
+
+"Mazeroux," said M. Desmalions, "go outside and make a more thorough
+inspection."
+
+The sergeant went out. Perenna, who was once more standing at one side,
+heard the Prefect of Police repeating to the examining magistrate:
+
+"Ah, if we only had a proof, just one! The woman is evidently guilty. The
+presumption against her is too great! ... And then there are Cosmo
+Mornington's millions.... But, on the other hand, look at her ... look at
+all the honesty in that pretty face of hers, look at all the sincerity of
+her grief."
+
+She was still crying, with fitful sobs and starts of indignant protest
+that made her clench her fists. At one moment she took her tear-soaked
+handkerchief, bit it with her teeth and tore it, after the manner of
+certain actresses.
+
+Perenna saw those beautiful white teeth, a little wide, moist and
+gleaming, rending the dainty cambric. And he thought of the marks of
+teeth on the apple. And he was seized with an extreme longing to know the
+truth. Was it the same pair of jaws that had left its impress in the pulp
+of the fruit?
+
+Mazeroux returned. M. Desmalions moved briskly toward the sergeant, who
+showed him the apple which he had found under the ivy. And Perenna at
+once realized the supreme importance which the Prefect of Police attached
+to Mazeroux's explanations and to his unexpected discovery.
+
+A conversation of some length took place between the magistrates and
+ended in the decision which Don Luis foresaw. M. Desmalions walked
+across the room to Mme. Fauville. It was the catastrophe. He reflected
+for a second on the manner in which he should open this final contest,
+and then he asked:
+
+"Are you still unable, Madame, to tell us how you employed your time
+last night?"
+
+She made an effort and whispered:
+
+"Yes, yes.... I took a taxi and drove about. ... I also walked a
+little--"
+
+"That is a fact which we can easily verify when we have found the
+driver of the taxi. Meanwhile, there is an opportunity of removing the
+somewhat ... grievous impression which your silence has left on our
+minds."
+
+"I am quite ready--"
+
+"It is this: the person or one of the persons who took part in the
+crime appears to have bitten into an apple which was afterward thrown
+away in the garden and which has just been found. To put an end to any
+suppositions concerning yourself, we should like you to perform the
+same action."
+
+"Oh, certainly!" she cried, eagerly. "If this is all you need to
+convince you--"
+
+She took one of the three apples which Desmalions handed her from the
+dish and lifted it to her mouth.
+
+It was a decisive act. If the two marks resembled each other, the proof
+existed, assured and undeniable.
+
+Before completing her movement, she stopped short, as though seized with
+a sudden fear.... Fear of what? Fear of the monstrous chance that might
+be her undoing? Or fear rather of the dread weapon which she was about to
+deliver against herself? In any case nothing accused her with greater
+directness than this last hesitation, which was incomprehensible if she
+was innocent, but clear as day if she was guilty!
+
+"What are you afraid of, Madame?" asked M. Desmalions.
+
+"Nothing, nothing," she said, shuddering. "I don't know.... I am afraid
+of everything.... It is all so horrible--"
+
+"But, Madame, I assure you that what we are asking of you has no sort of
+importance and, I am persuaded, can only have a fortunate result for you.
+If you don't mind, therefore--"
+
+She raised her hand higher and yet higher, with a slowness that betrayed
+her uneasiness. And really, in the fashion in which things were
+happening, the scene was marked by a certain solemnity and tragedy that
+wrung every heart.
+
+"And, if I refuse?" she asked, suddenly.
+
+"You are absolutely entitled to refuse," said the Prefect of Police. "But
+is it worth while, Madame? I am sure that your counsel would be the first
+to advise you--"
+
+"My counsel?" she stammered, understanding the formidable meaning
+conveyed by that reply.
+
+And, suddenly, with a fierce resolve and the almost ferocious air that
+contorts the face when great dangers threaten, she made the movement
+which they were pressing her to make. She opened her mouth. They saw
+the gleam of the white teeth. At one bite, the white teeth dug into
+the fruit.
+
+"There you are, Monsieur," she said.
+
+M. Desmalions turned to the examining magistrate.
+
+"Have you the apple found in the garden?"
+
+"Here, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+M. Desmalions put the two apples side by side.
+
+And those who crowded round him, anxiously looking on, all uttered one
+exclamation.
+
+The two marks of teeth were identical.
+
+Identical! Certainly, before declaring the identity of every detail, the
+absolute analogy of the marks of each tooth, they must wait for the
+results of the expert's report. But there was one thing which there was
+no mistaking and that was the complete similarity of the two curves.
+
+In either fruit the rounded arch was bent according to the same
+inflection. The two semicircles could have fitted one into the other,
+both very narrow, both a little long-shaped and oval and of a restricted
+radius which was the very character of the jaw.
+
+The men did not speak a word. M. Desmalions raised his head. Mme.
+Fauville did not move, stood livid and mad with terror. But all the
+sentiments of terror, stupor and indignation that she might simulate with
+her mobile face and her immense gifts as an actress, did not prevail
+against the compelling proof that presented itself to every eye.
+
+The two imprints were identical! The same teeth had bitten into
+both apples!
+
+"Madame--" the Prefect of Police began.
+
+"No, no," she cried, seized with a fit of fury, "no, it's not
+true.... This is all just a nightmare.... No, you are never going to
+arrest me? I in prison! Why, it's horrible!... What have I done? Oh, I
+swear that you are mistaken--"
+
+She took her head between her hands.
+
+"Oh, my brain is throbbing as if it would burst! What does all this mean?
+I have done no wrong.... I knew nothing. It was you who told me this
+morning.... Could I have suspected? My poor husband ... and that dear
+Edmond who loved me ... and whom I loved! Why should I have killed them?
+Tell me that! Why don't you answer?" she demanded. "People don't commit
+murder without a motive.... Well?... Well?... Answer me, can't you?"
+
+And once more convulsed with anger, standing in an aggressive
+attitude, with her clenched hands outstretched at the group of
+magistrates, she screamed:
+
+"You're no better than butchers ... you have no right to torture a woman
+like this.... Oh, how horrible! To accuse me ... to arrest me ... for
+nothing! ... Oh, it's abominable! ... What butchers you all are! ... And
+it's you in particular," addressing Perenna, "it's you--yes, I know--it's
+you who are the enemy.
+
+"Oh, I understand! You had your reasons, you were here last
+night.... Then why don't they arrest you? Why not you, as you were
+here and I was not and know nothing, absolutely nothing of what
+happened.... Why isn't it you?"
+
+The last words were pronounced in a hardly intelligible fashion. She had
+no strength left. She had to sit down, with her head bent over her knees,
+and she wept once more, abundantly.
+
+Perenna went up to her and, raising her forehead and uncovering the
+tear-stained face, said:
+
+"The imprints of teeth in both apples are absolutely identical. There is
+therefore no doubt whatever but that the first comes from you as well as
+the second."
+
+"No!" she said.
+
+"Yes," he affirmed. "That is a fact which it is materially impossible to
+deny. But the first impression may have been left by you before last
+night, that is to say, you may have bitten that apple yesterday, for
+instance--"
+
+She stammered:
+
+"Do you think so? Yes, perhaps, I seem to remember--yesterday morning--"
+
+But the Prefect of Police interrupted her.
+
+"It is useless, Madame; I have just questioned your servant, Silvestre.
+He bought the fruit himself at eight o'clock last evening. When M.
+Fauville went to bed, there were four apples in the dish. At eight
+o'clock this morning there were only three. Therefore the one found in
+the garden is incontestably the fourth; and this fourth apple was marked
+last night. And the mark is the mark of your teeth."
+
+She stammered:
+
+"It was not I ... it was not I ... that mark is not mine."
+
+"But--"
+
+"That mark is not mine.... I swear it as I hope to be saved.... And I
+also swear that I shall die, yes, die.... I prefer death to prison.... I
+shall kill myself.... I shall kill myself--"
+
+Her eyes were staring before her. She stiffened her muscles and made a
+supreme effort to rise from her chair. But, once on her feet, she
+tottered and fell fainting on the floor.
+
+While she was being seen to, Mazeroux beckoned to Don Luis and whispered:
+
+"Clear out, Chief."
+
+"Ah, so the orders are revoked? I'm free?"
+
+"Chief, take a look at the beggar who came in ten minutes ago and who's
+talking to the Prefect. Do you know him?"
+
+"Hang it all!" said Perenna, after glancing at a large red-faced man who
+did not take his eyes off him. "Hang it, it's Weber, the deputy chief!"
+
+"And he's recognized you, Chief! He recognized Lupin at first sight.
+There's no fake that he can't see through. He's got the knack of it.
+Well, Chief, just think of all the tricks you've played on him and ask
+yourself if he'll stick at anything to have his revenge!"
+
+"And you think he has told the Prefect?"
+
+"Of course he has; and the Prefect has ordered my mates to keep you in
+view. If you make the least show of trying to escape them, they'll
+collar you."
+
+"In that case, there's nothing to be done?"
+
+"Nothing to be done? Why, it's a question of putting them off your scent
+and mighty quickly!"
+
+"What good would that do me, as I'm going home and they know where I
+live?"
+
+"Eh, what? Can you have the cheek to go home after what's happened?"
+
+"Where do you expect me to sleep? Under the bridges?"
+
+"But, dash it all, don't you understand that, after this job, there will
+be the most infernal stir, that you're compromised up to the neck as it
+is, and that everybody will turn against you?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Drop the business."
+
+"And the murderers of Cosmo Mornington and the Fauvilles?"
+
+"The police will see to that."
+
+"Alexandre, you're an ass."
+
+"Then become Lupin again, the invisible, impregnable Lupin, and do your
+own fighting, as you used to. But in Heaven's name don't remain Perenna!
+It is too dangerous. And don't occupy yourself officially with a business
+in which you are not interested."
+
+"The things you say, Alexandre! I am interested in it to the tune of a
+hundred millions. If Perenna does not stick to his post, the hundred
+millions will be snatched from under his nose. And, on the one occasion
+when I can earn a few honest centimes, that would be most annoying."
+
+"And, if they arrest you?"
+
+"No go! I'm dead!"
+
+"Lupin is dead. But Perenna is alive."
+
+"As they haven't arrested me to-day, I'm easy in my mind."
+
+"It's only put off. And the orders are strict from this moment onward.
+They mean to surround your house and to keep watch day and night."
+
+"Capital. I always was frightened at night."
+
+"But, good Lord! what are you hoping for?"
+
+"I hope for nothing, Alexandre. I am sure. I am sure now that they will
+not dare arrest me."
+
+"Do you imagine that Weber will stand on ceremony?"
+
+"I don't care a hang about Weber. Without orders, Weber can do nothing."
+
+"But they'll give him his orders."
+
+"The order to shadow me, yes; to arrest me, no. The Prefect of Police has
+committed himself about me to such an extent that he will be obliged to
+back me up. And then there's this: the whole affair is so absurd, so
+complicated, that you people will never find your way out of it alone.
+Sooner or later, you will come and fetch me. For there is no one but
+myself able to fight such adversaries as these: not you nor Weber, nor
+any of your pals at the detective office. I shall expect your visit,
+Alexandre."
+
+On the next day an expert examination identified the tooth prints on the
+two apples and likewise established the fact that the print on the cake
+of chocolate was similar to the others.
+
+Also, the driver of a taxicab came and gave evidence that a lady engaged
+him as she left the opera, told him to drive her straight to the end of
+the Avenue Henri Martin, and left the cab on reaching that spot.
+
+Now the end of the Avenue Henri Martin was within five minutes' walk of
+the Fauvilles' house.
+
+The man was brought into Mme. Fauville's presence and recognized
+her at once.
+
+What had she done in that neighbourhood for over an hour?
+
+Marie Fauville was taken to the central lockup, was entered on the
+register, and slept, that night, at the Saint-Lazare prison.
+
+That same day, when the reporters were beginning to publish details of
+the investigation, such as the discovery of the tooth prints, but when
+they did not yet know to whom to attribute them, two of the leading
+dailies used as a headline for their article the very words which Don
+Luis Perenna had employed to describe the marks on the apple, the
+sinister words which so well suggested the fierce, savage, and so to
+speak, brutal character of the incident:
+
+"THE TEETH OF THE TIGER."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE
+
+THE IRON CURTAIN
+
+
+It is sometimes an ungrateful task to tell the story of Arsène Lupin's
+life, for the reason that each of his adventures is partly known to the
+public, having at the time formed the subject of much eager comment,
+whereas his biographer is obliged, if he would throw light upon what is
+not known, to begin at the beginning and to relate in full detail all
+that which is already public property.
+
+It is because of this necessity that I am compelled to speak once more of
+the extreme excitement which the news of that shocking series of crimes
+created in France, in Europe and throughout the civilized world. The
+public heard of four murders practically all at once, for the particulars
+of Cosmo Mornington's will were published two days later.
+
+There was no doubt that the same person had killed Cosmo Mornington,
+Inspector Vérot, Fauville the engineer, and his son Edmond. The same
+person had made the identical sinister bite, leaving against himself or
+herself, with a heedlessness that seemed to show the avenging hand of
+fate, a most impressive and incriminating proof, a proof which made
+people shudder as they would have shuddered at the awful reality: the
+marks of his or her teeth, the teeth of the tiger!
+
+And, in the midst of all this bloodshed, at the most tragic moment
+of the dismal tragedy, behold the strangest of figures emerging from
+the darkness!
+
+An heroic adventurer, endowed with astounding intelligence and insight,
+had in a few hours partly unravelled the tangled skeins of the plot,
+divined the murder of Cosmo Mornington, proclaimed the murder of
+Inspector Vérot, taken the conduct of the investigation into his own
+hands, delivered to justice the inhuman creature whose beautiful white
+teeth fitted the marks as precious stones fit their settings, received a
+cheque for a million francs on the day after these exploits and, finally,
+found himself the probable heir to an immense fortune.
+
+And here was Arsène Lupin coming to life again!
+
+For the public made no mistake about that, and, with wonderful intuition,
+proclaimed aloud that Don Luis Perenna was Arsène Lupin, before a close
+examination of the facts had more or less confirmed the supposition.
+
+"But he's dead!" objected the doubters.
+
+To which the others replied:
+
+"Yes, Dolores Kesselbach's corpse was recovered under the still smoking
+ruins of a little chalet near the Luxemburg frontier and, with it, the
+corpse of a man whom the police identified as Arsène Lupin. But
+everything goes to show that the whole scene was contrived by Lupin, who,
+for reasons of his own, wanted to be thought dead. And everything shows
+that the police accepted and legalized the theory of his death only
+because they wished to be rid of their everlasting adversary.
+
+"As a proof, we have the confidences made by Valenglay, who was Prime
+Minister at the time and whom the chances of politics have just replaced
+at the head of the government. And there is the mysterious incident on
+the island of Capri when the German Emperor, just as he was about to be
+buried under a landslip, was saved by a hermit who, according to the
+German version, was none other than Arsène Lupin."
+
+To this came a fresh objection:
+
+"Very well; but read the newspapers of the time: ten minutes
+afterward, the hermit flung himself into the sea from Tiberius' Leap."
+And the answer:
+
+"Yes, but the body was never found. And, as it happens, we know that a
+steamer picked up a man who was making signals to her and that this
+steamer was on her way to Algiers. Well, a few days later, Don Luis
+Perenna enlisted in the Foreign Legion at Sidi-bel-Abbes."
+
+Of course, the controversy upon which the newspapers embarked on this
+subject was carried on discreetly. Everybody was afraid of Lupin; and the
+journalists maintained a certain reserve in their articles, confined
+themselves to comparing dates and pointing out coincidences, and
+refrained from speaking too positively of any Lupin that might lie hidden
+under the mask of Perenna.
+
+But, as regards the private in the Foreign Legion and his stay in
+Morocco, they took their revenge and let themselves go freely.
+
+Major d'Astrignac had spoken. Other officers, other comrades of
+Perenna's, related what they had seen. The reports and daily orders
+concerning him were published. And what became known as "The Hero's
+Idyll" began to take the form of a sort of record each page of which
+described the maddest and unlikeliest of facts.
+
+At Médiouna, on the twenty-fourth of March, the adjutant, Captain Pollex,
+awarded Private Perenna four days' cells on a charge of having broken out
+of camp past two sentries after evening roll call, contrary to orders,
+and being absent without leave until noon on the following day. Perenna,
+the report went on to say, brought back the body of his sergeant, killed
+in ambush. And in the margin was this note, in the colonel's hand:
+
+"The colonel commanding doubles Private Perenna's award, but mentions his
+name in orders and congratulates and thanks him."
+
+After the fight of Ber-Réchid, Lieutenant Fardet's detachment being
+obliged to retreat before a band of four hundred Moors, Private Perenna
+asked leave to cover the retreat by installing himself in a _kasbah_.
+
+"How many men do you want, Perenna?"
+
+"None, sir."
+
+"What! Surely you don't propose to cover a retreat all by yourself?"
+
+"What pleasure would there be in dying, sir, if others were to die as
+well as I?"
+
+At his request, they left him a dozen rifles, and divided with him the
+cartridges that remained. His share came to seventy-five.
+
+The detachment got away without being further molested. Next day, when
+they were able to return with reinforcements, they surprised the Moors
+lying in wait around the _kasbah_, but afraid to approach. The ground was
+covered with seventy-five of their killed.
+
+Our men drove them off. They found Private Perenna stretched on the floor
+of the _kasbah_. They thought him dead. He was asleep!
+
+He had not a single cartridge left. But each of his seventy-five bullets
+had gone home.
+
+What struck the imagination of the public most, however, was Major Comte
+d'Astrignac's story of the battle of Dar-Dbibarh. The major confessed
+that this battle, which relieved Fez at the moment when we thought that
+all was lost and which created such a sensation in France, was won before
+it was fought and that it was won by Perenna, alone!
+
+At daybreak, when the Moorish tribes were preparing for the attack,
+Private Perenna lassoed an Arab horse that was galloping across the
+plain, sprang on the animal, which had no saddle, bridle, nor any sort of
+harness, and without jacket, cap, or arms, with his white shirt bulging
+out and a cigarette between his teeth, charged, with his hands in his
+trousers-pockets!
+
+He charged straight toward the enemy, galloped through their camp, riding
+in and out among the tents, and then left it by the same place by which
+he had gone in.
+
+This quite inconceivable death ride spread such consternation among the
+Moors that their attack was half-hearted and the battle was won without
+resistance.
+
+This, together with numberless other feats of bravado, went to make up
+the heroic legend of Perenna. It threw into relief the superhuman energy,
+the marvellous recklessness, the bewildering fancy, the spirit of
+adventure, the physical dexterity, and the coolness of a singularly
+mysterious individual whom it was impossible not to take for Arsène
+Lupin, but a new and greater Arsène Lupin, dignified, idealized, and
+ennobled by his exploits.
+
+One morning, a fortnight after the double murder in the Boulevard
+Suchet, this extraordinary man, who aroused such eager interest and who
+was spoken of on every side as a fabulous and more or less impossible
+being: one morning, Don Luis Perenna dressed himself and went the rounds
+of his house.
+
+It was a comfortable and roomy eighteenth-century mansion, situated at
+the entrance to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, on the little Place du
+Palais-Bourbon. He had bought it, furnished, from a rich Hungarian, Count
+Malonyi, keeping for his own use the horses, carriages, motor cars, and
+taking over the eight servants and even the count's secretary, Mlle.
+Levasseur, who undertook to manage the household and to receive and get
+rid of the visitors--journalists, bores and curiosity-dealers--attracted
+by the luxury of the house and the reputation of its new owner.
+
+After finishing his inspection of the stables and garage, he walked
+across the courtyard and went up to his study, pushed open one of the
+windows and raised his head. Above him was a slanting mirror; and this
+mirror reflected, beyond the courtyard and its surrounding wall, one
+whole side of the Place du Palais-Bourbon.
+
+"Bother!" he said. "Those confounded detectives are still there. And this
+has been going on for a fortnight. I'm getting tired of this spying."
+
+He sat down, in a bad temper, to look through his letters, tearing up,
+after he had read them, those which concerned him personally and making
+notes on the others, such as applications for assistance and requests for
+interviews. When he had finished, he rang the bell.
+
+"Ask Mlle. Levasseur to bring me the newspapers."
+
+She had been the Hungarian count's reader as well as his secretary; and
+Perenna had trained her to pick out in the newspapers anything that
+referred to him, and to give him each morning an exact account of the
+proceedings that were being taken against Mme. Fauville.
+
+Always dressed in black, with a very elegant and graceful figure, she had
+attracted him from the first. She had an air of great dignity and a grave
+and thoughtful face which made it impossible to penetrate the secret of
+her soul, and which would have seemed austere had it not been framed in a
+cloud of fair curls, resisting all attempts at discipline and setting a
+halo of light and gayety around her.
+
+Her voice had a soft and musical tone which Perenna loved to hear; and,
+himself a little perplexed by Mlle. Levasseur's attitude of reserve, he
+wondered what she could think of him, of his mode of life, and of all
+that the newspapers had to tell of his mysterious past.
+
+"Nothing new?" he asked, as he glanced at the headings of the articles.
+
+She read the reports relating to Mme. Fauville; and Don Luis could see
+that the police investigations were making no headway. Marie Fauville
+still kept to her first method, that of weeping, making a show of
+indignation, and assuming entire ignorance of the facts upon which she
+was being examined.
+
+"It's ridiculous," he said, aloud. "I have never seen any one defend
+herself so clumsily."
+
+"Still, if she's innocent?"
+
+It was the first time that Mlle. Levasseur had uttered an opinion or
+rather a remark upon the case. Don Luis looked at her in great surprise.
+
+"So you think her innocent, Mademoiselle?"
+
+She seemed ready to reply and to explain the meaning of her
+interruption. It was as though she were removing her impassive mask and
+about to allow her face to adopt a more animated expression under the
+impulse of her inner feelings. But she restrained herself with a visible
+effort, and murmured:
+
+"I don't know. I have no views."
+
+"Possibly," he said, watching her with curiosity, "but you have a doubt:
+a doubt which would be permissible if it were not for the marks left by
+Mme. Fauville's own teeth. Those marks, you see, are something more than
+a signature, more than a confession of guilt. And, as long as she is
+unable to give a satisfactory explanation of this point--"
+
+But Marie Fauville vouchsafed not the slightest explanation of this or of
+anything else. She remained impenetrable. On the other hand, the police
+failed to discover her accomplice or accomplices, or the man with the
+ebony walking-stick and the tortoise-shell glasses whom the waiter at the
+Café du Pont-Neuf had described to Mazeroux and who seemed to have played
+a singularly suspicious part. In short, there was not a ray of light
+thrown upon the subject.
+
+Equally vain was all search for the traces of Victor, the Roussel
+sister's first cousin, who would have inherited the Mornington bequest in
+the absence of any direct heirs.
+
+"Is that all?" asked Perenna.
+
+"No," said Mlle. Levasseur, "there is an article in the _Echo de
+France_--"
+
+"Relating to me?"
+
+"I presume so, Monsieur. It is called, 'Why Don't They Arrest Him?'"
+
+"That concerns me," he said, with a laugh.
+
+He took the newspaper and read:
+
+"Why do they not arrest him? Why go against logic and prolong an
+unnatural situation which no decent man can understand? This is the
+question which everybody is asking and to which our investigations enable
+us to furnish a precise reply.
+
+"Two years ago, in other words, three years after the pretended death of
+Arsène Lupin, the police, having discovered or believing they had
+discovered that Arsène Lupin was really none other than one Floriani,
+born at Blois and since lost to sight, caused the register to be
+inscribed, on the page relating to this Floriani, with the word
+'Deceased,' followed by the words 'Under the alias of Arsène Lupin.'
+
+"Consequently, to bring Arsène Lupin back to life, there would be wanted
+something more than the undeniable proof of his existence, which would
+not be impossible. The most complicated wheels in the administrative
+machine would have to be set in motion, and a decree obtained from the
+Council of State.
+
+"Now it would seem that M. Valenglay, the Prime Minister, together with
+the Prefect of Police, is opposed to making any too minute inquiries
+capable of opening up a scandal which the authorities are anxious to
+avoid. Bring Arsène Lupin back to life? Recommence the struggle with
+that accursed scoundrel? Risk a fresh defeat and fresh ridicule? No, no,
+and again no!
+
+"And thus is brought about this unprecedented, inadmissible,
+inconceivable, disgraceful situation, that Arsène Lupin, the hardened
+thief, the impenitent criminal, the robber-king, the emperor of burglars
+and swindlers, is able to-day, not clandestinely, but in the sight and
+hearing of the whole world, to pursue the most formidable task that he
+has yet undertaken, to live publicly under a name which is not his own,
+but which he has incontestably made his own, to destroy with impunity
+four persons who stood in his way, to cause the imprisonment of an
+innocent woman against whom he himself has accumulated false evidence,
+and at the end of all, despite the protests of common sense and thanks
+to an unavowed complicity, to receive the hundred millions of the
+Mornington legacy.
+
+"There is the ignominious truth in a nutshell. It is well that it should
+be stated. Let us hope, now that it stands revealed, that it will
+influence the future conduct of events."
+
+"At any rate, it will influence the conduct of the idiot who wrote that
+article," said Lupin, with a grin.
+
+He dismissed Mlle. Levasseur and rang up Major d'Astrignac on the
+telephone.
+
+"Is that you, Major? Perenna speaking."
+
+"Yes, what is it?"
+
+"Have you read the article in the _Echo de France_?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Would it bore you very much to call on that gentleman and ask for
+satisfaction in my name?"
+
+"Oh! A duel!"
+
+"It's got to be, Major. All these sportsmen are wearying me with their
+lucubrations. They must be gagged. This fellow will pay for the rest."
+
+"Well, of course, if you're bent on it--"
+
+"I am, very much."
+
+       *       *       *       *        *
+
+The preliminaries were entered upon without delay. The editor of the
+_Echo de France_ declared that the article had been sent in without a
+signature, typewritten, and that it had been published without his
+knowledge; but he accepted the entire responsibility.
+
+That same day, at three o'clock, Don Luis Perenna, accompanied by Major
+d'Astrignac, another officer, and a doctor, left the house in the Place
+du Palais-Bourbon in his car, and, followed by a taxi crammed with the
+detectives engaged in watching him, drove to the Parc des Princes.
+
+While waiting for the arrival of the adversary, the Comte d'Astrignac
+took Don Luis aside.
+
+"My dear Perenna, I ask you no questions. I don't want to know how much
+truth there is in all that is being written about you, or what your real
+name is. To me, you are Perenna of the Legion, and that is all I care
+about. Your past began in Morocco. As for the future, I know that,
+whatever happens and however great the temptation, your only aim will be
+to revenge Cosmo Mornington and protect his heirs. But there's one thing
+that worries me."
+
+"Speak out, Major."
+
+"Give me your word that you won't kill this man."
+
+"Two months in bed, Major; will that suit you?"
+
+"Too long. A fortnight."
+
+"Done."
+
+The two adversaries took up their positions. At the second encounter, the
+editor of the _Echo de France_ fell, wounded in the chest.
+
+"Oh, that's too bad of you, Perenna!" growled the Comte d'Astrignac. "You
+promised me--"
+
+"And I've kept my promise, Major."
+
+The doctors were examining the injured man. Presently one of them
+rose and said:
+
+"It's nothing. Three weeks' rest, at most. Only a third of an inch more,
+and he would have been done for."
+
+"Yes, but that third of an inch isn't there," murmured Perenna.
+
+Still followed by the detectives' motor cab, Don Luis returned to the
+Faubourg Saint-Germain; and it was then that an incident occurred which
+was to puzzle him greatly and throw a most extraordinary light on the
+article in the _Echo de France_.
+
+In the courtyard of his house he saw two little puppies which belonged to
+the coachman and which were generally confined to the stables. They were
+playing with a twist of red string which kept catching on to things, to
+the railings of the steps, to the flower vases. In the end, the paper
+round which the string was wound, appeared. Don Luis happened to pass at
+that moment. His eyes noticed marks of writing on the paper, and he
+mechanically picked it up and unfolded it.
+
+He gave a start. He had at once recognized the opening lines of the
+article printed in the _Echo de France_. And the whole article was there,
+written in ink, on ruled paper, with erasures, and with sentences added,
+struck out, and begun anew.
+
+He called the coachman and asked him:
+
+"Where does this ball of string come from?"
+
+"The string, sir? Why, from the harness-room, I think. It must have been
+that little she-devil of a Mirza who--"
+
+"And when did you wind the string round the paper?"
+
+"Yesterday evening, Monsieur."
+
+"Yesterday evening. I see. And where is the paper from?"
+
+"Upon my word, Monsieur, I can't say. I wanted something to wind my
+string on. I picked this bit up behind the coach-house where they fling
+all the rubbish of the house to be taken into the street at night."
+
+Don Luis pursued his investigations. He questioned or asked Mlle.
+Levasseur to question the other servants. He discovered nothing; but one
+fact remained: the article in the _Echo de France_ had been written, as
+the rough draft which he had picked up proved, by somebody who lived in
+the house or who was in touch with one of the people in the house.
+
+The enemy was inside the fortress.
+
+But what enemy? And what did he want? Merely Perenna's arrest?
+
+All the remainder of the afternoon Don Luis continued anxious, annoyed by
+the mystery that surrounded him, incensed at his own inaction, and
+especially at that threatened arrest, which certainly caused him no
+uneasiness, but which hampered his movements.
+
+Accordingly, when he was told at about ten o'clock that a man who gave
+the name of Alexandre insisted on seeing him, he had the man shown in;
+and when he found himself face to face with Mazeroux, but Mazeroux
+disguised beyond recognition and huddled in an old cloak, he flung
+himself on him as on a prey, hustling and shaking him.
+
+"So it's you, at last?" he cried. "Well, what did I tell you? You can't
+make head or tail of things at the police office and you've come for me!
+Confess it, you numskull! You've come to fetch me! Oh, how funny it all
+is! Gad, I knew that you would never have the cheek to arrest me, and
+that the Prefect of Police would manage to calm the untimely ardour of
+that confounded Weber! To begin with, one doesn't arrest a man whom one
+has need of. Come, out with it! Lord, how stupid you look! Why don't you
+answer? How far have you got at the office? Quick, speak! I'll settle the
+thing in five seconds. Just tell me about your inquiry in two words, and
+I'll finish it for you in the twinkling of a bed-post, in two minutes by
+my watch. Well, you were saying--"
+
+"But, Chief," spluttered Mazeroux, utterly nonplussed.
+
+"What! Must I drag the words out of you? Come on! I'll make a start. It
+has to do with the man with the ebony walking-stick, hasn't it? The one
+we saw at the Café du Pont-Neuf on the day when Inspector Vérot was
+murdered?"
+
+"Yes, it has."
+
+"Have you found his traces?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, come along, find your tongue!"
+
+"It's like this, Chief. Some one else noticed him besides the waiter.
+There was another customer in the café; and this other customer, whom I
+ended by discovering, went out at the same time as our man and heard
+him ask somebody in the street which was the nearest underground
+station for Neuilly."
+
+"Capital, that. And, in Neuilly, by asking questions on every side, you
+ferreted him out?"
+
+"And even learnt his name, Chief: Hubert Lautier, of the Avenue du Roule.
+Only he decamped from there six months ago, leaving his furniture behind
+him and taking nothing but two trunks."
+
+"What about the post-office?"
+
+"We have been to the post-office. One of the clerks recognized the
+description which we supplied. Our man calls once every eight or ten days
+to fetch his mail, which never amounts to much: just one or two letters.
+He has not been there for some time."
+
+"Is the correspondence in his name?"
+
+"No, initials."
+
+"Were they able to remember them?"
+
+"Yes: B.R.W.8."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"That is absolutely all that I have discovered. But one of my fellow
+officers succeeded in proving, from the evidence of two detectives, that
+a man carrying a silver-handled ebony walking-stick and a pair of
+tortoise-shell glasses walked out of the Gare d'Auteuil on the evening of
+the double murder and went toward Renelagh. Remember the presence of Mme.
+Fauville in that neighbourhood at the same hour. And remember that the
+crime was committed round about midnight. I conclude from this--"
+
+"That will do; be off!"
+
+"But--"
+
+"Get!"
+
+"Then I don't see you again?"
+
+"Meet me in half an hour outside our man's place."
+
+"What man?"
+
+"Marie Fauville's accomplice."
+
+"But you don't know--"
+
+"The address? Why, you gave it to me yourself: Boulevard Richard-Wallace,
+No. 8. Go! And don't look such a fool."
+
+He made him spin round on his heels, took him by the shoulders, pushed
+him to the door, and handed him over, quite flabbergasted, to a footman.
+
+He himself went out a few minutes later, dragging in his wake the
+detectives attached to his person, left them posted on sentry duty
+outside a block of flats with a double entrance, and took a motor cab
+to Neuilly.
+
+He went along the Avenue de Madrid on foot and turned down the Boulevard
+Richard-Wallace, opposite the Bois de Boulogne. Mazeroux was waiting for
+him in front of a small three-storied house standing at the back of a
+courtyard contained within the very high walls of the adjoining property.
+
+"Is this number eight?"
+
+"Yes, Chief, but tell me how--"
+
+"One moment, old chap; give me time to recover my breath."
+
+He gave two or three great gasps.
+
+"Lord, how good it is to be up and doing!" he said. "Upon my word, I was
+getting rusty. And what a pleasure to pursue those scoundrels! So you
+want me to tell you?"
+
+He passed his arm through the sergeant's.
+
+"Listen, Alexandre, and profit by my words. Remember this: when a person
+is choosing initials for his address at a _poste restante_ he doesn't
+pick them at random, but always in such a way that the letters convey a
+meaning to the person corresponding with him, a meaning which will enable
+that other person easily to remember the address."
+
+"And in this case?"
+
+"In this case, Mazeroux, a man like myself, who knows Neuilly and the
+neighbourhood of the Bois, is at once struck by those three letters,
+'B.R.W.,' and especially by the 'W.', a foreign letter, an English letter.
+So that in my mind's eye, instantly, as in a flash, I saw the three
+letters in their logical place as initials at the head of the words for
+which they stand. I saw the 'B' of 'boulevard,' and the 'R' and the
+English 'W' of Richard-Wallace. And so I came to the Boulevard
+Richard-Wallace, And that, my dear sir, explains the milk in the
+cocoanut."
+
+Mazeroux seemed a little doubtful.
+
+"And what do you think, Chief?"
+
+"I think nothing. I am looking about. I am building up a theory on the
+first basis that offers a probable theory. And I say to myself ... I say
+to myself ... I say to myself, Mazeroux, that this is a devilish
+mysterious little hole and that this house--Hush! Listen--"
+
+He pushed Mazeroux into a dark corner. They had heard a noise, the
+slamming of a door.
+
+Footsteps crossed the courtyard in front of the house. The lock of the
+outer gate grated. Some one appeared, and the light of a street lamp fell
+full on his face.
+
+"Dash it all," muttered Mazeroux, "it's he!"
+
+"I believe you're right."
+
+"It's he. Chief. Look at the black stick and the bright handle. And did
+you see the eyeglasses--and the beard? What a oner you are, Chief!"
+
+"Calm yourself and let's go after him."
+
+The man had crossed the Boulevard Richard-Wallace and was turning into
+the Boulevard Maillot. He was walking pretty fast, with his head up,
+gayly twirling his stick. He lit a cigarette.
+
+At the end of the Boulevard Maillot, the man passed the octroi and
+entered Paris. The railway station of the outer circle was close by. He
+went to it and, still followed by the others, stepped into a train that
+took them to Auteuil.
+
+"That's funny," said Mazeroux. "He's doing exactly what he did a
+fortnight ago. This is where he was seen."
+
+The man now went along the fortifications. In a quarter of an hour he
+reached the Boulevard Suchet and almost immediately afterward the house
+in which M. Fauville and his son had been murdered.
+
+He climbed the fortifications opposite the house and stayed there for
+some minutes, motionless, with his face to the front of the house. Then
+continuing his road he went to La Muette and plunged into the dusk of the
+Bois de Boulogne.
+
+"To work and boldly!" said Don Luis, quickening his pace.
+
+Mazeroux stopped him.
+
+"What do you mean, Chief?"
+
+"Well, catch him by the throat! There are two of us; we couldn't hope for
+a better moment."
+
+"What! Why, it's impossible!"
+
+"Impossible? Are you afraid? Very well, I'll do it by myself."
+
+"Look here, Chief, you're not serious!"
+
+"Why shouldn't I be serious?"
+
+"Because one can't arrest a man without a reason."
+
+"Without a reason? A scoundrel like this? A murderer? What more do
+you want?"
+
+"In the absence of compulsion, of catching him in the act, I want
+something that I haven't got."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"A warrant. I haven't a warrant."
+
+Mazeroux's accent was so full of conviction, and the answer struck Don
+Luis Perenna as so comical, that he burst out laughing.
+
+"You have no warrant? Poor little chap! Well, I'll soon show you if I
+need a warrant!"
+
+"You'll show me nothing," cried Mazeroux, hanging on to his companion's
+arm. "You shan't touch the man."
+
+"One would think he was your mother!"
+
+"Come, Chief."
+
+"But, you stick-in-the-mud of an honest man," shouted Don Luis, angrily,
+"if we let this opportunity slip shall we ever find another?"
+
+"Easily. He's going home. I'll inform the commissary of police. He will
+telephone to headquarters; and to-morrow morning--"
+
+"And suppose the bird has flown?"
+
+"I have no warrant."
+
+"Do you want me to sign you one, idiot?"
+
+But Don Luis mastered his rage. He felt that all his arguments would be
+shattered to pieces against the sergeant's obstinacy, and that, if
+necessary, Mazeroux would go to the length of defending the enemy against
+him. He simply said in a sententious tone:
+
+"One ass and you make a pair of asses; and there are as many asses as
+there are people who try to do police work with bits of paper,
+signatures, warrants, and other gammon. Police work, my lad, is done with
+one's fists. When you come upon the enemy, hit him. Otherwise, you stand
+a chance of hitting the air. With that, good-night. I'm going to bed.
+Telephone to me when the job is done."
+
+He went home, furious, sick of an adventure in which he had not had elbow
+room, and in which he had had to submit to the will, or, rather, to the
+weakness of others.
+
+But next morning when he woke up his longing to see the police lay hold
+of the man with the ebony stick, and especially the feeling that his
+assistance would be of use, impelled him to dress as quickly as he could.
+
+"If I don't come to the rescue," he thought, "they'll let themselves be
+done in the eye. They're not equal to a contest of this kind."
+
+Just then Mazeroux rang up and asked to speak to him. He rushed to a
+little telephone box which his predecessor had fitted up on the first
+floor, in a dark recess that communicated only with his study, and
+switched on the electric light.
+
+"Is that you, Alexandre?"
+
+"Yes, Chief. I'm speaking from a wine shop near the house on the
+Boulevard Richard-Wallace."
+
+"What about our man?"
+
+"The bird's still in the nest. But we're only just in time."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Yes, he's packed his trunk. He's going away this morning."
+
+"How do they know?"
+
+"Through the woman who manages for him. She's just come to the house and
+will let us in."
+
+"Does he live alone?"
+
+"Yes, the woman cooks his meals and goes away in the evening. No one ever
+calls except a veiled lady who has paid him three visits since he's been
+here. The housekeeper was not able to see what she was like. As for him,
+she says he's a scholar, who spends his time reading and working."
+
+"And have you a warrant?"
+
+"Yes, we're going to use it."
+
+"I'll come at once."
+
+"You can't! We've got Weber at our head. Oh, by the way, have you heard
+the news about Mme. Fauville?"
+
+"About Mme. Fauville?"
+
+"Yes, she tried to commit suicide last night."
+
+"What! Tried to commit suicide!"
+
+Perenna had uttered an exclamation of astonishment and was very much
+surprised to hear, almost at the same time, another cry, like an echo, at
+his elbow. Without letting go the receiver, he turned round and saw that
+Mlle. Levasseur was in the study a few yards away from him, standing with
+a distorted and livid face. Their eyes met. He was on the point of
+speaking to her, but she moved away, without leaving the room, however.
+
+"What the devil was she listening for?" Don Luis wondered. "And why that
+look of dismay?"
+
+Meanwhile, Mazeroux continued:
+
+"She said, you know, that she would try to kill herself. But it must have
+taken a goodish amount of pluck."
+
+"But how did she do it?" Perenna asked.
+
+"I'll tell you another time. They're calling me. Whatever you do, Chief,
+don't come."
+
+"Yes," he replied, firmly, "I'm coming. After all, the least I can do is
+to be in at the death, seeing that it was I who found the scent. But
+don't be afraid. I shall keep in the background."
+
+"Then hurry, Chief. We're delivering the attack in ten minutes."
+
+"I'll be with you before that."
+
+He quickly hung up the receiver and turned on his heel to leave the
+telephone box. The next moment he had flung himself against the farther
+wall. Just as he was about to pass out he had heard something click
+above his head and he but barely had the time to leap back and escape
+being struck by an iron curtain which fell in front of him with a
+terrible thud.
+
+Another second and the huge mass would have crushed him. He could feel it
+whizzing by his head. And he had never before experienced the anguish of
+danger so intensely.
+
+After a moment of genuine fright, in which he stood as though petrified,
+with his brain in a whirl, he recovered his coolness and threw himself
+upon the obstacle. But it at once appeared to him that the obstacle was
+unsurmountable.
+
+It was a heavy metal panel, not made of plates or lathes fastened one to
+the other, but formed of a solid slab, massive, firm, and strong, and
+covered with the sheen of time darkened here and there with patches of
+rust. On either side and at the top and bottom the edges of the panel
+fitted in a narrow groove which covered them hermetically.
+
+He was a prisoner. In a sudden fit of rage he banged at the metal with
+his fists. He remembered that Mlle. Levasseur was in the study. If she
+had not yet left the room--and surely she could not have left it when the
+thing happened--she would hear the noise. She was bound to hear it. She
+would be sure to come back, give the alarm, and rescue him.
+
+He listened. He shouted. No reply. His voice died away against the walls
+and ceiling of the box in which he was shut up, and he felt that the
+whole house--drawing-rooms, staircases, and passages--remained deaf to
+his appeal.
+
+And yet ... and yet ... Mlle. Levasseur--
+
+"What does it mean?" he muttered. "What can it all mean?"
+
+And motionless now and silent, he thought once more of the girl's strange
+attitude, of her distraught face, of her haggard eyes. And he also began
+to wonder what accident had released the mechanism which had hurled the
+formidable iron curtain upon him, craftily and ruthlessly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX
+
+THE MAN WITH THE EBONY WALKING-STICK
+
+
+A group consisting of Deputy Chief Detective Weber, Chief Inspector
+Ancenis, Sergeant Mazeroux, three inspectors, and the Neuilly commissary
+of police stood outside the gate of No. 8 Boulevard Richard-Wallace.
+
+Mazeroux was watching the Avenue de Madrid, by which Don Luis would have
+to come, and began to wonder what had happened; for half an hour had
+passed since they telephoned to each other, and Mazeroux could find no
+further pretext for delaying the work.
+
+"It's time to make a move," said Weber. "The housekeeper is making
+signals to us from the window: the joker's dressing."
+
+"Why not nab him when he comes out?" objected Mazeroux. "We shall capture
+him in a moment."
+
+"And if he cuts off by another outlet which we don't know of?" said the
+deputy chief. "You have to be careful with these beggars. No, let's beard
+him in his den. It's more certain."
+
+"Still--"
+
+"What's the matter with you, Mazeroux?" asked the deputy chief, taking
+him on one side. "Don't you see that our men are getting restive? They're
+afraid of this sportsman. There's only one way, which is to set them on
+him as if he were a wild beast. Besides, the business must be finished by
+the time the Prefect comes,"
+
+"Is he coming?"
+
+"Yes. He wants to see things for himself. The whole affair interests him
+enormously. So, forward! Are you ready, men? I'm going to ring."
+
+The bell sounded; and the housekeeper at once came and half opened the
+gate.
+
+Although the orders were to observe great quiet, so as not to alarm the
+enemy too soon, the fear which he inspired was so intense that there
+was a general rush; and all the detectives crowded into the courtyard,
+ready for the fight. But a window opened and some one cried from the
+second floor:
+
+"What's happening?"
+
+The deputy chief did not reply. Two detectives, the chief inspector, the
+commissary, and himself entered the house, while the others remained in
+the courtyard and made any attempt at flight impossible.
+
+The meeting took place on the first floor. The man had come down, fully
+dressed, with his hat on his head; and the deputy chief roared:
+
+"Stop! Hands up! Are you Hubert Lautier?"
+
+The man seemed disconcerted. Five revolvers were levelled at him. And yet
+no sign of fear showed in his face; and he simply said:
+
+"What do you want, Monsieur? What are you here for?"
+
+"We are here in the name of the law, with a warrant for your arrest."
+
+"A warrant for my arrest?"
+
+"A warrant for the arrest of Hubert Lautier, residing at 8 Boulevard
+Richard-Wallace."
+
+"But it's absurd!" said the man. "It's incredible! What does it mean?
+What for?"
+
+They took him by both arms, without his offering the least resistance,
+pushed him into a fairly large room containing no furniture but three
+rush-bottomed chairs, an armchair, and a table covered with big books.
+
+"There," said the deputy chief. "Don't stir. If you attempt to move, so
+much the worse for you."
+
+The man made no protest. While the two detectives held him by the
+collar, he seemed to be reflecting, as though he were trying to
+understand the secret causes of an arrest for which he was totally
+unprepared. He had an intelligent face, a reddish-brown beard, and a
+pair of blue-gray eyes which now and again showed a certain hardness of
+expression behind his glasses. His broad shoulders and powerful neck
+pointed to physical strength.
+
+"Shall we tie his wrists?" Mazeroux asked the deputy chief.
+
+"One second. The Prefect's coming; I can hear him. Have you searched the
+man's pockets? Any weapons?"
+
+"No."
+
+"No flask, no phial? Nothing suspicious?"
+
+"No, nothing."
+
+M. Desmalions arrived and, while watching the prisoner's face, talked
+in a low voice with the deputy chief and received the particulars of
+the arrest.
+
+"This is good business," he said. "We wanted this. Now that both
+accomplices are in custody, they will have to speak; and everything will
+be cleared up. So there was no resistance?"
+
+"None at all, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"No matter, we will remain on our guard."
+
+The prisoner had not uttered a word, but still wore a thoughtful look, as
+though trying to understand the inexplicable events of the last few
+minutes. Nevertheless, when he realized that the newcomer was none other
+than the Prefect of Police, he raised his head and looked at M.
+Desmalions, who asked him:
+
+"It is unnecessary to tell you the cause of your arrest, I presume?"
+
+He replied, in a deferential tone:
+
+"Excuse me, Monsieur le Préfet, but I must ask you, on the contrary, to
+inform me. I have not the least idea of the reason. Your detectives have
+made a grave mistake which a word, no doubt, will be enough to set right.
+That word I wish for, I insist upon--"
+
+The Prefect shrugged his shoulders and said:
+
+"You are suspected of taking part in the murder of Fauville, the civil
+engineer, and his son Edmond."
+
+"Is Hippolyte dead?"
+
+The cry was spontaneous, almost unconscious; a bewildered cry of dismay
+from a man moved to the depths of his being. And his dismay was supremely
+strange, his question, trying to make them believe in his ignorance,
+supremely unexpected.
+
+"Is Hippolyte dead?"
+
+He repeated the question in a hoarse voice, trembling all over as he
+spoke.
+
+"Is Hippolyte dead? What are you saying? Is it possible that he can be
+dead? And how? Murdered? Edmond, too?"
+
+The Prefect once more shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"The mere fact of your calling M. Fauville by his Christian name shows
+that you knew him intimately. And, even if you were not concerned in his
+murder, it has been mentioned often enough in the newspapers during the
+last fortnight for you to know of it."
+
+"I never read a newspaper, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"What! You mean to tell me--?"
+
+"It may sound improbable, but it is quite true. I lead an industrious
+life, occupying myself solely with scientific research, in view of a
+popular work which I am preparing, and I do not take the least part or
+the least interest in outside things. I defy any one to prove that I have
+read a newspaper for months and months past. And that is why I am
+entitled to say that I did not know of Hippolyte Fauville's murder."
+
+"Still, you knew M. Fauville."
+
+"I used to know him, but we quarrelled."
+
+"For what reason?"
+
+"Family affairs."
+
+"Family affairs! Were you related, then?"
+
+"Yes. Hippolyte was my cousin."
+
+"Your cousin! M. Fauville was your cousin! But ... but then ... Come, let
+us have the rights of the matter. M. Fauville and his wife were the
+children of two sisters, Elizabeth and Armande Roussel. Those two sisters
+had been brought up with a first cousin called Victor."
+
+"Yes, Victor Sauverand, whose grandfather was a Roussel. Victor Sauverand
+married abroad and had two sons. One of them died fifteen years ago; the
+other is myself."
+
+M. Desmalions gave a start. His excitement was manifest. If that man was
+telling the truth, if he was really the son of that Victor whose record
+the police had not yet been able to trace, then, owing to this very fact,
+since M. Fauville and his son were dead and Mme. Fauville, so to speak,
+convicted of murder and forfeiting her rights, they had arrested the
+final heir to Cosmo Mornington. But why, in a moment of madness, had he
+voluntarily brought this crushing indictment against himself?
+
+He continued:
+
+"My statements seem to surprise you, Monsieur le Préfet. Perhaps they
+throw a light on the mistake of which I am a victim?"
+
+He expressed himself calmly, with great politeness and in a remarkably
+well-bred voice; and he did not for a moment seem to suspect that his
+revelations, on the contrary, were justifying the measures taken
+against him.
+
+Without replying to the question, the Prefect of Police asked him:
+
+"So your real name is--"
+
+"Gaston Sauverand."
+
+"Why do you call yourself Hubert Lautier?"
+
+The man had a second of indecision which did not escape so clear-sighted
+an observer as M. Desmalions. He swayed from side to side, his eyes
+flickered and he said:
+
+"That does not concern the police; it concerns no one but myself."
+
+M. Desmalions smiled:
+
+"That is a poor argument. Will you use the same when I ask you why you
+live in hiding, why you left the Avenue du Roule, where you used to live,
+without leaving an address behind you, and why you receive your letters
+at the post-office under initials?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, those are matters of a private character, which
+affect only my conscience. You have no right to question me about them."
+
+"That is the exact reply which we are constantly receiving at every
+moment from your accomplice."
+
+"My accomplice?"
+
+"Yes, Mme. Fauville."
+
+"Mme. Fauville!"
+
+Gaston Sauverand had uttered the same cry as when he heard of the death
+of the engineer; and his stupefaction seemed even greater, combined as it
+was with an anguish that distorted his features beyond recognition.
+
+"What?... What?... What do you say? Marie!... No, you don't mean it! It's
+not true!"
+
+M. Desmalions considered it useless to reply, so absurd and childish
+was this affectation of knowing nothing about the tragedy on the
+Boulevard Suchet.
+
+Gaston Sauverand, beside himself, with his eyes starting from his
+head, muttered:
+
+"Is it true? Is Marie the victim of the same mistake as myself? Perhaps
+they have arrested her? She, she in prison!"
+
+He raised his clenched fists in a threatening manner against all the
+unknown enemies by whom he was surrounded, against those who were
+persecuting him, those who had murdered Hippolyte Fauville and delivered
+Marie Fauville to the police.
+
+Mazeroux and Chief Inspector Ancenis took hold of him roughly. He made a
+movement of resistance, as though he intended to thrust back his
+aggressors. But it was only momentary; and he sank into a chair and
+covered his face with his hands:
+
+"What a mystery!" he stammered. "I don't understand! I don't
+understand--"
+
+Weber, who had gone out a few minutes before, returned. M.
+Desmalions asked:
+
+"Is everything ready?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, I have had the taxi brought up to the gate
+beside your car."
+
+"How many of you are there?"
+
+"Eight. Two detectives have just arrived from the commissary's."
+
+"Have you searched the house?"
+
+"Yes. It's almost empty, however. There's nothing but the indispensable
+articles of furniture and some bundles of papers in the bedroom."
+
+"Very well. Take him away and keep a sharp lookout."
+
+Gaston Sauverand walked off quietly between the deputy chief and
+Mazeroux. He turned round in the doorway.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, as you are making a search, I entreat you to take
+care of the papers on the table in my bedroom. They are notes that have
+cost me a great deal of labour in the small hours of the night. Also--"
+
+He hesitated, obviously embarrassed.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, Monsieur le Préfet, I must tell you--something--"
+
+He was looking for his words and seemed to fear the consequences of them
+at the same time that he uttered them. But he suddenly made up his mind.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, there is in this house--somewhere--a packet of
+letters which I value more than my life. It is possible that those
+letters, if misinterpreted, will furnish a weapon against me; but no
+matter. The great thing is that they should be safe. You will see. They
+include documents of extreme importance. I entrust them to your
+keeping--to yours alone, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Where are they?"
+
+"The hiding-place is easily found. All you have to do is to go to the
+garret above my bedroom and press on a nail to the right of the window.
+It is an apparently useless nail, but it controls a hiding-place outside,
+under the slates of the roof, along the gutter."
+
+He moved away between the two men. The Prefect called them back.
+
+"One second. Mazeroux, go up to the garret and bring me the letters."
+
+Mazeroux went out and returned in a few minutes. He had been unable to
+work the spring.
+
+The Prefect ordered Chief Inspector Ancenis to go up with Mazeroux and to
+take the prisoner, who would show them how to open the hiding-place. He
+himself remained in the room with Weber, awaiting the result of the
+search, and began to read the titles of the volumes piled upon the table.
+
+They were scientific books, among which he noticed works on chemistry:
+"Organic Chemistry" and "Chemistry Considered in Its Relations with
+Electricity." They were all covered with notes in the margins. He was
+turning over the pages of one of them, when he seemed to hear shouts.
+
+The Prefect rushed to the door, but had not crossed the threshold when a
+pistol shot echoed down the staircase and there was a yell of pain.
+
+Immediately after came two more shots, accompanied by cries, the sound of
+a struggle, and yet another shot.
+
+Tearing upstairs, four steps at a time, with an agility not to be
+expected from a man of his build, the Prefect of Police, followed by the
+deputy chief, covered the second flight and came to a third, which was
+narrower and steeper. When he reached the bend, a man's body, staggering
+above him, fell into his arms: it was Mazeroux, wounded.
+
+On the stairs lay another body, lifeless, that of Chief Inspector
+Ancenis.
+
+Above them, in the frame of a small doorway, stood Gaston Sauverand, with
+a savage look on his face and his arm outstretched. He fired a fifth shot
+at random. Then, seeing the Prefect of Police, he took deliberate aim.
+
+The Prefect stared at that terrifying barrel levelled at his face and
+gave himself up for lost. But, at that exact second, a shot was
+discharged from behind him, Sauverand's weapon fell from his hand before
+he was able to fire, and the Prefect saw, as in a dream, a man, the man
+who had saved his life, striding across the chief inspector's body,
+propping Mazeroux against the wall, and darting ahead, followed by the
+detectives. He recognized the man: it was Don Luis Perenna.
+
+Don Luis stepped briskly into the garret where Sauverand had retreated,
+but had time only to catch sight of him standing on the window ledge and
+leaping into space from the third floor.
+
+"Has he jumped from there?" cried the Prefect, hastening up. "We shall
+never capture him alive!"
+
+"Neither alive nor dead, Monsieur le Préfet. See, he's picking himself
+up. There's a providence which looks after that sort. He's making for the
+gate. He's hardly limping."
+
+"But where are my men?"
+
+"Why, they're all on the staircase, in the house, brought here by the
+shots, seeing to the wounded--"
+
+"Oh, the demon!" muttered the Prefect. "He's played a masterly game!"
+
+Gaston Sauverand, in fact, was escaping unmolested.
+
+"Stop him! Stop him!" roared M. Desmalions.
+
+There were two motors standing beside the pavement, which is very wide
+at this spot: the Prefect's own car, and the cab which the deputy chief
+had provided for the prisoner. The two chauffeurs, sitting on their
+seats, had noticed nothing of the fight. But they saw Gaston Sauverand's
+leap into space; and the Prefect's chauffeur, on whose seat a certain
+number of incriminating articles had been placed, taking out of the heap
+the first weapon that offered, the ebony walking-stick, bravely rushed
+at the fugitive.
+
+"Stop him! Stop him!" shouted M. Desmalions.
+
+The encounter took place at the exit from the courtyard. It did not last
+long. Sauverand flung himself upon his assailant, snatched the stick from
+him, and broke it across his face. Then, without dropping the handle, he
+ran away, pursued by the other chauffeur and by three detectives who at
+last appeared from the house. He had thirty yards' start of the
+detectives, one of whom fired several shots at him without effect.
+
+When M. Desmalions and Weber went downstairs again, they found the chief
+inspector lying on the bed in Gaston Sauverand's room on the second
+floor, gray in the face. He had been hit on the head and was dying. A few
+minutes later he was dead.
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux, whose wound was only slight, said, while it was being
+dressed, that Sauverand had taken the chief inspector and himself up to
+the garret, and that, outside the door, he had dipped his hand quickly
+into an old satchel hanging on the wall among some servants' wornout
+aprons and jackets. He drew out a revolver and fired point-blank at the
+chief inspector, who dropped like a log. When seized by Mazeroux, the
+murderer released himself and fired three bullets, the third of which hit
+the sergeant in the shoulder.
+
+And so, in a fight in which the police had a band of experienced
+detectives at their disposal, while the enemy, a prisoner, seemed to
+possess not the remotest chance of safety, this enemy, by a strategem of
+unprecedented daring, had led two of his adversaries aside, disabled
+both of them, drawn the others into the house and, finding the coast
+clear, escaped.
+
+M. Desmalions was white with anger and despair. He exclaimed:
+
+"He's tricked us! His letters, his hiding-place, the movable nail, were
+all shams. Oh, the scoundrel!"
+
+He went down to the ground floor and into the courtyard. On the boulevard
+he met one of the detectives who had given chase to the murderer and who
+was returning quite out of breath.
+
+"Well?" he asked anxiously,
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, he turned down the first street, where there was a
+motor waiting for him. The engine must have been working, for our man
+outdistanced us at once."
+
+"But what about my car?"
+
+"You see, Monsieur le Préfet, by the time it was started--"
+
+"Was the motor that picked him up a hired one?"
+
+"Yes, a taxi."
+
+"Then we shall find it. The driver will come of his own accord when he
+has seen the newspapers."
+
+Weber shook his head.
+
+"Unless the driver is himself a confederate, Monsieur le Préfet.
+Besides, even if we find the cab, aren't we bound to suppose that Gaston
+Sauverand will know how to front the scent? We shall have trouble,
+Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Yes," whispered Don Luis, who had been present at the first
+investigation and who was left alone for a moment with Mazeroux. "Yes,
+you will have trouble, especially if you let the people you capture take
+to their heels. Eh, Mazeroux, what did I tell you last night? But, still,
+what a scoundrel! And he's not alone, Alexandre. I'll answer for it that
+he has accomplices--and not a hundred yards from my house--do you
+understand? From my house."
+
+After questioning Mazeroux upon Sauverand's attitude and the other
+incidents of the arrest, Don Luis went back to the Place du
+Palais-Bourbon.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The inquiry which he had to make related to events that were certainly
+quite as strange as those which he had just witnessed; and while the
+part played by Gaston Sauverand in the pursuit of the Mornington
+inheritance deserved all his attention, the behaviour of Mlle. Levasseur
+puzzled him no less.
+
+He could not forget the cry of terror that escaped the girl while he was
+telephoning to Mazeroux, nor the scared expression of her face. Now it
+was impossible to attribute that cry and that expression to anything
+other than the words which he had uttered in reply to Mazeroux:
+
+"What! Mme. Fauville tried to commit suicide!"
+
+The fact was certain; and the connection between the announcement of the
+attempt and Mlle. Levasseur's extreme emotion was too obvious for Perenna
+not to try to draw conclusions.
+
+He went straight to his study and at once examined the arch leading to
+the telephone box. This arch, which was about six feet wide and very low,
+had no door, but merely a velvet hanging, which was nearly always drawn
+up, leaving the arch uncovered. Under the hanging, among the moldings of
+the cornice, was a button that had only to be pressed to bring down the
+iron curtain against which he had thrown himself two hours before.
+
+He worked the catch two or three times over, and his experiments
+proved to him in the most explicit fashion that the mechanism was in
+perfect order and unable to act without outside intervention. Was he
+then to conclude that the girl had wanted to kill him? But what could
+be her motive?
+
+He was on the point of ringing and sending for her, so as to receive the
+explanation which he was resolved to demand from her. However, the
+minutes passed and he did not ring. He saw her through the window as she
+walked slowly across the yard, her body swinging gracefully from her
+hips. A ray of sunshine lit up the gold of her hair.
+
+All the rest of the morning he lay on a sofa, smoking cigars. He was ill
+at ease, dissatisfied with himself and with the course of events, not one
+of which brought him the least glimmer of truth; in fact, all of them
+seemed to deepen the darkness in which he was battling. Eager to act, the
+moment he did so he encountered fresh obstacles that paralyzed his powers
+of action and left him in utter ignorance of the nature of his
+adversaries.
+
+But, at twelve o'clock, just as he had rung for lunch, his butler entered
+the study with a tray in his hand, and exclaimed, with an agitation which
+showed that the household was aware of Don Luis's ambiguous position:
+
+"Sir, it's the Prefect of Police!"
+
+"Eh?" said Perenna. "Where is he?"
+
+"Downstairs, sir. I did not know what to do, at first ... and I thought
+of telling Mlle. Levasseur. But--"
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Here is his card, sir."
+
+Perenna took the card from the tray and read M. Desmalions's name. He
+went to the window, opened it and, with the aid of the overhead mirror,
+looked into the Place du Palais-Bourbon. Half a dozen men were walking
+about. He recognized them. They were his usual watchers, those whom he
+had got rid of on the evening before and who had come to resume their
+observation.
+
+"No others?" he said to himself. "Come, we have nothing to fear, and the
+Prefect of Police has none but the best intentions toward me. It was what
+I expected; and I think that I was well advised to save his life."
+
+M. Desmalions entered without a word. All that he did was to bend his
+head slightly, with a movement that might be taken for a bow. As for
+Weber, who was with him, he did not even give himself the trouble to
+disguise his feelings toward such a man as Perenna.
+
+Don Luis took no direct notice of this attitude, but, in revenge,
+ostentatiously omitted to push forward more than one chair. M.
+Desmalions, however, preferred to walk about the room, with his hands
+behind his back, as if to continue his reflections before speaking.
+
+The silence was prolonged. Don Luis waited patiently. Then, suddenly, the
+Prefect stopped and said:
+
+"When you left the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, Monsieur, did you go
+straight home?"
+
+Don Luis did not demur to this cross-examining manner and answered:
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Here, to your study?"
+
+"Here, to my study."
+
+M. Desmalions paused and then went on:
+
+"I left thirty or forty minutes after you and drove to the police office
+in my car. There I received this express letter. Read it. You will see
+that it was handed in at the Bourse at half-past nine."
+
+Don Luis took the letter and read the following words, written in
+capital letters:
+
+This is to inform you that Gaston Sauverand, after making his escape,
+rejoined his accomplice Perenna, who, as you know, is none other than
+Arsène Lupin. Arsène Lupin gave you Sauverand's address in order to get
+rid of him and to receive the Mornington inheritance. They were
+reconciled this morning, and Arsène Lupin suggested a safe hiding-place
+to Sauverand. It is easy to prove their meeting and their complicity.
+Sauverand handed Lupin the half of the walking-stick which he had carried
+away unawares. You will find it under the cushions of a sofa standing
+between the two windows of Perenna's study.
+
+Don Luis shrugged his shoulders. The letter was absurd; for he had not
+once left his study. He folded it up quietly and handed it to the Prefect
+of Police without comment. He was resolved to let M. Desmalions take the
+initiative in the conversation.
+
+The Prefect asked:
+
+"What is your reply to the accusation?"
+
+"None, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Still, it is quite plain and easy to prove or disprove."
+
+"Very easy, indeed, Monsieur le Préfet; the sofa is there, between
+the windows."
+
+M. Desmalions waited two or three seconds and then walked to the sofa and
+moved the cushions. Under one of them lay the handle end of the
+walking-stick.
+
+Don Luis could not repress a gesture of amazement and anger. He had not
+for a second contemplated the possibility of such a miracle; and it took
+him unawares. However, he mastered himself. After all, there was nothing
+to prove that this half of a walking-stick was really that which had
+been seen in Gaston Sauverand's hands and which Sauverand had carried
+away by mistake.
+
+"I have the other half on me," said the Prefect of Police, replying to
+the unspoken objection. "Deputy Chief Weber himself picked it up on the
+Boulevard Richard-Wallace. Here it is."
+
+He produced it from the inside pocket of his overcoat and tried it. The
+ends of the two pieces fitted exactly.
+
+There was a fresh pause. Perenna was confused, as were those, invariably,
+upon whom he himself used to inflict this kind of defeat and humiliation.
+He could not get over it. By what prodigy had Gaston Sauverand managed,
+in that short space of twenty minutes, to enter the house and make his
+way into this room? Even the theory of an accomplice living in the house
+did not do much to make the phenomenon easier to understand.
+
+"It upsets all my calculations," he thought, "and I shall have to go
+through the mill this time. I was able to baffle Mme. Fauville's
+accusation and to foil the trick of the turquoise. But M. Desmalions will
+never admit that this is a similar attempt and that Gaston Sauverand has
+tried, as Marie Fauville did, to get me out of the way by compromising me
+and procuring my arrest."
+
+"Well," exclaimed M. Desmalions impatiently, "answer! Defend yourself!"
+
+"No, Monsieur le Préfet, it is not for me to defend myself,"
+
+M. Desmalions stamped his foot and growled:
+
+"In that case ... in that case ... since you confess ... since--"
+
+He put his hand on the latch of the window, ready to open it. A whistle,
+and the detectives would burst in and all would be over.
+
+"Shall I have your inspectors called, Monsieur le Préfet?" asked Don
+Luis.
+
+M. Desmalions did not reply. He let go the window latch and started
+walking about the room again. And, suddenly, while Perenna was wondering
+why he still hesitated, for the second time the Prefect planted himself
+in front of him, and said:
+
+"And suppose I looked upon the incident of the walking-stick as not
+having occurred, or, rather, as an incident which, while doubtless
+proving the treachery of your servants, is not able to compromise
+yourself? Suppose I took only the services which you have already
+rendered us into consideration? In a word, suppose I left you free?"
+
+Perenna could not help smiling. Notwithstanding the affair of the
+walking-stick and though appearances were all against him, at the moment
+when everything seemed to be going wrong, things were taking the course
+which he had prophesied from the start, and which he had mentioned to
+Mazeroux during the inquiry on the Boulevard Suchet. They wanted him.
+
+"Free?" he asked. "No more supervision? Nobody shadowing my movements?"
+
+"Nobody."
+
+"And what if the press campaign around my name continues, if the papers
+succeed, by means of certain pieces of tittle-tattle, of certain
+coincidences, in creating a public outcry, if they call for measures
+against me?"
+
+"Those measures shall not be taken."
+
+"Then I have nothing to fear?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Will M. Weber abandon his prejudices against me?"
+
+"At any rate, he will act as though he did, won't you, Weber?"
+
+The deputy chief uttered a few grunts which might be taken as an
+expression of assent; and Don Luis at once exclaimed:
+
+"In that case, Monsieur le Préfet, I am sure of gaining the victory and
+of gaining it in accordance with the wishes and requirements of the
+authorities."
+
+And so, by a sudden change in the situation, after a series of
+exceptional circumstances, the police themselves, bowing before Don Luis
+Perenna's superior qualities of mind, acknowledging all that he had
+already done and foreseeing all that he would be able to do, decided to
+back him up, begging for his assistance, and offering him, so to speak,
+the command of affairs.
+
+It was a flattering compliment. Was it addressed only to Don Luis
+Perenna? And had Lupin, the terrible, undaunted Lupin, no right to claim
+his share? Was it possible to believe that M. Desmalions, in his heart of
+hearts, did not admit the identity of the two persons?
+
+Nothing in the Prefect's attitude gave any clue to his secret thoughts.
+He was suggesting to Don Luis Perenna one of those compacts which the
+police are often obliged to conclude in order to gain their ends. The
+compact was concluded, and no more was said upon the subject.
+
+"Do you want any particulars of me?" asked the Prefect of Police.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. The papers spoke of a notebook found in poor
+Inspector Vérot's pocket. Did the notebook contain a clue of any kind?"
+
+"No. Personal notes, lists of disbursements, that's all. Wait, I was
+forgetting, there was a photograph of a woman, about which I have not yet
+been able to obtain the least information. Besides, I don't suppose that
+it bears upon the case and I have not sent it to the newspapers. Look,
+here it is."
+
+Perenna took the photograph which the Prefect handed him and gave a start
+that did not escape M. Desmalions's eye.
+
+"Do you know the lady?"
+
+"No. No, Monsieur le Préfet. I thought I did; but no, there's merely a
+resemblance--a family likeness, which I will verify if you can leave the
+photograph with me till this evening."
+
+"Till this evening, yes. When you have done with it, give it back to
+Sergeant Mazeroux, whom I will order to work in concert with you in
+everything that relates to the Mornington case."
+
+The interview was now over. The Prefect went away. Don Luis saw him to
+the door. As M. Desmalions was about to go down the steps, he turned and
+said simply:
+
+"You saved my life this morning. But for you, that scoundrel Sauverand--"
+
+"Oh, Monsieur le Préfet!" said Don Luis, modestly protesting.
+
+"Yes, I know, you are in the habit of doing that sort of thing. All the
+same, you must accept my thanks."
+
+And the Prefect of Police made a bow such as he would really have made to
+Don Luis Perenna, the Spanish noble, the hero of the Foreign Legion. As
+for Weber, he put his two hands in his pockets, walked past with the look
+of a muzzled mastiff, and gave his enemy a glance of fierce hatred.
+
+"By Jupiter!" thought Don Luis. "There's a fellow who won't miss me when
+he gets the chance to shoot!"
+
+Looking through a window, he saw M. Desmalions's motor car drive off. The
+detectives fell in behind the deputy chief and left the Place du
+Palais-Bourbon. The siege was raised.
+
+"And now to work!" said Don Luis. "My hands are free, and we shall make
+things hum."
+
+He called the butler.
+
+"Serve lunch; and ask Mlle. Levasseur to come and speak to me
+immediately after."
+
+He went to the dining-room and sat down, placing on the table the
+photograph which M. Desmalions had left behind; and, bending over it, he
+examined it attentively. It was a little faded, a little worn, as
+photographs have a tendency to become when they lie about in pocket-books
+or among papers; but the picture was quite clear. It was the radiant
+picture of a young woman in evening dress, with bare arms and shoulders,
+with flowers and leaves in her hair and a smile upon her face.
+
+"Mlle. Levasseur, Mlle. Levasseur," he said. "Is it possible!"
+
+In a corner was a half-obliterated and hardly visible signature. He made
+out, "Florence," the girl's name, no doubt. And he repeated:
+
+"Mlle. Levasseur, Florence Levasseur. How did her photograph come to be
+in Inspector Vérot's pocket-book? And what is the connection between
+this adventure and the reader of the Hungarian count from whom I took
+over the house?"
+
+He remembered the incident of the iron curtain. He remembered the article
+in the _Echo de France_, an article aimed against him, of which he had
+found the rough draft in his own courtyard. And, above all, he thought of
+the problem of that broken walking-stick conveyed into his study.
+
+And, while his mind was striving to read these events clearly, while he
+tried to settle the part played by Mlle. Levasseur, his eyes remained
+fixed upon the photograph and he gazed absent-mindedly at the pretty
+lines of the mouth, the charming smile, the graceful curve of the neck,
+the admirable sweep of the shoulders.
+
+The door opened suddenly and Mlle. Levasseur burst into the room.
+Perenna, who had dismissed the butler, was raising to his lips a glass of
+water which he had just filled for himself. She sprang forward, seized
+his arm, snatched the glass from him and flung it on the carpet, where it
+smashed to pieces.
+
+"Have you drunk any of it? Have you drunk any of it?" she gasped, in a
+choking voice.
+
+He replied:
+
+"No, not yet. Why?"
+
+She stammered:
+
+"The water in that bottle ... the water in that bottle--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"It's poisoned!"
+
+He leapt from his chair and, in his turn, gripped her arm fiercely:
+
+"What's that? Poisoned! Are you certain? Speak!"
+
+In spite of his usual self-control, he was this time thoroughly alarmed.
+Knowing the terrible effects of the poison employed by the miscreants
+whom he was attacking, recalling the corpse of Inspector Vérot, the
+corpses of Hippolyte Fauville and his son, he knew that, trained though
+he was to resist comparatively large doses of poison, he could not have
+escaped the deadly action of this. It was a poison that did not forgive,
+that killed, surely and fatally.
+
+The girl was silent. He raised his voice in command:
+
+"Answer me! Are you certain?"
+
+"No ... it was an idea that entered my head--a presentiment ... certain
+coincidences--"
+
+It was as though she regretted her words and now tried to withdraw them.
+
+"Come, come," he cried, "I want to know the truth: You're not certain
+that the water in this bottle is poisoned?"
+
+"No ... it's possible--"
+
+"Still, just now--"
+
+"I thought so. But no ... no!"
+
+"It's easy to make sure," said Perenna, putting out his hand for the
+water bottle.
+
+She was quicker than he, seized it and, with one blow, broke it against
+the table.
+
+"What are you doing?" he said angrily.
+
+"I made a mistake. And so there is no need to attach any importance--"
+
+Don Luis hurriedly left the dining-room. By his orders, the water which
+he drank was drawn from a filter that stood in a pantry at the end of the
+passage leading from the dining-room to the kitchens and beyond. He ran
+to it and took from a shelf a bowl which he filled with water from the
+filter. Then, continuing to follow the passage, which at this spot
+branched off toward the yard, he called Mirza, the puppy, who was playing
+by the stables.
+
+"Here," he said, putting the bowl in front of her.
+
+The puppy began to drink. But she stopped almost at once and stood
+motionless, with her paws tense and stiff. A shiver passed through the
+little body. The dog gave a hoarse groan, spun round two or three
+times, and fell.
+
+"She's dead," he said, after touching the animal.
+
+Mlle. Levasseur had joined him. He turned to her and rapped out:
+
+"You were right about the poison--and you knew it. How did you know it?"
+
+All out of breath, she checked the beating of her heart and answered:
+
+"I saw the other puppy drinking in the pantry. She's dead. I told the
+coachman and the chauffeur. They're over there, in the stable. And I ran
+to warn you."
+
+"In that case, there was no doubt about it. Why did you say that you were
+not certain that the water was poisoned, when--"
+
+The chauffeur and the coachman were coming out of the stables. Leading
+the girl away, Perenna said:
+
+"We must talk about this. We'll go to your rooms."
+
+They went back to the bend in the passage. Near the pantry where the
+filter was, another passage ran, ending in a flight of three steps, with
+a door at the top of the steps. Perenna opened this door. It was the
+entrance to the rooms occupied by Mlle. Levasseur. They went into a
+sitting-room.
+
+Don Luis closed the entrance door and the door of the sitting-room.
+
+"And now," he said, in a resolute tone, "you and I will have an
+explanation."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN
+
+SHAKESPEARE'S WORKS, VOLUME VIII
+
+
+Two lodges, belonging to the same old-time period as the house itself,
+stood at the extreme right and left of the low wall that separated the
+front courtyard from the Place du Palais-Bourbon. These lodges were
+joined to the main building, situated at the back of the courtyard, by a
+series of outhouses. On one side were the coach-houses, stables,
+harness-rooms, and garage, with the porter's lodge at the end; on the
+other side, the wash-houses, kitchens, and offices, ending in the lodge
+occupied by Mlle. Levasseur.
+
+This lodge had only a ground floor, consisting of a dark entrance hall
+and one large room, most of which served as a sitting-room, while the
+rest, arranged as a bedroom, was really only a sort of alcove. A curtain
+hid the bed and wash-hand-stand. There were two windows looking out on
+the Place du Palais-Bourbon.
+
+It was the first time that Don Luis had set foot in Mlle. Levasseur's
+room. Engrossed though he was with other matters, he felt its charm. It
+was very simply furnished: some old mahogany chairs and armchairs, a
+plain, Empire writing-table, a round table with one heavy, massive leg,
+and some book-shelves. But the bright colour of the linen curtains
+enlivened the room. On the walls hung reproductions of famous pictures,
+drawings of sunny buildings and landscapes, Italian villas, Sicilian
+temples....
+
+The girl remained standing. She had resumed her composure, and her face
+had taken on the enigmatical expression so difficult to fathom,
+especially as she had assumed a deliberate air of dejection, which
+Perenna guessed was intended to hide her excitement and alertness,
+together with the tumultuous feelings which even she had great difficulty
+in controlling.
+
+Her eyes looked neither timorous nor defiant. It really seemed as though
+she had nothing to fear from the explanation.
+
+Don Luis kept silent for some little time. It was strange and it annoyed
+him to feel it, but he experienced a certain embarrassment in the
+presence of this woman, against whom he was inwardly bringing the most
+serious charges. And, not daring to put them into words, not daring to
+say plainly what he thought, he began:
+
+"You know what happened in this house this morning?"
+
+"This morning?"
+
+"Yes, when I had finished speaking on the telephone."
+
+"I know now. I heard it from the servants, from the butler."
+
+"Not before?"
+
+"How could I have known earlier?"
+
+She was lying. It was impossible that she should be speaking the truth.
+And yet in what a calm voice she had replied!
+
+He went on:
+
+"I will tell you, in a few words, what happened. I was leaving the
+telephone box, when the iron curtain, concealed in the upper part of
+the wall, fell in front of me. After making sure that there was nothing
+to be done, I simply resolved, as I had the telephone by me, to call in
+the assistance of one of my friends. I rang up Major d'Astrignac. He
+came at once and, with the help of the butler, let me out. Is that what
+you heard?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur. I had gone to my room, which explains why I knew nothing
+of the incident or of Major d'Astrignac's visit."
+
+"Very well. It appears, however, from what I learned when I was released,
+that the butler and, for that matter, everybody in the house, including
+yourself, knew of the existence of that iron curtain."
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"And how did you know it?"
+
+"Through Baron Malonyi. He told me that, during the Revolution, his
+great-grandmother, on the mother's side, who then occupied this house and
+whose husband was guillotined, remained hidden in that recess for
+thirteen months. At that time the curtain was covered with woodwork
+similar to that of the room."
+
+"It's a pity that I wasn't informed of it, for, after all, I was very
+nearly crushed to death."
+
+This possibility did not seem to move the girl. She said:
+
+"It would be a good thing to look at the mechanism and see why it became
+unfastened. It's all very old and works badly."
+
+"The mechanism works perfectly. I tested it. An accident is not enough to
+account for it."
+
+"Who could have done it, if it was not an accident?"
+
+"Some enemy whom I am unable to name."
+
+"He would have been seen."
+
+"There was only one person who could have seen him--yourself. You
+happened to pass through my study as I was telephoning and I heard your
+exclamation of fright at the news about Mme. Fauville."
+
+"Yes, it gave me a shock. I pity the woman so very much, whether she is
+guilty or not."
+
+"And, as you were close to the arch, with your hand within reach of the
+spring, the presence of an evildoer would not have escaped your notice."
+
+She did not lower her eyes. A slight flush overspread her face,
+and she said:
+
+"Yes, I should at least have met him, for, from what I gather, I went out
+a few seconds before the accident."
+
+"Quite so," he said. "But what is so curious and unlikely is that you did
+not hear the loud noise of the curtain falling, nor my shouts and all the
+uproar I created."
+
+"I must have closed the door of the study by that time. I heard nothing."
+
+"Then I am bound to presume that there was some one hidden in my study at
+that moment, and that this person is a confederate of the ruffians who
+committed the two murders on the Boulevard Suchet; for the Prefect of
+Police has just discovered under the cushions of my sofa the half of a
+walking-stick belonging to one of those ruffians."
+
+She wore an air of great surprise. This new incident seemed really to be
+quite unknown to her. He came nearer and, looking her straight in the
+eyes, said:
+
+"You must at least admit that it's strange."
+
+"What's strange?"
+
+"This series of events, all directed against me. Yesterday, that draft of
+a letter which I found in the courtyard--the draft of the article
+published in the _Echo de France_. This morning, first the crash of the
+iron curtain just as I was passing under it, next, the discovery of that
+walking-stick, and then, a moment ago, the poisoned water bottle--"
+
+She nodded her head and murmured:
+
+"Yes, yes--there is an array of facts--"
+
+"An array of facts so significant," he said, completing her sentence
+meaningly, "as to remove the least shadow of doubt. I can feel absolutely
+certain of the immediate intervention of my most ruthless and daring
+enemy. His presence here is proved. He is ready to act at any moment. His
+object is plain," explained Don Luis. "By means of the anonymous article,
+by means of that half of the walking-stick, he meant to compromise me and
+have me arrested. By the fall of the curtain he meant to kill me or at
+least to keep me imprisoned for some hours. And now it's poison, the
+cowardly poison which kills by stealth, which they put in my water to-day
+and which they will put in my food to-morrow. And next it will be the
+dagger and then the revolver and then the rope, no matter which, so long
+as I disappear; for that is what they want: to get rid of me.
+
+"I am the adversary, I am the man they're afraid of, the man who will
+discover the secret one day and pocket the millions which they're after.
+I am the interloper. I stand mounting guard over the Mornington
+inheritance. It's my turn to suffer. Four victims are dead already. I
+shall be the fifth. So Gaston Sauverand has decided: Gaston Sauverand or
+some one else who's managing the business."
+
+Perenna's eyes narrowed.
+
+"The accomplice is here, in this house, in the midst of everything, by my
+side. He is lying in wait for me. He is following every step I take. He
+is living in my shadow. He is waiting for the time and place to strike
+me. Well, I have had enough of it. I want to know, I will know, and I
+shall know. Who is he?"
+
+The girl had moved back a little way and was leaning against the round
+table. He took another step forward and, with his eyes still fixed on
+hers, looking in that immobile face for a quivering sign of fear or
+anxiety, he repeated, with greater violence:
+
+"Who is the accomplice? Who in the house has sworn to take my life?"
+
+"I don't know," she said, "I don't know. Perhaps there is no plot, as you
+think, but just a series of chance coincidences--"
+
+He felt inclined to say to her, with his habit of adopting a familiar
+tone toward those whom he regarded as his adversaries:
+
+"You're lying, dearie, you're lying. The accomplice is yourself, my
+beauty. You alone overheard my conversation on the telephone with
+Mazeroux, you alone can have gone to Gaston Sauverand's assistance,
+waited for him in a motor at the corner of the boulevard, and arranged
+with him to bring the top half of the walking-stick here. You're the
+beauty that wants to kill me, for some reason which I do not know. The
+hand that strikes me in the dark is yours, sweetheart."
+
+But it was impossible for him to treat her in this fashion; and he was so
+much exasperated at not being able to proclaim his certainty in words of
+anger and indignation that he took her fingers and twisted them
+violently, while his look and his whole attitude accused the girl even
+more forcibly than the bitterest words.
+
+He mastered himself and released his grip. The girl freed herself with a
+quick movement, indicating repulsion and hatred. Don Luis said:
+
+"Very well. I will question the servants. If necessary I shall dismiss
+any whom I suspect."
+
+"No, don't do that," she said eagerly. "You mustn't. I know them all."
+
+Was she going to defend them? Was she yielding to a scruple of conscience
+at the moment when her obstinacy and duplicity were on the point of
+causing her to sacrifice a set of servants whose conduct she knew to be
+beyond reproach? Don Luis received the impression that the glance which
+she threw at him contained an appeal for pity. But pity for whom? For the
+others? Or for herself?
+
+They were silent for a long time. Don Luis, standing a few steps away
+from her, thought of the photograph, and was surprised to find in the
+real woman all the beauty of the portrait, all that beauty which he had
+not observed hitherto, but which now struck him as a revelation. The
+golden hair shone with a brilliancy unknown to him. The mouth wore a less
+happy expression, perhaps, a rather bitter expression, but one which
+nevertheless retained the shape of the smile. The curve of the chin, the
+grace of the neck revealed above the dip of the linen collar, the line of
+the shoulders, the position of the arms, and of the hands resting on her
+knees: all this was charming and very gentle and, in a manner, very
+seemly and reassuring. Was it possible that this woman should be a
+murderess, a poisoner?
+
+He said:
+
+"I forget what you told me that your Christian name was. But the name you
+gave me was not the right one."
+
+"Yes, it was," she said.
+
+"Your name is Florence: Florence Levasseur."
+
+She started.
+
+"What! Who told you? Florence? How do you know?"
+
+"Here is your photograph, with your name on it almost illegible."
+
+"Oh!" she said, amazed at seeing the picture. "I can't believe it!
+Where does it come from? Where did you get it from?" And, suddenly, "It
+was the Prefect of Police who gave it to you, was it not? Yes, it was
+he, I'm sure of it. I am sure that this photograph is to identify me
+and that they are looking for me, for me, too. And it's you again, it's
+you again--"
+
+"Have no fear," he said. "The print only wants a few touches to alter the
+face beyond recognition. I will make them. Have no fear."
+
+She was no longer listening to him. She gazed at the photograph with all
+her concentrated attention and murmured:
+
+"I was twenty years old.... I was living in Italy. Dear me, how happy I
+was on the day when it was taken! And how happy I was when I saw my
+portrait!... I used to think myself pretty in those days.... And then it
+disappeared.... It was stolen from me like other things that had already
+been stolen from me, at that time--"
+
+And, sinking her voice still lower, speaking her name as if she were
+addressing some other woman, some unhappy friend, she repeated:
+
+"Florence.... Florence--"
+
+Tears streamed down her cheeks.
+
+"She is not one of those who kill," thought Don Luis. "I can't believe
+that she is an accomplice. And yet--and yet--"
+
+He moved away from her and walked across the room from the window to the
+door. The drawings of Italian landscapes on the wall attracted his
+attention. Next, he read the titles of the books on the shelves. They
+represented French and foreign works, novels, plays, essays, volumes of
+poetry, pointing to a really cultivated and varied taste.
+
+He saw Racine next to Dante, Stendhal near Edgar Allan Poe, Montaigne
+between Goethe and Virgil. And suddenly, with that extraordinary faculty
+which enabled him, in any collection of objects, to perceive details
+which he did not at once take in, he noticed that one of the volumes of
+an English edition of Shakespeare's works did not look exactly like the
+others. There was something peculiar about the red morocco back,
+something stiff, without the cracks and creases which show that a book
+has been used.
+
+It was the eighth volume. He took it out, taking care not to be heard.
+
+He was not mistaken. The volume was a sham, a mere set of boards
+surrounding a hollow space that formed a box and thus provided a regular
+hiding-place; and, inside this book, he caught sight of plain note-paper,
+envelopes of different kinds, and some sheets of ordinary ruled paper,
+all of the same size and looking as if they had been taken from a
+writing-pad.
+
+And the appearance of these ruled sheets struck him at once. He
+remembered the look of the paper on which the article for the _Echo de
+France_ had been drafted. The ruling was identical, and the shape and
+size appeared to be the same.
+
+On lifting the sheets one after the other, he saw, on the last but one, a
+series of lines consisting of words and figures in pencil, like notes
+hurriedly jotted down.
+
+He read:
+
+"House on the Boulevard Suchet.
+"First letter. Night of 15 April.
+"Second. Night of 25th.
+"Third and fourth. Nights of 5 and 15 May.
+"Fifth and explosion. Night of 25 May."
+
+And, while noting first that the date of the first night was that of the
+actual day, and next that all these dates followed one another at
+intervals of ten days, he remarked the resemblance between the writing
+and the writing of the rough draft.
+
+The draft was in a notebook in his pocket. He was therefore in a
+position to verify the similarity of the two handwritings and of the two
+ruled sheets of paper. He took his notebook and opened it. The draft was
+not there.
+
+"Gad," he snarled, "but this is a bit too thick!"
+
+And, at the same time, he remembered clearly that, when he was
+telephoning to Mazeroux in the morning, the notebook was in the pocket of
+his overcoat and that he had left his overcoat on a chair near the
+telephone box. Now, at that moment, Mlle. Levasseur, for no reason, was
+roaming about the study. What was she doing there?
+
+"Oh, the play-actress!" thought Perenna, raging within himself. "She was
+humbugging me. Her tears, her air of frankness, her tender memories: all
+bunkum! She belongs to the same stock and the same gang as Marie
+Fauville and Gaston Sauverand. Like them, she is an accomplished liar
+and actress from her slightest gesture down to the least inflection of
+her innocent voice."
+
+He was on the point of having it all out with her and confounding her.
+This time, the proof was undeniable. Dreading an inquiry which might have
+brought the facts home to her, she had been unwilling to leave the draft
+of the article in the adversary's hands.
+
+How could he doubt, from this moment, that she was the accomplice
+employed by the people who were working the Mornington affair and trying
+to get rid of him? Had he not every right to suppose that she was
+directing the sinister gang, and that, commanding the others with her
+audacity and her intelligence, she was leading them toward the obscure
+goal at which they were aiming?
+
+For, after all, she was free, entirely free in her actions and movements.
+The windows opening on the Place du Palais-Bourbon gave her every
+facility for leaving the house under cover of the darkness and coming in
+again unknown to anybody.
+
+It was therefore quite possible that, on the night of the double crime,
+she was among the murderers of Hippolyte Fauville and his son. It was
+quite possible that she had taken part in the murders, and even that the
+poison had been injected into the victims by her hand, by that little,
+white, slender hand which he saw resting against the golden hair.
+
+A shudder passed through him. He had softly put back the paper in the
+book, restored the book in its place, and moved nearer to the girl.
+
+All of a sudden, he caught himself studying the lower part of her
+face, the shape of her jaw! Yes, that was what he was making every
+effort to guess, under the curve of the cheeks and behind the veil of
+the lips. Almost against his will, with personal anguish mingled with
+torturing curiosity, he stared and stared, ready to force open those
+closed lips and to seek the reply to the terrifying problem that
+suggested itself to him.
+
+Those teeth, those teeth which he did not see, were not they the teeth
+that had left the incriminating marks in the fruit? Which were the teeth
+of the tiger, the teeth of the wild beast: these, or the other woman's?
+
+It was an absurd supposition, because the marks had been recognized as
+made by Marie Fauville. But was the absurdity of a supposition a
+sufficient reason for discarding it?
+
+Himself astonished at the feelings that agitated him, fearing lest he
+should betray himself, he preferred to cut short the interview and, going
+up to the girl, he said to her, in an imperious and aggressive tone:
+
+"I wish all the servants in the house to be discharged. You will give
+them their wages, pay them such compensation as they ask for, and see
+that they leave to-day, definitely. Another staff of servants will arrive
+this evening. You will be here to receive them."
+
+She made no reply. He went away, taking with him the uncomfortable
+impression that had lately marked his relations with Florence. The
+atmosphere between them always remained heavy and oppressive. Their words
+never seemed to express the private thoughts of either of them; and their
+actions did not correspond with the words spoken. Did not the
+circumstances logically demand the immediate dismissal of Florence
+Levasseur as well? Yet Don Luis did not so much as think of it.
+
+Returning to his study, he at once rang up Mazeroux and, lowering his
+voice so as not to let it reach the next room, he said:
+
+"Is that you, Mazeroux?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Has the Prefect placed you at my disposal?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, tell him that I have sacked all my servants and that I have given
+you their names and instructed you to have an active watch kept on them.
+We must look among them for Sauverand's accomplice. Another thing: ask
+the Prefect to give you and me permission to spend the night at Hippolyte
+Fauville's house."
+
+"Nonsense! At the house on the Boulevard Suchet?"
+
+"Yes, I have every reason to believe that something's going to
+happen there."
+
+"What sort of thing?"
+
+"I don't know. But something is bound to take place. And I insist on
+being at it. Is it arranged?"
+
+"Right, Chief. Unless you hear to the contrary, I'll meet you at nine
+o'clock this evening on the Boulevard Suchet."
+
+Perenna did not see Mlle. Levasseur again that day. He went out in the
+course of the afternoon, and called at the registry office, where he
+chose some servants: a chauffeur, a coachman, a footman, a cook, and so
+on. Then he went to a photographer, who made a new copy of Mlle.
+Levasseur's photograph. Don Luis had this touched up and faked it
+himself, so that the Prefect of Police should not perceive the
+substitution of one set of features for another.
+
+He dined at a restaurant and, at nine o'clock, joined Mazeroux on the
+Boulevard Suchet.
+
+Since the Fauville murders the house had been left in the charge of the
+porter. All the rooms and all the locks had been sealed up, except the
+inner door of the workroom, of which the police kept the keys for the
+purposes of the inquiry.
+
+The big study looked as it did before, though the papers had been removed
+and put away and there were no books and pamphlets left on the
+writing-table. A layer of dust, clearly visible by the electric light,
+covered its black leather and the surrounding mahogany.
+
+"Well, Alexandre, old man," cried Don Luis, when they had made themselves
+comfortable, "what do you say to this? It's rather impressive, being here
+again, what? But, this time, no barricading of doors, no bolts, eh? If
+anything's going to happen, on this night of the fifteenth of April,
+we'll put nothing in our friends' way. They shall have full and entire
+liberty. It's up to them, this time."
+
+Though joking, Don Luis was nevertheless singularly impressed, as he
+himself said, by the terrible recollection of the two crimes which he had
+been unable to prevent and by the haunting vision of the two dead bodies.
+And he also remembered with real emotion the implacable duel which he had
+fought with Mme. Fauville, the woman's despair and her arrest.
+
+"Tell me about her," he said to Mazeroux. "So she tried to kill herself?"
+
+"Yes," said Mazeroux, "a thoroughgoing attempt, though she had to make
+it in a manner which she must have hated. She hanged herself in strips
+of linen torn from her sheets and underclothing and twisted together.
+She had to be restored by artificial respiration. She is out of danger
+now, I believe, but she is never left alone, for she swore she would do
+it again."
+
+"She has made no confession?"
+
+"No. She persists in proclaiming her innocence."
+
+"And what do they think at the public prosecutor's? At the Prefect's?"
+
+"Why should they change their opinion, Chief? The inquiries confirm every
+one of the charges brought against her; and, in particular, it has been
+proved beyond the possibility of dispute that she alone can have touched
+the apple and that she can have touched it only between eleven o'clock at
+night and seven o'clock in the morning. Now the apple bears the
+undeniable marks of her teeth. Would you admit that there are two sets of
+jaws in the world that leave the same identical imprint?"
+
+"No, no," said Don Luis, who was thinking of Florence Levasseur. "No,
+the argument allows of no discussion. We have here a fact that is clear
+as daylight; and the imprint is almost tantamount to a discovery in the
+act. But then how, in the midst of all this, are we to explain the
+presence of -----"
+
+"Whom, Chief?"
+
+"Nobody. I had an idea worrying me. Besides, you see, in all this there
+are so many unnatural things, such queer coincidences and
+inconsistencies, that I dare not count on a certainty which the reality
+of to-morrow may destroy."
+
+They went on talking for some time, in a low voice, studying the question
+in all its bearings.
+
+At midnight they switched off the electric light in the chandelier and
+arranged that each should go to sleep in turn.
+
+And the hours went by as they had done when the two sat up before, with
+the same sounds of belated carriages and motor cars; the same railway
+whistles; the same silence.
+
+The night passed without alarm or incident of any kind. At daybreak the
+life out of doors was resumed; and Don Luis, during his waking hours, had
+not heard a sound in the room except the monotonous snoring of his
+companion.
+
+"Can I have been mistaken?" he wondered. "Did the clue in that volume of
+Shakespeare mean something else? Or did it refer to events of last year,
+events that took place on the dates set down?"
+
+In spite of everything, he felt overcome by a strange uneasiness as the
+dawn began to glimmer through the half-closed shutters. A fortnight
+before, nothing had happened either to warn him; and yet there were two
+victims lying near him when he woke.
+
+At seven o'clock he called out:
+
+"Alexandre!"
+
+"Eh? What is it, Chief?"
+
+"You're not dead?"
+
+"What's that? Dead? No, Chief; why should I be?"
+
+"Quite sure?"
+
+"Well, that's a good 'un! Why not you?"
+
+"Oh, it'll be my turn soon! Considering the intelligence of those
+scoundrels, there's no reason why they should go on missing me."
+
+They waited an hour longer. Then Perenna opened a window and threw back
+the shutter.
+
+"I say, Alexandre, perhaps you're not dead, but you're certainly
+very green."
+
+Mazeroux gave a wry laugh:
+
+"Upon my word, Chief, I confess that I had a bad time of it when I was
+keeping watch while you were asleep."
+
+"Were you afraid?"
+
+"To the roots of my hair. I kept on thinking that something was going to
+happen. But you, too, Chief, don't look as if you had been enjoying
+yourself. Were you also--"
+
+He interrupted himself, on seeing an expression of unbounded astonishment
+on Don Luis's face.
+
+"What's the matter, Chief?"
+
+"Look! ... on the table ... that letter--"
+
+He looked. There was a letter on the writing-table, or, rather, a
+letter-card, the edges of which had been torn along the perforation
+marks; and they saw the outside of it, with the address, the stamp, and
+the postmarks.
+
+"Did you put that there, Alexandre?"
+
+"You're joking, Chief. You know it can only have been you."
+
+"It can only have been I ... and yet it was not I."
+
+"But then--"
+
+Don Luis took the letter-card and, on examining it, found that the
+address and the postmarks had been scratched out so as to make it
+impossible to read the name of the addressee or where he lived, but
+that the place of posting was quite clear, as was the date: Paris, 4
+January, 19--.
+
+"So the letter is three and a half months old," said Don Luis.
+
+He turned to the inside of the letter. It contained a dozen lines and he
+at once exclaimed:
+
+"Hippolyte Fauville's signature!"
+
+"And his handwriting," observed Mazeroux. "I can tell it at a glance.
+There's no mistake about that. What does it all mean? A letter written by
+Hippolyte Fauville three months before his death?"
+
+Perenna read aloud:
+
+"MY DEAR OLD FRIEND:
+
+"I can only, alas, confirm what I wrote to you the other day: the plot is
+thickening around me! I do not yet know what their plan is and still less
+how they mean to put it into execution; but everything warns me that the
+end is at hand. I can see it in her eyes. How strangely she looks at me
+sometimes!
+
+"Oh, the shame of it! Who would ever have thought her capable of it?
+
+"I am a very unhappy man, my dear friend."
+
+"And it's signed Hippolyte Fauville," Mazeroux continued, "and I declare
+to you that it's actually in his hand ... written on the fourth of
+January of this year to a friend whose name we don't know, though we
+shall dig him out somehow, that I'll swear. And this friend will
+certainly give us the proofs we want."
+
+Mazeroux was becoming excited.
+
+"Proofs? Why, we don't need them! They're here. M. Fauville himself
+supplies them: 'The end is at hand. I can see it in her eyes.' 'Her'
+refers to his wife, to Marie Fauville, and the husband's evidence
+confirms all that we knew against her. What do you say, Chief?"
+
+"You're right," replied Perenna, absent-mindedly, "you're right; the
+letter is final. Only--"
+
+"Only what?"
+
+"Who the devil can have brought it? Somebody must have entered the room
+last night while we were here. Is it possible? For, after all, we should
+have heard. That's what astounds me."
+
+"It certainly looks like it."
+
+"Just so. It was a queer enough job a fortnight ago. But, still, we were
+in the passage outside, while they were at work in here, whereas, this
+time, we were here, both of us, close to this very table. And, on this
+table, which had not the least scrap of paper on it last night, we find
+this letter in the morning."
+
+A careful inspection of the place gave them no clue to put them on the
+track. They went through the house from top to bottom and ascertained for
+certain that there was no one there in hiding. Besides, supposing that
+any one was hiding there, how could he have made his way into the room
+without attracting their attention? There was no solving the problem.
+
+"We won't look any more," said Perenna, "it's no use. In matters of this
+sort, some day or other the light enters by an unseen cranny and
+everything gradually becomes clear. Take the letter to the Prefect of
+Police, tell him how we spent the night, and ask his permission for both
+of us to come back on the night of the twenty-fifth of April. There's to
+be another surprise that night; and I'm dying to know if we shall receive
+a second letter through the agency of some Mahatma."
+
+They closed the doors and left the house.
+
+While they were walking to the right, toward La Muette, in order to take
+a taxi, Don Luis chanced to turn his head to the road as they reached the
+end of the Boulevard Suchet. A man rode past them on a bicycle. Don Luis
+just had time to see his clean-shaven face and his glittering eyes fixed
+upon himself.
+
+"Look out!" he shouted, pushing Mazeroux so suddenly that the sergeant
+lost his balance.
+
+The man had stretched out his hand, armed with a revolver. A shot
+rang out. The bullet whistled past the ears of Don Luis, who had
+bobbed his head.
+
+"After him!" he roared. "You're not hurt, Mazeroux?"
+
+"No, Chief."
+
+They both rushed in pursuit, shouting for assistance. But, at that early
+hour, there are never many people in the wide avenues of this part of the
+town. The man, who was making off swiftly, increased his distance, turned
+down the Rue Octave-Feuillet, and disappeared.
+
+"All right, you scoundrel, I'll catch you yet!" snarled Don Luis,
+abandoning a vain pursuit.
+
+"But you don't even know who he is, Chief."
+
+"Yes, I do: it's he."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The man with the ebony stick. He's cut off his beard and shaved his
+face, but I knew him for all that. It was the man who was taking
+pot-shots at us yesterday morning, from the top of his stairs on the
+Boulevard Richard-Wallace, the one who killed Inspector Ancenis. The
+blackguard! How did he know that I had spent the night at Fauville's?
+Have I been followed then and spied on? But by whom? And why? And how?"
+
+Mazeroux reflected and said:
+
+"Remember, Chief, you telephoned to me in the afternoon to give me an
+appointment. For all you know, in spite of lowering your voice, you may
+have been heard by somebody at your place."
+
+Don Luis did not answer. He thought of Florence.
+
+That morning Don Luis's letters were not brought to him by Mlle.
+Levasseur, nor did he send for her. He caught sight of her several times
+giving orders to the new servants. She must afterward have gone back to
+her room, for he did not see her again.
+
+In the afternoon he rang for his car and drove to the house on the
+Boulevard Suchet, to pursue with Mazeroux, by the Prefect's instructions,
+a search that led to no result whatever.
+
+It was ten o'clock when he came in. The detective sergeant and he had
+some dinner together. Afterward, wishing also to examine the home of the
+man with the ebony stick, he got into his car again, still accompanied by
+Mazeroux, and told the man to drive to the Boulevard Richard-Wallace.
+
+The car crossed the Seine and followed the right bank.
+
+"Faster," he said to his new chauffeur, through the speaking-tube. "I'm
+accustomed to go at a good pace."
+
+"You'll have an upset one fine day, Chief," said Mazeroux.
+
+"No fear," replied Don Luis. "Motor accidents are reserved for fools."
+
+They reached the Place de l'Alma. The car turned to the left.
+
+"Straight ahead!" cried Don Luis. "Go up by the Trocadéro."
+
+The car veered back again. But suddenly it gave three or four lurches in
+the road, took the pavement, ran into a tree and fell over on its side.
+
+In a few seconds a dozen people were standing round. They broke one of
+the windows and opened the door. Don Luis was the first.
+
+"It's nothing," he said. "I'm all right. And you, Alexandre?"
+
+They helped the sergeant out. He had a few bruises and a little pain, but
+no serious injury.
+
+Only the chauffeur had been thrown from his seat and lay motionless on
+the pavement, bleeding from the head. He was carried into a chemist's
+shop and died in ten minutes.
+
+Mazeroux had gone in with the poor victim and, feeling pretty well
+stunned, had himself been given a pick-me-up. When he went back to the
+motor car he found two policemen entering particulars of the accident in
+their notebooks and taking evidence from the bystanders; but the chief
+was not there.
+
+Perenna in fact had jumped into a taxicab and driven home as fast as he
+could. He got out in the square, ran through the gateway, crossed the
+courtyard, and went down the passage that led to Mlle. Levasseur's
+quarters. He leaped up the steps, knocked, and entered without waiting
+for an answer.
+
+The door of the room that served as a sitting-room was opened and
+Florence appeared. He pushed her back into the room, and said, in a tone
+furious with indignation:
+
+"It's done. The accident has occurred. And yet none of the old servants
+can have prepared it, because they were not there and because I was out
+with the car this afternoon. Therefore, it must have been late in the
+day between six and nine o'clock, that somebody went to the garage and
+filed the steering-rod three quarters through."
+
+"I don't understand. I don't understand," she said, with a scared look.
+
+"You understand perfectly well that the accomplice of the ruffians cannot
+be one of the new servants, and you understand perfectly well that the
+job was bound to succeed and that it did succeed, beyond their hopes.
+There is a victim, who suffers instead of myself."
+
+"But tell me what has happened, Monsieur! You frighten me! What accident?
+What was it?"
+
+"The motor car was overturned. The chauffeur is dead."
+
+"Oh," she said, "how horrible! And you think that I can have--Oh, dead,
+how horrible! Poor man!"
+
+Her voice grew fainter. She was standing opposite to Perenna, close up
+against him. Pale and swooning, she closed her eyes, staggered.
+
+He caught her in his arms as she fell. She tried to release herself, but
+had not the strength; and he laid her in a chair, while she moaned,
+repeatedly:
+
+"Poor man! Poor man!"
+
+Keeping one of his arms under the girl's head, he took a handkerchief in
+the other hand and wiped her forehead, which was wet with perspiration,
+and her pallid cheeks, down which the tears streamed.
+
+She must have lost consciousness entirely, for she surrendered herself to
+Perenna's cares without the least resistance. And he, making no further
+movement, began anxiously to examine the mouth before his eyes, the mouth
+with the lips usually so red, now bloodless and discoloured.
+
+Gently passing one of his fingers over each of them, with a continuous
+pressure, he separated them, as one separates the petals of a flower; and
+the two rows of teeth appeared.
+
+They were charming, beautifully shaped, and beautifully white; a little
+smaller perhaps than Mme. Fauville's, perhaps also arranged in a wider
+curve. But what did he know? Who could say that their bite would not
+leave the same imprint? It was an improbable supposition, an impossible
+miracle, he knew. And yet the circumstances were all against the girl and
+pointed to her as the most daring, cruel, implacable, and terrible of
+criminals.
+
+Her breathing became regular. He perceived the cool fragrance of her
+mouth, intoxicating as the scent of a rose. In spite of himself, he bent
+down, came so close, so close that he was seized with giddiness and had
+to make a great effort to lay the girl's head on the back of the chair
+and to take his eyes from the fair face with the half-parted lips.
+
+He rose to his feet and went.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT
+
+THE DEVIL'S POST-OFFICE
+
+
+Of all these events the public knew only of the attempted suicide of Mme.
+Fauville, the capture and escape of Gaston Sauverand, the murder of Chief
+Inspector Ancenis, and the discovery of a letter written by Hippolyte
+Fauville. This was enough, however, to reawaken their curiosity, as they
+were already singularly puzzled by the Mornington case and took the
+greatest interest in all the movements, however slight, of the mysterious
+Don Luis Perenna, whom they insisted on confusing with Arsène Lupin.
+
+He was, of course, credited with the brief capture of the man with the
+ebony walking-stick. It was also known that he had saved the life of the
+Prefect of Police, and that, finally, having at his own request spent the
+night in the house on the Boulevard Suchet, he had become the recipient
+of Hippolyte Fauville's famous letter. And all this added immensely to
+the excitement of the aforesaid public.
+
+But how much more complicated and disconcerting were the problems set to
+Don Luis Perenna himself! Not to mention the denunciation in the
+anonymous article, there had been, in the short space of forty-eight
+hours, no fewer than four separate attempts to kill him: by the iron
+curtain, by poison, by the shooting on the Boulevard Suchet, and by the
+deliberately prepared motor accident.
+
+Florence's share in this series of attempts was not to be denied. And,
+now, behold her relations with the Fauvilles' murderers duly established
+by the little note found in the eighth volume of Shakespeare's plays,
+while two more deaths were added to the melancholy list: the deaths of
+Chief Inspector Ancenis and of the chauffeur. How to describe and how to
+explain the part played, in the midst of all these catastrophes, by that
+enigmatical girl?
+
+Strangely enough, life went on as usual at the house in the Place du
+Palais-Bourbon, as though nothing out of the way had happened there.
+Every morning Florence Levasseur sorted Don Luis's post in his presence
+and read out the newspaper articles referring to himself or bearing upon
+the Mornington case.
+
+Not a single allusion was made to the fierce fight that had been waged
+against him for two days. It was as though a truce had been proclaimed
+between them; and the enemy appeared to have ceased his attacks for the
+moment. Don Luis felt easy, out of the reach of danger; and he talked to
+the girl with an indifferent air, as he might have talked to anybody.
+
+But with what a feverish interest he studied her unobserved! He
+watched the expression of her face, at once calm and eager, and a
+painful sensitiveness which showed under the placid mask and which,
+difficult to control, revealed itself in the frequent quivering of the
+lips and nostrils.
+
+"Who are you? Who are you?" he felt inclined to exclaim. "Will nothing
+content you, you she-devil, but to deal out murder all round? And do you
+want my death also, in order to attain your object? Where do you come
+from and where are you making for?"
+
+On reflection, he was convinced of a certainty that solved a problem
+which had preoccupied him for a long time--namely, the mysterious
+connection between his own presence in the mansion in the Place du
+Palais-Bourbon and the presence of a woman who was manifestly wreaking
+her hatred on him.
+
+He now understood that he had not bought the house by accident. In making
+the purchase he had been persuaded by an anonymous offer that reached him
+in the form of a typewritten prospectus. Whence did this offer come, if
+not from Florence, who wished to have him near her in order to spy upon
+him and wage war upon him?
+
+"Yes," he thought, "that is where the truth lies. As the possible heir
+of Cosmo Mornington and a prominent figure in the case, I am the enemy,
+and they are trying to do away with me as they did with the others. And
+it is Florence who is acting against me. And it is she who has
+committed murder.
+
+"Everything tells against her; nothing speaks in her defence. Her
+innocent eyes? The accent of sincerity in her voice? Her serene dignity?
+And then? Yes, what then? Have I never seen women with that frank look
+who have committed murder for no reason, almost for pleasure's sake?"
+
+He started with terror at the memory of Dolores Kesselbach. What was it
+that made him connect these two women at every moment in his mind? He
+had loved one of them, that monster Dolores, and had strangled her with
+his own hands. Was fate now leading him toward a like love and a
+similar murder?
+
+When Florence left him he would experience a sense of satisfaction and
+breathe more easily, as though released from an oppressive weight, but he
+would run to the window and see her crossing the courtyard and be still
+waiting when the girl whose scented breath he had felt upon his face
+passed to and fro.
+
+One morning she said to him:
+
+"The papers say that it will be to-night."
+
+"To-night?"
+
+"Yes," she said, showing him an article in one of the newspapers.
+"This is the twenty-fifth; and, according to the information of the
+police, supplied, they say, by you, there should be a letter delivered
+in the house on the Boulevard Suchet every tenth day, and the house is
+to be destroyed by an explosion on the day when the fifth and last
+letter appears."
+
+Was she defying him? Did she wish to make him understand that, whatever
+happened, whatever the obstacles, the letters would appear, those
+mysterious letters prophesied on the list which he had found in the
+eighth volume of Shakespeare's plays?
+
+He looked at her steadily. She did not flinch. He answered:
+
+"Yes, this is the night. I shall be there. Nothing in the world will
+prevent me."
+
+She was on the point of replying, but once more controlled her feelings.
+
+That day Don Luis was on his guard. He lunched and dined out and arranged
+with Mazeroux to have the Place du Palais-Bourbon watched.
+
+Mlle. Levasseur did not leave the house during the afternoon. In the
+evening Don Luis ordered Mazeroux's men to follow any one who might go
+out at that time.
+
+At ten o'clock the sergeant joined Don Luis in Hippolyte Fauville's
+workroom. Deputy Chief Detective Weber and two plain-clothesmen
+were with him.
+
+Don Luis took Mazeroux aside:
+
+"They distrust me. Own up to it."
+
+"No. As long as M. Desmalions is there, they can do nothing against you.
+Only, M. Weber maintains--and he is not the only one--that you fake up
+all these occurrences yourself."
+
+"With what object?"
+
+"With the object of furnishing proof against Marie Fauville and getting
+her condemned. So I asked for the attendance of the deputy chief and two
+men. There will be four of us to bear witness to your honesty."
+
+They all took up their posts. Two detectives were to sit up in turns.
+
+This time, after making a minute search of the little room in which
+Fauville's son used to sleep, they locked and bolted the doors and
+shutters. At eleven o'clock they switched off the electric chandelier.
+
+Don Luis and Weber hardly slept at all.
+
+The night passed without incident of any kind.
+
+But, at seven o'clock, when the shutters were opened, they saw that there
+was a letter on the table. Just as on the last occasion, there was a
+letter on the table!
+
+When the first moment of stupefaction was over, the deputy chief took
+the letter. His orders were not to read it and not to let any one
+else read it.
+
+Here is the letter, published by the newspapers, which also published the
+declarations of the experts certifying that the handwriting was Hippolyte
+Fauville's:
+
+"I have seen him! You understand, don't you, my dear friend? I have seen
+him! He was walking along a path in the Bois, with his coat collar turned
+up and his hat pulled over his ears. I don't think that he saw me. It was
+almost dark. But I knew him at once. I knew the silver handle of his
+ebony stick. It was he beyond a doubt, the scoundrel!
+
+"So he is in Paris, in spite of his promise. Gaston Sauverand is in
+Paris! Do you understand the terrible significance of that fact? If he is
+in Paris, it means that he intends to act. If he is in Paris, it means
+certain death to me. Oh, the harm which I shall have suffered at that
+man's hands! He has already robbed me of my happiness; and now he wants
+my life. I am terrified."
+
+So Fauville knew that the man with the ebony walking-stick, that Gaston
+Sauverand, was designing to kill him. Fauville declared it most
+positively, by evidence written in his own hand; and the letter,
+moreover, corroborating the words that had escaped Gaston Sauverand at
+his arrest, showed that the two men had at one time had relations with
+each other, that they were no longer friends, and that Gaston Sauverand
+had promised never to come to Paris.
+
+A little light was therefore being shed on the darkness of the Mornington
+case. But, on the other hand, how inconceivable was the mystery of that
+letter found on the table in the workroom!
+
+Five men had kept watch, five of the smartest men obtainable; and yet, on
+that night, as on the night of the fifteenth of April, an unknown hand
+had delivered the letter in a room with barricaded doors and windows,
+without their hearing a sound or discovering any signs that the
+fastenings of the doors or windows had been tampered with.
+
+The theory of a secret outlet was at once raised, but had to be
+abandoned after a careful examination of the walls and after an
+interview with the contractor who had built the house, from Fauville's
+own plans, some years ago.
+
+It is unnecessary once more to recall what I may describe as the flurry
+of the public. The deed, in the circumstances, assumed the appearance of
+a sleight-of-hand trick. People felt tempted to look upon it as the
+recreation of some wonderfully skilful conjurer rather than as the act of
+a person employing unknown methods.
+
+Nevertheless, Don Luis Perenna's intelligence was justified at all
+points, for the expected incident had taken place on the twenty-fifth of
+April, as on the fifteenth. Would the series be continued on the fifth of
+May? No one doubted it, because Don Luis had said so and because
+everybody felt that Don Luis could not be mistaken. All through the night
+of the fifth of May there was a crowd on the Boulevard Suchet; and
+quidnuncs and night birds of every kind came trooping up to hear the
+latest news.
+
+The Prefect of Police, greatly impressed by the first two miracles, had
+determined to see the next one for himself, and was present in person on
+the third night.
+
+He came accompanied by several inspectors, whom he left in the garden, in
+the passage, and in the attic on the upper story. He himself took up his
+post on the ground floor with Weber, Mazeroux, and Don Luis Perenna.
+
+Their expectations were disappointed; and this was M. Desmalions's fault.
+In spite of the express opinion of Don Luis, who deprecated the
+experiment as useless, the Prefect had decided not to turn off the
+electric light, so that he might see if the light would prevent the
+miracle. Under these conditions no letter could appear, and no letter did
+appear. The miracle, whether a conjuring trick or a criminal's device,
+needed the kindly aid of the darkness.
+
+There were therefore ten days lost, always presuming that the diabolical
+postman would dare to repeat his attempt and produce the third
+mysterious letter.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the fifteenth of May the wait was renewed, while the same crowd
+gathered outside, an anxious, breathless crowd, stirred by the least
+sound and keeping an impressive silence, with eyes gazing upon the
+Fauvilles' house.
+
+This time the light was put out, but the Prefect of Police kept his hand
+on the electric switch. Ten times, twenty times, he unexpectedly turned
+on the light. There was nothing on the table. What had aroused his
+attention was the creaking of a piece of furniture or a movement made by
+one of the men with him.
+
+Suddenly they all uttered an exclamation. Something unusual, a rustling
+noise, had interrupted the silence.
+
+M. Desmalions at once switched on the light. He gave a cry. A letter lay
+not on the table, but beside it, on the floor, on the carpet.
+
+Mazeroux made the sign of the cross. The inspectors were as pale as
+death.
+
+M. Desmalions looked at Don Luis, who nodded his head without a word.
+
+They inspected the condition of the locks and bolts. Nothing had moved.
+
+That day again, the contents of the letter made some amends for the
+really extraordinary manner of its delivery. It completely dispelled
+all the doubts that still enshrouded the double murder on the
+Boulevard Suchet.
+
+Again signed by the engineer, written throughout by himself, on the
+eighth of February, with no visible address, it said:
+
+"No, my dear friend, I will not allow myself to be killed like a sheep
+led to the slaughter. I shall defend myself, I shall fight to the last
+moment. Things have changed lately. I have proofs now, undeniable proofs.
+I possess letters that have passed between them. And I know that they
+still love each other as they did at the start, that they want to marry,
+and that they will let nothing stand in their way. It is written,
+understand what I say, it is written in Marie's own hand; 'Have patience,
+my own Gaston. My courage increases day by day. So much the worse for him
+who stands between us. He shall disappear.'
+
+"My dear friend, if I succumb in the struggle you will find those letters
+(and all the evidence which I have collected against the wretched
+creature) in the safe hidden behind the small glass case: Then revenge
+me. Au revoir. Perhaps good-bye."
+
+Thus ran the third missive. Hippolyte Fauville from his grave named and
+accused his guilty wife. From his grave he supplied the solution to the
+riddle and explained the reason why the crimes had been committed: Marie
+Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were lovers.
+
+Certainly they knew of the existence of Cosmo Mornington's will, for they
+had begun by doing away with Cosmo Mornington; and their eagerness to
+come into the enormous fortune had hastened the catastrophe. But the
+first idea of the murder rose from an older and deep-rooted passion:
+Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were lovers.
+
+One problem remained to be solved: who was the unknown correspondent to
+whom Hippolyte Fauville had bequeathed the task of avenging his murder,
+and who, instead of simply handing over the letters to the police, was
+exercising his ingenuity to deliver them by means of the most
+Machiavellian contrivances? Was it to his interest also to remain in the
+background?
+
+To all these questions Marie Fauville replied in the most unexpected
+manner, though it was one that fully accorded with her threats. A week
+later, after a long cross-examination at which she was pressed for the
+name of her husband's old friend and at which she maintained the most
+stubborn silence, together with a sort of stupid inertia, she returned to
+her cell in the evening and opened the veins of her wrist with a piece of
+glass which she had managed to hide.
+
+Don Luis heard the news from Mazeroux, who came to tell him of it
+before eight o'clock the next morning, just as he was getting out of
+bed. The sergeant had a travelling bag in his hand and was on his way
+to catch a train.
+
+Don Luis was greatly upset.
+
+"Is she dead?" he exclaimed.
+
+"No. It seems that she has had one more let-off. But what's the good?"
+
+"How do you mean, what's the good?"
+
+"She'll do it again, of course. She's set her mind upon it. And, one day
+or another--"
+
+"Did she volunteer no confession, this time either, before making the
+attempt on her life?"
+
+"No. She wrote a few words on a scrap of paper, saying that, on thinking
+it over, she advised us to ask a certain M. Langernault about the
+mysterious letters. He was the only friend that she had known her husband
+to possess, or at any rate the only one whom he would have called, 'My
+dear fellow,' or, 'My dear friend,' This M. Langernault could do no more
+than prove her innocence and explain the terrible misunderstanding of
+which she was the victim."
+
+"But," said Don Luis, "if there is any one to prove her innocence, why
+does she begin by opening her veins?"
+
+"She doesn't care, she says. Her life is done for; and what she wants is
+rest and death."
+
+"Rest? Rest? There are other ways in which she can find it besides in
+death. If the discovery of the truth is to spell her safety, perhaps the
+truth is not impossible to discover."
+
+"What are you saying, Chief? Have you guessed anything? Are you beginning
+to understand?"
+
+"Yes, very vaguely, but, all the same, the really unnatural accuracy of
+those letters just seems to me a sign--"
+
+He reflected for a moment and continued:
+
+"Have they reëxamined the erased addresses of the three letters?"
+
+"Yes; and they managed to make out the name of Langernault."
+
+"Where does this Langernault live?"
+
+"According to Mme. Fauville, at the village of Damigni, in the Orme."
+
+"Have they deciphered the word Damigni on one of the letters?"
+
+"No, but they have the name of the nearest town."
+
+"What town is that?"
+
+"Alençon."
+
+"And is that where you're going?"
+
+"Yes, the Prefect of Police told me to go straightaway. I shall take the
+train at the Invalides."
+
+"You mean you will come with me in my motor."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"We will both of us go, my lad. I want to be doing something; the
+atmosphere of this house is deadly for me."
+
+"What are you talking about, Chief?"
+
+"Nothing. I know."
+
+Half an hour later they were flying along the Versailles Road. Perenna
+himself was driving his open car and driving it in such a way that
+Mazeroux, almost stifling, kept blurting out, at intervals:
+
+"Lord, what a pace! Dash it all, how you're letting her go, Chief! Aren't
+you afraid of a smash? Remember the other day--"
+
+They reached Alençon in time for lunch. When they had done, they went to
+the chief post-office. Nobody knew the name of Langernault there.
+Besides, Damigni had its own post-office, though the presumption was that
+M. Langernault had his letters addressed _poste restante_ at Alençon.
+
+Don Luis and Mazeroux went on to the village of Damigni. Here again the
+postmaster knew no one of the name of Langernault; and this in spite of
+the fact that Damigni contained only about a thousand inhabitants.
+
+"Let's go and call on the mayor," said Perenna.
+
+At the mayor's Mazeroux stated who he was and mentioned the object of his
+visit. The mayor nodded his head.
+
+"Old Langernault? I should think so. A decent fellow: used to run a
+business in the town."
+
+"And accustomed, I suppose, to fetch his letters at Alençon post-office?"
+
+"That's it, every day, for the sake of the walk."
+
+"And his house?"
+
+"Is at the end of the village. You passed it as you came along."
+
+"Can we see it?"
+
+"Well, of course ... only--"
+
+"Perhaps he's not at home?"
+
+"Certainly not! The poor, dear man hasn't even set foot in the house
+since he left it the last time, four years ago!"
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"Why, he's been dead these four years!"
+
+Don Luis and Mazeroux exchanged a glance of amazement.
+
+"So he's dead?" said Don Luis.
+
+"Yes, a gunshot."
+
+"What's that!" cried Perenna. "Was he murdered?"
+
+"No, no. They thought so at first, when they picked him up on the floor
+of his room; but the inquest proved that it was an accident. He was
+cleaning his gun, and it went off and sent a load of shot into his
+stomach. All the same, we thought it very queer in the village. Daddy
+Langernault, an old hunter before the Lord, was not the man to commit an
+act of carelessness."
+
+"Had he money?"
+
+"Yes; and that's just what clinched the matter: they couldn't find a
+penny of it!"
+
+Don Luis remained thinking for some time and then asked:
+
+"Did he leave any children, any relations of the same name?"
+
+"Nobody, not even a cousin. The proof is that his property--it's called
+the Old Castle, because of the ruins on it--has reverted to the State.
+The authorities have had the doors of the house sealed up, and locked the
+gate of the park. They are waiting for the legal period to expire in
+order to take possession."
+
+"And don't sightseers go walking in the park, in spite of the walls?"
+
+"Not they. In the first place, the walls are very high. And then--and
+then the Old Castle has had a bad reputation in the neighbourhood ever
+since I can remember. There has always been a talk of ghosts: a pack of
+silly tales. But still--"
+
+Perenna and his companion could not get over their surprise.
+
+"This is a funny affair," exclaimed Don Luis, when they had left the
+mayor's. "Here we have Fauville writing his letters to a dead man--and to
+a dead man, by the way, who looks to me very much as if he had been
+murdered."
+
+"Some one must have intercepted the letters."
+
+"Obviously. But that does not do away with the fact that he wrote them to
+a dead man and made his confidences to a dead man and told him of his
+wife's criminal intentions."
+
+Mazeroux was silent. He, too, seemed greatly perplexed.
+
+They spent part of the afternoon in asking about old Langernault's
+habits, hoping to receive some useful clue from the people who had known
+him. But their efforts led to nothing.
+
+At six o'clock, as they were about to start, Don Luis found that the car
+had run out of petrol and sent Mazeroux in a trap to the outskirts of
+Alençon to fetch some. He employed the delay in going to look at the Old
+Castle outside the village.
+
+He had to follow a hedged road leading to an open space, planted with
+lime trees, where a massive wooden gate stood in the middle of a wall.
+The gate was locked. Don Luis walked along the wall, which was, in fact,
+very high and presented no opening. Nevertheless, he managed to climb
+over by means of the branches of a tree.
+
+The park consisted of unkept lawns, overgrown with large wild flowers,
+and grass-covered avenues leading on the right to a distant mound,
+thickly dotted with ruins, and, on the left, to a small, tumbledown house
+with ill-fitting shutters.
+
+He was turning in this direction, when he was much surprised to perceive
+fresh footprints on a border which had been soaked with the recent rain.
+And he could see that these footprints had been made by a woman's boots,
+a pair of elegant and dainty boots.
+
+"Who the devil comes walking here?" he thought.
+
+He found more footprints a little farther, on another border which the
+owner of the boots had crossed, and they led him away from the house,
+toward a series of clumps of trees where he saw them twice more. Then he
+lost sight of them for good.
+
+He was standing near a large, half-ruined barn, built against a very tall
+bank. Its worm-eaten doors seemed merely balanced on their hinges. He
+went up and looked through a crack in the wood. Inside the windowless
+barn was in semi-darkness, for but little light came through the openings
+stopped up with straw, especially as the day was beginning to wane. He
+was able to distinguish a heap of barrels, broken wine-presses, old
+ploughs, and scrap-iron of all kinds.
+
+"This is certainly not where my fair stroller turned her steps," thought
+Don Luis. "Let's look somewhere else."
+
+Nevertheless, he did not move. He had noticed a noise in the barn.
+
+He listened and heard nothing. But as he wanted to get to the bottom of
+things he forced out a couple of planks with his shoulder and stepped in.
+
+The breach which he had thus contrived admitted a little light. He could
+see enough to make his way between two casks, over some broken window
+frames, to an empty space on the far side.
+
+His eyes grew accustomed to the darkness as he went on. For all that, he
+knocked his head against something which he had not perceived, something
+hanging up above, something rather hard which, when set in motion, swung
+to and fro with a curious grating sound.
+
+It was too dark to see. Don Luis took an electric lantern from his pocket
+and pressed the spring.
+
+"Damn it all!" he swore, falling back aghast.
+
+Above him hung a skeleton!
+
+And the next moment he uttered another oath. A second skeleton hung
+beside the first!
+
+They were both fastened by stout ropes to rings fixed in the rafters of
+the barn. Their heads dangled from the slip-knots. The one against which
+Perenna had struck was still moving slightly and the bones clicked
+together with a gruesome sound.
+
+He dragged forward a rickety table, propped it up as best he could, and
+climbed onto it to examine the two skeletons more closely. They were
+turned toward each other, face to face. The first was considerably bigger
+than the second. They were obviously the skeletons of a man and a woman.
+Even when they were not moved by a jolt of any kind, the wind blowing
+through the crevices in the barn set them lightly swinging to and fro, in
+a sort of very slow, rhythmical dance.
+
+But what perhaps was most impressive in this ghastly spectacle was the
+fact that each of the skeletons, though deprived of every rag of
+clothing, still wore a gold ring, too wide now that the flesh had
+disappeared, but held, as in hooks, by the bent joints of the fingers.
+
+He slipped off the rings with a shiver of disgust, and found that they
+were wedding rings. Each bore a date inside, the same date, 12 August,
+1887, and two names: "Alfred--Victorine."
+
+"Husband and wife," he murmured. "Is it a double suicide? Or a murder?
+But how is it possible that the two skeletons have not yet been
+discovered? Can one conceive that they have been here since the death of
+old Langernault, since the government has taken possession of the estate
+and made it impossible for anybody to walk in?"
+
+He paused to reflect.
+
+"Anybody? I don't know about that, considering that I saw footprints in
+the garden, and that a woman has been there this very day!"
+
+The thought of the unknown visitor engrossed him once more, and he got
+down from the table. In spite of the noise which he had heard, it was
+hardly to be supposed that she had entered the barn. And, after a few
+minutes' search, he was about to go out, when there came, from the left,
+a clash of things falling about and some hoops dropped to the ground not
+far from where he stood.
+
+They came from above, from a loft likewise crammed with various objects
+and implements and reached by a ladder. Was he to believe that the
+visitor, surprised by his arrival, had taken refuge in that hiding-place
+and made a movement that caused the fall of the hoops?
+
+Don Luis placed his electric lantern on a cask in such a way as to send
+the light right up to the loft. Seeing nothing suspicious, nothing but an
+arsenal of old pickaxes, rakes, and disused scythes, he attributed what
+had happened so some animal, to some stray cat; and, to make sure, he
+walked quickly to the ladder and went up.
+
+Suddenly, at the very moment when he reached the level of the floor,
+there was a fresh noise, a fresh clatter of things falling: and a form
+rose from the heap of rubbish with a terrible gesture.
+
+It was swift as lightning. Don Luis saw the great blade of a scythe
+cleaving the air at the height of his head. Had he hesitated for a
+second, for the tenth of a second, the awful weapon would have beheaded
+him. As it was, he just had time to flatten himself against the ladder.
+The scythe whistled past him, grazing his jacket. He slid down to the
+floor below.
+
+But he had seen.
+
+He had seen the dreadful face of Gaston Sauverand, and, behind the man of
+the ebony walking-stick, wan and livid in the rays of the electric light,
+the distorted features of Florence Levasseur!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE
+
+LUPIN'S ANGER
+
+
+He remained for one moment motionless and speechless. Above was a perfect
+clatter of things being pushed about, as though the besieged were
+building themselves a barricade. But to the right of the electric rays,
+diffused daylight entered through an opening that was suddenly exposed;
+and he saw, in front of this opening, first one form and then another
+stooping in order to escape over the roofs.
+
+He levelled his revolver and fired, but badly, for he was thinking of
+Florence and his hand trembled. Three more shots rang out. The bullets
+rattled against the old scrap-iron in the loft. The fifth shot was
+followed by a cry of pain. Don Luis once more rushed up the ladder.
+
+Slowly making his way through the tangle of farm implements and over some
+cases of dried rape seed forming a regular rampart, he at last, after
+bruising and barking his shins, succeeded in reaching the opening, and
+was greatly surprised, on passing through it, to find himself on level
+ground. It was the top of the sloping bank against which the barn stood.
+
+He descended the slope at haphazard, to the left of the barn, and passed
+in front of the building, but saw nobody. He then went up again on the
+right; and although the flat part was very narrow, he searched it
+carefully for, in the growing darkness of the twilight, he had every
+reason to fear renewed attacks from the enemy.
+
+He now became aware of something which he had not perceived before. The
+bank ran along the top of the wall, which at this spot was quite
+sixteen feet high. Gaston Sauverand and Florence had, beyond a doubt,
+escaped this way.
+
+Perenna followed the wall, which was fairly wide, till he came to a lower
+part, and here he jumped into a ploughed field skirting a little wood
+toward which the fugitives must have run He started exploring it, but,
+realizing its denseness, he at once saw that it was waste of time to
+linger in pursuit.
+
+He therefore returned to the village, while thinking over this, his
+latest exploit. Once again Florence and her accomplice had tried to get
+rid of him. Once again Florence figured prominently in this network of
+criminal plots.
+
+At the moment when chance informed Don Luis that old Langernault had
+probably died by foul play, at the moment when chance, by leading him to
+Hanged Man's Barn, as he christened it, brought him into the presence of
+two skeletons, Florence appeared as a murderous vision, as an evil
+genius who was seen wherever death had passed with its trail of blood
+and corpses.
+
+"Oh, the loathsome creature!" he muttered, with a shudder. "How can she
+have so fair a face, and eyes of such haunting beauty, so grave, sincere,
+and almost guileless?"
+
+In the church square, outside the inn, Mazeroux, who had returned, was
+filling the petrol tank of the motor and lighting the lamps. Don Luis saw
+the mayor of Damigni crossing the square. He took him aside.
+
+"By the way, Monsieur le Maire, did you ever hear any talk in the
+district, perhaps two years ago, of the disappearance of a couple forty
+or fifty years of age? The husband's name was Alfred--"
+
+"And the wife's Victorine, eh?" the mayor broke in. "I should think so!
+The affair created some stir. They lived at Alençon on a small, private
+income; they disappeared between one day and the next; and no one has
+since discovered what became of them, any more than a little hoard,
+some twenty thousand francs or so, which they had realized the day
+before by the sale of their house. I remember them well. Dedessuslamare
+their name was."
+
+"Thank you, Monsieur le Maire," said Perenna, who had learned all that he
+wanted to know.
+
+The car was ready. A minute after he was rushing toward Alençon
+with Mazeroux.
+
+"Where are we going, Chief?" asked the sergeant.
+
+"To the station. I have every reason to believe, first, that Sauverand
+was informed this morning--in what way remains to be seen--of the
+revelations made last night by Mme. Fauville relating to old Langernault;
+and, secondly, that he has been prowling around and inside old
+Langernault's property to-day for reasons that also remain to be seen.
+And I presume that he came by train and that he will go back by train."
+
+Perenna's supposition was confirmed without delay. He was told at the
+railway station that a gentleman and a lady had arrived from Paris at two
+o'clock, that they had hired a trap at the hotel next door, and that,
+having finished their business, they had gone back a few minutes ago, by
+the 7:40 express. The description of the lady and gentleman corresponded
+exactly with that of Florence and Sauverand.
+
+"Off we go!" said Perenna, after consulting the timetable. "We are an
+hour behind. We may catch up with the scoundrel at Le Mans."
+
+"We'll do that, Chief, and we'll collar him, I swear: him and his lady,
+since there are two of them."
+
+"There are two of them, as you say. Only--"
+
+"Only what?"
+
+Don Luis waited to reply until they were seated and the engine started,
+when he said:
+
+"Only, my boy, you will keep your hands off the lady."
+
+"Why should I?"
+
+"Do you know who she is? Have you a warrant against her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then shut up."
+
+"But--"
+
+"One word more, Alexandre, and I'll set you down beside the road. Then
+you can make as many arrests as you please."
+
+Mazeroux did not breathe another word. For that matter the speed at which
+they at once began to go hardly left him time to raise a protest. Not a
+little anxious, he thought only of watching the horizon and keeping a
+lookout for obstacles.
+
+The trees vanished on either side almost unseen. Their foliage overhead
+made a rhythmical sound as of moaning waves. Night insects dashed
+themselves to death against the lamps.
+
+"We shall get there right enough," Mazeroux ventured to observe. "There's
+no need to put on the pace."
+
+The speed increased and he said no more.
+
+Villages, plains, hills; and then, suddenly in the midst of the darkness,
+the lights of a large town, Le Mans.
+
+"Do you know the way to the station, Alexandre?"
+
+"Yes, Chief, to the right and then straight on."
+
+Of course they ought to have gone to the left. They wasted seven or eight
+minutes in wandering through the streets and receiving contradictory
+instructions. When the motor pulled up at the station the train was
+whistling.
+
+Don Luis jumped out, rushed through the waiting-room, found the doors
+shut, jostled the railway officials who tried to stop him, and reached
+the platform.
+
+A train was about to start on the farther line. The last door was banged
+to. He ran along the carriages, holding on to the brass rails.
+
+"Your ticket, sir! Where's your ticket?" shouted an angry collector.
+
+Don Luis continued to fly along the footboards, giving a swift glance
+through the panes, thrusting aside the persons whose presence at the
+windows prevented him from seeing, prepared at any moment to burst into
+the compartment containing the two accomplices.
+
+He did not see them in the end carriages. The train started. And suddenly
+he gave a shout: they were there, the two of them, by themselves! He had
+seen them! They were there: Florence, lying on the seat, with her head on
+Sauverand's shoulder, and he, leaning over her, with his arms around her!
+
+Mad with rage he flung back the bottom latch and seized the handle of the
+carriage door. At the same moment he lost his balance and was pulled off
+by the furious ticket collector and by Mazeroux, who bellowed:
+
+"Why, you're mad, Chief! you'll kill yourself!"
+
+"Let go, you ass!" roared Don Luis. "It's they! Let me be, can't you!"
+
+The carriages filed past. He tried to jump on to another footboard.
+But the two men were clinging to him, some railway porters came to
+their assistance, the station-master ran up. The train moved out of
+the station.
+
+"Idiots!" he shouted. "Boobies! Pack of asses that you are, couldn't you
+leave me alone? Oh, I swear to Heaven--!"
+
+With a blow of his left fist he knocked the ticket collector down; with a
+blow of his right he sent Mazeroux spinning; and shaking off the porters
+and the station-master, he rushed along the platform to the luggage-room,
+where he took flying leaps over several batches of trunks, packing-cases,
+and portmanteaux.
+
+"Oh, the perfect fool!" he mumbled, on seeing that Mazeroux had let the
+power down in the car. "Trust him, if there's any blunder going!"
+
+Don Luis had driven his car at a fine rate during the day; but that night
+the pace became vertiginous. A very meteor flashed through the suburbs of
+Le Mans and hurled itself along the highroad. Perenna had but one thought
+in his head: to reach the next station, which was Chartres, before the
+two accomplices, and to fly at Sauverand's throat. He saw nothing but
+that: the savage grip of his two hands that would set Florence
+Levasseur's lover gasping in his agony.
+
+"Her lover! Her lover!" he muttered, gnashing his teeth. "Why, of course,
+that explains everything! They have combined against their accomplice,
+Marie Fauville; and it is she alone, poor devil, who will pay for the
+horrible series of crimes!"
+
+"Is she their accomplice even?" he wondered. "Who knows? Who knows if
+that pair of demons are not capable, after killing Hippolyte and his son,
+of having plotted the ruin of Marie Fauville, the last obstacle that
+stood between them and the Mornington inheritance? Doesn't everything
+point to that conclusion? Didn't I find the list of dates in a book
+belonging to Florence? Don't the facts prove that the letters were
+communicated by Florence?...
+
+"Those letters accuse Gaston Sauverand as well. But how does that affect
+things? He no longer loves Marie, but Florence. And Florence loves him.
+She is his accomplice, his counsellor, the woman who will live by his
+side and benefit by his fortune.... True, she sometimes pretends to be
+defending Marie Fauville. Play-acting! Or perhaps remorse, fright at the
+thought of all that she has done against her rival, and of the fate that
+awaits the unhappy woman!
+
+"But she is in love with Sauverand. And she continues to carry on the
+struggle without pity and without respite. And that is why she wanted to
+kill me, the interloper whose insight she dreaded. And she hates me and
+loathes me--"
+
+To the hum of the engine and the sighing of the trees, which bent down at
+the approach, he murmured incoherent words. The recollection of the two
+lovers clasped in each other's arms made him cry aloud with jealousy. He
+wanted to be revenged. For the first time in his life, the longing, the
+feverish craving to kill set his brain boiling.
+
+"Hang it all!" he growled suddenly. "The engine's misfiring! Mazeroux!
+Mazeroux!"
+
+"What, Chief! Did you know that I was here?" exclaimed Mazeroux, emerging
+from the shadow in which he sat hidden.
+
+"You jackass! Do you think that the first idiot who comes along can hang
+on to the footboard of my car without my knowing it? You must be feeling
+comfortable down there!"
+
+"I'm suffering agonies, and I'm shivering with cold."
+
+"That's right, it'll teach you. Tell me, where did you buy your petrol?"
+
+"At the grocer's."
+
+"At a thief's, you mean. It's muck. The plugs are getting sooted up."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Can't you hear the misfiring, you fool?"
+
+The motor, indeed, at moments seemed to hesitate. Then everything became
+normal again. Don Luis forced the pace. Going downhill they appeared to
+be hurling themselves into space. One of the lamps went out. The other
+was not as bright as usual. But nothing diminished Don Luis's ardour.
+
+There was more misfiring, fresh hesitations, followed by efforts, as
+though the engine was pluckily striving to do its duty. And then suddenly
+came the final failure, a dead stop at the side of the road, a stupid
+breakdown.
+
+"Confound it!" roared Don Luis. "We're stuck! Oh, this is the last
+straw!"
+
+"Come, Chief, we'll put it right. And we'll pick up Sauverand at Paris
+instead of Chartres, that's all."
+
+"You infernal ass! The repairs will take an hour! And then she'll break
+down again. It's not petrol, it's filth they've foisted on you."
+
+The country stretched around them to endless distances, with no other
+lights than the stars that riddled the darkness of the sky.
+
+Don Luis was stamping with fury. He would have liked to kick the motor to
+pieces. He would have liked--
+
+It was Mazeroux who "caught it," in the hapless sergeant's own words. Don
+Luis took him by the shoulders, shook him, loaded him with insults and
+abuse and, finally, pushing him against the roadside bank and holding him
+there, said, in a broken voice of mingled hatred and sorrow.
+
+"It's she, do you hear, Mazeroux? it's Sauverand's companion who has done
+everything. I'm telling you now, because I'm afraid of relenting. Yes, I
+am a weak coward. She has such a grave face, with the eyes of a child.
+But it's she, Mazeroux. She lives in my house. Remember her name:
+Florence Levasseur. You'll arrest her, won't you? I might not be able to.
+My courage fails me when I look at her. The fact is that I have never
+loved before.
+
+"There have been other women--but no, those were fleeting fancies--not
+even that: I don't even remember the past! Whereas Florence--! You must
+arrest her, Mazeroux. You must deliver me from her eyes. They burn into
+me like poison. If you don't deliver me I shall kill her as I killed
+Dolores--or else they will kill me--or--Oh, I don't know all the ideas
+that are driving me wild--!
+
+"You see, there's another man," he explained. "There's Sauverand, whom
+she loves. Oh, the infamous pair! They have killed Fauville and the boy
+and old Langernault and those two in the barn and others besides: Cosmo
+Mornington, Vérot, and more still. They are monsters, she most of
+all--And if you saw her eyes-"
+
+He spoke so low that Mazeroux could hardly hear him. He had let go his
+hold of Mazeroux and seemed utterly cast down with despair, a surprising
+symptom in a man of his amazing vigour and authority.
+
+"Come, Chief," said the sergeant, helping him up. "This is all stuff and
+nonsense. Trouble with women: I've had it like everybody else. Mme.
+Mazeroux--yes, I got married while you were away--Mme. Mazeroux turned
+out badly herself, gave me the devil of a time, Mme. Mazeroux did. I'll
+tell you all about it, Chief, how Mme. Mazeroux rewarded my kindness."
+
+He led Don Luis gently to the car and settled him on the front seat.
+
+"Take a rest, Chief. It's not very cold and there are plenty of furs. The
+first peasant that comes along at daybreak, I'll send him to the next
+town for what we want--and for food, too, for I'm starving. And
+everything will come right; it always does with women. All you have to do
+is to kick them out of your life--except when they anticipate you and
+kick themselves out.... I was going to tell you: Mme. Mazeroux--"
+
+Don Luis was never to learn what had happened with Mme. Mazeroux. The
+most violent catastrophies had no effect upon the peacefulness of his
+slumbers. He was asleep almost at once.
+
+It was late in the morning when he woke up. Mazeroux had had to wait till
+seven o'clock before he could hail a cyclist on his way to Chartres.
+
+They made a start at nine o'clock. Don Luis had recovered all his
+coolness. He turned to his sergeant.
+
+"I said a lot last night that I did not mean to say. However, I don't
+regret it. Yes, it is my duty to do everything to save Mme. Fauville and
+to catch the real culprit. Only the task falls upon myself; and I swear
+that I shan't fail in it. This evening Florence Levasseur shall sleep in
+the lockup!"
+
+"I'll help you, Chief," replied Mazeroux, in a queer tone of voice.
+
+"I need nobody's help. If you touch a single hair of her head, I'll do
+for you. Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes, Chief."
+
+"Then hold your tongue."
+
+His anger was slowly returning and expressed itself in an increase of
+speed, which seemed to Mazeroux a revenge executed upon himself. They
+raced over the cobble-stones of Chartres. Rambouillet, Chevreuse, and
+Versailles received the terrifying vision of a thunderbolt tearing across
+them from end to end.
+
+Saint-Cloud. The Bois de Boulogne ...
+
+On the Place de la Concorde, as the motor was turning toward the
+Tuileries, Mazeroux objected:
+
+"Aren't you going home, Chief?"
+
+"No. There's something more urgent first: we must relieve Marie Fauville
+of her suicidal obsession by letting her know that we have discovered the
+criminals."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then I want to see the Prefect of Police."
+
+"M. Desmalions is away and won't be back till this afternoon."
+
+"In that case the examining magistrate."
+
+"He doesn't get to the law courts till twelve; and it's only eleven now."
+
+"We'll see."
+
+Mazeroux was right: there was no one at the law courts.
+
+Don Luis lunched somewhere close by; and Mazeroux, after calling at the
+detective office, came to fetch him and took him to the magistrate's
+corridor. Don Luis's excitement, his extraordinary restlessness, did not
+fail to strike Mazeroux, who asked:
+
+"Are you still of the same mind, Chief?"
+
+"More than ever. I looked through the newspapers at lunch. Marie
+Fauville, who was sent to the infirmary after her second attempt, has
+again tried to kill herself by banging her head against the wall of the
+room. They have put a straitjacket on her. But she is refusing all food.
+It is my duty to save her."
+
+"How?"
+
+"By handing over the real criminal. I shall inform the magistrate in
+charge of the case; and this evening I shall bring you Florence Levasseur
+dead or alive."
+
+"And Sauverand?"
+
+"Sauverand? That won't take long. Unless--"
+
+"Unless what?"
+
+"Unless I settle his business myself, the miscreant!"
+
+"Chief!"
+
+"Oh, dry up!"
+
+There were some reporters near them waiting for particulars. He
+recognized them and went up to them.
+
+"You can say, gentlemen, that from to-day I am taking up the defence of
+Marie Fauville and devoting myself entirely to her cause."
+
+They all protested: was it not he who had had Mme. Fauville arrested? Was
+it not he who had collected a heap of convicting proofs against her?
+
+"I shall demolish those proofs one by one," he said. "Marie Fauville is
+the victim of wretches who have hatched the most diabolical plot against
+her, and whom I am about to deliver up to justice."
+
+"But the teeth! The marks of the teeth!"
+
+"A coincidence! An unparalleled coincidence, but one which now strikes me
+as a most powerful proof of innocence. I tell you that, if Marie Fauville
+had been clever enough to commit all those murders, she would also have
+been clever enough not to leave behind her a fruit bearing the marks of
+her two rows of teeth."
+
+"But still--"
+
+"She is innocent! And that is what I am going to tell the examining
+magistrate. She must be informed of the efforts that are being made in
+her favour. She must be given hope at once. If not, the poor thing will
+kill herself and her death will be on the conscience of all who accused
+an innocent woman. She must--"
+
+At that moment he interrupted himself. His eyes were fixed on one of the
+journalists who was standing a little way off listening to him and
+taking notes.
+
+He whispered to Mazeroux:
+
+"Could you manage to find out that beggar's name? I can't remember where
+on earth I've seen him before."
+
+But an usher now opened the door of the examining magistrate, who, on
+receiving Don Perenna's card, had asked to see him at once. He stepped
+forward and was about to enter the room with Mazeroux, when he suddenly
+turned to his companion with a cry of rage:
+
+"It's he! It was Sauverand in disguise. Stop him! He's made off. Run,
+can't you?"
+
+He himself darted away followed by Mazeroux and a number of warders and
+journalists, He soon outdistanced them, so that, three minutes later, he
+heard no one more behind him. He had rushed down the staircase of the
+"Mousetrap," and through the subway leading from one courtyard to the
+other. Here two people told him that they had met a man walking at a
+smart pace.
+
+The track was a false one. He became aware of this, hunted about, lost a
+good deal of time, and managed to discover that Sauverand had left by the
+Boulevard du Palais and joined a very pretty, fair-haired woman--Florence
+Levasseur, obviously--on the Quai de l'Horloge. They had both got into
+the motor bus that runs from the Place Saint-Michel to the Gare
+Saint-Lazare.
+
+Don Luis went back to a lonely little street where he had left his car in
+the charge of a boy. He set the engine going and drove at full speed to
+the Gare Saint-Lazare, From the omnibus shelter he went off on a fresh
+track which also proved to be wrong, lost quite another hour, returned to
+the terminus, and ended by learning for certain that Florence had stepped
+by herself into a motor bus which would take her toward the Place du
+Palais-Bourbon. Contrary to all his expectations, therefore, the girl
+must have gone home.
+
+The thought of seeing her again roused his anger to its highest pitch.
+All the way down the Rue Royale and across the Place de la Concorde he
+kept blurting out words of revenge and threats which he was itching to
+carry out. He would abuse Florence. He would sting her with his insults.
+He felt a bitter and painful need to hurt the odious creature.
+
+But on reaching the Place du Palais-Bourbon he pulled up short. His
+practised eye had counted at a glance, on the right and left, a
+half-dozen men whose professional look there was no mistaking. And
+Mazeroux, who had caught sight of him, had spun round on his heel and was
+hiding under a gateway.
+
+He called him:
+
+"Mazeroux!"
+
+The sergeant appeared greatly surprised to hear his name and came up
+to the car.
+
+"Hullo, the Chief!"
+
+His face expressed such embarrassment that Don Luis felt his fears taking
+definite shape.
+
+"Look here, is it for me that you and your men are hanging about outside
+my house?"
+
+"There's a notion, Chief," replied Mazeroux, looking very uncomfortable.
+"You know that you're in favour all right!"
+
+Don Luis gave a start. He understood. Mazeroux had betrayed his
+confidence. To obey his scruples of conscience as well as to rescue the
+chief from the dangers of a fatal passion, Mazeroux had denounced
+Florence Levasseur.
+
+Perenna clenched his fists in an effort of his whole being to stifle his
+boiling rage. It was a terrible blow. He received a sudden intuition of
+all the blunders which his mad jealousy had made him commit since the day
+before, and a presentiment of the irreparable disasters that might result
+from them. The conduct of events was slipping from him.
+
+"Have you the warrant?" he asked.
+
+Mazeroux spluttered:
+
+"It was quite by accident. I met the Prefect, who was back. We spoke of
+the young lady's business. And, as it happened, they had discovered that
+the photograph--you know, the photograph of Florence Levasseur which the
+Prefect lent you--well, they have discovered that you faked it. And then
+when I mentioned the name of Florence, the Prefect remembered that that
+was the name."
+
+"Have you the warrant?" Don Luis repeated, in a harsher tone.
+
+"Well, you see, I couldn't help it.... M. Desmalions, the magistrate--"
+
+If the Place du Palais Bourbon had been deserted at that moment, Don
+Luis would certainly have relieved himself by a swinging blow
+administered to Mazeroux's chin according to the most scientific rules
+of the noble art. And Mazeroux foresaw this contingency, for he
+prudently kept as far away as possible and, to appease the chief's
+anger, intended a whole litany of excuses:
+
+"It was for your good, Chief.... I had to do it ... Only think! You
+yourself told me: 'Rid me of the creature!' said you. I'm too weak.
+You'll arrest her, won't you? Her eyes burn into me--like poison! Well,
+Chief, could I help it? No, I couldn't, could I? Especially as the
+deputy chief--"
+
+"Ah! So Weber knows?"
+
+"Why, yes! The Prefect is a little suspicious of you since he understood
+about the faking of the portrait. So M. Weber is coming back in an hour,
+perhaps, with reinforcements. Well, I was saying, the deputy chief had
+learnt that the woman who used to go to Gaston Sauverand's at
+Neuilly--you know, the house on the Boulevard Richard-Wallace--was fair
+and very good looking, and that her name was Florence. She even used to
+stay the night sometimes."
+
+"You lie! You lie!" hissed Perenna.
+
+All his spite was reviving. He had been pursuing Florence with intentions
+which it would have been difficult for him to put into words. And now
+suddenly he again wanted to destroy her; and this time consciously. In
+reality he no longer knew what he was doing. He was acting at haphazard,
+tossed about in turns by the most diverse passions, a prey to that
+inordinate love which impels us as readily to kill the object of our
+affections as to die in an attempt to save her.
+
+A newsboy passed with a special edition of the _Paris-Midi_, showing in
+great black letters:
+
+"SENSATIONAL DECLARATION BY DON LUIS PERENNA
+
+"MME. FAUVILLE IS INNOCENT.
+
+"IMMINENT ARREST OF THE TWO CRIMINALS"
+
+"Yes, yes," he said aloud. "The drama is drawing to an end. Florence is
+about to pay her debt to society. So much the worse for her."
+
+He started his car again and drove through the gate. In the courtyard he
+said to his chauffeur, who came up:
+
+"Turn her around and don't put her up. I may be starting again at
+any moment."
+
+He sprang out and asked the butler:
+
+"Is Mlle. Levasseur in?"
+
+"Yes, sir, she's in her room."
+
+"She was away yesterday, wasn't she?"
+
+"Yes, sir, she received a telegram asking her to go to the country to see
+a relation who was ill. She came back last night."
+
+"I want to speak to her. Send her to me. At once."
+
+"In the study, sir?"
+
+"No, upstairs, in the boudoir next to my bedroom."
+
+This was a small room on the second floor which had once been a lady's
+boudoir, and he preferred it to his study since the attempt at murder of
+which he had been the object. He was quieter up there, farther away; and
+he kept his important papers there. He always carried the key with him: a
+special key with three grooves to it and an inner spring.
+
+Mazeroux had followed him into the courtyard and was keeping close behind
+him, apparently unobserved by Perenna, who having so far appeared not to
+notice it. He now, however, took the sergeant by the arm and led him to
+the front steps.
+
+"All is going well. I was afraid that Florence, suspecting something,
+might not have come back. But she probably doesn't know that I saw her
+yesterday. She can't escape us now."
+
+They went across the hall and up the stairs to the first floor. Mazeroux
+rubbed his hands.
+
+"So you've come to your senses, Chief?"
+
+"At any rate I've made up my mind. I will not, do you hear, I will not
+have Mme. Fauville kill herself; and, as there is no other way of
+preventing that catastrophe, I shall sacrifice Florence."
+
+"Without regret?"
+
+"Without remorse."
+
+"Then you forgive me?"
+
+"I thank you."
+
+And he struck him a clean, powerful blow under the chin. Mazeroux fell
+without a moan, in a dead faint on the steps of the second flight.
+
+Halfway up the stairs was a dark recess that served as a lumber room
+where the servants kept their pails and brooms and the soiled household
+linen. Don Luis carried Mazeroux to it, and, seating him comfortably on
+the floor, with his back to a housemaid's box, he stuffed his
+handkerchief into his mouth, gagged him with a towel, and bound his
+wrists and ankles with two tablecloths. The other ends of these he
+fastened to a couple of strong nails. As Mazeroux was slowly coming to
+himself, Don Luis said:
+
+"I think you have all you want. Tablecloths--napkins--something in your
+mouth in case you're hungry. Eat at your ease. And then take a little
+nap, and you'll wake up as fresh as paint."
+
+He locked him in and glanced at his watch.
+
+"I have an hour before me. Capital!"
+
+At that moment his intention was to insult Florence, to throw up all her
+scandalous crimes in her face, and, in this way, to force a written and
+signed confession from her. Afterward, when Marie Fauville's safety was
+insured, he would see. Perhaps he would put Florence in his motor and
+carry her off to some refuge from which, with the girl for a hostage, he
+would be able to influence the police. Perhaps--But he did not seek to
+anticipate events. What he wanted was an immediate, violent explanation.
+
+He ran up to his bedroom on the second floor and dipped his face into
+cold water. Never had he experienced such a stimulation of his whole
+being, such an unbridling of his blind instincts.
+
+"It's she!" he spluttered. "I hear her! She is at the bottom of the
+stairs. At last! Oh, the joy of having her in front of me! Face to face!
+She and I alone!"
+
+He returned to the landing outside the boudoir. He took the key from his
+pocket. The door opened.
+
+He uttered a great shout: Gaston Sauverand was there! In that locked room
+Gaston Sauverand was waiting for him, standing with folded arms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN
+
+GASTON SAUVERAND EXPLAINS
+
+
+Gaston Sauverand!
+
+Instinctively, Don Luis took a step back, drew his revolver, and aimed it
+at the criminal:
+
+"Hands up!" he commanded. "Hands up, or I fire!"
+
+Sauverand did not appear to be put out. He nodded toward two revolvers
+which he had laid on a table beyond his reach and said:
+
+"There are my arms. I have come here not to fight, but to talk."
+
+"How did you get in?" roared Don Luis, exasperated by this display of
+calmness. "A false key, I suppose? But how did you get hold of the key?
+How did you manage it?"
+
+The other did not reply. Don Luis stamped his foot:
+
+"Speak, will you? Speak! If not--"
+
+But Florence ran into the room. She passed him by without his trying to
+stop her, flung herself upon Gaston Sauverand, and, taking no heed of
+Perenna's presence, said:
+
+"Why did you come? You promised me that you wouldn't. You swore it
+to me. Go!"
+
+Sauverand released himself and forced her into a chair.
+
+"Let me be, Florence. I promised only so as to reassure you. Let me be."
+
+"No, I will not!" exclaimed the girl eagerly. "It's madness! I won't have
+you say a single word. Oh, please, please stop!"
+
+He bent over her and smoothed her forehead, separating her mass of
+golden hair.
+
+"Let me do things my own way, Florence," he said softly.
+
+She was silent, as though disarmed by the gentleness of his voice; and he
+whispered more words which Don Luis could not hear and which seemed to
+convince her.
+
+Perenna had not moved. He stood opposite them with his arm outstretched
+and his finger on the trigger, aiming at the enemy. When Sauverand
+addressed Florence by her Christian name, he started from head to foot
+and his finger trembled. What miracle kept him from shooting? By what
+supreme effort of will did he stifle the jealous hatred that burnt him
+like fire? And here was Sauverand daring to stroke Florence's hair!
+
+He lowered his arm. He would kill them later, do with them what he
+pleased, since they were in his power, and since nothing henceforth could
+snatch them from his vengeance.
+
+He took Sauverand's two revolvers and laid them in a drawer. Then he went
+back to the door, intending to lock it. But hearing a sound on the
+first-floor landing, he leant over the balusters. The butler was coming
+upstairs with a tray in his hand.
+
+"What is it now?"
+
+"An urgent letter, sir, for Sergeant Mazeroux."
+
+"Sergeant Mazeroux is with me. Give me the letter and don't let me be
+disturbed again."
+
+He tore open the envelope. The letter, hurriedly written in pencil and
+signed by one of the inspectors on duty outside the house, contained
+these words:
+
+"Look out, Sergeant. Gaston Sauverand is in the house. Two people living
+opposite say that the girl who is known hereabouts as the lady
+housekeeper came in at half-past one, before we took up our posts. She
+was next seen at the window of her lodge.
+
+"A few moments after, a small, low door, used for the cellars and
+situated under the lodge, was opened, evidently by her. Almost at the
+same time a man entered the square, came along the wall, and slipped in
+through the cellar door. According to the description it was Gaston
+Sauverand. So look out, Sergeant. At the least alarm, at the first signal
+from you, we shall come in."
+
+Don Luis reflected. He now understood how the scoundrel had access to his
+house, and how, hidden in the safest of retreats, he was able to escape
+every attempt to find him. He was living under the roof of the very man
+who had declared himself his most formidable adversary.
+
+"Come on," he said to himself. "The fellow's score is settled--and so is
+his young lady's. They can choose between the bullets in my revolver and
+the handcuffs of the police."
+
+He had ceased to think of his motor standing ready below. He no longer
+dreamt of flight with Florence. If he did not kill the two of them, the
+law would lay its hand upon them, the hand that does not let go. And
+perhaps it was better so, that society itself should punish the two
+criminals whom he was about to hand over to it.
+
+He shut the door, pushed the bolt, faced his two prisoners again and,
+taking a chair, said to Sauverand:
+
+"Let us talk."
+
+Owing to the narrow dimensions of the room they were all so close
+together that Don Luis felt as if he were almost touching the man whom he
+loathed from the very bottom of his heart. Their two chairs were hardly a
+yard asunder. A long table, covered with books, stood between them and
+the windows, which, hollowed out of the very thick wall, formed a recess,
+as is usual in old houses.
+
+Florence had turned her chair away from the light, and Don Luis could not
+see her face clearly. But he looked straight into Gaston Sauverand's face
+and watched it with eager curiosity; and his anger was heightened by the
+sight of the still youthful features, the expressive mouth, and the
+intelligent eyes, which were fine in spite of their hardness.
+
+"Well? Speak!" said Don Luis, in a commanding tone. "I have agreed to a
+truce, but a momentary truce, just long enough to say what is necessary.
+Are you afraid now that the time has arrived? Do you regret the step
+which you have taken?"
+
+The man smiled calmly and said:
+
+"I am afraid of nothing, and I do not regret coming, for I have a very
+strong intuition that we can, that we are bound to, come to an
+understanding."
+
+"An understanding!" protested Don Luis with a start.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"A compact! An alliance between you and me!"
+
+"Why not? It is a thought which I had already entertained more than once,
+which took a more precise shape in the magistrates' corridor, and which
+finally decided me when I read the announcement which you caused to be
+made in the special edition of this paper: 'Sensational declaration by
+Don Luis Perenna. Mme. Fauville is innocent!'"
+
+Gaston Sauverand half rose from his chair and, carefully picking his
+words, emphasizing them with sharp gestures, he whispered:
+
+"Everything lies, Monsieur, in those four words. Do those four words
+which you have written, which you have uttered publicly and
+solemnly--'Mme. Fauville is innocent'--do they express your real mind? Do
+you now absolutely believe in Marie Fauville's innocence?"
+
+Don Luis shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Mme. Fauville's innocence has nothing to do with the case. It is a
+question not of her, but of you, of you two and myself. So come straight
+to the point and as quickly as you can. It is to your interest even more
+than to mine."
+
+"To our interest?"
+
+"You forget the third heading to the article," cried Don Luis. "I did
+more than proclaim Marie Fauville's innocence. I also announced--read for
+yourself--The 'imminent arrest of the criminals.'"
+
+Sauverand and Florence rose together, with the same unguarded movement.
+
+"And, in your view, the criminals are--?" asked Sauverand.
+
+"Why, you know as well as I do: they are the man with the ebony
+walking-stick, who at any rate cannot deny having murdered Chief
+Inspector Ancenis, and the woman who is his accomplice in all his crimes.
+Both of them must remember their attempts to assassinate me: the revolver
+shot on the Boulevard Suchet; the motor smash causing the death of my
+chauffeur; and yesterday again, in the barn--you know where--the barn
+with the two skeletons hanging from the rafters: yesterday--you
+remember--the scythe, the relentless scythe, which nearly beheaded me."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Well, then, the game is lost. You must pay up; and all the more so as
+you have foolishly put your heads into the lion's mouth."
+
+"I don't understand. What does all this mean?"
+
+"It simply means that they know Florence Levasseur, that they know you
+are both here, that the house is surrounded, and that Weber, the deputy
+chief detective, is on his way."
+
+Sauverand appeared disconcerted by this unexpected threat. Florence,
+standing beside him, had turned livid. A mad anguish distorted her
+features. She stammered:
+
+"Oh, it is awful! No, no, I can't endure it!"
+
+And, rushing at Don Luis:
+
+"Coward! Coward! It's you who are betraying us! Coward! Oh, I knew that
+you were capable of the meanest treachery! There you stand like an
+executioner! Oh, you villain, you coward!"
+
+She fell into her chair, exhausted and sobbing, with her hand to her
+face.
+
+Don Luis turned away. Strange to say, he experienced no sense of pity;
+and Florence's tears affected him no more than her insults had done, no
+more than if he had never loved the girl. He was glad of this release.
+The horror with which she filled him had killed his love.
+
+But, when he once more stood in front of them after taking a few steps
+across the room, he saw that they were holding each other's hands, like
+two friends in distress, trying to give each other courage; and, again
+yielding to a sudden impulse of hatred, for a moment beside himself, he
+gripped the man's arm:
+
+"I forbid you--By what right--? Is she your wife? Your mistress? Then--"
+
+His voice became perplexed. He himself felt the strangeness of that fit
+of anger which suddenly revealed, in all its force and all its blindness,
+a passion which he thought dead. And he blushed, for Gaston Sauverand was
+looking at him in amazement; and he did not doubt that the enemy had
+penetrated his secret.
+
+A long pause followed, during which he met Florence's eyes, hostile eyes,
+full of rebellion and disdain. Had she, too, guessed?
+
+He dared not speak another word. He waited for Sauverand's explanation.
+And, while waiting, he gave not a thought to the coming revelations, nor
+to the tremendous problems of which he was at last about to know the
+solution, nor to the tragic events at hand.
+
+He thought of one thing only, thought of it with the fevered throbbing of
+his whole being, thought of what he was on the point of learning about
+Florence, about the girl's affections, about her past, about her love for
+Sauverand. That alone interested him.
+
+"Very well," said Sauverand. "I am caught in a trap. Fate must take its
+course. Nevertheless, can I speak to you? It is the only wish that
+remains to me."
+
+"Speak," replied Don Luis. "The door is locked. I shall not open it until
+I think fit. Speak."
+
+"I shall be brief," said Gaston Sauverand. "For one thing, what I can
+tell you is not much. I do not ask you to believe it, but to listen to it
+as if I were possibly telling the truth, the whole truth."
+
+And he expressed himself in the following words:
+
+"I never met Hippolyte and Marie Fauville, though I used to correspond
+with them--you will remember that we were all cousins--until five
+years ago, when chance brought us together at Palmero. They were
+passing the winter there while their new house on the Boulevard Suchet
+was being built.
+
+"We spent five months at Palmero, seeing one another daily. Hippolyte and
+Marie were not on the best of terms. One evening after they had been
+quarrelling more violently than usual I found her crying. Her tears upset
+me and I could not longer conceal my secret. I had loved Marie from the
+first moment when we met. I was to love her always and to love her more
+and more."
+
+"You lie!" cried Don Luis, losing his self-restraint. "I saw the two of
+you yesterday in the train that brought you back from Alençon--"
+
+Gaston Sauverand looked at Florence. She sat silent, with her hands to
+her face and her elbows on her knees. Without replying to Don Luis's
+exclamation, he went on:
+
+"Marie also loved me. She admitted it, but made me swear that I would
+never try to obtain from her more than the purest friendship would allow.
+I kept my oath. We enjoyed a few weeks of incomparable happiness.
+Hippolyte Fauville, who had become enamoured of a music-hall singer, was
+often away.
+
+"I took a good deal of trouble with the physical training of the little
+boy Edmond, whose health was not what it should be. And we also had with
+us, between us, the best of friends, the most devoted and affectionate
+counsellor, who staunched our wounds, kept up our courage, restored our
+gayety, and bestowed some of her own strength and dignity upon our love.
+Florence was there."
+
+Don Luis felt his heart beating faster. Not that he attached the least
+credit to Gaston Sauverand's words; but he had every hope of arriving,
+through those words, at the real truth. Perhaps, also, he was
+unconsciously undergoing the influence of Gaston Sauverand, whose
+apparent frankness and sincerity of tone caused him a certain surprise.
+
+Sauverand continued:
+
+"Fifteen years before, my elder brother, Raoul Sauverand, had picked up
+at Buenos Aires, where he had gone to live, a little girl, the orphan
+daughter of some friends. At his death he entrusted the child, who was
+then fourteen, to an old nurse who had brought me up and who had
+accompanied my brother to South America. The old nurse brought the child
+to me and herself died of an accident a few days after her arrival in
+France.... I took the little girl to Italy to friends, where she worked
+and studied and became--what she is.
+
+"Wishing to live by her own resources, she accepted a position as teacher
+in a family. Later I recommended her to my Fauville cousins with whom I
+found her at Palmero as governess to the boy Edmond and especially as the
+friend, the dear and devoted friend, of Marie Fauville.... She was mine,
+also, at that happy time, which was so sunny and all too short. Our
+happiness, in fact--the happiness of all three of us--was to be wrecked
+in the most sudden and tantalizing fashion.
+
+"Every evening I used to write in a diary the daily life of my love, an
+uneventful life, without hope or future before it, but eager and radiant.
+Marie Fauville was extolled in it as a goddess. Kneeling down to write, I
+sang litanies of her beauty, and I also used to invent, as a poor
+compensation, wholly imaginary scenes, in which she said all the things
+which she might have said but did not, and promised me all the happiness
+which we had voluntarily renounced.
+
+"Hippolyte Fauville found the diary.... His anger was something terrible.
+His first impulse was to get rid of Marie. But in the face of his wife's
+attitude, of the proofs of her innocence which she supplied, of her
+inflexible refusal to consent to a divorce, and of her promise never to
+see me again, he recovered his calmness.... I left, with death in my
+soul. Florence left, too, dismissed. And never, mark me, never, since
+that fatal hour, did I exchange a single word with Marie. But an
+indestructible love united us, a love which neither absence nor time was
+to weaken."
+
+He stopped for a moment, as though to read in Don Luis's face the effect
+produced by his story. Don Luis did not conceal his anxious attention.
+What astonished him most was Gaston Sauverand's extraordinary calmness,
+the peaceful expression of his eyes, the quiet ease with which he set
+forth, without hurrying, almost slowly and so very simply, the story of
+that family tragedy.
+
+"What an actor!" he thought.
+
+And as he thought it, he remembered that Marie Fauville had given him the
+same impression. Was he then to hark back to his first conviction and
+believe Marie guilty, a dissembler like her accomplice, a dissembler like
+Florence? Or was he to attribute a certain honesty to that man?
+
+He asked:
+
+"And afterward?"
+
+"Afterward I travelled about. I resumed my life of work and pursued my
+studies wherever I went, in my bedroom at the hotels, and in the public
+laboratories of the big towns."
+
+"And Mme. Fauville?"
+
+"She lived in Paris in her new house. Neither she nor her husband ever
+referred to the past."
+
+"How do you know? Did she write to you?"
+
+"No. Marie is a woman who does not do her duty by halves; and her sense
+of duty is strict to excess. She never wrote to me. But Florence, who had
+accepted a place as secretary and reader to Count Malonyi, your
+predecessor in this house, used often to receive Marie's visits in her
+lodge downstairs.
+
+"They did not speak of me once, did they, Florence? Marie would not have
+allowed it. But all her life and all her soul were nothing but love and
+passionate memories. Isn't that so, Florence?
+
+"At last," he went on slowly, "weary of being so far away from her, I
+returned to Paris. That was our undoing.... It was about a year ago. I
+took a flat in the Avenue du Roule and went to it in the greatest
+secrecy, so that Hippolyte Fauville might not know of my return. I was
+afraid of disturbing Marie's peace of mind. Florence alone knew, and came
+to see me from time to time. I went out little, only after dark, and in
+the most secluded parts of the Bois. But it happened--for our most heroic
+resolutions sometimes fail us--one Wednesday night, at about eleven
+o'clock, my steps led me to the Boulevard Suchet, without my noticing it,
+and I went past Marie's house.
+
+"It was a warm and fine night and, as luck would have it, Marie was at
+her window. She saw me, I was sure of it, and knew me; and my happiness
+was so great that my legs shook under me as I walked away.
+
+"After that I passed in front of her house every Wednesday evening; and
+Marie was nearly always there, giving me this unhoped-for and ever-new
+delight, in spite of the fact that her social duties, her quite natural
+love of amusement, and her husband's position obliged her to go out a
+great deal."
+
+"Quick! Why can't you hurry?" said Don Luis, urged by his longing to know
+more. "Look sharp and come to the facts. Speak!"
+
+He had become suddenly afraid lest he should not hear the remainder of
+the explanation; and he suddenly perceived that Gaston Sauverand's words
+were making their way into his mind as words that were perhaps not
+untrue. Though he strove to fight against them, they were stronger than
+his prejudices and triumphed over his arguments.
+
+The fact is, that deep down in his soul, tortured with love and jealousy,
+there was something that disposed him to believe this man in whom
+hitherto he had seen only a hated rival, and who was so loudly
+proclaiming, in Florence's very presence, his love for Marie.
+
+"Hurry!" he repeated. "Every minute is precious!"
+
+Sauverand shook his head.
+
+"I shall not hurry. All my words were carefully thought out before I
+decided to speak. Every one of them is essential. Not one of them can be
+omitted, for you will find the solution of the problem not in facts
+presented anyhow, separated one from the other, but in the concatenation
+of the facts, and in a story told as faithfully as possible."
+
+"Why? I don't understand."
+
+"Because the truth lies hidden in that story."
+
+"But that truth is your innocence, isn't it?"
+
+"It is Marie's innocence."
+
+"But I don't dispute it!"
+
+"What is the use of that if you can't prove it?"
+
+"Exactly! It's for you to give me proofs."
+
+"I have none."
+
+"What!"
+
+"I tell you, I have no proof of what I am asking you to believe."
+
+"Then I shall not believe it!" cried Don Luis angrily. "No, and again no!
+Unless you supply me with the most convincing proofs, I shall refuse to
+believe a single word of what you are going to tell me."
+
+"You have believed everything that I have told you so far," Sauverand
+retorted very simply.
+
+Don Luis offered no denial. He turned his eyes to Florence Levasseur; and
+it seemed to him that she was looking at him with less aversion, and as
+though she were wishing with all her might that he would not resist the
+impressions that were forcing themselves upon him. He muttered:
+
+"Go on with your story."
+
+And there was something really strange about the attitude of those two
+men, one making his explanation in precise terms and in such a way as to
+give every word its full value, the other listening attentively and
+weighing every one of those words; both controlling their excitement;
+both as calm in appearance as though they were seeking the philosophical
+solution in a case of conscience. What was going on outside did not
+matter. What was to happen presently did not count.
+
+Before all, whatever the consequences of their inactivity at this moment
+when the circle of the police was closing in around them, before all it
+was necessary that one should speak and the other listen.
+
+"We are coming," said Sauverand, in his grave voice, "we are coming to
+the most important events, to those of which the interpretation, which is
+new to you, but strictly true, will make you believe in our good faith.
+Ill luck having brought me across Hippolyte Fauville's path in the course
+of one of my walks in the Bois, I took the precaution of changing my
+abode and went to live in the little house on the Boulevard
+Richard-Wallace, where Florence came to see me several times.
+
+"I was even careful to keep her visits a secret and, moreover, to refrain
+from corresponding with her except through the _poste restante_. I was
+therefore quite easy in my mind.
+
+"I worked in perfect solitude and in complete security. I expected
+nothing. No danger, no possibility of danger, threatened us. And, I may
+say, to use a commonplace but very accurate expression, that what
+happened came as an absolute bolt from the blue. I heard at the same
+time, when the Prefect of Police and his men broke into my house and
+proceeded to arrest me, I heard at the same time and for the first time
+of the murder of Hippolyte Fauville, the murder of Edmond, and the arrest
+of my adored Marie."
+
+"Impossible!" cried Don Luis, in a renewed tone of aggressive wrath.
+"Impossible! Those facts were a fortnight old. I cannot allow that you
+had not heard of them."
+
+"Through whom?"
+
+"Through the papers," exclaimed Don Luis. "And, more certainly still,
+through Mlle. Levasseur."
+
+"Through the papers?" said Sauverand. "I never used to read them. What!
+Is that incredible? Are we under an obligation, an inevitable necessity,
+to waste half an hour a day in skimming through the futilities of
+politics and the piffle of the news columns? Is your imagination
+incapable of conceiving a man who reads nothing but reviews and
+scientific publications?
+
+"The fact is rare, I admit," he continued. "But the rarity of a fact is
+no proof against it. On the other hand, on the very morning of the crime
+I had written to Florence saying that I was going away for three weeks
+and bidding her good-bye. I changed my mind at the last moment; but this
+she did not know; and, thinking that I had gone, not knowing where I was,
+she was unable to inform me of the crime, of Marie's arrest, or, later,
+when an accusation was brought against the man with the ebony
+walking-stick, of the search that was being made for me."
+
+"Exactly!" declared Don Luis. "You cannot pretend that the man with the
+ebony walking-stick, the man who followed Inspector Vérot to the Café du
+Pont-Neuf and purloined his letter--"
+
+"I am not the man," Sauverand interrupted.
+
+And, when Don Luis shrugged his shoulders, he insisted, in a more
+forcible tone of voice:
+
+"I am not that man. There is some inexplicable mistake in all this, but I
+have never set foot in the Café du Pont-Neuf. I swear it. You must accept
+this statement as positively true. Besides, it agrees entirely with the
+retired life which I was leading from necessity and from choice. And, I
+repeat, I knew nothing.
+
+"The thunderbolt was unexpected. And it was precisely for this reason,
+you must understand, that the shock produced in me an equally unexpected
+reaction, a state of mind diametrically opposed to my real nature, an
+outburst of my most savage and primitive instincts. Remember, Monsieur,
+that they had laid hands upon what to me was the most sacred thing on
+earth. Marie was in prison. Marie was accused of committing two
+murders!... I went mad.
+
+"At first controlling myself, playing a part with the Prefect of Police,
+then overthrowing every obstacle, shooting Chief Inspector Ancenis,
+shaking off Sergeant Mazeroux, jumping from the window, I had only one
+thought in my head--that of escape. Once free, I should save Marie. Were
+there people in my way? So much the worse for them.
+
+"By what right did those people dare to attack the most blameless of
+women? I killed only one man that day! I would have killed ten! I would
+have killed twenty! What was Chief Inspector Ancenis's life to me? What
+cared I for the lives of any of those wretches? They stood between Marie
+and myself; and Marie was in prison!"
+
+Gaston Sauverand made an effort which contracted every muscle of his face
+to recover the coolness that was gradually leaving him. He succeeded in
+doing so, but his voice, nevertheless, remained tremulous, and the fever
+with which he was consumed shook his frame in a manner which he was
+unable to conceal.
+
+He continued:
+
+"At the corner of the street down which I turned after outdistancing the
+Prefect's men on the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, Florence saved me just as
+I believed that all was lost. Florence had known everything for a
+fortnight past. She learnt the news of the double murder from the papers,
+those papers which she used to read out to you, and which you discussed
+with her. And it was by being with you, by listening to you, that she
+acquired the opinion which everything that happened tended to confirm:
+the opinion that Marie's enemy, her only enemy, was yourself."
+
+"But why? Why?"
+
+"Because she saw you at work," exclaimed Sauverand, "because it was more
+to your interest than to that of any one else that first Marie and then I
+should not come between you and the Mornington inheritance, and lastly--"
+
+"What?"
+
+Gaston Sauverand hesitated and then said, plainly:
+
+"Lastly, because she knew your real name beyond a doubt, and because she
+felt that Arsène Lupin was capable of anything."
+
+They were both silent; and their silence, at such a moment, was
+impressive to a degree. Florence remained impassive under Don Luis
+Perenna's gaze; and he was unable to discern on her sealed face any of
+the feelings with which she must needs be stirred.
+
+Gaston Sauverand continued:
+
+"It was against Arsène Lupin, therefore, that Florence, Marie's terrified
+friend, engaged in the struggle. It was to unmask Lupin that she wrote or
+rather inspired the article of which you found the original in a ball of
+string. It was Lupin whom she spied upon, day by day, in this house. It
+was Lupin whom she heard one morning telephoning to Sergeant Mazeroux and
+rejoicing in my imminent arrest. It was to save me from Lupin that she
+let down the iron curtain in front of him, at the risk of an accident,
+and took a taxi to the corner of the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, where she
+arrived too late to warn me, as the detectives had already entered my
+house, but in time to screen me from their pursuit.
+
+"Her mistrust and terror-stricken hatred of you were told to me in an
+instant," Sauverand declared. "During the twenty minutes which we
+employed in throwing our assailants off the scent, she hurriedly sketched
+the main lines of the business and described to me in a few words the
+leading part which you were playing in it; and we then and there prepared
+a counter-attack upon you, so that you might be suspected of complicity.
+
+"While I was sending a message to the Prefect of Police, Florence went
+home and hid under the cushions of your sofa the end of the stick
+which I had kept in my hand without thinking. It was an ineffective
+parry and missed its aim. But the fight had begun; and I threw myself
+into it headlong.
+
+"Monsieur, to understand my actions thoroughly, you must remember that I
+was a student, a man leading a solitary life, but also an ardent lover. I
+would have spent all my life in work, asking no more from fate than to
+see Marie at her window from time to time at night. But, once she was
+being persecuted, another man arose within me, a man of action, bungling,
+certainly, and inexperienced, but a man who was ready to stick at
+nothing, and who, not knowing how to save Marie Fauville, had no other
+object before him than to do away with that enemy of Marie's to whom he
+was entitled to ascribe all the misfortunes that had befallen the woman
+he loved.... This started the series of my attempts upon your life.
+Brought into your house, concealed in Florence's own rooms, I
+tried--unknown to her: that I swear--to poison you."
+
+He paused for an instant to mark the effect of his words, then went on:
+
+"Her reproaches, her abhorrence of such an act, would perhaps have moved
+me, but, I repeat, I was mad, quite mad; and your death seemed to me to
+imply Marie's safety. And, one morning, on the Boulevard Suchet, where I
+had followed you, I fired a revolver at you.
+
+"The same evening your motor car, tampered with by myself--remember,
+Florence's rooms are close to the garage--carried you, I hoped, to your
+death, together with Sergeant Mazeroux, your confederate.... That time
+again you escaped my vengeance. But an innocent man, the chauffeur who
+drove you, paid for you with his life; and Florence's despair was such
+that I had to yield to her entreaties and lay down my arms.
+
+"I myself, terrified by what I had done, shattered by the remembrance of
+my two victims, changed my plans and thought only of saving Marie by
+contriving her escape from prison....
+
+"I am a rich man. I lavished money upon Marie's warders, without,
+however, revealing my intentions. I entered into relations with the
+prison tradesmen and the staff of the infirmary. And every day, having
+procured a card of admission as a law reporter, I went to the law courts,
+to the examining magistrates' corridor, where I hoped to meet Marie, to
+encourage her with a look, a gesture, perhaps to slip a few words of
+comfort into her hand...."
+
+Sauverand moved closer to Don Luis.
+
+"Her martyrdom continued. You struck her a most terrible blow with that
+mysterious business of Hippolyte Fauville's letters. What did those
+letters mean? Where did they come from? Were we not entitled to
+attribute the whole plot to you, to you who introduced them into the
+horrible struggle?
+
+"Florence watched you, I may say, night and day. We sought for a clue, a
+glimmer of light in the darkness.... Well, yesterday morning, Florence
+saw Sergeant Mazeroux arrive. She could not overhear what he said to you,
+but she caught the name of a certain Langernault and the name of Damigni,
+the village where Langernault lived. She remembered that old friend of
+Hippolyte Fauville's. Were the letters not addressed to him and was it
+not in search of him that you were going off in the motor with Sergeant
+Mazeroux?...
+
+"Half an hour later we were in the train for Alençon. A carriage took us
+from the station to just outside Damigni, where we made our inquiries
+with every possible precaution. On learning what you must also know, that
+Langernault was dead, we resolved to visit his place, and we had
+succeeded in effecting an entrance when Florence saw you in the grounds.
+Wishing at all costs to avoid a meeting between you and myself, she
+dragged me across the lawn and behind the bushes. You followed us,
+however, and when a barn appeared in sight she pushed one of the doors
+which half opened and let us through. We managed to slip quickly through
+the lumber in the dark and knocked up against a ladder. This we climbed
+and reached a loft in which we took shelter. You entered at that
+moment....
+
+"You know the rest: how you discovered the two hanging skeletons; how
+your attention was drawn to us by an imprudent movement of Florence; your
+attack, to which I replied by brandishing the first weapon with which
+chance provided me; lastly, our flight through the window in the roof,
+under the fire of your revolver. We were free. But in the evening, in the
+train, Florence fainted. While bringing her to I perceived that one of
+your bullets had wounded her in the shoulder. The wound was slight and
+did not hurt her, but it was enough to increase the extreme tension of
+her nerves. When you saw us--at Le Mans station wasn't it?--she was
+asleep, with her head on my shoulder."
+
+Don Luis had not once interrupted the latter part of this narrative,
+which was told in a more and more agitated voice and quickened by an
+accent of profound truth. Thanks to a superhuman effort of attention, he
+noted Sauverand's least words and actions in his mind. And as these words
+were uttered and these actions performed, he received the impression of
+another woman who rose up beside the real Florence, a woman unspotted and
+innocent of all the shame which he had attributed to her on the strength
+of events.
+
+Nevertheless, he did not yet give in. How could Florence possibly be
+innocent? No, no, the evidence of his eyes, which had seen, and the
+evidence of his reason, which had judged, both rebelled against any such
+contention.
+
+He would not admit that Florence could suddenly be different from what
+she really was to him: a crafty, cunning, cruel, blood-thirsty monster.
+No, no, the man was lying with infernal cleverness. He put things with a
+skill amounting to genius, until it was no longer possible to
+differentiate between the false and the true, or to distinguish the light
+from the darkness.
+
+He was lying! He was lying! And yet how sweet were the lies he told! How
+beautiful was that imaginary Florence, the Florence compelled by destiny
+to commit acts which she loathed, but free of all crime, free of remorse,
+humane and pitiful, with her clear eyes and her snow-white hands! And how
+good it was to yield to this fantastic dream!
+
+Gaston Sauverand was watching the face of his former enemy. Standing
+close to Don Luis, his features lit up with the expression of
+feelings and passions which he no longer strove to check, he asked,
+in a low voice:
+
+"You believe me, don't you?"
+
+"No, I don't," said Perenna, hardening himself to resist the man's
+influence.
+
+"You must!" cried Sauverand, with a fierce outburst of violence. "You
+must believe in the strength of my love. It is the cause of everything.
+My hatred for you comes only from my love. Marie is my life. If she were
+dead, there would be nothing for me to do but die. Oh, this morning, when
+I read in the papers that the poor woman had opened her veins--and
+through your fault, after Hippolyte's letters accusing her--I did not
+want to kill you so much as to inflict upon you the most barbarous
+tortures! My poor Marie, what a martyrdom she must be enduring!...
+
+"As you were not back, Florence and I wandered about all morning to have
+news of her: first around the prison, next to the police office and the
+law courts. And it was there, in the magistrates' corridor, that I saw
+you. At that moment you were mentioning Marie Fauville's name to a number
+of journalists; and you told them that Marie Fauville was innocent; and
+you informed them of the evidence which you possessed in Marie's favour!
+
+"My hatred ceased then and there, Monsieur. In one second the enemy had
+become the ally, the master to whom one kneels. So you had had the
+wonderful courage to repudiate all your work and to devote yourself to
+Marie's rescue! I ran off, trembling with joy and hope, and, as I joined
+Florence, I shouted, 'Marie is saved! He proclaims her innocent! I must
+see him and speak to him!'...
+
+"We came back here. Florence refused to lay down her arms and begged me
+not to carry out my plan before your new attitude in the case was
+confirmed by deeds. I promised everything that she asked. But my mind was
+made up. And my will was still further strengthened when I had read your
+declaration in the newspaper. I would place Marie's fate in your hands
+whatever happened and without an hour's delay, I waited for your return
+and came up here."
+
+He was no longer the same man who had displayed such coolness at the
+commencement of the interview. Exhausted by his efforts and by a struggle
+that had lasted for weeks, costing him so much fruitless energy, he was
+now trembling; and clinging to Don Luis, with one of his knees on the
+chair beside which Don Luis was standing, he stammered:
+
+"Save her, I implore you! You have it in your power. Yes, you can do
+anything. I learnt to know you in fighting you. There was more than
+your genius defending you against me; there is a luck that protects
+you. You are different from other men. Why, the mere fact of your not
+killing me at once, though I had pursued you so savagely, the fact of
+your listening to the inconceivable truth of the innocence of all three
+of us and accepting it as admissible, surely these constitute an
+unprecedented miracle.
+
+"While I was waiting for you and preparing to speak to you, I received
+an intuition of it all!" he exclaimed. "I saw clearly that the man who
+was proclaiming Marie's innocence with nothing to guide him but his
+reason, I saw that this man alone could save her and that he would save
+her. Ah, I beseech you, save her--and save her at once. Otherwise it
+will be too late.
+
+"In a few days Marie will have ended her life. She cannot go on living in
+prison. You see, she means to die. No obstacle can prevent her. Can any
+one be prevented from committing suicide? And how horrible if she were to
+die!... Oh, if the law requires a criminal I will confess anything that I
+am asked to. I will joyfully accept every charge and pay every penalty,
+provided that Marie is free! Save her!... I did not know, I do not yet
+know the best thing to be done! Save her from prison and death, save her,
+for God's sake, save her!"
+
+Tears flowed down his anguish-stricken face. Florence also was crying,
+bowed down with sorrow. And Perenna suddenly felt the most terrible dread
+steal over him.
+
+Although, ever since the beginning of the interview, a fresh conviction
+had gradually been mastering him, it was only as it were a glance that he
+became aware of it. Suddenly he perceived that his belief in Sauverand's
+words was unrestricted, and that Florence was perhaps not the loathsome
+creature that he had had the right to think, but a woman whose eyes did
+not lie and whose face and soul were alike beautiful.
+
+Suddenly he learnt that the two people before him, as well as Marie
+Fauville, for love of whom they had fought so unskilful a fight, were
+imprisoned in an iron circle which their efforts would not succeed in
+breaking. And that circle traced by an unknown hand he, Perenna, had
+drawn tighter around them with the most ruthless determination.
+
+"If only it is not too late!" he muttered.
+
+He staggered under the shock of the sensations and ideas that crowded
+upon him. Everything clashed in his brain with tragic violence:
+certainty, joy, dismay, despair, fury. He was struggling in the clutches
+of the most hideous nightmare; and he already seemed to see a detective's
+heavy hand descending on Florence's shoulder.
+
+"Come away! Come away!" he cried, starting up in alarm. "It is madness
+to remain!"
+
+"But the house is surrounded," Sauverand objected.
+
+"And then? Do you think that I will allow for a second--? No, no, come!
+We must fight side by side. I shall still entertain some doubts, that is
+certain. You must destroy them; and we will save Mme. Fauville."
+
+"But the detectives round the house?"
+
+"We'll manage them."
+
+"Weber, the deputy chief?"
+
+"He's not here. And as long as he's not here I'll take everything on
+myself. Come, follow me, but at some little distance. When I give the
+signal and not till then--"
+
+He drew the bolt and turned the handle of the door. At that moment some
+one knocked. It was the butler.
+
+"Well?" asked Don Luis. "Why am I disturbed?"
+
+"The deputy chief detective, M. Weber, is here, sir."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN
+
+ROUTED
+
+
+Don Luis had certainly expected this formidable blow; and yet it appeared
+to take him unawares, and he repeated more than once:
+
+"Ah, Weber is here! Weber is here!"
+
+All his buoyancy left him, and he felt like a retreating army which,
+after almost making good its escape, suddenly finds itself brought to a
+stop by a steep mountain. Weber was there--that is to say, the chief
+leader of the enemies, the man who would be sure to plan the attack and
+the resistance in such a manner as to dash Perenna's hopes to the ground.
+With Weber at the head of the detectives, any attempt to force a way out
+would have been absurd.
+
+"Did you let him in?" he asked.
+
+"You did not tell me not to, sir."
+
+"Is he alone?"
+
+"No, sir, the deputy chief has six men with him. He has left them in the
+courtyard."
+
+"And where is he?"
+
+"He asked me to take him to the first floor. He expected to find you in
+your study, sir."
+
+"Does he know now that I am with Sergeant Mazeroux and Mlle. Levasseur?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+Perenna thought for a moment and then said:
+
+"Tell him that you have not found me and that you are going to look for
+me in Mlle. Levasseur's rooms. Perhaps he will go with you. All the
+better if he does."
+
+And he locked the door again.
+
+The struggle through which he had just passed did not show itself on his
+face; and, now that all was lost, now that he was called upon to act, he
+recovered that wonderful composure which never abandoned him at decisive
+moments. He went up to Florence. She was very pale and was silently
+weeping. He said:
+
+"You must not be frightened, Mademoiselle. If you obey me implicitly, you
+will have nothing to fear."
+
+She did not reply and he saw that she still mistrusted him. And he almost
+rejoiced at the thought that he would compel her to believe in him.
+
+"Listen to me," he said to Sauverand. "In case I should not succeed after
+all, there are still several things which you must explain."
+
+"What are they?" asked Sauverand, who had lost none of his coolness.
+
+Then, collecting all his riotous thoughts, resolved to omit nothing, but
+at the same time to speak only what was essential, Don Luis asked, in a
+calm voice:
+
+"Where were you on the morning before the murder, when a man carrying an
+ebony walking-stick and answering to your description entered the Café du
+Pont-Neuf immediately after Inspector Vérot?"
+
+"At home."
+
+"Are you sure that you did not go out?"
+
+"Absolutely sure. And I am also sure that I have never been to the Café
+du Pont-Neuf, of which I had never even heard."
+
+"Good. Next question. Why, when you learned all about this business, did
+you not go to the Prefect of Police or the examining magistrate? It would
+have been simpler for you to give yourself up and tell the exact truth
+than to engage in this unequal fight."
+
+"I was thinking of doing so. But I at once realized that the plot hatched
+against me was so clever that no bare statement of the truth would have
+been enough to convince the authorities. They would never have believed
+me. What proof could I supply? None at all--whereas, on the other hand,
+the proofs against us were overwhelming and undeniable. Were not the
+marks of the teeth evidence of Marie's undoubted guilt? And were not my
+silence, my flight, the shooting of Chief Inspector Ancenis so many
+crimes? No, if I would rescue Marie, I must remain free."
+
+"But she could have spoken herself?"
+
+"And confessed our love? Apart from the fact that her womanly modesty
+would have prevented her, what good would it have done? On the contrary,
+it meant lending greater weight to the accusation. That was just what
+happened when Hippolyte Fauville's letters, appearing one by one,
+revealed to the police the as yet unknown motives of the crimes imputed
+to us. We loved each other."
+
+"How do you explain the letters?"
+
+"I can't explain them. We did not know of Fauville's jealousy. He kept it
+to himself. And then, again, why did he suspect us? What can have put it
+into his head that we meant to kill him? Where did his fears, his
+nightmares, come from? It is a mystery. He wrote that he had letters of
+ours in his possession: what letters?"
+
+"And the marks of the teeth, those marks which were undoubtedly made by
+Mme. Fauville?"
+
+"I don't know. It is all incomprehensible."
+
+"You don't know either what she can have done after leaving the opera
+between twelve and two in the morning?"
+
+"No. She was evidently lured into a trap. But how and by whom? And why
+does she not say what she was doing? More mystery."
+
+"You were seen that evening, the evening of the murders, at Auteuil
+station. What were you doing there?"
+
+"I was going to the Boulevard Suchet and I passed under Marie's windows.
+Remember that it was a Wednesday. I came back on the following Wednesday,
+and, still knowing nothing of the tragedy or of Marie's arrest, I came
+back again on the second Wednesday, which was the evening on which you
+found out where I lived and informed Sergeant Mazeroux against me."
+
+"Another thing. Did you know of the Mornington inheritance?"
+
+"No, nor Florence either; and we have every reason to think that Marie
+and her husband knew no more about it than we did."
+
+"That barn at Damigni: was it the first time that you had entered it?"
+
+"Yes; and our astonishment at the sight of the two skeletons hanging from
+the rafters equalled yours."
+
+Don Luis was silent. He cast about for a few seconds longer to see if he
+had any more questions to ask. Then he said:
+
+"That is all I wanted to know. Are you, on your side, certain that
+everything that is necessary has been said?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"This is a serious moment. It is possible that we may not meet again. Now
+you have not given me a single proof of your statements."
+
+"I have told you the truth. To a man like yourself, the truth is enough.
+As for me, I am beaten. I give up the struggle, or, rather, I place
+myself under your orders. Save Marie."
+
+"I will save the three of you," said Perenna. "The fourth of the
+mysterious letters is to make its appearance to-morrow: that leaves ample
+time for us to lay our heads together and study the matter fully. And
+to-morrow evening I shall go there and, with the help of all that you
+have told me, I shall prove the innocence of you all. The essential thing
+is to be present at the meeting on the twenty-fifth of May."
+
+"Please think only of Marie. Sacrifice me, if necessary. Sacrifice
+Florence even. I am speaking in her name as well as my own when I tell
+you that it is better to desert us than to jeopardize the slightest
+chance of success."
+
+"I will save the three of you," Perenna repeated.
+
+He pushed the door ajar and, after listening outside, said:
+
+"Don't move. And don't open the door to anybody, on any pretext whatever,
+before I come to fetch you. I shall not be long."
+
+He locked the door behind him and went down to the first floor. He did
+not feel those high spirits which usually cheered him on the eve of his
+great battles. This time, Florence Levasseur's life and liberty were at
+stake; and the consequences of a defeat seemed to him worse than death.
+
+Through the window on the landing he saw the detectives guarding the
+courtyard. He counted six of them. And he also saw the deputy chief at
+one of the windows of his study, watching the courtyard and keeping in
+touch with his detectives.
+
+"By Jove!" he thought, "he's sticking to his post. It will be a tough
+job. He suspects something. However, let's make a start!"
+
+He went through the drawing-room and entered his study. Weber saw him.
+The two enemies were face to face.
+
+There was a few seconds' silence before the duel opened, the duel which
+was bound to be swift and vigorous, without the least sign of weakness or
+distraction on either side. It could not last longer than three minutes.
+
+The deputy chief's face bore an expression of mingled joy and anxiety.
+For the first time he had permission, he had orders, to fight that
+accursed Don Luis, against whom he had never yet been able to satisfy
+his hatred. And his delight was all the greater because he held every
+trump, whereas Don Luis had put himself in the wrong by defending
+Florence Levasseur and tampering with the girl's portrait. On the other
+hand, Weber did not forget that Don Luis was identical with Arsène
+Lupin; and this consideration caused him a certain uneasiness. He was
+obviously thinking:
+
+"The least blunder, and I'm done for."
+
+He crossed swords with a jest.
+
+"I see that you were not in Mlle. Levasseur's lodge, as your man
+pretended."
+
+"My man spoke in accordance with my instructions, I was in my bedroom,
+upstairs. But I wanted to finish the job before I came down."
+
+"And is it done?"
+
+"It's done. Florence Levasseur and Gaston Sauverand are in my room,
+gagged and bound. You have only to accept delivery of the goods."
+
+"Gaston Sauverand!" cried Weber. "Then it was he who was seen coming in?"
+
+"Yes. He was simply living with Florence Levasseur, whose lover he is."
+
+"Oho!" said the deputy chief, in a bantering tone. "Her lover!"
+
+"Yes; and when Sergeant Mazeroux brought Florence Levasseur to my room,
+to question her out of hearing of the servants, Sauverand, foreseeing the
+arrest of his mistress, had the audacity to join us. He tried to rescue
+her from our hands."
+
+"And you checkmated him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+It was clear that the deputy chief did not believe one word of the story.
+He knew through M. Desmalions and Mazeroux that Don Luis was in love with
+Florence; and Don Luis was not the man even through jealousy to hand over
+a woman whom he loved. He increased his attention.
+
+"Good business!" he said. "Take me up to your room. Was it a hard
+struggle?"
+
+"Not very. I managed to disarm the scoundrel. All the same, Mazeroux got
+stabbed in the thumb."
+
+"Nothing serious?"
+
+"Oh, dear, no; but he has gone to have his wound dressed at the
+chemist's."
+
+The deputy chief stopped, greatly surprised.
+
+"What! Isn't Mazeroux in your room with the two prisoners?"
+
+"I never told you that he was."
+
+"No, but your butler--"
+
+"The butler made a mistake. Mazeroux went out a few minutes before
+you came."
+
+"It's funny," said Weber, watching Don Luis closely, "but my men all
+think he's here. They haven't seen him go out."
+
+"They haven't seen him go out?" echoed Don Luis, pretending to feel
+anxious. "But, then, where can he be? He told me he wanted to have his
+thumb seen to."
+
+The deputy chief was growing more and more suspicious. Evidently Perenna
+was trying to get rid of him by sending him in search of the sergeant.
+
+"I will send one of my men," he said. "Is the chemist's near?"
+
+"Just around the corner, in the Rue de Bourgogne. Besides, we can
+telephone."
+
+"Oh, we can telephone!" muttered Weber.
+
+He was quite at a loss and looked like a man who does not know what is
+going to happen next. He moved slowly toward the instrument, while
+barring the way to Don Luis to prevent his escaping. Don Luis
+therefore retreated to the telephone box, as if forced to do so, took
+down the receiver with one hand, and, calling, "Hullo! Hullo! Saxe,
+2409," with the other hand, which was resting against the wall, he cut
+one of the wires with a pair of pliers which he had taken off the
+table as he passed.
+
+"Hullo! Are you there? Is that 2409? Are you the
+chemist?... Hullo!... Sergeant Mazeroux of the detective service is with
+you, isn't he? Eh? What? What do you say? But it's too awful! Are you
+sure? Do you mean to say the wound is poisoned?"
+
+Without thinking what he was doing, the deputy chief pushed Don Luis
+aside and took hold of the receiver. The thought of the poisoned wound
+was too much for him.
+
+"Are you there?" he cried, keeping an eye on Don Luis and motioning to
+him not to go away. "Are you there? ... Eh? ... It's Deputy Chief Weber,
+of the detective office, speaking.... Hullo! Are you there? ... I want to
+know about Sergeant Mazeroux. ... Are you there?. . . Oh, hang it, why
+don't you answer!"
+
+Suddenly he let go the instrument, looked at the wires, perceived that
+they had been cut, and turned round, showing a face that clearly
+expressed the thought in his mind.
+
+"That's done it. I've been tricked!"
+
+Perenna was standing a couple of yards behind him, leaning carelessly
+against the woodwork of the arch, with his left hand passed between
+his back and the woodwork. He was smiling, smiling pleasantly, kindly,
+and genially:
+
+"Don't move!" he said, with a gesture of his right hand.
+
+Weber, more frightened by that smile than he would have been by threats,
+took good care not to move.
+
+"Don't move," repeated Don Luis, in a very queer voice. "And, whatever
+you do, don't be alarmed. You shan't be hurt, I promise you. Just five
+minutes in a dark cell for a naughty little boy. Are you ready? One two,
+three! Bang!"
+
+He stood aside and pressed the button that worked the iron curtain. The
+heavy panel came crashing to the floor. The deputy chief was a prisoner.
+
+"That's a hundred millions gone to Jericho," grinned Don Luis. "A pretty
+trick, but a bit expensive. Good-bye, Mornington inheritance! Good-bye,
+Don Luis Perenna! And now, my dear Lupin, if you don't want Weber to take
+his revenge, beat a retreat and in good order. One, two; left, right;
+left, right!"
+
+As he spoke, he locked, on the inside, the folding doors between the
+drawing-room and the first-floor anteroom; then, returning to his study,
+he locked the door between this room and the drawing-room.
+
+The deputy chief was banging at the iron curtain with all his might and
+shouting so loud that they were bound to hear him outside through the
+open window.
+
+"You're not making half enough noise, deputy!" cried Don Luis. "Let's see
+what we can do."
+
+He took his revolver and fired off three bullets, one of which broke a
+pane. Then he quickly left his study by a small, massive door, which he
+carefully closed behind him. He was now in a secret passage which ran
+round both rooms and ended at another door leading to the anteroom. He
+opened this door wide and was thus able to hide behind it.
+
+Attracted by the shots and the noise, the detectives were already rushing
+through the hall and up the staircase. When they reached the first floor
+and had gone through the anteroom, as the drawing-room doors were locked,
+the only outlet open to them was the passage, at the end of which they
+could hear the deputy shouting. They all six darted down it.
+
+When the last of them had vanished round the bend in the passage, Don
+Luis softly pushed back the door that concealed him and locked it
+like the rest. The six detectives were as safely imprisoned as the
+deputy chief.
+
+"Bottled!" muttered Don Luis. "It will take them quite five minutes to
+realize the situation, to bang at the locked doors, and to break down one
+of them. In five minutes we shall be far away."
+
+He met two of his servants running up with scared faces, the chauffeur
+and the butler. He flung each of them a thousand-franc note and said to
+the chauffeur:
+
+"Set the engine going, there's a sportsman, and let no one near the
+machine to block my way. Two thousand francs more for each of you if I
+get off in the motor. Don't stand staring at me like that: I mean what I
+say. Two thousand francs apiece: it's for you to earn it. Look sharp!"
+
+He himself went up the second flight without undue haste, remaining
+master of himself. But, on the last stair, he was seized with such a
+feeling of elation that he shouted:
+
+"Victory! The road is clear!"
+
+The boudoir door was opposite. He opened it and repeated:
+
+"Victory! But there's not a second to lose. Follow me."
+
+He entered. A stifled oath escaped his lips.
+
+The room was empty.
+
+"What!" he stammered. "What does this mean? They're gone.... Florence--"
+
+Certainly, unlikely though it seemed, he had hitherto supposed that
+Sauverand possessed a false key to the lock. But how could they both have
+escaped, in the midst of the detectives? He looked around him. And then
+he understood.
+
+In the recess containing the window, the lower part of the wall, which
+formed a very wide box underneath the casement, had the top of its
+woodwork raised and resting against the panes, exactly like the lid of a
+chest. And inside the open chest he saw the upper rungs of a narrow
+descending ladder.
+
+In a second, Don Luis conjured up the whole story of the past: Count
+Malonyi's ancestress hiding in the old family mansion, escaping the
+search of the perquisitors, and in this way living throughout the
+revolutionary troubles. Everything was explained. A passage contrived in
+the thickness of the wall led to some distant outlet. And this was how
+Florence used to come and go through the house; this was how Gaston went
+in and out in all security; and this also was how both of them were able
+to enter his room and surprise his secrets.
+
+"Why not have told me?" he wondered. "A lingering suspicion, I suppose--"
+
+But his eyes were attracted by a sheet of paper on the table. With
+a feverish hand, Gaston Sauverand had scribbled the following lines
+in pencil:
+
+"We are trying to escape so as not to compromise you. If we are caught,
+it can't be helped. The great thing is that you should be free. All our
+hopes are centred in you."
+
+Below were two words written by Florence: "Save Marie."
+
+"Ah," he murmured, disconcerted by the turn of events and not knowing
+what to decide, "why, oh, why did they not obey my instructions? We are
+separated now--"
+
+Downstairs the detectives were battering at the door of the passage in
+which they were imprisoned. Perhaps he would still have time to reach his
+motor before they succeeded in breaking down the door. Nevertheless, he
+preferred to take the same road as Florence and Sauverand, which gave him
+the hope of saving them and of rescuing them in case of danger.
+
+He therefore stepped over the side of the chest, placed his foot on the
+top rung and went down. Some twenty bars brought him to the middle of the
+first floor. Here, by the light of his electric lantern, he entered a
+sort of low, vaulted tunnel, dug, as he thought, in the wall, and so
+narrow that he could only walk along it sideways.
+
+Thirty yards farther there was a bend, at right angles; and next, at the
+end of another tunnel of the same length, a trapdoor, which stood open,
+revealing the rungs of a second ladder. He did not doubt that the
+fugitives had gone this way.
+
+It was quite light at the bottom. Here he found himself in a cupboard
+which was also open and which, on ordinary occasions, must have been
+covered by curtains that were now drawn. This cupboard faced a bed that
+filled almost the whole space of an alcove. On passing through the alcove
+and reaching a room from which it was separated only by a slender
+partition, to his great surprise, he recognized Florence's sitting-room.
+
+This time, he knew where he was. The exit, which was not secret, as it
+led to the Place du Palais-Bourbon, but nevertheless very safe, was that
+which Sauverand generally used when Florence admitted him.
+
+Don Luis therefore went through the entrance hall and down the steps and,
+a little way before the pantry, came upon the cellar stairs. He ran down
+these and soon recognized the low door that served to admit the
+wine-casks. The daylight filtered in through a small, grated spy-hole. He
+groped till he found the lock. Glad to have come to the end of his
+expedition, he opened the door.
+
+"Hang it all!" he growled, leaping back and clutching at the lock, which
+he managed to fasten again.
+
+Two policemen in uniform were guarding the exit, two policemen who had
+tried to seize him as he appeared.
+
+Where did those two men come from? Had they prevented the escape of
+Sauverand and Florence? But in that case Don Luis would have met the two
+fugitives, as he had come by exactly the same road as they.
+
+"No," he thought, "they effected their flight before the exit was
+watched. But, by Jove! it's my turn to clear out; and that's not easy.
+Shall I let myself be caught in my burrow like a rabbit?"
+
+He went up the cellar stairs again, intending to hasten matters, to slip
+into the courtyard through the outhouses, to jump into his motor, and to
+clear a way for himself. But, when he was just reaching the yard, near
+the coach-house, he saw four detectives, four of those whom he had
+imprisoned, come up waving their arms and shouting. And he also became
+aware of a regular uproar near the main gate and the porter's lodge. A
+number of men were all talking together, raising their voices in violent
+discussion.
+
+Perhaps he might profit by this opportunity to steal outside under cover
+of the disorder. At the risk of being seen, he put out his head. And what
+he saw astounded him.
+
+Gaston Sauverand stood with his back to the wall of the lodge, surrounded
+by policemen and detectives who pushed and insulted him. The handcuffs
+were on his wrists.
+
+Gaston Sauverand a prisoner! What had happened between the two fugitives
+and the police?
+
+His heart wrung with anguish, he leaned out still farther. But he did not
+see Florence. The girl had no doubt succeeded in escaping.
+
+Weber's appearance on the steps and the deputy chief's first words
+confirmed his hopes. Weber was mad with rage. His recent captivity and
+the humiliation of his defeat exasperated him.
+
+"Ah!" he roared, as he saw the prisoner. "There's one of them, at any
+rate! Gaston Sauverand! Choice game, that!... Where did you catch him?"
+
+"On the Place du Palais-Bourbon," said one of the inspectors. "We saw him
+slinking out through the cellar door."
+
+"And his accomplice, the Levasseur girl?"
+
+"We missed her, Deputy Chief. She was the first out."
+
+"And Don Luis? You haven't let him leave the house, I hope? I gave
+orders."
+
+"He tried to get out through the cellar door five minutes after."
+
+"Who said so?"
+
+"One of the men in uniform posted outside the door."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"The beggar went back into the cellar."
+
+Weber gave a shout of delight.
+
+"We've got him! And it's a nasty business for him! Charge of resisting
+the police!... Complicity ... We shall be able to unmask him at last.
+Tally-ho, my lads, tally-ho! Two men to guard Sauverand, four men on the
+Place du Palais-Bourbon, revolver in hand. Two men on the roof. The rest
+stick to me. We'll begin with the Levasseur girl's room and we'll take
+his room next. Hark, forward, my lads!"
+
+Don Luis did not wait for the enemies' attack. Knowing their intentions,
+he beat a retreat, unseen, toward Florence's rooms. Here, as Weber did
+not yet know the short cut through the outhouses, he had time to make
+sure that the trapdoor was in perfect working order, and that there was
+no reason why they should discover the existence of a secret cupboard at
+the back of the alcove, behind the curtains of the bed.
+
+Once inside the passage, he went up the first staircase, followed the
+long corridor contrived in the wall, climbed the ladder leading to the
+boudoir, and, perceiving that this second trapdoor fitted the woodwork so
+closely that no one could suspect anything, he closed it over him. A few
+minutes later he heard the noise of men making a search above his head.
+
+And so, on the twenty-fourth of May, at five o'clock in the afternoon,
+the position was as follows: Florence Levasseur with a warrant out
+against her, Gaston Sauverand in prison, Marie Fauville in prison and
+refusing all food, and Don Luis, who believed in their innocence and who
+alone could have saved them, Don Luis was being blockaded in his own
+house and hunted down by a score of detectives.
+
+As for the Mornington inheritance, there could be no more question of
+that, because the legatee, in his turn, had set himself in open rebellion
+against society.
+
+"Capital!" said Don Luis, with a grin. "This is life as I understand it.
+The question is a simple one and may be put in different ways. How can a
+wretched, unwashed beggar, with not a penny in his pocket, make a fortune
+in twenty-four hours without setting foot outside his hovel? How can a
+general, with no soldiers and no ammunition left, win a battle which he
+has lost? In short, how shall I, Arsène Lupin, manage to be present
+to-morrow evening at the meeting which will be held on the Boulevard
+Suchet and to behave in such a way as to save Marie Fauville, Florence
+Levasseur, Gaston Sauverand, and my excellent friend Don Luis Perenna in
+the bargain?"
+
+Dull blows came from somewhere. The men must be hunting the roofs and
+sounding the walls.
+
+Don Luis stretched himself flat on the floor, hid his face in his folded
+arms and, shutting his eyes, murmured:
+
+"Let's think."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE
+
+"HELP!"
+
+
+When Lupin afterward told me this episode of the tragic story, he said,
+not without a certain self-complacency:
+
+"What astonished me then, and what astonishes me still, as one of the
+most amazing victories on which I am entitled to pride myself, is that I
+was able to admit Sauverand and Marie Fauville's innocence on the spot,
+as a problem solved once and for all. It was a first-class performance, I
+swear, and surpassed the most famous deductions of the most famous
+investigators both in psychological value and in detective merit.
+
+"After all, taking everything into account, there was not the shadow of a
+fresh fact to enable me to alter the verdict. The charges accumulated
+against the two prisoners were the same, and were so grave that no
+examining magistrate would have hesitated for a second to commit them for
+trial, nor any jury to bring them in guilty. I will not speak of Marie
+Fauville: you had only to think of the marks of her teeth to be
+absolutely certain. But Gaston Sauverand, the son of Victor Sauverand and
+consequently the heir of Cosmo Mornington--Gaston Sauverand, the man with
+the ebony walking-stick and the murderer of Chief Inspector Ancenis--was
+he not just as guilty as Marie Fauville, incriminated with her by the
+mysterious letters, incriminated by the very revelation of the husband
+whom they had killed?
+
+"And yet why did that sudden change take place in me?" he asked. "Why did
+I go against the evidence? Why did I credit an incredible fact? Why did I
+admit the inadmissible? Why? Well, no doubt, because truth has an accent
+that rings in the ears in a manner all its own. On the one side, every
+proof, every fact, every reality, every certainty; on the other, a story,
+a story told by one of the three criminals, and therefore, presumptively,
+absurd and untrue from start to finish. But a story told in a frank
+voice, a clear, dispassionate, closely woven story, free from
+complications or improbabilities, a story which supplied no positive
+solution, but which, by its very honesty, obliged any impartial mind to
+reconsider the solution arrived at. I believed the story."
+
+The explanation which Lupin gave me was not complete. I asked:
+
+"And Florence Levasseur?"
+
+"Florence?"
+
+"Yes, you don't tell me what you thought. What was your opinion about
+her? Everything tended to incriminate her not only in your eyes, because,
+logically speaking, she had taken part in all the attempts to murder you,
+but also in the eyes of the police. They knew that she used to pay
+Sauverand clandestine visits at his house on the Boulevard
+Richard-Wallace. They had found her photograph in Inspector Vérot's
+memorandum-book, and then--and then all the rest: your accusations, your
+certainties. Was all that modified by Sauverand's story? To your mind,
+was Florence innocent or guilty?"
+
+He hesitated, seemed on the point of replying directly and frankly to my
+question, but could not bring himself to do so, and said:
+
+"I wished to have confidence. In order to act, I must have full and
+entire confidence, whatever doubts might still assail me, whatever
+darkness might still enshroud this or that part of the adventure. I
+therefore believed. And, believing, I acted according to my belief."
+
+Acting, to Don Luis Perenna, during those hours of forced inactivity,
+consisted solely in perpetually repeating to himself Gaston Sauverand's
+account of the events. He tried to reconstitute it in all its details, to
+remember the very least sentences, the apparently most insignificant
+phrases. And he examined those sentences, scrutinized those phrases one
+by one, in order to extract such particle of the truth as they contained.
+
+For the truth was there. Sauverand had said so and Perenna did not doubt
+it. The whole sinister affair, all that constituted the case of the
+Mornington inheritance and the tragedy of the Boulevard Suchet, all that
+could throw light upon the plot hatched against Marie Fauville, all that
+could explain the undoing of Sauverand and Florence--all this lay in
+Sauverand's story. Don Luis had only to understand, and the truth would
+appear like the moral which we draw from some obscure fable.
+
+Don Luis did not once deviate from his method. If any objection suggested
+itself to his mind, he at once replied:
+
+"Very well. It may be that I am wrong and that Sauverand's story will not
+enlighten me on any point capable of guiding me. It may be that the truth
+lies outside it. But am I in a position to get at the truth in any other
+way? All that I possess as an instrument of research, without attaching
+undue importance to certain gleams of light which the regular appearance
+of the mysterious letters has shed upon the case, all that I possess is
+Gaston Sauverand's story. Must I not make use of it?"
+
+And, once again, as when one follows a path by another person's tracks,
+he began to live through the adventure which Sauverand had been through.
+He compared it with the picture of it which he had imagined until then.
+The two were in opposition; but could not the very clash of their
+opposition be made to produce a spark of light?
+
+"Here is what he said," he thought, "and there is what I believed. What
+does the difference mean? Here is the thing that was, and there is the
+thing that appeared to be. Why did the criminal wish the thing that was
+to appear under that particular aspect? To remove all suspicion from him?
+But, in that case, was it necessary that suspicion should fall precisely
+on those on whom it did?"
+
+The questions came crowding one upon the other. He sometimes answered
+them at random, mentioning names and uttering words in succession, as
+though the name mentioned might be just that of the criminal, and the
+words uttered those which contained the unseen reality.
+
+Then at once he would take up the story again, as schoolboys do when
+parsing and analyzing a passage, in which each expression is
+carefully sifted, each period discussed, each sentence reduced to its
+essential value.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Hours and hours passed. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, he gave a
+start. He took out his watch. By the light of his electric lamp he saw
+that it was seventeen minutes to twelve.
+
+"So at seventeen minutes to twelve at night," he said, "I fathomed
+the mystery."
+
+He tried to control his emotion, but it was too great; and his nerves
+were so immensely staggered by the trial that he began to shed tears. He
+had caught sight of the appalling truth, all of a sudden, as when at
+night one half sees a landscape under a lightning-flash.
+
+There is nothing more unnerving than this sudden illumination when we
+have been groping and struggling in the dark. Already exhausted by his
+physical efforts and by the want of food, from which he was beginning to
+suffer, he felt the shock so intensely that, without caring to think a
+moment longer, he managed to go to sleep, or, rather, to sink into sleep,
+as one sinks into the healing waters of a bath.
+
+When he woke, in the small hours, alert and well despite the
+discomfort of his couch, he shuddered on thinking of the theory which
+he had accepted; and his first instinct was to doubt it. He had, so to
+speak, no time.
+
+All the proofs came rushing to his mind of their own accord and at once
+transformed the theory into one of those certainties which it would be
+madness to deny. It was that and nothing else. As he had foreseen, the
+truth lay recorded in Sauverand's story. And he had not been mistaken,
+either, in saying to Mazeroux that the manner in which the mysterious
+letters appeared had put him on the track of the truth.
+
+And the truth was terrible. He felt, at the thought of it, the same fears
+that had maddened Inspector Vérot when, already tortured by the poison,
+he stammered:
+
+"Oh, I don't like this, I don't like the look of this!... The whole thing
+has been planned in such an infernal manner!"
+
+Infernal was the word! And Don Luis remained stupefied at the revelation
+of a crime which looked as if no human brain could have conceived it.
+
+For two hours more he devoted all his mental powers to examining the
+situation from every point of view. He was not much disturbed about the
+result, because, being now in possession of the terrible secret, he had
+nothing more to do but make his escape and go that evening to the meeting
+on the Boulevard Suchet, where he would show them all how the murder was
+committed.
+
+But when, wishing to try his chance of escaping, he went up through the
+underground passage and climbed to the top of the upper ladder--that is
+to say, to the level of the boudoir--he heard through the trapdoor the
+voices of men in the room.
+
+"By Jove!" he said to himself, "the thing is not so simple as I thought!
+In order to escape the minions of the law I must first leave my prison;
+and here is at least one of the exits blocked. Let's look at the other."
+
+He went down to Florence's apartments and worked the mechanism,
+which consisted of a counterweight. The panel of the cupboard moved
+in the groove.
+
+Driven by horror and hoping to find some provisions which enable him to
+withstand a siege without being reduced to famine, he was about to pass
+through the alcove, behind the curtains, when he was stopped short by a
+sound of footsteps. Some one had entered the room.
+
+"Well, Mazeroux, have you spent the night here? Nothing new!"
+
+Don Luis recognized the Prefect of Police by his voice; and the question
+put by the Prefect told him, first, that Mazeroux had been released from
+the dark closet where he had bound him up, and, secondly, that the
+sergeant was in the next room. Fortunately, the sliding panel had worked
+without the least sound; and Don Luis was able to overhear the
+conversation between the two men.
+
+"No, nothing new, Monsieur le Préfet," replied Mazeroux.
+
+"That's funny. The confounded fellow must be somewhere. Or can he have
+got away over the roof?"
+
+"Impossible, Monsieur le Préfet," said a third voice, which Don Luis
+recognized as that of Weber, the deputy chief detective. "Impossible. We
+made certain yesterday, that unless he has wings--"
+
+"Then what do you think, Weber?"
+
+"I think, Monsieur le Préfet, that he is concealed in the house. This is
+an old house and probably contains some safe hiding-place--"
+
+"Of course, of course," said M. Desmalions, whom Don Luis, peeping
+through the curtains, saw walking to and fro in front of the alcove.
+"You're right; and we shall catch him in his burrow. Only, is it really
+necessary?"
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet!"
+
+"Well, you know my opinion on the subject, which is also the Prime
+Minister's opinion. Unearthing Lupin would be a blunder which we should
+end by regretting. After all, he's become an honest man, you know; he's
+useful to us and he does no harm--"
+
+"No harm, Monsieur le Préfet? Do you think so?" said Weber stiffly.
+
+M. Desmalions burst out laughing.
+
+"Oh, of course, yesterday's trick, the telephone trick! You must admit it
+was funny. The Premier had to hold his sides when I told him of it."
+
+"Upon my word, I see nothing to laugh at!"
+
+"No, but, all the same, the rascal is never at a loss. Funny or not, the
+trick was extraordinarily daring. To cut the telephone wire before your
+eyes and then blockade you behind that iron curtain! By the way,
+Mazeroux, you must get the telephone repaired this morning, so as to keep
+in touch with the office. Have you begun your search in these two rooms?"
+
+"As you ordered, Monsieur le Préfet. The deputy chief and I have been
+hunting round for the last hour."
+
+"Yes," said M. Desmalions, "that Florence Levasseur strikes me as a
+troublesome creature. She is certainly an accomplice. But what were her
+relations with Sauverand and what was her connection with Don Luis
+Perenna? That's what I should like to know. Have you discovered nothing
+in her papers?"
+
+"No, Monsieur le Préfet," said Mazeroux. "Nothing but bills and
+tradesmen's letters."
+
+"And you, Weber?"
+
+"I've found something very interesting, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+Weber spoke in a triumphant tone, and, in answer to M. Desmalions's
+question, went on:
+
+"This is a volume of Shakespeare, Monsieur le Préfet, Volume VIII. You
+will see that, contrary to the other volumes, the inside is empty and the
+binding forms a secret receptacle for hiding documents."
+
+"Yes. What sort of documents?"
+
+"Here they are: sheets of paper, blank sheets, all but three. One of
+them gives a list of the dates on which the mysterious letters were
+to appear."
+
+"Oho!" said M. Desmalions. "That's a crushing piece of evidence
+against Florence Levasseur. And also it tells us where Don Luis got
+his list from."
+
+Perenna listened with surprise: he had utterly forgotten this particular;
+and Gaston Sauverand had made no reference to it in his narrative. And
+yet it was a strange and serious detail. From whom had Florence received
+that list of dates?
+
+"And what's on the other two sheets?" asked M. Desmalions.
+
+Don Luis pricked up his ears. Those two other sheets had escaped his
+attention on the day of his interview with Florence in this room.
+
+"Here is one of them," said Weber.
+
+M. Desmalions took the paper and read:
+
+"Bear in mind that the explosion is independent of the letters, and that
+it will take place at three o'clock in the morning."
+
+"Yes," he said, "the famous explosion which Don Luis foretold and which
+is to accompany the fifth letter, as announced on the list of dates.
+Tush! We have plenty of time, as there have been only three letters and
+the fourth is due to-night. Besides, blowing up that house on the
+Boulevard Suchet would be no easy job, by Jove! Is that all?"
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet," said Weber, producing the third sheet, "would you
+mind looking at these lines drawn in pencil and enclosed in a large
+square containing some other smaller squares and rectangles of all sizes?
+Wouldn't you say that it was the plan of a house?"
+
+"Yes, I should."
+
+"It is the plan of the house in which we are," declared Weber solemnly.
+"Here you see the front courtyard, the main building, the porter's lodge,
+and, over there, Mlle. Levasseur's lodge. From this lodge, a dotted line,
+in red pencil, starts zigzagging toward the main building. The
+commencement of this line is marked by a little red cross which stands
+for the room in which we are, or, to be more correct, the alcove. You
+will see here something like the design of a chimney, or, rather, a
+cupboard--a cupboard recessed behind the bed and probably hidden by the
+curtains."
+
+"But, in that case, Weber," said M. Desmalions, "this dotted line must
+represent a passage leading from this lodge to the main building. Look,
+there is also a little red cross at the other end of the line."
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, there is another cross. We shall discover
+later for certain what position it marks. But, meanwhile, and acting on
+a mere guess, I have posted some men in a small room on the second floor
+where the last secret meeting between Don Luis, Florence Levasseur, and
+Gaston Sauverand was held yesterday. And, meanwhile, at any rate, we
+hold one end of the line and, through that very fact, we know Don Luis
+Perenna's retreat."
+
+There was a pause, after which the deputy chief resumed in a more and
+more solemn voice:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, yesterday I suffered a cruel outrage at the hands of
+that man. It was witnessed by our subordinates. The servants must be
+aware of it. The public will know of it before long. This man has brought
+about the escape of Florence Levasseur. He tried to bring about the
+escape of Gaston Sauverand. He is a ruffian of the most dangerous type.
+Monsieur le Préfet, I am sure that you will not refuse me leave to dig
+him out of his hole. Otherwise--otherwise, Monsieur le Préfet, I shall
+feel obliged to hand in my resignation."
+
+"With good reasons to back it up!" said the Prefect, laughing. "There's
+no doubt about it; you can't stomach the trick of the iron curtain. Well,
+go ahead! It's Don Luis's own lookout; he's brought it on himself.
+Mazeroux, ring me up at the office as soon as the telephone is put right.
+And both of you meet me at the Fauvilles' house this evening. Don't
+forget it's the night for the fourth letter."
+
+"There won't be any fourth letter, Monsieur le Préfet," said Weber.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because between this and then Don Luis will be under lock and key."
+
+"Oh, so you accuse Don Luis also of--"
+
+Don Luis did not wait to hear more. He softly retreated to the cupboard,
+took hold of the panel and pushed it back without a sound.
+
+So his hiding-place was known!
+
+"By Jingo," he growled, "this is a bit awkward! I'm in a nice plight!"
+
+He had run halfway along the underground passage, with the intention of
+reaching the other exit. But he stopped.
+
+"It's not worth while, as the exit's watched. Well, let's see; am I to
+let myself be collared? Wait a bit, let's see--"
+
+Already there came from the alcove below a noise of blows striking on the
+panel, the hollow sound of which had probably attracted the deputy
+chief's attention. And, as Weber was not compelled to take the same
+precautions as Don Luis, and seemed to be breaking down the panel without
+delaying to look for the mechanism, the danger was close at hand.
+
+"Oh, hang it all!" muttered Don Luis. "This is too silly. What shall I
+do? Have a dash at them? Ah, if I had all my strength!"
+
+But he was exhausted by want of food. His legs shook beneath him and his
+brain seemed to lack its usual clearness.
+
+The increasing violence of the blows in the alcove drove him, in spite of
+all, toward the upper exit; and, as he climbed the ladder, he moved his
+electric lantern over the stones of the wall and the wood of the
+trapdoor. He even tried to lift the door with his shoulder. But he again
+heard a sound of footsteps above his head. The men were still there.
+
+Then, consumed with fury and helpless, he awaited the deputy's coming.
+
+A crash came from below; its echo spread through the tunnel, followed by
+a tumult of voices.
+
+"That's it," he said to himself. "The handcuffs, the lockup, the cell!
+Good Lord, what luck--and what nonsense! And Marie Fauville, who's sure
+to do away with herself. And Florence--Florence--"
+
+Before extinguishing his lantern, he cast its light around him for the
+last time.
+
+At a couple of yards' distance from the ladder, about three quarters of
+the way up and set a little way back, there was a big stone missing from
+the inner wall, leaving a space just large enough to crouch in.
+
+Although the recess did not form much of a hiding-place, it was just
+possible that they might omit to inspect it. Besides, Don Luis had no
+choice. At all events, after putting out the light, he leaned toward the
+edge of the hole, reached it, and managed to scramble in by bending
+himself in two.
+
+Weber, Mazeroux, and their men were coming along. Don Luis propped
+himself against the back of his hiding-hole to avoid as far as possible
+the glare of the lanterns, of which he was beginning to see the gleams.
+And an amazing thing happened: the stone against which he was pushing
+toppled over slowly, as though moving on a pivot, and he fell backward
+into a second cavity situated behind it.
+
+He quickly drew his legs after him and the stone swung back as slowly as
+before, not, however, without sending down a quantity of small stones,
+crumbling from the wall and half covering his legs.
+
+"Well, well!" he chuckled. "Can Providence be siding with virtue and
+righteousness?"
+
+He heard Mazeroux's voice saying:
+
+"Nobody! And here's the end of the passage. Unless he ran away as we
+came--look, through the trapdoor at the top of this ladder."
+
+Weber replied:
+
+"Considering the slope by which we've come, it's certain that the
+trapdoor is on a level with the second floor. Well, the other little
+cross ought to mark the boudoir on the second floor, next to Don Luis's
+bedroom. That's what I supposed, and why I posted three of our men there.
+If he's tried to get out on that side, he's caught."
+
+"We've only got to knock," said Mazeroux. "Our men will find the trapdoor
+and let us out. If not, we will break it down."
+
+More blows echoed down the passage. Fifteen or twenty minutes after, the
+trapdoor gave way, and other voices now mingled with Weber's and
+Mazeroux's.
+
+During this time, Don Luis examined his domain and perceived how
+extremely small it was. The most that he could do was to sit in it. It
+was a gallery, or, rather, a sort of gut, a yard and a half long and
+ending in an orifice, narrower still, heaped up with bricks. The walls,
+besides, were formed of bricks, some of which were lacking; and the
+building-stones which these should have kept in place crumbled at the
+least touch. The ground was strewn with them.
+
+"By Jove!" thought Lupin, "I must not wriggle about too much, or I shall
+risk being buried alive! A pleasant prospect!"
+
+Not only this, but the fear of making a noise kept him motionless. As a
+matter of fact, he was close to two rooms occupied by the detectives,
+first the boudoir and then the study, for the boudoir, as he knew, was
+over that part of his study which included the telephone box.
+
+The thought of this suggested another. On reflection, remembering that he
+used sometimes to wonder how Count Malonyi's ancestress had managed to
+keep alive behind the curtain on the days when she had to hide there, he
+realized that there must have been a communication between the secret
+passage and what was now the telephone box, a communication too narrow to
+admit a person's body, but serving as a ventilating shaft.
+
+As a precaution, in case the secret passage was discovered, a stone
+concealed the upper aperture of this shaft. Count Malonyi must have
+closed up the lower end when he restored the wainscoting of the study.
+
+So there he was, imprisoned in the thickness of the walls, with no very
+definite intention beyond that of escaping from the clutches of the
+police. More hours passed.
+
+Gradually, tortured with hunger and thirst, he fell into a heavy sleep,
+disturbed by painful nightmares which he would have given much to be able
+to throw off. But he slept too deeply to recover consciousness until
+eight o'clock in the evening.
+
+When he woke up, feeling very tired, he saw his position in an
+unexpectedly hideous light and, at the same time, so accurately that,
+yielding to a sudden change of opinion marked by no little fear, he
+resolved to leave his hiding-place and give himself up. Anything was
+better than the torture which he was enduring and the dangers to which
+longer waiting exposed him.
+
+But, on turning round to reach the entrance to his hole, he perceived
+first that the stone did not swing over when merely pushed, and, next,
+after several attempts, that he could not manage to find the mechanism
+which no doubt worked the stone. He persisted. His exertions were all in
+vain. The stone did not budge. Only, at each exertion, a few bits of
+stone came crumbling from the upper part of the wall and still further
+narrowed the space in which he was able to move.
+
+It cost him a considerable effort to master his excitement and to
+say, jokingly:
+
+"That's capital! I shall be reduced now to calling for help. I, Arsène
+Lupin! Yes, to call in the help of those gentlemen of the police.
+Otherwise, the odds on my being buried alive will increase every minute.
+They're ten to one as it is!"
+
+He clenched his fists.
+
+"Hang it! I'll get out of this scrape by myself! Call for help? Not if
+I know it!"
+
+He summoned up all his energies to think, but his jaded brain gave him
+none but confused and disconnected ideas. He was haunted by Florence's
+image and by Marie Fauville's as well.
+
+"It's to-night that I'm to save them," he said to himself. "And I
+certainly will save them, as they are not guilty and as I know the real
+criminal. But how shall I set about it to succeed?"
+
+He thought of the Prefect of Police, of the meeting that was to take
+place at Fauville's house on the Boulevard Suchet. The meeting had begun.
+The police were watching the house. And this reminded him of the sheet of
+paper found by Weber in the eighth volume of Shakespeare's plays, and of
+the sentence written on it, which the Prefect had read out:
+
+"Bear in mind that the explosion is independent of the letters, and that
+it will take place at three o'clock in the morning."
+
+"Yes," thought Don Luis, accepting M. Desmalions's reasoning, "yes, in
+ten days' time. As there have been only three letters, the fourth will
+appear to-night; and the explosion will not take place until the fifth
+letter appears--that is in ten days from now."
+
+He repeated:
+
+"In ten days--with the fifth letter--in ten days--"
+
+And suddenly he gave a start of fright. A horrible vision had flashed
+across his mind, a vision only too real. The explosion was to occur that
+very night! And all at once, knowing that he knew the truth, all at
+once, in a revival of his usual clear-sightedness, he accepted the
+theory as certain.
+
+No doubt only three letters had appeared out of the mysterious darkness,
+but four letters ought to have appeared, because one of them had appeared
+not on the date fixed, but ten days later; and this for a reason which
+Don Luis knew. Besides, it was not a question of all this. It was not a
+question of seeking the truth amid this confusion of dates and letters,
+amid this intricate tangle in which no one could lay claim to any
+certainty,
+
+No; one thing alone stood out above the situation: the sentence, "Bear in
+mind that the explosion is independent of the letters." And, as the
+explosion was put down for the night of the twenty-fifth of May, it would
+occur that very night, at three o'clock in the morning!
+
+"Help! Help!" he cried.
+
+This time he did not hesitate. So far, he had had the courage to remain
+huddled in his prison and to wait for the miracle that might come to his
+assistance; but he preferred to face every danger and undergo every
+penalty rather than abandon the Prefect of Police, Weber, Mazeroux, and
+their companions to the death that threatened them.
+
+"Help! Help!"
+
+Fauville's house would be blown up in three or four hours. That he knew
+with the greatest certainty. Just as punctually as the mysterious letters
+had reached their destination in spite of all the obstacles in the way,
+so the explosion would occur at the hour named. The infernal artificer of
+the accursed work had wished it so. At three o'clock in the morning there
+would be nothing left of the Fauvilles' house.
+
+"Help! Help!"
+
+He recovered enough strength to raise desperate shouts and to make his
+voice carry beyond the stones and beyond the wainscoting.
+
+Then, when there seemed to be no answer to his call, he stopped
+and listened for a long time. There was not a sound. The silence
+was absolute.
+
+Thereupon a terrible anguish covered him with a cold sweat. Supposing the
+detectives had ceased to watch the upper floors and confined themselves
+to spending the night in the rooms on the ground floor?
+
+He madly took a brick and struck it repeatedly against the stone that
+closed the entrance, hoping that the noise would spread through the
+house. But an avalanche of small stones, loosened by the blows, at once
+fell upon him, knocking him down again and fixing him where he lay.
+
+"Help! Help!"
+
+More silence--a great, ruthless silence.
+
+"Help! Help!"
+
+He felt that his shouts did not penetrate the walls that stifled him.
+Besides, his voice was growing fainter and fainter, producing a hoarse
+groan that died away in his strained throat.
+
+He ceased his cries and again listened, with all his anxious attention,
+to the great silence that surrounded as with layers of lead the stone
+coffin in which he lay imprisoned. Still nothing, not a sound. No one
+would come, no one could come to his assistance.
+
+He continued to be haunted by Florence's name and image. And he thought
+also of Marie Fauville, whom he had promised to save. But Marie would die
+of starvation. And, like her, like Gaston Sauverand and so many others,
+he in his turn was the victim of this monstrous horror.
+
+An incident occurred to increase his dismay. All of a sudden his electric
+lantern, which he had left alight to dispel the terrors of the darkness,
+went out. It was eleven o'clock at night.
+
+He was overcome with a fit of giddiness. He could hardly breathe in the
+close and vitiated air. His brain suffered, as it were, a physical and
+exceedingly painful ailment, from the repetition of images that seemed to
+encrust themselves there; and it was always Florence's beautiful features
+or Marie's livid face. And, in his distraught brain, while Marie lay
+dying, he heard the explosion at the Fauvilles' house and saw the Prefect
+of Police and Mazeroux lying hideously mutilated, dead.
+
+A numbness crept over him. He fell into a sort of swoon, in which he
+continued to stammer confused syllables:
+
+"Florence--Marie--Marie--"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN
+
+THE EXPLOSION
+
+
+The fourth mysterious letter! The fourth of those letters "posted by the
+devil and delivered by the devil," as one of the newspapers expressed it!
+
+We all of us remember the really extraordinary agitation of the public as
+the night of the twenty-fifth of May drew near. And fresh news increased
+this interest to a yet higher degree.
+
+People heard in quick succession of the arrest of Sauverand, the flight
+of his accomplice, Florence Levasseur, Don Luis Perenna's secretary, and
+the inexplicable disappearance of Perenna himself, whom they insisted,
+for the best of reasons, on identifying with Arsène Lupin.
+
+The police, assured from this moment of victory and having nearly all the
+actors in the tragedy in their power, had gradually given way to
+indiscretion; and, thanks to the particulars revealed to this or that
+journalist, the public knew of Don Luis's change of attitude, suspected
+his passion for Florence Levasseur and the real cause of his
+right-about-face, and thrilled with excitement as they saw that
+astonishing figure enter upon a fresh struggle.
+
+What was he going to do? If he wanted to save the woman he loved from
+prosecution and to release Marie and Sauverand from prison, he would have
+to intervene some time that night, to take part, somehow or other, in the
+event at hand, and to prove the innocence of the three accomplices,
+either by arresting the invisible bearer of the fourth letter or by
+suggesting some plausible explanation. In short, he would have to be
+there; and that was interesting indeed!
+
+And then the news of Marie Fauville was not good. With unwavering
+obstinacy she persisted in her suicidal plans. She had to be artificially
+fed; and the doctors in the infirmary at Saint-Lazare did not conceal
+their anxiety. Would Don Luis Perenna arrive in time?
+
+Lastly, there was that one other thing, the threat of an explosion which
+was to blow up Hippolyte Fauville's house ten days after the delivery of
+the fourth letter, a really impressive threat when it was remembered that
+the enemy had never announced anything that did not take place at the
+stated hour. And, although it was still ten days--at least, so people
+thought--from the date fixed for the catastrophe, the threat made the
+whole business look more and more sinister.
+
+That evening, therefore, a great crowd made its way, through La Muette
+and Auteuil, to the Boulevard Suchet, a crowd coming not only from Paris,
+but also from the suburbs and the provinces. The spectacle was exciting,
+and people wanted to see.
+
+They saw only from a distance, for the police had barred the approaches
+a hundred yards from either side of the house and were driving into the
+ditches of the fortifications all those who managed to climb the
+opposite slope.
+
+The sky was stormy, with heavy clouds revealed at intervals by the light
+of a silver moon. There were lightning-flashes and peals of distant
+thunder. Men sang. Street-boys imitated the noises of animals. People
+formed themselves into groups on the benches and pavements and ate and
+drank while discussing the matter.
+
+A part of the night was spent in this way and nothing happened to reward
+the patience of the crowd, who began to wonder, somewhat wearily, if they
+would not do better to go home, seeing that Sauverand was in prison and
+that there was every chance that the fourth letter would not appear in
+the same mysterious way as the others.
+
+And yet they did not go: Don Luis Perenna was due to come!
+
+From ten o'clock in the evening the Prefect of Police and his secretary
+general, the chief detective and Weber, his deputy, Sergeant Mazeroux,
+and two detectives were gathered in the large room in which Fauville had
+been murdered. Fifteen more detectives occupied the remaining rooms,
+while some twenty others watched the roofs, the outside of the house, and
+the garden.
+
+Once again a thorough search had been made during the afternoon, with no
+better results than before. But it was decided that all the men should
+keep awake. If the letter was delivered anywhere in the big room, they
+wanted to know and they meant to know who brought it. The police do not
+recognize miracles.
+
+At twelve o'clock M. Desmalions had coffee served to his subordinates. He
+himself took two cups and never ceased walking from one end to the other
+of the room, or climbing the staircase that led to the attic, or going
+through the passage and hall. Preferring that the watch should be
+maintained under the most favourable conditions, he left all the doors
+opened and all the electric lights on.
+
+Mazeroux objected:
+
+"It has to be dark for the letter to come. You will remember, Monsieur le
+Préfet, that the other experiment was tried before and the letter was not
+delivered."
+
+"We will try it again," replied M. Desmalions, who, in spite of
+everything, was really afraid of Don Luis's interference, and increased
+his measures to make it impossible.
+
+Meanwhile, as the night wore on, the minds of all those present became
+impatient. Prepared for the angry struggle as they were, they longed for
+the opportunity to show their strength. They made desperate use of their
+ears and eyes.
+
+At one o'clock there was an alarm that showed the pitch which the nervous
+tension had reached. A shot was fired on the first floor, followed by
+shouts. On inquiry, it was found that two detectives, meeting in the
+course of a round, had not recognized each other, and one of them had
+discharged his revolver in the air to inform his comrades.
+
+In the meantime the crowd outside had diminished, as M. Desmalions
+perceived on opening the garden gate. The orders had been relaxed and
+sightseers were allowed to come nearer, though they were still kept at a
+distance from the pavement.
+
+Mazeroux said:
+
+"It is a good thing that the explosion is due in ten days' time and not
+to-night, Monsieur le Préfet; otherwise, all those good people would be
+in danger as well as ourselves."
+
+"There will be no explosion in ten days' time, any more than there will
+be a letter to-night," said M. Desmalions, shrugging his shoulders. And
+he added, "Besides, on that day, the orders will be strict."
+
+It was now ten minutes past two.
+
+At twenty-five minutes past, as the Prefect was lighting a cigar, the
+chief detective ventured to joke:
+
+"That's something you will have to do without, next time, Monsieur le
+Préfet. It would be too risky."
+
+"Next time," said M. Desmalions, "I shall not waste time in keeping
+watch. For I really begin to think that all this business with the
+letters is over."
+
+"You can never tell," suggested Mazeroux.
+
+A few minutes more passed. M. Desmalions had sat down. The others also
+were seated. No one spoke.
+
+And suddenly they all sprang up, with one movement, and the same
+expression of surprise.
+
+A bell had rung.
+
+They at once heard where the sound came from.
+
+"The telephone," M. Desmalions muttered.
+
+He took down the receiver.
+
+"Hullo! Who are you?"
+
+A voice answered, but so distant and so faint that he could only catch an
+incoherent noise and exclaimed:
+
+"Speak louder! What is it? Who are you?"
+
+The voice spluttered out a few syllables that seemed to astound him.
+
+"Hullo!" he said. "I don't understand. Please repeat what you said. Who
+is it speaking?"
+
+"Don Luis Perenna," was the answer, more distinctly this time.
+
+The Prefect made as though to hang up the receiver; and he growled:
+
+"It's a hoax. Some rotter amusing himself at our expense."
+
+Nevertheless, in spite of himself, he went on in a gruff voice:
+
+"Look here, what is it? You say you're Don Luis Perenna?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"What's the time?"
+
+"What's the time!"
+
+The Prefect made an angry gesture, not so much because of the
+ridiculous question as because he had really recognized Don Luis's
+voice beyond mistake.
+
+"Well?" he said, controlling himself. "What's all this about?
+Where are you?"
+
+"At my house, above the iron curtain, in the ceiling of my study."
+
+"In the ceiling!" repeated the Prefect, not knowing what to think.
+
+"Yes; and more or less done for, I confess."
+
+"We'll send and help you out," said M. Desmalions, who was beginning to
+enjoy himself.
+
+"Later on, Monsieur le Préfet. First answer me. Quickly! If not, I don't
+know that I shall have the strength. What's the time?"
+
+"Oh, look here!"
+
+"I beg of you--"
+
+"It's twenty minutes to three."
+
+"Twenty minutes to three!"
+
+It was as though Don Luis found renewed strength in a sudden fit of fear.
+His weak voice recovered its emphasis, and, by turns imperious,
+despairing, and beseeching, full of a conviction which he did his utmost
+to impart to M. Desmalions, he said:
+
+"Go away, Monsieur le Préfet! Go, all of you; leave the house. The house
+will be blown up at three o'clock. Yes, yes, I swear it will. Ten days
+after the fourth letter means now, because there has been a ten days'
+delay in the delivery of the letters. It means now, at three o'clock in
+the morning. Remember what was written on the sheet which Deputy Chief
+Weber handed you this morning: 'The explosion is independent of the
+letters. It will take place at three o'clock in the morning.' At three
+o'clock in the morning, to-day, Monsieur le Préfet!" The voice faltered
+and then continued:
+
+"Go away, please. Let no one remain in the house. You must believe me. I
+know everything about the business. And nothing can prevent the threat
+from being executed. Go, go, go! This is horrible; I feel that you do not
+believe me--and I have no strength left. Go away, every one of you!"
+
+He said a few more words which M. Desmalions could not make out. Then the
+voice ceased; and, though the Prefect still heard cries, it seemed to him
+that those cries were distant, as though the instrument were no longer
+within the reach of the mouth that uttered them.
+
+He hung up the receiver.
+
+"Gentlemen," he said, with a smile, "it is seventeen to three. In
+seventeen minutes we shall all be blown up together. At least, that is
+what our good friend Don Luis Perenna declares."
+
+In spite of the jokes with which this threat was met, there was a general
+feeling of uneasiness. Weber asked:
+
+"Was it really Don Luis, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+"Don Luis in person. He has gone to earth in some hiding-hole in his
+house, above the study; and his fatigue and privations seem to have
+unsettled him a little. Mazeroux, go and ferret him out--unless this is
+just some fresh trick on his part. You have your warrant."
+
+Sergeant Mazeroux went up to M. Desmalions. His face was pallid.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, did _he_ tell you that we were going to be
+blown up?"
+
+"He did. He relies on the note which M. Weber found in a volume of
+Shakespeare. The explosion is to take place to-night."
+
+"At three o'clock in the morning?"
+
+"At three o'clock in the morning--that is to say, in less than a quarter
+of an hour."
+
+"And do you propose to remain, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+"What next, Sergeant? Do you imagine that we are going to obey that
+gentleman's fancies?"
+
+Mazeroux staggered, hesitated, and then, despite all his natural
+deference, unable to contain himself, exclaimed:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, it's not a fancy. I have worked with Don Luis. I
+know the man. If he tells you that something is going to happen, it's
+because he has his reasons."
+
+"Absurd reasons."
+
+"No, no, Monsieur le Préfet," Mazeroux pleaded, growing more and more
+excited. "I swear that you must listen to him. The house will be blown
+up--he said so--at three o'clock. We have a few minutes left. Let us go.
+I entreat you, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"In other words, you want us to run away."
+
+"But it's not running away, Monsieur le Préfet. It's a simple precaution.
+After all, we can't risk--You, yourself, Monsieur le Préfet--"
+
+"That will do."
+
+"But, Monsieur le Préfet, as Don Luis said--"
+
+"That will do, I say!" repeated the Prefect harshly. "If you're afraid,
+you can take advantage of the order which I gave you and go off after
+Don Luis."
+
+Mazeroux clicked his heels together and, old soldier that he was,
+saluted:
+
+"I shall stay here, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+And he turned and went back to his place at a distance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Silence followed. M. Desmalions began to walk up and down the room, with
+his hands behind his back. Then, addressing the chief detective and the
+secretary general:
+
+"You are of my opinion, I hope?" he said.
+
+"Why, yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Well, of course! To begin with, that supposition is based on nothing
+serious. And, besides, we are guarded, aren't we? Bombs don't come
+tumbling on one's head like that. It takes some one to throw them. Well,
+how are they to come? By what way?"
+
+"Same way as the letters," the secretary general ventured to suggest.
+
+"What's that? Then you admit--?"
+
+The secretary general did not reply and M. Desmalions did not complete
+his sentence. He himself, like the others, experienced that same feeling
+of uneasiness which gradually, as the seconds sped past, was becoming
+almost intolerably painful.
+
+Three o'clock in the morning! ... The words kept on recurring to his
+mind. Twice he looked at his watch. There was twelve minutes left. There
+was ten minutes. Was the house really going to be blown up, by the mere
+effect of an infernal and all-powerful will?
+
+"It's senseless, absolutely senseless!" he cried, stamping his foot.
+
+But, on looking at his companions, he was amazed to see how drawn their
+faces were; and he felt his courage sink in a strange way. He was
+certainly not afraid; and the others were no more afraid than he. But all
+of them, from the chiefs to the simple detectives, were under the
+influence of that Don Luis Perenna whom they had seen accomplishing such
+extraordinary feats, and who had shown such wonderful ability throughout
+this mysterious adventure.
+
+Consciously or unconsciously, whether they wished it or no, they looked
+upon him as an exceptional being endowed with special faculties, a
+being of whom they could not think without conjuring up the image of
+the amazing Arsène Lupin, with his legend of daring, genius, and
+superhuman insight.
+
+And Lupin was telling them to fly. Pursued and hunted as he was, he
+voluntarily gave himself up to warn them of their danger. And the danger
+was immediate. Seven minutes more, six minutes more--and the house would
+be blown up.
+
+With great simplicity, Mazeroux went on his knees, made the sign of the
+cross, and said his prayers in a low voice. The action was so impressive
+that the secretary general and the chief detective made a movement as
+though to go toward the Prefect of Police.
+
+M. Desmalions turned away his head and continued his walk up and down the
+room. But his anguish increased; and the words which he had heard over
+the telephone rang in his ears; and all Perenna's authority, his ardent
+entreaties, his frenzied conviction--all this upset him. He had seen
+Perenna at work. He felt it borne in upon him that he had no right, in
+the present circumstances, to neglect the man's warning.
+
+"Let's go," he said.
+
+The words were spoken in the calmest manner; and it really seemed as if
+those who heard them regarded them merely as the sensible conclusion of
+a very ordinary state of affairs. They went away without hurry or
+disorder, not as fugitives, but as men deliberately obeying the dictates
+of prudence.
+
+They stood back at the door to let the Prefect go first.
+
+"No," he said, "go on; I'll follow you."
+
+He was the last out, leaving the electric light full on.
+
+In the hall he asked the chief detective to blow his whistle. When all
+the plain-clothesmen had assembled, he sent them out of the house
+together with the porter, and shut the door behind him. Then, calling the
+detectives who were watching the boulevard, he said:
+
+"Let everybody stand a good distance away; push the crowd as far back
+as you can; and be quick about it. We shall enter the house again in
+half an hour."
+
+"And you, Monsieur le Préfet?" whispered Mazeroux, "You won't remain
+here, I hope?"
+
+"No, that I shan't!" he said, laughing. "If I take our friend Perenna's
+advice at all, I may as well take it thoroughly!"
+
+"There is only two minutes left."
+
+"Our friend Perenna spoke of three o'clock, not of two minutes to
+three. So--"
+
+He crossed the boulevard, accompanied by his secretary general, the chief
+detective, and Mazeroux, and clambered up the slope of the fortifications
+opposite the house.
+
+"Perhaps we ought to stoop down," suggested Mazeroux.
+
+"Let's stoop, by all means," said the Prefect, still in a good humour.
+"But, honestly, if there's no explosion, I shall send a bullet through my
+head. I could not go on living after making myself look so ridiculous."
+
+"There will be an explosion, Monsieur le Préfet," declared Mazeroux.
+
+"What confidence you must have in our friend Don Luis!"
+
+"You have just the same confidence, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+They were silent, irritated by the wait, and struggling with the absurd
+anxiety that oppressed them. They counted the seconds singly, by the
+beating of their hearts. It was interminable.
+
+Three o'clock sounded from somewhere.
+
+"You see," grinned M. Desmalions, in an altered voice, "you see! There's
+nothing, thank goodness!"
+
+And he growled:
+
+"It's idiotic, perfectly idiotic! How could any one imagine such
+nonsense!"
+
+Another clock struck, farther away. Then the hour also rang from the roof
+of a neighbouring building.
+
+Before the third stroke had sounded they heard a kind of cracking, and,
+the next moment, came the terrible blast, complete, but so brief that
+they had only, so to speak, a vision of an immense sheaf of flames and
+smoke shooting forth enormous stones and pieces of wall, something like
+the grand finale of a fireworks display. And it was all over. The volcano
+had erupted.
+
+"Look sharp!" shouted the Prefect of Police, darting forward. "Telephone
+for the engines, quick, in case of fire!"
+
+He caught Mazeroux by the arm:
+
+"Run to my motor; you'll see her a hundred yards down the boulevard. Tell
+the man to drive you to Don Luis, and, if you find him, release him and
+bring him here."
+
+"Under arrest, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+"Under arrest? You're mad!"
+
+"But, if the deputy chief--"
+
+"The deputy chief will keep his mouth shut. I'll see to that. Be off!"
+
+Mazeroux fulfilled his mission, not with greater speed than if he had
+been sent to arrest Don Luis, for Mazeroux was a conscientious man, but
+with extraordinary pleasure. The fight which he had been obliged to wage
+against the man whom he still called "the chief" had often distressed him
+to the point of tears. This time he was coming to help him, perhaps to
+save his life.
+
+That afternoon the deputy chief had ceased his search of the house, by M.
+Desmalions's orders, as Don Luis's escape seemed certain, and left only
+three men on duty. Mazeroux found them in a room on the ground floor,
+where they were sitting up in turns. In reply to his questions, they
+declared that they had not heard a sound.
+
+He went upstairs alone, so as to have no witnesses to his interview with
+the governor, passed through the drawing-room and entered the study.
+
+Here he was overcome with anxiety, for, after turning on the light, the
+first glance revealed nothing to his eyes.
+
+"Chief!" he cried, repeatedly. "Where are you, Chief?"
+
+No answer.
+
+"And yet," thought Mazeroux, "as he telephoned, he can't be far away."
+
+In fact, he saw from where he stood that the receiver was hanging from
+its cord; and, going on to the telephone box, he stumbled over bits of
+brick and plaster that strewed the carpet. He then switched on the
+light in the box as well and saw a hand and arm hanging from the
+ceiling above him. The ceiling was broken up all around that arm. But
+the shoulder had not been able to pass through; and Mazeroux could not
+see the captive's head.
+
+He sprang on to a chair and reached the hand. He felt it and was
+reassured by the warmth of its touch.
+
+"Is that you, Mazeroux?" asked a voice that seemed to the sergeant to
+come from very far away.
+
+"Yes, it's I. You're not wounded, are you? Nothing serious?"
+
+"No, only stunned--and a bit faint--from hunger.... Listen to me."
+
+"I'm listening."
+
+"Open the second drawer on the left in my writing-desk.... You'll find--"
+
+"Yes, Chief?"
+
+"An old stick of chocolate."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Do as I tell you, Alexandre; I'm famished."
+
+Indeed, Don Luis recovered after a moment or two and said, in a
+gayer voice:
+
+"That's better. I can wait now. Go to the kitchen and fetch me some bread
+and some water."
+
+"I'll be back at once, Chief."
+
+"Not this way. Come back by Florence Levasseur's room and the secret
+passage to the ladder which leads to the trapdoor at the top."
+
+And he told him how to make the stone swing out and how to enter the
+hollow in which he had expected to meet with such a tragic end.
+
+The thing was done in ten minutes. Mazeroux cleared the opening, caught
+hold of Don Luis by the legs and pulled him out of his hole.
+
+"Oh, dear, oh dear!" he moaned, in a voice full of pity. "What a
+position, Chief! How did you manage it all? Yes, I see: you must have dug
+down, where you lay, and gone on digging--for more than a yard! And it
+took some pluck, I expect, on an empty stomach!"
+
+When Don Luis was seated in his bedroom and had swallowed a few bits of
+bread and drunk what he wanted, he told his story:
+
+"Yes, it took the devil's own pluck, old man. By Jingo! when a chap's
+ideas are whirling in his head and he can't use his brain, upon my word,
+all he asks is to die? And then there was no air, you see. I couldn't
+breathe. I went on digging, however, as you saw, went on digging while I
+was half asleep, in a sort of nightmare. Just look: my fingers are in a
+jelly. But there, I was thinking of that confounded business of the
+explosion and I wanted to warn you at all costs, and I dug away at my
+tunnel. What a job! And then, oof! I felt space at last!
+
+"I got my hand through and next my arm. Where was I? Why, over the
+telephone, of course! I knew that at once by feeling the wall and finding
+the wires. Then it took me quite half an hour to get hold of the
+instrument. I couldn't reach it with my arm.
+
+"I managed at last with a piece of string and a slip-knot to fish up the
+receiver and hold it near my mouth, or, say, at ten inches from my mouth.
+And then I shouted and roared to make my voice carry; and, all the time,
+I was in pain. And then, at last, my string broke.... And then--and
+then--I hadn't an ounce of strength left in my body. Besides, you fellows
+had been warned; and it was for you to get yourselves out of the mess."
+
+He looked at Mazeroux and asked him, as though certain of the reply:
+
+"The explosion took place, didn't it?"
+
+"Yes, Chief."
+
+"At three o'clock exactly?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And of course M. Desmalions had the house cleared?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"At the last minute?"
+
+"At the last minute."
+
+Don Luis laughed and said:
+
+"I knew he would wait about and not give way until the crucial moment.
+You must have had a bad time of it, my poor Mazeroux, for of course you
+agreed with me from the start."
+
+He kept on eating while he talked; and each mouthful seemed to bring back
+a little of his usual animation.
+
+"Funny thing, hunger!" he said. "Makes you feel so light-headed. I must
+practise getting used to it, however."
+
+"At any rate, Chief, no one would believe that you have been fasting for
+nearly forty-eight hours."
+
+"Ah, that comes of having a sound constitution, with something to fall
+back upon! I shall be a different man in half an hour. Just give me time
+to shave and have a bath."
+
+When he had finished dressing, he sat down to the breakfast of eggs
+and cold meat which Mazeroux had prepared for him; and then,
+getting up, said:
+
+"Now, let's be off."
+
+"But there's no hurry, Chief. Why don't you lie down for a few hours? The
+Prefect can wait."
+
+"You're mad! What about Marie Fauville?"
+
+"Marie Fauville?"
+
+"Why, of course! Do you think I'm going to leave her in prison, or
+Sauverand, either? There's not a second to lose, old chap."
+
+Mazeroux thought to himself that the chief had not quite recovered his
+wits yet. What? Release Marie Fauville and Sauverand, one, two, three,
+just like that! No, no, it was going a bit too far.
+
+However, he took down to the Prefect's car a new Perenna, merry, brisk,
+and as fresh as though he had just got out of bed.
+
+"Very flattering to my pride," said Don Luis to Mazeroux, "most
+flattering, that hesitation of the Prefect's, after I had warned him over
+the telephone, followed by his submission at the decisive moment. What a
+hold I must have on all those jokers, to make them sit up at a sign from
+little me! 'Beware, gentlemen!' I telephone to them from the bottomless
+pit. 'Beware! At three o'clock, a bomb!' 'Nonsense!' say they. 'Not a bit
+of it!' say I. 'How do you know?' 'Because I do.' 'But what proof have
+you?' 'What proof? That I say so.' 'Oh, well, of course, if you say so!'
+And, at five minutes to three, out they march. Ah, if I wasn't built up
+of modesty--"
+
+They came to the Boulevard Suchet, where the crowd was so dense that they
+had to alight from the car. Mazeroux passed through the cordon of police
+protecting the approaches to the house and took Don Luis to the slope
+across the road.
+
+"Wait for me here, Chief. I'll tell the Prefect of Police."
+
+On the other side of the boulevard, under the pale morning sky in which a
+few black clouds still lingered, Don Luis saw the havoc wrought by the
+explosion. It was apparently not so great as he had expected. Some of the
+ceilings had fallen in and their rubbish showed through the yawning
+cavities of the windows; but the house remained standing. Even Fauville's
+built-out annex had not suffered overmuch, and, strange to say, the
+electric light, which the Prefect had left burning on his departure, had
+not gone out. The garden and the road were covered with stacks of
+furniture, over which a number of soldiers and police kept watch.
+
+"Come with me, Chief," said Mazeroux, as he fetched Don Luis and led him
+toward the engineer's workroom.
+
+A part of the floor was demolished. The outer walls on the left, near the
+passage, were cracked; and two workmen were fixing up beams, brought from
+the nearest timber yard, to support the ceiling. But, on the whole, the
+explosion had not had the results which the man who prepared it must have
+anticipated.
+
+M. Desmalions was there, together with all the men who had spent the
+night in the room and several important persons from the public
+prosecutor's office. Weber, the deputy chief detective, alone had gone,
+refusing to meet his enemy.
+
+Don Luis's arrival caused great excitement. The Prefect at once came up
+to him and said:
+
+"All our thanks, Monsieur. Your insight is above praise. You have
+saved our lives; and these gentlemen and I wish to tell you so most
+emphatically. In my case, it is the second time that I have to
+thank you."
+
+"There is a very simple way of thanking me, Monsieur le Préfet," said Don
+Luis, "and that is to allow me to carry out my task to the end."
+
+"Your task?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. My action of last night is only the beginning.
+The conclusion is the release of Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand."
+
+M. Desmalions smiled.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Am I asking too much, Monsieur le Préfet?"
+
+"One can always ask, but the request should be reasonable. And the
+innocence of those people does not depend on me."
+
+"No; but it depends on you, Monsieur le Préfet, to let them know if I
+prove their innocence to you."
+
+"Yes, I agree, if you prove it beyond dispute."
+
+"Just so."
+
+Don Luis's calm assurance impressed M. Desmalions in spite of everything
+and even more than on the former occasions; and he suggested:
+
+"The results of the hasty inspection which we have made will perhaps help
+you. For instance, we are certain that the bomb was placed by the
+entrance to the passage and probably under the boards of the floor."
+
+"Please do not trouble, Monsieur le Préfet. These are only secondary
+details. The great thing now is that you should know the whole truth, and
+that not only through words."
+
+The Prefect had come closer. The magistrate and detectives were standing
+round Don Luis, watching his lips and movements with feverish impatience.
+Was it possible that that truth, as yet so remote and vague, in spite of
+all the importance which they attached to the arrests already effected,
+was known at last?
+
+It was a solemn moment. Every one was on tenterhooks. The manner in which
+Don Luis had foretold the explosion lent the value of an accomplished
+fact to his predictions; and the men whom he had saved from the terrible
+catastrophe were almost ready to accept as certainties the most
+improbable statements which a man of his stamp might make.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet," he said, "you waited in vain last night for the
+fourth letter to make its appearance. We shall now be able, by an
+unexpected miracle of chance, to be present at the delivery of the
+letter. You will then know that it was the same hand that committed all
+the crimes--and you will know whose hand that was."
+
+And, turning to Mazeroux:
+
+"Sergeant, will you please make the room as dark as you can? The
+shutters are gone; but you might draw the curtains across the windows
+and close the doors. Monsieur le Préfet, is it by accident that the
+electric light is on?"
+
+"Yes, by accident. We will have it turned out."
+
+"One moment. Have any of you gentlemen a pocket lantern about you? Or,
+no, it doesn't matter. This will do."
+
+There was a candle in a sconce. He took it and lit it.
+
+Then he switched off the electric light.
+
+There was a half darkness, amid which the flame of the candle flickered
+in the draught from the windows. Don Luis protected the flame with his
+hand and moved to the table.
+
+"I do not think that we shall be kept waiting long," he said. "As I
+foresee it, there will be only a few seconds before the facts speak for
+themselves and better than I could do."
+
+Those few seconds, during which no one broke the silence, were
+unforgettable. M. Desmalions has since declared, in an interview in which
+he ridicules himself very cleverly, that his brain, over-stimulated by
+the fatigues of the night and by the whole scene before him, imagined the
+most unlikely events, such as an invasion of the house by armed
+assailants, or the apparition of ghosts and spirits.
+
+He had the curiosity, however, he said, to watch Don Luis. Sitting on
+the edge of the table, with his head thrown a little back and his
+eyes roaming over the ceiling, Don Luis was eating a piece of bread
+and nibbling at a cake of chocolate. He seemed very hungry, but quite
+at his ease.
+
+The others maintained that tense attitude which we put on at moments of
+great physical effort. Their faces were distorted with a sort of
+grimace. They were haunted by the memory of the explosion as well as
+obsessed by what was going to happen. The flame of the candle cast
+shadows on the wall.
+
+More seconds elapsed than Don Luis Perenna had said, thirty or forty
+seconds, perhaps, that seemed endless. Then Perenna lifted the candle a
+little and said:
+
+"There you are."
+
+They had all seen what they now saw almost as soon as he spoke. A letter
+was descending from the ceiling. It spun round slowly, like a leaf
+falling from a tree without being driven by the wind. It just touched Don
+Luis and alighted on the floor between two legs of the table.
+
+Picking up the paper and handing it to M. Desmalions, Don Luis said:
+
+"There you are, Monsieur le Préfet. This is the fourth letter, due
+last night."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN
+
+THE "HATER"
+
+
+M. Desmalions looked at him without understanding, and looked from him to
+the ceiling. Perenna said:
+
+"Oh, there's no witchcraft about it; and, though no one has thrown that
+letter from above, though there is not the smallest hole in the ceiling,
+the explanation is quite simple!"
+
+"Quite simple, is it?" said M. Desmalions.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. It all looks like an extremely complicated
+conjuring trick, done almost for fun. Well, I say that it is quite
+simple--and, at the same time, terribly tragic. Sergeant Mazeroux, would
+you mind drawing back the curtains and giving us as much light as
+possible?"
+
+While Mazeroux was executing his orders and M. Desmalions glancing at the
+fourth letter, the contents of which were unimportant and merely
+confirmed the previous ones, Don Luis took a pair of steps which the
+workmen had left in the corner, set it up in the middle of the room and
+climbed to the top, where, seated astride, he was able to reach the
+electric chandelier.
+
+It consisted of a broad, circular band in brass, beneath which was a
+festoon of crystal pendants. Inside were three lamps placed at the
+corners of a brass triangle concealing the wires.
+
+He uncovered the wires and cut them. Then he began to take the whole
+fitting to pieces. To hasten matters, he asked for a hammer and broke up
+the plaster all round the clamps that held the chandelier in position.
+
+"Lend me a hand, please," he said to Mazeroux.
+
+Mazeroux went up the steps; and between them they took hold of the
+chandelier and let it slide down the uprights. The detectives caught it
+and placed it on the table with some difficulty, for it was much heavier
+than it looked.
+
+On inspection, it proved to be surmounted by a cubical metal box,
+measuring about eight inches square, which box, being fastened inside the
+ceiling between the iron clamps, had obliged Don Luis to knock away the
+plaster that concealed it.
+
+"What the devil's this?" exclaimed M. Desmalions.
+
+"Open it for yourself, Monsieur le Préfet: there's a lid to it,"
+said Perenna.
+
+M. Desmalions raised the lid. The box was filled with springs and wheels,
+a whole complicated and detailed mechanism resembling a piece of
+clockwork.
+
+"By your leave, Monsieur le Préfet," said Don Luis.
+
+He took out one piece of machinery and discovered another beneath it,
+joined to the first by the gearing of two wheels; and the second was more
+like one of those automatic apparatuses which turn out printed slips.
+
+Right at the bottom of the box, just where the box touched the
+ceiling, was a semicircular groove, and at the edge of it was a letter
+ready for delivery.
+
+"The last of the five letters," said Don Luis, "doubtless continuing the
+series of denunciations. You will notice, Monsieur le Préfet, that the
+chandelier originally had a fourth lamp in the centre. It was obviously
+removed when the chandelier was altered, so as to make room for the
+letters to pass."
+
+He continued his detailed explanations:
+
+"So the whole set of letters was placed here, at the bottom. A clever
+piece of machinery, controlled by clockwork, took them one by one at the
+appointed time, pushed them to the edge of the groove concealed between
+the lamps and the pendants, and projected them into space."
+
+None of those standing around Don Luis spoke, and all of them seemed
+perhaps a little disappointed. The whole thing was certainly very clever;
+but they had expected something better than a trick of springs and
+wheels, however surprising.
+
+"Have patience, gentlemen," said Don Luis. "I promised you something
+ghastly; and you shall have it."
+
+"Well, I agree," said the Prefect of Police, "that this is where the
+letters started from. But a good many points remain obscure; and, apart
+from this, there is one fact in particular which it seems impossible to
+understand. How were the criminals able to adapt the chandelier in this
+way? And, in a house guarded by the police, in a room watched night and
+day, how were they able to carry out such a piece of work without being
+seen or heard?"
+
+"The answer is quite easy, Monsieur le Préfet: the work was done before
+the house was guarded by the police."
+
+"Before the murder was committed, therefore?"
+
+"Before the murder was committed."
+
+"And what is to prove to me that that is so?"
+
+"You have said so yourself, Monsieur le Préfet: because it could not have
+been otherwise."
+
+"But do explain yourself, Monsieur!" cried M. Desmalions, with a gesture
+of irritation. "If you have important things to tell us, why delay?"
+
+"It is better, Monsieur le Préfet, that you should arrive at the truth in
+the same way as I did. When you know the secret of the letters, the truth
+is much nearer than you think; and you would have already named the
+criminal if the horror of his crime had not been so great as to divert
+all suspicion from him."
+
+M. Desmalions looked at him attentively. He felt the importance of
+Perenna's every word and he was really anxious.
+
+"Then, according to you," he said, "those letters accusing Madame
+Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were placed there with the sole object of
+ruining both of them?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"And, as they were placed there before the crime, the plot must have been
+schemed before the murder?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, before the murder. From the moment that we
+admit the innocence of Mme. Fauville and Gaston Sauverand, we are obliged
+to conclude that, as everything accuses them, this is due to a series of
+deliberate acts. Mme. Fauville was out on the night of the murder: a
+plot! She was unable to say how she spent her time while the murder was
+being committed: a plot! Her inexplicable drive in the direction of La
+Muette and her cousin Sauverand's walk in the neighbourhood of the house:
+plots! The marks left in the apple by those teeth, by Mme. Fauville's own
+teeth: a plot and the most infernal of all!
+
+"I tell you, everything is plotted beforehand, everything is, so to
+speak, prepared, measured out, labelled, and numbered. Everything takes
+place at the appointed time. Nothing is left to chance. It is a work very
+nicely pieced together, worthy of the most skilful artisan, so solidly
+constructed that outside happenings have not been able to throw it out of
+gear; and that the scheme works exactly, precisely, imperturbably, like
+the clockwork in this box, which is a perfect symbol of the whole
+business and, at the same time, gives a most accurate explanation of it,
+because the letters denouncing the murderers were duly posted before the
+crime and delivered after the crime on the dates and at the hours
+foreseen."
+
+M. Desmalions remained thinking for a time and then objected:
+
+"Still, in the letters which he wrote, M. Fauville accuses his wife."
+
+"He does."
+
+"We must therefore admit either that he was right in accusing her or that
+the letters are forged?"
+
+"They are not forged. All the experts have recognized M. Fauville's
+handwriting."
+
+"Then?"
+
+"Then--"
+
+Don Luis did not finish his sentence; and M. Desmalions felt the breath
+of the truth fluttering still nearer round him.
+
+The others, one and all as anxious as himself, were silent. He muttered:
+
+"I do not understand--"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, you do. You understand that, if the sending of
+those letters forms an integrate part of the plot hatched against Mme.
+Fauville and Gaston Sauverand, it is because their contents were prepared
+in such a way as to be the undoing of the victims."
+
+"What! What! What are you saying?"
+
+"I am saying what I said before. Once they are innocent, everything that
+tells against them is part of the plot."
+
+Again there was a long silence. The Prefect of Police did not conceal
+his agitation. Speaking very slowly, with his eyes fixed on Don Luis's
+eyes, he said:
+
+"Whoever the culprit may be, I know nothing more terrible than this work
+of hatred."
+
+"It is an even more improbable work than you can imagine, Monsieur le
+Préfet," said Perenna, with growing animation, "and it is a hatred of
+which you, who do not know Sauverand's confession, cannot yet estimate
+the violence. I understood it completely as I listened to the man; and,
+since then, all my thoughts have been overpowered by the dominant idea of
+that hatred. Who could hate like that? To whose loathing had Marie
+Fauville and Sauverand been sacrificed? Who was the inconceivable person
+whose perverted genius had surrounded his two victims with chains so
+powerfully forged?
+
+"And another idea came to my mind, an earlier idea which had already
+struck me several times and to which I have already referred in Sergeant
+Mazeroux's presence: I mean the really mathematical character of the
+appearance of the letters. I said to myself that such grave documents
+could not be introduced into the case at fixed dates unless some primary
+reason demanded that those dates should absolutely be fixed. What
+reason? If a _human_ agency had been at work each time, there would
+surely have been some irregularity dependent on this especially after
+the police had become cognizant of the matter and were present at the
+delivery of the letters.
+
+"Well," Perenna continued, "in spite of every obstacle, the letters
+continued to come, as though they could not help it. And thus the reason
+of their coming gradually dawned upon me: they came mechanically, by some
+invisible process set going once and for all and working with the blind
+certainty of a physical law. This was a case not of a conscious
+intelligence and will, but just of material necessity.... It was the
+clash of these two ideas--the idea of the hatred pursuing the innocent
+and the idea of that machinery serving the schemes of the 'hater'--it was
+their clash that gave birth to the little spark of light. When brought
+into contact, the two ideas combined in my mind and suggested the
+recollection that Hippolyte Fauville was an engineer by profession!"
+
+The others listened to him with a sort of uneasy oppression. What was
+gradually being revealed of the tragedy, instead of relieving the
+anxiety, increased it until it became absolutely painful.
+
+M. Desmalions objected:
+
+"Granting that the letters arrived on the dates named, you will
+nevertheless have noted that the hour varied on each occasion.
+
+"That is to say, it varied according as we watched in the dark or not,
+and that is just the detail which supplied me with the key to the
+riddle. If the letters--and this was an indispensable precaution, which
+we are now able to understand--were delivered only under cover of the
+darkness, it must be because a contrivance of some kind prevented them
+from appearing when the electric light was on, and because that
+contrivance was controlled by a switch inside the room. There is no
+other explanation possible.
+
+"We have to do with an automatic distributor that delivers the
+incriminating letters which it contains by clockwork, releasing them only
+between this hour and that on such and such a night fixed in advance and
+only at times when the electric light is off. You have the apparatus
+before you. No doubt the experts will admire its ingenuity and confirm my
+assertions. But, given the fact that it was found in the ceiling of this
+room, given the fact that it contained letters written by M. Fauville, am
+I not entitled to say that it was constructed by M. Fauville, the
+electrical engineer?"
+
+Once more the name of M. Fauville returned, like an obsession; and each
+time the name stood more clearly defined. It was first M. Fauville; then
+M. Fauville, the engineer; then M. Fauville, the electrical engineer. And
+thus the picture of the "hater," as Don Luis said, appeared in its
+accurate outlines, giving those men, used though they were to the
+strangest criminal monstrosities, a thrill of terror. The truth was now
+no longer prowling around them. They were already fighting with it, as
+you fight with an adversary whom you do not see but who clutches you by
+the throat and brings you to the ground.
+
+And the Prefect of Police, summing up all his impressions, said, in a
+strained voice:
+
+"So M. Fauville wrote those letters in order to ruin his wife and the man
+who was in love with her?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"In that case--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Knowing, at the same time, that he was threatened with death, he wished,
+if ever the threat was realized, that his death should be laid to the
+charge of his wife and her friend?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And, in order to avenge himself on their love for each other and to
+gratify his hatred of them both, he wanted the whole set of facts to
+point to them as guilty of the murder of which he would be the victim?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"So that--so that M. Fauville, in one part of his accursed work,
+was--what shall I say?--the accomplice of his own murder. He dreaded
+death. He struggled against it. But he arranged that his hatred should
+gain by it. That's it, isn't it? That's how it is?"
+
+"Almost, Monsieur le Préfet. You are following the same stages by which I
+travelled and, like myself, you are hesitating before the last truth,
+before the truth which gives the tragedy its sinister character and
+deprives it of all human proportions."
+
+The Prefect struck the table with his two fists and, in a sudden fit of
+revolt, cried:
+
+"It's ridiculous! It's a perfectly preposterous theory! M. Fauville
+threatened with death and contriving his wife's ruin with that
+Machiavellian perseverance? Absurd! The man who came to my office, the
+man whom you saw, was thinking of only one thing: how to escape dying! He
+was obsessed by one dread alone, the dread of death.
+
+"It is not at such moments," the Prefect emphasized, "that a man fits up
+clockwork and lays traps, especially when those traps cannot take effect
+unless he dies by foul play. Can you see M. Fauville working at his
+automatic machine, putting in with his own hands letters which he has
+taken the pains to write to a friend three months before and intercept,
+arranging events so that his wife shall appear guilty and saying,
+'There! If I die murdered, I'm easy in my mind: the person to be
+arrested will be Marie!'
+
+"No, you must confess, men don't take these gruesome precautions. Or, if
+they do--if they do, it means that they're sure of being murdered. It
+means that they agree to be murdered. It means that they are at one with
+the murderer, so to speak, and meet him halfway. In short, it means--"
+
+He interrupted himself, as if the sentences which he had spoken had
+surprised him. And the others seemed equally disconcerted. And all of
+them unconsciously drew from those sentences the conclusions which they
+implied, and which they themselves did not yet fully perceive.
+
+Don Luis did not remove his eyes from the Prefect, and awaited the
+inevitable words.
+
+M. Desmalions muttered:
+
+"Come, come, you are not going to suggest that he had agreed--"
+
+"I suggest nothing, Monsieur le Préfet," said Don Luis. "So far, you have
+followed the logical and natural trend of your thoughts; and that brings
+you to your present position."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know, but I am showing you the absurdity of your theory. It
+can't be correct, and we can't believe in Marie Fauville's innocence
+unless we are prepared to suppose an unheard-of thing, that M. Fauville
+took part in his own murder. Why, it's laughable!"
+
+And he gave a laugh; but it was a forced laugh and did not ring true.
+
+"For, after all," he added, "you can't deny that that is where we stand."
+
+"I don't deny it."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, M. Fauville, as you say, took part in his own murder."
+
+This was said in the quietest possible fashion, but with an air of such
+certainty that no one dreamed of protesting. After the work of deduction
+and supposition which Don Luis had compelled his hearers to undertake,
+they found themselves in a corner which it was impossible for them to
+leave without stumbling against unanswerable objections.
+
+There was no longer any doubt about M. Fauville's share in his own death.
+But of what did that share consist? What part had he played in the
+tragedy of hatred and murder? Had he played that part, which ended in the
+sacrifice of his life, voluntarily or under compulsion? Who, when all was
+said and done, had served as his accomplice or his executioner?
+
+All these questions came crowding upon the minds of M. Desmalions and the
+others. They thought of nothing but of how to solve them, and Don Luis
+could feel certain that his solution was accepted beforehand. From that
+moment he had but to tell his story of what had happened without fear of
+contradiction. He did so briefly, after the manner of a succinct report
+limited to essentials:
+
+"Three months before the crime, M. Fauville wrote a series of letters
+to one of his friends, M. Langernault, who, as Sergeant Mazeroux will
+have told you, Monsieur le Préfet, had been dead for several years, a
+fact of which M. Fauville cannot have been ignorant. These letters were
+posted, but were intercepted by some means which it is not necessary
+that we should know for the moment. M. Fauville erased the postmarks
+and the addresses and inserted the letters in a machine constructed for
+the purpose, of which he regulated the works so that the first letter
+should be delivered a fortnight after his death and the others at
+intervals of ten days.
+
+"At this moment it is certain that his plan was concerted down to the
+smallest detail. Knowing that Sauverand was in love with his wife,
+watching Sauverand's movements, he must obviously have noticed that his
+detested rival used to pass under the windows of the house every
+Wednesday and that Marie Fauville would go to her window.
+
+"This is a fact of the first importance, one which was exceedingly
+valuable to me; and it will impress you as being equal to a material
+proof. Every Wednesday evening, I repeat, Sauverand used to wander round
+the house. Now note this: first, the crime prepared by M. Fauville was
+committed on a Wednesday evening; secondly, it was at her husband's
+express request that Mme. Fauville went out that evening to go to the
+opera and to Mme. d'Ersinger's."
+
+Don Luis stopped for a few seconds and then continued:
+
+"Consequently, on the morning of that Wednesday, everything was ready,
+the fatal clock was wound up, the incriminating machinery was working to
+perfection, and the proofs to come would confirm the immediate proofs
+which M. Fauville held in reserve. Better still, Monsieur le Préfet, you
+had received from him a letter in which he told you of the plot hatched
+against him, and he implored your assistance for the morning of the next
+day--that is to say, _after his death_!
+
+"Everything, in short, led him to think that things would go according to
+the 'hater's' wishes, when something occurred that nearly upset his
+schemes: the appearance of Inspector Vérot, who had been sent by you,
+Monsieur le Préfet, to collect particulars about the Mornington heirs.
+What happened between the two men? Probably no one will ever know. Both
+are dead; and their secret will not come to life again. But we can at
+least say for certain that Inspector Vérot was here and took away with
+him the cake of chocolate on which the teeth of the tiger were seen for
+the first time, and also that Inspector Vérot succeeded, thanks to
+circumstances with which we are unacquainted, in discovering M.
+Fauville's projects."
+
+"This we know," explained Don Luis, "because Inspector Vérot said so in
+his own agonizing words; because it was through him that we learned that
+the crime was to take place on the following night; and because he had
+set down his discoveries in a letter which was stolen from him.
+
+"And Fauville knew it also, because, to get rid of the formidable enemy
+who was thwarting his designs, he poisoned him; because, when the poison
+was slow in acting, he had the audacity, under a disguise which made him
+look like Sauverand and which was one day to turn suspicion against
+Sauverand, he had the audacity and the presence of mind to follow
+Inspector Vérot to the Café du Pont-Neuf, to purloin the letter of
+explanation which Inspector Vérot wrote you, to substitute a blank sheet
+of paper for it, and then to ask a passer-by, who might become a witness
+against Sauverand, the way to the nearest underground station for
+Neuilly, where Sauverand lived! There's your man, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+Don Luis spoke with increasing force, with the ardour that springs from
+conviction; and his logical and closely argued speech seemed to conjure
+up the actual truth,
+
+"There's your man, Monsieur le Préfet," he repeated. "There's your
+scoundrel. And the situation in which he found himself was such, the fear
+inspired by Inspector Vérot's possible revelations was such, that, before
+putting into execution the horrible deed which he had planned, he came to
+the police office to make sure that his victim was no longer alive and
+had not been able to denounce him.
+
+"You remember the scene, Monsieur le Préfet, the fellow's agitation and
+fright: 'To-morrow evening,' he said. Yes, it was for the morrow that he
+asked for your help, because he knew that everything would be over that
+same evening and that next day the police would be confronted with a
+murder, with the two culprits against whom he himself had heaped up the
+charges, with Marie Fauville, whom he had, so to speak, accused in
+advance....
+
+"That was why Sergeant Mazeroux's visit and mine to his house, at nine
+o'clock in the evening, embarrassed him so obviously. Who were those
+intruders? Would they not succeed in shattering his plan? Reflection
+reassured him, even as we, by our insistence, compelled him to give way."
+
+"After all, what he did care?" asked Perenna.
+
+"His measures were so well taken that no amount of watching could destroy
+them or even make the watchers aware of them. What was to happen would
+happen in our presence and unknown to us. Death, summoned by him, would
+do its work.... And the comedy, the tragedy, rather, ran its course. Mme.
+Fauville, whom he was sending to the opera, came to say good-night. Then
+his servant brought him something to eat, including a dish of apples.
+Then followed a fit of rage, the agony of the man who is about to die and
+who fears death and a whole scene of deceit, in which he showed us his
+safe and the drab-cloth diary which was supposed to contain the story of
+the plot. ... That ended matters.
+
+"Mazeroux and I retired to the hall passage, closing the door after us;
+and M. Fauville remained alone and free to act. Nothing now could prevent
+the fulfilment of his wishes. At eleven o'clock in the evening, Mme.
+Fauville--to whom no doubt, in the course of the day, imitating
+Sauverand's handwriting, he had sent a letter--one of those letters which
+are always torn up at once, in which Sauverand entreated the poor woman
+to grant him an interview at the Ranelagh--Mme. Fauville would leave the
+opera and, before going to Mme. d'Ersinger's party, would spend an hour
+not far from the house.
+
+"On the other hand, Sauverand would be performing his usual Wednesday
+pilgrimage less than half a mile away, in the opposite direction. During
+this time the crime would be committed.
+
+"Both of them would come under the notice of the police, either by M.
+Fauville's allusions or by the incident at the Café du Pont-Neuf; both of
+them, moreover, would be incapable either of providing an alibi or of
+explaining their presence so near the house: were not both of them bound
+to be accused and convicted of the crime? ... In the most unlikely event
+that some chance should protect them, there was an undeniable proof lying
+ready to hand in the shape of the apple containing the very marks of
+Marie Fauville's teeth! And then, a few weeks later, the last and
+decisive trick, the mysterious arrival at intervals of ten days, of the
+letters denouncing the pair. So everything was settled.
+
+"The smallest details were foreseen with infernal clearness. You
+remember, Monsieur le Préfet, that turquoise which dropped out of my
+ring and was found in the safe? There were only four persons who
+could have seen it and picked it up. M. Fauville was one of them.
+Well, he was just the one, whom we all excepted; and yet it was he
+who, to cast suspicion upon me and to forestall an interference which
+he felt would be dangerous, seized the opportunity and placed the
+turquoise in the safe! ...
+
+"This time the work was completed. Fate was about to be fulfilled.
+Between the 'hater' and his victims there was but the distance of one
+act. The act was performed. M. Fauville died."
+
+Don Luis ceased. His words were followed by a long silence; and he felt
+certain that the extraordinary story which he had just finished telling
+met with the absolute approval of his hearers. They did not discuss, they
+believed. And yet it was the most incredible truth that he was asking
+them to believe.
+
+M. Desmalions asked one last question.
+
+"You were in that passage with Sergeant Mazeroux. There were detectives
+outside the house. Admitting that M. Fauville knew that he was to be
+killed that night and at that very hour of the night, who can have
+killed him and who can have killed his son? There was no one within
+these four walls."
+
+"There was M. Fauville."
+
+A sudden clamour of protests arose. The veil was promptly torn; and the
+spectacle revealed by Don Luis provoked, in addition to horror, an
+unforeseen outburst of incredulity and a sort of revolt against the too
+kindly attention which had been accorded to those explanations. The
+Prefect of Police expressed the general feeling by exclaiming:
+
+"Enough of words! Enough of theories! However logical they may seem, they
+lead to absurd conclusions."
+
+"Absurd in appearance, Monsieur le Préfet; but how do we know that M.
+Fauville's unheard-of conduct is not explained by very natural reasons?
+Of course, no one dies with a light heart for the mere pleasure of
+revenge. But how do we know that M. Fauville, whose extreme emaciation
+and pallor you must have noted as I did, was not stricken by some mortal
+illness and that, knowing himself doomed--"
+
+"I repeat, enough of words!" cried the Prefect. "You go only by
+suppositions. What I want is proofs, a proof, only one. And we are still
+waiting for it."
+
+"Here it is, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Eh? What's that you say?"
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, when I removed the chandelier from the plaster that
+supported it, I found, outside the upper surface of the metal box, a
+sealed envelope. As the chandelier was placed under the attic occupied by
+M. Fauville's son, it is evident that M. Fauville was able, by lifting
+the boards of the floor in his son's room, to reach the top of the
+machine which he had contrived. This was how, during that last night, he
+placed this sealed envelope in position, after writing on it the date of
+the murder, '31 March, 11 P.M.,' and his signature, 'Hippolyte
+Fauville.'"
+
+M. Desmalions opened the envelope with an eager hand. His first glance at
+the pages of writing which it contained made him give a start.
+
+"Oh, the villain, the villain!" he said. "How was it possible for such a
+monster to exist? What a loathsome brute!"
+
+In a jerky voice, which became almost inaudible at times owing to his
+amazement, he read:
+
+"The end is reached. My hour is striking. Put to sleep by me, Edmond is
+dead without having been roused from his unconsciousness by the fire of
+the poison. My own death-agony is beginning. I am suffering all the
+tortures of hell. My hand can hardly write these last lines. I suffer,
+how I suffer! And yet my happiness is unspeakable.
+
+"This happiness dates back to my visit to London, with Edmond, four
+months ago. Until then, I was dragging on the most hideous existence,
+hiding my hatred of the woman who detested me and who loved another,
+broken down in health, feeling myself already eaten up with an
+unrelenting disease, and seeing my son grow daily more weak and languid.
+
+"In the afternoon I consulted a great physician and I no longer had the
+least doubt left: the malady that was eating into me was cancer. And I
+knew besides that, like myself, my son Edmond was on the road to the
+grave, incurably stricken with consumption.
+
+"That same evening I conceived the magnificent idea of revenge. And such
+a revenge! The most dreadful of accusations made against a man and a
+woman in love with each other! Prison! The assizes! Penal servitude! The
+scaffold! And no assistance possible, not a struggle, not a hope!
+Accumulated proofs, proofs so formidable as to make the innocent
+themselves doubt their own innocence and remain hopelessly and helplessly
+dumb. What a revenge!... And what a punishment! To be innocent and to
+struggle vainly against the very facts that accuse you, the very
+certainty that proclaims you guilty.
+
+"And I prepared everything with a glad heart. Each happy thought, each
+invention made me shout with laughter. Lord, how merry I was! You would
+think that cancer hurts: not a bit of it! How can you suffer physical
+pain when your soul is quivering with delight? Do you think I feel the
+hideous burning of the poison at this moment?
+
+"I am happy. The death which I have inflicted on myself is the beginning
+of their torment. Then why live and wait for a natural death which to
+them would mean the beginning of their happiness? And as Edmond had to
+die, why not save him a lingering illness and give him a death which
+would double the crime of Marie and Sauverand?
+
+"The end is coming. I had to break off: the pain was too much for me. Now
+to pull myself together.... How silent everything is! Outside the house
+and in the house are emissaries of the police watching over my crime. At
+no great distance, Marie, in obedience to my letter, is hurrying to the
+trysting place, where her beloved will not come. And the beloved is
+roaming under the windows where his darling will not appear.
+
+"Oh, the dear little puppets whose string I pull! Dance! Jump! Skip!
+Lord, what fun they are! A rope round your neck, sir; and, madam, a rope
+round yours. Was it not you, sir, who poisoned Inspector Vérot this
+morning and followed him to the Café du Pont-Neuf, with your grand ebony
+walking-stick? Why, of course it was! And at night the pretty lady
+poisons me and poisons her stepson. Prove it? Well, what about this
+apple, madam, this apple which you did _not_ bite into and which all the
+same will be found to bear the marks of your teeth? What fun! Dance!
+Jump! Skip!
+
+"And the letters! The trick of my letters to the late lamented
+Langernault! That was my crowning triumph. Oh, the joy of it, when I
+invented and constructed my little mechanical toy! Wasn't it nicely
+thought out? Isn't it wonderfully neat and accurate? On the appointed
+day, click, the first letter! And, ten days after, click, the second
+letter! Come, there's no hope for you, my poor friends, you're nicely
+done for. Dance! Jump! Skip!
+
+"And what amuses me--for I am laughing now--is to think that nobody will
+know what to make of it. Marie and Sauverand guilty: of that there is not
+the least doubt. But, outside that, absolute mystery.
+
+"Nobody will know nor ever will know anything. In a few weeks' time, when
+the two criminals are irrevocably doomed, when the letters are in the
+hands of the police, on the 25th, or, rather, at 3 o'clock on the morning
+of the 26th of May, an explosion will destroy every trace of my work. The
+bomb is in its place. A movement entirely independent of the chandelier
+will explode it at the hour aforesaid.
+
+"I have just laid beside it the drab-cloth manuscript book in which I
+pretended that I wrote my diary, the phials containing the poison, the
+needles which I used, an ebony walking-stick, two letters from Inspector
+Vérot, in short, anything that might save the culprits. Then how can any
+one know? No, nobody will know nor ever will know anything.
+
+"Unless--unless some miracle happens--unless the bomb leaves the walls
+standing and the ceiling intact. Unless, by some marvel of
+intelligence and intuition, a man of genius, unravelling the threads
+which I have tangled, should penetrate to the very heart of the riddle
+and succeed, after a search lasting for months and months, in
+discovering this final letter.
+
+"It is for this man that I write, well knowing that he cannot exist.
+But, after all, what do I care? Marie and Sauverand will be at the
+bottom of the abyss by then, dead no doubt, or in any case separated
+forever. And I risk nothing by leaving this evidence of my hatred in the
+hands of chance.
+
+"There, that's finished. I have only to sign. My hand shakes more and
+more. The sweat is pouring from my forehead in great drops. I am
+suffering the tortures of the damned and I am divinely happy! Aha, my
+friends, you were waiting for my death!
+
+"You, Marie, imprudently let me read in your eyes, which watched me
+stealthily, all your delight at seeing me so ill! And you were both of
+you so sure of the future that you had the courage to wait patiently for
+my death! Well, here it is, my death! Here it is and there are you,
+united above my grave, linked together with the handcuffs. Marie, be the
+wife of my friend Sauverand. Sauverand, I bestow my spouse upon you. Be
+joined together in holy matrimony. Bless you, my children!
+
+"The examining magistrate will draw up the contract and the executioner
+will read the marriage service. Oh, the delight of it! I suffer
+agonies--but oh, the delight! What a fine thing is hatred, when it makes
+death a joy! I am happy in dying. Marie is in prison. Sauverand is
+weeping in the condemned man's cell. The door opens....
+
+"Oh, horror! the men in black! They walk up to the bed: 'Gaston
+Sauverand, your appeal is rejected. Courage! Be a man!' Oh, the cold,
+dark morning--the scaffold! It's your turn, Marie, your turn! Would you
+survive your lover? Sauverand is dead: it's your turn. See, here's a
+rope for you. Or would you rather have poison? Die, will you, you hussy!
+Die with your veins on fire--as I am doing, I who hate you--hate
+you--hate you!"
+
+M. Desmalions ceased, amid the silent astonishment of all those present.
+He had great difficulty in reading the concluding lines, the writing
+having become almost wholly shapeless and illegible.
+
+He said, in a low voice, as he stared at the paper: "'Hippolyte
+Fauville,' The signature is there. The scoundrel found a last remnant
+of strength to sign his name clearly. He feared that a doubt might be
+entertained of his villainy. And indeed how could any one have
+suspected it?"
+
+And, looking at Don Luis, he added:
+
+"It needed, to solve the mystery, a really exceptional power of insight
+and gifts to which we must all do homage, to which I do homage. All the
+explanations which that madman gave have been anticipated in the most
+accurate and bewildering fashion."
+
+Don Luis bowed and, without replying to the praise bestowed upon
+him, said:
+
+"You are right, Monsieur le Préfet; he was a madman, and one of the most
+dangerous kind, the lucid madman who pursues an idea from which nothing
+will make him turn aside. He pursued it with superhuman tenacity and with
+all the resources of his fastidious mind, enslaved by the laws of
+mechanics.
+
+"Another would have killed his victims frankly and brutally. He set his
+wits to work to kill at a long date, like an experimenter who leaves to
+time the duty of proving the excellence of his invention. And he
+succeeded only too well, because the police fell into the trap and
+because Mme. Fauville is perhaps going to die."
+
+M. Desmalions made a gesture of decision. The whole business, in fact,
+was past history, on which the police proceedings would throw the
+necessary light. One fact alone was of importance to the present: the
+saving of Marie Fauville's life.
+
+"It's true," he said, "we have not a minute to lose. Mme. Fauville must
+be told without delay. At the same time, I will send for the examining
+magistrate; and the case against her is sure to be dismissed at once."
+
+He swiftly gave orders for continuing the investigations and verifying
+Don Luis's theories. Then, turning to Perenna:
+
+"Come, Monsieur," he said. "It is right that Mme. Fauville should thank
+her rescuer. Mazeroux, you come, too."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The meeting was over, that meeting in the course of which Don Luis had
+given the most striking proofs of his genius. Waging war, so to speak,
+upon the powers beyond the grave, he had forced the dead man to reveal
+his secret. He disclosed, as though he had been present throughout, the
+hateful vengeance conceived in the darkness and carried out in the tomb.
+
+M. Desmalions showed all his admiration by his silence and by certain
+movements of his head. And Perenna took a keen enjoyment in the strange
+fact that he, who was being hunted down by the police a few hours ago,
+should now be sitting in a motor car beside the head of that same force.
+
+Nothing threw into greater relief the masterly manner in which he had
+conducted the business and the importance which the police attached to
+the results obtained. The value of his collaboration was such that they
+were willing to forget the incidents of the last two days. The grudge
+which Weber bore him was now of no avail against Don Luis Perenna.
+
+M. Desmalions, meanwhile, began briefly to review the new solutions, and
+he concluded by still discussing certain points.
+
+"Yes, that's it ... there is not the least shadow of a doubt.... We
+agree.... It's that and nothing else. Still, one or two things remain
+obscure. First of all, the mark of the teeth. This, notwithstanding the
+husband's admission, is a fact which we cannot neglect."
+
+"I believe that the explanation is a very simple one, Monsieur le Préfet.
+I will give it to you as soon as I am able to support it with the
+necessary proofs."
+
+"Very well. But another question: how is it that Weber, yesterday
+morning, found that sheet of paper relating to the explosion in Mlle.
+Levasseur's room?"
+
+"And how was it," added Don Luis, laughing, "that I found there the list
+of the five dates corresponding with the delivery of the letters?"
+
+"So you are of my opinion?" said M. Desmalions. "The part played by Mlle.
+Levasseur is at least suspicious."
+
+"I believe that everything will be cleared up, Monsieur le Préfet, and
+that you need now only question Mme. Fauville and Gaston Sauverand in
+order to dispel these last obscurities and remove all suspicion from
+Mlle. Levasseur."
+
+"And then," insisted M. Desmalions, "there is one more fact that strikes
+me as odd. Hippolyte Fauville does not once mention the Mornington
+inheritance in his confession. Why? Did he not know of it? Are we to
+suppose that there is no connection, beyond a mere casual coincidence,
+between the series of crimes and that bequest?"
+
+"There, I am entirely of your opinion, Monsieur le Préfet. Hippolyte
+Fauville's silence as to that bequest perplexes me a little, I confess.
+But all the same I look upon it as comparatively unimportant. The main
+thing is Fauville's guilt and the prisoners' innocence."
+
+Don Luis's delight was pure and unbounded. From his point of view, the
+sinister tragedy was at an end with the discovery of the confession
+written by Hippolyte Fauville. Anything not explained in those lines
+would be explained by the details to be supplied by Mme. Fauville,
+Florence Levasseur, and Gaston Sauverand. He himself had lost all
+interest in the matter.
+
+The car drew up at Saint-Lazare, the wretched, sordid old prison which is
+still waiting to be pulled down.
+
+The Prefect jumped out. The door was opened at once.
+
+"Is the prison governor there?" he asked. "Quick! send for him,
+it's urgent."
+
+Then, unable to wait, he at once hastened toward the corridors leading to
+the infirmary and, as he reached the first-floor landing, came up against
+the governor himself.
+
+"Mme. Fauville," he said, without waste of time. "I want to see her--"
+
+But he stopped short when he saw the expression of consternation on the
+prison governor's face.
+
+"Well, what is it?" he asked. "What's the matter?"
+
+"Why, haven't you heard, Monsieur le Préfet?" stammered the governor. "I
+telephoned to the office, you know--"
+
+"Speak! What is it?"
+
+"Mme. Fauville died this morning. She managed somehow to take poison."
+
+M. Desmalions seized the governor by the arm and ran to the infirmary,
+followed by Perenna and Mazeroux.
+
+He saw Marie Fauville lying on a bed in one of the rooms. Her pale face
+and her shoulders were stained with brown patches, similar to those
+which had marked the bodies of Inspector Vérot, Hippolyte Fauville, and
+his son Edmond.
+
+Greatly upset, the Prefect murmured:
+
+"But the poison--where did it come from?"
+
+"This phial and syringe were found under her pillow, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Under her pillow? But how did they get there? How did they reach her?
+Who gave them to her?"
+
+"We don't know yet, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+M. Desmalions looked at Don Luis. So Hippolyte Fauville's suicide had not
+put an end to the series of crimes! His action had done more than aim at
+Marie's death by the hand of the law: it had now driven her to take
+poison! Was it possible? Was it admissible that the dead man's revenge
+should still continue in the same automatic and anonymous manner?
+
+Or rather--or rather, was there not some other mysterious will which
+was secretly and as audaciously carrying on Hippolyte Fauville's
+diabolical work?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Two days later came a fresh sensation: Gaston Sauverand was found dying
+in his cell. He had had the courage to strangle himself with his
+bedsheet. All efforts to restore him to life were vain.
+
+On the table near him lay a half-dozen newspaper cuttings, which had been
+passed to him by an unknown hand. All of them told the news of Marie
+Fauville's death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN
+
+THE HEIR TO THE HUNDRED MILLIONS
+
+
+On the fourth evening after the tragic events related, an old
+cab-driver, almost entirely hidden in a huge great-coat, rang at
+Perenna's door and sent up a letter to Don Luis. He was at once shown
+into the study on the first floor. Hardly taking time to throw off his
+great-coat, he rushed at Don Luis:
+
+"It's all up with you this time, Chief!" he exclaimed. "This is no moment
+for joking: pack up your trunks and be off as quick as you can!"
+
+Don Luis, who sat quietly smoking in an easy chair, answered:
+
+"Which will you have, Mazeroux? A cigar or a cigarette?"
+
+Mazeroux at once grew indignant.
+
+"But look here, Chief, don't you read the papers?"
+
+"Worse luck!"
+
+"In that case, the situation must appear as clear to you as it does to me
+and everybody else. During the last three days, since the double suicide,
+or, rather, the double murder of Marie Fauville and her cousin Gaston
+Sauverand, there hasn't been a newspaper but has said this kind of thing:
+'And, now that M. Fauville, his son, his wife, and his cousin Gaston
+Sauverand are dead, there's nothing standing between Don Luis Perenna and
+the Mornington inheritance!'
+
+"Do you understand what that means? Of course, people speak of the
+explosion on the Boulevard Suchet and of Fauville's posthumous
+revelations; and they are disgusted with that dirty brute of a Fauville;
+and they don't know how to praise your cleverness enough. But there is
+one fact that forms the main subject of every conversation and every
+discussion.
+
+"Now that the three branches of the Roussel family are extinct, who
+remains? Don Luis Perenna. In default of the natural heirs, who inherits
+the property? Don Luis Perenna."
+
+"Lucky dog!"
+
+"That's what people are saying, Chief. They say that this series of
+murders and atrocities cannot be the effort of chance coincidences, but,
+on the contrary, points to the existence of an all-powerful will which
+began with the murder of Cosmo Mornington and ended with the capture of
+the hundred millions. And to give a name to that will, they pitch on the
+nearest, that of the extraordinary, glorious, ill-famed, bewildering,
+mysterious, omnipotent, and ubiquitous person who was Cosmo Mornington's
+intimate friend and who, from the beginning, has controlled events and
+pieced them together, accusing and acquitting people, getting them
+arrested, and helping them to escape.
+
+"They say," he went on hurriedly, "that he manages the whole business and
+that, if he works it in accordance with his interests, there are a
+hundred millions waiting for him at the finish. And this person is Don
+Luis Perenna, in other words, Arsène Lupin, the man with the unsavoury
+reputation whom it would be madness not to think of in connection with so
+colossal a job."
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+"That's what they say, Chief; I'm only telling you. As long as Mme.
+Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were alive, people did not give much
+thought to your claims as residuary legatee. But both of them died. Then,
+you see, people can't help remarking the really surprising persistence
+with which luck looks after Don Luis Perenna's interests. You know the
+legal maxim: _fecit cui prodest_. Who benefits by the disappearance of
+all the Roussel heirs? Don Luis Perenna."
+
+"The scoundrel!"
+
+"The scoundrel: that's the word which Weber goes roaring out all along
+the passages of the police office and the criminal investigation
+department. You are the scoundrel and Florence Levasseur is your
+accomplice. And hardly any one dares protest.
+
+"The Prefect of Police? What is the use of his defending you, of his
+remembering that you have saved his life twice over and rendered
+invaluable services to the police which he is the first to appreciate?
+What is the use of his going to the Prime Minister, though we all know
+that Valenglay protects you?
+
+"There are others besides the Prefect of Police! There are others besides
+the Prime Minister! There's the whole of the detective office, there's
+the public prosecutor's staff, there's the examining magistrate, the
+press and, above all, public opinion, which has to be satisfied and which
+calls for and expects a culprit. That culprit is yourself or Florence
+Levasseur. Or, rather, it's you and Florence Levasseur."
+
+Don Luis did not move a muscle of his face. Mazeroux waited a moment
+longer. Then, receiving no reply, he made a gesture of despair.
+
+"Chief, do you know what you are compelling me to do? To betray my duty.
+Well, let me tell you this: to-morrow morning you will receive a summons
+to appear before the examining magistrate. At the end of your
+examination, whatever questions may have been put to you and whatever you
+may have answered, you will be taken straight to the lockup. The warrant
+is signed. That is what your enemies have done."
+
+"The devil!"
+
+"And that's not all. Weber, who is burning to take his revenge, has asked
+for permission to watch your house from this day onward, so that you may
+not slip away as Florence Levasseur did. He will be here with his men in
+an hour's time. What do you say to that, Chief?"
+
+Without abandoning his careless attitude, Don Luis beckoned to Mazeroux.
+
+"Sergeant, just look under that sofa between the windows."
+
+Don Luis was serious. Mazeroux instinctively obeyed. Under the sofa was a
+portmanteau.
+
+"Sergeant, in ten minutes, when I have told my servants to go to bed,
+carry the portmanteau to 143 _bis_ Rue de Rivoli, where I have taken a
+small flat under the name of M. Lecocq."
+
+"What for, Chief? What does it mean?"
+
+"It means that, having no trustworthy person to carry that portmanteau
+for me, I have been waiting for your visit for the last three days."
+
+"Why, but--" stammered Mazeroux, in his confusion.
+
+"Why but what?"
+
+"Had you made up your mind to clear out?"
+
+"Of course I had! But why hurry? The reason I placed you in the detective
+office was that I might know what was being plotted against me. Since you
+tell me that I'm in danger, I shall cut my stick."
+
+And, as Mazeroux looked at him with increasing bewilderment, he tapped
+him on the shoulder and said severely:
+
+"You see, Sergeant, that it was not worth while to disguise yourself as a
+cab-driver and betray your duty. You should never betray your duty,
+Sergeant. Ask your own conscience: I am sure that it will judge you
+according to your deserts."
+
+Don Luis had spoken the truth. Recognizing how greatly the deaths of
+Marie Fauville and Sauverand had altered the situation, he considered it
+wise to move to a place of safety. His excuse for not doing so before was
+that he hoped to receive news of Florence Levasseur either by letter or
+by telephone. As the girl persisted in keeping silence, there was no
+reason why Don Luis should risk an arrest which the course of events made
+extremely probable.
+
+And in fact his anticipations were correct. Next morning Mazeroux came to
+the little flat in the Rue de Rivoli looking very spry.
+
+"You've had a narrow escape, Chief. Weber heard this morning that the
+bird had flown. He's simply furious! And you must confess that the tangle
+is getting worse and worse. They're utterly at a loss at headquarters.
+They don't even know how to set about prosecuting Florence Levasseur.
+
+"You must have read about it in the papers. The examining magistrate
+maintains that, as Fauville committed suicide and killed his son Edmond,
+Florence Levasseur has nothing to do with the matter. In his opinion the
+case is closed on that side. Well, he's a good one, the examining
+magistrate! What about Gaston Sauverand's death? Isn't it as clear as
+daylight that Florence had a hand in it, as well as in all the rest?
+
+"Wasn't it in her room, in a volume of Shakespeare, that documents were
+found relating to M. Fauville's arrangements about the letters and the
+explosion? And then--"
+
+Mazeroux interrupted himself, frightened by the look in Don Luis's eyes
+and realizing that the chief was fonder of the girl then ever. Guilty or
+not, she inspired him with the same passion.
+
+"All right," said Mazeroux, "we'll say no more about it. The future will
+bear me out, you'll see."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The days passed. Mazeroux called as often as possible, or else telephoned
+to Don Luis all the details of the two inquiries that were being pursued
+at Saint-Lazare and at the Santé Prison.
+
+Vain inquiries, as we know. While Don Luis's statements relating to the
+electric chandelier and the automatic distribution of the mysterious
+letters were found to be correct, the investigation failed to reveal
+anything about the two suicides.
+
+At most, it was ascertained that, before his arrest, Sauverand had tried
+to enter into correspondence with Marie through one of the tradesmen
+supplying the infirmary. Were they to suppose that the phial of poison
+and the hypodermic syringe had been introduced by the same means? It was
+impossible to prove; and, on the other hand, it was impossible to
+discover how the newspaper cuttings telling of Marie's suicide had found
+their way into Gaston Sauverand's cell.
+
+And then the original mystery still remained, the unfathomable mystery of
+the marks of teeth in the apple. M. Fauville's posthumous confession
+acquitted Marie. And yet it was undoubtedly Marie's teeth that had marked
+the apple. The teeth that had been called the teeth of the tiger were
+certainly hers. Well, then!
+
+In short, as Mazeroux said, everybody was groping in the dark, so much
+so that the Prefect, who was called upon by the will to assemble the
+Mornington heirs at a date not less than three nor more than four months
+after the testator's decease, suddenly decided that the meeting should
+take place in the course of the following week and fixed it for the
+ninth of June.
+
+He hoped in this way to put an end to an exasperating case in which the
+police displayed nothing but uncertainty and confusion. They would decide
+about the inheritance according to circumstances and then close the
+proceedings. And gradually people would cease to talk about the wholesale
+slaughter of the Mornington heirs; and the mystery of the teeth of the
+tiger would be gradually forgotten.
+
+It was strange, but these last days, which were restless and feverish
+like all the days that come before great battles--and every one felt that
+this last meeting meant a great battle--were spent by Don Luis in an
+armchair on his balcony in the Rue de Rivoli, where he sat quietly
+smoking cigarettes, or blowing soap-bubbles which the wind carried toward
+the garden of the Tuileries.
+
+Mazeroux could not get over it.
+
+"Chief, you astound me! How calm and careless you look!"
+
+"I am calm and careless, Alexandre."
+
+"But what do you mean? Doesn't the case interest you? Don't you intend to
+avenge Mme. Fauville and Sauverand? You are openly accused and you sit
+here blowing soap-bubbles!"
+
+"There's no more delightful pastime, Alexandre."
+
+"Shall I tell you what I think, Chief? You've discovered the solution of
+the mystery!"
+
+"Perhaps I have, Alexandre, and perhaps I haven't."
+
+Nothing seemed to excite Don Luis. Hours and hours passed; and he did not
+stir from his balcony. The sparrows now came and ate the crumbs which he
+threw to them. It really seemed as if the case was coming to an end for
+him and as if everything was turning out perfectly.
+
+But, on the day of the meeting, Mazeroux entered with a letter in his
+hand and a scared look on his face.
+
+"This is for you, Chief. It was addressed to me, but with an envelope
+inside it in your name. How do you explain that?"
+
+"Quite easily, Alexandre. The enemy is aware of our cordial relations;
+and, as he does not know where I am staying--"
+
+"What enemy?"
+
+"I'll tell you to-morrow evening."
+
+Don Luis opened the envelope and read the following words, written
+in red ink:
+
+"There's still time, Lupin. Retire from the contest. If not, it means
+your death, too. When you think that your object is attained, when your
+hand is raised against me and you utter words of triumph, at that same
+moment the ground will open beneath your feet. The place of your death is
+chosen. The snare is laid. Beware, Lupin."
+
+Don Luis smiled.
+
+"Good," he said. "Things are taking shape,"
+
+"Do you think so, Chief?"
+
+"I do. And who gave you the letter?"
+
+"Ah, we've been lucky for once, Chief! The policeman to whom it was
+handed happened to live at Les Ternes, next door to the bearer of the
+letter. He knows the fellow well. It was a stroke of luck, wasn't it?"
+
+Don Luis sprang from his seat, radiant with delight.
+
+"What do you mean? Out with it! You know who it is?"
+
+"The chap's an indoor servant employed at a nursing-home in the Avenue
+des Ternes."
+
+"Let's go there. We've no time to lose."
+
+"Splendid, Chief! You're yourself again."
+
+"Well, of course! As long as there was nothing to do I was waiting for
+this evening and resting, for I can see that the fight will be
+tremendous. But, as the enemy has blundered at last, as he's given me a
+trail to go upon, there's no need to wait, and I'll get ahead of him.
+Have at the tiger, Mazeroux!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was one o'clock in the afternoon when Don Luis and Mazeroux arrived at
+the nursing-home in the Avenue des Ternes. A manservant opened the door.
+Mazeroux nudged Don Luis. The man was doubtless the bearer of the letter.
+And, in reply to the sergeant's questions, he made no difficulty about
+saying that he had been to the police office that morning.
+
+"By whose orders?" asked Mazeroux.
+
+"The mother superior's."
+
+"The mother superior?"
+
+"Yes, the home includes a private hospital, which is managed by nuns."
+
+"Could we speak to the superior?"
+
+"Certainly, but not now: she has gone out."
+
+"When will she be in?"
+
+"Oh, she may be back at any time!"
+
+The man showed them into the waiting-room, where they spent over an hour.
+They were greatly puzzled. What did the intervention of that nun mean?
+What part was she playing in the case?
+
+People came in and were taken to the patients whom they had called to
+see. Others went out. There were also sisters moving silently to and fro
+and nurses dressed in their long white overalls belted at the waist.
+
+"We're not doing any good here, Chief," whispered Mazeroux.
+
+"What's your hurry? Is your sweetheart waiting for you?"
+
+"We're wasting our time."
+
+"I'm not wasting mine. The meeting at the Prefect's is not till five."
+
+"What did you say? You're joking, Chief! You surely don't intend to
+go to it."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why not? Well, the warrant--"
+
+"The warrant? A scrap of paper!"
+
+"A scrap of paper which will become a serious matter if you force the
+police to act. Your presence will be looked upon as a provocation--"
+
+"And my absence as a confession. A gentleman who comes into a hundred
+millions does not lie low on the day of the windfall. So I must attend
+that meeting, lest I should forfeit my claim. And attend it I will."
+
+"Chief!"
+
+A stifled cry was heard in front of them; and a woman, a nurse, who was
+passing through the room, at once started running, lifted a curtain, and
+disappeared.
+
+Don Luis rose, hesitating, not knowing what to do. Then, after four or
+five seconds of indecision, he suddenly rushed to the curtain and down
+a corridor, came up against a large, leather-padded door which had
+just closed, and wasted more time in stupidly fumbling at it with
+shaking hands.
+
+When he had opened it, he found himself at the foot of a back staircase.
+Should he go up it? On the right, the same staircase ran down to the
+basement. He went down it, entered a kitchen and, seizing hold of the
+cook, said to her, in an angry voice:
+
+"Has a nurse just gone out this way?"
+
+"Do you mean Nurse Gertrude, the new one?"
+
+"Yes, yes, quick! she's wanted upstairs."
+
+"Who wants her?"
+
+"Oh, hang it all, can't you tell me which way she went?"
+
+"Through that door over there."
+
+Don Luis darted away, crossed a little hall, and rushed out on to the
+Avenue des Ternes.
+
+"Well, here's a pretty race!" cried Mazeroux, joining him.
+
+Don Luis stood scanning the avenue. A motor bus was starting on the
+little square hard by, the Place Saint-Ferdinand.
+
+"She's inside it," he declared. "This time, I shan't let her go."
+
+He hailed a taxi.
+
+"Follow that motor bus, driver, at fifty yards' distance."
+
+"Is it Florence Levasseur?" asked Mazeroux.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A nice thing!" growled the sergeant. And, yielding to a sudden
+outburst: "But, look here, Chief, don't you see? Surely you're not as
+blind as all that!"
+
+Don Luis made no reply.
+
+"But, Chief, Florence Levasseur's presence in the nursing-home proves as
+clearly as A B C that it was she who told the manservant to bring me that
+threatening letter for you! There's not a doubt about it: Florence
+Levasseur is managing the whole business.
+
+"You know it as well as I do. Confess! It's possible that, during the
+last ten days, you've brought yourself, for love of that woman, to look
+upon her as innocent in spite of the overwhelming proofs against her. But
+to-day the truth hits you in the eye. I feel it, I'm sure of it. Isn't it
+so, Chief? I'm right, am I not? You see it for yourself?"
+
+This time Don Luis did not protest. With a drawn face and set eyes he
+watched the motor bus, which at that moment was standing still at the
+corner of the Boulevard Haussmann.
+
+"Stop!" he shouted to the driver.
+
+The girl alighted. It was easy to recognize Florence Levasseur under her
+nurse's uniform. She cast round her eyes as if to make sure that she was
+not being followed, and then took a cab and drove down the boulevard and
+the Rue de la Pépinière, to the Gare Saint-Lazare.
+
+Don Luis saw her from a distance climbing the steps that run up from the
+Cour de Rome; and, on following her, caught sight of her again at the
+ticket office at the end of the waiting hall.
+
+"Quick, Mazeroux!" he said. "Get out your detective card and ask the
+clerk what ticket she's taken. Run, before another passenger comes."
+
+Mazeroux hurried and questioned the ticket clerk and returned:
+
+"Second class for Rouen."
+
+"Take one for yourself."
+
+Mazeroux did so. They found that there was an express due to start in a
+minute. When they reached the platform Florence was stepping into a
+compartment in the middle of the train.
+
+The engine whistled.
+
+"Get in," said Don Luis, hiding himself as best he could. "Telegraph to
+me from Rouen; and I'll join you this evening. Above all, keep your
+eyes on her. Don't let her slip between your fingers. She's very
+clever, you know."
+
+"But why don't you come yourself, Chief? It would be much better--"
+
+"Out of the question. The train doesn't stop before Rouen; and I
+couldn't be back till this evening. The meeting at the Prefect's is at
+five o'clock."
+
+"And you insist on going?"
+
+"More than ever. There, jump in!"
+
+He pushed him into one of the end carriages. The train started and soon
+disappeared in the tunnel.
+
+Then Don Luis flung himself on a bench in a waiting room and remained
+there for two hours, pretending to read the newspapers. But his eyes
+wandered and his mind was haunted by the agonizing question that once
+more forced itself upon him: was Florence guilty or not?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was five o'clock exactly when Major Comte d'Astrignac, Maître
+Lepertuis, and the secretary of the American Embassy were shown into M.
+Desmalions's office. At the same moment some one entered the messengers'
+room and handed in his card.
+
+The messenger on duty glanced at the pasteboard, turned his head quickly
+toward a group of men talking in a corner, and then asked the newcomer:
+
+"Have you an appointment, sir?"
+
+"It's not necessary. Just say that I'm here: Don Luis Perenna."
+
+A kind of electric shock ran through the little group in the corner; and
+one of the persons forming it came forward. It was Weber, the deputy
+chief detective.
+
+The two men looked each other straight in the eyes. Don Luis smiled
+amiably. Weber was livid; he shook in every limb and was plainly striving
+to contain himself.
+
+Near him stood a couple of journalists and four detectives.
+
+"By Jove! the beggars are there for me!" thought Don Luis. "But their
+confusion shows that they did not believe that I should have the cheek to
+come. Are they going to arrest me?"
+
+Weber did not move, but in the end his face expressed a certain
+satisfaction as though he were saying:
+
+"I've got you this time, my fine fellow, and you shan't escape me."
+
+The office messenger returned and, without a word, led the way for Don
+Luis. Perenna passed in front of Weber with the politest of bows,
+bestowed a friendly little nod on the detectives, and entered.
+
+The Comte d'Astrignac hurried up to him at once, with hands outstretched,
+thus showing that all the tittle-tattle in no way affected the esteem in
+which he continued to hold Private Perenna of the Foreign Legion. But the
+Prefect of Police maintained an attitude of reserve which was very
+significant. He went on turning over the papers which he was examining
+and conversed in a low voice with the solicitor and the American
+Secretary of Embassy.
+
+Don Luis thought to himself:
+
+"My dear Lupin, there's some one going to leave this room with the
+bracelets on his wrists. If it's not the real culprit, it'll be you, my
+poor old chap."
+
+And he remembered the early part of the case, when he was in the workroom
+at Fauville's house, before the magistrates, and had either to deliver
+the criminal to justice or to incur the penalty of immediate arrest. In
+the same way, from the start to the finish of the struggle, he had been
+obliged, while fighting the invisible enemy, to expose himself to the
+attacks of the law with no means of defending himself except by
+indispensable victories.
+
+Harassed by constant onslaughts, never out of danger, he had successively
+hurried to their deaths Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand, two innocent
+people sacrificed to the cruel laws of war. Was he at last about to fight
+the real enemy, or would he himself succumb at the decisive moment?
+
+He rubbed his hands with such a cheerful gesture that M. Desmalions
+could not help looking at him. Don Luis wore the radiant air of a man
+who is experiencing a pure joy and who is preparing to taste others
+even greater.
+
+The Prefect of Police remained silent for a moment, as though asking
+himself what that devil of a fellow could be so pleased with; then he
+fumbled through his papers once more and, in the end, said:
+
+"We have met again, gentlemen, as we did two months ago, to come to a
+definite conclusion about the Mornington inheritance. Señor Caceres, the
+attaché of the Peruvian legation, will not be here. I have received a
+telegram from Italy to tell me that Señor Caceres is seriously ill.
+However, his presence was not indispensable. There is no one lacking,
+therefore--except those, alas, whose claims this meeting would gladly
+have sanctioned, that is to say, Cosmo Mornington's heirs."
+
+"There is one other person absent, Monsieur le Préfet." M. Desmalions
+looked up. The speaker was Don Luis. The Prefect hesitated and then
+decided to ask him to explain.
+
+"Whom do you mean? What person?"
+
+"The murderer of the Mornington heirs."
+
+This time again Don Luis compelled attention and, in spite of the
+resistance which he encountered, obliged the others to take notice of
+his presence and to yield to his ascendancy. Whatever happened, they had
+to listen to him. Whatever happened, they had to discuss with him things
+which seemed incredible, but which were possible because he put them
+into words.
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet," he asked, "will you allow me to set forth the facts
+of the matter as it now stands? They will form a natural sequel and
+conclusion of the interview which we had after the explosion on the
+Boulevard Suchet."
+
+M. Desmalions's silence gave Don Luis leave to speak. He at once
+continued:
+
+"It will not take long, Monsieur le Préfet. It will not take long for two
+reasons: first, because M. Fauville's confessions remain at our disposal
+and we know definitely the monstrous part which he played; and, secondly,
+because, after all, the truth, however complicated it may seem, is really
+very simple.
+
+"It all lies in the objection which you, Monsieur le Préfet, made to me
+on leaving the wrecked house on the Boulevard Suchet: 'How is it,' you
+asked, 'that the Mornington inheritance is not once mentioned in
+Hippolyte Fauville's confession?' It all lies in that, Monsieur le
+Préfet. Hippolyte Fauville did not say a word about the inheritance; and
+the reason evidently is that he did not know of it.
+
+"And the reason why Gaston Sauverand was able to tell me his whole
+sensational story without making the least allusion to the inheritance
+was that the inheritance played no sort of part in Gaston Sauverand's
+story. He, too, knew nothing of it before those events, any more than
+Marie Fauville did, or Florence Levasseur. There is no denying the
+fact: Hippolyte Fauville was guided by revenge and by revenge alone.
+If not, why should he have acted as he did, seeing that Cosmo
+Mornington's millions reverted to him by the fullest of rights?
+Besides, if he had wished to enjoy those millions, he would not have
+begun by killing himself.
+
+"One thing, therefore, is certain: the inheritance in no way affected
+Hippolyte Fauville's resolves or actions. And, nevertheless, one after
+the other, with inflexible regularity, as if they had been struck down in
+the very order called for by the terms of the Mornington inheritance,
+they all disappeared: Cosmo Mornington, then Hippolyte Fauville, then
+Edmond Fauville, then Marie Fauville, then Gaston Sauverand. First, the
+possessor of the fortune; next, all those whom he had appointed his
+legatees; and, I repeat, in the very order in which the will enabled them
+to lay claim to the fortune!"
+
+"Is it not strange?" asked Perenna, "and are we not bound to suppose that
+there was a controlling mind at the back of it all? Are we not bound to
+admit that the formidable contest was influenced by that inheritance, and
+that, above the hatred and jealousy of the loathsome Fauville, there
+loomed a being endowed with even more tremendous energy, pursuing a
+tangible aim and driving to their deaths, one by one, like so many
+numbered victims, all the unconscious actors in the tragedy of which he
+tied and of which he is now untying the threads?"
+
+Don Luis leaned forward and continued earnestly:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, the public instinct so thoroughly agrees with me, a
+section of the police, with M. Weber, the deputy chief detective at its
+head, argues in a manner so exactly identical with my own, that the
+existence of that being is at once confirmed in every mind. There had to
+be some one to act as the controlling brain, to provide the will and the
+energy. That some one was myself. After all, why not? Did not I possess
+the condition which was indispensable to make any one interested in the
+murders? Was I not Cosmo Mornington's heir?
+
+"I will not defend myself. It may be that outside interference, it may be
+that circumstances, will oblige you, Monsieur le Préfet, to take
+unjustifiable measures against me; but I will not insult you by believing
+for one second that you can imagine the man whose acts you have been able
+to judge for the last two months capable of such crimes. And yet the
+public instinct is right in accusing me.
+
+"Apart from Hippolyte Fauville, there is necessarily a criminal; and that
+criminal is necessarily Cosmo Mornington's heir. As I am not the man,
+another heir of Cosmo Mornington exists. It is he whom I accuse, Monsieur
+le Préfet.
+
+"There is something more than a dead man's will in the wicked business
+that is being enacted before us. We thought for a time that there was
+only that; but there is something more. I have not been fighting a dead
+man all the time; more than once I have felt the very breath of life
+strike against my face. More than once I have felt the teeth of the tiger
+seeking to tear me.
+
+"The dead man did much, but he did not do everything. And, even then, was
+he alone in doing what he did? Was the being of whom I speak merely one
+who executed his orders? Or was he also the accomplice who helped him in
+his scheme? I do not know. But he certainly continued a work which he
+perhaps began by inspiring and which, in any case, he turned to his own
+profit, resolutely completed and carried out to the very end. And he did
+so because he knew of Cosmo Mornington's will. It is he whom I accuse,
+Monsieur le Préfet.
+
+"I accuse him at the very least of that part of the crimes and felonies
+which cannot be attributed to Hippolyte Fauville. I accuse him of
+breaking open the drawer of the desk in which Maître Lepertuis, Cosmo
+Mornington's solicitor, had put his client's will. I accuse him of
+entering Cosmo Mornington's room and substituting a phial containing a
+toxic fluid for one of the phials of glycero-phosphate which Cosmo
+Mornington used for his hypodermic injections. I accuse him of playing
+the part of a doctor who came to certify Cosmo Mornington's death and of
+delivering a false certificate. I accuse him of supplying Hippolyte
+Fauville with the poison which killed successively Inspector Vérot,
+Edmond Fauville, and Hippolyte Fauville himself. I accuse him of arming
+and turning against me the hand of Gaston Sauverand, who, acting under
+his advice and his instructions, tried three times to take my life and
+ended by causing the death of my chauffeur. I accuse him of profiting by
+the relations which Gaston Sauverand had established with the infirmary
+in order to communicate with Marie Fauville, and of arranging for Marie
+Fauville to receive the hypodermic syringe and the phial of poison with
+which the poor woman was able to carry out her plans of suicide."
+
+Perenna paused to note the effect of these charges. Then he went on:
+
+"I accuse him of conveying to Gaston Sauverand, by some unknown means,
+the newspaper cuttings about Marie Fauville's death and, at the same
+time, foreseeing the inevitable results of his act. To sum up, therefore,
+without mentioning his share in the other crimes--the death of Inspector
+Vérot, the death of my chauffeur--I accuse him of killing Cosmo
+Mornington, Edmond Fauville, Hippolyte Fauville, Marie Fauville, and
+Gaston Sauverand; in plain words, of killing all those who stood between
+the millions and himself. These last words, Monsieur le Préfet, will tell
+you clearly what I have in my mind.
+
+"When a man does away with five of his fellow creatures in order to
+secure a certain number of millions, it means that he is convinced that
+this proceeding will positively and mathematically insure his entering
+into possession of the millions. In short, when a man does away with a
+millionaire and his four successive heirs, it means that he himself is
+the millionaire's fifth heir. The man will be here in a moment."
+
+"What!"
+
+It was a spontaneous exclamation on the part of the Prefect of Police,
+who was forgetting the whole of Don Luis Perenna's powerful and closely
+reasoned argument, and thinking only of the stupefying apparition which
+Don Luis announced. Don Luis replied:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, his visit is the logical outcome of my accusations.
+Remember that Cosmo Mornington's will explicitly states that no heir's
+claim will be valid unless he is present at to-day's meeting."
+
+"And suppose he does not come?" asked the Prefect, thus showing that Don
+Luis's conviction had gradually got the better of his doubts.
+
+"He will come, Monsieur le Préfet. If not, there would have been no sense
+in all this business. Limited to the crimes and other actions of
+Hippolyte Fauville, it could be looked upon as the preposterous work of a
+madman. Continued to the deaths of Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand,
+it demands, as its inevitable outcome, the appearance of a person who, as
+the last descendant of the Roussels of Saint-Etienne and consequently as
+Cosmo Mornington's absolute heir, taking precedence of myself, will come
+to claim the hundred millions which he has won by means of his incredible
+audacity."
+
+"And suppose he does not come?" M. Desmalions once more exclaimed, in a
+more vehement tone.
+
+"Then, Monsieur le Préfet, you may take it that I am the culprit; and you
+have only to arrest me. This day, between five and six o'clock, you will
+see before you, in this room, the person who killed the Mornington heirs.
+It is, humanly speaking, impossible that this should not be so.
+Consequently, the law will be satisfied in any circumstances. He or I:
+the position is quite simple."
+
+M. Desmalions was silent. He gnawed his moustache thoughtfully and walked
+round and round the table, within the narrow circle formed by the others.
+It was obvious that objections to the supposition were springing up in
+his mind. In the end, he muttered, as though speaking to himself:
+
+"No, no. For, after all, how are we to explain that the man should have
+waited until now to claim his rights?"
+
+"An accident, perhaps, Monsieur le Préfet, an obstacle of some kind. Or
+else--one can never tell--the perverse longing for a more striking
+sensation. And remember, Monsieur le Préfet, how minutely and subtly the
+whole business was worked. Each event took place at the very moment
+fixed by Hippolyte Fauville. Cannot we take it that his accomplice is
+pursuing this method to the end and that he will not reveal himself
+until the last minute?"
+
+M. Desmalions exclaimed, with a sort of anger:
+
+"No, no, and again no! It is not possible. If a creature monstrous enough
+to commit such a series of murders exists, he will not be such a fool as
+to deliver himself into our hands."
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, he does not know the danger that threatens him if he
+comes here, because no one has even contemplated the theory of his
+existence. Besides, what risk does he run?"
+
+"What risk? Why, if he has really committed those murders--"
+
+"He has committed them, Monsieur le Préfet. He has _caused_ them to be
+committed, which is a different thing. And you now see where the man's
+unsuspected strength lies! He does not act in person. From the day
+when the truth appeared to me, I have succeeded in gradually
+discovering his means of action, in laying bare the machinery which he
+controls, the tricks which he employs. He does not act in person.
+There you have his method. You will find that it is the same
+throughout the series of murders.
+
+"In appearance, Cosmo Mornington died of the results of a carelessly
+administered injection. In reality, it was this man who caused the
+injection to prove fatal. In appearance, Inspector Vérot was killed by
+Hippolyte Fauville. In reality, it must have been this man who contrived
+the murder by pointing out the necessity to Fauville and, so to speak,
+guiding his hand. And, in the same way, in appearance, Fauville killed
+his son and committed suicide; Marie Fauville committed suicide; Gaston
+Sauverand committed suicide. In reality, it was this man who wanted them
+dead, who prompted them to commit suicide, and who supplied them with the
+means of death.
+
+"There you have the method, and there, Monsieur le Préfet, you have
+the man." And, in a lower voice, that contained a sort of
+apprehension, he added, "I confess that never before, in the course of
+a life that has been full of strange meetings, have I encountered a
+more terrifying person, acting with more devilish ability or greater
+psychological insight."
+
+His words created an ever-increasing sensation among his hearers. They
+really saw that invisible being. He took shape in their imaginations.
+They waited for him to arrive. Twice Don Luis had turned to the door and
+listened. And his action did more than anything else to conjure up the
+image of the man who was coming.
+
+M. Desmalions said:
+
+"Whether he acted in person or caused others to act, the law, once it has
+hold of him, will know how to--"
+
+"The law will find it no easy matter, Monsieur le Préfet! A man of his
+powers and resource must have foreseen everything, even his arrest, even
+the accusation of which he would be the subject; and there is little to
+be brought against him but moral charges without proofs."
+
+"Then you think--"
+
+"I think, Monsieur le Préfet, that the thing will be to accept his
+explanations as quite natural and not to show any distrust. What you
+want is to know who he is. Later on, before long, you will be able to
+unmask him."
+
+The Prefect of Police continued to walk round the table. Major
+d'Astrignac kept his eyes fixed on Perenna, whose coolness amazed him.
+The solicitor and the secretary of Embassy seemed greatly excited. In
+fact nothing could be more sensational than the thought that filled all
+their minds. Was the abominable murderer about to appear before them?
+
+"Silence!" said the Prefect, stopping his walk.
+
+Some one had crossed the anteroom.
+
+There was a knock at the door.
+
+"Come in!"
+
+The office messenger entered, carrying a card-tray. On the tray was a
+letter; and in addition there was one of those printed slips on which
+callers write their name and the object of their visit.
+
+M. Desmalions hastened toward the messenger. He hesitated a moment before
+taking up the slip. He was very pale. Then he glanced at it quickly.
+
+"Oh!" he said, with a start.
+
+He looked toward Don Luis, reflected, and then, taking the letter, he
+said to the messenger:
+
+"Is the bearer outside?"
+
+"In the anteroom, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"Show the person in when I ring."
+
+The messenger left the room.
+
+M. Desmalions stood in front of his desk, without moving. For the second
+time Don Luis met his eyes; and a feeling of perturbation came over him.
+What was happening?
+
+With a sharp movement the Prefect of Police opened the envelope which he
+held in his hand, unfolded the letter and began to read it.
+
+The others watched his every gesture, watched the least change of
+expression on his face. Were Perenna's predictions about to be fulfilled?
+Was a fifth heir putting in his claim?
+
+The moment he had read the first lines, M. Desmalions looked up and,
+addressing Don Luis, murmured:
+
+"You were right, Monsieur. This is a claim."
+
+"On whose part, Monsieur le Préfet?" Don Luis could not help asking.
+
+M. Desmalions did not reply. He finished reading the letter. Then he read
+it again, with the attention of a man weighing every word. Lastly, he
+read aloud:
+
+"MONSIEUR LE PRÉFET:
+
+"A chance correspondence has revealed to me the existence of an unknown
+heir of the Roussel family. It was only to-day that I was able to
+procure the documents necessary for identifying this heir; and, owing to
+unforeseen obstacles, it is only at the last moment that I am able to
+send them to you _by the person whom they concern_. Respecting a secret
+which is not mine and wishing, as a woman, to remain outside a business
+in which I have been only accidentally involved, I beg you, Monsieur le
+Préfet, to excuse me if I do not feel called upon to sign my name to
+this letter."
+
+So Perenna had seen rightly and events were justifying his forecast. Some
+one was putting in an appearance within the period indicated. The claim
+was made in good time. And the very way in which things were happening at
+the exact moment was curiously suggestive of the mechanical exactness
+that had governed the whole business.
+
+The last question still remained: who was this unknown person, the
+possible heir, and therefore the five or six fold murderer? He was
+waiting in the next room. There was nothing but a wall between him
+and the others. He was coming in. They would see him. They would know
+who he was.
+
+The Prefect suddenly rang the bell.
+
+A few tense seconds elapsed. Oddly enough, M. Desmalions did not remove
+his eyes from Perenna. Don Luis remained quite master of himself, but
+restless and uneasy at heart.
+
+The door opened. The messenger showed some one in.
+
+It was Florence Levasseur.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN
+
+WEBER TAKES HIS REVENGE
+
+
+Don Luis was for one moment amazed. Florence Levasseur here! Florence,
+whom he had left in the train under Mazeroux's supervision and for whom
+it was physically impossible to be back in Paris before eight o'clock in
+the evening!
+
+Then, despite his bewilderment, he at once understood. Florence, knowing
+that she was being followed, had drawn them after her to the Gare
+Saint-Lazare and simply walked through the railway carriage, getting out
+on the other platform, while the worthy Mazeroux went on in the train to
+keep his eye on the traveller who was not there.
+
+But suddenly the full horror of the situation struck him. Florence was
+here to claim the inheritance; and her claim, as he himself had said, was
+a proof of the most terrible guilt.
+
+Acting on an irresistible impulse, Don Luis leaped to the girl's side,
+seized her by the arm and said, with almost malevolent force:
+
+"What are you doing here? What have you come for? Why did you not
+let me know?"
+
+M. Desmalions stepped between them. But Don Luis, without letting go of
+the girl's arm, exclaimed:
+
+"Oh, Monsieur le Préfet, don't you see that this is all a mistake? The
+person whom we are expecting, about whom I told you, is not this one. The
+other is keeping in the background, as usual. Why it's impossible that
+Florence Levasseur--"
+
+"I have no preconceived opinion on the subject of this young lady," said
+the Prefect of Police, in an authoritative voice. "But it is my duty to
+question her about the circumstances that brought her here; and I shall
+certainly do so."
+
+He released the girl from Don Luis's grasp and made her take a seat. He
+himself sat down at his desk; and it was easy to see how great an
+impression the girl's presence made upon him. It afforded so to speak an
+illustration of Don Luis's argument.
+
+The appearance on the scene of a new person, laying claim to the
+inheritance, was undeniably, to any logical mind, the appearance on the
+scene of a criminal who herself brought with her the proofs of her
+crimes. Don Luis felt this clearly and, from that moment, did not take
+his eyes off the Prefect of Police.
+
+Florence looked at them by turns as though the whole thing was the most
+insoluble mystery to her. Her beautiful dark eyes retained their
+customary serenity. She no longer wore her nurse's uniform; and her gray
+gown, very simply cut and devoid of ornaments, showed her graceful
+figure. She was grave and unemotional as usual.
+
+M. Desmalions said:
+
+"Explain yourself, Mademoiselle."
+
+She answered:
+
+"I have nothing to explain, Monsieur le Préfet. I have come to you on an
+errand which I am fulfilling without knowing exactly what it is about."
+
+"What do you mean? Without knowing what it is about?"
+
+"I will tell you, Monsieur le Préfet. Some one in whom I have every
+confidence and for whom I entertain the greatest respect asked me to hand
+you certain papers. They appear to concern the question which is the
+object of your meeting to-day."
+
+"The question of awarding the Mornington inheritance?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You know that, if this claim had not been made in the course of the
+present sitting, it would have had no effect?"
+
+"I came as soon as the papers were handed to me."
+
+"Why were they not handed to you an hour or two earlier?"
+
+"I was not there. I had to leave the house where I am staying, in a
+hurry."
+
+Perenna did not doubt that it was his intervention that upset the enemy's
+plans by causing Florence to take to flight.
+
+The Prefect continued:
+
+"So you are ignorant of the reasons why you received the papers?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+"And evidently you are also ignorant of how far they concern you?"
+
+"They do not concern me, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+M. Desmalions smiled and, looking into Florence's eyes, said, plainly:
+
+"According to the letter that accompanies them, they concern you
+intimately. It seems that they prove, in the most positive manner, that
+you are descended from the Roussel family and that you consequently have
+every right to the Mornington inheritance."
+
+"I?"
+
+The cry was a spontaneous exclamation of astonishment and protest.
+
+And she at once went on, insistently:
+
+"I, a right to the inheritance? I have none at all, Monsieur le Préfet,
+none at all. I never knew Mr. Mornington. What is this story? There is
+some mistake."
+
+She spoke with great animation and with an apparent frankness that would
+have impressed any other man than the Prefect of Police. But how could he
+forget Don Luis's arguments and the accusation made beforehand against
+the person who would arrive at the meeting?
+
+"Give me the papers," he said.
+
+She took from her handbag a blue envelope which was not fastened down and
+which he found to contain a number of faded documents, damaged at the
+folds and torn in different places.
+
+He examined them amid perfect silence, read them through, studied them
+thoroughly, inspected the signatures and the seals through a magnifying
+glass, and said:
+
+"They bear every sign of being genuine. The seals are official."
+
+"Then, Monsieur le Préfet--?" said Florence, in a trembling voice.
+
+"Then, Mademoiselle, let me tell you that your ignorance strikes me as
+most incredible."
+
+And, turning to the solicitor, he said:
+
+"Listen briefly to what these documents contain and prove. Gaston
+Sauverand, Cosmo Mornington's heir in the fourth line, had, as you know,
+an elder brother, called Raoul, who lived in the Argentine Republic. This
+brother, before his death, sent to Europe, in the charge of an old nurse,
+a child of five who was none other than his daughter, a natural but
+legally recognized daughter whom he had had by Mlle. Levasseur, a French
+teacher at Buenos Ayres.
+
+"Here is the birth certificate. Here is the signed declaration written
+entirely in the father's hand. Here is the affidavit signed by the old
+nurse. Here are the depositions of three friends, merchants or
+solicitors at Buenos Ayres. And here are the death certificates of the
+father and mother.
+
+"All these documents have been legalized and bear the seals of the French
+consulate. For the present, I have no reason to doubt them; and I am
+bound to look upon Florence Levasseur as Raoul Sauverand's daughter and
+Gaston Sauverand's niece."
+
+"Gaston Sauvarand's niece? ... His niece?" stammered Florence.
+
+The mention of a father whom she had, so to speak, never known, left her
+unmoved. But she began to weep at the recollection of Gaston Sauverand,
+whom she loved so fondly and to whom she found herself linked by such a
+close relationship.
+
+Were her tears sincere? Or were they the tears of an actress able to play
+her part down to the slightest details? Were those facts really revealed
+to her for the first time? Or was she acting the emotions which the
+revelation of those facts would produce in her under natural conditions?
+
+Don Luis observed M. Desmalions even more narrowly than he did the girl,
+and tried to read the secret thoughts of the man with whom the decision
+lay. And suddenly he became certain that Florence's arrest was a matter
+resolved upon as definitely as the arrest of the most monstrous criminal.
+Then he went up to her and said:
+
+"Florence."
+
+She looked at him with her tear-dimmed eyes and made no reply.
+
+Slowly, he said:
+
+"To defend yourself, Florence--for, though I am sure you do not know it,
+you are under that obligation--you must understand the terrible position
+in which events have placed you.
+
+"Florence, the Prefect of Police has been led by the logical outcome of
+those events to come to the final conclusion that the person entering
+this room with an evident claim to the inheritance is the person who
+killed the Mornington heirs. You entered the room, Florence, and you are
+undoubtedly Cosmo Mornington's heir."
+
+He saw her shake from head to foot and turn as pale as death.
+Nevertheless, she uttered no word and made no gesture of protest.
+
+He went on:
+
+"It is a formal accusation. Do you say nothing in reply?"
+
+She waited some time and then declared:
+
+"I have nothing to say. The whole thing is a mystery. What would you have
+me reply? I do not understand!"
+
+Don Luis stood quivering with anguish in front of her. He stammered:
+
+"Is that all? Do you accept?"
+
+After a second, she said, in an undertone:
+
+"Explain yourself, I beg of you. What you mean, I suppose, is that, if I
+do not reply, I accept the accusation?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Arrest--prison--"
+
+"Prison!"
+
+She seemed to be suffering hideously. Her beautiful features were
+distorted with fear. To her mind, prison evidently represented the
+torments undergone by Marie and Sauverand. It must mean despair, shame,
+death, all those horrors which Marie and Sauverand had been unable to
+avoid and of which she in her turn would become the victim.
+
+An awful sense of hopelessness overcame her, and she moaned:
+
+"How tired I am! I feel that there is nothing to be done! I am stifled by
+the mystery around me! Oh, if I could only see and understand!"
+
+There was another long pause. Leaning over her, M. Desmalions studied her
+face with concentrated attention. Then, as she did not speak, he put his
+hand to the bell on his table and struck it three times.
+
+Don Luis did not stir from where he stood, with his eyes despairingly
+fixed on Florence. A battle was raging within him between his love and
+generosity, which led him to believe the girl, and his reason, which
+obliged him to suspect her. Was she innocent or guilty? He did not know.
+Everything was against her. And yet why had he never ceased to love her?
+
+Weber entered, followed by his men. M. Desmalions spoke to him and
+pointed to Florence. Weber went up to her.
+
+"Florence!" said Don Luis.
+
+She looked at him and looked at Weber and his men; and, suddenly,
+realizing what was coming, she retreated, staggered for a moment,
+bewildered and fainting, and fell back in Don Luis's arms:
+
+"Oh, save me, save me! Do save me!"
+
+The action was so natural and unconstrained, the cry of distress so
+clearly denoted the alarm which only the innocent can feel, that Don
+Luis was promptly convinced. A fervent belief in her lightened his
+heart. His doubts, his caution, his hesitation, his anguish: all these
+vanished before a certainty that dashed upon him like an irresistible
+wave. And he cried:
+
+"No, no, that must not be! Monsieur le Préfet, there are things that
+cannot be permitted--"
+
+He stooped over Florence, whom he was holding so firmly in his arms that
+nobody could have taken her from him. Their eyes met. His face was close
+to the girl's. He quivered with emotion at feeling her throbbing, so
+weak, so utterly helpless; and he said to her passionately, in a voice
+too low for any but her to hear:
+
+"I love you, I love you.... Ah, Florence, if you only knew what I feel:
+how I suffer and how happy I am! Oh, Florence, I love you, I love you--"
+
+Weber had stood aside, at a sign from the Prefect, who wanted to witness
+the unexpected conflict between those two mysterious beings, Don Luis
+Perenna and Florence Levasseur.
+
+Don Luis unloosed his arms and placed the girl in a chair. Then, putting
+his two hands on her shoulders, face to face with her, he said:
+
+"Though you do not understand, Florence, I am beginning to understand a
+good deal; and I can already almost see my way in the mystery that
+terrifies you. Florence, listen to me. It is not you who are doing all
+this, is it? There is somebody else behind you, above you--somebody who
+gives you your instructions, isn't there, while you yourself don't know
+where he is leading you?"
+
+"Nobody is instructing me. What do you mean? Explain."
+
+"Yes, you are not alone in your life. There are many things which you do
+because you are told to do them and because you think them right and
+because you do not know their consequences or even that they can have any
+consequences. Answer my question: are you absolutely free? Are you not
+yielding to some influence?"
+
+The girl seemed to have come to herself, and her face recovered some of
+its usual calmness. Nevertheless, it seemed as if Don Luis's question
+made an impression on her.
+
+"No," she said, "there is no influence--none at all--I'm sure of it."
+
+He insisted, with growing eagerness:
+
+"No, you are not sure; don't say that. Some one is dominating you without
+your knowing it. Think for a moment. You are Cosmo Mornington's heir,
+heir to a fortune which you don't care about, I know, I swear! Well, if
+you don't want that fortune, to whom will it belong? Answer me. Is there
+any one who is interested or believes himself interested in seeing you
+rich? The whole question lies in that. Is your life linked with that of
+some one else? Is he a friend of yours? Are you engaged to him?"
+
+She gave a start of revolt.
+
+"Oh, never! The man of whom you speak is incapable--"
+
+"Ah," he cried, overcome with jealousy, "you confess it! So the man of
+whom I speak exists! I swear that the villain--"
+
+He turned toward M. Desmalions, his face convulsed with hatred. He made
+no further effort to contain himself:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, we are in sight of the goal. I know the road that
+will lead us to it. The wild beast shall be hunted down to-night, or
+to-morrow at least. Monsieur le Préfet, the letter that accompanied those
+documents, the unsigned letter which this young lady handed you, was
+written by the mother superior who manages a nursing-home in the Avenue
+des Ternes.
+
+"By making immediate inquiries at that nursing-home, by questioning the
+superior and confronting her with Mlle. Levasseur, we shall discover the
+identity of the criminal himself. But we must not lose a minute, or we
+shall be too late and the wild beast will have fled."
+
+His outburst was irresistible. There was no fighting against the violence
+of his conviction. Still, M. Desmalions objected:
+
+"Mlle. Levasseur could tell us--"
+
+"She will not speak, or at least not till later, when the man has been
+unmasked in her presence. Monsieur le Préfet, I entreat you to have the
+same confidence in me as before. Have not all my promises been fulfilled?
+Have confidence, Monsieur le Préfet; cast aside your doubts. Remember how
+Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were overwhelmed with charges, the
+most serious charges, and how they succumbed in spite of their innocence.
+
+"Does the law wish to see Florence Levasseur sacrificed as the two others
+were? And, besides, what I ask for is not her release, but the means to
+defend her--that is to say, an hour or two's delay. Let Deputy Chief
+Weber be responsible for her safe custody. Let your detectives go with
+us: these and more as well, for we cannot have too many to capture the
+loathsome brute in his lair."
+
+M. Desmalions did not reply. After a brief moment he took Weber
+aside and talked to him for some minutes. M. Desmalions did not seem
+very favourably disposed toward Don Luis's request. But Weber was
+heard to say:
+
+"You need have no fear, Monsieur le Préfet. We run no risk."
+
+And M. Desmalions yielded.
+
+A few moments later Don Luis Perenna and Florence Levasseur took their
+seats in a motor car with Weber and two inspectors. Another car, filled
+with detectives, followed.
+
+The hospital was literally invested by the police force and Weber
+neglected none of the precautions of a regular siege.
+
+The Prefect of Police, who arrived in his own car, was shown by the
+manservant into the waiting-room and then into the parlour, where the
+mother superior came to him at once. Without delay or preamble of any
+sort he put his questions to her, in the presence of Don Luis, Weber,
+and Florence:
+
+"Reverend mother," he said, "I have a letter here which was brought to
+me at headquarters and which tells me of the existence of certain
+documents concerning a legacy. According to my information, this letter,
+which is unsigned and which is in a disguised hand, was written by you.
+Is that so?"
+
+The mother superior, a woman with a powerful face and a determined air,
+replied, without embarrassment:
+
+"That is so, Monsieur le Préfet. As I had the honour to tell you in my
+letter, I would have preferred, for obvious reasons, that my name should
+not be mentioned. Besides, the delivery of the documents was all that
+mattered. However, since you know that I am the writer, I am prepared to
+answer your questions."
+
+M. Desmalions continued, with a glance at Florence:
+
+"I will first ask you, Reverend Mother, if you know this young lady?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. Florence was with us for six months as a nurse,
+a few years ago. She gave such satisfaction that I was glad to take her
+back this day fortnight. As I had read her story in the papers, I simply
+asked her to change her name. We had a new staff at the hospital, and it
+was therefore a safe refuge for her."
+
+"But, as you have read the papers, you must be aware of the accusations
+against her?"
+
+"Those accusations have no weight, Monsieur le Préfet, with any one who
+knows Florence. She has one of the noblest characters and one of the
+strictest consciences that I have ever met with."
+
+The Prefect continued:
+
+"Let us speak of the documents, Reverend Mother. Where do they
+come from?"
+
+"Yesterday, Monsieur le Préfet, I found in my room a communication in
+which the writer proposed to send me some papers that interested Florence
+Levasseur--"
+
+"How did any one know that she was here?" asked M. Desmalions,
+interrupting her.
+
+"I can't tell you. The letter simply said that the papers would be at
+Versailles, at the _poste restante_, in my name, on a certain day--that
+is to say, this morning. I was also asked not to mention them to anybody
+and to hand them at three o'clock this afternoon to Florence Levasseur,
+with instructions to take them to the Prefect of Police at once. I was
+also requested to have a letter conveyed to Sergeant Mazeroux."
+
+"To Sergeant Mazeroux! That's odd."
+
+"That letter appeared to have to do with the same business. Now, I am
+very fond of Florence. So I sent the letter, and this morning went to
+Versailles and found the papers there, as stated. When I got back,
+Florence was out. I was not able to hand them to her until her return, at
+about four o'clock."
+
+"Where were the papers posted?"
+
+"In Paris. The postmark on the envelope was that of the Avenue Niel,
+which happens to be the nearest office to this."
+
+"And did not the fact of finding that letter in your room strike you
+as strange?"
+
+"Certainly, Monsieur le Préfet, but no stranger than all the other
+incidents in the matter."
+
+"Nevertheless," continued M. Desmalions, who was watching Florence's pale
+face, "nevertheless, when you saw that the instructions which you
+received came from this house and that they concerned a person living in
+this house, did you not entertain the idea that that person--"
+
+"The idea that Florence had entered the room, unknown to me, for such a
+purpose?" cried the superior. "Oh, Monsieur le Préfet, Florence is
+incapable of doing such a thing!"
+
+The girl was silent, but her drawn features betrayed the feelings of
+alarm that upset her.
+
+Don Luis went up to her and said:
+
+"The mystery is clearing, Florence, isn't it? And you are suffering in
+consequence. Who put the letter in Mother Superior's room? You know,
+don't you? And you know who is conducting all this plot?"
+
+She did not answer. Then, turning to the deputy chief, the Prefect said:
+
+"Weber, please go and search the room which Mlle. Levasseur occupied."
+
+And, in reply to the nun's protest:
+
+"It is indispensable," he declared, "that we should know the reasons why
+Mlle. Levasseur preserves such an obstinate silence."
+
+Florence herself led the way. But, as Weber was leaving the room, Don
+Luis exclaimed:
+
+"Take care, Deputy Chief!"
+
+"Take care? Why?"
+
+"I don't know," said Don Luis, who really could not have said why
+Florence's behaviour was making him uneasy. "I don't know. Still, I
+warn you--"
+
+Weber shrugged his shoulders and, accompanied by the superior, moved
+away. In the hall he took two men with him. Florence walked ahead. She
+went up a flight of stairs and turned down a long corridor, with rooms on
+either side of it, which, after turning a corner, led to a short and very
+narrow passage ending in a door.
+
+This was her room. The door opened not inward, into the room, but
+outward, into the passage. Florence therefore drew it to her, stepping
+back as she did so, which obliged Weber to do likewise. She took
+advantage of this to rush in and close the door behind her so quickly
+that the deputy chief, when he tried to grasp the handle, merely
+struck the air.
+
+He made an angry gesture:
+
+"The baggage! She means to burn some papers!"
+
+And, turning to the superior:
+
+"Is there another exit to the room?"
+
+"No, Monsieur."
+
+He tried to open the door, but she had locked and bolted it. Then he
+stood aside to make way for one of his men, a giant, who, with one blow
+of his fist, smashed a panel.
+
+Weber pushed by him, put his arm through the opening, drew the bolt,
+turned the key, pulled open the door and entered.
+
+Florence was no longer in her room. A little open window opposite showed
+the way she had taken.
+
+"Oh, curse my luck!" he shouted. "She's cut off!"
+
+And, hurrying back to the staircase, he roared over the balusters:
+
+"Watch all the doors! She's got away! Collar her!"
+
+M. Desmalions came hurrying up. Meeting the deputy, he received his
+explanations and then went on to Florence's room. The open window looked
+out on a small inner yard, a sort of well which served to ventilate a
+part of the house. Some rain-pipes ran down the wall. Florence must have
+let herself down by them. But what coolness and what an indomitable will
+she must have displayed to make her escape in this manner!
+
+The detectives had already distributed themselves on every side to bar
+the fugitive's road. It soon became manifest that Florence, for whom they
+were hunting on the ground floor and in the basement, had gone from the
+yard into the room underneath her own, which happened to be the mother
+superior's; that she had put on a nun's habit; and that, thus disguised,
+she had passed unnoticed through the very men who were pursuing her.
+
+They rushed outside. But it was now dark; and every search was bound to
+be vain in so populous a quarter.
+
+The Prefect of Police made no effort to conceal his displeasure. Don Luis
+was also greatly disappointed at this flight, which thwarted his plans,
+and enlarged openly upon Weber's lack of skill.
+
+"I told you so, Deputy Chief! You should have taken your precautions.
+Mlle. Levasseur's attitude ought to have warned you. She evidently knows
+the criminal and wanted to go to him, ask him for explanations and, for
+all we can tell, save him, if he managed to convince her. And what will
+happen between them? When the villain sees that he is discovered, he will
+be capable of anything."
+
+M. Desmalions again questioned the mother superior and soon learned that
+Florence, before taking refuge in the nursing-home, had spent forty-eight
+hours in some furnished apartments on the Ile Saint-Louis.
+
+The clue was not worth much, but they could not neglect it. The Prefect
+of Police, who retained all his doubts with regard to Florence and
+attached extreme importance to the girl's capture, ordered Weber and his
+men to follow up this trail without delay. Don Luis accompanied the
+deputy chief.
+
+Events at once showed that the Prefect of Police was right. Florence had
+taken refuge in the lodging-house on the Ile Saint-Louis, where she had
+engaged a room under an assumed name. But she had no sooner arrived than
+a small boy called at the house, asked for her, and went away with her.
+
+They went up to her room and found a parcel done up in a newspaper,
+containing a nun's habit. The thing was obvious.
+
+Later, in the course of the evening, Weber succeeded in discovering the
+small boy. He was the son of the porter of one of the houses in the
+neighbourhood. Where could he have taken Florence? When questioned, he
+definitely refused to betray the lady who had trusted him and who had
+cried when she kissed him. His mother entreated him. His father boxed his
+ears. He was inflexible.
+
+In any case, it was not unreasonable to conclude that Florence had not
+left the Ile Saint-Louis or its immediate vicinity. The detectives
+persisted in their search all the evening. Weber established his
+headquarters in a tap room where every scrap of information was
+brought to him and where his men returned from time to time to receive
+his orders. He also remained in constant communication with the
+Prefect's office.
+
+At half-past ten a squad of detectives, sent by the Prefect, placed
+themselves at the deputy chief's disposal. Mazeroux, newly arrived from
+Rouen and furious with Florence, joined them.
+
+The search continued. Don Luis had gradually assumed its management; and
+it was he who, so to speak, inspired Weber to ring at this or that door
+and to question this or that person.
+
+At eleven o'clock the hunt still remained fruitless; and Don Luis was the
+victim of an increasing and irritating restlessness. But, shortly after
+midnight, a shrill whistle drew all the men to the eastern extremity of
+the island, at the end of the Quai d'Anjou.
+
+Two detectives stood waiting for them, surrounded by a small crowd of
+onlookers. They had just learned that, some distance farther away, on the
+Quai Henri IV, which does not form part of the island, a motor car had
+pulled up outside a house, that there was the noise of a dispute, and
+that the cab had subsequently driven off in the direction of Vincennes.
+
+They hastened to the Quai Henri IV and at once found the house. There was
+a door on the ground floor opening straight on the pavement. The taxi had
+stopped for a few minutes in front of this door. Two persons, a woman and
+a man leading her along, had left the ground floor flat. When the door of
+the taxi was shut, a man's voice had shouted from the inside:
+
+"Drive down the Boulevard Saint-Germain and along the quays. Then take
+the Versailles Road."
+
+But the porter's wife was able to furnish more precise particulars.
+Puzzled by the tenant of the ground floor, whom she had only seen once,
+in the evening, who paid his rent by checks signed in the name of Charles
+and who but very seldom came to his apartment, she had taken advantage of
+the fact that her lodge was next to the flat to listen to the sound of
+voices. The man and the woman were arguing. At one moment the man cried,
+in a louder tone:
+
+"Come with me, Florence. I insist upon it; and I will give you every
+proof of my innocence to-morrow morning. And, if you nevertheless
+refuse to become my wife, I shall leave the country. All my
+preparations are made."
+
+A little later he began to laugh and, again raising his voice, said:
+
+"Afraid of what, Florence? That I shall kill you perhaps? No, no, have
+no fear--"
+
+The portress had heard nothing more. But was this not enough to justify
+every alarm?
+
+Don Luis caught hold of the deputy chief:
+
+"Come along! I knew it: the man is capable of anything. It's the tiger!
+He means to kill her!"
+
+He rushed outside, dragging the deputy toward the two police
+motors waiting five hundred yards down. Meanwhile, Mazeroux was
+trying to protest:
+
+"It would be better to search the house, to pick up some clues--"
+
+"Oh," shouted Don Luis, increasing his pace, "the house and the clues
+will keep! ... But he's gaining ground, the ruffian--and he has Florence
+with him--and he's going to kill her! It's a trap! ... I'm sure of it--"
+
+He was shouting in the dark, dragging the two men along with
+irresistible force.
+
+They neared the motors.
+
+"Get ready!" he ordered as soon as he was in sight. "I'll drive myself."
+
+He tried to get into the driver's seat. But Weber objected and pushed him
+inside, saying:
+
+"Don't trouble--the chauffeur knows his business. He'll drive faster than
+you would."
+
+Don Luis, the deputy chief, and two detectives crowded into the cab;
+Mazeroux took his seat beside the chauffeur.
+
+"Versailles Road!" roared Don Luis.
+
+The car started; and he continued:
+
+"We've got him! You see, it's a magnificent opportunity. He must be going
+pretty fast, but without forcing the pace, because he doesn't think we're
+after him. Oh, the villain, we'll make him sit up! Quicker, driver! But
+what the devil are we loaded up like this for? You and I, Deputy Chief,
+would have been enough. Hi, Mazeroux, get down and jump into the other
+car! That'll be better, won't it, Deputy? It's absurd--"
+
+He interrupted himself; and, as he was sitting on the back seat, between
+the deputy chief and a detective, he rose toward the window and muttered:
+
+"Why, look here, what's the idiot doing? That's not the road! I say, what
+does this mean?"
+
+A roar of laughter was the only answer. It came from Weber, who was
+shaking with delight. Don Luis stifled an oath and, making a tremendous
+effort, tried to leap from the car. Six hands fell upon him and held him
+motionless. The deputy chief had him by the throat. The detectives
+clutched his arms. There was no room for him to struggle within the
+restricted space of the small car; and he felt the cold iron of a
+revolver on his temple.
+
+"None of your nonsense," growled Weber, "or I'll blow out your brains, my
+boy! Aha! you didn't expect this! It's Weber's revenge, eh?"
+
+And, when Perenna continued to wriggle, he went on, in a
+threatening tone:
+
+"You'll have only yourself to blame, mind!... I'm going to count three:
+one, two--"
+
+"But what's it all about?" bellowed Don Luis.
+
+"Prefect's orders, received just now."
+
+"What orders?"
+
+"To take you to the lockup if the Florence girl escaped us again."
+
+"Have you a warrant?"
+
+"I have."
+
+"And what next?"
+
+"What next? Nothing: the Sante--the examining magistrate--"
+
+"But, hang it all, the tiger's making tracks meanwhile! Oh, rot! Is it
+possible to be so dense? What mugs those fellows are! Oh, dash it!"
+
+He was fuming with rage, and when he saw that they were driving into
+the prison yard, he gathered all his strength, knocked the revolver
+out of the deputy's hand, and stunned one of the detectives with a
+blow of his fist.
+
+But ten men came crowding round the doors. Resistance was useless. He
+understood this, and his rage increased.
+
+"The idiots!" he shouted, while they surrounded him and searched him at
+the door of the office. "The rotters! The bunglers! To go mucking up a
+job like that! They can lay hands on the villain if they want to, and
+they lock up the honest man--while the villain makes himself scarce! And
+he'll do more murder yet! Florence! Florence ..."
+
+Under the lamp light, in the midst of the detectives holding him, he was
+magnificent in his helpless violence.
+
+They dragged him away. With an unparalleled display of strength, he drew
+himself up, shook off the men who were hanging on to him like a pack of
+hounds worrying some animal at bay, got rid of Weber, and accosted
+Mazeroux in familiar tones. He was gloriously masterful, almost calm, so
+wholly did he appear to control his seething rage. He gave his orders in
+breathless little sentences, curt as words of command.
+
+"Mazeroux, run around to the Prefect's. Ask him to ring up Valenglay:
+yes, the Prime Minister. I want to see him. Have him informed. Ask the
+Prefect to say it's I: the man who made the German Emperor play his game.
+My name? He knows. Or, if he forgets, the Prefect can tell him my name."
+
+He paused for a second or two; and then, calmer still, he declared:
+
+"Arsène Lupin! Telephone those two words to him and just say this:
+'Arsène Lupin wishes to speak to the Prime Minister on very important
+business.' Get that through to him at once. The Prime Minister would be
+very angry if he heard afterward that they had neglected to communicate
+my request. Go, Mazeroux, and then find the villain's tracks again."
+
+The governor of the prison had opened the jail book.
+
+"You can enter my name, Monsieur le Directeur," said Don Luis. "Put down
+'Arsène Lupin.'"
+
+The governor smiled and said:
+
+"I should find a difficulty in putting down any other. It's on the
+warrant: 'Arsène Lupin, alias Don Luis Perenna.'"
+
+Don Luis felt a little shudder pass through him at the sound of those
+words. The fact that he was arrested under the name of Arsène Lupin made
+his position doubly dangerous.
+
+"Ah," he said, "so they've resolved--"
+
+"I should think so!" said Weber, in a tone of triumph. "We've resolved to
+take the bull by the horns and to go straight for Lupin. Plucky of us,
+eh? Never fear, we'll show you something better than that!"
+
+Don Luis did not flinch. Turning to Mazeroux again, he said:
+
+"Don't forget my instructions, Mazeroux."
+
+But there was a fresh blow in store for him. The sergeant did not answer
+his remark. Don Luis watched him closely and once more gave a start. He
+had just perceived that Mazeroux also was surrounded by men who were
+holding him tight. And the poor sergeant stood silently shedding tears.
+
+Weber's liveliness increased.
+
+"You'll have to excuse him, Lupin. Sergeant Mazeroux accompanies you to
+prison, though not in the same cell."
+
+"Ah!" said Don Luis, drawing himself up. "Is Mazeroux put into jail?"
+
+"Prefect's orders, warrant duly executed."
+
+"And on what charge?"
+
+"Accomplice of Arsène Lupin."
+
+"Mazeroux my accomplice? Get out! Mazeroux? The most honest man that
+ever lived!"
+
+"The most honest man that ever lived, as you say. That didn't prevent
+people from going to him when they wanted to write to you or prevent him
+from bringing you the letters. Which proves that he knew where you were
+hanging out. And there's a good deal more which we'll explain to you,
+Lupin, in good time. You'll have plenty of fun, I assure you."
+
+Don Luis murmured:
+
+"My poor Mazeroux!"
+
+Then, raising his voice, he said:
+
+"Don't cry, old chap. It's just a matter of the remainder of the night.
+Yes, I'll share my cards with you and we'll turn the king and mark game
+in a very few hours. Don't cry. I've got a much finer berth waiting for
+you, a more honourable and above all a more lucrative position. I have
+just what you want.
+
+"You don't imagine, surely, that I wasn't prepared for this! Why, you
+know me! Take it from me: I shall be at liberty to-morrow, and the
+government, after setting you free, will pitch you into a colonelcy or
+something, with a marshal's pay attached to it. So don't cry, Mazeroux."
+
+Then, addressing Weber, he said to him in the voice of a principal giving
+an order, and knowing that the order will be executed without discussion:
+
+"Monsieur, I will ask you to fulfil the confidential mission which I was
+entrusting to Mazeroux. First, inform the Prefect of Police that I have a
+communication of the very highest importance to make to the Prime
+Minister. Next, discover the tiger's tracks at Versailles before the
+night is over. I know your merit, Monsieur, and I rely entirely upon your
+diligence and your zeal. Meet me at twelve o'clock to-morrow."
+
+And, still maintaining his attitude of a principal who has given his
+instructions, he allowed himself to be taken to his cell.
+
+It was ten to one. For the last fifty minutes the enemy had been bowling
+along the highroad, carrying off Florence like a prey which it now seemed
+impossible to snatch from him.
+
+The door was locked and bolted.
+
+Don Luis reflected:
+
+"Even presuming that Monsieur le Prefect consents to ring up Valenglay,
+he won't do so before the morning. So they've given the villain eight
+hours' start before I'm free. Eight hours! Curse it!"
+
+He thought a little longer, then shrugged his shoulders with the air of
+one who, for the moment, has nothing better to do than wait, and flung
+himself on his mattress, murmuring:
+
+"Hushaby, Lupin!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
+
+OPEN SESAME!
+
+
+In spite of his usual facility for sleep, Don Luis slept for three hours
+at most. He was racked with too much anxiety; and, though his plan of
+conduct was worked out mathematically, he could not help foreseeing all
+the obstacles which were likely to frustrate that plan. Of course, Weber
+would speak to M. Desmalions. But would M. Desmalions telephone to
+Valenglay?
+
+"He is sure to telephone," Don Luis declared, stamping his foot. "It
+doesn't let him in for anything. And at the same time, he would be
+running a big risk if he refused, especially as Valenglay must have
+been consulted about my arrest and is obviously kept informed of all
+that happens."
+
+He next asked himself what exactly Valenglay could do, once he was told.
+For, after all, was it not too much to expect that the head of the
+government, that the Prime Minister, should put himself out to obey the
+injunctions and assist the schemes of M. Arsène Lupin?
+
+"He will come!" he cried, with the same persistent confidence. "Valenglay
+doesn't care a hang for form and ceremony and all that nonsense. He will
+come, even if it is only out of curiosity, to learn what the Kaiser's
+friend can have to say to him. Besides, he knows me! I am not one of
+those beggars who inconvenience people for nothing. There's always
+something to be gained by meeting me. He'll come!"
+
+But another question at once presented itself to his mind. Valenglay's
+coming in no way implied his consent to the bargain which Perenna meant
+to propose to him. And even if Don Luis succeeded in convincing him, what
+risks remained! How many doubtful points to overcome! And then the
+possibilities of failure!
+
+Would Weber pursue the fugitive's motor car with the necessary decision
+and boldness? Would he get on the track again? And, having got on the
+track, would he be certain not to lose it?
+
+And then--and then, even supposing that all the chances were favourable,
+was it not too late? Taking for granted that they hunted down the wild
+beast, that they drove him to bay, would he not meanwhile have killed his
+prey? Knowing himself beaten, would a monster of that kind hesitate to
+add one more murder to the long list of his crimes?
+
+And this, to Don Luis, was the crowning terror. After all the
+difficulties which, in his stubbornly confident imagination, he had
+managed to surmount, he was brought face to face with the horrible vision
+of Florence being sacrificed, of Florence dead!
+
+"Oh, the torture of it!" he stammered. "I alone could have succeeded; and
+they shut me up!"
+
+He hardly put himself out to inquire into the reasons for which M.
+Desmalions, suddenly changing his mind, had consented to his arrest, thus
+bringing back to life that troublesome Arsène Lupin with whom the police
+had not hitherto cared to hamper themselves. No, that did not interest
+him. Florence alone mattered. And the minutes passed; and each minute
+wasted brought Florence nearer to her doom.
+
+He remembered a similar occasion when, some years before, he waited in
+the same way for the door of his cell to open and the German Emperor to
+appear. But how much greater was the solemnity of the present moment!
+Before, it was at the very most his liberty that was at stake. This time
+it was Florence's life which fate was about to offer or refuse him.
+
+"Florence! Florence!" he kept repeating, in his despair.
+
+He no longer had a doubt of her innocence. Nor did he doubt that the
+other loved her and had carried her off not so much for the hostage of
+a coveted fortune as for a love spoil, which a man destroys if he
+cannot keep it.
+
+"Florence! Florence!"
+
+He was suffering from an extraordinary fit of depression. His defeat
+seemed irretrievable. There was no question of hastening after Florence,
+of catching the murderer. Don Luis was in prison under his own name of
+Arsène Lupin; and the whole problem lay in knowing how long he would
+remain there, for months or for years!
+
+It was then that he fully realized what his love for Florence meant. He
+perceived that it took the place in his life of his former passions, his
+craving for luxury, his desire for mastery, his pleasure in fighting, his
+ambition, his revenge. For two months he had been struggling to win her
+and for nothing else. The search after the truth and the punishment of
+the criminal were to him no more than means of saving Florence from the
+dangers that threatened her.
+
+If Florence had to die, if it was too late to snatch her from the enemy,
+in that case he might as well remain in prison. Arsène Lupin spending the
+rest of his days in a convict settlement was a fitting end to the spoilt
+life of a man who had not even been able to win the love of the only
+woman he had really loved.
+
+It was a passing mood and, being totally opposed to Don Luis's nature,
+finished abruptly in a state of utter confidence which no longer admitted
+the least particle of anxiety or doubt. The sun had risen. The cell
+gradually became filled with daylight. And Don Luis remembered that
+Valenglay reached his office on the Place Beauveau at seven o'clock in
+the morning.
+
+From this moment he felt absolutely calm. Coming events presented an
+entirely different aspect to him, as though they had, so to speak, turned
+right round. The contest seemed to him easy, the facts free from
+complications. He understood as clearly as if the actions had been
+performed that his will could not but be obeyed. The deputy chief must
+inevitably have made a faithful report to the Prefect of Police. The
+Prefect of Police must inevitably that morning have transmitted Arsène
+Lupin's request to Valenglay.
+
+Valenglay would inevitably give himself the pleasure of an interview with
+Arsène Lupin. Arsène Lupin would inevitably, in the course of that
+interview, obtain Valenglay's consent. These were not suppositions, but
+certainties; not problems awaiting solution, but problems already solved.
+Starting from A and continuing along B and C, you arrive, whether you
+wish it or not, at D.
+
+Don Luis began to laugh:
+
+"Come, come, Arsène, old chap, remember that you brought Mr. Hohenzollern
+all the way from his Brandenburg Marches. Valenglay does not live as far
+as that, by Jove! And, if necessary, you can put yourself out a
+little.... That's it: I'll consent to take the first step. I will go and
+call on M. de Beauveau. M. Valenglay, it is a pleasure to see you."
+
+He went gayly to the door, pretending that it was open and that he had
+only to walk through to be received when his turn came.
+
+He repeated this child's play three times, bowing low and long, as though
+holding a plumed hat in his hand, and murmuring:
+
+"Open sesame!"
+
+At the fourth time, the door opened, and a warder appeared.
+
+Don Luis said, in a ceremonious tone:
+
+"I hope I have not kept the Prime Minister waiting?"
+
+There were four inspectors in the corridor.
+
+"Are these gentlemen my escort?" he asked. "That's right. Announce Arsène
+Lupin, grandee of Spain, his most Catholic Majesty's cousin. My lords, I
+follow you. Turnkey, here are twenty crowns for your pains, my friend."
+
+He stopped in the corridor.
+
+"By Jupiter, no gloves; and I haven't shaved since yesterday!"
+
+The inspectors had surrounded him and were pushing him a little roughly.
+He seized two of them by the arm. They groaned.
+
+"That'll teach you," he said. "You've no orders to thrash me, have you?
+Nor even to handcuff me? That being so, young fellows, behave!"
+
+The prison governor was standing in the hall.
+
+"I've had a capital night, my dear governor," said Don "Your C.T.C. rooms
+are the very acme of comfort. I'll see that the Lockup Arms receives a
+star in the 'Baedeker.' Would you like me to write you a testimonial in
+your jail book? You wouldn't? Perhaps you hope to see me again? Sorry, my
+dear governor, but it's impossible. I have other things to do."
+
+A motor car was waiting in the yard. Don Luis stepped in with the four
+detectives:
+
+"Place Beauveau," he said to the driver.
+
+"No, Rue Vineuse," said one of the detectives, correcting him.
+
+"Oho!" said Don Luis. "His Excellency's private residence! His Excellency
+prefers that my visit should be kept secret. That's a good sign. By the
+way, dear friends, what's the time?"
+
+His question remained unanswered. And as the detectives had drawn the
+blinds, he was unable to consult the clocks in the street.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was not until he was at Valenglay's, in the Prime Minister's little
+ground-floor flat near the Trocadero, that he saw a clock on the
+mantelpiece:
+
+"A quarter to seven!" he exclaimed. "Good! There's not been much
+time lost."
+
+Valenglay's study opened on a flight of steps that ran down to a
+garden filled with aviaries. The room itself was crammed with books
+and pictures.
+
+A bell rang, and the detectives went out, following the old maidservant
+who had shown them in. Don Luis was left alone.
+
+He was still calm, but nevertheless felt a certain uneasiness, a longing
+to be up and doing, to throw himself into the fray; and his eyes kept on
+involuntarily returning to the face of the clock. The minute hand seemed
+endowed with extraordinary speed.
+
+At last some one entered, ushering in a second person. Don Luis
+recognized Valenglay and the Prefect of Police.
+
+"That's it," he thought. "I've got him."
+
+He saw this by the sort of vague sympathy perceptible on the old
+Premier's lean and bony face. There was not a sign of arrogance, nothing
+to raise a barrier between the Minister and the suspicious individual
+whom he was receiving: just a manifest, playful curiosity and sympathy,
+It was a sympathy which Valenglay had never concealed, and of which he
+even boasted when, after Arsène Lupin's sham death, he spoke of the
+adventurer and the strange relations between them.
+
+"You have not changed," he said, after looking at him for some time.
+"Complexion a little darker, a trifle grayer over the temples,
+that's all."
+
+And putting on a blunt tone, he asked:
+
+"And what is it you want?"
+
+"An answer first of all, Monsieur le Président du Conseil. Has Deputy
+Chief Weber, who took me to the lockup last night, traced the motor cab
+in which Florence Levasseur was carried off?"
+
+"Yes, the motor stopped at Versailles. The persons inside it hired
+another cab which is to take them to Nantes. What else do you ask for,
+besides that answer?"
+
+"My liberty, Monsieur le Président."
+
+"At once, of course?" said Valenglay, beginning to laugh.
+
+"In thirty or thirty-five minutes at most."
+
+"At half-past seven, eh?"
+
+"Half-past seven at latest, Monsieur le Président."
+
+"And why your liberty?"
+
+"To catch the murderer of Cosmo Mornington, of Inspector Vérot, and of
+the Roussel family."
+
+"Are you the only one that can catch him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Still, the police are moving. The wires are at work. The murderer will
+not leave France. He shan't escape us."
+
+"You can't find him."
+
+"Yes, we can."
+
+"In that case he will kill Florence Levasseur. She will be the
+scoundrel's seventh victim. And it will be your doing."
+
+Valenglay paused for a moment and then resumed:
+
+"According to you, contrary to all appearances, and contrary to the
+well-grounded suspicions of Monsieur le Préfet de Police, Florence
+Levasseur is innocent?"
+
+"Oh, absolutely, Monsieur le Président!"
+
+"And you believe her to be in danger of death?"
+
+"She is in danger of death."
+
+"Are you in love with her?"
+
+"I am."
+
+Valenglay experienced a little thrill of enjoyment. Lupin in love! Lupin
+acting through love and confessing his love! But how exciting!
+
+He said:
+
+"I have followed the Mornington case from day to day and I know every
+detail of it. You have done wonders, Monsieur. It is evident that, but
+for you, the case would never have emerged from the mystery that
+surrounded it at the start. But I cannot help noticing that there are
+certain flaws in it.
+
+"These flaws, which astonished me on your part, are more easy to
+understand when we know that love was the primary motive and the object
+of your actions. On the other hand, and in spite of what you say,
+Florence Levasseur's conduct, her claims as the heiress, her unexpected
+escape from the hospital, leave little doubt in our minds as to the part
+which she is playing."
+
+Don Luis pointed to the clock:
+
+"Monsieur le Ministre, it is getting late."
+
+Valenglay burst out laughing.
+
+"I never met any one like you! Don Luis Perenna, I am sorry that I am not
+some absolute monarch. I should make you the head of my secret police."
+
+"A post which the German Emperor has already offered me."
+
+"Oh, nonsense!"
+
+"And I refused it."
+
+Valenglay laughed heartily; but the clock struck seven. Don Luis began to
+grow anxious. Valenglay sat down and, coming straight to the point, said,
+in a serious voice:
+
+"Don Luis Perenna, on the first day of your reappearance--that is to
+say, at the very moment of the murders on the Boulevard Suchet--Monsieur
+le Préfet de Police and I made up our minds as to your identity. Perenna
+was Lupin.
+
+"I have no doubt that you understood the reason why we did not wish to
+bring back to life the dead man that you were, and why we granted you a
+sort of protection. Monsieur le Préfet de Police was entirely of my
+opinion. The work which you were pursuing was a salutary work of justice;
+and your assistance was so valuable to us that we strove to spare you any
+sort of annoyance. As Don Luis Perenna was fighting the good fight, we
+left Arsène Lupin in the background. Unfortunately--"
+
+Valenglay paused again and declared:
+
+"Unfortunately, Monsieur le Préfet de Police last night received a
+denunciation, supported by detailed proofs, accusing you of being
+Arsène Lupin."
+
+"Impossible!" cried Don Luis. "That is a statement which no one is able
+to prove by material evidence. Arsène Lupin is dead."
+
+"If you like," Valenglay agreed. "But that does not show that Don Luis
+Perenna is alive."
+
+"Don Luis Perenna has a duly legalized existence, Monsieur le President."
+
+"Perhaps. But it is disputed."
+
+"By whom? There is only one man who would have the right; and to accuse
+me would be his own undoing. I cannot believe him to be stupid enough--"
+
+"Stupid enough, no; but crafty enough, yes."
+
+"You mean Caceres, the Peruvian attaché?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But he is abroad!"
+
+"More than that: he is a fugitive from justice, after embezzling the
+funds of his legation. But before leaving the country he signed a
+statement that reached us yesterday evening, declaring that he faked up a
+complete record for you under the name of Don Luis Perenna. Here is your
+correspondence with him and here are all the papers establishing the
+truth of his allegations. Any one will be convinced, on examining them,
+first, that you are not Don Luis Perenna, and, secondly, that you are
+Arsène Lupin."
+
+Don Luis made an angry gesture.
+
+"That blackguard of a Caceres is a mere tool," he snarled. "The other
+man's behind him, has paid him, and is controlling his actions. It's the
+scoundrel himself; I recognize his touch. He has once more tried to get
+rid of me at the decisive moment."
+
+"I am quite willing to believe it," said the Prime Minister. "But as all
+these documents, according to the letter that came with them, are only
+photographs, and as, if you are not arrested this morning, the originals
+are to be handed to a leading Paris newspaper to-night, we are obliged to
+take note of the accusation."
+
+"But, Monsieur le Président," exclaimed Don Luis, "as Caceres is abroad
+and as the scoundrel who bought the papers of him was also obliged to
+take to flight before he was able to execute his threats, there is no
+fear now that the documents will be handed to the press."
+
+"How do we know? The enemy must have taken his precautions. He may have
+accomplices."
+
+"He has none."
+
+"How do we know?"
+
+Don Luis looked at Valenglay and said:
+
+"What is it that you really wish to say, Monsieur le Président?"
+
+"I will tell you. Although pressure was brought to bear upon us by
+Caceres's threats, Monsieur le Préfet de Police, anxious to see all
+possible light shed on the plot played by Florence Levasseur, did not
+interfere with your last night's expedition. As that expedition led to
+nothing, he determined, at any rate, to profit by the fact that Don Luis
+had placed himself at our disposal and to arrest Arsène Lupin.
+
+"If we now let him go the documents will certainly be published; and
+you can see the absurd and ridiculous position in which that will place
+us in the eyes of the public. Well, at this very moment, you ask for
+the release of Arsène Lupin, a release which would be illegal, uncalled
+for, and inexcusable. I am obliged, therefore, to refuse it, and I do
+refuse it."
+
+He ceased; and then, after a few seconds, he added:
+
+"Unless--"
+
+"Unless?" asked Don Luis.
+
+"Unless--and this is what I wanted to say--unless you offer me in
+exchange something so extraordinary and so tremendous that I could
+consent to risk the annoyance which the absurd release of Arsène Lupin
+would bring down upon my head."
+
+"But, Monsieur le President, surely, if I bring you the real criminal,
+the murderer of--"
+
+"I don't need your assistance for that."
+
+"And if I give you my word of honour, Monsieur le Président, to return
+the moment my task is done and give myself up?"
+
+Valenglay struck the table with his fist and, raising his voice,
+addressed Don Luis with a certain genial familiarity:
+
+"Come, Arsène Lupin," he said, "play the game! If you really want to have
+your way, pay for it! Hang it all, remember that after all this business,
+and especially after the incidents of last night, you and Florence
+Levasseur will be to the public what you already are: the responsible
+actors in the tragedy; nay, more, the real and only criminals. And it is
+now, when Florence Levasseur has taken to her heels, that you come and
+ask me for your liberty! Very well, but damn it, set a price to it and
+don't haggle with me!"
+
+"I am not haggling, Monsieur le Président," declared Don Luis, in a very
+straightforward manner and tone. "What I have to offer you is certainly
+much more extraordinary and tremendous than you imagine. But if it were
+twice as extraordinary and twice as tremendous, it would not count once
+Florence Levasseur's life is in danger. Nevertheless, I was entitled to
+try for a less expensive transaction. Of this your words remove all hope.
+I will therefore lay my cards upon the table, as you demand, and as I had
+made up my mind to do."
+
+He sat down opposite Valenglay, in the attitude of a man treating with
+another on equal terms.
+
+"I shall not be long. A single sentence, Monsieur le President,
+will express the bargain which I am proposing to the Prime Minister
+of my country."
+
+And, looking Valenglay straight in the eyes, he said slowly, syllable
+by syllable:
+
+"In exchange for twenty-four hours' liberty and no more, undertaking on
+my honour to return here to-morrow morning and to return here either with
+Florence, to give you every proof of her innocence, or without her, to
+constitute myself a prisoner, I offer you--"
+
+He took his time and, in a serious voice, concluded:
+
+"I offer you a kingdom, Monsieur le Président du Conseil."
+
+The sentence sounded bombastic and ludicrous, sounded silly enough to
+provoke a shrug of the shoulders, sounded like one of those sentences
+which only an imbecile or a lunatic could utter. And yet Valenglay
+remained impassive. He knew that, in such circumstances as the present,
+the man before him was not the man to indulge in jesting.
+
+And he knew it so fully that, instinctively, accustomed as he was to
+momentous political questions in which secrecy is of the utmost
+importance, he cast a glance toward the Prefect of Police, as though M.
+Desmalions's presence in the room hindered him.
+
+"I positively insist," said Don Luis, "that Monsieur le Préfet de Police
+shall stay and hear what I have to say. He is better able than any one
+else to appreciate the value of it; and he will bear witness to its
+correctness in certain particulars."
+
+"Speak!" said Valenglay.
+
+His curiosity knew no bounds. He did not much care whether Don Luis's
+proposal could have any practical results. In his heart he did not
+believe in it. But what he wanted to know was the lengths to which that
+demon of audacity was prepared to go, and on what new prodigious
+adventure he based the pretensions which he was putting forward so calmly
+and frankly.
+
+Don Luis smiled:
+
+"Will you allow me?" he asked.
+
+Rising and going to the mantelpiece, he took down from the wall a
+small map representing Northwest Africa. He spread it on the table,
+placed different objects on the four corners to hold it in position,
+and resumed:
+
+"There is one matter, Monsieur le Président, which puzzled Monsieur le
+Préfet de Police and about which I know that he caused inquiries to be
+made; and that matter is how I employed my time, or, rather, how Arsène
+Lupin employed his time during the last three years of his service with
+the Foreign Legion."
+
+"Those inquiries were made by my orders," said Valenglay.
+
+"And they led--?"
+
+"To nothing."
+
+"So that you do not know what I did during my captivity?"
+
+"Just so."
+
+"I will tell you, Monsieur le Président. It will not take me long."
+
+Don Luis pointed with a pencil to a spot in Morocco marked on the map.
+
+"It was here that I was taken prisoner on the twenty-fourth of July. My
+capture seemed queer to Monsieur le Préfet de Police and to all who
+subsequently heard the details of the incident. They were astonished that
+I should have been foolish enough to get caught in ambush and to allow
+myself to be trapped by a troop of forty Berber horse. Their surprise is
+justified. My capture was a deliberate move on my part.
+
+"You will perhaps remember, Monsieur le Président, that I enlisted in the
+Foreign Legion after making a fruitless attempt to kill myself in
+consequence of some really terrible private disasters. I wanted to die,
+and I thought that a Moorish bullet would give me the final rest for
+which I longed.
+
+"Fortune did not permit it. My destiny, it seemed, was not yet fulfilled.
+Then what had to be was. Little by little, unknown to myself, the thought
+of death vanished and I recovered my love of life. A few rather striking
+feats of arms had given me back all my self-confidence and all my desire
+for action.
+
+"New dreams seized hold of me. I fell a victim to a new ideal. From day
+to day I needed more space, greater independence, wider horizons, more
+unforeseen and personal sensations. The Legion, great as my affection was
+for the plucky fellows who had welcomed me so cordially, was no longer
+enough to satisfy my craving for activity.
+
+"One day, without thinking much about it, in a blind prompting of my
+whole being toward a great adventure which I did not clearly see, but
+which attracted me in a mysterious fashion, one day, finding myself
+surrounded by a band of the enemy, though still in a position to fight, I
+allowed myself to be captured.
+
+"That is the whole story, Monsieur le Président. As a prisoner, I was
+free. A new life opened before me. However, the incident nearly turned
+out badly. My three dozen Berbers, a troop detached from an important
+nomad tribe that used to pillage and put to ransom the districts lying on
+the middle chains of the Atlas Range, first galloped back to the little
+cluster of tents where the wives of their chiefs were encamped under the
+guard of some ten men. They packed off at once; and, after a week's march
+which I found pretty arduous, for I was on foot, with my hands tied
+behind my back, following a mounted party, they stopped on a narrow
+upland commanded by rocky slopes and covered with skeletons mouldering
+among the stones and with remains of French swords and other weapons.
+
+"Here they planted a stake in the ground and fastened me to it. I
+gathered from the behaviour of my captors and from a few words which I
+overheard that my death was decided on. They meant to cut off my ears,
+nose, and tongue, and then my head.
+
+"However, they began by preparing their repast. They went to a well close
+by, ate and drank and took no further notice of me except to laugh at me
+and describe the various treats they held in store for me.... Another
+night passed. The torture was postponed until the morning, a time that
+suited them better. At break of day they crowded round me, uttering yells
+and shouts with which were mingled the shrill cries of the women.
+
+"When my shadow covered a line which they had marked on the sand the
+night before, they ceased their din, and one of them, who was to perform
+the surgical operations prescribed for me, stepped forward and ordered me
+to put out my tongue. I did so. He took hold of it with a corner of his
+burnous and, with his other hand, drew his dagger from its sheath.
+
+"I shall never forget the ferocity, coupled with ingenuous delight, of
+his expression, which was like that of a mischievous boy amusing himself
+by breaking a bird's wings and legs. Nor shall I ever forget the man's
+stupefaction when he saw that his dagger no longer consisted of anything
+but the pommel and a harmless and ridiculously small stump of the blade,
+just long enough to keep it in its sheath. His fury was revealed by a
+splutter of curses and he at once rushed at one of his friends and
+snatched his dagger from him.
+
+"The same stupefaction followed: this dagger was also broken off at the
+hilt. The next thing was a general tumult, in which one and all
+brandished their knives. But all of them uttered howls of rage.
+
+"There were forty-five men there; and their forty-five knives were
+smashed.... The chief flew at me as if holding me responsible for this
+incomprehensible phenomenon. He was a tall, lean old man, slightly
+hunchbacked, blind of one eye, hideous to look upon. He aimed a huge
+pistol point blank at my head and he struck me as so ugly that I burst
+out laughing in his face. He pulled the trigger. The pistol missed fire.
+He pulled it again. The pistol again missed fire....
+
+"All of them at once began to dance around the stake to which I was
+fastened. Gesticulating wildly, hustling one another and roaring like
+thunder, they levelled their various firearms at me: muskets, pistols,
+carbines, old Spanish blunderbusses. The hammers clicked. But the
+muskets, pistols, carbines, and blunderbusses did not go off!
+
+"It was a regular miracle. You should have seen their faces. I never
+laughed so much in my life; and this completed their bewilderment.
+
+"Some ran to the tents for more powder. Others hurriedly reloaded their
+arms, only to meet with fresh failure, while I did nothing but laugh and
+laugh! The thing could not go on indefinitely. There were plenty of other
+means of doing away with me. They had their hands to strangle me with,
+the butt ends of their muskets to smash my head with, pebbles to stone me
+with. And there were over forty of them!
+
+"The old chief picked up a bulky stone and stepped toward me, his
+features distorted with hatred. He raised himself to his full height,
+lifted the huge block, with the assistance of two of his men, above my
+head and dropped it--in front of me, on the stake! It was a staggering
+sight for the poor old man. I had, in one second, unfastened my bonds and
+sprung backward; and I was standing at three paces from him, with my
+hands outstretched before me, and holding in those outstretched hands the
+two revolvers which had been taken from me on the day of my capture!
+
+"What followed was the business of a few seconds. The chief now began
+to laugh as I had laughed, sarcastically. To his mind, in the disorder
+of his brain, those two revolvers with which I threatened him could
+have no more effect than the useless weapons which had spared my life.
+He took up a large pebble and raised his hand to hurl it at my face.
+His two assistants did the same. And all the others were prepared to
+follow his example.
+
+"'Hands down!' I cried, 'or I fire!' The chief let fly his stone. At the
+same moment three shots rang out. The chief and his two men fell dead to
+the ground. 'Who's next?' I asked, looking round the band.
+
+"Forty-two Moors remained. I had eleven bullets left. As none of the men
+budged, I slipped one of my revolvers under my arm and took from my
+pocket two small boxes of cartridges containing fifty more bullets. And
+from my belt I drew three great knives, all of them nicely tapering and
+pointed. Half of the troop made signs of submission and drew up in line
+behind me. The other half capitulated a moment after. The battle was
+over. It had not lasted four minutes."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
+
+ARSÈNE I EMPEROR OF MAURETANIA
+
+
+Don Luis ceased. A smile of amusement played round his lips. The
+recollection of those four minutes seemed to divert him immensely.
+
+Valenglay and the Prefect of Police, who were neither of them men to be
+unduly surprised at courage and coolness, had listened to him,
+nevertheless, and were now looking at him in bewildered silence. Was it
+possible for a human being to carry heroism to such unlikely lengths?
+
+Meanwhile, he went up to the other side of the chimney and pointed to a
+larger map, representing the French roads.
+
+"You told me, Monsieur le Président, that the scoundrel's motor car had
+left Versailles and was going toward Nantes?"
+
+"Yes; and all our arrangements are made to arrest him either on the way,
+or else at Nantes or at Saint-Nazaire, where he may intend to take ship."
+
+Don Luis Perenna followed with his forefinger the road across France,
+stopping here and there, marking successive stages. And nothing could
+have been more impressive than this dumb show.
+
+The man that he was, preserving his composure amid the overthrow of all
+that he had most at heart, seemed by his calmness to dominate time and
+circumstances. It was as though the murderer were running away at one end
+of an unbreakable thread of which Don Luis held the other, and as though
+Don Luis could stop his flight at any time by a mere movement of his
+finger and thumb.
+
+As he studied the map, the master seemed to command not only a sheet of
+cardboard, but also the highroad on which a motor car was spinning along,
+subject to his despotic will.
+
+He went back to the table and continued:
+
+"The battle was over. And there was no question of its being resumed. My
+forty-two worthies found themselves face to face with a conqueror,
+against whom revenge is always possible, by fair means or foul, but with
+one who had subjugated them in a supernatural manner. There was no other
+explanation of the inexplicable facts which they had witnessed. I was a
+sorcerer, a kind of marabout, a direct emissary of the Prophet."
+
+Valenglay laughed and said:
+
+"Their interpretation was not so very unreasonable, for, after all, you
+must have performed a sleight-of-hand trick which strikes me also as
+being little less than miraculous."
+
+"Monsieur le Président, do you know a curious short story of Balzac's
+called 'A Passion in the Desert?'"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, the key to the riddle lies in that."
+
+"Does it? I don't quite see. You were not under the claws of a tigress.
+There, was no tigress to tame in this instance."
+
+"No, but there were women."
+
+"Eh? How do you mean?"
+
+"Upon my word, Monsieur le Président," said Don Luis gayly, "I should not
+like to shock you. But I repeat that the troop which carried me off on
+that week's march included women; and women are a little like Balzac's
+tigress, creatures whom it is not impossible to tame, to charm, to break
+in, until you make friends of them."
+
+"Yes, yes," muttered the Premier, madly puzzled, "but that needs time."
+
+"I had a week."
+
+"And complete liberty of action."
+
+"No, no, Monsieur le Président. The eyes are enough to start with. The
+eyes give rise to sympathy, interest, affection, curiosity, a wish to
+know you better. After that, the merest opportunity--"
+
+"And did an opportunity offer?"
+
+"Yes, one night. I was fastened up, or at least they thought I was. I
+knew that the chief's favourite was alone in her tent close by. I went
+there. I left her an hour afterward."
+
+"And the tigress was tamed?"
+
+"Yes, as thoroughly as Balzac's: tamed and blindly submissive."
+
+"But there were several of them?"
+
+"I know, Monsieur le President, and that was the difficulty. I was afraid
+of rivalry. But all went well: the favourite was not jealous, far from
+it. And then, as I have told you, her submission was absolute. In short,
+I had five staunch, invisible friends, resolved to do anything I wanted
+and suspected by nobody.
+
+"My plan was being carried out before we reached the last halting-place.
+My five secret agents collected all the arms during the night. They
+dashed the daggers to the ground and broke them. They removed the bullets
+from the pistols. They damped the powder. Everything was ready for
+ringing up the curtain."
+
+Valenglay bowed.
+
+"My compliments! You are a man of resource. And your scheme was not
+lacking in charm. For I take it that your five ladies were pretty?"
+
+Don Luis put on a bantering expression. He closed his eyes, as if to
+recall his bliss, and let fall the one word:
+
+"Hags!"
+
+The epithet gave rise to a burst of merriment. But Don Luis, as though in
+a hurry to finish his story, at once went on:
+
+"In any case, they saved my life, the hussies, and their aid never failed
+me. My forty-two watch-dogs, deprived of their arms and shaking with fear
+in those solitudes where everything is a trap and where death lies in
+wait for you at any minute, gathered round me as their real protector.
+When we joined the great tribe to which they belonged I was their actual
+chief. And it took me less than three months of dangers faced in common,
+of ambushes defeated under my advice, of raids and pillages effected by
+my direction, to become the chief also of the whole tribe.
+
+"I spoke their language, I practised their religion, I wore their
+dress, I conformed to their customs: alas! had I not five wives?
+Henceforward, my dream, which had gradually taken definite shape in my
+mind, became possible.
+
+"I sent one of my most faithful adherents to France, with sixty letters
+to hand to sixty men whose names and addresses he learned by heart.
+Those sixty men were sixty associates whom Arsène Lupin had disbanded
+before he threw himself from the Capri cliffs. All had retired from
+business, with a hundred thousand francs apiece in ready money and a
+small trade or public post to keep them occupied. I had provided one
+with a tobacconist's shop, another with a job as a park-keeper, others
+with sinecures in the government offices. In short, they were
+respectable citizens.
+
+"To all of them--whether public servants, farmers, municipal
+councillors, grocers, sacristans, or what not--I wrote the same letter,
+made the same offer, and gave the same instructions in case they should
+accept.... Monsieur le Président, I thought that, of the sixty, ten or
+fifteen at most would come and join me: sixty came, Monsieur le
+President, sixty, and not one less! Sixty men punctually arrived at the
+appointed place.
+
+"On the day fixed, at the hour named, my old armed cruiser, the
+_Ascendam_, which they had brought back, anchored in the mouth of the
+Wady Draa, on the Atlantic coast, between Cape Nun and Cape Juby. Two
+longboats plied to and fro and landed my friends and the munitions of war
+which they had brought with them: camp furniture, quick-firing guns,
+ammunition, motor-boats, stores and provisions, trading wares, glass
+beads, and cases of gold as well, for my sixty good men and true had
+insisted on turning their share of the old profits into cash and on
+putting into the new venture the six million francs which they had
+received from their governor....
+
+"Need I say more, Monsieur le Président? Must I tell you what a chief
+like Arsène Lupin was able to attempt seconded by sixty fine fellows of
+that stamp and backed by an army of ten thousand well-armed and
+well-trained Moorish fanatics? He attempted it; and his success was
+unparalleled.
+
+"I do not think that there has ever been an idyl like that through which
+we lived during those fifteen months, first on the heights of the Atlas
+range and then in the infernal plains of the Sahara: an idyl of heroism,
+of privation, of superhuman torture and superhuman joy; an idyl of hunger
+and thirst, of total defeat and dazzling victory....
+
+"My sixty trusty followers threw themselves into their work with might
+and main. Oh, what men! You know them, Monsieur le Président du Conseil!
+You've had them to deal with, Monsieur le Préfet de Police! The beggars!
+Tears come to my eyes when I think of some of them.
+
+"There were Charolais and his son, who distinguished themselves in the
+case of the Princesse de Lamballe's tiara. There were Marco, who owed his
+fame to the Kesselbach case, and Auguste, who was your chief messenger,
+Monsieur le Président. There were the Growler and the Masher, who
+achieved such glory in the hunt for the crystal stopper. There were the
+brothers Beuzeville, whom I used to call the two Ajaxes. There were
+Philippe d'Antrac, who was better born than any Bourbon, and Pierre Le
+Grand and Tristan Le Roux and Joseph Le Jeune."
+
+"And there was Arsène Lupin," said Valenglay, roused to enthusiasm by
+this list of Homeric heroes.
+
+"And there was Arsène Lupin," repeated Don Luis.
+
+He nodded his head, smiled, and continued, in a very quiet voice:
+
+"I will not speak of him, Monsieur le Président. I will not speak of him,
+for the simple reason that you would not believe my story. What they tell
+about him when he was with the Foreign Legion is mere child's play beside
+what was to come later. Lupin was only a private soldier. In South
+Morocco he was a general. Not till then did Arsène Lupin really show what
+he could do. And, I say it without pride, not even I foresaw what that
+was. The Achilles of the legend performed no greater feats. Hannibal and
+Caesar achieved no more striking results.
+
+"All I need tell you is that, in fifteen months, Arsène Lupin conquered a
+kingdom twice the size of France. From the Berbers of Morocco, from the
+indomitable Tuaregs, from the Arabs of the extreme south of Algeria, from
+the negroes who overrun Senegal, from the Moors along the Atlantic coast,
+under the blazing sun, in the flames of hell, he conquered half the
+Sahara and what we may call ancient Mauretania.
+
+"A kingdom of deserts and swamps? Partly, but a kingdom all the same,
+with oases, wells, rivers, forests, and incalculable riches, a kingdom
+with ten million men and a hundred thousand warriors. This is the kingdom
+which I offer to France, Monsieur le Président du Conseil."
+
+Valenglay did not conceal his amazement. Greatly excited and even
+perturbed by what he had learned, looking over his extraordinary visitor,
+with his hands clutching at the map of Africa, he whispered:
+
+"Explain yourself; be more precise."
+
+Don Luis answered:
+
+"Monsieur le Président du Conseil, I will not remind you of the events of
+the last few years. France, resolving to pursue a splendid dream of
+dominion over North Africa, has had to part with a portion of the Congo.
+I propose to heal the painful wound by giving her thirty times as much as
+she has lost. And I turn the magnificent and distant dream into an
+immediate certainty by joining the small slice of Morocco which you have
+conquered to Senegal at one blow.
+
+"To-day, Greater France in Africa exists. Thanks to me, it is a solid and
+compact expanse. Millions of square miles of territory and a coastline
+stretching for several thousand miles from Tunis to the Congo, save for a
+few insignificant interruptions."
+
+"It's a Utopia," Valenglay protested.
+
+"It's a reality."
+
+"Nonsense! It will take us twenty years' fighting to achieve."
+
+"It will take you exactly five minutes!" cried Don Luis, with
+irresistible enthusiasm. "What I offer you is not the conquest of an
+empire, but a conquered empire, duly pacified and administered, in full
+working order and full of life. My gift is a present, not a future gift.
+
+"I, too, Monsieur le Président du Conseil, I, Arsène Lupin, had cherished
+a splendid dream. After toiling and moiling all my life, after knowing
+all the ups and downs of existence, richer than Croesus, because all the
+wealth of the world was mine, and poorer than Job, because I had
+distributed all my treasures, surfeited with everything, tired of
+unhappiness, and more tired still of happiness, sick of pleasure, of
+passion, of excitement, I wanted to do something that is incredible in
+the present day: to reign!
+
+"And a still more incredible phenomenon: when this thing was
+accomplished, when the dead Arsène Lupin had come to life again as a
+sultan out of the Arabian Nights, as a reigning, governing, law-giving
+Arsène Lupin, head of the state and head of the church, I determined, in
+a few years, at one stroke, to tear down the screen of rebel tribes
+against which you were waging a desultory and tiresome war in the north
+of Morocco, while I was quietly and silently building up my kingdom at
+the back of it.
+
+"Then, face to face with France and as powerful as herself, like a
+neighbour treating on equal terms, I would have cried to her, 'It's I,
+Arsène Lupin! Behold the former swindler and gentleman burglar! The
+Sultan of Adrar, the Sultan of Iguidi, the Sultan of El Djouf, the Sultan
+of the Tuaregs, the Sultan of Aubata, the Sultan of Brakna and Frerzon,
+all these am I, the Sultan of Sultans, grandson of Mahomet, son of Allah,
+I, I, I, Arsène Lupin!'
+
+"And, before taking the little grain of poison that sets one free--for a
+man like Arsène Lupin has no right to grow old--I should have signed the
+treaty of peace, the deed of gift in which I bestowed a kingdom on
+France, signed it, below the flourishes of my grand dignitaries, kaids,
+pashas, and marabouts, with my lawful signature, the signature to which I
+am fully entitled, which I conquered at the point of my sword and by my
+all-powerful will: 'Arsène I, Emperor of Mauretania!'"
+
+Don Luis uttered all these words in a strong voice, but without emphasis,
+with the very simple emotion and pride of a man who has done much and who
+knows the value of what he has done. There were but two ways of replying
+to him: by a shrug of the shoulders, as one replies to a madman, or by
+the silence that expresses reflection and approval.
+
+The Prime Minister and the Prefect of Police said nothing, but their
+looks betrayed their secret thoughts. And deep down within themselves
+they felt that they were in the presence of an absolutely exceptional
+specimen of mankind, created to perform immoderate actions and fashioned
+by his own hand for a superhuman destiny.
+
+Don Luis continued:
+
+"It was a fine curtain, was it not, Monsieur le Président du Conseil? And
+the end was worthy of the work. I should have been happy to have had it
+so. Arsène Lupin dying on a throne, sceptre in hand, would have been a
+spectacle not devoid of glamour. Arsène Lupin dying with his title of
+Arsène I, Emperor of Mauretania and benefactor of France: what an
+apotheosis! The gods have willed it otherwise. Jealous, no doubt, they
+are lowering me to the level of my cousins of the old world and turning
+me into that absurd creature, a king in exile. Their will be done! Peace
+to the late Emperor of Mauretania. He has strutted and fretted his hour
+upon the stage.
+
+"Arsène I is dead: long live France! Monsieur le Président du Conseil, I
+repeat my offer. Florence Levasseur is in danger. I alone can rescue her
+from the monster who is carrying her away. It will take me twenty-four
+hours. In return for twenty-four hours' liberty I will give you the
+Mauretanian Empire. Do you accept, Monsieur le Président du Conseil?"
+
+"Well, certainly, I accept," said Valenglay, laughing. "What do you say,
+my dear Desmalions? The whole thing may not be very orthodox, but, hang
+it! Paris is worth a mass and the Kingdom of Mauretania is a tempting
+morsel. We'll risk the experiment."
+
+Don Luis's face expressed so sincere a joy that one might have thought
+that he had just achieved the most brilliant victory instead of
+sacrificing a crown and flinging into the gutter the most fantastic dream
+that mortal man had ever conceived and realized.
+
+He asked:
+
+"What guarantees do you require, Monsieur le Président?"
+
+"None."
+
+"I can show you treaties, documents to prove--"
+
+"Don't trouble. We'll talk about all that to-morrow. Meanwhile, go ahead.
+You are free."
+
+The essential word, the incredible word, was spoken.
+
+Don Luis took a few steps toward the door.
+
+"One word more, Monsieur le Président," he said, stopping. "Among my
+former companions is one for whom I procured a post suited to his
+inclinations and his deserts. This man I did not send for to come to
+Africa, thinking that some day or other he might be of use to me through
+the position which he occupied. I am speaking of Mazeroux, a sergeant in
+the detective service."
+
+"Sergeant Mazeroux, whom Caceres denounced, with corroborating evidence,
+as an accomplice of Arsène Lupin, is in prison."
+
+"Sergeant Mazeroux is a model of professional honour, Monsieur le
+Président. I owed his assistance only to the fact that I was helping the
+police. I was accepted as an auxiliary and more or less patronized by
+Monsieur le Préfet. Mazeroux thwarted me in anything I tried to do that
+was at all illegal. And he would have been the first to take me by the
+collar if he had been so instructed. I ask for his release."
+
+"Oho!"
+
+"Monsieur le Président, your consent will be an act of justice and I beg
+you to grant it. Sergeant Mazerou shall leave France. He can be charged
+by the government with a secret mission in the south of Morocco, with the
+rank of colonial inspector."
+
+"Agreed," said Valenglay, laughing heartily. And he added, "My dear
+Préfect, once we depart from the strictly lawful path, there's no saying
+where we come to. But the end justifies the means; and the end which we
+have in view is to have done with this loathsome Mornington case."
+
+"This evening everything will be settled," said Don Luis.
+
+"I hope so. Our men are on the track."
+
+"They are on the track, but they have to check that track at every town,
+at every village, by inquiries made of every peasant they meet; they have
+to find out if the motor has not branched off somewhere; and they are
+wasting time. I shall go straight for the scoundrel."
+
+"By what miracle?"
+
+"That must be my secret for the present, Monsieur le Président."
+
+"Very well. Is there anything you want?"
+
+"This map of France."
+
+"Take it."
+
+"And a couple of revolvers."
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet will be good enough to ask his inspectors for two
+revolvers and to give them to you. Is that all? Any money?"
+
+"No, thank you, Monsieur le Président. I always carry a useful fifty
+thousand francs in my pocket-book, in case of need."
+
+"In that case," said the Prefect of Police, "I shall have to send some
+one with you to the lockup. I presume your pocket-book was among the
+things taken from you."
+
+Don Luis smiled:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, the things that people can take from me are never of
+the least importance. My pocket-book is at the lockup, as you say. But
+the money--"
+
+He raised his left leg, took his boot in his hands and gave a slight
+twist to the heel. There was a little click, and a sort of double drawer
+shot out of the front of the sole. It contained two sheafs of bank notes
+and a number of diminutive articles, such as a gimlet, a watch spring,
+and some pills.
+
+"The wherewithal to escape," he said, "to live and--to die. Good-bye,
+Monsieur le Président."
+
+In the hall M. Desmalions told the inspectors to let their prisoner go
+free. Don Luis asked:
+
+"Monsieur le Préfet, did Deputy Chief Weber give you any particulars
+about the brute's car?"
+
+"Yes, he telephoned from Versailles. It's a deep-yellow car, belonging to
+the Compagnie des Comètes. The driver's seat is on the left. He's wearing
+a gray cloth cap with a black leather peak."
+
+"Thank you, Monsieur le Préfet."
+
+And he left the house.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An inconceivable thing had happened. Don Luis was free. Half an hour's
+conversation had given him the power of acting and of fighting the
+decisive battle.
+
+He went off at a run. At the Trocadéro he jumped into a taxi.
+
+"Go to Issy-les-Moulineaux!" he cried. "Full speed! Forty francs!"
+
+The cab flew through Passy, crossed the Seine and reached the
+Issy-les-Moulineaux aviation ground in ten minutes.
+
+None of the aeroplanes was out, for there was a stiff breeze blowing. Don
+Luis ran to the sheds. The owners' names were written over the doors.
+
+"Davanne," he muttered. "That's the man I want."
+
+The door of the shed was open. A short, stoutish man, with a long red
+face, was smoking a cigarette and watching some mechanics working at a
+monoplane. The little man was Davanne himself, the famous airman.
+
+Don Luis took him aside and, knowing from the papers the sort of man that
+he was, opened the conversation so as to surprise him from the start:
+
+"Monsieur," he said, unfolding his map of France, "I want to catch up
+some one who has carried off the woman I love and is making for Nantes by
+motor. The abduction took place at midnight. It is now about eight
+o'clock. Suppose that the motor, which is just a hired taxi with a driver
+who has no inducement to break his neck, does an average of twenty miles
+an hour, including stoppages--in twelve hours' time--that is to say, at
+twelve o'clock--our man will have covered two hundred and forty miles and
+reached a spot between Angers and Nantes, at this point on the map."
+
+"Les Ponts-de-Drive," agreed Davanne, who was quietly listening.
+
+"Very well. Suppose, on the other hand, that an aeroplane were to start
+from Issy-les-Moulineaux at eight o'clock in the morning and travel at
+the rate of sixty miles an hour, without stopping--in four hours'
+time--that is to say, at twelve o'clock--it would reach Les
+Ponts-de-Drive at the exact same moment as the motor. Am I right?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"In that case, if we agree, all is well. Does your machine carry a
+passenger?"
+
+"Sometimes she does."
+
+"We'll start at once. What are your terms?"
+
+"It depends. Who are you?"
+
+"Arsène Lupin."
+
+"The devil you are!" exclaimed Davanne, a little taken aback.
+
+"I am Arsène Lupin. You must know the best part of what has happened from
+reading about it in the papers. Well, Florence Levasseur was kidnapped
+last night. I want to save her. What's your price?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"That's too much!"
+
+"Perhaps, but the adventure amuses me. It will be an advertisement."
+
+"Very well. But your silence is necessary until to-morrow. I'll buy it.
+Here's twenty thousand francs."
+
+Ten minutes later Don Luis was dressed in an airman's suit, cap, and
+goggles; and an aeroplane rose to a height of two thousand five hundred
+feet to avoid the air currents, flew above the Seine, and darted due west
+across France.
+
+Versailles, Maintenon, Chartres....
+
+Don Luis had never been up in an aeroplane. France had achieved the
+conquest of the air while he was fighting with the Legion and in the
+plains of the Sahara. Nevertheless, sensitive though he was to new
+impressions--and what more exciting impression could he have than
+this?--he did not experience the heavenly delight of the man who for the
+first time soars above the earth. What monopolized his thoughts,
+strained his nerves, and excited his whole being to an exquisite degree
+was the as yet impossible but inevitable sight of the motor which they
+were pursuing.
+
+Amid the tremendous swarm of things beneath them, amid the unexpected din
+of the wings and the engine, in the immensity of the sky, in the infinity
+of the horizon, his eyes sought nothing but that, and his ears admitted
+no other sound than the hum of the invisible car. His were the mighty and
+brutal sensations of the hunter chasing his game. He was the bird of prey
+whom the distraught quarry has no chance of escaping.
+
+Nogent-le-Rotrou, La Ferté-Bernard, Le Mans....
+
+The two companions did not exchange a single word. Before him Perenna
+saw Davanne's broad back and powerful neck and shoulders. But, by
+bending his head a little, he saw the boundless space beneath him; and
+nothing interested him but the white ribbon of road that ran from town
+to town and from village to village, at times quite straight, as though
+a hand had stretched it, and at others lazily winding, broken by a river
+or a church.
+
+On this ribbon, at some place always closer and closer, were Florence and
+her abductor!
+
+He never doubted it! The yellow taxi was continuing its patient and
+plucky little effort. Mile after mile, through plains and villages,
+fields and forests, it was making Angers, with Les Ponts-de-Drive after,
+and, right at the end of the ribbon, the unattainable goal: Nantes,
+Saint-Nazaire, the steamer ready to start, and victory for the
+scoundrel....
+
+He laughed at the idea. As if there could be a question of any victory
+but his, the victory of the falcon over its prey, the victory of the
+flying bird over the game that runs afoot! Not for a second did he
+entertain the thought that the enemy might have slunk away by taking
+another road.
+
+There are some certainties that are equivalent to facts. And this one
+was so great that it seemed to him that his adversaries were obliged
+to comply with it. The car was travelling along the road to Nantes.
+It would cover an average of twenty miles an hour. And as he himself
+was travelling at the rate of sixty miles, the encounter would take
+place at the spot named, Les Ponts-de-Drive, and at the hour named,
+twelve o'clock.
+
+A cluster of houses, a huge castle, towers, steeples: Angers....
+
+Don Luis asked Davanne the time. It was ten minutes to twelve.
+
+Already Angers was a vanished vision. Once more the open country, broken
+up with many-coloured fields. Through it all, a road.
+
+And, on that road, a yellow motor.
+
+The yellow motor! The brute's motor! The motor with Florence Levasseur!
+
+Don Luis's joy contained no surprise. He knew so well that this was bound
+to happen!
+
+Davanne turned round and cried:
+
+"That's the one, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, go straight for them."
+
+The airship dipped through space and caught up the car almost at once.
+Then Davanne slowed his engine and kept at six hundred feet above the car
+and a little way behind.
+
+From here they made out all the details. The driver was seated on the
+left. He wore a gray cap with a black peak. It was one of the deep-yellow
+taxis of the Compagnie des Comètes. It was the taxi which they were
+pursuing. And Florence was inside with her abductor.
+
+"At last," thought Don Luis, "I have them!"
+
+They flew for some time, keeping the same distance.
+
+Davanne waited for a signal which Don Luis was in no hurry to give. He
+was revelling in the sensation of his power, with a force made up of
+mingled pride, hatred, and cruelty. He was indeed the eagle hovering
+overhead with its talons itching to rend live flesh. Escaped from the
+cage in which he had been imprisoned, released from the bonds that
+fastened him, he had come all the way at full flight and was ready to
+swoop upon the helpless prey.
+
+He lifted himself in his seat and gave Davanne his instructions:
+
+"Be careful," he said, "not to brush too close by them. They might put a
+bullet into us."
+
+Another minute passed.
+
+Suddenly they saw that, half a mile ahead, the road divided into three,
+thus forming a very wide open space which was still further extended by
+two triangular patches of grass where the three roads met.
+
+"Now?" asked Davanne, turning to Don Luis.
+
+The surrounding country was deserted.
+
+"Off you go!" cried Don Luis.
+
+The aeroplane seemed to shoot down suddenly, as though driven by an
+irresistible force, which sent it flying like an arrow toward the mark.
+It passed at three hundred feet above the car, and then, all at once,
+checking its career, choosing the spot at which it meant to hit the
+target, calmly, silently, like a night-bird, steering clear of the trees
+and sign-posts, it alighted softly on the grass of the crossroads.
+
+Don Luis sprang out and ran toward the motor, which was coming along at a
+rapid pace. He stood in the middle of the road, levelled his two
+revolvers, and shouted:
+
+"Stop, or I fire!"
+
+The terrified driver put on both brakes. The car pulled up.
+
+Don Luis rushed to one of the doors.
+
+"Thunder!" he roared, discharging one of his revolvers for no reason and
+smashing a window-pane.
+
+There was no one in the car.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN
+
+"THE SNARE IS LAID. BEWARE, LUPIN!"
+
+
+The power that had impelled Don Luis to battle and victory was so intense
+that it suffered, so to speak, no cheek. Disappointment, rage,
+humiliation, torture, were all swallowed up in an immediate desire for
+action and information, together with a longing to continue the chase.
+The rest was but an incident of no importance, which would soon be very
+simply explained.
+
+The petrified taxi-driver was gazing wildly at the peasants coming from
+the distant farms, attracted by the sound of the aeroplane. Don Luis took
+him by the throat and put the barrel of his revolver to the man's temple:
+
+"Tell me what you know--or you're a dead man."
+
+And when the unhappy wretch began to stammer out entreaties:
+
+"It's no use moaning, no use hoping for assistance.... Those people won't
+get here in time. So there's only one way of saving yourself: speak! Last
+night a gentleman came to Versailles from Paris in a taxi, left it and
+took yours: is that it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The gentleman had a lady with him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And he engaged you to take him to Nantes?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But he changed his mind on the way and told you to put him down?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Before we got to Mans, in a little road on the right, with a sort of
+coach-house, looking like a shed, a hundred yards down it. They both got
+out there."
+
+"And you went on?"
+
+"He paid me to."
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Five hundred francs. And there was another fare waiting at Nantes that I
+was to pick up and bring back to Paris for a thousand francs more."
+
+"Do you believe in that other fare?"
+
+"No. I think he wanted to put people off the scent by sending them after
+me to Nantes while he branched off. Still, I had my money."
+
+"And, when you left them, weren't you curious to see what happened?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Take care! A movement of my finger and I blow out your brains. Speak!"
+
+"Well, yes, then. I went back on foot, behind a bank covered with trees.
+The man had opened the coach-house and was starting a small limousine
+car. The lady did not want to get in. They argued pretty fiercely. He
+threatened and begged by turns. But I could not hear what they said. She
+seemed very tired. He gave her a glass of water, which he drew from a tap
+in the wall. Then she consented. He closed the door on her and took his
+seat at the wheel."
+
+"A glass of water!" cried Don Luis. "Are you sure he put nothing else
+into the glass?"
+
+The driver seemed surprised at the question and then answered:
+
+"Yes, I think he did. He took something from his pocket."
+
+"Without the lady's knowledge?"
+
+"Yes, she didn't see."
+
+Don Luis mastered his horror. After all it was impossible that the
+villain had poisoned Florence in that way, at that place, without
+anything to warrant so great a hurry. No, it was more likely that he had
+employed a narcotic, a drug of some sort which would dull Florence's
+brain and make her incapable of noticing by what new roads and through
+what towns he was taking her.
+
+"And then," he repeated, "she decided to step in?"
+
+"Yes; and he shut the door and got into the driver's seat. I went
+away then."
+
+"Before knowing which direction they took?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Did you suspect on the way that they thought that they were being
+followed?"
+
+"Certainly. He did nothing but put his head out of the window."
+
+"Did the lady cry out at all?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Would you know him again if you saw him?"
+
+"No, I'm sure I shouldn't. At Versailles it was dark. And this morning I
+was too far away. Besides, it's curious, but the first time he struck me
+as very tall, and this morning, on the contrary, he looked quite a short
+man, as though bent in two. I can't understand it at all."
+
+Don Luis reflected. It seemed to him that he had asked all the necessary
+questions. Moreover, a gig drawn by a quick-trotting horse was
+approaching the crossroads. There were two others behind it. And the
+groups of peasants were now quite near. He must finish the business.
+
+He said to the chauffeur:
+
+"I can see by your face that you intend to talk about me. Don't do that,
+my man: it would be foolish of you. Here's a thousand-franc note for
+you. Only, if you blab, I'll make you repent it. That's all I have to
+say to you."
+
+He turned to Davanne, whose machine was beginning to block the traffic,
+and asked:
+
+"Can we start?"
+
+"Whenever you like. Where are we going?"
+
+Paying no attention to the movements of the people coming from every
+side, Don Luis unfolded his map of France and spread it out before him.
+He experienced a few seconds of anxiety at seeing the complicated tangle
+of roads and picturing the infinite number of places to which the villain
+might carry Florence. But he pulled himself together. He did not allow
+himself to hesitate. He refused even to reflect.
+
+He was determined to find out, and to find out everything, at once,
+without clues, without useless consideration, simply by the marvellous
+intuition which invariably guided him at any crisis in his life.
+
+And his self-respect also required that he should give Davanne his answer
+without delay, and that the disappearance of those whom he was pursuing
+should not seem to embarrass him. With his eyes glued to the map, he
+placed one finger on Paris and another on Le Mans and, even before he had
+asked himself why the scoundrel had chosen that Paris-Le Mans-Angers
+route, he knew the answer to the question.
+
+The name of a town had struck him and made the truth appear like a flash
+of lightning: Alençon! Then and there, by the light of his memory, he
+penetrated the mystery.
+
+He repeated:
+
+"Where are we going? Back again, bearing to the left."
+
+"Any particular place?"
+
+"Alençon."
+
+"All right," said Davanne. "Lend a hand, some of you. I can make an easy
+start from that field just there."
+
+Don Luis and a few others helped him, and the preparations were soon
+made. Davanne tested his engine. Everything was in perfect order.
+
+At that moment a powerful racing car, with a siren yelling like a vicious
+animal, came tearing along the Angers Road and promptly stopped. Three
+men got out and rushed up to the driver of the yellow taxicab. Don Luis
+recognized them. They were Weber, the deputy chief, and the men who had
+taken him to the lockup the night before, sent by the Prefect of Police
+to follow up the scoundrel's tracks.
+
+They had a brief interchange of words with the cab-driver, which seemed
+to put them out; and they kept on gesticulating and plying him with fresh
+questions while looking at their watches and consulting their road maps.
+
+Don Luis went up to them. He was unrecognizable, with his head wrapped
+in his aviation cap and his face concealed by his goggles. Changing
+his voice:
+
+"The birds have flown, Mr. Deputy Chief," he said.
+
+Weber looked at him in utter amazement,
+
+Don Luis grinned.
+
+"Yes, flown. Our friend from the Ile Saint Louis is an artful dodger,
+you know. My lord's in his third motor. After the yellow car of which
+you heard at Versailles last night, he took another at Le
+Mans--destination unknown."
+
+The deputy chief opened his eyes in amazement. Who was this person who
+was mentioning facts that had been telephoned to police headquarters only
+at two o'clock that morning? He gasped:
+
+"But who are you, Monsieur?"
+
+"What? Don't you know me? What's the good of making appointments with
+people? You strain every nerve to be punctual, and then they ask you who
+you are! Come, Weber, confess that you're doing it to annoy me. Must you
+gaze on my features in broad daylight? Here goes!"
+
+He raised his mask.
+
+"Arsène Lupin!" spluttered the detective.
+
+"At your service, young fellow: on foot, in the saddle, and in mid air.
+That's where I'm going now. Good-bye."
+
+And so great was Weber's astonishment at seeing Arsène Lupin, whom he had
+taken to the lockup twelve hours before, standing in front of him, free,
+at two hundred and forty miles from Paris, that Don Luis, as he went back
+to Davanne, thought:
+
+"What a crusher! I've knocked him out in one round. There's no hurry. The
+referee will count ten at least three times before Weber can say
+'Mother!'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Davanne was ready. Don Luis climbed into the monoplane. The peasants
+pushed at the wheels. The machine started.
+
+"North-northeast," Don Luis ordered. "Ninety miles an hour. Ten
+thousand francs."
+
+"We've the wind against us," said Davanne.
+
+"Five thousand francs extra for the wind," shouted Don Luis.
+
+He admitted no obstacle in his haste to reach Damigni. He now understood
+the whole thing and, harking back to the very beginning, he was surprised
+that his mind had never perceived the connection between the two
+skeletons hanging in the barn and the series of crimes resulting from the
+Mornington inheritance. Stranger still, how was it that the almost
+certain murder of Langernault, Hippolyte Fauville's old friend, had not
+afforded him all the clues which it contained? The crux of the sinister
+plot lay in that.
+
+Who could have intercepted, on Fauville's behalf, the letters of
+accusation which Fauville was supposed to write to his old friend
+Langernault, except some one in the village or some one who had lived in
+the village?
+
+And now everything was clear. It was the nameless scoundrel who had
+started his career of crime by killing old Langernault and then the
+Dedessuslamare couple. The method was the same as later on: it was not
+direct murder, but anonymous murder, murder by suggestion. Like
+Mornington the American, like Fauville the engineer, like Marie, like
+Gaston Sauverand, old Langernault had been craftily done away with and
+the Dedessuslamare couple driven to commit suicide in the barn.
+
+It was from there that the tiger had come to Paris, where later he was to
+find Fauville and Cosmo Mornington and plot the tragic affair of the
+inheritance.
+
+And it was there that he was now returning!
+
+There was no doubt about that. To begin with, the fact that he had
+administered a narcotic to Florence constituted an indisputable proof.
+Was he not obliged to put Florence to sleep in order to prevent her from
+recognizing the landscape at Alençon and Damigni, or the Old Castle,
+which she had explored with Gaston Sauverand?
+
+On the other hand, the Le Mans-Angers-Nantes route, which had been taken
+to put the police on a false track, meant only an extra hour or two, at
+most, for any one motoring to Alençon. Lastly, that coach-house near a
+big town, that limousine waiting, ready charged with petrol, showed that
+the villain, when he intended to visit his retreat, took the precaution
+of stopping at Le Mans, in order to go from there, in his limousine, to
+Langernault's deserted estate.
+
+He would therefore reach his lair at ten o'clock that morning. And he
+would arrive there with Florence Levasseur dead asleep!
+
+The question forced itself upon him, the terrible persistent
+question--what did he mean to do with Florence Levasseur?
+
+"Faster! Faster!" cried Don Luis.
+
+Now that he knew the scoundrel's haunt, the man's scheme became
+hideously evident to him. Feeling himself hunted down, lost, an object
+of hatred and terror to Florence, whose eyes were now opened to the true
+state of things, what plan could he have in mind except his invariable
+plan of murder?
+
+"Faster!" cried Don Luis. "We're making no headway. Go faster,
+can't you?"
+
+Florence murdered! Perhaps the crime was not yet accomplished. No, it
+could not be! Killing takes time. It is preceded by words, by the offer
+of a bargain, by threats, by entreaties, by a wholly unspeakable scene.
+But the thing was being prepared, Florence was going to die!
+
+Florence was going to die by the hand of the brute who loved her. For he
+loved her: Don Luis had an intuition of that monstrous love; and he was
+bound to believe that such a love could only end in torture and
+bloodshed.
+
+Sablé ... Sillé-le-Guillaume....
+
+The earth sped beneath them. The trees and houses glided by like shadows.
+
+And then Alençon.
+
+It was hardly more than a quarter to two when they landed in a meadow
+between the town and Damigni. Don Luis made inquiries. A number of motor
+cars had passed along the road to Damigni, including a small limousine
+driven by a gentleman who had turned down a crossroad. And this crossroad
+led to the woods at the back of Langernault's estate, the Old Castle.
+
+Don Luis's conviction was so firm that, after taking leave of Davanne, he
+helped him to start on his homeward flight. He had no further need of
+him. He needed nobody. The final duel was at hand.
+
+He ran along, guided by the tracks of the tires in the dust, and followed
+the crossroad. To his great surprise this road went nowhere near the wall
+behind the barn from which he had jumped a few weeks before. After
+clearing the woods, Don Luis came out into a large untilled space where
+the road turned back toward the estate and ended at an old two-winged
+gate protected with iron sheets and bars.
+
+The limousine had gone in that way.
+
+"And I must get in this way, too," thought Don Luis. "I must get in at
+all costs and immediately, without wasting time in looking for an opening
+or a handy tree."
+
+Now the wall was thirteen feet high at this spot. Don Luis got in. How he
+managed it, by what superhuman effort, he himself could not have said
+after he had done it.
+
+Somehow or other, by hanging on to invisible projections, by digging a
+knife which he had borrowed from Davanne into the interstices between the
+stones, he managed it.
+
+And when he was on the other side he discovered the tracks of the tires
+running to the left, toward a part of the grounds which he did not know,
+more undulating than the other and broken up with little hills and ruined
+buildings covered with thick curtains of ivy.
+
+Deserted though the rest of the park was, this portion seemed much more
+uncivilized, in spite of the ragged remains of box and laurel hedges
+that stood here and there amidst the nettles and brambles, and the
+luxuriant swarm of tall wild-flowers, valerian, mullein, hemlock,
+foxglove, and angelica.
+
+Suddenly, on turning the corner of an old hedge of clipped yews, Don Luis
+saw the limousine, which had been left, or, rather, hidden there in a
+hollow. The door was open. The disorder of the inside of the car, the rug
+hanging over the footboard, a broken window, a cushion on the floor, all
+bore witness to a struggle. The scoundrel had no doubt taken advantage of
+the fact that Florence was asleep to tie her up; and on arriving, when he
+tried to take her out of the car, Florence must have clutched at
+everything that offered.
+
+Don Luis at once verified the correctness of his theory. As he went along
+the very narrow, grass-grown path that led up the slope, he saw that the
+grass was uniformly pressed down.
+
+"Oh, the villain!" he thought. "The villain! He doesn't carry his victim,
+he drags her!"
+
+If he had listened only to his instinct, he would have rushed to
+Florence's rescue. But his profound sense of what to do and what to avoid
+saved him from committing any such imprudence. At the first alarm, at the
+least sound, the tiger would have throttled his prey. To escape this
+hideous catastrophe, Don Luis must take him by surprise and then and
+there deprive him of his power of action. He controlled himself,
+therefore, and slowly and cautiously mounted the incline.
+
+The path ran upward between heaps of stones and fallen buildings, and
+among clumps of shrubs overtopped by beeches and oaks. The place was
+evidently the site of the old feudal castle which had given the estate
+its name; and it was here, near the top, that the scoundrel had selected
+one of his retreats.
+
+The trail continued over the trampled herbage. And Don Luis even caught
+sight of something shining on the ground, in a tuft of grass. It was a
+ring, a tiny and very simple ring, consisting of a gold circlet and two
+small pearls, which he had often noticed on Florence's finger. And the
+fact that caught his attention was that a blade of grass passed and
+repassed and passed a third time through the inside of the ring, like a
+ribbon that had been rolled round it deliberately.
+
+"It's a clear signal," said Perenna to himself. "The villain probably
+stopped here to rest; and Florence, bound up; but with her fingers free,
+was able to leave this evidence of her passage."
+
+So the girl still hoped. She expected assistance. And Don Luis reflected
+with emotion that it was perhaps to him that this last desperate appeal
+was addressed.
+
+Fifty steps farther--and this detail pointed to the rather curious
+fatigue experienced by the scoundrel--there was a second halt and a
+second clue, a flower, a field-sage, which the poor little hand had
+picked and plucked of its petals. Next came the print of the five fingers
+dug into the ground, and next a cross drawn with a pebble. And in this
+way he was able to follow, minute by minute, all the successive stages of
+the horrible journey.
+
+The last stopping-place was near. The climb became steeper and rougher.
+The fallen stones occasioned more frequent obstacles. On the right the
+Gothic arches, the remains of a chapel, stood out against the blue sky.
+On the left was a strip of wall with a mantelpiece still clinging to it.
+
+Twenty steps farther Don Luis stopped. He seemed to hear something.
+
+He listened. He was not mistaken. The sound was repeated, and it was the
+sound of laughter. But such an awful laugh! A strident laugh, evil as the
+laughter of a devil, and so shrill! It was more like the laugh of a
+woman, of a madwoman.
+
+Again silence. Then another noise, the noise of an implement striking the
+ground, then silence again.
+
+And this was happening at a distance which Don Luis estimated at a
+hundred yards.
+
+The path ended in three steps cut in the earth. At the top was a fairly
+large plateau, also encumbered with rubbish and ruins. In the centre,
+opposite Don Luis, stood a screen of immense laurels planted in a
+semicircle. The marks of trodden grass led up to it.
+
+Don Luis was a little surprised, for the screen presented an impenetrable
+outline. He walked on and found that there had once been a cutting, and
+that the branches had ended by meeting again. They were easy to push
+aside; and it was through here that the scoundrel must have passed. To
+all appearances he was there now, at the end of his journey, not far
+away, occupied in some sinister task.
+
+Indeed the air was rent by a chuckle, so close by that Don Luis gave a
+start and felt as if the scoundrel were laughing beforehand at his
+intervention. He remembered the letter with the words written in red ink:
+
+There's still time, Lupin. Retire from the contest. If not, it means your
+death, too. When you think that your object is attained, when your hand
+is raised against me and you utter words of triumph, at the same moment
+the ground will open beneath your feet. The place of your death is
+chosen. The snare is laid. Beware, Lupin!
+
+The whole letter passed through his brain, with its formidable threat.
+And he felt a shiver of fear. But no fear could stay the man that he was.
+He had already taken hold of the branches with his hands and was clearing
+a way for himself.
+
+He stopped. A last bulwark of leaves hid him from sight. He pulled some
+of them aside at the level of his eyes.
+
+And he saw ...
+
+First of all, he saw Florence, alone at this moment, lying on the
+ground, bound, at thirty yards in front of him; and he at once
+perceived, to his intense delight, from certain movements of her head
+that she was still alive. He had come in time. Florence was not dead.
+She would not die. That was a certainty against which nothing could
+prevail. Florence would not die.
+
+Then he examined the things around. To the right and left of where he
+stood the screen of laurels curved and embraced a sort of arena in which,
+among yews that had once been clipped into cones, lay capitals, columns,
+broken pieces of arches and vaults, obviously placed there to adorn the
+formal garden that had been laid out on the ruins of the ancient
+donjon-keep.
+
+In the middle was a small circular space reached by two narrow paths, one
+of which presented the same traces of trodden grass and was a
+continuation of that by which Don Luis had come, while the other
+intersected the first at right angles and joined the two ends of the
+screen of shrubs.
+
+Opposite was a confused heap of broken stones and natural rocks, cemented
+with clay, bound together by the roots of gnarled trees, the whole
+forming at the back of the picture a small, shallow grotto, full of
+crevices that admitted the light. The floor, which Don Luis could easily
+distinguish, consisted of three or four flagstones.
+
+Florence Levasseur lay inside this grotto, bound hand and foot, looking
+like the victim of some mysterious sacrifice about to be performed on the
+altar of the grotto, in the amphitheatre of this old garden closed by the
+wall of tall laurels and overlooked by a pile of ancestral ruins.
+
+In spite of the distance, Don Luis was able to make out every detail of
+her pale face. Though convulsed with anguish, it still retained a certain
+serenity, an expression of waiting and even of expectancy, as if
+Florence, believing, until the last moment, in the possibility of a
+miracle, had not yet relinquished all hope of life.
+
+Nevertheless, though she was not gagged, she did not call for help.
+Perhaps she thought that it was useless, and that the road which she had
+strewn with the marks of her passing was more likely to bring assistance
+to her side than cries, which the villain would soon have stifled.
+Strange to say, it seemed to Don Luis as if the girl's eyes were
+obstinately fixed on the very spot where he was hiding. Possibly she
+suspected his presence. Possibly she foresaw his help.
+
+Suddenly Don Luis clutched one of his revolvers and half raised his arm,
+ready to take aim. The sacrificer, the butcher, had just appeared, not
+far from the altar on which the victim lay.
+
+He came from between two rocks, of which a bush marked the intervening
+space, which apparently afforded but a very low outlet, for he still
+walked as though bent double, with his head bowed and his long arms
+swinging so low as to touch the ground.
+
+He went to the grotto and gave his horrible chuckle:
+
+"You're still there, I see," he said. "No sign of the rescuer? Perseus is
+a little late, I fear. He'd better hurry!"
+
+The tone of his voice was so shrill that Don Luis heard every word, and
+so odd, so unhuman, that it gave him a feeling of physical discomfort.
+He gripped his revolver tightly, prepared to shoot at the first
+suspicious movement.
+
+"He'd better hurry!" repeated the scoundrel, with a laugh. "If not, all
+will be over in five minutes. You see that I'm a man of method, eh,
+Florence, my darling?"
+
+He picked up something from the ground. It was a stick shaped like a
+crutch. He put it under his left arm and, still bent in two, began to
+walk like a man who has not the strength to stand erect. Then suddenly
+and with no apparent cause to explain his change of attitude, he drew
+himself up and used his crutch as he would a cane. He then walked round
+the outside of the grotto, making a careful inspection, the meaning of
+which escaped Don Luis for the time.
+
+He was of a good height in this position; and Don Luis easily
+understood why the driver of the yellow taxi, who had seen him under
+two such different aspects, was unable to say whether he was very tall
+or very short.
+
+But his legs, slack and unsteady, gave way beneath him, as if any
+prolonged exertion were beyond his power. He relapsed into his
+first attitude.
+
+The man was a cripple, smitten with some disease that affected his powers
+of locomotion. He was excessively thin. Don Luis also saw his pallid
+face, his cavernous cheeks, his hollow temples, his skin the colour of
+parchment: the face of a sufferer from consumption, a bloodless face.
+
+When he had finished his inspection, he came up to Florence and said:
+
+"Though you've been very good, baby, and haven't screamed so far, we'd
+better take our precautions and remove any possibility of a surprise by
+giving you a nice little gag to wear, don't you think?"
+
+He stooped over her and wound a large handkerchief round the lower part
+of her face. Then, bending still farther down, he began to speak to her
+in a very low voice, talking almost into her ear. But wild bursts of
+laughter, horrible to hear, interrupted this whispering.
+
+Feeling the imminence of the danger, dreading some movement on the
+wretch's part, a sudden murderous attack, the prompt prick of a poisoned
+needle, Don Luis had levelled his revolver and, confident of his skill,
+waited events.
+
+What was happening over there? What were the words spoken? What infamous
+bargain was the villain proposing to Florence? At what shameful price
+could she obtain her release?
+
+The cripple stepped back angrily, shouting in furious accents:
+
+"But don't you understand that you are done for? Now that I have nothing
+more to fear, now that you have been silly enough to come with me and
+place yourself in my power, what hope have you left? To move me, perhaps:
+is that it? Because I'm burning with passion, you imagine--? Oh, you
+never made a greater mistake, my pet! I don't care a fig if you do die.
+Once dead, you cease to count....
+
+"What else? Perhaps you consider that, being crippled, I shall not have
+the strength to kill you? But there's no question of my killing you,
+Florence. Have you ever known me kill people? Never! I'm much too big a
+coward, I should be frightened, I should shake all over. No, no,
+Florence, I shan't touch you, and yet--
+
+"Here, look what's going to happen, see for yourself. I tell you the
+thing's managed in my own style.... And, whatever you do, don't be
+afraid. It's only a preliminary warning."
+
+He had moved away and, helping himself with his hands, holding on to the
+branches of a tree, he climbed up the first layers of rock that formed
+the grotto on the right. Here he knelt down. There was a small pickaxe
+lying beside him. He took it and gave three blows to the nearest heap of
+stones. They came tumbling down in front of the grotto.
+
+Don Luis sprang from his hiding-place with a roar of terror. He had
+suddenly realized the position: The grotto, the accumulation of boulders,
+the piles of granite, everything was so placed that its equilibrium could
+be shattered at any moment, and that Florence ran the risk of being
+buried under the rubbish. It was not a question, therefore, of slaying
+the villain, but of saving Florence on the spot.
+
+He was halfway across in two or three seconds. But here, in one of those
+mental flashes which are even quicker than the maddest rush, he became
+aware that the tracks of trampled grass did not cross the central circus
+and that the scoundrel had gone round it. Why? That was one of the
+questions which instinct, ever suspicious, puts, but which reason has not
+the time to answer. Don Luis went straight ahead. And he had no sooner
+set foot on the place than the catastrophe occurred.
+
+It all happened with incredible suddenness, as though he had tried to
+walk on space and found himself hurled into it. The ground gave way
+beneath him. The clods of grass separated, and he fell.
+
+He fell down a hole which was none other than the mouth of a well four
+feet wide at most, the curb of which had been cut down level with the
+ground. Only this was what took place: as he was running very fast, his
+impetus flung him against the opposite wall in such a way that his
+forearms lay on the outer ledge and his hands were able to clutch at the
+roots of plants.
+
+So great was his strength that he might just have been able to drag
+himself up by his wrists. But responding to the attack, the scoundrel had
+at once hurried to meet his assailant and was now standing at ten paces
+from Don Luis, threatening him with his revolver:
+
+"Don't move!" he cried, "or I'll smash you!"
+
+Don Luis was thus reduced to helplessness, at the risk of receiving the
+enemy's fire.
+
+Their eyes met for a few seconds. The cripple's were burning with fever,
+like the eyes of a sick man.
+
+Crawling along, watching Don Luis's slightest movement, he came and
+squatted beside the well. The revolver was levelled in his outstretched
+hand. And his infernal chuckle rang out again:
+
+"Lupin! Lupin! That's done it! Lupin's dive!... What a mug you must be! I
+warned you, you know, warned you in blood-red ink. Remember my words:
+'The place of your death is chosen. The snare is laid. Beware, Lupin!'
+And here you are! So you're not in prison? You warded off that stroke,
+you rogue, you! Fortunately, I foresaw events and took my precautions.
+What do you say to it? What do you think of my little scheme? I said to
+myself, 'All the police will come rushing at my heels. But there's only
+one who's capable of catching me, and that's Lupin. So we'll show him the
+way, we'll lead him on the leash all along a little path scraped clean by
+the victim's body.'
+
+"And then a few landmarks, scattered here and there. First, the fair
+damsel's ring, with a blade of grass twisted round it; farther on a
+flower without its petals; farther on the marks of five fingers in the
+ground; next, the sign of the cross.' No mistaking them, was there? Once
+you thought me fool enough to give Florence time to play
+Hop-o'-my-Thumb's game, it was bound to lead you straight to the mouth of
+the well, to the clods of turf which I dabbed across it, last month, in
+anticipation of this windfall.
+
+"Remember: 'The snare is laid.' And a snare after my own style, Lupin;
+one of the best! Oh, I love getting rid of people with their kind
+assistance. We work together like friends and partners. You've caught the
+notion, haven't you?
+
+"I don't do my own job. The others do it for me, hanging themselves or
+giving themselves careless injections--unless they prefer the mouth of a
+well, as you seem to do, Lupin. My poor old chap, what a sticky mess
+you're in! I never saw such a face, never, on my word! Florence, do look
+at the expression on your swain's mobile features!"
+
+He broke off, seized with a fit of laughter that shook his outstretched
+arm, imparted the most savage look to his face, and set his legs jerking
+under his body like the legs of a dancing doll. His enemy was growing
+weaker before his eyes. Don Luis's fingers, which had first gripped the
+roots of the grass, were now vainly clutching the stones of the wall. And
+his shoulders were sinking lower and lower into the well.
+
+"We've done it!" spluttered the villain, in the midst of his convulsions
+of merriment. "Lord, how good it is to laugh! Especially when one so
+seldom does. Yes, I'm a wet blanket, I am; a first-rate man at a funeral!
+You've never seen me laugh, Florence, have you? But this time it's really
+too amusing. Lupin in his hole and Florence in her grotto; one dancing a
+jig above the abyss and the other at her last gasp under her mountain.
+What a sight!
+
+"Come, Lupin, don't tire yourself! What's the use of those grimaces?
+You're not afraid of eternity, are you? A good man like you, the Don
+Quixote of modern times! Come, let yourself go. There's not even any
+water in the well to splash about in. No, it's just a nice little slide
+into infinity. You can't so much as hear the sound of a pebble when you
+drop it in; and just now I threw a piece of lighted paper down and lost
+sight of it in the dark. Brrrr! It sent a cold shiver down my back!
+
+"Come, be a man. It'll only take a moment; and you've been through worse
+than that! ... Good, you nearly did it then. You're making up your mind
+to it.... I say, Lupin! ... Lupin! ... Aren't you going to say good-bye?
+Not a smile, not a word of thanks? Au revoir, Lupin, an revoir--"
+
+He ceased. He watched for the appalling end which he had so cleverly
+prepared and of which all the incidents were following close on one
+another in accordance with his inflexible will.
+
+It did not take long. The shoulders had gone down; the chin; and then the
+mouth convulsed with the death-grin; and then the eyes, drunk with
+terror; and then the forehead and the hair: the whole head, in short, had
+disappeared.
+
+The cripple sat gazing wildly, as though in ecstasy, motionless, with an
+expression of fierce delight, and without a word that could trouble the
+silence and interrupt his hatred.
+
+At the edge of the abyss nothing remained but the hands, the obstinate,
+stubborn, desperate, heroic hands, the poor, helpless hands which alone
+still lived, and which, gradually, retreating toward death, yielded and
+fell back and let go.
+
+The hands had slipped. For a moment the fingers held on like claws. So
+natural was the effort which they made that it looked as if they did not
+even yet despair, unaided, of resuscitating and bringing back to the
+light of day the corpse already entombed in the darkness. And then they
+in their turn gave way. And then--and then, suddenly, there was nothing
+more to be seen and nothing more to be heard.
+
+The cripple started to his feet, as though released by a spring, and
+yelled with delight:
+
+"Oof! That's done it! Lupin in the bottomless pit! One more adventure
+finished! Oof!"
+
+Turning in Florence's direction, he once more danced his dance of death.
+He raised himself to his full height and then suddenly crouched down
+again, throwing about his legs like the grotesque, ragged limbs of a
+scarecrow. And he sang and whistled and belched forth insults and hideous
+blasphemies.
+
+Then he came back to the yawning mouth of the well and, standing some way
+off, as if still afraid to come nearer, he spat into it three times.
+
+Nor was this enough for his hatred. There were some broken pieces of
+statuary on the ground. He took a carved head, rolled it along the grass,
+and sent it crashing down the well. A little farther away was a stack of
+old, rusty cannon balls. These also he rolled to the edge and pushed in.
+Five, ten, fifteen cannon balls went scooting down, one after the other,
+banging against the walls with a loud and sinister noise which the echo
+swelled into the angry roar of distant thunder.
+
+"There, take that, Lupin! I'm sick of you, you dirty cad!
+That's for the spokes you put in my wheel, over that damned
+inheritance! ... Here, take this, too!... And this!... And
+this!... Here's a chocolate for you in case you're hungry.... Do you
+want another? Here you are, old chap! catch!"
+
+He staggered, seized with a sort of giddiness, and had to squat on his
+haunches. He was utterly spent. However, obeying a last convulsion, he
+still found the strength to kneel down by the well, and leaning over the
+darkness, he stammered, breathlessly:
+
+"Hi! I say! Corpse! Don't go knocking at the gate of hell at once!... The
+little girl's joining you in twenty minutes.... Yes, that's it, at four
+o'clock.... You know I'm a punctual man and keep my appointments to the
+minute.... She'll be with you at four o'clock exactly.
+
+"By the way, I was almost forgetting: the inheritance--you know,
+Mornington's hundred millions--well, that's mine. Why, of course! You
+can't doubt that I took all my precautions! Florence will explain
+everything presently.... It's very well thought out--you'll
+see--you'll see--"
+
+He could not get out another word. The last syllables sounded more
+like hiccoughs. The sweat poured from his hair and his forehead, and
+he sank to the ground, moaning like a dying man tortured by the last
+throes of death.
+
+He remained like that for some minutes, with his head in his hands,
+shivering all over his body. He appeared to be suffering everywhere, in
+each anguished muscle, in each sick nerve. Then, under the influence of a
+thought that seemed to make him act unconsciously, one of his hands crept
+spasmodically down his side, and, groping, uttering hoarse cries of pain,
+he managed to take from his pocket and put to his lips a phial out of
+which he greedily drank two or three mouthfuls.
+
+He at once revived, as though he had swallowed warmth and strength. His
+eyes grew calmer, his mouth shaped itself into a horrible smile. He
+turned to Florence and said:
+
+"Don't flatter yourself, pretty one; I'm not gone yet, and I've plenty of
+time to attend to you. And then, after that, there'll be no more worries,
+no more of that scheming and fighting that wears one out. A nice, quiet,
+uneventful life for me! ... With a hundred millions one can afford to
+take life easy, eh, little girl? ... Come on, I'm feeling much better!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY
+
+FLORENCE'S SECRET
+
+
+It was time for the second act of the tragedy. Don Luis Perenna's death
+was to be followed by that of Florence. Like some monstrous butcher, the
+cripple passed from one to the other with no more compassion than if he
+were dealing with the oxen in a slaughter-house.
+
+Still weak in his limbs, he dragged himself to where the girl lay,
+took a cigarette from a gun-metal case, and, with a final touch of
+cruelty, said:
+
+"When this cigarette is quite burnt out, Florence, it will be your turn.
+Keep your eyes on it. It represents the last minutes of your life reduced
+to ashes. Keep your eyes on it, Florence, and think.
+
+"I want you to understand this: all the owners of the estate, and old
+Langernault in particular, have always considered that the heap of rocks
+and stones overhanging your head was bound to fall to pieces sooner or
+later. And I myself, for years, with untiring patience, believing in a
+favourable opportunity, have amused myself by making it crumble away
+still more, by undermining it with the rain water, in short, by working
+at it in such a way that, upon my word, I can't make out how the thing
+keeps standing at all. Or, rather, I do understand.
+
+"The few strokes with the pickaxe which I gave it just now were merely
+intended for a warning. But I have only to give one more stroke in the
+right place, and knock out a little brick wedged in between two lumps of
+stone, for the whole thing to tumble to the ground like a house of cards.
+
+"A little brick, Florence," he chuckled, "a tiny little brick which
+chance placed there, between two blocks of stone, and has kept in
+position until now. Out comes the brick, down come the blocks, and
+there's your catastrophe!"
+
+He took breath and continued:
+
+"After that? After that, Florence, this: either the smash will take
+place in such a way that your body will not even be in sight, if any one
+should dream of coming here to look for you, or else it will be partly
+visible, in which case I shall at once cut and destroy the cords with
+which you are tied.
+
+"What will the law think then? Simply that Florence Levasseur, a fugitive
+from justice, hid herself in a grotto which fell upon her and crushed
+her. That's all. A few prayers for the rash creature's soul, and not
+another word.
+
+"As for me--as for me, when my work is done and my sweetheart dead--I
+shall pack my traps, carefully remove all the traces of my coming, smooth
+every inch of the trampled grass, jump into my motor car, sham death for
+a little while, and then put in a sensational claim for the hundred
+millions."
+
+He gave a little chuckle, took two or three puffs at his cigarette, and
+added, calmly:
+
+"I shall claim the hundred millions and I shall get them. That's the
+prettiest part of it. I shall claim them because I'm entitled to them;
+and I explained to you just now before Master Lupin came interfering,
+how, from the moment that you were dead, I had the most undeniable legal
+right to them. And I shall get them, because it is physically impossible
+to bring up the least sort of proof against me."
+
+He moved closer.
+
+"There's not a charge that can hurt me. Suspicions, yes, moral
+presumptions, clues, anything you like, but not a scrap of material
+evidence. Nobody knows me. One person has seen me as a tall man, another
+as a short man. My very name is unknown. All my murders have been
+committed anonymously. All my murders are more like suicides, or can be
+explained as suicides.
+
+"I tell you the law is powerless. With Lupin dead, and Florence Levasseur
+dead, there's no one to bear witness against me. Even if they arrested
+me, they would have to discharge me in the end for lack of evidence. I
+shall be branded, execrated, hated, and cursed; my name will stink in
+people's nostrils, as if I were the greatest of malefactors. But I shall
+possess the hundred millions; and with that, pretty one, I shall possess
+the friendship of all decent men!
+
+"I tell you again, with Lupin and you gone, it's all over. There's
+nothing left, nothing but some papers and a few little things which I
+have been weak enough to keep until now, in this pocket-book here, and
+which would be enough and more than enough to cost me my head, if I did
+not intend to burn them in a few minutes and send the ashes to the bottom
+of the well.
+
+"So you see, Florence, all my measures are taken. You need not hope
+for compassion from me, nor for help from anywhere else, since no one
+knows where I have brought you, and Arsène Lupin is no longer alive.
+Under these conditions, Florence, make your choice. The ending is in
+your own hands: either you die, absolutely and irrevocably, or you
+accept my love."
+
+There was a moment of silence, then:
+
+"Answer me yes or no. A movement of your head will decide your fate. If
+it's no, you die. If it's yes, I shall release you. We will go from here
+and, later, when your innocence is proved--and I'll see to that--you
+shall become my wife. Is the answer yes, Florence?"
+
+He put the question to her with real anxiety and with a restrained
+passion that set his voice trembling. His knees dragged over the
+flagstones. He begged and threatened, hungering to be entreated and, at
+the same time, almost eager for a refusal, so great was his natural
+murderous impulse.
+
+"Is it yes, Florence? A nod, the least little nod, and I shall believe
+you implicitly, for you never lie and your promise is sacred. Is it yes,
+Florence? Oh, Florence, answer me! It is madness to hesitate. Your life
+depends on a fresh outburst of my anger. Answer me! Here, look, my
+cigarette is out. I'm throwing it away, Florence. A sign of your head: is
+the answer yes or no?"
+
+He bent over her and shook her by the shoulders, as if to force her to
+make the sign which he asked for. But suddenly seized with a sort of
+frenzy, he rose to his feet and exclaimed:
+
+"She's crying! She's crying! She dares to weep! But, wretched girl, do
+you think that I don't know what you're crying for? I know your secret,
+pretty one, and I know that your tears do not come from any fear of
+dying. You? Why, you fear nothing! No, it's something else! Shall I tell
+you your secret? Oh, I can't, I can't--though the words scorch my lips.
+Oh, cursed woman, you've brought it on yourself! You yourself want to
+die, Florence, as you're crying--you yourself want to die--"
+
+While he was speaking he hastened to get to work and prepare the horrible
+tragedy. The leather pocket-book which he had mentioned as containing the
+papers was lying on the ground; he put it in his pocket. Then, still
+trembling, he pulled off his jacket and threw it on the nearest bush.
+Next, he took up the pickaxe and climbed the lower stones, stamping with
+rage and shouting:
+
+"It's you who have asked to die, Florence! Nothing can prevent it now.
+I can't even see your head, if you make a sign. It's too late! You
+asked for it and you've got it! Ah, you're crying! You dare to cry!
+What madness!"
+
+He was standing almost above the grotto, on the right. His anger made him
+draw himself to his full height. He looked horrible, hideous, atrocious.
+His eyes filled with blood as he inserted the bar of the pickaxe between
+the two blocks of granite, at the spot where the brick was wedged in.
+Then, standing on one side, in a place of safety, he struck the brick,
+struck it again. At the third stroke the brick flew out.
+
+What happened was so sudden, the pyramid of stones and rubbish came
+crashing with such violence into the hollow of the grotto and in front of
+the grotto, that the cripple himself, in spite of his precautions, was
+dragged down by the avalanche and thrown upon the grass. It was not a
+serious fall, however, and he picked himself up at once, stammering:
+
+"Florence! Florence!"
+
+Though he had so carefully prepared the catastrophe, and brought it about
+with such determination, its results seemed suddenly to stagger him. He
+hunted for the girl with terrified eyes. He stooped down and crawled
+round the chaos shrouded in clouds of dust. He looked through the
+interstices. He saw nothing.
+
+Florence was buried under the ruins, dead, invisible, as he had
+anticipated.
+
+"Dead!" he said, with staring eyes and a look of stupor on his face.
+"Dead! Florence is dead!"
+
+Once again he lapsed into a state of absolute prostration, which
+gradually slackened his legs, brought him to the ground and paralyzed
+him. His two efforts, following so close upon each other and ending in
+disasters of which he had been the immediate witness, seemed to have
+robbed him of all his remaining energy.
+
+With no hatred in him, since Arsène Lupin no longer lived, with no love,
+since Florence was no more, he looked like a man who has lost his last
+motive for existence.
+
+Twice his lips uttered the name of Florence. Was he regretting his
+friend? Having reached the last of that appalling series of crimes, was
+he imagining the several stages, each marked with a corpse? Was something
+like a conscience making itself felt deep down in that brute? Or was it
+not rather the sort of physical torpor that numbs the sated beast of
+prey, glutted with flesh, drunk with blood, a torpor that is almost
+voluptuousness?
+
+Nevertheless, he once more repeated Florence's name, and tears rolled
+down his cheeks.
+
+He lay long in this condition, gloomy and motionless; and when, after
+again taking a few sips of his medicine, he went back to his work, he
+did so mechanically, with none of that gayety which had made him hop
+on his legs and set about his murder as though he were going to a
+pleasure party.
+
+He began by returning to the bush from which Lupin had seen him emerge.
+Behind this bush, between two trees, was a shelter containing tools and
+arms, spades, rakes, guns, and rolls of wire and rope.
+
+Making several journeys, he carried them to the well, intending to throw
+them down it before he went away. He next examined every particle of the
+little mound up which he had climbed, in order to make sure that he was
+not leaving the least trace of his passage.
+
+He made a similar examination of those parts of the lawn on which he had
+stepped, except the path leading to the well, the inspection of which he
+kept for the last. He brushed up the trodden grass and carefully smoothed
+the trampled earth.
+
+He was obviously anxious and seemed to be thinking of other things, while
+at the same time mechanically doing those things which a murderer knows
+by force of habit that it is wise to do.
+
+One little incident seemed to wake him up. A wounded swallow fell to the
+ground close by where he stood. He stooped, caught it, and crushed it in
+his hands, kneading it like a scrap of crumpled paper. And his eyes shone
+with a savage delight as he gazed at the blood that trickled from the
+poor bird and reddened his hands.
+
+But, when he flung the shapeless little body into a furze bush, he saw on
+the spikes in the bush a hair, a long, fair hair; and all his depression
+returned at the memory of Florence.
+
+He knelt in front of the ruined grotto. Then, breaking two sticks
+of wood, he placed the pieces in the form of a cross under one of
+the stones.
+
+As he was bending over, a little looking-glass slipped from his waistcoat
+pocket and, striking a pebble, broke. This sign of ill luck made a great
+impression on him, He cast a suspicious look around him and, shivering
+with nervousness, as though he felt threatened by the invisible powers,
+he muttered:
+
+"I'm afraid--I'm afraid. Let's go away--"
+
+His watch now marked half-past four. He took his jacket from the shrub on
+which he had hung it, slipped his arms into the sleeves, and put his hand
+in the right-hand outside pocket, where he had placed the pocket-book
+containing his papers:
+
+"Hullo!" he said, in great surprise. "I was sure I had--"
+
+He felt in the left outside pocket, then in the handkerchief-pocket,
+then, with feverish excitement, in both the inside pockets. The
+pocket-book was not there. And, to his extreme amazement, all the
+other things which he was absolutely certain that he had left in the
+pockets of his jacket were gone: his cigarette-case, his box of
+matches, his notebook.
+
+He was flabbergasted. His features became distorted. He spluttered
+incomprehensible words, while the most terrible thought took hold of his
+mind so forcibly as to become a reality: there was some one within the
+precincts of the Old Castle.
+
+There was some one within the precincts of the Old Castle! And this some
+one was now hiding near the ruins, in the ruins perhaps! And this some
+one had seen him! And this some one had witnessed the death of Arsène
+Lupin and the death of Florence Levasseur! And this some one, taking
+advantage of his heedlessness and knowing from his words that the papers
+existed, had searched his jacket and rifled the pockets!
+
+His eyes expressed the alarm of a man accustomed to work in the darkness
+unperceived, and who suddenly becomes aware that another's eyes have
+surprised him at his hateful task and that he is being watched in every
+movement for the first time in his life.
+
+Whence did that look come that troubled him as the daylight troubles a
+bird of the night? Was it an intruder hiding there by accident, or an
+enemy bent upon his destruction? Was it an accomplice of Arsène Lupin, a
+friend of Florence, one of the police? And was this adversary satisfied
+with his stolen booty, or was he preparing to attack him?
+
+The cripple dared not stir. He was there, exposed to assault, on open
+ground, with nothing to protect him against the blows that might come
+before he even knew where the adversary was.
+
+At last, however, the imminence of the danger gave him back some of his
+strength. Still motionless, he inspected his surroundings with an
+attention so keen that it seemed as if no detail could escape him. He
+would have sighted the most indistinct shape among the stones of the
+ruined pile, or in the bushes, or behind the tall laurel screen.
+
+Seeing nobody, he came along, supporting himself on his crutch. He walked
+without the least sound of his feet or of the crutch, which probably had
+a rubber shoe at the end of it. His raised right hand held a revolver.
+His finger was on the trigger. The least effort of his will, or even less
+than that, a spontaneous injunction of his instinct, was enough to put a
+bullet into the enemy.
+
+He turned to the left. On this side, between the extreme end of the
+laurels and the first fallen rocks, there was a little brick path which
+was more likely the top of a buried wall. The cripple followed this path,
+by which the enemy might have reached the shrub on which the jacket hung
+without leaving any traces.
+
+The last branches of the laurels were in his way, and he pushed them
+aside. There was a tangled mass of bushes. To avoid this, he skirted the
+foot of the mound, after which he took a few more steps, going round a
+huge rock. And then, suddenly, he started back and almost lost his
+balance, while his crutch fell to the ground and his revolver slipped
+from his hand.
+
+What he had seen, what he saw, was certainly the most terrifying sight
+that he could possibly have beheld. Opposite him, at ten paces distance,
+with his hands in his pockets, his feet crossed, and one shoulder
+resting lightly against the rocky wall, stood not a man: it was not a
+man, and could not be a man, for this man, as the cripple knew, was
+dead, had died the death from which there is no recovery. It was
+therefore a ghost; and this apparition from the tomb raised the
+cripple's terror to its highest pitch.
+
+He shivered, seized with a fresh attack of fever and weakness. His
+dilated pupils stared at the extraordinary phenomenon. His whole being,
+filled with demoniacal superstition and dread, crumpled up under the
+vision to which each second lent an added horror.
+
+Incapable of flight, incapable of defence, he dropped upon his knees.
+And he could not take his eyes from that dead man, whom hardly an hour
+before he had buried in the depths of a well, under a shroud of iron
+and granite.
+
+Arsène Lupin's ghost!
+
+A man you take aim at, you fire at, you kill. But a ghost! A thing which
+no longer exists and which nevertheless disposes of all the supernatural
+powers! What was the use of struggling against the infernal machinations
+of that which is no more? What was the use of picking up the fallen
+revolver and levelling it at the intangible spirit of Arsène Lupin?
+
+And he saw an incomprehensible thing occur: the ghost took its hands out
+of its pockets. One of them held a cigarette-case; and the cripple
+recognized the same gun-metal case for which he had hunted in vain. There
+was therefore not a doubt left that the creature who had ransacked the
+jacket was the very same who now opened the case, picked out a cigarette
+and struck a match taken from a box which also belonged to the cripple!
+
+O miracle! A real flame came from the match! O incomparable marvel!
+Clouds of smoke rose from the cigarette, real smoke, of which the cripple
+at once knew the particular smell!
+
+He hid his head in his hands. He refused to see more. Whether ghost
+or optical illusion, an emanation from another world, or an image
+born of his remorse and proceeding from himself, it should torture
+his eyes no longer.
+
+But he heard the sound of a step approaching him, growing more and more
+distinct as it came closer! He felt a strange presence moving near him!
+An arm was stretched out! A hand fell on his shoulder! That hand clutched
+his flesh with an irresistible grip! And he heard words spoken by a voice
+which, beyond mistake, was the human and living voice of Arsène Lupin!
+
+"Why, my dear sir, what a state we're getting ourselves into! Of course,
+I understand that my sudden return seems an unusual and even an
+inconvenient proceeding, but still it does not do to be so uncontrollably
+impressed. Men have seen much more extraordinary things than that, such
+as Joshua staying the sun, and more sensational disasters, such as the
+Lisbon earthquake of 1755.
+
+"The wise man reduces events to their proper proportions and judges them,
+not by their action upon his own destiny, but by the way in which they
+influence the fortunes of the world. Now confess that your little mishap
+is purely individual and does not affect the equilibrium of the solar
+system. You know what Marcus Aurelius says, on page 84, of Charpentier's
+edition--"
+
+The cripple had plucked up courage to raise his head; and the real state
+of things now became so obviously apparent that he could no longer get
+away from the undeniable fact: Arsène Lupin was not dead! Arsène Lupin
+whom he had hurled into the bowels of the earth and crushed as surely as
+an insect is crushed with a hammer; Arsène Lupin was not dead!
+
+How to explain so astounding a mystery the cripple did not even stop to
+wonder. One thing alone mattered: Arsène Lupin was not dead. Arsène Lupin
+looked and spoke as a living man does. Arsène Lupin was not dead. He
+breathed, he smiled, he talked, he lived!
+
+And it was so certainly life that the scoundrel saw before him that,
+obeying a sudden impulse of his nature and of his hatred for life, he
+flattened himself to his full length, reached his revolver, seized it,
+and fired.
+
+He fired; but it was too late. Don Luis had caused the weapon to swerve
+with a kick of his boot. Another kick sent it flying out of the
+cripple's hand.
+
+The villain ground his teeth with fury and at once began hurriedly to
+fumble in his pockets.
+
+"Is this what you're looking for, sir?" asked Don Luis, holding up a
+hypodermic syringe filled with a yellow fluid. "Excuse me, but I was
+afraid lest you should prick yourself by mistake. That would have been a
+fatal prick, would it not? And I should never have forgiven myself."
+
+The cripple was disarmed. He hesitated for a moment, surprised that the
+enemy did not attack him more violently, and sought to profit by the
+delay. His small, blinking eyes wandered around him, looking for
+something to throw. But an idea seemed to strike him and to restore his
+confidence little by little; and, in a new and really unexpected fit of
+delight, he indulged in one of his loudest chuckles:
+
+"And what about Florence?" he shouted. "Don't forget Florence! For I've
+got you there! I can miss you with my revolver and you can steal my
+poison; but I have another means of hitting you, right in the heart. You
+can't live without Florence, can you? Florence's death means your own
+sentence, doesn't it? If Florence is dead, you'll put the rope round your
+own neck, won't you, won't you, won't you?"
+
+"Yes. If Florence were to die, I could not survive her!"
+
+"She is dead!" cried the scoundrel, with a renewed burst of merriment,
+hopping about on his knees. "She's dead, quite, quite dead! What am I
+saying? She's more than dead! A dead person retains the appearance of a
+live one for a time; but this is much better: there's no corpse here,
+Lupin; just a mess of flesh and bone!
+
+"The whole scaffolding of rocks has come down on top of her! You can
+picture it, eh? What a sight! Come, quick, it's your turn to kick the
+bucket. Would you like a length of rope? Ha, ha, ha! It's enough to make
+one die with laughing. Didn't I say that you'd meet at the gates of hell?
+Quick, your sweetheart's waiting for you. Do you hesitate? Where's your
+old French politeness? You can't keep a lady waiting, you know. Hurry up,
+Lupin! Florence is dead!"
+
+He said this with real enjoyment, as though the mere word of death
+appeared to him delicious.
+
+Don Luis had not moved a muscle. He simply nodded his head and said:
+
+"What a pity!"
+
+The cripple seemed petrified. All his joyous contortions, all his
+triumphal pantomime, stopped short. He blurted out:
+
+"Eh? What did you say?"
+
+"I say," declared Don Luis, preserving his calm and courteous demeanour
+and refraining from echoing the cripple's familiarity, "I say, my dear
+sir, that you have done very wrong. I never met a finer nature nor one
+more worthy of esteem than that of Mlle. Levasseur. The incomparable
+beauty of her face and figure, her youth, her charm, all these deserved a
+better treatment. It would indeed be a matter for regret if such a
+masterpiece of womankind had ceased to be."
+
+The cripple remained astounded. Don Luis's serene manner dismayed him. He
+said, in a blank voice:
+
+"I tell you, she has ceased to be. Haven't you seen the grotto? Florence
+no longer exists!"
+
+"I refuse to believe it," said Don Luis quietly. "If that were so,
+everything would look different. The sky would be clouded; the birds
+would not be singing; and nature would wear her mourning garb. But the
+birds are singing, the sky is blue, everything is as it should be: the
+honest man is alive; and the rascal is crawling at his feet. How could
+Florence be dead?"
+
+A long silence followed upon these words. The two enemies, at three paces
+distance, looked into each other's eyes: Don Luis still as cool as ever,
+the cripple a prey to the maddest anguish. The monster understood.
+Obscure as the truth was, it shone forth before him with all the light of
+a blinding certainty: Florence also was alive! Humanly and physically
+speaking, the thing was not possible; but the resurrection of Don Luis
+was likewise an impossibility; and yet Don Luis was alive, with not a
+scratch on his face, with not a speck of dust on his clothes.
+
+The monster felt himself lost. The man who held him in the hollow of his
+implacable hand was one of those men whose power knows no bounds. He was
+one of those men who escape from the jaws of death and who triumphantly
+snatch from death those of whom they have taken charge.
+
+The monster retreated, dragging himself slowly backward on his knees
+along the little brick path.
+
+He retreated. He passed by the confused heap of stones that covered the
+place where the grotto had been, and did not turn his eyes in that
+direction, as if he were definitely convinced that Florence had come
+forth safe and sound from the appalling sepulchre.
+
+He retreated. Don Luis, who no longer had his eyes fixed on him, was busy
+unwinding a coil of rope which he had picked up, and seemed to pay no
+further attention to him.
+
+He retreated.
+
+And suddenly, after a glance at his enemy, he spun round, drew himself up
+on his slack legs with an effort, and started running toward the well.
+
+He was twenty paces from it. He covered one half, three quarters of the
+distance. Already the mouth opened before him. He put out his arms, with
+the movement of a man about to dive, and shot forward.
+
+His rush was stopped. He rolled over on the ground, dragged back
+violently, with his arms fixed so firmly to his body that he was
+unable to stir.
+
+It was Don Luis, who had never wholly lost sight of him, who had made a
+slip-knot to his rope and who had lassoed the cripple at the moment when
+he was going to fling himself down the abyss. The cripple struggled for a
+few moments. But the slip-knot bit into his flesh. He ceased moving.
+Everything was over.
+
+Then Don Luis Perenna, holding the other end of the lasso, came up to him
+and bound him hand and foot with what remained of the rope. The operation
+was carefully performed. Don Luis repeated it time after time, using the
+coils of rope which the cripple had brought to the well and gagging him
+with a handkerchief. And, while applying himself to his work, he
+explained, with affected politeness:
+
+"You see, sir, people always come to grief through excessive
+self-confidence. They never imagine that their adversaries can have
+resources which they themselves do not possess. For instance, when you
+got me to fall into your trap, how could you have supposed, my dear sir,
+that a man like myself, a man like Arsène Lupin, hanging on the brim of a
+well, with his arms resting on the brim and his feet against the inner
+wall, would allow himself to drop down it like the first silly fool that
+comes along?
+
+"Look here: you were fifteen or twenty yards away; and do you think that
+I had not the strength to leap out nor the courage to face the bullets of
+your revolver, when it was a question of saving Florence Levasseur's life
+and my own? Why, my poor sir, the tiniest effort would have been enough,
+believe me!
+
+"My reason for not making the effort was that I had something better to
+do, something infinitely better. I will tell you why, that is, if you
+care to know. Do you?
+
+"Well, then, at the very first moment, my knees and feet, propped against
+the inner wall, had smashed in a thick layer of plaster which closed up
+an old excavation in the well; and this I at once perceived. It was a
+stroke of luck, wasn't it? And it changed the whole situation. My plan
+was settled at once. While I went on acting my little part of the
+gentleman about to tumble down an abyss, putting on the most scared face,
+the most staring eyes, the most hideous grin, I enlarged that excavation,
+taking care to throw the chunks of plaster in front of me in such a way
+that their fall made no noise. When the moment came, at the very second
+when my swooning features vanished before your eyes, I simply jumped into
+my retreat, thanks to a rather plucky little wriggle of the loins.
+
+"I was saved, because the retreat was dug out on the side where you were
+moving and because, being dark itself, it cast no light. All that I now
+had to do was to wait.
+
+"I listened quietly to your threatening speeches. I let the things you
+flung down the well go past me. And, when I thought you had gone back to
+Florence, I was preparing to leave my refuge, to return to the light of
+day, and to fall upon you from behind, when--"
+
+Don Luis turned the cripple over, as though he were a parcel which he was
+tying up with string, and continued:
+
+"Have you ever been to Tancarville, the old feudal castle in Normandy, on
+the banks of the Seine? Haven't you? Well, you must know that, outside
+the ruins of the keep, there is an old well which, like many other wells
+of the period, possesses the peculiarity of having two openings, one at
+the top, facing the sky, and the other a little lower down, hollowed out
+sideways in the wall and leading to one of the rooms of the keep.
+
+"At Tancarville this second opening is nowadays closed with a grating.
+Here it was walled up with a layer of small stones and plaster. And it
+was just the recollection of Tancarville that made me stay, all the more
+as there was no hurry, since you had had the kindness to inform me that
+Florence would not join me in the next world until four o'clock. I
+therefore inspected my refuge and soon realized that, as I had already
+felt by intuition, it was the foundation of a building which was now
+demolished and which had the garden laid out on its ruins.
+
+"Well, I went on, groping my way and following the direction which, above
+ground, would have taken me to the grotto. My presentiments were not
+deceived. A gleam of daylight made its way at the top of a staircase of
+which I had struck the bottom step. I went up it and heard the sound of
+your voice."
+
+Don Luis turned the cripple over and over and was pretty rough about it.
+Then he resumed:
+
+"I wish to impress upon you, my dear sir, that the upshot would have been
+exactly similar if I had attacked you directly and from the start in the
+open air. But, having said this, I confess that chance favoured me to
+some purpose. It has often failed me, in the course of our struggle, but
+this time I had no cause to complain.
+
+"I felt myself in such luck that I never doubted for a second that,
+having found the entrance to the subterranean passage, I should also find
+the way out. As a matter of fact, I had only to pull gently at the slight
+obstacle of a few stacked bricks which hid the opening in order to make
+my exit amid the remains of the castle keep.
+
+"Guided by the sound of your voice, I slipped through the stones and thus
+reached the back of the grotto in which Florence lay. Amusing, wasn't it?
+
+"You can imagine what fun it was to hear you make your little speeches:
+'Answer me, yes or no, Florence. A movement of your head will decide your
+fate. If it's yes, I shall release you. If it's no, you die. Answer me,
+Florence! A sign of your head: is the answer yes or no?' And the end,
+above all, was delicious, when you scrambled to the top of the grotto and
+started roaring from up there: 'It's you who have asked to die, Florence.
+You asked for it and you've got it!'
+
+"Just think what a joke it was: at that moment there was no one in the
+grotto! Not a soul! With one effort, I had drawn Florence toward me and
+put her under shelter. And all that you were able to crush with your
+avalanche of rocks was one or two spiders, perhaps, and a few flies
+dozing on the flagstones.
+
+"The trick was done and the farce was nearly finished. Act first: Arsène
+Lupin saved. Act second: Florence Levasseur saved. Act third and last:
+the monster vanquished ... absolutely and with a vengeance!"
+
+Don Luis stood up and contemplated his work with a satisfied eye.
+
+"You look like a sausage, my son!" he cried, yielding at last to his
+sarcastic nature and his habit of treating his enemies familiarly. "A
+regular sausage! A bit on the thin side, perhaps: a saveloy for poor
+people! But there, you don't much care what you look like, I suppose?
+Besides, you're rather like that at all times; and, in any case, you're
+just the thing for the little display of indoor gymnastics which I have
+in mind for you. You'll see: it's an idea of my own, a really original
+idea. Don't be impatient: we shan't be long."
+
+He took one of the guns which the cripple had brought to the well and
+tied to the middle of the gun the end of a twelve or fifteen yards'
+length of rope, fastening the other end to the cords with which the
+cripple was bound, just behind his back. He next took his captive round
+the body and held him over the well:
+
+"Shut your eyes, if you feel at all giddy. And don't be frightened. I'll
+be very careful. Ready?"
+
+He put the cripple down the yawning hole and next took hold of the rope
+which he had just fastened. Then, little by little, inch by inch,
+cautiously, so that it should not knock against the sides of the well,
+the bundle was let down at arm's length.
+
+When it reached a depth of twelve yards or so, the gun stopped its
+further descent and there it remained, slung in the dark and in the exact
+centre of the narrow circumference.
+
+Don Luis set light to a number of pieces of paper, which went whirling
+down, shedding their sinister gleams upon the walls. Then, unable to
+resist the craving for a last speech, he leaned over, as the scoundrel
+had done, and grinned:
+
+"I selected the place with care, so that you shouldn't catch cold. I'm
+bound to look after you, you see. I promised Florence that I wouldn't
+kill you; and I promised the French Government to hand you over alive as
+soon as possible. Only, as I didn't know what to do with you until
+to-morrow morning, I've hung you up in the air.
+
+"It's a pretty trick, isn't it? And you ought to appreciate it, for it's
+so like your own way of doing things. Just think: the gun is resting on
+its two ends, with hardly an inch to spare. So, if you start wriggling,
+or moving, or even breathing too hard, either the barrel or the butt
+end'll give way; and down you go! As for me, I've nothing to do with it!
+
+"If you die, it'll be a pretty little case of suicide. All you've got to
+do, old chap, is to keep quiet. And the beauty of my little contrivance
+is that it will give you a foretaste of the few nights that will precede
+your last hour, when they cut off your head. From this moment forward you
+are alone with your conscience, face to face with what you perhaps call
+your soul, without anything to disturb your silent soliloquy. It's nice
+and thoughtful of me, isn't it? ...
+
+"Well, I'll leave you. And remember: not a movement, not a sigh, not a
+wink, not a throb of the heart! And, above all, no larks! If you start
+larking, you're in the soup. Meditate: that's the best thing you can do.
+Meditate and wait. Good-bye, for the present!"
+
+And Don Luis, satisfied with his homily, went off, muttering:
+
+"That's all right. I won't go so far as Eugène Sue, who says that great
+criminals should have their eyes put out. But, all the same, a little
+corporal punishment, nicely seasoned with fear, is right and proper and
+good for the health and morals."
+
+Don Luis walked away and, taking the brick path round the ruins, turned
+down a little road, which ran along the outer wall to a clump of fir
+trees, where he had brought Florence for shelter.
+
+She was waiting for him, still aching from the horrible suffering which
+she had endured, but already in full possession of her pluck, mistress of
+herself, and apparently rid of all anxiety as to the issue of the fight
+between Don Luis and the cripple.
+
+"It's finished," he said, simply. "To-morrow I will hand him over to
+the police."
+
+She shuddered. But she did not speak; and he observed her in silence.
+
+It was the first time that they were alone together since they had been
+separated by so many tragedies, and next hurled against each other like
+sworn enemies. Don Luis was so greatly excited that, in the end, he could
+utter only insignificant sentences, having no connection with the
+thoughts that came rushing through his mind.
+
+"We shall find the motor car if we follow this wall and then strike off
+to the left.... Do you think you can manage to walk so far? ... When
+we're in the car, we'll go to Alençon. There's a quiet hotel close to the
+chief square. You can wait there until things take a more favourable turn
+for you--and that won't be long, as the criminal is caught."
+
+"Let's go," she said.
+
+He dared not offer to help her. For that matter, she stepped out firmly
+and her graceful body swung from her hips with the same even rhythm as
+usual. Don Luis once again felt all his old admiration and all his ardent
+love for her. And yet that had never seemed more remote than at this
+moment when he had saved her life by untold miracles of energy.
+
+She had not vouchsafed him a word of thanks nor yet one of those milder
+glances which reward an effort made; and she remained the same as on the
+first day, the mysterious creature whose secret soul he had never
+understood, and upon whom not even the storm of terrible events had cast
+the faintest light.
+
+What were her thoughts? What were her wishes? What aim was she pursuing?
+These were obscure problems which he could no longer hope to solve.
+Henceforth each of them must go his own way in life and each of them
+could only remember the other with feelings of anger and spite.
+
+"No!" he said to himself, as she took her place in the limousine. "No!
+The separation shall not take place like that. The words that have to be
+spoken between us shall be spoken; and, whether she wishes or not, I will
+tear the veil that hides her."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The journey did not take long. At Alençon Don Luis entered Florence in
+the visitors' book under the first name that occurred to him and left her
+to herself. An hour later he came and knocked at her door.
+
+This time again he had not the courage at once to ask her the question
+which he had made up his mind to put to her. Besides, there were other
+points which he wished to clear up.
+
+"Florence," he said, "before I hand over that man, I should like to know
+what he was to you."
+
+"A friend, an unhappy friend, for whom I felt pity," she declared. "I
+find it difficult to-day to understand my compassion for such a monster.
+But, some years ago, when I first met him, I became attached to him
+because of his wretchedness, his physical weakness, and all the symptoms
+of death which he bore upon him even then. He had the opportunity of
+doing me a few services; and, though he led a hidden life, which worried
+me in certain respects, he gradually and without my knowing it acquired a
+considerable influence over me.
+
+"I believed in his insight, in his will, in his absolute devotion; and,
+when the Mornington case started, it was he, as I now realize, who guided
+my actions and, later, those of Gaston Sauverand. It was he who compelled
+me to practise lying and deceit, persuading me that he was working for
+Marie Fauville's safety. It was he who inspired us with such suspicion of
+yourself and who taught us to be so silent, where he and his affairs were
+concerned, that Gaston Sauverand did not even dare mention him in his
+interview with you.
+
+"I don't know how I can have been so blind. But it was so. Nothing opened
+my eyes. Nothing made me suspect for a moment that harmless, ailing
+creature, who spent half his life in hospitals or nursing-homes, who
+underwent every possible sort of operation, and who, if he did sometimes
+speak to me of his love, must have known that he could not hope to--"
+
+Florence did not finish her sentence. Her eyes had encountered Don Luis's
+eyes; and she received a deep impression that he was not listening to
+what she said. He was looking at her; and that was all. The words she
+uttered passed unheard.
+
+To Don Luis any explanation concerning the tragedy itself mattered
+nothing, so long as he was not enlightened on the one point that
+interested him, on Florence's private thoughts about himself, thoughts of
+aversion, of contempt. Outside that, anything that she could say was vain
+and tedious.
+
+He went up to her and, in a low voice, said:
+
+"Florence, you know what I feel for you, do you not?"
+
+She blushed, taken aback, as though the question was the very last that
+she expected to hear. Nevertheless, she did not lower her eyes, and she
+answered frankly:
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+"But, perhaps," he continued, more eagerly, "you do not know how deeply I
+feel it? Perhaps you do not know that my life has no other aim but you?"
+
+"I know that also," she said.
+
+"Then, if you know it," he said, "I must conclude that it was just that
+which caused your hostility to me. From the beginning I tried to be your
+friend and I tried only to defend you. And yet from the beginning I felt
+that for you I was the object of an aversion that was both instinctive
+and deliberate. Never did I see in your eyes anything but coldness,
+dislike, contempt, and even repulsion.
+
+"At moments of danger, when your life or your liberty was at stake, you
+risked committing any imprudence rather than accept my assistance. I was
+the enemy, the man to be distrusted, the man capable of every infamy, the
+man to be avoided, and to be thought of only with a sort of dread. Isn't
+that hatred? Is there anything but hatred to explain such an attitude?"
+
+Florence did not answer at once. She seemed to be putting off the moment
+at which to speak the words that rose to her lips. Her face, thin and
+drawn with weariness and pain, was gentler than usual.
+
+"Yes," she said, "there are other things than hatred to explain that
+attitude."
+
+Don Luis was dumfounded. He did not quite understand the meaning of the
+reply; but Florence's tone of voice disconcerted him beyond measure, and
+he also saw that Florence's eyes no longer wore their usual scornful
+expression and that they were filled with smiling charm. And it was the
+first time that Florence had smiled in his presence.
+
+"Speak, speak, I entreat you!" he stammered.
+
+"I mean to say that there is another feeling which explains coldness,
+mistrust, fear, and hostility. It is not always those whom we detest that
+we avoid with the greatest fear; and, if we avoid them, it is often
+because we are afraid of ourselves, because we are ashamed, because we
+rebel and want to resist and want to forget and cannot--"
+
+She stopped; and, when he wildly stretched out his arms to her, as if
+beseeching her to say more and still more, she nodded her head, thus
+telling him that she need not go on speaking for him to read to the
+very bottom of her soul and discover the secret of love which she kept
+hidden there.
+
+Don Luis staggered on his feet. He was intoxicated with happiness, almost
+suffered physical pain from that unexpected happiness. After the horrible
+minutes through which he had passed amid the impressive surroundings of
+the Old Castle, it appeared to him madness to admit that such
+extraordinary bliss could suddenly blossom forth in the commonplace
+setting of that room at a hotel.
+
+He could have longed for space around him, forest, mountains, moonlight,
+a radiant sunset, all the beauty and all the poetry of the earth. With
+one rush, he had reached the very acme of happiness. Florence's very life
+came before him, from the instant of their meeting to the tragic moment
+when the cripple, bending over her and seeing her eyes filled with tears,
+had shouted:
+
+"She's crying! She's crying! What madness! But I know your secret,
+Florence! And you're crying! Florence, Florence, you yourself want to
+die!"
+
+It was a secret of love, a passionate impulse which, from the first day,
+had driven her all trembling toward Don Luis. Then it had bewildered her,
+filled her with fear, appeared to her as a betrayal of Marie and
+Sauverand and, by turns urging her toward and drawing her away from the
+man whom she loved and whom she admired for his heroism and loyalty,
+rending her with remorse and overwhelming her as though it were a crime,
+had ended by delivering her, feeble and disabled, to the diabolical
+influence of the villain who coveted her.
+
+Don Luis did not know what to do, did not know in what words to express
+his rapture. His lips trembled. His eyes filled with tears. His nature
+prompted him to take her in his arms, to kiss her as a child kisses, full
+on the lips, with a full heart. But a feeling of intense respect
+paralyzed his yearning. And, overcome with emotion, he fell at Florence's
+feet, stammering words of love and adoration.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
+
+LUPIN'S LUPINS
+
+
+Next morning, a little before eight o'clock, Valenglay was talking in his
+own flat to the Prefect of Police, and asked:
+
+"So you think as I do, my dear Prefect? He'll come?"
+
+"I haven't the least doubt of it, Monsieur le Président. And he will come
+with the same punctuality that has been shown throughout this business.
+He will come, for pride's sake, at the last stroke of eight."
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"Monsieur le Président, I have been studying the man for months. As
+things now stand, with Florence Levasseur's life in the balance, if he
+has not smashed the villain whom he is hunting down, if he does not bring
+him back bound hand and foot, it will mean that Florence Levasseur is
+dead and that he, Arsène Lupin, is dead."
+
+"Whereas Lupin is immortal," said Valenglay, laughing. "You're right.
+Besides, I agree with you entirely. No one would be more astonished than
+I if our good friend was not here to the minute. You say you were rung up
+from Angers yesterday?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Président. My men had just seen Don Luis Perenna. He
+had gone in front of them, in an aeroplane. After that, they telephoned
+to me again from Le Mans, where they had been searching a deserted
+coach-house.
+
+"You may be sure that the search had already been made by Lupin, and that
+we shall know the results. Listen: eight o'clock!"
+
+At the same moment they heard the throbbing of a motor car. It stopped
+outside the house; and the bell rang almost immediately after. Orders had
+been given beforehand. The door opened and Don Luis Perenna was shown in.
+
+To Valenglay and the Prefect of Police his arrival was certainly not
+unexpected, for they had just been saying that they would have been
+surprised if he had not come. Nevertheless, their attitude showed that
+astonishment which we all experience in the face of events that seem to
+pass the bounds of human possibility.
+
+"Well?" cried the Prime Minister eagerly.
+
+"It's done, Monsieur le Président."
+
+"Have you collared the scoundrel?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"By Jove!" said Valenglay. "You're a fine fellow!" And he went on to ask,
+"An ogre, of course? An evil, undaunted brute?--"
+
+"No, Monsieur le Président, a cripple, a degenerate, responsible for his
+actions, certainly, but a man in whom the doctors will find every form of
+wasting illness: disease of the spinal cord, tuberculosis, and all the
+rest of it."
+
+"And is that the man whom Florence Levasseur loved?"
+
+"Monsieur le Président!" Don Luis violently protested. "Florence never
+loved that wretch! She felt sorry for him, as any one would for a
+fellow-creature doomed to an early death; and it was out of pity that she
+allowed him to hope that she might marry him later, at some time in the
+vague future."
+
+"Are you sure of that?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Président, of that and of a good deal more besides, for
+I have the proofs in my hands." Without further preamble, he continued:
+"Monsieur le Président, now that the man is caught, it will be easy for
+the police to find out every detail of his life. But meanwhile I can sum
+up that monstrous life for you, looking only at the criminal side of it,
+and passing briefly over three murders which have nothing to do with the
+story of the Mornington case.
+
+"Jean Vernocq was born at Alençon and brought up at old M. Langernault's
+expense. He got to know the Dedessuslamare couple, robbed them of their
+money and, before they had time to lodge a complaint against the unknown
+thief, took them to a barn in the village of Damigni, where, in their
+despair, stupefied and besotted with drugs, they hanged themselves.
+
+"This barn stood in a property called the Old Castle, belonging to M.
+Langernault, Jean Vernocq's protector, who was ill at the time. After his
+recovery, as he was cleaning his gun, he received a full charge of shot
+in the abdomen. The gun had been loaded without the old fellow's
+knowledge. By whom? By Jean Vernocq, who had also emptied his patron's
+cash box the night before ...
+
+"In Paris, where he went to enjoy the little fortune which he had thus
+amassed, Jean Vernocq bought from some rogue of his acquaintance papers
+containing evidence of Florence Levasseur's birth and of her right to all
+the inheritance of the Roussel family and Victor Sauverand, papers which
+the friend in question had purloined from the old nurse who brought
+Florence over from America. By hunting around, Jean Vernocq ended by
+discovering first a photograph of Florence and then Florence herself.
+
+"He made himself useful to her and pretended to be devoted to her, giving
+up his whole life to her service. At that time he did not yet know what
+profit he could derive from the papers stolen from the girl or from his
+relations with her.
+
+"Suddenly everything became different. An indiscreet word let fall by a
+solicitor's clerk told him of a will in Maître Lepertuis's drawer which
+would be interesting to look at. He obtained a sight of it by bribing the
+clerk, who has since disappeared, with a thousand-franc note. The will,
+as it happened, was Cosmo Mornington's; and in it Cosmo Mornington
+bequeathed his immense wealth to the heirs of the Roussel sisters and of
+Victor Sauverand....
+
+"Jean Vernocq saw his chance. A hundred million francs! To get hold of
+that sum, to obtain riches, luxury, power, and the means of buying health
+and strength from the world's great healers, all that he had to do was
+first to put away the different persons who stood between the inheritance
+and Florence, and then, when all the obstacles were overcome, to make
+Florence his wife.
+
+"Jean Vernocq went to work. He had found among the papers of Hippolyte
+Fauville's old friend Langernault particulars relating to the Roussel
+family and to the discord that reigned in the Fauville household. Five
+persons, all told, were in his way: first, of course, Cosmo Mornington;
+next, in the order of their claims, Hippolyte Fauville, his son Edmond,
+his wife Marie, and his cousin Gaston Sauverand.
+
+"With Cosmo Mornington, the thing was easy enough. Introducing himself to
+the American as a doctor, Jean Vernocq put poison into one of the phials
+which Mornington used for his hypodermic injections.
+
+"But in the case of Hippolyte Fauville, whose good will he had secured
+through his acquaintance with old Langernault, and over whose mind he
+soon obtained an extraordinary influence, he had a greater difficulty to
+contend with. Knowing on the one hand that the engineer hated his wife
+and on the other that he was stricken with a fatal disease, he took
+occasion, after the consultation with the specialist in London, to
+suggest to Fauville's terrified brain the incredible plan of suicide of
+which you were subsequently able to trace the Machiavellian execution.
+
+"In this way and with a single effort, anonymously, so to speak, and
+without appearing in the business, without Fauville's even suspecting the
+action brought to bear upon him, Jean Vernocq procured the deaths of
+Fauville and his son, and got rid of Marie and Sauverand by the devilish
+expedient of causing the charge of murder, of which no one could accuse
+him, to fall upon them. The plan succeeded.
+
+"There was only one hitch at the present time: the intervention of
+Inspector Vérot. Inspector Vérot died. And there was only one danger in
+the future: the intervention of myself, Don Luis Perenna, whose conduct
+Vernocq was bound to foresee, as I was the residuary legatee by the terms
+of Cosmo Mornington's will. This danger Vernocq tried to avert first by
+giving me the house on the Place du Palais-Bourbon to live in and
+Florence Levasseur as a secretary, and next by making four attempts to
+have me assassinated by Gaston Sauverand.
+
+"He therefore held all the threads of the tragedy in his hands. Able to
+come and go as he pleased in my house, enforcing himself upon Florence
+and later upon Gaston Sauverand by the strength of his will and the
+cunning of his character, he was within sight of the goal.
+
+"When my efforts succeeded in proving the innocence of Marie Fauville and
+Gaston Sauverand, he did not hesitate: Marie Fauville died; Gaston
+Sauverand died.
+
+"So everything was going well for him. The police pursued me. The police
+pursued Florence. No one suspected him. And the date fixed for the
+payment of the inheritance was at hand.
+
+"This was two days ago. At that time, Jean Vernocq was in the midst of
+the fray. He was ill and had obtained admission to the nursing-home in
+the Avenue des Ternes. From there he conducted his operations, thanks to
+his influence over Florence Levasseur and to the letters addressed to the
+mother superior from Versailles. Acting under the superior's orders and
+ignorant of the meaning of the step which she was taking, Florence went
+to the meeting at the Prefect's office, and herself brought the documents
+relating to her.
+
+"Meanwhile, Jean Vernocq left the private hospital and took refuge near
+the Ile Saint-Louis, where he awaited the result of an enterprise which,
+at the worst, might tell against Florence, but which did not seem able to
+compromise him in any case.
+
+"You know the rest, Monsieur le Président," said Don Luis, concluding his
+statement. "Florence, staggered by the sudden revelation of the part
+which she had unconsciously taken in the matter, and especially by the
+terrible part played by Jean Vernocq, ran away from the nursing-home
+where the Prefect had brought her at my request. She had but one thought:
+to see Jean Vernocq, demand an explanation of him, and hear what he had
+to say in his defence. That same evening he carried her away by motor, on
+the pretence of giving her proofs of his innocence. That is all, Monsieur
+le Président."
+
+Valenglay had listened with growing interest to this gruesome story of
+the most malevolent genius conceivable to the mind of man. And he heard
+it perhaps without too great disgust, because of the light which it threw
+by contrast upon the bright, easy, happy, and spontaneous genius of the
+man who had fought for the good cause.
+
+"And you found them?" he asked.
+
+"At three o'clock yesterday afternoon, Monsieur le Président. It was
+time. I might even say that it was too late, for Jean Vernocq began by
+sending me to the bottom of a well, and by crushing Florence under a
+block of stone."
+
+"Oh, so you're dead, are you?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Président."
+
+"But why did that villain want to do away with Florence Levasseur? Her
+death destroyed his indispensable scheme of matrimony."
+
+"It takes two to get married, Monsieur le Président, and Florence
+refused."
+
+"Well--"
+
+"Some time ago Jean Vernocq wrote a letter leaving all that he possessed
+to Florence Levasseur. Florence, moved by pity for him, and not realizing
+the importance of what she was doing, wrote a similar letter leaving her
+property to him. This letter constitutes a genuine and indisputable will
+in favor of Jean Vernocq.
+
+"As Florence was Cosmo Mornington's legal and settled heiress by the mere
+fact of her presence at yesterday's meeting with the documents proving
+her descent from the Roussel family, her death caused her rights to pass
+to her own legal and settled heir.
+
+"Jean Vernocq would have come into the money without the possibility of
+any litigation. And, as you would have been obliged to discharge him
+after his arrest, for lack of evidence against him, he would have led a
+quiet life, with fourteen murders on his conscience--I have added them
+up--but with a hundred million francs in his pocket. To a monster of his
+stamp, the one made up for the other."
+
+"But do you possess all the proofs?" asked Valenglay eagerly.
+
+"Here they are," said Perenna, producing the pocket-book which he had
+taken out of the cripple's jacket. "Here are letters and documents which
+the villain preserved, owing to a mental aberration common to all great
+criminals. Here, by good luck, is his correspondence with Hippolyte
+Fauville. Here is the original of the prospectus from which I learned
+that the house on the Place du Palais-Bourbon was for sale. Here is a
+memorandum of Jean Vernocq's journeys to Alençon to intercept Fauville's
+letters to old Langernault.
+
+"Here is another memorandum showing that Inspector Vérot overheard a
+conversation between Fauville and his accomplice, that he shadowed
+Vernocq and robbed him of Florence Levasseur's photograph, and that
+Vernocq sent Fauville in pursuit of him. Here is a third memorandum,
+which is just a copy of the two found in the eighth volume of Shakespeare
+and which proves that Jean Vernocq, to whom that set of Shakespeare
+belonged, knew all about Fauville's machination. Here are his
+correspondence with Caceres, the Peruvian attaché, and the letters
+denouncing myself and Sergeant Mazeroux, which he intended to send to the
+press. Here--
+
+"But need I say more, Monsieur le Président? You have the complete
+evidence in your hands. The magistrates will find that all the
+accusations which I made yesterday, before the Prefect of Police, were
+strictly true."
+
+"And he?" cried Valenglay. "The criminal? Where is he?"
+
+"Outside, in a motor car, in his motor car, rather."
+
+"Have you told my men?" asked M. Desmalions anxiously.
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. Besides, the fellow is carefully tied up. Don't
+be alarmed. He won't escape."
+
+"Well, you've foreseen every contingency," said Valenglay, "and the
+business seems to me to be finished. But there's one problem that remains
+unexplained, the one perhaps that interested the public most. I mean the
+marks of the teeth in the apple, the teeth of the tiger, as they have
+been called, which were certainly Mme. Fauville's teeth, innocent though
+she was. Monsieur le Préfet declares that you have solved this problem."
+
+"Yes, Monsieur le Président, and Jean Vernocq's papers prove that I was
+right. Besides, the problem is quite simple. The apple was marked with
+Mme. Fauville's teeth, but Mme. Fauville never bit the apple."
+
+"Come, come!"
+
+"Monsieur le Président, Hippolyte Fauville very nearly said as much when
+he mentioned this mystery in his posthumous confession."
+
+"Hippolyte Fauville was a madman."
+
+"Yes, but a lucid madman and capable of reasoning with the most appalling
+logic. Some years ago, at Palermo, Mme. Fauville had a very bad fall,
+hitting her mouth against the marble top of a table, with the result that
+a number of her teeth, in both the upper and the lower jaw, were
+loosened. To repair the damage and to make the gold plate intended to
+strengthen the teeth, a plate which Mme. Fauville wore for several
+months, the dentist, as usual, took an impression of her mouth.
+
+"M. Fauville happened to have kept the mould; and he used it to print the
+marks of his wife's teeth in the cake of chocolate shortly before his
+death and in the apple on the night of his death. When this was done, he
+put the mould with the other things which the explosion was meant to, and
+did, destroy."
+
+Don Luis's explanation was followed by a silence. The thing was so simple
+that the Prime Minister was quite astonished. The whole tragedy, the
+whole charge, everything that had caused Marie's despair and death and
+the death of Gaston Sauverand: all this rested on an infinitely small
+detail which had occurred to none of the millions and millions of people
+who had interested themselves so enthusiastically in the mystery of the
+teeth of the tiger.
+
+The teeth of the tiger! Everybody had clung stubbornly to an apparently
+invincible argument. As the marks on the apple and the print of Mme.
+Fauville's teeth were identical, and as no two persons in the world were
+able, in theory or practice, to produce the same print with their teeth,
+Mme. Fauville must needs be guilty.
+
+Nay, more, the argument seemed so absolute that, from the day on which
+Mme. Fauville's innocence became known, the problem had remained
+unsolved, while no one seemed capable of conceiving the one paltry idea:
+that it was possible to obtain the print of a tooth in another way than
+by a live bite of that same tooth!
+
+"It's like the egg of Columbus," said Valenglay, laughing. "It had to be
+thought of."
+
+"You are right, Monsieur le Président. People don't think of those
+things. Here is another instance: may I remind you that during the period
+when Arsène Lupin was known at the same time as M. Lenormand and as
+Prince Paul Sernine, no one noticed that the name Paul Sernine was merely
+an anagram of Arsène Lupin? Well, it's just the same to-day: Luis Perenna
+also is an anagram of Arsène Lupin. The two names are composed of the
+same eleven letters, neither more nor less. And yet, although it was the
+second time, nobody thought of making that little comparison. The egg of
+Columbus again! It had to be thought of!"
+
+Valenglay was a little surprised at the revelation. It seemed as if that
+devil of a man had sworn to puzzle him up to the last moment and to
+bewilder him by the most unexpected sensational news. And how well this
+last detail depicted the fellow, a queer mixture of dignity and
+impudence, of mischief and simplicity, of smiling chaff and disconcerting
+charm, a sort of hero who, while conquering kingdoms by most incredible
+adventures, amused himself by mixing up the letters on his name so as to
+catch the public napping!
+
+The interview was nearly at an end. Valenglay said to Perenna:
+
+"Monsieur, you have done wonders in this business and ended by keeping
+your word and handing over the criminal. I also will keep my word. You
+are free."
+
+"I thank you, Monsieur le Président. But what about Sergeant Mazeroux?"
+
+"He will be released this morning. Monsieur le Préfet de Police has
+arranged matters so that the public do not know of the arrest of either
+of you. You are Don Luis Perenna. There is no reason why you should not
+remain Don Luis Perenna."
+
+"And Florence Levasseur, Monsieur le Président?"
+
+"Let her go before the examining magistrate of her own accord. He is
+bound to discharge her. Once free and acquitted of any charge or even
+suspicion, she will certainly be recognized as Cosmo Mornington's legal
+heiress and will receive the hundred millions."
+
+"She will not keep it, Monsieur le Président."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Florence Levasseur doesn't want the money. It has been the cause of
+unspeakably awful crimes. She hates the very thought of it."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Cosmo Mornington's hundred millions will be wholly devoted to
+making roads and building schools in the south of Morocco and the
+northern Congo."
+
+"In the Mauretanian Empire which you are giving us?" said Valenglay,
+laughing. "By Jove, it's a fine work and I second it with all my heart.
+An empire and an imperial budget to keep it up with! Upon my word, Don
+Luis has behaved well to his country, and has handsomely paid the
+debts--of Arsène Lupin!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A month later Don Luis Perenna and Mazeroux embarked in the yacht which
+had brought Don Luis to France. Florence was with them. Before sailing
+they heard of the death of Jean Vernocq, who had managed to poison
+himself in spite of all the precautions taken to prevent him.
+
+On his arrival in Africa, Don Luis Perenna, Sultan of Mauretania, found
+his old associates and accredited Mazeroux to them and to his grand
+dignitaries. He organized the government to follow on his abdication and
+precede the annexation of the new empire by France, and he had several
+secret interviews on the Moorish border with General Léauty, commanding
+the French troops, interviews in the course of which they thought out all
+the measures to be executed in succession so as to lend to the conquest
+of Morocco an appearance of facility which would otherwise be difficult
+to explain.
+
+The future was now assured. Soon the thin screen of rebellious tribes
+standing between the French and the pacified districts would fall to
+pieces, revealing an orderly empire, provided with a regular
+constitution, with good roads, schools, and courts of law, a flourishing
+empire in full working order.
+
+Then, when his task was done, Don Luis abdicated.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He has now been back for over two years. Every one remembers the stir
+caused by his marriage with Florence Levasseur. The controversy was
+renewed; and many of the newspapers clamoured for Arsène Lupin's arrest.
+But what could the authorities do?
+
+Although nobody doubted who he really was, although the name of Arsène
+Lupin and the name of Don Luis Perenna consisted of the same letters, and
+people ended by remarking the coincidence, legally speaking, Arsène Lupin
+was dead and Don Luis Perenna was alive; and there was no possibility of
+bringing Arsène Lupin back to life or of killing Don Luis Perenna.
+
+He is to-day living in the village of Saint-Maclou, among those charming
+valleys which run down to the Oise. Who does not know his modest little
+pink-washed house, with its green shutters and its garden filled with
+bright flowers? People make up parties to go there from Paris on Sundays,
+in the hope of catching a sight, through the elder hedges, of the man who
+was Arsène Lupin, or of meeting him in the village square.
+
+He is there, with his hair just touched with gray, his still youthful
+features, and a young man's bearing; and Florence is there, too, with her
+pretty figure and the halo of fair hair around her happy face, unclouded
+by even the shadow of an unpleasant recollection.
+
+Very often visitors come and knock at the little wooden gate. They are
+unfortunate people imploring the master's aid, victims of oppression,
+weaklings who have gone under in the struggle, reckless persons who have
+been ruined by their passions.
+
+For all these Don Luis is full of pity. He gives them his full
+attention, the help of his far-seeing advice, his experience, his
+strength, and even his time, disappearing for days and weeks to fight
+the good fight once more.
+
+And sometimes also it is an emissary from the Prefect's office or some
+subordinate of the police who comes to submit a complex case to his
+judgment. Here again Don Luis applies the whole of his wonderful mind to
+the business.
+
+In addition to this, in addition to his old books on ethics and
+philosophy, to which he has returned with such pleasure, he cultivates
+his garden. He dotes on his flowers. He is proud of them. He takes prizes
+at the shows; and the success is still remembered of the treble
+carnation, streaked red and yellow, which he exhibited as the "Arsène
+carnation."
+
+But he works hardest at certain large flowers that blossom in summer.
+During July and the first half of August they fill two thirds of his lawn
+and all the borders of his kitchen-garden. Beautiful, decorative plants,
+standing erect like flag-staffs, they proudly raise their spiky heads of
+all colours: blue, violet, mauve, pink, white.
+
+They are lupins and include every variety: Cruikshank's lupin, the
+two-coloured lupin, the scented lupin, and the last to appear, Lupin's
+lupin. They are all there, resplendent, in serried ranks like an army of
+soldiers, each striving to outstrip the others and to hold up the
+thickest and gaudiest spike to the sun. They are all there; and, at the
+entrance to the walk that leads to their motley beds, is a streamer with
+this device, taken from an exquisite sonnet of Jose Maria de Heredia:
+
+"And in my kitchen-garden lupins grow."
+
+You will say that this is a confession. But why not?
+
+In the evening, when a few privileged neighbours meet at his
+house--the justice of the peace, the notary, Major Comte d'Astrignac,
+who has also gone to live at Saint-Maclou--Don Luis is not afraid to
+speak of Arsène Lupin.
+
+"I used to see a great deal of him," he says. "He was not a bad man. I
+will not go so far as to compare him with the Seven Sages, or even to
+hold him up as an example to future generations, but still we must judge
+him with a certain indulgence.
+
+"He did a vast amount of good and a moderate amount of harm. Those who
+suffered through him deserved what they got; and fate would have punished
+them sooner or later if he had not forestalled her. Between a Lupin who
+selected his victims among the ruck of wicked rich men and some big
+company promoter who deliberately ruins numbers of poor people, would you
+hesitate for a moment? Does not Lupin come out best?
+
+"And, on the other hand, what a host of good actions! What countless
+proofs of disinterested generosity! A burglar? I admit it. A swindler? I
+don't deny it. He was all that. But he was something more than that. And,
+while he amused the gallery with his skill and ingenuity, he roused the
+general enthusiasm in other ways.
+
+"People laughed at his practical jokes, but they loved his pluck, his
+courage, his adventurous spirit, his contempt for danger, his shrewd
+insight, his unfailing good humour, his reckless energy: all qualities
+that stood out at a period when the most active virtues of our race had
+reached their zenith, the period of the motor car and the aeroplane....
+
+"One day," he said, as a joke, "I should like my epitaph to read, 'Here
+lies Arsène Lupin, adventurer.'" That was quite correct. He was a master
+of adventure.
+
+"And, if the spirit of adventure led him too often to put his hand in
+other people's pockets, it also led him to battlefields where it gives
+those who are worthy opportunity to fight and win titles of distinction
+which are not within reach of all. It was there that he gained his. It is
+there that you should see him at work, spending his strength braving
+death, and defying destiny. And it is because of this that you must
+forgive him, even if he did sometimes get the better of a commissary of
+police or steal the watch of an examining magistrate. Let us show some
+indulgence to our professors of energy."
+
+And, nodding his head, Don Luis concludes:
+
+"Then, you see, he had another virtue which is not to be despised. It is
+a virtue for which we should be grateful to him in these gray days of
+ours: he knew how to smile!"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Teeth of the Tiger, by Maurice Leblanc
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13058 ***