The Teeth of the Tiger by Maurice Leblanc (page 6)

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 Prefet, 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 Prefet; 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 Prefet. 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 Prefet. 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 Prefet! 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 Prefet!” 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 Prefet?”

“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 Prefet, 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 Prefet?”

“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 Prefet, 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 Prefet,” 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 Prefet.”

“In other words, you want us to run away.”

“But it’s not running away, Monsieur le Prefet. It’s a simple precaution. After all, we can’t risk–You, yourself, Monsieur le Prefet–“

“That will do.”

“But, Monsieur le Prefet, 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 Prefet.”

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 Prefet.”

“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 Arsene 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 Prefet?” 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 Prefet,” declared Mazeroux.

“What confidence you must have in our friend Don Luis!”

“You have just the same confidence, Monsieur le Prefet.”

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 Prefet?”

“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 Prefet,” said Don Luis, “and that is to allow me to carry out my task to the end.”

“Your task?”

“Yes, Monsieur le Prefet. 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 Prefet?”

“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 Prefet, 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 Prefet. 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 Prefet,” 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 Prefet, 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 Prefet. 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 Prefet. 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 be 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 Prefet: 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 Prefet,” 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 Prefet, 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 Prefet: 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 Prefet: 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 Prefet, 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 Prefet.”

“And, as they were placed there before the crime, the plot must have been schemed before the murder?”

“Yes, Monsieur le Prefet, 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 Prefet, 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 Prefet,” 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 Prefet. 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 Prefet,” 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 Prefet, 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 Prefet, 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 Verot, who had been sent by you, Monsieur le Prefet, 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 Verot 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 Verot succeeded, thanks to circumstances with which we are unacquainted, in discovering M. Fauville’s projects.”

“This we know,” explained Don Luis, “because Inspector Verot 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 Verot to the Cafe du Pont-Neuf, to purloin the letter of explanation which Inspector Verot 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 Prefet.”

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 Prefet,” he repeated. “There’s your scoundrel. And the situation in which he found himself was such, the fear inspired by Inspector Verot’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 Prefet, 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 Cafe 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 Prefet, 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 Prefet; 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 Prefet.”

“Eh? What’s that you say?”

“Monsieur le Prefet, 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 Verot this morning and followed him to the Cafe 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 Verot, 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 Prefet; 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 Prefet. 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 Prefet, 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 Prefet. 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 Prefet?” 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 Verot, 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 Prefet.”

“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 Prefet.”

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, Arsene 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 Sante 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 Pepiniere, 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.