"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."
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 theEcho 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 theEcho de Francehad 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 theBoulevard 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 byHippolyte Fauville three months before his death?"
Perenna read aloud:
"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.
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 tothe chief post-office. Nobody knew the name of Langernault there.Besides, Damigni had its own post-office, though the presumption was thatM. Langernault had his letters addressedposte restanteat 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 carhad run out of petrol and sent Mazeroux in a trap to the outskirts ofAlençon to fetch some. He employed the delay in going to look at the OldCastle 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," thoughtDon 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.