"Still, if she's innocent?"
It was the first time that Mlle. Levasseur had uttered an opinion or rather a remark upon the case. Don Luis looked at her in great surprise.
"So you think her innocent, Mademoiselle?"
She seemed ready to reply and to explain the meaning of her interruption. It was as though she were removing her impassive mask and about to allow her face to adopt a more animated expression under the impulse of her inner feelings. But she restrained herself with a visible effort, and murmured:
"I don't know. I have no views."
"Possibly," he said, watching her with curiosity, "but you have a doubt: a doubt which would be permissible if it were not for the marks left by Mme. Fauville's own teeth. Those marks, you see, are something more than a signature, more than a confession of guilt. And, as long as she is unable to give a satisfactory explanation of this point—"
But Marie Fauville vouchsafed not the slightest explanation of this or of anything else. She remained impenetrable. On the other hand, the police failed to discover her accomplice or accomplices, or the man with the ebony walking-stick and the tortoise-shell glasses whom the waiter at the Café du Pont-Neuf had described to Mazeroux and who seemed to have played a singularly suspicious part. In short, there was not a ray of light thrown upon the subject.
Equally vain was all search for the traces of Victor, the Roussel sister's first cousin, who would have inherited the Mornington bequest in the absence of any direct heirs.
"Is that all?" asked Perenna.
"No," said Mlle. Levasseur, "there is an article in theEcho deFrance—"
"Relating to me?"
"I presume so, Monsieur. It is called, 'Why Don't They Arrest Him?'"
"That concerns me," he said, with a laugh.
He took the newspaper and read:
"Why do they not arrest him? Why go against logic and prolong an unnatural situation which no decent man can understand? This is the question which everybody is asking and to which our investigations enable us to furnish a precise reply.
"Two years ago, in other words, three years after the pretended death of Arsène Lupin, the police, having discovered or believing they had discovered that Arsène Lupin was really none other than one Floriani, born at Blois and since lost to sight, caused the register to be inscribed, on the page relating to this Floriani, with the word 'Deceased,' followed by the words 'Under the alias of Arsène Lupin.'
"Consequently, to bring Arsène Lupin back to life, there would be wanted something more than the undeniable proof of his existence, which would not be impossible. The most complicated wheels in the administrative machine would have to be set in motion, and a decree obtained from the Council of State.
"Now it would seem that M. Valenglay, the Prime Minister, together with the Prefect of Police, is opposed to making any too minute inquiries capable of opening up a scandal which the authorities are anxious to avoid. Bring Arsène Lupin back to life? Recommence the struggle with that accursed scoundrel? Risk a fresh defeat and fresh ridicule? No, no, and again no!
"And thus is brought about this unprecedented, inadmissible, inconceivable, disgraceful situation, that Arsène Lupin, the hardened thief, the impenitent criminal, the robber-king, the emperor of burglars and swindlers, is able to-day, not clandestinely, but in the sight and hearing of the whole world, to pursue the most formidable task that he has yet undertaken, to live publicly under a name which is not his own, but which he has incontestably made his own, to destroy with impunity four persons who stood in his way, to cause the imprisonment of an innocent woman against whom he himself has accumulated false evidence, and at the end of all, despite the protests of common sense and thanks to an unavowed complicity, to receive the hundred millions of the Mornington legacy.
"There is the ignominious truth in a nutshell. It is well that it should be stated. Let us hope, now that it stands revealed, that it will influence the future conduct of events."
"At any rate, it will influence the conduct of the idiot who wrote that article," said Lupin, with a grin.
He dismissed Mlle. Levasseur and rang up Major d'Astrignac on the telephone.
"Is that you, Major? Perenna speaking."
"Yes, what is it?"
"Have you read the article in theEcho de France?"
"Yes."
"Would it bore you very much to call on that gentleman and ask for satisfaction in my name?"
"Oh! A duel!"
"It's got to be, Major. All these sportsmen are wearying me with their lucubrations. They must be gagged. This fellow will pay for the rest."
"Well, of course, if you're bent on it—"
"I am, very much."
* * * * *
The preliminaries were entered upon without delay. The editor of theEcho de Francedeclared that the article had been sent in without a signature, typewritten, and that it had been published without his knowledge; but he accepted the entire responsibility.
That same day, at three o'clock, Don Luis Perenna, accompanied by Major d'Astrignac, another officer, and a doctor, left the house in the Place du Palais-Bourbon in his car, and, followed by a taxi crammed with the detectives engaged in watching him, drove to the Parc des Princes.
While waiting for the arrival of the adversary, the Comte d'Astrignac took Don Luis aside.
"My dear Perenna, I ask you no questions. I don't want to know how much truth there is in all that is being written about you, or what your real name is. To me, you are Perenna of the Legion, and that is all I care about. Your past began in Morocco. As for the future, I know that, whatever happens and however great the temptation, your only aim will be to revenge Cosmo Mornington and protect his heirs. But there's one thing that worries me."
"Speak out, Major."
"Give me your word that you won't kill this man."
"Two months in bed, Major; will that suit you?"
"Too long. A fortnight."
"Done."
The two adversaries took up their positions. At the second encounter, the editor of theEcho de Francefell, wounded in the chest.
"Oh, that's too bad of you, Perenna!" growled the Comte d'Astrignac. "You promised me—"
"And I've kept my promise, Major."
The doctors were examining the injured man. Presently one of them rose and said:
"It's nothing. Three weeks' rest, at most. Only a third of an inch more, and he would have been done for."
"Yes, but that third of an inch isn't there," murmured Perenna.
Still followed by the detectives' motor cab, Don Luis returned to the Faubourg Saint-Germain; and it was then that an incident occurred which was to puzzle him greatly and throw a most extraordinary light on the article in theEcho de France.
In the courtyard of his house he saw two little puppies which belonged to the coachman and which were generally confined to the stables. They were playing with a twist of red string which kept catching on to things, to the railings of the steps, to the flower vases. In the end, the paper round which the string was wound, appeared. Don Luis happened to pass at that moment. His eyes noticed marks of writing on the paper, and he mechanically picked it up and unfolded it.
He gave a start. He had at once recognized the opening lines of the article printed in theEcho de France. And the whole article was there, written in ink, on ruled paper, with erasures, and with sentences added, struck out, and begun anew.
He called the coachman and asked him:
"Where does this ball of string come from?"
"The string, sir? Why, from the harness-room, I think. It must have been that little she-devil of a Mirza who—"
"And when did you wind the string round the paper?"
"Yesterday evening, Monsieur."
"Yesterday evening. I see. And where is the paper from?"
"Upon my word, Monsieur, I can't say. I wanted something to wind my string on. I picked this bit up behind the coach-house where they fling all the rubbish of the house to be taken into the street at night."
Don Luis pursued his investigations. He questioned or asked Mlle. Levasseur to question the other servants. He discovered nothing; but one fact remained: the article in theEcho de Francehad been written, as the rough draft which he had picked up proved, by somebody who lived in the house or who was in touch with one of the people in the house.
The enemy was inside the fortress.
But what enemy? And what did he want? Merely Perenna's arrest?
All the remainder of the afternoon Don Luis continued anxious, annoyed by the mystery that surrounded him, incensed at his own inaction, and especially at that threatened arrest, which certainly caused him no uneasiness, but which hampered his movements.
Accordingly, when he was told at about ten o'clock that a man who gave the name of Alexandre insisted on seeing him, he had the man shown in; and when he found himself face to face with Mazeroux, but Mazeroux disguised beyond recognition and huddled in an old cloak, he flung himself on him as on a prey, hustling and shaking him.
"So it's you, at last?" he cried. "Well, what did I tell you? You can't make head or tail of things at the police office and you've come for me! Confess it, you numskull! You've come to fetch me! Oh, how funny it all is! Gad, I knew that you would never have the cheek to arrest me, and that the Prefect of Police would manage to calm the untimely ardour of that confounded Weber! To begin with, one doesn't arrest a man whom one has need of. Come, out with it! Lord, how stupid you look! Why don't you answer? How far have you got at the office? Quick, speak! I'll settle the thing in five seconds. Just tell me about your inquiry in two words, and I'll finish it for you in the twinkling of a bed-post, in two minutes by my watch. Well, you were saying—"
"But, Chief," spluttered Mazeroux, utterly nonplussed.
"What! Must I drag the words out of you? Come on! I'll make a start. It has to do with the man with the ebony walking-stick, hasn't it? The one we saw at the Café du Pont-Neuf on the day when Inspector Vérot was murdered?"
"Yes, it has."
"Have you found his traces?"
"Yes."
"Well, come along, find your tongue!"
"It's like this, Chief. Some one else noticed him besides the waiter. There was another customer in the café; and this other customer, whom I ended by discovering, went out at the same time as our man and heard him ask somebody in the street which was the nearest underground station for Neuilly."
"Capital, that. And, in Neuilly, by asking questions on every side, you ferreted him out?"
"And even learnt his name, Chief: Hubert Lautier, of the Avenue du Roule. Only he decamped from there six months ago, leaving his furniture behind him and taking nothing but two trunks."
"What about the post-office?"
"We have been to the post-office. One of the clerks recognized the description which we supplied. Our man calls once every eight or ten days to fetch his mail, which never amounts to much: just one or two letters. He has not been there for some time."
"Is the correspondence in his name?"
"No, initials."
"Were they able to remember them?"
"Yes: B.R.W.8."
"Is that all?"
"That is absolutely all that I have discovered. But one of my fellow officers succeeded in proving, from the evidence of two detectives, that a man carrying a silver-handled ebony walking-stick and a pair of tortoise-shell glasses walked out of the Gare d'Auteuil on the evening of the double murder and went toward Renelagh. Remember the presence of Mme. Fauville in that neighbourhood at the same hour. And remember that the crime was committed round about midnight. I conclude from this—"
"That will do; be off!"
"But—"
"Get!"
"Then I don't see you again?"
"Meet me in half an hour outside our man's place."
"What man?"
"Marie Fauville's accomplice."
"But you don't know—"
"The address? Why, you gave it to me yourself: Boulevard Richard-Wallace,No. 8. Go! And don't look such a fool."
He made him spin round on his heels, took him by the shoulders, pushed him to the door, and handed him over, quite flabbergasted, to a footman.
He himself went out a few minutes later, dragging in his wake the detectives attached to his person, left them posted on sentry duty outside a block of flats with a double entrance, and took a motor cab to Neuilly.
He went along the Avenue de Madrid on foot and turned down the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, opposite the Bois de Boulogne. Mazeroux was waiting for him in front of a small three-storied house standing at the back of a courtyard contained within the very high walls of the adjoining property.
"Is this number eight?"
"Yes, Chief, but tell me how—"
"One moment, old chap; give me time to recover my breath."
He gave two or three great gasps.
"Lord, how good it is to be up and doing!" he said. "Upon my word, I was getting rusty. And what a pleasure to pursue those scoundrels! So you want me to tell you?"
He passed his arm through the sergeant's.
"Listen, Alexandre, and profit by my words. Remember this: when a person is choosing initials for his address at aposte restantehe doesn't pick them at random, but always in such a way that the letters convey a meaning to the person corresponding with him, a meaning which will enable that other person easily to remember the address."
"And in this case?"
"In this case, Mazeroux, a man like myself, who knows Neuilly and the neighbourhood of the Bois, is at once struck by those three letters, 'B.R.W.,' and especially by the 'W.', a foreign letter, an English letter. So that in my mind's eye, instantly, as in a flash, I saw the three letters in their logical place as initials at the head of the words for which they stand. I saw the 'B' of 'boulevard,' and the 'R' and the English 'W' of Richard-Wallace. And so I came to the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, And that, my dear sir, explains the milk in the cocoanut."
Mazeroux seemed a little doubtful.
"And what do you think, Chief?"
"I think nothing. I am looking about. I am building up a theory on the first basis that offers a probable theory. And I say to myself … I say to myself … I say to myself, Mazeroux, that this is a devilish mysterious little hole and that this house—Hush! Listen—"
He pushed Mazeroux into a dark corner. They had heard a noise, the slamming of a door.
Footsteps crossed the courtyard in front of the house. The lock of the outer gate grated. Some one appeared, and the light of a street lamp fell full on his face.
"Dash it all," muttered Mazeroux, "it's he!"
"I believe you're right."
"It's he. Chief. Look at the black stick and the bright handle. And did you see the eyeglasses—and the beard? What a oner you are, Chief!"
"Calm yourself and let's go after him."
The man had crossed the Boulevard Richard-Wallace and was turning into the Boulevard Maillot. He was walking pretty fast, with his head up, gayly twirling his stick. He lit a cigarette.
At the end of the Boulevard Maillot, the man passed the octroi and entered Paris. The railway station of the outer circle was close by. He went to it and, still followed by the others, stepped into a train that took them to Auteuil.
"That's funny," said Mazeroux. "He's doing exactly what he did a fortnight ago. This is where he was seen."
The man now went along the fortifications. In a quarter of an hour he reached the Boulevard Suchet and almost immediately afterward the house in which M. Fauville and his son had been murdered.
He climbed the fortifications opposite the house and stayed there for some minutes, motionless, with his face to the front of the house. Then continuing his road he went to La Muette and plunged into the dusk of the Bois de Boulogne.
"To work and boldly!" said Don Luis, quickening his pace.
Mazeroux stopped him.
"What do you mean, Chief?"
"Well, catch him by the throat! There are two of us; we couldn't hope for a better moment."
"What! Why, it's impossible!"
"Impossible? Are you afraid? Very well, I'll do it by myself."
"Look here, Chief, you're not serious!"
"Why shouldn't I be serious?"
"Because one can't arrest a man without a reason."
"Without a reason? A scoundrel like this? A murderer? What more do you want?"
"In the absence of compulsion, of catching him in the act, I want something that I haven't got."
"What's that?"
"A warrant. I haven't a warrant."
Mazeroux's accent was so full of conviction, and the answer struck DonLuis Perenna as so comical, that he burst out laughing.
"You have no warrant? Poor little chap! Well, I'll soon show you if I need a warrant!"
"You'll show me nothing," cried Mazeroux, hanging on to his companion's arm. "You shan't touch the man."
"One would think he was your mother!"
"Come, Chief."
"But, you stick-in-the-mud of an honest man," shouted Don Luis, angrily, "if we let this opportunity slip shall we ever find another?"
"Easily. He's going home. I'll inform the commissary of police. He will telephone to headquarters; and to-morrow morning—"
"And suppose the bird has flown?"
"I have no warrant."
"Do you want me to sign you one, idiot?"
But Don Luis mastered his rage. He felt that all his arguments would be shattered to pieces against the sergeant's obstinacy, and that, if necessary, Mazeroux would go to the length of defending the enemy against him. He simply said in a sententious tone:
"One ass and you make a pair of asses; and there are as many asses as there are people who try to do police work with bits of paper, signatures, warrants, and other gammon. Police work, my lad, is done with one's fists. When you come upon the enemy, hit him. Otherwise, you stand a chance of hitting the air. With that, good-night. I'm going to bed. Telephone to me when the job is done."
He went home, furious, sick of an adventure in which he had not had elbow room, and in which he had had to submit to the will, or, rather, to the weakness of others.
But next morning when he woke up his longing to see the police lay hold of the man with the ebony stick, and especially the feeling that his assistance would be of use, impelled him to dress as quickly as he could.
"If I don't come to the rescue," he thought, "they'll let themselves be done in the eye. They're not equal to a contest of this kind."
Just then Mazeroux rang up and asked to speak to him. He rushed to a little telephone box which his predecessor had fitted up on the first floor, in a dark recess that communicated only with his study, and switched on the electric light.
"Is that you, Alexandre?"
"Yes, Chief. I'm speaking from a wine shop near the house on theBoulevard Richard-Wallace."
"What about our man?"
"The bird's still in the nest. But we're only just in time."
"Really?"
"Yes, he's packed his trunk. He's going away this morning."
"How do they know?"
"Through the woman who manages for him. She's just come to the house and will let us in."
"Does he live alone?"
"Yes, the woman cooks his meals and goes away in the evening. No one ever calls except a veiled lady who has paid him three visits since he's been here. The housekeeper was not able to see what she was like. As for him, she says he's a scholar, who spends his time reading and working."
"And have you a warrant?"
"Yes, we're going to use it."
"I'll come at once."
"You can't! We've got Weber at our head. Oh, by the way, have you heard the news about Mme. Fauville?"
"About Mme. Fauville?"
"Yes, she tried to commit suicide last night."
"What! Tried to commit suicide!"
Perenna had uttered an exclamation of astonishment and was very much surprised to hear, almost at the same time, another cry, like an echo, at his elbow. Without letting go the receiver, he turned round and saw that Mlle. Levasseur was in the study a few yards away from him, standing with a distorted and livid face. Their eyes met. He was on the point of speaking to her, but she moved away, without leaving the room, however.
"What the devil was she listening for?" Don Luis wondered. "And why that look of dismay?"
Meanwhile, Mazeroux continued:
"She said, you know, that she would try to kill herself. But it must have taken a goodish amount of pluck."
"But how did she do it?" Perenna asked.
"I'll tell you another time. They're calling me. Whatever you do, Chief, don't come."
"Yes," he replied, firmly, "I'm coming. After all, the least I can do is to be in at the death, seeing that it was I who found the scent. But don't be afraid. I shall keep in the background."
"Then hurry, Chief. We're delivering the attack in ten minutes."
"I'll be with you before that."
He quickly hung up the receiver and turned on his heel to leave the telephone box. The next moment he had flung himself against the farther wall. Just as he was about to pass out he had heard something click above his head and he but barely had the time to leap back and escape being struck by an iron curtain which fell in front of him with a terrible thud.
Another second and the huge mass would have crushed him. He could feel it whizzing by his head. And he had never before experienced the anguish of danger so intensely.
After a moment of genuine fright, in which he stood as though petrified, with his brain in a whirl, he recovered his coolness and threw himself upon the obstacle. But it at once appeared to him that the obstacle was unsurmountable.
It was a heavy metal panel, not made of plates or lathes fastened one to the other, but formed of a solid slab, massive, firm, and strong, and covered with the sheen of time darkened here and there with patches of rust. On either side and at the top and bottom the edges of the panel fitted in a narrow groove which covered them hermetically.
He was a prisoner. In a sudden fit of rage he banged at the metal with his fists. He remembered that Mlle. Levasseur was in the study. If she had not yet left the room—and surely she could not have left it when the thing happened—she would hear the noise. She was bound to hear it. She would be sure to come back, give the alarm, and rescue him.
He listened. He shouted. No reply. His voice died away against the walls and ceiling of the box in which he was shut up, and he felt that the whole house—drawing-rooms, staircases, and passages—remained deaf to his appeal.
And yet … and yet … Mlle. Levasseur—
"What does it mean?" he muttered. "What can it all mean?"
And motionless now and silent, he thought once more of the girl's strange attitude, of her distraught face, of her haggard eyes. And he also began to wonder what accident had released the mechanism which had hurled the formidable iron curtain upon him, craftily and ruthlessly.
A group consisting of Deputy Chief Detective Weber, Chief Inspector Ancenis, Sergeant Mazeroux, three inspectors, and the Neuilly commissary of police stood outside the gate of No. 8 Boulevard Richard-Wallace.
Mazeroux was watching the Avenue de Madrid, by which Don Luis would have to come, and began to wonder what had happened; for half an hour had passed since they telephoned to each other, and Mazeroux could find no further pretext for delaying the work.
"It's time to make a move," said Weber. "The housekeeper is making signals to us from the window: the joker's dressing."
"Why not nab him when he comes out?" objected Mazeroux. "We shall capture him in a moment."
"And if he cuts off by another outlet which we don't know of?" said the deputy chief. "You have to be careful with these beggars. No, let's beard him in his den. It's more certain."
"Still—"
"What's the matter with you, Mazeroux?" asked the deputy chief, taking him on one side. "Don't you see that our men are getting restive? They're afraid of this sportsman. There's only one way, which is to set them on him as if he were a wild beast. Besides, the business must be finished by the time the Prefect comes,"
"Is he coming?"
"Yes. He wants to see things for himself. The whole affair interests him enormously. So, forward! Are you ready, men? I'm going to ring."
The bell sounded; and the housekeeper at once came and half opened the gate.
Although the orders were to observe great quiet, so as not to alarm the enemy too soon, the fear which he inspired was so intense that there was a general rush; and all the detectives crowded into the courtyard, ready for the fight. But a window opened and some one cried from the second floor:
"What's happening?"
The deputy chief did not reply. Two detectives, the chief inspector, the commissary, and himself entered the house, while the others remained in the courtyard and made any attempt at flight impossible.
The meeting took place on the first floor. The man had come down, fully dressed, with his hat on his head; and the deputy chief roared:
"Stop! Hands up! Are you Hubert Lautier?"
The man seemed disconcerted. Five revolvers were levelled at him. And yet no sign of fear showed in his face; and he simply said:
"What do you want, Monsieur? What are you here for?"
"We are here in the name of the law, with a warrant for your arrest."
"A warrant for my arrest?"
"A warrant for the arrest of Hubert Lautier, residing at 8 BoulevardRichard-Wallace."
"But it's absurd!" said the man. "It's incredible! What does it mean?What for?"
They took him by both arms, without his offering the least resistance, pushed him into a fairly large room containing no furniture but three rush-bottomed chairs, an armchair, and a table covered with big books.
"There," said the deputy chief. "Don't stir. If you attempt to move, so much the worse for you."
The man made no protest. While the two detectives held him by the collar, he seemed to be reflecting, as though he were trying to understand the secret causes of an arrest for which he was totally unprepared. He had an intelligent face, a reddish-brown beard, and a pair of blue-gray eyes which now and again showed a certain hardness of expression behind his glasses. His broad shoulders and powerful neck pointed to physical strength.
"Shall we tie his wrists?" Mazeroux asked the deputy chief.
"One second. The Prefect's coming; I can hear him. Have you searched the man's pockets? Any weapons?"
"No."
"No flask, no phial? Nothing suspicious?"
"No, nothing."
M. Desmalions arrived and, while watching the prisoner's face, talked in a low voice with the deputy chief and received the particulars of the arrest.
"This is good business," he said. "We wanted this. Now that both accomplices are in custody, they will have to speak; and everything will be cleared up. So there was no resistance?"
"None at all, Monsieur le Préfet."
"No matter, we will remain on our guard."
The prisoner had not uttered a word, but still wore a thoughtful look, as though trying to understand the inexplicable events of the last few minutes. Nevertheless, when he realized that the newcomer was none other than the Prefect of Police, he raised his head and looked at M. Desmalions, who asked him:
"It is unnecessary to tell you the cause of your arrest, I presume?"
He replied, in a deferential tone:
"Excuse me, Monsieur le Préfet, but I must ask you, on the contrary, to inform me. I have not the least idea of the reason. Your detectives have made a grave mistake which a word, no doubt, will be enough to set right. That word I wish for, I insist upon—"
The Prefect shrugged his shoulders and said:
"You are suspected of taking part in the murder of Fauville, the civil engineer, and his son Edmond."
"Is Hippolyte dead?"
The cry was spontaneous, almost unconscious; a bewildered cry of dismay from a man moved to the depths of his being. And his dismay was supremely strange, his question, trying to make them believe in his ignorance, supremely unexpected.
"Is Hippolyte dead?"
He repeated the question in a hoarse voice, trembling all over as he spoke.
"Is Hippolyte dead? What are you saying? Is it possible that he can be dead? And how? Murdered? Edmond, too?"
The Prefect once more shrugged his shoulders.
"The mere fact of your calling M. Fauville by his Christian name shows that you knew him intimately. And, even if you were not concerned in his murder, it has been mentioned often enough in the newspapers during the last fortnight for you to know of it."
"I never read a newspaper, Monsieur le Préfet."
"What! You mean to tell me—?"
"It may sound improbable, but it is quite true. I lead an industrious life, occupying myself solely with scientific research, in view of a popular work which I am preparing, and I do not take the least part or the least interest in outside things. I defy any one to prove that I have read a newspaper for months and months past. And that is why I am entitled to say that I did not know of Hippolyte Fauville's murder."
"Still, you knew M. Fauville."
"I used to know him, but we quarrelled."
"For what reason?"
"Family affairs."
"Family affairs! Were you related, then?"
"Yes. Hippolyte was my cousin."
"Your cousin! M. Fauville was your cousin! But … but then … Come, let us have the rights of the matter. M. Fauville and his wife were the children of two sisters, Elizabeth and Armande Roussel. Those two sisters had been brought up with a first cousin called Victor."
"Yes, Victor Sauverand, whose grandfather was a Roussel. Victor Sauverand married abroad and had two sons. One of them died fifteen years ago; the other is myself."
M. Desmalions gave a start. His excitement was manifest. If that man was telling the truth, if he was really the son of that Victor whose record the police had not yet been able to trace, then, owing to this very fact, since M. Fauville and his son were dead and Mme. Fauville, so to speak, convicted of murder and forfeiting her rights, they had arrested the final heir to Cosmo Mornington. But why, in a moment of madness, had he voluntarily brought this crushing indictment against himself?
He continued:
"My statements seem to surprise you, Monsieur le Préfet. Perhaps they throw a light on the mistake of which I am a victim?"
He expressed himself calmly, with great politeness and in a remarkably well-bred voice; and he did not for a moment seem to suspect that his revelations, on the contrary, were justifying the measures taken against him.
Without replying to the question, the Prefect of Police asked him:
"So your real name is—"
"Gaston Sauverand."
"Why do you call yourself Hubert Lautier?"
The man had a second of indecision which did not escape so clear-sighted an observer as M. Desmalions. He swayed from side to side, his eyes flickered and he said:
"That does not concern the police; it concerns no one but myself."
M. Desmalions smiled:
"That is a poor argument. Will you use the same when I ask you why you live in hiding, why you left the Avenue du Roule, where you used to live, without leaving an address behind you, and why you receive your letters at the post-office under initials?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, those are matters of a private character, which affect only my conscience. You have no right to question me about them."
"That is the exact reply which we are constantly receiving at every moment from your accomplice."
"My accomplice?"
"Yes, Mme. Fauville."
"Mme. Fauville!"
Gaston Sauverand had uttered the same cry as when he heard of the death of the engineer; and his stupefaction seemed even greater, combined as it was with an anguish that distorted his features beyond recognition.
"What?… What?… What do you say? Marie!… No, you don't mean it! It's not true!"
M. Desmalions considered it useless to reply, so absurd and childish was this affectation of knowing nothing about the tragedy on the Boulevard Suchet.
Gaston Sauverand, beside himself, with his eyes starting from his head, muttered:
"Is it true? Is Marie the victim of the same mistake as myself? Perhaps they have arrested her? She, she in prison!"
He raised his clenched fists in a threatening manner against all the unknown enemies by whom he was surrounded, against those who were persecuting him, those who had murdered Hippolyte Fauville and delivered Marie Fauville to the police.
Mazeroux and Chief Inspector Ancenis took hold of him roughly. He made a movement of resistance, as though he intended to thrust back his aggressors. But it was only momentary; and he sank into a chair and covered his face with his hands:
"What a mystery!" he stammered. "I don't understand! I don't understand—"
Weber, who had gone out a few minutes before, returned. M.Desmalions asked:
"Is everything ready?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, I have had the taxi brought up to the gate beside your car."
"How many of you are there?"
"Eight. Two detectives have just arrived from the commissary's."
"Have you searched the house?"
"Yes. It's almost empty, however. There's nothing but the indispensable articles of furniture and some bundles of papers in the bedroom."
"Very well. Take him away and keep a sharp lookout."
Gaston Sauverand walked off quietly between the deputy chief andMazeroux. He turned round in the doorway.
"Monsieur le Préfet, as you are making a search, I entreat you to take care of the papers on the table in my bedroom. They are notes that have cost me a great deal of labour in the small hours of the night. Also—"
He hesitated, obviously embarrassed.
"Well?"
"Well, Monsieur le Préfet, I must tell you—something—"
He was looking for his words and seemed to fear the consequences of them at the same time that he uttered them. But he suddenly made up his mind.
"Monsieur le Préfet, there is in this house—somewhere—a packet of letters which I value more than my life. It is possible that those letters, if misinterpreted, will furnish a weapon against me; but no matter. The great thing is that they should be safe. You will see. They include documents of extreme importance. I entrust them to your keeping—to yours alone, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Where are they?"
"The hiding-place is easily found. All you have to do is to go to the garret above my bedroom and press on a nail to the right of the window. It is an apparently useless nail, but it controls a hiding-place outside, under the slates of the roof, along the gutter."
He moved away between the two men. The Prefect called them back.
"One second. Mazeroux, go up to the garret and bring me the letters."
Mazeroux went out and returned in a few minutes. He had been unable to work the spring.
The Prefect ordered Chief Inspector Ancenis to go up with Mazeroux and to take the prisoner, who would show them how to open the hiding-place. He himself remained in the room with Weber, awaiting the result of the search, and began to read the titles of the volumes piled upon the table.
They were scientific books, among which he noticed works on chemistry:"Organic Chemistry" and "Chemistry Considered in Its Relations withElectricity." They were all covered with notes in the margins. He wasturning over the pages of one of them, when he seemed to hear shouts.
The Prefect rushed to the door, but had not crossed the threshold when a pistol shot echoed down the staircase and there was a yell of pain.
Immediately after came two more shots, accompanied by cries, the sound of a struggle, and yet another shot.
Tearing upstairs, four steps at a time, with an agility not to be expected from a man of his build, the Prefect of Police, followed by the deputy chief, covered the second flight and came to a third, which was narrower and steeper. When he reached the bend, a man's body, staggering above him, fell into his arms: it was Mazeroux, wounded.
On the stairs lay another body, lifeless, that of Chief InspectorAncenis.
Above them, in the frame of a small doorway, stood Gaston Sauverand, with a savage look on his face and his arm outstretched. He fired a fifth shot at random. Then, seeing the Prefect of Police, he took deliberate aim.
The Prefect stared at that terrifying barrel levelled at his face and gave himself up for lost. But, at that exact second, a shot was discharged from behind him, Sauverand's weapon fell from his hand before he was able to fire, and the Prefect saw, as in a dream, a man, the man who had saved his life, striding across the chief inspector's body, propping Mazeroux against the wall, and darting ahead, followed by the detectives. He recognized the man: it was Don Luis Perenna.
Don Luis stepped briskly into the garret where Sauverand had retreated, but had time only to catch sight of him standing on the window ledge and leaping into space from the third floor.
"Has he jumped from there?" cried the Prefect, hastening up. "We shall never capture him alive!"
"Neither alive nor dead, Monsieur le Préfet. See, he's picking himself up. There's a providence which looks after that sort. He's making for the gate. He's hardly limping."
"But where are my men?"
"Why, they're all on the staircase, in the house, brought here by the shots, seeing to the wounded—"
"Oh, the demon!" muttered the Prefect. "He's played a masterly game!"
Gaston Sauverand, in fact, was escaping unmolested.
"Stop him! Stop him!" roared M. Desmalions.
There were two motors standing beside the pavement, which is very wide at this spot: the Prefect's own car, and the cab which the deputy chief had provided for the prisoner. The two chauffeurs, sitting on their seats, had noticed nothing of the fight. But they saw Gaston Sauverand's leap into space; and the Prefect's chauffeur, on whose seat a certain number of incriminating articles had been placed, taking out of the heap the first weapon that offered, the ebony walking-stick, bravely rushed at the fugitive.
"Stop him! Stop him!" shouted M. Desmalions.
The encounter took place at the exit from the courtyard. It did not last long. Sauverand flung himself upon his assailant, snatched the stick from him, and broke it across his face. Then, without dropping the handle, he ran away, pursued by the other chauffeur and by three detectives who at last appeared from the house. He had thirty yards' start of the detectives, one of whom fired several shots at him without effect.
When M. Desmalions and Weber went downstairs again, they found the chief inspector lying on the bed in Gaston Sauverand's room on the second floor, gray in the face. He had been hit on the head and was dying. A few minutes later he was dead.
Sergeant Mazeroux, whose wound was only slight, said, while it was being dressed, that Sauverand had taken the chief inspector and himself up to the garret, and that, outside the door, he had dipped his hand quickly into an old satchel hanging on the wall among some servants' wornout aprons and jackets. He drew out a revolver and fired point-blank at the chief inspector, who dropped like a log. When seized by Mazeroux, the murderer released himself and fired three bullets, the third of which hit the sergeant in the shoulder.
And so, in a fight in which the police had a band of experienced detectives at their disposal, while the enemy, a prisoner, seemed to possess not the remotest chance of safety, this enemy, by a strategem of unprecedented daring, had led two of his adversaries aside, disabled both of them, drawn the others into the house and, finding the coast clear, escaped.
M. Desmalions was white with anger and despair. He exclaimed:
"He's tricked us! His letters, his hiding-place, the movable nail, were all shams. Oh, the scoundrel!"
He went down to the ground floor and into the courtyard. On the boulevard he met one of the detectives who had given chase to the murderer and who was returning quite out of breath.
"Well?" he asked anxiously,
"Monsieur le Préfet, he turned down the first street, where there was a motor waiting for him. The engine must have been working, for our man outdistanced us at once."
"But what about my car?"
"You see, Monsieur le Préfet, by the time it was started—"
"Was the motor that picked him up a hired one?"
"Yes, a taxi."
"Then we shall find it. The driver will come of his own accord when he has seen the newspapers."
Weber shook his head.
"Unless the driver is himself a confederate, Monsieur le Préfet.Besides, even if we find the cab, aren't we bound to suppose that GastonSauverand will know how to front the scent? We shall have trouble,Monsieur le Préfet."
"Yes," whispered Don Luis, who had been present at the first investigation and who was left alone for a moment with Mazeroux. "Yes, you will have trouble, especially if you let the people you capture take to their heels. Eh, Mazeroux, what did I tell you last night? But, still, what a scoundrel! And he's not alone, Alexandre. I'll answer for it that he has accomplices—and not a hundred yards from my house—do you understand? From my house."
After questioning Mazeroux upon Sauverand's attitude and the other incidents of the arrest, Don Luis went back to the Place du Palais-Bourbon.
* * * * *
The inquiry which he had to make related to events that were certainly quite as strange as those which he had just witnessed; and while the part played by Gaston Sauverand in the pursuit of the Mornington inheritance deserved all his attention, the behaviour of Mlle. Levasseur puzzled him no less.
He could not forget the cry of terror that escaped the girl while he was telephoning to Mazeroux, nor the scared expression of her face. Now it was impossible to attribute that cry and that expression to anything other than the words which he had uttered in reply to Mazeroux:
"What! Mme. Fauville tried to commit suicide!"
The fact was certain; and the connection between the announcement of the attempt and Mlle. Levasseur's extreme emotion was too obvious for Perenna not to try to draw conclusions.
He went straight to his study and at once examined the arch leading to the telephone box. This arch, which was about six feet wide and very low, had no door, but merely a velvet hanging, which was nearly always drawn up, leaving the arch uncovered. Under the hanging, among the moldings of the cornice, was a button that had only to be pressed to bring down the iron curtain against which he had thrown himself two hours before.
He worked the catch two or three times over, and his experiments proved to him in the most explicit fashion that the mechanism was in perfect order and unable to act without outside intervention. Was he then to conclude that the girl had wanted to kill him? But what could be her motive?
He was on the point of ringing and sending for her, so as to receive the explanation which he was resolved to demand from her. However, the minutes passed and he did not ring. He saw her through the window as she walked slowly across the yard, her body swinging gracefully from her hips. A ray of sunshine lit up the gold of her hair.
All the rest of the morning he lay on a sofa, smoking cigars. He was ill at ease, dissatisfied with himself and with the course of events, not one of which brought him the least glimmer of truth; in fact, all of them seemed to deepen the darkness in which he was battling. Eager to act, the moment he did so he encountered fresh obstacles that paralyzed his powers of action and left him in utter ignorance of the nature of his adversaries.
But, at twelve o'clock, just as he had rung for lunch, his butler entered the study with a tray in his hand, and exclaimed, with an agitation which showed that the household was aware of Don Luis's ambiguous position:
"Sir, it's the Prefect of Police!"
"Eh?" said Perenna. "Where is he?"
"Downstairs, sir. I did not know what to do, at first … and I thought of telling Mlle. Levasseur. But—"
"Are you sure?"
"Here is his card, sir."
Perenna took the card from the tray and read M. Desmalions's name. He went to the window, opened it and, with the aid of the overhead mirror, looked into the Place du Palais-Bourbon. Half a dozen men were walking about. He recognized them. They were his usual watchers, those whom he had got rid of on the evening before and who had come to resume their observation.
"No others?" he said to himself. "Come, we have nothing to fear, and thePrefect of Police has none but the best intentions toward me. It was whatI expected; and I think that I was well advised to save his life."
M. Desmalions entered without a word. All that he did was to bend his head slightly, with a movement that might be taken for a bow. As for Weber, who was with him, he did not even give himself the trouble to disguise his feelings toward such a man as Perenna.
Don Luis took no direct notice of this attitude, but, in revenge, ostentatiously omitted to push forward more than one chair. M. Desmalions, however, preferred to walk about the room, with his hands behind his back, as if to continue his reflections before speaking.
The silence was prolonged. Don Luis waited patiently. Then, suddenly, thePrefect stopped and said:
"When you left the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, Monsieur, did you go straight home?"
Don Luis did not demur to this cross-examining manner and answered:
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Here, to your study?"
"Here, to my study."
M. Desmalions paused and then went on:
"I left thirty or forty minutes after you and drove to the police office in my car. There I received this express letter. Read it. You will see that it was handed in at the Bourse at half-past nine."
Don Luis took the letter and read the following words, written in capital letters:
This is to inform you that Gaston Sauverand, after making his escape, rejoined his accomplice Perenna, who, as you know, is none other than Arsène Lupin. Arsène Lupin gave you Sauverand's address in order to get rid of him and to receive the Mornington inheritance. They were reconciled this morning, and Arsène Lupin suggested a safe hiding-place to Sauverand. It is easy to prove their meeting and their complicity. Sauverand handed Lupin the half of the walking-stick which he had carried away unawares. You will find it under the cushions of a sofa standing between the two windows of Perenna's study.
Don Luis shrugged his shoulders. The letter was absurd; for he had not once left his study. He folded it up quietly and handed it to the Prefect of Police without comment. He was resolved to let M. Desmalions take the initiative in the conversation.
The Prefect asked:
"What is your reply to the accusation?"
"None, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Still, it is quite plain and easy to prove or disprove."
"Very easy, indeed, Monsieur le Préfet; the sofa is there, between the windows."
M. Desmalions waited two or three seconds and then walked to the sofa and moved the cushions. Under one of them lay the handle end of the walking-stick.
Don Luis could not repress a gesture of amazement and anger. He had not for a second contemplated the possibility of such a miracle; and it took him unawares. However, he mastered himself. After all, there was nothing to prove that this half of a walking-stick was really that which had been seen in Gaston Sauverand's hands and which Sauverand had carried away by mistake.
"I have the other half on me," said the Prefect of Police, replying to the unspoken objection. "Deputy Chief Weber himself picked it up on the Boulevard Richard-Wallace. Here it is."
He produced it from the inside pocket of his overcoat and tried it. The ends of the two pieces fitted exactly.
There was a fresh pause. Perenna was confused, as were those, invariably, upon whom he himself used to inflict this kind of defeat and humiliation. He could not get over it. By what prodigy had Gaston Sauverand managed, in that short space of twenty minutes, to enter the house and make his way into this room? Even the theory of an accomplice living in the house did not do much to make the phenomenon easier to understand.
"It upsets all my calculations," he thought, "and I shall have to go through the mill this time. I was able to baffle Mme. Fauville's accusation and to foil the trick of the turquoise. But M. Desmalions will never admit that this is a similar attempt and that Gaston Sauverand has tried, as Marie Fauville did, to get me out of the way by compromising me and procuring my arrest."
"Well," exclaimed M. Desmalions impatiently, "answer! Defend yourself!"
"No, Monsieur le Préfet, it is not for me to defend myself,"
M. Desmalions stamped his foot and growled:
"In that case … in that case … since you confess … since—"
He put his hand on the latch of the window, ready to open it. A whistle, and the detectives would burst in and all would be over.
"Shall I have your inspectors called, Monsieur le Préfet?" asked DonLuis.
M. Desmalions did not reply. He let go the window latch and started walking about the room again. And, suddenly, while Perenna was wondering why he still hesitated, for the second time the Prefect planted himself in front of him, and said:
"And suppose I looked upon the incident of the walking-stick as not having occurred, or, rather, as an incident which, while doubtless proving the treachery of your servants, is not able to compromise yourself? Suppose I took only the services which you have already rendered us into consideration? In a word, suppose I left you free?"
Perenna could not help smiling. Notwithstanding the affair of the walking-stick and though appearances were all against him, at the moment when everything seemed to be going wrong, things were taking the course which he had prophesied from the start, and which he had mentioned to Mazeroux during the inquiry on the Boulevard Suchet. They wanted him.
"Free?" he asked. "No more supervision? Nobody shadowing my movements?"
"Nobody."
"And what if the press campaign around my name continues, if the papers succeed, by means of certain pieces of tittle-tattle, of certain coincidences, in creating a public outcry, if they call for measures against me?"
"Those measures shall not be taken."
"Then I have nothing to fear?"
"Nothing."
"Will M. Weber abandon his prejudices against me?"
"At any rate, he will act as though he did, won't you, Weber?"
The deputy chief uttered a few grunts which might be taken as an expression of assent; and Don Luis at once exclaimed:
"In that case, Monsieur le Préfet, I am sure of gaining the victory and of gaining it in accordance with the wishes and requirements of the authorities."
And so, by a sudden change in the situation, after a series of exceptional circumstances, the police themselves, bowing before Don Luis Perenna's superior qualities of mind, acknowledging all that he had already done and foreseeing all that he would be able to do, decided to back him up, begging for his assistance, and offering him, so to speak, the command of affairs.
It was a flattering compliment. Was it addressed only to Don Luis Perenna? And had Lupin, the terrible, undaunted Lupin, no right to claim his share? Was it possible to believe that M. Desmalions, in his heart of hearts, did not admit the identity of the two persons?
Nothing in the Prefect's attitude gave any clue to his secret thoughts. He was suggesting to Don Luis Perenna one of those compacts which the police are often obliged to conclude in order to gain their ends. The compact was concluded, and no more was said upon the subject.
"Do you want any particulars of me?" asked the Prefect of Police.
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. The papers spoke of a notebook found in poorInspector Vérot's pocket. Did the notebook contain a clue of any kind?"
"No. Personal notes, lists of disbursements, that's all. Wait, I was forgetting, there was a photograph of a woman, about which I have not yet been able to obtain the least information. Besides, I don't suppose that it bears upon the case and I have not sent it to the newspapers. Look, here it is."
Perenna took the photograph which the Prefect handed him and gave a start that did not escape M. Desmalions's eye.
"Do you know the lady?"
"No. No, Monsieur le Préfet. I thought I did; but no, there's merely a resemblance—a family likeness, which I will verify if you can leave the photograph with me till this evening."
"Till this evening, yes. When you have done with it, give it back to Sergeant Mazeroux, whom I will order to work in concert with you in everything that relates to the Mornington case."
The interview was now over. The Prefect went away. Don Luis saw him to the door. As M. Desmalions was about to go down the steps, he turned and said simply:
"You saved my life this morning. But for you, that scoundrel Sauverand—"
"Oh, Monsieur le Préfet!" said Don Luis, modestly protesting.
"Yes, I know, you are in the habit of doing that sort of thing. All the same, you must accept my thanks."
And the Prefect of Police made a bow such as he would really have made to Don Luis Perenna, the Spanish noble, the hero of the Foreign Legion. As for Weber, he put his two hands in his pockets, walked past with the look of a muzzled mastiff, and gave his enemy a glance of fierce hatred.
"By Jupiter!" thought Don Luis. "There's a fellow who won't miss me when he gets the chance to shoot!"
Looking through a window, he saw M. Desmalions's motor car drive off. The detectives fell in behind the deputy chief and left the Place du Palais-Bourbon. The siege was raised.
"And now to work!" said Don Luis. "My hands are free, and we shall make things hum."
He called the butler.
"Serve lunch; and ask Mlle. Levasseur to come and speak to me immediately after."
He went to the dining-room and sat down, placing on the table the photograph which M. Desmalions had left behind; and, bending over it, he examined it attentively. It was a little faded, a little worn, as photographs have a tendency to become when they lie about in pocket-books or among papers; but the picture was quite clear. It was the radiant picture of a young woman in evening dress, with bare arms and shoulders, with flowers and leaves in her hair and a smile upon her face.
"Mlle. Levasseur, Mlle. Levasseur," he said. "Is it possible!"
In a corner was a half-obliterated and hardly visible signature. He made out, "Florence," the girl's name, no doubt. And he repeated:
"Mlle. Levasseur, Florence Levasseur. How did her photograph come to be in Inspector Vérot's pocket-book? And what is the connection between this adventure and the reader of the Hungarian count from whom I took over the house?"
He remembered the incident of the iron curtain. He remembered the article in theEcho de France, an article aimed against him, of which he had found the rough draft in his own courtyard. And, above all, he thought of the problem of that broken walking-stick conveyed into his study.
And, while his mind was striving to read these events clearly, while he tried to settle the part played by Mlle. Levasseur, his eyes remained fixed upon the photograph and he gazed absent-mindedly at the pretty lines of the mouth, the charming smile, the graceful curve of the neck, the admirable sweep of the shoulders.
The door opened suddenly and Mlle. Levasseur burst into the room. Perenna, who had dismissed the butler, was raising to his lips a glass of water which he had just filled for himself. She sprang forward, seized his arm, snatched the glass from him and flung it on the carpet, where it smashed to pieces.
"Have you drunk any of it? Have you drunk any of it?" she gasped, in a choking voice.
He replied:
"No, not yet. Why?"
She stammered:
"The water in that bottle … the water in that bottle—"
"Well?"
"It's poisoned!"
He leapt from his chair and, in his turn, gripped her arm fiercely:
"What's that? Poisoned! Are you certain? Speak!"
In spite of his usual self-control, he was this time thoroughly alarmed. Knowing the terrible effects of the poison employed by the miscreants whom he was attacking, recalling the corpse of Inspector Vérot, the corpses of Hippolyte Fauville and his son, he knew that, trained though he was to resist comparatively large doses of poison, he could not have escaped the deadly action of this. It was a poison that did not forgive, that killed, surely and fatally.
The girl was silent. He raised his voice in command:
"Answer me! Are you certain?"
"No … it was an idea that entered my head—a presentiment … certain coincidences—"
It was as though she regretted her words and now tried to withdraw them.
"Come, come," he cried, "I want to know the truth: You're not certain that the water in this bottle is poisoned?"
"No … it's possible—"
"Still, just now—"
"I thought so. But no … no!"
"It's easy to make sure," said Perenna, putting out his hand for the water bottle.
She was quicker than he, seized it and, with one blow, broke it against the table.
"What are you doing?" he said angrily.
"I made a mistake. And so there is no need to attach any importance—"
Don Luis hurriedly left the dining-room. By his orders, the water which he drank was drawn from a filter that stood in a pantry at the end of the passage leading from the dining-room to the kitchens and beyond. He ran to it and took from a shelf a bowl which he filled with water from the filter. Then, continuing to follow the passage, which at this spot branched off toward the yard, he called Mirza, the puppy, who was playing by the stables.