"No, no," said Don Luis, who was thinking of Florence Levasseur. "No, the argument allows of no discussion. We have here a fact that is clear as daylight; and the imprint is almost tantamount to a discovery in the act. But then how, in the midst of all this, are we to explain the presence of –"
"Whom, Chief?"
"Nobody. I had an idea worrying me. Besides, you see, in all this there are so many unnatural things, such queer coincidences and inconsistencies, that I dare not count on a certainty which the reality of to-morrow may destroy."
They went on talking for some time, in a low voice, studying the question in all its bearings.
At midnight they switched off the electric light in the chandelier and arranged that each should go to sleep in turn.
And the hours went by as they had done when the two sat up before, with the same sounds of belated carriages and motor cars; the same railway whistles; the same silence.
The night passed without alarm or incident of any kind. At daybreak the life out of doors was resumed; and Don Luis, during his waking hours, had not heard a sound in the room except the monotonous snoring of his companion.
"Can I have been mistaken?" he wondered. "Did the clue in that volume of Shakespeare mean something else? Or did it refer to events of last year, events that took place on the dates set down?"
In spite of everything, he felt overcome by a strange uneasiness as the dawn began to glimmer through the half-closed shutters. A fortnight before, nothing had happened either to warn him; and yet there were two victims lying near him when he woke.
At seven o'clock he called out:
"Alexandre!"
"Eh? What is it, Chief?"
"You're not dead?"
"What's that? Dead? No, Chief; why should I be?"
"Quite sure?"
"Well, that's a good 'un! Why not you?"
"Oh, it'll be my turn soon! Considering the intelligence of those scoundrels, there's no reason why they should go on missing me."
They waited an hour longer. Then Perenna opened a window and threw back the shutter.
"I say, Alexandre, perhaps you're not dead, but you're certainly very green."
Mazeroux gave a wry laugh:
"Upon my word, Chief, I confess that I had a bad time of it when I was keeping watch while you were asleep."
"Were you afraid?"
"To the roots of my hair. I kept on thinking that something was going to happen. But you, too, Chief, don't look as if you had been enjoying yourself. Were you also—"
He interrupted himself, on seeing an expression of unbounded astonishment on Don Luis's face.
"What's the matter, Chief?"
"Look! … on the table … that letter—"
He looked. There was a letter on the writing-table, or, rather, a letter-card, the edges of which had been torn along the perforation marks; and they saw the outside of it, with the address, the stamp, and the postmarks.
"Did you put that there, Alexandre?"
"You're joking, Chief. You know it can only have been you."
"It can only have been I … and yet it was not I."
"But then—"
Don Luis took the letter-card and, on examining it, found that the address and the postmarks had been scratched out so as to make it impossible to read the name of the addressee or where he lived, but that the place of posting was quite clear, as was the date: Paris, 4 January, 19—.
"So the letter is three and a half months old," said Don Luis.
He turned to the inside of the letter. It contained a dozen lines and he at once exclaimed:
"Hippolyte Fauville's signature!"
"And his handwriting," observed Mazeroux. "I can tell it at a glance.
There's no mistake about that. What does it all mean? A letter written by Hippolyte Fauville three months before his death?"
Perenna read aloud:
"MY DEAR OLD FRIEND:
"I can only, alas, confirm what I wrote to you the other day: the plot is thickening around me! I do not yet know what their plan is and still less how they mean to put it into execution; but everything warns me that the end is at hand. I can see it in her eyes. How strangely she looks at me sometimes!
"Oh, the shame of it! Who would ever have thought her capable of it?
"I am a very unhappy man, my dear friend."
"And it's signed Hippolyte Fauville," Mazeroux continued, "and I declare to you that it's actually in his hand … written on the fourth of January of this year to a friend whose name we don't know, though we shall dig him out somehow, that I'll swear. And this friend will certainly give us the proofs we want."
Mazeroux was becoming excited.
"Proofs? Why, we don't need them! They're here. M. Fauville himself supplies them: 'The end is at hand. I can see it in her eyes.' 'Her' refers to his wife, to Marie Fauville, and the husband's evidence confirms all that we knew against her. What do you say, Chief?"
"You're right," replied Perenna, absent-mindedly, "you're right; the letter is final. Only—"
"Only what?"
"Who the devil can have brought it? Somebody must have entered the room last night while we were here. Is it possible? For, after all, we should have heard. That's what astounds me."
"It certainly looks like it."
"Just so. It was a queer enough job a fortnight ago. But, still, we were in the passage outside, while they were at work in here, whereas, this time, we were here, both of us, close to this very table. And, on this table, which had not the least scrap of paper on it last night, we find this letter in the morning."
A careful inspection of the place gave them no clue to put them on the track. They went through the house from top to bottom and ascertained for certain that there was no one there in hiding. Besides, supposing that any one was hiding there, how could he have made his way into the room without attracting their attention? There was no solving the problem.
"We won't look any more," said Perenna, "it's no use. In matters of this sort, some day or other the light enters by an unseen cranny and everything gradually becomes clear. Take the letter to the Prefect of Police, tell him how we spent the night, and ask his permission for both of us to come back on the night of the twenty-fifth of April. There's to be another surprise that night; and I'm dying to know if we shall receive a second letter through the agency of some Mahatma."
They closed the doors and left the house.
While they were walking to the right, toward La Muette, in order to take a taxi, Don Luis chanced to turn his head to the road as they reached the end of the Boulevard Suchet. A man rode past them on a bicycle. Don Luis just had time to see his clean-shaven face and his glittering eyes fixed upon himself.
"Look out!" he shouted, pushing Mazeroux so suddenly that the sergeant lost his balance.
The man had stretched out his hand, armed with a revolver. A shot rang out. The bullet whistled past the ears of Don Luis, who had bobbed his head.
"After him!" he roared. "You're not hurt, Mazeroux?"
"No, Chief."
They both rushed in pursuit, shouting for assistance. But, at that early hour, there are never many people in the wide avenues of this part of the town. The man, who was making off swiftly, increased his distance, turned down the Rue Octave-Feuillet, and disappeared.
"All right, you scoundrel, I'll catch you yet!" snarled Don Luis, abandoning a vain pursuit.
"But you don't even know who he is, Chief."
"Yes, I do: it's he."
"Who?"
"The man with the ebony stick. He's cut off his beard and shaved his face, but I knew him for all that. It was the man who was taking pot-shots at us yesterday morning, from the top of his stairs on the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, the one who killed Inspector Ancenis. The blackguard! How did he know that I had spent the night at Fauville's? Have I been followed then and spied on? But by whom? And why? And how?"
Mazeroux reflected and said:
"Remember, Chief, you telephoned to me in the afternoon to give me an appointment. For all you know, in spite of lowering your voice, you may have been heard by somebody at your place."
Don Luis did not answer. He thought of Florence.
That morning Don Luis's letters were not brought to him by Mlle. Levasseur, nor did he send for her. He caught sight of her several times giving orders to the new servants. She must afterward have gone back to her room, for he did not see her again.
In the afternoon he rang for his car and drove to the house on the Boulevard Suchet, to pursue with Mazeroux, by the Prefect's instructions, a search that led to no result whatever.
It was ten o'clock when he came in. The detective sergeant and he had some dinner together. Afterward, wishing also to examine the home of the man with the ebony stick, he got into his car again, still accompanied by Mazeroux, and told the man to drive to the Boulevard Richard-Wallace.
The car crossed the Seine and followed the right bank.
"Faster," he said to his new chauffeur, through the speaking-tube. "I'm accustomed to go at a good pace."
"You'll have an upset one fine day, Chief," said Mazeroux.
"No fear," replied Don Luis. "Motor accidents are reserved for fools."
They reached the Place de l'Alma. The car turned to the left.
"Straight ahead!" cried Don Luis. "Go up by the Trocadéro."
The car veered back again. But suddenly it gave three or four lurches in the road, took the pavement, ran into a tree and fell over on its side.
In a few seconds a dozen people were standing round. They broke one of the windows and opened the door. Don Luis was the first.
"It's nothing," he said. "I'm all right. And you, Alexandre?"
They helped the sergeant out. He had a few bruises and a little pain, but no serious injury.
Only the chauffeur had been thrown from his seat and lay motionless on the pavement, bleeding from the head. He was carried into a chemist's shop and died in ten minutes.
Mazeroux had gone in with the poor victim and, feeling pretty well stunned, had himself been given a pick-me-up. When he went back to the motor car he found two policemen entering particulars of the accident in their notebooks and taking evidence from the bystanders; but the chief was not there.
Perenna in fact had jumped into a taxicab and driven home as fast as he could. He got out in the square, ran through the gateway, crossed the courtyard, and went down the passage that led to Mlle. Levasseur's quarters. He leaped up the steps, knocked, and entered without waiting for an answer.
The door of the room that served as a sitting-room was opened and Florence appeared. He pushed her back into the room, and said, in a tone furious with indignation:
"It's done. The accident has occurred. And yet none of the old servants can have prepared it, because they were not there and because I was out with the car this afternoon. Therefore, it must have been late in the day between six and nine o'clock, that somebody went to the garage and filed the steering-rod three quarters through."
"I don't understand. I don't understand," she said, with a scared look.
"You understand perfectly well that the accomplice of the ruffians cannot be one of the new servants, and you understand perfectly well that the job was bound to succeed and that it did succeed, beyond their hopes. There is a victim, who suffers instead of myself."
"But tell me what has happened, Monsieur! You frighten me! What accident?
What was it?"
"The motor car was overturned. The chauffeur is dead."
"Oh," she said, "how horrible! And you think that I can have—Oh, dead, how horrible! Poor man!"
Her voice grew fainter. She was standing opposite to Perenna, close up against him. Pale and swooning, she closed her eyes, staggered.
He caught her in his arms as she fell. She tried to release herself, but had not the strength; and he laid her in a chair, while she moaned, repeatedly:
"Poor man! Poor man!"
Keeping one of his arms under the girl's head, he took a handkerchief in the other hand and wiped her forehead, which was wet with perspiration, and her pallid cheeks, down which the tears streamed.
She must have lost consciousness entirely, for she surrendered herself to Perenna's cares without the least resistance. And he, making no further movement, began anxiously to examine the mouth before his eyes, the mouth with the lips usually so red, now bloodless and discoloured.
Gently passing one of his fingers over each of them, with a continuous pressure, he separated them, as one separates the petals of a flower; and the two rows of teeth appeared.
They were charming, beautifully shaped, and beautifully white; a little smaller perhaps than Mme. Fauville's, perhaps also arranged in a wider curve. But what did he know? Who could say that their bite would not leave the same imprint? It was an improbable supposition, an impossible miracle, he knew. And yet the circumstances were all against the girl and pointed to her as the most daring, cruel, implacable, and terrible of criminals.
Her breathing became regular. He perceived the cool fragrance of her mouth, intoxicating as the scent of a rose. In spite of himself, he bent down, came so close, so close that he was seized with giddiness and had to make a great effort to lay the girl's head on the back of the chair and to take his eyes from the fair face with the half-parted lips.
He rose to his feet and went.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE DEVIL'S POST-OFFICE
Of all these events the public knew only of the attempted suicide of Mme. Fauville, the capture and escape of Gaston Sauverand, the murder of Chief Inspector Ancenis, and the discovery of a letter written by Hippolyte Fauville. This was enough, however, to reawaken their curiosity, as they were already singularly puzzled by the Mornington case and took the greatest interest in all the movements, however slight, of the mysterious Don Luis Perenna, whom they insisted on confusing with Arsène Lupin.
He was, of course, credited with the brief capture of the man with the ebony walking-stick. It was also known that he had saved the life of the Prefect of Police, and that, finally, having at his own request spent the night in the house on the Boulevard Suchet, he had become the recipient of Hippolyte Fauville's famous letter. And all this added immensely to the excitement of the aforesaid public.
But how much more complicated and disconcerting were the problems set to Don Luis Perenna himself! Not to mention the denunciation in the anonymous article, there had been, in the short space of forty-eight hours, no fewer than four separate attempts to kill him: by the iron curtain, by poison, by the shooting on the Boulevard Suchet, and by the deliberately prepared motor accident.
Florence's share in this series of attempts was not to be denied. And, now, behold her relations with the Fauvilles' murderers duly established by the little note found in the eighth volume of Shakespeare's plays, while two more deaths were added to the melancholy list: the deaths of Chief Inspector Ancenis and of the chauffeur. How to describe and how to explain the part played, in the midst of all these catastrophes, by that enigmatical girl?
Strangely enough, life went on as usual at the house in the Place du Palais-Bourbon, as though nothing out of the way had happened there. Every morning Florence Levasseur sorted Don Luis's post in his presence and read out the newspaper articles referring to himself or bearing upon the Mornington case.
Not a single allusion was made to the fierce fight that had been waged against him for two days. It was as though a truce had been proclaimed between them; and the enemy appeared to have ceased his attacks for the moment. Don Luis felt easy, out of the reach of danger; and he talked to the girl with an indifferent air, as he might have talked to anybody.
But with what a feverish interest he studied her unobserved! He watched the expression of her face, at once calm and eager, and a painful sensitiveness which showed under the placid mask and which, difficult to control, revealed itself in the frequent quivering of the lips and nostrils.
"Who are you? Who are you?" he felt inclined to exclaim. "Will nothing content you, you she-devil, but to deal out murder all round? And do you want my death also, in order to attain your object? Where do you come from and where are you making for?"
On reflection, he was convinced of a certainty that solved a problem which had preoccupied him for a long time—namely, the mysterious connection between his own presence in the mansion in the Place du Palais-Bourbon and the presence of a woman who was manifestly wreaking her hatred on him.
He now understood that he had not bought the house by accident. In making the purchase he had been persuaded by an anonymous offer that reached him in the form of a typewritten prospectus. Whence did this offer come, if not from Florence, who wished to have him near her in order to spy upon him and wage war upon him?
"Yes," he thought, "that is where the truth lies. As the possible heir of Cosmo Mornington and a prominent figure in the case, I am the enemy, and they are trying to do away with me as they did with the others. And it is Florence who is acting against me. And it is she who has committed murder.
"Everything tells against her; nothing speaks in her defence. Her innocent eyes? The accent of sincerity in her voice? Her serene dignity? And then? Yes, what then? Have I never seen women with that frank look who have committed murder for no reason, almost for pleasure's sake?"
He started with terror at the memory of Dolores Kesselbach. What was it that made him connect these two women at every moment in his mind? He had loved one of them, that monster Dolores, and had strangled her with his own hands. Was fate now leading him toward a like love and a similar murder?
When Florence left him he would experience a sense of satisfaction and breathe more easily, as though released from an oppressive weight, but he would run to the window and see her crossing the courtyard and be still waiting when the girl whose scented breath he had felt upon his face passed to and fro.
One morning she said to him:
"The papers say that it will be to-night."
"To-night?"
"Yes," she said, showing him an article in one of the newspapers. "This is the twenty-fifth; and, according to the information of the police, supplied, they say, by you, there should be a letter delivered in the house on the Boulevard Suchet every tenth day, and the house is to be destroyed by an explosion on the day when the fifth and last letter appears."
Was she defying him? Did she wish to make him understand that, whatever happened, whatever the obstacles, the letters would appear, those mysterious letters prophesied on the list which he had found in the eighth volume of Shakespeare's plays?
He looked at her steadily. She did not flinch. He answered:
"Yes, this is the night. I shall be there. Nothing in the world will prevent me."
She was on the point of replying, but once more controlled her feelings.
That day Don Luis was on his guard. He lunched and dined out and arranged with Mazeroux to have the Place du Palais-Bourbon watched.
Mlle. Levasseur did not leave the house during the afternoon. In the evening Don Luis ordered Mazeroux's men to follow any one who might go out at that time.
At ten o'clock the sergeant joined Don Luis in Hippolyte Fauville's workroom. Deputy Chief Detective Weber and two plain-clothesmen were with him.
Don Luis took Mazeroux aside:
"They distrust me. Own up to it."
"No. As long as M. Desmalions is there, they can do nothing against you. Only, M. Weber maintains—and he is not the only one—that you fake up all these occurrences yourself."
"With what object?"
"With the object of furnishing proof against Marie Fauville and getting her condemned. So I asked for the attendance of the deputy chief and two men. There will be four of us to bear witness to your honesty."
They all took up their posts. Two detectives were to sit up in turns.
This time, after making a minute search of the little room in which Fauville's son used to sleep, they locked and bolted the doors and shutters. At eleven o'clock they switched off the electric chandelier.
Don Luis and Weber hardly slept at all.
The night passed without incident of any kind.
But, at seven o'clock, when the shutters were opened, they saw that there was a letter on the table. Just as on the last occasion, there was a letter on the table!
When the first moment of stupefaction was over, the deputy chief took the letter. His orders were not to read it and not to let any one else read it.
Here is the letter, published by the newspapers, which also published the declarations of the experts certifying that the handwriting was Hippolyte Fauville's:
"I have seen him! You understand, don't you, my dear friend? I have seen him! He was walking along a path in the Bois, with his coat collar turned up and his hat pulled over his ears. I don't think that he saw me. It was almost dark. But I knew him at once. I knew the silver handle of his ebony stick. It was he beyond a doubt, the scoundrel!
"So he is in Paris, in spite of his promise. Gaston Sauverand is in Paris! Do you understand the terrible significance of that fact? If he is in Paris, it means that he intends to act. If he is in Paris, it means certain death to me. Oh, the harm which I shall have suffered at that man's hands! He has already robbed me of my happiness; and now he wants my life. I am terrified."
So Fauville knew that the man with the ebony walking-stick, that Gaston Sauverand, was designing to kill him. Fauville declared it most positively, by evidence written in his own hand; and the letter, moreover, corroborating the words that had escaped Gaston Sauverand at his arrest, showed that the two men had at one time had relations with each other, that they were no longer friends, and that Gaston Sauverand had promised never to come to Paris.
A little light was therefore being shed on the darkness of the Mornington case. But, on the other hand, how inconceivable was the mystery of that letter found on the table in the workroom!
Five men had kept watch, five of the smartest men obtainable; and yet, on that night, as on the night of the fifteenth of April, an unknown hand had delivered the letter in a room with barricaded doors and windows, without their hearing a sound or discovering any signs that the fastenings of the doors or windows had been tampered with.
The theory of a secret outlet was at once raised, but had to be abandoned after a careful examination of the walls and after an interview with the contractor who had built the house, from Fauville's own plans, some years ago.
It is unnecessary once more to recall what I may describe as the flurry of the public. The deed, in the circumstances, assumed the appearance of a sleight-of-hand trick. People felt tempted to look upon it as the recreation of some wonderfully skilful conjurer rather than as the act of a person employing unknown methods.
Nevertheless, Don Luis Perenna's intelligence was justified at all points, for the expected incident had taken place on the twenty-fifth of April, as on the fifteenth. Would the series be continued on the fifth of May? No one doubted it, because Don Luis had said so and because everybody felt that Don Luis could not be mistaken. All through the night of the fifth of May there was a crowd on the Boulevard Suchet; and quidnuncs and night birds of every kind came trooping up to hear the latest news.
The Prefect of Police, greatly impressed by the first two miracles, had determined to see the next one for himself, and was present in person on the third night.
He came accompanied by several inspectors, whom he left in the garden, in the passage, and in the attic on the upper story. He himself took up his post on the ground floor with Weber, Mazeroux, and Don Luis Perenna.
Their expectations were disappointed; and this was M. Desmalions's fault. In spite of the express opinion of Don Luis, who deprecated the experiment as useless, the Prefect had decided not to turn off the electric light, so that he might see if the light would prevent the miracle. Under these conditions no letter could appear, and no letter did appear. The miracle, whether a conjuring trick or a criminal's device, needed the kindly aid of the darkness.
There were therefore ten days lost, always presuming that the diabolical postman would dare to repeat his attempt and produce the third mysterious letter.
* * * * *
On the fifteenth of May the wait was renewed, while the same crowd gathered outside, an anxious, breathless crowd, stirred by the least sound and keeping an impressive silence, with eyes gazing upon the Fauvilles' house.
This time the light was put out, but the Prefect of Police kept his hand on the electric switch. Ten times, twenty times, he unexpectedly turned on the light. There was nothing on the table. What had aroused his attention was the creaking of a piece of furniture or a movement made by one of the men with him.
Suddenly they all uttered an exclamation. Something unusual, a rustling noise, had interrupted the silence.
M. Desmalions at once switched on the light. He gave a cry. A letter lay not on the table, but beside it, on the floor, on the carpet.
Mazeroux made the sign of the cross. The inspectors were as pale as death.
M. Desmalions looked at Don Luis, who nodded his head without a word.
They inspected the condition of the locks and bolts. Nothing had moved.
That day again, the contents of the letter made some amends for the really extraordinary manner of its delivery. It completely dispelled all the doubts that still enshrouded the double murder on the Boulevard Suchet.
Again signed by the engineer, written throughout by himself, on the eighth of February, with no visible address, it said:
"No, my dear friend, I will not allow myself to be killed like a sheep led to the slaughter. I shall defend myself, I shall fight to the last moment. Things have changed lately. I have proofs now, undeniable proofs. I possess letters that have passed between them. And I know that they still love each other as they did at the start, that they want to marry, and that they will let nothing stand in their way. It is written, understand what I say, it is written in Marie's own hand; 'Have patience, my own Gaston. My courage increases day by day. So much the worse for him who stands between us. He shall disappear.'
"My dear friend, if I succumb in the struggle you will find those letters (and all the evidence which I have collected against the wretched creature) in the safe hidden behind the small glass case: Then revenge me. Au revoir. Perhaps good-bye."
Thus ran the third missive. Hippolyte Fauville from his grave named and accused his guilty wife. From his grave he supplied the solution to the riddle and explained the reason why the crimes had been committed: Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were lovers.
Certainly they knew of the existence of Cosmo Mornington's will, for they had begun by doing away with Cosmo Mornington; and their eagerness to come into the enormous fortune had hastened the catastrophe. But the first idea of the murder rose from an older and deep-rooted passion: Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were lovers.
One problem remained to be solved: who was the unknown correspondent to whom Hippolyte Fauville had bequeathed the task of avenging his murder, and who, instead of simply handing over the letters to the police, was exercising his ingenuity to deliver them by means of the most Machiavellian contrivances? Was it to his interest also to remain in the background?
To all these questions Marie Fauville replied in the most unexpected manner, though it was one that fully accorded with her threats. A week later, after a long cross-examination at which she was pressed for the name of her husband's old friend and at which she maintained the most stubborn silence, together with a sort of stupid inertia, she returned to her cell in the evening and opened the veins of her wrist with a piece of glass which she had managed to hide.
Don Luis heard the news from Mazeroux, who came to tell him of it before eight o'clock the next morning, just as he was getting out of bed. The sergeant had a travelling bag in his hand and was on his way to catch a train.
Don Luis was greatly upset.
"Is she dead?" he exclaimed.
"No. It seems that she has had one more let-off. But what's the good?"
"How do you mean, what's the good?"
"She'll do it again, of course. She's set her mind upon it. And, one day or another—"
"Did she volunteer no confession, this time either, before making the attempt on her life?"
"No. She wrote a few words on a scrap of paper, saying that, on thinking it over, she advised us to ask a certain M. Langernault about the mysterious letters. He was the only friend that she had known her husband to possess, or at any rate the only one whom he would have called, 'My dear fellow,' or, 'My dear friend,' This M. Langernault could do no more than prove her innocence and explain the terrible misunderstanding of which she was the victim."
"But," said Don Luis, "if there is any one to prove her innocence, why does she begin by opening her veins?"
"She doesn't care, she says. Her life is done for; and what she wants is rest and death."
"Rest? Rest? There are other ways in which she can find it besides in death. If the discovery of the truth is to spell her safety, perhaps the truth is not impossible to discover."
"What are you saying, Chief? Have you guessed anything? Are you beginning to understand?"
"Yes, very vaguely, but, all the same, the really unnatural accuracy of those letters just seems to me a sign—"
He reflected for a moment and continued:
"Have they reexamined 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."