The Teeth of the Tiger

"In the afternoon I consulted a great physician and I no longer had the least doubt left: the malady that was eating into me was cancer. And I knew besides that, like myself, my son Edmond was on the road to the grave, incurably stricken with consumption.

"That same evening I conceived the magnificent idea of revenge. And such a revenge! The most dreadful of accusations made against a man and a woman in love with each other! Prison! The assizes! Penal servitude! The scaffold! And no assistance possible, not a struggle, not a hope! Accumulated proofs, proofs so formidable as to make the innocent themselves doubt their own innocence and remain hopelessly and helplessly dumb. What a revenge!… And what a punishment! To be innocent and to struggle vainly against the very facts that accuse you, the very certainty that proclaims you guilty.

"And I prepared everything with a glad heart. Each happy thought, each invention made me shout with laughter. Lord, how merry I was! You would think that cancer hurts: not a bit of it! How can you suffer physical pain when your soul is quivering with delight? Do you think I feel the hideous burning of the poison at this moment?

"I am happy. The death which I have inflicted on myself is the beginning of their torment. Then why live and wait for a natural death which to them would mean the beginning of their happiness? And as Edmond had to die, why not save him a lingering illness and give him a death which would double the crime of Marie and Sauverand?

"The end is coming. I had to break off: the pain was too much for me. Now to pull myself together…. How silent everything is! Outside the house and in the house are emissaries of the police watching over my crime. At no great distance, Marie, in obedience to my letter, is hurrying to the trysting place, where her beloved will not come. And the beloved is roaming under the windows where his darling will not appear.

"Oh, the dear little puppets whose string I pull! Dance! Jump! Skip! Lord, what fun they are! A rope round your neck, sir; and, madam, a rope round yours. Was it not you, sir, who poisoned Inspector Vérot this morning and followed him to the Café du Pont-Neuf, with your grand ebony walking-stick? Why, of course it was! And at night the pretty lady poisons me and poisons her stepson. Prove it? Well, what about this apple, madam, this apple which you did not bite into and which all the same will be found to bear the marks of your teeth? What fun! Dance! Jump! Skip!

"And the letters! The trick of my letters to the late lamented Langernault! That was my crowning triumph. Oh, the joy of it, when I invented and constructed my little mechanical toy! Wasn't it nicely thought out? Isn't it wonderfully neat and accurate? On the appointed day, click, the first letter! And, ten days after, click, the second letter! Come, there's no hope for you, my poor friends, you're nicely done for. Dance! Jump! Skip!

"And what amuses me—for I am laughing now—is to think that nobody will know what to make of it. Marie and Sauverand guilty: of that there is not the least doubt. But, outside that, absolute mystery.

"Nobody will know nor ever will know anything. In a few weeks' time, when the two criminals are irrevocably doomed, when the letters are in the hands of the police, on the 25th, or, rather, at 3 o'clock on the morning of the 26th of May, an explosion will destroy every trace of my work. The bomb is in its place. A movement entirely independent of the chandelier will explode it at the hour aforesaid.

"I have just laid beside it the drab-cloth manuscript book in which I pretended that I wrote my diary, the phials containing the poison, the needles which I used, an ebony walking-stick, two letters from Inspector Vérot, in short, anything that might save the culprits. Then how can any one know? No, nobody will know nor ever will know anything.

"Unless—unless some miracle happens—unless the bomb leaves the walls standing and the ceiling intact. Unless, by some marvel of intelligence and intuition, a man of genius, unravelling the threads which I have tangled, should penetrate to the very heart of the riddle and succeed, after a search lasting for months and months, in discovering this final letter.

"It is for this man that I write, well knowing that he cannot exist. But, after all, what do I care? Marie and Sauverand will be at the bottom of the abyss by then, dead no doubt, or in any case separated forever. And I risk nothing by leaving this evidence of my hatred in the hands of chance.

"There, that's finished. I have only to sign. My hand shakes more and more. The sweat is pouring from my forehead in great drops. I am suffering the tortures of the damned and I am divinely happy! Aha, my friends, you were waiting for my death!

"You, Marie, imprudently let me read in your eyes, which watched me stealthily, all your delight at seeing me so ill! And you were both of you so sure of the future that you had the courage to wait patiently for my death! Well, here it is, my death! Here it is and there are you, united above my grave, linked together with the handcuffs. Marie, be the wife of my friend Sauverand. Sauverand, I bestow my spouse upon you. Be joined together in holy matrimony. Bless you, my children!

"The examining magistrate will draw up the contract and the executioner will read the marriage service. Oh, the delight of it! I suffer agonies—but oh, the delight! What a fine thing is hatred, when it makes death a joy! I am happy in dying. Marie is in prison. Sauverand is weeping in the condemned man's cell. The door opens….

"Oh, horror! the men in black! They walk up to the bed: 'Gaston Sauverand, your appeal is rejected. Courage! Be a man!' Oh, the cold, dark morning—the scaffold! It's your turn, Marie, your turn! Would you survive your lover? Sauverand is dead: it's your turn. See, here's a rope for you. Or would you rather have poison? Die, will you, you hussy! Die with your veins on fire—as I am doing, I who hate you—hate you—hate you!"

M. Desmalions ceased, amid the silent astonishment of all those present. He had great difficulty in reading the concluding lines, the writing having become almost wholly shapeless and illegible.

He said, in a low voice, as he stared at the paper: "'Hippolyte Fauville,' The signature is there. The scoundrel found a last remnant of strength to sign his name clearly. He feared that a doubt might be entertained of his villainy. And indeed how could any one have suspected it?"

And, looking at Don Luis, he added:

"It needed, to solve the mystery, a really exceptional power of insight and gifts to which we must all do homage, to which I do homage. All the explanations which that madman gave have been anticipated in the most accurate and bewildering fashion."

Don Luis bowed and, without replying to the praise bestowed upon him, said:

"You are right, Monsieur le Préfet; he was a madman, and one of the most dangerous kind, the lucid madman who pursues an idea from which nothing will make him turn aside. He pursued it with superhuman tenacity and with all the resources of his fastidious mind, enslaved by the laws of mechanics.

"Another would have killed his victims frankly and brutally. He set his wits to work to kill at a long date, like an experimenter who leaves to time the duty of proving the excellence of his invention. And he succeeded only too well, because the police fell into the trap and because Mme. Fauville is perhaps going to die."

M. Desmalions made a gesture of decision. The whole business, in fact, was past history, on which the police proceedings would throw the necessary light. One fact alone was of importance to the present: the saving of Marie Fauville's life.

"It's true," he said, "we have not a minute to lose. Mme. Fauville must be told without delay. At the same time, I will send for the examining magistrate; and the case against her is sure to be dismissed at once."

He swiftly gave orders for continuing the investigations and verifying Don Luis's theories. Then, turning to Perenna:

"Come, Monsieur," he said. "It is right that Mme. Fauville should thank her rescuer. Mazeroux, you come, too."

The meeting was over, that meeting in the course of which Don Luis had given the most striking proofs of his genius. Waging war, so to speak, upon the powers beyond the grave, he had forced the dead man to reveal his secret. He disclosed, as though he had been present throughout, the hateful vengeance conceived in the darkness and carried out in the tomb.

* * * * *

M. Desmalions showed all his admiration by his silence and by certain movements of his head. And Perenna took a keen enjoyment in the strange fact that he, who was being hunted down by the police a few hours ago, should now be sitting in a motor car beside the head of that same force.

Nothing threw into greater relief the masterly manner in which he had conducted the business and the importance which the police attached to the results obtained. The value of his collaboration was such that they were willing to forget the incidents of the last two days. The grudge which Weber bore him was now of no avail against Don Luis Perenna.

M. Desmalions, meanwhile, began briefly to review the new solutions, and he concluded by still discussing certain points.

"Yes, that's it … there is not the least shadow of a doubt…. We agree…. It's that and nothing else. Still, one or two things remain obscure. First of all, the mark of the teeth. This, notwithstanding the husband's admission, is a fact which we cannot neglect."

"I believe that the explanation is a very simple one, Monsieur le Préfet. I will give it to you as soon as I am able to support it with the necessary proofs."

"Very well. But another question: how is it that Weber, yesterday morning, found that sheet of paper relating to the explosion in Mlle. Levasseur's room?"

"And how was it," added Don Luis, laughing, "that I found there the list of the five dates corresponding with the delivery of the letters?"

"So you are of my opinion?" said M. Desmalions. "The part played by Mlle.

Levasseur is at least suspicious."

"I believe that everything will be cleared up, Monsieur le Préfet, and that you need now only question Mme. Fauville and Gaston Sauverand in order to dispel these last obscurities and remove all suspicion from Mlle. Levasseur."

"And then," insisted M. Desmalions, "there is one more fact that strikes me as odd. Hippolyte Fauville does not once mention the Mornington inheritance in his confession. Why? Did he not know of it? Are we to suppose that there is no connection, beyond a mere casual coincidence, between the series of crimes and that bequest?"

"There, I am entirely of your opinion, Monsieur le Préfet. Hippolyte Fauville's silence as to that bequest perplexes me a little, I confess. But all the same I look upon it as comparatively unimportant. The main thing is Fauville's guilt and the prisoners' innocence."

Don Luis's delight was pure and unbounded. From his point of view, the sinister tragedy was at an end with the discovery of the confession written by Hippolyte Fauville. Anything not explained in those lines would be explained by the details to be supplied by Mme. Fauville, Florence Levasseur, and Gaston Sauverand. He himself had lost all interest in the matter.

The car drew up at Saint-Lazare, the wretched, sordid old prison which is still waiting to be pulled down.

The Prefect jumped out. The door was opened at once.

"Is the prison governor there?" he asked. "Quick! send for him, it's urgent."

Then, unable to wait, he at once hastened toward the corridors leading to the infirmary and, as he reached the first-floor landing, came up against the governor himself.

"Mme. Fauville," he said, without waste of time. "I want to see her—"

But he stopped short when he saw the expression of consternation on the prison governor's face.

"Well, what is it?" he asked. "What's the matter?"

"Why, haven't you heard, Monsieur le Préfet?" stammered the governor. "I telephoned to the office, you know—"

"Speak! What is it?"

"Mme. Fauville died this morning. She managed somehow to take poison."

M. Desmalions seized the governor by the arm and ran to the infirmary, followed by Perenna and Mazeroux.

He saw Marie Fauville lying on a bed in one of the rooms. Her pale face and her shoulders were stained with brown patches, similar to those which had marked the bodies of Inspector Vérot, Hippolyte Fauville, and his son Edmond.

Greatly upset, the Prefect murmured:

"But the poison—where did it come from?"

"This phial and syringe were found under her pillow, Monsieur le Préfet."

"Under her pillow? But how did they get there? How did they reach her?

Who gave them to her?"

"We don't know yet, Monsieur le Préfet."

M. Desmalions looked at Don Luis. So Hippolyte Fauville's suicide had not put an end to the series of crimes! His action had done more than aim at Marie's death by the hand of the law: it had now driven her to take poison! Was it possible? Was it admissible that the dead man's revenge should still continue in the same automatic and anonymous manner?

Or rather—or rather, was there not some other mysterious will which was secretly and as audaciously carrying on Hippolyte Fauville's diabolical work?

* * * * *

Two days later came a fresh sensation: Gaston Sauverand was found dying in his cell. He had had the courage to strangle himself with his bedsheet. All efforts to restore him to life were vain.

On the table near him lay a half-dozen newspaper cuttings, which had been passed to him by an unknown hand. All of them told the news of Marie Fauville's death.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE HEIR TO THE HUNDRED MILLIONS

On the fourth evening after the tragic events related, an old cab-driver, almost entirely hidden in a huge great-coat, rang at Perenna's door and sent up a letter to Don Luis. He was at once shown into the study on the first floor. Hardly taking time to throw off his great-coat, he rushed at Don Luis:

"It's all up with you this time, Chief!" he exclaimed. "This is no moment for joking: pack up your trunks and be off as quick as you can!"

Don Luis, who sat quietly smoking in an easy chair, answered:

"Which will you have, Mazeroux? A cigar or a cigarette?"

Mazeroux at once grew indignant.

"But look here, Chief, don't you read the papers?"

"Worse luck!"

"In that case, the situation must appear as clear to you as it does to me and everybody else. During the last three days, since the double suicide, or, rather, the double murder of Marie Fauville and her cousin Gaston Sauverand, there hasn't been a newspaper but has said this kind of thing: 'And, now that M. Fauville, his son, his wife, and his cousin Gaston Sauverand are dead, there's nothing standing between Don Luis Perenna and the Mornington inheritance!'

"Do you understand what that means? Of course, people speak of the explosion on the Boulevard Suchet and of Fauville's posthumous revelations; and they are disgusted with that dirty brute of a Fauville; and they don't know how to praise your cleverness enough. But there is one fact that forms the main subject of every conversation and every discussion.

"Now that the three branches of the Roussel family are extinct, who remains? Don Luis Perenna. In default of the natural heirs, who inherits the property? Don Luis Perenna."

"Lucky dog!"

"That's what people are saying, Chief. They say that this series of murders and atrocities cannot be the effort of chance coincidences, but, on the contrary, points to the existence of an all-powerful will which began with the murder of Cosmo Mornington and ended with the capture of the hundred millions. And to give a name to that will, they pitch on the nearest, that of the extraordinary, glorious, ill-famed, bewildering, mysterious, omnipotent, and ubiquitous person who was Cosmo Mornington's intimate friend and who, from the beginning, has controlled events and pieced them together, accusing and acquitting people, getting them arrested, and helping them to escape.

"They say," he went on hurriedly, "that he manages the whole business and that, if he works it in accordance with his interests, there are a hundred millions waiting for him at the finish. And this person is Don Luis Perenna, in other words, Arsène Lupin, the man with the unsavoury reputation whom it would be madness not to think of in connection with so colossal a job."

"Thank you!"

"That's what they say, Chief; I'm only telling you. As long as Mme. Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were alive, people did not give much thought to your claims as residuary legatee. But both of them died. Then, you see, people can't help remarking the really surprising persistence with which luck looks after Don Luis Perenna's interests. You know the legal maxim: fecit cui prodest. Who benefits by the disappearance of all the Roussel heirs? Don Luis Perenna."

"The scoundrel!"

"The scoundrel: that's the word which Weber goes roaring out all along the passages of the police office and the criminal investigation department. You are the scoundrel and Florence Levasseur is your accomplice. And hardly any one dares protest.

"The Prefect of Police? What is the use of his defending you, of his remembering that you have saved his life twice over and rendered invaluable services to the police which he is the first to appreciate? What is the use of his going to the Prime Minister, though we all know that Valenglay protects you?

"There are others besides the Prefect of Police! There are others besides the Prime Minister! There's the whole of the detective office, there's the public prosecutor's staff, there's the examining magistrate, the press and, above all, public opinion, which has to be satisfied and which calls for and expects a culprit. That culprit is yourself or Florence Levasseur. Or, rather, it's you and Florence Levasseur."

Don Luis did not move a muscle of his face. Mazeroux waited a moment longer. Then, receiving no reply, he made a gesture of despair.

"Chief, do you know what you are compelling me to do? To betray my duty. Well, let me tell you this: to-morrow morning you will receive a summons to appear before the examining magistrate. At the end of your examination, whatever questions may have been put to you and whatever you may have answered, you will be taken straight to the lockup. The warrant is signed. That is what your enemies have done."

"The devil!"

"And that's not all. Weber, who is burning to take his revenge, has asked for permission to watch your house from this day onward, so that you may not slip away as Florence Levasseur did. He will be here with his men in an hour's time. What do you say to that, Chief?"

Without abandoning his careless attitude, Don Luis beckoned to Mazeroux.

"Sergeant, just look under that sofa between the windows."

Don Luis was serious. Mazeroux instinctively obeyed. Under the sofa was a portmanteau.

"Sergeant, in ten minutes, when I have told my servants to go to bed, carry the portmanteau to 143 bis Rue de Rivoli, where I have taken a small flat under the name of M. Lecocq."

"What for, Chief? What does it mean?"

"It means that, having no trustworthy person to carry that portmanteau for me, I have been waiting for your visit for the last three days."

"Why, but—" stammered Mazeroux, in his confusion.

"Why but what?"

"Had you made up your mind to clear out?"

"Of course I had! But why hurry? The reason I placed you in the detective office was that I might know what was being plotted against me. Since you tell me that I'm in danger, I shall cut my stick."

And, as Mazeroux looked at him with increasing bewilderment, he tapped him on the shoulder and said severely:

"You see, Sergeant, that it was not worth while to disguise yourself as a cab-driver and betray your duty. You should never betray your duty, Sergeant. Ask your own conscience: I am sure that it will judge you according to your deserts."

Don Luis had spoken the truth. Recognizing how greatly the deaths of Marie Fauville and Sauverand had altered the situation, he considered it wise to move to a place of safety. His excuse for not doing so before was that he hoped to receive news of Florence Levasseur either by letter or by telephone. As the girl persisted in keeping silence, there was no reason why Don Luis should risk an arrest which the course of events made extremely probable.

And in fact his anticipations were correct. Next morning Mazeroux came to the little flat in the Rue de Rivoli looking very spry.

"You've had a narrow escape, Chief. Weber heard this morning that the bird had flown. He's simply furious! And you must confess that the tangle is getting worse and worse. They're utterly at a loss at headquarters. They don't even know how to set about prosecuting Florence Levasseur.

"You must have read about it in the papers. The examining magistrate maintains that, as Fauville committed suicide and killed his son Edmond, Florence Levasseur has nothing to do with the matter. In his opinion the case is closed on that side. Well, he's a good one, the examining magistrate! What about Gaston Sauverand's death? Isn't it as clear as daylight that Florence had a hand in it, as well as in all the rest?

"Wasn't it in her room, in a volume of Shakespeare, that documents were found relating to M. Fauville's arrangements about the letters and the explosion? And then—"

Mazeroux interrupted himself, frightened by the look in Don Luis's eyes and realizing that the chief was fonder of the girl then ever. Guilty or not, she inspired him with the same passion.

"All right," said Mazeroux, "we'll say no more about it. The future will bear me out, you'll see."

* * * * *

The days passed. Mazeroux called as often as possible, or else telephoned to Don Luis all the details of the two inquiries that were being pursued at Saint-Lazare and at the Santé Prison.

Vain inquiries, as we know. While Don Luis's statements relating to the electric chandelier and the automatic distribution of the mysterious letters were found to be correct, the investigation failed to reveal anything about the two suicides.

At most, it was ascertained that, before his arrest, Sauverand had tried to enter into correspondence with Marie through one of the tradesmen supplying the infirmary. Were they to suppose that the phial of poison and the hypodermic syringe had been introduced by the same means? It was impossible to prove; and, on the other hand, it was impossible to discover how the newspaper cuttings telling of Marie's suicide had found their way into Gaston Sauverand's cell.

And then the original mystery still remained, the unfathomable mystery of the marks of teeth in the apple. M. Fauville's posthumous confession acquitted Marie. And yet it was undoubtedly Marie's teeth that had marked the apple. The teeth that had been called the teeth of the tiger were certainly hers. Well, then!

In short, as Mazeroux said, everybody was groping in the dark, so much so that the Prefect, who was called upon by the will to assemble the Mornington heirs at a date not less than three nor more than four months after the testator's decease, suddenly decided that the meeting should take place in the course of the following week and fixed it for the ninth of June.

He hoped in this way to put an end to an exasperating case in which the police displayed nothing but uncertainty and confusion. They would decide about the inheritance according to circumstances and then close the proceedings. And gradually people would cease to talk about the wholesale slaughter of the Mornington heirs; and the mystery of the teeth of the tiger would be gradually forgotten.

It was strange, but these last days, which were restless and feverish like all the days that come before great battles—and every one felt that this last meeting meant a great battle—were spent by Don Luis in an armchair on his balcony in the Rue de Rivoli, where he sat quietly smoking cigarettes, or blowing soap-bubbles which the wind carried toward the garden of the Tuileries.

Mazeroux could not get over it.

"Chief, you astound me! How calm and careless you look!"

"I am calm and careless, Alexandre."

"But what do you mean? Doesn't the case interest you? Don't you intend to avenge Mme. Fauville and Sauverand? You are openly accused and you sit here blowing soap-bubbles!"