The Teeth of the Tiger by Maurice Leblanc (great novels to read txt) 📗

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 and
Mazeroux. 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 with
Electricity." They were all covered with notes in the margins. He was
turning 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 Inspector
Ancenis.

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 Gaston
Sauverand 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