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

tall man, with a slight stoop, wearing a reddish-brown beard cut into a point, a tortoise-shell eyeglass with a black silk ribbon, and an ebony walking-stick with a handle shaped like a swan's head.

"That's something for the police to go upon," said Mazeroux.

They were leaving the café when Don Luis stopped his companion.

"One moment."

"What's the matter?"

"We've been followed."

"Followed? What next? And by whom, pray?"

"No one that matters. I know who it is and I may as well settle his business and have done with it. Wait for me. I shall be back; and I'll show you some fun. You shall see one of the 'nuts,' I promise you."

He returned in a minute with a tall, thin man with his face set in whiskers. He introduced him:

"M. Mazeroux, a friend of mine, Señor Caceres, an attaché at the Peruvian Legation. Señor Caceres took part in the interview at the Prefect's just now. It was he who, on the Peruvian Minister's instructions, collected the documents bearing upon my identity." And he added gayly: "So you were looking for me, dear Señor Caceres. Indeed, I expected, when we left the police office—"

The Peruvian attaché made a sign and pointed to Sergeant Mazeroux.
Perenna replied:

"Oh, pray don't mind M. Mazeroux! You can speak before him; he is the soul of discretion. Besides, he knows all about the business."

The attaché was silent. Perenna made him sit down in front of him.

"Speak without beating about the bush, dear Señor Caceres. It's a subject that calls for plain dealing; and I don't mind a blunt word or two. It saves such a lot of time! Come on. You want money, I suppose? Or, rather, more money. How much?"

The Peruvian had a final hesitation, gave a glance at Don Luis's companion, and then, suddenly making up his mind, said in a dull voice:

"Fifty thousand francs!"

"Oh, by Jove, by Jove!" cried Don Luis. "You're greedy, you know! What do you say, M. Mazeroux? Fifty thousand francs is a lot of money. Especially as—Look here, my dear Caceres, let's go over the ground again.

"Three years ago I had the honour of making your acquaintance in Algeria, when you were touring the country. At the same time, I understood the sort of man you were; and I asked you if you could manage, in three years, with my name of Perenna, to fix me up a Spanish-Peruvian identity, furnished with unquestionable papers and respectable ancestors. You said, 'Yes,' We settled the price: twenty thousand francs. Last week, when the Prefect of Police asked me for my papers, I came to see you and learned that you had just been instructed to make inquiries into my antecedents.

"Everything was ready, as it happened. With the papers of a deceased Peruvian nobleman, of the name of Pereira, properly revised, you had faked me up a first-rate civic status. We arranged what you were to say before the Prefect of Police; and I paid up the twenty thousand. We were quits. What more do you want?"

The Pervian attaché did not betray the least embarrassment. He put his two elbows on the table and said, very calmly:

"Monsieur, when treating with you, three years ago, I thought I was dealing with a gentleman who, hiding himself under the uniform of the Foreign Legion, wished to recover the means to live respectably afterward. To-day, I have to do with the universal legatee of Cosmo Mornington, with a man who, to-morrow, under a false name, will receive the sum of one million francs and, in a few months, perhaps, the sum of a hundred millions. That's quite a different thing."

The argument seemed to strike Don Luis. Nevertheless, he objected:

"And, if I refuse—?"

"If you refuse, I shall inform the solicitor and the Prefect of Police that I made an error in my inquiry and that there is some mistake about Don Luis Perenna. In consequence of which you will receive nothing at all and very likely find yourself in jail."

"With you, my worthy sir."

"Me?"

"Of course: on a charge of forgery and tampering with registers. For you don't imagine that I should take it lying down."

The attaché did not reply. His nose, which was a very big one, seemed to lengthen out still farther between his two long whiskers.

Don Luis began to laugh.

"Come, Señor Caceres, don't pull such a face! No one's going to hurt you. Only don't think that you can corner me. Better men than you have tried and have broken their backs in the process. And, upon my word, you don't cut much of a figure when you're doing your best to diddle your fellowmen.

"You look a bit of a mug, in fact, Caceres: a bit of a mug is what you look. So it's understood, what? We lay down our arms. No more base designs against our excellent friend Perenna. Capital, Señor Caceres, capital. And now I'll be magnanimous and prove to you that the decent man of us two is—the one whom any one would have thought!"

He produced a check-book on the Crédit Lyonnais.

"Here, my dear chap. Here's twenty thousand francs as a present from Cosmo Mornington's legatee. Put it in your pocket and look pleasant. Say thank you to the kind gentleman, and make yourself scarce without turning your head any more than if you were one of old man Lot's daughters. Off you go: hoosh!"

This was said in such a manner that the attaché obeyed Don Luis Perenna's injunctions to the letter. He smiled as he pocketed the check, said thank you twice over, and made off without turning his head.

"The low hound!" muttered Don Luis. "What do you say to that, Sergeant?"

Sergeant Mazeroux was looking at him in stupefaction, with his eyes starting from his head.

"Well, but, Monsieur—"

"What, Sergeant?"

"Well, but, Monsieur, who are you?"

"Who am I?"

"Yes."

"Didn't they tell you? A Peruvian nobleman, or a Spanish nobleman, I don't know which. In short, Don Luis Perenna."

"Bunkum! I've just heard—"

"Don Luis Perenna, late of the Foreign Legion."

"Enough of that, Monsieur—"

"Medaled and decorated with a stripe on every seam."

"Once more, Monsieur, enough of that; and come along with me to the Prefect."

"But, let me finish, hang it! I was saying, late private in the Foreign Legion…. Late hero…. Late prisoner of the Sureté…. Late Russian prince…. Late chief of the detective service…. Late—"

"But you're mad!" snarled the sergeant. "What's all this story?"

"It's a true story, Sergeant, and quite genuine. You ask me who I am; and I'm telling you categorically. Must I go farther back? I have still more titles to offer you: marquis, baron, duke, archduke, grand-duke, petty-duke, superduke—the whole 'Almanach de Gotha,' by Jingo! If any one told me that I had been a king, by all that's holy, I shouldn't dare swear to the contrary!"

Sergeant Mazeroux put out his own hands, accustomed to rough work, seized the seemingly frail wrists of the man addressing him and said:

"No nonsense, now. I don't know whom I've got hold of, but I shan't let you go. You can say what you have to say at the Prefect's."

"Don't speak so loud, Alexandre."

The two frail wrists were released with unparalleled ease; the sergeant's powerful hands were caught and rendered useless; and Don Luis grinned:

"Don't you know me, you idiot?"

Sergeant Mazeroux did not utter a word. His eyes started still farther from his head. He tried to understand and remained absolutely dumfounded.

The sound of that voice, that way of jesting, that schoolboy playfulness allied with that audacity, the quizzing expression of those eyes, and lastly that Christian name of Alexandre, which was not his name at all and which only one person used to give him, years ago. Was it possible?

"The chief!" he stammered. "The chief!"

"Why not?"

"No, no, because—"

"Because what?"

"Because you're dead."

"Well, what about it? D'you think it interferes with my living, being dead?"

And, as the other seemed more and more perplexed, he laid his hand on his shoulder and said:

"Who put you into the police office?"

"The Chief Detective, M. Lenormand."

"And who was M. Lenormand?"

"The chief."

"You mean Arsène Lupin, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Well, Alexandre, don't you know that it was much more difficult for Arsène Lupin to be Chief Detective—and a masterly Chief Detective he was—than to be Don Luis Perenna, to be decorated in the Foreign Legion, to be a hero, and even to be alive after he was dead?"

Sergeant Mazeroux examined his companion in silence. Then his lacklustre eyes brightened, his drab features turned scarlet and, suddenly striking the table with his fist, he growled, in an angry voice:

"All right, very well! But I warn you that you mustn't reckon on me. No, not that! I'm in the detective service; and in the detective service I remain. Nothing doing. I've tasted honesty and I mean to eat no other bread. No, no, no, no! No more humbug!"

Perenna shrugged his shoulders:

"Alexandre, you're an ass. Upon my word, the bread of honesty hasn't enlarged your intelligence. Who talked of starting again?"

"But—"

"But what?"

"All your maneuvers, Chief."

"My maneuvers! Do you think I have anything to say to this business?"

"Look here, Chief—"

"Why, I'm out of it altogether, my lad! Two hours ago I knew no more about it than you do. It's Providence that chucked this legacy at me, without so much as shouting, 'Heads!' And it's in obedience to the decrees of—"

"Then—?"

"It's my mission in life to avenge Cosmo Mornington, to find his natural heirs, to protect them and to divide among them the hundred millions that belong to them. That's all. Don't you call that the mission of an honest man?"

"Yes, but—"

"Yes, but, if I don't fulfil it as an honest man: is that what you mean?"

"Chief—"

"Well, my lad, if you notice the least thing in my conduct that dissatisfies you, if you discover a speck of black on Don Luis Perenna's conscience, examined under the magnifying glass, don't hesitate: collar me with both hands. I authorize you to do it. I order you to do it. Is that enough for you?"

"It's not enough for it to be enough for me, Chief."

"What are you talking about?"

"There are the others."

"Explain yourself."

"Suppose you're nabbed?"

"How?"

"You can be betrayed."

"By whom?"

"Your old mates."

"Gone away. I've sent them out of France."

"Where to?"

"That's my secret. I left you at the police office, in case I should require your services; and you see that I was right."

"But suppose the police discover your real identity?"

"Well?"

"They'll arrest you."

"Impossible!"

"Why?"

"They can't arrest me."

"For what reason?"

"You've said it yourself, fat-head: a first-class, tremendous, indisputable reason."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm dead!"

Mazeroux seemed staggered. The argument struck him fully. He at once perceived it, with all its common sense and all its absurdity. And suddenly he burst into a roar of laughter which bent him in two and convulsed his doleful features in the oddest fashion:

"Oh, Chief, just the same as always!… Lord, how funny!… Will I come along? I should think I would! As often as you like! You're dead and buried and put out of sight!… Oh, what a joke, what a joke!"

* * * * *

Hippolyte Fauville, civil engineer, lived on the Boulevard Suchet, near the fortifications, in a fair-sized private house having on its left a small garden in which he had built a large room that served as his study. The garden was thus reduced to a few trees and to a strip of grass along the railings, which were covered with ivy and contained a gate that opened on the Boulevard Suchet.

Don Luis Perenna went with Mazeroux to the commissary's office at Passy, where Mazeroux, on Perenna's instructions, gave his name and asked to have M. Fauville's house watched during the night by two policemen who were to arrest any suspicious person trying to obtain admission. The commissary agreed to the request.

Don Luis and Mazeroux next dined in the neighbourhood. At nine o'clock they reached the front door of the house.

"Alexandre," said Perenna.

"Yes, Chief?"

"You're not