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

the narrow border. Through the ivy he saw and heard the two policemen pacing up and down the boulevard. He tried the lock of the gate. It was fastened.

"Everything's all right," he said when he returned, "and you can be easy.
Good-night."

"Good-night," said the engineer, seeing Perenna and Mazeroux out.

Between his study and the passage were two doors, one of which was padded and covered with oilcloth. On the other side, the passage was separated from the hall by a heavy curtain.

"You can go to sleep," said Perenna to his companion. "I'll sit up."

"But surely, Chief, you don't think that anything's going to happen!"

"I don't think so, seeing the precautions which we've taken. But, knowing Inspector Vérot as you did, do you think he was the man to imagine things?"

"No, Chief."

"Well, you know what he prophesied. That means that he had his reasons for doing so. And therefore I shall keep my eyes open."

"We'll take it in turns, Chief; wake me when it's my time to watch."

Seated motionlessly, side by side, they exchanged an occasional remark. Soon after, Mazeroux fell asleep. Don Luis remained in his chair without moving, his ears pricked up. Everything was quiet in the house. Outside, from time to time, the sound of a motor car or of a cab rolled by. He could also hear the late trains on the Auteuil line.

He rose several times and went up to the door. Not a sound. Hippolyte
Fauville was evidently asleep.

"Capital!" said Perenna to himself. "The boulevard is watched. No one can enter the room except by this way. So there is nothing to fear."

At two o'clock in the morning a car stopped outside the house, and one of the manservants, who must have been waiting in the kitchen, hastened to the front door. Perenna switched off the light in the passage, and, drawing the curtain slightly aside, saw Mme. Fauville enter, followed by Silvestre.

She went up. The lights on the staircase were put out. For half an hour or so there was a sound overhead of voices and of chairs moving. Then all was silence.

And, amid this silence, Perenna felt an unspeakable anguish arise within him, he could not tell why. But it was so violent, the impression became so acute, that he muttered:

"I shall go and see if he's asleep. I don't expect that he has bolted the doors."

He had only to push both doors to open them; and, with his electric lantern in his hand, he went up to the bed. Hippolyte Fauville was sleeping with his face turned to the wall.

Perenna gave a smile of relief. He returned to the passage and, shaking Mazeroux:

"Your turn, Alexandre."

"No news, Chief?"

"No, none; he's asleep."

"How do you know?"

"I've had a look at him."

"That's funny; I never heard you. It's true, though, I've slept like a pig."

He followed Perenna into the study, and Perenna said:

"Sit down and don't wake him. I shall take forty winks."

He had one more turn at sentry duty. But, even while dozing, he remained conscious of all that happened around him. A clock struck the hours with a low chime; and each time Perenna counted the strokes. Then came the life outside awakening, the rattle of the milk-carts, the whistle of the early suburban trains.

People began to stir inside the house. The daylight trickled in through the crannies of the shutters, and the room gradually became filled with light.

"Let's go away," said Sergeant Mazeroux. "It would be better for him not to find us here."

"Hold your tongue!" said Don Luis, with an imperious gesture.

"Why?"

"You'll wake him up."

"But you can see I'm not waking him," said Mazeroux, without lowering his tone.

"That's true, that's true," whispered Don Luis, astonished that the sound of that voice had not disturbed the sleeper.

And he felt himself overcome with the same anguish that had seized upon him in the middle of the night, a more clearly defined anguish, although he would not, although he dared not, try to realize the reason of it.

"What's the matter with you, Chief? You're looking like nothing on earth.
What is it?"

"Nothing—nothing. I'm frightened—"

Mazeroux shuddered.

"Frightened of what? You say that just as he did last night."

"Yes … yes … and for the same reason."

"But—?"

"Don't you understand? Don't you understand that I'm wondering—?"

"No; what?"

"If he's not dead!"

"But you're mad, Chief!"

"No…. I don't know…. Only, only … I have an impression of death—"

Lantern in hand, he stood as one paralyzed, opposite the bed; and he who was afraid of nothing in the world had not the courage to throw the light on Hippolyte Fauville's face. A terrifying silence rose and filled the room.

"Oh, Chief, he's not moving!"

"I know … I know … and I now see that he has not moved once during the night. And that's what frightens me."

He had to make a real effort in order to step forward. He was now almost touching the bed.

The engineer did not appear to breathe.

This time, Perenna resolutely took hold of his hand.

It was icy cold.

Don Luis at once recovered all his self-possession.

"The window! Open the window!" he cried.

And, when the light flooded the room, he saw the face of Hippolyte
Fauville all swollen, stained with brown patches.

"Oh," he said, under his breath, "he's dead!"

"Dash it all! Dash it all!" spluttered the detective sergeant.

For two or three minutes they stood petrified, stupefied, staggered at the sight of this most astonishing and mysterious phenomenon. Then a sudden idea made Perenna start. He flew up the winding staircase, rushed along the gallery, and darted into the attic.

Edmond, Hippolyte Fauville's son, lay stiff and stark on his bed, with a cadaverous face, dead, too.

"Dash it all! Dash it all!" repeated Mazeroux.

Never, perhaps, in the course of his adventurous career, had Perenna experienced such a knockdown blow. It gave him a feeling of extreme lassitude, depriving him of all power of speech or movement. Father and son were dead! They had been killed during that night! A few hours earlier, though the house was watched and every outlet hermetically closed, both had been poisoned by an infernal puncture, even as Inspector Vérot was poisoned, even as Cosmo Mornington was poisoned.

"Dash it all!" said Mazeroux once more. "It was not worth troubling about the poor devils and performing such miracles to save them!"

The exclamation conveyed a reproach. Perenna grasped it and admitted:

"You are right, Mazeroux; I was not equal to the job."

"Nor I, Chief."

"You … you have only been in this business since yesterday evening—"

"Well, so have you, Chief!"

"Yes, I know, since yesterday evening, whereas the others have been working at it for weeks and weeks. But, all the same, these two are dead; and I was there, I, Lupin, was there! The thing has been done under my eyes; and I saw nothing! I saw nothing! How is it possible?"

He uncovered the poor boy's shoulders, showing the mark of a puncture at the top of the arm.

"The same mark—the same mark obviously that we shall find on the father…. The lad does not seem to have suffered, either…. Poor little chap! He did not look very strong…. Never mind, it's a nice face; what a terrible blow for his mother when she learns!"

The detective sergeant wept with anger and pity, while he kept on mumbling:

"Dash it all!… Dash it all!"

"We shall avenge them, eh, Mazeroux?"

"Rather, Chief! Twice over!"

"Once will do, Mazeroux. But it shall be done with a will."

"That I swear it shall!"

"You're right; let's swear. Let us swear that this dead pair shall be avenged. Let us swear not to lay down our arms until the murderers of Hippolyte Fauville and his son are punished as they deserve."

"I swear it as I hope to be saved, Chief."

"Good!" said Perenna. "And now to work. You go and telephone at once to the police office. I am sure that M. Desmalions will approve of your informing him without delay. He takes an immense interest in the case."

"And if the servants come? If Mme. Fauville—?"

"No one will come till we open the doors; and we shan't open them except to the Prefect of Police. It will be for him, afterward, to tell Mme. Fauville that she is a widow and that she has no son. Go! Hurry!"

"One moment, Chief; we are forgetting something that will help us enormously."

"What's that?"

"The little drab-cloth diary in the safe, in which M. Fauville describes the plot against him."

"Why, of course!" said Perenna. "You're right … especially as he omitted to mix up the letters of the lock last night, and the key is on the bunch which he left lying on the table."

They ran down the stairs.

"Leave this to me," said Mazeroux. "It's more regular that you shouldn't touch the safe."

He took the bunch, moved the glass case, and inserted the key with a feverish emotion which Don Luis felt even more acutely than he did. They were at last about to know the details of the mysterious story. The dead man himself would betray the secret of his murderers.

"Lord, what a time you take!" growled Don Luis.

Mazeroux plunged both hands into the crowd of papers that encumbered the iron shelf.

"Well, Mazeroux, hand it over."

"What?"

"The diary."

"I can't Chief."

"What's that?"

"It's gone."

Don Luis stifled an oath. The drab-cloth diary, which the engineer had placed in the safe before their eyes, had disappeared.

Mazeroux shook his head.

"Dash it all! So they knew about that diary!"

"Of course they did; and they knew plenty of other things besides. We've not seen the end of it with those fellows. There's no time to lose. Ring up!"

Mazeroux did so and soon received the answer that M. Desmalions was coming to the telephone. He waited.

In a few minutes Perenna, who had been walking up and down, examining different objects in the room, came and sat down beside Mazeroux. He seemed thoughtful. He reflected for some time. But then, his eyes falling on the fruit dish, he muttered:

"Hullo! There are only three apples instead of four. Then he ate the fourth."

"Yes," said Mazeroux, "he must have eaten it."

"That's funny," replied Perenna, "for he didn't think them ripe."

He was silent once more, sat leaning his elbows on the table, visibly preoccupied; then, raising his head, he let fall these words:

"The murder was committed before we entered the room, at half-past twelve exactly."

"How do you know, Chief?"

"M. Fauville's murderer or murderers, in touching the things on the table, knocked down the watch which M. Fauville had placed there. They put it back; but the fall had stopped it. And it stopped at half-past twelve."

"Then, Chief, when we settled ourselves here, at two in the morning, it was a corpse that was lying beside us and another over our heads?"

"Yes."

"But how did those devils get in?"

"Through this door, which opens on the garden, and through the gate that opens on the Boulevard Suchet."

"Then they had keys to the locks and bolts?"

"False keys, yes."

"But the policemen watching the house outside?"

"They are still watching it, as that sort watch a house, walking from point to point without thinking that people can slip into a garden while they have their backs turned. That's what took place in coming and going."

Sergeant Mazeroux seemed flabbergasted. The criminals' daring, their skill, the precision of their acts bewildered him.

"They're deuced clever," he said.

"Deuced clever, Mazeroux, as you say; and I foresee a tremendous battle.
By Jupiter, with what a vim they set to work!"

The telephone bell rang. Don Luis left Mazeroux to his conversation with the Prefect, and, taking the bunch of keys, easily unfastened the lock and the bolt of the door and went out into the garden, in the hope of there finding some trace that should facilitate his quest.

As on the day before, he saw, through the ivy, two policemen walking between one lamp-post and the next. They did not see him. Moreover, anything that might happen inside the house appeared to be to them a matter of total indifference.

"That's my great mistake," said Perenna to