The Teeth of the Tiger - Maurice Leblanc (feel good books txt) 📗

gutter the most fantastic dream that mortal man had ever conceived and realized.

He asked:

“What guarantees do you require, Monsieur le Président?”

“None.”

“I can show you treaties, documents to prove⁠—”

“Don’t trouble. We’ll talk about all that tomorrow. Meanwhile, go ahead. You are free.”

The essential word, the incredible word, was spoken.

Don Luis took a few steps toward the door.

“One word more, Monsieur le Président,” he said, stopping. “Among my former companions is one for whom I procured a post suited to his inclinations and his deserts. This man I did not send for to come to Africa, thinking that some day or other he might be of use to me through the position which he occupied. I am speaking of Mazeroux, a sergeant in the detective service.”

“Sergeant Mazeroux, whom Caceres denounced, with corroborating evidence, as an accomplice of Arsène Lupin, is in prison.”

“Sergeant Mazeroux is a model of professional honour, Monsieur le Président. I owed his assistance only to the fact that I was helping the police. I was accepted as an auxiliary and more or less patronized by Monsieur le Préfet. Mazeroux thwarted me in anything I tried to do that was at all illegal. And he would have been the first to take me by the collar if he had been so instructed. I ask for his release.”

“Oho!”

“Monsieur le Président, your consent will be an act of justice and I beg you to grant it. Sergeant Mazerou shall leave France. He can be charged by the government with a secret mission in the south of Morocco, with the rank of colonial inspector.”

“Agreed,” said Valenglay, laughing heartily. And he added, “My dear Préfect, once we depart from the strictly lawful path, there’s no saying where we come to. But the end justifies the means; and the end which we have in view is to have done with this loathsome Mornington case.”

“This evening everything will be settled,” said Don Luis.

“I hope so. Our men are on the track.”

“They are on the track, but they have to check that track at every town, at every village, by inquiries made of every peasant they meet; they have to find out if the motor has not branched off somewhere; and they are wasting time. I shall go straight for the scoundrel.”

“By what miracle?”

“That must be my secret for the present, Monsieur le Président.”

“Very well. Is there anything you want?”

“This map of France.”

“Take it.”

“And a couple of revolvers.”

“Monsieur le Préfet will be good enough to ask his inspectors for two revolvers and to give them to you. Is that all? Any money?”

“No, thank you, Monsieur le Président. I always carry a useful fifty thousand francs in my pocketbook, in case of need.”

“In that case,” said the Prefect of Police, “I shall have to send someone with you to the lockup. I presume your pocketbook was among the things taken from you.”

Don Luis smiled:

“Monsieur le Préfet, the things that people can take from me are never of the least importance. My pocketbook is at the lockup, as you say. But the money⁠—”

He raised his left leg, took his boot in his hands and gave a slight twist to the heel. There was a little click, and a sort of double drawer shot out of the front of the sole. It contained two sheafs of bank notes and a number of diminutive articles, such as a gimlet, a watch spring, and some pills.

“The wherewithal to escape,” he said, “to live and⁠—to die. Goodbye, Monsieur le Président.”

In the hall M. Desmalions told the inspectors to let their prisoner go free. Don Luis asked:

“Monsieur le Préfet, did Deputy Chief Weber give you any particulars about the brute’s car?”

“Yes, he telephoned from Versailles. It’s a deep-yellow car, belonging to the Compagnie des Comètes. The driver’s seat is on the left. He’s wearing a gray cloth cap with a black leather peak.”

“Thank you, Monsieur le Préfet.”

And he left the house.

An inconceivable thing had happened. Don Luis was free. Half an hour’s conversation had given him the power of acting and of fighting the decisive battle.

He went off at a run. At the Trocadéro he jumped into a taxi.

“Go to Issy-les-Moulineaux!” he cried. “Full speed! Forty francs!”

The cab flew through Passy, crossed the Seine and reached the Issy-les-Moulineaux aviation ground in ten minutes.

None of the aeroplanes was out, for there was a stiff breeze blowing. Don Luis ran to the sheds. The owners’ names were written over the doors.

“Davanne,” he muttered. “That’s the man I want.”

The door of the shed was open. A short, stoutish man, with a long red face, was smoking a cigarette and watching some mechanics working at a monoplane. The little man was Davanne himself, the famous airman.

Don Luis took him aside and, knowing from the papers the sort of man that he was, opened the conversation so as to surprise him from the start:

“Monsieur,” he said, unfolding his map of France, “I want to catch up someone who has carried off the woman I love and is making for Nantes by motor. The abduction took place at midnight. It is now about eight o’clock. Suppose that the motor, which is just a hired taxi with a driver who has no inducement to break his neck, does an average of twenty miles an hour, including stoppages⁠—in twelve hours’ time⁠—that is to say, at twelve o’clock⁠—our man will have covered two hundred and forty miles and reached a spot between Angers and Nantes, at this point on the map.”

“Les Ponts-de-Drive,” agreed Davanne, who was quietly listening.

“Very well. Suppose, on the other hand, that an aeroplane were to start from Issy-les-Moulineaux at eight o’clock in the morning and travel at the rate of sixty miles an hour, without stopping⁠—in four hours’ time⁠—that is to say, at twelve o’clock⁠—it would reach Les Ponts-de-Drive at the exact same moment as the motor. Am I right?”

“Perfectly.”

“In that case, if we agree, all is well. Does your machine carry a passenger?”

“Sometimes she does.”

“We’ll start at once. What are your terms?”

“It depends. Who are you?”

“Arsène Lupin.”

“The devil