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

“I thank you, Monsieur le Président. But what about Sergeant Mazeroux?”

“He will be released this morning. Monsieur le Préfet de Police has arranged matters so that the public do not know of the arrest of either of you. You are Don Luis Perenna. There is no reason why you should not remain Don Luis Perenna.”

“And Florence Levasseur, Monsieur le Président?”

“Let her go before the examining magistrate of her own accord. He is bound to discharge her. Once free and acquitted of any charge or even suspicion, she will certainly be recognized as Cosmo Mornington’s legal heiress and will receive the hundred millions.”

“She will not keep it, Monsieur le Président.”

“How do you mean?”

“Florence Levasseur doesn’t want the money. It has been the cause of unspeakably awful crimes. She hates the very thought of it.”

“What then?”

“Cosmo Mornington’s hundred millions will be wholly devoted to making roads and building schools in the south of Morocco and the northern Congo.”

“In the Mauretanian Empire which you are giving us?” said Valenglay, laughing. “By Jove, it’s a fine work and I second it with all my heart. An empire and an imperial budget to keep it up with! Upon my word, Don Luis has behaved well to his country, and has handsomely paid the debts⁠—of Arsène Lupin!”

A month later Don Luis Perenna and Mazeroux embarked in the yacht which had brought Don Luis to France. Florence was with them. Before sailing they heard of the death of Jean Vernocq, who had managed to poison himself in spite of all the precautions taken to prevent him.

On his arrival in Africa, Don Luis Perenna, Sultan of Mauretania, found his old associates and accredited Mazeroux to them and to his grand dignitaries. He organized the government to follow on his abdication and precede the annexation of the new empire by France, and he had several secret interviews on the Moorish border with General Léauty, commanding the French troops, interviews in the course of which they thought out all the measures to be executed in succession so as to lend to the conquest of Morocco an appearance of facility which would otherwise be difficult to explain.

The future was now assured. Soon the thin screen of rebellious tribes standing between the French and the pacified districts would fall to pieces, revealing an orderly empire, provided with a regular constitution, with good roads, schools, and courts of law, a flourishing empire in full working order.

Then, when his task was done, Don Luis abdicated.

He has now been back for over two years. Everyone remembers the stir caused by his marriage with Florence Levasseur. The controversy was renewed; and many of the newspapers clamoured for Arsène Lupin’s arrest. But what could the authorities do?

Although nobody doubted who he really was, although the name of Arsène Lupin and the name of Don Luis Perenna consisted of the same letters, and people ended by remarking the coincidence, legally speaking, Arsène Lupin was dead and Don Luis Perenna was alive; and there was no possibility of bringing Arsène Lupin back to life or of killing Don Luis Perenna.

He is today living in the village of Saint-Maclou, among those charming valleys which run down to the Oise. Who does not know his modest little pink-washed house, with its green shutters and its garden filled with bright flowers? People make up parties to go there from Paris on Sundays, in the hope of catching a sight, through the elder hedges, of the man who was Arsène Lupin, or of meeting him in the village square.

He is there, with his hair just touched with gray, his still youthful features, and a young man’s bearing; and Florence is there, too, with her pretty figure and the halo of fair hair around her happy face, unclouded by even the shadow of an unpleasant recollection.

Very often visitors come and knock at the little wooden gate. They are unfortunate people imploring the master’s aid, victims of oppression, weaklings who have gone under in the struggle, reckless persons who have been ruined by their passions.

For all these Don Luis is full of pity. He gives them his full attention, the help of his farseeing advice, his experience, his strength, and even his time, disappearing for days and weeks to fight the good fight once more.

And sometimes also it is an emissary from the Prefect’s office or some subordinate of the police who comes to submit a complex case to his judgment. Here again Don Luis applies the whole of his wonderful mind to the business.

In addition to this, in addition to his old books on ethics and philosophy, to which he has returned with such pleasure, he cultivates his garden. He dotes on his flowers. He is proud of them. He takes prizes at the shows; and the success is still remembered of the treble carnation, streaked red and yellow, which he exhibited as the “Arsène carnation.”

But he works hardest at certain large flowers that blossom in summer. During July and the first half of August they fill two thirds of his lawn and all the borders of his kitchen-garden. Beautiful, decorative plants, standing erect like flagstaffs, they proudly raise their spiky heads of all colours: blue, violet, mauve, pink, white.

They are lupins and include every variety: Cruikshank’s lupin, the two-coloured lupin, the scented lupin, and the last to appear, Lupin’s lupin. They are all there, resplendent, in serried ranks like an army of soldiers, each striving to outstrip the others and to hold up the thickest and gaudiest spike to the sun. They are all there; and, at the entrance to the walk that leads to their motley beds, is a streamer with this device, taken from an exquisite sonnet of Jose Maria de Heredia:

“And in my kitchen-garden lupins grow.”

You will say that this is a confession. But why not?

In the evening, when a few privileged neighbours meet at his house⁠—the justice of the peace, the notary, Major Comte d’Astrignac, who has also gone to live at Saint-Maclou⁠—Don Luis is