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

“No, initials.”

“Were they able to remember them?”

“Yes: B. R. W. 8.”

“Is that all?”

“That is absolutely all that I have discovered. But one of my fellow officers succeeded in proving, from the evidence of two detectives, that a man carrying a silver-handled ebony walking-stick and a pair of tortoiseshell glasses walked out of the Gare d’Auteuil on the evening of the double murder and went toward Renelagh. Remember the presence of Mme. Fauville in that neighbourhood at the same hour. And remember that the crime was committed round about midnight. I conclude from this⁠—”

“That will do; be off!”

“But⁠—”

“Get!”

“Then I don’t see you again?”

“Meet me in half an hour outside our man’s place.”

“What man?”

“Marie Fauville’s accomplice.”

“But you don’t know⁠—”

“The address? Why, you gave it to me yourself: Boulevard Richard-Wallace, No. 8. Go! And don’t look such a fool.”

He made him spin round on his heels, took him by the shoulders, pushed him to the door, and handed him over, quite flabbergasted, to a footman.

He himself went out a few minutes later, dragging in his wake the detectives attached to his person, left them posted on sentry duty outside a block of flats with a double entrance, and took a motor cab to Neuilly.

He went along the Avenue de Madrid on foot and turned down the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, opposite the Bois de Boulogne. Mazeroux was waiting for him in front of a small three-storied house standing at the back of a courtyard contained within the very high walls of the adjoining property.

“Is this number eight?”

“Yes, Chief, but tell me how⁠—”

“One moment, old chap; give me time to recover my breath.”

He gave two or three great gasps.

“Lord, how good it is to be up and doing!” he said. “Upon my word, I was getting rusty. And what a pleasure to pursue those scoundrels! So you want me to tell you?”

He passed his arm through the sergeant’s.

“Listen, Alexandre, and profit by my words. Remember this: when a person is choosing initials for his address at a poste restante he doesn’t pick them at random, but always in such a way that the letters convey a meaning to the person corresponding with him, a meaning which will enable that other person easily to remember the address.”

“And in this case?”

“In this case, Mazeroux, a man like myself, who knows Neuilly and the neighbourhood of the Bois, is at once struck by those three letters, ‘B. R. W.,’ and especially by the ‘W.’, a foreign letter, an English letter. So that in my mind’s eye, instantly, as in a flash, I saw the three letters in their logical place as initials at the head of the words for which they stand. I saw the ‘B’ of ‘boulevard,’ and the ‘R’ and the English ‘W’ of Richard-Wallace. And so I came to the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, And that, my dear sir, explains the milk in the coconut.”

Mazeroux seemed a little doubtful.

“And what do you think, Chief?”

“I think nothing. I am looking about. I am building up a theory on the first basis that offers a probable theory. And I say to myself⁠ ⁠… I say to myself⁠ ⁠… I say to myself, Mazeroux, that this is a devilish mysterious little hole and that this house⁠—Hush! Listen⁠—”

He pushed Mazeroux into a dark corner. They had heard a noise, the slamming of a door.

Footsteps crossed the courtyard in front of the house. The lock of the outer gate grated. Someone appeared, and the light of a street lamp fell full on his face.

“Dash it all,” muttered Mazeroux, “it’s he!”

“I believe you’re right.”

“It’s he. Chief. Look at the black stick and the bright handle. And did you see the eyeglasses⁠—and the beard? What a oner you are, Chief!”

“Calm yourself and let’s go after him.”

The man had crossed the Boulevard Richard-Wallace and was turning into the Boulevard Maillot. He was walking pretty fast, with his head up, gayly twirling his stick. He lit a cigarette.

At the end of the Boulevard Maillot, the man passed the octroi and entered Paris. The railway station of the outer circle was close by. He went to it and, still followed by the others, stepped into a train that took them to Auteuil.

“That’s funny,” said Mazeroux. “He’s doing exactly what he did a fortnight ago. This is where he was seen.”

The man now went along the fortifications. In a quarter of an hour he reached the Boulevard Suchet and almost immediately afterward the house in which M. Fauville and his son had been murdered.

He climbed the fortifications opposite the house and stayed there for some minutes, motionless, with his face to the front of the house. Then continuing his road he went to La Muette and plunged into the dusk of the Bois de Boulogne.

“To work and boldly!” said Don Luis, quickening his pace.

Mazeroux stopped him.

“What do you mean, Chief?”

“Well, catch him by the throat! There are two of us; we couldn’t hope for a better moment.”

“What! Why, it’s impossible!”

“Impossible? Are you afraid? Very well, I’ll do it by myself.”

“Look here, Chief, you’re not serious!”

“Why shouldn’t I be serious?”

“Because one can’t arrest a man without a reason.”

“Without a reason? A scoundrel like this? A murderer? What more do you want?”

“In the absence of compulsion, of catching him in the act, I want something that I haven’t got.”

“What’s that?”

“A warrant. I haven’t a warrant.”

Mazeroux’s accent was so full of conviction, and the answer struck Don Luis Perenna as so comical, that he burst out laughing.

“You have no warrant? Poor little chap! Well, I’ll soon show you if I need a warrant!”

“You’ll show me nothing,” cried Mazeroux, hanging on to his companion’s arm. “You shan’t touch the man.”

“One would think he was your mother!”

“Come, Chief.”

“But, you stick-in-the-mud of an honest man,” shouted Don Luis, angrily, “if we let this opportunity slip shall we ever find another?”

“Easily. He’s going home. I’ll inform the commissary of police. He will telephone to headquarters; and tomorrow morning⁠—”

“And suppose the bird has flown?”

“I have no warrant.”

“Do you want me to sign you one,