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

unawares. However, he mastered himself. After all, there was nothing to prove that this half of a walking-stick was really that which had been seen in Gaston Sauverand’s hands and which Sauverand had carried away by mistake.

“I have the other half on me,” said the Prefect of Police, replying to the unspoken objection. “Deputy Chief Weber himself picked it up on the Boulevard Richard-Wallace. Here it is.”

He produced it from the inside pocket of his overcoat and tried it. The ends of the two pieces fitted exactly.

There was a fresh pause. Perenna was confused, as were those, invariably, upon whom he himself used to inflict this kind of defeat and humiliation. He could not get over it. By what prodigy had Gaston Sauverand managed, in that short space of twenty minutes, to enter the house and make his way into this room? Even the theory of an accomplice living in the house did not do much to make the phenomenon easier to understand.

“It upsets all my calculations,” he thought, “and I shall have to go through the mill this time. I was able to baffle Mme. Fauville’s accusation and to foil the trick of the turquoise. But M. Desmalions will never admit that this is a similar attempt and that Gaston Sauverand has tried, as Marie Fauville did, to get me out of the way by compromising me and procuring my arrest.”

“Well,” exclaimed M. Desmalions impatiently, “answer! Defend yourself!”

“No, Monsieur le Préfet, it is not for me to defend myself.”

M. Desmalions stamped his foot and growled:

“In that case⁠ ⁠… in that case⁠ ⁠… since you confess⁠ ⁠… since⁠—”

He put his hand on the latch of the window, ready to open it. A whistle, and the detectives would burst in and all would be over.

“Shall I have your inspectors called, Monsieur le Préfet?” asked Don Luis.

M. Desmalions did not reply. He let go the window latch and started walking about the room again. And, suddenly, while Perenna was wondering why he still hesitated, for the second time the Prefect planted himself in front of him, and said:

“And suppose I looked upon the incident of the walking-stick as not having occurred, or, rather, as an incident which, while doubtless proving the treachery of your servants, is not able to compromise yourself? Suppose I took only the services which you have already rendered us into consideration? In a word, suppose I left you free?”

Perenna could not help smiling. Notwithstanding the affair of the walking-stick and though appearances were all against him, at the moment when everything seemed to be going wrong, things were taking the course which he had prophesied from the start, and which he had mentioned to Mazeroux during the inquiry on the Boulevard Suchet. They wanted him.

“Free?” he asked. “No more supervision? Nobody shadowing my movements?”

“Nobody.”

“And what if the press campaign around my name continues, if the papers succeed, by means of certain pieces of tittle-tattle, of certain coincidences, in creating a public outcry, if they call for measures against me?”

“Those measures shall not be taken.”

“Then I have nothing to fear?”

“Nothing.”

“Will M. Weber abandon his prejudices against me?”

“At any rate, he will act as though he did, won’t you, Weber?”

The deputy chief uttered a few grunts which might be taken as an expression of assent; and Don Luis at once exclaimed:

“In that case, Monsieur le Préfet, I am sure of gaining the victory and of gaining it in accordance with the wishes and requirements of the authorities.”

And so, by a sudden change in the situation, after a series of exceptional circumstances, the police themselves, bowing before Don Luis Perenna’s superior qualities of mind, acknowledging all that he had already done and foreseeing all that he would be able to do, decided to back him up, begging for his assistance, and offering him, so to speak, the command of affairs.

It was a flattering compliment. Was it addressed only to Don Luis Perenna? And had Lupin, the terrible, undaunted Lupin, no right to claim his share? Was it possible to believe that M. Desmalions, in his heart of hearts, did not admit the identity of the two persons?

Nothing in the Prefect’s attitude gave any clue to his secret thoughts. He was suggesting to Don Luis Perenna one of those compacts which the police are often obliged to conclude in order to gain their ends. The compact was concluded, and no more was said upon the subject.

“Do you want any particulars of me?” asked the Prefect of Police.

“Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. The papers spoke of a notebook found in poor Inspector Vérot’s pocket. Did the notebook contain a clue of any kind?”

“No. Personal notes, lists of disbursements, that’s all. Wait, I was forgetting, there was a photograph of a woman, about which I have not yet been able to obtain the least information. Besides, I don’t suppose that it bears upon the case and I have not sent it to the newspapers. Look, here it is.”

Perenna took the photograph which the Prefect handed him and gave a start that did not escape M. Desmalions’s eye.

“Do you know the lady?”

“No. No, Monsieur le Préfet. I thought I did; but no, there’s merely a resemblance⁠—a family likeness, which I will verify if you can leave the photograph with me till this evening.”

“Till this evening, yes. When you have done with it, give it back to Sergeant Mazeroux, whom I will order to work in concert with you in everything that relates to the Mornington case.”

The interview was now over. The Prefect went away. Don Luis saw him to the door. As M. Desmalions was about to go down the steps, he turned and said simply:

“You saved my life this morning. But for you, that scoundrel Sauverand⁠—”

“Oh, Monsieur le Préfet!” said Don Luis, modestly protesting.

“Yes, I know, you are in the habit of doing that sort of thing. All the same, you must accept my thanks.”

And the Prefect of Police made a bow such as he would really have made to Don Luis Perenna, the Spanish noble, the hero of