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

card, had asked to see him at once. He stepped forward and was about to enter the room with Mazeroux, when he suddenly turned to his companion with a cry of rage:

“It’s he! It was Sauverand in disguise. Stop him! He’s made off. Run, can’t you?”

He himself darted away followed by Mazeroux and a number of warders and journalists, He soon outdistanced them, so that, three minutes later, he heard no one more behind him. He had rushed down the staircase of the “Mousetrap,” and through the subway leading from one courtyard to the other. Here two people told him that they had met a man walking at a smart pace.

The track was a false one. He became aware of this, hunted about, lost a good deal of time, and managed to discover that Sauverand had left by the Boulevard du Palais and joined a very pretty, fair-haired woman⁠—Florence Levasseur, obviously⁠—on the Quai de l’Horloge. They had both got into the motor bus that runs from the Place Saint-Michel to the Gare Saint-Lazare.

Don Luis went back to a lonely little street where he had left his car in the charge of a boy. He set the engine going and drove at full speed to the Gare Saint-Lazare, From the omnibus shelter he went off on a fresh track which also proved to be wrong, lost quite another hour, returned to the terminus, and ended by learning for certain that Florence had stepped by herself into a motor bus which would take her toward the Place du Palais-Bourbon. Contrary to all his expectations, therefore, the girl must have gone home.

The thought of seeing her again roused his anger to its highest pitch. All the way down the Rue Royale and across the Place de la Concorde he kept blurting out words of revenge and threats which he was itching to carry out. He would abuse Florence. He would sting her with his insults. He felt a bitter and painful need to hurt the odious creature.

But on reaching the Place du Palais-Bourbon he pulled up short. His practised eye had counted at a glance, on the right and left, a half-dozen men whose professional look there was no mistaking. And Mazeroux, who had caught sight of him, had spun round on his heel and was hiding under a gateway.

He called him:

“Mazeroux!”

The sergeant appeared greatly surprised to hear his name and came up to the car.

“Hullo, the Chief!”

His face expressed such embarrassment that Don Luis felt his fears taking definite shape.

“Look here, is it for me that you and your men are hanging about outside my house?”

“There’s a notion, Chief,” replied Mazeroux, looking very uncomfortable. “You know that you’re in favour all right!”

Don Luis gave a start. He understood. Mazeroux had betrayed his confidence. To obey his scruples of conscience as well as to rescue the chief from the dangers of a fatal passion, Mazeroux had denounced Florence Levasseur.

Perenna clenched his fists in an effort of his whole being to stifle his boiling rage. It was a terrible blow. He received a sudden intuition of all the blunders which his mad jealousy had made him commit since the day before, and a presentiment of the irreparable disasters that might result from them. The conduct of events was slipping from him.

“Have you the warrant?” he asked.

Mazeroux spluttered:

“It was quite by accident. I met the Prefect, who was back. We spoke of the young lady’s business. And, as it happened, they had discovered that the photograph⁠—you know, the photograph of Florence Levasseur which the Prefect lent you⁠—well, they have discovered that you faked it. And then when I mentioned the name of Florence, the Prefect remembered that that was the name.”

“Have you the warrant?” Don Luis repeated, in a harsher tone.

“Well, you see, I couldn’t help it.⁠ ⁠… M. Desmalions, the magistrate⁠—”

If the Place du Palais Bourbon had been deserted at that moment, Don Luis would certainly have relieved himself by a swinging blow administered to Mazeroux’s chin according to the most scientific rules of the noble art. And Mazeroux foresaw this contingency, for he prudently kept as far away as possible and, to appease the chief’s anger, intended a whole litany of excuses:

“It was for your good, Chief.⁠ ⁠… I had to do it⁠ ⁠… Only think! You yourself told me: ‘Rid me of the creature!’ said you. I’m too weak. You’ll arrest her, won’t you? Her eyes burn into me⁠—like poison! Well, Chief, could I help it? No, I couldn’t, could I? Especially as the deputy chief⁠—”

“Ah! So Weber knows?”

“Why, yes! The Prefect is a little suspicious of you since he understood about the faking of the portrait. So M. Weber is coming back in an hour, perhaps, with reinforcements. Well, I was saying, the deputy chief had learnt that the woman who used to go to Gaston Sauverand’s at Neuilly⁠—you know, the house on the Boulevard Richard-Wallace⁠—was fair and very good looking, and that her name was Florence. She even used to stay the night sometimes.”

“You lie! You lie!” hissed Perenna.

All his spite was reviving. He had been pursuing Florence with intentions which it would have been difficult for him to put into words. And now suddenly he again wanted to destroy her; and this time consciously. In reality he no longer knew what he was doing. He was acting at haphazard, tossed about in turns by the most diverse passions, a prey to that inordinate love which impels us as readily to kill the object of our affections as to die in an attempt to save her.

A newsboy passed with a special edition of the Paris-Midi, showing in great black letters:

“Sensational Declaration by Don Luis Perenna

“Mme. Fauville Is Innocent.

“Imminent Arrest of the Two Criminals”

“Yes, yes,” he said aloud. “The drama is drawing to an end. Florence is about to pay her debt to society. So much the worse for her.”

He started his car again and drove through the gate. In the courtyard he said to his chauffeur, who came up:

“Turn her around