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

“Silence!” said the Prefect, stopping his walk.

Someone had crossed the anteroom.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in!”

The office messenger entered, carrying a card-tray. On the tray was a letter; and in addition there was one of those printed slips on which callers write their name and the object of their visit.

M. Desmalions hastened toward the messenger. He hesitated a moment before taking up the slip. He was very pale. Then he glanced at it quickly.

“Oh!” he said, with a start.

He looked toward Don Luis, reflected, and then, taking the letter, he said to the messenger:

“Is the bearer outside?”

“In the anteroom, Monsieur le Préfet.”

“Show the person in when I ring.”

The messenger left the room.

M. Desmalions stood in front of his desk, without moving. For the second time Don Luis met his eyes; and a feeling of perturbation came over him. What was happening?

With a sharp movement the Prefect of Police opened the envelope which he held in his hand, unfolded the letter and began to read it.

The others watched his every gesture, watched the least change of expression on his face. Were Perenna’s predictions about to be fulfilled? Was a fifth heir putting in his claim?

The moment he had read the first lines, M. Desmalions looked up and, addressing Don Luis, murmured:

“You were right, Monsieur. This is a claim.”

“On whose part, Monsieur le Préfet?” Don Luis could not help asking.

M. Desmalions did not reply. He finished reading the letter. Then he read it again, with the attention of a man weighing every word. Lastly, he read aloud:

“Monsieur le Préfet:

“A chance correspondence has revealed to me the existence of an unknown heir of the Roussel family. It was only today that I was able to procure the documents necessary for identifying this heir; and, owing to unforeseen obstacles, it is only at the last moment that I am able to send them to you by the person whom they concern. Respecting a secret which is not mine and wishing, as a woman, to remain outside a business in which I have been only accidentally involved, I beg you, Monsieur le Préfet, to excuse me if I do not feel called upon to sign my name to this letter.”

So Perenna had seen rightly and events were justifying his forecast. Someone was putting in an appearance within the period indicated. The claim was made in good time. And the very way in which things were happening at the exact moment was curiously suggestive of the mechanical exactness that had governed the whole business.

The last question still remained: who was this unknown person, the possible heir, and therefore the five or six fold murderer? He was waiting in the next room. There was nothing but a wall between him and the others. He was coming in. They would see him. They would know who he was.

The Prefect suddenly rang the bell.

A few tense seconds elapsed. Oddly enough, M. Desmalions did not remove his eyes from Perenna. Don Luis remained quite master of himself, but restless and uneasy at heart.

The door opened. The messenger showed someone in.

It was Florence Levasseur.

Don Luis was for one moment amazed. Florence Levasseur here! Florence, whom he had left in the train under Mazeroux’s supervision and for whom it was physically impossible to be back in Paris before eight o’clock in the evening!

Then, despite his bewilderment, he at once understood. Florence, knowing that she was being followed, had drawn them after her to the Gare Saint-Lazare and simply walked through the railway carriage, getting out on the other platform, while the worthy Mazeroux went on in the train to keep his eye on the traveller who was not there.

But suddenly the full horror of the situation struck him. Florence was here to claim the inheritance; and her claim, as he himself had said, was a proof of the most terrible guilt.

Acting on an irresistible impulse, Don Luis leaped to the girl’s side, seized her by the arm and said, with almost malevolent force:

“What are you doing here? What have you come for? Why did you not let me know?”

M. Desmalions stepped between them. But Don Luis, without letting go of the girl’s arm, exclaimed:

“Oh, Monsieur le Préfet, don’t you see that this is all a mistake? The person whom we are expecting, about whom I told you, is not this one. The other is keeping in the background, as usual. Why it’s impossible that Florence Levasseur⁠—”

“I have no preconceived opinion on the subject of this young lady,” said the Prefect of Police, in an authoritative voice. “But it is my duty to question her about the circumstances that brought her here; and I shall certainly do so.”

He released the girl from Don Luis’s grasp and made her take a seat. He himself sat down at his desk; and it was easy to see how great an impression the girl’s presence made upon him. It afforded so to speak an illustration of Don Luis’s argument.

The appearance on the scene of a new person, laying claim to the inheritance, was undeniably, to any logical mind, the appearance on the scene of a criminal who herself brought with her the proofs of her crimes. Don Luis felt this clearly and, from that moment, did not take his eyes off the Prefect of Police.

Florence looked at them by turns as though the whole thing was the most insoluble mystery to her. Her beautiful dark eyes retained their customary serenity. She no longer wore her nurse’s uniform; and her gray gown, very simply cut and devoid of ornaments, showed her graceful figure. She was grave and unemotional as usual.

M. Desmalions said:

“Explain yourself, Mademoiselle.”

She answered:

“I have nothing to explain, Monsieur le Préfet. I have come to you on an errand which I am fulfilling without knowing exactly what it is about.”

“What do you mean? Without knowing what it is about?”

“I will tell you, Monsieur le Préfet. Someone in whom I