Don Luis stopped for a few seconds and then continued:

"Consequently, on the morning of that Wednesday, everything was ready, the fatal clock was wound up, the incriminating machinery was working to perfection, and the proofs to come would confirm the immediate proofs which M. Fauville held in reserve. Better still, Monsieur le Prefet, you had received from him a letter in which he told you of the plot hatched against him, and he implored your a.s.sistance for the morning of the next day--that is to say, _after his death_!

"Everything, in short, led him to think that things would go according to the 'hater's' wishes, when something occurred that nearly upset his schemes: the appearance of Inspector Verot, who had been sent by you, Monsieur le Prefet, to collect particulars about the Mornington heirs.

What happened between the two men? Probably no one will ever know. Both are dead; and their secret will not come to life again. But we can at least say for certain that Inspector Verot was here and took away with him the cake of chocolate on which the teeth of the tiger were seen for the first time, and also that Inspector Verot succeeded, thanks to circ.u.mstances with which we are unacquainted, in discovering M.

Fauville's projects."

"This we know," explained Don Luis, "because Inspector Verot said so in his own agonizing words; because it was through him that we learned that the crime was to take place on the following night; and because he had set down his discoveries in a letter which was stolen from him.

"And Fauville knew it also, because, to get rid of the formidable enemy who was thwarting his designs, he poisoned him; because, when the poison was slow in acting, he had the audacity, under a disguise which made him look like Sauverand and which was one day to turn suspicion against Sauverand, he had the audacity and the presence of mind to follow Inspector Verot to the Cafe du Pont-Neuf, to purloin the letter of explanation which Inspector Verot wrote you, to subst.i.tute a blank sheet of paper for it, and then to ask a pa.s.ser-by, who might become a witness against Sauverand, the way to the nearest underground station for Neuilly, where Sauverand lived! There's your man, Monsieur le Prefet."

Don Luis spoke with increasing force, with the ardour that springs from conviction; and his logical and closely argued speech seemed to conjure up the actual truth,

"There's your man, Monsieur le Prefet," he repeated. "There's your scoundrel. And the situation in which he found himself was such, the fear inspired by Inspector Verot's possible revelations was such, that, before putting into execution the horrible deed which he had planned, he came to the police office to make sure that his victim was no longer alive and had not been able to denounce him.

"You remember the scene, Monsieur le Prefet, the fellow's agitation and fright: 'To-morrow evening,' he said. Yes, it was for the morrow that he asked for your help, because he knew that everything would be over that same evening and that next day the police would be confronted with a murder, with the two culprits against whom he himself had heaped up the charges, with Marie Fauville, whom he had, so to speak, accused in advance....

"That was why Sergeant Mazeroux's visit and mine to his house, at nine o'clock in the evening, embarra.s.sed him so obviously. Who were those intruders? Would they not succeed in shattering his plan? Reflection rea.s.sured him, even as we, by our insistence, compelled him to give way."

"After all, what he did care?" asked Perenna.

"His measures were so well taken that no amount of watching could destroy them or even make the watchers aware of them. What was to happen would happen in our presence and unknown to us. Death, summoned by him, would do its work.... And the comedy, the tragedy, rather, ran its course. Mme.

Fauville, whom he was sending to the opera, came to say good-night. Then his servant brought him something to eat, including a dish of apples.

Then followed a fit of rage, the agony of the man who is about to die and who fears death and a whole scene of deceit, in which he showed us his safe and the drab-cloth diary which was supposed to contain the story of the plot. ... That ended matters.

"Mazeroux and I retired to the hall pa.s.sage, closing the door after us; and M. Fauville remained alone and free to act. Nothing now could prevent the fulfilment of his wishes. At eleven o'clock in the evening, Mme.

Fauville--to whom no doubt, in the course of the day, imitating Sauverand's handwriting, he had sent a letter--one of those letters which are always torn up at once, in which Sauverand entreated the poor woman to grant him an interview at the Ranelagh--Mme. Fauville would leave the opera and, before going to Mme. d'Ersinger's party, would spend an hour not far from the house.

"On the other hand, Sauverand would be performing his usual Wednesday pilgrimage less than half a mile away, in the opposite direction. During this time the crime would be committed.

"Both of them would come under the notice of the police, either by M.

Fauville's allusions or by the incident at the Cafe du Pont-Neuf; both of them, moreover, would be incapable either of providing an alibi or of explaining their presence so near the house: were not both of them bound to be accused and convicted of the crime? ... In the most unlikely event that some chance should protect them, there was an undeniable proof lying ready to hand in the shape of the apple containing the very marks of Marie Fauville's teeth! And then, a few weeks later, the last and decisive trick, the mysterious arrival at intervals of ten days, of the letters denouncing the pair. So everything was settled.

"The smallest details were foreseen with infernal clearness. You remember, Monsieur le Prefet, that turquoise which dropped out of my ring and was found in the safe? There were only four persons who could have seen it and picked it up. M. Fauville was one of them.

Well, he was just the one, whom we all excepted; and yet it was he who, to cast suspicion upon me and to forestall an interference which he felt would be dangerous, seized the opportunity and placed the turquoise in the safe! ...

"This time the work was completed. Fate was about to be fulfilled.

Between the 'hater' and his victims there was but the distance of one act. The act was performed. M. Fauville died."

Don Luis ceased. His words were followed by a long silence; and he felt certain that the extraordinary story which he had just finished telling met with the absolute approval of his hearers. They did not discuss, they believed. And yet it was the most incredible truth that he was asking them to believe.

M. Desmalions asked one last question.

"You were in that pa.s.sage with Sergeant Mazeroux. There were detectives outside the house. Admitting that M. Fauville knew that he was to be killed that night and at that very hour of the night, who can have killed him and who can have killed his son? There was no one within these four walls."

"There was M. Fauville."

A sudden clamour of protests arose. The veil was promptly torn; and the spectacle revealed by Don Luis provoked, in addition to horror, an unforeseen outburst of incredulity and a sort of revolt against the too kindly attention which had been accorded to those explanations. The Prefect of Police expressed the general feeling by exclaiming:

"Enough of words! Enough of theories! However logical they may seem, they lead to absurd conclusions."

"Absurd in appearance, Monsieur le Prefet; but how do we know that M.

Fauville's unheard-of conduct is not explained by very natural reasons?

Of course, no one dies with a light heart for the mere pleasure of revenge. But how do we know that M. Fauville, whose extreme emaciation and pallor you must have noted as I did, was not stricken by some mortal illness and that, knowing himself doomed--"

"I repeat, enough of words!" cried the Prefect. "You go only by suppositions. What I want is proofs, a proof, only one. And we are still waiting for it."

"Here it is, Monsieur le Prefet."

"Eh? What's that you say?"

"Monsieur le Prefet, when I removed the chandelier from the plaster that supported it, I found, outside the upper surface of the metal box, a sealed envelope. As the chandelier was placed under the attic occupied by M. Fauville's son, it is evident that M. Fauville was able, by lifting the boards of the floor in his son's room, to reach the top of the machine which he had contrived. This was how, during that last night, he placed this sealed envelope in position, after writing on it the date of the murder, '31 March, 11 P.M.,' and his signature, 'Hippolyte Fauville.'"

M. Desmalions opened the envelope with an eager hand. His first glance at the pages of writing which it contained made him give a start.

"Oh, the villain, the villain!" he said. "How was it possible for such a monster to exist? What a loathsome brute!"

In a jerky voice, which became almost inaudible at times owing to his amazement, he read:

"The end is reached. My hour is striking. Put to sleep by me, Edmond is dead without having been roused from his unconsciousness by the fire of the poison. My own death-agony is beginning. I am suffering all the tortures of h.e.l.l. My hand can hardly write these last lines. I suffer, how I suffer! And yet my happiness is unspeakable.

"This happiness dates back to my visit to London, with Edmond, four months ago. Until then, I was dragging on the most hideous existence, hiding my hatred of the woman who detested me and who loved another, broken down in health, feeling myself already eaten up with an unrelenting disease, and seeing my son grow daily more weak and languid.

"In the afternoon I consulted a great physician and I no longer had the least doubt left: the malady that was eating into me was cancer. And I knew besides that, like myself, my son Edmond was on the road to the grave, incurably stricken with consumption.

"That same evening I conceived the magnificent idea of revenge. And such a revenge! The most dreadful of accusations made against a man and a woman in love with each other! Prison! The a.s.sizes! Penal servitude! The scaffold! And no a.s.sistance possible, not a struggle, not a hope!

Acc.u.mulated proofs, proofs so formidable as to make the innocent themselves doubt their own innocence and remain hopelessly and helplessly dumb. What a revenge!... And what a punishment! To be innocent and to struggle vainly against the very facts that accuse you, the very certainty that proclaims you guilty.

"And I prepared everything with a glad heart. Each happy thought, each invention made me shout with laughter. Lord, how merry I was! You would think that cancer hurts: not a bit of it! How can you suffer physical pain when your soul is quivering with delight? Do you think I feel the hideous burning of the poison at this moment?

"I am happy. The death which I have inflicted on myself is the beginning of their torment. Then why live and wait for a natural death which to them would mean the beginning of their happiness? And as Edmond had to die, why not save him a lingering illness and give him a death which would double the crime of Marie and Sauverand?

"The end is coming. I had to break off: the pain was too much for me. Now to pull myself together.... How silent everything is! Outside the house and in the house are emissaries of the police watching over my crime. At no great distance, Marie, in obedience to my letter, is hurrying to the trysting place, where her beloved will not come. And the beloved is roaming under the windows where his darling will not appear.

"Oh, the dear little puppets whose string I pull! Dance! Jump! Skip!

Lord, what fun they are! A rope round your neck, sir; and, madam, a rope round yours. Was it not you, sir, who poisoned Inspector Verot this morning and followed him to the Cafe du Pont-Neuf, with your grand ebony walking-stick? Why, of course it was! And at night the pretty lady poisons me and poisons her stepson. Prove it? Well, what about this apple, madam, this apple which you did _not_ bite into and which all the same will be found to bear the marks of your teeth? What fun! Dance!

Jump! Skip!

"And the letters! The trick of my letters to the late lamented Langernault! That was my crowning triumph. Oh, the joy of it, when I invented and constructed my little mechanical toy! Wasn't it nicely thought out? Isn't it wonderfully neat and accurate? On the appointed day, click, the first letter! And, ten days after, click, the second letter! Come, there's no hope for you, my poor friends, you're nicely done for. Dance! Jump! Skip!

"And what amuses me--for I am laughing now--is to think that n.o.body will know what to make of it. Marie and Sauverand guilty: of that there is not the least doubt. But, outside that, absolute mystery.

"n.o.body will know nor ever will know anything. In a few weeks' time, when the two criminals are irrevocably doomed, when the letters are in the hands of the police, on the 25th, or, rather, at 3 o'clock on the morning of the 26th of May, an explosion will destroy every trace of my work. The bomb is in its place. A movement entirely independent of the chandelier will explode it at the hour aforesaid.

"I have just laid beside it the drab-cloth ma.n.u.script book in which I pretended that I wrote my diary, the phials containing the poison, the needles which I used, an ebony walking-stick, two letters from Inspector Verot, in short, anything that might save the culprits. Then how can any one know? No, n.o.body will know nor ever will know anything.

"Unless--unless some miracle happens--unless the bomb leaves the walls standing and the ceiling intact. Unless, by some marvel of intelligence and intuition, a man of genius, unravelling the threads which I have tangled, should penetrate to the very heart of the riddle and succeed, after a search lasting for months and months, in discovering this final letter.

"It is for this man that I write, well knowing that he cannot exist.