CHAPTER SIXTEEN

WEBER TAKES HIS REVENGE

Don Luis was for one moment amazed. Florence Leva.s.seur 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 Prefet, 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 Leva.s.seur--"

"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 circ.u.mstances 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 Prefet. 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 Prefet. Some one in whom I have every confidence and for whom I entertain the greatest respect asked me to hand you certain papers. They appear to concern the question which is the object of your meeting to-day."

"The question of awarding the Mornington inheritance?"

"Yes."

"You know that, if this claim had not been made in the course of the present sitting, it would have had no effect?"

"I came as soon as the papers were handed to me."

"Why were they not handed to you an hour or two earlier?"

"I was not there. I had to leave the house where I am staying, in a hurry."

Perenna did not doubt that it was his intervention that upset the enemy's plans by causing Florence to take to flight.

The Prefect continued:

"So you are ignorant of the reasons why you received the papers?"

"Yes, Monsieur le Prefet."

"And evidently you are also ignorant of how far they concern you?"

"They do not concern me, Monsieur le Prefet."

M. Desmalions smiled and, looking into Florence's eyes, said, plainly:

"According to the letter that accompanies them, they concern you intimately. It seems that they prove, in the most positive manner, that you are descended from the Roussel family and that you consequently have every right to the Mornington inheritance."

"I?"

The cry was a spontaneous exclamation of astonishment and protest.

And she at once went on, insistently:

"I, a right to the inheritance? I have none at all, Monsieur le Prefet, none at all. I never knew Mr. Mornington. What is this story? There is some mistake."

She spoke with great animation and with an apparent frankness that would have impressed any other man than the Prefect of Police. But how could he forget Don Luis's arguments and the accusation made beforehand against the person who would arrive at the meeting?

"Give me the papers," he said.

She took from her handbag a blue envelope which was not fastened down and which he found to contain a number of faded doc.u.ments, damaged at the folds and torn in different places.

He examined them amid perfect silence, read them through, studied them thoroughly, inspected the signatures and the seals through a magnifying gla.s.s, and said:

"They bear every sign of being genuine. The seals are official."

"Then, Monsieur le Prefet--?" said Florence, in a trembling voice.

"Then, Mademoiselle, let me tell you that your ignorance strikes me as most incredible."

And, turning to the solicitor, he said:

"Listen briefly to what these doc.u.ments contain and prove. Gaston Sauverand, Cosmo Mornington's heir in the fourth line, had, as you know, an elder brother, called Raoul, who lived in the Argentine Republic. This brother, before his death, sent to Europe, in the charge of an old nurse, a child of five who was none other than his daughter, a natural but legally recognized daughter whom he had had by Mlle. Leva.s.seur, a French teacher at Buenos Ayres.

"Here is the birth certificate. Here is the signed declaration written entirely in the father's hand. Here is the affidavit signed by the old nurse. Here are the depositions of three friends, merchants or solicitors at Buenos Ayres. And here are the death certificates of the father and mother.

"All these doc.u.ments have been legalized and bear the seals of the French consulate. For the present, I have no reason to doubt them; and I am bound to look upon Florence Leva.s.seur as Raoul Sauverand's daughter and Gaston Sauverand's niece."