"Perhaps you're right."
And, making up his mind, he inserted a paper-knife into the envelope and
cut it open. A cry escaped him.
"Oh, I say, this is a little too much!"
"What is it, Monsieur le Préfet?"
"Why, look here, a blank ... sheet of paper! That's all the envelope
contains!"
"Impossible!"
"See for yourself--a plain sheet folded in four, with not a word on it."
"But Vérot told me in so many words that he had said in that letter all
that he knew about the case."
"He told you so, no doubt, but there you are! Upon my word, if I
didn't know Inspector Vérot, I should think he was trying to play a
game with me."
"It's a piece of carelessness, Monsieur le Préfet, at the worst."
"No doubt, a piece of carelessness, but I'm surprised at him. It doesn't
do to be careless when the lives of two people are at stake. For he must
have told you that there is a double murder planned for to-night?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, and under particularly alarming conditions;
infernal was the word he used."
M. Desmalions was walking up and down the room, with his hands behind his
back. He stopped at a small table.
"What's this little parcel addressed to me? 'Monsieur le Préfet de
Police--to be opened in case of accident.'"
"Oh, yes," said the secretary, "I was forgetting! That's from Inspector
Vérot, too; something of importance, he said, and serving to complete and
explain the contents of the letter."
"Well," said M. Desmalions, who could not help laughing, "the letter
certainly needs explaining; and, though there's no question of
'accident,' I may as well open the parcel."
As he spoke, he cut the string and discovered, under the paper, a box, a
little cardboard box, which might have come from a druggist, but which
was soiled and spoiled by the use to which it had been put.
He raised the lid. Inside the box were a few layers of cotton wool, which
were also rather dirty, and in between these layers was half a cake of
chocolate.
"What the devil does this mean?" growled the Prefect in surprise.
He took the chocolate, looked at it, and at once perceived what was
peculiar about this cake of chocolate, which was also undoubtedly the
reason why Inspector Vérot had kept it. Above and below, it bore the
prints of teeth, very plainly marked, very plainly separated one from the
other, penetrating to a depth of a tenth of an inch or so into the
chocolate. Each possessed its individual shape and width, and each was
divided from its neighbours by a different interval. The jaws which had
started eating the cake of chocolate had dug into it the mark of four
upper and five lower teeth.
M. Desmalions remained wrapped in thought and, with his head sunk on his
chest, for some minutes resumed his walk up and down the room, muttering:
"This is queer ... There's a riddle here to which I should like to know
the answer. That sheet of paper, the marks of those teeth: what does it
all mean?"
But he was not the man to waste much time over a mystery which was bound
to be cleared up presently, as Inspector Vérot must be either at the
police office or somewhere just outside; and he said to his secretary:
"I can't keep those five gentlemen waiting any longer. Please have them
shown in now. If Inspector Vérot arrives while they are here, as he is
sure to do, let me know at once. I want to see him as soon as he comes.
Except for that, see that I'm not disturbed on any pretext, won't you?"
* * * * *
Two minutes later the messenger showed in Maître Lepertuis, a stout,
red-faced man, with whiskers and spectacles, followed by Archibald
Bright, the Secretary of Embassy, and Caceres, the Peruvian attaché. M.
Desmalions, who knew all three of them, chatted to them until he stepped
forward to receive Major Comte d'Astrignac, the hero of La Chouïa, who
had been forced into premature retirement by his glorious wounds. The
Prefect was complimenting him warmly on his gallant conduct in Morocco
when the door opened once more.
"Don Luis Perenna, I believe?" said the Prefect, offering his hand to a
man of middle height and rather slender build, wearing the military medal
and the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour.
The newcomer's face and expression, his way of holding himself, and his
very youthful movements inclined one to look upon him as a man of forty,
though there were wrinkles at the corners of the eyes and on the
forehead, which perhaps pointed to a few years more. He bowed.
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Is that you, Perenna?" cried Comte d'Astrignae. "So you are still among
the living?"
"Yes, Major, and delighted to see you again."
"Perenna alive! Why, we had lost all sight of you when I left Morocco! We
thought you dead."
"I was a prisoner, that's all."
"A prisoner of the tribesmen; the same thing!"
"Not quite, Major; one can escape from anywhere. The proof stands
before you."
The Prefect of Police, yielding to an irresistible attraction to resist,
spent some seconds in examining that powerful face, with the smiling
glance, the frank and resolute eyes, and the bronzed complexion, which
looked as if it had been baked and baked again by the sun.
Then, motioning to his visitors to take chairs around his desk, M.
Desmalions himself sat down and made a preliminary statement in clear and
deliberate tones:
"The summons, gentlemen, which I addressed to each of you, must have
appeared to you rather peremptory and mysterious. And the manner in which
I propose to open our conversation is not likely to diminish your
surprise. But if you will attach a little credit to my method, you will
soon realize that the whole thing is very simple and very natural. I will
be as brief as I can."
He spread before him the bundle of documents prepared for him by his
secretary and, consulting his notes as he spoke, continued:
"Over fifty years ago, in 1860, three sisters, three orphans, Ermeline,
Elizabeth, and Armande Roussel, aged twenty-two, twenty, and eighteen
respectively, were living at Saint-Etienne with a cousin named Victor,
who was a few years younger. The eldest, Ermeline, was the first to leave
Saint-Etienne. She went to London, where she married an Englishman of the
name Mornington, by whom she had a son, who was christened Cosmo.
"The family was very poor and went through hard times. Ermeline
repeatedly wrote to her sisters to ask for a little assistance. Receiving
no reply, she broke off the correspondence altogether. In 1870 Mr. and
Mrs. Mornington left England for America. Five years later they were
rich. Mr. Mornington died in 1878; but his widow continued to administer
the fortune bequeathed to her and, as she had a genius for business and
speculation, she increased this fortune until it attained a colossal
figure. At her decease, in 1900, she left her son the sum of four hundred
million francs."
The amount seemed to make an impression on the Prefect's hearers. He saw
the major and Don Luis Perenna exchange a glance and asked:
"You knew Cosmo Mornington, did you not?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet," replied Comte d'Astrignac. "He was in Morocco
when Perenna and I were fighting there."
"Just so," said M. Desmalions. "Cosmo Mornington had begun to travel
about the world. He took up the practise of medicine, from what I hear,
and, when occasion offered, treated the sick with great skill and, of
course, without charge. He lived first in Egypt and then in Algiers and
Morocco. Last year he settled down in Paris, where he died four weeks ago
as the result of a most stupid accident."
"A carelessly administered hypodermic injection, was it not, Monsieur le
Préfet?" asked the secretary of the American Embassy. "It was mentioned
in the papers and reported to us at the embassy."
"Yes," said Desmalions. "To assist his recovery from a long attack of
influenza which had kept him in bed all the winter, Mr. Mornington, by
his doctor's orders, used to give himself injections of glycero-phosphate
of soda. He must have omitted the necessary precautions on the last
occasion when he did so, for the wound was poisoned, inflammation set in
with lightning rapidity, and Mr. Mornington was dead in a few hours."
The Prefect of Police turned to the solicitor and asked:
"Have I summed up the facts correctly, Maître Lepertuis?"
"Absolutely, Monsieur le Préfet."