"That is a poor argument. Will you use the same when I ask you why you
live in hiding, why you left the Avenue du Roule, where you used to live,
without leaving an address behind you, and why you receive your letters
at the post-office under initials?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, those are matters of a private character, which
affect only my conscience. You have no right to question me about them."
"That is the exact reply which we are constantly receiving at every
moment from your accomplice."
"My accomplice?"
"Yes, Mme. Fauville."
"Mme. Fauville!"
Gaston Sauverand had uttered the same cry as when he heard of the death
of the engineer; and his stupefaction seemed even greater, combined as it
was with an anguish that distorted his features beyond recognition.
"What?... What?... What do you say? Marie!... No, you don't mean it! It's
not true!"
M. Desmalions considered it useless to reply, so absurd and childish
was this affectation of knowing nothing about the tragedy on the
Boulevard Suchet.
Gaston Sauverand, beside himself, with his eyes starting from his
head, muttered:
"Is it true? Is Marie the victim of the same mistake as myself? Perhaps
they have arrested her? She, she in prison!"
He raised his clenched fists in a threatening manner against all the
unknown enemies by whom he was surrounded, against those who were
persecuting him, those who had murdered Hippolyte Fauville and delivered
Marie Fauville to the police.
Mazeroux and Chief Inspector Ancenis took hold of him roughly. He made a
movement of resistance, as though he intended to thrust back his
aggressors. But it was only momentary; and he sank into a chair and
covered his face with his hands:
"What a mystery!" he stammered. "I don't understand! I don't
understand--"
Weber, who had gone out a few minutes before, returned. M.
Desmalions asked:
"Is everything ready?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, I have had the taxi brought up to the gate
beside your car."
"How many of you are there?"
"Eight. Two detectives have just arrived from the commissary's."
"Have you searched the house?"
"Yes. It's almost empty, however. There's nothing but the indispensable
articles of furniture and some bundles of papers in the bedroom."
"Very well. Take him away and keep a sharp lookout."
Gaston Sauverand walked off quietly between the deputy chief and
Mazeroux. He turned round in the doorway.
"Monsieur le Préfet, as you are making a search, I entreat you to take
care of the papers on the table in my bedroom. They are notes that have
cost me a great deal of labour in the small hours of the night. Also--"
He hesitated, obviously embarrassed.
"Well?"
"Well, Monsieur le Préfet, I must tell you--something--"
He was looking for his words and seemed to fear the consequences of them
at the same time that he uttered them. But he suddenly made up his mind.
"Monsieur le Préfet, there is in this house--somewhere--a packet of
letters which I value more than my life. It is possible that those
letters, if misinterpreted, will furnish a weapon against me; but no
matter. The great thing is that they should be safe. You will see. They
include documents of extreme importance. I entrust them to your
keeping--to yours alone, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Where are they?"
"The hiding-place is easily found. All you have to do is to go to the
garret above my bedroom and press on a nail to the right of the window.
It is an apparently useless nail, but it controls a hiding-place outside,
under the slates of the roof, along the gutter."
He moved away between the two men. The Prefect called them back.
"One second. Mazeroux, go up to the garret and bring me the letters."
Mazeroux went out and returned in a few minutes. He had been unable to
work the spring.
The Prefect ordered Chief Inspector Ancenis to go up with Mazeroux and to
take the prisoner, who would show them how to open the hiding-place. He
himself remained in the room with Weber, awaiting the result of the
search, and began to read the titles of the volumes piled upon the table.
They were scientific books, among which he noticed works on chemistry:
"Organic Chemistry" and "Chemistry Considered in Its Relations with
Electricity." They were all covered with notes in the margins. He was
turning over the pages of one of them, when he seemed to hear shouts.
The Prefect rushed to the door, but had not crossed the threshold when a
pistol shot echoed down the staircase and there was a yell of pain.
Immediately after came two more shots, accompanied by cries, the sound of
a struggle, and yet another shot.
Tearing upstairs, four steps at a time, with an agility not to be
expected from a man of his build, the Prefect of Police, followed by the
deputy chief, covered the second flight and came to a third, which was
narrower and steeper. When he reached the bend, a man's body, staggering
above him, fell into his arms: it was Mazeroux, wounded.
On the stairs lay another body, lifeless, that of Chief Inspector
Ancenis.
Above them, in the frame of a small doorway, stood Gaston Sauverand, with
a savage look on his face and his arm outstretched. He fired a fifth shot
at random. Then, seeing the Prefect of Police, he took deliberate aim.
The Prefect stared at that terrifying barrel levelled at his face and
gave himself up for lost. But, at that exact second, a shot was
discharged from behind him, Sauverand's weapon fell from his hand before
he was able to fire, and the Prefect saw, as in a dream, a man, the man
who had saved his life, striding across the chief inspector's body,
propping Mazeroux against the wall, and darting ahead, followed by the
detectives. He recognized the man: it was Don Luis Perenna.
Don Luis stepped briskly into the garret where Sauverand had retreated,
but had time only to catch sight of him standing on the window ledge and
leaping into space from the third floor.
"Has he jumped from there?" cried the Prefect, hastening up. "We shall
never capture him alive!"
"Neither alive nor dead, Monsieur le Préfet. See, he's picking himself
up. There's a providence which looks after that sort. He's making for the
gate. He's hardly limping."
"But where are my men?"
"Why, they're all on the staircase, in the house, brought here by the
shots, seeing to the wounded--"
"Oh, the demon!" muttered the Prefect. "He's played a masterly game!"
Gaston Sauverand, in fact, was escaping unmolested.
"Stop him! Stop him!" roared M. Desmalions.
There were two motors standing beside the pavement, which is very wide
at this spot: the Prefect's own car, and the cab which the deputy chief
had provided for the prisoner. The two chauffeurs, sitting on their
seats, had noticed nothing of the fight. But they saw Gaston Sauverand's
leap into space; and the Prefect's chauffeur, on whose seat a certain
number of incriminating articles had been placed, taking out of the heap
the first weapon that offered, the ebony walking-stick, bravely rushed
at the fugitive.
"Stop him! Stop him!" shouted M. Desmalions.
The encounter took place at the exit from the courtyard. It did not last
long. Sauverand flung himself upon his assailant, snatched the stick from
him, and broke it across his face. Then, without dropping the handle, he
ran away, pursued by the other chauffeur and by three detectives who at
last appeared from the house. He had thirty yards' start of the
detectives, one of whom fired several shots at him without effect.
When M. Desmalions and Weber went downstairs again, they found the chief
inspector lying on the bed in Gaston Sauverand's room on the second
floor, gray in the face. He had been hit on the head and was dying. A few
minutes later he was dead.
Sergeant Mazeroux, whose wound was only slight, said, while it was being
dressed, that Sauverand had taken the chief inspector and himself up to
the garret, and that, outside the door, he had dipped his hand quickly
into an old satchel hanging on the wall among some servants' wornout
aprons and jackets. He drew out a revolver and fired point-blank at the
chief inspector, who dropped like a log. When seized by Mazeroux, the
murderer released himself and fired three bullets, the third of which hit
the sergeant in the shoulder.
And so, in a fight in which the police had a band of experienced
detectives at their disposal, while the enemy, a prisoner, seemed to
possess not the remotest chance of safety, this enemy, by a strategem of
unprecedented daring, had led two of his adversaries aside, disabled
both of them, drawn the others into the house and, finding the coast
clear, escaped.