Gaston Sauverand!
Instinctively, Don Luis took a step back, drew his revolver, and aimed it
at the criminal:
"Hands up!" he commanded. "Hands up, or I fire!"
Sauverand did not appear to be put out. He nodded toward two revolvers
which he had laid on a table beyond his reach and said:
"There are my arms. I have come here not to fight, but to talk."
"How did you get in?" roared Don Luis, exasperated by this display of
calmness. "A false key, I suppose? But how did you get hold of the key?
How did you manage it?"
The other did not reply. Don Luis stamped his foot:
"Speak, will you? Speak! If not--"
But Florence ran into the room. She passed him by without his trying to
stop her, flung herself upon Gaston Sauverand, and, taking no heed of
Perenna's presence, said:
"Why did you come? You promised me that you wouldn't. You swore it
to me. Go!"
Sauverand released himself and forced her into a chair.
"Let me be, Florence. I promised only so as to reassure you. Let me be."
"No, I will not!" exclaimed the girl eagerly. "It's madness! I won't have
you say a single word. Oh, please, please stop!"
He bent over her and smoothed her forehead, separating her mass of
golden hair.
"Let me do things my own way, Florence," he said softly.
She was silent, as though disarmed by the gentleness of his voice; and he
whispered more words which Don Luis could not hear and which seemed to
convince her.
Perenna had not moved. He stood opposite them with his arm outstretched
and his finger on the trigger, aiming at the enemy. When Sauverand
addressed Florence by her Christian name, he started from head to foot
and his finger trembled. What miracle kept him from shooting? By what
supreme effort of will did he stifle the jealous hatred that burnt him
like fire? And here was Sauverand daring to stroke Florence's hair!
He lowered his arm. He would kill them later, do with them what he
pleased, since they were in his power, and since nothing henceforth could
snatch them from his vengeance.
He took Sauverand's two revolvers and laid them in a drawer. Then he went
back to the door, intending to lock it. But hearing a sound on the
first-floor landing, he leant over the balusters. The butler was coming
upstairs with a tray in his hand.
"What is it now?"
"An urgent letter, sir, for Sergeant Mazeroux."
"Sergeant Mazeroux is with me. Give me the letter and don't let me be
disturbed again."
He tore open the envelope. The letter, hurriedly written in pencil and
signed by one of the inspectors on duty outside the house, contained
these words:
"Look out, Sergeant. Gaston Sauverand is in the house. Two people living
opposite say that the girl who is known hereabouts as the lady
housekeeper came in at half-past one, before we took up our posts. She
was next seen at the window of her lodge.
"A few moments after, a small, low door, used for the cellars and
situated under the lodge, was opened, evidently by her. Almost at the
same time a man entered the square, came along the wall, and slipped in
through the cellar door. According to the description it was Gaston
Sauverand. So look out, Sergeant. At the least alarm, at the first signal
from you, we shall come in."
Don Luis reflected. He now understood how the scoundrel had access to his
house, and how, hidden in the safest of retreats, he was able to escape
every attempt to find him. He was living under the roof of the very man
who had declared himself his most formidable adversary.
"Come on," he said to himself. "The fellow's score is settled--and so is
his young lady's. They can choose between the bullets in my revolver and
the handcuffs of the police."
He had ceased to think of his motor standing ready below. He no longer
dreamt of flight with Florence. If he did not kill the two of them, the
law would lay its hand upon them, the hand that does not let go. And
perhaps it was better so, that society itself should punish the two
criminals whom he was about to hand over to it.
He shut the door, pushed the bolt, faced his two prisoners again and,
taking a chair, said to Sauverand:
"Let us talk."
Owing to the narrow dimensions of the room they were all so close
together that Don Luis felt as if he were almost touching the man whom he
loathed from the very bottom of his heart. Their two chairs were hardly a
yard asunder. A long table, covered with books, stood between them and
the windows, which, hollowed out of the very thick wall, formed a recess,
as is usual in old houses.
Florence had turned her chair away from the light, and Don Luis could not
see her face clearly. But he looked straight into Gaston Sauverand's face
and watched it with eager curiosity; and his anger was heightened by the
sight of the still youthful features, the expressive mouth, and the
intelligent eyes, which were fine in spite of their hardness.
"Well? Speak!" said Don Luis, in a commanding tone. "I have agreed to a
truce, but a momentary truce, just long enough to say what is necessary.
Are you afraid now that the time has arrived? Do you regret the step
which you have taken?"
The man smiled calmly and said:
"I am afraid of nothing, and I do not regret coming, for I have a very
strong intuition that we can, that we are bound to, come to an
understanding."
"An understanding!" protested Don Luis with a start.
"Why not?"
"A compact! An alliance between you and me!"
"Why not? It is a thought which I had already entertained more than once,
which took a more precise shape in the magistrates' corridor, and which
finally decided me when I read the announcement which you caused to be
made in the special edition of this paper: 'Sensational declaration by
Don Luis Perenna. Mme. Fauville is innocent!'"
Gaston Sauverand half rose from his chair and, carefully picking his
words, emphasizing them with sharp gestures, he whispered:
"Everything lies, Monsieur, in those four words. Do those four words
which you have written, which you have uttered publicly and
solemnly--'Mme. Fauville is innocent'--do they express your real mind? Do
you now absolutely believe in Marie Fauville's innocence?"
Don Luis shrugged his shoulders.
"Mme. Fauville's innocence has nothing to do with the case. It is a
question not of her, but of you, of you two and myself. So come straight
to the point and as quickly as you can. It is to your interest even more
than to mine."
"To our interest?"
"You forget the third heading to the article," cried Don Luis. "I did
more than proclaim Marie Fauville's innocence. I also announced--read for
yourself--The 'imminent arrest of the criminals.'"
Sauverand and Florence rose together, with the same unguarded movement.
"And, in your view, the criminals are--?" asked Sauverand.
"Why, you know as well as I do: they are the man with the ebony
walking-stick, who at any rate cannot deny having murdered Chief
Inspector Ancenis, and the woman who is his accomplice in all his crimes.
Both of them must remember their attempts to assassinate me: the revolver
shot on the Boulevard Suchet; the motor smash causing the death of my
chauffeur; and yesterday again, in the barn--you know where--the barn
with the two skeletons hanging from the rafters: yesterday--you
remember--the scythe, the relentless scythe, which nearly beheaded me."
"And then?"
"Well, then, the game is lost. You must pay up; and all the more so as
you have foolishly put your heads into the lion's mouth."
"I don't understand. What does all this mean?"
"It simply means that they know Florence Levasseur, that they know you
are both here, that the house is surrounded, and that Weber, the deputy
chief detective, is on his way."
Sauverand appeared disconcerted by this unexpected threat. Florence,
standing beside him, had turned livid. A mad anguish distorted her
features. She stammered:
"Oh, it is awful! No, no, I can't endure it!"
And, rushing at Don Luis:
"Coward! Coward! It's you who are betraying us! Coward! Oh, I knew that
you were capable of the meanest treachery! There you stand like an
executioner! Oh, you villain, you coward!"
She fell into her chair, exhausted and sobbing, with her hand to her
face.
Don Luis turned away. Strange to say, he experienced no sense of pity;
and Florence's tears affected him no more than her insults had done, no
more than if he had never loved the girl. He was glad of this release.
The horror with which she filled him had killed his love.
But, when he once more stood in front of them after taking a few steps
across the room, he saw that they were holding each other's hands, like
two friends in distress, trying to give each other courage; and, again
yielding to a sudden impulse of hatred, for a moment beside himself, he
gripped the man's arm:
"I forbid you--By what right--? Is she your wife? Your mistress? Then--"
His voice became perplexed. He himself felt the strangeness of that fit
of anger which suddenly revealed, in all its force and all its blindness,
a passion which he thought dead. And he blushed, for Gaston Sauverand was
looking at him in amazement; and he did not doubt that the enemy had
penetrated his secret.
A long pause followed, during which he met Florence's eyes, hostile eyes,
full of rebellion and disdain. Had she, too, guessed?
He dared not speak another word. He waited for Sauverand's explanation.
And, while waiting, he gave not a thought to the coming revelations, nor
to the tremendous problems of which he was at last about to know the
solution, nor to the tragic events at hand.
He thought of one thing only, thought of it with the fevered throbbing of
his whole being, thought of what he was on the point of learning about
Florence, about the girl's affections, about her past, about her love for
Sauverand. That alone interested him.
"Very well," said Sauverand. "I am caught in a trap. Fate must take its
course. Nevertheless, can I speak to you? It is the only wish that
remains to me."
"Speak," replied Don Luis. "The door is locked. I shall not open it until
I think fit. Speak."
"I shall be brief," said Gaston Sauverand. "For one thing, what I can
tell you is not much. I do not ask you to believe it, but to listen to it
as if I were possibly telling the truth, the whole truth."
And he expressed himself in the following words:
"I never met Hippolyte and Marie Fauville, though I used to correspond
with them--you will remember that we were all cousins--until five
years ago, when chance brought us together at Palmero. They were
passing the winter there while their new house on the Boulevard Suchet
was being built.
"We spent five months at Palmero, seeing one another daily. Hippolyte and
Marie were not on the best of terms. One evening after they had been
quarrelling more violently than usual I found her crying. Her tears upset
me and I could not longer conceal my secret. I had loved Marie from the
first moment when we met. I was to love her always and to love her more
and more."
"You lie!" cried Don Luis, losing his self-restraint. "I saw the two of
you yesterday in the train that brought you back from Alençon--"
Gaston Sauverand looked at Florence. She sat silent, with her hands to
her face and her elbows on her knees. Without replying to Don Luis's
exclamation, he went on:
"Marie also loved me. She admitted it, but made me swear that I would
never try to obtain from her more than the purest friendship would allow.
I kept my oath. We enjoyed a few weeks of incomparable happiness.
Hippolyte Fauville, who had become enamoured of a music-hall singer, was
often away.
"I took a good deal of trouble with the physical training of the little
boy Edmond, whose health was not what it should be. And we also had with
us, between us, the best of friends, the most devoted and affectionate
counsellor, who staunched our wounds, kept up our courage, restored our
gayety, and bestowed some of her own strength and dignity upon our love.
Florence was there."
Don Luis felt his heart beating faster. Not that he attached the least
credit to Gaston Sauverand's words; but he had every hope of arriving,
through those words, at the real truth. Perhaps, also, he was
unconsciously undergoing the influence of Gaston Sauverand, whose
apparent frankness and sincerity of tone caused him a certain surprise.
Sauverand continued:
"Fifteen years before, my elder brother, Raoul Sauverand, had picked up
at Buenos Aires, where he had gone to live, a little girl, the orphan
daughter of some friends. At his death he entrusted the child, who was
then fourteen, to an old nurse who had brought me up and who had
accompanied my brother to South America. The old nurse brought the child
to me and herself died of an accident a few days after her arrival in
France.... I took the little girl to Italy to friends, where she worked
and studied and became--what she is.
"Wishing to live by her own resources, she accepted a position as teacher
in a family. Later I recommended her to my Fauville cousins with whom I
found her at Palmero as governess to the boy Edmond and especially as the
friend, the dear and devoted friend, of Marie Fauville.... She was mine,
also, at that happy time, which was so sunny and all too short. Our
happiness, in fact--the happiness of all three of us--was to be wrecked
in the most sudden and tantalizing fashion.
"Every evening I used to write in a diary the daily life of my love, an
uneventful life, without hope or future before it, but eager and radiant.
Marie Fauville was extolled in it as a goddess. Kneeling down to write, I
sang litanies of her beauty, and I also used to invent, as a poor
compensation, wholly imaginary scenes, in which she said all the things
which she might have said but did not, and promised me all the happiness
which we had voluntarily renounced.
"Hippolyte Fauville found the diary.... His anger was something terrible.
His first impulse was to get rid of Marie. But in the face of his wife's
attitude, of the proofs of her innocence which she supplied, of her
inflexible refusal to consent to a divorce, and of her promise never to
see me again, he recovered his calmness.... I left, with death in my
soul. Florence left, too, dismissed. And never, mark me, never, since
that fatal hour, did I exchange a single word with Marie. But an
indestructible love united us, a love which neither absence nor time was
to weaken."
He stopped for a moment, as though to read in Don Luis's face the effect
produced by his story. Don Luis did not conceal his anxious attention.
What astonished him most was Gaston Sauverand's extraordinary calmness,
the peaceful expression of his eyes, the quiet ease with which he set
forth, without hurrying, almost slowly and so very simply, the story of
that family tragedy.
"What an actor!" he thought.
And as he thought it, he remembered that Marie Fauville had given him the
same impression. Was he then to hark back to his first conviction and
believe Marie guilty, a dissembler like her accomplice, a dissembler like
Florence? Or was he to attribute a certain honesty to that man?
He asked:
"And afterward?"
"Afterward I travelled about. I resumed my life of work and pursued my
studies wherever I went, in my bedroom at the hotels, and in the public
laboratories of the big towns."
"And Mme. Fauville?"
"She lived in Paris in her new house. Neither she nor her husband ever
referred to the past."
"How do you know? Did she write to you?"
"No. Marie is a woman who does not do her duty by halves; and her sense
of duty is strict to excess. She never wrote to me. But Florence, who had
accepted a place as secretary and reader to Count Malonyi, your
predecessor in this house, used often to receive Marie's visits in her
lodge downstairs.
"They did not speak of me once, did they, Florence? Marie would not have
allowed it. But all her life and all her soul were nothing but love and
passionate memories. Isn't that so, Florence?
"At last," he went on slowly, "weary of being so far away from her, I
returned to Paris. That was our undoing.... It was about a year ago. I
took a flat in the Avenue du Roule and went to it in the greatest
secrecy, so that Hippolyte Fauville might not know of my return. I was
afraid of disturbing Marie's peace of mind. Florence alone knew, and came
to see me from time to time. I went out little, only after dark, and in
the most secluded parts of the Bois. But it happened--for our most heroic
resolutions sometimes fail us--one Wednesday night, at about eleven
o'clock, my steps led me to the Boulevard Suchet, without my noticing it,
and I went past Marie's house.
"It was a warm and fine night and, as luck would have it, Marie was at
her window. She saw me, I was sure of it, and knew me; and my happiness
was so great that my legs shook under me as I walked away.
"After that I passed in front of her house every Wednesday evening; and
Marie was nearly always there, giving me this unhoped-for and ever-new
delight, in spite of the fact that her social duties, her quite natural
love of amusement, and her husband's position obliged her to go out a
great deal."
"Quick! Why can't you hurry?" said Don Luis, urged by his longing to know
more. "Look sharp and come to the facts. Speak!"
He had become suddenly afraid lest he should not hear the remainder of
the explanation; and he suddenly perceived that Gaston Sauverand's words
were making their way into his mind as words that were perhaps not
untrue. Though he strove to fight against them, they were stronger than
his prejudices and triumphed over his arguments.
The fact is, that deep down in his soul, tortured with love and jealousy,
there was something that disposed him to believe this man in whom
hitherto he had seen only a hated rival, and who was so loudly
proclaiming, in Florence's very presence, his love for Marie.
"Hurry!" he repeated. "Every minute is precious!"
Sauverand shook his head.
"I shall not hurry. All my words were carefully thought out before I
decided to speak. Every one of them is essential. Not one of them can be
omitted, for you will find the solution of the problem not in facts
presented anyhow, separated one from the other, but in the concatenation
of the facts, and in a story told as faithfully as possible."
"Why? I don't understand."
"Because the truth lies hidden in that story."
"But that truth is your innocence, isn't it?"
"It is Marie's innocence."
"But I don't dispute it!"
"What is the use of that if you can't prove it?"
"Exactly! It's for you to give me proofs."
"I have none."
"What!"
"I tell you, I have no proof of what I am asking you to believe."
"Then I shall not believe it!" cried Don Luis angrily. "No, and again no!
Unless you supply me with the most convincing proofs, I shall refuse to
believe a single word of what you are going to tell me."
"You have believed everything that I have told you so far," Sauverand
retorted very simply.
Don Luis offered no denial. He turned his eyes to Florence Levasseur; and
it seemed to him that she was looking at him with less aversion, and as
though she were wishing with all her might that he would not resist the
impressions that were forcing themselves upon him. He muttered:
"Go on with your story."
And there was something really strange about the attitude of those two
men, one making his explanation in precise terms and in such a way as to
give every word its full value, the other listening attentively and
weighing every one of those words; both controlling their excitement;
both as calm in appearance as though they were seeking the philosophical
solution in a case of conscience. What was going on outside did not
matter. What was to happen presently did not count.
Before all, whatever the consequences of their inactivity at this moment
when the circle of the police was closing in around them, before all it
was necessary that one should speak and the other listen.
"We are coming," said Sauverand, in his grave voice, "we are coming to
the most important events, to those of which the interpretation, which is
new to you, but strictly true, will make you believe in our good faith.
Ill luck having brought me across Hippolyte Fauville's path in the course
of one of my walks in the Bois, I took the precaution of changing my
abode and went to live in the little house on the Boulevard
Richard-Wallace, where Florence came to see me several times.
"I was even careful to keep her visits a secret and, moreover, to refrain
from corresponding with her except through the _poste restante_. I was
therefore quite easy in my mind.
"I worked in perfect solitude and in complete security. I expected
nothing. No danger, no possibility of danger, threatened us. And, I may
say, to use a commonplace but very accurate expression, that what
happened came as an absolute bolt from the blue. I heard at the same
time, when the Prefect of Police and his men broke into my house and
proceeded to arrest me, I heard at the same time and for the first time
of the murder of Hippolyte Fauville, the murder of Edmond, and the arrest
of my adored Marie."
"Impossible!" cried Don Luis, in a renewed tone of aggressive wrath.
"Impossible! Those facts were a fortnight old. I cannot allow that you
had not heard of them."
"Through whom?"
"Through the papers," exclaimed Don Luis. "And, more certainly still,
through Mlle. Levasseur."
"Through the papers?" said Sauverand. "I never used to read them. What!
Is that incredible? Are we under an obligation, an inevitable necessity,
to waste half an hour a day in skimming through the futilities of
politics and the piffle of the news columns? Is your imagination
incapable of conceiving a man who reads nothing but reviews and
scientific publications?
"The fact is rare, I admit," he continued. "But the rarity of a fact is
no proof against it. On the other hand, on the very morning of the crime
I had written to Florence saying that I was going away for three weeks
and bidding her good-bye. I changed my mind at the last moment; but this
she did not know; and, thinking that I had gone, not knowing where I was,
she was unable to inform me of the crime, of Marie's arrest, or, later,
when an accusation was brought against the man with the ebony
walking-stick, of the search that was being made for me."
"Exactly!" declared Don Luis. "You cannot pretend that the man with the
ebony walking-stick, the man who followed Inspector Vérot to the Café du
Pont-Neuf and purloined his letter--"
"I am not the man," Sauverand interrupted.
And, when Don Luis shrugged his shoulders, he insisted, in a more
forcible tone of voice:
"I am not that man. There is some inexplicable mistake in all this, but I
have never set foot in the Café du Pont-Neuf. I swear it. You must accept
this statement as positively true. Besides, it agrees entirely with the
retired life which I was leading from necessity and from choice. And, I
repeat, I knew nothing.
"The thunderbolt was unexpected. And it was precisely for this reason,
you must understand, that the shock produced in me an equally unexpected
reaction, a state of mind diametrically opposed to my real nature, an
outburst of my most savage and primitive instincts. Remember, Monsieur,
that they had laid hands upon what to me was the most sacred thing on
earth. Marie was in prison. Marie was accused of committing two
murders!... I went mad.
"At first controlling myself, playing a part with the Prefect of Police,
then overthrowing every obstacle, shooting Chief Inspector Ancenis,
shaking off Sergeant Mazeroux, jumping from the window, I had only one
thought in my head--that of escape. Once free, I should save Marie. Were
there people in my way? So much the worse for them.
"By what right did those people dare to attack the most blameless of
women? I killed only one man that day! I would have killed ten! I would
have killed twenty! What was Chief Inspector Ancenis's life to me? What
cared I for the lives of any of those wretches? They stood between Marie
and myself; and Marie was in prison!"
Gaston Sauverand made an effort which contracted every muscle of his face
to recover the coolness that was gradually leaving him. He succeeded in
doing so, but his voice, nevertheless, remained tremulous, and the fever
with which he was consumed shook his frame in a manner which he was
unable to conceal.
He continued:
"At the corner of the street down which I turned after outdistancing the
Prefect's men on the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, Florence saved me just as
I believed that all was lost. Florence had known everything for a
fortnight past. She learnt the news of the double murder from the papers,
those papers which she used to read out to you, and which you discussed
with her. And it was by being with you, by listening to you, that she
acquired the opinion which everything that happened tended to confirm:
the opinion that Marie's enemy, her only enemy, was yourself."
"But why? Why?"
"Because she saw you at work," exclaimed Sauverand, "because it was more
to your interest than to that of any one else that first Marie and then I
should not come between you and the Mornington inheritance, and lastly--"
"What?"
Gaston Sauverand hesitated and then said, plainly:
"Lastly, because she knew your real name beyond a doubt, and because she
felt that Arsène Lupin was capable of anything."
They were both silent; and their silence, at such a moment, was
impressive to a degree. Florence remained impassive under Don Luis
Perenna's gaze; and he was unable to discern on her sealed face any of
the feelings with which she must needs be stirred.
Gaston Sauverand continued:
"It was against Arsène Lupin, therefore, that Florence, Marie's terrified
friend, engaged in the struggle. It was to unmask Lupin that she wrote or
rather inspired the article of which you found the original in a ball of
string. It was Lupin whom she spied upon, day by day, in this house. It
was Lupin whom she heard one morning telephoning to Sergeant Mazeroux and
rejoicing in my imminent arrest. It was to save me from Lupin that she
let down the iron curtain in front of him, at the risk of an accident,
and took a taxi to the corner of the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, where she
arrived too late to warn me, as the detectives had already entered my
house, but in time to screen me from their pursuit.
"Her mistrust and terror-stricken hatred of you were told to me in an
instant," Sauverand declared. "During the twenty minutes which we
employed in throwing our assailants off the scent, she hurriedly sketched
the main lines of the business and described to me in a few words the
leading part which you were playing in it; and we then and there prepared
a counter-attack upon you, so that you might be suspected of complicity.
"While I was sending a message to the Prefect of Police, Florence went
home and hid under the cushions of your sofa the end of the stick
which I had kept in my hand without thinking. It was an ineffective
parry and missed its aim. But the fight had begun; and I threw myself
into it headlong.
"Monsieur, to understand my actions thoroughly, you must remember that I
was a student, a man leading a solitary life, but also an ardent lover. I
would have spent all my life in work, asking no more from fate than to
see Marie at her window from time to time at night. But, once she was
being persecuted, another man arose within me, a man of action, bungling,
certainly, and inexperienced, but a man who was ready to stick at
nothing, and who, not knowing how to save Marie Fauville, had no other
object before him than to do away with that enemy of Marie's to whom he
was entitled to ascribe all the misfortunes that had befallen the woman
he loved.... This started the series of my attempts upon your life.
Brought into your house, concealed in Florence's own rooms, I
tried--unknown to her: that I swear--to poison you."
He paused for an instant to mark the effect of his words, then went on:
"Her reproaches, her abhorrence of such an act, would perhaps have moved
me, but, I repeat, I was mad, quite mad; and your death seemed to me to
imply Marie's safety. And, one morning, on the Boulevard Suchet, where I
had followed you, I fired a revolver at you.
"The same evening your motor car, tampered with by myself--remember,
Florence's rooms are close to the garage--carried you, I hoped, to your
death, together with Sergeant Mazeroux, your confederate.... That time
again you escaped my vengeance. But an innocent man, the chauffeur who
drove you, paid for you with his life; and Florence's despair was such
that I had to yield to her entreaties and lay down my arms.
"I myself, terrified by what I had done, shattered by the remembrance of
my two victims, changed my plans and thought only of saving Marie by
contriving her escape from prison....
"I am a rich man. I lavished money upon Marie's warders, without,
however, revealing my intentions. I entered into relations with the
prison tradesmen and the staff of the infirmary. And every day, having
procured a card of admission as a law reporter, I went to the law courts,
to the examining magistrates' corridor, where I hoped to meet Marie, to
encourage her with a look, a gesture, perhaps to slip a few words of
comfort into her hand...."
Sauverand moved closer to Don Luis.
"Her martyrdom continued. You struck her a most terrible blow with that
mysterious business of Hippolyte Fauville's letters. What did those
letters mean? Where did they come from? Were we not entitled to
attribute the whole plot to you, to you who introduced them into the
horrible struggle?
"Florence watched you, I may say, night and day. We sought for a clue, a
glimmer of light in the darkness.... Well, yesterday morning, Florence
saw Sergeant Mazeroux arrive. She could not overhear what he said to you,
but she caught the name of a certain Langernault and the name of Damigni,
the village where Langernault lived. She remembered that old friend of
Hippolyte Fauville's. Were the letters not addressed to him and was it
not in search of him that you were going off in the motor with Sergeant
Mazeroux?...
"Half an hour later we were in the train for Alençon. A carriage took us
from the station to just outside Damigni, where we made our inquiries
with every possible precaution. On learning what you must also know, that
Langernault was dead, we resolved to visit his place, and we had
succeeded in effecting an entrance when Florence saw you in the grounds.
Wishing at all costs to avoid a meeting between you and myself, she
dragged me across the lawn and behind the bushes. You followed us,
however, and when a barn appeared in sight she pushed one of the doors
which half opened and let us through. We managed to slip quickly through
the lumber in the dark and knocked up against a ladder. This we climbed
and reached a loft in which we took shelter. You entered at that
moment....
"You know the rest: how you discovered the two hanging skeletons; how
your attention was drawn to us by an imprudent movement of Florence; your
attack, to which I replied by brandishing the first weapon with which
chance provided me; lastly, our flight through the window in the roof,
under the fire of your revolver. We were free. But in the evening, in the
train, Florence fainted. While bringing her to I perceived that one of
your bullets had wounded her in the shoulder. The wound was slight and
did not hurt her, but it was enough to increase the extreme tension of
her nerves. When you saw us--at Le Mans station wasn't it?--she was
asleep, with her head on my shoulder."
Don Luis had not once interrupted the latter part of this narrative,
which was told in a more and more agitated voice and quickened by an
accent of profound truth. Thanks to a superhuman effort of attention, he
noted Sauverand's least words and actions in his mind. And as these words
were uttered and these actions performed, he received the impression of
another woman who rose up beside the real Florence, a woman unspotted and
innocent of all the shame which he had attributed to her on the strength
of events.
Nevertheless, he did not yet give in. How could Florence possibly be
innocent? No, no, the evidence of his eyes, which had seen, and the
evidence of his reason, which had judged, both rebelled against any such
contention.
He would not admit that Florence could suddenly be different from what
she really was to him: a crafty, cunning, cruel, blood-thirsty monster.
No, no, the man was lying with infernal cleverness. He put things with a
skill amounting to genius, until it was no longer possible to
differentiate between the false and the true, or to distinguish the light
from the darkness.
He was lying! He was lying! And yet how sweet were the lies he told! How
beautiful was that imaginary Florence, the Florence compelled by destiny
to commit acts which she loathed, but free of all crime, free of remorse,
humane and pitiful, with her clear eyes and her snow-white hands! And how
good it was to yield to this fantastic dream!
Gaston Sauverand was watching the face of his former enemy. Standing
close to Don Luis, his features lit up with the expression of
feelings and passions which he no longer strove to check, he asked,
in a low voice:
"You believe me, don't you?"
"No, I don't," said Perenna, hardening himself to resist the man's
influence.
"You must!" cried Sauverand, with a fierce outburst of violence. "You
must believe in the strength of my love. It is the cause of everything.
My hatred for you comes only from my love. Marie is my life. If she were
dead, there would be nothing for me to do but die. Oh, this morning, when
I read in the papers that the poor woman had opened her veins--and
through your fault, after Hippolyte's letters accusing her--I did not
want to kill you so much as to inflict upon you the most barbarous
tortures! My poor Marie, what a martyrdom she must be enduring!...
"As you were not back, Florence and I wandered about all morning to have
news of her: first around the prison, next to the police office and the
law courts. And it was there, in the magistrates' corridor, that I saw
you. At that moment you were mentioning Marie Fauville's name to a number
of journalists; and you told them that Marie Fauville was innocent; and
you informed them of the evidence which you possessed in Marie's favour!
"My hatred ceased then and there, Monsieur. In one second the enemy had
become the ally, the master to whom one kneels. So you had had the
wonderful courage to repudiate all your work and to devote yourself to
Marie's rescue! I ran off, trembling with joy and hope, and, as I joined
Florence, I shouted, 'Marie is saved! He proclaims her innocent! I must
see him and speak to him!'...
"We came back here. Florence refused to lay down her arms and begged me
not to carry out my plan before your new attitude in the case was
confirmed by deeds. I promised everything that she asked. But my mind was
made up. And my will was still further strengthened when I had read your
declaration in the newspaper. I would place Marie's fate in your hands
whatever happened and without an hour's delay, I waited for your return
and came up here."
He was no longer the same man who had displayed such coolness at the
commencement of the interview. Exhausted by his efforts and by a struggle
that had lasted for weeks, costing him so much fruitless energy, he was
now trembling; and clinging to Don Luis, with one of his knees on the
chair beside which Don Luis was standing, he stammered:
"Save her, I implore you! You have it in your power. Yes, you can do
anything. I learnt to know you in fighting you. There was more than
your genius defending you against me; there is a luck that protects
you. You are different from other men. Why, the mere fact of your not
killing me at once, though I had pursued you so savagely, the fact of
your listening to the inconceivable truth of the innocence of all three
of us and accepting it as admissible, surely these constitute an
unprecedented miracle.
"While I was waiting for you and preparing to speak to you, I received
an intuition of it all!" he exclaimed. "I saw clearly that the man who
was proclaiming Marie's innocence with nothing to guide him but his
reason, I saw that this man alone could save her and that he would save
her. Ah, I beseech you, save her--and save her at once. Otherwise it
will be too late.
"In a few days Marie will have ended her life. She cannot go on living in
prison. You see, she means to die. No obstacle can prevent her. Can any
one be prevented from committing suicide? And how horrible if she were to
die!... Oh, if the law requires a criminal I will confess anything that I
am asked to. I will joyfully accept every charge and pay every penalty,
provided that Marie is free! Save her!... I did not know, I do not yet
know the best thing to be done! Save her from prison and death, save her,
for God's sake, save her!"
Tears flowed down his anguish-stricken face. Florence also was crying,
bowed down with sorrow. And Perenna suddenly felt the most terrible dread
steal over him.
Although, ever since the beginning of the interview, a fresh conviction
had gradually been mastering him, it was only as it were a glance that he
became aware of it. Suddenly he perceived that his belief in Sauverand's
words was unrestricted, and that Florence was perhaps not the loathsome
creature that he had had the right to think, but a woman whose eyes did
not lie and whose face and soul were alike beautiful.
Suddenly he learnt that the two people before him, as well as Marie
Fauville, for love of whom they had fought so unskilful a fight, were
imprisoned in an iron circle which their efforts would not succeed in
breaking. And that circle traced by an unknown hand he, Perenna, had
drawn tighter around them with the most ruthless determination.
"If only it is not too late!" he muttered.
He staggered under the shock of the sensations and ideas that crowded
upon him. Everything clashed in his brain with tragic violence:
certainty, joy, dismay, despair, fury. He was struggling in the clutches
of the most hideous nightmare; and he already seemed to see a detective's
heavy hand descending on Florence's shoulder.
"Come away! Come away!" he cried, starting up in alarm. "It is madness
to remain!"
"But the house is surrounded," Sauverand objected.
"And then? Do you think that I will allow for a second--? No, no, come!
We must fight side by side. I shall still entertain some doubts, that is
certain. You must destroy them; and we will save Mme. Fauville."
"But the detectives round the house?"
"We'll manage them."
"Weber, the deputy chief?"
"He's not here. And as long as he's not here I'll take everything on
myself. Come, follow me, but at some little distance. When I give the
signal and not till then--"
He drew the bolt and turned the handle of the door. At that moment some
one knocked. It was the butler.
"Well?" asked Don Luis. "Why am I disturbed?"
"The deputy chief detective, M. Weber, is here, sir."