"You were in that passage 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 Préfet; 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 Préfet."
"Eh? What's that you say?"
"Monsieur le Préfet, 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 hell. 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 assizes! Penal servitude! The
scaffold! And no assistance possible, not a struggle, not a hope!
Accumulated 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 Vérot this
morning and followed him to the Café 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 nobody will
know what to make of it. Marie and Sauverand guilty: of that there is not
the least doubt. But, outside that, absolute mystery.
"Nobody 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 manuscript 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
Vérot, in short, anything that might save the culprits. Then how can any
one know? No, nobody 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.
But, after all, what do I care? Marie and Sauverand will be at the
bottom of the abyss by then, dead no doubt, or in any case separated
forever. And I risk nothing by leaving this evidence of my hatred in the
hands of chance.
"There, that's finished. I have only to sign. My hand shakes more and
more. The sweat is pouring from my forehead in great drops. I am
suffering the tortures of the damned and I am divinely happy! Aha, my
friends, you were waiting for my death!
"You, Marie, imprudently let me read in your eyes, which watched me
stealthily, all your delight at seeing me so ill! And you were both of
you so sure of the future that you had the courage to wait patiently for
my death! Well, here it is, my death! Here it is and there are you,
united above my grave, linked together with the handcuffs. Marie, be the
wife of my friend Sauverand. Sauverand, I bestow my spouse upon you. Be
joined together in holy matrimony. Bless you, my children!
"The examining magistrate will draw up the contract and the executioner
will read the marriage service. Oh, the delight of it! I suffer
agonies--but oh, the delight! What a fine thing is hatred, when it makes
death a joy! I am happy in dying. Marie is in prison. Sauverand is
weeping in the condemned man's cell. The door opens....
"Oh, horror! the men in black! They walk up to the bed: 'Gaston
Sauverand, your appeal is rejected. Courage! Be a man!' Oh, the cold,
dark morning--the scaffold! It's your turn, Marie, your turn! Would you
survive your lover? Sauverand is dead: it's your turn. See, here's a
rope for you. Or would you rather have poison? Die, will you, you hussy!
Die with your veins on fire--as I am doing, I who hate you--hate
you--hate you!"
M. Desmalions ceased, amid the silent astonishment of all those present.
He had great difficulty in reading the concluding lines, the writing
having become almost wholly shapeless and illegible.
He said, in a low voice, as he stared at the paper: "'Hippolyte
Fauville,' The signature is there. The scoundrel found a last remnant
of strength to sign his name clearly. He feared that a doubt might be
entertained of his villainy. And indeed how could any one have
suspected it?"
And, looking at Don Luis, he added:
"It needed, to solve the mystery, a really exceptional power of insight
and gifts to which we must all do homage, to which I do homage. All the
explanations which that madman gave have been anticipated in the most
accurate and bewildering fashion."
Don Luis bowed and, without replying to the praise bestowed upon
him, said:
"You are right, Monsieur le Préfet; he was a madman, and one of the most
dangerous kind, the lucid madman who pursues an idea from which nothing
will make him turn aside. He pursued it with superhuman tenacity and with
all the resources of his fastidious mind, enslaved by the laws of
mechanics.
"Another would have killed his victims frankly and brutally. He set his
wits to work to kill at a long date, like an experimenter who leaves to
time the duty of proving the excellence of his invention. And he
succeeded only too well, because the police fell into the trap and
because Mme. Fauville is perhaps going to die."
M. Desmalions made a gesture of decision. The whole business, in fact,
was past history, on which the police proceedings would throw the
necessary light. One fact alone was of importance to the present: the
saving of Marie Fauville's life.
"It's true," he said, "we have not a minute to lose. Mme. Fauville must
be told without delay. At the same time, I will send for the examining
magistrate; and the case against her is sure to be dismissed at once."
He swiftly gave orders for continuing the investigations and verifying
Don Luis's theories. Then, turning to Perenna:
"Come, Monsieur," he said. "It is right that Mme. Fauville should thank
her rescuer. Mazeroux, you come, too."
* * * * *
The meeting was over, that meeting in the course of which Don Luis had
given the most striking proofs of his genius. Waging war, so to speak,
upon the powers beyond the grave, he had forced the dead man to reveal
his secret. He disclosed, as though he had been present throughout, the
hateful vengeance conceived in the darkness and carried out in the tomb.
M. Desmalions showed all his admiration by his silence and by certain
movements of his head. And Perenna took a keen enjoyment in the strange
fact that he, who was being hunted down by the police a few hours ago,
should now be sitting in a motor car beside the head of that same force.
Nothing threw into greater relief the masterly manner in which he had
conducted the business and the importance which the police attached to
the results obtained. The value of his collaboration was such that they
were willing to forget the incidents of the last two days. The grudge
which Weber bore him was now of no avail against Don Luis Perenna.
M. Desmalions, meanwhile, began briefly to review the new solutions, and
he concluded by still discussing certain points.
"Yes, that's it ... there is not the least shadow of a doubt.... We
agree.... It's that and nothing else. Still, one or two things remain
obscure. First of all, the mark of the teeth. This, notwithstanding the
husband's admission, is a fact which we cannot neglect."
"I believe that the explanation is a very simple one, Monsieur le Préfet.
I will give it to you as soon as I am able to support it with the
necessary proofs."
"Very well. But another question: how is it that Weber, yesterday
morning, found that sheet of paper relating to the explosion in Mlle.
Levasseur's room?"
"And how was it," added Don Luis, laughing, "that I found there the list
of the five dates corresponding with the delivery of the letters?"
"So you are of my opinion?" said M. Desmalions. "The part played by Mlle.
Levasseur is at least suspicious."
"I believe that everything will be cleared up, Monsieur le Préfet, and
that you need now only question Mme. Fauville and Gaston Sauverand in
order to dispel these last obscurities and remove all suspicion from
Mlle. Levasseur."
"And then," insisted M. Desmalions, "there is one more fact that strikes
me as odd. Hippolyte Fauville does not once mention the Mornington
inheritance in his confession. Why? Did he not know of it? Are we to
suppose that there is no connection, beyond a mere casual coincidence,
between the series of crimes and that bequest?"
"There, I am entirely of your opinion, Monsieur le Préfet. Hippolyte
Fauville's silence as to that bequest perplexes me a little, I confess.
But all the same I look upon it as comparatively unimportant. The main
thing is Fauville's guilt and the prisoners' innocence."
Don Luis's delight was pure and unbounded. From his point of view, the
sinister tragedy was at an end with the discovery of the confession
written by Hippolyte Fauville. Anything not explained in those lines
would be explained by the details to be supplied by Mme. Fauville,
Florence Levasseur, and Gaston Sauverand. He himself had lost all
interest in the matter.
The car drew up at Saint-Lazare, the wretched, sordid old prison which is
still waiting to be pulled down.
The Prefect jumped out. The door was opened at once.
"Is the prison governor there?" he asked. "Quick! send for him,
it's urgent."
Then, unable to wait, he at once hastened toward the corridors leading to
the infirmary and, as he reached the first-floor landing, came up against
the governor himself.
"Mme. Fauville," he said, without waste of time. "I want to see her--"
But he stopped short when he saw the expression of consternation on the
prison governor's face.
"Well, what is it?" he asked. "What's the matter?"
"Why, haven't you heard, Monsieur le Préfet?" stammered the governor. "I
telephoned to the office, you know--"
"Speak! What is it?"
"Mme. Fauville died this morning. She managed somehow to take poison."
M. Desmalions seized the governor by the arm and ran to the infirmary,
followed by Perenna and Mazeroux.
He saw Marie Fauville lying on a bed in one of the rooms. Her pale face
and her shoulders were stained with brown patches, similar to those
which had marked the bodies of Inspector Vérot, Hippolyte Fauville, and
his son Edmond.
Greatly upset, the Prefect murmured:
"But the poison--where did it come from?"
"This phial and syringe were found under her pillow, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Under her pillow? But how did they get there? How did they reach her?
Who gave them to her?"
"We don't know yet, Monsieur le Préfet."
M. Desmalions looked at Don Luis. So Hippolyte Fauville's suicide had not
put an end to the series of crimes! His action had done more than aim at
Marie's death by the hand of the law: it had now driven her to take
poison! Was it possible? Was it admissible that the dead man's revenge
should still continue in the same automatic and anonymous manner?
Or rather--or rather, was there not some other mysterious will which
was secretly and as audaciously carrying on Hippolyte Fauville's
diabolical work?
* * * * *
Two days later came a fresh sensation: Gaston Sauverand was found dying
in his cell. He had had the courage to strangle himself with his
bedsheet. All efforts to restore him to life were vain.
On the table near him lay a half-dozen newspaper cuttings, which had been
passed to him by an unknown hand. All of them told the news of Marie
Fauville's death.