Next morning, a little before eight o'clock, Valenglay was talking in his
own flat to the Prefect of Police, and asked:
"So you think as I do, my dear Prefect? He'll come?"
"I haven't the least doubt of it, Monsieur le Président. And he will come
with the same punctuality that has been shown throughout this business.
He will come, for pride's sake, at the last stroke of eight."
"You think so?"
"Monsieur le Président, I have been studying the man for months. As
things now stand, with Florence Levasseur's life in the balance, if he
has not smashed the villain whom he is hunting down, if he does not bring
him back bound hand and foot, it will mean that Florence Levasseur is
dead and that he, Arsène Lupin, is dead."
"Whereas Lupin is immortal," said Valenglay, laughing. "You're right.
Besides, I agree with you entirely. No one would be more astonished than
I if our good friend was not here to the minute. You say you were rung up
from Angers yesterday?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Président. My men had just seen Don Luis Perenna. He
had gone in front of them, in an aeroplane. After that, they telephoned
to me again from Le Mans, where they had been searching a deserted
coach-house.
"You may be sure that the search had already been made by Lupin, and that
we shall know the results. Listen: eight o'clock!"
At the same moment they heard the throbbing of a motor car. It stopped
outside the house; and the bell rang almost immediately after. Orders had
been given beforehand. The door opened and Don Luis Perenna was shown in.
To Valenglay and the Prefect of Police his arrival was certainly not
unexpected, for they had just been saying that they would have been
surprised if he had not come. Nevertheless, their attitude showed that
astonishment which we all experience in the face of events that seem to
pass the bounds of human possibility.
"Well?" cried the Prime Minister eagerly.
"It's done, Monsieur le Président."
"Have you collared the scoundrel?"
"Yes."
"By Jove!" said Valenglay. "You're a fine fellow!" And he went on to ask,
"An ogre, of course? An evil, undaunted brute?--"
"No, Monsieur le Président, a cripple, a degenerate, responsible for his
actions, certainly, but a man in whom the doctors will find every form of
wasting illness: disease of the spinal cord, tuberculosis, and all the
rest of it."
"And is that the man whom Florence Levasseur loved?"
"Monsieur le Président!" Don Luis violently protested. "Florence never
loved that wretch! She felt sorry for him, as any one would for a
fellow-creature doomed to an early death; and it was out of pity that she
allowed him to hope that she might marry him later, at some time in the
vague future."
"Are you sure of that?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Président, of that and of a good deal more besides, for
I have the proofs in my hands." Without further preamble, he continued:
"Monsieur le Président, now that the man is caught, it will be easy for
the police to find out every detail of his life. But meanwhile I can sum
up that monstrous life for you, looking only at the criminal side of it,
and passing briefly over three murders which have nothing to do with the
story of the Mornington case.
"Jean Vernocq was born at Alençon and brought up at old M. Langernault's
expense. He got to know the Dedessuslamare couple, robbed them of their
money and, before they had time to lodge a complaint against the unknown
thief, took them to a barn in the village of Damigni, where, in their
despair, stupefied and besotted with drugs, they hanged themselves.
"This barn stood in a property called the Old Castle, belonging to M.
Langernault, Jean Vernocq's protector, who was ill at the time. After his
recovery, as he was cleaning his gun, he received a full charge of shot
in the abdomen. The gun had been loaded without the old fellow's
knowledge. By whom? By Jean Vernocq, who had also emptied his patron's
cash box the night before ...
"In Paris, where he went to enjoy the little fortune which he had thus
amassed, Jean Vernocq bought from some rogue of his acquaintance papers
containing evidence of Florence Levasseur's birth and of her right to all
the inheritance of the Roussel family and Victor Sauverand, papers which
the friend in question had purloined from the old nurse who brought
Florence over from America. By hunting around, Jean Vernocq ended by
discovering first a photograph of Florence and then Florence herself.
"He made himself useful to her and pretended to be devoted to her, giving
up his whole life to her service. At that time he did not yet know what
profit he could derive from the papers stolen from the girl or from his
relations with her.
"Suddenly everything became different. An indiscreet word let fall by a
solicitor's clerk told him of a will in Maître Lepertuis's drawer which
would be interesting to look at. He obtained a sight of it by bribing the
clerk, who has since disappeared, with a thousand-franc note. The will,
as it happened, was Cosmo Mornington's; and in it Cosmo Mornington
bequeathed his immense wealth to the heirs of the Roussel sisters and of
Victor Sauverand....
"Jean Vernocq saw his chance. A hundred million francs! To get hold of
that sum, to obtain riches, luxury, power, and the means of buying health
and strength from the world's great healers, all that he had to do was
first to put away the different persons who stood between the inheritance
and Florence, and then, when all the obstacles were overcome, to make
Florence his wife.
"Jean Vernocq went to work. He had found among the papers of Hippolyte
Fauville's old friend Langernault particulars relating to the Roussel
family and to the discord that reigned in the Fauville household. Five
persons, all told, were in his way: first, of course, Cosmo Mornington;
next, in the order of their claims, Hippolyte Fauville, his son Edmond,
his wife Marie, and his cousin Gaston Sauverand.
"With Cosmo Mornington, the thing was easy enough. Introducing himself to
the American as a doctor, Jean Vernocq put poison into one of the phials
which Mornington used for his hypodermic injections.
"But in the case of Hippolyte Fauville, whose good will he had secured
through his acquaintance with old Langernault, and over whose mind he
soon obtained an extraordinary influence, he had a greater difficulty to
contend with. Knowing on the one hand that the engineer hated his wife
and on the other that he was stricken with a fatal disease, he took
occasion, after the consultation with the specialist in London, to
suggest to Fauville's terrified brain the incredible plan of suicide of
which you were subsequently able to trace the Machiavellian execution.
"In this way and with a single effort, anonymously, so to speak, and
without appearing in the business, without Fauville's even suspecting the
action brought to bear upon him, Jean Vernocq procured the deaths of
Fauville and his son, and got rid of Marie and Sauverand by the devilish
expedient of causing the charge of murder, of which no one could accuse
him, to fall upon them. The plan succeeded.
"There was only one hitch at the present time: the intervention of
Inspector Vérot. Inspector Vérot died. And there was only one danger in
the future: the intervention of myself, Don Luis Perenna, whose conduct
Vernocq was bound to foresee, as I was the residuary legatee by the terms
of Cosmo Mornington's will. This danger Vernocq tried to avert first by
giving me the house on the Place du Palais-Bourbon to live in and
Florence Levasseur as a secretary, and next by making four attempts to
have me assassinated by Gaston Sauverand.
"He therefore held all the threads of the tragedy in his hands. Able to
come and go as he pleased in my house, enforcing himself upon Florence
and later upon Gaston Sauverand by the strength of his will and the
cunning of his character, he was within sight of the goal.
"When my efforts succeeded in proving the innocence of Marie Fauville and
Gaston Sauverand, he did not hesitate: Marie Fauville died; Gaston
Sauverand died.
"So everything was going well for him. The police pursued me. The police
pursued Florence. No one suspected him. And the date fixed for the
payment of the inheritance was at hand.
"This was two days ago. At that time, Jean Vernocq was in the midst of
the fray. He was ill and had obtained admission to the nursing-home in
the Avenue des Ternes. From there he conducted his operations, thanks to
his influence over Florence Levasseur and to the letters addressed to the
mother superior from Versailles. Acting under the superior's orders and
ignorant of the meaning of the step which she was taking, Florence went
to the meeting at the Prefect's office, and herself brought the documents
relating to her.
"Meanwhile, Jean Vernocq left the private hospital and took refuge near
the Ile Saint-Louis, where he awaited the result of an enterprise which,
at the worst, might tell against Florence, but which did not seem able to
compromise him in any case.
"You know the rest, Monsieur le Président," said Don Luis, concluding his
statement. "Florence, staggered by the sudden revelation of the part
which she had unconsciously taken in the matter, and especially by the
terrible part played by Jean Vernocq, ran away from the nursing-home
where the Prefect had brought her at my request. She had but one thought:
to see Jean Vernocq, demand an explanation of him, and hear what he had
to say in his defence. That same evening he carried her away by motor, on
the pretence of giving her proofs of his innocence. That is all, Monsieur
le Président."
Valenglay had listened with growing interest to this gruesome story of
the most malevolent genius conceivable to the mind of man. And he heard
it perhaps without too great disgust, because of the light which it threw
by contrast upon the bright, easy, happy, and spontaneous genius of the
man who had fought for the good cause.
"And you found them?" he asked.
"At three o'clock yesterday afternoon, Monsieur le Président. It was
time. I might even say that it was too late, for Jean Vernocq began by
sending me to the bottom of a well, and by crushing Florence under a
block of stone."
"Oh, so you're dead, are you?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Président."
"But why did that villain want to do away with Florence Levasseur? Her
death destroyed his indispensable scheme of matrimony."
"It takes two to get married, Monsieur le Président, and Florence
refused."
"Well--"
"Some time ago Jean Vernocq wrote a letter leaving all that he possessed
to Florence Levasseur. Florence, moved by pity for him, and not realizing
the importance of what she was doing, wrote a similar letter leaving her
property to him. This letter constitutes a genuine and indisputable will
in favor of Jean Vernocq.
"As Florence was Cosmo Mornington's legal and settled heiress by the mere
fact of her presence at yesterday's meeting with the documents proving
her descent from the Roussel family, her death caused her rights to pass
to her own legal and settled heir.
"Jean Vernocq would have come into the money without the possibility of
any litigation. And, as you would have been obliged to discharge him
after his arrest, for lack of evidence against him, he would have led a
quiet life, with fourteen murders on his conscience--I have added them
up--but with a hundred million francs in his pocket. To a monster of his
stamp, the one made up for the other."
"But do you possess all the proofs?" asked Valenglay eagerly.
"Here they are," said Perenna, producing the pocket-book which he had
taken out of the cripple's jacket. "Here are letters and documents which
the villain preserved, owing to a mental aberration common to all great
criminals. Here, by good luck, is his correspondence with Hippolyte
Fauville. Here is the original of the prospectus from which I learned
that the house on the Place du Palais-Bourbon was for sale. Here is a
memorandum of Jean Vernocq's journeys to Alençon to intercept Fauville's
letters to old Langernault.
"Here is another memorandum showing that Inspector Vérot overheard a
conversation between Fauville and his accomplice, that he shadowed
Vernocq and robbed him of Florence Levasseur's photograph, and that
Vernocq sent Fauville in pursuit of him. Here is a third memorandum,
which is just a copy of the two found in the eighth volume of Shakespeare
and which proves that Jean Vernocq, to whom that set of Shakespeare
belonged, knew all about Fauville's machination. Here are his
correspondence with Caceres, the Peruvian attaché, and the letters
denouncing myself and Sergeant Mazeroux, which he intended to send to the
press. Here--
"But need I say more, Monsieur le Président? You have the complete
evidence in your hands. The magistrates will find that all the
accusations which I made yesterday, before the Prefect of Police, were
strictly true."
"And he?" cried Valenglay. "The criminal? Where is he?"
"Outside, in a motor car, in his motor car, rather."
"Have you told my men?" asked M. Desmalions anxiously.
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. Besides, the fellow is carefully tied up. Don't
be alarmed. He won't escape."
"Well, you've foreseen every contingency," said Valenglay, "and the
business seems to me to be finished. But there's one problem that remains
unexplained, the one perhaps that interested the public most. I mean the
marks of the teeth in the apple, the teeth of the tiger, as they have
been called, which were certainly Mme. Fauville's teeth, innocent though
she was. Monsieur le Préfet declares that you have solved this problem."
"Yes, Monsieur le Président, and Jean Vernocq's papers prove that I was
right. Besides, the problem is quite simple. The apple was marked with
Mme. Fauville's teeth, but Mme. Fauville never bit the apple."
"Come, come!"
"Monsieur le Président, Hippolyte Fauville very nearly said as much when
he mentioned this mystery in his posthumous confession."
"Hippolyte Fauville was a madman."
"Yes, but a lucid madman and capable of reasoning with the most appalling
logic. Some years ago, at Palermo, Mme. Fauville had a very bad fall,
hitting her mouth against the marble top of a table, with the result that
a number of her teeth, in both the upper and the lower jaw, were
loosened. To repair the damage and to make the gold plate intended to
strengthen the teeth, a plate which Mme. Fauville wore for several
months, the dentist, as usual, took an impression of her mouth.
"M. Fauville happened to have kept the mould; and he used it to print the
marks of his wife's teeth in the cake of chocolate shortly before his
death and in the apple on the night of his death. When this was done, he
put the mould with the other things which the explosion was meant to, and
did, destroy."
Don Luis's explanation was followed by a silence. The thing was so simple
that the Prime Minister was quite astonished. The whole tragedy, the
whole charge, everything that had caused Marie's despair and death and
the death of Gaston Sauverand: all this rested on an infinitely small
detail which had occurred to none of the millions and millions of people
who had interested themselves so enthusiastically in the mystery of the
teeth of the tiger.
The teeth of the tiger! Everybody had clung stubbornly to an apparently
invincible argument. As the marks on the apple and the print of Mme.
Fauville's teeth were identical, and as no two persons in the world were
able, in theory or practice, to produce the same print with their teeth,
Mme. Fauville must needs be guilty.
Nay, more, the argument seemed so absolute that, from the day on which
Mme. Fauville's innocence became known, the problem had remained
unsolved, while no one seemed capable of conceiving the one paltry idea:
that it was possible to obtain the print of a tooth in another way than
by a live bite of that same tooth!
"It's like the egg of Columbus," said Valenglay, laughing. "It had to be
thought of."
"You are right, Monsieur le Président. People don't think of those
things. Here is another instance: may I remind you that during the period
when Arsène Lupin was known at the same time as M. Lenormand and as
Prince Paul Sernine, no one noticed that the name Paul Sernine was merely
an anagram of Arsène Lupin? Well, it's just the same to-day: Luis Perenna
also is an anagram of Arsène Lupin. The two names are composed of the
same eleven letters, neither more nor less. And yet, although it was the
second time, nobody thought of making that little comparison. The egg of
Columbus again! It had to be thought of!"
Valenglay was a little surprised at the revelation. It seemed as if that
devil of a man had sworn to puzzle him up to the last moment and to
bewilder him by the most unexpected sensational news. And how well this
last detail depicted the fellow, a queer mixture of dignity and
impudence, of mischief and simplicity, of smiling chaff and disconcerting
charm, a sort of hero who, while conquering kingdoms by most incredible
adventures, amused himself by mixing up the letters on his name so as to
catch the public napping!
The interview was nearly at an end. Valenglay said to Perenna:
"Monsieur, you have done wonders in this business and ended by keeping
your word and handing over the criminal. I also will keep my word. You
are free."
"I thank you, Monsieur le Président. But what about Sergeant Mazeroux?"
"He will be released this morning. Monsieur le Préfet de Police has
arranged matters so that the public do not know of the arrest of either
of you. You are Don Luis Perenna. There is no reason why you should not
remain Don Luis Perenna."
"And Florence Levasseur, Monsieur le Président?"
"Let her go before the examining magistrate of her own accord. He is
bound to discharge her. Once free and acquitted of any charge or even
suspicion, she will certainly be recognized as Cosmo Mornington's legal
heiress and will receive the hundred millions."
"She will not keep it, Monsieur le Président."
"How do you mean?"
"Florence Levasseur doesn't want the money. It has been the cause of
unspeakably awful crimes. She hates the very thought of it."
"What then?"
"Cosmo Mornington's hundred millions will be wholly devoted to
making roads and building schools in the south of Morocco and the
northern Congo."
"In the Mauretanian Empire which you are giving us?" said Valenglay,
laughing. "By Jove, it's a fine work and I second it with all my heart.
An empire and an imperial budget to keep it up with! Upon my word, Don
Luis has behaved well to his country, and has handsomely paid the
debts--of Arsène Lupin!"
* * * * *
A month later Don Luis Perenna and Mazeroux embarked in the yacht which
had brought Don Luis to France. Florence was with them. Before sailing
they heard of the death of Jean Vernocq, who had managed to poison
himself in spite of all the precautions taken to prevent him.
On his arrival in Africa, Don Luis Perenna, Sultan of Mauretania, found
his old associates and accredited Mazeroux to them and to his grand
dignitaries. He organized the government to follow on his abdication and
precede the annexation of the new empire by France, and he had several
secret interviews on the Moorish border with General Léauty, commanding
the French troops, interviews in the course of which they thought out all
the measures to be executed in succession so as to lend to the conquest
of Morocco an appearance of facility which would otherwise be difficult
to explain.
The future was now assured. Soon the thin screen of rebellious tribes
standing between the French and the pacified districts would fall to
pieces, revealing an orderly empire, provided with a regular
constitution, with good roads, schools, and courts of law, a flourishing
empire in full working order.
Then, when his task was done, Don Luis abdicated.
* * * * *
He has now been back for over two years. Every one remembers the stir
caused by his marriage with Florence Levasseur. The controversy was
renewed; and many of the newspapers clamoured for Arsène Lupin's arrest.
But what could the authorities do?
Although nobody doubted who he really was, although the name of Arsène
Lupin and the name of Don Luis Perenna consisted of the same letters, and
people ended by remarking the coincidence, legally speaking, Arsène Lupin
was dead and Don Luis Perenna was alive; and there was no possibility of
bringing Arsène Lupin back to life or of killing Don Luis Perenna.
He is to-day living in the village of Saint-Maclou, among those charming
valleys which run down to the Oise. Who does not know his modest little
pink-washed house, with its green shutters and its garden filled with
bright flowers? People make up parties to go there from Paris on Sundays,
in the hope of catching a sight, through the elder hedges, of the man who
was Arsène Lupin, or of meeting him in the village square.
He is there, with his hair just touched with gray, his still youthful
features, and a young man's bearing; and Florence is there, too, with her
pretty figure and the halo of fair hair around her happy face, unclouded
by even the shadow of an unpleasant recollection.
Very often visitors come and knock at the little wooden gate. They are
unfortunate people imploring the master's aid, victims of oppression,
weaklings who have gone under in the struggle, reckless persons who have
been ruined by their passions.
For all these Don Luis is full of pity. He gives them his full
attention, the help of his far-seeing advice, his experience, his
strength, and even his time, disappearing for days and weeks to fight
the good fight once more.
And sometimes also it is an emissary from the Prefect's office or some
subordinate of the police who comes to submit a complex case to his
judgment. Here again Don Luis applies the whole of his wonderful mind to
the business.
In addition to this, in addition to his old books on ethics and
philosophy, to which he has returned with such pleasure, he cultivates
his garden. He dotes on his flowers. He is proud of them. He takes prizes
at the shows; and the success is still remembered of the treble
carnation, streaked red and yellow, which he exhibited as the "Arsène
carnation."
But he works hardest at certain large flowers that blossom in summer.
During July and the first half of August they fill two thirds of his lawn
and all the borders of his kitchen-garden. Beautiful, decorative plants,
standing erect like flag-staffs, they proudly raise their spiky heads of
all colours: blue, violet, mauve, pink, white.
They are lupins and include every variety: Cruikshank's lupin, the
two-coloured lupin, the scented lupin, and the last to appear, Lupin's
lupin. They are all there, resplendent, in serried ranks like an army of
soldiers, each striving to outstrip the others and to hold up the
thickest and gaudiest spike to the sun. They are all there; and, at the
entrance to the walk that leads to their motley beds, is a streamer with
this device, taken from an exquisite sonnet of Jose Maria de Heredia:
"And in my kitchen-garden lupins grow."
You will say that this is a confession. But why not?
In the evening, when a few privileged neighbours meet at his
house--the justice of the peace, the notary, Major Comte d'Astrignac,
who has also gone to live at Saint-Maclou--Don Luis is not afraid to
speak of Arsène Lupin.
"I used to see a great deal of him," he says. "He was not a bad man. I
will not go so far as to compare him with the Seven Sages, or even to
hold him up as an example to future generations, but still we must judge
him with a certain indulgence.
"He did a vast amount of good and a moderate amount of harm. Those who
suffered through him deserved what they got; and fate would have punished
them sooner or later if he had not forestalled her. Between a Lupin who
selected his victims among the ruck of wicked rich men and some big
company promoter who deliberately ruins numbers of poor people, would you
hesitate for a moment? Does not Lupin come out best?
"And, on the other hand, what a host of good actions! What countless
proofs of disinterested generosity! A burglar? I admit it. A swindler? I
don't deny it. He was all that. But he was something more than that. And,
while he amused the gallery with his skill and ingenuity, he roused the
general enthusiasm in other ways.
"People laughed at his practical jokes, but they loved his pluck, his
courage, his adventurous spirit, his contempt for danger, his shrewd
insight, his unfailing good humour, his reckless energy: all qualities
that stood out at a period when the most active virtues of our race had
reached their zenith, the period of the motor car and the aeroplane....
"One day," he said, as a joke, "I should like my epitaph to read, 'Here
lies Arsène Lupin, adventurer.'" That was quite correct. He was a master
of adventure.
"And, if the spirit of adventure led him too often to put his hand in
other people's pockets, it also led him to battlefields where it gives
those who are worthy opportunity to fight and win titles of distinction
which are not within reach of all. It was there that he gained his. It is
there that you should see him at work, spending his strength braving
death, and defying destiny. And it is because of this that you must
forgive him, even if he did sometimes get the better of a commissary of
police or steal the watch of an examining magistrate. Let us show some
indulgence to our professors of energy."
And, nodding his head, Don Luis concludes:
"Then, you see, he had another virtue which is not to be despised. It is
a virtue for which we should be grateful to him in these gray days of
ours: he knew how to smile!"