The Teeth of the Tiger Part 33

"Has he jumped from there?" cried the Prefect, hastening up. "We shall never capture him alive!"

"Neither alive nor dead, Monsieur le Prefet. 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 s.p.a.ce; 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 a.s.sailant, s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 ap.r.o.ns 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.

M. Desmalions was white with anger and despair. He exclaimed:

"He's tricked us! His letters, his hiding-place, the movable nail, were all shams. Oh, the scoundrel!"

He went down to the ground floor and into the courtyard. On the boulevard he met one of the detectives who had given chase to the murderer and who was returning quite out of breath.

"Well?" he asked anxiously,

"Monsieur le Prefet, he turned down the first street, where there was a motor waiting for him. The engine must have been working, for our man outdistanced us at once."

"But what about my car?"

"You see, Monsieur le Prefet, by the time it was started--"

"Was the motor that picked him up a hired one?"

"Yes, a taxi."

"Then we shall find it. The driver will come of his own accord when he has seen the newspapers."

Weber shook his head.

"Unless the driver is himself a confederate, Monsieur le Prefet.

Besides, even if we find the cab, aren't we bound to suppose that Gaston Sauverand will know how to front the scent? We shall have trouble, Monsieur le Prefet."

"Yes," whispered Don Luis, who had been present at the first investigation and who was left alone for a moment with Mazeroux. "Yes, you will have trouble, especially if you let the people you capture take to their heels. Eh, Mazeroux, what did I tell you last night? But, still, what a scoundrel! And he's not alone, Alexandre. I'll answer for it that he has accomplices--and not a hundred yards from my house--do you understand? From my house."

After questioning Mazeroux upon Sauverand's att.i.tude and the other incidents of the arrest, Don Luis went back to the Place du Palais-Bourbon.

The inquiry which he had to make related to events that were certainly quite as strange as those which he had just witnessed; and while the part played by Gaston Sauverand in the pursuit of the Mornington inheritance deserved all his attention, the behaviour of Mlle. Leva.s.seur puzzled him no less.

He could not forget the cry of terror that escaped the girl while he was telephoning to Mazeroux, nor the scared expression of her face. Now it was impossible to attribute that cry and that expression to anything other than the words which he had uttered in reply to Mazeroux:

"What! Mme. Fauville tried to commit suicide!"

The fact was certain; and the connection between the announcement of the attempt and Mlle. Leva.s.seur's extreme emotion was too obvious for Perenna not to try to draw conclusions.

He went straight to his study and at once examined the arch leading to the telephone box. This arch, which was about six feet wide and very low, had no door, but merely a velvet hanging, which was nearly always drawn up, leaving the arch uncovered. Under the hanging, among the moldings of the cornice, was a b.u.t.ton that had only to be pressed to bring down the iron curtain against which he had thrown himself two hours before.

He worked the catch two or three times over, and his experiments proved to him in the most explicit fashion that the mechanism was in perfect order and unable to act without outside intervention. Was he then to conclude that the girl had wanted to kill him? But what could be her motive?

He was on the point of ringing and sending for her, so as to receive the explanation which he was resolved to demand from her. However, the minutes pa.s.sed and he did not ring. He saw her through the window as she walked slowly across the yard, her body swinging gracefully from her hips. A ray of sunshine lit up the gold of her hair.

All the rest of the morning he lay on a sofa, smoking cigars. He was ill at ease, dissatisfied with himself and with the course of events, not one of which brought him the least glimmer of truth; in fact, all of them seemed to deepen the darkness in which he was battling. Eager to act, the moment he did so he encountered fresh obstacles that paralyzed his powers of action and left him in utter ignorance of the nature of his adversaries.

But, at twelve o'clock, just as he had rung for lunch, his butler entered the study with a tray in his hand, and exclaimed, with an agitation which showed that the household was aware of Don Luis's ambiguous position:

"Sir, it's the Prefect of Police!"

"Eh?" said Perenna. "Where is he?"

"Downstairs, sir. I did not know what to do, at first ... and I thought of telling Mlle. Leva.s.seur. But--"

"Are you sure?"

"Here is his card, sir."

Perenna took the card from the tray and read M. Desmalions's name. He went to the window, opened it and, with the aid of the overhead mirror, looked into the Place du Palais-Bourbon. Half a dozen men were walking about. He recognized them. They were his usual watchers, those whom he had got rid of on the evening before and who had come to resume their observation.

"No others?" he said to himself. "Come, we have nothing to fear, and the Prefect of Police has none but the best intentions toward me. It was what I expected; and I think that I was well advised to save his life."

M. Desmalions entered without a word. All that he did was to bend his head slightly, with a movement that might be taken for a bow. As for Weber, who was with him, he did not even give himself the trouble to disguise his feelings toward such a man as Perenna.

Don Luis took no direct notice of this att.i.tude, but, in revenge, ostentatiously omitted to push forward more than one chair. M.

Desmalions, however, preferred to walk about the room, with his hands behind his back, as if to continue his reflections before speaking.

The silence was prolonged. Don Luis waited patiently. Then, suddenly, the Prefect stopped and said:

"When you left the Boulevard Richard-Wallace, Monsieur, did you go straight home?"

Don Luis did not demur to this cross-examining manner and answered: