The Teeth of the Tiger Part 92

"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 att.i.tude showed that astonishment which we all experience in the face of events that seem to pa.s.s the bounds of human possibility.

"Well?" cried the Prime Minister eagerly.

"It's done, Monsieur le President."

"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 President, 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 Leva.s.seur loved?"

"Monsieur le President!" 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 President, of that and of a good deal more besides, for I have the proofs in my hands." Without further preamble, he continued: "Monsieur le President, 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 pa.s.sing briefly over three murders which have nothing to do with the story of the Mornington case.

"Jean Vernocq was born at Alencon 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 ama.s.sed, Jean Vernocq bought from some rogue of his acquaintance papers containing evidence of Florence Leva.s.seur'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 Maitre 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 Verot. Inspector Verot 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 Leva.s.seur as a secretary, and next by making four attempts to have me a.s.sa.s.sinated 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 Leva.s.seur 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 doc.u.ments 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 President," 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 President."

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 President. 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 President."

"But why did that villain want to do away with Florence Leva.s.seur? Her death destroyed his indispensable scheme of matrimony."

"It takes two to get married, Monsieur le President, and Florence refused."

"Well--"

"Some time ago Jean Vernocq wrote a letter leaving all that he possessed to Florence Leva.s.seur. 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 const.i.tutes 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 doc.u.ments proving her descent from the Roussel family, her death caused her rights to pa.s.s 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 doc.u.ments 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 Alencon to intercept Fauville's letters to old Langernault.

"Here is another memorandum showing that Inspector Verot overheard a conversation between Fauville and his accomplice, that he shadowed Vernocq and robbed him of Florence Leva.s.seur'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 attache, and the letters denouncing myself and Sergeant Mazeroux, which he intended to send to the press. Here--

"But need I say more, Monsieur le President? 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 Prefet. Besides, the fellow is carefully tied up. Don't be alarmed. He won't escape."