Maurice Leblanc

“ And M. Desmalions read out:
"MONSIEUR LE PRÉFET:
"A great danger is hanging over my head and over the head of my son. Death is approaching apace. I shall have to-night, or to-morrow morning at the latest, the proofs of the abominable plot that threatens us. I ask leave to bring them to you in the course of the morning. I am in need of protection and I call for your assistance.
"Permit me to be, etc. FAUVILLE."
"No other designation?" asked Perenna. "No letter-heading?"
"None. But there is no mistake. Inspector Vérot's declarations agree too evidently with this despairing appeal. ”

“ I presume that, after writing his report at a table in the Café du Pont-Neuf and closing it, he had a moment of inattention during which somebody substituted for his envelope another with the same address, but containing a blank sheet of paper."
"That's a supposition!" said the Prefect.
"Perhaps; but what is certain, Monsieur le Préfet, is that your inspector's presentiments are well-grounded, that he is being closely watched, that the discoveries about the Mornington inheritance which he has succeeded in making are interfering with criminal designs, and that he is in terrible danger." ”

“ And the waiter remembered that a man at the next table, who had entered the café at almost the same time as the inspector, had also asked for writing-paper and called twice for yellow envelopes.
"That's it," said Mazeroux to Don Luis. "As you suspected, one letter has been substituted for the other."
The description given by the waiter was pretty explicit: a tall man, with a slight stoop, wearing a reddish-brown beard cut into a point, a tortoise-shell eyeglass with a black silk ribbon, and an ebony walking-stick with a handle shaped like a swan's head. ”

“ Because, in defending M. Fauville and his son, we are attacking people who have a great interest in doing away with them and because those people seem pretty wide-awake. Your life, my life: a breath, a trifle. You're not afraid?"
"Chief," replied Mazeroux, "I can't say if I shall ever know what it means to be afraid. ”

“ Hippolyte Fauville started.
"This evening! Then the time has come!... But no, it's impossible, they can't do anything to me yet.... They are not ready--"
"Inspector Vérot declared, however, that the double murder would be committed to-night." ”

“ Last week, when the Prefect of Police asked me for my papers, I came to see you and learned that you had just been instructed to make inquiries into my antecedents.
"Everything was ready, as it happened. With the papers of a deceased Peruvian nobleman, of the name of Pereira, properly revised, you had faked me up a first-rate civic status. We arranged what you were to say before the Prefect of Police; and I paid up the twenty thousand. We were quits. What more do you want?"
The Pervian attaché did not betray the least embarrassment. ”

“ Cosmo Mornington's will makes it my duty and, allow me to say, gives me the right to do so. M. Fauville's enemies have given proofs of extraordinary cleverness and daring. I want to have the honour of being at the post of danger to-night, at M. Fauville's house, near his person."
The Prefect hesitated. He was bound to reflect how greatly to Don Luis Perenna's interest it was that none of the Mornington heirs should be discovered, or at least be able to come between him and the millions of the inheritance. ”

“ It's my mission in life to avenge Cosmo Mornington, to find his natural heirs, to protect them and to divide among them the hundred millions that belong to them. That's all. Don't you call that the mission of an honest man? ”

“ We can't let the poor man--"
Don Luis raised his arm to demand silence.
"There is nothing more to be done," he said. "We shall do better to make the most of these last moments. Have I your permission, Monsieur le Préfet?" ”

“ The messengers removed the corpse; and soon there was no one left in the office except the five people whom the Prefect had originally sent for. The American Secretary of Embassy and the Peruvian attaché, considering their continued presence unnecessary, went away, after warmly complimenting Don Luis Perenna on his powers of penetration. ”

“ The Secretary of the American Embassy and the Peruvian attaché had followed the conversation with eager interest. Major d'Astrignac nodded his head with an air of approval. To his mind, Perenna could not be mistaken.
The Prefect of Police confessed:
"Certainly, certainly ... we have a number of circumstances here ... that are fairly ambiguous.... Those brown patches; that doctor.... It's a case that wants looking into." And, questioning Don Luis Perenna as though in spite of himself, he asked, "No doubt, in your opinion, there is a possible connection between the murder ... and Mr. ”