Maurice Leblanc

“ As the possible heir of Cosmo Mornington and a prominent figure in the case, I am the enemy, and they are trying to do away with me as they did with the others. And it is Florence who is acting against me. And it is she who has committed murder.
"Everything tells against her; nothing speaks in her defence. Her innocent eyes? The accent of sincerity in her voice? Her serene dignity? And then? Yes, what then? Have I never seen women with that frank look who have committed murder for no reason, almost for pleasure's sake?"
He started with terror at the memory of Dolores Kesselbach. ”

“ You need not hope for compassion from me, nor for help from anywhere else, since no one knows where I have brought you, and Arsène Lupin is no longer alive. Under these conditions, Florence, make your choice. The ending is in your own hands: either you die, absolutely and irrevocably, or you accept my love."
There was a moment of silence, then:
"Answer me yes or no. A movement of your head will decide your fate. If it's no, you die. If it's yes, I shall release you. We will go from here and, later, when your innocence is proved—and I'll see to that—you shall become my wife. ”

“ Gaston Sauverand was watching the face of his former enemy. Standing close to Don Luis, his features lit up with the expression of feelings and passions which he no longer strove to check, he asked, in a low voice:
"You believe me, don't you?"
"No, I don't," said Perenna, hardening himself to resist the man's influence.
"You must!" cried Sauverand, with a fierce outburst of violence. "You must believe in the strength of my love. It is the cause of everything. My hatred for you comes only from my love. Marie is my life. If she were dead, there would be nothing for me to do but die. ”

“ Mme. Fauville was out on the night of the murder: a plot! She was unable to say how she spent her time while the murder was being committed: a plot! Her inexplicable drive in the direction of La Muette and her cousin Sauverand's walk in the neighbourhood of the house: plots! The marks left in the apple by those teeth, by Mme. Fauville's own teeth: a plot and the most infernal of all!
"I tell you, everything is plotted beforehand, everything is, so to speak, prepared, measured out, labelled, and numbered. Everything takes place at the appointed time. Nothing is left to chance. ”

“ No obstacle can prevent her. Can any one be prevented from committing suicide? And how horrible if she were to die!... Oh, if the law requires a criminal I will confess anything that I am asked to. I will joyfully accept every charge and pay every penalty, provided that Marie is free! Save her!... I did not know, I do not yet know the best thing to be done! Save her from prison and death, save her, for God's sake, save her!"
Tears flowed down his anguish-stricken face. Florence also was crying, bowed down with sorrow. And Perenna suddenly felt the most terrible dread steal over him. ”

“ Don Luis did not conceal his anxious attention. What astonished him most was Gaston Sauverand's extraordinary calmness, the peaceful expression of his eyes, the quiet ease with which he set forth, without hurrying, almost slowly and so very simply, the story of that family tragedy.
"What an actor!" he thought.
And as he thought it, he remembered that Marie Fauville had given him the same impression. Was he then to hark back to his first conviction and believe Marie guilty, a dissembler like her accomplice, a dissembler like Florence? Or was he to attribute a certain honesty to that man? ”

“ Don Luis did not once deviate from his method. If any objection suggested itself to his mind, he at once replied:
"Very well. It may be that I am wrong and that Sauverand's story will not enlighten me on any point capable of guiding me. It may be that the truth lies outside it. But am I in a position to get at the truth in any other way? All that I possess as an instrument of research, without attaching undue importance to certain gleams of light which the regular appearance of the mysterious letters has shed upon the case, all that I possess is Gaston Sauverand's story. ”

“ The accomplice is yourself, my beauty. You alone overheard my conversation on the telephone with Mazeroux, you alone can have gone to Gaston Sauverand's assistance, waited for him in a motor at the corner of the boulevard, and arranged with him to bring the top half of the walking-stick here. You're the beauty that wants to kill me, for some reason which I do not know. The hand that strikes me in the dark is yours, sweetheart. ”

“ Indeed the air was rent by a chuckle, so close by that Don Luis gave a start and felt as if the scoundrel were laughing beforehand at his intervention. He remembered the letter with the words written in red ink:
There's still time, Lupin. Retire from the contest. If not, it means your death, too. When you think that your object is attained, when your hand is raised against me and you utter words of triumph, at the same moment the ground will open beneath your feet. The place of your death is chosen. ”

“ Perenna had but one thought in his head: to reach the next station, which was Chartres, before the two accomplices, and to fly at Sauverand's throat. He saw nothing but that: the savage grip of his two hands that would set Florence Levasseur's lover gasping in his agony.
"Her lover! Her lover!" he muttered, gnashing his teeth. "Why, of course, that explains everything! They have combined against their accomplice, Marie Fauville; and it is she alone, poor devil, who will pay for the horrible series of crimes!" ”

“ Then continuing his road he went to La Muette and plunged into the dusk of the Bois de Boulogne.
"To work and boldly!" said Don Luis, quickening his pace.
Mazeroux stopped him.
"What do you mean, Chief?"
"Well, catch him by the throat! There are two of us; we couldn't hope for a better moment."
"What! Why, it's impossible!"
"Impossible? Are you afraid? Very well, I'll do it by myself."
"Look here, Chief, you're not serious!"
"Why shouldn't I be serious?"
"Because one can't arrest a man without a reason."
"Without a reason? A scoundrel like this? A murderer? What more do you want?" ”

“ You can't live without Florence, can you? Florence's death means your own sentence, doesn't it? If Florence is dead, you'll put the rope round your own neck, won't you, won't you, won't you?"
"Yes. If Florence were to die, I could not survive her!"
"She is dead!" cried the scoundrel, with a renewed burst of merriment, hopping about on his knees. "She's dead, quite, quite dead! What am I saying? She's more than dead! A dead person retains the appearance of a live one for a time; but this is much better: there's no corpse here, Lupin ”

“ The Prefect of Police moved away from her and spoke in a low voice to the examining magistrate and the public prosecutor. Perenna and Sergeant Mazeroux were left alone together, side by side.
Mazeroux whispered:
"What did I tell you? I knew you would find out! Oh, what a man you are!
The way you managed!"
He was beaming at the thought that the chief was clear of the matter and that he had no more crows to pluck with his, Mazeroux's, superiors, whom he revered almost as much as he did the chief. Everybody was now agreed; they were "friends all round"; and Mazeroux was choking with delight. ”

“ Nevertheless, it seemed as if Don Luis's question made an impression on her.
"No," she said, "there is no influence—none at all—I'm sure of it."
He insisted, with growing eagerness:
"No, you are not sure; don't say that. Some one is dominating you without your knowing it. Think for a moment. You are Cosmo Mornington's heir, heir to a fortune which you don't care about, I know, I swear! Well, if you don't want that fortune, to whom will it belong? Answer me. Is there any one who is interested or believes himself interested in seeing you rich? ”

“ I'm frightened!" he said.
"This is madness!" cried Don Luis. "Aren't we here, the two of us? We can easily spend the night with you, if you prefer, by your bedside."
Fauville replied by shaking Perenna violently by the shoulder, and, with distorted features, stammering:
"If there were ten of you—if there were twenty of you with me, you need not think that it would spoil their schemes! They can do anything they please, do you hear, anything! They have already killed Inspector Vérot—they will kill me—and they will kill my son. Oh, the blackguards! My God, take pity on me! ”

“ Now that he knew the scoundrel's haunt, the man's scheme became hideously evident to him. Feeling himself hunted down, lost, an object of hatred and terror to Florence, whose eyes were now opened to the true state of things, what plan could he have in mind except his invariable plan of murder?
"Faster!" cried Don Luis. "We're making no headway. Go faster, can't you?"
Florence murdered! Perhaps the crime was not yet accomplished. No, it could not be! Killing takes time. ”

“ Monsieur le Président du Conseil, I repeat my offer. Florence Levasseur is in danger. I alone can rescue her from the monster who is carrying her away. It will take me twenty-four hours. In return for twenty-four hours' liberty I will give you the Mauretanian Empire. Do you accept, Monsieur le Président du Conseil?"
"Well, certainly, I accept," said Valenglay, laughing. "What do you say, my dear Desmalions? The whole thing may not be very orthodox, but, hang it! Paris is worth a mass and the Kingdom of Mauretania is a tempting morsel. We'll risk the experiment." ”

“ Hippolyte Fauville found the diary.... His anger was something terrible. His first impulse was to get rid of Marie. But in the face of his wife's attitude, of the proofs of her innocence which she supplied, of her inflexible refusal to consent to a divorce, and of her promise never to see me again, he recovered his calmness.... I left, with death in my soul. Florence left, too, dismissed. And never, mark me, never, since that fatal hour, did I exchange a single word with Marie. But an indestructible love united us, a love which neither absence nor time was to weaken. ”

“ His eyes expressed the alarm of a man accustomed to work in the darkness unperceived, and who suddenly becomes aware that another's eyes have surprised him at his hateful task and that he is being watched in every movement for the first time in his life.
Whence did that look come that troubled him as the daylight troubles a bird of the night? Was it an intruder hiding there by accident, or an enemy bent upon his destruction? Was it an accomplice of Arsène Lupin, a friend of Florence, one of the police? And was this adversary satisfied with his stolen booty, or was he preparing to attack him? ”

“ 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! ”

“ M. Desmalions was silent. He gnawed his moustache thoughtfully and walked round and round the table, within the narrow circle formed by the others. It was obvious that objections to the supposition were springing up in his mind. In the end, he muttered, as though speaking to himself:
"No, no. For, after all, how are we to explain that the man should have waited until now to claim his rights?"
"An accident, perhaps, Monsieur le Préfet, an obstacle of some kind. Or else—one can never tell—the perverse longing for a more striking sensation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ One day, at Settat, as we were being pursued—"
"Another word, Major," cried Don Luis, gayly, "and this time I really will go out! I must say you have a nice way of sparing my modesty!"
"My dear Perenna," replied Comte d'Astrignac, "I always told you that you had every good quality and only one fault, which was that you were not a Frenchman."
"And I always answered, Major, that I was French on my mother's side and a Frenchman in heart and temperament. There are things which only a Frenchman can do." ”

“ At that moment you were mentioning Marie Fauville's name to a number of journalists; and you told them that Marie Fauville was innocent; and you informed them of the evidence which you possessed in Marie's favour!
"My hatred ceased then and there, Monsieur. In one second the enemy had become the ally, the master to whom one kneels. So you had had the wonderful courage to repudiate all your work and to devote yourself to Marie's rescue! I ran off, trembling with joy and hope, and, as I joined Florence, I shouted, 'Marie is saved! He proclaims her innocent! ”

“ 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. ”

“ And the reason why Gaston Sauverand was able to tell me his whole sensational story without making the least allusion to the inheritance was that the inheritance played no sort of part in Gaston Sauverand's story. He, too, knew nothing of it before those events, any more than Marie Fauville did, or Florence Levasseur. There is no denying the fact: Hippolyte Fauville was guided by revenge and by revenge alone. If not, why should he have acted as he did, seeing that Cosmo Mornington's millions reverted to him by the fullest of rights? ”

“ While waiting for the arrival of the adversary, the Comte d'Astrignac took Don Luis aside.
"My dear Perenna, I ask you no questions. I don't want to know how much truth there is in all that is being written about you, or what your real name is. To me, you are Perenna of the Legion, and that is all I care about. Your past began in Morocco. As for the future, I know that, whatever happens and however great the temptation, your only aim will be to revenge Cosmo Mornington and protect his heirs. But there's one thing that worries me." ”

“ I accuse him of conveying to Gaston Sauverand, by some unknown means, the newspaper cuttings about Marie Fauville's death and, at the same time, foreseeing the inevitable results of his act. To sum up, therefore, without mentioning his share in the other crimes—the death of Inspector Vérot, the death of my chauffeur—I accuse him of killing Cosmo Mornington, Edmond Fauville, Hippolyte Fauville, Marie Fauville, and Gaston Sauverand; in plain words, of killing all those who stood between the millions and himself. These last words, Monsieur le Préfet, will tell you clearly what I have in my mind. ”