The Teeth of the Tiger Maurice Leblanc (best novels of all time .txt) 📖

dare to repeat his attempt and produce the third mysterious letter.

On the fifteenth of May the wait was renewed, while the same crowd gathered outside, an anxious, breathless crowd, stirred by the least sound and keeping an impressive silence, with eyes gazing upon the Fauvilles’ house.

This time the light was put out, but the Prefect of Police kept his hand on the electric switch. Ten times, twenty times, he unexpectedly turned on the light. There was nothing on the table. What had aroused his attention was the creaking of a piece of furniture or a movement made by one of the men with him.

Suddenly they all uttered an exclamation. Something unusual, a rustling noise, had interrupted the silence.

M. Desmalions at once switched on the light. He gave a cry. A letter lay not on the table, but beside it, on the floor, on the carpet.

Mazeroux made the sign of the cross. The inspectors were as pale as death.

M. Desmalions looked at Don Luis, who nodded his head without a word.

They inspected the condition of the locks and bolts. Nothing had moved.

That day again, the contents of the letter made some amends for the really extraordinary manner of its delivery. It completely dispelled all the doubts that still enshrouded the double murder on the Boulevard Suchet.

Again signed by the engineer, written throughout by himself, on the eighth of February, with no visible address, it said:

“No, my dear friend, I will not allow myself to be killed like a sheep led to the slaughter. I shall defend myself, I shall fight to the last moment. Things have changed lately. I have proofs now, undeniable proofs. I possess letters that have passed between them. And I know that they still love each other as they did at the start, that they want to marry, and that they will let nothing stand in their way. It is written, understand what I say, it is written in Marie’s own hand; ‘Have patience, my own Gaston. My courage increases day by day. So much the worse for him who stands between us. He shall disappear.’

“My dear friend, if I succumb in the struggle you will find those letters (and all the evidence which I have collected against the wretched creature) in the safe hidden behind the small glass case: Then revenge me. Au revoir. Perhaps goodbye.”

Thus ran the third missive. Hippolyte Fauville from his grave named and accused his guilty wife. From his grave he supplied the solution to the riddle and explained the reason why the crimes had been committed: Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were lovers.

Certainly they knew of the existence of Cosmo Mornington’s will, for they had begun by doing away with Cosmo Mornington; and their eagerness to come into the enormous fortune had hastened the catastrophe. But the first idea of the murder rose from an older and deep-rooted passion: Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were lovers.

One problem remained to be solved: who was the unknown correspondent to whom Hippolyte Fauville had bequeathed the task of avenging his murder, and who, instead of simply handing over the letters to the police, was exercising his ingenuity to deliver them by means of the most Machiavellian contrivances? Was it to his interest also to remain in the background?

To all these questions Marie Fauville replied in the most unexpected manner, though it was one that fully accorded with her threats. A week later, after a long cross-examination at which she was pressed for the name of her husband’s old friend and at which she maintained the most stubborn silence, together with a sort of stupid inertia, she returned to her cell in the evening and opened the veins of her wrist with a piece of glass which she had managed to hide.

Don Luis heard the news from Mazeroux, who came to tell him of it before eight o’clock the next morning, just as he was getting out of bed. The sergeant had a travelling bag in his hand and was on his way to catch a train.

Don Luis was greatly upset.

“Is she dead?” he exclaimed.

“No. It seems that she has had one more let-off. But what’s the good?”

“How do you mean, what’s the good?”

“She’ll do it again, of course. She’s set her mind upon it. And, one day or another⁠—”

“Did she volunteer no confession, this time either, before making the attempt on her life?”

“No. She wrote a few words on a scrap of paper, saying that, on thinking it over, she advised us to ask a certain M. Langernault about the mysterious letters. He was the only friend that she had known her husband to possess, or at any rate the only one whom he would have called, ‘My dear fellow,’ or, ‘My dear friend,’ This M. Langernault could do no more than prove her innocence and explain the terrible misunderstanding of which she was the victim.”

“But,” said Don Luis, “if there is anyone to prove her innocence, why does she begin by opening her veins?”

“She doesn’t care, she says. Her life is done for; and what she wants is rest and death.”

“Rest? Rest? There are other ways in which she can find it besides in death. If the discovery of the truth is to spell her safety, perhaps the truth is not impossible to discover.”

“What are you saying, Chief? Have you guessed anything? Are you beginning to understand?”

“Yes, very vaguely, but, all the same, the really unnatural accuracy of those letters just seems to me a sign⁠—”

He reflected for a moment and continued:

“Have they reëxamined the erased addresses of the three letters?”

“Yes; and they managed to make out the name of Langernault.”

“Where does this Langernault live?”

“According to Mme. Fauville, at the village of Damigni, in the Orme.”

“Have they deciphered the word Damigni on one of the letters?”

“No, but they have the name of the nearest town.”

“What town is that?”

“Alençon.”

“And is that where you’re going?”

“Yes, the Prefect of Police told me to go straightaway. I shall take the train at the Invalides.”

“You mean you will