Delphi Collected Works of Maurice Leblanc (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Nine Book 17)

by Maurice Leblanc

  “Among the papers, Monsieur le Préfet.”

  “Very odd: it’s all very odd. Vérot is a first-rate inspector, a very sober-minded fellow; and he doesn’t get frightened easily. You might go and fetch him. Meanwhile, I’ll look through my letters.”

  The secretary hurried away. When he returned, five minutes later, he stated, with an air of astonishment, that he had not seen Inspector Vérot.

  “And what’s more curious still,” he added, “is that the messenger who saw him leave this room saw him come in again almost at once and did not see him go out a second time.”

  “Perhaps he only passed through here to go to you.”

  “To me, Monsieur le Préfet? I was in my room all the time.”

  “Then it’s incomprehensible.”

  “Yes … unless we conclude that the messenger’s attention was distracted for a second, as Vérot is neither here nor next door.”

  “That must be it. I expect he’s gone to get some air outside; and he’ll be back at any moment. For that matter, I shan’t want him to start with.”

  The Prefect looked at his watch.

  “Ten past five. You might tell the messenger to show those gentlemen in…. Wait, though—”

  M. Desmalions hesitated. In turning over the papers he had found Vérot’s letter. It was a large, yellow, business envelope, with “Café du Pont-Neuf” printed at the top.

  The secretary suggested:

  “In view of Vérot’s absence, Monsieur le Préfet, and of what he said, it might be as well for you to see what’s in the letter first.”

  M. Desmalions paused to reflect.

  “Perhaps you’re right.”

  And, making up his mind, he inserted a paper-knife into the envelope and cut it open. A cry escaped him.

  “Oh, I say, this is a little too much!”

  “What is it, Monsieur le Préfet?”

  “Why, look here, a blank … sheet of paper! That’s all the envelope contains!”

  “Impossible!”

  “See for yourself — a plain sheet folded in four, with not a word on it.”

  “But Vérot told me in so many words that he had said in that letter all that he knew about the case.”

  “He told you so, no doubt, but there you are! Upon my word, if I didn’t know Inspector Vérot, I should think he was trying to play a game with me.”

  “It’s a piece of carelessness, Monsieur le Préfet, at the worst.”

  “No doubt, a piece of carelessness, but I’m surprised at him. It doesn’t do to be careless when the lives of two people are at stake. For he must have told you that there is a double murder planned for to-night?”

  “Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, and under particularly alarming conditions; infernal was the word he used.”

  M. Desmalions was walking up and down the room, with his hands behind his back. He stopped at a small table.

  “What’s this little parcel addressed to me? ‘Monsieur le Préfet de

  Police — to be opened in case of accident.’”

  “Oh, yes,” said the secretary, “I was forgetting! That’s from Inspector Vérot, too; something of importance, he said, and serving to complete and explain the contents of the letter.”

  “Well,” said M. Desmalions, who could not help laughing, “the letter certainly needs explaining; and, though there’s no question of ‘accident,’ I may as well open the parcel.”

  As he spoke, he cut the string and discovered, under the paper, a box, a little cardboard box, which might have come from a druggist, but which was soiled and spoiled by the use to which it had been put.

  He raised the lid. Inside the box were a few layers of cotton wool, which were also rather dirty, and in between these layers was half a cake of chocolate.

  “What the devil does this mean?” growled the Prefect in surprise.

  He took the chocolate, looked at it, and at once perceived what was peculiar about this cake of chocolate, which was also undoubtedly the reason why Inspector Vérot had kept it. Above and below, it bore the prints of teeth, very plainly marked, very plainly separated one from the other, penetrating to a depth of a tenth of an inch or so into the chocolate. Each possessed its individual shape and width, and each was divided from its neighbours by a different interval. The jaws which had started eating the cake of chocolate had dug into it the mark of four upper and five lower teeth.

  M. Desmalions remained wrapped in thought and, with his head sunk on his chest, for some minutes resumed his walk up and down the room, muttering:

  “This is queer … There’s a riddle here to which I should like to know the answer. That sheet of paper, the marks of those teeth: what does it all mean?”

  But he was not the man to waste much time over a mystery which was bound to be cleared up presently, as Inspector Vérot must be either at the police office or somewhere just outside; and he said to his secretary:

  “I can’t keep those five gentlemen waiting any longer. Please have them shown in now. If Inspector Vérot arrives while they are here, as he is sure to do, let me know at once. I want to see him as soon as he comes. Except for that, see that I’m not disturbed on any pretext, won’t you?”

  * * * * *

  Two minutes later the messenger showed in Maître Lepertuis, a stout, red-faced man, with whiskers and spectacles, followed by Archibald Bright, the Secretary of Embassy, and Caceres, the Peruvian attaché. M. Desmalions, who knew all three of them, chatted to them until he stepped forward to receive Major Comte d’Astrignac, the hero of La Chouïa, who had been forced into premature retirement by his glorious wounds. The Prefect was complimenting him warmly on his gallant conduct in Morocco when the door opened once more.

  “Don Luis Perenna, I believe?” said the Prefect, offering his hand to a man of middle height and rather slender build, wearing the military medal and the red ribbon of the Legion of Honour.

  The newcomer’s face and expression, his way of holding himself, and his very youthful movements inclined one to look upon him as a man of forty, though there were wrinkles at the corners of the eyes and on the forehead, which perhaps pointed to a few years more. He bowed.

  “Yes, Monsieur le Préfet.”

  “Is that you, Perenna?” cried Comte d’Astrignae. “So you are still among the living?”

  “Yes, Major, and delighted to see you again.”

  “Perenna alive! Why, we had lost all sight of you when I left Morocco! We thought you dead.”

  “I was a prisoner, that’s all.”

  “A prisoner of the tribesmen; the same thing!”

  “Not quite, Major; one can escape from anywhere. The proof stands before you.”

  The Prefect of Police, yielding to an irresistible attraction to resist, spent some seconds in examining that powerful face, with the smiling glance, the frank and resolute eyes, and the bronzed complexion, which looked as if it had been baked and baked again by the sun.

  Then, motioning to his visitors to take chairs around his desk, M. Desmalions himself sat down and made a preliminary statement in clear and deliberate tones:

  “The summons, gentlemen, which I addressed to each of you, must have appeared to you rather peremptory and mysterious. And the manner in which I propose to open our conversation is not likely to diminish your surprise. But if you will attach a little credit to my method, you will soon realize that the whole thing is very simple and very natural. I will be as brief as I can.”

  He spread before him the bundle of documents prepared for him by his secretary and, consulting his notes as he spoke, continued:

  “Over fifty years ago, in 1860, three sisters, three orphans, Ermeline, Elizabeth, and Armande Roussel, aged twenty-two, twenty, and eighteen respectively, were living at Saint-Etienne with a cousin named Victor, who was a few years younger. The eldest, Ermeline, was the first to leave Saint-Etienne. She went to London, where she married an Englishman of the name Mornington, by whom she had a son, who was christened Cosmo.

  “The family was very p
oor and went through hard times. Ermeline repeatedly wrote to her sisters to ask for a little assistance. Receiving no reply, she broke off the correspondence altogether. In 1870 Mr. and Mrs. Mornington left England for America. Five years later they were rich. Mr. Mornington died in 1878; but his widow continued to administer the fortune bequeathed to her and, as she had a genius for business and speculation, she increased this fortune until it attained a colossal figure. At her decease, in 1900, she left her son the sum of four hundred million francs.”

  The amount seemed to make an impression on the Prefect’s hearers. He saw the major and Don Luis Perenna exchange a glance and asked:

  “You knew Cosmo Mornington, did you not?”

  “Yes, Monsieur le Préfet,” replied Comte d’Astrignac. “He was in Morocco when Perenna and I were fighting there.”

  “Just so,” said M. Desmalions. “Cosmo Mornington had begun to travel about the world. He took up the practise of medicine, from what I hear, and, when occasion offered, treated the sick with great skill and, of course, without charge. He lived first in Egypt and then in Algiers and Morocco. Last year he settled down in Paris, where he died four weeks ago as the result of a most stupid accident.”

  “A carelessly administered hypodermic injection, was it not, Monsieur le Préfet?” asked the secretary of the American Embassy. “It was mentioned in the papers and reported to us at the embassy.”

  “Yes,” said Desmalions. “To assist his recovery from a long attack of influenza which had kept him in bed all the winter, Mr. Mornington, by his doctor’s orders, used to give himself injections of glycero-phosphate of soda. He must have omitted the necessary precautions on the last occasion when he did so, for the wound was poisoned, inflammation set in with lightning rapidity, and Mr. Mornington was dead in a few hours.”

  The Prefect of Police turned to the solicitor and asked:

  “Have I summed up the facts correctly, Maître Lepertuis?”

  “Absolutely, Monsieur le Préfet.”

  M. Desmalions continued:

  “The next morning, Maître Lepertuis called here and, for reasons which you will understand when you have heard the document read, showed me Cosmo Mornington’s will, which had been placed in his hands.”

  While the Prefect was looking through the papers, Maître Lepertuis added:

  “I may be allowed to say that I saw my client only once before I was summoned to his death-bed; and that was on the day when he sent for me to come to his room in the hotel to hand me the will which he had just made. This was at the beginning of his influenza. In the course of conversation he told me that he had been making some inquiries with a view to tracing his mother’s family, and that he intended to pursue these inquiries seriously after his recovery. Circumstances, as it turned out, prevented his fulfilling his purpose.”

  Meanwhile, the Prefect of Police had taken from among the documents an open envelope containing two sheets of paper. He unfolded the larger of the two and said:

  “This is the will. I will ask you to listen attentively while I read it and also the document attached to it.”

  The others settled themselves in their chairs; and the Prefect read out:

  “The last will and testament of me, Cosmo Mornington, eldest son of Hubert Mornington and Ermeline Roussel, his wife, a naturalized citizen of the United States of America. I give and bequeath to my adopted country three fourths of my estate, to be employed on works of charity in accordance with the instructions, written in my hand, which Maitre Lepertuis will be good enough to forward to the Ambassador of the United States. The remainder of my property, to the value of about one hundred million francs, consisting of deposits in various Paris and London banks, a list of which is in the keeping of Maitre Lepertuis, I give and bequeath, in memory of my dear mother, to her favourite sister Elizabeth Roussel or her direct heirs; or, in default of Elizabeth and her heirs, to her second sister Armande Roussel or her direct heirs; or, in default of both sisters and their heirs, to their cousin Victor Roussel or his direct heirs.

  “In the event of my dying without discovering the surviving members of the Roussel family, or of the cousin of the three sisters, I request my friend Don Luis Perenna to make all the necessary investigations. With this object, I hereby appoint him the executor of my will in so far as concerns the European portion of my estate, and I beg him to undertake the conduct of the events that may arise after my death or in consequence of my death to consider himself my representative and to act in all things for the benefit of my memory and the accomplishment of my wishes. In gratitude for this service and in memory of the two occasions on which he saved my life, I give and bequeath to the said Don Luis Perenna the sum of one million francs.”

  The Prefect stopped for a few seconds. Don Luis murmured:

  “Poor Cosmo! … I should not have needed that inducement to carry out his last wishes.”

  M. Desmalions continued his reading:

  “Furthermore, if, within three months of my death, the investigations made by Don Luis Perenna and by Maître Lepertuis have led to no result; if no heir and no survivor of the Roussel family have come forward to receive the bequest, then the whole hundred million francs shall definitely, all later claims notwithstanding, accrue to my friend Don Luis Perenna. I know him well enough to feel assured that he will employ this fortune in a manner which shall accord with the loftiness of his schemes and the greatness of the plans which he described to me so enthusiastically in our tent in Morocco.”

  M. Desmalions stopped once more and raised his eyes to Don Luis, who remained silent and impassive, though a tear glistened on his lashes. Comte d’Astrignac said:

  “My congratulations, Perenna.”

  “Let me remind you, Major,” he answered, “that this legacy is subject to a condition. And I swear that, if it depends on me, the survivors of the Roussel family shall be found.”

  “I’m sure of it,” said the officer. “I know you.”

  “In any case,” asked the Prefect of Police of Don Luis, “you do not refuse this conditional legacy?”

  “Well, no,” said Perenna, with a laugh. “There are things which one can’t refuse.”

  “My question,” said the Prefect, “was prompted by the last paragraph of the will: ‘If, for any reason, my friend Perenna should refuse this legacy, or if he should have died before the date fixed for its payment, I request the Ambassador of the United States and the Prefect of Police for the time being to consult as to the means of building and maintaining in Paris a university confined to students and artists of American nationality and to devote the money to this purpose. And I hereby authorize the Prefect of Police in any case to receive a sum of three hundred thousand francs out of my estate for the benefit of the Paris Police Fund.’”

  M. Desmalions folded the paper and took up another.

  “There is a codicil to the will. It consists of a letter which Mr. Mornington wrote to Maître Lepertuis some time after and which explains certain points with greater precision:

  “I request Maître Lepertuis to open my will on the day after my death, in the presence of the Prefect of Police, who will be good enough to keep the matter an entire secret for a month. One month later, to the day, he will have the kindness to summon to his office Maître Lepertuis, Don Luis Perenna, and a prominent member of the United States Embassy. Subsequent to the reading of the will, a cheque for one million francs shall be handed to my friend and legatee Don Luis Perenna, after a simple examination of his papers and a simple verification of his identity. I should wish this verification to be made as regards the personality by Major Comte d’Astrignac, who was his commanding officer in Morocco, and who unfortunately had to retire prematurely from the army; and as regards birth by a member of the Peruvian Legation, as Don Luis Perenna, though retaining his Spanish nationality, was born in Peru.

  “Furthermore, I desire that my will be not communicated to the Roussel heirs until two days later, at Maitre Lepertuis’s office. Finally — and this is the las
t expression of my wishes as regards the disposal of my estate and the method of proceeding with that disposal — the Prefect of Police will be good enough to summon the persons aforesaid to his office, for a second time, at a date to be selected by himself, not less than sixty nor more than ninety days after the first meeting. Then and not till then will the definite legatee be named and proclaimed according to his rights, nor shall any be so named and proclaimed unless he be present at this meeting, at the conclusion of which Don Luis Perenna, who must also attend it, shall become the definite legatee if, as I have said, no survivor nor heir of the Roussel sisters or of their cousin Victor have come forward to claim the bequest.”

  Replacing both documents in the envelope the Prefect of Police concluded:

  “You have now, gentlemen, heard the will of Mr. Cosmo Mornington, which explains your presence here. A sixth person will join us shortly: one of my detectives, whom I instructed to make the first inquiries about the Roussel family and who will give you the result of his investigations. But, for the moment, we must proceed in accordance with the testator’s directions.

  “Don Luis Perenna’s papers, which he sent me, at my request, a fortnight ago, have been examined by myself and are perfectly in order. As regards his birth, I wrote and begged his Excellency the Peruvian minister to collect the most precise information.”

  “The minister entrusted this mission to me,” said Señor Caceres, the Peruvian attaché. “It offered no difficulties. Don Luis Perenna comes of an old Spanish family which emigrated thirty years ago, but which retained its estates and property in Europe. I knew Don Luis’s father in America; and he used to speak of his only son with the greatest affection. It was our legation that informed the son, three years ago, of his father’s death. I produce a copy of the letter sent to Morocco.”

  “And I have the original letter here, among the documents forwarded by

  Don Luis Perenna to the Prefect of Police. Do you, Major, recognize

  Private Perenna, who fought under your orders in the Foreign Legion?”