Don Luis did not know what to do, did not know in what words to express his rapture. His lips trembled. His eyes filled with tears. His nature prompted him to take her in his arms, to kiss her as a child kisses, full on the lips, with a full heart. But a feeling of intense respect paralyzed his yearning. And, overcome with emotion, he fell at Florence’s feet, stammering words of love and adoration.
XXI
Lupin’s Lupins
Next morning, a little before eight o’clock, Valenglay was talking in his own flat to the Prefect of Police, and asked:
“So you think as I do, my dear Prefect? He’ll come?”
“I haven’t the least doubt of it, Monsieur le Président. And he will come with the same punctuality that has been shown throughout this business. He will come, for pride’s sake, at the last stroke of eight.”
“You think so?”
“Monsieur le Président, I have been studying the man for months. 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. He had gone in front of them, in an aeroplane. After that, they telephoned to me again from Le Mans, where they had been searching a deserted coach-house.
“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 attitude showed that astonishment which we all experience in the face of events that seem to pass the bounds of human possibility.
“Well?” cried the Prime Minister eagerly.
“It’s done, Monsieur le Président.”
“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 Président, 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 Levasseur loved?”
“Monsieur le Président!” Don Luis violently protested. “Florence never loved that wretch! She felt sorry for him, as anyone 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 Président, of that and of a good deal more besides, for I have the proofs in my hands.” Without further preamble, he continued: “Monsieur le Président, 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 passing briefly over three murders which have nothing to do with the story of the Mornington case.
“Jean Vernocq was born at Alençon 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 amassed, Jean Vernocq bought from some rogue of his acquaintance papers containing evidence of Florence Levasseur’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 Maître 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
