“Jean Vernocq went to work. He had found among the papers of Hippolyte Fauville’s old friend Langernault particulars relating to the Roussel family and to the discord that reigned in the Fauville household. Five persons, all told, were in his way: first, of course, Cosmo Mornington; next, in the order of their claims, Hippolyte Fauville, his son Edmond, his wife Marie, and his cousin Gaston Sauverand.
“With Cosmo Mornington, the thing was easy enough. Introducing himself to the American as a doctor, Jean Vernocq put poison into one of the phials which Mornington used for his hypodermic injections.
“But in the case of Hippolyte Fauville, whose good will he had secured through his acquaintance with old Langernault, and over whose mind he soon obtained an extraordinary influence, he had a greater difficulty to contend with. Knowing on the one hand that the engineer hated his wife and on the other that he was stricken with a fatal disease, he took occasion, after the consultation with the specialist in London, to suggest to Fauville’s terrified brain the incredible plan of suicide of which you were subsequently able to trace the Machiavellian execution.
“In this way and with a single effort, anonymously, so to speak, and without appearing in the business, without Fauville’s even suspecting the action brought to bear upon him, Jean Vernocq procured the deaths of Fauville and his son, and got rid of Marie and Sauverand by the devilish expedient of causing the charge of murder, of which no one could accuse him, to fall upon them. The plan succeeded.
“There was only one hitch at the present time: the intervention of Inspector Vérot. Inspector Vérot died. And there was only one danger in the future: the intervention of myself, Don Luis Perenna, whose conduct Vernocq was bound to foresee, as I was the residuary legatee by the terms of Cosmo Mornington’s will. This danger Vernocq tried to avert first by giving me the house on the Place du Palais-Bourbon to live in and Florence Levasseur as a secretary, and next by making four attempts to have me assassinated by Gaston Sauverand.
“He therefore held all the threads of the tragedy in his hands. Able to come and go as he pleased in my house, enforcing himself upon Florence and later upon Gaston Sauverand by the strength of his will and the cunning of his character, he was within sight of the goal.
“When my efforts succeeded in proving the innocence of Marie Fauville and Gaston Sauverand, he did not hesitate: Marie Fauville died; Gaston Sauverand died.
“So everything was going well for him. The police pursued me. The police pursued Florence. No one suspected him. And the date fixed for the payment of the inheritance was at hand.
“This was two days ago. At that time, Jean Vernocq was in the midst of the fray. He was ill and had obtained admission to the nursing-home in the Avenue des Ternes. From there he conducted his operations, thanks to his influence over Florence Levasseur and to the letters addressed to the mother superior from Versailles. Acting under the superior’s orders and ignorant of the meaning of the step which she was taking, Florence went to the meeting at the Prefect’s office, and herself brought the documents relating to her.
“Meanwhile, Jean Vernocq left the private hospital and took refuge near the Ile Saint-Louis, where he awaited the result of an enterprise which, at the worst, might tell against Florence, but which did not seem able to compromise him in any case.
“You know the rest, Monsieur le Président,” said Don Luis, concluding his statement. “Florence, staggered by the sudden revelation of the part which she had unconsciously taken in the matter, and especially by the terrible part played by Jean Vernocq, ran away from the nursing-home where the Prefect had brought her at my request. She had but one thought: to see Jean Vernocq, demand an explanation of him, and hear what he had to say in his defence. That same evening he carried her away by motor, on the pretence of giving her proofs of his innocence. That is all, Monsieur le Président.”
Valenglay had listened with growing interest to this gruesome story of the most malevolent genius conceivable to the mind of man. And he heard it perhaps without too great disgust, because of the light which it threw by contrast upon the bright, easy, happy, and spontaneous genius of the man who had fought for the good cause.
“And you found them?” he asked.
“At three o’clock yesterday afternoon, Monsieur le Président. It was time. I might even say that it was too late, for Jean Vernocq began by sending me to the bottom of a well, and by crushing Florence under a block of stone.”
“Oh, so you’re dead, are you?”
“Yes, Monsieur le Président.”
“But why did that villain want to do away with Florence Levasseur? Her death destroyed his indispensable scheme of matrimony.”
“It takes two to get married, Monsieur le Président, and Florence refused.”
“Well—”
“Some time ago Jean Vernocq wrote a letter leaving all that he possessed to Florence Levasseur. Florence, moved by pity for him, and not realizing the importance of what she was doing, wrote a similar letter leaving her property to him. This letter constitutes a genuine and indisputable will in favor of Jean Vernocq.
“As Florence was Cosmo Mornington’s legal and settled heiress by the mere fact of her presence at yesterday’s meeting with the documents proving her descent from the Roussel family, her death caused her rights to pass to her own legal and settled heir.
“Jean Vernocq would have come into the money without the possibility of any litigation. And, as you would have been obliged to discharge him after his arrest, for lack of evidence against him, he would have led
