“Well, but, Monsieur—”
“What, Sergeant?”
“Well, but, Monsieur, who are you?”
“Who am I?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t they tell you? A Peruvian nobleman, or a Spanish nobleman, I don’t know which. In short, Don Luis Perenna.”
“Bunkum! I’ve just heard—”
“Don Luis Perenna, late of the Foreign Legion.”
“Enough of that, Monsieur—”
“Medaled and decorated with a stripe on every seam.”
“Once more, Monsieur, enough of that; and come along with me to the Prefect.”
“But, let me finish, hang it! I was saying, late private in the Foreign Legion. … Late hero. … Late prisoner of the Sûreté. … Late Russian prince. … Late chief of the detective service. … Late—”
“But you’re mad!” snarled the sergeant. “What’s all this story?”
“It’s a true story, Sergeant, and quite genuine. You ask me who I am; and I’m telling you categorically. Must I go farther back? I have still more titles to offer you: marquis, baron, duke, archduke, grand-duke, petty-duke, superduke—the whole Almanach de Gotha, by Jingo! If anyone told me that I had been a king, by all that’s holy, I shouldn’t dare swear to the contrary!”
Sergeant Mazeroux put out his own hands, accustomed to rough work, seized the seemingly frail wrists of the man addressing him and said:
“No nonsense, now. I don’t know whom I’ve got hold of, but I shan’t let you go. You can say what you have to say at the Prefect’s.”
“Don’t speak so loud, Alexandre.”
The two frail wrists were released with unparalleled ease; the sergeant’s powerful hands were caught and rendered useless; and Don Luis grinned:
“Don’t you know me, you idiot?”
Sergeant Mazeroux did not utter a word. His eyes started still farther from his head. He tried to understand and remained absolutely dumbfounded.
The sound of that voice, that way of jesting, that schoolboy playfulness allied with that audacity, the quizzing expression of those eyes, and lastly that Christian name of Alexandre, which was not his name at all and which only one person used to give him, years ago. Was it possible?
“The chief!” he stammered. “The chief!”
“Why not?”
“No, no, because—”
“Because what?”
“Because you’re dead.”
“Well, what about it? D’you think it interferes with my living, being dead?”
And, as the other seemed more and more perplexed, he laid his hand on his shoulder and said:
“Who put you into the police office?”
“The Chief Detective, M. Lenormand.”
“And who was M. Lenormand?”
“The chief.”
“You mean Arsène Lupin, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Alexandre, don’t you know that it was much more difficult for Arsène Lupin to be Chief Detective—and a masterly Chief Detective he was—than to be Don Luis Perenna, to be decorated in the Foreign Legion, to be a hero, and even to be alive after he was dead?”
Sergeant Mazeroux examined his companion in silence. Then his lacklustre eyes brightened, his drab features turned scarlet and, suddenly striking the table with his fist, he growled, in an angry voice:
“All right, very well! But I warn you that you mustn’t reckon on me. No, not that! I’m in the detective service; and in the detective service I remain. Nothing doing. I’ve tasted honesty and I mean to eat no other bread. No, no, no, no! No more humbug!”
Perenna shrugged his shoulders:
“Alexandre, you’re an ass. Upon my word, the bread of honesty hasn’t enlarged your intelligence. Who talked of starting again?”
“But—”
“But what?”
“All your maneuvers, Chief.”
“My maneuvers! Do you think I have anything to say to this business?”
“Look here, Chief—”
“Why, I’m out of it altogether, my lad! Two hours ago I knew no more about it than you do. It’s Providence that chucked this legacy at me, without so much as shouting, ‘Heads!’ And it’s in obedience to the decrees of—”
“Then—?”
“It’s my mission in life to avenge Cosmo Mornington, to find his natural heirs, to protect them and to divide among them the hundred millions that belong to them. That’s all. Don’t you call that the mission of an honest man?”
“Yes, but—”
“Yes, but, if I don’t fulfil it as an honest man: is that what you mean?”
“Chief—”
“Well, my lad, if you notice the least thing in my conduct that dissatisfies you, if you discover a speck of black on Don Luis Perenna’s conscience, examined under the magnifying glass, don’t hesitate: collar me with both hands. I authorize you to do it. I order you to do it. Is that enough for you?”
“It’s not enough for it to be enough for me, Chief.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There are the others.”
“Explain yourself.”
“Suppose you’re nabbed?”
“How?”
“You can be betrayed.”
“By whom?”
“Your old mates.”
“Gone away. I’ve sent them out of France.”
“Where to?”
“That’s my secret. I left you at the police office, in case I should require your services; and you see that I was right.”
“But suppose the police discover your real identity?”
“Well?”
“They’ll arrest you.”
“Impossible!”
“Why?”
“They can’t arrest me.”
“For what reason?”
“You’ve said it yourself, fathead: a first-class, tremendous, indisputable reason.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m dead!”
Mazeroux seemed staggered. The argument struck him fully. He at once perceived it, with all its common sense and all its absurdity. And suddenly he burst into a roar of laughter which bent him in two and convulsed his doleful features in the oddest fashion:
“Oh, Chief, just the same as always! … Lord, how funny! … Will I come along? I should think I would! As often as you like! You’re dead and buried and put out of sight! … Oh, what a joke, what a joke!”
Hippolyte Fauville, civil engineer, lived on the Boulevard Suchet, near the fortifications, in a fair-sized private house having on its left a small garden in which he had built a large room that served as his study. The garden was thus reduced to a few trees and to a strip of grass along the railings, which were covered with ivy and contained a gate that opened on the Boulevard Suchet.
Don Luis Perenna went with Mazeroux to the commissary’s office at Passy, where Mazeroux, on Perenna’s instructions, gave his name and asked to have M. Fauville’s house watched during the night by two policemen who were to arrest any suspicious person trying to obtain admission. The commissary agreed to the request.
Don Luis and Mazeroux next dined in
