“But do you possess all the proofs?” asked Valenglay eagerly.
“Here they are,” said Perenna, producing the pocketbook which he had taken out of the cripple’s jacket. “Here are letters and documents which the villain preserved, owing to a mental aberration common to all great criminals. Here, by good luck, is his correspondence with Hippolyte Fauville. Here is the original of the prospectus from which I learned that the house on the Place du Palais-Bourbon was for sale. Here is a memorandum of Jean Vernocq’s journeys to Alençon to intercept Fauville’s letters to old Langernault.
“Here is another memorandum showing that Inspector Vérot overheard a conversation between Fauville and his accomplice, that he shadowed Vernocq and robbed him of Florence Levasseur’s photograph, and that Vernocq sent Fauville in pursuit of him. Here is a third memorandum, which is just a copy of the two found in the eighth volume of Shakespeare and which proves that Jean Vernocq, to whom that set of Shakespeare belonged, knew all about Fauville’s machination. Here are his correspondence with Caceres, the Peruvian attaché, and the letters denouncing myself and Sergeant Mazeroux, which he intended to send to the press. Here—
“But need I say more, Monsieur le Président? You have the complete evidence in your hands. The magistrates will find that all the accusations which I made yesterday, before the Prefect of Police, were strictly true.”
“And he?” cried Valenglay. “The criminal? Where is he?”
“Outside, in a motor car, in his motor car, rather.”
“Have you told my men?” asked M. Desmalions anxiously.
“Yes, Monsieur le Préfet. Besides, the fellow is carefully tied up. Don’t be alarmed. He won’t escape.”
“Well, you’ve foreseen every contingency,” said Valenglay, “and the business seems to me to be finished. But there’s one problem that remains unexplained, the one perhaps that interested the public most. I mean the marks of the teeth in the apple, the teeth of the tiger, as they have been called, which were certainly Mme. Fauville’s teeth, innocent though she was. Monsieur le Préfet declares that you have solved this problem.”
“Yes, Monsieur le Président, and Jean Vernocq’s papers prove that I was right. Besides, the problem is quite simple. The apple was marked with Mme. Fauville’s teeth, but Mme. Fauville never bit the apple.”
“Come, come!”
“Monsieur le Président, Hippolyte Fauville very nearly said as much when he mentioned this mystery in his posthumous confession.”
“Hippolyte Fauville was a madman.”
“Yes, but a lucid madman and capable of reasoning with the most appalling logic. Some years ago, at Palermo, Mme. Fauville had a very bad fall, hitting her mouth against the marble top of a table, with the result that a number of her teeth, in both the upper and the lower jaw, were loosened. To repair the damage and to make the gold plate intended to strengthen the teeth, a plate which Mme. Fauville wore for several months, the dentist, as usual, took an impression of her mouth.
“M. Fauville happened to have kept the mould; and he used it to print the marks of his wife’s teeth in the cake of chocolate shortly before his death and in the apple on the night of his death. When this was done, he put the mould with the other things which the explosion was meant to, and did, destroy.”
Don Luis’s explanation was followed by a silence. The thing was so simple that the Prime Minister was quite astonished. The whole tragedy, the whole charge, everything that had caused Marie’s despair and death and the death of Gaston Sauverand: all this rested on an infinitely small detail which had occurred to none of the millions and millions of people who had interested themselves so enthusiastically in the mystery of the teeth of the tiger.
The teeth of the tiger! Everybody had clung stubbornly to an apparently invincible argument. As the marks on the apple and the print of Mme. Fauville’s teeth were identical, and as no two persons in the world were able, in theory or practice, to produce the same print with their teeth, Mme. Fauville must needs be guilty.
Nay, more, the argument seemed so absolute that, from the day on which Mme. Fauville’s innocence became known, the problem had remained unsolved, while no one seemed capable of conceiving the one paltry idea: that it was possible to obtain the print of a tooth in another way than by a live bite of that same tooth!
“It’s like the egg of Columbus,” said Valenglay, laughing. “It had to be thought of.”
“You are right, Monsieur le Président. People don’t think of those things. Here is another instance: may I remind you that during the period when Arsène Lupin was known at the same time as M. Lenormand and as Prince Paul Sernine, no one noticed that the name Paul Sernine was merely an anagram of Arsène Lupin? Well, it’s just the same today: Luis Perenna also is an anagram of Arsène Lupin. The two names are composed of the same eleven letters, neither more nor less. And yet, although it was the second time, nobody thought of making that little comparison. The egg of Columbus again! It had to be thought of!”
Valenglay was a little surprised at the revelation. It seemed as if that devil of a man had sworn to puzzle him up to the last moment and to bewilder him by the most unexpected sensational news. And how well this last detail depicted the fellow, a queer mixture of dignity and impudence, of mischief and simplicity, of smiling chaff and disconcerting charm, a sort of hero who, while conquering kingdoms by most incredible adventures, amused himself by mixing up the letters on his name so as to catch the public napping!
The interview was nearly at an end. Valenglay said to Perenna:
“Monsieur, you have done wonders in this business and ended by keeping your word and handing over the criminal. I also will keep
