Luis remained undecided for a moment; but how could he hope that the honest and scrupulous Mazeroux had disobeyed the dictates of his conscience?
He replied:
"Sergeant Mazeroux went to sleep in his chair and did not wake until Mme.
Fauville returned, two hours later."
There was a fresh silence, which evidently meant:
"So, during the two hours when Sergeant Mazeroux was asleep, it was physically possible for you to open the door and kill the two Fauvilles."
The examination was taking the course which Perenna had foreseen; and the circle was drawing closer and closer around him. His adversary was conducting the contest with a logic and vigour which he admired without reserve.
"By Jove!" he thought. "How difficult it is to defend one's self when one is innocent. There's my right wing and my left wing driven in. Will my centre be able to stand the assault?"
M. Desmalions, after a whispered colloquy with the examining magistrate, resumed his questions in these terms:
"Yesterday evening, when M. Fauville opened his safe in your presence and the sergeant's, what was in the safe?"
"A heap of papers, on one of the shelves; and, among those papers, the diary in drab cloth which has since disappeared."
"You did not touch those papers?"
"Neither the papers nor the safe, Monsieur le Préfet. Sergeant Mazeroux must have told you that he made me stand aside, to insure the regularity of the inquiry."
"So you never came into the slightest contact with the safe?"
"Not the slightest."
M. Desmalions looked at the examining magistrate and nodded his head. Had Perenna been able to doubt that a trap was being laid for him, a glance at Mazeroux would have told him all about it. Mazeroux was ashen gray.
Meanwhile, M. Desmalions continued:
"You have taken part in inquiries, Monsieur, in police inquiries. Therefore, in putting my next question to you, I consider that I am addressing it to a tried detective."
"I will answer your question, Monsieur le Préfet, to the best of my ability."
"Here it is, then: Supposing that there were at this moment in the safe an object of some kind, a jewel, let us say, a diamond out of a tie pin, and that this diamond had come from a tie pin which belonged to somebody whom we knew, somebody who had spent the night in this house, what would you think of the coincidence?"
"There we are," said Perenna to himself. "There's the trap. It's clear that they've found something in the safe, and next, that they imagine that this something belongs to me. Good! But, in that case, we must presume, as I have not touched the safe, that the thing was taken from me and put in the safe to compromise me. But I did not have a finger in this pie until yesterday; and it is impossible that, during last night, when I saw nobody, any one can have had time to prepare and contrive such a determined plot against me. So—"
The Prefect of Police interrupted this silent monologue by repeating:
"What would be your opinion?"
"There would be an undeniable connection between that person's presence in the house and the two crimes that had been committed."
"Consequently, we should have the right at least to suspect the person?"
"Yes."
"That is your view?"
"Decidedly."
M. Desmalions produced a piece of tissue paper from his pocket and took from it a little blue stone, which he displayed.
"Here is a turquoise which we found in the safe. It belongs, without a shadow of a doubt, to the ring which you are wearing on your finger."
Don Luis was seized with a fit of rage. He half grated, through his clenched teeth:
"Oh, the rascals! How clever they are! But no, I can't believe—"
He looked at his ring, which was formed of a large, clouded, dead turquoise, surrounded by a circle of small, irregular turquoises, also of a very pale blue. One of these was missing; and the one which M. Desmalions had in his hand fitted the place exactly.
"What do you say?" asked M. Desmalions.
"I say that this turquoise belongs to my ring, which was given me by
Cosmo Mornington on the first occasion that I saved his life."
"So we are agreed?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Préfet, we are agreed."
Don Luis Perenna began to walk across the room, reflecting. The movement which the two detectives made toward the two doors told him that his arrest was provided for. A word from M. Desmalions, and Sergeant Mazeroux would be forced to take his chief by the collar.
Don Luis once more gave a glance toward his former accomplice. Mazeroux made a gesture of entreaty, as though to say:
"Well, what are you waiting for? Why don't you give up the criminal?
Quick, it's time!"
Don Luis smiled.
"What's the matter?" asked the Prefect, in a tone that now entirely lacked the sort of involuntary politeness which he had shown since the commencement of the examination.
"The matter? The matter?—"
Perenna seized a chair by the back, spun it round and sat down upon it, with the simple remark:
"Let's talk!"
And this was said in such a way and the movement executed with so much decision that the Prefect muttered, as though wavering:
"I don't quite see—"
"You soon will, Monsieur le Préfet."
And, speaking in a slow voice, laying stress on every syllable that he uttered, he began:
"Monsieur le Préfet, the position is as clear as daylight. Yesterday evening you gave me an authorization which involves your responsibility most gravely. The result is that what you now want, at all costs and without delay, is a culprit. And that culprit is to be myself. By way of incriminating evidence, you have the fact of my presence here, the fact the door was locked on the inside, the fact that Sergeant Mazeroux was asleep while the crime was committed, and the fact of the discovery of the turquoise in the safe. All this is crushing, I admit. Added to it," he continued, "we have the terrible presumption that I had every interest in the removal of M. Fauville and his son, inasmuch as, if there is no heir of Cosmo Mornington's in existence, I come into a hundred million francs. Exactly. There is therefore nothing for me to do, Monsieur le Préfet, but to go with you to the lockup or else—"
"Or else what?"
"Or
