The Teeth of the Tiger, Maurice Leblanc [top 10 inspirational books TXT] 📗

rushing at my heels. But there’s only one who’s capable of catching me, and that’s Lupin. So we’ll show him the way, we’ll lead him on the leash all along a little path scraped clean by the victim’s body.’

“And then a few landmarks, scattered here and there. First, the fair damsel’s ring, with a blade of grass twisted round it; farther on a flower without its petals; farther on the marks of five fingers in the ground; next, the sign of the cross.’ No mistaking them, was there? Once you thought me fool enough to give Florence time to play Hop-o’-my-Thumb’s game, it was bound to lead you straight to the mouth of the well, to the clods of turf which I dabbed across it, last month, in anticipation of this windfall.

“Remember: ‘The snare is laid.’ And a snare after my own style, Lupin; one of the best! Oh, I love getting rid of people with their kind assistance. We work together like friends and partners. You’ve caught the notion, haven’t you?

“I don’t do my own job. The others do it for me, hanging themselves or giving themselves careless injections⁠—unless they prefer the mouth of a well, as you seem to do, Lupin. My poor old chap, what a sticky mess you’re in! I never saw such a face, never, on my word! Florence, do look at the expression on your swain’s mobile features!”

He broke off, seized with a fit of laughter that shook his outstretched arm, imparted the most savage look to his face, and set his legs jerking under his body like the legs of a dancing doll. His enemy was growing weaker before his eyes. Don Luis’s fingers, which had first gripped the roots of the grass, were now vainly clutching the stones of the wall. And his shoulders were sinking lower and lower into the well.

“We’ve done it!” spluttered the villain, in the midst of his convulsions of merriment. “Lord, how good it is to laugh! Especially when one so seldom does. Yes, I’m a wet blanket, I am; a first-rate man at a funeral! You’ve never seen me laugh, Florence, have you? But this time it’s really too amusing. Lupin in his hole and Florence in her grotto; one dancing a jig above the abyss and the other at her last gasp under her mountain. What a sight!

“Come, Lupin, don’t tire yourself! What’s the use of those grimaces? You’re not afraid of eternity, are you? A good man like you, the Don Quixote of modern times! Come, let yourself go. There’s not even any water in the well to splash about in. No, it’s just a nice little slide into infinity. You can’t so much as hear the sound of a pebble when you drop it in; and just now I threw a piece of lighted paper down and lost sight of it in the dark. Brrrr! It sent a cold shiver down my back!

“Come, be a man. It’ll only take a moment; and you’ve been through worse than that!⁠ ⁠… Good, you nearly did it then. You’re making up your mind to it.⁠ ⁠… I say, Lupin!⁠ ⁠… Lupin!⁠ ⁠… Aren’t you going to say goodbye? Not a smile, not a word of thanks? Au revoir, Lupin, an revoir⁠—”

He ceased. He watched for the appalling end which he had so cleverly prepared and of which all the incidents were following close on one another in accordance with his inflexible will.

It did not take long. The shoulders had gone down; the chin; and then the mouth convulsed with the death-grin; and then the eyes, drunk with terror; and then the forehead and the hair: the whole head, in short, had disappeared.

The cripple sat gazing wildly, as though in ecstasy, motionless, with an expression of fierce delight, and without a word that could trouble the silence and interrupt his hatred.

At the edge of the abyss nothing remained but the hands, the obstinate, stubborn, desperate, heroic hands, the poor, helpless hands which alone still lived, and which, gradually, retreating toward death, yielded and fell back and let go.

The hands had slipped. For a moment the fingers held on like claws. So natural was the effort which they made that it looked as if they did not even yet despair, unaided, of resuscitating and bringing back to the light of day the corpse already entombed in the darkness. And then they in their turn gave way. And then⁠—and then, suddenly, there was nothing more to be seen and nothing more to be heard.

The cripple started to his feet, as though released by a spring, and yelled with delight:

“Oof! That’s done it! Lupin in the bottomless pit! One more adventure finished! Oof!”

Turning in Florence’s direction, he once more danced his dance of death. He raised himself to his full height and then suddenly crouched down again, throwing about his legs like the grotesque, ragged limbs of a scarecrow. And he sang and whistled and belched forth insults and hideous blasphemies.

Then he came back to the yawning mouth of the well and, standing some way off, as if still afraid to come nearer, he spat into it three times.

Nor was this enough for his hatred. There were some broken pieces of statuary on the ground. He took a carved head, rolled it along the grass, and sent it crashing down the well. A little farther away was a stack of old, rusty cannon balls. These also he rolled to the edge and pushed in. Five, ten, fifteen cannon balls went scooting down, one after the other, banging against the walls with a loud and sinister noise which the echo swelled into the angry roar of distant thunder.

“There, take that, Lupin! I’m sick of you, you dirty cad! That’s for the spokes you put in my wheel, over that damned inheritance!⁠ ⁠… Here, take this, too!⁠ ⁠… And this!⁠ ⁠… And this!⁠ ⁠… Here’s a chocolate for you in case you’re hungry.⁠ ⁠… Do you want another? Here you are, old chap! catch!”

He staggered, seized with a sort of giddiness,