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

and had to squat on his haunches. He was utterly spent. However, obeying a last convulsion, he still found the strength to kneel down by the well, and leaning over the darkness, he stammered, breathlessly:

“Hi! I say! Corpse! Don’t go knocking at the gate of hell at once!⁠ ⁠… The little girl’s joining you in twenty minutes.⁠ ⁠… Yes, that’s it, at four o’clock.⁠ ⁠… You know I’m a punctual man and keep my appointments to the minute.⁠ ⁠… She’ll be with you at four o’clock exactly.

“By the way, I was almost forgetting: the inheritance⁠—you know, Mornington’s hundred millions⁠—well, that’s mine. Why, of course! You can’t doubt that I took all my precautions! Florence will explain everything presently.⁠ ⁠… It’s very well thought out⁠—you’ll see⁠—you’ll see⁠—”

He could not get out another word. The last syllables sounded more like hiccups. The sweat poured from his hair and his forehead, and he sank to the ground, moaning like a dying man tortured by the last throes of death.

He remained like that for some minutes, with his head in his hands, shivering all over his body. He appeared to be suffering everywhere, in each anguished muscle, in each sick nerve. Then, under the influence of a thought that seemed to make him act unconsciously, one of his hands crept spasmodically down his side, and, groping, uttering hoarse cries of pain, he managed to take from his pocket and put to his lips a phial out of which he greedily drank two or three mouthfuls.

He at once revived, as though he had swallowed warmth and strength. His eyes grew calmer, his mouth shaped itself into a horrible smile. He turned to Florence and said:

“Don’t flatter yourself, pretty one; I’m not gone yet, and I’ve plenty of time to attend to you. And then, after that, there’ll be no more worries, no more of that scheming and fighting that wears one out. A nice, quiet, uneventful life for me!⁠ ⁠… With a hundred millions one can afford to take life easy, eh, little girl?⁠ ⁠… Come on, I’m feeling much better!”

XX Florence’s Secret

It was time for the second act of the tragedy. Don Luis Perenna’s death was to be followed by that of Florence. Like some monstrous butcher, the cripple passed from one to the other with no more compassion than if he were dealing with the oxen in a slaughterhouse.

Still weak in his limbs, he dragged himself to where the girl lay, took a cigarette from a gunmetal case, and, with a final touch of cruelty, said:

“When this cigarette is quite burnt out, Florence, it will be your turn. Keep your eyes on it. It represents the last minutes of your life reduced to ashes. Keep your eyes on it, Florence, and think.

“I want you to understand this: all the owners of the estate, and old Langernault in particular, have always considered that the heap of rocks and stones overhanging your head was bound to fall to pieces sooner or later. And I myself, for years, with untiring patience, believing in a favourable opportunity, have amused myself by making it crumble away still more, by undermining it with the rain water, in short, by working at it in such a way that, upon my word, I can’t make out how the thing keeps standing at all. Or, rather, I do understand.

“The few strokes with the pickaxe which I gave it just now were merely intended for a warning. But I have only to give one more stroke in the right place, and knock out a little brick wedged in between two lumps of stone, for the whole thing to tumble to the ground like a house of cards.

“A little brick, Florence,” he chuckled, “a tiny little brick which chance placed there, between two blocks of stone, and has kept in position until now. Out comes the brick, down come the blocks, and there’s your catastrophe!”

He took breath and continued:

“After that? After that, Florence, this: either the smash will take place in such a way that your body will not even be in sight, if anyone should dream of coming here to look for you, or else it will be partly visible, in which case I shall at once cut and destroy the cords with which you are tied.

“What will the law think then? Simply that Florence Levasseur, a fugitive from justice, hid herself in a grotto which fell upon her and crushed her. That’s all. A few prayers for the rash creature’s soul, and not another word.

“As for me⁠—as for me, when my work is done and my sweetheart dead⁠—I shall pack my traps, carefully remove all the traces of my coming, smooth every inch of the trampled grass, jump into my motor car, sham death for a little while, and then put in a sensational claim for the hundred millions.”

He gave a little chuckle, took two or three puffs at his cigarette, and added, calmly:

“I shall claim the hundred millions and I shall get them. That’s the prettiest part of it. I shall claim them because I’m entitled to them; and I explained to you just now before Master Lupin came interfering, how, from the moment that you were dead, I had the most undeniable legal right to them. And I shall get them, because it is physically impossible to bring up the least sort of proof against me.”

He moved closer.

“There’s not a charge that can hurt me. Suspicions, yes, moral presumptions, clues, anything you like, but not a scrap of material evidence. Nobody knows me. One person has seen me as a tall man, another as a short man. My very name is unknown. All my murders have been committed anonymously. All my murders are more like suicides, or can be explained as suicides.

“I tell you the law is powerless. With Lupin dead, and Florence Levasseur dead, there’s no one to bear witness against me. Even if they arrested me, they would have to discharge me in the end for lack of evidence.