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

I shall be branded, execrated, hated, and cursed; my name will stink in people’s nostrils, as if I were the greatest of malefactors. But I shall possess the hundred millions; and with that, pretty one, I shall possess the friendship of all decent men!

“I tell you again, with Lupin and you gone, it’s all over. There’s nothing left, nothing but some papers and a few little things which I have been weak enough to keep until now, in this pocketbook here, and which would be enough and more than enough to cost me my head, if I did not intend to burn them in a few minutes and send the ashes to the bottom of the well.

“So you see, Florence, all my measures are taken. You need not hope for compassion from me, nor for help from anywhere else, since no one knows where I have brought you, and Arsène Lupin is no longer alive. Under these conditions, Florence, make your choice. The ending is in your own hands: either you die, absolutely and irrevocably, or you accept my love.”

There was a moment of silence, then:

“Answer me yes or no. A movement of your head will decide your fate. If it’s no, you die. If it’s yes, I shall release you. We will go from here and, later, when your innocence is proved⁠—and I’ll see to that⁠—you shall become my wife. Is the answer yes, Florence?”

He put the question to her with real anxiety and with a restrained passion that set his voice trembling. His knees dragged over the flagstones. He begged and threatened, hungering to be entreated and, at the same time, almost eager for a refusal, so great was his natural murderous impulse.

“Is it yes, Florence? A nod, the least little nod, and I shall believe you implicitly, for you never lie and your promise is sacred. Is it yes, Florence? Oh, Florence, answer me! It is madness to hesitate. Your life depends on a fresh outburst of my anger. Answer me! Here, look, my cigarette is out. I’m throwing it away, Florence. A sign of your head: is the answer yes or no?”

He bent over her and shook her by the shoulders, as if to force her to make the sign which he asked for. But suddenly seized with a sort of frenzy, he rose to his feet and exclaimed:

“She’s crying! She’s crying! She dares to weep! But, wretched girl, do you think that I don’t know what you’re crying for? I know your secret, pretty one, and I know that your tears do not come from any fear of dying. You? Why, you fear nothing! No, it’s something else! Shall I tell you your secret? Oh, I can’t, I can’t⁠—though the words scorch my lips. Oh, cursed woman, you’ve brought it on yourself! You yourself want to die, Florence, as you’re crying⁠—you yourself want to die⁠—”

While he was speaking he hastened to get to work and prepare the horrible tragedy. The leather pocketbook which he had mentioned as containing the papers was lying on the ground; he put it in his pocket. Then, still trembling, he pulled off his jacket and threw it on the nearest bush. Next, he took up the pickaxe and climbed the lower stones, stamping with rage and shouting:

“It’s you who have asked to die, Florence! Nothing can prevent it now. I can’t even see your head, if you make a sign. It’s too late! You asked for it and you’ve got it! Ah, you’re crying! You dare to cry! What madness!”

He was standing almost above the grotto, on the right. His anger made him draw himself to his full height. He looked horrible, hideous, atrocious. His eyes filled with blood as he inserted the bar of the pickaxe between the two blocks of granite, at the spot where the brick was wedged in. Then, standing on one side, in a place of safety, he struck the brick, struck it again. At the third stroke the brick flew out.

What happened was so sudden, the pyramid of stones and rubbish came crashing with such violence into the hollow of the grotto and in front of the grotto, that the cripple himself, in spite of his precautions, was dragged down by the avalanche and thrown upon the grass. It was not a serious fall, however, and he picked himself up at once, stammering:

“Florence! Florence!”

Though he had so carefully prepared the catastrophe, and brought it about with such determination, its results seemed suddenly to stagger him. He hunted for the girl with terrified eyes. He stooped down and crawled round the chaos shrouded in clouds of dust. He looked through the interstices. He saw nothing.

Florence was buried under the ruins, dead, invisible, as he had anticipated.

“Dead!” he said, with staring eyes and a look of stupor on his face. “Dead! Florence is dead!”

Once again he lapsed into a state of absolute prostration, which gradually slackened his legs, brought him to the ground and paralyzed him. His two efforts, following so close upon each other and ending in disasters of which he had been the immediate witness, seemed to have robbed him of all his remaining energy.

With no hatred in him, since Arsène Lupin no longer lived, with no love, since Florence was no more, he looked like a man who has lost his last motive for existence.

Twice his lips uttered the name of Florence. Was he regretting his friend? Having reached the last of that appalling series of crimes, was he imagining the several stages, each marked with a corpse? Was something like a conscience making itself felt deep down in that brute? Or was it not rather the sort of physical torpor that numbs the sated beast of prey, glutted with flesh, drunk with blood, a torpor that is almost voluptuousness?

Nevertheless, he once more repeated Florence’s name, and tears rolled down his cheeks.

He lay long in this condition, gloomy and motionless; and when, after again taking a few sips of his medicine, he went