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

him that he had no right, in the present circumstances, to neglect the man’s warning.

“Let’s go,” he said.

The words were spoken in the calmest manner; and it really seemed as if those who heard them regarded them merely as the sensible conclusion of a very ordinary state of affairs. They went away without hurry or disorder, not as fugitives, but as men deliberately obeying the dictates of prudence.

They stood back at the door to let the Prefect go first.

“No,” he said, “go on; I’ll follow you.”

He was the last out, leaving the electric light full on.

In the hall he asked the chief detective to blow his whistle. When all the plainclothesmen had assembled, he sent them out of the house together with the porter, and shut the door behind him. Then, calling the detectives who were watching the boulevard, he said:

“Let everybody stand a good distance away; push the crowd as far back as you can; and be quick about it. We shall enter the house again in half an hour.”

“And you, Monsieur le Préfet?” whispered Mazeroux, “You won’t remain here, I hope?”

“No, that I shan’t!” he said, laughing. “If I take our friend Perenna’s advice at all, I may as well take it thoroughly!”

“There is only two minutes left.”

“Our friend Perenna spoke of three o’clock, not of two minutes to three. So⁠—”

He crossed the boulevard, accompanied by his secretary general, the chief detective, and Mazeroux, and clambered up the slope of the fortifications opposite the house.

“Perhaps we ought to stoop down,” suggested Mazeroux.

“Let’s stoop, by all means,” said the Prefect, still in a good humour. “But, honestly, if there’s no explosion, I shall send a bullet through my head. I could not go on living after making myself look so ridiculous.”

“There will be an explosion, Monsieur le Préfet,” declared Mazeroux.

“What confidence you must have in our friend Don Luis!”

“You have just the same confidence, Monsieur le Préfet.”

They were silent, irritated by the wait, and struggling with the absurd anxiety that oppressed them. They counted the seconds singly, by the beating of their hearts. It was interminable.

Three o’clock sounded from somewhere.

“You see,” grinned M. Desmalions, in an altered voice, “you see! There’s nothing, thank goodness!”

And he growled:

“It’s idiotic, perfectly idiotic! How could anyone imagine such nonsense!”

Another clock struck, farther away. Then the hour also rang from the roof of a neighbouring building.

Before the third stroke had sounded they heard a kind of cracking, and, the next moment, came the terrible blast, complete, but so brief that they had only, so to speak, a vision of an immense sheaf of flames and smoke shooting forth enormous stones and pieces of wall, something like the grand finale of a fireworks display. And it was all over. The volcano had erupted.

“Look sharp!” shouted the Prefect of Police, darting forward. “Telephone for the engines, quick, in case of fire!”

He caught Mazeroux by the arm:

“Run to my motor; you’ll see her a hundred yards down the boulevard. Tell the man to drive you to Don Luis, and, if you find him, release him and bring him here.”

“Under arrest, Monsieur le Préfet?”

“Under arrest? You’re mad!”

“But, if the deputy chief⁠—”

“The deputy chief will keep his mouth shut. I’ll see to that. Be off!”

Mazeroux fulfilled his mission, not with greater speed than if he had been sent to arrest Don Luis, for Mazeroux was a conscientious man, but with extraordinary pleasure. The fight which he had been obliged to wage against the man whom he still called “the chief” had often distressed him to the point of tears. This time he was coming to help him, perhaps to save his life.

That afternoon the deputy chief had ceased his search of the house, by M. Desmalions’s orders, as Don Luis’s escape seemed certain, and left only three men on duty. Mazeroux found them in a room on the ground floor, where they were sitting up in turns. In reply to his questions, they declared that they had not heard a sound.

He went upstairs alone, so as to have no witnesses to his interview with the governor, passed through the drawing-room and entered the study.

Here he was overcome with anxiety, for, after turning on the light, the first glance revealed nothing to his eyes.

“Chief!” he cried, repeatedly. “Where are you, Chief?”

No answer.

“And yet,” thought Mazeroux, “as he telephoned, he can’t be far away.”

In fact, he saw from where he stood that the receiver was hanging from its cord; and, going on to the telephone box, he stumbled over bits of brick and plaster that strewed the carpet. He then switched on the light in the box as well and saw a hand and arm hanging from the ceiling above him. The ceiling was broken up all around that arm. But the shoulder had not been able to pass through; and Mazeroux could not see the captive’s head.

He sprang on to a chair and reached the hand. He felt it and was reassured by the warmth of its touch.

“Is that you, Mazeroux?” asked a voice that seemed to the sergeant to come from very far away.

“Yes, it’s I. You’re not wounded, are you? Nothing serious?”

“No, only stunned⁠—and a bit faint⁠—from hunger.⁠ ⁠… Listen to me.”

“I’m listening.”

“Open the second drawer on the left in my writing-desk.⁠ ⁠… You’ll find⁠—”

“Yes, Chief?”

“An old stick of chocolate.”

“But⁠—”

“Do as I tell you, Alexandre; I’m famished.”

Indeed, Don Luis recovered after a moment or two and said, in a gayer voice:

“That’s better. I can wait now. Go to the kitchen and fetch me some bread and some water.”

“I’ll be back at once, Chief.”

“Not this way. Come back by Florence Levasseur’s room and the secret passage to the ladder which leads to the trapdoor at the top.”

And he told him how to make the stone swing out and how to enter the hollow in which he had expected to meet with such a tragic end.

The thing was done in ten minutes. Mazeroux cleared the opening, caught hold of Don Luis by the legs and pulled him out of his hole.

“Oh, dear,