Part 17 (1/2)
”Yes,” muttered the sergeant, uncomfortably.
”Orders to keep me here until he comes?”
”Yes.”
”And if I betrayed an intention of leaving, to prevent me?”
”Yes.”
”By every means?”
”Yes.”
”Even by putting a bullet through my skin?”
”Yes.”
Perenna reflected; and then, in a serious voice:
”Would you have fired, Mazeroux?”
The sergeant lowered his head and said faintly:
”Yes, Chief.”
Perenna looked at him without anger, with a glance of affectionate sympathy; and it was an absorbing sight for him to see his former companion dominated by such a sense of discipline and duty. Nothing was able to prevail against that sense, not even the fierce admiration, the almost animal attachment which Mazeroux retained for his master.
”I'm not angry, Mazeroux. In fact, I approve. Only you must tell me the reason why the Prefect of Police--”
The detective did not reply, but his eyes wore an expression of such sadness that Don Luis started, suddenly understanding.
”No,” he cried, ”no!... It's absurd ... he can't have thought that!... And you, Mazeroux, do you believe me guilty?”
”Oh, I, Chief, am as sure of you as I am of myself!... You don't take life!... But, all the same, there are things ... coincidences--”
”Things ... coincidences ...” repeated Don Luis slowly.
He remained pensive; and, in a low voice, he said:
”Yes, after all, there's truth in what you say.... Yes, it all fits in.... Why didn't I think of it?... My relations with Cosmo Mornington, my arrival in Paris in time for the reading of the will, my insisting on spending the night here, the fact that the death of the two Fauvilles undoubtedly gives me the millions.... And then ... and then ... why, he's absolutely right, your Prefect of Police!... All the more so as.... Well, there, I'm a goner!”
”Come, come, Chief!”
”A dead-goner, old chap; you just get that into your head. Not as a.r.s.ene Lupin, ex-burglar, ex-convict, ex-anything you please--I'm unattackable on that ground--but as Don Luis Perenna, respectable man, residuary legatee, and the rest of it. And it's too stupid! For, after all, who will find the murderers of Cosmo, Verot, and the two Fauvilles, if they go clapping me into jail?”
”Come, come, Chief--”
”Shut up! ... Listen!”
A motor car was stopping on the boulevard, followed by another. It was evidently the Prefect and the magistrates from the public prosecutor's office.