The Teeth of the Tiger Part 82

"a.r.s.ene I is dead: long live France! Monsieur le President du Conseil, I repeat my offer. Florence Leva.s.seur is in danger. I alone can rescue her from the monster who is carrying her away. It will take me twenty-four hours. In return for twenty-four hours' liberty I will give you the Mauretanian Empire. Do you accept, Monsieur le President du Conseil?"

"Well, certainly, I accept," said Valenglay, laughing. "What do you say, my dear Desmalions? The whole thing may not be very orthodox, but, hang it! Paris is worth a ma.s.s and the Kingdom of Mauretania is a tempting morsel. We'll risk the experiment."

Don Luis's face expressed so sincere a joy that one might have thought that he had just achieved the most brilliant victory instead of sacrificing a crown and flinging into the gutter the most fantastic dream that mortal man had ever conceived and realized.

He asked:

"What guarantees do you require, Monsieur le President?"

"None."

"I can show you treaties, doc.u.ments to prove--"

"Don't trouble. We'll talk about all that to-morrow. Meanwhile, go ahead.

You are free."

The essential word, the incredible word, was spoken.

Don Luis took a few steps toward the door.

"One word more, Monsieur le President," he said, stopping. "Among my former companions is one for whom I procured a post suited to his inclinations and his deserts. This man I did not send for to come to Africa, thinking that some day or other he might be of use to me through the position which he occupied. I am speaking of Mazeroux, a sergeant in the detective service."

"Sergeant Mazeroux, whom Caceres denounced, with corroborating evidence, as an accomplice of a.r.s.ene Lupin, is in prison."

"Sergeant Mazeroux is a model of professional honour, Monsieur le President. I owed his a.s.sistance only to the fact that I was helping the police. I was accepted as an auxiliary and more or less patronized by Monsieur le Prefet. Mazeroux thwarted me in anything I tried to do that was at all legal. And he would have been the first to take me by the collar if he had been so instructed. I ask for his release."

"Oho!"

"Monsieur le President, your consent will be an act of justice and I beg you to grant it. Sergeant Mazerou shall leave France. He can be charged by the government with a secret mission in the south of Morocco, with the rank of colonial inspector."

"Agreed," said Valenglay, laughing heartily. And he added, "My dear Prefect, once we depart from the strictly lawful path, there's no saying where we come to. But the end justifies the means; and the end which we have in view is to have done with this loathsome Mornington case."

"This evening everything will be settled," said Don Luis.

"I hope so. Our men are on the track."

"They are on the track, but they have to check that track at every town, at every village, by inquiries made of every peasant they meet; they have to find out if the motor has not branched off somewhere; and they are wasting time. I shall go straight for the scoundrel."

"By what miracle?"

"That must be my secret for the present, Monsieur le President."

"Very well. Is there anything you want?"

"This map of France."

"Take it."

"And a couple of revolvers."

"Monsieur le Prefet will be good enough to ask his inspectors for two revolvers and to give them to you. Is that all? Any money?"

"No, thank you, Monsieur le President. I always carry a useful fifty thousand francs in my pocket-book, in case of need."

"In that case," said the Prefect of Police, "I shall have to send some one with you to the lockup. I presume your pocket-book was among the things taken from you."

Don Luis smiled:

"Monsieur le Prefet, the things that people can take from me are never of the least importance. My pocket-book is at the lockup, as you say. But the money--"

He raised his left leg, took his boot in his hands and gave a slight twist to the heel. There was a little click, and a sort of double drawer shot out of the front of the sole. It contained two sheafs of bank notes and a number of diminutive articles, such as a gimlet, a watch spring, and some pills.

"The wherewithal to escape," he said, "to live and--to die. Good-bye, Monsieur le President."

In the hall M. Desmalions told the inspectors to let their prisoner go free. Don Luis asked:

"Monsieur le Prefet, did Deputy Chief Weber give you any particulars about the brute's car?"

"Yes, he telephoned from Versailles. It's a deep-yellow car, belonging to the Compagnie des Cometes. The driver's seat is on the left. He's wearing a gray cloth cap with a black leather peak."

"Thank you, Monsieur le Prefet."

And he left the house.

An inconceivable thing had happened. Don Luis was free. Half an hour's conversation had given him the power of acting and of fighting the decisive battle.

He went off at a run. At the Trocadero he jumped into a taxi.

"Go to Issy-les-Moulineaux!" he cried. "Full speed! Forty francs!"

The cab flew through Pa.s.sy, crossed the Seine and reached the Issy-les-Moulineaux aviation ground in ten minutes.

None of the aeroplanes was out, for there was a stiff breeze blowing. Don Luis ran to the sheds. The owners' names were written over the doors.

"Davanne," he muttered. "That's the man I want."

The door of the shed was open. A short, stoutish man, with a long red face, was smoking a cigarette and watching some mechanics working at a monoplane. The little man was Davanne himself, the famous airman.

Don Luis took him aside and, knowing from the papers the sort of man that he was, opened the conversation so as to surprise him from the start:

"Monsieur," he said, unfolding his map of France, "I want to catch up some one who has carried off the woman I love and is making for Nantes by motor. The abduction took place at midnight. It is now about eight o'clock. Suppose that the motor, which is just a hired taxi with a driver who has no inducement to break his neck, does an average of twenty miles an hour, including stoppages--in twelve hours' time--that is to say, at twelve o'clock--our man will have covered two hundred and forty miles and reached a spot between Angers and Nantes, at this point on the map."

"Les Ponts-de-Drive," agreed Davanne, who was quietly listening.

"Very well. Suppose, on the other hand, that an aeroplane were to start from Issy-les-Moulineaux at eight o'clock in the morning and travel at the rate of sixty miles an hour, without stopping--in four hours'

time--that is to say, at twelve o'clock--it would reach Les Ponts-de-Drive at the exact same moment as the motor. Am I right?"