The Teeth of the Tiger

It was half-past four; M. Desmalions, the Prefect of Police, was not yet back at the office. His private secretary laid on the desk a bundle of letters and reports which he had annotated for his chief, rang the bell and said to the messenger who entered by the main door:

“Monsieur le Préfet has sent for a number of people to see him at five o’clock. Here are their names. Show them into separate waiting-rooms, so that they can’t communicate with one another, and let me have their cards when they come.”

The messenger went out. The secretary was turning toward the small door that led to his room, when the main door opened once more and admitted a man who stopped and leaned swaying over the back of a chair.

“Why, it’s you, Vérot!” said the secretary. “But what’s happened? What’s the matter?”

Inspector Vérot was a very stout, powerfully built man, with a big neck and shoulders and a florid complexion. He had obviously been upset by some violent excitement, for his face, streaked with red veins and usually so apoplectic, seemed almost pale.

“Oh, nothing, Monsieur le Secrétaire!” he said.

“Yes, yes; you’re not looking your usual self. You’re gray in the face.⁠ ⁠… And the way you’re perspiring.⁠ ⁠…”

Inspector Vérot wiped his forehead and, pulling himself together, said:

“It’s just a little tiredness.⁠ ⁠… I’ve been overworking myself lately: I was very keen on clearing up a case which Monsieur Desmalions had put in my hands. All the same, I have a funny sort of feeling⁠—”

And he added in a low voice:

“They have been prowling around me for a long time.”

The two men went downstairs again.

Fauville looked at his watch.

“A quarter past ten: bedtime, I am exceedingly tired, and you will excuse me⁠—”

It was arranged that Perenna and Mazeroux should make themselves comfortable in a couple of easy chairs which they carried into the passage between the study and the entrance hall. But, before bidding them good night, Hippolyte Fauville, who, although greatly excited, had appeared until then to retain his self-control, was seized with a sudden attack of weakness. He uttered a faint cry. Don Luis turned round and saw the sweat pouring like gleaming water down his face and neck, while he shook with fever and anguish.

“What’s the matter?” asked Perenna.

“I’m frightened! I’m frightened!” he said.

“This is madness!” cried Don Luis. “Aren’t we here, the two of us? We can easily spend the night with you, if you prefer, by your bedside.”

Fauville replied by shaking Perenna violently by the shoulder, and, with distorted features, stammering:

“If there were ten of you⁠—if there were twenty of you with me, you need not think that it would spoil their schemes! They can do anything they please, do you hear, anything! They have already killed Inspector Vérot⁠—they will kill me⁠—and they will kill my son. Oh, the blackguards! My God, take pity on me! The awful terror of it! The pain I suffer!”

He had fallen on his knees and was striking his breast and repeating:

“O God, have pity on me! I can’t die! I can’t let my son die! Have pity on me, I beseech Thee!”

In the courtyard of his house he saw two little puppies which belonged to the coachman and which were generally confined to the stables. They were playing with a twist of red string which kept catching on to things, to the railings of the steps, to the flower vases. In the end, the paper round which the string was wound, appeared. Don Luis happened to pass at that moment. His eyes noticed marks of writing on the paper, and he mechanically picked it up and unfolded it.

He gave a start. He had at once recognized the opening lines of the article printed in the Echo de France. And the whole article was there, written in ink, on ruled paper, with erasures, and with sentences added, struck out, and begun anew.

He called the coachman and asked him:

“Where does this ball of string come from?”

“The string, sir? Why, from the harness-room, I think. It must have been that little she-devil of a Mirza who⁠—”

“And when did you wind the string round the paper?”

“Yesterday evening, Monsieur.”

“Yesterday evening. I see. And where is the paper from?”

“Upon my word, Monsieur, I can’t say. I wanted something to wind my string on. I picked this bit up behind the coach-house where they fling all the rubbish of the house to be taken into the street at night.”

Don Luis pursued his investigations. He questioned or asked Mlle. Levasseur to question the other servants. He discovered nothing; but one fact remained: the article in the Echo de France had been written, as the rough draft which he had

The door opened suddenly and Mlle. Levasseur burst into the room. Perenna, who had dismissed the butler, was raising to his lips a glass of water which he had just filled for himself. She sprang forward, seized his arm, snatched the glass from him and flung it on the carpet, where it smashed to pieces.

“Have you drunk any of it? Have you drunk any of it?” she gasped, in a choking voice.

He replied:

“No, not yet. Why?”

She stammered:

“The water in that bottle⁠ ⁠… the water in that bottle⁠—”

“Well?”

“It’s poisoned!”

He leapt from his chair and, in his turn, gripped her arm fiercely:

“What’s that? Poisoned! Are you certain? Speak!”

In spite of his usual self-control, he was this time thoroughly alarmed. Knowing the terrible effects of the poison employed by the miscreants whom he was attacking, recalling the corpse of Inspector Vérot, the corpses of Hippolyte Fauville and his son, he knew that, trained though he was to resist comparatively large doses of poison, he could not have escaped the deadly action of this. It was a poison that did not forgive, that killed, surely and fatally.

The girl was silent. He raised his voice in command:

“Answer me! Are you certain?”

“No⁠ ⁠… it was an idea that entered my head⁠—a presentiment⁠ ⁠… certain coincidences⁠—”

It was as though she regretted her words and now tried to withdraw them.

“Come, come,” he cried, “I want to know the truth: You’re not certain that the water in this bottle is poisoned?”

“No⁠ ⁠… it’s possible⁠—”

“Still, just now⁠—”

“I thought so. But no⁠ ⁠… no!”

Then he lost sight of them for good.

He was standing near a large, half-ruined barn, built against a very tall bank. Its worm-eaten doors seemed merely balanced on their hinges. He went up and looked through a crack in the wood. Inside the windowless barn was in semidarkness, for but little light came through the openings stopped up with straw, especially as the day was beginning to wane. He was able to distinguish a heap of barrels, broken winepresses, old ploughs, and scrap-iron of all kinds.

“This is certainly not where my fair stroller turned her steps,” thought Don Luis. “Let’s look somewhere else.”

Nevertheless, he did not move. He had noticed a noise in the barn.

He listened and heard nothing. But as he wanted to get to the bottom of things he forced out a couple of planks with his shoulder and stepped in.

The breach which he had thus contrived admitted a little light. He could see enough to make his way between two casks, over some broken window frames, to an empty space on the far side.

His eyes grew accustomed to the darkness as he went on. For all that, he knocked his head against something which he had not perceived, something hanging up above, something rather hard which, when set in motion, swung to and fro with a curious grating sound.

It was too dark to see. Don Luis took an electric lantern from his pocket and pressed the spring.

“Damn it all!” he swore, falling back aghast.

Above him hung a skeleton!