Don Luis lunched somewhere close by; and Mazeroux, after calling at the detective office, came to fetch him and took him to the magistrate’s corridor.  Don Luis’s excitement, his extraordinary restlessness, did not fail to strike Mazeroux, who asked: 

“Are you still of the same mind, Chief?”

“More than ever.  I looked through the newspapers at lunch.  Marie Fauville, who was sent to the infirmary after her second attempt, has again tried to kill herself by banging her head against the wall of the room.  They have put a straitjacket on her.  But she is refusing all food.  It is my duty to save her.”

“How?”

“By handing over the real criminal.  I shall inform the magistrate in charge of the case; and this evening I shall bring you Florence Levasseur dead or alive.”

“And Sauverand?”

“Sauverand?  That won’t take long.  Unless—­”

“Unless what?”

“Unless I settle his business myself, the miscreant!”

“Chief!”

“Oh, dry up!”

There were some reporters near them waiting for particulars.  He recognized them and went up to them.

“You can say, gentlemen, that from to-day I am taking up the defence of Marie Fauville and devoting myself entirely to her cause.”

They all protested:  was it not he who had had Mme. Fauville arrested?  Was it not he who had collected a heap of convicting proofs against her?

“I shall demolish those proofs one by one,” he said.  “Marie Fauville is the victim of wretches who have hatched the most diabolical plot against her, and whom I am about to deliver up to justice.”

“But the teeth!  The marks of the teeth!”

“A coincidence!  An unparalleled coincidence, but one which now strikes me as a most powerful proof of innocence.  I tell you that, if Marie Fauville had been clever enough to commit all those murders, she would also have been clever enough not to leave behind her a fruit bearing the marks of her two rows of teeth.”

“But still—­”

“She is innocent!  And that is what I am going to tell the examining magistrate.  She must be informed of the efforts that are being made in her favour.  She must be given hope at once.  If not, the poor thing will kill herself and her death will be on the conscience of all who accused an innocent woman.  She must—­”

At that moment he interrupted himself.  His eyes were fixed on one of the journalists who was standing a little way off listening to him and taking notes.

He whispered to Mazeroux: 

“Could you manage to find out that beggar’s name?  I can’t remember where on earth I’ve seen him before.”

But an usher now opened the door of the examining magistrate, who, on receiving Don Perenna’s card, had asked to see him at once.  He stepped forward and was about to enter the room with Mazeroux, when he suddenly turned to his companion with a cry of rage: