“Have patience, gentlemen,” said Don Luis.  “I promised you something ghastly; and you shall have it.”

“Well, I agree,” said the Prefect of Police, “that this is where the letters started from.  But a good many points remain obscure; and, apart from this, there is one fact in particular which it seems impossible to understand.  How were the criminals able to adapt the chandelier in this way?  And, in a house guarded by the police, in a room watched night and day, how were they able to carry out such a piece of work without being seen or heard?”

“The answer is quite easy, Monsieur le Prefet:  the work was done before the house was guarded by the police.”

“Before the murder was committed, therefore?”

“Before the murder was committed.”

“And what is to prove to me that that is so?”

“You have said so yourself, Monsieur le Prefet:  because it could not have been otherwise.”

“But do explain yourself, Monsieur!” cried M. Desmalions, with a gesture of irritation.  “If you have important things to tell us, why delay?”

“It is better, Monsieur le Prefet, that you should arrive at the truth in the same way as I did.  When you know the secret of the letters, the truth is much nearer than you think; and you would have already named the criminal if the horror of his crime had not been so great as to divert all suspicion from him.”

M. Desmalions looked at him attentively.  He felt the importance of Perenna’s every word and he was really anxious.

“Then, according to you,” he said, “those letters accusing Madame Fauville and Gaston Sauverand were placed there with the sole object of ruining both of them?”

“Yes, Monsieur le Prefet.”

“And, as they were placed there before the crime, the plot must have been schemed before the murder?”

“Yes, Monsieur le Prefet, before the murder.  From the moment that we admit the innocence of Mme. Fauville and Gaston Sauverand, we are obliged to conclude that, as everything accuses them, this is due to a series of deliberate acts.  Mme. Fauville was out on the night of the murder:  a plot!  She was unable to say how she spent her time while the murder was being committed:  a plot!  Her inexplicable drive in the direction of La Muette and her cousin Sauverand’s walk in the neighbourhood of the house:  plots!  The marks left in the apple by those teeth, by Mme. Fauville’s own teeth:  a plot and the most infernal of all!

“I tell you, everything is plotted beforehand, everything is, so to speak, prepared, measured out, labelled, and numbered.  Everything takes place at the appointed time.  Nothing is left to chance.  It is a work very nicely pieced together, worthy of the most skilful artisan, so solidly constructed that outside happenings have not been able to throw it out of gear; and that the scheme works exactly, precisely, imperturbably, like the clockwork in this box, which is a perfect symbol of the whole business and, at the same time, gives a most accurate explanation of it, because the letters denouncing the murderers were duly posted before the crime and delivered after the crime on the dates and at the hours foreseen.”