Don Luis stopped for a few seconds and then continued: 

“Consequently, on the morning of that Wednesday, everything was ready, the fatal clock was wound up, the incriminating machinery was working to perfection, and the proofs to come would confirm the immediate proofs which M. Fauville held in reserve.  Better still, Monsieur le Prefet, you had received from him a letter in which he told you of the plot hatched against him, and he implored your assistance for the morning of the next day—­that is to say, after his death!

“Everything, in short, led him to think that things would go according to the ‘hater’s’ wishes, when something occurred that nearly upset his schemes:  the appearance of Inspector Verot, who had been sent by you, Monsieur le Prefet, to collect particulars about the Mornington heirs.  What happened between the two men?  Probably no one will ever know.  Both are dead; and their secret will not come to life again.  But we can at least say for certain that Inspector Verot was here and took away with him the cake of chocolate on which the teeth of the tiger were seen for the first time, and also that Inspector Verot succeeded, thanks to circumstances with which we are unacquainted, in discovering M. Fauville’s projects.”

“This we know,” explained Don Luis, “because Inspector Verot said so in his own agonizing words; because it was through him that we learned that the crime was to take place on the following night; and because he had set down his discoveries in a letter which was stolen from him.

“And Fauville knew it also, because, to get rid of the formidable enemy who was thwarting his designs, he poisoned him; because, when the poison was slow in acting, he had the audacity, under a disguise which made him look like Sauverand and which was one day to turn suspicion against Sauverand, he had the audacity and the presence of mind to follow Inspector Verot to the Cafe du Pont-Neuf, to purloin the letter of explanation which Inspector Verot wrote you, to substitute a blank sheet of paper for it, and then to ask a passer-by, who might become a witness against Sauverand, the way to the nearest underground station for Neuilly, where Sauverand lived!  There’s your man, Monsieur le Prefet.”

Don Luis spoke with increasing force, with the ardour that springs from conviction; and his logical and closely argued speech seemed to conjure up the actual truth,

“There’s your man, Monsieur le Prefet,” he repeated.  “There’s your scoundrel.  And the situation in which he found himself was such, the fear inspired by Inspector Verot’s possible revelations was such, that, before putting into execution the horrible deed which he had planned, he came to the police office to make sure that his victim was no longer alive and had not been able to denounce him.

“You remember the scene, Monsieur le Prefet, the fellow’s agitation and fright:  ‘To-morrow evening,’ he said.  Yes, it was for the morrow that he asked for your help, because he knew that everything would be over that same evening and that next day the police would be confronted with a murder, with the two culprits against whom he himself had heaped up the charges, with Marie Fauville, whom he had, so to speak, accused in advance....