“It upsets all my calculations,” he thought, “and I shall have to go through the mill this time.  I was able to baffle Mme. Fauville’s accusation and to foil the trick of the turquoise.  But M. Desmalions will never admit that this is a similar attempt and that Gaston Sauverand has tried, as Marie Fauville did, to get me out of the way by compromising me and procuring my arrest.”

“Well,” exclaimed M. Desmalions impatiently, “answer!  Defend yourself!”

“No, Monsieur le Prefet, it is not for me to defend myself,”

M. Desmalions stamped his foot and growled: 

“In that case ... in that case ... since you confess ... since—­”

He put his hand on the latch of the window, ready to open it.  A whistle, and the detectives would burst in and all would be over.

“Shall I have your inspectors called, Monsieur le Prefet?” asked Don Luis.

M. Desmalions did not reply.  He let go the window latch and started walking about the room again.  And, suddenly, while Perenna was wondering why he still hesitated, for the second time the Prefect planted himself in front of him, and said: 

“And suppose I looked upon the incident of the walking-stick as not having occurred, or, rather, as an incident which, while doubtless proving the treachery of your servants, is not able to compromise yourself?  Suppose I took only the services which you have already rendered us into consideration?  In a word, suppose I left you free?”

Perenna could not help smiling.  Notwithstanding the affair of the walking-stick and though appearances were all against him, at the moment when everything seemed to be going wrong, things were taking the course which he had prophesied from the start, and which he had mentioned to Mazeroux during the inquiry on the Boulevard Suchet.  They wanted him.

“Free?” he asked.  “No more supervision?  Nobody shadowing my movements?”

“Nobody.”

“And what if the press campaign around my name continues, if the papers succeed, by means of certain pieces of tittle-tattle, of certain coincidences, in creating a public outcry, if they call for measures against me?”

“Those measures shall not be taken.”

“Then I have nothing to fear?”

“Nothing.”

“Will M. Weber abandon his prejudices against me?”

“At any rate, he will act as though he did, won’t you, Weber?”

The deputy chief uttered a few grunts which might be taken as an expression of assent; and Don Luis at once exclaimed: 

“In that case, Monsieur le Prefet, I am sure of gaining the victory and of gaining it in accordance with the wishes and requirements of the authorities.”

And so, by a sudden change in the situation, after a series of exceptional circumstances, the police themselves, bowing before Don Luis Perenna’s superior qualities of mind, acknowledging all that he had already done and foreseeing all that he would be able to do, decided to back him up, begging for his assistance, and offering him, so to speak, the command of affairs.