Page:The Teeth of the Tiger - Leblanc - 1914.djvu/346

 upon it as comparatively unimportant. The main thing is Fauville's guilt and the prisoners' innocence."

Don Luis's delight was pure and unbounded. From his point of view, the sinister tragedy was at an end with the discovery of the confession written by Hippolyte Fauville. Anything not explained in those lines would be explained by the details to be supplied by Mme. Fauville, Florence Levasseur, and Gaston Sauverand. He himself had lost all interest in the matter.

The car drew up at Saint-Lazare, the wretched, sordid old prison which is still waiting to be pulled down.

The Prefect jumped out. The door was opened at once.

"Is the prison governor there?" he asked. "Quick! send for him, it's urgent."

Then, unable to wait, he at once hastened toward the corridors leading to the infirmary and, as he reached the first-floor landing, came up against the governor himself.

"Mme. Fauville," he said, without waste of time. "I want to see her"

But he stopped short when he saw the expression of consternation on the prison governor's face.

"Well, what is it?" he asked. "What's the matter?"

"Why, haven't you heard, Monsieur le Préfet?" stammered the governor. "I telephoned to the office, you know"

"Speak! What is it?"

"Mme. Fauville died this morning. She managed somehow to take poison."

M. Desmalions seized the governor by the arm and ran to the infirmary, followed by Perenna and Mazeroux.

He saw Marie Fauville lying on a bed in one of the