Page:The Teeth of the Tiger - Leblanc - 1914.djvu/61

 Don Luis Perenna, to be decorated in the Foreign Legion, to be a hero, and even to be alive after he was dead?"

Sergeant Mazeroux examined his companion in silence. Then his lacklustre eyes brightened, his drab features turned scarlet and, suddenly striking the table with his fist, he growled, in an angry voice:

"All right, very well! But I warn you that you mustn't reckon on me. No, not that! I'm in the detective service; and in the detective service I remain. Nothing doing. I've tasted honesty and I mean to eat no other bread. No, no, no, no! No more humbug!"

Perenna shrugged his shoulders:

"Alexandre, you're an ass. Upon my word, the bread of honesty hasn't enlarged your intelligence. Who talked of starting again?"

"But"

"But what?"

"All your maneuvers, Chief."

"My maneuvers! Do you think I have anything to say to this business?"

"Look here, Chief"

"Why, I'm out of it altogether, my lad! Two hours ago I knew no more about it than you do. It's Providence that chucked this legacy at me, without so much as shouting, 'Heads!' And it's in obedience to the decrees of"

"Then?"

"It's my mission in life to avenge Cosmo Mornington, to find his natural heirs, to protect them and to divide among them the hundred millions that belong to them. That's all. Don't you call that the mission of an honest man?"

"Yes, but"