United States or Sri Lanka ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He discovered nothing; but one fact remained: the article in the Echo de France had been written, as the rough draft which he had picked up proved, by somebody who lived in the house or who was in touch with one of the people in the house. The enemy was inside the fortress. But what enemy? And what did he want? Merely Perenna's arrest?
But, as regards the private in the Foreign Legion and his stay in Morocco, they took their revenge and let themselves go freely. Major d'Astrignac had spoken. Other officers, other comrades of Perenna's, related what they had seen. The reports and daily orders concerning him were published.
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.
People felt tempted to look upon it as the recreation of some wonderfully skilful conjurer rather than as the act of a person employing unknown methods. Nevertheless, Don Luis Perenna's intelligence was justified at all points, for the expected incident had taken place on the twenty-fifth of April, as on the fifteenth. Would the series be continued on the fifth of May?
If not " But Florence ran into the room. She passed him by without his trying to stop her, flung herself upon Gaston Sauverand, and, taking no heed of Perenna's presence, said: "Why did you come? You promised me that you wouldn't. You swore it to me. Go!" Sauverand released himself and forced her into a chair. "Let me be, Florence. I promised only so as to reassure you. Let me be."
And, meanwhile, at any rate, we hold one end of the line and, through that very fact, we know Don Luis Perenna's retreat." There was a pause, after which the deputy chief resumed in a more and more solemn voice: "Monsieur le Préfet, yesterday I suffered a cruel outrage at the hands of that man. It was witnessed by our subordinates. The servants must be aware of it.
But his anguish increased; and the words which he had heard over the telephone rang in his ears; and all Perenna's authority, his ardent entreaties, his frenzied conviction all this upset him. He had seen Perenna at work. He felt it borne in upon him that he had no right, in the present circumstances, to neglect the man's warning. "Let's go," he said.
I can't remember where on earth I've seen him before." But an usher now opened the door of the examining magistrate, who, on receiving Don Perenna's card, had asked to see him at once. He stepped forward and was about to enter the room with Mazeroux, when he suddenly turned to his companion with a cry of rage: "It's he! It was Sauverand in disguise. Stop him! He's made off. Run, can't you?"
And in the margin was this note, in the colonel's hand: "The colonel commanding doubles Private Perenna's award, but mentions his name in orders and congratulates and thanks him." After the fight of Ber-Réchid, Lieutenant Fardet's detachment being obliged to retreat before a band of four hundred Moors, Private Perenna asked leave to cover the retreat by installing himself in a kasbah.
Don Luis Perenna went with Mazeroux to the commissary's office at Passy, where Mazeroux, on Perenna's instructions, gave his name and asked to have M. Fauville's house watched during the night by two policemen who were to arrest any suspicious person trying to obtain admission. The commissary agreed to the request. Don Luis and Mazeroux next dined in the neighbourhood.