it, as well as in all the rest?

"Wasn't it in her room, in a volume of Shakespeare, that documents were
found relating to M. Fauville's arrangements about the letters and the
explosion? And then--"

Mazeroux interrupted himself, frightened by the look in Don Luis's eyes
and realizing that the chief was fonder of the girl then ever. Guilty or
not, she inspired him with the same passion.

"All right," said Mazeroux, "we'll say no more about it. The future will
bear me out, you'll see."

* * * * *

The days passed. Mazeroux called as often as possible, or else telephoned
to Don Luis all the details of the two inquiries that were being pursued
at Saint-Lazare and at the Sante Prison.

Vain inquiries, as we know. While Don Luis's statements relating to the
electric chandelier and the automatic distribution of the mysterious
letters were found to be correct, the investigation failed to reveal
anything about the two suicides.

At most, it was ascertained that, before his arrest, Sauverand had tried
to enter into correspondence with Marie through one of the tradesmen
supplying the infirmary. Were they to suppose that the phial of poison
and the hypodermic syringe had been introduced by the same means? It was
impossible to prove; and, on the other hand, it was impossible to
discover how the newspaper cuttings telling of Marie's suicide had found
their way into Gaston Sauverand's cell.

And then the original mystery still remained, the unfathomable mystery of
the marks of teeth in the apple. M. Fauville's posthumous confession
acquitted Marie. And yet it was undoubtedly Marie's teeth that had marked
the apple. The teeth that had been called the teeth of the tiger were
certainly hers. Well, then!

In short, as Mazeroux said, everybody was groping in the dark, so much
so that the Prefect, who was called upon by the will to assemble the
Mornington heirs at a date not less than three nor more than four months
after the testator's decease, suddenly decided that the meeting should
take place in the course of the following week and fixed it for the
ninth of June.

He hoped in this way to put an end to an exasperating case in which the
police displayed nothing but uncertainty and confusion. They would decide
about the inheritance according to circumstances and then close the
proceedings. And gradually people would cease to talk about the wholesale
slaughter of the Mornington heirs; and the myst