rast upon the bright, easy, happy, and spontaneous genius of the
man who had fought for the good cause.

"And you found them?" he asked.

"At three o'clock yesterday afternoon, Monsieur le President. It was
time. I might even say that it was too late, for Jean Vernocq began by
sending me to the bottom of a well, and by crushing Florence under a
block of stone."

"Oh, so you're dead, are you?"

"Yes, Monsieur le President."

"But why did that villain want to do away with Florence Levasseur? Her
death destroyed his indispensable scheme of matrimony."

"It takes two to get married, Monsieur le President, and Florence
refused."

"Well--"

"Some time ago Jean Vernocq wrote a letter leaving all that he possessed
to Florence Levasseur. Florence, moved by pity for him, and not realizing
the importance of what she was doing, wrote a similar letter leaving her
property to him. This letter constitutes a genuine and indisputable will
in favor of Jean Vernocq.

"As Florence was Cosmo Mornington's legal and settled heiress by the mere
fact of her presence at yesterday's meeting with the documents proving
her descent from the Roussel family, her death caused her rights to pass
to her own legal and settled heir.

"Jean Vernocq would have come into the money without the possibility of
any litigation. And, as you would have been obliged to discharge him
after his arrest, for lack of evidence against him, he would have led a
quiet life, with fourteen murders on his conscience--I have added them
up--but with a hundred million francs in his pocket. To a monster of his
stamp, the one made up for the other."

"But do you possess all the proofs?" asked Valenglay eagerly.

"Here they are," said Perenna, producing the pocket-book which he had
taken out of the cripple's jacket. "Here are letters and documents which
the villain preserved, owing to a mental aberration common to all great
criminals. Here, by good luck, is his correspondence with Hippolyte
Fauville. Here is the original of the prospectus from which I learned
that the house on the Place du Palais-Bourbon was for sale. Here is a
memorandum of Jean Vernocq's journeys to Alencon to intercept Fauville's
letters to old Langernault.

"Here is another memorandum showing that Inspector Verot overheard a
conversation between Fauville and his accomplice, that he shadowed
Vernocq and robbed him of Florence Levasseur's photograph, and that
Vernocq sent Fauville in pursuit of him.