Here is a third memorandum,
which is just a copy of the two found in the eighth volume of Shakespeare
and which proves that Jean Vernocq, to whom that set of Shakespeare
belonged, knew all about Fauville's machination. Here are his
correspondence with Caceres, the Peruvian attache, and the letters
denouncing myself and Sergeant Mazeroux, which he intended to send to the
press. Here--

"But need I say more, Monsieur le President? You have the complete
evidence in your hands. The magistrates will find that all the
accusations which I made yesterday, before the Prefect of Police, were
strictly true."

"And he?" cried Valenglay. "The criminal? Where is he?"

"Outside, in a motor car, in his motor car, rather."

"Have you told my men?" asked M. Desmalions anxiously.

"Yes, Monsieur le Prefet. Besides, the fellow is carefully tied up. Don't
be alarmed. He won't escape."

"Well, you've foreseen every contingency," said Valenglay, "and the
business seems to me to be finished. But there's one problem that remains
unexplained, the one perhaps that interested the public most. I mean the
marks of the teeth in the apple, the teeth of the tiger, as they have
been called, which were certainly Mme. Fauville's teeth, innocent though
she was. Monsieur le Prefet declares that you have solved this problem."

"Yes, Monsieur le President, and Jean Vernocq's papers prove that I was
right. Besides, the problem is quite simple. The apple was marked with
Mme. Fauville's teeth, but Mme. Fauville never bit the apple."

"Come, come!"

"Monsieur le President, Hippolyte Fauville very nearly said as much when
he mentioned this mystery in his posthumous confession."

"Hippolyte Fauville was a madman."

"Yes, but a lucid madman and capable of reasoning with the most appalling
logic. Some years ago, at Palermo, Mme. Fauville had a very bad fall,
hitting her mouth against the marble top of a table, with the result that
a number of her teeth, in both the upper and the lower jaw, were
loosened. To repair the damage and to make the gold plate intended to
strengthen the teeth, a plate which Mme. Fauville wore for several
months, the dentist, as usual, took an impression of her mouth.

"M. Fauville happened to have kept the mould; and he used it to print the
marks of his wife's teeth in the cake of chocolate shortly before his
death and in the apple on the night of his death. When this was done, he
put the mould with the other things which the e