The Tabor independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1913-19??, 1918-05-23
CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE DEVILS PoSToFFIcE.
Of all these events the public
knew only Of the attempted sui.
eide Of Nine. Fauville, the cap
ture and escape Of CASTOR Sau-
verand, the murder of Chief In
spector Ancenis, and the discov-
cry Of a letter written by Hippo
lyte Fauville. This was enough,
however, to reawaken their curl
osity, as they were already singu-
larly puzzled by the Mornington
case and took the greatest inter
est in all the movements, however
slight, Of the mysterious Don Luis
Perenna, whom they insisted on
confusing with Arsene Lupin.
He was, of course, credited
with the brief capture of the man
with the ebony walking stick. 1t
was also known that he had saved
the life Of the project of police,
and that, finally, having at his
own request spent the night in the
house on the Boulevard Suchet,
he had become the recipient of
Hippolyte Fauville's famous let
ter. And all this added immense
ly to the excitement Of the afore-
said public.
But how much more compli-
Gated and disconcerting were the
problems set to Don Luis Perenna
himself! Not to mention the de-
nunciation in the anonymous
article, there had been, in the
short space Of 4S hours, no fewer
than four separate attempts to
kill him: by the iron curtain, by
poison, by the shooting on the
Boulevard Suchet, and by the de-
liberately prepared motor acct
dent.
Florence's share in this series
of attempts was not to be denied.
And, now, behold her relations
with the Fauvilles' murderers
duly established by the little note
found in the eighth volume Of
Shakespeare plays, while two
more deaths were added to the
melancholy list: the deaths Of
Chief Inspector Ancenis and Of
the chauffeur. How to describe
and how to explain the part
played, in the midst Of all these
catastrophes, by that ~enigmatical
girl9
Strangely enough, life went on
as usual at the house in the Place
du Palais-B Bourbon, as though
nothing out Of the way had hap
pened there. Every morning
Florence Levasseur sorted Don
Yuis' post in his presence and
read out the newspaper articles
referring to himself or bearing
upon the Mornington case.
Not q single allusion was made
to the free fight that had been
waged against him for two days.
1t was as though a truce had been
proclaimed between them; and
the enemy appeared to have
ceased his attacks for the mo-
ment. Don Luis felt easy, out of
the reach Of danger; and he
talked to the girl with an indif-
ferent air, as he might have
; talked to anybody.
But with what a feverish inter
est he studied her u~nobserved
He watched the expression of her
face, at once calm and eager, and
la painful sensitivencss which
showed under the placid mask
, and which, difficult to control, re-
vealed itself in the frequent quiv-
ering of the lips and nostrils.
"Who are you? Who are youF'
he felt inclined to exclaim. will
nothing content you, you she
devil, but to deal out murder all
roundf And do you want my
], death also, in order to attain your
!, object7 Where do you come from
and where are you making FORT
On reflection, he was convinced
, of a certainty that solved a prob
lem which. had ~preoccupied him
for a long time-naniely, the m.ys-
terious connection between his
own presence in the mansion in
, the Place du Palaise- Bourbon and
/, the presence of a woman who was
manifestly wreaking her hatred
. on him.
, He now understood that he had
not bought the house by accident,
In making the purchase he had
been persuaded by an anonymous
II .fco, +hot raooba5 him in .thn