The Tabor independent. [volume] (Tabor, S.D.) 1913-19??, 1918-07-18


the criminal, and the words
uttered those which contained the
unseen reality.
Then at once he would take up
the story again, as sc~hoolboys do
when parsing and analysing .
passage, in which each expression
is carefully sifted, each period
discussed, each sentence reduced
to its essential value.
Hours and hours passed. Sud
denly, in the middle Of the night,
he gave a start. He took out his
watch. By the light Of his electric
lamp he saw that it was II min
utes to IL o'clock.
$50 at II minutes to IL at
night" he said, 81 fathomed the
mystery"
He tried to control his emotion,
but it was too great; and his
nerves were so immensely stag
gered by the trial that he began
to shed tears. He had caught
sight Of the appalling truth, all
of a sudden, as when at night one
half sees a landscape under a
lightning flash.
There is nothing more unnerv-
ing than this sudden illumination
when we have been cropping and
struggling in the dark. Already
exhausted by his physical efforts
and by the want Of food, from
which he was beginning to suffer,
he felt the shock so intensely that,
without caring to think a moment
longer, he managed to go to sleep,
or, rather, to sink into sleep, as
one sinks into the healing waters
Of a bath.
When he woke, in the small
hours, alert and well despite the
discomfort Of his couch, he shud-
dered on thinking Of the theory
which he had accepted; and his
first instinct was to doubt it. He
had, SO to speak, no time.
All the proofs came rushing to
his mind Of their own accord and
at once transformed the theory
into one Of those certainties
which it would be madness to
deny. 1t was that and nothing
else. AS he had f~oreseen, the
truth lay recorded in Sauverand's
story. And he had not been mis-
taken, either, in saying to Maze
roux that the manner in which
the mysterious. letters appeared
had put him on the track of the
truth.
And the truth was terrible. He
felt, at the thought of it, the same
fears that had maddened Inspec-
tor Verot when, already tortured
by the poison, he stammered:
"Oh, l don't like this, I don't
like the looks of this! -. The
whole thing has been planned in
such an Internal manner!"
Internal was the word! And
Don Luis remained stupeied at
the revelation Of a crime which
looked as if no human brain
could have conceived it.
For two hours more he devoted
all his mental powers to examin-
ing the situation from every point
of view. He was not much dis
turbed about the result, because,
being now in possession Of the
terrible secret, he had nothing
more to do but make his escape
and 60 that evening to the meet
ing on the Boulevard Suchet,
where he would show them all
how the murder was committed.
But when, wishing to try his
chance Of escaping, he went up
through the underground passage
and climbed to the top of the
upper ladder-that is to say, to
the level of the boudoir-he heard
through the trapdoor the voices of
men in the room.
"By Jove!' he said to himself,
"the thing is not so simple as 1
thought! In order to escape the
minions Of the law l must first
leave my prison; and here is at
least one of the exits blocked.
Let's look at the other"
He went down to F~lorence's
apartments and worked the mech
anism, which consisted of a coun-
terweight. The panel of the cup
board moved in the groove.
Driven by hunger and hoping
to find some provisions which
would enable him to withstand a
siege without being reduced to
famine, he was about to pass
through the %alcove, behind the
curtains, when he was stopped
shert by a sound Of footsteps.
Some ene had entered the room.
"Well, Mazeroux, have you
spent the night heref Nothing
payv2o