rooms. Her pale face and her shoulders were stained with brown patches, similar to those which had marked the bodies of Inspector Vérot, Hippolyte Fauville, and his son Edmond.
Greatly upset, the Prefect murmured:
"But the poison—where did it come from?"
"This phial and syringe were found under her pillow, Monsieur le Préfet."
"Under her pillow? But how did they get there? How did they reach her? Who gave them to her?"
"We don't know yet, Monsieur le Préfet."
M. Desmalions looked at Don Luis. So Hippolyte Fauville's suicide had not put an end to the series of crimes! His action had done more than aim at Marie's death by the hand of the law: it had now driven her to take poison! Was it possible? Was it admissible that the dead man's revenge should still continue in the same automatic and anonymous manner?
Or rather—or rather, was there not some other mysterious will which was secretly and as audaciously carrying on Hippolyte Fauville's diabolical work?
Two days later came a fresh sensation: Gaston Sauverand was found dying in his cell. He had had the courage to strangle himself with his bedsheet. All efforts to restore him to life were vain.
On the table near him lay a half-dozen newspaper cuttings, which had been passed to him by an unknown hand. All of them told the news of Marie Fauville's death.
