“Are you sure of that?”

“Yes, Monsieur le President, of that and of a good deal more besides, for I have the proofs in my hands.”  Without further preamble, he continued:  “Monsieur le President, now that the man is caught, it will be easy for the police to find out every detail of his life.  But meanwhile I can sum up that monstrous life for you, looking only at the criminal side of it, and passing briefly over three murders which have nothing to do with the story of the Mornington case.

“Jean Vernocq was born at Alencon and brought up at old M. Langernault’s expense.  He got to know the Dedessuslamare couple, robbed them of their money and, before they had time to lodge a complaint against the unknown thief, took them to a barn in the village of Damigni, where, in their despair, stupefied and besotted with drugs, they hanged themselves.

“This barn stood in a property called the Old Castle, belonging to M. Langernault, Jean Vernocq’s protector, who was ill at the time.  After his recovery, as he was cleaning his gun, he received a full charge of shot in the abdomen.  The gun had been loaded without the old fellow’s knowledge.  By whom?  By Jean Vernocq, who had also emptied his patron’s cash box the night before ...

“In Paris, where he went to enjoy the little fortune which he had thus amassed, Jean Vernocq bought from some rogue of his acquaintance papers containing evidence of Florence Levasseur’s birth and of her right to all the inheritance of the Roussel family and Victor Sauverand, papers which the friend in question had purloined from the old nurse who brought Florence over from America.  By hunting around, Jean Vernocq ended by discovering first a photograph of Florence and then Florence herself.

“He made himself useful to her and pretended to be devoted to her, giving up his whole life to her service.  At that time he did not yet know what profit he could derive from the papers stolen from the girl or from his relations with her.

“Suddenly everything became different.  An indiscreet word let fall by a solicitor’s clerk told him of a will in Maitre Lepertuis’s drawer which would be interesting to look at.  He obtained a sight of it by bribing the clerk, who has since disappeared, with a thousand-franc note.  The will, as it happened, was Cosmo Mornington’s; and in it Cosmo Mornington bequeathed his immense wealth to the heirs of the Roussel sisters and of Victor Sauverand....

“Jean Vernocq saw his chance.  A hundred million francs!  To get hold of that sum, to obtain riches, luxury, power, and the means of buying health and strength from the world’s great healers, all that he had to do was first to put away the different persons who stood between the inheritance and Florence, and then, when all the obstacles were overcome, to make Florence his wife.

“Jean Vernocq went to work.  He had found among the papers of Hippolyte Fauville’s old friend Langernault particulars relating to the Roussel family and to the discord that reigned in the Fauville household.  Five persons, all told, were in his way:  first, of course, Cosmo Mornington; next, in the order of their claims, Hippolyte Fauville, his son Edmond, his wife Marie, and his cousin Gaston Sauverand.