He hated Louis de Malreich, that bloodthirsty scoundrel, that foul brute, of whom he had always been afraid and who, even beaten, even in prison, still gave him that sensation of dread and repugnance which one feels at the sight of a reptile.
Besides, had not Malreich had the audacity to persecute Dolores?
"He has played and lost," said Lupin. "He shall pay for it with his head."
That was what he wanted for his terrible enemy: the scaffold, the bleak, dull morning when the blade of the guillotine slides down and kills. . . .
It was a strange prisoner whom the examining-magistrate questioned for months on end between the four walls of his room, a strange figure, that bony man, with the skeleton face and the lifeless eyes!
He seemed quite out of himself. His thoughts were not there, but elsewhere. And he cared so little about answering!
"My name is Leon Massier."
That was the one sentence to which he confined himself.
And Lupin retorted.
"You lie. Leon Massier, born at Perigueux, left fatherless at the age of ten, died seven years ago. You took his papers. But you forgot his death-certificate. Here it is."