"I can show you treaties, documents to prove—"
"Don't trouble. We'll talk about all that to-morrow. Meanwhile, go ahead.
You are free."
The essential word, the incredible word, was spoken.
Don Luis took a few steps toward the door.
"One word more, Monsieur le Président," he said, stopping. "Among my former companions is one for whom I procured a post suited to his inclinations and his deserts. This man I did not send for to come to Africa, thinking that some day or other he might be of use to me through the position which he occupied. I am speaking of Mazeroux, a sergeant in the detective service."
"Sergeant Mazeroux, whom Caceres denounced, with corroborating evidence, as an accomplice of Arsène Lupin, is in prison."
"Sergeant Mazeroux is a model of professional honour, Monsieur le Président. I owed his assistance only to the fact that I was helping the police. I was accepted as an auxiliary and more or less patronized by Monsieur le Préfet. Mazeroux thwarted me in anything I tried to do that was at all illegal. And he would have been the first to take me by the collar if he had been so instructed. I ask for his release."
"Oho!"
"Monsieur le Président, your consent will be an act of justice and I beg you to grant it. Sergeant Mazerou shall leave France. He can be charged by the government with a secret mission in the south of Morocco, with the rank of colonial inspector."
"Agreed," said Valenglay, laughing heartily. And he added, "My dear Préfect, once we depart from the strictly lawful path, there's no saying where we come to. But the end justifies the means; and the end which we have in view is to have done with this loathsome Mornington case."