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Title: The long arm of Fantômas

Author: Pierre Souvestre
        Marcel Allain

Translator: A. R. Allinson

Release date: September 7, 2023 [eBook #71587]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: The Macauley Company, 1924

Credits: Charlene Taylor, David Wilson and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LONG ARM OF FANTÔMAS ***





                   THE LONG ARM
                   OF FANTÔMAS




          A NEW FANTÔMAS DETECTIVE NOVEL


                   THE LONG ARM
                   OF FANTÔMAS


                        BY
                 PIERRE SOUVESTRE
                        AND
                   MARCEL ALLAIN

              CREATORS OF “FANTÔMAS”


                     NEW YORK
               THE MACAULAY COMPANY




           _Translated into English by_
                  A. R. ALLINSON


                 Copyright, 1924,
              By THE MACAULAY COMPANY


      PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




CONTENTS

    CHAPTER                                    PAGE
       I. A Promising Job                         7
      II. A Night Affray                         23
     III. Shady Schemes                          32
      IV. An Epileptic Seizure                   37
       V. Disappointed Hopes                     46
      VI. Prisoner of the Lantern                57
     VII. Fantômas’ Ultimatum                    66
    VIII. A Wireless from Mid-Atlantic           72
      IX. The “Blue Chestnut”                    77
       X. Tom Bob on the Spot                    88
      XI. Mad as a Hatter                       102
     XII. A Stroke of Genius                    115
    XIII. The Wall that Bled                    129
     XIV. In the Bois de Boulogne               141
      XV. In a Private Room                     157
     XVI. Next Morning!                         168
    XVII. Fantômas Meets Fantômas               182
   XVIII. “Fantômas Speaking!”                  196
     XIX. The Prisoner of the _Santé_           210
      XX. A Woman’s Self-Sacrifice              220
     XXI. Joy Can Kill                          230
    XXII. A Volunteer Waiter                    239
   XXIII. The Wedding Breakfast                 249
    XXIV. Plots and Counterplots                258
     XXV. Assault and Battery                   270
    XXVI. Juve Hears Confessions                278
   XXVII. Juve’s Bag                            290
  XXVIII. The Decoy                             297
    XXIX. The “Ever-Evasive” Escapes Again      309




THE LONG ARM OF FANTÔMAS




CHAPTER I

A PROMISING JOB


“... Six, seven, eight, nine, ten; there you are!”

“And there’s your bill back in exchange; Monsieur Moche, I thank you.”

“It’s _I_ should thank _you_!”

“Not at all, not at all!... Your leave, Monsieur Moche, to count them
over again on my side? Ten thousand francs, quite a sum of money!”

“My word, yes, my man; so that clears your budget, eh?”

“Please don’t think I mistrust you because I check the notes; it’s the
usual thing.”

“Go on, go on; don’t apologise.”

The bank collector deposited his peaked cap on a straw-bottomed chair
beside him, mopped his streaming brow, and moistening his thumb with a
rapid, eminently professional movement, passed one by one between his
fingers the ten big blue bank notes his debtor had just paid over to
him.

The heat was stifling; it was the 15th of May—settling day, and about
four o’clock of the afternoon.

Bernard, an employé at the Comptoir National, was nearly at the end of
his day’s round when he reached M. Moche’s abode, which lay at the far
end of the _quartier_, No. 125 Rue Saint-Fargeau.

The man had climbed the stairs slowly. On the fourth floor right was a
door with a brass plate on which was inscribed:

                           _Moche, Advocate_

The description was only roughly indicative of the professional status
of the tenant of the fourth floor. M. Moche was indeed an advocate,
but not an advocate borne on the rolls of the Cour d’Appel, a pleader
affiliated to the Paris bar and consequently bound by the strict rules
of the profession; he was an _advocate_ in the bare, literal sense of
the word, leading persons of some perspicacity to surmise that M. Moche
was in actual fact merely an ordinary business agent.

Nor was the impression produced on a visitor entering M. Moche’s
domicile such as to modify the supposition. A real barrister’s chambers
are in the main very much like any middle-class private house, whereas
M. Moche’s office, or to be more precise, M. Moche’s offices, bore the
unmistakable stamp of a place of business.

The first room you entered was divided in two by a partition pierced
by wicket-windows, the lower portion being solid, the upper consisting
of a lattice-work of stout bars. Behind could be seen rows and rows of
deed-boxes and bundles of papers ranged on big shelves. In this room
M. Moche generally sat, and whenever the outer door opened he would
follow suit by throwing open a little window and popping out his head
to take stock of the visitor.

Anyone who had ever seen M. Moche, or even his head only framed in the
window opening, could never forget the man, for the advocate of the Rue
Saint-Fargeau possessed a physiognomy that was highly characteristic.

His features, prematurely wrinkled, betrayed his age to be a good
fifty. Following the fashion of ministerial officers of former
days, M. Moche wore on his cheeks a pair of short, bushy whiskers,
of a reddish hue that made them strongly resemble a rabbit’s paws.
His rather prominent nose, under which a black smudge of snuff was
invariably to be found, carried a pair of enormous, round, gold-rimmed
spectacles. Atop of his skull, which one guessed to be completely bald,
was perched a badly made, badly kept wig, ragged at the temples and
unduly flattened at the crown, whereon the wearer found it necessary
from time to time to balance a little velvet skull-cap.

Had it not been for the shifty eyes that were never at rest for an
instant, M. Moche might have been taken for a perfectly honest man; yet
his old-maidish manner, his soft, silky address, his often exaggerated
politeness, his trick of rubbing his hands and bending his back before
visitors, somehow modified any such favourable impression.

Still, as a matter of fact, despite his unpleasing exterior, M. Moche
had earned an excellent reputation in the _quartier_. He was a
serviceable, obliging old fellow, occasionally over inquisitive about
other folks’ business, but as a rule ready enough to do a kindness.
Many a one in the neighbourhood had had recourse to him at one time or
another for little loans of money, granted, it is fair to say, at quite
reasonable rates of interest, and none had come to any harm at the
hands of the old man of business.

The truth is, M. Moche was richer than people might suppose, judging
by the appearance of his abode on the fourth floor, a quite modest set
of apartments. Apart from the outer room with the barred and windowed
partition, the accommodation included a second apartment, a trifle
larger, a trifle more pretentious, which was honoured with the title
of drawing room. One or two armchairs of worn and faded leather and a
round table with a gas chandelier over it made up the furniture. The
room had two windows looking on the street, and affording a superb view
over the northern parts of the city and the fortifications running
parallel with the Boulevard Mortier.

The third room of the flat was M. Moche’s bedroom, a chamber rarely
occupied, however, for its tenant frequently slept from home, and
appeared to utilize his quarters in the Rue Saint-Fargeau merely as a
place for interviewing callers and conducting his business affairs in
general. M. Moche, in fact, was entitled to use more than one address,
and it was matter of common knowledge that he was owner of a house in
the La Chapelle district.

... The collector had finished his verification of the total, and
declared it to be correct. Then he added, as he turned to take leave of
M. Moche:

“There, my day’s work’s done, or as good as done; I’ve only another
flight to climb in your house, and then back to the bank as fast as I
can go, for I’m behind my time already.”

At the words, M. Moche looked at the man with an air of surprise.

“You have a payment to collect on the floor above,” he asked, “and from
whom, pray?”

Bernard consulted a little memorandum book dangling by a string from a
button of his uniform.

“From a M. Paulet.”

“Oh, ho!” laughed M. Moche.

“Yes, that’s so,” affirmed the other; “... oh, a mere trifle, a matter
of 27 francs!”

“Well, good luck to you,” concluded the old man philosophically,
closing the wicket, as the bank employé took his leave with a bow and a
final word of politeness:

“Hoping to meet you again, sir!”

Left alone—he kept neither housekeeper nor office-boy—the old fellow
stretched himself in one of the old leather-covered armchairs in
the dining room. Through the open window came a breath of cool air.
M. Moche sat in his shirt sleeves, enjoying the evening freshness, and
presently took advantage of his momentary leisure to inhale a huge
pinch of snuff. Not a sound came from without—vehicles are few and far
between in the Rue Saint-Fargeau—and only faint and far away in the
distance could be caught the occasional tinkle of the bells of the
electric trams that, in this remote quarter of Paris, link up the outer
suburbs with the central districts of the capital.

Suddenly, M. Moche started violently; from the floor above a dull,
heavy thud reached his ear. He found no difficulty in identifying the
sound—it was that of some heavy object falling on the floor above his
head. The old man scratched his chin and muttered half aloud:

“It’s a piece of furniture overset ... or a body!”

For a minute or two he stood hesitating, but M. Moche was a man of a
curious and inquiring turn of mind.

Abandoning the siesta he was proposing to enjoy, he crept cautiously
from the salon, and crossed the outer room of the flat, which opened
directly on the landing; then, stepping noiselessly in his felt
slippers, he climbed the stairs leading to the upper floor without a
sound.

On the fifth floor of No. 125 Rue Saint-Fargeau, there had been
residing for some weeks, in a pretty enough, albeit cheap, set of
rooms, two individuals who appeared at first blush to be just an
amiable pair of turtle-doves.

They were quite young; the united ages of the two would barely have
equalled that of M. Moche! The man looked twenty-three at most; his
companion, a dainty, slim little person, a brunette with great dark
eyes, had seen some sixteen summers at the outside.

They were lover and mistress, their names, his Paulet, hers Nini. The
pair had set up house together in the Rue Saint-Fargeau after their
union one Easter eve in the tenderest, but unconsecrated bonds of love.
The two had known each other from childhood. Paulet was the son of a
worthy woman who kept the porter’s lodge at a big house in the Rue de
la Goutte-d’Or. Nini lived in the same house, whither she had come as
quite a child with her mother, a respectable working woman, Mme. Guinon
by name, widow of an employé on the railway.

Nini was the youngest of a large family; they had been five brothers
and sisters, but two having died at an early age, Mme. Guinon had only
three surviving children. The two elder, Firmaine and Alfred, were in
regular employment, the former at a mantua-maker’s in the Rue de la
Paix, the latter with a bookbinder in the Rue des Grands-Augustins;
but Nini, a child of an uncontrolled and capricious temper and a
venturesome and vicious disposition, could never acquire the habit
of regular work, no matter how light. Instead of going apprentice,
the girl had preferred to run the streets in company with the most
outrageous young scamps, boys and girls, of the _quartier_.

This was the very thing to attract and fascinate Paulet, the
concierge’s son, who, too, as the phrase goes, had a wild “bee in his
bonnet,” and who from his teens upwards had been over and over again
told by the flash girls of La Chapelle that he was far too pretty a lad
ever to do any work.

For all that, Paulet was scarcely to be styled an Adonis; slenderly
built and under the middle height, he had into the bargain a pasty
complexion, colourless hair and a pair of pale, watery eyes. Still, the
features were well cut, almost refined. It was a common saying in the
Rue de la Goutte-d’Or that for sure his mother must have gone wrong
one day with a man of quality to have brought such a piece of goods
into the world.

In a word, Paulet was the women’s darling, because not only had the lad
pretty manners of his own, but an inexhaustible fund of high spirits
and an amazing gift of the gab—a typical “ladies’ man” in all the
abomination of the term ... and in all its beauty!

The whole La Chapelle quarter was stirred to its depths when Paulet
seduced little Nini Guinon, and had there and then resolved to set
up house with the girl. There had been some violent scenes with the
child’s family; Mme. Guinon, in particular, had been profoundly grieved
at the catastrophe. But there, one must learn to take things as they
come—and she had resigned herself to the inevitable.

As a matter of fact, for the two months the pair had been living
together as man and wife, the lovers appeared to have grown quite well
behaved. Nini kept her little home in decent order, Paulet worked now
and then at his trade of stone-mason, which he had learnt once upon a
time in a mighty haphazard fashion. Such at any rate was the official,
ostensible occupation of the tenant of the fifth floor. But his real
business, one which sometimes of evenings he constrained his pretty
mistress to follow, was, may we surmise, of a less reputable sort.

An angle in the line of house-front enabled anyone looking out from the
staircase window to see what was going on in the kitchen of the flat
occupied by this dubious couple. At the moment M. Moche reached this
window, Paulet and Nini were engaged in a highly animated conversation;
and, be sure, the old man looked on and listened with all his eyes and
ears.

M. Moche was lost in astonishment at the strange attitude of the two
and the amazing things they were saying! Bending down over the sink,
Nini and Paulet were letting the water pour over each other’s hands,
which they were soaping in feverish haste, while red soapsuds dripped
between their fingers into the trough.

Paulet was saying:

“Buck up, Nini! Don’t let the flies grow on you ... once the stuff
dries on our fingers, there’d be the devil’s own job to get it off
afterwards!”

“I know that,” muttered Nini in a trembling voice. Then she added:

“But, look, I’ve got some on my apron, too.”

“Lather it well,” her lover told her, “and if it _won’t_ come off,
we’ll chuck the thing in the fire.”

Paulet half turned round and reached down from a shelf a heavy hammer
stained with blood, which he set to work to sponge carefully.

“That’s mighty dangerous, too,” he observed, “if it’s not wiped clean.”

M. Moche could form a pretty shrewd notion of what had occurred before
he arrived. Mechanically he mounted the three or four steps that still
separated him from the landing of the floor occupied by Paulet and Nini.

The door stood ajar—a crazy piece of imprudence! M. Moche pushed it
open softly and made his way stealthily along the little passage at the
end of which was the kitchen.

Suddenly, in the half dark, his foot struck against something.
M. Moche, his sight getting accustomed to the dim light, gazed down at
this “something” with haggard eyes—it was the body of a man lying quite
still, face downwards on the floor!—the body of the bank collector! At
the back of the neck showed a fearful wound.

The thing was beyond a doubt—Paulet had murdered the employé from the
Comptoir National.

The unfortunate man’s wallet lay beside him, wide open, and M. Moche
could see that its contents had not yet been touched. The bank notes
stuck half out of the case, like the contents of a parcel that has been
ripped up; you had only to stoop to help yourself. It was plain Paulet
and Nini, their victim once dead, had merely shut to the door, without
making sure it was fastened, calm and confident in their conviction
that nobody in the house, empty at this hour of the day, would come in
to surprise them.

The deed once done, they had deemed the most urgent thing was to set to
work instantly to cleanse their hands and clothes in order to get rid
of the evidences of their guilt at the earliest possible moment. The
corpse lay absolutely motionless. Not a doubt the bank employé had been
killed outright with one blow.

During the few seconds M. Moche stood hesitating before the ghastly
sight, he could still hear the two accomplices minutely discussing
the details of their cleansing operations. But there was something
else that, even more than his curiosity to overhear what they were
saying, held the old advocate’s attention—to wit, the bank notes that
overflowed the wallet, that were all but out of their receptacle,
that seemed to be actually offering themselves to whosoever cared to
appropriate them.

It was a strong temptation—and M. Moche did not resist it!

Creeping like a cat, hiding in the semi-darkness of the little passage,
with a thousand precautions, he advanced step by step; he reached out
his hairy hand, his fingers shook as they touched the brass fittings of
the open wallet; then his hand fell on the bundle of notes. Suddenly
he sprang back in alarm—Paulet and Nini had stopped talking. Had they
heard him?

But presently the same excited conversation began again. Whereupon
M. Moche, with an ugly smile on his face, crept down again to his own
floor, bolted his door and counted his spoils. Yes, it was a fine
stroke of business; not only did he recover his own ten thousand-franc
notes, but with them were ten others of the same denomination!

“Ha, ha! Money well invested and that brings in cent. per cent. on the
nail, or I don’t know what I’m talking about!” M. Moche muttered in
delight, his eyes sparkling with greed.

But next moment, the old man turned ghastly pale. The front-door bell
had rung! Instinctively, M. Moche crammed into his pocket the notes he
had just stolen so audaciously, and with the aplomb of a hardened thief.

Then he stood stock still, waiting. Would the visitor insist? Yes, he
would; the ring was repeated. M. Moche had nothing to fear, for the
moment at any rate; had he not taken the precaution to double lock the
door? Still, he must find out what was afoot. In one second the old
fellow had plotted the whole plan of the line of behaviour he must
adopt.

“Bless my soul,” he thought to himself, “it can only be a caller, a
client, and there is no reason why I shouldn’t receive him; if by any
chance it were Paulet, I need only refuse to open and leave him to kick
his heels till the police arrive.”

At the third repetition of the summons, M. Moche put the tentative
question:

“Who is it? What do you want?”

Through the door the old advocate caught the sound of a fresh young
voice asking timidly:

“Is this M. Moche’s?”

“Yes, madame ... mademoiselle; but I don’t know if he can be seen. What
is it about?”

“A lady wishes to speak to him—about a flat to let in the Rue de
l’Evangile.”

_Rue de l’Evangile_, that was where M. Moche owned a property. Most
certainly it would never do to send away this inquirer who appeared
anxious to take rooms in his house.

So M. Moche turned the key in the lock and half opened the door to make
sure his visitor was alone, and that no one suspicious accompanied her.
Evidently there was no cause for alarm, and the old man stepped back
and threw the portal wide open.

“Pray come in, mademoiselle,” he said with a bow, and ushered her into
the little salon.

His visitor was a young woman, quietly but elegantly dressed.
Twenty-four at the outside, she was a tall, fair, pretty girl; a heavy
veil partly masked the brilliance of her complexion of lilies and
roses; she wore mourning weeds.

Moche, after a brief survey, pointed to a chair and invited her to
state her business.

“Sir,” began the unknown, “at present I am living in the Rue
des Couronnes, but on account of my work—I am employed in the
correspondence office of a factory at Aubervilliers—I am anxious, very
naturally, to make my home nearer the place where I work. Well, I have
been to see a flat in your house in the Rue de l’Evangile that would
suit me, provided you would consent, as the concierge led me to hope
you would, to make a trifling alteration.”

The girl spoke simply, equally without exaggerated timidity and undue
assurance.

Moche looked at her with interest, preoccupied as he was; still he
forced himself to attend to the conversation. Meantime, to gain time
and recover his equanimity, he asked:

“Whom have I the honour to address?”

“True,” the young woman apologized, “I have not told you my name yet; I
am called ... Elisabeth Dollon.”

The girl had pronounced the name only after a momentary hesitation, a
fact which did not escape M. Moche’s perspicacity. He said nothing, but
cast a long, scrutinizing glance at his visitor. He saw that she was
colouring.

“_Mademoiselle Elisabeth Dollon_,” he repeated the name; “now it’s a
curious thing, but somehow the name strikes me as not unfamiliar.”

The young woman had risen, and her brows contracted; she seemed
agitated and spoke with difficulty.

“Forgive me, sir; but I always feel strangely moved whenever I have
occasion to mention my name.”

“Why, pray?” demanded M. Moche, courteously.

“Why? Oh, sir! some years ago my name acquired a sad notoriety through
the tragic, the lamentable deaths of the dearest of my family. First,
my father was murdered under mysterious circumstances in a railway
carriage; then it was my brother who disappeared, struck down by an
odious criminal, who furthermore caused him to be accused, even after
his death, of the commission of atrocious crimes.”

These statements, succinct as they were, sufficed to reanimate
M. Moche’s recollection.

“I have it,” he cried, “yes, I know ... Dollon ... the Dollon case ...
Jacques Dollon ... so he was your brother? Jacques Dollon, whom they
called the ‘Messenger of Evil.’”

The girl, greatly agitated by this reminder of a terrible past, merely
nodded her head affirmatively, while great tears filled her eyes.

M. Moche expressed his sympathy: “I am truly sorry, mademoiselle,” he
said, “to have recalled such mournful memories to your mind; but as
landlord of the house where you wish to take rooms, I was bound to know
your name; but I assure you that from henceforth ...”

He broke off, but presently resumed:

“You spoke just now of a small alteration in the flat you wish to
rent.” He had guessed from the first what it was and was quite ready to
agree.

“You think, mademoiselle, that the five rooms of the vacant flat
are really more than you require, and you are asking me, I feel
convinced of it, to divide the premises in two by having a party-wall
constructed?”

Elisabeth Dollon assented: “That, sir, is what the concierge led me to
expect.”

“Consider the matter settled,” declared M. Moche; “and accordingly, the
premises being only one half as big, the rent will be proportionately
less—I will ask you 400 francs. When do you wish to move in?”

“As soon as possible.”

“The rooms are empty; as soon as ever the partition is built, you can
take possession.”

Moche went into the adjoining room and returned with a form of contract
he had taken from one of the pigeonholes.

“Sign this paper, mademoiselle, if you please.”

Elisabeth Dollon was preparing to do so when he asked another question
in a tone of fatherly interest: “You are alone, eh? quite alone?”

“Why, of course,” replied the girl, whose look of surprise clearly
showed that she failed to understand what her prospective landlord
would be at.

The latter explained: “The house in the Rue de l’Evangile is let out to
very desirable tenants—only respectable families.... It is not for me
to judge your character, my dear young lady, but if you did happen to
have a ‘friend,’ or several ‘friends,’ why, you must not let them come
to see you—or not too often, at any rate.”

Mademoiselle Dollon drew herself up.

“Sir,” she declared, a good deal offended, “I don’t know what you take
me for, but I am an honest woman—”

“Well, well, I felt sure of it the moment I set eyes on you; but there,
it’s as well to understand one another from the beginning ... So please
sign your name there, mademoiselle”—and with his great hairy finger,
M. Moche pointed out the place.

This formality completed, she bade a hasty farewell to M. Moche, who
escorted her politely to the door.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Brigand, scoundrel, blackguard, thief!”—a torrent of insults, followed
by a torrent of blows ... M. Moche was on the point of recrossing his
threshold when he was struck full in the face and felled to the ground.
As he lay there, he felt the weight of a man’s body crushing him,
holding him forcibly down.

But Moche, for all his years, was a wonderfully active man, and quite
unexpectedly nimble. In one second he had shaken off the incubus and
leapt to the other end of the room, where he stood glaring at his
assailant.

It was Paulet he saw, but Paulet changed beyond recognition—eyes
starting out of his head, mouth set hard, features convulsed, muscles
taut.

The lover of Nini Guinon, knife in hand, was for hurling himself at
M. Moche, when suddenly he stopped dead. The sharp click of a cocked
pistol had struck him motionless where he stood.

Moche, quick as lightning, had not only dodged the villain’s furious
onslaught, but had whipped a revolver from his pocket and pointed the
weapon straight at the scoundrel’s breast—

“Not another step,” he vociferated, “or I shoot you like a dog!”

At the same moment a cry of anguish rang out. Behind Paulet appeared
the face of Nini Guinon, pale and agonized; her two hands clutched her
lover, whom she was holding back with all her strength.

But the man had realized the risk involved in a fresh attack, and was
ready to parley. The voice shook that came from between his clenched
teeth: “Brigand!” he repeated, looking furiously at Moche, “brigand,
give me back my money!”

For a moment the old advocate entertained the idea of shamming
ignorance, pretending not to know what the murderer meant by the
demand. But a half-dozen words that fell from Nini’s lips decided him.
“I saw you fumbling in the money-bag,” she declared, and he knew at
once that dissimulation was useless. The wisest policy was to take the
bull by the horns there and then—and he had his plan all ready, cut and
dried. Best to play the game cards face upwards on the table.

“No,” he declared, grimly, “I will not give you back the money.”

“Ruffian!”

“One minute...!”

A sardonic smile curled the old man’s lips; he cast a searching glance
at Nini, questioning with which of his adversaries he should open the
attack. They were two to one—was it not judicious to win one of them
over to his side so as to reverse the superiority of numbers?

“Poor little Nini,” M. Moche murmured in softened, honeyed tones, “my
poor little girl, you’re in a nasty hole; what ever is to become of
you?”

The girl looked superciliously at the old man: “I don’t understand,”
she told him.

“Oh, yes! you do,” returned the advocate; “nothing easier to
understand, my dear child; you’ll be left all alone in life now, it is
only a question of days, perhaps of hours—your lover will be arrested
by the police and in six months from now guillotined at the back of the
prison of La Santé. To do a man in to steal his money is always a bad
business!”

Beside himself with rage, Paulet screamed:

“But it was _you_ who stole the money, _you_ will be turned off, too.”

But Moche, in the same quiet voice, yet all the while keeping his
revolver levelled at the scoundrel’s breast, retorted:

“Impossible! How prove it? Bank notes can be made to disappear; there’s
nothing more like a thousand-franc note than another thousand-franc
note, while the dead body of a bank messenger, a body stretched on
the floor of a lodging, fifth floor No. 125 Rue Saint-Fargeau, the
residence of one Paulet by name, that’s a thing it’s not so easy to
stuff away in a pocket-book ... Now, what are you proposing to do with
the corpse in question, eh, my young friend?”

Paulet turned ghastly pale. Since he had done the deed, and especially
since he had discovered there was nothing to be gained by it, the money
having vanished, the scoundrelly apache had completely lost his head.
If only things had gone according to plan, the affair might well have
been highly advantageous. Paulet had arranged it all with Nini—to kill
the collector, to appropriate his takings and fly right away to foreign
parts. It was good business, a job well worth the trouble. But, lo and
behold! the unlucky and unexpected interference of old Moche upset all
their plans, for the old ruffian had left in the wallet nothing but a
few small notes—just enough and no more, to pay for a little spree.

It was M. Moche, not a doubt of it, who had stolen the money ... Paulet
was to pull the chestnuts out of the fire and the other was to reap the
benefit ... Nini, in fact, had actually seen the man making off! If at
that very moment the old man had not had a visitor, Paulet would have
hurried down at once and had it out with him there and then.

In broken phrases and a breathless voice, Paulet detailed all this to
the old advocate, who only smiled enigmatically. After a pause, the
latter spoke again:

“You are a fine, brave fellow, Paulet—a bit of a scamp, too, but who
can blame you? It’s just your little way, you know.... Now, my man, I’m
going to make an offer; put your knife back in your pocket, I will clap
my revolver in its case—we shall be more comfortable so for talking;
let’s sit down one on either end of the table, and perhaps we can come
to some arrangement.”

The young brigand was at a loss, as he gazed alternately at the old
lawyer with the sharp eyes and at Nini, who was prompting him in
hurried, urgent tones:

“Don’t be a fool, Paulet; do what the old ape says. He’s an artful,
knowing beggar, certain sure he’ll find the trick to get us out of the
hole we’re in....”

Moche had caught what Nini said. He stepped up boldly to Paulet, with
outstretched hands, though the young man had not yet pocketed his
weapon:

“There, you see, I trust you,” he declared. “I offer you my hand, mate,
as a good comrade—shake, my man, we’ll fix up things yet.”

Paulet gave in. Ten minutes later, seated at the round table in
M. Moche’s dining room, the advocate and his two visitors, Paulet and
Nini, were just finishing a bottle of wine together.

They clinked glasses for the last time:

“Well, then,” demanded Paulet, “it’s a sure thing, Moche, old man,
you’re going to help me?”

Moche, with a superb and impressive gesture, laid his heavy, hairy hand
on Nini’s touzled curls, where she sat beside him:

“I swear it, on your lady-love’s glorious tresses, Paulet, and that’s
as binding as the Blessed Sacrament!”

“All the same,” Paulet warned his mistress with an air at once
peremptory and timid, “you’ll have to shut your jaw tight and not go
gassing about the job in hand.”

Nini nodded, laid a finger on her lip, and with a shrug and a look of
scorn:

“D’you really suppose,” she scoffed, “I should be such a silly goose as
all that?”

She said no more, for the two men were deep in confabulation.

Moche was asseverating:

“I tell you this, Paulet, we’re in for a gorgeous fine thing; don’t you
imagine I’ve come to my present respectable and respected age without
seeing a thing or two and learning pretty thoroughly what’s what in
this world of ours! A smart customer like you, with a smart chap like
me to help him, why, we’ll play some fine games together!”

Paulet agreed, smiling a well satisfied smile. But one detail still
troubled him:

“The body,” he asked, “the fellow’s body ... upstairs; what’s to be
done with it, eh?”

“Never you worry, Paulet, there’s more tricks than one in papa Moche’s
pack, trust him for that. If you do what I tell you, the ‘cold meat’
upstairs in your passage will be fixed up, never fear, so he’ll never
come back again: it’ll take a mighty clever devil to find him, I can
tell you!”

“But I don’t understand,” objected Paulet.

“What’s that matter?” snapped the other.

The old scamp got up, stuffed his hands in his pockets—an ordinary
enough gesture seemingly, but in reality to make sure his revolver was
still safe in the inside-pocket of his breeches.

Paulet had risen, and he, too, thrust his hands in his pockets, in one
of which he mechanically felt for his knife, which lay there open. All
very well to have made peace, to have concluded a treaty of alliance
over a bottle of wine—prudence is a virtue all the same!

But neither Paulet nor M. Moche had any warlike intentions; the two
malefactors had made up their minds it was to their mutual advantage to
help one another.

“As a fact, you are a mason by trade, Paulet, aren’t you?”

“H’m, that depends ...”

“Could you undertake to build a wall, a stone wall, a brick wall, a
lath and plaster partition, any guess contraption of the sort?”

“Bless my soul, yes,” laughed Paulet, “provided you give me the needful
supply of stone or brick or plaster and lime for the job.”

Moche clapped his arm on Paulet’s shoulder:

“Well, my boy, that settles it; there’s not a minute to lose, I engage
from to-night.”

Nini Guinon, who had been waiting the result of the colloquy with no
small anxiety, Nini, whose gaze fixed first on one, then on the other
of the speakers, tender and passionate on Paulet, questioning and
admiring on M. Moche, and who had kept her curiosity forcibly in check
for all this time, could no longer restrain the question:

“But what are you going to do?”

Moche looked first at her, then at Paulet:

“You’ll see what we’re going to do all in good time,” he announced,
“but I can tell you one thing—what we’re going to do is a mighty
promising job.”




CHAPTER II

A NIGHT AFFRAY


The Boulevard de Belleville at nine o’clock at night presents a grim
and forbidding aspect. Long rows of flickering gaslamps cast wan
reflections over the far-stretching pavements, on which sinister
figures—drunken men, dejected-looking street-walkers and apaches—show
momentarily in the ruddy glow from the lighted window of dram-shops of
the sort Belleville used to build or American bars of a later fashion.

Along the sidewalk, with slow steps and head bent in deep thought,
moved a young man of twenty-five or so, with a fine, intelligent face,
but so preoccupied an air he scarce seemed to know where his feet
were carrying him. The man was talking to himself; anyone overhearing
his monologue, or reading, if that could be, the thoughts that surged
within, would have been amazed, perhaps terrified.

“An odd thing, life! an odd thing and a repulsive!” he was muttering.
“Six months ago, seven months at most—God knows how I have lived
meantime—I was a King, I was greeted with a string of pompous titles;
gold jingled in my pockets ... Six months ago I was on the path to
glory, the highest glory I could conceive of; was on the road, with my
old friend Juve, after saving the Sovereign of Hesse-Weimar, to share
the honour of Fantômas’ arrest! in a word, I was in the full tide of
success. Then the luck changed, that devil Fantômas eluded us—more than
that, he contrived that Juve was nabbed in place of himself. Juve in
prison, I am myself liable to arrest as an accomplice, forced to fly,
to take to hiding. The good days are over and done for me. I, ex-King
of Hesse-Weimar as I am, find myself, this eighteenth day of May,
starving, without a penny-piece in my pocket, and in imminent danger of
being gaoled ... oh, instability of human fortune!”

The young man was Jérôme Fandor. The excellent journalist’s history to
date was summed up in the few words his despair had just wrung from his
lips. By Juve’s arrest under the guise of Fantômas, and that thanks to
the deep duplicity of the Grand Duchess Alexandra, Jérôme Fandor had
been plunged into the most alarming embarrassments.

That Juve was really Fantômas, Fandor had not, of course, for one
moment admitted. To him the thing was a sheer impossibility, a
supposition not only inconceivable, but positively insane. But alas!
the conviction he held as to his friend’s innocence, and even the hope
he entertained that Juve would soon succeed in exposing the monstrous
error whereof he was the victim, did little or nothing towards
bettering Fandor’s personal predicament.

On leaving the Gare du Nord, as they were carrying off Juve to prison,
the young man had clearly realized that he must disappear unless he
wished to be clapped in gaol, too. Now it would never do for him to be
arrested, in the first place because, if still at liberty, he could
perhaps help Juve to get out of the mess, secondly, because now Juve
was under lock and key, he, Fandor, was the only one left to fight
Fantômas and paralyse the machinations of the brigand whom he still
held to be at liberty, inasmuch as he refused to believe Juve to be
Fantômas.

At the time the journalist had some money in his possession. Without a
moment’s delay he had changed his costume, and dressed out as a “ragged
rascal,” had plunged into the underworld, the social stratum where an
artful and wary fugitive can most easily cover up his tracks. This
done, he had waited events. Day followed day, however, without bringing
him any further information. Juve was in prison, the authorities still
believing him to be Fantômas, and this evening Fandor, who had hitherto
been living by casual odd jobs, was penniless and starving; what was he
to do, he asked himself.

The young man continued to follow the Boulevard de Belleville,
hesitating between the notion of going to find a night’s lodging under
the arch of a bridge and his fear of being run in by a police-patrol,
an eventuality he was far from desiring, when his attention was
attracted to a passer-by, a woman who brushed past him, walking very
fast, and rapidly outdistanced him.

“Hello!” muttered Fandor, looking after the form of the young woman,
“doubtless a Paris workgirl; now, if I were really what I seem, an
apache, I should profit by the opportunity. A little woman of this
sort would be better in bed at this time of night than out and about
on the Boulevard de Belleville! and she carries a bag in her hand—how
imprudent! I’d wager twopence something will happen to the girl.”

Jérôme Fandor possessed something of that extraordinary instinct to be
found in some veteran detectives. He seemed to have a presentiment of
crime, to divine beforehand the possibility of acts of violence; and
being a man of courage, he never failed to forestall and try to prevent
the mischief. Mechanically, Fandor followed the young woman, keeping
some distance behind, and as he went, took stock of her appearance.
Small black toque, black jacket, a flowing veil, a slim umbrella, small
shoes, a quite simple frock.

“A workgirl, a respectable workgirl, on her way home after doing a bit
of overtime ... Good!—but, well, one may be mistaken!”

The young woman Jérôme Fandor was following had just been accosted by
a street-walker, a little dark-haired creature with a touzled head,
outrageously powdered and painted, clad in the typical spotted corsage
of her class, the swaying skirts, the apron with scarlet bib, its
pockets bulging, stuffed full of silk handkerchiefs.

“Hello! hello!” thought Fandor, “so here’s my workgirl in very odd
company!—oh! dear, oh! dear.”

Next moment the young fellow darted forward at a run. From the shadow
two men had just sprung out on the women; seizing them roughly by the
arms, they were hustling and dragging them away.

The street-walker put her head down, fighting hard, but without
uttering a sound; the workwoman gave a piercing shriek for help.

To fly to the rescue, to save the woman in this perilous strait, Jérôme
Fandor’s mind was made up in an instant.

Someone else came hurrying up behind him at the same moment. A voice
shouted:

“Have at ’em, mate!”

“A gallant working man,” thought Fandor, as he caught a glimpse of a
young man running across the road dressed in a blue jacket, the sort
plumbers wear; “there’s still honest folk left who won’t let women be
molested.”

But the time for action was come; he was level by now with the two
women, who were still struggling, and cried in a peremptory voice to
the assailants:

“Let the women go!—or I strike.”

At this the two bullies, finding it was their turn to be attacked,
suddenly loosed hold of their victims and wheeling round to face Fandor
and his companion, stood on the defensive.

In an instant Jérôme Fandor realized the state of affairs; one of the
fellows was putting a hand in his pocket—his purpose was manifest.

“By God!” yelled the young man, “none of your tricks here!—or you’ll
make me angry.”

Fandor was wrestling savagely, locked in a close embrace with the
fellow who had first laid hands on the workgirl; behind him he could
hear the laboured breath and fierce cries and oaths of the working man
who had hurried to the rescue, and knew that the same battle was raging
between him and the second ruffian.

A few seconds, and all was over.

At the very moment Fandor, with a masterly trip, stretched his
adversary on the ground, where he held him down by main force, he heard
the workman give an exultant shout of victory:

“Ah, ha! I’ve got you, you hound!”

Jérôme Fandor looked round.

“Bravo, mate!” he cried, “so you’ve downed your man, too?”

A thick, hoarse, common, ignoble voice replied:

“Downed him, have I ... yes, by gosh! and what’s more I’m busy fixing
the bloke up workmanlike, I am!”

“_Workmanlike_, eh?”—and Fandor looked, and could scarcely believe his
eyes. In the calmest way possible, but with surprising dexterity, the
man he had taken for a working man had whipped a coil of rope from his
pocket and tied up the victim of his prowess.

“And now for your man!” he cried, pointing to the wretch Fandor held
captive under his knee, and who had now ceased to offer the slightest
resistance.

“Must truss him up, too—but I think we’d best not do ’em in ...”

“Well and good!” thought Fandor, “why, by Gad! this beats
cock-fighting; it’s just the finest scoop I’ve ever been in!”

The other went on: “It’s the street officers, look’ee—the swine! I just
love it when I can spoil their little game. And it’s all to the good
for our gals, eh?”

“For sure it is,” Fandor agreed, and getting to his feet, for his
companion had by this time roped up his man, too, and rolled him into
the gutter, not without planting a shrewd kick or two on his carcass,
the journalist proceeded to scrutinize his companion.

He was not a working man at all! True, he wore a plumber’s short blue
jacket, but it only needed to note his flat cap, his brown muffler, to
say nothing of the broad red sash round his waist, his velvet Zouave
breeches, his elegant, down-at-heel shoes, the whole vicious cut of the
fellow, to guess his vile trade.

“A fancy-man!” thought Fandor, “it was a fancy-man, a bully, was his
ally! ... and the two we’ve just planted on the sidewalk are purely and
simply a couple of police officers!”

But once more the other broke in on his reflections.

“’Pon my soul!” he burst out, drawing Fandor away with a friendly grip
on his shoulder, “it’s a rum business, this here! ... all the same
let’s pad the hoof, mate, the boulevard ain’t a healthy place for us
just now, if more cops should come up.”

So Fandor and his companion raced down the street at tip-top speed and
dodged in and out of a maze of dark alleys ... In five minutes the
apache called a halt.

“Easy does it now,” he panted, “they’ll never nab us here.”

And then, suddenly confidential: “You know, don’t you, why my donna
stopped the wench?”

Fandor, without showing a trace of surprise, replied emphatically in
the negative.

“Why, look’ee, old chap, I’d told Nini—Nini my doxy’s called—I’d told
her when I saw your girl go by, ‘Look, sure as my name’s Paulet, there
goes a wench who is bound to have a bit of money in her bag! ... you
go and talk to her, pitch her a tale, tell her you have a sick brat
at home, some jeremy diddler or other, eh? and entice her down a dark
street—and you and I’ll deal with the baggage.’”

Spitting on the ground to give more weight to his words, the apache
Paulet—for Paulet it was—added: “I take my oath I never dreamt she was
a night-bird, I took her for a workgirl by her duds.”

Fandor was far from liking the state of affairs, as he realized more
and more clearly the nature of the mistake made.

His companion, Paulet, evidently the “bully” of the street-walker
Nini who had accosted the young workwoman, took him, Fandor, for the
latter’s protector, while the two men, whom he had supposed to be
apaches, were just simply guardians of the peace wanting to arrest the
two women ...

To tell truth, Jérôme Fandor was half sorry he had rescued the two
unfortunates, but, for all his philosophy, he was still more amazed to
have involuntarily become the antagonist of the officers of the law and
the accomplice of a Belleville “ponce.”

“What’s dead certain,” Paulet summed up the matter, “it’s another
evening wasted, old son; our two wenches took their hook during the
fight, and I’ll wager they’ll say they’re too much knocked out of time
to put in another stroke of business to-night—above all as Nini’s none
too fond of work at the best of times. And so, hang it all! we’ll just
go drink a glass and have a snack, eh?”

This last proposal was eminently agreeable to Fandor; it was six and
thirty hours since he had broken his fast, and a supper, be it in
company of an apache or no, was so much to the good.

“The fact is,” he put in, however, for he had no desire for a quarrel
with Paulet after their liquor, “the fact is, for the moment I’m
stony-broke, cleaned out, not a brass farthing to my name.”

But Paulet was in a generous mood. “Right O!” he cried, “I’ve got the
dibs; it’s my turn this time ... to Korn’s, is it?”

For a bite of bread the unhappy young man would have gone anywhere
whatsoever. “That’s the ticket,” he agreed, at once, adding by way of
acting up to his rôle: “Maybe, we shall meet some of the boys there?”

       *       *       *       *       *

At the _Rendez-vous des Aminches_, the famous tavern kept by old man
Korn, the two portals of which opened respectively on the Boulevard de
la Chapelle and the Rue de la Charbonnière, Fandor did not at first
notice any of the “boys”—or rather he made a pretence of knowing nobody.

In the low-ceiled, smoky room, where seated in state, old Korn, his
shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, his bald head shining in the
gaslight, was rinsing out glasses stained with the lees of red wine
in a basinful of greasy water, Fandor had recognized, with a surprise
that bordered on stupefaction, a whole gang of people whom he knew
very well. While Paulet was pushing him along towards a little table,
where sat an extraordinary-looking individual, head like a broken-down
tipstaff surmounted by a well-worn wig, nose decorated with an enormous
pair of spectacles, frowsy mutton-chop whiskers framing the face, whom
the apache greeted with a “Good-day, Moche, old cock!” Fandor had been
taking stock of the other customers.

Later on, when Paulet, after ordering a litre of “Red Seal,” bread
and cheese and Bologna sausage, was describing the late encounter
to old Moche and his meeting with the “new chum,” Fandor seized the
opportunity to scrutinize the group of persons gathered at the further
end of the boozing-ken.

So, the old gang was come together again? again the same lot haunted
Père Korn’s tavern? Fandor was dumbfounded to meet once more at the
_Rendez-vous des Aminches_ the very same ill-omened crowd of apaches
that had over and over again been mixed up in the crimes and wild
adventures of Fantômas; he could only just contrive to play up to his
assumed character and pay decent attention to what Paulet was saying,
who meantime was praising him up to the skies to M. Moche.

“Certain sure,” Paulet was asseverating, “_you’ll_ pay for drinks,
M. Moche ... yes, yes, your Honour, never say no!... But look’ee here,
that chap yonder—I don’t so much as know his blessed name—well, there’d
be something to be made out of him, eh?... There’s no flies on that
bloke, you bet. Why in two twos and a couple of shakes, crack! he’d
downed his gentleman, let me tell you that, sir. Two constables, sir,
and we chucked ’em both in the gutter. Cost me a bit of good rope, it
did—but there, I don’t care.”

M. Moche, sipping an extraordinary mixture of brandy and absinthe,
applauded Paulet’s narrative, and then turning to Fandor, asked:

“So, young sir, things going well with you, eh?” The question roused
Fandor from a deep fit of abstraction. The old fellow repeated his
remark.

“H’m, no!” Fandor confessed, “by no manner of means!... cleaned out!”

“And you can write?”

With the utmost seriousness the journalist declared he could—“and none
so badly either,” he added, “I write quite a good hand.”

For some seconds the old man sat lost in thought; then he brought out
his proposal: “Now, what would you say if I asked you to come and work
with me? I am a business agent, yes, a business agent—in _every_ kind
of business, you must understand.... In one word, if you care to sleep
to-night at my place, why, there’s a pile of papers in the garret,
where you’d be comfortable enough ... say, does that suit your book, my
lad?”

For the moment Fandor hesitated. He asked himself who and what was
this dreadful person, and for what shady work was he engaging him—on
Paulet’s recommendation, Paulet a common “bully,” and that after he
had just heard how he had been an active participator in an assault on
officers of the law.

But Paulet gave him a nudge: “Go on,” urged the young blackguard;
“you’re cleaned out, ain’t you? so you risk nothing, and you’ll rake in
the rhino scratching paper at the old put’s—he’s rolling in money, you
ask any of the blokes here.”

So it seemed old Moche, who frequented Korn’s tavern, knew all the crew
that met there.

Jérôme Fandor’s mind was made up. No matter what adventures might
befall him if he agreed to “work” for M. Moche, he ought by no means to
neglect the opportunity thus offered for renewing his observation of
the machinations of this amiable confraternity.

“M’sieur Moche,” he gave his answer, purposely exaggerating his vulgar
trick of speech, “as you might say, sir, your offer does me proud—and
for that there sleeping in your garret, I won’t say no; for all it’s
May time, it’s none too cosy, it ain’t, dossing under the stars.”

M. Moche, who wore an enormous great ring on his finger hammered
noisily on the zinc-topped table.

“Korn,” he commanded, “another go of the same all round; it’s my treat,
I’ve just enlisted a new clerk.”




CHAPTER III

SHADY SCHEMES


Elbows resting on the hand-rail of the bridge, a man stood gazing down
pensively at the flowing water.

It was M. Moche. The old man was even dirtier than usual, his hat
crammed down over his ears—a huge topper, all dinted and dulled; his
brow was wrinkled in deep and serious thought. It was eleven in the
forenoon when the usurer of the Rue Saint-Fargeau had taken up his
position on the foot-bridge thrown across the narrow sluice-gates
separating the basin of La Villette from the Canal de l’Ourcq and
connecting the two sections of the Rue de Crimée. Heedless of anything
passing about him, M. Moche looked down at the current, in which the
man’s common, cunning features were reflected as in a mirror. But at
the same time he kept ever and anon casting furtive glances towards the
bottom of the street.

At last the old fellow shook off his lethargy. From the far end of the
Rue de Crimée he had caught sight of a man dressed in a long white
blouse who was pushing before him a wheel-barrow loaded up with a
workman’s tools. The barrow bumped up and down over the uneven pavement
as the man advanced slowly along the road, for the load seemed a heavy
one. Still, in course of time the modest vehicle reached the bridge.
The workman let go the handles, mopped his brow—it was a blazing hot
day—and then, after a glance round, he saw M. Moche and stepped up to
him.

It was plain enough the two had met by appointment, for they seemed
in no way surprised at the _rencontre_. The pair began talking in low
tones:

“You were waiting for me, M. Moche?”

“Why, yes, I was waiting for you, waiting without much hoping you’d
come; still I waited.”

The workman mopped his forehead again, muttering in a weary voice:

“I’ve had the devil’s own job of it this morning, I can tell you!”

“Poor fellow!” observed Moche, a note of ironical commiseration in his
voice. Then the old business man went on: “It’s uncommon seldom, all
the same, one sees you sweating yourself; when a man has a ‘bee in his
bonnet’ like you ...”

The workman laughed:

“Say a hiveful of ’em, Père Moche, and you’ll be nearer truth. God! I
can’t deny it, hard work’s not my strong point.”

But old Moche, suddenly putting on an air of sternness and anxiety,
questioned:

“Tell me, Paulet, how goes the work in question?”

The young apache, who for the nonce, bore the stamp of the most
respectable of working men, replied eagerly:

“The work’s done, M. Moche. Oh! I give you my word I’ve put in a
desperate hard four hours over the job; I’ve never in all my life done
such a day’s work for the masters. True,” added the pale-faced young
loafer, “it was no ordinary job I had on.... Just you think ...”

But Moche interrupted him:

“That’s all right, that’s all right, Paulet; no need to go gassing here
about matters that concern only you and me. You shall tell me the whole
story by-and-by if things have gone well. Come along and have a glass
with me.”

“And my barrow?” queried Paulet.

“Bah! leave it on the sidewalk; no fear anybody’ll come and pinch it.
And besides, if they did make off with it, I guess you’d never care;
for you strike me as the very image of a workman out-of-work.”

A good quarter of an hour later the two men were coming out of the
dram-shop, looking at once well satisfied and mysterious.

The barrow was still there. Paulet buckled to again and towed it slowly
up the slope of the Rue de Crimée, while Père Moche, keeping to the
sidewalk, stumped along in a line with the working mason.

The two confederates, who forty-eight hours earlier had come near
slaughtering each other over the tragic murder of the bank messenger,
presently reached the top of the incline and stopped a moment to take
breath behind the Parc des Buttes-Chaumont at the opening of the Rue
Botzaris. The place was admirably chosen for people wishing to talk
without fear of eavesdroppers. The street was empty and in the park
even not a soul could be seen afoot.

Père Moche, pointing to a bench set against the palisade surrounding a
piece of waste ground—the very same where some months before a woman’s
body had been found hacked to pieces—was saying to his companion:

“Sit down there, my boy, we’ve got to talk.”

Paulet was not sorry to rest a while, for his barrow was heavy; he
gladly obeyed, and the two men faced each other.

“Paulet,” began M. Moche, “I told you the day before yesterday we were
going to make a mighty fine thing of it, unless you proved a funk.”

The apache lifted his right hand as if to take an oath. “Never,” he
asseverated, “I’ve never had cold feet, and you saw yourself how I
downed the bank man with a crack on the noddle; he was dead and done
for quicker than it takes to tell.”

Père Moche smiled, and resumed:

“Very true, my lad, you know your job. But as you are so clever, d’you
think you could run a man in trying the epileptic fake, eh?”

“What’s that?” demanded Paulet, “what’s that mean?”

“That means,” went on M. Moche, “you’ve got to upset your client, tie
him up to rights, and pop him in a wheeler before he has the time to
say ‘knife’.”

“It’s nothing so very formidable,” remarked Paulet.

But the old man proceeded.

“That depends on the place where the thing’s done. Don’t you go and
suppose I’m proposing to do the job in a far-away corner at night
when there’s nobody by—that’d be elementary. My dear fellow, the man
we’re to pack away—for you may be sure I’ve got an idea at the back of
my head—we’re out to do his business in broad daylight, in the open
street, in the middle of Paris!”

“That’s a bit more difficult—but not impossible,” Paulet declared.

Père Moche nodded approvingly.

“For sure, you’ve got the guts, my lad, and I begin to think you’ll do
finely for yourself yet. But just tell me how you’d set about it?”

Paulet, who in his braggart way had declared the problem old Moche set
him as simple as A B C, seemed a trifle nonplussed. He scratched his
nose, fingered his chin and growled out some unintelligible remarks,
then finally admitted:

“Well, to tell the whole truth, M. Moche, I have the best will in the
world, but I shouldn’t know just how to tackle it.”

Père Moche had expected the avowal: “No matter for that, my lad. Now
listen carefully to what I’m going to say, for the little scheme I’m
talking about must be carried through this very afternoon. Now look
here—we’re going to stage the fine old play of the _epileptic seizure_.
Presently, after feeding time, we shall come along, nicely dressed up
to look like honest bourgeois, into the high-life streets, say the
grand boulevards or the Tuileries—I can’t tell yet exactly where. We
must shadow the individual I shall point out to you. We’ll both walk
behind him without any concealment, so that he’ll notice us and forget
to pay attention to two other crooks who’ll be stumping along before
us. At a given moment I’ll give a signal, and one of the two in front
will turn sharp round and come into collision with our man, then beg
his pardon civilly for his blunder. That’s the time, Paulet, for
you—you’ll be behind, you know—to play up. A neat trip, and you’ll roll
your gentleman in the mud. Then, like t’other chap, you must pretend
to beg pardon, and meantime, when the guy’s got his head down and his
heels in the air along of the sudden tumble, you’ll shove a stopper in
his mouth.”

“A stopper, say you? but I don’t understand.”

“You’re going to understand,” went on Père Moche, and adding ocular
demonstration to description, he drew from his pocket for his
accomplice’s inspection a sort of small india-rubber ball the size of a
walnut. Paulet examined the contrivance with interest.

The old man proceeded: “Soon as the client’s got this chestnut in his
chops, he won’t be able to say bo! to a goose, for look’ee, Paulet,
it’s made of elastic rubber you can swell out as you choose.” So
saying, he pressed a spring, while Paulet stood gazing in wonder and
admiration at the extraordinary implement of torture—nothing more nor
less than an ordinary chokepear or elastic gag.

M. Moche continued his explanations: “You can fancy, when he’s got that
between his jaws, how the beggar will kick and dance like a cat on hot
bricks; but he won’t be able to articulate one word, and to make the
fake more lifelike still, we’ll take care to soap the rubber ball a bit
beforehand. Coming in contact with the saliva, the soap will lather,
and I bet you a pint of red our friend, what with his wild contortions
and the froth all over his snout, will look for all the world like a
man in a fit. The cleverest doctor would be deceived. It’ll only be
left then to get him packed into a cab, and as it so happens, the cab
we shall pop him into will belong to one of our pals ... While I’m busy
about him, you, Paulet must be telling the crowd helping us to get him
in—you may be sure the crowd will help us—how grieved you are at the
occurrence. You must cry in a big voice: ‘Oh! my poor dear friend ...
what a calamity ... such a nice fellow, too ... to think he’s always
having these attacks ... well, we’ll soon get him home now’—and so on
and so forth. You’d never need worry, my boy; you may rest assured the
cutest won’t suspect a thing!... I told you before, and I say so again,
I’ve a sort of notion in my head that’s getting clearer and clearer ...
We’re going to do great, great things, never you fear!”




CHAPTER IV

AN EPILEPTIC SEIZURE


Towards five o’clock that afternoon a busy-looking individual was
crossing the Tuileries gardens at a rapid pace. Without a moment’s
hesitation, like a man accustomed to follow the same route almost every
day, he strode over the Pont Solférino, then turned to the left and
hurried along the Boulevard Saint-Germain. It was a man of thirty-five,
on whose powerful features could be read the signs of manifold cares
and anxieties, quick-eyed, alert, evidently a person of distinction,
and one well known by sight to many Parisians. Not a few passers-by
turned round to look after him, seeming to search their memories to
find the name that belonged to the face they saw. Others again, better
informed no doubt, gave a start of surprise, then bowed respectfully.

The pedestrian paid scant heed to their salutations, pressing on deeply
absorbed in his own thoughts, and not so much as casting a careless
glance in her direction when he happened to meet or overtake a young,
pretty and well dressed woman. Nevertheless, on arriving opposite
the Ministry of Public Works, he halted in his rapid progress to
shake cordially by the hand an old man, wearing a decoration at his
buttonhole, who, despite the difference of age, saluted the younger man
with a profound bow.

“Good-day, Monsieur le Ministre ...” began the old gentleman, for the
individual so addressed was in fact no less a person than the Minister
of Justice, Monsieur Désiré Ferrand.

After thanking the latter warmly for an official appointment
lately received through his instrumentality, the elder man, an
Engineer-in-Chief, M. Vauquelin by name, expressed his surprise at
meeting the Minister moving about the streets alone.

But Désiré Ferrand made light of his objections:

“My dear sir, my temperament is too energetic, my nature too exuberant,
to endure a purely sedentary life. I must be up and about and on the
move for some hours every day. Very often I go to see friends who
live at the farthest extremity of the Boulevard Raspail, and one
of my greatest pleasures is to find my way there afoot whenever my
duties allow me the time ... yes, on foot and quite alone,” added the
Minister, “like any ordinary citizen.”

“Alone, quite alone?” protested the other; “however, I take it that
is only in a way of speaking, Monsieur le Ministre, for I feel very
sure the Prefecture of Police keeps an eye on so exalted a functionary
as yourself and that, according to custom, officers of the Criminal
Investigation Department assure your personal safety.”

“By no means,” protested the Minister, “I am afraid of nobody, and will
have no one accompany me.”

The old engineer made no reply, but on taking leave of Désiré Ferrand,
he shook his head sceptically, pointing to two men who appeared to be
following the Minister, but keeping at a respectful distance behind.

“And those two?” he queried.

Presently, as the Minister was proceeding on his way, he took occasion
to glance behind him and noticed that the two individuals pointed out
were actually following the same road as himself and seemed to be
dogging his steps.

The two men were of totally different appearance. The one, dressed in a
long frock coat and an old silk hat, was of a common, vulgar type. His
companion was a young man wearing a light, well-cut jacket, breeches
and a cloth cap. He looked like a cyclist and might have been twenty at
the outside.

Watching them more carefully, Désiré Ferrand felt convinced they were
deliberately shadowing him. This was intolerable, and a few yards short
of the intersection of the Rue de Rennes, the Minister came to a sudden
halt and challenged the pair:

“What do you want, gentlemen,” he demanded, “why do you follow me?”

“M. le Ministre,” replied the elder of the two, “we are Inspectors from
the Investigation Department; we are instructed by the Prefect of
Police to safeguard your person.”

Désiré Ferrand looked annoyed. “The Prefect,” he said emphatically,
“is over officious; I have no fears, all I want is to be left alone in
peace. Be so good as to leave off following me; I will be responsible
for the order I now give you to your superiors.” The two bowed
deferentially and made a show of turning back the way they had come.

Meantime Désiré Ferrand, cursing the Prefect’s precautions, halted
at the edge of the sidewalk, waiting for the traffic to slow down
and grow less dense before crossing the Rue de Rennes. He was just
opposite the exit from the North to South Underground as a numerous
and compact crowd of passengers issued from the bowels of the earth.
Taking advantage of the press, the two men whom the Minister of Justice
had ordered to turn back, but who had only made a feint of doing so,
approached their intended victim, whom they had not lost sight of.

Paulet, rather staggered by the Minister’s rebuff, began questioning
M. Moche, not without a note of anxiety in his voice:

“I never thought,” he began, “we were going to meddle with a toff
of this swell sort ... such an important bloke as all this ... a
Minister’s not just like everybody else.”

“Silly boy,” replied the old fellow, “Ministers are made of flesh and
blood like the rest of us, and I can even assure you ...”

Père Moche broke off suddenly, his face losing the look of indifference
it had worn hitherto.

“Attention!” he muttered, “the play’s beginning!”

A big man with huge hands and an evil face, standing a few yards away,
had just signalled to M. Moche; this done, unintentionally it seemed,
the fellow bumped violently against Désiré Ferrand, who staggered,
taken unawares as he was, and uttered a furious: “Look out, sir, look
where you’re going, I say ...”

But at the same instant Paulet, in accordance with the directions he
had received, taking the Minister in the rear, violently tripped up
his heels. What old Moche had foreseen happened. The Minister pitched
over backwards, striking his head on the pavement and lay there half
stunned. Then Paulet, quick as lightning, dropped on his knees beside
the fallen man and dragging the jaws open with his sinewy hands,
slipped the rubber ball into Désiré’s mouth.

Instantly the chokepear dilated to thrice its size, and try as he
might, the unfortunate Minister could not ejaculate one single word.

A crowd quickly collected. Moche for his part had prudently slipped
away to one side, while his eyes searched anxiously among the vehicles
prowling round in search of fares for a certain conveyance whereof the
driver was his confederate. Soon this particular cab hove in sight;
indeed it had never been very far from the scene of action. It was a
taxi that had been following the little group ever since they left the
Pont Solférino.

Paulet meanwhile was playing his part splendidly. With the help of
the big fellow with the knotty hands who had butted into the Minister
in the first instance, he was clearing a ring, pushing back the over
curious.

“I beseech you, ladies and gentlemen,” he was shouting, “go away; it’s
a poor fellow, an invalid, who has just had an attack. Yes, he’s in a
fit ... he’s ill,” he kept repeating, and everybody agreed the young
man was perfectly right.

The Minister in fact, utterly at sea as to what had befallen him,
merely aware that he could not utter a word and that they would not let
him get up, was writhing and wriggling like a man possessed. A frothy
lather covered his cheeks and poured from between his lips.

The spectators were of one mind, all repeating parrot-wise the same
words:

“It’s a man been taken ill, an epileptic just had an attack!”

The taxi selected by old Moche drew up to the pavement. With the help
of kind-hearted assistants, Paulet and his accomplice hoisted the
Minister into the cab, still vainly resisting!

The two brigands took their places inside with their victim; then,
just as the vehicle got under weigh, old Moche with surprising agility
sprang on the step and took his seat beside the chauffeur.

The plot had succeeded—a triumph, indeed!

But, after all, with what object had they kidnapped the Minister of
Justice? What did they expect to make of it?

In the Chamber at the Palais-Bourbon, excitement was at its height.
There was a constant coming and going of Deputies, talking together
eagerly without paying the smallest attention to the demand for silence
from the President’s chair, whose bell rang out unceasingly. Presently,
however, quiet was restored when the President of the Council, the
much respected M. Monnier, mounted the tribune to make the following
announcement:

“Gentlemen, I regretted a while ago to have to inform you that our
honourable colleague, M. Désiré Ferrand, Minister of Justice, had not
returned to his house ... I have this moment received an extraordinary
letter, so extraordinary in fact that I am tempted to believe it
to be the work of a practical joker. Nevertheless, under present
circumstances, I consider it my duty to make you acquainted with its
contents.”

“Read, read!” rose a unanimous cry—and in a voice trembling with
emotion, M. Monnier read out:

  “—By my decree, Désiré Ferrand has been held prisoner since
  yesterday. Again by my decree, he will be released to-day at
  5 o’clock.

  “By seizing the Minister of Justice and holding him at my
  disposition, I have merely desired to afford an indication of my
  power to compel the House to negotiate with me; I want money, I must
  have a million francs; let the Government decide to give me this sum,
  and I will disappear. If not, the direst consequences must be faced;
  I shall begin with the Minister of Justice, the entire Government
  will be dealt with in turn.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The reading of this monstrous document roused in the auditors divers
feelings of the most opposite nature. While some members laughed
uproariously, persuaded it was simply a grotesque joke, others looked
perturbed, asking themselves if the President of the Council had not
lost his head. But a vivid curiosity was universal. There could be no
doubt something prodigious, phenomenal was involved! Supposing the
defiance to be facetious, still the disappearance of the Minister was
alarming.

What was this mysterious power that functioned thus in the dark, but
whose existence could not be disputed? Instinctively, reason, logic,
common sense urged one and all to seek to know the author of these
atrocious pleasantries, and M. Monnier was exhorted to make known the
name signed at the foot of the letter.

With a wave of the hand the President demanded silence, then he
announced, in troubled tones, not knowing whether his words would
provoke an outburst of mockery or of panic:

“It is signed,” he said, “Fantômas!”

The Chamber was in an uproar. The name was too familiar, too notorious,
too terrifying, not to sow distraction in the ranks of the people’s
representatives. In truth all were pretty well agreed that only
Fantômas could have had the audacity to imagine such a scheme could
succeed.

“Fantômas!” they declared, “yes, Fantômas is at the bottom of all this,
that is certain, beyond dispute!”

But numerous objections were raised against any such conclusion:
“Fantômas, why yes, he exists, that cannot be denied; but the police
unearthed the fellow, the elusive brigand was none other than the
Criminal Investigation Officer, Inspector Juve! Now, Juve had been in
gaol for the last six months! He was to be tried; meantime the prisoner
was under safe watch and ward at the gaol of La Santé.”

At the same time, Juve-Fantômas had accomplices no doubt, and the head
of the gang being under lock and key, it was a justifiable supposition
to allow that one of his subordinates had taken over the direction of
his nefarious schemes. Already Deputies were busy suggesting names,
and that of Jérôme Fandor emerged conspicuous amongst the divers
conjectures tentatively advanced by Members. All were unanimous in
loudly and furiously proclaiming the enormity of the scandal.

But suddenly a dead silence fell on the assembly. Five-o’clock had
just struck. Now everyone remembered the terms of Fantômas’ letter,
according to which the Minister of Justice was at five o’clock
precisely to be at the Palais-Bourbon. Anxiously the Deputies waited.
Some minutes passed amid tense excitement ... Then, suddenly, like
a clap of thunder, broke out a tornado of applause and heartfelt
congratulation, in which all parties joined unanimously. Issuing from
the corridor at the back of the hall Désiré Ferrand has appeared.

The Minister’s powerful features wore a look of assumed indifference,
but for all the man’s command of his feelings, it was plain he had
passed through appalling experiences. His face was drawn and pale, and
the hair above the temples seemed to have whitened!

A mighty rush surged towards the Ministerial bench, each more eager
than the other to express his cordial sympathy and to hear what had
happened to the unfortunate Minister. The latter was explaining to
those about him as much as he had been able to understand of the
strange adventure, speaking hurriedly, in broken sentences.

“The thing is inconceivable, insane, mad!... An attack in broad
daylight, in the centre of Paris, in the middle of a crowd of
people ... Resistance was useless ... I was forced into a motor cab!
Once inside the vehicle, brigands gagged me, blindfolded me, bound me
hand and foot. The taxi drove on and on a long, long time ... I had
no notion where they were taking me.... I spent the night in a damp
cellar, in cold and darkness, while a masked man, holding me all the
time under threat of a revolver, tried to extort a promise of ransom
from me. He talked about a million francs ... I was dumbfounded!”

“Fantômas!” was the general cry, “it is Fantômas’ work!”

The Minister went on: “This morning they brought me food, I was dying
of hunger ... I took what they offered; then, about three o’clock, my
gaoler of the previous night, masked as before, returned after being
away for some minutes. He blindfolded me again, pinioned me and once
more led me to a waiting motor, which drove off and only stopped at
last after a long time ... I was told to get out, and two men informed
me I was now a free man, while each set to work to unloose my bonds ...
A few minutes after, my hands being now free, I tore away the bandage
that covered my eyes and discovered I was in a wood bordering a high
road. The car which had conveyed me was vanishing in the distance,
carrying my captors with it. I walked straight before me till I came to
the nearest house to be found, where I learnt I was on the outskirts
of the Bois de Viroflay. An hour ago I was there still ... my first
thought, gentlemen, was to come to the Palais-Bourbon ...”

The Deputies, after listening to this extraordinary narrative, looked
at one another in amazement as they exchanged ideas in excited tones.
Meantime M. Monnier had drawn his colleague on one side and was showing
him the letter bearing Fantômas’ signature.

“What is to be done?” asked the President of the Council in much
perplexity, a fine politician no doubt, but lacking in decision in
times of crisis.

Désiré Ferrand, in no way unmanned by the tragic adventure whereof he
had been the hero, was boiling with rage and indignation. Springing to
the tribune:

“Gentlemen,” he thundered, “the ludicrous outrage of which you have
been informed affects not simply and solely a Member of the Cabinet,
it affects the Government itself, the Chamber as a whole, it is a
blow aimed at the entire Country, an insult you can never brook!
more than ever Paris lies terror-stricken at the crimes of Fantômas
and his accomplices. This is no time to mitigate stern measures—far
from it, we must show a hand of iron! As Minister of Justice, I give
you my guarantee that the most peremptory orders shall be issued for
the wretches guilty of these acts of violence, the last of which was
directed specially at myself, to be energetically pursued and then
punished with the utmost rigour of the law. The danger is not one to
make us draw back, it should inspirit us to go forward! The Government
will ask your suffrages, pledging itself to respect the claims of
Right, of Justice and of the Public Safety!”

A thunder of acclamation greeted the Minister’s bold words, while from
divers quarters came cries of:

“The names!... the names of the malefactors!... Juve!... Fantômas!...
The police—to work, the police ... Jérôme Fandor!... down with the
Press!...”

Again and again cries were repeated and through the ever swelling roar
of this human flood, that tossed like a tempestuous sea, pierced again
and again the names of Juve, Fantômas, and above all of Fandor:

“Fandor is at large!... Fandor has disappeared!... arrest Fandor!...
lock up Fandor!...”

Standing like a statue in the tribune, arms crossed on his breast,
eyes aflame, as he looked down at his fellow-members, Désiré Ferrand
signalled his assent and approval. But his authority must win a
sanction, his power be reinforced, and as the Minister left the
tribune, not without reiterating his promise that the sternest and
most peremptory orders should be given the whole police force for the
arrest of the criminals, a member, leader of one of the most important
parties, laid on the table of the House the draft of a motion; this was
immediately read by the Clerk of the Chamber, as follows:

“_The Chamber, justly indignant, but confidently relying on the
Government’s declaration of its resolve energetically to pursue the
criminal or criminals guilty of the unspeakable outrage whereof the
Minister of Justice has been the victim, hereby offers the latter its
sincere and heartfelt sympathy, and proceeds to the order of the day._”

The motion was received with unanimous shouts of approval. By show of
hands the Chamber voted the order of the day, as proposed, and when,
for custom’s sake, the President demanded if any were of the contrary
way of thinking, not a hand was raised, not a protest was heard.

“By 527 votes in a house of 527 members present, the order of the day
is approved!” announced the President triumphantly, as he vacated the
chair.

“The first time in history,” declared the old hands of the
Palais-Bourbon, “the Chamber has ever recorded a unanimous vote!”

It was now seven o’clock in the evening, and as they emerged on the
Quai d’Orsay, greeted with acclamation by the throng of idlers waiting
outside, members jostled against newsboys crying special editions of
the evening papers, wherein were already described in the minutest
detail the extraordinary events that had just taken place.




CHAPTER V

DISAPPOINTED HOPES


“So your birth certificate is an unknown quantity, eh? and there’s no
means of knowing what your name properly is?”

“What can that matter to you, Monsieur Moche?”

“Oh! for me, it’s nothing to me. I don’t care a hang; you’re a
tremendous cute chap, that’s all I want to know; your patent of
nobility you can leave with your ‘uncle,’ if that’s where you’ve
deposited it, eh, my lad?”

“That’s where it is—or somewhere else, Monsieur Moche.”

“Remember, prisons keep records, now, don’t they?”

“Don’t talk about that, sir!”

“Agreed, my boy! now look’ee, for the friends of the family, for
Paulet, the wench Nini, and the rest of the pals, you shall be ‘Little
Tremendous,’ that’s settled. Then, if clients come to see me, well,
I’ll give you a title of ceremony—d’you cotton to that?”

“I’m agreeable.”

“I shall call you ... let me see ... I’ll call you my ‘Chief of Staff.’
That’ll put a stopper on their gab.”

“No doubt it will, Monsieur Moche.”

It was in a dull, depressed, specious, fawning voice that Jérôme Fandor
replied to his new “master.”

In the garret where the dreadful old fellow stored his archives, huge
masses of dusty paper, cheek by jowl with all sorts of miscellaneous
rubbish, worthless bric-à-brac, old worn-out furniture, clothes fit
only for a hand-me-down shop, Fandor had passed a not too uncomfortable
night.

Accordingly he had risen in a cheerful frame of mind. A hasty wash at
a trickle of cold water that escaped with a nerve-racking noise from a
leaky tap on the landing outside his door, had quite made him his own
man again. Whistling a tune he had rejoined M. Moche.

“Now, sir,” he had asked, “you have work for me to do, eh, in your
place of business?”

M. Moche, already ensconced in a leather armchair, from which tags of
the horsehair stuffing stuck out in all directions, but which formed
a permanent seat of state behind his desk, loaded with multitudinous
papers, had nodded assent.

“Work? Yes, my young friend, yes; at my place there’s always work to
do, only as there’s not always cash, for times are hard, we must settle
about conditions. I offer you board and lodging, and now and again a
bit of money ... does that suit your book?”

Jérôme Fandor would have thought himself in heaven, had not the dubious
looks of the unpleasant old man driven all celestial ideas clean out of
his head.

“That’ll do me,” was as much as he had cared to say.

Thereupon the worthy M. Moche had proceeded to put a number of leading
questions.

What could Fandor do? Write? Yes?... Good. That was capital. He could
draw, too? then he could draw signatures? in fact, copy signatures, eh?
copy them, you know, eh? Yes, again? Better and better ... The old man
seemed delighted.

Fandor had judicially sized up his new employer by this time; yes,
there was no doubt he could be of great service to him on occasions.

Then M. Moche had asked the young man to tell him precisely who and
what he was. But on that point, Fandor had proved reticent to the last
degree.

“I’ve got pals,” this was all he would say, “who have nicknamed me
‘Little Tremendous,’ because I’m pretty nimble with my maulies and
ain’t afraid to use ’em.”

The information was vague enough. But Moche was not the man to insist
on any excessive precision of statement. He felt little doubt his new
clerk must have had a somewhat chequered past. If it didn’t suit him to
let out exactly who he was, well, that was his business ... And that
was why Moche, after informing Fandor that he would be where clients
were concerned the “Chief of Staff” in his office, addressed the young
man familiarly by the name he had chosen to give himself.

“Look here, young Handy Man, I’m going to send you on an errand.”

“Very good, M’sieu Moche.”

“An errand to a pretty girl’s....”

“Better still, M’sieu Moche.”

“But no nonsense, you know! it’s a serious matter, and you must be
serious. No larks with the girl, she’s going to be my tenant.”

“You’re a house owner then, M’sieu Moche?”

“Yes, my boy, a house owner, but a poor, hard-up one at that; don’t you
go and think I’m a millionaire ... Anyhow, I’ve a bit of a place where
the young lady in question has rented a flat.”

“And that’s where I’m to go, M’sieu Moche?”

“No, my ‘Little Tremendous,’ you’re to go to the Rue des Couronnes ...
d’you hear? the Rue des Couronnes while _my_ house stands in the Rue de
l’Evangile.”

“Now I can’t quite follow you, M’sieu Moche.”

“That’s because you talk too much, my lad! Shut your trap a bit, and
I’ll explain.”

“Shut it is, M’sieu Moche.”

“Good! well, here’s how it is: The lady has hired my flat; only as I
can’t say if she’ll fork out the tin regularly, I should like you to go
and have a look what furniture she’s got, to know if it’s good to cover
the quarter’s rent.”

“Good, M’sieu Moche.”

“You twig—do what I tell you without seeming to, eh?”

“In that case, I’d want an excuse, eh?”

“I never said I couldn’t provide one, did I? Look’ee, my son, search
under that green bookcase and you’ll find some patterns of wall-papers
... got ’em?”

“Yes.”

“Well, take ’em with you, young sir! For the last six months I’ve found
’em useful for the same little game. You see, I send a pal, as it
might be you, to call on the guy who wants to take my rooms. He comes
under pretence of offering the new tenant a choice of wall-papers;
as a matter of fact, I simply use him to inspect the furniture that
must guarantee the rent. As you may suppose, I never do pay for the
papering. Not much! The offer’s made—and there it ends!”

Fandor showed no surprise. The business his strange employer was
sending him on was of course perfectly straightforward and legitimate!
Still keeping to his slangy way of speaking, Fandor merely asked:

“And what’s the name, M’sieu Moche, your dicky-bird goes by? and what’s
her exact address in the Rue des Couronnes?”

M. Moche, while talking to his clerk, was busy changing his
down-at-heel slippers for a pair of elastic-sided boots, obviously too
small for him, the whitey-brown cracks in which he masked by smearing
them with ink. He was bending down behind his desk and could not see
the other’s face as he answered his last question:

“The dicky-bird, as you call her, lives, to be exact, at 142 _bis_ Rue
des Couronnes. As to her name, that’s pretty well-known, she’s the
sister of a man who was murdered; you can’t help remembering about it;
she’s called Mademoiselle Elisabeth Dollon—you’ll not forget?”

In a shaking voice it needed an almost superhuman effort to steady,
Jérôme Fandor promised he would not forget the name! A thousand
thoughts were whirling madly through his brain, his heart was still
beating high with excitement, when M. Moche went on:

“Well then, hook it, my boy; here’s three half-pence for going, to pay
your Underground; it’s not far, you can walk back.”

Yes, he could walk back quite well, Fandor agreed, hardly conscious of
what he was saying.

Ten minutes later he was on his way to the Rue des Couronnes.

Elisabeth Dollon! He was going, he, Jérôme Fandor, to see Elisabeth
Dollon! As if the past had suddenly risen before his eyes as on the
film of an imaginary cinematograph of dreams, Jérôme Fandor lived again
in pain and grief the torturing crises, the grim tragedies that name
called back to memory, a woman’s name, the name of Elisabeth Dollon.
No, never had he forgotten the pathetic heroine of those terrible days.

Elisabeth Dollon, the unhappy sister of the painter, Jacques Dollon,
Fantômas’ victim, deemed by some to be himself Fantômas till the day
when Juve and Fandor rehabilitated his good name, was she not the only
being Fandor cherished with a fond affection? Since the first day
he had learnt to know her, to appreciate the girl’s proud and tender
character, Jérôme Fandor had loved her!

It was for her, to do her honour, to rescue her from the most odious
entanglements, that he had in those days devoted himself, body
and soul, to the task of clearing up the mysterious affair of the
_Messenger of Death_. Twenty times over, in the course of that police
investigation, Fandor and Juve had risked their lives. Juve for his
part was acting more for the sake of unmasking Fantômas than for any
other reason, but for Fandor, he was spurred on by the interest he felt
in Elisabeth Dollon.

Once, for a moment, he had believed his dearest wishes would be
fulfilled. Then, at that very instant of joyful satisfaction, an
appalling catastrophe had destroyed his hopes. The prey he was
tracking down escaped, and Fantômas, to crown his victory, in eluding
the wiles of his two pursuers, Fandor and Juve, had the cruelty to
add yet another triumph. He wrote to Elisabeth Dollon—already his
victim—“Fandor is Charles Rambert; Charles Rambert is a criminal and a
coward,” with the result that, terrified by this false and treacherous
calumny, she avoided the young man, vanished from his life, swore she
would never see him more!

And now, now when he was poor, helpless, condemned to live in company
of bandits, apaches, the dregs of society, Fate gave him this sublime
recompense, sending him this day to see whom? whom but Elisabeth Dollon!

“To see her, heavens! to see her! to tell her who I am, what I am,
what I live for, to win a half-hour of sweet, calm converse with her,
wherein to convince her of the truth, to explain to her Fantômas’
machinations, oh! it is too much happiness!” Jérôme Fandor strove to
regain his self-possession, to master his nerves, but his pace was
headlong as he sped to the Rue des Couronnes, where he hoped to win
at last an unfeigned declaration of renewed affection from Elisabeth
Dollon.

“I shall know very well,” he murmured to himself at intervals. “I shall
know how to show her I love her truly. By the ardour of my words I
shall gain her confidence, the confidence she _must_ grant me, which I
_must_ have, that she may feel I speak the truth, that I am not what
Fantômas has told her I was.”

Arrived at 142 _bis_ Rue des Couronnes, Fandor found the house a
crowded nest of working people’s flats. Along a narrow, fetid passage,
its damp walls stained and scarred over with inscriptions indicating
the names of the tenants and the different floors they occupied, Fandor
penetrated to the concierge’s lodge. He tried to push open the door,
but it would not yield.

“So,” thought the young man, “the woman is not within.” He called:
“Anyone there?” but his voice was drowned by a deafening noise
proceeding from a tiny courtyard near by.

Turning his steps in that direction, he discovered a woman busy with
two sticks beating clouds of dust out of an unstitched mattress.

“The concierge?” asked the visitor.

The woman broke off her work to demand in a grumbling voice:

“What do you want with her, eh?”

“To inquire for a tenant’s rooms.”

“What tenant?”

“Mlle. Dollon.”

“Mlle. Dollon? And what may you want with her?”

Surprised at this discouraging reception, Fandor, who was anything but
patience personified, merely declared:

“That I propose to tell Mlle. Dollon herself in good time.”

But the virago had picked up her sticks again, preparatory to resuming
her work.

“To begin with,” she announced, “you’ll not say anything at all to her,
because you’re not going up to see her.”

“Not going up to see her! and pray, why?”

“That’s the orders she’s given me—that’s why!”

“Then you are the concierge?”

“Yes, I am. What then?”

Jérôme Fandor realized he would inevitably be shown the door unless he
could secure the good graces of this vixen who was so conscientious in
the matter of obeying orders.

“Madam,” he now addressed her in his most winning voice, forgetting how
strange it sounded for an apache, such as he looked in his disreputable
clothes, to be speaking in tones of perfect politeness. “Madam, you
would oblige me very greatly by informing me why Mlle. Dollon cannot
receive me. I have not come to trouble her unduly. I am here to offer
her a choice of wall-papers for the rooms she is moving into.”

The young man had found an excellent way to conciliate the good woman.
He had called her “Madam,” whereas in the _quartier_ she was invariably
addressed as “mother” so-and-so, by reason of her enormous bulk.

“Well, my good sir,” replied the fat portress, suddenly disarmed, “I’ll
tell you something; come along in to my lodge and I’ll have a peer
first at your patterns, and if there’s any that look like suiting her
book, I’ll go up and show her them, or you shall go up yourself. She
and I have the same taste in wall-papers.”

Be sure Fandor took care to express no doubts on the latter point,
albeit it struck him as highly improbable that the fat concierge should
share the same tastes as the artist, Elisabeth Dollon; he readily
enough agreed:

“After you, madam,”—and, preceded by the fat woman trotting along in
front of him, this being her own way of moving rapidly, Fandor advanced
into the concierge’s lodge.

“First of all,” began his hostess graciously, “so as our talk may go
easier, I’ll tell you my name; it’s Mme. Doulenques. Now, you mustn’t
bear malice because I was a bit rough with you just at first. The fact
is the young lady is still upset after her adventure.”

Boiling with impatience, Fandor wished Mme. Doulenques to the devil;
the all-important thing for him was to see Elisabeth. Mighty little he
cared to listen to the fat creature’s babble. But there, to hustle her
was impossible. He questioned:

“Her adventure? Mlle. Elisabeth Dollon?...”

“Why, yes; you haven’t heard? Ah! true, they didn’t put it in the
papers. Well, just imagine, Mr. Paperer, the poor, gentle lamb,
yesterday evening as she was coming home from her work, was attacked by
apaches.”

“Great heavens! not seriously hurt, I trust?”

“No, not much the worse certainly, seeing as how she escaped in time;
but it was touch and go; she got back here terribly upset, poor child!
That’s why she won’t see anybody to-day.”

Fandor seized the opportunity to cut short the conversation.

“I see; but she will see me, for sure, as I’ve come about decorating
the rooms ... what floor does she live on?”

“Fifth floor, left ... bell with a green bell-pull ... But just wait
till I tell you all about it. Just think, it was on the Boulevard de
Belleville it all happened.”

“Boulevard de Belleville!... yesterday evening?”

“Yes, yesterday evening—”

The young man had asked the question in such a strange voice that
Mme. Doulenques felt her earlier doubts more than justified.

“Now, whatever’s the matter?” she demanded, “One would think you’d been
taken ill.”

Indeed, Fandor had turned deadly pale as he listened to the woman’s
story. The coincidence was so startling—Elisabeth Dollon, the very
evening before, assailed by apaches on the Boulevard de Belleville;
then, on the same boulevard, not far away no doubt, he, Fandor,
defending an unknown woman against police officers ...

The concierge took up the tale again:

“And the worst part of the story you haven’t heard yet. Mr. Paperer—she
knows the villain who assaulted her! Seems it’s one Fandor, a low
fellow who once had to do with her, and who actually ... Why, what’s
wrong with you now?... God bless my soul! stop him!”

Spinning round on his heels, like a madman, Jérôme Fandor had abruptly
left fat Mme. Doulenques in the very middle of her narrative.

And truly it was a mad thing the journalist had been guilty of in so
acting. Commonly so careful and deliberate, so much master of his
feelings, for this once he had failed to govern an overmastering
impulse. So Elisabeth Dollon was the workgirl he had saved the night
before from the pursuit of the street patrol! And Elisabeth believed
that Jérôme Fandor, whom she had had time to recognize, was one of her
assailants! What cared he now for any further details Mme. Doulenques
might have to give?

Elisabeth lived on the fifth floor, and thither he rushed, panting,
filled with a frantic eagerness to proclaim his innocence to the woman
he loved, to clear up this new, this fatal misunderstanding. While
the portress, in sheer terror of the man’s strange behaviour, in the
very middle of a conversation bolting away like a thief to dash up to
her tenant’s rooms, was screaming hoarse, half-stifled cries for help,
Jérôme Fandor sprang up the stairs four steps at a time.

Yes, there on the fifth floor he saw to his left a door with a green
bell-pull beside it. He rang a peal, so loud and peremptory he could
hear someone on the other side of the door hurrying forward at a run. A
voice, Elisabeth’s voice, challenged:

“Who’s there? What’s wanted?”

Fandor had a gleam of common sense, enough to make him disguise his
voice:

“Someone from M. Moche’s to see Mlle. Elisabeth Dollon.”

There was a sound of a key turning in the lock and the door fell ajar,
while Jérôme could faintly catch a confused clamour reaching him from
the courtyard below.

“You want to see me, sir?” and cautiously the occupant of the
flat—doubtless the young woman had been resting on her bed and had
hurriedly thrown a _peignoir_ round her—opened the door a little wider.

Alas! hardly had she cast eyes on the visitor before she turned livid
and tried to pull the door to again, screaming: “Help! help!... you ...
you, Fantômas!... Fandor!... I am undone!”

Instinctively throwing his weight against the door, Fandor endeavoured
to prevent the girl from shutting him out. “For heaven’s sake,” he
prayed her, “calm yourself!—yes, it is I ... I Fandor!... who loves
you.... Listen to me, I beseech you!”

But with a sudden, desperate effort, Elisabeth Dollon had dragged
the door to again, not without giving vent to another cry of frantic
terror: “Help! it is Fantômas ... Fantômas!”

All this had occupied but a moment, and already Fandor was regaining
his composure. That Elisabeth, terribly upset by last night’s violence,
in which she believed him to have been concerned, took him for
Fantômas, was after all of small importance. He could easily convince
her of the truth. What was more serious was the monstrous folly he
had committed in bolting away in that unceremonious fashion from
Mme. Doulenques a moment before. Now on the stairs a prodigious uproar
was swelling louder and louder, while the shrill voice of the concierge
rose high above the clamour:

“A scoundrelly brigand, I tell you! one of the same lot for sure who
attacked the girl yesterday!” People were thronging upstairs, heavy
footsteps sounded on the boards, a crowd of neighbours was hurrying up
to the scene of action.

Instinctively Fandor stepped back on the landing. For nearly six months
he had been living the life of a fugitive; for all those months the
unfortunate young man had known the gnawing anxieties of a never-ending
flight from all whose interest it might be to discover his identity.
Now, finding himself pursued, trapped on this stairway, he lost his
head. Instead of quietly waiting till the concierge and her satellites
came up to him and then explaining the misunderstanding, Fandor,
realizing that Elisabeth would be long in recognizing her mistake,
resolved to fly. Swiftly, noiselessly, nimbly, he mounted to the
seventh story of the house, in the vague hope of finding a hiding-place.

Fortune favoured him. The house was an enormous block of workmen’s
dwellings, made up of several separate buildings, connected together
and served by several different staircases. Fandor, following the
corridor running between the rooms on the topmost floor, had the luck
to come upon the landing of a second flight of stairs. To make up his
mind, to dart to the top, to scamper down the stairway, never stopping
to know what had become of his pursuers, to dash into the street
and reach the line of the outer boulevards at a run, was the work
of a moment. Bathed in sweat and panting for breath, he reached the
Boulevard de Belleville—and knew he was safe.

Safe, yes, but alas! atrociously disappointed. An hour ago he was on
his way, in joyful anticipation, to visit Elisabeth Dollon, blessing
the happy chance that was to bring him to the girl’s presence; now he
had but caught a glimpse of her, had not so much as spoken with her;
all he knew was that she believed him guilty of the most dreadful
crimes, that she coupled his name with a name of horror, a name of
blood, a name of panic terror, with the name of Fantômas! Exhausted, he
sank on a bench. All day long, crushed by the hand of Fate that day by
day accumulated ever-fresh calamities on his devoted head, he wandered
miserably about the streets.

At nightfall he regained some degree of self-possession.

“I must think out a plan,” he told himself; “I know now where she
lives, I know where she is going to live, by the Lord, I can surely
contrive to clear my character in her eyes.” His aimless wanderings
had led him to the neighbourhood of Père-Lachaise, and he now set out
slowly and sadly on his way back to the Rue Saint-Fargeau.

“I will tell Moche,” he thought to himself, “that I waited for
Elisabeth all day, and have not seen her ... or else I will assure him
her furniture is good enough ... or, better still, as it’s nine o’clock
at night, I will slip up to my garret, of which I have a key, without
seeing my worthy master at all. To-morrow I shall be calmer, and can
then see what’s best to be done.”




CHAPTER VI

PRISONER OF THE LANTERN


For nearly two hours, Jérôme Fandor had been back in his garret, the
lumber-room M. Moche had put at his disposal, albeit without making any
further provision for his accommodation beyond supplying a tiny lamp
to give him a glimmer of light. But the journalist was not yet asleep.
Kneeling on the floor, his lamp in front of him, he was reading and
re-reading the evening paper, _La Capitale_, which he had bought with
the sacrifice of one of the three sous presented to him that morning
by his generous master. What he read was of the deepest interest and
importance to Fandor. The young man was trembling in every limb, his
face wore an expression of horror and consternation; at intervals he
punctuated his perusal with half-stifled exclamations and frantic
ejaculations of dismay:

“What _does_ it mean?... the audacity of it!... the unspeakable
effrontery!... Are we on the eve of a Reign of Terror?... After six
months’ truce, are we to behold once more this figure of ill-omen
rise threatening, terrifying, on the horizon?... And to think of it,
my name too, on all men’s lips!... Confusion twice confounded! once
again the man succeeds in thrusting on another the responsibility
for his crimes!... a Minister kidnapped!... the Chamber in
consternation!... The whole country attacked in the person of its
highest representatives!... Ah! Fantômas is indeed a genius, the genius
of audacity, the king of frightfulness, the monster that assails
everything, that fears nothing, for whom nothing is sacred!”

For the tenth time, Fandor re-read the article in _La Capitale_. On
regaining the Rue Saint-Fargeau, worn out by the stress and strain of
his visit to Elisabeth, he had heard the newsboys crying at the top of
their voices the latest edition of _La Capitale_. People were fighting
for the paper, passers-by reading the news with looks of horror and
feverish excitement. No sooner had Fandor cast his eyes on the copy he
had secured than he started violently. In enormous letters he read the
headlines:

“_Fantômas at work again.—A Minister carried off by brigands.—Fantômas
demands a million francs to disappear. The Chamber votes defiance._”

Now, back in his garret two hours ago, Fandor was reading, still
incapable, in the mad whirl of his thoughts, of regaining anything
like calmness, the amazing details of the extraordinary sitting of the
Chamber, the Chamber wherein Fantômas had thrown defiance, a veritable
ultimatum to France, the sitting that had been held that same afternoon
at the moment he was on his way to Mlle. Dollon’s.

That Fantômas should strike a sudden blow, he reflected, a blow so
extraordinary as the one he has just delivered, is astounding, but it
is not perhaps so crushing as I thought at first. In any case, what a
fine argument it supplies in Juve’s defence. If Fantômas manifests his
activity abroad, in public, why, Juve can no longer be confounded with
him, seeing Juve is a prisoner in the Santé!

Then, with ever increasing agitation, the journalist began to read the
passage in the paper giving the shorthand report of the debate in the
Chamber, which stated how his name, his, Jérôme Fandor’s name, had
been uttered aloud as probably masking that of one of Fantômas’ chief
accomplices.

“By the Lord!” soliloquized the young man, “it’s plain enough;
everybody believes that Juve is Fantômas! Now Juve is in gaol, debarred
from action; the inevitable conclusion, therefore, is that one of his
lieutenants, one of his accomplices, must be credited with the atrocity
of to-day. As I am known to be Juve’s bosom friend, it is naturally
on me the police fix their suspicions, it is against me the public
launches its accusations. Yes, the game is up, my fate is sealed; no
stone will be left unturned to hunt me down and arrest me.”

Fandor’s reflections might have lasted longer yet perhaps, he might
perhaps have thought out a plan of escape, for he felt convinced the
bloodhounds of the Prefecture of Police would find little difficulty
in tracking him down to Père Moche’s, if he had not of a sudden had
the impression of footsteps, stealthy footsteps, at his side. Springing
instantly to his feet, the young man challenged: “Who goes there?” but
there was no answer, the garret was absolutely silent.

“Yet surely I was not dreaming?” he muttered. Holding his breath,
motionless as a statue, the journalist waited with ears astrain. But
no, he must have been mistaken; there was not a thing to attract his
attention.

“I’m getting nervous,” he muttered; “true, I’ve good reason to be just
now.”

He made a tour of inspection, but found nothing that seemed suspicious.
This done, he returned and knelt down again in front of _La Capitale_,
where the paper lay open on the floor. He was on the point of resuming
reading when he had the same unaccountable impression again. This time
it was certain, definite, unmistakable. He had felt a current of air
pass like a breath over his face. It was no hallucination, for the
journal he was reading had half lifted from the ground, the unshaded
flame of the lamp had flickered. Once more he started up, again he made
the tour of his cockloft.

“Nothing there!” he muttered, “nothing at all!”

But as he was returning slowly, hesitatingly, to the middle of the
room, with pursed lips and frowning brow, suddenly, with a sharp pop,
his lamp went out, while whirling before a powerful draught, _La
Capitale_ fluttered across the floor. It was stupefying! Instinctively,
in the pale moonlight, Fandor stepped across the garret, meaning to
set his back against the wall, in case of further eventualities. But
he had not taken three steps before a choking cry escaped him. Thrown
with horrid violence, a lasso had wound itself about his throat! He was
dragged to the ground, his limbs paralysed, half strangled, half dead!

Then, with horror unspeakable, he looked and saw ... The window of
the attic, a dormer window, had been opened noiselessly. Clinging to
the crossbar of the casement a dim shape was silhouetted against the
starlit sky. At a glance Fandor recognized the sinister apparition. It
was a man clad in black, close-fitting tights, the face hidden in a
deep cowl, the shoulders wrapped in a great black cloak! A figure of
horror, at once clearly defined and indistinct, a shape that absorbed
in the darkness, momentarily disappeared, only to reappear in darkling
outline on the whiter background of the wall; it was the figure of
Fantômas!

In a single second Fandor had felt himself caught by the lasso, in one
second he had been thrown to the ground, in one second he had noted the
black, fantastic form of the bandit glide into the garret—and in that
one second he recognized beyond possibility of doubt the Monarch of
Crime, the Master of Terror!

It was Fantômas! Fantômas, and no other!

A grim apparition—this hooded man—this man who now held Fandor, his
relentless pursuer, at his mercy. The journalist had fallen into the
trap laid for him; he thought: “I am in Fantômas’ power! I am a lost
man!”

To move a limb was impossible, to resist a wild dream. Yet no sooner
had he gathered a clear idea of the danger threatening him than, calm
again and confident, he waited events.

Swift and silent, Fantômas stepped over the crossbar of the window,
sprang down into the room, and to Fandor’s side where he lay stretched
helpless on the floor. In a turn of the hand he made fast the knots of
his lasso, gagged the young man, then slackened the ligature that was
almost strangling him, and this done, fell to taunting his victim with
odious mockery. But what a strange voice, toneless, metallic, scarce
human, it was that Fantômas adopted!

“Monsieur Fandor, good-day to you! Monsieur Jérôme Fandor, Fantômas
presents you his compliments.”

Helpless, gagged, bound hand and foot, Fandor could made no reply
whatsoever. Only the eyes were alive in the dead face, and in those
eyes Jérôme Fandor concentrated all his power of resolution. With calm
intensity he fixed his gaze on his enemy’s face, on the eyes that
glittered luminous under the black folds of the impenetrable mask,
staring back unflinching.

“He can kill me,” thought the young man, “he shall never think he can
frighten me!”

But Fantômas had dropped his bantering tone, and it was in a serious
voice he now spoke:

“You were reading _La Capitale_, so you know the latest news?
Interesting, is it not?... Unfortunately, Monsieur Fandor, the fools
have thought fit to lay to your account the claim formulated by me
against Parliament. At this moment the police are looking for you,
tracking you down, determined to arrest you. A pity, Fandor! no, I
could never allow that; I like you too well ... In ten minutes officers
will be entering this room to arrest you. But never fear, have no
anxiety! If I am here, it is simply and solely to help you escape their
reach; surely Fantômas owes this much to you, to protect you against
your friends, the agents of the law!”

A peal of laughter emphasized the bandit’s last words, and Fandor
was still pondering what precisely these expressions signified when
Fantômas turned his attention to a task the object of which seemed
quite inexplicable. He proceeded to drag out into the middle of the
floor a tall stool, and depositing it there, climbed on the top, a
manœuvre which brought him on a level with an enormous Chinese lantern,
one of those huge lanterns of wrought iron and coloured glass, of
the kind to be seen in the streets of Pekin, and which are sometimes
imported from the East to be suspended in the vestibules of houses. By
what strange chances the thing had come to be hanging from the ceiling
of old Moche’s garret, it would be hard to say. Anyway, Fantômas must
long ago have noticed its being there. He leant over towards it, opened
the door, and this done, descended from his perch.

“There, Monsieur Fandor,” he announced, “inside there, you’ll be in the
best boxes for seeing the play—I may say in the grated boxes, for I’m
pretty confident nobody will see you. One can see from within outwards,
but not the reverse way.”

With a catlike dexterity, the man slipped off the long, black coat
enveloping him in its folds, and without seeming to make any special
effort, took up Fandor on his shoulders, mounted the stool once more,
and deposited the young man in the interior of the lantern!

“Now, Mr. Journalist, I refasten the door, by way of precaution, but
I give you full leave to look out of the window to see what happens.
You’ll see, not a doubt of it, the way Fantômas fights for his friends,
and even for you, his enemy!”

Yes, he would look, no fear of that—and Fandor, still bound and
ensconced inside the Chinese lantern, into which Fantômas had forced
him, his limbs cramped, his flesh bruised by the cords, half stilling,
glued his face to the painted panes of his extraordinary prison.

Jumping down again, Fantômas set to work with the very utmost rapidity.
He pushed back the stool against the wall. He hauled up against the
door a huge trunk stuffed full of papers to reinforce the crazy panels.
From his pocket he extracted a screwdriver, and in a very few minutes
had taken off the lock. Then, kneeling against the trunk, he produced a
revolver, the nickel-plated barrel of which glittered in the moonlight,
and passing the muzzle through the loophole where the lock had been
torn away, waited events.

Minute after minute passed in deadly silence. Presently, as often
happens in the most tragic situations, Fandor in the midst of all his
poignant anxieties, began to be tormented by yet another apprehension—a
fantastic fear that the lantern in which Fantômas had imprisoned him
was not strong enough to bear his weight.

“I’m going to come tumbling down!” thought the journalist, “to come
tumbling down directly, with a crash of broken glass and an appalling
rattle. That’s something Fantômas has failed to foresee. Pray God, it
might upset his plans!”

But the lantern held firm, and by the time he had been a quarter of
an hour shut up in his odd prison-cell, Fandor had ceased to give a
thought to the possibility of taking a fall. His whole attention was
again concentrated on Fantômas; but the brigand remained perfectly
still and seemed to have forgotten the other’s very existence. On
his knees, his revolver all the time pointed through the improvised
loophole, he was evidently watching for the arrival of someone or
something.

And it was in a flash, without his having so much as given a start, or
moved a muscle, or uttered an exclamation, that the sharp explosion of
his weapon rang out, followed by the dull thud of a body dropping!

Instantly the whole house resounded with cries of pain, shouts and
screams and the din of tramping feet. “Go on! break in the door!”
Fandor heard a voice yelling. Next moment two more shots tore the air,
two other voices bellowed in agony, two more wounded men sank heavily
to the ground; then a mighty thrust shook the door and overset the
trunk.

With one bound, Fantômas was at the window, Fantômas had disappeared,
yelling as he vanished: “Hurrah! three officers brought down! hurrah!”
while into the garret, preceded by the blinding rays of electric
torches, sprang a whole troop of men, shouting, swearing, revolvers in
hand.

A prisoner in his lantern, still gagged, still tied hand and foot,
Fandor seemed the victim of an atrocious nightmare. Scarce had the
men entered the room before Fandor realized the full horror of his
situation, guessed the whole secret of the villainous design. The men
were police officers, they were shouting: “Jérôme Fandor, hands up! or
you are a dead man.”

Then they began to search the garret, to turn everything upside down,
to hunt about, to _hunt for him_! The young man felt a cold sweat bead
his temples. What had been in Fantômas’ mind? He knew it only too well.
The brigand had spared his life once more only to keep alive the man
who he was planning should bear the whole weight of responsibility
for his, Fantômas’ acts. If he had pinioned the journalist instead of
killing him, it was because Fandor was now marked down by public odium
as being Fantômas. He had hidden him in the lantern, he had taken post
behind the door, he had three several times fired on the police and
disappeared, all this only because he chose to make men think that
Fandor—the man they were come to arrest—was really Fantômas, and that
it was he, Fandor—not Fantômas—who had used his revolver to such deadly
effect!

“Let the lantern give way,” thought the prisoner, “and tumble me into
the middle of the constables, and I’m done for! they will kill me—and
they will be justified.”

Meantime the empty garret was the scene of a frenzied search. The
police, who had invaded the place like pillagers into a captured
city, were now convinced that the man they sought for had escaped.
“The scoundrel!” screamed one of them, who running to the window had
discovered a rope hanging from it, the rope that doubtless had helped
Fantômas to escape over the roofs, “the scoundrel!”

Fandor could not see the man well, but he had a better view of another
officer who answered him; it was Michel, Inspector Michel, who had once
served under Juve’s orders! “My word,” the Inspector was saying, “but
the villain had planned it all to rights. He was expecting us; while we
were breaking in the door, he had plenty of time to get away.... Curse
him! to think three of us have got themselves knocked out of time!”

But at this point a constable who was still busy turning out a corner
of the garret, interrupted his chief by a sharp exclamation: “Look,
sir, just look here!”—“What is it?”—It was a small, shiny object—Fandor
could see it quite plainly from his eyrie in the lantern—which the man
held out for his chief’s inspection. The latter seemed prodigiously
surprised at sight of it:

“God bless us! where did you find that?”

“In the corner over there ... It means something, that does.”

“Means something?... It means everything!”

The other men had gathered round the two:

“What is it, sir?”

“Look! an astonishing find! Léon has just picked up a button of the
uniform the collectors of the Comptoir National wear.”

While this was going on, a series of ominous cracks had seriously
alarmed the unfortunate young man who was still hunched up on his
uncomfortable perch. Meantime, however, the police officers had
disconsolately taken their departure; they had arrived a dozen men,
they returned to headquarters only nine.

Hardly had the constables gone when, suddenly, in a moment, without
further warning, the bottom of the Chinese lantern fell out. With a
mighty crash Fandor tumbled out on to the floor. Luckily, the ceiling
was low; the young man was not hurt, but he lay stunned on the ground,
and for some seconds did not know where he was. Then, quickly, with his
usual courage, he regained command of himself.

“Good Lord!” he reflected, “I made a hideous noise in falling. Unless
everybody is out of the house helping to remove the wounded men,
they’ll come here with a rush and find me.” Then, straining his muscles
almost to cracking point, Jérôme Fandor, in spite of the intolerable
pain these efforts caused him, struggled to unloose his bonds; at all
costs he must regain his liberty.

“Ah!” he muttered at last. “I think, down my legs ...” the rope
that tied his ankles together had, in fact, yielded a little to his
strenuous exertions. A few seconds more, and the rope came loose, he
could shake off the coils altogether. He was able to get on his feet,
he could get an arm free, unbind his fastenings altogether. But so
cramped were his limbs, so numbed by long confinement, that the first
step he tried to take, he staggered and had to sit down again.

“If they come up and find me,” he told himself again, “I am done for!”

But little by little the circulation was restored; he could stand on
his feet, he could walk!

Then, with the swiftness of decision that was characteristic of him,
Jérôme Fandor, without an instant’s hesitation, hurried to the window
and leant out over the sill.

“That’s it,” he muttered; “the police have forgotten to remove the
rope, or more likely they have left it there as a piece of evidence in
view of the further inquiries they mean to institute, no doubt. Good!
Where Fantômas found a way, I shall know how to follow his lead. But
quick! quick! there’s not a moment to lose.”

No sooner said than done. Following Fantômas’ example he climbed over
the sill, seized the rope and let himself slide down into the void
below. The night had turned dark, and the moon was hidden. As the
journalist descended, he could barely make out, some yards below him,
the dim outline of the roof of a tall building, and beyond again an
endless succession of other roofs, broken by a forest of chimneys
rising like spectres into the night sky.




CHAPTER VII

FANTÔMAS’ ULTIMATUM


“Long live the Minister of Justice! Bravo, Ferrand! bravo! bravo!”
These and the like cordial acclamations were still echoing in Désiré
Ferrand’s ears as the Minister, in his elegant livery brougham,
returned calmly and peaceably to the Place Vendôme about one o’clock
in the morning, accompanied only by his Parliamentary Secretary,
the Conseiller Navarret. Ferrand was on his way back from the grand
amphitheatre of the Sorbonne, where he had presided over an associated
meeting of the students in law.

Désiré Ferrand was a man of boundless ambition. A General Practitioner
in the provinces, and in no way interested in the science he practised,
he had found himself from earliest manhood attracted, fascinated by the
allurements and difficulties of politics. His profession as a doctor,
a profession he exercised with a calculated generosity, provided
admirable opportunities for winning the suffrages of his fellow
citizens. At thirty-four he had been elected Deputy.

Eighteen months later, having attracted the favourable notice of the
Chamber by his wise common sense, and the maturity of his views, he
was invited by Monnier to join his Cabinet in the position of an Under
Secretary of State; then, in course of time, as resignations or deaths
opened the way, Ferrand secured the portfolio of the Minister of
Justice, the highest functionary after the President of the Council!

From that moment, his career was one series of triumphs. So far from
throwing him back, the extraordinary adventure of a few days before had
actually added to his popularity. Henceforth he felt persuaded he had
only to steer his bark adroitly to arrive at the very highest honours
the country could bestow.

On reaching his rooms, the young Minister cast a weary, worried look
at the heap of documents, whose contents he must master. Smiling to
himself: “All that stuff,” he said, “is marked ‘urgent,’ and for
several days now a whole pile of these documents has been lying here
that I’ve not even looked at. I wonder what really happens in a
Ministry to matters that are _not_ ‘urgent’?”

Thereupon the Minister set feverishly to work at the task of sorting
the voluminous correspondence heaped up in front of him. Two or three
times his brow contracted, he made a gesture of exasperation:

“Again!” he groaned, “again! it is really abominable!”

From time to time, in fact, lurking among letters and papers, hidden
under bundles of documents, Désiré Ferrand kept coming upon a little
memorandum, identical in every instance, but repeated in quite a number
of copies. It was headed: _The Million._ Its text, which never varied,
was a discreetly worded and anonymous reminder of the claim, rather
say the order, formulated by the person calling himself Fantômas, who
called upon the Chamber to pay the ransom fixed by himself.

The fourth time this happened, the Minister banged his fist heavily
on the table: “It is past endurance,” he vociferated; “if one of my
_attachés_ has ventured on this pleasantry, the first thing I do
to-morrow will be to show my gentleman the door.”

But it was getting very late; to snatch a few hours’ sleep was
imperative. Within a few minutes, Ferrand had put out the light and
gone to bed. With closed eyes, he was trying to get to sleep, when,
just as the pleasant drowsiness that precedes slumber was creeping over
him, the Minister sprang half up in bed, listening intently.

He had heard footsteps. Then he leapt to the floor, convinced someone
was coming into the room, though he knew he was alone, that he must be
alone, in his private suite! Too much alone, perhaps, he thought, as he
remembered that at night the Ministry was entirely deserted and that
his man slept in a separate building a long way off. “Perhaps I have
been unwise,” he reflected, but his reflections were suddenly cut short.

Just as Ferrand, alarmed by the noise he had heard, was making
instinctively for the electric switch at the other end of the room, the
light suddenly flashed out, dazzling his eyes, grown accustomed to
the dark. Someone with the same intention as himself, but with greater
quickness, had anticipated him.

Désiré Ferrand gave a cry of terror. A few yards away, a masked man
stood confronting him, a grim, appalling figure. He was wrapped in a
black cloak, and carried a cudgel in his hand.

“The man of last week—my assailant!” ejaculated the Minister, turning
pale.

Yes, before him stood the redoubtable outlaw, who, a week before, had,
with the help of mysterious confederates, laid hands on the Minister of
Justice, had kept him secluded from his fellow men, and only restored
him to liberty conditionally, delivering, in a letter addressed to the
President of the Council, an ultimatum couched in threatening language.

Désiré Ferrand waved a hand ordering the intruder to leave the room,
but the latter strode forward unheeding.

“Désiré Ferrand,” he proclaimed, “the hour is come to obey me, you must
decide ... you have five seconds.”

The unhappy Minister recoiled, utterly confounded; unarmed, barefooted,
in night attire, he felt himself at a manifest disadvantage in face of
the scoundrel confronting him.

But Désiré Ferrand was no coward. Reckoning up his chances of escape,
he put between himself and his antagonist the great desk littered with
endless documents, and again repeated his order:

“Go,” he reiterated, “go!... I will have you arrested.”

But the man in black broke into a sardonic laugh:

“Fantômas does not take orders,” he asseverated, “it is for Fantômas
to issue commands. For the last time, I repeat that I demand a million
francs; give it me!”

“But,” protested Ferrand, “where do you expect me to get the money
from? It is odious, abominable, your effrontery is unparalleled!”

“Unparalleled is the word, sir; Fantômas has no equal—only despicable
imitators.”

The Minister resumed:

“Neither Government nor Ministers will ever consent to obey you;
_I_ will never consent. Why, then,” he added gloomily, “we should
have nothing left us but to retire discomfited, dishonoured, the
laughing-stock of France!”

Fantômas advanced a step or two nearer, and in insinuating tones:

“All said and done,” he hinted, “I understand your scruples, and I
quite see it is difficult for you to agree, officially that is, under
pain of risking your post. Well, so be it; I now propose a compromise.
There is the Secret Service fund; my million will be charged on it
without scandal or publicity; you will hand me over the sum I need; in
return, I will disappear. Is it a bargain?”

Désiré Ferrand was boiling with rage and indignation:

“Atrocious monster!” he screamed, “begone! How have I borne to hear out
your odious proposals! Be sure, this very day the whole police force
shall receive the most stringent orders to seize you! I do not know who
you are, but no matter for that, I will punish you.”

Fantômas folded his arms across his chest. Through his black mask his
eyes flashed lightning at his unfortunate victim.

“So it is war?” he asked—“war to the knife? war to the death?... I bid
you reflect ...”

Ferrand made no reply. Seizing the first thing he caught sight of on
his writing-table, he grasped a silver paper-knife in his hand, ready
to sell his life dearly.

Fantômas saw the Minister was incorruptible. “Be it death then!” he
grinned his defiance.

With a sudden, swift movement, the brigand whirled his cudgel round
like a sling and hurled it full in the other’s face. But the Minister
ducked his head, the weapon missed its aim and struck the wall with a
dull thud.

“Help!” yelled Ferrand, dashing for the window. But Fantômas barred
the way, and a grim chase, pursuer and pursued, began in Désiré
Ferrand’s chamber. The Minister, with the energy of despair, fled
before his assailant, throwing down obstacle after obstacle in his way,
oversetting chairs, tables, every piece of furniture he could lay hands
on.

Thus, following and fleeing, the two men made the circuit of the room;
but just as fast as the fugitive cast a stumbling-block in the other’s
way, it was cleared away and tossed into a corner.

So the mad race went on. The competitors were well matched; no doubt
one was armed, he had a revolver, but equally without doubt, he dared
not use it for fear of making a noise. The thickness of the carpet
deadened the sound of the steps, the heavy curtains intercepted the
Minister’s frantic appeals for help.

But suddenly, the wretched man, running barefoot as he was, gave a cry
of pain, followed by another and another. Next moment he staggered,
fell to his knees, cried out again; then tried to rise, but could not
struggle to his feet. Blood began to trickle from the soles of his
feet, from his thighs, his wrists, the arm on which he had fallen.

A last despairing groan was succeeded by utter silence, the tortured
man had fainted. Fantômas, taking advantage of his adversary’s
helplessness, had snatched up his cudgel again, and with a yell of
triumph, dealt him a stunning blow on the head. Then, calmly walking up
to his victim without a vestige of compunction, he lifted him bodily by
the shoulders and knees and carried him to his bed, where he laid him
on his back.

Ferrand’s nightshirt gaped open over the chest. Fantômas passed the
palm of his hand lightly over the damp skin to verify the exact
position of the heart that was still beating in hurried jerks. Then,
drawing from beneath his cloak a long, fine needle, the cowardly victor
plunged it into his victim’s body below the left breast and pierced the
heart.

Holding a mirror to the lips, Fantômas made doubly sure that Désiré
Ferrand had ceased to breathe. Yes, he was dead, stone dead!

Thereupon, walking quietly over to the switch, he plunged the room in
darkness, and in the darkness vanished.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was now about three o’clock in the morning. The concierge at the
door of the Ministry opening on the Rue Cambon was awakened from a
sound sleep by someone tapping softly at his window.

“Open, please!” came the usual request, in calm, deliberate accents.

In a thick voice the porter, still half asleep, asked mechanically who
it was asking to be let out.

After a moment’s hesitation, the answer came:

“An _attaché_, special service in the Minister’s secretariat!”

The concierge drew the cord, and a second or two later heard the door
reclose.

He had just opened, without a thought of suspicion, for the murderer
of Désiré Ferrand! As he dropped off to sleep again, the man merely
grumbled to himself:

“Pretty hours for working, I don’t think ... One of them bloodsucker
fellows again, I’ll be bound, who hang about Ministers. That chap who’s
just gone, no doubt he’s been stopping on late to work so as he needn’t
turn out so early to-morrow morning.”




CHAPTER VIII

A WIRELESS FROM MID-ATLANTIC


“A nail ... another nail! Monsieur Havard, where did you put the
others?”

“In the little bowl on the side-table,” replied the Chief of the
Criminal Investigation Department from where he knelt on the carpet,
while Professor Ardell, who was holding between thumb and forefinger
the nail he had just found, stood up again, rubbing his back with his
free hand.

“Extraordinary! most extraordinary!” muttered the learned professor,
while M. Casamajols, who was also present, questioned the doctor
anxiously:

“Well, your diagnosis, Professor?”

“Egad! Monsieur le Procureur, my diagnosis is perfectly plain and
simple, and equally positive, M. Désiré is dead, and he has been dead
several hours now.”

At seven o’clock that morning, the discovery of the dead body of the
Minister of Justice lying lifeless on his bed had thrown the personnel
of the Ministry into the wildest commotion. The domestics, well
trained servants, had immediately advised the police, and M. Havard,
hurrying with all speed to the Ministry of Justice, had passed on the
intelligence to M. Casamajols’ private residence and sent an urgent
summons to Professor Ardell. The three men, when they arrived almost
simultaneously at the Place Vendôme, had been forced to abandon any
false hopes they might have entertained the instant they set eyes on
the unfortunate man. Désiré Ferrand was dead! For the tenth time the
professor confirmed the fact to M. Casamajols, who could not believe
his own eyes and ears.

M. Havard, pale and haggard, intervened:

“Dead!” he exclaimed, “you mean murdered, do you not, Professor?”

“Why, yes, I do mean murdered; the fact is obvious. M. Désiré Ferrand,
awakened suddenly in the night, was struck with an instrument which
evidently stunned him without leaving any wound—perhaps one of those
cudgels murderers sometimes use.”

“I see what you mean,” broke in M. Havard, “a sandbag, a sack, that is,
filled with sand; it makes the most deadly weapon you can imagine when
wielded like a sling.”

The professor signified his agreement with the Chief’s version of the
affair, and went on:

“The victim, thus incapacitated, nothing easier than to pierce his
heart with a needle; as a matter of fact, we have discovered one driven
in under the left breast of the unfortunate man.”

Noting the disordered state of the room, M. Casamajols observed:

“Before the end there was evidently a struggle, a desperate struggle,”
and the professor agreed.

But M. Havard now broke in again:

“A struggle, however, that was suddenly interrupted when the Minister,
who was barefooted, stopped all of a sudden and fell to the floor.
Evidently the aggressor, in order to handle his man more easily, and
taking advantage of a favourable opportunity, emptied a bagful of nails
over the carpet, the nails we have been picking up all this time.”

“You are quite right,” agreed the professor, “the little superficial
punctures we noticed scarring the dead man’s limbs were no doubt caused
by the nails scattered about the floor.”

“The scoundrel! he provided for everything, it appears—left nothing to
chance.”

M. Havard was profoundly agitated and perplexed. Striding up and down
the room like a caged lion, casting furtive glances at the Minister’s
body, he pondered the tragic origins of the crime and strove to fathom
the mystery of who the criminal was.

At seven in the morning he had been awakened by the telephone ringing
him up from the Ministry of Justice. Summoned in all haste to the
Place Vendôme, in a quarter of an hour he was at the scene of action,
questioning the staff, examining the Minister’s bedroom, the adjoining
apartments and the precincts generally of the mansion, but entirely,
absolutely without result.

Subsequently, however, when he came to search among the papers
littering the Minister’s desk, he had been astonished, as had Ferrand
himself, by the great number of holograph memoranda, all relating to
Fantômas’ million francs and no doubt intentionally intermingled with
the “urgent” correspondence. It was deliberately done, it was evidently
the sign manual once more of the criminal, it was Fantômas, who, in
ironic mood, anxious to rouse public opinion afresh, thus affirmed his
presence and confirmed his impunity.

Fantômas?—no, it could not be Fantômas! For six months past, M. Havard
had cherished the absolute conviction that the notorious criminal had
been personated by his subordinate, Inspector Juve, of the Criminal
Investigation Department, who under pretence of relentlessly tracking
down the elusive ruffian, had carried out a whole series of thefts and
other crimes under this sinister disguise. But Juve was in prison,
there was no shadow of doubt about that. Then what was one to think?

As time went on and the day lengthened, corridors and antechambers
grew more and more crowded, hummed louder and louder with excited
talk—magistrates having appointments to confer with the Chief, electors
from Ferrand’s constituency come to see their member, officials and
employés coming and going unceasingly; outside the very door of the
death chamber eager voices were raised in discussion and dispute,
regrets for the past mingled with hopes for the future.

So far, however, the tidings of Désiré Ferrand’s death had hardly
spread beyond official circles. The Elysée, the Ministries, were aware
of the tragedy, the public knew little or nothing. But this was not to
last long. Suddenly a swarm of newsboys, crying special editions, burst
with strident shouts into the Place Vendôme, debouching from the Rue
de la Paix, deploying under the windows of the Ministry, then tearing
off like a whirlwind towards the Tuileries, red and breathless, their
papers selling like hot cakes at a premium. The special edition of
_La Capitale_ penetrated to the private apartments of the Ministry,
and M. Havard, impatient to know in what terms the tragic story was
told and to read the criticisms on the police with which the Press was
evidently supplementing the narrative of the murder, secured a copy
of the paper. Looking over his shoulder, M. Casamajols read in huge
capitals, immediately below the name of the journal:

“_Assassination of the Minister of Justice._”

Below this again, figured the cryptic headline:

“_Will he arrest Fantômas?_”

“That question, M. Havard,” slyly suggested M. Casamajols, “is probably
addressed to you.” The head of the Criminal Investigation Department
made no reply, but with pursed lips, ran his eye rapidly over the
detailed account of Ferrand’s death, though without learning anything
he did not know already, and then went on to the article he believed,
like M. Casamajols, to specially concern himself. But as he read on,
M. Havard was lost in deeper and deeper wonderment. The article in
question ran as follows:

“_From mid-Atlantic, from aboard the liner ‘La Lorraine’ which sailed
the day before yesterday from New York, bound for Hâvre, comes the
information by wireless that the American detective, Tom Bob, a
passenger on the vessel in question, strongly and justly moved by the
daring acts of violence committed of late in Paris, has announced
his intention to devote all his time and all his energy, from the
first moment of his arrival in Europe, to the discovery and arrest of
Fantômas._”

The writer concluded the article with the words: “_Let us wish Tom Bob
every good luck, but will he arrest Fantômas?_”

M. Havard and M. Casamajols looked at each other completely at a loss.

“Do you suppose it is serious, this story?” asked the latter; “surely
it must be a newspaper _canard_ ... very American, too American ... I
don’t believe it, do you?”

“Egad!” confessed M. Havard, very much put out, “I am bound to allow
that this Tom Bob exists, and even that he enjoys a certain reputation
in the New York police force, but then, to advertise himself like that,
really!”

M. Casamajols suggested with a smile of irony:

“Eh, Havard, suppose Tom Bob _did_ run down and arrest Fantômas?”

Lifting his hands to heaven, the Chief of the Investigation Department
turned his back on the Procureur Général:

“God Almighty!” he swore, “hadn’t we enough to worry us, enough to
make us look ridiculous, without this Tom Bob shoving his finger in the
pie. Upon my word, it’s the last straw, that!...”

Havard stopped dead in the middle of his tirade; the door of the room
had opened.

“Do you mean me by that, Monsieur Havard?” demanded the newcomer.

M. Havard curbed a gesture of annoyance; decidedly he was in Fortune’s
bad books that day. He drew back, and bowing low to the President of
the Council—it was no other than M. Monnier himself who asked the
question.

“I do assure you, sir,” he replied respectfully, “I should never allow
myself to think such a thing of you.”




CHAPTER IX

THE BLUE CHESTNUT


“Get along then that’s no way to treat people! What’s he want with me,
anyway, the nasty fellow?”

Nini Guinon was furious; turning sharply round, she thus apostrophized
an individual who had just signalized his presence by tickling her
ribs more roughly than agreeably. It was a Monday, and about two
o’clock in the afternoon. Nini had just issued from the Poissonnière
Gate; mounting the bank overhanging the moat of the fortifications and
turning to the left, she was making for Saint-Ouen. The young woman
stared suspiciously at the man who was following her without a word,
good, bad or indifferent, a smile of doubtful import on his face.

Presently, reassured more or less by her examination of the stranger,
Nini added:

“I thought it was the ‘cops’.”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “D’you think I belong to the police? do
I look like it?”

“No, you don’t,” Nini admitted; “but come, let’s have a peep at your
phiz; what does this here masquerading mean, eh?”

Obeying the young woman’s demand, the other turned his face towards
her; the cheeks were muffled in a great yellow silk handkerchief.

“That’s along of my dominoes,” he said; “I’ve had toothache for the
last three days.”

“Well, what then?” pursued Nini.

“Why, I’m in funds to-day, especially as how it’s Monday, and I’m going
on the spree ... suppose we make the bust together, eh?”

Superciliously, Nini looked her interlocutor up and down.

“Nothing doing to-day,” she told him, “I’ve got my man.”

“Where are you going?”

“You’re mighty curious, ain’t you? still, as the gentleman wants to
know, we’ve arranged to meet at the _Blue Chestnut_—that’s plain and
simple enough, what?”

“Why, yes,” the other agreed, “but as it happens, I’m going there, too.”

“Then, march on in front,” ordered the girl, “and I’ll stick behind; I
don’t care to look as if I were making up to chaps about these parts.”

The man was all docility and obeyed instantly; walking a few steps
ahead of the young harlot, but every now and then casting a furtive
glance over his shoulder to make sure the girl was following on the
same road as himself, he stumped off in the direction of the _Blue
Chestnut_, seeming very well pleased with the beginning he had so far
made. With a quick movement he swept the hair lower on his forehead
and pulled out his handkerchief he had wrapped round his jaws under
pretence of protecting his aching teeth against the cold.

“So much to the good,” he thought to himself; “she’s never recognized
me—and I have good hopes it’ll be the same with the others.”

Who was this mysterious person who had made bold to squeeze Mlle.
Nini’s waist as she was peaceably leaving the city by the Porte de
Poissonnière? It was no other in actual fact than Jérôme Fandor!

For some days past the young journalist had been leading an absolutely
appalling existence. Events had followed quick on each other’s heels,
each more disconcerting, more overwhelming than the other. Chance
and mischance had thrown him into adventures that grew more and more
baffling, and seemed to him to leave no loophole for escape.

First his meeting with Elisabeth Dollon, then his connection with
old Moche—a tricky scamp he felt he could not trust—then after being
unjustly accused by Elisabeth, he had been odiously victimized through
Fantômas’ vile machinations, bringing him under the strongest suspicion
of having caused the death of three policemen. And all this, just a
few hours after Parliament had acclaimed him one of the authors of the
violent attack on the Minister of Justice.

Escaped by a miracle from the clutches of the police, the journalist
had ever since the tragic night in M. Moche’s garret led an
insufferable existence, hardly daring to go out at all, and then only
at night in the most out-of-the-way districts, spending whole days
hiding in slums, concealed in rag-pickers’ hovels, in constant terror
of being caught. And now, to put the coping-stone on his misery had
come the assassination of Désiré Ferrand, a mystery still unsolved, a
crime without doubt the work of Fantômas, thought Fandor, but which
no less surely would rouse the Criminal Investigation Department to
renewed exertions, and render his continued evasion more than ever
precarious.

Yet Fandor was full of courage; he must not give in, it was all
important he should remain at liberty, for the journalist was now
firmly convinced that he was embarked on the right track, and that it
would not be long now before he would unmask Fantômas’ accomplices,
perhaps Fantômas himself into the bargain. Luck, good luck, had in fact
brought him in touch with a crew of shady individuals, the instruments
and intermediaries of old Moche’s nefarious schemes. Now these folks
made no concealment amongst themselves of the fact that they were in
the habit of receiving orders anonymous but peremptory about the source
of which, however, they did not trouble their heads; they served and
were glad to serve as Fantômas’ lieutenants, they were in the pay of
that notorious brigand. To trace back events to their source would be
the surest way to discover the head that set all these arms in motion.

“I’m going to the _Blue Chestnut_,” Nini Guinon had told him—and
Fandor had boldly replied that at that very moment he, too, was on
his way to spend the afternoon at that notorious resort of the Paris
criminal world. In fact the discovery that Paulet’s mistress was bound
for the _Blue Chestnut_—a suburban semi-rural resort just outside the
fortifications, and a favourite _rendezvous_ with crooks and demireps
of all descriptions—to meet “her man” had given the journalist a
lively glow of satisfaction. Days ago he had come to the resolution
of shadowing the young street-walker, getting to know her comings and
goings, and so through her getting into close touch with the band of
her nefarious associates.

And lo! in a moment his hopes were to be realised. Nini was going to
the very spot where all these good, or rather bad, people would be
gathered. Decidedly Fandor’s lucky star was in the ascendant, he was to
enjoy the priceless advantage of meeting and making closer acquaintance
with that questionable character, the mysterious apache Paulet, whom
the journalist already suspected, not without good reason, perhaps, of
having murdered the bank messenger.

Moreover, he was feeling no small satisfaction at the success of his
make-up, which had proved so admirable a disguise. Nini Guinon, of
course, knew him quite well, she had seen him only a few days before,
he was one of the gang and the reputed murderer of the police officers,
if not perhaps of the Minister himself. His face and personality
_could_ not have faded from the girl’s memory. Yet for five minutes he
had been talking with her, and she had not recognized him!

“All goes well,” the journalist congratulated himself, as he made his
way into the garden of the _Blue Chestnut_. Yes, he was certainly in
luck. The place that Monday afternoon was crowded with customers, a
large number seated about the scattered tables, each of which with
its load of wine-bottles formed the nucleus of a group of laughing,
chattering men and girls.

Fandor took his seat unobtrusively at the foot of a table, endeavoring
to pass unnoticed while he consumed a modest half-pint and listened to
his neighbour’s conversation. He was just asking himself how he could
best join in the talk himself when circumstances afforded him the
opportunity.

A wave of excitement swept the garden from end to end. A gay companion,
a musician with an old guitar under his arm, had just appeared, a man
Fandor knew of old. It was one Bougille, the vagabond Bougille, the man
with the shaggy beard and merry-andrew face, Bougille the honest tramp,
the incorrigible wanderer. The old fellow was well known and well loved
at the _Blue Chestnut_, where on fête days he would often come to reap
the reward in small change of his talents as a music-maker.

“A dance, a dance! the _Sonneuse_!” the company demanded with one
voice, while all eyes turned in the direction of “The Beadle” and all
hands pointed to “Big Ernestine.”

Slowly, hands in pockets, with an affected air and a look of
satisfaction, which he tried to hide, the man addressed the crowd:

“So, it’s us you want to get at ... must have us dance it you again,
eh?... well, well, off we go.”

Cigarette stuck between his lips, cap cocked over one ear, the apache
gripped Ernestine by the nape of the neck, whirled the girl round, and
round again, to bring her facing him, then ordered her roughly:

“Go ahead, wench; give it ’em, I say!”

At this Bougille struck up the tune, and the couple began their
evolutions.

At first it was a slow waltz, with no precise rhythm, but dubious
attitudes, languishing poses, embraces suggestive of passionate
abandonment. Then, with a sudden brutality, the man hurled his partner
away from him, caught her by the shoulders, threw her to the ground,
then passing his arm under her supple waist, raised her to her feet,
then lifted her up against his breast; then, three times in succession,
while “Big Ernestine” lay passive, “The Beadle,” striking an attitude
half Hercules, half acrobat, whirled the woman about in his arms and
beat her head on the earth.

A thunder of applause broke out on every side. For sure there was not
another pair to match “The Beadle” and “Big Ernestine” at dancing the
_Sonneuse_. And what a dance it was, where the cavalier had to mimic
the act of breaking his partner’s skull against the ground as apaches
beat to death peaceable citizens against the curb of the sidewalk.

It was fine, it was magnificent, the crowd was thrilled, electrified,
and a young blackguard, “Beauty Boy” by nickname, caught by the wave
of hot enthusiasm that stirred the passions of them all, seized the
opportunity to give a bite at the nape of Nini’s neck, who cuffed him
soundly for his pains.

“Look where you’re going, you idiot!” roared a furious voice as “Beauty
Boy” fell foul of a shabby individual in his flight to escape the
offended Nini’s vengeance. It was no other than M. Moche. What could
the old fellow be doing there? He was dirtier, shabbier, and more bent
than ever; at sight of him, Fandor was filled with alarm, but at the
same time it struck him that Moche’s presence might prove useful to
him. Yes, undoubtedly, it was a piece of good luck to find the old man
had come to the _Blue Chestnut_. Assuredly, under pretext of dancing
and amusing themselves, the band must have gathered there to receive
their secret instructions from the chief, who doubtless was no other
than Fantômas. The moment Fandor set eyes on Père Moche, he told
himself: “Ha, ha! ’twon’t be long now before a something fresh turns
up!”

Meantime the journalist took good care not to show himself to the
dubious individual in whose service he had been engaged for twenty-four
hours. He had far from pleasant recollections of his stay at Moche’s,
and it might well be the latter was equally out of conceit with him;
quite possibly the old advocate believed it was he had killed the
police officers, very possibly again, by way of ingratiating himself
with the force, he might not hesitate to deliver up the supposed
murderer into their clutches, should opportunity offer.

At the same time the young man slipped surreptitiously behind Moche,
while the latter was in talk with the “Beauty Boy.” He overheard all
they said:

“Lend me a yellow boy,” the young apache was asking his companion;
“it’s not just for larks, I tell you, it’s for biz.”

“Why, what are you up to, eh?” the other asked in his turn.

“Beauty Boy” explained: “To-morrow’s Monday, ain’t it? Well, Tuesday’s
the day the swell Trans-Atlantic reaches Hâvre with all the rich
American travellers aboard; so I’m going to make my little collection,
as usual—you know my game, eh, M. Moche?”

“Gad! no, not over well,” declared the old scamp, doubtless with the
idea of extracting a more definite account of the other’s plans.

“But it’s as plain as plain,” retorted the apache. “Day before the boat
comes in, I hook it to Hâvre, dressed up to the nines; then I slip into
the special train where the swagger dames are, then on the journey up
I get to work; it’s mostly purses I do, now and then a ring, a bit
of jewelry, or pocket-book. All that lot, when they step ashore, are
upset, bewildered, sick, tired, _they_ never care to kick up a dust if
they happen to find their pockets have been gone through.”

Père Moche nodded approvingly.

“Not bad,” he laughed, “not bad! You’re a cute chap, my boy, for all
your silly looks and dandified airs.”

“Only,” pursued the apache, “one must anyway have one’s return ticket,
and as it happens, I’m cleaned out just now.”

“Whew!” muttered the old miser.

But “Beauty Boy” returned to his charge:

“Come now, don’t be a mean cuss, hand me over four bulls, won’t you?”

At last Père Moche so far yielded to the other’s eager importunities
and forked out. But, like a good business man, he struck a bargain with
the borrower that the latter, on his return, that is to say on the next
day but one, should pay him back thirty francs.

The cash once in his pocket, the apache vanished.

Fandor had overheard it all, besides catching other scraps of
conversation from one and another of the band, from which he gathered
only one thing clearly, and that was that at bottom everyone of them
was upset about the arrival of the redoubtable and mysterious Tom
Bob, whose coming was announced with such a flourish of trumpets and
noisy advertisement—a proceeding by-the-by he, Fandor, deemed highly
injudicious.

The journalist noted the “Beauty Boy’s” departure, and he could not
help thinking that it would be greatly to _his_ advantage, too, if
only he could get to Hâvre. But alas! he had not a sou and could not
borrow from Père Moche, as the apache had done, inasmuch as he could
not very well urge the same reasons to justify the loan. Still the idea
tormented him that he _must_ go to Hâvre. It was all important for
him to get to know Tom Bob at the earliest possible moment, so to say
before everybody else. He was still cudgelling his brains to discover
some way of realizing his project when suddenly he shuddered to hear a
hoarse, angry voice growling in his ear:

“Scoundrel, brigand, murderer, aren’t you ashamed to show your face?
why don’t I have you run in on the spot? will you rid me of the sight
of you, now, this instant, you hell-hound of calamity!”

Fandor wheeled round in consternation, dumbfounded by this avalanche of
abuse, this maelstrom of words. His eyes opened wide in amazement; it
was old Moche who was addressing him in these furious terms—Moche, his
face working with passion, unable to contain himself for anger.

The old scoundrel went on with a hypocritical assumption of righteous
indignation.

“When I think how I befriended you, how I saved you in your extremity,
and then you came and murdered people in my house and committed
atrocious crimes, I don’t know, I really do not know, you villain, what
hinders me ...”

Fandor looked his man calmly in the face. For one moment he had
entertained the notion of seizing his accuser by the throat and choking
him, for instinctively his gorge rose at the outrageous charge brought
against him. But he quickly realized that, to begin with, old Moche’s
indignation was only pretence, and then, that the least display of
violence on his part could only have consequences disastrous to his
plans. The journalist had gathered the firm conviction in the course of
the two hours he had spent among the dubious frequenters of the _Blue
Chestnut_ that Père Moche was possessed of a strange, but indubitable
authority over these sinister personages. There was no question that,
for some purpose or another, he was in the habit of aiding and abetting
them, lending them money at need, or that he possessed an astuteness
that made him master of the rest of his associates—and was perhaps
the mysterious intermediary who transmitted to them the orders of the
elusive autocrat Fantômas.

Postponing all thought of reprisals for the present, Fandor obeyed
the old ruffian’s orders and sneaked away; a few moments more and he
quitted the _Blue Chestnut_ without his departure being remarked by
anyone whatsoever, not even by the landlord, who troubled himself very
little about his customer going away, as he invariably observed the
excellent custom of making everybody pay in advance.

       *       *       *       *       *

“That’s it, that must be the train!” Issuing from the Saint-Lazare
terminus, an engine, heralded by the glare of its two head-lights,
plunged beneath the dark arch of the Batignolles tunnel. Enveloped
in a dense cloud of smoke, the locomotive rolled slowly on, with a
rhythmical roar and rattle, towing behind it a long line of passenger
coaches.

His feet in the thick mud, his back against the clammy stonework,
Fandor stood motionless half way through the tunnel waiting till the
train reached him.

The journalist, on leaving the _Blue Chestnut_, left alone with his
thoughts, and now firmly convinced he had at last come upon the gang
among whom he must look to find not only the murderer of the bank
collector, but likewise the authors of the attack on the Minister
of Justice, and to boot, in all likelihood, the assassin of Désiré
Ferrand, told himself it was above all things incumbent on him from
this time on to dare any and every risk to secure a collaborator in
his task. His mind was made up; it was Tom Bob must be his ally and
fellow-worker.

Who and what was this Tom Bob? he did not rightly know. Two or three
times at most he had heard his friend Juve speak of the man. Juve,
this much was certain, admired the American—albeit they were not
personally known to one another—as a clever, capable officer, full of
modern ideas. Fandor pictured Tom Bob as being in fact a sort of Juve
of the New World—with this difference, that the one seemed as fond of
self-advertisement and popular applause as the other was an admirer of
modesty and reticence.

Summing up the situation Fandor told himself:

“It is impossible, at the present moment, to show myself at the
headquarters of the Criminal Department; in their stupid way they would
simply arrest me without listening to my story, or even arrest me after
they had heard it, if only by way of throwing a sop to public opinion.
Juve himself is in gaol; the unfortunate man can do nothing to help
me. Rather is it for me to save him, and to have the power I must be
free. It may be Tom Bob will not be sorry to have me as a discreet and
anonymous fellow-worker. Let us go find Tom Bob!”

This decision taken, the question was to carry it into effect. Now
Fandor, at eight o’clock in the evening, had still less money in his
possession than at four o’clock of the afternoon. But the journalist,
having noted the time of the last train that would take him to Hâvre
before the arrival of the American packet, viz., the nine forty-five
slow train, had thought to himself that, if it was impossible for him
to travel without a ticket, it was perhaps easy enough to jump the
train as it went by, and so be carried to his destination—on condition,
of course, of not attracting attention by entering a compartment, but
instead riding unobtrusively on a step, or on some buffer or other, or
else lying at full length on the roof of a carriage.

He had explored the neighbourhood of the station and made out that
by way of the Rue de Rome and utilizing a scaffolding erected by the
workmen engaged in enlarging the tunnel, he could easily in the evening
dusk climb down the scaffold poles on to the line. But on second
thought Fandor had conceived a much simpler plan. At nine twenty for
four sous he purchased a ticket for Batignolles and made his way on to
the platform, then seizing his opportunity when nobody was looking, he
stepped on to the permanent way and so, keeping along the confining
walls, reached the entrance of the tunnel and waited there for the
passing of the Hâvre train.

He had set his watch by the station clock, and the train being due to
start at forty-three minutes past the hour, he was at his post in the
tunnel at half a minute before that time. He arched his back against
the wall, and in spite of the blinding smoke, watched the line of
vehicles as they moved slowly past him.

“Engine, luggage van, another van, several third class coaches, a
corridor carriage, a first, a second ... now’s my time!”

The young man sprang on the next coach that came opposite him, it was
a risky job, a false step and he would be thrown on to the rails,
under the wheels, but the journalist had audacity and fearlessness on
his side, and dexterity into the bargain, and he landed safely. In a
few seconds, by help of the hand-holds running along the sides and
the mouldings of the woodwork, which luckily projected outwards, he
succeeded in first hoisting himself between two carriages and then
climbing on to the roof of one of them. He stretched himself flat on
his face and threw his arms round the projecting top of a lamp, then
with legs wide to help maintain his equilibrium, he lay perfectly still.

Hardly was he in position before the train quickened its pace and
emerged from the tunnel. The journalist breathed the purer air with
infinite gusto. But his satisfaction was of short duration; the engine
now began to emit showers of sparks and clouds of greasy, blinding
smoke. He could only shut his eyes tight and wait in stoical patience.

“Pooh!” the young fellow said to himself, “it’s merely a bad night
to get through! I shall be a bit cold perhaps, and a bit dirty, but
the great point is, I shall get there. Hâvre is not so far away as
they make out; I think we must already be getting near the bridge of
Asnières, for the train, I see, is beginning to slow down, as they
always do.”

But next moment he let fly a big oath. The train, contrary to all
precedent, was taking a big curve, the rails were steeply inclined
inwards and the carriages tilted over in the same direction, so that
Fandor, who was not expecting it, very nearly slipped off his perch. He
would infallibly have tumbled off if he had not made a wild clutch at
the top of his lamp. The brakes were applied sharply and a jar ran from
carriage to carriage; then the train stopped dead.

Fandor opened his eyes and looked about him. He was in the middle of a
vast shed; on either side he saw the roofs of carriages stretching away
into infinity. For a moment he was at a loss what to think, then the
truth burst upon him.

“Damnation!” he cried, “was it worth my while to lay my plans so
carefully, and make such a monstrous mistake after all!”

Instead of taking the train for Hâvre, he had got on to a line of empty
coaches which a yard-engine was simply hauling out to its siding for
the night.

Even as he realized the fact, in the distance, full steam ahead and
brilliantly lighted up, he saw a main line train go by—the Hâvre train
without a doubt!




CHAPTER X

TOM BOB ON THE SPOT


The _Lorraine_ had just entered the port of Hâvre after an excellent
passage across the Atlantic. As usual, her passenger list was a full
one, and bore many names well known in the worlds of high finance
and fashion. The decks were crowded with pretty women in brilliant
toilettes and clean-shaven, keen-faced men in check cloth caps,
a typically American company, not to mention a minority of other
nationalities—Frenchmen, Englishmen, heavily built Germans, with a
sprinkling of Spaniards and Italians and even a half-dozen bronzed
Asiatics, a cosmopolitan assemblage.

The great ship lay alongside the huge customs shed, at the further side
of which was drawn up the special boat-train destined to convey the
liner’s first class passengers to Paris, and only waiting the latter’s
release from the formalities of the _douane_. Now all was ready, and
the heavy train got into motion, threaded its way at a snail’s pace
through the vast labyrinth of docks and warehouses, made a brief halt
at the Hâvre railway station to pick up a few travellers having special
permission to avail themselves of this express service, then little
by little gathering speed, began the headlong race that was only to
end 300 kilometres from the start at the Gare Saint-Lazare in the very
heart of the capital.

Very soon _déjeuner_ was served in the dining coach.

“How pretty the country is,” said Mrs. Silas K. Bigelow,
enthusiastically; she was a young and charming American, who sat
with eyes never leaving the window, gazing with admiring curiosity
at the fertile plains of Normandy whirling past. Her _vis-à-vis_ at
her table in the dining car, Mr. Van Buren, one of the most famous of
New York’s multi-millionaires, less enamoured of landscape than his
poetical fellow-countrywoman, insisted on his companion devoting a less
perfunctory attention to the meal.

The wine steward approached: “What wine will the ladies and gentlemen
drink—Saint Emilion, Pommard, extra dry?”

Mrs. Bigelow’s neighbour, a superb creature, with hair as black as
ink and eyes of an opalescent green, shook her head in reply to the
enquiring glance of her companion, a young Englishman, with smooth
cheeks and close-cropped hair.

“No, my dear Ascott,” she declared, “now we are ashore again, I want no
more of those heady beverages. All very well at sea, but not good for
my health now. Order me some mineral water, will you?”

Ascott looked round in search of the wine steward, but the man was
already at the opposite end of the car, booking the orders of the other
tables.

“Sorry, Princess,” the young Englishman excused himself; “directly the
man comes back, I will give him your order. Is there any particular
kind you prefer?”

But the Princess Sonia Danidoff answered the question only with a
careless wave of the hand and a brief:

“Oh! I don’t know; I hate having to choose.”

Then turning with a gracious smile towards another traveller seated at
a neighbouring table, the princess thanked him for the slight service
he had rendered her by passing her the menu card with a very polite bow.

Meantime Mr. Bigelow, seated not far from his wife, uttered a startled
exclamation. He had just unfolded a French journal and rapidly cast
his eye over it; indeed a number of the passengers in the restaurant
car were similarly engaged, eagerly scanning the news columns of the
morning papers.

No doubt during the voyage the news sheet that appeared on board every
morning had contained sundry important items of information supplied by
wireless, but detailed particulars were lacking, and for this reason it
was a boon to the newly-arrived travellers to be put in possession of
numberless piquant details of international events, and especially of
the activities of the fashionable world of Paris, in which they were
more particularly interested.

During the six days’ sea voyage, the world had not stood still; the
usual incidents, the usual joys and sorrows, the usual anecdotes formed
the staple of the record—and the usual crimes. But here was something
of direst import; these tourists who for nearly a week had been more or
less isolated on the high seas were startled to learn that on arrival
they were to find Paris a prey to the most acute alarm, and that since
leaving land a series of tragedies had occurred, the most mysterious
and the most terrifying ever known. The newspapers of every shade of
politics, of every sort and kind, were full of the dramatic incidents
that so excited public opinion, and above all abounded in the latest
particulars of the daring and dastardly assassination of the Minister
of Justice that had happened a few days before.

But there was one item that more than any other roused the keenest
curiosity among the occupants of the restaurant car. This was the
announcement of the expected arrival in France of the American, Tom
Bob, and the statement that the detective in question was on board the
SS. _Lorraine_, due to reach Hâvre on the very morning of issue. This
was naturally a highly exciting piece of news to the passengers who had
travelled with him, many of whom, moreover, knew of the reputation the
man enjoyed at police headquarters in New York.

“Is it possible?” laughed the Princess Sonia Danidoff, to whom her
cavalier had just read the paragraph, “is it possible we have had Tom
Bob with us on board?”

“But why not, Princess,” replied the multi-millionaire. “Surely Tom
Bob might be aboard without the world being turned upside down or the
_Lorraine_ dressing ship in his honour.”

“But is it not strange,” Mrs. Bigelow asked the question, “that he
never made himself known to us?”

“A detective,” observed Ascott, “is hardly likely to have his coming
announced by ambassadors, and as a rule prefers his presence to be
unremarked.”

The same traveller who a minute or two before had courteously passed
the list enumerating all the various sorts of mineral waters to the
Princess Danidoff now joined in with a word of approval of Ascott’s
remark:

“The gentleman,” he declared, “is perfectly right, and I entirely agree
with him in thinking that a detective, were it Tom Bob himself, is
bound under certain circumstances to keep the secret of his identity.
In other cases, however, it is best he should make himself known, and
that explains why Tom Bob, without therefore laying himself open to
a charge of inconsistency, has chosen on the one hand to preserve an
incognito on board ship while on the other informing the French press
by wireless of his speedy arrival in Paris.”

All eyes were turned on the speaker, who was evidently one of the
_Lorraine’s_ passengers. He was a man of about forty, whose brick-red
complexion was the more noticeable as his hair was deeply tinged
with silver. Like many Americans, he carried at his buttonhole a
miniature U.S.A. flag in enamelled porcelain; two heavy gold rings
adorned his finger, and he wore coat and trousers of light grey
cloth. The inspection continued for some seconds after its object
had quietly resumed his meal, for none of the first class passengers
could recollect having ever seen this particular individual during the
passage over.

At this moment a Frenchman who sat facing him, quite a young man, who
had joined the train at Hâvre, addressed the stranger:

“Excuse me, sir, but they say Tom Bob proposes to take measures in this
country to arrest Fantômas, that elusive brigand who always baffles the
best efforts of the police ... it is a bold venture!”

The man of the silvery locks looked up at the youth, then fixing his
eyes on the other’s face, answered calmly after a pause:

“It is very American, sir; what need to say more?”

“Well said, sir,” exclaimed a stout, ruddy-faced man, known to all on
the ship as being Hamilton Gould, an enormously wealthy Californian,
who had been round the world three or four times already, “in America
we are all like that.”

Mr. Van Buren smiled, but said nothing, while Mrs. Bigelow, entering
into the spirit of the conversation, suggested:

“Perhaps Tom Bob was just one of the bar tenders or maybe that old
lady with the white wig who by her own account travels for a Paris
dressmaker.”

The Princess Danidoff added yet another guess with a glance of irony at
the last speaker:

“Or the Captain?... why, not, while you are about it, dear
Mrs. Bigelow?”

Presently cigars were lighted and the majority of the ladies left the
restaurant car to return to their several compartments. Ascott, Van
Buren and Hamilton Gould, however, had followed Mrs. Bigelow and the
Princess Danidoff as they left the carriage, while behind them the man
with the silvery hair had risen from his seat. The conversation was
resumed in the corridor. A window stood open, and Mr. Van Buren begged
permission to smoke a cigarette. Then observing that Sonia Danidoff was
about to do the like:

“May I give you a light?” he asked the princess, who thanked him for
the offer.

“Egad!” exclaimed the millionaire next moment, “what a nuisance! I
thought I had my lighter in my vest pocket, and now I can’t find it; I
must have left it in my portmanteau.”

A bantering voice was heard behind him:

“Or rather, haven’t you perhaps had it stolen, sir?”

Van Buren wheeled round; it was the man with the silvery hair who
had spoken. Without appearing to pay any heed to the astonishment he
provoked, the man went on:

“You must know that these _trains de luxe_, such as the one we are in,
are often worked by pickpockets, and that these gentry find a malicious
satisfaction in robbing passengers even of articles of little value,
simply with the object of keeping their hand in.”

Van Buren did not know what to say, Mrs. Bigelow smiled nervously,
while not without a touch of anxiety, the Princess Sonia Danidoff,
whose lips were trembling a little, murmured with a forced laugh:

“Pooh! we ought not to be afraid, surely, seeing the renowned Tom Bob
is with us ... but is he really with us?”

“Why, yes!” cried Hamilton Gould. “I’m ready to wager he is.”

“Will you show us the man?” demanded Mrs. Bigelow.

“Perhaps I may, who knows?”

Then all burst out laughing; Ascott had just drawn their attention to
the smoking compartment at the far end of the car, where a passenger
lay fast asleep, adding the suggestion:

“Perhaps it’s that gentleman.”

First the men, then the ladies, all equally amused and curious, stole
one by one to peep in at the traveller who was still fast asleep,
little dreaming of the interest he aroused.

But the man of the silvery hair again drew attention to himself by his
criticism of Ascott’s identification.

“It shows a want of perspicacity, sir,” he declared, “to take the
gentleman sleeping there for Tom Bob. In the first place a detective
does not sleep; besides which, one has only to look at your man in
the smoking carriage to be quite sure, first, that he is a Frenchman;
that is plain from the cut of his clothes, and second, that he is an
officer, in fact I should say an officer actually serving with the
colours.”

Much impressed, Sonia Danidoff drew nearer to the speaker: “And what
tells you that, sir?” The man bowed gravely.

“Nothing simpler, madam! To begin with, look at that bundle of sticks
and umbrellas in the net above his head; amongst them don’t you see
something long in a green baize case?—a sword, an officer’s sword,
obviously! Then notice his temples; the hair lies flat to the head
all round a circular line, while it sticks out like other people’s
just below at the level of the top of the ear—that means our gentleman
usually wears a képi. Then, consider, apart from the moustache, the
only hair he wears on his face, the bronze of the skin, stopping short
at the neck—there you have a man used to living in the open air. I
believe I am pretty accurate in my diagnosis ... what do you think of
it?”

Hamilton Gould’s big hand fell familiarly on the silver-haired
individual’s shoulder.

“I think, sir,” he declared emphatically, “that to follow up a train
of reasoning like that, to draw a conclusion with such clearness and
precision, there’s only one man in all the world, above all only one
American—and I think you are that man, Tom Bob in person!”

The man addressed smiled as he looked with sparkling eyes in the face
of the genial globe-trotter.

“You are right,” he said simply, “I am Tom Bob.”

It was the signal for an outburst of enthusiasm and curiosity that
soon spread to every passenger in the carriage. All crowded round the
famous detective, each more eager than the other to speak to the great
man.

“I beg and pray,” Mrs. Bigelow urged her husband, “you will introduce
me; how delightful, how amusing to know a detective!”

But already Tom Bob, like the perfect man of the world he was, was
paying his respects to the Princess Danidoff.

“We possess some good friends in common, Princess,” he was saying, “the
Count and Countess Karenisky; I knew them well when I was staying at
St. Petersburg; in fact, I had an opportunity of doing them a small
service.”

“At the time of the Nihilists, was it not?” interrupted the Princess
Sonia.

“Yes, indeed, during that critical period ...”

But the princess shuddered at the mournful recollections the words
recalled, and stopped any further reference to the past: “Do not, I beg
you, sir, revive these dreadful memories!”

However, Hamilton Gould broke in at this point, very opportunely
changing the conversation.

“Then,” he asked, “as you know us all, you were actually on board the
_Lorraine_?”

“Why, certainly, sir,” replied Tom Bob. “Do you want proofs? You
occupied the state room No. 127, the Princess Sonia Danidoff had a
cabin port side; we enjoyed a first-rate passage, though on the evening
of the second day, a bit of a gale blew up about six o’clock, and we
feared bad weather for next day. Is that correct?”

“Absolutely correct!” asseverated Mr. Van Buren.

After that the conversation turned on a more enticing and more serious
subject. Tom Bob had been announced by the Parisian Press as the
declared antagonist of Fantômas. It was natural to question him as to
the attitude he proposed to adopt towards the notorious brigand. But
the American detective was not to be drawn, entrenching himself behind
what he called “professional secrecy.”

Mrs. Bigelow gave a groan of terror.

“Great heavens!” she cried, “supposing Fantômas were in this train and
knew that you were here, too, Mr. Tom Bob, and chose to blow us all up,
it would be appalling!”

“It would be a very natural thing for Fantômas to do, madam,” the
detective replied, “but for certain reasons I am well assured we have
nothing to fear on that head.”

The young Frenchman, who some while before had accosted Tom Bob, was
just returning from the breakfast car, a fat cigar in his mouth, eyes
shining, and hat cocked rakishly over one ear.

“First place,” he began in a quizzical voice, “Mister detective, you
have an easy job before you, for you must know Fantômas is in gaol.”

“Why, yes, that’s true enough,” admitted Mr. Van Buren.

“Still, as Mr. Tom Bob is so clever, it’s to be hoped he’ll meet him
all the same and finish by arresting his man.”

... “Egad! it’s deuced extraordinary,” suddenly exclaimed Ascott,
“here’s a go, I can’t find my pocketbook.”

Tom Bob gave a start.

“Look carefully, sir, look again; what you say is really serious, you
must make sure.”

With a pale face Ascott searched through all his pockets—everywhere.

“No, there’s no doubt whatever, my pocket-book has disappeared; it’s
not that I had a great deal of money in it, but the thing is very
unpleasant.”

Tom Bob lit a cigarette with a nonchalant air.

“Now that it’s known for sure your pocket-book has disappeared, the
only thing left to do is to get it back; that’s not very difficult
perhaps.”

All eyes turned in astonishment at Tom Bob, who went on:

“A detective, and above all an American detective, owes it to
himself to discover in any assemblage of people, no matter what, any
pickpockets therein, and this at the first glance.”

The young Frenchman started poking merciless fun at the sententious and
dogmatic language used by the American detective:

“And pray, sir, by what do you know them?”

Tom Bob looked the youth up and down from head to foot, and said
nothing for a moment or two. Then he replied: “By their boots.”

His audience held their sides. Decidedly Mr. Tom Bob was an original
and diverting travelling companion, and everybody crowded to the far
end of the corridor where he stood ensconced in a corner. The American
detective proceeded to harangue his listeners.

“The pickpockets on _trains de luxe_,” he declared, “have this much in
common with the officers of the Criminal Investigation Department, that
they are usually ill-shod. With one class as with the other, there is
nothing, speaking generally, to find fault with in the get-up. Hat from
the best maker, clothes of an irreproachable cut, tasteful necktie,
well-kept hands, everything proclaims the man of the world; but there
is a small detail, a grain of sand, the proverbial grain of sand that
throws the best adjusted machine out of gear, and that grain of sand is
nothing more nor less than the footwear ...”

Tom Bob broke off, and turning to the young Frenchman who was listening
with a highly quizzical smile:

“Sir,” he asked, “will you allow me to ask you a question—what is your
profession?”

At this direct and almost peremptory demand, the youth blushed in some
embarrassment. The answer came in a dull, heavy voice:

“Why, sir, if I chose not to answer, I should be within my rights and
would tell you nothing ... But there, I have nothing to hide—I am a
student, a medical student, sir.”

The young man was evidently annoyed and turning his back on his
questioner, he left the corridor.

Suddenly, a few moments after this, the train was plunged into utter
darkness. The track, after running for some distance alongside the
Seine near Bonnières, had entered a tunnel. The Princess Danidoff’s
anxious voice was heard complaining: “Why isn’t the carriage lighted?
How very extraordinary!”

Tom Bob gave a sharp order:

“Have a care, ladies; look out, gentlemen; this darkness is altogether
abnormal; it is due to no negligence on the part of the Company, but
undoubtedly to the act of some miscreant; guard your jewelry, watch
your pockets.”

A few moments that seemed like hours, and then, issuing suddenly from
the bowels of the earth, the train regained the light of day and sped
on across the open country.

Mrs. Bigelow gave a cry; her reticule had vanished. “My bag,” she
groaned, “what has become of my little bag? Why, it’s appalling,
verily this land of France is nothing but a den of thieves.”

Mr. Van Buren remarked: “I thought just now Mr. Bob was joking, but I
am beginning to think he was perfectly serious.”

“By Gad!” exclaimed Ascott, who could _not_ believe his pocket-book had
really vanished and had just finished turning his portmanteau upside
down, “by Gad! I think I ought to know something about it.”

The American detective was biting his lips with annoyance; mechanically
he lit a cigarette, then tossed it away, only to light another.

A ticket collector passed along the train, shouting “tickets! tickets,
please!” But two passengers found themselves unable to produce
theirs—Ascott and Mrs. Bigelow.

The group in the corridor, already aware of the strange disappearance
of the Englishman’s pocket-book and the American lady’s reticule,
attacked the Company’s official, complaining of the thefts, claiming
the protection of French law, threatening the most terrible reprisals.
The unhappy collector knew nothing about it and grasped only one fact,
to wit, that two passengers were travelling without tickets. The
discussion was growing acrimonious when Tom Bob intervened.

“My good man,” he said, “will you be so good as not to press this lady
and gentleman for a few minutes; their tickets are not lost, only
mislaid—mislaid in somebody else’s pocket; it will be all right, will
it not, if the tickets are handed to you before reaching Paris? I
guarantee this will be the case.” Bob’s specific undertaking reassured
the man. “Very good!” he said, “we’ll see about it at Asnières.”

Ascott was about to pester the detective with a string of questions,
but the latter stopped him with a shake of the head.

“Wait a bit,” he said, “I think we’re slowing down.”

The train in fact was slackening speed, though no station was in sight;
on the contrary it had just run into the Forest of Saint-Germain; great
trees bordered the line on either side.

Tom Bob dashed hurriedly down the corridor, the train going slower and
slower all the time. Suddenly the detective sprang forward. The door
opening from the corridor on to the permanent way had been unfastened
from the inside by someone proposing to get out, presumably intending
to take advantage of the diminishing speed of the train to jump down on
to the ballast without fear of accident.

Quick as this suspicious movement had been, Tom Bob had forestalled it,
seizing the individual by the collar.

“So ho! my young friend,” he cried, without relaxing his hold, but on
the contrary twisting his wrist hard, so as to paralyse all resistance,
“so you wanted to give your friends the slip, did you? That’s not
pretty behaviour, upon my word!”

Pale as death, with a look of fear on his face, the other growled in a
savage voice:

“Let go, by God, let go, or I’ll kill you.”

But Tom Bob only smiled: “Kill me, eh?” he laughed, “what with? with
your revolver; just feel in your pocket with your free hand, my fine
little man, you’ll find your gun’s not there any more.”

The startled thief gave a choking cry of terror; mechanically he did
as he was bid and searched his pocket. The detective was right, his
revolver had vanished.

“It was I confiscated it, my lad,” the detective informed him, “you
are too young to use such weapons handily; a student, the deuce!... a
student like you can’t expect to have the dexterity of a master like
me; besides, we have _this_ little difference between us, I’m on the
job for honest reasons, while you ...”

The arrested fugitive threw himself on the ground, hoping in this
way to slip out of the detective’s grasp. The latter went on calmly
twisting the fellow’s arm, who swore savagely, glaring like a trapped
wild beast at his captor.

Attracted by the noise of the struggle a number of people had run
to the spot; amongst the first to arrive were Van Buren and Ascott.
In a moment they had realized what had occurred, and with a mighty
cheer acknowledged the wonderful perspicacity of their compatriot,
who had marked down among the throng of passengers the individual who
was undoubtedly the culprit and had arrested him so cleverly. All
recognized the man, it was the young Frenchman, the same who had given
himself out as a medical student.

Mrs. Bigelow had come to take a peep at Tom Bob’s prisoner, and now
rejoined Sonia Danidoff: “It is quite true, my dear,” she confided
to the princess, “Mr. Bob was quite right, one must beware of people
who are ill shod; that man wore horrid bad boots.” The princess was
very pale and still quite unstrung: “It’s frightful, these things,
appalling; it has made me quite ill!”

Meantime the compartment into which, finding it by chance
unoccupied, the American detective had unceremoniously pushed his
prisoner, resounded with a chorus of indignant outcries against the
pseudo-student. As quick as lightning the police-officer had secured
the fellow’s wrists with a miniature pair of handcuffs, so small as to
be hardly visible, but strong enough to bear any strain.

The Superintendent now appeared on the scene much harassed by all these
varied incidents, on which he would have to make a circumstantial
report, a task made the more difficult by the fact that the worthy
official, having no actual knowledge of the details, was asking himself
which of the two parties was actually in the right and which in the
wrong, these foreign fashionables travelling without tickets or the
young Parisian whom an American police-officer had taken upon himself
to handcuff.

“I don’t wish to hear a word,” declared the Superintendent, “I’m not
going to decide between you, you will make your explanations to the
Special Constabulary at the terminus.”

“Nothing could be fairer,” Tom Bob agreed, adding with characteristic
phlegm: “At the same time, sir, if you wish here and now to have
the two missing tickets, all you have to do is to search that young
gentleman’s pockets, I have no doubt they are in his possession.”

“I prefer to do nothing,” insisted the official, shaking his head in
a puzzled way, “I shall do nothing, you will explain yourselves, as I
said before, to the Constabulary Office at Saint-Lazare.”

       *       *       *       *       *

A quarter of an hour later, still in a state of breathless excitement,
the first class passengers of the Trans-Atlantic express arrived at
their journey’s end. Instead of leaving the station, they all waited
in silence on the platform where the train had pulled up, formed up
in two lines, between which marched Tom Bob and his captive. They
had been the last to leave the train, but not unaccompanied; four
police-officers, to whom the Superintendent had beckoned as the train
ran in, escorted the pair, equally determined that neither one nor the
other, detective or culprit, should escape.

Who was right and who was wrong? This was what nobody knew. However, a
few minutes later, before the Special Commissary, light began to dawn.
The individual whom Tom Bob had accused of theft was searched. On him
was found Ascott’s pocket book, Mrs. Bigelow’s reticule—_and_ a leather
purse, absolutely empty!

“Where have you put the money that was in this purse?” asked the
Commissary sternly.

But Tom Bob burst out laughing: “That purse was empty to begin with,
sir,” he declared, “I can assure you of that much, for it is my own.
It’s what I call my decoy-purse. When I’m bent on looking after matters
in a crowd, I put it well in sight, hanging out of my vest pocket, and
wait events. The expected result never fails to arrive, the pickpockets
take me for a fool, make a dead set at me and rob me with the more ease
inasmuch as I help them all I can. It doesn’t bring them in a lot,
for I can’t afford to be generous with them, but it has this great
advantage, it enables me to make the gentleman’s acquaintance. That,
Mr. Commissary, is how we do things in America, or at any rate how Tom
Bob, the American detective, does ’em!”

The Special Commissary looked at the American in bewilderment, not
unmixed with a touch of jealousy. It could not be denied the man was
very clever and he had just done a pretty stroke of business, in which
unfortunately the French police could find little to boast about. Still
the Commissary thanked the detective, and added:

“We shall perhaps require you to give evidence, sir; where shall I be
able to find you?”

Tom Bob pencilled a few words on his card, saying at the same time: “I
have engaged rooms at the Hôtel Terminus; the police will always find
me there at their disposal.”

A minute or two more and Ascott recovered possession of his
pocket-book, and Mrs. Bigelow’s reticule returned to its lawful owner.
The Americans were one and all delighted, and wished that very evening
to celebrate their fellow-countryman’s splendid triumph; Tom Bob,
however, asked modestly to be excused, declaring he was tired out, and
quickly disappeared in the crowd.

In the Commissary’s office, the requisite papers were in preparation
for the committal of the pickpocket when a superior official entered.

“What is it, sir?” asked the Commissary.

“Why, this, sir; the individual in your charge is known to the police.”

“Well, what about him?”

“That man is an old gaol-bird; we don’t know his proper name, but among
the crooks he goes by the nickname of the ‘Beauty Boy’.”




CHAPTER XI

MAD AS A HATTER


All was bustle and movement in the great entrance-hall of the Hôtel
Terminus, the imposing edifice that rears its bulk immediately outside
the Gare Saint-Lazare; there was a never ceasing coming and going
of travellers, new customers continually arriving from the trains
reaching Paris from all parts, others taking their departure for a
hundred different destinations in all quarters of the globe. The throng
was especially dense round a small office of a severe and dignified
aspect worthy of a public Ministry, but more elegant in its furniture
and appointments, where three active young women were busy quickly
and methodically answering countless questions in a dozen different
languages, entering the names of the various newcomers in a great
ledger and indicating the rooms assigned them.

Amongst other applicants was the American Tom Bob, cool and collected
as always. In two minutes he had completed the necessary formalities,
and, under the guidance of a servant of the hotel carrying his hand
baggage, was crossing the hall towards the lift. But turning suddenly
on the man, the traveller shook his head emphatically and announced
his intention of mounting by the stairs to the suite he had previously
engaged by wireless on the third floor.

“I don’t like lifts,” he said peremptorily, and heedless of the look of
surprise on the servant’s face at so unusual a preference, insisted on
adopting the slower and more fatiguing route.

Before reaching the foot of the grand staircase, however, he was very
unexpectedly—to the best of his belief the American did not know a soul
in all Paris—accosted by a shabbily dressed young man, a total stranger
to him, who earnestly craved the favour of a few minutes’ conversation.

“I am a friend,” he urged eagerly and ingratiatingly, “of someone who
knows you, who has often had occasion to describe some of your exploits
to me, and who, I have no doubt whatever, would authorize me to use his
name to secure the interview I have the honour to beg of you, of your
kindness, to accord.”

Short and sharp, Tom Bob stopped him in mid career.

“I have not a friend in France,” he declared.

The young man smiled, not at all disconcerted, only saying, in a very
low whisper:

“Oh, yes, you have—one at any rate—Juve!”

Not a muscle of Tom Bob’s face moved; nevertheless the great American
detective must have been well acquainted with the name of the king of
police-officers, nor indeed could he well fail to know something of
Juve’s famous doings, for he replied at once:

“Follow me, sir”—and putting an abrupt end to the dialogue, he turned
his back on the young man, and marching on in front without a word of
apology, started to mount the stairs.

       *       *       *       *       *

“No. 142, here you are, sir! your luggage will be up in ten minutes,
sir.”

Tom Bob and the unknown stranger who followed him had just been ushered
into the room the detective had engaged several days ago by wireless
from mid-Atlantic. Now, laying his hand on the waiter’s shoulder, he
ordered him:

“Have my luggage here in one hour from now, and not before! I
particularly wish not to be disturbed.”

The man looked at him in astonishment; this traveller had tastes
exactly the opposite of those of the ordinary run of customers.
However, the well-trained servant, without a word indicating his
surprise, went on:

“Here is the bell, sir—one ring for the waiter who attends to your
room, two for the chambermaid; this is the cold water tap and there’s
the hot; the electric switch is by the head of the bed.”

Tom Bob was standing in the middle of the room and gazing steadfastly
at the ceiling while the man was speaking. Then he put an odd question:

“How long ago was it the gentleman who has the bedroom immediately over
mine first came to the hotel?”

The waiter stared, more surprised than ever. “I haven’t an idea, sir,”
he admitted; “but why?”

Tom Bob took the man by the shoulders and pushed him gently out of the
room:

“It interests me enormously. It is now twenty past seven, you will
find means to give me this information at twenty past eight, in sixty
minutes, when they bring up my luggage. Now go!”

And now, when the servant was gone and the door shut behind him, Tom
Bob at last turned to the stranger, who was, no less than the other,
staring at him, bewildered by his queer behaviour.

“You will excuse me, won’t you,” he asked, “but before I give you my
attention, I have a little piece of work to do.”

The other bowed, saying only by way of remonstrance:

“I must mention again, Mr. Bob, that what I have to say is pretty
urgent ...”

But the detective only smiled and cutting short his protest: “There’s
something else,” he declared, “that’s very much more urgent, Monsieur
Jérôme Fandor.”

Then as the journalist gave a start of amazement at hearing his name
spoken—it was as a matter of fact Jérôme Fandor who had just now
accosted the detective in the entrance-hall and asked leave to speak
with him—Tom Bob, calm as ever, signified with an imperative gesture
that he was not to interrupt:

“Something very much more urgent, I repeat. Will you be so kind as to
help me in my little piece of work?”

More and more surprised, but confounded by his host’s phlegm, Fandor
nodded “yes,” without so much as opening his lips.

“Then,” Tom Bob went on, “here’s how I start the job. Look! I take off
my hat ... so; then I plant my chair against the wall ... so; I take my
seat on the chair ... Have you a pencil on you, Monsieur Fandor?”

“I have, sir.”

“Very good! Will you be so very obliging as to take it and draw a line
on—on the door; see here, exactly on a level with the top of my head.”

Fandor carried out the order, lost in astonishment.

“He’s mad,” he thought to himself; “the good man’s as mad as a hatter!
What does it all mean?”

His reflections were cut short by the detective, who announced in his
deliberate voice:

“The fact is, you see, I have a horror of high chairs.” And as he
uttered these extraordinary words, Tom Bob got up and, kneeling down on
the floor, turned the chair he had been sitting on the minute before
upside down, then drew from his pocket a hunting-knife.

“Don’t be afraid, Monsieur Fandor, I’m not going to open the blade; it
is the saw I want to use.”

So saying, he extracted from the handle a little saw of the kind often
found in such knives.

“Go on, sir, go on!” Fandor protested. “Can I help you?”

“Oh! no, it’s done in a moment,” and as if he were performing the most
natural action in the world, Tom Bob, still on his knees, began to saw
off the legs of the chair in front of him.

“I have a horror of high chairs,” he said for the second time; “that’s
why I saw off the legs, as you see, and convert it into a low one;
it’ll cost me a trifle to pay for the damage, but what of that?... Ah!
that’s done!”

The detective had in fact abbreviated the chair legs by eight or nine
inches. He set the chair on its feet again, and after making sure it
stood firm, sat down; then springing up again, still without uttering
a word, he went over to the bed standing on one side of the room, and
picked up a pillow and bolster, which he threw down near the wall.

“You are a young man, Monsieur Fandor,” he remarked, “you are not just
come off a journey; you are not tired like me; besides, I don’t want to
demolish _all_ the hotel furniture ... in a word, will you be so kind
as to seat yourself on these improvised cushions?... yes? cross-legged,
if you like.”

This time Fandor showed such a comic face of astonishment that even the
phlegmatic American could not help smiling.

“I am not mad,” he observed simply by way of explanation, “but I have a
horror of seeing people sitting in high chairs when I am myself seated
in a low one—a whim, Monsieur Fandor, a monomania, if you like, of no
importance.... Now, what can I do for you?”

Jérôme Fandor squatted on the ground in obedience to the detective’s
strange invitation, while the latter took _his_ place on the seat so
oddly truncated.

“Sir,” declared the journalist, “the name I have mentioned, the name
of Juve, must have informed you of the object of my visit. You can
guess ...”

But Tom Bob uttered a sharp protest: “No, I know nothing, I cannot
_guess_. Besides, I never guess; I infer, that’s all.”

“Nevertheless you guessed my name, Monsieur Tom Bob?”

“Not at all! I only inferred you were Fandor from the fact that you
invoked Juve’s name by way of introduction to me and that, as I look at
it, there can hardly be another individual but you, Jérôme Fandor, to
act so imprudently as to name Juve as guarantee, when Juve is generally
taken to be Fantômas!”

On hearing the American’s words, Fandor sprang up instinctively to
grasp his hand.

“Oh, sir,” he cried, “thank you for what you say, I thank you from the
bottom of my heart! At the first word, I guessed you were to be an
ally. _You_ do not think, do you, that Juve is Fantômas?”

Tom Bob interrupted sharply again:

“I think I told you to sit on the floor! You get up instead; you are in
the wrong, you must do what I ask. If you mean to jump up and down like
this, I prefer to put off the interview you desire till to-morrow.”

“But, sir ... but!” Fandor stammered, again bemused with surprise, as
he sat down again, while the other insisted:

“There’s no ‘but’ about it; it is so! However, let’s leave that. You
did not come to see me, I presume, for the mere pleasure of annoying me
by standing? You came to tell me something. What have you to tell me?”

Fandor called up all his coolness, shut his eyes a second, pulled
himself together, and now, in a calm voice, assented, without troubling
further about his interlocutor’s eccentricities:

“You are right, sir: I _have_ come to tell you something, to tell you
this—I am indeed Jérôme Fandor.”

“Excuse me,” broke in Tom Bob, “but how came you to recognize me?”

“Gad! sir,” confessed Fandor, smiling innocently, “the newspapers,
announcing your sensational arrival the other day, published your
portrait, which no doubt they had among their stock of blocks. I
knew, moreover, that you would land from the _Lorraine_, saw the
Trans-Atlantic special come in, I followed you from the Commissary’s
office which you visited, I don’t know for what reason, to this hotel,
and ...”

“Very good!... Now, you came to tell me?”

“Sir,” replied Fandor, “you have challenged Fantômas to mortal combat;
Fantômas, as you know, has set himself to terrorize Paris, to make war
on France, on civilization itself ...”

Tom Bob interrupted again: “I have heard of _his_ challenge to the
Chamber. Proceed!”

“Good!” Fandor agreed. “But Fantômas has committed crimes you have not
heard of. Yesterday a Minister was killed ...”

“I know,” again affirmed the detective.

“Already?”

“Already?... the papers I bought at Rouen!”

“Then you also know that the day before yesterday, Mr. Bob, Fantômas
murdered three police-officers, so arranging it as to make it believed
I was the criminal?”

“No, I did not know that.”

“In that case I will tell you about it”—and Fandor proceeded to relate
clearly and succinctly his extraordinary adventure, concluding his
narrative with the words:

“Which comes to this, Mr. Tom Bob, that at this present moment not
only does the fear of Fantômas paralyse all Paris, but further, public
opinion accuses me of being Fantômas’ accomplice, or even Fantômas
himself!”

All the time the young man was speaking, Tom Bob kept nodding his
approval at intervals. Now he broke in on the other’s remarks.

“If you please,” he said, “better lie down, don’t you think, on the
floor instead of just crouching, as you are now?” And as Fandor gazed
at him in a sort of panic, the detective added in an explanatory tone:

“My monomania, you know! Don’t be alarmed ... You were saying, Monsieur
Fandor, that people took you for Fantômas? But Fantômas is in prison;
he is generally thought to be Juve, I understand?”

“People don’t know what to think, sir. Certainly, two weeks ago,
everybody accepted this monstrous improbability; now, in face of the
new facts, they are doubtful. As for me, as you may well suppose, I
have never varied in my belief. I know that Juve is Juve. You, sir,
know it, too.”

Again the detective nodded approval: “Certainly I do! By reputation
I know Juve well; nay more, I have had occasion to pursue certain
inquiries in conjunction with him. So I know he is not Fantômas.
Besides which, like public opinion, Monsieur Fandor, I am for
believing that if Juve _was_ Fantômas, the present crimes could not be
committed ... But, after all, in what you tell me, even in your story
of the strange attack of which you were the victim, I see nothing
particularly novel. What would you propose to do?”

Fandor’s face paled: “It is something more than a proposal, sir, that
I am here to make you. When I read the announcement of your arrival,
and recalled all Juve had told me in praise of Tom Bob, I congratulated
myself, I say again, on the noble ally you would be for me, on the
fine opportunity I had of obtaining by you, and thanks to you, Juve’s
release from gaol—and that is the reason I resolved to come to you and
give you the means, at the first moment after your arrival, to make a
grand impression on the French police.”

“I fail to understand you.”

“I will explain. Once succeed in effecting an arrest, Monsieur Bob,
a difficult arrest, within four and twenty hours of your arrival in
Paris, and you will instantly be the hero of the day! They cannot any
longer then affect in high places the same indifference the French
police will certainly show towards you, chagrined as they are that you
should come to help them out of their difficulty. A sensational arrest,
loudly proclaimed and commended by the Press, will give you prestige,
add weight to your declaration, when you come to declare, as I hope you
will, that Juve is not Fantômas.”

“And this arrest, Monsieur Fandor?”

“This arrest, Monsieur Bob, I am going to tell you of.”

Carried away by the importance of his statement, Fandor again rose to
his feet. But barely a second did he retain that attitude! Quick as
thought, Tom Bob sprang from his chair, fell on his knees, seized the
journalist round the waist and forced him back on the floor!

“Stay lying down, I tell you!” he ordered in a furious voice; “have you
no nose?”

“No nose?” stammered Fandor, really alarmed by the detective’s conduct.

Already the latter had resumed his seat on his abbreviated chair:
“Forgive me,” he said with a smile—“my monomania! only my monomania
again!... You were saying?”

Fandor resolved to show no more surprise at anything, and above all not
to move again.

“This arrest,” he went on, “this sensational arrest that is needed to
give you prestige, I am going to supply you with the means of carrying
out. Some days ago an unfortunate bank messenger was murdered in
M. Moche’s house, the same house where, as I described just now, I was
myself the victim of mysterious violence. The police at this present
time have proved unable to discover either the body of the victim or
his murderer. His murderer, I know, I denounce him here and now; it is,
it must be, it cannot but be M. Moche!”

“M. Moche?”

“Yes!”—and Fandor began a detailed account of how he had come to know
that dubious man of business. He said how he associated with notorious
apaches, how he was habitually engaged in shady transactions with those
gentry, that in particular he was the intimate and friend of a bully,
one Paulet. He concluded: “There is besides a damning piece of evidence
against him. While I was in the Chinese lantern, where Fantômas had
imprisoned me, I saw the officers find in the garret a button from the
uniform of the bank collector who has disappeared. This garret belongs
to M. Moche, it was in this garret the crime was committed. Moche
must be the criminal. You will understand, Mr. Bob, that after I had
crept away along the house-roofs after my extraordinary adventure, I
could not, under pain of being immediately arrested, return to make
investigations at M. Moche’s. Nor have the police, on their side,
being convinced that Fantômas is responsible for the murder of the
collector and that I am Fantômas, troubled M. Moche. _You_ are free
to act: I beseech _you_ to move heaven and earth to clear up with all
speed the mystery of the bank employé’s death.”

The detective nodded his comprehension.

“What you tell me is interesting, very inter...”

But, cutting him off short, with a dull roar that was unmistakable, an
explosion shook the room. It came from above the two men’s heads, like
a hurricane sweeping by. Facing them, fragments of plaster, bits of
the woodwork, broke away, and the wall was pitted with little holes. A
thick, acrid smoke, smelling like gunpowder, rolled through the room in
heavy blue-grey wreaths.

Tom Bob did not so much as start; Fandor stammered a terrific oath.
Then after a moment’s silence, the detective in the calmest way
completed his interrupted sentence: “... Very interesting what you are
telling me; ... but what has just happened is interesting, too. And
now, Monsieur Fandor, you can stand up.”

But a loud knocking was heard at the door. A waiter was asking:

“What is the matter—an accident?”

“No,” Tom Bob assured him, without opening, “an incident. I was shaving
and my water-heater burst ... only tell them to bring up my luggage in
an hour and a half’s time, not before.”

The detective’s voice was so calm the man seemed satisfied, while amid
the never ending turmoil of the great hotel the violent explosion in
the room had apparently passed almost unnoticed.

When the waiter was gone, Tom Bob got up from his chair, remarking:

“So now, Monsieur Fandor, you understand why I made such a point of our
both being seated as close to the ground as possible.”

But Fandor shook his head. “I don’t understand anything at all,” he
protested.

“Well, go and look at the pencil line you drew just now, on a level
with my head.”

Fandor ran to the wall and could not restrain an exclamation:

“By the Lord! the line is exactly in the zone riddled by the explosion
of the bomb!”

“It was not a bomb.”

“Not a bomb? What was it then?”

“A shot fired by Fantômas.”

“By Fantômas?”

“Precisely, by Fantômas.”

The other’s calm was so wonderful, his imperturbability so complete,
that Fandor felt almost ashamed of himself to be so profoundly
agitated. Once again he called upon his strength of will power and
mastered his feelings. In a quiet voice he asked:

“Well then, sir, what _has_ happened? Why did you ask me to mark just
that height on the wall? You guessed?...”

Tom Bob, hands in pockets, was looking up at the top of a tall wardrobe.

“I did not guess anything,” he said. “I never guess, I infer.”

“But what have you inferred then?”

“Why, I observe ...”

“But, good Lord, what do you observe?”

“What occurs, Monsieur Fandor! Now look here, is it, yes or no, a
logical conclusion that Fantômas was put out by my arrival? Was it, yes
or no, logical to conclude that knowing, as everybody knows, thanks to
my wireless messages, that I am setting to work to arrest him, while
_he_ proposes to terrify Paris and force the Chambers to satisfy his
demands, was it, I ask again, logical to suppose that he was going to
try to murder me?”

“Logical, why yes; but how did you guess?”

“I argued, Monsieur Fandor; I argued that Fantômas, wishing to murder
me, would do it as swiftly as possible; consequently, if I wished to
escape his criminal manœuvres, it was advisable to lay a trap for him.
The trap consisted in engaging a room here. Fantômas knew of this.
How, I cannot say, but Fantômas knows everything. For my part, _I_
knew—knowledge is power—I knew that, on my coming to the Terminus, an
attempt was going to be made on my life. What sort of an attempt? I
felt uncertain. I suspected the lift—that risk avoided, in revenge I
was pretty well convinced, when I entered this room, the room I had
engaged in advance, that something was going to happen here. But what?
I thought of a poisonous gas infiltrated during the night, and that
is why I questioned the waiter about the occupant of the room above.
Monsieur Fandor, I told you you had no nose, did I not? The fact is
I am astonished that you didn’t, like me, detect in the room a faint
smell of burning, of burning tinder.”

Fandor, lost in admiration at the precision of the American detective’s
discoveries, the nature of which he was beginning to fathom, declared:
“I noticed the smell of burning perfectly well, but ...”

“But you drew no inference from it. _I_ inferred that a slow-match was
burning—but where? To search for it was running a risk, an incautious
movement might precipitate the crisis. Instead, I said to myself,
Monsieur Fandor—the natural thing for a traveller to do when he enters
a bedroom is to sit down. Therefore it is more than probable, if a shot
is to be fired, from a revolver say, or from a gun, that the weapon
will be levelled at the height of a person’s head seated on a chair. I
cut down my chair so as to be below the line of fire! I made you sit on
the floor to save you from being hit!”

One thing, and one thing only, could Fandor find to say to express his
admiration adequately: “Juve could not have done better!”

“Truly, it was not so bad. Now, if you would like to get to the bottom
of things, we will take a look on top of that wardrobe ... There, what
did I say?”

From the top of the wardrobe Tom Bob, mounted on a chair, proceeded to
unship a sort of gatling-gun, consisting of six barrels fixed side by
side, the muzzles of which, arranged fan-wise, commanded the whole room.

“Don’t you see,” the detective concluded, “it’s all as plain as
daylight. Here’s how Fantômas set to work. He hired this room, up to
seven or eight o’clock this morning, I imagine. Seeing it was taken for
to-night by me, it was evident no one would occupy it between us two.
On top of the wardrobe he lashed an extraordinary contrivance loaded up
with grape-shot, which swept the whole place with a hurricane of lead;
to touch off the charge, he laid down a slow-match of tinder.”

Fandor shook his head: “No,” he objected, so enthralled in spite of
himself by the interest of the investigation as to have completely
recovered his clearness of mind; “you seem to forget one detail; if he
lit the slow-match before leaving, it’s ten to one the smoke would have
been noticed by the hotel waiter. Then besides, it would have needed a
great length of slow-match, and that meant risking a conflagration ...”

But Tom Bob indulged in another meaning smile, as he said:

“Fantômas left, I suppose, about eight in the morning, quite early
anyway; but his match was not lit till two or three o’clock in the
afternoon. You needn’t be surprised, Fandor, the trick is quite
elementary! Look there, on the carpet, near the wardrobe; you see
those little shards of glass? the fragments of a burning-glass! The
tinder was set alight by means of that lens, scientifically adjusted
for the precise moment when the sun had reached the altitude chosen by
Fantômas. It’s really very ingenious, after all!”

And as Fandor remained silent, struck dumb with admiration for the
coolness displayed by the American, who had thus escaped by a hair’s
breadth the terrible machinations of a murderer, and at the same time
saved his companion from a hideous death, Tom Bob resumed:

“The present business being now cleared up, and Fantômas responsible
for yet another attempted murder, let us pass on to serious matters.
_This_ is not really important, as it only concerns two of his
individual enemies, you and me ... You were telling me just now, that
M. Moche was guilty of the bank messenger’s murder?... h’m, that’s not
so sure. Come, Monsieur Fandor, just give me a little information about
the man’s associates.”

At the detective’s invitation Fandor had at last installed himself
comfortably in a big armchair.

“Moche’s associates,” he said, “are a deplorably bad lot; to begin
with, amongst other notorious ruffians, I can give you the names,
or rather the nicknames, of several, ‘Beardy,’ ‘the Beadle,’ ‘the
Cellarman,’—women too, ‘Big Ernestine,’ little Nini, who, I told
you before, has for her fancy man, the bully Paulet—calls himself a
stone-mason, even works at his trade in his spare moments, for I know
Moche has lately given him several jobs to do; then there is ‘Beauty
Boy,’ another choice blackguard, and ...”

But Tom Bob suddenly interrupted his informant.

“I am dog tired,” he declared, “and half dropping asleep. Listen here,
Monsieur Fandor, my own opinion is, an investigation is advisable
before deciding on anything. I give you my word I will investigate ...”




CHAPTER XII

A STROKE OF GENIUS


The American detective Tom Bob was no ordinary man. The very first
day after his arrival he had signalized his presence and drawn public
attention to himself in a manner at once original and redounding
greatly to his credit. Within a few hours of landing on French soil
he had shown his mettle by the arrest of a dangerous malefactor, a
professional criminal, “Beauty Boy,” the apache. The same day he had
adroitly escaped an abominable attempt on his life, and, to crown all,
in the course of a series of interviews accorded to the reporters
of the different newspapers, he had, in direct contradiction to the
generally received opinion, stoutly maintained that the ex-journalist
Fandor, the bosom friend of the man Juve, now incarcerated in the
prison of _La Santé_, was a very honest man, the last person to have
committed the crimes imputed to him.

       *       *       *       *       *

For several days, in fact up to the time Tom Bob had come to divert the
public curiosity, the Inspectors of the Criminal Investigation Bureau
had carried out the most minute investigations at the house where the
bank messenger’s murder was supposed, if not to have been committed,
at any rate to have been planned and prepared. For whole days together
police-officers in plain clothes pursued careful inquiries, questioning
the inmates, even going so far as to collect evidence as to the past
life and antecedents of each of the tenants.

True, no actual trace had been found of the unfortunate employé of the
Comptoir National, but the uniform button discovered in the garret
where M. Moche had with such misplaced generosity, as he said himself,
given a charitable asylum to Fandor made it reasonable to conclude,
without any undue pressing of the evidence, that the collector had
disappeared not of his own free will and initiative, but simply
because he had been first robbed and then murdered. Was the same
assassin also responsible for the death of the police-officers? Was
Fandor the author of both crimes? Many members of the Department were
inclined to think he was, though others hesitated to commit themselves
to any definite opinion.

At any rate, there was one certainty, one sure fact, that delighted
the inmates of No. 125 Rue Saint-Fargeau, to wit, that the police,
diverted from the old line of scent and henceforth mainly preoccupied
to discover the assassin of Désiré Ferrand, were more or less relaxing
in their embarrassing attentions, and no longer exercised the same
constant and careful surveillance over the scene of the first tragedy.

At an early hour one morning, three or four days after Tom Bob’s
arrival in Paris, old Moche, looking just as dubious and dirty as
usual, reached his office in the Rue Saint-Fargeau, where he had not
been for several days—not that this was a matter to cause the concierge
any surprise, M. Moche being habitually a decidedly intermittent
occupier of his rooms. The old man seemed in jovial spirits. With
little, quick steps he mounted the stairs, whistling a tune; then
inserting a key in the lock, he entered his flat. But the old brigand,
a cautious man ever since his adventure with Paulet and Nini, took
good care to double lock the door again behind him. Changing his long
frock-coat for a short jacket, and planting on top of the wig that
covered his bald pate a velvet skull-cap in place of his silk-hat,
the old fellow set to work to sort out the numerous letters that had
arrived by post. To tell the truth, he did not take the trouble to
open them, for he knew by merely glancing at the address what each
contained, to wit, nothing whatever—a sheet of blank paper or a cutting
from an old newspaper. The fact is, Moche was in a better position
than anyone to know beforehand the contents of each of his letters,
inasmuch as, being desirous of putting the concierge off the scent
and impressing him by the voluminous correspondence intended for him,
the old man had the habit of every day addressing a dozen letters and
prospectuses to himself! It was a dodge to make people believe he
really followed the profession of a business agent and could boast a
numerous _clientèle_.

This time, however, in sorting his letters, Moche put one aside; this
particular one he did _not_ recognize, and discontinuing his scrutiny,
he tore open the envelope in feverish haste. It was written on good
paper—evidently from a correspondent of importance. M. Moche read:

“_Sir—I have to inform you that I have just arrived in Paris and
propose to call on Wednesday morning at your office. You obliged me
some time ago by a loan of money; I now intend to discharge the debt. I
am therefore coming to repay you ..._”

“Ha, ha!” laughed Père Moche, “a pleasant surprise to come! for once a
debtor writes to say he is going to pay up without any need to twist
his tail. Well, the exception proves the rule; all the same I rather
doubt what it all means.”

Then he jumped to the fourth page and examined the signature.

“By the Lord,” he exclaimed, “it’s my young friend Ascott ... Ascott,
that feeble-minded Englishman I have heard nothing of for a very long
time—though I never felt any anxiety about the man. Egad! I knew very
well he’d been in Paris the last eight and forty hours! is there
anything that happens Père Moche _doesn’t_ know? Let’s see what else
the young gentleman has to say?... He wants to settle up with me, a
very laudable intention, coming from a very honest man. Now how much
does the chap owe me?”

Leaving the letter on his desk, the old man trotted over to his safe,
opened it, and hauling out a ledger began turning over the leaves
eagerly.

“_Ascott_, here we are! yes, eighteen months ago I lent him 15,000
francs; unless my calculations are all wrong, at the rate of interest
agreed upon, he ought to pay me back to-day 22,000. Ah ha! not a bad
bit of business! If only a man could have windfalls like that every
day, he would be a millionaire in double quick time!”

So saying, M. Moche locked up the book again in the strong-box, and
came back to his desk, rubbing his hands.

“I’ve only read the first few lines of his letter,” he said to himself,
“and there’s four pages of the stuff. Can it by any chance be that
Ascott at the end of his epistle has modified the good intentions
expressed at the beginning?”

Moche took up the letter again and skimmed through it eagerly. “No,”
he said, his face brightening, “no, he really means to pay me back.”

But a look of chagrin suddenly darkened his ugly face.

“Why, this is vexing,” he muttered; “now he doesn’t need me any more,
he scorns me, he wishes us to break off all relations, he intends never
to see me again. Oh, ho! none of that, my fine fellow! Just when the
goose is fatted, I’m to part with it, eh? No fear, I’m not such a fool!
It’s up to you, my good Monsieur Moche, to arrange things so as to
creep up Mister Ascott’s sleeve from now on—and now more than ever.”

The old advocate was at this point in his lucubrations, more and
more convinced that at all hazards he must remain the rich young
Englishman’s friend, when he was startled by a loud knock at the door.

“That’s Ascott,” thought Moche, “let’s be quick and let him in.” The
old fellow darted to the entrance of his modest dwelling; rapidly
turned the key in the lock and threw the door wide open.

To his profound surprise he found the newcomer was not the elegantly
dressed gentleman he expected to see, but a little woman in a flowered
_peignoir_, her hair down her back and her feet crammed into an old
pair of sandals. It was Nini Guinon, who had come down from the floor
above to pay a neighbourly visit to Père Moche.

“Halloa!” cried the child, who, without waiting for an invitation,
had slipped into M. Moche’s office behind the barred partition,
“why, you’re a regular bird of passage! never at home, always out!
Every time I pass your door, I knock, I ring a peal, I stand there
waiting—nothing! nobody! the bird’s flown, the old fox is not in his
earth.”

Nini was both angry and excited, as she stood before the old man,
passing a feverish hand over her pale brow and ruffling her black
locks, while the other looked at her without moving a muscle or saying
a word.

“I’m in a hole,” went on the young baggage, “and I’ve got to get out
of it, Père Moche; I’m fed up with the whole business, I am! Anyway,
here’s straight talking—if you don’t go the way I want, I’ll just be
off and blow the gaff to the police mugs.”

“You’ll never do that, Nini,” the old man expostulated in cajoling
tones, “you’re much too nice a girl.”

But Nini declined to be softened by compliments: “I shall do what I
say,” she asseverated.

“But come, out with it! what’s it all about?” Moche demanded.

“What’s it all about, eh?” returned the girl, “why, it’s as clear as
mud. I’m in a tight place, and other folks are going to be there too if
things go on as they are. To begin with, I’ve had enough of living with
Paulet; he frightens me, the man frightens me! Ever since I saw him do
in the bank chap, I’m terrified all the time he’ll do my business for
me, too. He’s no spunk at all; it’s not blood he has in his veins, it’s
water; I sleep with him and I know what I’m talking about; every night
he lies and sweats; it’s fear, that’s what it is! He dreams of the
police, he dreams about the dead man, he yells out in his sleep. The
man’s all broke to pieces, he’ll come to a bad end; if ever the ’tecs
come questioning him a bit close, he’ll never have gumption enough to
put ’em off with blarney, and then, by God! we’ll all be in the soup!”

“Alas! my dear child,” murmured the old fellow hypocritically, “what
do you want me to do; all that business has nothing to do with me. You
have killed a man, the stolen money has disappeared, you understand,
disappeared, nobody can say where it is. Now suppose they accused me,
the thing wouldn’t hold water for a moment; for why? because I’m well
known as an honest, respectable business man. So get out of your own
difficulties!”

As a matter of fact Nini had from the first understood perfectly well
what attitude old Moche would adopt under the circumstances. Not a
doubt of it, if things turned out badly, the old business agent was
clever enough to pull his iron safely out of the fire, and certainly
cynical enough to leave his confederates in the lurch. But Nini had
no notion of things going like that; she strode up to M. Moche, and
shaking her little fist in the old man’s wrinkled face:

“As sure as my name’s Nini,” she swore, “if ever we get run in for this
job, I give you my oath, Père Moche, you’ll leave every feather of your
dirty plumage behind; but if we come to an agreement ...”

“If we come to an agreement ...” the advocate repeated the phrase with
newly-aroused interest.

“Well, then,” Nini went on, assuming the soft, coaxing, wheedling
voice every woman can use on occasion, “if we come to some agreement
in case of trouble arising, we shall be two, you and I, to say we have
nothing whatever to do with the affair of the bank messenger, and that
it was Paulet who did the trick all by himself, and got all there was
to be got out of it ... There!”

The offer of partnership thus formulated by the young slut was just the
sort of thing to appeal to the old usurer. Nodding his head approvingly:

“Your notion’s really not such a bad one, my little girl,” he said;
“only, what’s to become of you?”

Nini, encouraged by the way the interview was shaping, had dropped
nonchalantly into the one and only armchair the room contained.
Now, with eyes fixed on the ceiling, the girl sat in a day-dream, a
prophetic dream.

“I have a sort of a notion,” she murmured, “that with all these new
complications, Paulet is going to get cotched. First, there’s that
journalist Fandor drawing attention to the house; then they find the
button off the poor devil’s uniform in your garret; Fandor disappears;
on the other hand Tom Bob arrives. What does the fellow count for? I
don’t know, but I have my doubts; he must be pretty smart, he nabbed
‘Beauty Boy’ in less time than it takes to tell the story! So then, it
all comes to this—little Nini’s had enough, thank you, she’s got to
bolt, and that at sixty miles an hour, and Papa Moche, who’s no fool
neither, has got to find her a place, for choice with the nobs, to save
her from any future worries. Does that suit your book, Père Moche? Is
that settled, eh?... You’ll clearly understand this, I didn’t leave the
bosom of my family to go and rot on Devil’s Island or be eaten up by
the mosquitoes at New Caledonia.”

Père Moche was prodigiously diverted by this announcement of her
principles of action on the part of Paulet’s girl mistress. Undoubtedly
there was something to be made of this little minx with the wide-awake
look and bright eyes, so vicious and so astute. He was about to reply,
when suddenly a peal on the door bell was heard.

“Who’s that coming?” Nini asked anxiously, as she instinctively laid a
hand on her bosom to restrain the excited beating of her heart.

But Moche reassured her: “It’s nine o’clock,” he said. “No doubt it’s
a client who has an appointment. Hide yourself; I’m going to take
him into the salon; then you’ll cut your stick while I’m receiving
him.” Moche was right; on opening the door he found himself face to
face with the young Englishman, Mr. Ascott, whose abusive letter he
had been reading half an hour before. Moche with the supple servility
that belonged to his mean, cautious nature, was lavish in bowings and
scrapings, bending to the ground before the wealthy foreigner, while
the latter, with an icy dignity, barely acknowledged his creditor’s
courtesies with a curt nod:

“If milord will condescend to step into my reception room?...”
suggested M. Moche ...

Ascott obeyed mechanically, but disclaimed the rank his host had given
him.

“I am not Lord Ascott, Monsieur Moche; I am plain Mr. Ascott; the title
of lord belongs to my honoured father.”

“Ho, ho!” suggested the old man with a tactless grin, “a father—a
father may die one fine day, and if I’m not mistaken, the sons inherit
both the money and all the privileges and prerogatives.”

The young man shrugged his shoulders:

“I forbid you to speak of my honoured father, sir; and besides that,
you must know that in no case shall I bear the title; I am a younger
son of the family, my older brother will be My Lord.”

But Moche was incorrigible and went on to insinuate:

“The elder brother no doubt ... but suppose he should happen to die,
too.”

Ascott stamped his foot angrily and cast a furious look at the old
money-lender.

“That is enough, sir,” he declared in an indignant voice quivering with
restrained anger, “that is enough! let us settle up our accounts; that
done, we will break off all relations.”

But Moche was for slipping away: “Forgive me, dear sir, noble
gentleman, honourable signor, if I trouble you to wait a few moments,
but there is a lady in my office, a very important client; I must
conclude my business with her. By your leave ...” Moche, with another
low bow, awaited the reply. “Get done, and be quick about it!” was the
rough answer.

The old brigand went back immediately to the office, where Nini was
still waiting; she had never budged. Moche approached her with an air
of triumph, calling softly:

“Come here, little girl!” and on her obeying, drew her to the window,
setting her with her face to the full light. With his coarse, hairy
hands the old usurer lifted the child’s touzled locks, parted them on
her forehead and imprisoned the tangled curls in his palm. Nini let him
do as he liked, puzzled and uncomprehending.

“D’you know,” declared the old man, “d’you know, with your hair down
like a little girlie, you look ever so young.”

“But,” protested Nini, “I’m not old; I’m barely sixteen and a half.”

“I daresay,” resumed the other, “and when you don’t put on your naughty
look and haven’t been drinking, you might verily be taken for a little
saint. Now let’s see your hands.”

Again Nini did as she was bid, and Moche spreading out the fingers on
his fore-arm, examined the nails. “Quite good, again,” he announced,
“carefully enough kept for a poor man’s child, and not too well kept
neither, to make them think it’s a ‘gay woman’s’ hand.”

Next moment, taking the girl by the shoulders, he gazed fixedly into
her face with the air of one inspired.

“Nini,” he cried, “I have a brilliant idea, and if only you’re not too
clumsy, we’re going, you and I, to do something mighty smart. Nini,
next door there I’ve got a ripe pear, it’s up to you to pluck it; only,
listen to me, I give you ten minutes to rig yourself out—not, mind you,
like a street wench, but like an innocent little maid; leave your hair
down, don’t wear a hat, put on your plainest frock, drop your eyes,
look sweet and modest, and think of what you were a year ago, a good
little virtuous girl, living with her mother and just done learning up
her catechism. Presently, that is to say directly you’re ready, come
and pay me a visit.... I’m good for the rest!”

Nini did not need telling twice: “I’m fly,” she declared, slapping the
old fellow shrewdly on the back. Then, lightly and airily, she darted
off.

“She’s a jewel!” thought Père Moche, as he noted the tricksy grace of
the young harlot, “with a bit of training, and if she’ll but listen to
me, I’ll make something of the girl!”

But this was no time for day-dreams.

Reassuming an air of gravity and importance, Moche went in search of
his client, whom he invited to return with him to the office.

Such was the geniality displayed by the old usurer that the phlegmatic
Englishman, who had come to see him with the clear and definite
intention of exchanging simply and solely the words absolutely
necessary to effect the repayment he wished to make, allowed himself
little by little to be drawn into conversation.

“Moche,” declared Ascott, “here are your twenty-five notes of a
thousand francs; you will give me a receipt.”

“Why certainly, most noble sir, with the greatest pleasure.”

But the old scamp feigned forgetfulness: “You owed me twenty-five
thousand francs you say; _was_ that the sum?” he asked innocently.

“Twenty-five thousand, yes,” Ascott repeated.

In reality it was three thousand less, but the old thief took good
care not to recall the fact! Wishing to complete the formalities
with a certain solemnity, he went over to his strong-box—there was
actually next to nothing in it—and drew out the one and only article it
contained, the big ledger to wit. After turning over a number of blank
leaves, he opened at the page showing Ascott’s name. For a long time
the business man hung over the columns of figures as if making a series
of complicated calculations. At last he looked up:

“My excellent client,” he said gravely, “you will excuse my
contradicting you, but it is not twenty-five thousand francs you owe
me, it is merely twenty-four thousand, five hundred; I am nothing if
not honest; I wouldn’t wrong you by one single centime.”

The effect of this declaration was to make the young Englishman laugh:
“Egad! Monsieur Moche,” he declared, “they’ve changed you surely, the
thing’s impossible!”

But the usurer put on his grandest air: “My dear sir, strict probity in
business is my maxim! I assure you it pays, the future is to the men of
honour, and it’s just because I am conscientious that I benefit by the
fidelity of my clients. You yourself, Monsieur Ascott, will certainly
require my services again some day, and you may rely on always finding
me devoted to your interests.”

“That,” Ascott broke in drily, “I cannot promise; I don’t care, I tell
you frankly, to have relations with men of your stamp. In the last
eighteen months I’ve been travelling up and down the world, I have
changed very much, I have money now; I am going to make a home in
Paris, where I propose to live as a good citizen, spending no more than
my income.”

“I’ve been told,” M. Moche interrupted, “that you have just bought a
delightful little house in the Rue Fortuny.”

“How came you to know that?” demanded Ascott, not denying the fact.

“Pooh!” said Moche, “in the great world of business and finance to
which I belong, we know pretty well everything that happens.”

“Really?” said Ascott incredulously, amazed to think that so
insignificant a person as Moche, a moneylender of a low type, could be
in any way connected with the big and highly respected bankers of the
Place de Paris through whom he had negotiated the purchase of the house
in the Rue Fortuny. But Moche was well posted without a doubt. By a
fresh question he more than ever surprised the rich Englishman; he now
suggested, speaking out without any reticence or beating about the bush:

“Doubtless it’s to build a pretty nest for a grand mistress you’ve
bought that exquisite house; I _have_ heard say that a certain Monsieur
Ascott, here present, is head over ears in love with a certain Russian
princess named Sonia Danidoff, with whom he crossed the Atlantic on
board the _Lorraine_.”

Ascott sprang up in extreme agitation.

“Moche,” he cried, “you think you are a wonderful man who knows
everything, but you are behind the fair, my friend, this time; yes, I
admit, I _was_ deeply in love with the Princess Danidoff, and I confess
I was in hopes that in France, after the persevering court I paid her,
she would at last consent to grant me her favours—but events have
decided otherwise.”

“Poor Monsieur Ascott!” murmured M. Moche. Then he added, casting a
side glance at his companion to judge of the effect of his words:

“To think that fool princess prefers a common detective to you!”

Ascott literally flew at the old villain’s throat, and shaking him by
the shoulder,

“So then,” he vociferated, “so then, you know everything?”

Moche smiled quietly:

“No, not everything,” he protested, “but some little matters!... I take
it the Princess Danidoff has no more brains than a sparrow, she must be
out of her wits to like this low-class police spy better than you ...”

But Moche suddenly stopped dead: “I beg your pardon, but there’s
someone knocking,” he exclaimed, and went to open the door, pretending
to be greatly surprised.

Throwing out his arms and speaking loud enough for Ascott to hear him,
he greeted the visitor warmly:

“Oh, ho! little Nini, it’s you, is it? what a stroke of luck! How is my
dear sister, your good mother? d’you bring me good news?”

Like a finished actress, Nini stood up on tiptoe, threw her arms
round the old scamp’s neck and kissed him on the brow tenderly, but
respectfully. Paulet’s mistress had perfectly well understood Père
Moche’s instructions. With her modest, decent get-up, she had all the
appearance, all the charm of youth, freshness and purity, of an honest
little Paris workgirl, one of those pretty flowers that bloom in many a
happy home of good, respectable, industrious working people. The girl
was entirely charming with her virginal air of innocence and chastity.

Père Moche was all smiles as he looked at her; such was the old scamp’s
artfulness in disguising his true feelings that as he stood beside the
young girl he offered the very picture of a kind, good uncle, proud and
happy in the beauty of his little niece! The man seemed to forget his
sordid trade amid these tokens of family affection. Like a father proud
of his child, he turned to Ascott, who had been the interested witness
of this intimate and touching little scene.

“Allow me, my dear sir,” he said, “to introduce my young niece Eugénie
Guinon, a good little workgirl, who makes at this present time her
three francs a day. She’s barely sixteen, but a tall girl, don’t you
think for her age?”

Ascott bowed to the young girl, muttering to himself: “She’s charming,
charming!” But Moche, seeming not to hear the remark, went on,
addressing himself to Nini:

“Come, don’t be frightened, show you know your manners, say good-day to
the gentleman, offer him your hand!”

Nini dropped her eyes, shyly extended her arm, let Ascott imprison
her little hand in his nervous fingers, which held it a moment or
two—perhaps longer than was quite necessary.

But old Moche was anxious, as a good uncle should be, not to make his
niece waste her time.

“My dear child,” he declared, smacking a big kiss on her blushing
cheek, “I’m so pleased to have seen you, but you must run away now, for
I suppose you’ve work to do, eh?”

“Yes,” replied Nini in a little soft, childish voice, “I must be let
off to deliver a bodice for the lady on the third floor, and then
I’m to match some things at the shops near the Bourse. But I came to
ask you, dear uncle, to come to dinner with us this evening; mamma
will be so pleased.” Moche never moved a muscle as he listened to the
little speech Nini Guinon reeled off, looking her straight in the
eyes and preserving an imperturbable gravity. The old brigand was
lost in wonder; ah! how well the child played her part, so cutely, so
cleverly—with her way of never looking at Ascott, but all the same
contriving to attract the Englishman’s admiration. Most certainly he
would make something of little Nini, never fear!

The bogus uncle and the pseudo-niece took leave of each other prettily.
Nini dropped a curtsy as she withdrew, while Ascott, with shining eyes,
bowed to the ground before her.

Hardly had the charming vision disappeared ere Ascott, hitherto so
frigid and impassive in demeanor, showed a complete change of attitude,
marching up and down M. Moche’s office in the throes of a feverish
excitement. But the old scamp pretended not to notice anything, busily
occupied it seemed in sorting his papers. Suddenly he started round;
the Englishman was addressing him. “Monsieur Moche, Monsieur Moche!” he
called. Then in hesitating accents Ascott went on:

“Monsieur Moche, you have a niece, sir ... and a devilish pretty girl
she is!”

“Well, yes,” the old brigand observed, feigning not to understand the
young man’s drift, “it’s true she has fine eyes, but she’s quite a
child yet ... the ‘awkward age,’ you know ... later on, I don’t say,
when she’s developed a bit; then her good mother and I will find the
girl a good husband.”

“Moche,” broke in Ascott, “I want to know your niece.”

“But,” returned the villain, still with the same affectation of
_naïveté_, “you do know her, didn’t I introduce you?”

“You are a trifle obtuse, Monsieur Moche, or else a bit _too_ clever;
it’s not in that sense I wish to know her, not I. Your niece is to my
taste; at the present moment I have no mistress ...”

The old “advocate” sprang back, feigning the most extravagant
indignation:

“Oh, sir, sir,” he cried, “my dear sir, no, upon my word, I could never
have believed that of you; do you dare to come to _me_ to make such a
proposal? Certainly I’m not a rich man, and little Nini’s sole and only
capital is her virtue and her beauty—it is something, it is a great
deal even—but by the Lord God, I give you my oath, I will never, never
agree to such a bargain. What do you take me for?”

But Ascott still persisted:

“I take you, Monsieur Moche, for a man of common-sense ... come now, I
or another, what harm can it do you?... while, seeing it is I——”

“But, my dear sir, my dear client,” stammered Moche, who was acting to
perfection despair, embarrassment and perplexity, “but, sir, not you
any more than another; my little niece is still a child, and then, she
is an honest girl and a good and a virtuous; I wouldn’t for anything in
all the world ... Besides, just think of it—I, her uncle!”

Ascott interrupted the indignant speaker:

“Come, now, how much?”

M. Moche seemed overwhelmed by the insult; he sank into his armchair
and took his head between his hands, vociferating in heartbroken tones
and a voice choked with sobs:

“Why, what sin have I committed that God lets me be treated in
this fashion! I am only a poor advocate, and my niece just a humble
workgirl, but we are both of us—I should say, all three of us, for I
mustn’t forget her sainted mother—we are all honest folk, worthy of the
highest respect ... and we’re expected to ... God in heaven ... we’re
expected to ...”

Moche left his sentence unfinished, broke off his peroration in mid
career, for it had become entirely unnecessary. Peeping through his
parted fingers, the old rascal had not missed a single one of Ascott’s
movements. Now the latter, leaving the old man to finish out his litany
of lamentations by himself, had suddenly quitted the room, banging the
door behind him. This was just what Moche was hoping for; he calculated
that the Englishman, seeing nothing could be made of the uncle, was
going to try and catch up the niece before she had left the house.
Treading softly, he crept to the door giving on the landing outside,
the same Ascott had shut a moment or two before, and set it ajar. There
he stood listening, his face beaming, and rubbing his hands.

Ascott, who had caught sight of Nini Guinon on the floor below as he
was going downstairs, was leaning over the bannister and calling in a
voice shaking with excitement:

“Mademoiselle! pst! Mademoiselle, I say! Mademoiselle Eugénie! Listen!”

Then it was Nini’s clear, flute-like voice, pitched in a tone of
perfect innocence, that answered:

“Who’s calling me? Is it you, dear uncle?”

Ascott, lowering his voice, and now flying three steps at a time down
the stairs to join the girl below, went on:

“Why, no, mademoiselle, so to speak, it’s not just exactly your uncle,
but it’s I, his friend, the gentleman who was in his office just now.
Listen, I’ve something to tell you; will you let me walk with you?”

Then the two voices mingled in an indistinct murmur, and the pair could
be heard leaving the house.

Moche went back into his rooms with every sign of profound
satisfaction, skipping about clumsily like a dancing bear in a merry
mood.

“Taken! the bait’s taken fine!” he chuckled, “not a doubt of it, here’s
another stroke of genius to good old Père Moche’s credit!”




CHAPTER XIII

THE WALL THAT BLED


Elisabeth Dollon was busily engaged installing her belongings in
the new flat in the Rue de l’Evangile, into which she had moved the
previous evening. The girl possessed a modest stock of furniture of the
simplest possible sort, but on the upkeep of which she lavished the
most fastidious care. For her every piece of furniture, every article
in the rooms, was replete with fond associations. Since the sinister
events that had saddened her life, since the tragedies of which she had
been the heroine, here were the only things she loved, the only objects
that appealed at once to her memory and her affection. To-day she was
settling in, bent on arranging an interior that should be to her taste.

It was a Sunday. The weather promised to be magnificent, and though her
windows looked out on the not very attractive spectacle of the city
gasometers, they yet possessed the enormous advantage of facing no
buildings from which inquisitive or offensive neighbours could overlook
her. The day was bright and cheerful, the air pure and balmy, and from
time to time Elisabeth, choking with the dust raised by her domestic
operations, would go and lean out of the casement to breathe its
freshness. She was thoroughly enjoying her day of rest; all the week
she was engaged over the books of a big business house in the gloomy
district of Aubervilliers.

Her new home in the Rue de l’Evangile suited her well, not only because
the rooms were pleasant, but also from the fact of its nearness to
the scene of her labours. At the same time, she had heard within the
last few days of a chance of finding another post that would suit her
still better—a position as cashier in a large restaurant in the Bois de
Boulogne. The girl hoped with all her heart that this possibility might
become a reality.

But presently the girl’s thoughts turned to graver matters, and her
smooth brow was furrowed with lines of care and anxiety; her eyes,
usually so bright and clear, darkened in melancholy reverie. It was the
look, at once angry and regretful, that appeared on the girl’s face
every time she remembered Jérôme Fandor; whenever she thought of the
journalist, a sense of disquiet and perplexity filled her mind. Was she
still in love with him? could it be that she still felt a mysterious
passion for the man who was the author—at least so the unhappy girl
was convinced—of all her misfortunes, the source of the fatal events
that had cast a gloom over all her youth? Was it really possible that
so amiable a young man was the accomplice of Fantômas, if not Fantômas
himself? For long she had refused to believe it, but henceforth it
was impossible to doubt the fact; the latest developments, the events
that had just befallen, the violence offered her on the Boulevard de
Belleville, confirmed the suspicion beyond all question.

Dreading further persecutions by the monster that seemed relentlessly
bent on her undoing, Elisabeth Dollon had experienced a deep sense of
satisfaction after her change of abode, persuaded that an era of peace
and tranquility was now before her. Nevertheless, in excess of caution,
she had charged Mme. Doulenques, the concierge of the house in the
Rue des Couronnes, not to give her new address to anyone whatsoever.
Moreover, having been only eight and forty hours installed in her new
apartments, she was not expecting anyone to call.

It was therefore not without considerable perturbation that suddenly,
about two o’clock that afternoon, the girl heard a violent ring at the
bell. Who was it? Who could be coming to pay her a visit? However, she
was somewhat reassured on recognizing the concierge’s voice calling to
her through the door.

“Mam’zelle, I say, mam’zelle! are you asleep then, or are you gone
deaf? Here’s a good five minutes we’ve been tugging at your bell!”

On opening the door, Elisabeth Dollon found herself confronted not only
by the portress, but by a man as well, a man of forty or thereabouts,
with a pleasant, jovial-looking face. He was dressed in a long-skirted
white blouse, and carried under one arm a half-dozen rolls of paper,
while the other hand held a deep paste-pot with a big brush with a
wooden handle sticking up in it. The workman greeted the young girl
with an almost imperceptible nod of the head, as she unclosed the door.

“By’r leave, mam’zelle,” he said, “but I’m the painter and paper-hanger
and I’m come from the landlord to paper your place. Seemingly you want
it done?”

“Certainly I do,” the girl answered him, “there’s the whole of one room
wants fresh papering. But,” she added, “I’m not entitled, am I, to
choose the paper?”

The man smiled and nodded.

“Oh, yes, you are, mam’zelle; and, more by token, I’ve brought
patterns!”—adding, with a big laugh, “D’you suppose I’m going to paper
your walls straight away like that, in less time than it takes to say
‘knife’; you’ve got to choose, then we’ll try how the thing looks, and
then, when you’ve quite made up your mind, we’ll see about fixing up
the stuff.”

The concierge, seeing her presence was no longer required and the
introductions being duly made, took her departure, with a word of
excuse.

“I’ll leave you now,” the good woman said, “and get back to my lodge;
the fact is, I’ve got ‘company’ this afternoon.”

Elisabeth Dollon led the way into her flat and took the paper-hanger
straight to the room that was to be decorated. It was the furthest from
the entrance-door, the one in which M. Moche, the landlord, had had the
partition re-established that had been removed by the previous tenant
to make the two sets into one. The workman displayed no great anxiety
to set to work, and began to ferret about everywhere and examine the
young woman’s furniture in a rather inquisitorial fashion.

“A sweet, pretty place, this of yours!” he observed, “quite a little
nest for turtle-doves!”

Elisabeth Dollon forced a smile: “Oh!” she protested, “you are
mistaken, sir; love is not a happiness I can ever hope for.”

The workman looked at her with a flattering smile. “It won’t be your
fault, then,” he declared; “a pretty girl like you can’t fail ...”

But Elisabeth Dollon was not in a mood to listen to the silly speeches
the forward fellow might choose to make her. Not wishing, however, to
seem too prim and prudish, she adroitly turned the conversation:

“How comes it,” she asked, “you’re working on a Sunday?”

“Lord! mam’zelle,” replied the workman, “because I go on the spree
Mondays; but that’s neither here nor there, we’ve gassed enough, eh?
and it’s high time to get to work.”

The man laid the rolls of paper he had brought with him on the floor,
and opened them out one by one, asking the young lady to make her
choice. “D’you prefer the sky-blue ’uns, or the pink, or the light
green; there’s some of all sorts—gay and bright and fresh—like your
colour, mam’zelle!”

But “mam’zelle” took no notice of the compliment, and fixed her choice
on a light blue paper; then, as the paper-hanger seemed more inclined
to gossip than do his work, she announced:

“I’m going into the next room to put various things in order; you’ll
call me if you want me presently.”

Then something occurred to her of a sudden. “Sir,” she asked the man,
“I have a large picture there, too heavy for me to manage; if it’s not
troubling you, will you be so kind as to fix it up on the wall?”—to
which the workman agreed readily enough: “With all the pleasure in
life,” he assured her, “you know all I ask is to make myself agreeable.”

Elisabeth thanked him drily, almost regretting she had ever asked the
favour. The man’s advances rather frightened her; without quite knowing
why, the young girl felt suspicious and began to wish the fellow gone
as soon as might be. Meantime the workman began to make hay in the
room where he was, a sure sign he was going to do something at last.
Mademoiselle Dollon withdrew into the adjoining room, shutting the door
of communication behind her.

But barely a moment or two had passed since the girl had left the
workman to his own devices when she heard a heavy crash followed by a
terrific oath from the man’s lips! She dashed to the door and was on
the point of re-entering the room where the paper-hanger was at work,
when the latter sprang forward and prevented her.

“What now, sir!” she cried, “open the door, I say!”

But from the other side the workman still barred her entrance: “Don’t
come in, mademoiselle, don’t come in!”

“But, after all, what’s happening?” she demanded.

“Nothing to do with you, don’t come in!”

“But I insist; the thing’s ridiculous, I’m in my own house, let me in!”

Then she heard the strange occupant of the room whence the mysterious
noise had come turn the key in the lock, making any further attempt to
force an entrance impossible. Elisabeth was more and more terrified.

“Sir,” she ordered, “I must, I _will_ have this door opened, I wish to
know what is the matter, what that noise was.”

But the more excited grew the poor girl, the calmer became the
workman’s voice. He announced composedly: “I will not open the door, I
told you so before, do what you will!”

In vain the frightened girl shook the locked door, it would not yield;
clearly, a mere waste of strength! What _could_ be happening within?
what was the secret, the tragedy perhaps, this man of mystery was
resolved at all hazards to conceal?

Driven beyond all patience, Elisabeth Dollon hurried on to the landing
outside and leaning over the balustrade of the stairs, at the top of
her voice, that rose shrill in panic and fear, called for: “Help! help!
help!!”

Neighbours came running up, surprised and alarmed, and presently, the
girl’s frantic cries still continuing, the concierge, attracted by the
uproar, appeared on the scene.

“Whatever is the matter, my dear?” she demanded—and in broken accents
Mademoiselle Dollon told the good woman her story. The portress was
astounded at the workman’s extraordinary behaviour; she boldly advanced
in her turn, to beat with her heavy fist on the closely guarded door.

“Open,” she vociferated, “open the door! or there’ll be mischief doing.”

But the calm, slightly sarcastic voice of the individual who had locked
himself within, replied as before: “I will not open.”

Meantime an impromptu council of war was being held among the
neighbours gathered on the landing:

“Go for the police, that’s the only thing to be done; it’s a criminal
or a madman has locked himself up in there! We can’t have that poor
young girl left alone at his mercy.”

The concierge, firing her last round of ammunition, threatened the man:

“If you don’t open the door, they’ll go and fetch the police!”

And the mysterious intruder, in the calmest way, without so much as
raising his voice, replied:

“Yes, go and fetch the police!”

       *       *       *       *       *

Some minutes passed, during which this last proposal was being put into
effect.

Presently the heavy footsteps of a sergeant of police and a constable
made themselves heard on the stairs, and the two representatives of law
and order effected a cautious entry into Mademoiselle Dollon’s rooms:

“It is the police,” they announced themselves; “will you open the door;
yes or no?”

They waited a few seconds, then the key turned in the lock and the door
opened softly a little way. The paper-hanger’s face appeared in the
aperture and the man, addressing the sergeant:

“I will trouble you to step inside, sir,” he said, “queer things are
happening here, your presence is required,” then added, pointing to
the constable: “the other gentleman as well, perhaps; but no, he might
prefer the duty of getting the ladies out of the way; it is no sight
for women.”

The calm, authoritative manner of the workman impressed the two
officers, and the sergeant mechanically ordered his subordinate:

“Make them move on, please!”

Then the sergeant followed the man into the empty room with its four
blank walls; the latter led the officer straight to the party-wall that
had lately been reconstructed by the landlord’s orders.

“What do you see there?” he demanded, pointing a finger at the white
surface. The sergeant looked long and curiously at the spot indicated.

“I see a stain,” he announced at last, “a brown, or is it a red stain.
What does that mean?... Are you poking fun at me? might you be wishing
to pull my leg, I wonder. Now, to start with, I call upon you to
explain yourself, why did you refuse to open that door to the young
lady when she asked you?”

The workman shrugged his shoulders: “That’s not the question in hand,”
he said quietly. “What do you think of that stain? I ought to tell you
it made its appearance immediately after I had made a hole by driving
in a nail.”

“I think nothing,” retorted the sergeant, “except that all this is
nonsensical and incomprehensible balderdash.... Yes, and that I am
going to take you to the station for having put the authorities to
unnecessary trouble!”

The workman went on smiling: “_Unnecessary!_” he remarked; “do you
think so?”

To disabuse the sergeant of such an idea, the other picked up a hammer
and started hammering the wall round the little brown patch; the
plaster broke away in little flakes that crumbled and fell in dust on
the floor, and presently, under the rain of blows, the wall itself
showed a crack. Suddenly a brick tumbled out, and the officer, who was
watching the operation with eyes of amazement, sprang back with a cry
of horror, while even the paper-hanger himself gave a little start of
surprise.

Behind the plaster, in the inside of the wall, which was of
considerable thickness, appeared an appalling sight! It was a human
head, wan and livid, a man’s head with features streaked and spotted by
the discolorations of death!

The sergeant gazed at the workman in indescribable agitation. “What is
it?” he asked, “what is it? I call upon you to tell me what it is?”

“It is a dead man, no doubt of that—a dead man they’ve walled up in
that wall, there can be no doubt of that either!”

“But in that case,” exclaimed the sergeant, “it must be a question of
crime, murder! It is a most grave and serious matter; the Commissary
must be advised!”

The mysterious workman bowed: “I am entirely of your opinion,” he said,
“the presence of the Commissary appears to me to be indispensable.”

The sergeant, quite beside himself, ran to the outer door, where his
subordinate was keeping good guard.

“Japuzot!” he ordered, “run quick to the station and bring the chief.
I have discovered a crime. I have just found it is a question of
murder!”

Meantime a confused clamour came from the crowd still thronging the
landing, at the top of the stairs. Elisabeth Dollon, who had remained
transfixed with terror in the outer room, was for coming to see what
was happening. Opportunely enough the sergeant stopped her.

“Stay where you are, mademoiselle,” he ordered, “it is not a sight for
a young lady; the concierge will bear you company.”

Then, as the gallant officer did not wish the place to be invaded by
the curious crowd, nor yet to lose sight of the dubious individual
within, he shut to the outer door of the flat. Leaving the people on
the landing to their divers conjectures, he returned to the gruesome
room, where the paper-hanger still remained. The latter was seated
quietly on the floor, for there were no chairs in the room, and had lit
a cigarette, and now, with the utmost composure, offered one to the
sergeant.

“There’s a bad smell,” he remarked, “it’s the corpse; will you smoke?”

The sergeant, dumbfounded by the man’s calmness in presence of such
tragic happenings, could not manage to light his cigarette; his lips
were as tremulous as his hands. At last, at the third or fourth
attempt, he succeeded; but he had not taken half a dozen puffs when his
sense of discipline made him suddenly toss his cigarette out of the
window. A peremptory ring had just sounded at the outer door, and the
sergeant at once inferred it was the “chief” demanding admittance.

He was right. The Commissary, a little, fat man, with an imposing
corporation, dashed forward out of breath, hustling everybody to right
and left, and hurried into the ill-omened room. His eyes fell first
on the grim head that looked out, an image of horror, from the wall
where it was imbedded. Then he turned to stare at the paper-hanger, who
without the smallest show of respect towards the magistrate, remained
sitting on the floor, still smoking with imperturbable aplomb.

The magistrate demanded: “What’s to do here? Who are you? who is the
man? how does he come there? what have you to say to it, yourself?”

“There!”

“What do you mean by ‘_there_’?”

“There,” the paper-hanger concluded his sentence: “there’s what you
want to know about, before your eyes.”

The Commissary was boiling with impatience.

“Why, of course I want to know. What’s been happening? How was this
extraordinary discovery made?”

The workman, getting to his feet at last: “I would point out to you,
Monsieur le Commissaire,” he protested, “that it is not my business,
but rather yours, to find out all this! None the less, I am very
willing to help you and give you my co-operation.”

Going up to the wall, the workman began, with little measured taps,
to break away the plaster round the dead man’s head. As he worked, he
explained:

“Driving a nail just now into the wall here, I saw drops of blood ooze
out—a wall that bleeds is not a common sight—and before pushing my
investigations further, I had the police sent for. Directly on your
sergeant’s arrival, I brought to light the unfortunate man’s head.
We have waited out of respect for your authority before carrying the
investigation further. But, now you are come, Monsieur le Commissaire,
I don’t think there’s anything need prevent our bringing to light the
rest of the poor fellow’s body.”

The magistrate gave a twist to his moustache and acquiesced. “Proceed
with your work,” he directed, and the workman took up his hammer again.
With a few rapid blows, he brought down the rest of the party-wall,
and the unhappy victim’s body was revealed in its entirety. It was a
gruesome spectacle! A human being had been walled up there. The body
had previously been coated with quicklime, and the extremities were
already burnt away. Still, the general aspect of the corpse was more or
less intact. At the nape of the neck the dead man had a huge bruise,
now quite black, and forming, at the top of the vertebræ, a great ball
full of extravasated blood.

The victim wore a uniform, easily recognized, the familiar long, blue
frock-coat with silver buttons of the collectors in the service of the
big credit houses. While the Commissary stood motionless, rooted to the
spot, the workman had gone closer, and had cast a rapid glance at the
inscription engraved on the buttons of the uniform. Next moment he
announced the result of his scrutiny:

“_Comptoir National!..._ there can be no doubt about it, Monsieur le
Commissaire; the man is the collector of the Comptoir National who was
murdered, hardly ten days ago, in the house in the Rue Saint-Fargeau!”

“But—but,” stammered the Commissary, “how does the body come to be
here?”

The paper-hanger urged suggestively:

“The house in the Rue Saint-Fargeau where the crime was committed and
the house in the Rue de l’Evangile where we discover the corpse, belong
to the same landlord, the business agent trading under the name of
M. Moche.”

The Commissary started violently: “M. Moche! I will have him
arrested ...”

“You would be making a mistake!” the paper-hanger interrupted the
magistrate.

“Why?”

“Because, if M. Moche was the murderer, he would never have been so
imprudent as to hide his victim’s body in a house belonging to himself.
Besides, there are other people to suspect ...”

“Why? Who?”

“Gad, sir!” declared the workman, “perhaps the individual from whom the
bank messenger took up his last payment—one Paulet by name. Perhaps,
again, the working mason who built that wall?”

“Who was the man?” questioned the Commissary.

“It is not for me to tell you, but for you to find him!”

The Commissary stood puzzling his brains, while the workman went on:

“Then, again, there’s an individual open to suspicion on several
counts, the man M. Moche lodged for forty-eight hours in his garret
in the Rue Saint-Fargeau, who seized the opportunity to kill two
police-officers who were coming to arrest him!”

“You accuse the journalist, Jérôme Fandor, of the bank employé’s
murder?”

The workman shrugged his shoulders: “I accuse nobody,” he protested,
“I form hypotheses, and that’s all; I ... my part, in fact, is not to
bring accusations, but simply ...”

The Commissary, exasperated by these repeated suppressions, this
reticence on the part of his interlocutor, suddenly came up to the
workman and clapping both hands on his shoulder:

“This is all mighty mysterious,” he complained, “now, for a start, you
are going to tell me what you are doing here?”

“You can see for yourself I am a painter and paper-hanger, I came to
put up papers.”

“Put up papers! on a Sunday?”

“Yes, Monsieur le Commissaire.”

“On a Sunday!—that won’t wash! And besides, you strike me as a mighty
hard-headed chap. This crime is out of all ordinary—you show no
surprise. This discovery is appalling—you never turn a hair! My lad,
you make out too well ...”

“Must a man be an imbecile because he’s a working man?”

The Commissaire checked himself, vexed at his own want of tact: “I
don’t mean to say that, but still I find you a puzzle. You make your
appearance here a short hour ago, you knock in a nail, the wall bleeds,
you knock away the plaster covering the masonry and the corpse comes to
light! You wait for the police to come to explain the crime. What have
you to say for yourself?”

“Nothing!” the workman shook his head.

The Commissary was getting more and more annoyed: “I really do not
know,” he blustered, “what stops me from arresting you.”

At this, the workman, suddenly assuming a sly look, looked his
companion up and down:

“What stops you from arresting me? why, nothing! But what will stop
your doing it, I’m going to tell you ...”

“Tell me then!”

“This ...” and the mysterious workman with a quick movement, stripped
off his blouse, and, beneath his working garment, he appeared elegantly
attired in a dark blue suit; he wore a silk neckerchief of a quiet,
gentlemanly cut and colour, a collar of immaculate whiteness. Removing
his cap, which till then had been pulled well down over his ears,
he displayed a broad, intellectual forehead; his hair was of a light
blonde, sprinkled with silvery threads at the temples.

Without giving a thought to the intense surprise he had created, the
_soi-disant_ workman looked the Commissary hard in the eyes, as he
declared gravely:

“I am Tom Bob, American detective; a week ago I arrived in Paris,
having crossed the Atlantic with the express purpose of tracking down
Fantômas and effecting his arrest!”—adding courteously: “Monsieur le
Commissaire, I am grateful to circumstances that have afforded me the
pleasure of making your acquaintance.”

So saying, the detective—for it was no other—made slowly for the door
and was about to leave the room, when the Commissary called him back:

“Sir, what is this you tell me? You are Tom Bob?”

“Do you require proofs of the fact, sir?”

The magistrate begged pardon: “No, no, certainly not! I have no doubt
whatever of your identity; indeed I have seen portraits of you, I
recognise you perfectly well. But I wanted to ask you one thing—you
think this is a crime of Fantômas?”

Tom Bob threw out his arms in a wide gesture: “With Fantômas, can one
ever tell? but to be quite frank with you, I do _not_ think so; and
you may rest assured I have my reasons for holding that opinion ...
Monsieur le Commissaire, your servant!”

“Monsieur Bob!”

“Well, sir? you have something else to say to me?”

The Commissary, growing more and more embarrassed, stammered out:

“Yes ... no ... in fact ... at any rate ... You are going off like
that? and leaving me alone?... But the corpse?... and suppose I wanted
you?”

The American drew a card from his pocket-book and offered it to the
Commissary:

“I have told you my name; it is Tom Bob; I am staying at the Hôtel
Terminus; if ever French justice has need of me, it will always find me
at its disposition.”

The Commissary had not recovered from his general state of bewilderment
when Tom Bob disappeared.




CHAPTER XIV

IN THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE


“You appear to me, my dear fellow, to be enjoying yourself just like
the fashionable folk, and you are the most ungrateful chap on earth to
go on talking about ‘the cruelty of Fate’ and ‘the stings of Fortune’
and a heap of other unpleasant things. After all said and done, what
is your present outlook? It is the month of May, surely, it is ten in
the evening, the scene is as pretty as a picture, the night warm and
fragrant, in one word it is the hour when the restaurants in the Bois
are crammed with gay customers, the hour when it is exquisite to sup
beneath the budding foliage, to roam the deserted walks, to saunter in
this magnificent Bois de Boulogne, a park such as no other capital in
the world possesses. Now, what have you been doing? what are you going
to do? Halloa, my friend, I feel something in your pocket, hard and
crumbly at the same time, that gives me all the impression of a crust
of bread. So you’ve been dining in the Bois, my lad! And now what do
you propose to do? Walk round the lake? Evidently you’ve forgotten
your carriage and you’re going on foot; evidently again there’s every
chance that, an hour from now, it won’t be a little, stuffy hotel you
go back to, but the vast _caravansérail_ that is lit by the stars
of heaven. Still, you’re beginning your evening the same as the
fashionables—dinner, promenade! And what’s to stop you dreaming, like
any other innocent, that you are destined to-night to wed the fairest
princess in all the world.”

The person holding this discourse, so full of a philosophic optimism,
was no other than Jérôme Fandor. The journalist was talking to himself,
having indeed nobody near him to whom he could address his moralizings.
As he had observed, it was about ten o’clock; it was a superb night,
and taking everything together, the young man would not have been
greatly to be pitied for finding himself in the Bois de Boulogne and
about to take an agreeable stroll, if, as again he had remarked, the
walk in question had not been bound to end in his passing this night
in true vagabond style in some thicket or other of the park, at the
imminent risk of being taken up by the police, who are invariably very
strict with poor devils guilty of the heinous crime of not being rich
and sleeping out of doors!

As a matter of fact, the journalist’s condition showed no improvement.
Since his interview with Tom Bob, he had had no occasion to renew
acquaintance with the American detective, who, as the object of a
hundred flattering attentions on the part of the Parisian population,
seemed to him, all things considered, a decidedly dangerous personage
to see much of, in view of the close relations maintained between him
and the authorities. Fandor was now making a living by all sorts of
queer odd jobs—risking his life opening carriage doors on the occasion
of grand weddings at fashionable churches, of selling evening papers on
the boulevards, picking up a few sous by casual labour at the Halles,
just enough to keep body and soul together. Nevertheless, he would not
have been over and above disquieted by his precarious situation but for
the fact that public opinion had little by little come round to the
preposterous belief that he, Fandor, was, if not Fantômas, at any rate
one of the chief accomplices of that dangerous criminal, now a prisoner
in the _Santé_. This easy, blockhead theory the whole police force had
adopted, and every journal was proclaiming.

At a time when Fantômas, with unheard-of effrontery, was committing
crime after crime, when the most appalling murders had grown so common
that the public, seriously alarmed, were asking themselves if it was
not best to pay Fantômas the tithes he claimed, at such a time Fandor
told himself that the view which represented him as the guilty party
had every chance of finding favour, just because it possessed the merit
of being simple to the last degree!

“Once let them catch me,” he thought, “and it’ll be short shrift and no
mercy for me!”

Accordingly, every night, while waiting events and looking confidently
for the result of Tom Bob’s inquiries, Fandor would betake himself to
the Bois, and there spend the night, if not in comfort, at any rate,
so at least he hoped, safe from the perquisitions of the Criminal
Investigation officers.

But what precisely was Tom Bob doing? On what lines was he pursuing
his investigations against Fantômas? As to this, Fandor was very much
in the dark. Like the general public, he had read in the newspapers
of the sensational discovery of the bank collector’s body which the
American detective had succeeded in making in Elisabeth Dollon’s flat.
Fandor, like everybody else, more perhaps than most, for he knew
the difficulties that beset police researches, had felt a profound
admiration for the astuteness the American had given proof of on that
occasion.

“No doubt,” Fandor said to himself, “I put him on the scent when I told
him about Moche, but all said and done, I had no information to give
him of a sort to lead him to the discovery of the victim. The line of
reasoning that took him to Elisabeth’s, that brought about the finding
of the ‘wall that bleeds,’ after rousing his suspicions of Paulet, this
reasoning was purely his own and it is marvellous in all respects.”

He had even added in his self-communings:

“If my fine fellow goes on as he has begun, I verily believe Fantômas
will have found his match!”

It was the sole gleam of hope still left to Jérôme Fandor.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Ho there! my man.”

“M’sieu?”

“What d’ye mean, strolling about like that? You’re a gentleman of
means, eh?”

“No, m’sieu, I’m strolling because ...”

“Right oh! D’ye care to earn six sous an hour? you know how to hold a
shovel?”

“Yes, m’sieu; yes, I’m willing.”

“Come with me then!”

The man who had hailed Fandor, as the journalist was finishing his
circuit of the lake and had now reached the Racing Club enclosure,
was evidently a roadman of the city of Paris. He wore the flat,
silver-laced cap of the roads department, he had the heavy gait of an
employé in that service, and the same good-natured look:

“If I take you on,” he explained, leading Fandor towards the further
end of the lake, near the Rond Royal, “it’s along of a pressing job,
for to-morrow’s fête. I want hands.”

“There’s a fête to-morrow?” Fandor asked.

“And a smart one, I can tell you, my lad! a fête on the lake in honour
of I don’t know what good Dutch folks, who are paying an official
visit to Paris. Seems they’re going to take ’em on the water. It’s the
municipality gives the show. Now I got my notice only just in time; so
I’ve not been able to get my men together, and I’m glad enough to find
outsiders like you to give a hand.”

“What is it you want done?” queried Fandor, delighted at the
opportunity that offered of earning a few sous.

“You’ll soon see,” the other replied with a shrug. “It’s not difficult
and it’s not fatiguing. At this end of the road coming from the
Pré Catalan—you know, the road that joins the one round the lake
yonder—we’re removing the wire fencing that divides the avenue from the
grass lawns that border the lake all round. We’re taking up the curb of
the roadway, too. The turf’s to be dug up and laid down again at the
sides; in fact, we’re making a road, so to say, going straight down to
the water’s edge, so as the grandees may get out of their carriages
at the very same spot where they’re to get into the boats. You see,
don’t you, we couldn’t begin the works yesterday evening, nor yet this
morning, nor even this afternoon, because that would block the regular
road.”

What cared Jérôme Fandor for these details? He followed the head
roadman and soon reached the roadway that was to be carried on right up
to the very edge of the lake. There, by the light of acetylene lamps
fixed on tall standards, a whole crew of labourers was busily engaged.

“Stand to!” shouted the ganger, “I’m bringing you a new chum, find him
some easy work.” A second ganger came running up, and looked Fandor up
and down, then:

“You’re not a roadman? no? You don’t understand gardening, neither? so
much the worse! I am going to use you for digging up the road then.
Come this way.” He led Fandor to the middle of the causeway that goes
round the lake.

“Look here,” he explained, “so’s to lengthen out the roadway, we
take up the turf of the lawn, using a spade—very carefully so’s not
to spoil it. We’re going to sand over and beat flat and so make a
bit of road down to the lake; but as the carriages will arrive from
the Pré Catalan, where tea’s to be served at five o’clock, it’s not
worth while, you see, to leave the road that circles the lake still
practicable. Accordingly, we take the turf lifted from over there and
lay it down all across the lake road. As the sods are lifted carefully
one by one, it’s only a question of laying ’em one beside the other,
a drop of water and the grass’ll look quite green. That’ll give the
impression, not that a new way has been specially opened down to the
lake, but rather that the regular road from the Pré Catalan continues
straight on to the water’s edge, passing through a grass-plot, the
ordinary grass-plot, the one we are now after extending.”

Fandor nodded his comprehension and waiting till the other had
finished, asked:

“Then _my_ job is to pick up the sods and lay ’em down side by side
across the road round the lake? so as to extend the grass lawn?”

“That’s the ticket, my lad! and try to work lively, won’t you?”

Fandor had been at work ten minutes when another man, an engineer most
likely, appeared from behind a clump of trees; he was elegantly, yet
quietly dressed. Hailing one of the gangers:

“You’ve got men enough now?” he asked.

The other looked doubtful: “H’m; it’s a near thing, especially as we’ve
got to be finished by midnight! I’ve had to enlist casual labour—chaps
that were getting ready for a night under the trees. There’s nothing
wrong about that, I suppose?”

“Let me have a look at them!”

A second or two later the ganger who had enlisted Fandor came up to
the journalist, who was working away very hard and conscientiously,
all alone, away from the other roadmen. He stared at him for a minute
without a word.

“You don’t know how to work, my man,” he said at last, “it’s not worth
twopence, what you’re doing!”

“But, sir,” protested Fandor, very much surprised; “I’m doing my best.”

“Well, then, your best’s not good enough; you’re not getting on!” Then,
as if coming to a sudden decision:

“No, you’re no good at all and now the chief has been jawing me for
taking on outsiders. Here, here’s forty sous; clear out!”

There was nothing to be said; moreover, the instant he had fingered his
forty sous, a fortune in his present plight, Fandor lost all interest
in the work on hand, good, bad or indifferent.

“Right you are, sir!” was all he said, “I’m off; many thanks all the
same”—and slipping the two franc piece in his pocket, he walked away,
pursued by the foreman’s scrutinizing and suspicious gaze.

Scarcely had he disappeared before the engineer—it was evidently he
who had ordered his dismissal—again appeared from among the shadows.
He advanced to the shore of the lake, nodding familiarly to the men
working there, and on reaching the water’s edge, gave a shrill, short,
sharp whistle, then stood quite still, waiting. The night was dark,
without moon or stars. In a few seconds after he had blown his whistle,
there showed up on the dark waters of the lake a shadowy, fantastic
shape. It was indistinctly seen at first, but it approached so rapidly
that very soon it became easy to make out what it was—a boat of rubber,
a collapsible boat such as explorers use. A man was on board, rowing
silently and soundlessly. Soon the figure grew plainer and its outline
could be vaguely discerned, the boat was entering the zone illuminated
by the acetylene flares.

Then the mysterious rower rose to his feet. What would Fandor’s
feelings have been, had he been there to see? The man who stood in
this mysterious craft, who was approaching this scene of impromptu
road-making, issuing from the impenetrable shadows of the lake, was
clad from head to foot in a suit of black-close-fitting tights. His
shoulders were draped in a dark cloak, the face was invisible behind a
cowl, a black mask!

A figure of horror, a very incarnation of crime, a form of terror
without a name! It was the form of Fantômas, come in the night to
inspect the work of the roadmen engaged in preparations for to-morrow’s
fête!

       *       *       *       *       *

The hour was divine, the scene fascinating in its charm and seduction,
at once sumptuous and refined. Nor was the setting less delightful,
this elegant restaurant, this favourite haunt of fashion, where the
invited guests one and all belonged to the wealthy aristocracy of
Paris; supper was drawing to an end, the talk grew more brilliant
than ever, the music was ravishing, the women lovely, the perfumes
intoxicating, the flowers a feast for the eyes! No less than everything
else the mysterious hues of the foliage, a weird tint of blue painted
by the gleam of the electric lights, contributed to lend this corner of
the Bois a look of unreality, a fairylike aspect like some fantastic
scene on the stage, charming, delicious, entrancing!

This evening the place was even more brilliantly lighted than usual.
The papers had made much of the coming festivity; in celebration of a
treaty of Commerce signed the previous week, the English Ambassador
was paying this compliment to his colleague the Ambassador of Russia.
Dinner was served at separate little tables. It was past midnight, the
meal was almost over and conversation was more animated than ever.

Apart from the other guests, at a table set at a distance from
the others, sat dining quite alone a very beautiful woman, of an
irreproachable elegance and one who, better still than Sonia Danidoff,
could claim the rank of Royal Highness. The waiters named her to
each other with baited breath: “Her Highness the Grand Duchess
Alexandra.” It was in fact the haughty great lady, friend of Frederick
Christian IV, King of Hesse-Weimar, the proud lady whom Juve and
Fandor, and they alone, knew to be in reality the enigmatic Lady
Beltham, the mistress of Fantômas!

And truly, if some observer had chosen to watch the pretty woman in
question, he would have shuddered to note with what a look, at once
tragic and distraught, full of hate and violent animosity, she gazed
at her gay and laughing neighbours, the guests of the Ambassadors of
England and of Russia. It would seem indeed that the grand duchess had
some secret motive for wishing to remain unseen by these members of
Parisian society. Not content with choosing a remote table enveloped in
deep shadow, she had likewise extinguished the little electric table
lamp in front of her; the light thrown by the surrounding lamps was
sufficient for her to see by. All through her meal the grand duchess
sat pale and mute, barely answering the _maître d’hôtel_ who hovered
near, eager to supply her wants, her eyes fixed on the other diners,
from whose tables came burst after burst of merry laughter.

Already the grand duchess was thinking of taking her departure when of
a sudden, as if drawn by some surprising vision, she half sprang up,
then with a quick recoil threw herself back into the shadows, as though
terrified and yet more anxious than before to shun observation. Bowing
low in courteous greeting to one and another acquaintance, a man of
slim, well-knit figure and elegant bearing had joined the circle formed
by the official guests. His name passed from lip to lip, and he was
welcomed with a chorus of friendly and admiring exclamations, sometimes
marked by just a touch of raillery:

“Tom Bob! why how late you are. What, have you been hunting till this
hour of the night for your strange enemy, the ever evasive Fantômas?”

But while the sound of that dreaded name still broke the stillness of
the summer evening, while the Grand Duchess Alexandra, Lady Beltham in
reality, still shuddered to hear her lover’s name pronounced, gaiety
quickly resumed its sway among the other guests.

“My dear,” remarked a tall young woman, a trifle eccentric in
appearance and manner, a Russian who, report said, had been involved in
a highly diverting scandal, “My dear, you are sad?” But the Princess
Sonia Danidoff, to whom the words were spoken, shook her head with a
smile:

“No, you are mistaken; I am not sad, but I am thinking.”

“Thinking of what?”

At the little table where the two pretty women were conversing, there
sat, among several _attachés_ of the Embassies, the wealthy young
Englishman, Mr. Ascott, who now followed up the question addressed to
the beautiful princess.

“Princess,” he said, “we cannot long allow you to remain so
self-absorbed, so serious, on so lovely a night as this and at so
delightful a fête.”

A smile of raillery curled Sonia Danidoff’s lips; with a touch of
impatience, a suspicion of mockery, she replied:

“So, sir, if you can prevent my being sad, for it appears I _am_ sad,
I gladly give you my permission to try. But I am very much afraid you
will find it difficult to make me merry.”

“That depends,” returned the Englishman; “tell us, if it may be, the
wish you have in your mind. All here, I make bold to say, are gallant
gentlemen. At the risk of attempting the impossible, we will use every
effort to give it satisfaction. I even notice by the smile on my friend
Tom Bob’s face, and you know a police-officer rarely smiles, he admits
that to please you nothing is impossible. It is a guarantee that, if we
fail in our desire to banish your depression, it will be no fault of
ours.”

The Princess Danidoff was opening her lips to reply when her friend
stopped her.

“Gentlemen,” she said, “I think Sonia will forgive me for my
indiscretion, if I betray the secret of her melancholy; Sonia Danidoff,
kinswoman of the Tsar, enormously rich, pretty enough to make all the
women on this earth jealous, Sonia Danidoff, good sirs, is preoccupied
simply and solely because she is ... bored! Nay, do not protest; it
is not that your society has displeased her! But Sonia, I know, finds
life flat, stale and unprofitable; Sonia dreams of a great passion, of
romantic love, such love as is hardly to be found in our times, such
as she has hardly a chance of inspiring. And so Sonia is profoundly
homesick. Now you are fairly warned!” With a wave of her slim, white
hand: “Never believe that scatterbrain,” the princess protested; “I am
not so ... romantic.”

A burst of laughter had greeted the statements of the young Russian;
now all were listening to a charming, an exquisite Neapolitan boat-song.

But Tom Bob’s attention was not with the music. Quitting his seat—it
was nearly two in the morning and the men were trifling with Egyptian
cigarettes—he had come to lean over the back of the fair princess’s
chair.

“Princess,” he was saying, “why do you refuse to seek a love a little
more original, which means a little more real, than that commonly met
with? _I_ do not think that so absurd a quest.”

In an instant those wondrous eyes of the Princess Sonia Danidoff’s lit
up, shining with a deep, soft radiance. She half turned round to look
at the speaker, that amazing Tom Bob whose doughty deeds filled the
Press, that wily detective, that hero.

“Sir,” she made answer, “you speak strangely. So you believe in love?”

“I do, madam,” replied the American, “and the more profoundly, and it
may be the more sadly, as this very evening I have been a witness of
the birth of two sentiments, one a half indifferent attraction, the
other a genuine passion.”

“What reason for sadness in that, sir?”

“Every reason, for I am much afraid that these two sentiments will end
in sadness and disillusionment.”

For a moment the princess sat silent, puzzled, hesitating. At last she
spoke with an affectation of haughtiness such as every woman knows how
to assume:

“I do not understand you very well, sir. You speak in riddles. I am
a Russian, you an American. I beg you use some other dialect than
Parisian ‘blague’; be more explicit.”

With a quick glance, Tom Bob made sure there was no listener to pay
heed to his talk with the fascinating princess. The Neapolitan singers
had been succeeded by a bevy of quaint step-dancers, whom all the
company was attentively watching.

Reassured on this point, Tom Bob, intoxicated perhaps by the beauty of
the night, perhaps crazed by Sonia Danidoff’s loveliness, charmed no
doubt by the sympathy she had never ceased to lavish on him throughout
this after-dinner talk, resolved to burn his boats:

“You do not understand, madam,” he resumed, “you surprise me! I imagine
you have not failed to notice the marked attentions, to say no more,
paid you by our common friend, M. Ascott? Oh! never deny it, madam!
To-night, as indeed he does habitually, M. Ascott has made the most
determined efforts to win your favour.”

There was almost a touch of mockery in the words, and Sonia Danidoff
was too quick-witted not to catch the other’s drift.

“It would seem,” she said, “these efforts do not strike you, sir,
as having been crowned with success! you think my conquest is not an
accomplished fact yet?”

“I do not think, madam ... _I hope_.”

And with these two little words which meant so much, which were
equivalent to the most formal of declarations, Tom Bob, like a
well-advised suitor, aware that a man must never demand an answer but
always wait till it is offered, made his bow to the princess and walked
away.

“I am going to call your carriage,” he said.

The company was, in fact, rising from table; it was growing very chilly
and the time was come to think of quitting the Bois for the city.
Everywhere the guests were exchanging farewells, then the women of
fashion, escorted by their _cavaliere servente_, made for their elegant
broughams or sumptuous automobiles. All were leaving, and leaving all
at the same time, to return together as far as the barrier of the Porte
Dauphine, when the final adieux would be exchanged.

All together? No, not so. There was one fair lady, at any rate, who
did not intend to make one of the merry crowd. Indeed, the Grand
Duchess Alexandra showed not the slightest desire to quit the table at
which she had sat from the very beginning of the evening, isolated,
sullen almost! She had never ceased her watch of the official guests,
and above all had not failed to mark the flattering attentions and
manifestations of sympathy lavished everywhere on Tom Bob. Now her eyes
were fixed askance on the Princess Sonia Danidoff, the acknowledged
queen of the festivity, as she took the arm the detective offered. The
white teeth of the Grand Duchess Alexandra were nervously biting her
lip. The noble lady was doubtless thinking with acute agitation how she
was the mistress of Fantômas and that this hero of the hour was the
very same man who had sworn to bring her lover to the scaffold!

But it was high time to be gone, and the grand duchess summoned her
_chasseur_.

“Call up my car,” she ordered, “but tell my chauffeur he is carefully
to avoid returning with the rest of the company; he is to drive by the
less frequented roads. I do not care to be compelled to greet all these
folks, who, luckily, have so far neither seen nor recognized me.”

The menial bowed and went his way, but he was back again next minute.

“Your Highness’s chauffeur,” he said, “has to inform your Highness that
an accident has happened to the car; he is busy repairing the damage,
but it will take a good half-hour. Your Highness does not wish me to go
for a hired carriage?”

The Grand Duchess Alexandra, or rather Lady Beltham, seemed to hesitate
a few moments. She cast a dark and venomous look of suddenly awakened
anger in the direction of the last lingering guests mounting their
vehicles, then quickly:

“No, I am in no hurry. Tell the chauffeur to do the repairs, and come
and tell me when all’s ready”—and the footman vanished once more.

       *       *       *       *       *

“You are infinitely obliging, madam, to offer to drive me back to
Paris. Instead of sitting sad and solitary in a hired conveyance, it is
no small happiness for me to journey a few minutes in your company and
enjoy, with no unbearable third party present, the favour you are so
amiable as to show me.”

In fact, as Sonia Danidoff was on the way to her limousine, hanging on
Tom Bob’s arm, the princess had observed that the latter, having no
conveyance of his own, would be obliged to get back to Paris alone as
best he might, and there and then she had made the offer: “Come, won’t
you get into my car? You can drive with me to the house, then they’ll
set you down at your destination.”

Tom Bob, needless to say, jumped at the offer, delighted to seize the
opportunity of so charming a _tête à tête_. And soon the princess and
he were talking amicably together, while their car sped through the
deserted Bois along the road, lit up for a dozen yards ahead by the
glare of the acetylene lamps on the bonnet. They talked, let it be
said, of indifferent subjects, the American carefully avoiding any
reference, however casual, to the declaration of love he had ventured
to make a moment before, and Sonia feigning not to have understood his
meaning.

“You have a wonderfully fine car, madam,” observed Tom Bob, as the
princess’s chauffeur, making a clever turn and taking advantage of the
exceptional speed of the car, took the head of the procession formed
by the different cars. “We shall be there in a few seconds; I shall be
sorry for that, madam.”

“You ...”

But at the very instant Sonia Danidoff was in act to reply, a cry of
horror and anguished fear escaped her lips, while for his part, Tom Bob
could hardly restrain a startled oath.

What had happened? Impossible for the occupants of the cars to perceive
in the bewilderment of the moment! What blunder had the chauffeur made
to provoke the accident? Suddenly, without any diminution of speed,
without even any application of the brakes to slow up the pace, the
four first cars following the road from the Pré Catalan had plunged
into the lake of the Bois de Boulogne!

Fortunately the lake is not very deep. Still, the danger was serious
that confronted those who found themselves thus involved in so sudden
a shipwreck. The women were muffled in their cloaks, the men hampered
with their great coats; moreover, the cars had been pitched almost one
on top of the other, and cries of terrified bewilderment rose on all
sides.

Inside Sonia’s limousine events followed each other with dramatic
swiftness. Tom Bob, a marvel of presence of mind, a miracle of
coolness, had not lost his head for an instant. The moment the princess
broke off to scream, the moment he felt the ground slip from under
the wheels, he realized what was happening. In a flash he concluded
at first that the princess’s driver, deceived by the darkness, had
misjudged his turn, and cried out instinctively:

“We are over.”

But the limousine itself was struck heavily by the car behind, and the
detective and the princess were thrown forward and bruised against the
sides. Then the whole horror of the situation was revealed. Sonia had
fainted, and the dark, surging waters of the lake were pouring into the
vehicle in icy torrents through the broken windows. The limousine was
sinking!

“Damnation!” roared Tom Bob; then, quick as lightning, gripping the
princess by one arm, he forced open the door in spite of the weight of
water and struck out. He was a powerful swimmer, and in a few seconds
more he and his precious burden had reached the bank of the lake.

There, the wildest confusion reigned. The first four cars had plunged
in one on top of the other; fortunately those following, being a short
distance behind, had been able to brake and pull up in time. At the
cries of the drivers all with one accord had sprung to the ground,
and were now asking names, counting numbers, uttering exclamations of
surprise and fear. The panic was indescribable.

It was indeed a most lucky chance there was no fatality to deplore.
Sonia’s car, the first in the line, was as a matter of fact the only
one that, by reason of its speed, had rolled far enough into the lake
to be half submerged. The drivers of the vehicles behind, seeing the
accident, had sheered off to one side, had more or less jammed down
their brakes and, thanks to their reduced speed, had been able, not
indeed to avoid the disaster altogether, but at any rate to diminish
its ill consequences. The cars had come to a stand on the very verge of
the water.

Help was soon organized, and brave men sprang into the lake to the
rescue. Half an hour after the catastrophe, it could be said for
certain that it would have no very serious sequel, apart of course,
from any effects that might ensue on the violent agitation all had
experienced, and the painful bruises some of these “shipwrecked
mariners” had received. Only the Princess Sonia Danidoff, imprisoned
in a vehicle that had actually sunk, was ever in positive danger of
death; and so, when the first bewilderment was over, it was round the
young Russian lady that the crowd gathered thickest, questioning and
congratulating.

Meanwhile Tom Bob, his brow knit in anxious thought, had drawn some of
the men apart and was demonstrating to them the causes of the accident.

“It is beyond belief!” he declared, “... just look over yonder!... the
thing was a criminal attempt! They have masked the turn in the road
by laying down the bogus grass lawn over a length of ten yards, and
extended the road itself in a straight line right up to the waterside.
The footway is cut through! the wire fencing removed! Why, they have
even chalked over the rammed earth to make it look as white as the
road! For sure, no blame attaches to the chauffeur; in the glare
thrown forward by the lamps he was bound to make a mistake; he could
not possibly see the trap laid for him, and so, quite naturally, he
drove straight on till the final crash came.”

Tom Bob was going to say more when suddenly a cry burst on the silence
of the night, a cry of stupefaction, of tearful distress. The detective
flew to a group standing round the Princess Danidoff, who still lay on
the ground inhaling a restorative.

“What ... what is it? what is happening now?”

The English Ambassador replied to the American detective’s question.

“It is atrocious,” he cried, “the Princess Sonia Danidoff has just
discovered she has been robbed of articles of very considerable value.”

For the moment the American stood stock still, as if paralysed with
amazement.

“What,” he exclaimed, “what is that you say?”

“I say, my good sir,” returned the Ambassador, “that the Princess Sonia
has been stripped of all her jewels, all her jewels—do you hear what
I say?—rings, bracelets, necklaces, hair ornaments. Some hundreds of
thousands of francs gone!”

In his bewilderment Tom Bob could only repeat himself: “But the thing’s
past belief; it’s impossible! When did it happen? and how?”

He darted to the princess’s side, while the Ambassador, turning to a
young _attaché_, finished what he was saying for his benefit.

“For my part,” he declared, “I consider the whole catastrophe had but
one object—this theft! It must have been done while the princess lay
in a faint and Tom Bob had left her to help in saving life. Tom Bob,
police-detective as he is, never saw the wood for the trees!”

The _attaché_ nodded: “You are doubtless right, sir; but who can have
organized this daring, this audacious plot?”

It was in a hushed voice, almost in a whisper, that the Ambassador made
answer:

“Who? Egad! I think there is only one man in all the world ... and you
know his name!”

“Fantômas?”

“Yes, Fantômas.”

Already on every lip the dread name was being repeated, the name of
horror and of blood, the name that alone could make credible the
incredible reality, that could make it seem possible, that could
account for it.

“Fantômas! Fantômas! he and no other must have planned all this!”

And through the night, more grim than ever the three tragic syllables
re-echoed, spreading consternation—Fantômas!




CHAPTER XV

IN A PRIVATE ROOM


M. Moche was in a generous mood that morning. He now beckoned to the
waiter of the drinking shop where he sat with a companion, the apache
known by the nickname of the “Gasman,” and ordered a bottle of wine
and glasses to be set on the table. But the old man had certainly not
summoned this “Gasman” to meet him merely for the pleasure of standing
the young ruffian a drink. For a good quarter of an hour they had been
hobnobbing together, and the old business agent had been engaged in
explaining to his man the particular service he required of him. To
start with, indeed, and by way of preliminary to insure the confidence
and good will of his ally, Père Moche, as he shook hands on saying
good-morning, had slipped between the “Gasman’s” gnarled fingers a nice
little bank note for fifty francs, which the apache, nothing if not
practical, had instantly pocketed, prepared to learn later on what he
would have to do in return, or even to refuse to take on the job if he
did not fancy it.

When the bottle was half empty, Moche came back to the business in hand.

“Then it’s settled,” he asked, “we may count on you?”

The apache pushed his chair back, leant his great body far across the
table, rested his head between the palms of his hands and looking hard
at the old business man:

“That depends,” he announced in a decided tone.

“What d’ye mean?” asked Moche in surprise.

The “Gasman” repeated: “That depends. Question is who’re we working
for? For my part, since all these here to-dos, you’ll understand, I’m
beginning to be a bit off. Fantômas’ gang and me being in the know with
’em, that’s all very fine and large; but sure as I’m here drinking at
your expense, the thing can’t go on, and it’s bound to end badly.”

“Don’t you worry about that, my man; this business is my little game
and nobody else’s. Fantômas has nothing to do with it. And what’s more,
let me tell you, Fantômas don’t like folks prying into his business,
whoever they may be; cute chap as you are, Mr. ‘Gasman,’ you’ll be
getting yourself into trouble, if you poke your nose in there.”

“Right oh!” agreed the apache; “let’s talk about _your_ business then
instead!”

“Well then,” resumed Père Moche, “you quite understand I count on you
implicitly for to-night. Now there must be two of you for the job, so
stir your stumps this afternoon and find a bully boy at a loose end.
Who are you going to take, eh?”

The apache thought a moment, twisting his long moustache, then
suggested:

“I don’t see anyone hardly but ‘Bull’s-eye,’ you know who I mean, who’d
just do ...”

Moche approved the selection: “That’s the ticket, go and fix it up with
your friend; he’s a good cuss and no white liver,” he grinned.

But Moche grew grave again: “Don’t forget to bring along all the
properties—some good strong rope, and of course a handkerchief, you
know, to make a gag—part of your stock in trade all that, eh, ‘Gasman’?”

Then, discovering it was half past eleven, and he was behind time,
M. Moche shook the apache hurriedly by the hand and vanished. With
rapid strides the old usurer made his way down the Rue de Belleville
and so to the line of the exterior boulevards, where he hailed a cab,
telling the man to drive him to the _Silver Goblet_, a restaurant on
the Place de la Bastille.

What new scheme could the dubious advocate of the Rue Saint-Fargeau
be meditating now? What was the shady enterprise he was planning,
for which he needed the co-operation of two notorious apaches from
Ménilmontant like the “Gasman” and “Bull’s-eye”? On arriving at his
destination, M. Moche took the landlord on one side; the latter seemed
an old acquaintance.

“I want you to keep me for to-night,” he whispered in his ear, “the
little pink room; I shall be coming to dine there about eight o’clock
with some swell clients; put on a man who can hold his tongue to wait.”

The restaurant keeper bowed respectfully.

“You can trust to me, Monsieur Moche, you shall have what you want, and
you shan’t be disturbed. Anyway, the season’s drawing to a close and
we’re hardly serving any more dinners in private rooms; you may count
on having the whole floor practically to yourselves.”

The old fellow was entirely satisfied by what he heard, and at once
took his departure, striding fast along the streets and whistling a
cheerful march tune.

       *       *       *       *       *

“Dress-coat, smoking jacket? what is monsieur going to wear this
evening?”

“Neither, John; lay out my lounge coat.”

“You are not going out then, sir, and you have not anybody asked to
dinner?”

Mr. Ascott stopped in the middle of arranging his tie; and turning to
his man, said sharply:

“I am not dining at home, and I ask you for my lounge coat, that’s all.”

John, while obeying orders, still wore a scandalized air:

“Excuse my speaking like this, sir, but I cannot help telling you,
sir, that for some days now you have been neglecting your personal
appearance, sir. What, you are going abroad, sir, in a lounge suit and
dining out in such a costume? In New York or in London, you would never
think of such a breach of etiquette.”

Ascott interrupted his man-servant’s flow of words with a look of weary
discouragement:

“I shall do just what I choose, John; and let me tell you, it’s only
out of consideration for your age and the years you have been with my
family I don’t reprimand you severely for the liberties you take.”

The man dropped his eyes and with a chagrined air:

“I beg pardon, sir, it was only the interest I take in you, sir, made
me say what I did.”

Ascott let the matter drop. Presently, his hands very busy adjusting a
carnation in the buttonhole of his coat, he asked:

“The Princess Danidoff did not ring up on the ’phone this afternoon.”

“No, sir; in fact it is several days now we have had no news of the
princess.”

“Well, John,” grunted Ascott, turning stiffly and facing the man, “I am
pleased to think it will go on so for a long time; I’ve had enough of
the Princess Sonia Danidoff, she’s an ungrateful coquette. God knows
how ready I was to love her, how gladly I would have devoted my life to
her service, but she is crazy, crazy for another man, ... so much the
worse for me! But there, that’s her look out ...”

John looked his approval.

“Quite right, sir; these great ladies always give more trouble than
they’re worth, and if I might offer you a piece of advice, sir ...”

“Well, out with it.”

“Well, it would be just to take for mistress one of those pretty
actresses there’s so many of in Paris and who would ask nothing better,
or else get to know a nice, good little girl, a gentle and modest young
thing who would love you tenderly ...”

Ascott burst into a loud laugh.

“’Pon my word, John, you’re in a prophetic vein to-day, ha, ha! Who
tells you I’m not going to follow your advice to the letter?”

“Why, sir, do you know some young girl in society?”

“In society, h’m! not high society certainly ... but one that is honest
and peaceable and sincere; yes, perhaps I do, and I’m beginning to
think even I’m pretty deep in love.”

John rubbed his hands in naïve satisfaction; he ventured: “You must
tell me about it, sir.”

But next minute Ascott checked himself and his face resumed a stern
look full of haughty reserve.

He was ready to go. “John, hand me my hat.”—“Very good, Sir.”—“My
stick.”—“Here it is, sir!”

“John, I shall not be back perhaps till late at night—perhaps not at
all; no need to sit up for me.”

“Very good, sir ... good-night, sir!”

“Good-night, John.”

       *       *       *       *       *

Seated at the back of the omnibus office in the Place de la Bastille,
two persons were conversing in low voices; they were Père Moche,
wearing, as always, his everlasting top hat with the mangy nap and
draped solemnly in his long frock-coat, and little Nini Guinon,
modestly clad in a navy blue skirt barely reaching to the ankles and
a straw hat trimmed with wild flowers. To look at the pair you would
have taken them for people of the small shop-keeper class—the father a
worthy business employé, the daughter a school-girl, hardly out of the
Convent. No one would ever have dreamt he had before him the old usurer
of the Rue Saint-Fargeau, comrade and accomplice of the worst apaches
of the district, and least of all that the modest maiden he saw there
was a vulgar street-walker, a common murderer’s mistress, seduced and
ruined long ago, for all her tender years.

Père Moche was grumbling sourly:

“The thing’s disgusting. Since they did away with the _correspondance_
tickets, the omnibus offices are getting fewer and fewer and less and
less used. I had the devil’s own job to find just this one here to
arrange to meet you at.”

“But why,” demanded Nini, teasing the old man, “why couldn’t you let
me join you at the pub on the corner there? We could have swigged a
half-pint or so then in the mug’s honour.”

M. Moche started, and putting on a grieved look, began to scold the too
outspoken Nini—albeit he felt a strong inclination to laugh all the
while.

“You slut, will you never be serious? You spend your time humbugging,
trying to frighten me, you do. I’m all the while in a stew you’ll let
out a _big ’un_ before him ...”

Nini completed the old advocate’s sentence for him:

“... A _big ’un_ that’ll make him see I’m not just exactly an angel
come down from heaven with her crown of orange blossom on her head, all
ready to fall into his arms; eh, Père Moche, isn’t that what makes you
sweat?”

But Moche knew better; he gave the child a friendly tap on her rosy
cheek: “No, not really, mind you; I’m not a bit afraid, you’re a deal
too artful to give yourself away,” and looking admiringly at the girl,
he added:

“It wouldn’t take much more to take _me_ in, too, with your modest,
virtuous air, and those great innocent eyes of yours!”

But next moment M. Moche turned serious.

“Attention!” he cried, “steady! here comes the pigeon; stand by to
blush, niece!”

“Never you fear, dear uncle,” replied Nini, biting her lips not to
burst out laughing.

Thereupon Ascott appeared at the door of the omnibus office; the young
Englishman might have stepped out of a bandbox, smart, elegant, freshly
shaved, and carrying in his arms an enormous bunch of flowers!

The complicated plot arranged some days beforehand by old Moche seemed
to be working out under the most favourable auspices. He had introduced
his bogus niece to the rich young Englishman at a highly opportune
moment, just when Ascott, chagrined at having paid assiduous court to
the Princess Sonia Danidoff, only to see the latter prefer to himself
the latest recruit to her band of admirers, the American stranger,
the detective, Tom Bob, who, from the first moment of his arrival in
France, had worn in all men’s eyes an aureole of glory and success.
Moved less by love than by a sort of obstinacy, Ascott had indeed
striven to contend against this adversary, but events had occurred so
rapidly and so much in favour of his rival that the wealthy Englishman,
in spite of being the first in the field and the first accredited
suitor for the princess’s hand, had been forced to take second place.
For was it not, in fact, this same Tom Bob again who, forty-eight hours
earlier, had rescued the unfortunate Sonia Danidoff from a terrible
and almost certain death? Evidently the detective had not succeeded in
saving the princess’s jewels, but he had saved her life, and swore to
protect her against the mysterious and terrible attacks of the ever
elusive and enigmatic scoundrel, who seemed especially bent on her
destruction.

Wounded in his self-love and baulked in his passion, the young
Englishman had quickly come to his senses, and this the more readily
from the fact that, as his love for Sonia Danidoff cooled more and
more, he felt his heart more and more stirred and charmed by a
youthful passion for the pretty child he supposed to be niece of the
old moneylender, the grotesque M. Moche. Moreover, startled by the
indignant refusal his first audacious proposal had provoked, Ascott
had immediately realized that this was not the right way to deal with
the old business man. In fact, when he accompanied Nini on her leaving
the house in the Rue Saint-Fargeau, he had also seen pretty clearly
that the latter, good, obedient girl as she was, must needs entertain
the highest respect for her uncle. So he had wisely told himself how
desirable it was in the first place to win the old man’s favour in
order to secure the child’s good graces.

The young Englishman accordingly invited M. Moche to lunch, lunch for
two, _tête-à-tête_. Moreover, despite the instinctive repulsion he
felt for the fellow, he found himself forced to admit, before the meal
was over, that he was after all a cheerful boon-companion, not lacking
in wit and possessed of a store of racy anecdotes well calculated to
dispel his melancholy. Adroitly enough, Ascott brought the conversation
round to the subject of M. Moche’s little niece, displaying an
interest in the child’s future, and he deemed himself more than clever
when, after endless beating about the bush, he finally succeeded in
persuading Père Moche to dine with him and bring little Nini with him
one evening soon.

Poor fellow, he little dreamt he had to do with a man far cleverer than
himself, and that the favour he had obtained at the cost of so many
difficulties was really and truly but the consummation of the plot
conceived by the Machiavellian business agent and his abominable little
accomplice.

... Thus Ascott arrived to the minute at the _rendezvous_, in the
omnibus office in the Place de la Bastille at 7.30, his heart in his
mouth, his mind in a joyous tumult, his arms full of flowers, all for
the woman towards whom he now began to feel a genuine and sincere
affection!

       *       *       *       *       *

The merry little dinner was drawing to an end. Old Moche had positively
sparkled with wit throughout the meal, but most of the time it was
simply trouble wasted, for Ascott hardly listened to a word. Moche sat
facing the two young people, who, as if by inadvertence, had taken
their places on a narrow divan, so that as the festivity proceeded they
were perpetually coming into casual contact with each other. At first
the young man had discreetly kept his distance, but little by little,
growing bolder under his senior’s indulgent eye—the old man seemed to
be getting tipsy—the lover drew nearer to his charmer. From time to
time he would squeeze her hand under the table or throw an arm around
her waist. The child looked demure and a trifle startled, affecting to
be embarrassed, sometimes even shocked, but at the same time casting
occasional sidewise glances at the rich Englishman that were full of
encouragement and spoke of passion only held in check by maiden modesty.

Ascott, entering more and more into the spirit of the thing, kept on
replenishing his guests’ glasses with champagne, hoping to intoxicate
old Moche altogether and make the girl sufficiently tipsy to prove less
obdurate in repelling the caresses he lavished on her. He himself, too,
by way of stimulating his courage, was drinking pretty hard, and, all
things considered, was very likely consuming on his own sole account a
great deal more than his two companions both together.

Once, as he was bending down behind Nini, pretending to pick something
up from the floor, in reality in order to put his burning lips to
the cool, inviting surface of the girl’s neck behind, Ascott failed
to see how Père Moche, with the lightning quickness of a conjuring
trick, sprinkled a whitey-grey powder over the frothing liquor in his
champagne glass. Dessert was on the table. But while Nini, nibbling at
the strawberries on her plate, refused to drink any more wine, Ascott,
who was tormented with a thirst that grew momentarily more intense, had
a fourth bottle of champagne uncorked, of which he poured a good third
into a glass for himself and drained it off at a draught.

The Englishman was rapidly getting drunk, and now threw discretion to
the winds in his plaguing of Nini, who more than once, playing her part
to perfection, administered some shrewd slaps on the young man’s over
enterprising hands. She even sprang up from her seat, as if to fly for
refuge to her uncle and demand his protection.

Old Moche followed the whole scene with a very wide awake glance,
humming a tune at intervals and mimicking the ways of a man excited
by the fumes of a heady wine and viewing life under the most roseate
aspect. At a given moment, however, the old fellow, after looking
surreptitiously at his watch, noted that it was half past eleven. He
rose from the table staggering. Ascott burst out laughing. “By the
Lord! my dear Moche,” he cried out in a thick voice, “I verily believe
you’re jolly well drunk!”

Moche swayed more unsteadily than ever on his feet.

“Drunk!” he replied, with a fine imitation of a drunkard’s hoarse
tones, “never such a thing! I’m merry, just merry—as we all are. Here,
just look here if I’m drunk; my hand don’t shake.”

Moche picked up a full glass, solemnly lifted it from the table,
rounding his elbow in a majestic gesture. Doubtless his condition
baulked his praiseworthy efforts, for the glass after some frantic
oscillations suddenly turned topsy turvy, spilling the wine over the
carpet.

The accident provoked an uproarious fit of wild mirth from Ascott: “Oh!
there is no doubt about it, the old man is awfully drunk.” And now the
young Englishman’s cup of happiness was filled to the brim, as he heard
the other declare:

“Why, yes, I don’t feel very well, my head’s going round a bit. With
your leave, I’ll go out and breathe the fresh air a minute; but none
of your nonsense now whilst I’m away! Ascott, I count on your good
behaviour, I entrust that dear, good, virtuous child to your care”—and
Père Moche disappeared.

Scarcely was he out of the room before Ascott shook off his
intoxication and managed to rise from the divan on which he sprawled.
Stepping to the door of the private room, he shot the bolt with an
unsteady hand; then, regardless of Nini’s hypocritical prayers and
protests, he went to the switch and turned off the electric current.

“Oh! sir, sir!” shrilled the girl in a terrified voice, “what are you
doing?... oh!... for God’s sake, let me be ... mother!”

Meantime, no sooner was Moche out in the passage leading to the private
rooms than he recovered all his coolness and self-possession, as if
by a miracle. The old scamp was much too astute to have let himself
get tipsy; it was simply a piece of play-acting he had been at for the
benefit of his host, a comedy that did not in the least take in his
confidante and accomplice, Nini Guinon, though it completely bamboozled
the young Englishman. With no small satisfaction Moche noted—as indeed
the landlord had led him to expect when he came that morning to order
the little dinner—that the adjoining rooms were unoccupied. After that
he made sure that no one could spy on them from the floor below.

Everything was as it should be. The host of the _Silver Goblet_ was
used to these little private entertainments and knew it was not the
proper thing to disturb those attending them under any circumstances.
No doubt, somewhere about one o’clock in the morning, a waiter would
come up to announce that it was time to be leaving, as the house was
going to be shut up, but till that hour guests could count implicitly
on the most absolute peace and quietness.

Next, slipping down the back stairs leading direct from the _entresol_
into the street, Moche was quickly in the open air. Advancing a few
paces along the sidewalk, he whistled and then stood listening. A
second later a succession of notes became audible, similar to those
formed by the old man’s lips; again advancing, he came upon two fellows
lurking in a doorway. It was the “Gasman” and “Bull’s-eye,” and not
far off stood an automobile, to which the old man pointed with the
question: “It’s yours, that contraption yonder?”

“Yes,” replied the “Gasman,” “that’s to say it’s a pal’s machine; we
chose him because he’s as silent as the tomb, and don’t have no eyes in
the back of his head; he’ll do what he’s told—asks three louis for his
night.”

“All serene!” declared Moche, rubbing his hands. “Now listen to me,
you chaps; keep an eye on the shanty I’ve come out of, and when I show
my hat out of the window, you must come along softly, the pigeon’ll be
asleep. The pigeon’s mate’ll go with you and no fuss, you may rely on
that. As you drive on, best clap on the cords and the gag; you might
be interrupted, and it must all be shipshape, just to avoid accidents.
Twig?”

“Right oh!” sang out “Bull’s-eye” and the “Gasman” in chorus.

Moche, in generous mood, handed over to each of them a fifty franc
note: “You see,” he pointed out, “I always pay well.”

“Yes,” growled “Bull’s-eye,” “that ain’t like Fantômas, that ain’t!
Didn’t I give him a hand in that there lake business, when he cleared
off with the princess’s jewelry. Well, if I’ve made a brown or two out
of it, that’s about all—just because he didn’t see me at work. I’m
thinking if Fantômas don’t fork out ...”

“All serene,” Père Moche interrupted his grumblings “there’s no
question of Fantômas for the moment. Be smart, be ready ... I’m going
up there again.”

At the door of the private room, the old man, resuming his former rôle,
gave a discreet tap, saying with a laugh:

“Why, what now?... so you’ve locked yourself in, eh? a little joke,
for sure?... but no more nonsense now! Come, come, open the door. Do
be serious a bit ... and then you know, I’m still thirsty, I want to
finish out the bottle!”

Then he stopped talking to listen. Not a sound came from inside and
the old fellow was growing impatient. He knocked twice, sharply and
peremptorily.

At last the door opened, and Nini appeared, her hair flying loose and
her clothes in disorder.

“What a time he’s been giving me!” she whispered grinning, “a devil of
a fellow, my dear man!”

But Moche was in no joking mood; he demanded: “And now?”

“Now,” Nini proceeded, still speaking under her breath; but opening the
door a little wider, so that Moche could slip into the room, which was
still in darkness, “now he’s snoring like a good ’un! suppose it’s the
powder you tipped into his champagne; I bet he’s good to sleep on till
to-morrow morning, come what may.”

Moche looked down at Ascott, who lay stretched on the divan, and saw
that Nini was speaking the truth; the young man was sleeping like a
top. The old usurer shook him by the arm, twitched his hair, but the
Englishman, as drunk as a lord and bowled over into the bargain by the
soporific he had swallowed, was beyond rousing.

Without relighting the lights, Moche ran to the window and waved his
hat out of it; then coming back into the room, he laughed delightedly.

“First-rate, my gal, it’s going first-rate,” he assured Nini; “to my
mind the job’s as good as done!”

The two accomplices fell silent a moment, then with one impulse both
stood listening. On the stairs communicating directly with the street
the sound of stealthy footsteps could be heard. It was “Bull’s-eye” and
the “Gasman” coming up.




CHAPTER XVI

NEXT MORNING!


Heavy-eyed, with a smarting brow and a raging headache, Ascott awoke
late the following morning. It was about ten o’clock when the young
man in the big four-poster, whose twisted Renaissance pillars almost
touched the ceiling, stretched his cramped limbs and slowly came back
to a consciousness of his surroundings. His throat was parched with an
insatiable thirst; mechanically and without opening his eyes, for he
knew to a nicety the position of the various articles that stood near
his bed, he extended a faltering arm towards a little table at the
bedside, reaching for the water bottle his carefully trained servant
used to put there every night full of water. His hand felt over the
marble top of the table, but failed to find what he sought. He was so
weary, his head was throbbing so painfully he could not at first summon
up courage enough to rise. Again lazily stretching, he turned over
between the sheets and tried to get to sleep again, setting his face
to the wall to guard his smarting eyes against the light of day that
penetrated the heavy curtains drawn across the window.

Not a sound was audible; the mansion the wealthy Englishman had
purchased some weeks ago was as silent as the grave, the domestics
far away in the basement where the offices and kitchen were situated
going about their business softly so as not to disturb their master’s
slumbers. Nor did the latter feel the smallest desire to get up, though
out of doors the weather was magnificent, the sky of Paris as blue as
on an Italian summer’s day and the temperature, genial even at this
morning hour, promising an afternoon of almost tropical heat.

But sleep refused to come at the young man’s call; his throat was
burning, his mouth dry as a bone. Drink he must at all costs to quench
the fire that consumed him, to mitigate these painful and inevitable
consequences of his over indulgence in the generous wines of the
night before. Screwing up his courage to the needful effort, slowly,
painfully, moving like an automaton, Ascott sat up in bed, clasped his
damp brow, then slipped one leg from between the sheets; the other
followed, his naked feet shivering as they touched the bedside mat.
Catching a glimpse of a dressing gown lying within reach on a chair, he
put it on with the cross and sulky looks of an ill-used martyr.

“That beast of a John,” he was thinking, “by forgetting to put my water
ready last night will have made me ill for the rest of the day!”

Stumbling across the room, his eyes still only half open, Ascott made
for the dressing room adjoining his bedroom, in which he felt sure—at
least he hoped so—of finding a supply of clear, fresh water that should
revive his energies depressed by the consumption of unlimited alcoholic
liquors and liqueurs. He opened the door of his bathroom, but on the
point of entering, he stopped dead on the threshold, dumbfounded by
what he saw, albeit with a very vague and confused comprehension of the
apparition that met his gaze! The room, generally so neat and tidy and
meticulously ordered, every crystal phial and pomatum pot and toilet
article in its appointed place on the dressing table, was this morning
in the wildest disorder. There were bottles without stoppers giving out
heady perfumes, brushes scattered about the floor, towels tossed at
random over the backs of chairs.

But what above all else surprised the young man and filled him with
the most intense amazement was to see on the Louis Seize settee, where
he often threw himself after his bath to be massaged by his servant
man to restore his numbed limbs to their proper suppleness, a woman
lying there, half undressed and her hair undone, curled up on the couch
buried in heavy, but restless slumbers. Her clothes, her skirt, her
bodice lay about the floor, her shoes lay one in a corner cheek by jowl
with a copper kettle, the other precariously perched on the shelf of a
what-not!

Ascott had no need to look twice to recognize the sleeper. It was Nini
Guinon, old Moche’s niece, the girl he had dined with yesterday evening
in the private room ... who at the close of the entertainment when her
uncle went away, had been left alone with him, ... whom he had made
his mistress!

Ascott gazed long at the sleeping figure in utter bewilderment; he
was still very tired and his mind was slow to understand, while an
atrocious neuralgic headache tortured him. What had happened then,
following the moment when he had found himself alone with Nini Guinon
in the private room at the restaurant in the Place de la Bastille? He
could remember nothing, he had forgotten everything. All the same his
conscience told him that the history of subsequent events should not
be very difficult to reconstruct. At the same time he was suffering
atrociously, his head, his forehead, the nape of his neck were all
seats of horrid pain. It felt as though every hair that bristled on
his skull was a needle point painfully pricking the scalp. Putting off
till later all thought of seriously considering his plight, Ascott, on
tip-toe, moving carefully to avoid making the slightest noise, but as
a first preliminary having drained at a draught half the contents of a
water-jug, crept across the room, resolved to regain his bed and sleep
off the last vestiges of his fatigue.

But hardly had he taken a couple of steps when he started and swore.
A soft knock had sounded on the door. The tired man deemed no reply
needful; no one surely would venture to come in without his permission,
and that he was not disposed to give. But evidently it was ordained
that the unfortunate young man should not be left in peace that morning
to sleep off the effects of his last night’s indulgence. In defiance of
the established customs of the house, hitherto invariably respected,
the door, without leave given, was half opened. A head appeared, a face
of consternation, the head and face of his servant John. Ascott, who
at the moment was making for the bed, turned sharply round and sitting
down on the coverlet, addressed the domestic in angry tones:

“What ever has come to you, John what do you want? I haven’t rung, that
I know of.”

For all that the man pushed into the room and advanced some steps
nearer his master.

“Forgive me, sir,” he murmured, “I should never have dared to come into
your bedroom, sir, without being summoned, but there’s someone wishing
to ...”

Ascott stifled a yawn, signifying by a peremptory wave of the hand his
refusal to hear another word.

“You are mad, John; you know perfectly well I never receive visitors at
this hour of the day.”

“Excuse me, sir, but it seems it is important.”

“Nothing is important enough to wake me up for,” declared Ascott.

But the servant went on with extraordinary and unprecedented
persistency.

“It is the old fellow who sometimes comes to see you, sir, the business
agent, your lawyer, sir, old M. Moche. I explained you could not see
him, sir, but he insisted all the same, he almost forced me to come up
here ... please excuse me, sir, but ...”

His master was furious. Calling up, not without difficulty, all the
will power he possessed, all the energy he was capable of that morning,
he vociferated passionately:

“I will _not_ see him and if the old chap insists, chuck him out of the
house!”

Ascott had hardly uttered the words before a grave and dignified
voice was heard in the anteroom adjoining the bed-chamber, and at
the same moment there issued from the shadows, pushing his way into
the room, someone whose identity could admit of no mistake even to
the Englishman’s sleepy eyes. It was in fact M. Moche coming in, in
defiance of all prohibition. Dressed, as always, in his long, black
frock-coat, holding in his hand his tall hat with the dulled, dented
surface, M. Moche showed dirtier and still more repulsive-looking in
the broad light of day than by candlelight, but also more solemn and
more majestic.

The old man bowed slightly to Ascott, who sat silent and impassive on
his bed.

“I have to speak to you, sir, to speak to you, alone,” he announced,
casting a thunderous glance at the old servant, but the latter never
budged, waiting for his master’s orders.

Ascott resigned himself to the inevitable: “Go, John,” he ordered, “we
wish to be alone.”

Hardly had the door closed behind the servant before Moche, throwing
his calm and majestic manner to the winds, rushed up to the young
Englishman and in a beseeching voice half choked with emotion, but
nevertheless showing just a shade of menace, demanded:

“Sir, where is my niece, my child? what have you done with my sister’s
child?”

Ascott shook in his shoes; just what he was fearing had occurred, and
that at a time, at an hour in the morning, when he would have given
all he possessed to be left in peace. He made a slight, nonchalant,
evasive gesture, feigning he had never an inkling of the meaning of
Père Moche’s question.

“Your niece,” he protested, “I know nothing of what has become of her;
am I her keeper?”

But Moche broke in again. With rising passion the old business man
shouted:

“You lie, sir; you have odiously abused my trust in you, abused the
friendship I felt for you. Do not try to deny your guilt; I know all.
To begin with, taking advantage of a moment’s negligence on my part,
you locked yourself in alone with Nini in the private room where we all
three dined, and like a very satyr, a perfect monster of vice, you were
dastard enough to seduce my niece, poor child!”

Playing his odious comedy to perfection, the old fellow sank into a
chair, and dropping his head between his hands, pretended to sob. In a
piteous voice, he whined:

“Poor child! poor darling Nini, so gentle, so pure, so virtuous, what
a hideous awakening must this have been for her. Oh! I can picture her
despair and horror. It is frightful, maddening!”

Moche sprang up and again approached Ascott, who, vexed beyond measure,
was gazing on the scene with a dazed expression in his haggard eyes.

“What has become of her? We have spent a dreadful night, sir, I
tortured with fear and anxiety, her poor mother in terrible suspense,
for Nini has never returned home; where is she? you alone can say, and
you must and shall.”

Meanwhile, as he spoke, Moche had gone over to the window and
half-drawn back the curtains, admitting daylight into the darkened
room. Seeing that the bed was empty, that the bedroom showed no signs
of disorder and held no one else save the young Englishman, the old
brigand appeared surprised, not to say disconcerted. For some moments
he stood hesitating, at fault, thinking to himself:

“So ho! then the business can’t have turned out quite as I expected!
that imbecile of a little Nini must have misunderstood, can she have
been such a fool as to go before I got here?”

Moche stood biting his lips in perplexity, hesitating what course to
follow, and to gain time began shouting at Ascott again:

“What has become of Nini? what have you done with her? answer me, sir,
answer me!”

But the young man was trembling with apprehension. He had been
listening and in spite of the rumpus old Moche was kicking up, he
caught the sound of faint, furtive noises coming from the adjoining
room. For a little while the Englishman had been congratulating himself
on his success in feigning ignorance and seeming to attach no meaning
to the questions addressed to him by the unspeakable uncle of the
pretty child he had made his mistress the evening before. He hoped
that, wearying of the contest, old Moche would go away, and firm in his
original intention, he swore to himself he would then double lock his
door and at any cost go on sleeping for at least another two hours!

But now the noise in the dressing room was upsetting his plans, for
he felt convinced that Nini was certainly awake. What would the girl
decide to do? Infuriated by the attitude adopted by the man who, taking
her by surprise and defenceless, had become her lover, would she spring
forth and demand vengeance, or else, dumb with despair, covered with
shame at her dishonour, would she be afraid to show herself in the
disorder of her morning toilet before the eyes of the old uncle she
loved and seemed to esteem so highly?

Ascott had no time left him to weigh probabilities at length, for the
first of these two hypotheses was promptly realized. Besides which,
M. Moche had also, like Ascott, heard noises in the adjoining room, and
instinctively the old fellow was making for the door of the dressing
room when Nini appeared.

The girl was pale as death, her eyes glittered with a strange
brilliance, her lips quivered in a nervous spasm; at sight of her uncle
and as if surprised to find him there, she made a show of hesitation,
first advancing, then drawing back. Finally, she darted to the old
man’s side, threw herself into his arms and hiding her face on his
shoulder, broke into loud sobs, crying:

“Oh, uncle, uncle! dear uncle!”

The scene the two base accomplices were playing with such noteworthy
spirit to cajole the rich Englishman was assuredly touching, and it was
interpreted with a consummate art worthy of professional actors. But
the play was only beginning! Nini now tore herself from the arms of her
supposed relative and turning to Ascott, gazed long at her lover with a
look at once tender and aggrieved. Then, very softly, she murmured:

“Oh, sir! sir! what have you done?”

Next old Moche took the cue: “You have dishonoured her, sir; you have
committed an irreparable crime; it is shameful, abominable!”

While her uncle was speaking, Nini, overwhelmed by the intensity of her
emotion, fell to the floor and lay sobbing in the cleverly calculated
pose of a beautiful statue of Grief!

Ascott was dreadfully upset by the unpleasant incident. The young man
cursed the mad fit that had come over him the night before, while he
experienced a very genuine regret at the thought that he had ruined
this pretty child, who through his fault had lost her good name for
ever.

Meantime a fresh witness of the lamentable scene suddenly arrived. John
burst into the room like a whirlwind. Running to his master:

“Sir, sir,” he cried, “the world is coming to an end!”

The Englishman, whose raging headache, so far from getting better,
was growing more agonizing every minute, nevertheless preserved an
imperturbable calm.

“What ever is to do, John, what d’you want?”

“Sir,” continued the domestic, who with blanched face and eyes
unnaturally dilated, was staring at his master and Père Moche, and
above all at the young woman lying on the floor, “Sir, it is the law!”

“The law!” cried Ascott; “you are mad, John!”

“No, sir, no, I am not mad; it is a Judge, a Court of Law, I don’t know
what all!”

His master was soon to be enlightened. Just as a little before M. Moche
had pushed into the bedroom without being announced, with a like lack
of ceremony three individuals had made their way along the corridor to
the door of the room, and now stepped across the threshold. One of
them advanced in front of the other two, a man of forty or so, short,
with a jovial-looking face and a heavy, black moustache; he pulled
from his pocket a tricolour scarf, which he displayed before Ascott’s
astonished eyes.

“I am the Commissary of Police, sir,” he announced. “Is it to Monsieur
Ascott I have the honour to speak?”

“To the same,” replied the young man, turning pale, while drops of cold
sweat gathered on his brow.

“You sent for me, sir,” pursued the Commissary.

“I!” exclaimed Ascott, “never such a thing! it wasn’t I!”

M. Moche broke into the dialogue: “It was I, Monsieur le Commissaire,
who took the liberty of asking you to come, and also, you will
remember, the two gentlemen who are with you.”

“I’m utterly at sea,” muttered Ascott, in a wearied voice; “I don’t
understand ...”

“You will soon understand!” declared Moche, truculently.

After that Ascott began to scrutinize in sick bewilderment not only the
Police Commissary, but also the two men who stood behind him, a pair of
white-faced loafers of dubious aspect and repulsive countenance; they
stood twisting about in evident embarrassment, jumping from one foot
to the other and mechanically turning about their greasy caps between
their fingers.

Presently the Commissary addressed the two apaches, pointing to
M. Ascott.

“Do you recognize that gentleman?” he asked.

“Why, yes, it’s as you might say, the party what engaged us last
evening, about midnight, at the restaurant of the _Silver Goblet_ ...”

The Commissary questioned Ascott: “You were dining, were you not, at a
restaurant in the Place de la Bastille, with the gentleman here present
and mademoiselle?”—and the magistrate, to avoid any possibility of
mistake, pointed in succession to M. Moche and Nini Guinon.

“Yes,” admitted Ascott, not understanding what his questioner would be
at.

“Good,” continued the Commissary, and put another question:

“Are you ready to let us hear the proposals you made to these two
gentlemen?”—this time pointing to “Bull’s-eye” and the “Gasman.”

But the Englishman could only stare in bewilderment at the two
ruffians; he cudgelled his brains in vain, and despite the strain he
imposed on his addled wits, he could _not_ remember having made any
proposal whatsoever to the individuals before him.

“But I don’t know those persons,” he articulated with difficulty.

The Commissary gave a sceptical smile.

“Speak!” he ordered, addressing the “Gasman,” “Repeat to the gentleman
the deposition you came to my office to make.”

“Here’s for it then!” the apache spoke with some show of embarrassment
at telling his story before everybody, “it was like this—the two of us,
‘Bull’s-eye’ and I, we were just on the saunter last evening, as you
might say, near by the Bastille, when all of a minute we saw a toff
a-coming down the stairs of the swell pub; it was the gentleman you
say, the Englishman here present. He seemed a bit squiffy as he talked;
he said to us like this: ‘There’s a brace of quid to be made, my lads,
if you’ll lend a hand to help a lady down who’s ill seemingly upstairs,
and take her back to her home; only, case she should kick up a bit of
a rumpus, mustn’t let her talk.’ We chaps, we ain’t no millionaires,
you know, sir, and two quid’s not to be refused. ‘Right oh!’ we told
the Englishman, and there we were a-going up the stairs of the house.
The Englishman, he took us into a private ken, where there was a wench,
who set up a devil of a screeching when she saw us; but the Englishman
claps a napkin over her mug, seemingly to make a gag; then says he to
us: ‘Off you go, hook it, stir your stumps! There’s another two quid if
you do it sharp!’ That made four quid, so you may bet your life we were
on, sir. Then we get the baggage downstairs, clap her in a motor-car,
and the four of us drive off here, all serene like. The wench never
moved; by the Englishman’s orders she’d been tied up hand and foot; he
paid fair and square and went straight in.

“But look’ee, sir, getting back to the Bastille, we two, ‘Bull’s-eye’
and self, we began to feel middling dicky, telling ourselves maybe we’d
been lending a hand at a dirty job. Then just as we came out on the
Place from the last Underground and were harking back to the _Silver
Goblet_ for to see what had been doing since, blessed if we didn’t come
upon the stout gentleman who’s sitting in the armchair there, and who
we’ve found out since is called M. Moche—the old bird was singing out
a good ’un, tearing his hair, he was! His niece, he kept bawling, had
disappeared, had been carried off by a satyr! he was in despair, he
said, he didn’t know where she was. Then ‘Bull’s-eye’ made up to him:

“‘Wasn’t she a little, dark girl, the wench you’re howling about?’ he
asks him.

“‘Yes, yes ... Might you, maybe, know where she is?’

“‘Maybe we might, and maybe we might not.’

“‘Bull’s-eye,’ he was getting to feel funny-like, and I wasn’t just
over happy, we’d been and done a nasty trick. But there was a way,
p’raps, to make up for our foolishness, and we made up our minds to do
the right thing. Old Moche, he stuck to us all night; back we trotted
to the district we’d taken the wench to, hunted round to recognize the
house and found it at last.

“And then Père Moche, he out with it:

“‘Must come along with me to the Commissary, my lads, and tell him the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; else you may be
certain sure you’re in for a hatful of trouble!’ So there you are, sir,
that’s what we did!”

The apache broke off, then suddenly, with a superb gesture, drawing
four gold louis from his pocket, he spread them out in the hollow of
his hand, and marching up to Ascott, he made a proposal to the rich
Englishman that astounded the latter more than ever.

“Would it hurt you, sir, to take back your money? The tin was not
honestly earned, and it burns our fingers!”

With a look of disgust the apache tossed on to the young man’s knees
the four gold coins, which rolled under the bed.

Père Moche broke in: “Such, Monsieur le Commissaire, are the facts
as they occurred—you know them yourself, sir; indeed, M. Ascott does
not deny them. Besides which, the presence in his house of my unhappy
niece, a mere child, sir, barely sixteen years of age, whom he has
odiously wronged, is surely the best proof of guilt ...”

But Moche never finished his sentence. At last Ascott was master of
the situation; a grim passion of indignation was rising in his breast,
the blazing anger only men of a cold, calm temperament are capable of.
With never a thought of the dignity of the functionary he addressed,
he pointed to the door, and: “Out of the room, sir!” he ordered the
Commissary. With majestic mien, the magistrate turned on his heel,
still holding, however, his tricolour scarf in his hand.

“Moderate your language, sir!” he protested, in haughty accents; “do
not forget you are speaking to the representative of law and order.
However, I obey your wish, deeming my duty to be completed in this
house.” Then, turning to the two apaches:

“I will likewise ask the witnesses to withdraw, in an orderly way and
in silence.”

Finally he addressed himself to M. Moche:

“If the young lady, your niece, sir, wishes to go, she will find a
conveyance at the door.”

Moche overwhelmed the Commissary with his thanks, while Nini, who had
a little before retired into the dressing room, was hastily completing
her toilet to quit the house of the man who had become her lover in so
strange a fashion. Some minutes passed in silence, during which the
several actors in this amazing scene were busy with the most varied
reflections. Père Moche remained impassive to all outward seeming, but
in his heart he was overjoyed at the happy turn events were taking;
once or twice he threw a meaning glance at his two confederates of the
previous evening, who had carried out his instructions so well.

In telling his story, invented for the occasion, the “Gasman” had
actually spoken in the very tones of one convinced of the truth of
what he was relating. The fellow had made no mistakes, he had narrated
the adventure exactly in the way agreed upon, and above all, Père
Moche admired the apache’s final act, one that had not been arranged
beforehand, the act of giving back to Ascott the accursed gold
wherewith he had, as he thought, bought the complicity of the two
wretches, an act calculated to remove all doubt from the Commissary’s
mind, if by any chance he should have been dubious of the witnesses’
good faith.

“By Gad! though,” Moche muttered to himself by way of conclusion.
“Ascott makes eighty francs by the transaction—eighty francs I shall
have to make good to the two scamps!”

As for Ascott, he was asking himself in ever-increasing bewilderment,
if he were not the victim of a delusion, a nightmare, a hideous dream.
Yes, he had a perfect recollection of the evening’s dinner that began
so gaily, and he was bound to confess that at the end of the meal,
taking advantage of old Moche’s absence, he had indeed wronged little
Nini—though all the same, he could not help thinking the girl had not
offered any very determined resistance. But of what might have happened
afterwards, he could recall nothing whatever. He seemed to remember
falling fast asleep, and he could not for an instant believe he had
gone out to look for a pair of apaches to have Nini Guinon forcibly
carried off to his house.... Yet, it _might_ be so, for on the one hand
they said it was, while on the other, on awakening he had actually
found Nini fast asleep on the couch in his dressing room.

But presently the young Englishman began to ask himself what, after
all, was the vast importance of all these incidents, and why such a
mighty disturbance was being made over the adventure. He had not to
wait long for the explanation!

Meanwhile, Nini was ready to go; the girl looked prettier than ever
with her modest mien and assumed look of shamefacedness, as she made
slowly for the door, by which “Bull’s-eye” and the “Gasman” had already
taken their departure some while ago. After casting a long look of
affection and reproach at her rich lover, she preceded her uncle and
the magistrate as they left the room.

But before actually crossing the threshold, the magistrate called a
halt, to point out to Ascott the consequences implied by his visit.

“All this, sir, makes it my duty,” he announced sternly, “to draw up an
official report; you must be aware that the position in which you have
placed yourself is a very serious one; it is a matter for the Criminal
Assize, involving as it does, abduction of a minor, further aggravated
by violation and rape. I ought, properly speaking, to arrest you. Be
very grateful I do not do so, and hold yourself at the disposition of
the Court.”

“What is that you say, sir?” cried Ascott, in sudden alarm. But the
magistrate merely bowed to the Englishman without another word and made
his exit.

For a moment the young man was left alone in the room, but presently,
plucking up his spirits, he sprang hurriedly to the door of the
ante-room:

“Moche, Monsieur Moche!” he called the old man back in a voice choked
with agitation. Moche was already half-way down the stairs, but he
turned back and re-entered the room:

“What do you want with me, sir?” he asked, eyeing the Englishman
haughtily up and down.

“Moche, come here,” said the latter, and hurriedly catching the other
by the sleeve of his coat, he led him into an adjoining room, his
library and study. In feverish haste he pulled open a drawer and took
out a cheque-book. Dipping a pen in the ink, he paused before writing
to ask:

“Monsieur Moche, how much?”

“Beg pardon!” said the old brigand.

Ascott, mastering his nerves, repeated once more:

“I ask you, how much do you want? this is a cheque I have here, which
I am ready to sign in your favour; fix the amount yourself, and let us
have done with this nonsense.”

A gleam of cupidity flashed in the usurer’s eyes, but that astute
personage did not yield to the temptation. It was not in that fashion
he hoped to bleed the Englishman; his project was more pretentious,
his plan more complicated than that. The old man feigned the greatest
indignation:

“It is shameful, sir; you insult me! After your villainous treatment of
my niece, you offer me money. Sir, you mistake my character altogether!
No, sir, I do not take that bait, the affair must follow its course!”

Ascott turned livid. “Moche,” he supplicated, “we are friends ...”

“We _were_ friends, sir.”

“Moche!... Monsieur Moche! I cannot have a scandal!”

“Nini Guinon, my niece, sir, is dishonoured.”

“But, Moche, how can this be arranged?”

“There is but one way, sir, to right the wrong done, religion and
society offer you the means.”

Ascott hesitated a moment, then he replied with a shudder.

“Marriage, you mean?” he cried; “you would have me marry Nini Guinon
... you forget that I am a great nobleman!”

Moche corrected: “Lord Ascott, yes; but that’s not you, that is your
father.”

“I am his son ...”

“His younger son, sir, which is by no means the same thing. There is
nothing should hinder your marrying an honest girl whom you have led
astray from the paths of duty.”

Ascott was obviously wavering. “Moche, my good friend, Moche!” he
besought the old scamp, “there must be other ways of settling the
question; I am rich, I care nothing for the money ...”

“Enough!” Père Moche cut him short peremptorily, “I have told you,
sir, what a true-hearted gentleman, what a man of honour, would not
for one instant hesitate to do. On the basis of repairing the wrong by
marriage, you will find us always ready to listen to you, to facilitate
matters; otherwise, it is of no use attempting to see me again”—and the
old man marched majestically for the door, leaving Ascott absolutely
dumbfounded, the pen trembling between his fingers, his cheque-book
lying open before his eyes.

However, before finally going, M. Moche came to a halt on the
threshold, and in a ringing voice, threw down a final challenge, a
supreme work of menace and defiance:

“We shall meet again, sir ... in the Court of Assize.”




CHAPTER XVII

FANTÔMAS MEETS FANTÔMAS


In the drives of the Parc des Princes, as a rule deserted in the
evening, the sombre ways that start from the fortifications and unite
Paris with Boulogne-sur-Seine, ways bordered by sumptuous private
mansions, elegant villas and blocks of luxurious flats, there was
to-night an unaccustomed coming and going of motor-cars, broughams,
and even democratic taxis. All these vehicles were making in the same
direction; and all were swallowed up by the great gates that stood wide
open before a private dwelling standing just half way down the grand
avenue that runs between the city conservatories and the Bois.

There for some months had been living the Grand Duchess Alexandra,
bosom friend of the King of Hesse-Weimar, one of the most noted
personalities of the foreign colony in Paris. No one, in fact, making
any pretence to belong to society, could fail to be acquainted with the
elegant and enterprising grand duchess. All knew her as a pretty woman,
a wealthy woman, and report said a good and charitable one; many a time
her witty sayings had raised a laugh in fashionable drawing rooms,
while she enjoyed a reputation for Parisian _chic_ that was certainly
not unjustified.

Great lady as she was, there was something mysterious, possibly
equivocal, about her personality, and, if life in Paris were not
so stirring, so exacting, so absorbing, many who frequented her
receptions might well have asked who precisely she was, and have
searched curiously through the pages of the Almanach de Gotha to find
the credentials for her ducal blazon. The high rank she held at the
Court of Frederick Christian II was indeed matter of common knowledge,
further, that she was honoured by the very special friendship of the
Prince Gudulfin was whispered in private conclave; but this pretty well
summed up the total of what society in general did know about her.
But it is never the custom, so long as a woman is rich, beautiful
and witty, so long as no open scandal attaches to her name, to be
over-exacting as to details? At any rate, each time the grand duchess
threw open her drawing rooms for one of the superb and sumptuous
entertainments she was in the habit of giving, no eagerness was too
shameless to secure an invitation, no one but was only too proud and
happy to be numbered among her guests.

Though it was already May, the Grand Duchess Alexandra was to-night
giving a fancy-dress ball. This had long been promised, but having been
postponed in consequence of the great lady’s being indisposed, was at
last fixed for this belated period of the season.

It was eleven o’clock, and guests were beginning to arrive, carriages
driving up in rapid succession to the steps of the villa, one after
the other depositing masked figures, some baffling, some charming, in
costumes borrowed from legend, history, in some cases even recalling
contemporary politics. Dancing had not yet commenced, all were devoting
their energies to applauding, enthusiastically applauding, the most
becoming dresses, the most ingenious disguises, as they appeared. The
evening was delicious, the mild spring weather perfect, so that the
masquers could gather under the wide awning that sheltered the steps
and there welcome each new arrival.

The general attention was beginning to flag, and the duchess herself,
abandoning the attempt to shake every new arrival by the hand—their
number made the task impossible—was about to return to the reception
rooms, where the Gipsy orchestra had just struck up one of their
softest and most melodious waltz tunes, when a magnificent automobile
drew up at the steps. The car roused no little curiosity by the fact
that its blinds were drawn down so as to make it impossible to see who
was inside. Instinctively almost, as sometimes happens, the talk grew
hushed; heads were turned and necks craned to see. Staying momentarily
the play of her ever-moving fan, the grand duchess herself seemed to be
puzzled as she eagerly awaited the newcomer, whose very sex was still a
secret.

Then the door of the car opened at last; and suddenly through the
crowd, till then so gay, ran a shudder of distress and terror. “Ah,
ahs!” of amazement could be heard, while even the hostess’s cheek
paled. A striking, an extraordinary figure it was that alighted from
the mysterious equipage. The costume, to be sure, was recognized by one
and all—but who, who had had the hardihood to don it?

In the dazzling illumination shed by the lights scattered everywhere
about the front of the mansion, the newcomer’s figure stood out with
extraordinary clearness. It was that of a man, still young; he was clad
from head to foot in a complete suit of closely fitting black tights;
his shoulders were wrapped in a long cloak, also black, even his face
was hidden beneath a black cowl that prevented so much as a guess at
the colour of his hair.

A dreadful costume! a tragic figure! an emblem of fear! The name of
this mysterious masquer passed quickly from lip to lip, set every heart
beating fast and furiously, sounded a grim refrain to every sentence
spoken:

“Fantômas!... it is Fantômas!”

But while his arrival was causing so great a sensation, while
the company, taken by surprise, showed itself afraid, almost,
panic-stricken almost, the unknown himself was advancing to greet the
Grand Duchess Alexandra. Bowing low before his hostess with the manner
of a finished gentleman, in a grave, but agreeable voice:

“I was told, Madame la Duchesse,” he said, “that Fantômas attended
every festivity. No sooner had I landed in France than they swore to
me he was afraid of nothing. That is why I did not think it needful
to warn you of my coming to your fête. That is why I believed myself
justified in visiting you under this ... disguise.”

The Grand Duchess’s voice trembled a little as she questioned him:

“But to whom have I the pleasure to be speaking?”

The masquer replied:

“To Fantômas, madam!”

“To Fantômas, of course!... but besides?”

Clearly it would have been discourteous to carry on the secret further.
Indeed, the unknown had not failed to note the half concealed fear, the
very real distress, his arrival had produced among the grand duchess’s
guests. To prolong this constraint would not have been becoming; the
“Fantômas” therefore answered:

“Very good, madam, as it is your pleasure to unmask me, I cannot
deny your wish, and I put off my cowl ...”—and he lifted the silken
folds concealing his features. Next instant a tempest of applause, a
tornado of acclamation, from all present, greeted the hero of the hour.
It was indeed a fine piece of daring, a splendid stroke of defiance,
something quite Parisian and cynical, this grim disguise adopted by the
man who wore it. In the half minute he stood there unmasked, he had
been recognized. The masquer who had put on the outward semblance of
Fantômas was no other than Fantômas’ declared enemy, no other than Tom
Bob!

Meantime the latter was bowing right and left, then glided swiftly
among the groups of his acquaintance, grasping the men’s hands,
kissing the ladies’, a very gallant gentleman. A curious thing, too,
to observe that, while these fashionable men and women would never
have condescended to clasp hands with a common inspector of the French
Investigation Bureau, they were making much of Tom Bob, just because
he was a foreigner. True, he had originally joined the police as an
amateur, out of curiosity and for the sake of amusement, and it was
only by degrees, after a series of notable successes, that he had
become a professional detective—and the fact was not forgotten.

But the mystery was dissipated. After the inevitable panic created
by this apparition of the terrible figure of Fantômas, a very real
satisfaction, a genuine feeling of relief had been experienced in
learning that beneath this horrid disguise was hidden the man who had
pledged himself to deliver Parisian society from Fantômas! In fact
there was not one of all the grand duchess’s guests but entertained
in his heart a secret dread of the desperate criminal. Ever since the
brigand had sworn to the Parliament to spread terror broadcast, every
man felt himself more or less menaced. The American detective, by
taking up the challenge thrown down by the Minister, had to some extent
relieved these apprehensions, and society was grateful to him.

For half an hour the Grand Duchess Alexandra, like an accomplished
hostess, had been moving through the different rooms, declining to
dance herself, but finding for each an agreeable word, a gracious
phrase of greeting, when in a doorway by chance she came face to face
with the “Fantômas.”

“Monsieur Bob,” she was beginning, when next moment she broke off in
startled surprise. And truly the great lady had good reason to be
amazed. The masquer, whom she was about to congratulate once more on
his clever disguise, had just committed a grave breach of etiquette.
Bowing, he had, without a word, while pretending to kiss her hand,
slipped a note inside her glove. Then, turning on his heels, not giving
the grand duchess time to protest or answer, he had glided off among
the dancers, putting between them the effective barrier of the whirling
couples.

More than surprised, the grand duchess said and did what any woman
would have said and done under the circumstances.

“Tom Bob dares to slip a _billet doux_ into my hand! What insolence!
Most certainly I will go and throw it down at his feet, this execrable
token of bad taste!” Then she reflected that, before getting rid of
the scrap of paper she could feel under her glove, it would perhaps be
amusing to cast a glance at it, and, her lips curling in a disdainful
smile, the grand duchess, leaving the dancing rooms for a moment, went
up to her private apartment. There, hastily turning on the electric
light, she hurriedly glanced at the extraordinary letter.

At first she thought she must be dreaming. The writing was not Tom
Bob’s: nor was it the detective, that was certain, who had written on a
corner of the paper by way of address, and there was no other, the five
words, “For pity’s sake, read this!” Who was it then? Whose messenger
had Tom Bob constituted himself? The grand duchess did not hesitate a
second longer; unfolding the note, she read, and the contents instantly
blanched her cheeks:

  “_Madam_,” the letter ran, “_you will pardon the means I take to
  bring myself to your notice in consideration of the feelings that
  prompt me. In the name of all you hold dear, in the name of whatever
  pity your woman’s heart may know for an unhappy lover, I beseech you
  to grant me your attention for a few minutes this very evening. It is
  no enemy who writes to you, albeit my name may make you shudder; it
  is an unhappy man, an unhappy being who loves a young girl whom you
  know, one who cherishes no hope save in the influence you can exert
  over her, one who, amidst these merry-makers, under the black mask
  that veils his features, will be impatiently waiting the moment when
  you shall accord him the brief interview he asks, the brief minutes
  of confidence he craves._

            Jérôme Fandor.”

Jérôme Fandor! The grand duchess thought she was dreaming, was it
indeed possible it could be Jérôme Fandor who had written to her?...
Jérôme Fandor, the ally of Juve? Jérôme Fandor, the implacable enemy
of Fantômas? Jérôme Fandor whom all the world accused of the vilest
crimes, but whom _she_ well knew to be innocent! Jérôme Fandor, how
that name evoked at once fear and pity in the breast of that beautiful
and mysterious personage, the Grand Duchess Alexandra. What memories
did it not call up of the saddest tragedies of her life?

Jérôme Fandor, perhaps the only living being who could possibly share
with Juve the knowledge that she, the Grand Duchess Alexandra, was in
reality named Lady Beltham, was in reality the mistress of Fantômas!
And now it was this same Jérôme Fandor, to-day her lover’s implacable
foe, to-morrow no doubt his accuser, who came asking the favour of an
interview! who asked the boon in the name of love!

Lady Beltham stood trembling, her breath coming quick and fast as she
read and re-read the brief note just passed to her. Then suddenly,
shaking off all doubts, she made her decision. Yes, seeing it was in
the name of love that Jérôme Fandor wrote, seeing he besought her pity,
she would not refuse his prayer.

“My life, my unhappy life,” thought Lady Beltham, “has but one
excuse—love. Whensoever I hear that name invoked, I shall be found
ready to recognize the only sentiment I feel some little respect for!”

But a bewildering, a terrible problem still confronted the great lady;
with what surprise, with what agitation she realized that Fandor was in
her house, and must be there, the very terms of his letter showed it,
disguised as Fantômas—in the same disguise as Tom Bob? There were two
“Fantômas” then among the dancers, the American detective and Jérôme
Fandor.

It was quite possible, quite probable indeed, as she soon came to see.
The costumes the detective and the journalist had donned must obviously
be alike, if they were correct: was it not therefore allowable to
suppose there were two “Fantômas” in the rooms without anyone having
so far noted the fact: naturally people would conclude it was the same
masquer they saw each time. Why, she herself was deceived just now,
believing herself in the presence of Fantômas-Tom Bob, when she was
actually standing before Fantômas-Fandor!

Eventually Lady Beltham returned to the dancing rooms, thinking to
herself:

“I will go presently into the conservatory; he is sure to be watching
me and will join me there.”

       *       *       *       *       *

While the grand duchess in the retirement of her private apartments
was reading the strange note slipped into her hand by Fandor, who had
likewise come, as she had guessed, disguised as Fantômas, a diverting
scene occurred in the dancing rooms below! The fact is Fantômas-Fandor
had caught sight of another Fantômas.

“Halloa!” the young man told himself, “someone has had the same idea as
myself, it’s really capital!”

Then he disappeared in the crush, ready to keep a watchful eye on Lady
Beltham. But now the second Fantômas, Fantômas-Tom Bob, had also noted
his double, and the news was flying fast from mouth to mouth:

“You know, there are two Fantômas!... a highly original idea, don’t you
think?”

“Why yes, highly original!” all agreed.

Yet no one observed that not merely two Fantômas were at the dance, but
perhaps three or four, or even more!

A few minutes afterwards, the lovely Sonia Danidoff was waltzing with
one of the men wearing the grim black cowl when the second masquer clad
in the same tragic garb knocked against the couple; a dialogue verging
on the ludicrous ensued.

“Sir!” the first Fantômas, Sonia’s partner, was saying, “I think it a
very bold proceeding to have adopted my costume!”

“And why so, sir?” retorted the other Fantômas in the same emphatic
tone.

“Because, sir, it is a heavy costume, and a dangerous one, to wear! No
brigand, save myself, had ever dreamt of adopting it till you.”

To this the second masquer replied in a tone of raillery: “You are
in the wrong to complain, sir; it would more become _me_ to protest
against _your_ audacity. You are an impostor, you carry a disguise. _I_
am the genuine Fantômas!”

“Easy talking, sir!”

“Easier still to prove, sir!”

“So it’s a quarrel, is it; we must settle between us, arms in hand?”

“As you please, sir!”

“Now, at once?”

“At once!”

A laughing group had gathered round, finding a new and piquant
diversion in this altercation between the two masquers, each defending
with apparent seriousness his title to be the true Fantômas.

“The vanquished,” cried Sonia, merrily, “shall take off his cowl for
the rest of the evening.”

At this one of the disputants wheeled round, and in answer to the gibe:

“No, madam,” he said, “the vanquished will not appear again, for one
good reason—he will be dead.”

       *       *       *       *       *

“Madam, I will use no empty words of compliment to thank you for
granting me this interview. Words are incapable of translating my
feelings, and between us they would be yet more vain than with others.”

The “Fantômas” who uttered the words bowed low with infinite respect
before the Grand Duchess Alexandra, whom he had just come upon in one
of the little nooks of greenery, so quiet and retired, so convenient
for flirtations or confidential talks, which the great lady had
contrived in the superb winter garden, opening out of her drawing
rooms. The masquer went on:

“I will not thank you, madam, for on us, alas! weighs a past too
heavy to allow soft words to do aught but call up sad memories in our
hearts. That past you do not disown any more than I do, but I ask your
permission to remember in speaking to you two facts, that you, you,
the Grand Duchess Alexandra, are Lady Beltham, and that I, under this
travesty of Fantômas, am Jérôme Fandor.”

In a weak, trembling voice, Lady Beltham questioned:

“Speak, sir! But first, why this disguise? why, why do you, you of all
men, wear that cowl?”

“Because, that mask, madam,” returned Fandor, in a broken voice, “that
mask lets me remain nameless among your guests. Probably you forget,
Lady Beltham, that at this present moment Jérôme Fandor is held by
general consent to be a criminal. And, besides this, madam, yet another
reason—you will forgive my naming it—led me to adopt this disguise. Was
I not certain you would accord a few minutes’ talk to the man wearing
this costume. I could not tell if it would be possible for me to give
you the letter; but I felt convinced if as Fantômas I asked to speak
with you, you would not refuse your lover three minutes’ conversation.”

Lady Beltham, pale and trembling, made no reply—what answer could the
unhappy lady find to give Fandor, the man who at that very time was
suffering the direst torments at the hands of the real Fantômas, her
lover? She could only repeat again: “Speak, sir, what do you want of
me?”

“A small thing, madam,” returned Fandor, “a small thing, and yet
of infinite moment—_happiness_. I am going to beg you to say three
words—three words that will assure me the chiefest joy of my life.”

Almost on the defensive, in a voice of fear, Lady Beltham said for the
third time: “Speak, sir, speak!”

“Madam,” Fandor resumed in trembling accents, “I love deeply, with all
my heart and all my soul, an unhappy young girl whose name you know,
for it bears a melancholy renown. Elisabeth Dollon, I mean. Madam, by
your lover’s doing—nay, never protest, all denial is in vain between
us—by your lover’s doing, I, I Jérôme Fandor, am deemed by Elisabeth
Dollon, as by all men, to be Fantômas. She would love me if she knew
me innocent, now she hates me, fears me, flies from me! Madam, I have
always been to you, and even to him who is dear to you, an honourable
foe, the dreadful penalty I suffer to-day as the result of the war I
wage is the more cruel as it is undeserved. What hurt can it do you,
Lady Beltham, what hurt can it do Fantômas, even should I enjoy a
little happiness, should I win Elisabeth’s love?... This is the prayer
I would make to you; she is single-hearted, she is enthusiastic, she
sacrifices my life to you; madam, I pray you, I beseech you, go to
Elisabeth and tell her I am not Fantômas, and that she can love me!”

Such profound feeling inspired Jérôme Fandor’s words, his voice
vibrated with such deep emotion, as he spoke, that Lady Beltham
herself could not help being greatly moved. Yes, Jérôme Fandor was
surely right, he had always been an honourable enemy. Surely he was
right again in describing his position with Elisabeth as horrible.
Surely again, what harm could it do Fantômas for him to enjoy a little
happiness?

Lady Beltham was touched, won over; she burst out suddenly:

“I know you are Jérôme Fandor, sir; I know it, and I need only know
that! I decline to understand the allusions you have made. But if you
beseech the Grand Duchess Alexandra to go to Elisabeth Dollon, the
grand duchess is verily too much your friend, too well persuaded of the
depth of your love for Mlle. Dollon, to refuse the boon you ask of her.”

“Oh! madam,”—and Fandor, with a quick almost instinctive movement,
seized Lady Beltham’s white, ungloved hand. But the great lady drew
back, manifestly she could not prolong for ever her talk with this
masquer, this “Fantômas.” None had come to disturb them, but their
conversation was bound to have attracted notice; the place was lined
with mirrors, they were at the mercy of every chance reflection.

“Where can I see Elisabeth Dollon?” asked the grand duchess.

“The poor girl,” replied the other, “in spite of her enemies, still
lives an honest, hard-working life; I know—I learnt this only a day or
two ago—she is engaged as cashier, I think at one of the restaurants in
the Bois, the restaurant on the island in the lake.”

Lady Beltham had already risen and was moving away when she threw these
words by way of adieu to the young man:

“By all I hold most sacred, sir, I swear that Elisabeth Dollon, no
later than to-morrow evening, shall know that Jérôme Fandor is worthy
of her love.”

       *       *       *       *       *

“I beg your pardon, Monsieur Fantômas!”

“You mean?”

“I mean to say that costume is heavy for your shoulders.”

After Lady Beltham’s departure, Jérôme Fandor had stayed behind in
the conservatory, motionless, wrapt in absorption. The great lady’s
promise had given him the wildest hopes. If the grand duchess saw fit
to convince Elisabeth Dollon of his innocence, it was easy enough for
her to do so; if she kept her promise, and Jérôme Fandor never doubted
she would, a happy future, a future of love lay before him! But as he
was thinking these rosy thoughts, plunged in an ecstasy of anticipation
a disquieting incident befell.

The young man was standing in the centre of the winter-garden, on the
very spot where he had talked with Lady Beltham. On every side of him,
on the walls, between the interlacing boughs of palms, araucarias
and kentias, hung mirrors reflecting his own image and that of his
surroundings. Now, amid these reflections, appeared one, a second
“Fantômas,” that moved and gesticulated and presently advanced, while
the same mocking words, spoken now for the second time in the course of
the evening, struck on Fandor’s ear:

“That cloak is heavy for your shoulders, sir!”

The journalist felt a cold sweat bedew his temples. Who was this other
“Fantômas”? for it was in very truth, a second “Fantômas” advancing to
meet him! the same perhaps he had observed among the dancers just now?
or else, perhaps, another, or else ... or else.... In a supercilious,
defiant tone, Jérôme Fandor retorted:

“If the cloak is heavy for my shoulders, sir, is it, pray, any lighter
for yours?”

“They are, at least better used to wearing it.”

Fandor started at the words, but before he had time to answer,
suddenly, in an instant, with an unparalleled swiftness and violence
that disarmed all power of resistance, a savage dagger thrust caught
him immediately over the heart. A red mist blinded the young man’s
eyes, as he staggered under the force of the blow. A buzzing filled his
ears, and a curse, a cry of fury, escaped his quivering lips. Then
slowly the place began to turn round and round, darkening and taking on
fantastic shapes; Jérôme Fandor was fainting.

But he was too energetic, too brave a man, to lose consciousness
for long. Three seconds after the blow was struck, his senses were
returning to him. “Fantômas! Fantômas!” he stammered: “it was the real
Fantômas stood there before me!” He struggled painfully to his knees,
then rose to his feet in spite of the sharp pain, and forced himself
to look round—the conservatory was empty! Stumbling forward, he took
two or three steps, his hand pressed to his breast, then sank into a
rocking-chair, muttering in a weak and still bewildered voice:

“Lucky for me, all the same, the coat of mail I took the precaution to
wear under my disguise withstood the stab! I knew, when I put on this
Fantômas costume, I was risking the brigand’s anger; I was well advised
to guard against it as I did. Verily, I believe this time I have looked
death close in the face!”

Meantime in the ballrooms the festivities were still in full swing
while these untoward events were happening in the winter-garden, but at
last the dance was now drawing to a close. Four o’clock was striking,
and the wan, pallid light of day peeped in at the doors half open into
the park: the loveliest faces began to look faded, the smoothest locks
ruffled, it was time for pretty women to beat a retreat, under pain of
seeming positively plain.

Then suddenly, no one knowing whence the news came, all stood frozen in
rigid horror at a dreadful report that circulated from group to group.
There was a general rush for the park, while broken phrases passed
between the hurrying guests.

“Wounded?”

“Dead!”

“You are sure, madam?”

“It was a chauffeur found the body.”

“Yes, a dagger was still stuck in the heart.”

“Appalling!”

“So it wasn’t Tom Bob, then?”

“Who _was_ the victim?”

“It is not known.”

“Where are the ‘Fantômas’?”

“One of them has just gone.”

“Who? which?”

“The cloak-room attendant recognized him; it was Tom Bob.”

“It seems he was wounded?”

“Yes, the attendant said he had blood on his sleeve; he had actually
turned back the sleeve and looked at his arm; there was a long, red
gash there.”

“But Tom Bob is no assassin!”

“Ah! but was it really Tom Bob? that is just the question, my dear sir.”

Fandor still lay exhausted in the conservatory, still dazed from the
attempt on his life he had only just escaped. But in a moment he sprang
up with a start, the Grand Duchess Alexandra, Lady Beltham, stood
before him. She looked agitated, she was panting and frightfully pale.

“Fly! fly!” she cried distractedly.

Jérôme Fandor looked at the great lady in wide-eyed astonishment.

“Fly! fly!” she could only repeat. “Oh! for pity’s sake, begone! It is
horrible, appalling they have just found in the park a man dressed as
Fantômas lying dead, stabbed to the heart—an officer of the Criminal
Investigation Bureau!”

Fandor listened without a word, while Lady Beltham went on again,
wringing her hands:

“But fly, I tell you, fly! Don’t you understand they will accuse you?
You were seen just now, dressed as Fantômas, leaving the rooms with
another ‘Fantômas’, they will make sure the first masquer was the
murderer, that is you!”

Still dazed as he followed Lady Beltham, who was leading him towards a
hidden door, Fandor asked:

“But then there were three ‘Fantômas’?—Tom Bob, myself, this officer?”

“There were four or five,” replied Lady Beltham, “I cannot tell how
many: there was you, there was Tom Bob, there was an officer of the
Bureau ... there was ...”

Fandor finished the sentence the grand duchess dared not complete.
“There was ... there was,” he hesitated, “there must have been the true
Fantômas!”

A malediction rose to Jérôme Fandor’s lips, but all ready to make his
escape as Lady Beltham urged him, he yet stayed his flight an instant;
he had heard, like a benison the unhappy woman murmur a parting word.

“To-morrow, to-morrow! I have promised you Elisabeth shall know you are
innocent!”




CHAPTER XVIII

“FANTÔMAS SPEAKING!”


M. Havard was almost apologetic, almost polite, a fact which in
his case was proof positive of the deepest respect. Habitually
plain-spoken, accustomed to give orders in clear, precise terms,
and to ask questions in a more downright fashion, still, M. Havard
appeared for once to be making heroic efforts to preserve a respectful,
deferential attitude.

“My carriage is not over and above luxurious,” he was saying, pointing
to the inside of the brougham in which he had just taken his seat in
company with a personage of a keen, anxious-looking countenance, “but
you must know that, to make up, it is one of the safest.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that, copying the Emperor of Germany, I have taken the
precaution, Monsieur le Ministre, to have the woodwork lined with
steel plates. In my carriage one is secure against the latest and most
approved revolvers, the sharpest daggers.”

The Minister smiled approvingly. “And that is always something!” he
laughed.

“Yes, it is indeed something,” M. Havard proceeded, “when, like me,
a man is continually exposed to acts of vengeance, of reprisal, the
object of ill-will and hatred.”

But it was pretty plain the Minister was paying but a divided attention
to M. Havard’s remarks.

“Quite right,” he said, in an indifferent voice; “yes, I admire your
precautions; you were certainly well inspired to fortify your carriage
in this way.... But come now, tell me what line you propose to adopt
with this individual?”

“The individual we are going to see?”

“Precisely, this man Tom Bob ... this Tom Bob who would seem to be
Fantômas—ridiculous as the supposition may appear at first sight.”

On hearing this remark, M. Havard was suddenly afflicted with a very
convenient tickling in the throat. He said nothing—the Head of the
Investigation Department would, under no circumstances, have taken upon
himself to contradict a Minister of State, but ... well, he coughed.
And to cough, in all the languages of the world, has always indicated
that a man would not be disinclined to prove his interlocutor mistaken
in the opinions he is enunciating in his presence.

Observing the police official’s hesitation, the Minister insisted:

“Why, yes, Tom Bob must be Fantômas! The thing is self-evident,
obvious; don’t _you_ think so, too, Havard?”

For, impossible as it seemed to admit that Tom Bob was really Fantômas,
the Minister had almost come to believe it—to wish to believe it
at any rate, since the tragic events of the previous night! On the
other hand, M. Havard, more accustomed to think things out coldly and
impartially, to weigh the arguments for and against a proposition, was
less convinced. “Events,” he reflected, “do certainly seem to show
Tom Bob to be Fantômas. But there are so many facts on the other side
that go to prove the contrary that we must not rush to so extravagant
a conclusion. Deuce take it, Tom Bob is a police-officer—an officer of
repute in America; he has already, here in Paris, since his arrival,
effected some telling arrests.... No, he cannot be Fantômas! If
appearances are against him, they are, after all, only appearances,
probably contrived by the real Fantômas. It is true....”

M. Havard broke off his reflections to answer the Minister’s question:

“Alas! sir, in all these baffling difficulties, I really do not know
what I think.”

“A very canny answer.”

“But a sincere one, sir.”

“Sincere, why, yes, I grant you; but surely not very frank. However, I
will force you to give a plain reply—yes or no, do you believe Tom Bob
is the murderer?”

M. Havard coughed again; it was evidently a chronic complaint, this
cough of his! Finally, sinking back in discouragement on the cushions
and nervously cracking his finger joints, he confessed in a dubious
voice:

“Believe! what do I believe?... well, I just make guesses, Monsieur le
Ministre.”

“But, my dear man, you told me yourself ...” then breaking off again,
the Minister started afresh.

“Come, tell me the exact particulars—I have so much business on my mind
there are times when I cannot trust my own memory—tell me the precise
results of your investigations. You were saying that yesterday ...”

This time, when it became a question of setting out the results of
a police investigation, without deducing the consequences, without
drawing any compromising conclusion, M. Havard recovered all his usual
coolness, all the peremptory tone of authority that was habitual with
him. So it was with perfect lucidity, with the strictest logical
precision, he now answered the Minister.

“My investigation has established nothing absolutely definite. All it
justifies us in doing is to specify certain facts, relevant facts I
admit, but in no way conclusive.”

“And these facts are?...”

“These facts are as follows: Yesterday, the Grand Duchess Alexandra
gave a ball, a costume ball. At this costume ball were several
‘Fantômas.’ How many, precisely, it is impossible, sir, for me to
inform you; I have not been able to ascertain the number. On more than
one occasion, this is certain, two masked figures, two ‘Fantômas’
were seen talking together, which would go to prove there were _two_
‘Fantômas’; but after all, this is not positively certain, for because
two men in black cowls have been seen, it obviously does not follow
there were no others elsewhere in the rooms....”

“But why this hypothesis?”

“Why? h’m! because ... Anyhow, sir, let us remember this fact, this
primary fact—two ‘Fantômas,’ exactly alike, two disguises of identical
shape and make, attended the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s fête. Very
good, but who and what were they? Here we enter the domain at once of
certainties and hypotheses. One certainly we have—one of these masquers
was Tom Bob; he was seen, recognized, identified by name. The second of
these masqued men, and here we have another, a melancholy, certainty,
was an agent of the Criminal Bureau, one of our excellent officers,
indeed, Inspector Joffre—he was the man they found subsequently, you
know, under the trees in the garden, stabbed to the heart.”

“And he was the man,” affirmed the Minister, “who was seen to go off
with Tom Bob, with the other ‘Fantômas,’ after a laughing colloquy, in
which our agent, like Tom Bob, had claimed to be actually and indeed
the ever-elusive brigand. From which I infer ...”

But M. Havard made a gesture of dissent:

“Yes, you infer, sir, but you go too fast in your inferences. What
precisely occurred between the moment when Tom Bob as ‘Fantômas’
arrived at the grand duchess’s, a little before our agent Joffre,
also disguised as a ‘Fantômas,’ and that when the unfortunate officer
was found dead, murdered? It would be hard to say. You remember the
laughing dispute that took place between the two ‘Fantômas’? That
dispute actually took place; my investigation has enabled me to find
many who can vouch for it, amongst other witnesses the Princess Sonia
Danidoff. I do not dispute it, but you miss one point, Monsieur le
Ministre, and that is that when the two men made a pretence of going
into the park to settle their difference arms in hand, both wore the
sinister black cowl, and could not therefore be recognized, and that in
consequence there is nothing to justify our alleging that the man who
was with the unfortunate Joffre was really Tom Bob.”

“Why, yes, there _is_ one thing ...”

“Namely, sir?”

“Why, think, the incident in the cloak room....”

M. Havard smiled.

“I do not forget it!” he cried, “yes, the cloak room incident does
constitute a serious impeachment against Tom Bob, a terribly serious
impeachment. But you remember the exact details, sir?”

“I think so! Come, now, events happened thus ...”

“I will detail them precisely as they did happen. At the very moment at
which the chauffeur found the murdered Joffre’s body in the gardens,
the rumour was circulating among the dancers, a well-founded rumour,
that Tom Bob, Tom Bob, still wearing his ‘Fantômas’ costume, had
just left. If we are to credit the cloak room attendant, he had come
in a few minutes before to claim back the black mantle that covered
his shoulders on his first arrival, and which he had entrusted to
the man’s care in the course of the evening. Now, as he put on the
garment, Tom Bob would appear to have mentioned that he was wounded
in the arm, and on the man expressing surprise, he would seem to have
gone on to say: ‘It’s the penalty for having chosen to play up a bit
too hard against the real Fantômas.’ Then, still going by what the
attendant says, he seems to have pulled up his sleeve, unbuttoned his
cuff, and—the cloak room was empty at the moment—examined a deep cut
on his arm, half way between shoulder and elbow, to be precise, a cut
apparently made by a knife, and which, moreover, was still bleeding
freely. Tom Bob seems after that to have pulled down the sleeve again,
declaring it was a trifle, and so taken his departure.”

M. Havard fell silent, the Minister seemed to be thinking, then
suddenly he asked:

“Monsieur Havard, why do you speak in the conditional mood?... Tom Bob
_would appear_ to have done such and such a thing, said such and such
a thing: _seems_ to have taken his departure! So you don’t believe the
witness to be trustworthy?”

This time, M. Havard’s habit of plain speaking took the upper hand, and
it was in a tone by no means over and above respectful that he replied:

“Oh, yes, I do! The witness is telling the truth, the story is quite
correct. But if I do speak in the conditional, the real fact is all
these happenings, all this evidence about the wound, is so ... so odd,
so improbable, that ...”

“How improbable?” protested the Minister, “Why, sir, if Joffre _was_
murdered, I take it he was not killed without defending himself; even
if he received a mortal blow quite unexpectedly, he could have struck
back, wounded Tom Bob, wounded his assailant....”

In a tone of raillery, M. Havard finished the other’s sentence:

“... And Fantômas could have committed the imprudence of boasting of
it in the cloak room? But, my dear sir, that is foolishness, utter
foolishness! I won’t so much as think of it! If Tom Bob was Joffre’s
murderer, he would be Fantômas; if he was Fantômas, he would never
have been guilty of the mad inconsistency of showing his wound to a
witness.”

M. Havard’s objection was evidently well founded, the whole story
was undoubtedly baffling. But the Minister still refused to confess
himself beaten. _He_ believed in Tom Bob’s guilt. Had the detective
not been seen in the “Fantômas” costume? Was he not known to have had
an altercation with Joffre, to have gone off in his company into the
gardens, where Joffre had been killed. Nothing, if not logical, the
Minister drew the conclusion: “Tom Bob is the murderer.”

Then another point struck him, and he added triumphantly:

“Besides, Havard, if Tom Bob were not guilty, why should he not have
come in answer to your invitation this morning?”

M. Havard shook his head doubtfully, and made no answer. This point,
raised by the Minister’s last question, was precisely what most
exercised the head of the Investigation Department. When at an early
hour he had been awakened by a ring on the telephone and a message
from the Commissary’s office at the Parc des Princes, telling him
that a new and appalling crime had just been committed by Fantômas, a
crime that was spreading frantic terror among the members of Parisian
society, a crime that it seemed must be set down to Tom Bob, M. Havard
had come to several important decisions. He telephoned immediately to
the Prefecture to send officers of the Department to shadow the Hôtel
Terminus, where Tom Bob was still in residence. For himself, he set off
at once to the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s. There he had, with his usual
ability and acumen, held a rapid investigation, in the course of which
he had discovered certain facts, facts if not directly relevant, at
least suggestive.

On leaving the villa in the Parc des Princes, M. Havard hurried to the
Ministry of Justice. It was eight o’clock when the head of the Criminal
Bureau reached the Minister’s private apartments. By dint of eager
representations to the ushers on duty and a like insistence with the
ministerial _attachés_, he obtained immediate audience of M. Désiré
Ferrand’s successor. A few moments more and he was closeted with the
Minister of Justice, and was rapidly narrating, almost without drawing
breath, the extraordinary events of the previous evening.

“Monsieur le Ministre,” M. Havard concluded, “I deemed it expedient to
put you in possession of the facts at once, in order to save myself
from incurring too heavy a load of responsibility; at this present
moment a man is suspected, and reasonably suspected; this man is Tom
Bob, the American detective. Unless we arrest him, public opinion,
alarmed, agitated, terror-stricken, is going to cause us the most
troublesome embarrassments; questions will be asked in the House,
for certain! On the other hand, to arrest Tom Bob is a serious step;
he is an American citizen, a foreigner, and will no doubt claim the
protection of his consul and involve us in diplomatic difficulties. In
fact, to arrest the man seems a monstrous thing to do.”

The Minister, after a few minutes’ thought, advised M. Havard to
despatch a special messenger to see Tom Bob and beg him to come at once
to the Ministry of Justice where the Minister wished to speak to him.
But the messenger had been to the Hôtel Terminus, had seen Tom Bob, and
had brought back the answer:

“Mr. Bob directs me to say he is very tired, almost ill, and cannot be
disturbed.”

Neither Havard nor the Minister could make anything of it, and while
the former was still marvelling at the amazing attitude the American
detective had chosen to adopt in refusing to obey the personal
invitation of a Minister of State, under the flimsy excuse of fatigue,
the Minister insisted:

“You must admit, M. Havard, that this refusal to come and see me is,
to say the least, extraordinary. Why, deuce take it, if Tom Bob was
not wounded, that is to say, was not guilty, that is to say, had not
pressing reasons for not showing himself just now, he would have come
along here post haste. How did he know I was not meaning to decorate
him?”

M. Havard laughed frankly at the great man’s little joke; he was still
laughing when the brougham stopped at the door of the Hôtel Terminus.

“Whatever you do,” the Minister observed, as they got out, “whatever
you do, address me as ‘my dear fellow,’ from now on. I don’t at all
like the idea of that American being able to boast of having put out a
Minister of France. I mean to preserve the strictest incognito.”

M. Havard handed his card to a waiter, bidding him go and inform
Mr. Tom Bob that he desired a few minutes’ conversation with him; then,
after the man had gone, he assured his companion:

“Do not be afraid, Monsieur le Ministre ... beg pardon!... do not be
afraid, my dear fellow: nobody shall guess who you are.”

       *       *       *       *       *

“Monsieur Havard, I was expecting you”—smiling, cheerful, debonair, not
the very least like a sick or tired man, Tom Bob welcomed M. Havard in
one of the small sitting rooms of the hotel.

“You were expecting me, my dear colleague?”

“Certainly!”

Then, as Tom Bob was drawing up seats, and his eyes fell on the
Minister, M. Havard thought it needful to add: “Allow me to introduce
my senior secretary.”

The American vouchsafed a little supercilious smile for this
subordinate. “Delighted, sir, delighted to meet you!” and he turned
again to M. Havard, resuming:

“I was expecting you, because I supposed the Minister, having sent for
me this morning and finding I did not come, would send someone to see
me.”

The opportunity was too good a one for verifying an important point for
M. Havard to neglect:

“You were right, quite right in your supposition. But, by-the-by, why
did you not come to the Ministry?”

A smile appeared on Tom Bob’s lips; with his usual phlegm he answered
M. Havard:

“And pray, why should I have gone?”

The reply was so startling in its quiet unconcern that the Head of
the Criminal Bureau was struck dumb for a moment. However, he quickly
recovered his self-possession and answered back:

“Why, my dear sir, because ... because when a Minister sends for one,
surely one ought to take the trouble to obey.”

But Tom Bob, quite unruffled, only shrugged his shoulders. Taking a
cigarette from his case, he lit it without a sign of embarrassment,
then:

“You think so?” he said, “well, I think the opposite! If we differ
in our ideas, it is probably because you, M. Havard, are you, purely
French: and I, Tom Bob, equally American.”

“Which means?”

“Which means,” concluded the detective, with his Yankee bluntness,
“that having nothing to say to the Minister, I did not feel any need to
go and see him, and I considered if he wanted to speak to me, that he
might very well take the trouble to come as far as the Hôtel Terminus.”

Listening to this speech of the phlegmatic American, M. Havard turned
first pale, then green, sorely embarrassed as he remembered they were
spoken actually before the Minister’s very face. The interview was
taking an unpleasant complexion and it was best to push into other
matters: “Tell me, my dear Bob,” he asked by way of turning the
conversation, and getting back to serious affairs, “you can guess, I
take it, why I have come this morning?”

Immediately Tom Bob’s face lost its look of calm unconcern; it was
evident a genuine curiosity pricked the detective as he replied:

“Upon my word, I don’t, Monsieur Havard! I know nothing at all about
it, though I must confess it interests me very greatly ... Could I be
of any use to you, I wonder?”

The Head of the Criminal Bureau, after a moment’s pause, and speaking
sharply and incisively in a way to throw the other off his guard:

“Useful?” he exclaimed, “yes, you can be very useful to me”—and, almost
showing his cards, he demanded:

“I expect you to give me an explanation of last night’s events.”

“Last night’s events?”

“Yes, the tragedy that happened at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s.”

“A tragedy happened?”

“In a word, I want you to tell me how your wound is.”

“My wound?... why, you are gone crazy, Monsieur Havard!”

“Crazy indeed! but, now ...”

“What on earth are you talking about now?” Tom Bob’s face wore such
an expression of amazement, stupefaction, utter lack of comprehension,
that with one accord M. Havard and the Minister, who had to hold
himself in hand hard to keep his lips shut, sprang up and faced the
detective.

“But,” screamed M. Havard, boiling over with exasperation, “but you are
not, I presume, going to deny that yesterday evening you were at the
Grand Duchess Alexandra’s ball?”

Tom Bob struck his breast in perfectly unaffected surprise.

“I?” he stammered, “_I_ was at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s ball!”

“Egad! yes: as Fantômas, come now!”

“And as Fantômas! But, really, Monsieur Havard, I don’t understand one
word you are saying. I have never been in the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s
house, neither at her dance, nor at any other time: neither yesterday,
nor ever before!”

“And you are not wounded?”

“Wounded where?”

“In the arm.”

Tom Bob took off his coat and pulled up both his shirt-sleeves.

“There, look!” he cried, “where can you see a wound?”—and he passed his
hand across his forehead, exclaiming:

“Why, whatever do you mean, in God’s name! I think I must be dreaming!”

This time, M. Havard and the Minister gazed at each other in doubt and
bewilderment. Tom Bob was not wounded! Tom Bob had not been at the
grand duchess’s ball! Tom Bob was dumbfounded at the mere mention of
their suspicions. It was beyond everything.

Then the Minister took up his parable. “Listen, Monsieur Bob,” he
said “we are _not_ crazy. This is what occurred, this is what we
believed ...”

At great length, with details confirmed by M. Havard, with endless
comments, the Minister narrated the whole incomprehensible imbroglio
of the preceding evening, and at the end waited anxiously for the
detective to speak.

“Come now,” he demanded, “do you understand anything about it all?”

Tom Bob shook his head. “No!” he declared, in a preoccupied tone of
voice and with a meditative air, “no, I know nothing—or rather, from
what you tell me, M. Havard, and you, Monsieur le Ministre ...”

But at this mention of his rank, the Minister started violently.
“What!” he exclaimed, “then you know?”

“Yes, sir! yes, I know. Pardon me, but I know perfectly well I have the
honour to address the Minister of Justice. Egad, with Tom Bob, I assure
you, there is no incognito can last long. But enough of that—I was
going to tell you there is only one thing I do understand in all these
tragic and bloody accidents that befell at the grand duchess’s ball ...”

“And that is?”

“Just this,” declared the detective, “that Fantômas was present at the
ball and that Fantômas made himself out to be me, Tom Bob: that it
was actually Fantômas who was wounded, that he boasted of it out of a
criminal’s vanity who takes his impunity as a matter of course. And,
that he committed a blunder, after all, for this wound in the arm will
help us to identify him the more easily.”

But now, as Tom Bob finished speaking, the Minister and M. Havard
exchanged a meaning look; both had been struck by the same idea.

“Egad!” M. Havard spoke in a low voice, almost as if talking to
himself, “egad! if Mr. Bob is right, we shall have the means, once
and for all, of clearing up all these matters. Fantômas is in prison,
Fantômas is Juve ... if Juve is wounded!”

But the Minister broke in: “Yes, Havard, you are right; Juve is
Fantômas, then it is Juve must be wounded. But inasmuch as Juve is in
the _Santé_ prison, inasmuch as Juve is in gaol, he was not, he could
not be, at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s ball yesterday!”—and as if the
better to strengthen his conviction, the Minister repeated in a loud,
emphatic voice:

“Fantômas is in gaol! What the deuce, Fantômas is in gaol!”

Tom Bob was going to reply, when the door opened, and a man-servant put
in his head to announce:

“If you please, Monsieur Bob, you are wanted at the ’phone—someone who
declines to give his name.”

The detective got up, took two or three steps as if to leave the
room, then observing there was a telephone instrument standing on a
side-table near at hand, he told the servant: “Very good, my man, put
me through here, will you?”—and turning to the Minister and M. Havard,
who sat buried in their own thoughts: “Excuse me,” he said, as he
unhooked the receiver.

But he had hardly put the receiver to his ear before Tom Bob started
violently.

“One second!” he cried, “hello, just a second! will you hold the line?
I’m shutting a door so as to hear you better.”

The detective laid down the receiver and turning quickly to the
Minister and M. Harvard, he said in a mocking voice:

“Fantômas is in gaol, you say? what a mistake! Do you know who is
telephoning me at this moment?”

“Not I!” said the Minister, looking up.

Tom Bob answered in half-a-dozen words, spoken with all his usual
phlegm, without so much as raising his voice:

“Well, the person now speaking to me is just simply the man—just
Fantômas!”

And as the Minister and M. Havard looked at one another incredulously,
the detective, turning the instrument round, politely offered one of
the two receivers to the Minister, keeping the other himself, and
proceeded with the conversation over the wires:

“Hello! Yes, I’m back again now; it is I, Tom Bob, speaking. You
say—will I excuse you for having borrowed my personality? Why,
certainly; it would be very poor taste not to forgive you, Fantômas,
for I must own it was a stroke of genius! Hello! yes—you want to make
it up to me for the liberty you took? Yes, thank you. Hello! what say?
D’you mind repeating. Oh! you tell me, in order to let me win a score
off you in the eyes of the Criminal Department, that to-night, this
very evening, something will be doing at the Restaurant Azaïs ... what
o’clock?... seven!... very good, thank you again!—I’ll make a careful
note of it ... I shall be there ... hello! hello! are you there?”

But a blunder of the telephone girl had cut off connection, and
henceforth it was in vain Tom Bob repeated his hello! hello! There was
no answer. So he put down the receiver, while the Minister also hung up
his.

“Well!” remarked the detective, “you see, sir, we are on the best of
terms.”

The Minister seemed to be living in a nightmare; he thought he was
dreaming, perhaps going demented, and it was in a weak voice he
answered:

“But it’s a joke, all this, eh, Mr. Bob? It is not Fantômas ’phoning to
you, come now!”

The detective shrugged: “Not Fantômas?” he said. “Then who is it?...
who do you think it is?”

“Fantômas would never tell you beforehand he was going to commit a
crime at this restaurant in the Bois.”

“Pooh! if he’s sure, once more, of not being arrested?”

“No matter that! it would be too audacious; come, now, Mr. Bob, you
won’t go?”

“Oh, yes! I shall, sir! I shall be there.”

The Minister was thinking; suddenly he went on:

“Well, if you go, by all I hold most sacred, I will go too! Yes, I will
go! it shall never be said ...”

Tom Bob turned to M. Havard: “And you, my dear colleague, will you
come? You seem pensive for the moment?”

M. Havard indeed—from Tom Bob’s answers he had quite well gathered, or
at any rate guessed, what Fantômas probably said—was thinking deeply.

“Oh!” he declared at last, “yes, I shall certainly go; but it will be
without over much belief in the thing.”

“Why so?”

“Because ... because it was a practical joker telephoned you.”

“A practical joker? No, I don’t think that.”

“I do!” declared M. Havard, who was getting annoyed, “yes, a practical
joker! a practical joker, I repeat, for, look you, there is one thing
you are forgetting, that we are all forgetting at present, a fact that
is certain, indisputable ...”

“To wit?”

“Why, that Fantômas is in prison, that Fantômas is in the _Santé_, and
that consequently he could not have done murder yesterday, he cannot
be telephoning to you now, it will be impossible for him to be at the
_Azaïs_ to-morrow!”

The Minister, who for the last few minutes had been getting more and
more impatient, laid his hand on M. Havard’s shoulder.

“Listen to me!” he said, “all this is very bewildering, so bewildering
in fact, that we are forgetting our logic. There is one step we must
take instantly. Monsieur Havard, in coming to see your colleague, to
see Mr. Tom Bob, we have made a blunder; it is elsewhere we must go
now. By the Lord, we shall soon see if Juve is wounded, we shall soon
find out whether he telephoned this morning, whether he can go this
evening!”

Before the great man had done speaking, M. Havard had clapped on his
hat again and slipped on his top-coat.

“You are right, Monsieur le Ministre,” he declared, “let us go there at
once.”




CHAPTER XIX

THE PRISONER OF THE SANTÉ


It was the hour of general _réveillée_ at the prison of _La Santé_.
Along the corridors, still in semi-darkness, tramped the warders,
jangling their ponderous bunches of keys, on their way to wake the
prisoners for the morning meal. Before the door of the cell where
Juve was confined, Hervé, the turnkey, usually entrusted with the
surveillance of the ex-detective, stood hesitating, only finally making
up his mind to go in on hearing the step of a chief warder at the far
end of the paved passage.

The door turned slowly on its hinges. As a rule the sound of the key
turning in the lock was the signal for Juve to start wide awake and sit
up in his bed, in eager expectation of ... what? Perhaps his release!
But alas! morning after morning the apparition of the turnkey’s sullen
countenance only brought bitter disappointment with it.

But this morning the prisoner did not wake; he was sleeping heavily
and, if appearances were to be trusted, very uneasily. He kept groaning
and crying out peevishly, muttering incoherently, twisting and turning
in his bed, waving about his arms, one of which showed stains of blood,
blood that had run down in two red rivulets over his torn shirt and
marked the white sheet with little brown spots.

Hervé approached the bed and stood looking down at the sleeper. The
turnkey showed no particular signs of surprise at seeing the condition
his prisoner was in, but wore rather the preoccupied look of a man who
cannot make up his mind to one course of action more than another.
Eventually, he shook the sleeper roughly, hauled him up by the shoulder
into a sitting posture, and when the prisoner, though still looking
dazed and rubbing his eyes sleepily, seemed more or less awake,
apostrophized him angrily:

“What’s wrong with you? where does that blood come from?”

“Blood? Where do you see any blood?”

“There, on your arm, on your shirt, on your bed-sheet. How came you to
hurt yourself?”

“I don’t know; I hadn’t noticed it before; it must have been in the
night, I must have torn the skin tossing about.”

“Come, come, that’s an impossible story! What could you have done it
with?”

“There, look at the corner of the bed, there’s a blood stain there:
that’s where I hurt myself, no doubt. I’ve had a shocking night—bad
dreams, nightmare: my head aches, I feel tired out, I must have kicked
about ever so in my bed, it’s no wonder I knocked the skin off banging
my arm against one of the iron bars.”

“H’m! it don’t seem to me just as clear as daylight, somehow. Anyway
be quick and get dressed, I must report to the Governor, and he’ll see
what’s best to do.”

       *       *       *       *       *

M. Chaigniste, the able and well-known Governor of the _Santé_ prison
was in his working room, engaged in reading through again a report
he had drawn up the night before on the general condition of his
establishment; he was rubbing his hands in token of satisfaction,
equally pleased with the elegance of his own composition and his skill
as an administrator that had enabled him up to the present to avoid
any, even the most trifling, of those “affairs” that are the _bête
noire_ of persons in authority, when the warder appeared: “I’ve come,
sir, to let you know I found Number 55 wounded in his cell when I went
there this morning.”

“Number 55! Why, that’s Juve, is it not, the ex-police-officer?”

“Yes sir.”

“Is it serious?”

“No, sir, only a bit of a cut on the arm.”

“Take him to the infirmary; I will go there myself, as soon as the
doctor arrives.”

At that very moment a bell tinkled in the Governor’s study; it was the
house-porter ’phoning M. Chaigniste that Doctor Du Marvier was come for
his daily visit. The Governor and the practitioner found Juve in the
waiting room, sitting on a stool, holding his head between his hands
and puzzling over his wound, which struck him as, after all, hard to
account for. The doctor tapped him lightly on the shoulder. He was a
little round man, with a merry face, a smile for ever on his lips, the
very spirit of gaiety, a man to heal his patients by the mere sight of
his beaming face! “My standing panacea,” he was in the habit of saying,
“is a funny story.”

Accordingly it was with a pleasantry he greeted the ex-police-officer,
with whom he had already come in contact previously to his imprisonment.

“Well, what’s the matter now? We’re not satisfied with the Governor’s
treatment of us, eh? so we go and try to kill ourselves, is that it?”

“Doctor,” Juve replied in the same vein; “I could very readily dispense
with the privilege of being Monsieur Chaigniste’s guest, but all
the same I can assure you I have not the smallest wish in the world
to escape his hospitality by committing suicide. I am just as much
surprised as anybody else at the wound in my arm. I can only account
for it by the supposition that in my sleep I knocked up against a
corner of my iron bedstead.” While speaking, Juve had removed his
jacket and turned up his shirt sleeve. The wound was plainly visible, a
clear cut an inch or a trifle over in length on the upper part of the
arm pointing downwards. The trifling nature of the hurt indeed made the
doctor’s whimsical suggestion seem utterly absurd—a man wanting to kill
himself would set about the job in quite another fashion.

But was Juve’s own hypothesis any more probable? Was it against the
corner of his bed the police-officer had hurt himself while asleep?
Evidently such was not the view taken by the doctor, who after a rapid
examination, turned to the Governor, saying:

“The wound is quite superficial, the skin is only slightly broken, and
if the hurt has bled rather copiously, that is only because one or two
small veins have been divided. With every confidence I can assure you
the prisoner’s bed has nothing whatever to do with the accident. It is
a cut is in question, and a cut that cannot have been made by anything
except an implement with a cutting edge. A blow, as violent as is
assumed, would have produced a bruise, a swelling, the blood would have
collected under the epidermis, might indeed have spurted out, but we
should never have seen an incision so clean-cut as that.”

But whilst the doctor was speaking, Juve had turned as pale as death;
he seemed to have lost all power in his limbs and sank down exhausted
on a stool. Doctor Du Marvier was quick to notice the prisoner’s
condition; taking his hand he felt his pulse carefully.

“Tell me,” he said, “is your pulse so slow usually?”

“No, doctor, I have always supposed myself to have a normally rapid
pulse, but to-day I don’t feel quite well, I slept very badly last
night and I have a violent headache.”

“Let me see your tongue!” It was quite white, like a man’s after a
high fever. Then the doctor put his ear to the prisoner’s heart; when
he raised his head after a long auscultation, he had apparently found
the solution of the problem, for a look of conviction illuminated
his face. Drawing the Governor on one side, he spoke to him in a low
voice. What he said must have been of the very gravest import for,
when he had done, the Governor was as pale as Juve himself and seemed
to be profoundly agitated. M. Chaigniste was turning to the prisoner,
no doubt intending to question him further, when one of his private
servants came in to tell him:

“M. Havard, sir, is waiting in your room to speak to you on some very
urgent business.”

“I will go to him,” replied the Governor, and beckoning to the warders:

“Take the man back to his cell,” he ordered, “and keep him under
observation.”

M. Havard was much excited. His idea had been to follow up his
researches regarding the crime committed at the grand duchess’s by
satisfying himself as to Juve’s condition. Inasmuch as it was a proven
fact that Fantômas had been wounded in the arm, if Juve was really and
truly Fantômas, he argued, Juve must be wounded. Accordingly, M. Havard
had betaken himself to the _Santé_ prison. Well, scarcely had he
arrived there before he learned that the Governor and the doctor were
with Juve, who had been wounded in the night! It was the confirmation
of all his hypotheses; it was the new and unexpected fact that should
bring daylight into a laborious investigation, hitherto anything
but fruitful in results! Juve was verily and indeed Fantômas! the
ex-detective was the most redoubtable of all malefactors! If he showed
such acuteness and sagacity in unravelling the most tangled affairs,
it was because the very crimes he brought to light he had himself
committed!

Easy to imagine with what impatience the Head of the Criminal Bureau
awaited M. Chaigniste’s arrival! The latter was hardly in the room
before he sprang to meet him:

“Juve! What ails him! He is wounded? wounded where?”

The Governor was barely recovered from the agitation caused him by the
doctor’s startling announcement. So it was in a rather shaky voice, and
after a moment’s pause to recover his self-possession, that he answered:

“He has given himself a slight, quite a slight wound.”

“How?”

“With an implement, knife or penknife, we do not yet know which.”

“Whereabouts is the wound?”

“In the arm.”

“Why, the man’s a demon, nothing less!”

The Governor had no knowledge of the events that had occurred the night
before at the grand duchess’s, so he was quite at a loss as to the
meaning of M. Havard’s exclamation. In amazement he watched the latter
as he strode up and down the length of the great room, lost apparently
in the deepest thought. But his amazement grew to stupefaction when
M. Havard went on to say:

“What, can a prisoner contrive to leave your prison of an evening and
return again before daylight?”

The question was, indeed, of a sort to rouse M. Chaigniste’s
indignation. He, the model administrator, he who since first he came
to the _Santé_ had never had an “affair”; he, who was so proud of his
staff that he looked upon himself as the father of his subordinates;
he, who, only yesterday, had written a masterly report declaring in
good set terms that everything was for the best in this best of all
possible prisons; _he_ was suspected of having allowed prisoners the
possibility of taking their walks abroad in the night! “His” prison, it
seemed, was a hotel which people might quit at will, to go about their
private affairs and come back again when they had enjoyed their liberty
long enough!

He was on the point of returning M. Havard a cutting and dignified
answer when the latter, guessing his thoughts, broke in:

“Monsieur Chaigniste, I feel convinced all duties are performed to
perfection in your establishment. But still, answer me this question:
Does Juve’s cell contain any implement capable of making the wound you
have noted?”

The Governor was nonplussed; shaking his head emphatically, he declared:

“I can confidently say no! There are numbers of prisoners who, when
they are locked up, try to make away with themselves, so not only do we
search everyone, but every article that might be dangerous is removed
and the cells hold no single thing that could cause a wound, even the
most trifling.”

“Then,” M. Havard went on, “if Juve did not hurt himself in his cell,
he must have left his cell. You see that, surely! Now listen, Monsieur
Chaigniste, I came here this morning to inquire into Juve’s condition.
But long before your warder opened the prisoner’s cell door and saw his
bleeding arm, _I_ knew that Juve must be wounded, and all I came for
was to have my suspicions corroborated. A horrible crime was committed
last night; its author was wounded in the arm; I suspected Juve, and
Juve is wounded in the arm! Then, I say, Juve did that crime! Juve
escaped from your prison last night, committed a cowardly murder in
the middle of a ball, killing one of my inspectors, who no doubt had
managed to penetrate his disguise; then he came back and voluntarily
put himself under lock and key, in order to provide himself an
alibi ...”

“Horrible! horrible!” stammered the Governor, quite overcome.

“Yes, _it_ is horrible, but the culprit shall pay dear for his
misdeeds, for we have him now safe and sure!”

“Horrible!” again groaned M. Chaigniste.

“Yes, indeed ... and yet there’s something strikes me as strange about
the business and makes me hesitate. Let us reason it out calmly and
quietly. There is one quality we cannot deny Juve possesses, and that
is intelligence. He must have felt pretty sure the murderer’s wounded
arm had been noticed at the grand duchess’s; he must have seen that it
would be proof positive, irrefragable proof of his crime. He was not
pursued, he had time enough to leave Paris and gain the frontier. That,
to my eyes, constitutes a problem it is necessary to solve in order to
hold the key to the mystery, and it seems to me difficult to solve it
except in favour of my old subordinate.”

Little by little, M. Chaigniste had succeeded in gathering his wits
together and reducing his thoughts to some sort of order after all the
successive shocks he had undergone in so short a space of time. He
now recalled the startling confidence Dr. Du Marvier had whispered in
his ear and felt it was incumbent in him to share his knowledge with
M. Havard.

“I am going to tell you one thing,” he began, after some hesitation,
“a thing that will possibly help you to clear up this mystery. Dr. Du
Marvier, after examining Juve’s wound, noticed that the prisoner looked
pale and appeared greatly exhausted; he questioned him, listened to
his heart, and observed that its action was considerably retarded. By
what he told me in confidence, all this would seem to point to his
having been poisoned, very probably with hydrate of chloral. But that
is, after all, only a hypothesis, and besides, I don’t quite see how
one could establish a connection between this kind of poisoning and the
wound we are talking about.”

But at the words, M. Havard sprang up from the chair in which he had at
last seated himself.

“What!” he cried, “you don’t see the connection? Why, don’t you know
that chloral is not only a poison, but also a soporific? Juve would
seem to have taken a soporific? But why? With what object? Not only
does this not throw light on the mystery, but it makes it still more
obscure ... Monsieur Chaigniste, are you sure your staff are to be
trusted?”

The Governor threw up his head like a man deeply offended, and replied
in a grave voice:

“I can answer for them as surely as I can for myself. I have carefully
studied the characters of all my warders, and I can assure you there is
not a single one of them on whom the fullest and most implicit reliance
may not be placed.”

“And since Juve’s incarceration there have been no changes? Which is
the warder specially in charge of him?”

“A man called Hervé, a man employed here ten years or more, and of
whose conduct I have never had any but excellent reports.”

“Then, sir, I have one favour left to ask you, to be authorized to
visit the prisoner in his cell; after that I need only thank you for
the information you have been so good as to give me this morning.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The Governor was hardly out of the Infirmary before Juve’s wound was
summarily attended to, and he was then handed over to the warders’
tender mercies. Not without the accompaniment of some hearty cuffs,
the strait-waistcoat was put on and the prisoner was taken back to his
cell. Juve made no protest, the same state of weakness and prostration
still continued and reduced him to a condition of unresisting and
silent passivity. It was only by degrees that he recovered his
self-composure and could look the new situation in which he found
himself in the face. His first impulse was to give way to the utter
abandonment of despair. Alas! even in prison he was not secure from his
adversary’s machinations! He had thought that, after thus depriving him
of all power to act, Fantômas would be satisfied with the freedom so
secured him to pursue at his ease the series of his crimes, and would
forget the existence of his foe.

But lo! he now found himself once more the prey of his savage
adversary! For Juve felt no doubt the wound in his arm, the distress
that tormented his whole body, were Fantômas’ work. Fantômas had
accomplices inside the prison, and it was these confederates who had
come at night to make a cut on his arm as if he had been wounded,
after first sending him to sleep by means of the drug the debilitating
effects of which he still experienced. With what object had they so
acted? He did not know and he could not guess, ponder the matter as
he might. But at least the fact was certain, undeniable, and it put
the crown on his calamity! Fantômas had accomplices in his prison! The
thought never ceased tormenting the unhappy man with ever increasing
intensity, when suddenly a new idea struck him that made him spring up
joyfully from his chair and stride up and down his narrow cell.

“If Fantômas has accomplices in the prison, I am bound to know them,
these same accomplices, they must come in contact with me every day,”
thought Juve: “but if I know them, it will be possible for me to
detect them and confound their plans. What was the saddest feature of
my position was that I was powerless, and could expect the discovery
of the truth only from the efforts of others. Now I am going to work
for myself, and deep as the mystery may be, I shall clear it up, just
because I am so resolved to do so.”

Juve was at this point in his reflections when M. Havard entered his
cell. At sight of his old Chief the prisoner made a movement of recoil.
The Head of the Criminal Bureau pretended not to see this and took a
seat on a stool; then he signed to the two warders, who since morning
had been permanently stationed in the cell, to withdraw, and when they
had shut the door behind them, he began in these terms:

“Juve, since this morning, a grave suspicion rests upon you; the wound
you have on your arm is a very damning proof of your guilt.”

Juve was persuaded that M. Havard was the prime mover in his ruin, so
that the friendship and devotion he bore his Chief previously to his
imprisonment had been succeeded by something of rancour.

“Sir,” he replied, “you think you have been clever enough already to
discover many indications of my guilt; I make no doubt you will be
ingenious enough to discover many more. What I am afraid of is that you
are not clever enough ever to find the proofs of my innocence.”

“Juve, you are in error in supposing I nourish any fixed prejudice
against you. You know in what esteem I have held you and what
friendship I have felt for you? I have deplored more than anybody
the combination of circumstances that led to your arrest, and ever
since then I have conducted my investigation loyally and without
preconceptions. It is highly important in your own interest to answer
frankly the questions I am going to ask you about your wound and your
illness in the night ... now ...”

It was plain from the tone of studied moderation exhibited by M. Havard
that the Head of the Criminal Bureau desired but one thing, to throw
some light on the mystery that so distressed them both, and that the
information M. Chaigniste had given him with regard to the prisoner’s
having swallowed a strong dose of hydrate of chloral had very
considerably shaken the conviction he at first professed as to Juve’s
culpability. It followed that the way he put the questions he had
indicated was such as little by little to bring about in the prisoner’s
breast a return to feelings of trust and friendliness. Without making
any definite confidences to his former Chief, Juve gave the latter a
glimpse of the hopes he entertained of succeeding by way of the inside
of the prison in unveiling a corner of the mystery.

The conversation was a long and evidently a satisfactory one, for on
parting, M. Havard extended his hand cordially to his erstwhile fellow
worker, while Juve’s face beamed with glad relief, and reawakened hope.




CHAPTER XX

A WOMAN’S SELF-SACRIFICE


The ferry-boat that plies between the bank of the lake and the Ile de
Beauté on which the Restaurant Azaïs stands had not actually touched
the landing-stage before M. Havard, standing up on one of the thwarts
of the boat, in which indeed he was the only passenger, leapt ashore,
in a paroxysm of nervous excitement.

“What am I going to find here?” thought the Chief of the Criminal
Bureau, “what fresh difficulties am I to be faced with, agitated as I
am, and really not knowing what to do? Then how simply grotesque the
visit I paid along with the Minister of Justice to that impossible
person Tom Bob—grotesque to the uttermost degree! I arrive with a
companion who is to be incognito; before I have been there three
minutes the man addresses him by his name! I come to charge him with
crimes committed at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s house; he has never
set foot inside the place! Then, to crown all, he is rung up by
Fantômas, offering him contemptuously a petty piece of revenge—by way
of annoying the Department! Then presently, when we reach the prison,
it is to find Juve wounded and declaring he knows no more about it than
we do!”

M. Havard, so formal and precise a man, so staid and deliberate as a
rule, was for the moment so enraged he entirely forgot his dignity and
dashed helter skelter, running like a schoolboy, across the little
terrace separating the Restaurant Azaïs from the lakeside. There were
only a few diners that evening occupying the tables, and already the
majority were hurrying for the ferry-boat, that was making ready, after
landing the Chief on the island, to re-cross to the mainland. Only one
man remained seated at a table at the farthest end of the restaurant,
where he was finishing his meal. M. Havard recognized this solitary
diner at once and ran up to him.

“Well?” he panted.

Tom Bob lifted his head and recognized the newcomer. Speaking in his
quietest tones: “Oh! so there you are, M. Havard?” he observed.

“Yes ... well?” again asked the Chief.

“Take a chair, Monsieur Havard; you’ll help me drink my coffee? No?”

M. Havard was boiling over. “The devil take your coffee!” he shouted.
“Have you seen anything?”

Still quite unmoved, Tom Bob shrugged.

“I have seen,” he said, “that the cooking here is quite decently good
and that it’s an excellent place for eating a quiet dinner.”

“Devil take you and your dinner! Come now, answer me seriously ...
Fantômas?”

“Fantômas has not come yet.”

M. Havard heaved a sigh of relief, and at last allowed himself to sink
into the chair Tom Bob had pushed forward for him.

“Not come yet!” he exclaimed, “ah, well, I’m rather relieved after all.
It was just a joker then?”

“A joker! Whom d’you mean?”

“Egad, why, the man who ’phoned you!”

“I don’t think so.”

“Still—as nothing has happened.”

Tom Bob called the waiter. “Bring the cigars,” he ordered. Then,
turning again to the Head of the Criminal Bureau:

“Well, Monsieur Havard,” he said, “if nothing has happened, I fancy
that’s because the time hasn’t come yet for anything to happen, that’s
all.”

M. Havard growled out: “You think the ...”

“I think ... ’pon my word! Monsieur Havard, I think the wisest thing
to do is to wait patiently. Anyway, Fantômas strikes me as being
quite a man of the world. If he really means to destroy the charming
surroundings where he has brought me for this little dinner, I think he
has had the politeness to wait till I have finished. It was the least
he could do.”

But M. Havard failed to appreciate the American detective’s irony.
Interrupting him in the middle of his sentence, he sprang from his
chair, and slapping his forehead:

“And my men?” he cried, “I must make sure they are there.”

“What men?”

“The officers.”

“You’ve sent police-officers here?”

“Ten inspectors from the Bureau, yes!”

An amused smile flitted over the detective’s lips as he looked at
M. Havard whimsically.

“By the Lord!” he cried, “if I was Fantômas, I should be flattered; at
a telephone ring from him, you set a little army in motion, Monsieur
Havard! It’s a pretty compliment, d’you know, on your part.”

But M. Havard would hear no more.

“It’s a compliment, or it’s not a compliment,” he struck in in a dry
tone that, he hoped, would cut short the American’s irony. “Anyhow,
this is the way it is; you, if by any chance you succeeded in
catching one glimpse of Fantômas, they’d all be shouting _wonderful!
miraculous!_ If I were to arrest him, why, they’d just say it was all
in the day’s work; now, as I don’t arrest him, they throw stones at
me!... Meet you again, directly, I’m off to see if my men are posted.”

M. Havard took three steps to go, then thinking better of it and coming
up to Tom Bob again:

“Look here,” he excused himself, “I was a bit blunt with you; but
you mustn’t be angry, for some while back I’ve had good cause to be
irritable, you’ll admit that?”

“I do,” Tom Bob agreed.

“Then forgive me! Now tell me—you’ve done some smart things since your
arrival in this country, I can’t deny you’re clever—tell me, have you
any idea what Fantômas may try to do this evening?”

Tom Bob was evidently too good-hearted and too nice a fellow not to
commiserate the bad temper M. Havard suffered from, for it was in a
very cordial tone this time that he answered the Chief of the Criminal
Bureau:

“I can form no supposition on that point—nay, I will go further, and
admit there’s something that worries me ...”

“What is it?”

“This; if Fantômas has invited us here, it is because he is quite
confident we are not likely either to guess or parry the blow he is
preparing. Moreover, I’ve been engaged since I got here, in making a
cursory investigation, and having learnt nothing ...”
But M. Havard, to the last degree perplexed, had become deeply buried
in his own thoughts.

“For my own part,” he admitted, “do you know what it is worries me?”

“No! What does?”

“I keep asking myself whether Fantômas has not enticed us here, has not
enticed you here in particular, you, Tom Bob, on purpose to have a free
hand at some other spot in the city which it was his pleasure perhaps
to visit.”

Tom Bob too, debated the supposition M. Havard had just formulated.

“No, that would not be playing fair,” he said at last; “and Fantômas
has never been dishonourable. No, I can’t believe he would do that.”

M. Havard shrugged his shoulders by way of answer; he distrusted the
American’s psychological acumen.

After a short silence, M. Havard resumed:

“Well, as you please, Monsieur Bob, but my opinion is that for
to-night, either we are the victims of some practical joker, or in any
case the affair is off. Fantômas must have seen that my officers were
here in force. For my part, I am going to take a turn to look after my
men; I know where they are, hidden about the island. Then I shall take
the ferry again and so back to the Prefecture. Will you join me?”

Tom Bob shook his head.

“No,” he declared, “I shall spend the night here. I make it a point to
keep my tryst with Fantômas. However, M. Havard, I will go with you in
the boat as far as the other bank; that will give me the pleasure of
another row on this pretty lake, a perfect jewel at this time of an
evening, the finest thing of its kind, surely, in Paris.”

Still in a hurry, M. Havard did not stop to listen to the American’s
praises of the Bois de Boulogne. He crossed the little wooden bridge
joining the two parts of the island, made sure that the officers he had
sent there in the afternoon were at their posts, ordered them to keep
a most careful watch all night on the lake and its approaches, then
made his way back to Tom Bob.

“You are coming?”

“I am quite ready.”

The detective got up, paid the bill for his dinner, and took another
cigar, while M. Havard, faithful to his usual habits, refused the
Havana Tom Bob offered him and drew a cigarette from his case. The two
police-officials left the restaurant and made for the landing, where
the ferry-boat was again putting in.

“Get in,” M. Havard urged the American.

“After you!” protested the Head of the Criminal Bureau. “Halloa, have
you a light about you? Will you pass me a match, I haven’t got one.”

Tom Bob looked at his cigar. “I’m not well alight myself,” he said,
and pulling a box of vestas from his pocket, he lit one, handed it to
M. Havard, then took it back and applied it to his own cigar; then, as
the match was beginning to burn his fingers, he tossed it into the lake.

But then, suddenly, with terrifying intensity, with an incredible
rapidity, a fantastic, unheard-of, appalling thing happened. The very
instant the burning match touched the water, the lake caught fire and
blazed up fiercely, giving off dense clouds of smoke and sending up
huge flickering flames of red and blue that instantly covered the whole
surface with a sheet of fire.

Fortunately Tom Bob had managed to grip M. Havard by the arm and drag
him back from the boat he was just getting into, and both started
running breathlessly for the middle of the island, accompanied as they
went by the various employés of the _Azaïs_, the manager and a few
customers who were still on the premises, all flying headlong before
the flames. The sight was fairylike, unforgettable, but tragic to the
last degree. The whole lake indeed was a veritable sea of fire, which
the eye could not pierce. From this gigantic brazier a sooty smoke went
up in swirling eddies, instantly veiling the sky with thick, heavy
clouds. The heat was terrific, so intense that the sweat rolled in
torrents down the faces of the unfortunates imprisoned on the island.
The air indeed was almost unbreathable. All round the party branches
kept breaking off the trees and the smaller boughs beginning to flare
up, while the shrubs dipping in the water were in turn taking fire.

“We are done for!” groaned M. Havard. But Tom Bob preserved his
presence of mind.

“To the middle of the island!” he shouted; “come this way,”—and he led
all his companions to the centre of the little island. Once there, he
proceeded to calm their apprehensions.

“Keep cool!” he said, “keep cool! If the lake is on fire, there can be
only one explanation, that they’ve emptied over the surface barrels of
naphtha or petroleum. Egad! Fantômas can’t be far; it’s a miracle we
have escaped, Monsieur Havard; I imagine he was only waiting for both
of us to be in the boat between the bank and the island to put a light
to his naphtha and roast us to death.”

“Yes, indeed,” M. Havard agreed, “a minute more and we were dead men.”

Tom Bob shook his head gravely. “If only there are no fatalities,” he
said. “Look, it strikes me the flames are not so fierce now? Evidently
the layer of naphtha cannot have been very thick. Yes, the flames are
dropping, but ... but ...”—as he spoke, fearful screams broke out
coming from a little further away. M. Havard and the detective looked
at each other in consternation. The cries grew louder and louder, and
with one impulse the two men dashed to the rescue. They had distinctly
heard the words:

“Help! help!... Fantômas! Fantômas! Fantômas is here!”

While M. Havard and the unlucky Tom Bob were in such imminent peril
from the monstrous audacity of the ever elusive brigand, while the lake
was taking fire with alarming rapidity, a tragedy had been enacting on
its banks.

It was the day after the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s ball, and that very
evening Lady Beltham, in fulfilment of her promise to Fandor, was to go
and see Elisabeth Dollon to assure her of the journalist’s innocence.
Fandor never doubted that the great lady would keep her engagement and
find some way of meeting the girl. After the furious dagger thrust,
against which his coat of mail had so fortunately protected him, after
his flight from the grand duchess’s, a flight that lady had in fact
facilitated, the journalist could no longer doubt that Fantômas had
been really present at that festivity. And from that moment the death
of the unfortunate police-officer was no riddle to him—Joffre had
fallen by the hand of Fantômas. This fresh murder in no way surprised
him.

Accordingly Jérôme Fandor, anxious above all things to meet Elisabeth
Dollon and secure a renewal of the girl’s favour, had all the afternoon
been watching for Lady Beltham’s arrival at the lake in the Bois. But
it was only at nine in the evening that she arrived, and Fandor had
of course taken care not to reveal his presence just then. When Lady
Beltham should be returning and re-crossing the lake, then he would
go to her and thank her and ask her if he might now go to Elisabeth
to find her convinced of his innocence; for the moment it was very
necessary to keep concealed.

But just as the boat reached the landing place of the Restaurant Azaïs,
Fandor, who was still prowling on the road beside the lake, caught
sight of M. Havard’s figure, and Tom Bob with him, both evidently
intending to take the ferry on their way back to Paris.

Then in an instant came a flash, a blaze, an impassable wall of fire
separating the journalist from the island and the restaurant. Like
a madman, the unhappy man ran along the bank, wringing his hands
in despair. But what could he do? what could he do? In an agony he
pictured the terrible position, perhaps the fatal position ... in which
the wretches now on the island might find themselves.

“Elisabeth!” he cried, “Elisabeth, oh! we are under a curse!”

Fandor in fact was asking himself if the fire was not going to reach
the island, if indeed the island itself, drenched with petroleum, was
not blazing too; if Elisabeth were not doomed to die by that awful
death, the death that is worse than a thousand deaths, death by fire!

Fandor could divine the whole villainous plot. No, it was no mere
coincidence that the lake should take fire at the very moment Elisabeth
learned that he was innocent. Not a doubt of it this was another of the
horrid acts of cruelty Fantômas loved. Fantômas had willed Elisabeth
should die at that precise moment. Yes, for he knew all, he had learned
the _rendez-vous_ arranged with the grand duchess, for had he not
been present at the whole conversation between Fandor and the great
lady, when Fandor merely supposed he was looking at one of the many
reflections in the mirrors ornamenting the walls of the winter garden.

The lake had been burning for nearly three minutes. Suddenly Fandor
made up his mind; throwing off his coat, the brave young man ran to the
bank of the lake, whose waters were still blazing; his face was pale,
but a look of determination flashed in his eyes as he plunged into the
torrent of fire!

“I will swim under water,” the daring fellow told himself. “No, I
cannot let Elisabeth perish so; if she is to die, I will die near her,
with her!”

It was a heroic but a mad venture. The channel separating the mainland
from the island was broad, and half way across, he had no breath left
and must at any cost come to the surface, magnificent swimmer though
he was. The water was still blazing. Barely had he time to snatch a
mouthful of mephitic, scarce breathable air, when he must dive under
again on pain of being burnt alive.

“Ten strokes more!... five more ... three more!”—his knees grazed the
bottom, he had reached the shore!

Panting, breathless, Fandor climbed on the bank, grievously
hurt, bleeding, half dead; but he was near his goal. He cried,
“Elisabeth!”—and in the distance, his eyes still dazzled with the glare
of the fire, the journalist seemed to see a woman’s form. He staggered
towards her, a haggard, terrifying figure. But no sooner was he near
the girl, for it was really she, flying with Lady Beltham before the
advancing flames—she had taken refuge there—than he started back,
struck with consternation.

Lady Beltham had not yet had time to speak to Elisabeth Dollon, and the
girl, seeing this dreadful apparition rise before her, Fandor, pale and
bleeding, had screamed out in frantic terror:

“Fantômas! Fantômas! it is Fantômas!”

“Where is he gone!” Lady Beltham eagerly questioned M. Havard and
Tom Bob, who had run up on hearing the cries. She had not recognized
Fandor, but on the other hand she knew it was not Fantômas who had
shown himself. Instinctively she pointed in the direction in which the
journalist had taken to flight.

Thereupon followed a veritable man-hunt, duly organized. Blowing a
shrill whistle, M. Havard called up his men, scattered more or less
everywhere about the island.

“Fantômas is there” he yelled, “he has just swum over.... Dead or alive
he must be taken, dead or alive!”

Not a clump of trees but was searched. The waters of the lake, no
longer aflame, looked dark and gloomy as before, clouds of soot made
the air oppressive to breathe, the only light to help the officers
in their frantic search came from some trees that were still burning
on the bank of the lake. From all sides sounded cries, shouts,
exclamations. For Fandor was now in full flight before the pursuing
myrmidons of the law.

What did it all mean? He was far from having any clear conception of
this. Once more Fantômas had laid his plans marvellously well; once
more Fortune had favoured him. He it was, Fandor could surely guess,
who had contrived that Tom Bob and M. Havard were on the island at the
very moment the lake was to burst into flame. Fantômas had of course
felt no doubt that Fandor, prowling about the neighbourhood waiting to
know the result of Lady Beltham’s visit, would be one of the first to
make a dash for the island. In this way he would tumble into a regular
trap.

Fandor was in full flight, seeing everywhere men hunting for him,
revolver in hand, for the scattered conflagrations, dying down one by
one, still afforded some light.

“By the Lord!” he thought to himself, “I have no choice. I must take
to the water, stay as long as possible out in the middle of the lake;
it’ll be the devil’s own luck if I don’t manage to put them off the
scent.” But at that moment a ball whistled past his ear. He had
imprudently come too close, an officer had caught sight of him and
fired.

“Damnation!” muttered the young man, springing back sharply, “it seems
a price is set on my head.”

“There! there, I tell you! God Almighty, give me a revolver!” The
pursuit was still hot, when suddenly a splash was heard in the water.
The police officers gathered in a crowd; “He’ll get away! and never a
boat!”

But one of the men was equal to the occasion; “‘Dead or alive!’
M. Havard told us we were to capture Fantômas dead or alive! By God!
it was childish to spare his life when we had him at our mercy. A
volley!” cried the man, “Fire, all together!”

His advice was followed, the officers fired off their revolvers at a
venture in the direction of the splash. And next instant, drowning the
sound of the shots, a sharp cry rang through the night:

“Help!... oh!... help!”

“Hit! Fantômas is hit!”

But Tom Bob was already making for the restaurant at a run. A boat lay
high and dry on the bank; swiftly he dragged it to the water’s edge,
sprang in, and in a few strokes of the oars was at the spot the cries
had come from.

“Fantômas” he yelled—he could be clearly heard from the
shore—“Fantômas! surrender!”

Other boats came up; each second seemed an eternity. But now M. Havard,
leaning over the side of his boat, gripped a dark shape struggling in
the water; “I’ve got him!” Then in triumph, he shouted an order to the
officer who was at the oars:

“Row, my man, bring us to the shore!... there, beside that tree, it is
still burning, so we shall see plain, anyhow!... he must be seriously
wounded, he has stopped struggling.”

But as the boat entered the zone illuminated by the blazing tree,
M. Havard, still holding the mysterious human body he had gripped in
the darkness, could not check an exclamation of dismay.

“Oh! curses on it! curses on it! It is not Fantômas! It is not the man!
it is a woman!”

Others helped, and the inert form was soon carried ashore.

Then suddenly, Lady Beltham, who had looked on in frenzied distress at
all this scene of horror, came forward, a tragic figure, her eyes wide
with terror.

“Oh! it is horrible,” she groaned, falling on her knees beside the
half-drowned woman’s body, “it is horrible, she tried to save him, to
put them off the scent! They have killed an innocent woman! they have
killed Elisabeth Dollon!”




CHAPTER XXI

JOY CAN KILL


“You are good and kind, madam.”

“No, no! don’t say that.”

“But you are! you are exquisitely good, exquisitely kind.”

A spasm of pain crossed the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s face, and it was
in almost a harsh tone that she protested again:

“You are mistaken. Then, to begin with, the doctor forbids you to talk;
you must obey his orders so as to get well, and you know very well you
have to get well quickly.”

Moving soundlessly over the thick carpets of the sick-room, the
grand duchess stepped up to the bed on which lay the young girl she
addressed. With a light, skilful touch she shook up the pillows,
re-arranged the bedclothes and settled the patient in the most
comfortable position.

“Try to get to sleep, won’t you?”

“I am not sleepy; I am burning with fever and I feel thirsty—oh! so
thirsty.”

The grand duchess carefully measured out a few drops of champagne
into a glass, added a little water, and held out the cool, refreshing
beverage:

“Drink, my poor darling. The doctor did not forbid this.”

A wan smile hovered on the patient’s lips, as she eagerly quenched her
raging thirst.

“The doctor!” she murmured, “why does the doctor worry me with his
prescriptions? He knows I shall not get well.”

But in a severe voice now, a tinge of bitterness even in its tones, the
grand duchess replied:

“I do not wish you, Elisabeth, to talk like that. You have no right not
to get well.... Think of him!”

By what series of strange events came Elisabeth Dollon, for the injured
woman was indeed Elisabeth Dollon, to be in this house, the house
of the Grand Duchess Alexandra, to have that enigmatic personage for
sick-nurse?

The pursuit of Fandor among the underwood of the Ile de Beauté,
while the blazing lake was burning itself out, had ended in a
startling tragedy, the discovery of Elisabeth wounded, shot by the
police-officers, who had fired on her in the belief they were shooting
at Fantômas. How had the mistake come about? Alas! it found its
explanation in a terrible scene that had just passed between the Grand
Duchess Alexandra and the unhappy girl the young journalist loved.
When the first moments of stupefaction were over, and the officers
of justice were hotly pursuing the fugitive, Elisabeth Dollon had
confessed to the grand duchess in the stammering accents of terror,
that it was really and truly the journalist Fandor she had seen and
denounced under the name of Fantômas.

Then the grand duchess had hesitated no more. She had come there to
undeceive Elisabeth Dollon, to convince her of Fandor’s innocence, and
now she carried out her intention with a vigour and emphasis born of
her sympathy with the pair, and even as she spoke, she could see the
girl turn pale and almost faint in her excitement. It was true then,
Fandor was innocent? Fandor was worthy of her love! Fandor was the
victim of a cruel Fate!—and it was she who had set the policemen on his
track, the men who at that moment were ransacking the island to seize
him, dead or alive!

In an instant the brave girl had resolved on a sublime act of
self-sacrifice. Realizing that Fandor was done for if the pursuit
continued, she made up her mind to interrupt this dreadful man-hunt.
But how? By a terrible, a tragic ruse. In the darkness she ran to
the water-side, threw herself into the lake, where she swam about
vigorously, splashing with might and main so as to attract attention.

The hoped for result followed. The men heard the noise, they thought it
was their quarry escaping, confusion grew worse confounded.

All this she had expected; but, alas! one grim consequence of her act
she had not foreseen. In the fierce eagerness of their pursuit, the
officers did not rest content merely to dash off on the fugitive’s
traces; fully believing it was Fantômas trying to escape, they fired
off their revolvers, hardly stopping to take aim. A ball struck
Elisabeth, she gave one despairing shriek, and it was a wounded,
half-drowned woman M. Havard brought ashore.

All crowded round the unfortunate girl, who still lay unconscious, and
presently she was carried to the restaurant, where the Grand Duchess
Alexandra was the first to kneel beside her, exhausting every means to
recall her to life. She alone had seen all, and had guessed the true
explanation of the terrible adventure. Her own love story a tragedy,
herself a heroine in her day, the grand duchess could not fail to
understand the motives that had guided Elisabeth, while the young
girl’s noble self-sacrifice, her marvellous courage, had won the great
lady’s highest respect and admiration.

Waiting till the police had completed their inquiries, the grand
duchess herself organized the transport of the injured woman. She
was determined to take her home with her and had her carried to her
house in the Parc des Princes; there she summoned to her bedside the
highest medical talent to be found in Paris. Doubtless she hoped by
thus devoting herself to Elisabeth Dollon, by soothing away so far as
was possible the girl’s dreadful anxieties, to repair, as much as in
her lay, the cruelties of her lover, of Fantômas, the man she loved in
spite of everything.

Two days had passed, and during that time Elisabeth Dollon’s condition,
far from improving, had actually grown worse. The surgeons, called in
one after the other, had departed, shaking their heads ominously; the
ball had struck Elisabeth full in the chest and grazed the lungs. “She
may be saved; it is possible she may recover!” such had been Professor
Ardell’s pronouncement. He had prescribed absolute quiet, rest, a light
diet, but alas! had not concealed the serious apprehensions he felt for
the patient’s life.

It was in a feeble, breathless, almost inaudible voice, that Elisabeth
appealed to the Grand Duchess Alexandra.

“You have had no news of him yet?” she asked.

The grand duchess, seeing the girl was awake, had drawn up a chair to
the bedside and was holding between her slim, aristocratic fingers,
Elisabeth’s little hands.

“No, I have no tidings of him yet. But, as I told you, he has escaped.
No doubt he finds it difficult to come here, my house is perhaps
watched. How can we tell? But do not agitate yourself, Elisabeth; I
repeat, Fandor is bound to find out that you are here, and knowing
you are here, he also knows that I must have convinced you of his
innocence. I am persuaded he will not be long before he comes to see
you....”

But suddenly the grand duchess broke off. Framed in the doorway the
figure of a man had appeared; his face was worn with suffering, and he
had pushed his way in frantic haste to the bedchamber, throwing aside
the footman who was for showing him into an adjoining sitting room.
It was Jérôme Fandor! The unhappy young man strode across the room
and fell to his knees beside Elisabeth’s bed. With a passionate, yet
restrained ardour he took the girl’s hand and covered it with burning
kisses.

“Elisabeth! Elisabeth!” he murmured, “oh! what misery, and yet what
bliss! to find you here, wounded, wounded for me! For I understand your
noble self-sacrifice. What happiness to find you again, to have the
right to love you!”

At sight of him, Elisabeth had instinctively sprung up in bed as if to
rise and meet him; then, exhausted by the effort, pale as a dead woman,
she had sunk back on the pillows. The hand Fandor held lay cold and
lifeless in his, and it was in a weak whisper the girl asked:

“You forgive me, dear, for my suspicions, my distrust of you?”

The tears stood in Fandor’s eyes as he asked:

“But you do not distrust me any more?”

Elisabeth answered with a wan smile, and the young man sprang up
impulsively and with outstretched hands, approached the grand duchess.

“Madam!” he cried, “never, madam, can I forget that it is thanks to
you ...”

No less moved herself, the grand duchess returned Fandor’s hand clasp.

“Sir,” she began, “when, in the name of love, you came to beseech me,
me, Lady Beltham ...”

But there she stopped; with a cry, a groan, Elisabeth Dollon had
repeated the name, “Lady Beltham?”

Without intending it, the grand duchess had revealed to Elisabeth
her real title, her tragic identity. Be sure, Elisabeth had heard of
Fantômas’ ill-omened mistress! Many times had she read the tragic name
of Lady Beltham in the public prints coupled with that of the notorious
brigand. “Lady Beltham!” So it was Lady Beltham, this Grand Duchess
Alexandra, who was nursing her with such devoted kindness!

But already, Jérôme Fandor was on his knees again beside Elisabeth’s
bed.

“For pity’s sake,” he besought her, “be brave, my darling! be calm! be
courageous!”

Alas! even as he spoke, the young man felt the sick woman’s hand grow
heavier, more deathlike in his. Like a flower that has borne the
buffets of the storm and fades at the outburst of too fierce a sun, the
unhappy child, after the grievous hours, the tragic, the dreadful times
she had lived through, could not endure the too overpowering delight
she felt at seeing Fandor again, and knowing him innocent, the too
overwhelming shock of discovering that Lady Beltham stood before her!

“Elisabeth! Elisabeth!” Jérôme Fandor cried in tones of sudden terror.
Oh! how pale she was now, lying there with closed eyes, her head thrown
back on the pillows, her golden hair dishevelled!

Lady Beltham, like Fandor, was seized with a sudden misgiving. The
minutes seemed hours in the slow agony of suspense. At last the girl
opened her eyes; she threw a grateful look at the grand duchess, this
mysterious Lady Beltham, who had taken pity on her; then, with a
superhuman effort, she whispered faintly: “Jérôme Fandor!”

But as she lifted her hand to meet the journalist’s clasp, a faint sigh
breathed from her lips, a sigh so light, so calm, it was a full minute
yet ere Jérôme Fandor, ere Lady Beltham, realized the dreadful truth,
the dire calamity, the fell catastrophe—Elisabeth Dollon was dead!

       *       *       *       *       *

In the darkened chamber Jérôme Fandor’s long-drawn sobs proclaimed the
unfortunate young man’s infinite distress! Vaguely and indistinctly, as
in a dream, the young man, still on his knees by the dead girl’s bed,
draining to the dregs his grief and despair, had heard a footman come
in a few minutes before, seeking the Grand Duchess Alexandra. Absorbed
in his grief, dazed with suffering, Fandor had not so much as raised
his head. But the death chamber communicated by double doors, at
present wide open, with an adjoining sitting room, and from this room
voices could be heard.

The grand duchess, mastering her very sincere grief, had consented to
see a visitor, who was now with her. Jérôme Fandor, in the automatic
way people’s attention is fixed by external trifles at times of the
most poignant emotions, in the midst of the deepest sorrows, found
himself listening to the conversation.

“Madam,” a voice was saying, a voice Fandor recognized with a startled
exclamation to be that of M. Havard, “madam, the step I am taking
to-day, believe me, is official; but in any case I think you will be
ready to do as I desire.”

“Speak, sir.”

“You have recently, madam, taken the initiative in organizing a public
subscription with the object of collecting the sum demanded by Fantômas
as the condition of his disappearance, and refused him by the Chamber.
That is so, is it not? you admit the fact?”

Haughtily the grand duchess assented.

“Yes, sir, that is so. I will even add that the money is beginning to
come in.”

“Madam,” resumed M. Havard, “I do not know what motive prompted you ...”

The grand duchess did not let the Head of the Criminal Bureau finish
his sentence.

“The motives that prompted me are quite simple,” she said; “the Chamber
has refused to accept Fantômas’ ultimatum. That brigand, recoiling at
nothing, now that Parliament has refused his demands, is adding crime
to crime, piling atrocity on atrocity. What the Government declines
to approve, it struck me as incumbent on private initiative to carry
out. Fantômas the murderer promises he will kill no more if he is
paid a million francs. What more natural, Monsieur Havard, than to
open a general subscription to provide this million? to put Fantômas
in a position to fulfil his undertaking? to induce him to halt in his
sanguinary and deadly career?”

M. Havard did not answer at once; after some moments thought, however,
he took up the word:

“Natural it may have been, madam, I have no wish to gauge the morality
of the motives that may have led you to start this subscription; but I
am bound to note the consequences of your action.”

“And they, Monsieur Havard, are?”

“Deplorable, madam, deplorable!”

“But, sir!... It is a reign of terror. The vilest abominations are of
daily occurrence; crime follows crime, each more terrifying than the
last, more monstrous, assuming even the character of crimes against the
state. I believe my subscription will quickly prove a success, that I
shall soon raise the sum of money required, that soon Fantômas will
disappear. That is no deplorable result, is it?”

M. Havard had one of the little coughing fits he so frequently suffered
from and which commonly served to disguise his embarrassments.

“What is deplorable,” he said at last, in a peevish tone, “is the
fact that this subscription of yours, madam, makes my duties a farce,
renders the French police ridiculous. How can we consent to Fantômas
being paid to do us the favour to leave off murdering? He is an
assassin! he should be arrested, that’s all there is to it.”

In a tone almost of mockery, certainly of irony, the grand duchess
protested:

“But, Monsieur Havard, you don’t arrest him!”

“No,” confessed the Head of the Bureau, “no, not yet! But we shall
arrest him.”

A silence followed, which Lady Beltham at last broke, to say:

“So that, according to you ...”

“According to me,” declared M. Havard—“and again I tell you this
officially—it would be well, Madame la Grande Duchesse, to arrest your
subscription. It is, I repeat, really an insult to my office.”

M. Havard paused, then proceeded:

“However, you are free to act as you deem fit.... It is evident that
after all ... In a word, madam, my visit had another object. I may
disapprove of your subscription, I have no right to misappropriate its
funds. The fact is I have received ... from an anonymous contributor a
sum of ten thousand francs with the request to hand it to you; here is
the money.”

All the time the grand duchess and M. Havard were thus conversing,
Jérôme could not help shuddering. He was barely a few yards from the
man who was tracking him down with such determination! Lady Beltham was
talking to M. Havard in an adjoining room, but hidden by the curtains,
while he, Jérôme Fandor, who was supposed to be Fantômas’ accomplice,
with the whole Criminal Bureau in pursuit of him, was only a few yards
away! Was Lady Beltham going to betray him? She had adored Fantômas
madly, she undoubtedly adored him still; did she not intend, to help
in her lover’s work, to deliver up him, Fandor, to the Bureau? After
all, she knew quite well that Jérôme Fandor was the only man—Juve being
in gaol—capable of checkmating the brigand. How she must be tempted to
denounce him to M. Havard! But no, no! he must, he ought to trust to
her good faith; Lady Beltham was an enemy, but she was an honourable
enemy!

Then Fandor weighed the value to be attached to what M. Havard had
said. He could well understand the annoyance the Head of the Criminal
Department might reasonably feel about the subscription opened by Lady
Beltham. But then, what was the meaning of this gift from an anonymous
well-wisher transmitted through M. Havard’s hands? Must one not, in
fact, gather that the Head of the Criminal Bureau, anxious above all
measure to be rid of Fantômas, was equally desirous, while concealing
his _modus operandi_, to contribute to the fund and so hasten the time
when the grand duchess would have the million francs in hand and be in
a position to secure the brigand’s disappearance?

But Jérôme Fandor’s reflections were suddenly interrupted; he had heard
Lady Beltham speaking again:

“M. Havard, you may, as a police-officer, regret the opening of my
subscription, which I can well understand hurts your professional
interests; but as a woman, I confess I am afraid of Fantômas, I
shudder at the thought of the atrocious crimes this brigand is still
committing, and may go on committing. That is why I shall continue to
accept all the sums of money given me with this object.”

M. Havard in turn replied:

“You are free to act, madam! Still, I hope we shall have laid hands,
not on Fantômas, who, the public is too apt to forget, is in prison,
but on Jérôme Fandor, his redoubtable accomplice, before you have
had time to deal with the funds you are collecting for him ... and,
consequently ...”

Lady Beltham did not reply at once, causing Fandor a moment’s suspense
that seemed an eternity. He threw a rapid glance round the room. He was
too ill acquainted with the grand duchess’s mansion to be able to make
good his escape if she told the police-officer he was there. If she
was for betraying him, she could deliver him up without his having the
power to stir a finger to save himself.

But just as the journalist was feeling himself to be caught in a trap
without an issue, he heard Lady Beltham’s voice; she was saying:

“I wish you every success, Monsieur Havard, in effecting your arrest
of Jérôme Fandor—seeing you believe that Jérôme Fandor is Fantômas’
accomplice.”




CHAPTER XXII

A VOLUNTEER WAITER


Tom Bob had been waiting some while in a small room reserved for the
use of callers on the ground floor of the house. The detective seemed
extremely impatient, again and again he looked at his watch.

“Half after nine,” he muttered, “I cannot afford to waste time, yet
I must make sure Ascott will not fail....” The man was frowning in
evident anxiety, as he asked himself what sort of a reception the
wealthy Englishman would accord him. Since the strange affair of the
Pré Catalan, which had culminated so extraordinarily in the capsizing
of the automobiles into the lake, Tom Bob had not seen Ascott again,
save on very rare occasions. For this there were several reasons.
In the first place the detective had been very much taken up—at any
rate he said so—with the events that had occurred since his arrival
in Paris, since he had officially declared his intention to devote
himself to the pursuit and discovery of Fantômas. Moreover, the
intrigue between Tom Bob and the Princess Sonia Danidoff was not,
could not be, unknown to the members of the intimate little group of
fellow-travellers that had come together on board the _Lorraine_ on
her passage across the Atlantic. Better than anyone, indeed, Ascott,
who had been deeply smitten by the Princess, must be aware that in Tom
Bob he had a fortunate rival, who had quickly won his lady’s favours.
In truth, it required all the American’s calm effrontery thus, without
any preliminary testing of his footing, to come calling on the young
Englishman, who might very well be proposing to give him a highly
unpleasant reception.

“True it is,” Tom Bob told himself, “that since he abandoned his
unsuccessful wooing of the Princess Sonia, Ascott has had other amorous
adventures that should surely at this time of day prevent his being
jealous of me.” The affair at the _Silver Goblet_ had, in fact, become
a matter of general gossip, albeit not specially spoken about among
the detective’s own circle of friends, and the American appeared to be
perfectly well posted as to what was happening, as well as what was
likely to come of it eventually.

At last Ascott’s man-servant, John, appeared, and invited the detective
to follow him upstairs to his master’s study, where he found the
Englishman seated at his desk, writing.

“Up already!” exclaimed the visitor cheerfully, “and ready for
anything! Upon my word, my dear fellow, Paris has quite changed your
habits. How are you this morning?”

Ascott turned half round in his chair, extending a careless hand to his
visitor:

“Not so bad, and you, Tom Bob? To what do I owe the pleasure of your
visit? Take a seat, pray!”

“Good!” thought the detective, “he is not over and above angry with
me!” At the same time, remembering that time was flying with alarming
swiftness, he announced:

“I have merely come to shake you by the hand, as I was passing your
way.”

But Ascott, who appeared to guess the object of his visit, began to
hunt through his pocket-book, from which he presently extracted a bank
note. Holding this out to the detective:

“Here is my subscription,” he said: “will you be so obliging as to hand
this thousand francs to the Grand Duchess Alexandra when you have an
opportunity of seeing her.”

Tom Bob expressed his willingness with an almost imperceptible smile.

“Just fancy, my dear sir,” he remarked, “how timorous Parisian society
is; to think that it is now a perfect mania, a fashionable craze, quite
the correct thing in fact, to subscribe to this fund. They want to
see Fantômas waxing fat!... ’pon my word! it is excruciatingly funny.
Henceforth, I take it the light-fingered gentry will have an easy
time of it when they want to make their fortunes. Instead of fagging
themselves to commit crimes, they will only have to make it known
through the newspapers that they are short of cash for the moment, and
the money will come tumbling in straight away! Why, sir,” continued the
detective, “it will be the ruin of the police; I ask you, what are we
to do, my colleagues and I, when there are no more any culprits to hunt
down, any criminals to arrest?”

Tom Bob had uttered his little speech in a tone of laughing irony well
calculated to divert his host, but the latter declined to be amused.

“What do you think about it?” the detective insisted, “what impression
does all this Fantômas business make on you?”

Ascott, rousing himself from a prolonged reverie, shrugged his
shoulders.

“I don’t care a fig about it,” he declared, “I am bored to death....”

The other feigned no little surprise.

“Well, that is just what struck me, my dear sir; you look tired,
altered, you never go into society nowadays; have you had worries
perhaps?”

Ascott nodded and was about to speak when the American broke in, making
his question more definite:

“I’ve heard vaguely of some untoward adventure you were the hero of a
while ago....”

“Rather say the victim,” put in Ascott.

The detective caught him up:

“The victim! come, that’s a big word; what _did_ happen to you?”

The young Englishman seemed unwilling to explain his words.

“Oh! nothing,” he said, “or nothing much!”

Then, after a pause, and as if he had just come to a supreme decision,
he got up, strode two or three times up and down the room, then
standing before the detective with folded arms, he declared:

“Tom Bob, I should by rights be more angry with you than in fact I am,
for you have played me a trick, a damnable trick, involuntarily, I am
sure of that, but the fact remains, you have played me one of those
tricks men find it hard to forgive, you have supplanted me in the
affections of a woman I loved.”

The detective gave a gesture of protestation.

“Pooh! my good sir,” he said, “women and their ways! these things are
never to be taken seriously.”

“That depends; no doubt, you will tell me I had for ages been courting
the princess without winning the smallest favour from her, while it
was enough for you to arrive on the scene to become instantly the
darling of her heart ... well, be it so! I do not press the point, and
you may have noticed this, that I never tried to compete with you. No,
luck or ill luck decreed that at that very moment my affections took
the field elsewhere....”

Tom Bob heaved a sigh of relief.

“I am delighted to hear it, I should have been grieved to give you
pain.”

“Man!” pursued the young man, “you cannot imagine what happened next.”

Throwing off his indifference more and more, Ascott, glad of the
opportunity to tell his troubles to another, confided to the detective
his extraordinary adventure with Nini Guinon and the threats addressed
to him; the consequences of a passing caprice had come to a head.

Tom Bob preserved his calm as he listened to the story.

“And then?” he asked, when Ascott stopped to take breath.

“Then,” declared the latter, “it is my duty to give you a piece of
news, a great piece of news—I am getting married, I am marrying Nini
Guinon!”

“Good luck!” cried the detective, “and when is it to be?”

“This morning, almost directly.”

“Bad luck!” ejaculated Tom Bob—“and I was just wanting to ask you to
breakfast!”

“Yes,” went on Ascott, with an air of dejection, “in two hours’ time
I shall be the lawful husband of an old usurer’s niece, Père Moche’s
niece; oh! it is a fine kettle of fish!”

“Ascott,” put in Tom Bob, trying to console him, “you are marrying
under French law; you know, don’t you? that divorce is allowed.”

Ascott shrugged his shoulders: “That would make things no better!”

“But why?”

The young man assumed a still more despairing look as he looked in the
other’s face and announced:

“My dear Bob, I must tell you all; Nini Guinon is _enceinte_.”

Ascott looked so crestfallen that, for all his phlegm, Tom Bob all but
burst out laughing. However, he dissembled his feelings with wonderful
self-restraint; rising, he stepped up to the young Englishman with an
air of heartfelt sympathy and pressed his hand.

“My dear sir,” he declared, “you are a good and honest man!”

But Ascott had no illusions. “Or an idiot!” he groaned.

A silence followed, which the detective broke to say: “You will please
excuse me, I must be going,” adding with a spice of irony:

“I won’t press you to have breakfast with me; I take it that after the
wedding, a reception ...”

“No!” Ascott interrupted, “don’t make fun of me, Tom Bob; the
ceremony will be strictly private; naturally it does not call for any
festivities; the mother, who has to signify her consent, only comes to
the _Mairie_ and to church, and I have definitely refused to invite to
the breakfast anyone whatsoever besides the witnesses.”

“And you start, no doubt, on your wedding trip afterwards?”

“That is to say,” returned the young man, “I take to my heels, I
go away to hide myself, also I go in order to try and get my wife
away from the deplorable associations connected with her family and
relations.”

As he reached the door Tom Bob turned for a last good-bye to his host:
“As a matter of fact,” he questioned, “do you love her?”

“No!” replied the rich Englishman gloomily.

But, modifying his statement and blushing to the roots of his hair, he
added:

“Still, I am bound to confess, there is something makes her not
indifferent to me.”

Tom Bob raised his hand as if to invoke heaven, and in a thrilling
voice:

“The child, perhaps ...” he suggested.

“Yes, that is it,” Ascott agreed, and hurrying over the good-byes, he
returned to his working-table, while the detective took his departure.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the far end of the Bois de Vincennes, near the Saint-Mandé boundary
of the park, is to be found, standing among trees, a restaurant of
quite a rural aspect, and bearing the significant name of _The Orange
Blossom_. Within are a number of vast rooms and outside in the gardens
arbours of the like ample proportions. It is here in fact that the
democracy resorts to make merry on the occasion of weddings after the
religious or civil ceremonies, sometimes one, sometimes the other,
occasionally both, have been rapidly despatched.

This morning evidently the landlord of _The Orange Blossom_ was not
expecting any great number of customers, for he had thrown open only
the smallest of his salons. In the middle of the room he was laying the
table for a very limited number of guests:

“Scurvy devils!” he was grumbling to himself, “what’s the good of
folks who ask only the marriage witnesses to the breakfast—skinflints
surely! True they’ve paid in advance without any bargaining much, still
in my humble opinion we’d best keep a sharp eye lifting to see they
don’t pocket the spoons; mostly indeed I keep the silver locked up. A
breakfast for six at six francs a head, that don’t come to a couple of
louis. However, let’s hope we’ll make it up on the drinks and cigars.”

The good man stopped in his work; someone had entered the room and was
coming towards him.

“Excuse me, sir,” he said, “but are you the landlord of _The Orange
Blossom_?”

The innkeeper turned to his questioner and looked him up and
down disdainfully. The newcomer was not of a distinguished
appearance—middle-class evidently, soberly dressed in black, a man of
thirty or thereabouts, wearing a very heavy beard.

“What do you want?” he asked him.

“Sir,” asked the stranger in return, “are you by way of engaging
waiters?”

“Certainly not,” was the uncompromising answer, “and least of all
to-day; why, there’s nothing to do—a meal for six at six francs a
head—I and the maidservant will be amply sufficient to wait.”

“Still I should be very wishful ...”

“Nothing doing!”

“Not even if I paid?”

The innkeeper looked wonderingly at the man, surprised at such
persistency.

“What d’you mean by that?”

“Look here,” the would-be waiter explained, “I’m very anxious to wait
at table, to wait at this table, it’s a business I’m keen on. If you’d
let me have the tips for myself, I’ll pay you twenty francs to make it
up to you.”

The landlord of _The Orange Blossom_ hesitated. The man’s offer was
a good one for him, too good indeed; that was more or less what made
him suspicious, for neither of the two could fail to know that the
tips would never in the long run reach any such amount. To tell the
truth, it was this very fact that inclined the innkeeper to look upon
the unknown’s application in a favourable light. But he was still
suspicious. Perhaps the fine fellow had some cute idea at the back
of his head, or perhaps he wanted to kick up a disturbance. Was he
a rejected lover, the bride’s fancy man, or possibly the brother or
kinsman of a former mistress discarded by the bridegroom? One never
knows, such queer things happen! Once more the innkeeper looked hard at
this fellow who was so monstrously eager to take service with him; he
saw the man was calm and composed enough and had not a bad face of his
own.

“Look here,” the landlord of _The Orange Blossom_ began again, “you’re
not humbugging me? you want to pay a louis to wait at table, and you
don’t mean to play any tricks?”

The unknown laughed frankly in the other’s face:

“Why, not a bit of it, sir, that I swear; I tell you, it amuses me to
wait on these people, it’s as you might say, it’s ... it’s a wager I
made with my pals.”

“The tips won’t be heavy,” the innkeeper was charitable enough to warn
him.

“That’s all one to me.”

“Well, my fine fellow,” thought the landlord of _The Orange Blossom_,
“you strike me as a mighty queer sort, but there don’t seem to be any
harm in you; after all, what risk do I run?”

He accepted, and held out his hand to clinch the bargain. “Agreed,” he
cried, “hand over your louis.”

“Here you are, sir!”

“Now, my lad,” continued the boniface, getting on very familiar terms,
“go and fetch an apron and a jacket, I suppose you have a clean
shirt-front; the meal’s ordered for half past twelve, but I don’t
expect our customers before one o’clock; look’ee, here’s where we put
the plates; about the glasses, you’d better polish ’em up a bit;
as you’ve time to spare, that’ll give you something to do, my boy.
By-the-by, what do they call you?”

After a moment’s hesitation, the new waiter named himself Daniel.

“Well, Daniel, get to work; work’s the cure for boredom, you know.”

No sooner was he left alone in the salon where the breakfast was to be
served than this volunteer who had got himself taken on in so odd a
fashion dropped into a chair and gave a long-drawn sigh!

“Ah!” he ejaculated; “here I am, but it’s an expensive treat; a louis!
no doubt my poor watch, thanks to ‘my uncle’s’ generosity, raised me
the money without over much difficulty—but when shall I ever get my
dear ticker back?” Then: “Good Lord!” he groaned, “how this false beard
does tickle; if only it don’t come ungummed while I’m waiting at table!”

He got up and went over to a mirror to make sure his disguise was
holding firm. He gazed long at his reflection in the glass, his eyes
full of melancholy.

“I did well to adopt this travesty,” he told himself, “I am absolutely
unrecognizable”—and he was right. The new waiter of _The Orange
Blossom_ was, in fact, no other than Jérôme Fandor.

Ever since the dreadful trial he had gone through, since the day of
Elisabeth Dollon’s death, the journalist had been plunged in a state of
terrible prostration. Wild with grief, he had felt his sanity leaving
him; all his high courage, his generous ardour, had departed, and again
and again the thought of suicide had haunted his mind. It had called
for all the energy that formed the basis of his character to stay him
from proceeding to such dread extremities.

Little by little, however, as his will power mastered his dejection,
a deep, fierce anger seized him and grew stronger every day. He had a
mission to fulfill; this he realized, and his purposes grew clear and
definite. Henceforth it was not solely his friend Juve he must rescue
from his unhappy plight, but there was Elisabeth’s fearful death he was
called upon to avenge. And as he considered these two duties, one as
dear to his heart as the other, Fandor recognized that in reality he
was pursuing one and the same object, for indeed the main author of all
these calamities, the responsible agent, the being who by his sorceries
had sown mourning and desolation round about him, was still and always
the mysterious, the ever elusive Fantômas! Oh! to unmask the monster,
to come face to face with him, to discover in which of the group
among whom he worked and manœuvred was really and truly incarnate the
mysterious malefactor, this was what the journalist swore to himself
to achieve! At all costs he must get done with it; to make an end was
necessary, indispensable, and that with the briefest possible delay.

Fandor was filled with a new hope. Though still in hiding from the
police and living the life of a pariah, he was yet able to glean
occasional information from casual conversations and newspapers, and
he noted a certain veering round of public opinion in favour of his
friend. It was impossible, people were saying, that Juve, a prisoner in
the _Santé_, could be guilty of all the murders and robberies ascribed
to the agency of Fantômas. To this was added Fandor’s definite and
undoubted discovery of certain activities of the gang at whose head old
Moche figured. Though kept somewhat at arm’s length by the members of
this gang, the journalist did nevertheless succeed in learning a number
of facts that enabled him to prosecute his investigations on clear and
precise lines. Now he had lately acquired the certainty that Père Moche
counted for much in the profitable enterprises engineered by Fantômas.

But where was Fantômas? Not far off, for certain! Yet, with equal
certainty, more difficult to track down, more elusive than ever. Nor
was it only Fandor who was at fault. The American detective Tom Bob was
in the same predicament. In fact, the latter, despite his fine audacity
and his first triumphs, had not continued his successes. For quite a
long time now people had ceased to talk about him; he seemed to have
lost interest in the war he had declared against Fantômas.

Furthermore Fandor had observed that the American, who on his first
arrival had promised him his protection and support, had suddenly left
off seeing him, indeed made little or no concealment of the fact that
he no longer desired to be in touch with him. Why this change? with
what object in view? Was Tom Bob ashamed to avow himself beaten? or was
he hoping, alone, by himself, to run Fantômas to earth?

Such were the young man’s thoughts when the landlord of _The Orange
Blossom_ suddenly burst into the eating room.

“Daniel,” he cried, “you must make haste, my lad! here’s the wedding
party coming, they’re not late after all; quick, put on your apron and
jacket, breakfast will be served instanter!”

Two landaus had just drawn up at the entrance to the gardens, two
simple, unpretending vehicles, with none of your wide plate-glass
windows, none of your big carriage lamps at the four corners of the
coach.




CHAPTER XXIII

THE WEDDING BREAKFAST


As Ascott desired the wedding was carried out in the strictest
privacy. The party reached the _Mairie_ at an early hour. Ascott had
for witnesses his man servant John, and a casual secretary from the
Consulate, bound over to the closest secrecy. Moreover, the young man
in question, a person of much discretion who saw how things were with
half an eye, had vanished immediately after the ceremony, saying he
did not care to attend the breakfast, understanding in fact that his
absence would not be taken in ill part, but very much the reverse.
Nini Guinon’s witnesses were her uncle, Père Moche, recruited again
for the purpose, and the vagabond Bouzille, who had been fetched from
a drinking shop at Ménilmontant, and dressed up for the occasion in a
second-hand frock coat. The formalities at the _Mairie_ were quickly
completed, the party adjourned to hear a mass at the nearest church,
and then set off for the Bois de Vincennes.

The last act of the grotesque adventure, the wedding breakfast,
remained to be staged. Ascott, to Mme. Guinon’s bitter chagrin, had
emphatically refused to make her acquaintance, thereby making the good
woman desperately unhappy. Thus she had barely caught a glimpse of her
son-in-law, when at the _Mairie_ she authorized her daughter as a minor
to pronounce a definitive and binding “Yes.” Ascott, in fact, had shown
himself quite uncompromising all the morning. For this marriage, this
hole and corner marriage, so to speak, in which he had systematically
avoided all publicity, he had not chosen that his bride should wear the
orthodox white gown sacred to such occasions. In a word, the ceremony
was a gloomy, funereal function, depressing to the last degree.

It was abundantly clear the bridegroom was fulfilling a duty, carrying
out an irksome obligation; indeed, the whole thing wore so lugubrious
an aspect that Nini Guinon began to feel anxious, asking herself if
really and truly she had acted wisely in following old Moche’s advice,
for at the bottom of her heart she was far from convinced of the
advantages to accrue for her from her union with the rich Englishman.
On the drive to the restaurant, sitting silent in her corner of the
carriage, Nini was thinking all the while:

“If I’m in for a bad time, if old Moche has got me in a hole, I’ll make
him pay for it.”

However, Bouzille, who had kept quiet enough during the morning, began
to liven up on arriving at _The Orange Blossom_. He smiled broadly
at the regiment of bottles drawn up on a sideboard, and, like the
good-natured ninny he was, having never an inkling of the preposterous
situation of the bridal pair and those about them, he clapped his hands
gaily, suggesting:

“Well, good folks, about time for a bit of a spree, eh? what if we
cracked a bottle now before going any further?”

Ascott, for all his pre-occupation, could not help smiling; in fact,
if there was any one person in the whole crew that revolted him less
profoundly than the rest, it was certainly this merry-hearted tramp;
the fellow was rough and brutal, but he seemed to be an honest man. On
the contrary, Ascott felt greatly embarrassed at the idea of sitting
down to table with his servant; in his own mind he decided there was
only one thing to be done—to send the man about his business that very
evening. Besides, _The Orange Blossom_ itself was little to his taste.
What a place! What a vulgar show!

Still, he must make the best of things, and taking Bouzille’s hint,
Ascott called the waiter and demanded drinks. And it was no other than
Fandor who stepped forward to take the rich Englishman’s order.

Without more ado, Ascott took his seat, putting Nini on his right
and old Moche on his left; this done, he kept his eyes fixed on the
table-cloth, not knowing in the least which way to look or what to do.
Bouzille’s fine enthusiasm had suddenly quieted down, while the rest of
the company were not “playing up” one bit: there they sat, each more
stockish than the other. If anybody had come in hopes of diversion, he
was finding himself singularly disappointed. John, sitting facing his
master, dared not utter a word, Moche never opened his lips, Nini was
cross and angry, Ascott pale and silent as the grave!

Fandor, with the landlord’s help—for the journalist had proved himself
from the very start a most indifferent waiter—served the first course,
during which not half-a-dozen words were spoken. The landlord, when he
found himself in the kitchen again, alone with Fandor, could not hide
his surprise.

“For the last twenty years,” he declared, “I’ve had wedding-parties
here, I’ve known customers of every sort and kind, but anything like
those folks yonder—never! They couldn’t be more dismal if it was a
funeral they’d been at!”

Meanwhile, Ascott sat deep in thought; he was realizing the appalling
folly he had been guilty of in marrying Nini Guinon.

“How could I ever for one single instant have entertained such an idea
... and put it into execution?”

But the unfortunate young man quickly called to mind that, if he had
not followed the injunctions of Père Moche, the plaint lodged by the
Guinon family would have taken its course, and that would have equally
involved disgrace, disgrace more terrible still, more irremediable even
than the grotesque marriage he had just contracted. Ascott saw clear
now—he was the victim of an odious piece of blackmailing, an abominable
plot. He was so worked up he felt himself prepared to do the maddest
things, he meditated going straight to the Procureur de la République
to denounce the whole business.... But the unhappy man, when he looked
closer into this last desperate resource, realized that the situation
was past cure, that no one could help him, that he was simply a victim,
and a ridiculous victim at that, and that, in fact, there was something
else, something more serious, which after all tied his hands and gave
him pause. Nini Guinon was _enceinte_; he must not, he could not forget
that fact. Ascott could stand no more of it; still controlling his
feelings, he leant over to his wife, sitting next him, and whispered:

“I am a little unwell, so I am going to withdraw into some room near;
I count on being left to myself, and shall expect you to join me there
when you have finished breakfast.” Nini had scarcely gathered the
sense of her husband’s words before the latter had disappeared.

In a moment, as if by enchantment, all recovered their spirits; they
clinked glasses, they drained bumpers, they ate with a better appetite,
gaiety reigned on every face: decidedly, the English milord had done
well to leave them to themselves; they would be more of a family party,
more at their ease.

“Say, Père Moche,” observed Bouzille, “he don’t strike me as being much
of a gallant, your niece’s husband! how’s she going to hit it off,
little Nini, with a lump of wood like that, eh?”

“Don’t you trouble your head,” broke in the girl, “I know what I’ve got
to do.”

Then, as everybody stopped talking to listen:

“Jabber away amongst yourselves,” she growled, “I’m going to have a
talk with Père Moche.”

The talk became general, while a very animated discussion began between
Nini and her reputed uncle.

“If you think it’s any fun,” began the young woman, “this marriage
you’ve brought about, I tell you I’m about fed up with it already.
I don’t give myself eight and forty hours before I hook it from my
husband.”

Moche shrugged his shoulders:

“Nini, you’re a born fool: a bit of patience, my lass, and you’ll see
Père Moche was in the right.” Then, in a lower tone: “You’re far too
pretty and too clever to spend all your young days among this crowd, a
parcel of rotters who’re good for nothing but talking loud and getting
drunk. I’ve told you, haven’t I, I’d make you rich, I’d make a great
lady of you, more than that, a queen of beauty, a queen of Paris, a
queen of society! Play your cards, Nini, listen to me....”

A gleam of covetousness flashed in the girl’s eyes.

“I shall be rich?” she questioned, “I shall have the nibs?”

Moche went on:

“Rich, and better than rich, my girl; but for that don’t go and play
the fool; just keep yourself in hand for another nine months. Your brat
must come into the world strong and healthy; after that there’ll be
something new to think about, you can trust Père Moche for that!”

While the young Englishman’s queer helpmeet and the enigmatical
personage who had passed himself off as her uncle for his own ends were
thus debating future projects, Jérôme Fandor, under pretence of paying
every attention to the customers’ wants, was never far from the table,
picking up scraps of talk as he hovered near. And in spite of himself,
Fandor could not keep his eyes off M. Moche’s face. As he stood over
him, he could, for the first time, observe otherwise than through the
glass of his spectacles the mysterious old fellow’s eyes. And they
disconcerted the journalist extremely, their clear, cold, steely glance
perplexed him beyond measure. Most certainly Fandor could trace no
likeness there, he had no recollection of having seen that expression
before; yet it seemed to him that a person like the old business agent
of the Rue Saint-Fargeau, whose caricature of a face betrayed the man’s
commonness of type, _could_ not have such a look of the eyes as he
actually had.

And, as a fact, who and what was this man who—Fandor saw it all—had
conceived so Machiavellian a scheme as that of marrying the street
wench Nini Guinon to Ascott, the wealthy Englishman of the Rue Fortuny,
and who, having conceived, had carried it through!

Père Moche ... Fantômas? ...? ...?

Fandor, as the result of a series of logical deductions, possibly
also through giving a certain weight to the presentiments that
rarely deceived him, had come to ask himself if the man of the Rue
Saint-Fargeau, really too mysterious a personage, was not one of the
incarnations of Fantômas himself. Since he had been watching his man,
and particularly since he had seen his eyes and their expression,
Fandor clung more and more closely to this opinion.

Ah! if only he were right! if he had discovered the villain? That would
be an extraordinarily fine trump card for him in the grim game he was
playing with Fantômas as adversary! And now, many hitherto unexplained
details recurred to his memory. Notably he recalled the strange
apparition of the man in the black mask on that terrible night he had
spent in M. Moche’s garret. He did not forget how on that occasion
Fantômas, under pretence of safeguarding him from harm, had involved
him in the direst peril, evidently in the hope that the police would
discover him hidden in the Chinese lantern.

“Why,” he thought presently, “but why did not Fantômas kill me when he
had this chance? that is what I cannot understand.”

But, when he examined the question more deeply, Fandor realized the
fact that Fantômas’ crimes invariably had a double object—to get rid
of an obnoxious adversary and at the same time to throw suspicions on
the dead man that went to prove by their very nature the innocence of
some accomplice of Fantômas or of Fantômas himself. Thus he pondered,
all the while carrying on with the utmost awkwardness his duties as a
waiter, under the wary and ever watchful eye of the landlord of _The
Orange Blossom_.

At the same time Fandor did not allow his attention to be absorbed
solely by the conversation between Moche and Nini. A short while before
Ascott had left the rest of the party—it was an incident which had, in
fact, contributed not a little to the rising nausea that had driven
the young Englishman from the table—two of the apache gang, the same
two, “Bull’s-eye” and the “Gasman” who had signalized themselves in the
_Silver Goblet_ affair and at the unpleasant interview with the Police
Commissary, appearing unexpectedly within sight of the window, had
been invited to join the wedding feast by the irrepressible Bouzille.
The two intruders were now seated at the table, and the _soi-disant_
waiter made a point of plying them with drink and incidentally catching
up any fragments of their talk that struck him as being to the point.
The apaches, in ambiguous terms, but in a fashion explicit enough for
Fandor’s comprehension, were discussing recent enterprises in which the
gang had been mixed up. It became very evident that a unanimous and
general feeling of suspicion and ill-will towards Fantômas was growing
up among the criminal confraternity. Fantômas, they muttered, used
everybody for his own purposes, forced each man to risk his skin and in
the end compensated nobody. In covert phrases, too, they spoke of Père
Moche, who, they hinted, must know all about Fantômas, and whose task
was always to pour oil on the troubled waters, who was for ever putting
off till to-morrow payments that should have been made yesterday, in
one word playing a double game.

“Oh!” grumbled the “Gasman,” while Fandor was refilling his glass,
“things can’t go on no longer like this, to-morrow night and the hour
sounds for definite and final explanations; we want our money, Fantômas
will have to answer our questions.”

“Bull’s-eye” bent over to his comrade, and in his hoarse voice asked:

“So the _rendez-vous_ still holds good at the same place, eh?”

At that moment Fandor was obliged to go away, M. Moche was calling
him; nevertheless the journalist had gathered from a remark of the
“Gasman’s” that the following night there was to be a meeting of the
gang on the outskirts of the city, close down by the banks of the Seine
at the far end of Alfort.

       *       *       *       *       *

A superb limousine had drawn up at the back of the restaurant of _The
Orange Blossom_. It was about four of the afternoon: the breakfast had
resolved itself into a drunken debauch, a horrid uproar of ribald songs
disturbed the quiet of the establishment. Bouzille was the noisiest of
them all; the wine bottles had been left on the table at the end of the
meal, in an hour’s time they had to be replaced. Ascott, heedless of
the whole riot, had paid without a murmur.

Ten minutes ago Nini Guinon, at Moche’s urgent suggestion, had gone to
join her husband, who had spent a strange afternoon for a bridegroom,
shut up alone in a room on the first floor, anxiously awaiting, not so
much the return of his wife, as the arrival of the motor-car he had
ordered, eager to escape from Paris with all speed and hide himself
and his intolerable situation in some remote corner of the provinces.
Hardly had Nini appeared, all flushed and excited, before Ascott,
looking her coldly up and down, ordered her:

“Put on your hat, we are going.”

Furious at bottom to be so treated, but scared by her husband’s manner,
and also remembering old Moche’s counsels, she obeyed, muttering curses
under her breath; “He shall pay me for this, come the day I can bring
him to heel.”

Hastily she put on a long dust-cloak, settled her hat in place and
followed her husband and the two, without a word of good-bye to anyone,
got into the car, which started away at once. Père Moche, however, had
run up hastily to see the last of them; with a wave of the hand he bade
farewell to the newly-wed pair, a broad, ironical smile on his lips.

But suddenly he started back. An explosion had rung out, half an inch
more and Père Moche would have received a bullet full in the face.
Luckily he had foreseen the shot and ducked in time. With amazing
agility, Moche sprang at his assailant, whom he hurled to the ground,
keeping him down with a knee pressed hard on the fellow’s chest.

“Brigand! scoundrel! I don’t know what stops me from killing you here
and now!”

Who was this man Père Moche had mastered so adroitly? No other than
Paulet, Nini Guinon’s lover, the white-faced, pale-eyed scamp who had
assuredly been completely sacrificed in the old usurer’s sinister
machinations. With calm ferocity the latter was now brandishing the
revolver he had snatched from the apache’s hands.

“One word, one movement,” he declared, “and I blow your brains out,
as you tried to blow out mine the day of the bank messenger’s death.
Villain! murderer! Remember I hold your life in my hands, that I can do
for you where I choose and when I choose.”

“Scoundrel!” vociferated Paulet, “you’ve robbed me of my doxy, what
d’you think is to become of me now?”

“Fool! she wanted to be done with you!”

“Ah! if you hadn’t hid her away, you old rascal, if only I could have
seen her!”

But Moche ordered him to hold his tongue. It needed all his strength to
keep the apache down. Paulet, savage and desperate, had managed with
his right hand to grasp the barrel of the revolver, and was holding
it away from his body; it looked as if he might renew the struggle,
perhaps floor the old man in his turn. The two wretches fought
furiously for some seconds, now one, now the other momentarily getting
the upper hand; the two rolled over and over in the dust. At last Moche
succeeded in gripping the young apache’s throat between his powerful
fingers, after forcing him to let go the revolver.

“Die, then,” yelled Moche, “die, as you won’t give in!”

“Oh! oh!” stammered Paulet in a broken voice, “Curse it, curse my luck!
will no one save me?”

Suddenly the two combatants were dragged apart. In answer to Paulet’s
cry for help, someone shouted in a ringing voice: “I will.”

The someone had picked up the revolver that had been dropped in the
struggle and stood with it in his hand. Dazed and dumbfounded, Paulet
gazed open-mouthed at his preserver, whom he did not know. Père Moche,
for his part, saw that the person who had just intervened between them
in the battle was no other than the servant at the restaurant who had
waited at breakfast.

Moche stared at the man, scrutinizing his face with concentrated
attention; suddenly he broke into a cry:

“Fandor, in heaven’s name!” he exclaimed, “you blackguard, I didn’t
recognize you before....”

At the name of Fandor, Paulet sprang up and ranged himself
instinctively by the journalist’s side; while Père Moche realized
the time was not come to continue the discussion. Besides which,
the landlord of _The Orange Blossom_ now came running up from the
penetralia of his establishment with very natural curiosity:

“What is up now?” he demanded, “I seem to have heard an explosion, like
a revolver shot.”

Mine host looked hard at the three men, standing there with torn
clothes, all filthy and smothered in dust; but Fandor was ready with a
plausible explanation. He gave his account with perfect self-possession:

“It’s nothing, landlord, only the customer’s car burst a tyre just now
and we’ve been helping to mend it; it was a case of creeping in under
the chassis, that’s how we’re a bit dirty, but a clothes brush’ll soon
put that to rights!”

The landlord asked no more questions, and the four men returned
quietly to the restaurant, but three of them were well aware that this
tranquillity was only apparent. It was but a truce before the battle,
for war seemed henceforth to be definitely declared.




CHAPTER XXIV

PLOTS AND COUNTERPLOTS


It was nine o’clock, and the storm was at its height. The rain came
down in torrents, the wind blew fiercely, lightning blazed and thunder
bellowed. The streets were deserted, for a man must indeed have had
urgent business to call him abroad on such a night.

Apparently such was Jérôme Fandor’s case, for the journalist was
walking fast and resolutely under the pitiless downpour along the quays
bordering the Seine in the direction of Charenton. As he fought his way
against the gale, the belated pedestrian was growling between his teeth:

“Good lord! how my ears sting with the cold! and how pitch dark it
is! Screw up my eyes as I will, I can’t see a thing. All the same,
I’ve got to get to Alfort; but shall I ever find the _rendez-vous_ in
this darkness, I wonder! All the same, how right I was to attend the
marriage of that fool Ascott with the unspeakable Nini Guinon! What a
wedding! and what a crew! And old Moche! what a clever fellow he must
be to keep this gang of scoundrels on the job, always promising the
fellows money and never giving them the pay for the crimes they do at
his bidding! Oh! he’s one in a thousand, he is, the old money-lender
of the Rue Saint-Fargeau! If I hadn’t important reasons for not
wishing him to see me, I’d just go straight, fair and square, to the
abandoned quarry where the confabulation’s to be between the ‘Gasman,’
‘Bull’s-eye,’ Paulet and the rest of that gang of ruffians. But surely I
hear footsteps coming up behind me. Best turn off the road now and make
to the right to get time to find a hiding place. Mustn’t let yourself
be seen, friend Fandor. True, all these chaps are your ‘pals’ and more
or less well disposed; but ’ware Moche, if _he_ spotted you, especially
after yesterday’s business, there’d be trouble, and that wouldn’t help
on poor Juve’s affairs!”

All the while, as he soliloquized thus, Fandor was moving on as
fast as he could in the deep shadows that helped to conceal him,
sometimes crawling, sometimes walking. Still, he was the first to reach
the _rendez-vous_. It was a sinister spot. A sand quarry lay there
abandoned, a hundred yards from the bank of the river. A strike of the
quarrymen had been on foot for a week, and there appeared no present
likelihood of work being resumed. Fantômas’ henchmen were aware of the
fact and knew that nobody would come to disturb them. Besides, the
river was close at hand, and if interruptors appeared, so much the
worse for them! They would make a hole in the water, whether they liked
a bath or no.

But the look of things would not have been half so grim if, moored by
the shore, a dredger had not shown its huge, dark bulk on the black
water, lifting to the sky its slanting spar with an endless chain
running along its length carrying the great buckets that dredge up the
mud and detritus from the bed of the stream.

A sound of footsteps. A cold sweat broke out on Fandor’s temples; like
all truly brave men, he was not rash and deemed it foolish to risk his
life without gain for anybody or anything whatsoever. Now it was very
certain that, if he was seen by Moche, who knew him, and now treated
him openly as an enemy, he would be denounced to the apaches, who would
no longer take him to be one of their own crew and would dub him a
traitor. A summary execution would be the sequel. But what would become
of Juve then? Anyway, what was to be done now under these difficult
circumstances? The intrepid journalist asked himself the question
anxiously, calling up all his ingenuity and cunning to discover an
immediate answer, for it was not hours now that counted, but seconds.

The footsteps came nearer. They were within a hundred yards and the
new arrivals would soon be able to pierce the heavy shadows that,
luckily for Fandor, still hung, a protective screen, between them and
the reporter. A happy thought! a really brilliant idea! Those great
buckets (empty or full, what matter?) that swung in the wind along
the dredger’s spar, were they not observatories all ready made, so
excellently adapted to the purpose that assuredly it would never occur
to the most suspiciously minded of the gang that a spy, however rash,
should have chosen so perilous a hiding place. Fandor did not lose a
moment. Rapidly and dexterously the young man hauled himself up by the
chain and had very soon reached the highest point of the spar, where he
settled himself, crouching down in the topmost bucket of all. By great
good luck it was empty. From there he could both see and hear, while
remaining entirely incognito himself.

He was only just in time. The apaches were arriving one after the other
in quick succession. “Big Ernestine” was the first; behind her came
Paulet, the murderer of the bank messenger, the “Gasman,” “Bull’s-eye,”
the “Beadle,” and other members of the gang, after them, five or six
new recruits, whom Fandor only knew by sight, and who had as yet done
little to get themselves talked about. These were whispering together
under their breath. The rest seemed quite at home, they believed
themselves as much alone as in their regular haunts, and their voices
swelled to the loudest diapason of indignation.

“Eleven gone, and the dirty scamp’s not come! it’s over long the
thief’s been chousing us all with his promises he never keeps. Won’t
stand the cheat any more, what say you, mates?”

“If old man Moche tries on another of his tricks to-night, I’ll do him
in to-morrow!”

“Hark there! what’s that?”

“It’s the old humbug here at last! oh, ho! his pockets are bulging with
brass; that’s why he’s been so slow; it’s over heavy for him, he can’t
walk!”—and the yells and imprecations broke out afresh.

A small, mean, cringing figure, his head almost buried in the collar
of his great-coat, his hands clasped in a suppliant attitude, the old
usurer listened quietly to the recriminations that rose on all sides,
guessing that for sure he would be in the tightest of tight places
before long.

“Good day to you, mates all,” he greeted the angry crowd, and said no
more for the moment. But, after a brief pause, seeing looks of anger
and suspicion scanning him from the soles of his feet to the crown of
his head, he added in a whining voice:

“Beg pardon, but we’d be better elsewhere: suppose we adjourn to the
deck of the _Marie-Salope_ (the dredger) over there?”

All agreed; only “Bull’s-eye” slipped in a question: “There’s nobody
there?”

A general shout reassured him: “Why, who’d ever dare to come?”

Still, by way of further precaution, “Big Ernestine” climbed down into
the lighter, moored in the wake of the dredger, into which the buckets
when working emptied their contents. Another minute and the woman was
up again, satisfied with her inspection, and declaring:

“All clear!”

But Moche now pointed out that they were wasting precious time, gassing
without saying anything to the point.

“We’re here to talk business, so let’s begin.”

The company took seats as they best could, some on the bulwarks, some
on the deck-planks of the dredger, forming a circle in the middle of
which Père Moche took his stand—and the trial opened. “Trial” is the
right word, for truly the speaker was pleading for his life before his
judges seated round him, whom even a superficial observer would have
found no difficulty in recognizing as ready to go to the most violent
extremities.

It was the “Beadle” who undertook the prosecution. All the while
brandishing before the face of the culprit, who stood impassive before
him, his redoubtable clenched fists, the weight of which was familiar
to all the onlookers and which without an effort could have felled the
unhappy old man to the ground, he began with an artful reference that
instantly won him the sympathy of his audience.

“Père Moche,” he said, “you are come, and that is well, for it behooves
us once for all to understand each other, us and you. You can see for
yourself, that, among the chosen few of our band, one only is missing,
poor ‘Beauty Boy,’ and if he has been nabbed, if he is in the stone
jug, waiting till the bigwigs send him overseas, that is entirely your
fault; I don’t mean to say you sold him to the ’tecs, but you left him
without coin, without a yellow boy, without a stiver, and forced him to
muck it somehow or other, so that ...”

A triple round of applause allowed the orator to take breath, which he
did long and noisily, and to add another touch:

“Yes, if ‘Beauty Boy’ was pinched working the Yankees on the
Trans-Atlantic boat-train, and he so clever fingered, it was because he
didn’t have the usual stuff with him. If he hadn’t been forced to pick
up just anything he could to fill his belly, he would never have ...”

Faces grew ugly, fists clenched, every eye glittered with murderous
light. In his hiding-place Fandor congratulated himself on his presence
at this unexpected scene. Moche seemed to be racking his brains to find
a way to exculpate himself. Still the old ruffian managed to conceal
his distress, and it was without any great difficulty he succeeded
in breaking in on the “Beadle’s” eloquence and making himself heard
instead.

“Come, come, you’re never going to eat me, comrades? I’ve got a tough
hide, you know, and you’d only get a belly-ache. Now what makes you go
howling at me that gate when I’m your best chum? What have you against
me, now?”

“The infernal cheek of the chap!” snorted out “Big Ernestine,” looking
as red as a poppy.

“But come now, haven’t I done everything I ought? Sure enough,
Fantômas, who set us to work, don’t pay us as we hoped he would.
There’s been some good business done, I admit, and without you, without
us, it would never have come off. Coin’s been handled by the chief,
and it’s all stuck to his fingers, we’ve not had a chance yet to touch
it. But I’m not Fantômas, I’m only his lieutenant, and to pass on your
complaint to him, I should have to know where he is....”

“You don’t know where Fantômas is? D’ye think we’re going to swallow
that humbug?” vociferated “Big Ernestine.”

“No, I do not know, my pretty dear, and if I did, I should have told
you long ago, if only to satisfy your curiosity.”

“It’s not a plant, that?” asked the “Gasman,” half inclined to come to
the old fellow’s help.

“I swear it isn’t! You think I know more than you do, and that my lot’s
more enviable. Nobody so blind as those who won’t see. I tell you my
look-out is just as pitiable as yours. He owes you your pay, well, he
owes me mine, too. All I’ve been able to do for you is to hinder your
getting disheartened and thinking Fantômas doesn’t care for you any
more. Well, _I_’m convinced Fantômas still looks after us and thinks a
deal of us. If we don’t see him, if we have no direct news from him,
it’s because he has powerful reasons for acting as he does.... What,
isn’t a chap like him cleverer than all the lot of us?”

“Hear, hear! Fantômas for ever!”

“Well and good! Fantômas for ever!... So then, I still deserve your
confidence, eh? I was to come here to explain things. Haven’t I come?
did I shirk away?”

“That’s true enough; but where is the Chief?”

“Where he is precisely, he’d be a mighty cute customer who could tell
us and be sure he was not mistaken. What is unfortunately certain is
that he must have been put in confinement as from time to time we
receive orders from the _Santé_ prison, orders we have, in fact, always
faithfully carried out. And all the same, with Fantômas, we are bound
to look for the most amazing surprises.... Oh! if only we could see
him!”

“We can if we want to!” declared the “Beadle” in a tone of conviction.

Everyone was startled at this bold statement spoken with such
confidence, while Fandor felt his curiosity more keenly excited than
ever.

“Why, yes, we can see him. If Fantômas writes from the _Santé_, that
means he is there. If he’s there, we must manage his escape, that’s
all.”

“You’re not a bit gone in the head, eh?” someone broke the silent pause
of stupefaction that followed.

“I! not a bit of it; I’ve got my notion, and I’m just telling you what
it is, and if you’re not chicken-hearted, it’ll come off. It’s not so
hard as all that to find a crack Fantômas can slip out of gaol by....
Suppose we collar him as they’re taking him along down the passages in
the Palais de Justice to be examined, eh? We’ve done bigger jobs than
that before now. Only ...”

“Only?”

“Only we must have a plan, and it’s none so easy to find a good one.
It’s not to praise up Moche I’m saying it, but there, he’s a mighty
clever chap, and can read a heap of big old books and write like a
schoolmaster.”

Moche was flattered and gave a little nod of the head, as much as to
say they were quite in the right about him and the profundity of his
acquirements. Then the “Beadle” seeing his audience hanging on his
lips, went on with redoubled ardour:

“Well, then, to my thinking we shall do nothing to rights without
Moche; let him make out a plan and we’ll carry it through, dead or
alive. I have spoken. Fantômas for ever!”

“Fantômas for ever!”

Looking on from his point of vantage, Fandor was prodigiously
interested in what he now saw and heard; for all the wealth of the
Indies he would not have surrendered his place to anyone whatsoever.
But suddenly the journalist felt his heart stop beating at a thought
that filled him with consternation; he shuddered as he reflected on the
apaches’ new project. If, by any chance, this bold scheme of rescue
which the gang proposed proved successful, it was not Fantômas they
would lay hands on, but simply Juve! The fact was, the Fantômas of
the _Santé_—Moche, indeed, must know this as certainly as Fandor did
himself—was not Fantômas at all, but Juve, and once the police-officer
fell into the power of the apaches, he was irremediably lost, whether
they took him for Juve or for Fantômas, their perjured and bankrupt
paymaster.

Fandor had guessed right; this he gathered from the decision the artful
old schemer now pronounced in half a dozen short, crisp words: “I’ll
take it on; to-morrow we meet again.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know yet, I must think it over, and once my plan is settled, I
will let you know by Paulet. Is that agreed?”

“Agreed!”

“Nothing more to do here then. Let’s be off and have a cosy drink;
it’ll be warmer than here, what say you?”

“Now you’re talking. Let’s hook it”—and thus the sitting was dissolved.
Threatening dire disaster to Père Moche at the beginning, it had ended
finally in a blaze of triumph for that astute scoundrel.

Fandor found it hard to recover from his wonder and surprise; true, his
poor body was aching and stiff and cramped, and his mind was feeling
the numbing effects of this physical distress, patiently borne, but
prolonged almost beyond human endurance. However, Fandor was young
and energetic, and very soon, by dint of clinging to the chain and so
stretching himself vigorously, he had restored the requisite suppleness
to legs and arms and loins; he was making ready, grasping the spar of
the _Marie-Salope_, to slip down to the deck when, looking before him,
he caught sight of a shadowy figure returning hurriedly to the dredger.
In a moment he was curled up once more in the bottom of the bucket, but
by tilting this over side-ways, he managed to secure a still better
view than before.

It was a wise precaution, and it proved useful. There was no doubt
about it; some member of the gang was coming back, after leaving
his confederates under some pretext or other, to return to Paris by
themselves. But who was it? and what was he after?

For all the cool presence of mind that characterized him, Fandor with
difficulty stifled the cry that rose to his lips. It was Moche! it was
indeed Moche, who, after accompanying the apaches for five hundred
yards or so as far as the fork of the roads that lead in different
directions to Paris and to Alfort, had announced in the most natural
way in the world:

“I am expected at Alfort, so I must leave you here. I’m not in your bad
books any more?”

“No, no!... to-morrow’s the day?”

“To-morrow or next day, not a day later. So once again: Fantômas for
ever!”

“Yes, Fantômas for ever!” echoed “Big Ernestine,” “... but only if he
pays up and can prove he hasn’t choused us!”

“By God! yes, we’ll keep our eyes lifting,” added the “Gasman,”
completing the other worthy’s meaning. “Till we meet again!”

“So long then!”—and Moche, without rousing the slightest suspicion,
had contrived to start back on his road to the dredger. What was he
coming to do? Something underhand, evidently, for instead of advancing
as the first time, walking quietly on his two feet, he was flat on
his belly, crawling on the ground, as he had been doing for the last
two hundred yards or more. Whose notice was the old scamp trying to
evade? Doubtless it was one of the companions he had just left that
he feared. Fandor was burning with impatience, albeit the temperature
had fallen at the approach of the dawn, which was due in another hour.
Moreover, a heavy, drenching rain-storm was beginning, accompanied by
vivid flashes of forked lightning and reverberating thunderclaps.

On reaching the dredger, Moche abandoned his serpentine mode of advance
and rising to his feet, stepped on to the deck and made straight for
the winding-crank fixed at the bottom end of the spar, to put the
buckets in motion. He took the handle in both hands and with legs wide
astraddle and back hunched up, set to work to turn. Looking down at the
old chap from above, Fandor could not restrain a laugh.

“Sweat away!” he grinned, “I’ll give you a dozen of champagne if you
get the old machine to work ... God in heaven! it _is_ turning.”

He had not time to say another word before he was pitched headlong into
the lighter astern, among the rubbish that already half filled it and
which, luckily for him, made a sort of cushion sufficiently yielding to
break his fall. Nor had he time to get to his feet before the contents
of the bucket that had previously hung below him, but was now suspended
above his head as the chain revolved, came tumbling all over him.

“Bad luck again!” was all he said, as he shifted quickly a bit to one
side, so as not to be fouled again if Moche went on working the crank,
which had gone on turning without further application of external
force. But what now? the avalanche had stopped; what did that mean?
Peeping out through the cracks in the ramshackle bulwarks of the
lighter, Fandor could get an excellent view of what old Moche might
be at without any risk of being seen himself. What he did see was so
singular that his face lit up with a broad smile. Something was afoot
of so strange a sort as to force an involuntary exclamation from his
lips. “The artful dodger!” he ejaculated. What the old usurer of the
Rue Saint-Fargeau was doing was, in fact, extraordinary. He had stopped
the crank at the exact moment when the first bucket under water rose
from the depths of the dredger’s hold. At this the old man was gazing
lovingly, and it was only after he had cast a wary glance round the
horizon and made sure there was no one watching his proceedings that
he began groping in it with feverish eagerness. Fandor grinned like a
Cheshire cat, chuckling to himself as he mentally apostrophized the old
fellow:

“Oh, Moche, Moche, what a fool you are!—and just when you’re thinking
yourself the cleverest rogue unhung! What is the fellow after? By the
Lord, he’s hauling out of the mud an iron box, a cashbox. Full of
yellow boys, I wager. Egad, there’s enough and to spare there to pay
the greediest of Fantômas’ regular workers for their trouble! Moche,
my boy, if I wanted to play you a nasty trick, I’d go slap off and
tell the gang what I’ve seen, and I promise you that, two hours from
now, when they’d caught you, you’d be having a devilish bad half-hour!
Luckily for you, I prefer, in Juve’s interests, to find out what you’re
proposing to do with your treasure. Are you an honest agent, is it just
a trust confided to you by Fantômas? _Or_, are you by way of robbing
your master and all his confederates? Oh, ho! it looks as if the
villain is preparing to answer my question himself.”

For now, with a meditative air, Moche was pulling at his hideous red
whiskers, one after the other. Then he took out his watch and made
several unavailing attempts to see the time, for the night was still
so dark he had to wait for a flash of lightning before he could read
the hour, while the wind was blowing too violently for him to dream of
lighting a match. When at last he was able to make out the face, a cry
of annoyance broke from his lips: “Gone three already!”—and without
a moment’s delay he started off at a run in the direction of Alfort,
gripping under his left arm the precious box, which he had hastily
reclosed.

Where was he off to? Fandor took prompt measures to find out, and the
other had not gone three hundred paces before his steps were being
dogged by the pursuing journalist. The pace was hot. It was plain
that Fantômas’ man of business was bent on completing before daylight
whatever the job it was he had made up his mind to do. But to manage it
he must make all possible haste, for, as Moche had noted, it was by now
three o’clock in the morning.

“God Almighty!” Fandor swore, pressing on harder still, “what a racer
the scoundrel is!... Where are we? We’re clean through Alfort, and
there’s nothing else but that hovel ahead there; it looks deserted, but
it’s that way and nowhere else Moche is making across country. Ah, ha!
I think I’m going to know!”

Moche, in fact, was making straight for a tumble-down building that
stood empty and abandoned in the middle of a wide stretch of waste
ground, its shutters hanging from their hinges, its walls dropping to
pieces, and a general look of poverty-stricken dilapidation brooding
over all. Like a person familiar with the locality and having a perfect
right to march in without knocking, he pushed open the door, a strong
and heavy one. Still, the idea occurred to him that tramps might have
taken refuge in the ramshackle hut for shelter from the cold out of
doors; so he took his revolver in hand, and in he went.

The old usurer reclosed the door behind him; then Fandor, who had
been crouching to the ground, advanced with a thousand precautions,
glued his ear to the door, made certain that the outermost room was
unoccupied, and opening in his turn, made his way silently into the
lonely house. Neither did he fail to hold his trusty Browning ready for
action. At first he had some difficulty in making out just where Moche
could be, but soon, noticing a feeble, almost imperceptible glimmer
of light that filtered up through the floor, he realized that the old
usurer was in a cellar, and had pulled to after him the trap-door by
which he had gained access. Fandor threw himself flat on the trap-door
in question and peeped through the cracks between the boards.

But what he saw went far beyond anything he had expected. By the
light of a lantern he had unhooked from the wall Moche, having first
deposited his precious money-chest on the floor, was busy raising with
infinite caution one of the paving-stones in the north corner of the
cellar.

“Evidently,” the journalist thought to himself, “he wants to re-bury
his treasure in a new place!”

And such was in fact the old reprobate’s intention. In the hiding place
he had opened up he now proceeded carefully to place the chest; then he
replaced the flagstone, then he scattered sand and dust all round the
edges, so that it was soon quite impossible to guess that the stone
had ever been disturbed.

Meantime Fandor had moved from his spying place; Moche was about to
take his departure and he must not catch sight of the intruder. The
journalist’s first idea was simply to leave the ruined house before the
old ruffian; but on second thoughts he realized that such a mode of
departure was full of risk.

“Once outside, I shall be on the bare, deserted road, and Moche will
inevitably see me—and that will never do!” But now a happy thought
struck the young man—Moche, never for one moment suspecting the
presence of anyone spying on his actions, would probably not trouble
to search the rooms. All he himself would have to do would be to hide,
let the old man go out first, then slip away after him quietly and in
perfect safety.

A few minutes more and Fandor, concealed behind a forgotten pile of
firewood, saw Moche emerge again from the cellar. The old fellow
crossed the outer room, reached the door and so away.

“A pleasant journey to you!” grinned Fandor.

But the next instant a cold sweat broke out on his brow; Moche, after
pulling the door to after him, had locked it fast.

It was all the young man could do to keep back an oath: “A prisoner! I
am a prisoner, by the lord Harry!”




CHAPTER XXV

ASSAULT AND BATTERY


Juve was a free man. The Juge d’Instruction, M. Fuselier, who had
all along been sceptical as to the generally accepted theory of the
identity of the police-officer with Fantômas, but who had been rudely
shaken in his faith in the detective’s innocence by the startling
coincidence of the wound found on the prisoner’s arm, had bestirred
himself with redoubled zeal and had instituted further searching
investigations. The result had been the discovery that one of the
warders at the _Santé_, Nibet by name, was in close touch with the
Fantômas’ gang, and having access to Juve’s cell, had presumably
seized an opportunity to drug the prisoner during the night and effect
the cut on his arm that seemed to supply such convincing evidence of
his being the same as the assailant of the unfortunate inspector of
the Criminal Bureau at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s ball. Soon the
conjecture became a certainty, albeit Nibet had disappeared, alarmed by
M. Fuselier’s inquiries, and Juve had been released.

He was now closeted with M. Fuselier in the latter’s official
room within the Palais de Justice and was receiving the friendly
magistrate’s cordial congratulations on the vindication of his
character and his restoration to liberty:

“Juve, you are free; the fact is established, you are not Fantômas;
Nibet is proved the culprit in the matter of your wound”—and with a
spontaneous and charming affability the magistrate shook Juve cordially
by the hand.

“But alas!” he proceeded in a less cheerful tone, “we do not know when
we shall be in a position to announce the capture of another and a more
terrible culprit.”

Juve with equal seriousness replied:

“Pooh! I ask you, sir, for a fortnight at the outside! It is more than
a police matter for me now to arrest Fantômas, to unmask him at any
rate and force him to fly; it is a personal matter. Remember, all the
time I have been in gaol, I have no doubt my friend, my _accomplice_,
Fandor, has been at work; I am going now to see him, and between us
two ...”

“Or you three,” corrected M. Fuselier, “for indeed you must not forget,
Juve, that you will have an invaluable helper in the person of Tom Bob.”

But at once the worthy police-officer’s professional pride was up in
arms; at the mention of Tom Bob Juve’s brow contracted and it was in a
hard voice that he answered roughly:

“Tom Bob!... well, it strikes me, folks make a deal of fuss about this
Tom Bob, and for my part, Monsieur Fuselier, I am far from desirous of
working with him ... even ...”

Juve stopped short, but the other craved an explanation of the broken
sentence.

“Even what?” he demanded.

“Even,” Juve resumed, “if I do deal with him, it will not perhaps be in
the way you think, sir!”

M. Fuselier started violently.

“Oh! oh!” he cried, “oh, Juve!... is it possible?... but no, it cannot
be! you are mistaken.” Juve gave a dry little laugh:

“I am not mistaken because I am making no assertion, but this much
is certain, that Fantômas this time is not acting alone. He had
accomplices, and accomplices highly placed. Upon my word! I confess
that Tom Bob ...”

But the other sprang up, unwilling to listen to such extravagant
theories.

“Come now, Juve,” he remonstrated, “you know the man yourself, you know
Tom Bob personally. You are aware he is a famous detective, are you
not?”

Juve wagged his head as he replied:

“Yes, I knew a Tom Bob; that Tom Bob I esteemed and admired and I do
so still, but, sir, I am speaking of the Tom Bob who is now in Paris,
who is a popular hero, the Tom Bob who boasts he will run Fantômas to
earth, and who—mark this, it is an important point, believe me—who
nevertheless never took the trouble to ask permission to see me at
the _Santé_, when I was supposed to be Fantômas! There are but two
alternatives: either the Tom Bob I speak of is my old friend, in which
case it was only natural, I take it, he should have come to offer me
the solace of his sympathy, or he is one of the ...”

Juve stopped short again then, unwilling to say all he thought.

“However, time will show,” he said; “anyway, sir, you may be sure
that all my energies from now on will be devoted to following up my
investigations.”

It was getting late. Since early in the afternoon Juve had been
discussing with the magistrate the extraordinary incidents in which
Fantômas’ name once more figured so disastrously.

“Well, it’s too late now to sign your discharge paper, and carry
out the lengthy formalities required. So I am going to give you a
provisional form of release and sign the formal document to-morrow.
Will that suit you?”

Juve nodded, and was just opening his mouth to answer when a knock came
at the door, and the magistrate bade the applicant come in.

It was a working mason who presented himself.

“Give you my excuses,” he said, “but now, sir, can’t we come into your
room to fix up our scaffoldings?”

“Yes, yes, my man, just as you please?”

M. Fuselier got up, hastily arranged his papers, locking away some in
drawers, anxious not to leave any compromising document lying about. He
grumbled, “It’s just killing. Here’s a whole week I’ve never been left
in peace with these building operations for enlarging the Palais; every
hour of the day I have workmen fussing around.”

While the magistrate was speaking, in fact, five or six masons had
entered the room. One of these made his way to the window, in front of
which was a hanging scaffolding, where two more workmen were standing.

“All right, mates?” shouted the mason.

“All right it is ... and you?”

“We’re right, too—come on and see!”

And then next moment—the words were evidently a signal—there followed
an abominable scene of violence and horror.

From the scaffolding two more workmen had jumped down into
M. Fuselier’s room. Before they had time to gather their wits together,
the magistrate and Juve were seized by the fellows, bound, gagged, and
thrown roughly to the ground. M. Fuselier all but lost consciousness;
Juve ground his teeth, fighting desperately, dealing blows to right and
left, a miracle of strength and courage. But what could he do against
the odds? and he was quickly forced to submit.

“Oh! damn the fellow!” one of the masons swore, “it’s a blessing we’ve
got him tied! Now, sharp’s the word, my lads! The beak on a chair, and
tight up! Hold on with the tec, eh?” By “the tec,” he meant Juve. Two
men were kneeling on his chest, another was holding his head down on
the floor, a fourth was cording his legs. Dazed and dumbfounded, Juve
could make nothing of it all as he watched the bogus masons hurrying to
obey the orders of the one who seemed to be in command.

“The beak on the chair, I tell you!” repeated the chief. A handkerchief
was twisted round M. Fuselier’s head, knotted ropes secured his legs,
his hands were tied behind his back. Then two of the workmen took the
unfortunate magistrate, one by the shoulders, the other by the legs,
and carried him to an armchair. There he was seated and fixed firmly
with ropes. Meantime his mates had finished tying up Juve.

But suddenly the amazing crew who had invaded M. Fuselier’s sanctum
stopped dead and stood motionless, afraid to stir. A knock had sounded
at the door.

“Curse it!” muttered the “Beadle”—the chief of the band was in fact,
that redoubtable apache—“here’s something to queer our pitch!” Then,
after motioning his accomplices to gather in a body at the door, he
called out “Come in,” in a quiet voice.

The door opened and the figure of a man appeared on the threshold;
“M. Fuselier?...” he began: but the sentence was never finished. At a
glance he had seen Juve’s body lying bound and inert on the floor, he
had even caught sight of M. Fuselier, helpless in his chair. Instantly
doubling his fists, a marvel of coolness and courage, he hurled himself
into the room and rushed at the “Beadle” with a hoarse yell. But behind
the door stood massed the apaches, waiting; he had not taken two steps
when a human swarm was clinging round his shoulders, blows fell thick
and fast, arms and legs were hauled and mauled, he was down, he was
choking, he was helpless. Like Juve, like Fuselier, in half a minute he
was tied and bound, unable to move a muscle.

“Well, my fine fellow!” the “Beadle” now took up his parable, “here’s
someone I never expected! why the devil must he come trespassing on our
preserves? You know the chap, eh? _You_ know him, Paulet, don’t you?”

The rest shrugged shoulders contemptuously.

Paulet, with his crooked smile, swore: “By God! yes, there’s no
mistaking the beggar, it’s Tom Bob, ain’t it—the chap that ran in poor
‘Beauty Boy’?”

But the older apache had already resumed his gravity:

“Yes, it’s Tom Bob, the detective! I’m thinking if we must ‘finish’
him; but no, by the Lord! not worth the trouble, it ain’t.”

Thereupon the “Beadle” knelt down beside the detective’s body where
it lay and extended on the ground, took the unfortunate man by the
shoulder and shook him roughly:

“Hi! detective, d’ye hear me? Yes? good—now look and see how we stand,
we chaps? You wanted to arrest Fantômas, did you? Well, old man, it’s
_us_ have laid hands on _you_. And if we don’t finish you off, it’s
only to save worries here. Only, let me give you a bit of advice—by the
next boat you’ll have to hook it back to your own country. You twig?”

The man got to his feet again, and, a coward like all of his kidney,
while Tom Bob lay helpless and incapable of offering the smallest
resistance, he kicked him in the face again and again. Presently,
tiring of the exercise, he broke off to add:

“There, I don’t want to spoil your phiz. What’d be the good of that?
But what to do with the beast? we never looked to see _him_ here. Bah!
let’s just tie him up with the beak, it’ll be company for him!”

But there was no time to waste. It was a good twenty minutes since
the brigands had invaded Fuselier’s privacy. True, at this time of
day there was small likelihood of anybody coming to disturb the Juge
d’Instruction; still it was best not to delay—a surprise was after
all a possibility to be feared; a night watchman, a court official,
an usher might arrive at any moment. Like a general inspecting the
dispositions made by his subordinates in command, the “Beadle”
proceeded to make a rapid examination of the fastenings securing
Fuselier and Tom Bob.

“Righto!” he declared, “they’re hard and fast for the night, never
fear!”

With a grin, he gripped Tom Bob by the shoulders and dragged him into a
dark corner of the room; after which he seized M. Fuselier and turned
him round with his face to the wall:

“They’ll be bored worse than ever if they can’t see one another! A
pleasant time to you, gentlemen!... And the other, ready is he? you’ve
got the sack?”

Yes, the other was ready. The chief might gibe and jest and enliven the
proceedings with satirical remarks, but his men were not wasting their
time. While he was speaking, they had executed the order previously
given. The enterprise, not a doubt of it, had been planned beforehand,
and long beforehand. One of the apaches now unfolded a voluminous
receptacle he had brought with him, a sort of extra big sack; into
this they bundled Juve, still bound, still incapable of the slightest
movement. Two of the ruffians then picked up the sack, and carrying it
to the window, dumped it on the hanging stage.

Finally, after turning the key in the lock to make security doubly
secure, the chief addressed his men:

“Off we go! let’s hook it, mates, all that’s left to do is to slip down
by the scaffold ropes. Underneath we’ll come on the masons’ workshops.
There’s a watchman, of course, on guard there, but he’s full up at this
time of night; no fear of his waking up. To get the gentleman away,
we’ve the motor-car. Ah! by God! but it’s a fine bit of work we’ve done
this journey!”

       *       *       *       *       *

It was three hours or more since the daring ruffians who had found
a way into the Palais de Justice had tried and accomplished their
capture of Juve, whom they took for Fantômas. M. Fuselier was almost
despairing. It was all too abominable; just as he was liberating
Juve, Juve had fallen into the brigands’ power. The man was done for
for certain—and so keen was the sympathy the magistrate felt for the
gallant officer, he almost forgot the grotesque horror of his own
position in fear for Juve’s fate. He was the more alarmed, inasmuch as,
being reduced to helplessness, M. Fuselier realized quite clearly it
would be long ere he was set free, that there was practically no chance
of his being restored to liberty before the next morning at seven or
eight o’clock, the hour when the cleaners of the Palais would want
to come in to put his room to rights, and surprised to find the door
locked, would make enquiries and no doubt find means to enter the room
by way of the window.

Nevertheless M. Fuselier was not without some fleeting gleams of
hope. He had perfectly recognized Tom Bob at the moment the American
detective sprang into his room and had, like himself, fallen a victim
to the apaches. He could not see him, but now and again he heard him
move. Tom Bob had not, like him, been tied on a chair, the wretches
had left him stretched helpless on the carpet. Perhaps the detective
was going to find a way to free himself? Very certainly it was he who
was making those cracking, creaking noises he could catch at times. It
seemed he must be dragging himself along the floor to try and break his
bonds.

M. Fuselier was not mistaken. Battered and bleeding as he was, Tom
Bob was giving proof of amazing energy. The apaches once gone, he had
managed to crawl up to the magistrate’s desk, and there, with infinite
patience, being just able to bend his body, he was employed in chafing
against the corner of the desk one of the cords that held him fast. It
needed indomitable perseverance, the attempt to free himself in this
fashion, but Tom Bob had never wanted for energy. Moreover, the task
cost him agonies, every movement forcing the cords deep into the flesh,
but he was not the man to be deterred by pain.

After prolonged efforts, Tom Bob at last succeeded in breaking the cord
that confined his wrist; after that it was child’s play to free himself
altogether. In a very few minutes he had released his arms, then his
legs, had then cut off the ropes and snatched out his gag. Barely
giving himself time to inhale a deep draught of air, he hurried to the
unfortunate magistrate’s side and untied him; then, at the end of his
strength, he fell full length on the floor at his feet.

For many minutes, M. Fuselier and Tom Bob, now free, dared not risk
a movement; half stifled both of them, dazed and stupefied, they
could only pant for breath. M. Fuselier was the first to recover his
self-possession.

“Ah! Bob! Bob!” he groaned, “what a dreadful thing has happened to
us!... Juve is surely done for!”

In a hoarse voice, forcing the words with difficulty from his dry
throat, Tom Bob protested:

“Juve! d’you say Juve? But, Monsieur Fuselier, you are mad! You don’t
understand yet?... Juve is just Fantômas!”

“Nonsense, nonsense! if he was Fantômas the brigands would never have
pinioned him as they did.”

“Yes, they would, to put you on a false scent.”

“But it was not worth their while, as he was free—I was going to let
him go free.”

“The wretches did not know that.”

“He would have told them.”

“Not before us!”

M. Fuselier shook his head emphatically.

“No, no,” he asseverated, “I tell you Juve is innocent.”

“And I,” retorted Tom Bob, no less convinced it seemed, “I tell you the
gang, thinking Juve, that is to say Fantômas, was definitely unmasked,
resolved to deliver their Chief. They have delivered him and have so
delivered him as to make you think they were treating him with brutal
violence, merely the better to deceive you ...”

M. Fuselier, suddenly recalling the words Juve had uttered a few hours
before concerning Tom Bob, grew thoughtful and gazed at the detective
with eyes of sheer bewilderment.




CHAPTER XXVI

JUVE HEARS CONFESSIONS


Hoarse, croaking voices were whispering together:

“Must get to work, half-past two ... day’ll be here directly ... hurry
up, chaps ... to business!”

As he heard the ominous words, Juve shuddered, brave man as he was. The
police-officer in the course of his adventurous life had gone through
such ups and downs of fortune, taken part in such desperate struggles,
confronted such dangers, that he was proof against all contingencies;
yet he could not help trembling, for he felt a clear and definite
presentiment that his last hour was on the point of striking. The
incidents of the evening before had astounded him, and despite his
imperturbable coolness, the detective could not but shudder to recall
the terrible hours he had lived through since then. In fact, what had
occurred in M. Fuselier’s room at the Palais and the brutal fashion
in which Juve had been kidnapped, overpassed all limits in the way of
fantastic extravagance. Not only had the gang of scoundrels taken him
unawares, thrown themselves upon him, seized and pinioned him, in the
very Palais de Justice itself, but they had actually carried him off
by climbing down the scaffoldings running outside the windows of the
building and got clear away.

Then Juve, gagged and bound, unable to stir a finger, had been pitched
into a car which had been driven off at full speed without the officer
being able to gather the faintest inkling of where he was being taken.
Still blindfolded by a handkerchief tied tight over his eyes, he had
been led into a house, where he had waited in silence and agonizing
suspense to know the decision his abductors would come to regarding his
fate.

As he recalled these events, his mind turned instinctively on what he
had seen last, Fuselier attacked and terrorized, the last sound he
had heard, the voice of the American detective, Tom Bob, the man he
dreaded and suspected. Then despair overwhelmed him at the thought of
the ever-accumulating proofs of the persistent ill-fortune that pursued
him.

In truth he was to be pitied! He had been captured the very day he
had at long last regained his freedom, when, cleared of the dreadful
accusations that hung over his head, he was about to resume the
struggle with the help and co-operation of that mighty organization,
that all-powerful combination, formed by the police and the Criminal
Bureau together. Now, in a moment, as the result of an odious plot, a
plot no man could well have foreseen, he found himself plunged once
more into the dark depths from which he was just emerging.

All this was assuredly the work of Fantômas! This conclusion Juve had
definitely arrived at in the course of the terrible night he had just
lived through, the last hours of which were still slowly dragging out
their weary length. He had clearly seen that, taking advantage of
his own long detention in prison, adroitly profiting by the judicial
blunder to which he owed his incarceration in the _Santé_, Fantômas had
duped his confederates and persuaded them that Juve was no other than
the elusive brigand himself, and that it was actually Fantômas who was
in gaol. Yes, he understood the whole scheme now, and from information
gathered here and there, he could guess what was going to happen.
Fantômas, the real Fantômas, not content with exploiting honest people,
had exploited the apaches into the bargain—and these latter were out to
take their revenge. With amazing audacity they had carried off Juve,
more than ever convinced that he was Fantômas. And Juve, now in their
power, was about to pay the penalty for the grim brigand’s perfidy.

As the night wore on, the noises the detective heard round him
grew louder and more frequent. Evidently men were arriving at a
_rendez-vous_ arranged beforehand, and their number increased as
time went on, while new voices could be distinguished demanding the
immediate opening of the sitting. Presently Juve felt someone was
coming up to him, and the cords that held him fast were loosened and
the bandage removed from his eyes. Mechanically the prisoner stretched
his limbs, cramped by the pressure of the ligatures.

Juve found himself stretched on the floor of a square chamber with
bare, white-washed walls. By the light of a smoky lamp he saw he
was surrounded by a score of apaches, with grim faces and surly,
threatening looks. Some of these were unfamiliar to him, others he knew
to belong to notorious criminals. By the chilly damp that exuded from
the walls and the flagged floor of the place, as well as by the absence
of windows, the detective gathered that he was confined in the depths
of a cellar.

But his reflections were soon cut short. One of the apaches, the same
who had untied him, now kicked a wooden stool towards him with the
order: “Sit there, in the middle of us, and listen.”

Juve suddenly sprang to his feet. With a desperate, senseless
impulse—for indeed it was useless to dream of escape—he pushed away the
wooden seat, drove back fiercely with his elbows some of those nearest
him, and darting to the farthest end of the cellar, set his back
against the wall with clenched fists and furious face, ready to offer a
vigorous resistance to the first who should come near him.

Alas! this spirited show of defiance had no practical result, rather
the contrary. Nobody thought of coming to grips with the officer. The
apaches, seeing him leap away had first jeered, thinking it a fine
joke that Fantômas—for one and all took Juve to be Fantômas—should
try to give them the slip, now it was impossible. But then, by way of
precaution, the men nonchalantly produced their revolvers, the women
borrowed their lovers’ knives and fell to polishing the keen blades on
a corner of their red aprons.

Juve never flinched, but stood there impassive, waiting, though his
heart was beating tumultuously. It was eventually the police-officer’s
old acquaintance, the “Beadle,” who, breaking through the circle
gathered round the prisoner, stepped up to him, mocking and sarcastic,
both hands stuffed insolently in his pockets; the apache was bent on
heaping his scorn on the man he had looked upon as the “master,” now a
captive!

“So there you are, Fantômas,” he grinned, “our chief, our trusty
leader! the chap who sets other folks to fight for him and pockets the
tin, and never a stiver for his good lads!”

“Bravo! bravo, ‘Beadle’!”

With a wave of the hand, the apache silenced his comrades, signifying
he had said nothing of importance yet, but he was going to begin.

“My lads,” resumed the speaker, turning to his comrades, who stood
listening eagerly, again and again interrupting his discourse by cries
of enthusiastic approval, “yes, my lads, we may well say we’ve brought
off a fine bit of business!”

“True for you,” suddenly shouted the “Gasman,” “and it’s lucky we had
cute chaps with us like the ‘Beadle’”—and another burst of applause
greeted the words.

All this while Juve had not stirred or opened his lips; nerves and
attention on the stretch, he had listened, understood, realized the
appalling position he had to face. Meanwhile the “Beadle” resumed,
emphasizing the facts, that were plain enough as they stood.

“Fantômas,” he apostrophized the prisoner, “you’re a cute devil, I
don’t dispute that, but we are cuter than you, seeing as how we’ve
caught you. Well, I’m going straight to the point, I am: here’s how
it stands—Fantômas must shell out or croak! so look sharp and make up
your mind, and tell us where the money is; you’ve got five minutes to
answer, after that five minutes is up your silence will be your death
warrant!”

To occupy his mind, to cheat his despair, Juve began to count
mechanically, as if in a dream; there were left him, he told himself,
three hundred seconds to live, after that he would face the final
plunge, exchange time for eternity. Would they kill him at a stroke, or
must he endure some of those dreadful tortures the apaches invent to
satisfy their thirst for vengeance? Juve refused to think of it, that
his courage might not fail him before the end.

Amid the deafening uproar that raged round him, the apaches were
discussing, all clamouring at once, the sort of death Fantômas
deserved. Juve, forcing himself to go on counting so as not to hear,
continued speaking almost out loud:

“Hundred and twenty-five ... hundred and twenty-six ... hundred and
twenty-seven ... and twenty-eight ... twenty-nine ...” his voice never
shook ... “hundred and thirty ...” he stopped dead. A mysterious voice
had whispered in his ear, “Juve! Juve!”

The detective did not start; he stood quite still, his back against the
wall; where did the voice come from? he could not tell. All round him
crowded the apaches, some actually hustling him with their shoulders,
others crouching about his feet.

Meantime he felt someone trying to slip in between him and the wall, to
hide himself behind his back. Inspired with fresh courage, he seconded
the attempt, taking a short step forward towards the middle of the room.

The voice went on: “Don’t turn round, Juve ... and answer, for the love
of God answer, tell them you are going to pay!”

Ah! that voice! and the tone and the words! Juve felt a sudden return
to life and hope! his heart still beat as if it would burst his bosom,
but his mind experienced a prodigious relief. He guessed it was a
friend come to save him, and one he could count on even more surely
than on himself. He had recognized the voice of his old comrade Jérôme
Fandor!—Fandor of whom he had had no tidings for six months, of whom he
had heard nothing, of whose very existence he had no assurance, since
the day of their unexpected parting.

How came he to be there—just at the critical moment, at the risk no
doubt of his own life, clearly with the sole intention of rescuing his
friend from this most desperate of plights? Had Juve been cognizant of
late events and known of the eight and forty hours Fandor had passed
as a prisoner in the house at Alfort up to the time when the apaches
had brought thither his fellow officer, he would not have needed to ask
himself the question.

But neither did Fandor deem the moment come for explanations. His
compelling voice still urged Juve to answer.

“Tell them—‘I am going to pay’”—and Juve obeyed his mentor. Cutting
short the “Beadle,” who in ferocious triumph was counting out aloud the
seconds left him to live—“Only twenty-five ... only twenty-four ...
only twenty-three,” Juve cried out suddenly, instantly grasping the
part he must play, assuming a tone and attitude of dignity and high
authority:

“Listen, you fellows; Fantômas is going to pay you!”

Bravos broke out on every side, and the ruffianly crowd, forgetting
their rancour, now felt full of sympathy for the master who manifested
so praiseworthy an intention. But next minute, this outburst of
satisfaction was succeeded by a resumption of sour and suspicious looks.

“No humbug, eh?” muttered one.

“We’ve been done once before!” objected another.

“Fantômas,” declared a third, “you will not leave this place before
you’ve paid up!”—and to a popular air, the whole assemblage began to
growl out the refrain:

“Money ... money ... money!”

But now, high above the hoarse-voiced, monotonous chant, there suddenly
rang out like a peacock’s scream a shrill, screeching voice, demanding:

“Fantômas, tell us where you have put the stuff?”

Juve was losing his first fine confidence, and though to some extent
reassured by the presence of his invisible ally, he began to fear he
could not keep up the bold front he had shown so far. What was he to
answer now?

Fortunately Fandor’s voice again whispered words of counsel, and Juve,
listening with one ear to what his trusty comrade was saying, brought
out in broken jerks:

“The money ... my lads ... it’s not far off, it’s here ... here in this
very place, under the stone flags that pave the cellar floor.”

The announcement was received with shrugs of incredulous derision and
cries of

“You’re humbugging us!”

Juve, greatly perplexed, yet obeying implicitly the instructions Fandor
continued to whisper, went on:

“Stop your gab, you fools! Am I the master, or am I not?”

The rough, masterful words had their effect; a silence followed and
Juve little by little entered into the very spirit of the part he was
enacting literally impromptu. For sure, if ever Fantômas had found
himself face to face with his numerous accomplices, it would have been
just so he would have talked to them.

The “Beadle,” rather chagrined to see his prestige diminishing,
challenged the individual he took to be Fantômas:

“Show us then where it is, take up the flags yourself!”

But Juve stopped him with a gesture full of an impressive dignity.

“Fantômas,” he cried, still prompted by his admirable coadjutor Fandor,
“Fantômas scorns to work with his own hands, it is to you, you dogs,
belongs the task of digging up the treasure you are going to divide
amongst you.”

“Proud beast!” growled the “Beadle.”

But less sensitive, the rest of the apaches did not need twice telling;
they were quite ready to obey the orders of the master whose high
authority imposed itself upon them in spite of everything. “Bull’s-eye”
and the “Gasman” sprang forward and had soon raised the two first
flags—to find nothing underneath save sand. But taking advantage of the
confused uproar that ensued, Fandor prompted again:

“Tell them to go on, tell them to raise the third stone, and you are
saved!”

The detective gave the order Fandor suggested. The two apaches raised
the last flag—and started back in sheer terror! An atrocious spectacle
lay beneath their eyes, Juve himself, who had stepped forward to see,
stood there transfixed with horror. The third stone covered a black
hole in the ground in which lay a corpse half devoured by the worms!
The flesh showed the greenish hues of decomposition and exhaled a
poisonous stench. The chest had fallen in, a mass of shattered bones
and disintegrated, putrefying flesh, and from its midst gleamed the
white, polished handle of a metal money-chest. Where the dead man’s
heart should have been a strongbox had been deposited. It was there the
master had concealed the money destined for his confederates—a ghastly
hiding place, a hideous repository!

Juve, who understood nothing and dared not so much as turn around to
question Fandor with a look, yet retained his coolness. Henceforth an
impassive spectator of the appalling scene, he stood waiting to become,
when his friend should give the word, one of the heroes of the new
scene that was now to be staged.

Again Fandor prompted, and again Juve gave the order:

“Whoever of you is not afraid, let him go take the treasure from the
depths of the ‘tomb.’”

The apaches gave a roar, but stood hesitating. All were bending over
the gaping grave. Their eyes glittered with covetousness; their
grinning faces worked spasmodically in mingled repugnance and desire;
their hooked fingers twitched with eagerness to seize the shining
handle of the treasure chest, the metal lid of which winked in the
wavering light of the smoky lamps that supplied the only illumination
in the gloomy cellar. But none dared to move; the apaches were
afraid—for the first time!

But now the throng grouped round the hideous hole was pushed aside and
an old woman, her face scarlet, her breath coming in gasps, advanced
with arms akimbo to the edge of the grave.

“Why, what,” she croaked, “what’s amiss with you, you chaps? to be
scared of a dead man, for shame! Well, I’m only a woman, I am, but I’m
out to show you cowards what pluck means. True as I stand here, this
hand I hold up is going to dive into the fellow’s guts and fetch out
his gold heart!”

Her hearers shuddered as she carried out her gruesome purpose,
remarking with a hideous laugh: “Why should I be scared of the good
man? we’re old acquaintances, we are ... I was the one packed him in
down there!”

Meantime the old harridan had deposited the strongbox at the feet of
the man she too supposed to be Fantômas. Whereupon the apaches quickly
found their tongues again and all bawling at once, demanded their fees
in payment of the crimes they had committed. All that remained in fact
was to open the little chest. The key was in the lock and an eager and
obliging volunteer in the person of “Bull’s-eye” came forward; the lid
was raised and a mass of gold coins revealed.

Fandor, more and more well pleased with the turn events were taking,
had whispered to Juve:

“Let them share out the swag!”

But the journalist said no more, assailed by a new anxiety, for Juve
had taken the game into his own hands and was preparing to speak.

“By the Lord!” thought Fandor, “what is he going to say? How risky,
pray God he won’t make a hash of it!”

Juve had drawn up his tall figure to its full height and with a sweep
of the arm pushed away the apaches crowding round him; with a sudden
jerk of the knee he upset “Bull’s-eye”—this was his thanks for the
man’s zeal in opening the chest—reclosed the strong box and planted his
foot on the lid.

“Not so fast,” he cried, “hear me first, you chaps! The money is there,
and it’s good money; you can rest assured of that, but first of all, do
as I tell you. Everyone shall be paid, each according to his deserts;
you have worked for Fantômas, and Fantômas means to reward you in
proportion to what you’ve done! Go on, my lads, and every man tot up
his accounts: the bravest will come off the best. Let’s sit down!”

A round of applause approved the officer’s announcement. Yes, he was
right, those who had done nothing much did not deserve much pay, the
cute ’uns who had worked hard should get the richest prizes.

Juve marshalled his men in a circle round him, and Fandor, reassured
as to his comrade’s fate, slipped away and mingled unobtrusively with
the crowd. A majestic figure, with flashing eye and commanding pose,
the ex-detective played to perfection the rôle of the grim, mysterious
Fantômas. The man’s coolness was amazing, for did he not confront the
possible risk that at any moment the true owner of that redoubtable
name might appear before him? He went on:

“I am listening, out with it all! give in your claims, my lads; every
man shall have his deserts!”

But to begin with a protest was voiced by all present. Nothing was to
be paid away to the absent, the cowards, the shirkers, who had not
dared to come—and by this they meant Moche, Père Moche, the gang’s
confidential agent, the man who no doubt had engineered the scheme to
entrap Fantômas, but who from now on seemed of no more use and inspired
only feelings of hostility.

Why yes, Juve saw no objection to sacrificing the old reprobate. “Père
Moche,” he cried, “shall get nothing, that I swear.”

Another burst of acclamation; then in the pause that followed, seven or
eight voices were raised.

“It was us,” they declared, “kidnapped the Minister, by your order,
Fantômas; you remember, it was a devil of a job, we had to be mighty
smart!...”

Calmly, impassively, Juve drew a memorandum slip from his pocket, “Your
names?” he questioned coldly.

One by one, the apaches filed past the officer, giving in their names
and their nicknames.

The “Gasman” made a halt before his superior: “It was me,” he said,
“set afire the beggars’ refuge, while you were getting ’em aboard your
car.”

“Well and good!” pronounced Juve, “... and you?” he proceeded, turning
now to the “Beadle.”

“You know yourself, Fantômas, you know what I did.”

“That goes for nothing; say it over!”

“What’s the good?”

But murmurs of discontent broke out; why must the “Beadle” give himself
these airs? all he’d got to do was to state his case like the rest;
else he’d get nothing at all!

“Well,” he let out reluctantly, “it was me did the trick about the
Princess Sonia’s jewels ...”

But “Bull’s-eye” broke in furiously.

“And what about me, ‘Beadle’?” he growled, “didn’t I see you at
work—with your hands in your pockets? I was in that business, too!”

Imperturbably Juve noted down on his slip three significant memoranda:
“Jewels, the ‘Beadle,’ ‘Bull’s-eye.’”

“Next,” he called—and two women, “Big Ernestine” and another virago
known as the “Panther,” insisted on the master’s hearing them.

“It was us,” they clamoured, “flooded the lake with petroleum, so as
you could light up the blaze.”

Juve, however, had a question to put. Would he get an answer? he hardly
dared expect it. Still he ventured to ask:

“And the big things, eh? the Minister of Justice, who killed the
Minister of Justice?”

But at this everyone burst out laughing.

“Devilish funny,” they grinned; “none of your jokes on us, Fantômas!
everybody knows it was you.”

Juve took heedful note of the information; yes, the crime should be set
down to the account of the real culprit. He went on with his questions:

“And the bank collector? who did the murder of the Rue Saint-Fargeau?”

A chorus of voices answered him: “Moche, it was Père Moche.”

But one voice protested; someone had sprung lightly over the gaping
grave and stood before Juve. It was Paulet. The young apache with the
light eyes and pallid complexion growled out:

“Moche never did anything but make his profit out of the crime; he
robbed me of the money, as he’s robbed me of my wench, to marry her to
the rich Englishman; but as God’s above me, I swear it was I, Paulet,
all on my own, who did in the bank messenger!”

“Bravo!” rose the answering cry; “bravo! it’s you, Paulet, for the big
prize!”

But now mother Toulouche, the hag who had hauled out the strongbox from
the half decomposed corpse, emerged from the dark corner where she had
been crouching ever since.

“And for me,” she vociferated in her screaming voice, “why don’t they
question me? ask me what I’m good for? Well, I’m going to tell you,
whether or no. Hear me, Fantômas, and you, mates, too. The man who lies
rotting there, down there in the fat, damp earth, the man who lies
rotting there, bone naked, uncoffined, well, that’s my work, mine!
Fantômas,” she persisted, “it was me did the hardest job of all. By
Père Moche’s orders, I sought out this man on the open sea aboard the
liner _La Lorraine_. I boarded the big ship when the tug brought out
her pilot to them; slipping on deck when no one was looking, I crept
down to the fellow’s cabin. I had no weapon, and I was only an old
woman against a man in the prime of life. Well, I was a match for him
all the same; I sprang at his face, and with my bare teeth I tore out
his throat! To stop his blood fouling the carpet, I licked it up with
my tongue. The man fell dead without a cry. Then I sewed him up in a
big sack, and when we got near port, I pitched him into the water. Next
night, with Père Moche to help, we fished up the body, poking about
with a long pole in the mud at bottom of the dock-basin. And for three
days did I cart the carrion about, till I buried it with my own hands
under the flags in this cave here! That’s what I did, Fantômas, I, a
poor old woman; say, have I the guts, am I brave, or am I not?”

Without the quiver of a muscle, Juve had listened to the appalling
confession of the hideous virago.

“This dead man,” he asked in a low, broken voice, “who was he?”

But suddenly there rose an urgent cry of “Hush! hush!” The apaches had
heard unusual sounds, the tramp of footsteps in the distance. By the
wan, feeble light that filtered in through a grated opening on a level
with the ground outside, the crowd could see one another’s repulsive
faces drawn with anxiety. Already half suppressed vows of vengeance
began to be heard. Fandor was terrified; what was to happen next? Was
Juve, after escaping the gravest of his dangers, finally to fall a
victim to Fantômas’ fury? Was it he, the real Fantômas, that was coming?

But Juve with superb audacity, an admirable effrontery, commanded:

“Silence, all of you, and don’t budge! if it is Fantômas alone they are
after, Fantômas will defend himself alone, if it is all of us they are
looking for, Fantômas will be at your head to defend you and triumph
over our enemies; hush, do not speak, do not stir!”

Slowly Juve pushed through the throng and made for the door of the
cellar. He tried to open it; it was locked fast!

“The key,” he demanded. The “Beadle” advanced grumbling: “Here it is,”
he said, “what to do now?”

“Open,” ordered the inspector.

“You are leaving us, Fantômas?” he was asked.

“I am keeping guard over you,” replied Juve boldly.

Then he left the cellar, but did not go away. Between him and the
apaches now stood the heavy door secured by an outside bolt the officer
had shot with his own hands.

Juve stood there listening; a posse of men was surrounding the house.




CHAPTER XXVII

JUVE’S BAG


An hour or so before these events, while it was still night, the
police-officers on duty at the head Commissariat office at Alfort were
roused from the peaceful doze they were indulging in by the unexpected
arrival of an individual who seemed breathless and exhausted as if he
had been running a great distance.

“The Commissary?” he demanded.

The sergeant shrugged his shoulders.

“You may be very sure he’s not here.”

“And his deputy?”

“He’s away too, of course.”

“Who is in command here then?”

The sergeant indicated himself.

“Well, if you must know, I am; who are you? what do you want?”

Curtly, in measured tones, the man explained:

“Who am I! I am Tom Bob, American detective, specially known of late
days at the Prefecture of Police and in the city for his war against
Fantômas!”

The sergeant nodded and saluted; he had heard tell of Tom Bob and
recognized the foreign police-officer from the numerous descriptions
and portraits he had read and seen of him.

“What can I do to serve you?” he asked.

Tom Bob told him: “You can arrest Fantômas!... at this moment he is
close by with his gang of apaches round him; they are all gathered,
he and his confederates, in a deserted house, at the far end of the
military road, right hand side after the second cross-roads.”

“I can see the shanty from here,” announced the sergeant, “a wretched
hovel it is; but who is it tells us ...?”

Tom Bob informed him curtly:

“_I_ tell you, that is sufficient!... how many men have you?”

“Eight.”

“That’s not enough.”

The sergeant was getting alarmed: “I can ask for more from the
Charenton office!”

“That’s the thing.”

The sergeant got into communication by telephone with his colleague at
the neighbouring police post.

“There are fifteen over yonder,” he informed Tom Bob.

“They must all come,” declared the detective, “Fantômas’ band counts at
least a round dozen ruffians.”

The detective’s requirements were transmitted from the Alfort office,
and the fifteen Charenton officers promised to be there in a quarter of
an hour. The gallant sergeant was greatly excited by the coming events;
to avoid all doubt and make sure he was covered by his superiors, he
asked:

“Monsieur Bob, shall you be coming with us?”

“Undoubtedly!” replied the American detective. But the sergeant was not
satisfied yet.

“I have a great mind,” he announced, “to go and inform the Commissary,
he lives close by.”

“You should have done that long ago!” Tom Bob said rebukingly.

Then, while the sergeant was issuing his orders, the detective sat down
in the public office, lit a cigarette, and did not vouchsafe another
word.

       *       *       *       *       *

Before coming thus rudely to disturb the peace and quietness of the
Alfort Commissariat, Tom Bob had been wandering up and down most
part of the night in perplexity. On quitting the Palais de Justice,
leaving Fuselier to make the best of his absurd plight, that ambiguous
individual had realized one fact quite clearly, viz., that the
magistrate had looked at him in a way that was decidedly disquieting.
An extraordinary thing for him, Tom Bob’s face had blanched somewhat
under the magistrate’s questioning look, but he quickly recovered his
customary coolness. Stepping out on to the Boulevard du Palais, quite
empty and deserted at this late hour, he hailed a passing taxi and
offered the driver a handsome tip to drive him as far as the first
houses of Alfort.

There the detective quitted his conveyance and plunged into the
darkness of the silent lanes of the sleeping village. He entered a
deserted house; and strange to say, a few moments later, it was not Tom
Bob who reappeared, but Père Moche—Moche with his wig, his spectacles,
his big nose, as soft and flabby as an indiarubber ball, and his
red whiskers. It was Moche who was now making his way slowly and
deliberately towards the building where two days before he had gone to
bury the strong box containing his money and where, without his knowing
it, he had imprisoned Fandor when he double locked the door behind him
on his departure. It was Moche who, hidden near by, watched his friends
the apaches one after another approach the house to which he knew
that Juve, mistaken for Fantômas, had been brought. It was Moche who,
as time went by and he sat watching how matters were going, fell to
rubbing his hands in self-congratulation.

“No need,” he thought to himself, “to go myself; I should only be
risking the same fate as Juve. Now, what is happening?... it is three
o’clock in the morning, Juve is on his defence at this very moment,
they are demanding their pay, and he cannot give it them;... I know my
fine fellows—in ten minutes my sweet friend, the police-inspector, will
be put to death, doomed as a Fantômas at once traitor and perjurer!”

Père Moche rose and set off at a run for the more central parts of the
city. Suddenly he snatched away his wig and spectacles, pulled off his
false nose and red whiskers—and, extraordinary to relate, instead of
the old usurer’s ill-omened face appeared the keen, refined countenance
of the American Tom Bob. In a ringing voice the latter cried in
defiance of men and gods:

“Good-bye, old Moche, good-bye, Tom Bob, I thank you both for lending
me your fascinating personalities and enabling me thus to triumph over
my opponents. Fantômas, my boy, you’ve worked to some purpose!”

Could anyone have overheard this extraordinary soliloquy, he would
assuredly have been struck with sheer amazement, for if at a pinch
sundry persons _had_ come to suppose that Père Moche bore so close an
affinity with Fantômas that possibly he was Fantômas himself, none
could ever think that the detective, who had come to France under
official sanction with the express object of hunting down the brigand,
was in fact none other than that same notorious, ever evasive criminal,
now better assured than ever against capture, seeing he was actually
giving chase to himself.

Fantômas stood, a solitary figure in the far-stretching plain, thinking.

“I cannot rest satisfied,” he muttered, “till I see Juve lying dead—as
dead as a man can be! I must also,” he went on, “for a few hours more
keep up my rôle of Tom Bob; I shall score yet another success if by
one triumphant cast of the net I contrive that the French police shall
arrest the whole gang of my confederates ... I should say Fantômas’
confederates!”

Then it was that, calculating his time almost to a minute, the
atrocious scoundrel had given the alarm at the Alfort police-post.

       *       *       *       *       *

Dawn was breaking fast. The officers from Charenton had joined the
Alfort contingent and the united force was hurrying, Tom Bob and
the Commissary at their head, towards the extremity of the military
road where the mysterious house stood. The sergeant was issuing his
instructions.

“You will surround the building,” he ordered his men; “you will draw
in the circle more and more, but taking cover to avoid accidents; have
your revolvers out, the brigands lurking there are terrible fellows; at
the first suspicious movement, fire without a moment’s hesitation.”

Meantime Tom Bob, quite unruffled, was explaining to the Commissary:

“You know what happened yesterday—Fantômas released from prison,
carried off by the apaches, tried by the villains, doomed and perhaps
executed?...”

But Tom Bob broke off short with a cry of terror. On the threshold of
the ill-omened house, at the opening of the stairs giving entrance to
the cellar, stood a man motionless, with folded arms.

“Fantômas!” exclaimed Tom Bob. But the Commissary set him right at once.

“No, no! it is Juve,” he cried, “Juve! Yes, we heard aright; the
papers that gave the news yesterday spoke the truth, Juve is innocent
and a free man”—and the Commissary sprang forward towards the Inspector
of the Criminal Bureau.

“Juve, Juve,” he questioned, “what are you doing here? What are you
waiting for?”

The officer replied deliberately, in a quiet voice, perfectly calm and
collected:

“Why, my dear Commissary, it was _you_ I was waiting for!”

“The brigands,” went on the official excitedly, “Fantômas’
accomplices—where are they?”

Juve pointed a finger at the door against which he leant.

“They are there,” he said, “inside there; it only remains for us to
have them out one by one; how many men have you with you?”

“Twenty-three,” the Commissary informed him.

After thinking a moment, “Yes, that is sufficient,” Juve declared, “we
can get to work.”

The Commissary, a worthy fellow, once a subordinate under the friendly
Inspector at the Criminal Bureau, could not refrain, despite the
critical conditions of the moment, from expressing his delight.

“Juve, my dear Juve,” he cried, “what a blessed thing! Your innocence
is acknowledged at last; I am so glad, so very glad!...”

But the good man never finished his congratulations. For some minutes
ominous sounds had been heard coming from the cellar, and now a fearful
yell broke out and a hailstorm of bullets, fired at point blank range
from inside, pitted and pierced the door, fortunately a thick, heavy
one. Nevertheless Juve was struck by two or three projectiles, spent
balls luckily, otherwise the inspector would have been shot dead. He
stepped back a pace or two.

“That spoils our game!” he muttered simply, “I suppose our fine fellows
have found out at last that the Fantômas they held prisoner was no
other than Juve, the police-officer!”

“Sir,” demanded the Commissary, consulting the Inspector with enhanced
respect in face of the new danger, “how must we proceed now?”

Juve cast a rapid glance round the house. “We must parley with them to
begin with,” he declared—and in a voice he made big and authoritative,
he challenged the apaches.

“You are taken!” he announced in peremptory tones, “surrender!”

The shouts redoubled, mingled with oaths of the most appalling
profanity. The Commissary, all for making a quick end, suggested:

“For my part, I should make no bones about shooting them all down
through the grated windows, if five minutes from now they haven’t given
in their submission.”

But Juve was biting his lip, a prey to excruciating anxiety. At all
costs firing must be avoided, the ruffians induced to surrender and a
fight prevented; doubtless Juve did not care a straw for the lives of
the monsters who had come so near killing him, but he knew that among
them was one, the least hair of whose head was sacred to him! But would
the apaches give in, or must they be mastered by force or famine?
Either solution was equally repugnant to Juve, always swayed by the
same motive.

Meanwhile a crowd of the honest, hard-working inhabitants of Alfort,
risen early as is their wont, had gathered round, naturally all agog
with curiosity to see this quite unusual display of police activity
round the old building that had always borne something of an evil
reputation. The police, on being questioned, had not hesitated to say
it was a matter of a gang of dangerous apaches they had just brought
to bay. The louder the clamour of oaths and threats that rose from the
cellar, the more excited and angry and impatient grew the crowd.

“Smoke ’em out!” rose the cry, and fists were shaken fiercely at
the wild beasts’ lair, as they remembered how in all the honest,
hard-working population of Alfort there was hardly a soul but had
suffered from the depredations and atrocities of the ill-omened gang,
or at any rate, of similar gangs of marauders ... They had them at
their mercy, why not make an end? Already, in spite of the constables’
efforts to keep order, the crowd was kindling round the walls dry vine
shoots and wisps of straw: through the low grated window someone threw
in a lighted brand.

Juve began to tremble, and once more addressed the apaches:

“Come now, don’t go trying to be too clever; surrender, I tell you!”

Then the “Beadle” spoke out in the name of all. In a quavering voice, a
coward in face of the instant danger, the fellow whined:

“We’re going to give in, Juve; only protect us from the crowd, those
dogs might easy tear us to pieces.”

Juve made no show of insolent triumph. At a nod from him to the
Commissary, a double line of officers, revolvers in hand, formed up
either side of the entrance, while four men stood ready in the doorway
to clap on the bracelets as the ruffians came out. A minute or two
earlier the Commissary had caught sight of an army forage-wagon going
by, and had requisitioned it to serve as an impromptu “Black Maria” for
the conveyance of the sinister crew Juve had so opportunely arrested.

Juve held the heavy door of the cellar ajar. “One by one!” he
ordered—and the apaches obeyed. “Bull’s-eye” was the first to present
himself, wearing a hang-dog look and offering his wrists docilely for
the handcuffs to be adjusted; behind him appeared “Big Ernestine,” with
hard-featured face and rouged cheeks, casting black looks of furious
defiance at the crowd that jeered at the street-walker and her tattered
finery; next came the “Gasman’s” turn, a tall skeleton with enormous
hands; then the “Beadle,” shivering with fear; Paulet, paler than
ever, his features drawn and distorted almost beyond recognition in
sheer terror of the scaffold; then Mère Toulouche, alone and utterly
callous, who the moment she was outside, began to harangue Juve, the
police-officers, the Commissary, chuckling and grinning in hideous
mockery.

All submitted to the same fate with a remarkable docility. But when the
officers prepared to deal with the last of the unfortunates issuing
from the cellar in this ignominious fashion and were going to slip on
the bracelets, Juve threw himself impetuously before them.

“No, oh no!” he cried, “not that one, you shall not pinion him! leave
him to me, I will see to him; for, look you, this is the man who saved
my life, Fandor!”—and to the amazement of all, Juve and Fandor fell
into one another’s arms in a long-drawn embrace.

For Tom Bob, he had vanished long before this!




CHAPTER XXVIII

THE DECOY


It was broad daylight by this time and the morning, still a trifle
chilly, gave promise of a very fine day. The tragic scenes just
enacted had had, thanks to the radiant beams of the rising sun, an
almost cheerful setting. As the forage-wagon, now transformed into a
“Black Maria,” was driving off, loaded up with the sinister crew so
opportunely captured by Juve, the latter rubbed his hands, a customary
mark of inward satisfaction with that officer.

“Good work Fandor!” he said—“and none too soon, neither! I was
beginning to despair.”

Fandor wagged his head sententiously.

“We should never despair, Juve; but all the same, like you, I confess
this morning has held some surprise for us. I was just eating my heart
out down in that cellar; I thought one time neither you nor I would
ever see the light of day again!...”

But Juve was lost in a brown study. With head cast down and hands
clasped behind his back, he paced a few steps in the direction taken by
the army vehicle carrying the gang of apaches.

“We are going to the police-station?” Fandor asked.

“To the station? no! We have something better to do.”

Fandor stood with folded arms, fixing a look of interrogation on his
companion’s face.

“You are leaving all those fellows in the lurch?” he inquired.

“I am not leaving them in the lurch, Fandor! We shall catch up with
them again before long; now at once, if need be. Only we have more
pressing business. Never forget, my boy, that all those fellows are
really and truly only supers. What we want now is to come upon the
leading actor.”

Fandor smiled: “The leader, Fantômas, eh? But I take it, Juve, that
now, like me, you are no longer in ignorance who it is? Moche strikes
me ...”

Juve laughed too, a hearty laugh of triumph. After the terrible hours
the gallant inspector had spent in his prison, after the depressing
times he had known when everybody accused him of being Fantômas, he was
at last nearing the final victory, the rehabilitation of his character,
the arrest of the real culprits! It was in fact barely a few hours
since M. Fuselier and his colleagues had recognized the fact that he
was really Juve, and yet with marvellous skill and coolness, owing more
to his own amazing boldness than to circumstances, he had succeeded
in wresting the mask from a gang of the most dangerous criminals,
accomplices of the ever-elusive arch-criminal himself; nay more, he had
pushed his investigations so far that the actual identity of Fantômas
hardly admitted of further doubt for him, that he could feel confident
the arrest of the _Lord of Terror_ was now only a question of hours.

Taking Fandor by the shoulder, Juve spoke softly:

“Egad! yes, I know who Fantômas is! I even know twice over who he is!”

“Twice over? Juve, what do you mean?”

“You don’t understand me, Fandor? Come now, you accuse Moche, don’t
you? You do this, by reason of the part he played with these apaches?
and you are in the right. But there’s more to follow. For Fantômas
to be Moche was not enough; that travesty held good only for his
confederates. Fantômas, to dupe all Paris as he did, believe me, was
someone else into the bargain, someone I suspect, astounding as the
thing may sound. And it is of this suspicion, Fandor, we must now
establish strict, undoubted, undisputable proof.”

Dumb with amazement at the cool confidence of the man, Fandor demanded
in a stammering voice:

“Whom do you suspect then, Juve? have you a scheme of investigation?”

Juve nodded his head gravely.

“I have more,” he declared: “I have a fear.”

“What do you fear?”

“Have you forgotten the corpse you showed me just now?”

Fandor started back in sudden agitation.

“What!” he gasped, “if I am to believe you, you already think you
know ...”

“The name of the dead man? Yes, by my faith! I do. Come with me.”

The two men re-entered the ill-omened ruin where they had spent such
tragic, such hopeless hours of agony. It was not without a shudder Juve
gazed round the damp, confined cellar where, but for Fandor’s quite
unlooked for intervention, he would inevitably have met an appalling
death.

“Fandor!” began his friend, “it is a hideous job we have to do. It is
the grave there must give us up its secret. The unhappy man who lies in
it, Fantômas’ unsuspected victim, must rise up to accuse his murderer!”

The journalist was livid. A gruesome task indeed, this work of justice
Juve proposed to undertake! For one who had so lately borne such
torments of fear and suspense, it called for nerves of steel, an
extraordinary strength of will, to confront afresh the dismal horrors
of the exhumation he was bent on. The intrepid officer stepped up to
the grim hiding-place, which a few hours before the hideous hag, Mère
Toulouche, had not feared to ransack in search of gold—gold Fantômas
had buried there, and of which she claimed her share, boasting she had
a better right to it than anyone.

Then, in the gloom of the cellar, Juve and Fandor bent over the gaping
hole. A blast of pestilential gases struck them full in the face, the
ignoble horror of what they saw forced them to recoil. Instinctively
the two took hands, panic-stricken, yet resolved to prove their
courage, to manifest at all costs that they had the right, the duty
to break once again the repose of the dead man, who lay there in his
unhallowed grave. The spectacle was appalling. The fleshless face,
in which the eye orbits were two hideous holes, and the hanging jaw
mimicked a dreadful grin, seemed to stare up at them with sightless
orbs.

Bending low, Juve and Fandor, speechless, motionless, shuddering,
anxiously scrutinized the unrecognizable features. Who was the unknown,
this victim of Fantômas’ villainy? After what grim drama had the corpse
been laid in this secret grave, where once again his rest was to be
disturbed, where Fantômas had not feared to deposit his treasure for
safe keeping.

“The dead man is unrecognizable,” pronounced Fandor, “it is impossible
to know who and what he was. Bertillon perhaps, by his scientific
methods, might discover ...”

But Juve interrupted the journalist with a rapid gesture, his agitation
waxing greater every moment. While the other was speaking, he had leant
still closer over the grave and was examining the body with yet keener
attention.

“Bertillon, say you? Fandor, we have no need of him and his system.
I can guess the dead man’s name! This is what I hoped—the dead man
speaks, Fandor, the dead man denounces the impostor. The corpse we
have before our eyes—why hesitate to say it, our conclusion will be
confirmed by the Toulouche woman when we question her—is Tom Bob’s, the
unfortunate American detective Fantômas had them murder directly he
knew of his arrival in France—yes, Tom Bob’s, the real Tom Bob; for the
Tom Bob everybody has known for months, the Tom Bob who was afraid to
meet me, the Tom Bob who was seen at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s, the
Tom Bob who only yesterday made pretence of struggling with the men who
kidnapped me, you surely know _his_ true name by now?”

Fandor, stunned by his friend’s assertions, durst hardly articulate
the name of terror, “Fantômas!” Indeed the journalist had good right
to be terrified—and overjoyed too! If Juve was correct, if he was not
deceiving himself, the triumph they were winning over Fantômas was even
more complete, more brilliant than they had ever hoped for.

But the journalist was not convinced. Too many improbabilities seemed
to him to forbid Tom Bob’s being Fantômas, too many impossibilities
rose in his memory to suffer him, unprotesting, to listen to Juve’s
assertions.

“I tell you, Juve,” he brought out at last, “I cannot believe you; Tom
Bob can_not_ be Fantômas, the thing is impossible!”

But Juve remained unmoved by the other’s scepticism. “And why not,
pray?” he asked.

“Remember the messages despatched from the _Lorraine_....”

“Yes, Fandor, the messages despatched by the real Tom Bob—the real
Tom Bob whom nobody recognized in the train, because he had been
replaced by the sham—the sham Tom Bob, who, being in fact Moche, knew
the ‘Beauty Boy’ would be there, marked down his man and had the police
arrest the apache—all the time a hundred miles away from recognizing
his denouncer.”

“But then, remember the attempted assassination at the Hôtel Terminus;
Tom Bob, the man you accuse, might well, like me, have lost his life
there ... so ...”

Juve smiled. “Silly boy!” he laughed, “why, don’t you understand that
this attempt, so miraculously frustrated, had all been planned by Tom
Bob himself? My precious innocent, why, that was just the very best way
of avoiding any chance of his being suspected. Look you, I wager, if we
inquire, we shall find the occupant who preceded Tom was Moche—that is
to say himself!”

But again Fandor objected: “I grant your explanation on this point; but
here’s another thing—if Tom Bob is Fantômas, why did he have the body
of the bank messenger he had murdered brought to light?”

“Why, for the same reason, to impress people with his cleverness, my
dear sir.... But what are you laughing for?”

“Because,” returned the journalist, “I’ve kept my best argument for the
last. Remember Fantômas telephoned, before witnesses, to Tom Bob....”

But Juve knew better than to attach much weight to this last objection
of Fandor’s. The latter was very evidently convinced, if he could find
no stronger argument than this to bring against his friend’s theory.

“And do you remember this, my friend—how, a few days ago, they found in
a garret at the Hôtel Terminus a phonograph, the roll missing, hitched
on to the telephone wires. After that, what else can you think of to
say? or do you admit that Tom Bob is Fantômas?”

Fandor nodded, vastly impressed.

“I admit this, Juve, that you are now and always the king of
detectives; and yet, there _is_ a doubt still lingers in my mind”—and
pointing to the corpse; “Look here,” he persisted, “you say this is
truly and indeed Tom Bob’s body—how do you know that?”

“By the finger”—and he drew Fandor’s attention to the dead hand. One
of the bones of the forefinger piercing through the discoloured flesh
hung down, with an uncanny, almost threatening gesture. The bone of the
finger was slightly crushed and crooked.

“Mark that,” said Juve. “In old days, once when I was working with
Tom Bob, without knowing him at all well indeed, in the course of an
investigation we were pursuing amongst certain anarchist associations,
this unlucky Tom Bob came very near being killed by a bomb. Fortunately
the explosion was not so violent as the assassins had expected. Still
Tom Bob was severely hurt; his right hand was hit, and this finger
damaged. The injury is therefore an unmistakable pointer, a bit of
evidence that cannot be challenged. Egad! sir, it will be easy enough
for us to cable to the American Criminal Department and get the precise
details from the descriptive ticket certifying Tom Bob’s identity. It
is only a question of hours; by this evening the dead man will have
definitely avowed his name; by this evening, I tell you, we can be sure
of having discovered the unfortunate Tom Bob, the real Tom Bob.”

Fandor was already on his feet. Less inured than Juve to the sight
of death, he felt an instinctive longing to get back to the light of
day, to be gone from this noisome cellar that had been turned into a
sepulchre.

“And now, Juve,” he asked, “now, by your showing, what is best to do?”

Juve had likewise risen. Casting a last look at the corpse:

“Sleep in peace,” he murmured, “sleep in peace, you shall be avenged!”

Then, turning to Fandor: “Now?” cried Juve in his clear, ringing voice,
“now? Now, it is only left us for one time more to risk our lives! We
must make all speed—you can guess to whose house, I imagine? and with
what object?... My lad, the hour is come at last when Fantômas is to
settle up accounts with us!”

Fandor involuntarily turned pale. Oh! that decisive moment Juve
announced, with what anxiety he had been waiting for it all these long
months! that moment they were now to know! What a joyful triumph they
would both enjoy to grip Fantômas by the collar, the ever elusive
Fantômas! The journalist could hardly credit the reality; he asked:

“Juve! Juve! then we are going to arrest him, him the
never-to-be-captured?”

Juve shrugged his shoulders, smiling, almost unmoved.

“Yes,” he replied, “we are going to arrest Fantômas! But can you guess,
Fandor, where we are going to arrest him?”

“Not I!”

“For sure, you are losing your wits! Come, think! Tom Bob, at this
present moment, must know we are hot on the scent and be thinking of
disappearing. Now, is he the man simply to disappear without reaping
the profits of his crimes?”

“Why, no!”

“Then, my dear man, all we have to do is to go to the grand duchess’s,
to Lady Beltham’s, to seek the organizer of the famous subscription.
It is heavy odds, don’t you see? that Tom Bob, before disappearing,
will want to get hold of the moneys collected for his benefit. The
strong-box where they are locked up, that is the decoy, the bait, that
is bound to attract him powerfully; it is beside it we must take him in
our toils.”

“Or shoot him down like a noxious wild beast,” concluded Fandor,
brandishing his Browning.

       *       *       *       *       *

M. Landais, Minister of Justice, was that morning at nine o’clock
clad in a very summary costume. Wearing a long dressing-gown, gaping
open over his chest, his naked feet thrust into a pair of slippers,
unshaven, and only half awake, he was seated on his desk in his
official rooms in the Rue Franklin; he held his telephone receiver
in one hand, he was driving his secretaries frantic with a hundred
contradictory orders, while at the same time worrying the unfortunate
girl on duty at the Exchange out of her life.

“Hello!” called the Minister, “I’m asking you to put me through to the
Prefecture. The Prefecture of Police? Yes! that’s plain enough, surely;
_can’t_ you understand?”

Then he dropped the receiver, and swearing out loud a terrific oath, he
yelled, as if to somebody behind the scenes:

“But, hell and damnation! the thing’s outrageous! Havard has not been
told about it! Else he’d be here!”

“You must remember, sir,” observed a valet, who at M. Landais’ summons
had cautiously half opened the door, “it is barely a quarter of an
hour since they went for him. If M. Havard was still in bed ...”

“Well, he had only to get up, eh? _I_’ve got up, haven’t I?...”

But the Minister stopped abruptly; he had just got connection with the
Prefecture of Police:

“Hello!” he called, “well, what news?... What?... What’s that you tell
me? Juve is dead? Good Lord! you are simply mad!... You don’t know?
They never do know anything at the Prefecture! We must make a change
there!”

Trembling with agitation, he hung up the receiver again and, all alone
in the room, began a perplexed soliloquy:

“Juve is dead! Juve is dead! That isn’t true, for I was awakened by
a message informing me that he was tied up at the Palais de Justice,
along with M. Fuselier! But in that case ...”

Suddenly he stopped to listen; there was a knock at the door of his
room.

“What now?” he yelled, “what is it?... Come in, come in!”

The same valet who had just before answered M. Landais’ summons, again
put in his head.

“It is a cyclist constable who would like ...”

“Tell him to come in, for God’s sake!”

The manservant vanished, far from anxious to enjoy a prolonged
tête-à-tête with his master, who was in the vilest of tempers. A
second or two more and a police-officer entered the Minister’s working
room. He had no time to stare in astonishment at the great man’s
unconventional attire; the Minister was down on him instantly:

“Why, what is it now? Where d’you come from?”

The officer saluted respectfully.

“Sir,” he was beginning, “I’ve come from the Commissary’s office at
Alfort....”

“From Alfort? Alfort, what the devil’s up at Alfort? What do you want?”

“Sir,” the man persisted, “they have just captured a dozen brigands ...
a dozen accomplices of Fantômas.”

“Who has captured them?”

“Inspector Juve, sir.”

The Minister stood hesitating a moment. “Juve?” he said at last. “But
that’s impossible; Juve is dead!”

Losing all sense of the respect due to a superior, the officer,
overwhelmed by the news, asked excitedly:

“Juve dead? is Juve dead?”

But, paying no heed to the worthy policeman’s emotion, the Minister
proceeded:

“Or he is tied up in the Palais de Justice, since yesterday evening....”

“Tied up in the Palais de Justice? ... since yesterday evening?”
stammered the officer, opening eyes of sheer amazement.

M. Landais completed the man’s mystification.

“Certainly!” he affirmed. “He is tied up, because he is set at liberty!
You can make nothing of it, my man? No more can I!... And that’s about
enough! Clear out!”

The officer swung round on his heels as if to leave the room; then,
dead set on delivering his message, he repeated:

“Well, sir! Juve may be dead, or he may be tied up, or he may be
at large; anyway this much is certain, he has just arrested twelve
apaches!”

And so saying, while M. Landais sprang to his instrument and began
to ring up the Exchange again with frantic energy, the officer
took himself off. Hardly was the door closed behind him before the
manservant half opened it again cautiously:

“Monsieur le Ministre!”

“Go away! I’m telephoning.... Hello! Hello! put me through to the
Palais de Justice.”

“Monsieur le Ministre!” repeated the servant.

“What is it, in God’s name!”

“It’s a lady crying in the anteroom; she says she _must_ speak to you?”

M. Landais looked up: “A lady? what’s her name?”

“I did not quite catch her name, sir, but it’s a princess, sir, it
seems—the Princess Sonia ...”

“Sonia Danidoff?... What does _she_ want now? Show her in.”

But at that same moment the room door burst open with startling
violence. It was Sonia Danidoff, who, beside herself with excitement,
had forced her way, despite the secretaries’ objurgations, into the
Minister’s private room. The unhappy woman was holding to her forehead
a handkerchief, the muslin and lace of which were dyed red.

“Monsieur le Ministre!” cried Sonia, in a voice choked by emotion,
“they wouldn’t hear me at the Prefecture! Nobody would listen to a
word! Make them do me justice. Look, I have just been the victim of a
dreadful assault! The Grand Duchess Alexandra has disfigured me!”

Sonia Danidoff was exaggerating. With a tragic gesture she took the
handkerchief from her forehead. On the pearly surface of the temple a
cut was bleeding.

“Madam,” said the Minister, who knew Sonia Danidoff very well, “it is
the Commissariat you must apply at!”

“No, Monsieur le Ministre! They would not understand at the police
office the importance of my wound. If I have come to you, it is to
denounce an abominable piece of swindling! The Grand Duchess Alexandra,
the organizer of the subscription for Fantômas’ benefit, is Tom Bob’s
mistress! And it was on account of jealousy, because Tom Bob is my
lover, that she flew at me.”

For once the Minister quite forgot the courtesy due to a lady.

“The Grand Duchess Alexandra is Tom Bob’s mistress?” he cried. “Why,
what fresh complication have we here? And what do you want me to do?”

The door opened yet again, and M. Landais’ private secretary came in,
a very fashionable young man, very elegantly dressed and immaculately
turned out.

“Sir,” he informed the Minister quietly, “here is a fresh communication
come from the Palais.”

“What do they say?”

“It was not Juve, it was Tom Bob, who was tied up last night with
M. Fuselier.”

But Sonia Danidoff, hearing this, broke in, protesting:

“Tom Bob tied up? What next! I have this moment run away from him; he
was at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s! he is there now!”

“Tom Bob is at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s?”

M. Landais sprang to his feet once more; he clapped both hands to his
head and vociferated in tones of desperation:

“Oh! I am going mad! I am going mad! They are all dead! they are all
tied up! they are all free and at large! and there are twelve apaches
arrested and the Grand Duchess Alexandra is Tom Bob’s mistress. Don’t,
don’t! it is too much! let me be, give me a moment’s peace!”

Once more the door opened. Calm, cool, collected, M. Havard entered the
room.

“You sent for me, sir?” he asked. “Whatever is going on? I can’t see
one of your secretaries, the doors stand open for anyone to walk into
your working room. Your trusty servant even refuses to show me in,
simply telling me to march straight into your private room! Is it a
revolution?”

M. Landais cut short M. Havard’s exclamations:

“A revolution? I can’t say! It’s just a story for a madhouse—the Grand
Duchess Alexandra is a swindler! Juve is dead! Juve has arrested a
dozen apaches! Tom Bob is tied up at the Palais! Tom Bob is running
away! he’s free and at large: he’s at the grand duchess’s! I tell you
I’ve lost count of everything. I don’t understand one word of it all!”

But seeing M. Havard’s amazed look as he listened to the Minister’s
wild words, the latter realized he would do well to cultivate a little
more calm of manner.

“Listen, Havard,” he said, “I have really lost touch with things. Since
waking this morning I have received twenty contradictory reports.
It will be another dreadful panic in town unless we can clear all
this up”—and the Minister told M. Havard the story of his morning as
intelligibly as he found possible. All the time he was speaking, the
Head of the Criminal Bureau listened quietly, nodding his head at
intervals in silent assent. Where the Minister was all at sea, he,
M. Havard, accustomed to matters of police, could make a shrewd guess
at the truth, and it was in an unruffled voice that the police official
finally proposed:

“If you think well, sir, I am going straight away to Lady Beltham’s?”

“To Lady Beltham’s?”

“Well, the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s, if you like it better.”

“But what for?”

“To beg her—and Tom Bob, who is with her, by what the Princess Sonia
stated—to come and make their deposition before you, and before Juve,
who, I am persuaded, will not be long now in letting us hear of him.”

For the Minister M. Havard’s words were incomprehensible. Still he was
too well assured of the ability invariably displayed by the Head of the
Criminal Department not to agree to his plan.

“Go by all means, Monsieur Havard; but tell me, is it an arrest you are
going to attempt?”

“No, Monsieur le Ministre, it is an invitation I am going to proffer,
_but_ I shall be accompanied by a dozen constables when I make it.”




CHAPTER XXIX

THE “EVER-EVASIVE” ESCAPES AGAIN


The Grand Duchess Alexandra gave vent to an exclamation expressive both
of surprise and triumph, as she greeted the visitor who stood before
her. The latter, dropping his eyes and assuming a humble, almost abject
mien, the bearing of a repentant sinner, murmured:

“I am happy, madam, to return your greeting.”

The grand duchess seemed sceptical; with panting breath, for she was
greatly agitated, she questioned:

“Tell me, sir! tell me, Tom Bob, what fresh crisis, what pressing
necessity obliges you to come to me like this?”

Tom Bob, for he it was, hesitated a moment before replying. Slowly he
lifted his glance and fixed it on the grand duchess’s face. The lovely
creature and the wily detective looked long into each other’s eyes.

The grand duchess?... Tom Bob? In truth, there was no need for
play-acting between these two, they were by themselves, alone, without
witnesses. They could avow to one another who they really were—she,
Lady Beltham, the mysterious, the redoubtable mistress of the most
abominable brigand in all the earth; he, that same brigand, Fantômas!

And now the tragic lovers, after a hundred changes of fortune,
intentional or accidental, that had hindered their meeting, found
themselves face to face and under untoward circumstances that forced
them to exchange terrible, bitter speeches; for these two felt for
one another at once an atrocious hate and an ineradicable love! Yes,
in very deed, those two beings who were perpetually at daggers drawn,
who had ever between them the most appalling episodes, the most
fearful deeds and memories, were straitly bound one to the other by an
unbreakable chain of love, whose links were riveted by the strongest of
all implements, the crimes they had committed together.

It was in the drawing room of the mansion where dwelt the great lady
who for all the world was the Grand Duchess Alexandra, but in reality
was no other than Lady Beltham, that the painful interview took place.

“What have you come here for? what do you want?” demanded the lady; but
Fantômas, in a hollow voice he endeavoured to make cold and peremptory,
but which only the more betrayed his anguish, only replied by another
question.

“Sonia Danidoff,” he asked, “what has happened to Sonia Danidoff?”

The brigand—he too was breathless with emotion—felt he _must_ know the
truth, his heart as a lover laid an obligation on him, an obligation
that wounded his self-love, anxiously to question the mistress he had
forsaken as to the fate which she, in her jealous rage, had reserved
for the other who had now become the favourite. Lady Beltham fought
hard against her agitation and the pain that tore her breast; she
articulated in a voice that whistled between the clenched teeth:

“Sonia Danidoff! I wanted to kill her!”

Instinctively Fantômas doubled his fists and cast a look of menace at
the speaker; he would have hurled himself upon his defiant mistress,
but the latter with an air of sardonic insolence stood before him, a
superb figure of defiance, and never flinched. Yes, she defied her
lover; Fantômas dared not go near her; yet curiosity, the craving to
know what had become of Sonia, compelled him to hide his anger.

“What have you done with her? Where is she? Speak!”

Breathing all her hate in a dolorous cry, Lady Beltham wrung her
beautiful hands, and groaning aloud, cried:

“Go, Tom Bob, go and ask the officers of justice, go and learn from the
police the fate I have reserved for your mistress, and the opinion she
now has of you!”

“Of me!”

“Yes, sir, of you!”

It was the brigand’s turn now to tremble with apprehension, but such
was the empire he possessed over himself, he was able to hide his
agitation under a mask of smiling irony.

“Lady Beltham,” he asked quietly, “so you have told the princess who I
am, have you?”

Very certainly, Lady Beltham had not gone so far as this, for despite
her jealousy, she still cherished for the outlaw one of those monstrous
passions that are like consuming fires devouring women’s hearts, fires
that are only extinguished by death! Nevertheless the jealous woman
suffered her lover to believe that during a scene of angry altercation
she had revealed to her rival the ignominy, the baseness, the crimes of
the man whom the too trustful Sonia Danidoff had thought well to choose
as the object of her heart’s desire.

Fantômas bit his lips and his eyes fell, while Lady Beltham demanded in
a questioning, defiant tone:

“And why should I not have told the princess who you were?”

Receiving no answer, she proceeded, smiling in her turn with a show of
scornful dignity:

“You are afraid, it seems, that knowing you in your true aspect, she
might cease to feel for you the fatal infatuation that consumes her?
Poor princess! poor pitiful passion!... what matter the faults, the
vices of the man a woman loves, when she truly loves him? Fantômas,”
the sobs were rising to her lips as she went on, “I ask you, have
your villainies, have your crimes silenced in me the fond feelings I
entertain for you? Have I, for all the hideous life of blood and terror
I live because of you, have I ceased to love you?”

Fantômas broke in:

“You profess to love me, madam, to love me still, and yet you harass me
with your threats....”

Lady Beltham interrupted in her turn:

“Hate, Fantômas, is it not another form of love?”

But the outlaw shook his head sadly.

“Madam,” he declared, “I have lost all confidence; trusting to
appearances, you have doubted my loyalty—I have proof of it, I know
it; perhaps your distrustful attitude has gone for much in that I have
shown towards you....”

“What do you mean?” demanded Lady Beltham, “have you not, many times
over, tried to kill me? Remember, Fantômas, the evening of the Pré
Catalan!”

“You were there, madam, and I knew it; but recollect how, by
an accident contrived by me, your car could not be started, a
circumstance which saved you from the accident in the lake.”

“Say rather,” protested Lady Beltham, shuddering, “that hitch, that
breakdown, seemingly providential, enabled you to start back alone and
unhindered with the Princess Sonia Danidoff.”

Fantômas shrugged as he avowed with a cynical grin:

“Little I cared for her love, it was her jewels I was after; you see I
have nothing to hide from you!”

“Scoundrel! ruffian!” screamed Lady Beltham, “so that is the
alternative you offer me—to find my satisfaction in your thievish
instincts to appease the horrid jealousy that stabs my heart. No, it
must end, Fantômas, a life like this is become impossible, you must
make your choice; choose betwixt us two, the princess and me. I do not
mince my words: I bid you think of the consequences!”

A flash of rage flamed in Fantômas’ eye, but to-day the pirate, the
outlaw had clearly no chance left to show himself, as usual, the
master, the tyrant, the despot, who commands, and all men obey! He must
condescend to parley, and in a choked voice he muttered:

“Let us leave that for the moment, Lady Beltham, let us leave it; more
serious events are brewing, are imminent!”

The great lady laughed sardonically.

“Why, yes!” she sneered, “I don’t doubt that, if you are here, it is
evidently ...”

Fantômas cut her short.

“Lady Beltham,” he assured her, “our plans have been frustrated, the
scheme I had built up is crumbling to pieces; since yesterday Juve has
been free and triumphant....”

“Juve!” cried Lady Beltham, thunderstruck, “is it possible?”

Fantômas nodded in confirmation.

“Juve!” reiterated his agonized mistress, “why, then it is the same
existence of anguish and fear and never ending alarms will begin again,
but worse than ever.”

“Yes, Juve is at large,” insisted Fantômas. Then he added; “But as you
were saying just now, Lady Beltham, I think it must all end—yes, and
soon?”

“What do you propose then?”

Lady Beltham stopped suddenly. The bell of the house telephone that
communicated with the porter’s lodge had just rung. Mechanically the
great lady unhooked the receiver and listened. She was going to say no!
to the question asked by the servant speaking from the other end of the
wire, but Fantômas, without the smallest scruple, had appropriated the
second receiver.

“Ask him up, madam,” he gave his orders, “you cannot do otherwise, you
must!”

Lady Beltham obeyed and gave the required answer to the servant:

“Ask Monsieur Ascott kindly to come upstairs; show him into my rooms.”

       *       *       *       *       *

In the midst of that Parisian oasis formed by the Parc des Princes,
Lady Beltham had for some months been in occupation, under the name of
the Grand Duchess Alexandra, of a magnificent mansion standing in the
middle of a vast park. The front of the house was approached by great
gates of wrought iron, dividing the boulevard from a fine gravelled
drive that swept round a lawn before the main entrance. Behind the
building was a short cut leading from the offices and opening into
a deserted by-street; this could only be reached after crossing an
orchard planted with fruit trees, a spot of quite a countrified and
unpretending aspect. The path connecting the house with the exit into
the by-street was completely overshadowed by a double row of clipped
yews, a relic of a garden of an earlier date, and throughout its length
were ranged a number of beehives, giving this part of the garden a
homely and utilitarian appearance, a charm that was at once restful and
picturesque.

While Lady Beltham was awaiting the visitor whom, at Fantômas’
unexpected order, she had decided to receive, and was endeavouring
to restore to her features, distorted by the agitations she had
gone through, some appearance of calm and composure, the monstrous
malefactor, who had for months duped all Paris, passing himself off as
the American detective, Tom Bob, slipped away softly into the adjoining
room, under pretext of an intention to listen to the conversation the
wealthy young Englishman wished to have with the lady he doubtless
still took to be the Grand Duchess Alexandra.

But anyone who could have seen Fantômas when alone in the room would
surely have suspected the man of some more sinister motive. The brigand
did not stay near the half open door, shielded though it was by a heavy
curtain. With preoccupied air and a brow wrinkled in anxious thought,
he stepped up to the window, and long and carefully scrutinized what
lay outside, if by any chance he might espy under the shadow of the
trees some suspicious figure, some symptom of unknown danger.

Ascott was shown in by a footman to the grand duchess’s apartments.
The Englishman appeared, his features drawn with anxiety, his limbs
twitching in uncontrollable excitement. With a hurried bow, he sank
into a chair.

“Excuse me, madam,” he stammered; then going straight to the point, he
asked:

“Tom Bob is here, is he not? Oh! I beseech you, tell me; I _must_ see
him.”

So agitated was the young man he never noticed the look of terror his
words brought to his hostess’s face. Hearing it said that Tom Bob was
with her, she all but fainted, but recovering her self-possession:

“Who told you that?” she demanded: “What do you want with him?”

Then, without waiting for an answer, she questioned further:

“But tell me, what has happened to you?”

Ascott faltered in broken words that betrayed his confusion of mind:

“A calamity, madam, an appalling calamity has befallen me and still
crushes me.”

He drew from his pocket a crumpled telegram, the tears welling to his
eyes:

“Read, madam,” he cried, and could not articulate another word.

Lady Beltham glanced through the message; it announced that, in a
motor-car accident, Ascott’s father, the well-known peer and member of
the Upper House, and his son, the young man’s eldest brother, had been
killed! The tragedy had occurred in Scotland, in the Highlands, without
a soul in sight!

Ascott was sobbing bitterly. “When I heard of this terrible blow,
madam,” he declared, “I had a presentiment, nay, all but a certainty,
that the death of my loved ones was not due to mere accident. For, I
must tell you this, I am the victim of a hideous plot, a prey to the
most poignant anxieties. Madam,” he went on with an effort, “I was
married quite lately, as you know.... I married an ‘unfortunate,’ an
abandoned creature.... I am the victim of Fantômas’ villainies, who
showed himself to me under the repulsive guise of the old usurer known
by the name of Père Moche. The monster of superhuman guile has me in
his toils, which he draws tighter and tighter every day! The wife he
made me marry has run away, she has robbed me, ruined me; but that is
nothing, would be nothing at all, did I not guess that my father’s
death and my brother’s must be yet another outcome of a plot contrived
by Fantômas!”

Lady Beltham was in a better position than anybody to realize that the
rich Englishman must be right; assuredly, the further she went, the
more she would hear set down to her baleful lover’s account the most
appalling revelations.

Ascott, harking back to his first idea, again demanded an answer to his
question, adjuring her to tell him where Tom Bob was.

“I _must_ see him,” he urged, “I must see him and speak to him. Tom
Bob is the only person on earth, madam, who by his perspicacity, his
adroitness, his admirable detective skill, can extricate me from my
difficulties, and put me in a position to avenge my relatives’ deaths.
Tom Bob, madam, is the man who must fight Fantômas!”

Lady Beltham was like to die of distress and perplexity. No doubt,
she had but to open a door to bring the young Englishman face to face
with the bogus detective. But was it her duty to act so? Ought she not
rather to enlighten Ascott, to tell him that Fantômas and Tom Bob were
one and the same, just as Père Moche and Fantômas again were one single
and identical person! This course was what her conscience bade her
take. But would duty triumph over love?

Mechanically, moving like an automaton, without knowing yet what
decision she would adopt, for, if she felt pity for Ascott, she burned
with an ardent love for Fantômas, the great lady advanced slowly into
the room where the brigand was. But next instant, horrified, she
sprang back, though not without having first double locked the door of
communication.

What she had seen must have been something to cause both terror and
despair, for Lady Beltham turned deadly pale, her splendid arms beat
the air, she staggered and fell flat on the floor in a dead swoon. The
look she had directed into the adjoining room and which had, in fact,
determined her fainting fit, had passed unnoticed by the unfortunate
young Englishman, too much preoccupied and agitated to observe the
details of what was happening before his eyes. But now, seeing Lady
Beltham’s condition, he hurried to her side and endeavoured to restore
her to consciousness. His efforts proved vain, and shocked and alarmed,
he rang the bell in the anteroom and called loudly for help.

Servants appeared in answer to his summons; Lady Beltham was laid on a
couch and restoratives applied. In ten minutes, by slow degrees, the
unhappy woman began to regain her senses.

But suddenly the tense silence was broken by the sound of shots. Lady
Beltham shuddered and grew paler than ever.

“Great heavens!” she asked, “what is happening?”

Ascott could not tell her; the servants gathered about their mistress
stood rooted to the spot in dumb bewilderment.

       *       *       *       *       *

Fantômas, when he left Lady Beltham waiting to receive Ascott, had his
plan already cut and dried. The desperate villain realized that the
game was up, beyond redemption. Unmasked so far as Moche was concerned,
he was no less so in his incarnation as Tom Bob—but only in the minds
of Juve, of Fandor, and of Lady Beltham.

For one brief instant the criminal had debated with himself what course
was best to adopt. The moment was surely near at hand when he must
either take to flight and disappear, or play his last desperate card,
defy the world and maintain that he was indeed Tom Bob and no one else.
But would that suffice?

Still, Fantômas would have risked everything on this last chance, had
he not had an opponent as cunning as himself, and now free to act. He
knew, in fact, that from one minute to the next he might find himself
face to face with Juve—not Juve, the ordinary adversary he had been
before, but Juve proved innocent of the crimes he was accused of, Juve
his character rehabilitated in all men’s eyes, Juve with power and
authority fortified by the priceless, invaluable collaboration of the
whole police force of France. After coldly weighing his chances of
victory against those of defeat, Fantômas decided for flight.

Still the hardy scoundrel did not go at once. Examining the room where
he was, he noted a safe embedded in the wall. An evil smile crossed his
pallid lips; cynically he muttered:

“So the Grand Duchess Alexandra has constituted herself treasurer of
the fund for the good souls who were for subscribing Fantômas’ million!
Fantômas,” he went on with a vile grin, “would be a simpleton indeed
not to pay to himself what is meant for him.”

Evidently the ruffian knew the secret of the strongbox. Was it not he,
in fact, who had advised Lady Beltham to purchase it? Fantômas opened
the safe, drew out its contents in handfuls, stuffed his pockets full
of gold and notes.

For a moment he was disturbed in this twice infamous robbery by the
creak of an opening door; he looked round, startled and confused, but
he could see nothing, the door had been reclosed. And Fantômas, never
knowing that his last act of brigandage had so profoundly shocked his
mistress that she had fallen fainting to the floor in the next room,
went on with his thievery.

With infinite precautions, five minutes afterward, the thief was
creeping surreptitiously down the back stairs; gaining the deserted
offices, he found an open window, and leapt into the garden behind the
house. He had his good reasons for not leaving by the front gates.
Cowardly, like a traitor, like a wild beast pursued by the hunters,
like a criminal hiding after a dastardly deed, he glided into the
deep shade of the pleached alley, muffling his footsteps, revolver in
hand, ready to resist the first attack, confident of escaping the most
ingeniously laid trap.

Then he halted for a second. The hot sun of this summer afternoon
pierced the heavy overhanging foliage and threw on the ground a hundred
black, dancing shadows that patterned the mossy carpet and dazzled the
eyes. But the robber’s keen ear had caught a suspicious sound and he
stopped to listen. Was someone spying on him? Instinctively he told
himself:

“Juve, since yesterday a free man, and by a miracle escaped from the
hands of my confederates, is perhaps at my heels?”

Then came a cry of rage! Suddenly, emerging from the bushes, a man had
sprung at his throat. The man was Juve!

Fantômas fired, without a tremble of the outstretched arm, at point
blank range. But the ball never reached its aim; piercing the thick
roof of greenery above, it lost itself in the sky. For at the same
instant he had caught sight of Juve and taken aim at his heart,
Fantômas was attacked in the rear. A formidable blow across the loins
upset his balance and the villain measured his length on the ground.
Boiling with rage, he pressed the trigger and shot off at random the
four remaining charges—quite without effect. The bullets struck no one;
ploughing up the soil, they raised a thick cloud of dust, and that was
all.

Juve had leapt upon his assailant instantly; kneeling on the man’s
chest, he held him down, both hands gripping his throat. Looking up,
Fantômas could see his face, and Fandor’s beside it. He was done for!
his two implacable enemies had him in their power.

Hours ago officer and journalist had planned his arrest. Instead of
hurrying off to find M. Havard, as the latter hoped, Juve and Fandor
had sworn to themselves to set off at once, hot foot, on the track of
the atrocious villain. They had been well advised in going straight
to Lady Beltham’s, for no sooner did they reach the neighbourhood of
the house in the Parc des Princes than they saw Fantômas slip in.
Thereupon, making sure the outlaw would inevitably try to escape by way
of the hidden pathway behind the building, they ensconced themselves in
the deepest shadow of the trees and waited.

Their foresight was rewarded; they had the brigand hard and fast. In
one second, with amazing dexterity, Juve had his prisoner handcuffed.
With his hands thus linked together in front of him, Fantômas was
harmless, helpless, impotent. With a vigorous push Juve forced him to
his knees, then to his feet. Gripping their captive by the arms, Juve
on one side, Fandor on the other, the two, without a word—they might
surely have found too much to say, and thought it best to hold their
tongue—dragged off their redoubtable prisoner towards the door at the
far end of the park.

Fantômas was deep in thought:

“Once they get me as far as there, once they drag me over the threshold
of that door, once I leave this garden, it is all up, I am done for!”

With amazing coolness the extraordinary man analysed the situation, and
in two seconds drew his conclusion. He had a hundred yards still to go
along the tree-shaded pathway; before that hundred yards was traversed,
he must find a means of escape—or else ...

Any display of physical force was impossible! any exertion of strength
would have been in vain; Juve and Fandor held him fast, each with
a grip of steel, their strength doubled by the furious anger that
tightened their muscles and the triumph that swelled their hearts to
have captured the scoundrel. Nor could Fantômas dream of eluding their
vigilance or asking any favour of his captors; the pitiless ruffian
could hope for no pity!

The last fifty yards only remained, and Fantômas had devised nothing
yet.

But suddenly a gleam of ferocity flashed in his eye. With a sudden
spring, he threw himself to one side of the pathway, shouldering back
Fandor who was on his left, dragging Juve on his right after him. Next
moment, with a lightning dart neither officer nor journalist could
anticipate, the brigand had fallen on two hives and kicked them over.

True, Juve and Fandor, instantly hauled him back to the middle of the
path, but yells of agony now burst from their lips. The bees, disturbed
in their peaceful labours, exasperated at the earthquake that had
befallen them, rose in angry swarms and swooped down on the three men!
Burning for revenge, the insects in their hurrying thousands fell upon
their enemies!

With the hand left free—for they would not loose hold of Fantômas—Juve
and Fandor strove instinctively to parry the attack, to sweep away
the clustering swarms. But this made things worse; the number of
the aggressors was only multiplied. Now about their faces whirled a
buzzing, eddying cloud of infuriated creatures!

Fantômas, on the contrary, who had had a second or two’s time to
think what course was best to adopt after upsetting the hives,
forced himself to stand absolutely still, refraining from making the
slightest movement, barely stirring lips and eyelids. And the bees,
in their blindness, never attacking the villain who was their real
enemy, directed all their efforts to the two who, from the weird
gesticulations they indulged in, seemed the most redoubtable foes.

Stung in a thousand places, Juve and Fandor shrieked in agony and,
overmastered by the pain, let go their prisoner.

The latter, following the same tactics, dropped to the ground, burying
his face in the grass by the side of the pathway. There Fantômas lay as
still as death, while Juve and Fandor fell victims to the angry bees,
all the more because they waved their arms wildly about and tried to
defend themselves.

Beaten at last, the two martyrs abandoned all efforts to resist and
rolled on the ground in transports of insufferable pain!

       *       *       *       *       *

Two hours after, Juve and Fandor were discovered lying under the trees
in the garden of the grand duchess’s house; they were unconscious, half
dead, their faces so disfigured by the bees’ merciless stings as to be
unrecognizable.

As for Tom Bob-Fantômas, _he_ had disappeared. Once again that monster
of iniquity was at large....

Would he add yet more atrocities to the long list of his crimes???


THE END




Transcriber’s Note

Inconsistent hyphenation has been retained: ante-room/anteroom,
bed-chamber/bedchamber, cloak room/cloak-room, common
sense/common-sense, dressing gown/dressing-gown, ever
elusive/ever-elusive, ever evasive/ever-evasive, ever
increasing/ever-increasing, fancy man/fancy-man, fellow
worker/fellow-worker, frock coat/frock-coat, Good day/Good-day, half
a dozen/half-a-dozen, half past/half-past, half stifled/half-stifled,
half way/half-way, hiding place/hiding-place, ill shod/ill-shod,
india-rubber/indiarubber, man servant/man-servant/manservant,
money-lender/moneylender, never ending/never-ending, pocket
book/pocket-book/pocketbook, police officers/police-officers, police
post/police-post, re-crossing/recrossing, rendez-vous/rendezvous,
shirt sleeves/shirt-sleeves, silk hat/silk-hat, strong
box/strong-box/strongbox, tête à tête/tête-à-tête, tip-toe/tiptoe,
water-side/waterside, well trained/well-trained, what ever/whatever,
wine bottles/wine-bottles, winter garden/winter-garden.




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