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+Project Gutenberg's Messengers of Evil, by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Messengers of Evil
+       Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantômas
+
+Author: Pierre Souvestre
+        Marcel Allain
+
+Release Date: March 15, 2009 [EBook #28333]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MESSENGERS OF EVIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           MESSENGERS OF EVIL
+
+      BEING A FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE LURES AND DEVICES OF FANTÔMAS
+
+                      THE FANTÔMAS DETECTIVE NOVELS
+
+                  BY PIERRE SOUVESTRE AND MARCEL ALLAIN
+
+           AUTHORS OF "FANTÔMAS," "THE EXPLOITS OF JUVE," ETC.
+
+
+NEW YORK
+BRENTANO'S
+1917
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY BRENTANO'S
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       I. THE DRAMA OF THE RUE NORVINS
+
+      II. THOMERY'S TWO LOVES
+
+     III. UNEXPECTED COMPLICATIONS
+
+      IV. A SURPRISING ITINERARY
+
+       V. MOTHER TOULOUCHE AND CRANAJOUR
+
+      VI. IN THE OPPOSITE SENSE
+
+     VII. PEARLS AND DIAMONDS
+
+    VIII. END OF THE BALL
+
+      IX. FINGER PRINTS
+
+       X. IDENTITY OF A NAVVY
+
+      XI. AN AUDACIOUS THEFT
+
+     XII. INVESTIGATIONS
+
+    XIII. RUE RAFFET
+
+     XIV. SOMEONE TELEPHONED
+
+      XV. VAGUE SUSPICIONS
+
+     XVI. DISCUSSIONS
+
+    XVII. AN ARREST
+
+   XVIII. AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TRUNK
+
+     XIX. CRIMINAL OR VICTIM?
+
+      XX. UNDER THE HOODED MASK
+
+     XXI. IN A PRISON VAN
+
+    XXII. AN EXECUTION
+
+   XXIII. FROM VAUGIRARD TO MONTMARTRE
+
+    XXIV. AT SAINT LAZARE
+
+     XXV. A MOUSE TRAP
+
+    XXVI. IN THE TRAP
+
+   XXVII. THE IMPRINT
+
+  XXVIII. COURAGE
+
+
+
+
+MESSENGERS OF EVIL
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE DRAMA OF THE RUE NORVINS
+
+
+On Monday, April 4th, 19--, the evening paper _La Capitale_ published
+the following article on its first page:--
+
+A drama, over the motives of which there is a bewildering host of
+conjectures, was unfolded this morning on the heights of Montmartre. The
+Baroness de Vibray, well known in the Parisian world and among artists,
+whose generous patroness she was, has been found dead in the studio of
+the ceramic painter, Jacques Dollon. The young painter, rendered
+completely helpless by a soporific, lay stretched out beside her when
+the crime was discovered. We say 'crime' designedly, because, when the
+preliminary medical examination was completed, it was clear that the
+death of the Baroness de Vibray was due to the absorption of some
+poison.
+
+The painter, Jacques Dollon, whom the enlightened attentions of Doctor
+Mayran had drawn from his condition of torpor, underwent a short
+examination from the superintendent of police, in the course of which he
+made remarks of so suspicious a nature that the examining magistrate put
+him under arrest then and there. At police headquarters they are
+absolutely dumb regarding this strange affair. Nevertheless, the
+personal investigation undertaken by us throws a little light on what is
+already called: _The Drama of the Rue Norvins_.
+
+
+                         _The Discovery of the Crime_
+
+This morning, about seven o'clock, Madame Béju, a housekeeper in the
+service of the painter, Jacques Dollon, who, with his sister,
+Mademoiselle Elizabeth Dollon, occupied lodge number six, in the Close
+of the rue Norvins, was on the ground-floor of the house, attending to
+her customary duties. She had been on the premises about half an hour,
+and, so far, had not noticed anything abnormal; however, astonished at
+not hearing any movements on the floor above, for the painter generally
+rose pretty early, Madame Béju decided to go upstairs and wake her
+master, who would be vexed at having let himself sleep so late. She had
+to pass through the studio to reach Monsieur Jacques Dollon's bedroom.
+No sooner had she raised the door curtain of the studio than she
+recoiled, horrorstruck!
+
+Disorder reigned in the studio: a startling disorder!
+
+Pieces of furniture displaced, some of them overturned, showed that
+something extraordinary had happened there. In the middle of the room,
+on the floor, lay the inanimate form of a person whom Madame Béju knew
+well, for she had seen her at the painter's house many a time--the
+Baroness de Vibray. Not far from her, buried in a large arm-chair,
+motionless, giving no sign of life, was Monsieur Jacques Dollon!
+
+When the good woman saw the rigid attitude of these two persons, she
+realised that she was in the presence of a tragedy.
+
+Stirred to the depths, she redescended the stairs, calling for help:
+shortly afterwards, the entire Close was in a state of ferment: house
+porters, neighbours, male and female, crowded round Madame Béju,
+endeavouring to understand her disconnected account of the terrifying
+spectacle she had come face to face with but a minute before.
+
+Sudden death, suicide, crime--all were plausible suppositions. The more
+audacious of these gossip-mongers had ventured as far as the studio
+door; from that standpoint, a rapid glance round enabled them to get a
+clear idea of the truth of the housekeeper's statements: they returned
+to give a confirmation of them to the inquisitive and increasing crowd
+in the principal avenue of the Close.
+
+'The police! The police must be informed!' cried the Close portress.
+
+Whilst this woman, with considerable presence of mind, and aided by
+Madame Béju, exerted herself to keep out the people of the neighbourhood
+who had got wind of the tragedy, two men had set off to seek the police.
+
+
+                           _Lodge Number 6_
+
+On the summit of Montmartre is the rue Norvins. In shape it resembles a
+donkey's back, and at one particular spot it hugs the accentuated curve
+of the Butte. The Close of the rue Norvins is situated at number 47. It
+is separated from the street by a strong iron gate, the porter's lodge
+being at the side. The Close consists of a series of little dwellings,
+separated by wooden railings, up which climbing plants grow. Fine trees
+encircle these abodes with so thick a curtain of leafage that the
+inhabitants might think themselves buried in the depths of the country.
+
+Lodge Number 6 is even more isolated than the others. It consists of a
+ground floor and a first floor, with an immense studio attached. Three
+years ago, Number 6 was leased to Monsieur Jacques Dollon, then a
+student at the Fine Arts School. It has been continuously occupied by
+the tenant and his sister, Miss Elizabeth Dollon, who has kept house for
+her brother. For the last fortnight the painter has been alone: his
+sister, who had gone to Switzerland to convalesce after a long illness,
+was expected back that same day, or the day following.
+
+The reputation of the two young people is considered by their neighbours
+to be beyond criticism. The artist has led a regular and hard-working
+life: last year the Salon accorded him a medal of the second class.
+
+His sister, an affable and unassuming girl, seemed always much attached
+to her brother. In that very Bohemian neighbourhood she is highly
+thought of as a girl of the most estimable character.
+
+The Baroness de Vibray visited them frequently, and her motor-car used
+to attract attention in that high, remote suburb--the wilds of
+Montmartre. The old lady liked to dress in rather showy colours; she was
+considered eccentric, but was also known to be good and generous. She
+took a particular interest in the Dollons, whose family, so it was said,
+she had known in Provence. Jacques Dollon and his sister highly valued
+their intimacy with the Baroness de Vibray, who was known all over Paris
+as a patroness of artists and the arts.
+
+
+                         _First Verifications_
+
+Already slander and imagination between them had concocted the wildest
+stories, when Monsieur Agram, the eminent police superintendent of the
+Clignancourt Quarter, appeared at the entrance to the Close. Accompanied
+by his secretary, he at once entered Number 6, charging the two
+policemen, who were assisting him, on no account to allow anyone to
+enter, excepting the doctor, whom he had at once sent for.
+
+He requested the portress to hold herself at his disposal in the garden,
+and made Madame Béju accompany him to the studio. Barely twenty minutes
+had elapsed since the housekeeper had been terror-struck by the dreadful
+spectacle which had met her eyes there. When she entered with the
+superintendent of police nothing had been altered. Madame de Vibray,
+horribly pale, her eyes closed, her lips violet-hued, lay stretched on
+the floor: her body had assumed the rigidity of a corpse. That of
+Jacques Dollon, huddled in an arm-chair, was in a state of immobility.
+
+Monsieur Agram at once noticed long, intersecting streaks on the floor,
+such as might have been traced by heavy furniture dragged over the waxed
+boards of the flooring. A pungent medicinal odour caught the throats of
+the visitors: Madame Béju was about to open a window: the superintendent
+stopped her:
+
+'Let things remain as they are for the present,' was his order. After
+casting an observant eye round the room he questioned the housekeeper:
+
+'Is this state of disorder usual?'
+
+'Never in this world, sir!' declared the good woman. 'Monsieur Dollon
+and his sister are very steady, very regular in their habits, especially
+the young lady. It is true that she has been absent for nearly a month,
+but her brother has often been left alone, and he has always insisted on
+his studio being kept in good order.'
+
+'Did Monsieur Dollon have many visitors?'
+
+'Very seldom, monsieur. Sometimes his neighbours would come in; and then
+there was that poor lady lying there so deathly pale that it makes me
+ill to look at her....'
+
+
+                          _Jacques Dollon lives_
+
+The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the doctor employed
+in connection with relief for the poor. The superintendent of police
+pointed out to this Dr. Mayran the two inanimate figures. A glance of
+the doctor's trained eye sufficed to show him that Madame de Vibray had
+been dead for some time. Approaching Jacques Dollon, Dr. Mayran examined
+him attentively:
+
+'Will you help me to lift him on to a bed or a table?' he asked. 'It
+seems to me that this one is not dead.'
+
+'His bedroom is next to this!' cried Madame Béju. 'Oh, heavens above! If
+only the poor young man would recover!'
+
+Silently the doctor, aided by the superintendent and a policeman,
+transported young Dollon into the next room.
+
+'Air!' cried the doctor, 'give him air! Open all the windows! It seems
+to me a case of suspended animation! There is partial suffocation. This
+will probably yield to energetic treatment.'
+
+Whilst good Madame Béju, whose legs were shaking under her, was carrying
+out the doctor's orders, the superintendent of police kept watch to see
+that nothing was touched. The doctor's attention was concentrated on
+Jacques Dollon. Monsieur Agram was searching for some indication which
+might throw light on the drama. So far he had been unable to formulate
+any hypothesis. Should the moribund painter return to consciousness, the
+explanation he could give would certainly clear up the situation. At
+this point in the superintendent's cogitations, the doctor called out:
+
+'He lives! He lives! Bring me a glass of water!'
+
+Jacques Dollon was returning to consciousness! Slowly, painfully, his
+features contracting as at the remembrance of a horrible nightmare, the
+young man stretched his limbs, opened his eyes: he turned a dull gaze on
+those about him, a gaze which became one of stupefaction when he
+perceived these unknown faces gathered round his bed. His eyes fell on
+his housekeeper. He murmured:
+
+'Mme ... Bé-ju ... je...,' and fell back into unconsciousness.
+
+'Is he dead?' whispered Monsieur Agram.
+
+The doctor smiled:
+
+'Be reassured, monsieur: he lives; but he finds it terribly difficult to
+wake up. He has certainly swallowed some powerful narcotic and is still
+under its influence; but its effects will soon pass off now.'
+
+The good doctor spoke the truth.
+
+In a short time Jacques Dollon, making a violent effort, sat up. Casting
+scared and bewildered glances about him, he cried:
+
+'Who are you? What do you want of me?... Ah, the ruffians! The bandits!'
+
+'There is nothing to fear, monsieur. I am simply the doctor they have
+called in to attend to you! Be calm!... You must recover your senses,
+and tell us what has happened!'
+
+Jacques Dollon pressed his hands to his forehead, as though in pain:
+
+'How heavy my head is!' he muttered. 'What has happened to me?... Let me
+see!... Wait.... Ah ... yes ... that's it!'
+
+At a sign from the doctor, the superintendent had stationed himself
+beside the bed, behind the young painter.
+
+Keeping a finger on his patient's pulse, the doctor asked him, in a
+fatherly fashion, to tell him all about it.
+
+'It is like this,' replied Jacques Dollon.... 'Yesterday evening I was
+sitting in my arm-chair reading. It was getting late. I had been working
+hard.... I was tired.... All of a sudden I was surrounded by masked men,
+clothed in long black garments: they flung themselves on me. Before I
+could make a movement I was gagged, bound with cords.... I felt
+something pointed driven into my leg--into my arm.... Then an
+overpowering drowsiness overcame me, the strangest visions passed before
+my eyes; I lost consciousness rapidly.... I wanted to move, to cry
+out ... in vain ... there was no strength in me ... powerless ... and
+that's all!'
+
+'Is there nothing more?' asked the doctor.
+
+After a minute's reflection Jacques answered:
+
+'That is all.'
+
+He now seemed fully awake. He moved: the movement was evidently painful:
+'It hurts,' he said, instinctively putting his hand on his left thigh.
+
+'Let us see what is wrong,' said the doctor, and was preparing to
+examine the place when a voice from the studio called:
+
+'Monsieur!'
+
+It was Monsieur Agram's secretary. The magistrate left his post by the
+bed and went into the studio.
+
+'Monsieur,' said the secretary, 'I have just found this paper under the
+chair in which Monsieur Dollon was: will you acquaint yourself with its
+contents?'
+
+The magistrate seized the paper: it was a letter, couched in the
+following terms:
+
+     _Dear Madame,_
+
+     _If you do not fear to climb the heights of Montmartre some
+     evening, will you come to see the painted pottery I am preparing
+     for the Salon: you will be welcome, and will confer on us a great
+     pleasure. I say 'us,' because I have excellent news of Elizabeth,
+     who is returning shortly: perhaps she will be here to receive you
+     with me._
+
+     _I am your respectful and devoted_
+     _Jacques Dollon._
+
+The magistrate was frowning as he handed back the letter to his
+secretary, saying: 'Keep it carefully.' Then he went into the bedroom,
+where the doctor was talking to the invalid. The doctor turned to
+Monsieur Agram:
+
+'Monsieur Dollon has just asked me who you are: I did not think I ought
+to hide from him that you are a superintendent of police, monsieur.'
+
+'Ah!' cried Jacques Dollon. 'Can you help me to discover what happened
+to me last night?'
+
+'You have just told us yourself, monsieur,' replied the
+magistrate.... 'But have you nothing further to tell us? Can you not
+recollect whether or no you had a visitor before the arrival of the
+men who attacked you?'
+
+'Why, no, monsieur, no one called.'
+
+The doctor here intervened:
+
+'The pain in the leg, Monsieur Dollon complained of, need not cause any
+anxiety. It is a very slight superficial wound. A slight swelling above
+the broken skin possibly indicates an intra-muscular puncture, which
+might have been made by someone unaccustomed to such operations, for it
+is a clumsy performance. It is a queer business!...'
+
+Monsieur Agram, who had been steadily observing Jacques Dollon,
+persisted:
+
+'Is there not a gap, monsieur, in your recollections of what
+occurred?... Were you quite alone yesterday evening? Were you not
+expecting anyone?... Are you certain that you did not have a visitor?
+Did not someone pay you a visit--someone you had asked to come and see
+you?'
+
+Jacques Dollon opened his eyes--eyes of stupefaction--and stared at the
+superintendent:
+
+'No, monsieur.'
+
+'It is that----' went on Monsieur Agram. Then stopping short, and
+drawing the doctor aside, he asked:
+
+'Do you consider him in a fit state to bear a severe moral shock?... A
+confrontation?'
+
+The doctor glanced at his patient:
+
+'He appears to me to be quite himself again: you can act as you see fit,
+monsieur.'
+
+Jacques Dollon, astonished at this confabulation, and vaguely uneasy,
+was, in fact, able to get up without help.
+
+'Be good enough to go into your studio, monsieur,' said the magistrate.
+
+Jacques Dollon complied without a word. No sooner did he cross the
+threshold than he recoiled, terror-struck.
+
+He was shaking from head to foot; his lips were quivering; every feature
+expressed horrified shrinking from the spectacle confronting him.
+
+'The--the--the Baroness de Vibray!' he barely articulated: 'how can it
+be possible?'
+
+The superintendent of police did not lose a single movement made by the
+young painter, keeping a lynx-eyed watch on every expression that
+flitted across his countenance. He said:
+
+'It certainly is the Baroness de Vibray, dead--assassinated, no doubt.
+How do you explain that?'
+
+'But,' retorted Jacques Dollon, who appeared overwhelmed: 'I do not
+know! I do not understand!'
+
+The magistrate replied:
+
+'Yet, did you not invite her to your studio? Had you not asked her to
+come some evening soon? Had you not certain pieces of painted pottery to
+show her?'
+
+'That is so,' confessed the painter: 'but I was not aware.... I did not
+know....' He seemed about to faint. The doctor made him sit down in the
+chair where he had been found unconscious. Whilst he was recovering,
+Monsieur Agram continued his investigations. He opened a little
+cupboard, in which were several poisonous powders: this was shown by the
+writing on the flasks containing them. He spoke to the doctor, taking
+care that Jacques Dollon should not overhear him:
+
+'Did you not say that this woman's death is due to poison?'
+
+'It certainly looks like it.... A post-mortem will ...'
+
+
+                           _The Arrest_
+
+Interrupting the doctor, Monsieur Agram went up to Jacques Dollon:
+
+'In the exercise of your profession, monsieur, do you not make use of
+various poisons, of which you have a reserve supply here?'
+
+'That is so,' confirmed Jacques Dollon, in a faint voice: 'But it is a
+very long time since I employed any of them.'
+
+'Very good, monsieur.'
+
+Monsieur Agram now made Madame Béju leave the room. He asked her to
+transmit an order to his policemen: they were to drive back the crowd.
+Soon a cab brought by a constable entered the Close, and drew up before
+the door of Number 6.
+
+Jacques Dollon, supported by two people, descended and entered the cab.
+
+Immediately a rumour spread that he had been arrested.
+
+This rumour was correct.
+
+
+     _Our Inquiry--Silence at Police Headquarters--Probable Motives of
+     the Crime_
+
+Such are the details referring to this strange affair, which we have
+been able to procure from those who were present. But the motives which
+determined the arrest of Monsieur Dollon are obscure.
+
+There are, however, two suspicious facts. The first is the puncture made
+in Monsieur Jacques Dollon's left leg: this puncture is aggravated by a
+scratch. According to the doctors, soporific, injected into the human
+body by the de Pravaz syringe, acts violently and efficaciously. It is
+beyond a doubt that Monsieur Jacques Dollon has been rendered
+unconscious in this manner.
+
+To begin with, the painter's first version was considered the true one,
+namely, that he had been surprised by robbers, who rendered him
+unconscious; but, on reflection, this explanation would not hold water.
+Murderous house-thieves do not send people to sleep: they kill them. Add
+to this that nothing has been stolen from Monsieur Dollon: therefore,
+mere robbery was not the motive of the crime.
+
+Besides, Monsieur Dollon maintained that he was alone; yet at that time
+Madame de Vibray was in his studio, and was there precisely because the
+artist himself had asked her to come. We know that the Baroness de
+Vibray, who was very wealthy, took a particular interest in this young
+man and his sister.
+
+We should consider ourselves to blame, did we not now remind our readers
+that the names of those personages--Dollon, Vibray--implicated in the
+drama of the rue Norvins, have already figured in the chronicles of
+crimes, both recent and celebrated.
+
+Thus the assassination of the Marquise de Langrune cannot have been
+forgotten, an assassination which has remained a mystery, which was
+perpetrated a few years ago, and brought into prominence the
+personalities of Monsieur Rambert and the charming Thérèse
+Auvernois....
+
+Madame de Vibray, who has just been so tragically done to death, was an
+intimate friend of the Marquise de Langrune....
+
+Monsieur Jacques Dollon is a son of Madame de Langrune's old steward....
+
+We do not, of course, pretend to connect, in any way whatever, the drama
+of the rue Norvins with the bygone drama which ended in the execution of
+Gurn,[1] but we cannot pass over in silence the strange coincidence
+that, within the space of a few years, the same halo of mystery
+surrounds the same group of individuals....
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Fantômas_.]
+
+But let us return to our narrative:
+
+Monsieur Jacques Dollon, interrogated by the superintendent of police,
+declared that he very rarely made use of the poisons locked up in the
+little cupboard of his studio....
+
+Notwithstanding this, it was discovered, during the course of the
+perquisition, that one of the phials containing poison had been recently
+opened, and that traces of the powder were still to be found on the
+floor. This powder is now being analysed, whilst the faculty are engaged
+in a post-mortem examination of the unfortunate victim's body; but, at
+the present moment, everything leads to the belief that there does not
+exist an immediate and certain link between this poison and the sudden
+death of the Baroness de Vibray.
+
+It might easily be supposed, and this we believe is the view taken at
+Police Headquarters, that for a motive as yet unknown, a motive the
+judicial examination will certainly bring to light, the artist has
+poisoned his patroness; and, in order to put the authorities on the
+wrong scent (perhaps he hoped she would leave the studio before the
+death-agony commenced), he has devised this species of tableau, invented
+the story of the masked men.
+
+In fact, the doctor who first attended him has declared that the
+puncture, clumsily made, might very well have been done by Jacques
+Dollon himself.
+
+It is worth noting that not a soul saw the Baroness de Vibray enter
+Monsieur Dollon's house yesterday evening: as a rule, she comes in her
+motor-car, and all the neighbourhood can hear her arrival.
+
+It seems evident that Jacques Dollon will abandon the line of defence he
+has adopted: it can hardly be described as rational.
+
+There is little doubt but that we shall have sensational revelations
+regarding the crime of the rue Norvins.
+
+
+                              _Last Hour_
+
+Mademoiselle Elizabeth Dollon, to whom Police Headquarters has
+telegraphed that a serious accident has happened to her brother, has
+sent a reply telegram from Lausanne to the effect that she will return
+to-night.
+
+The unfortunate girl is probably ignorant of all that has occurred.
+Nevertheless, we believe that two detectives have left at once for the
+frontier, where they will meet her, and shadow her as far as Paris, in
+case she should get news on the way of what had occurred, and should
+either attempt to escape, or make an attempt on her life.
+
+Decidedly, to-morrow promises to be a day full of vicissitudes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This article, published on the first page of _La Capitale_, was signed:
+
+    JÉRÔME FANDOR.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THOMERY'S TWO LOVES
+
+
+Two days before the sinister drama, details of which Jérôme Fandor had
+given in _La Capitale_, the smart little town house inhabited by the
+Baroness de Vibray, in the Avenue Henri-Martin, assumed a festive
+appearance.
+
+This did not surprise her neighbours, for they knew the owner of this
+charming residence was very much a woman of the world, whose
+reception-rooms were constantly opened to the many distinguished
+Parisians forming her circle of acquaintances.
+
+It was seven in the evening when the Baroness, dressed for dinner,
+passed from her own room into the small drawing-room adjoining. Crossing
+a carpet so thick and soft that it deadened the sound of footsteps, she
+pressed the button of an electric bell beside the fireplace. A
+major-domo, of the most correct appearance, presented himself.
+
+"The Baroness rang for me?"
+
+Madame de Vibray, who had instinctively sought the flattering approval
+of her mirror, half turned:
+
+"I wish to know if anyone called this afternoon, Antoine?"
+
+"For the Baroness?"
+
+"Of course!" she replied, a note of impatience in her voice: "I want to
+know if anyone called to see _me_ this afternoon?"
+
+"No, madame."
+
+"No one has telephoned from the Barbey-Nanteuil Bank?"
+
+"No, madame."
+
+Repressing a slight feeling of annoyance, Madame de Vibray changed the
+subject:
+
+"You will have dinner served as soon as the guests arrive. They will not
+be later than half-past seven, I suppose."
+
+Antoine bowed solemnly, vanished into the anteroom, and from thence
+gained the servants' hall.
+
+Madame de Vibray quitted the small drawing-room. Traversing the great
+gallery with its glass roof, encircling the staircase, she entered the
+dining-room. Covers were laid for three.
+
+Inspecting the table arrangements with the eye of a mistress of the
+house, she straightened the line of some plates, gave a touch of
+distinction to the flowers scattered over the table in a conventional
+disorder; then she went to the sideboard, where the major-domo had left
+a china pot filled with flowers. With a slight shrug, the Baroness
+carried the pot to its usual place--a marble column at the further end
+of the room:
+
+"It was fortunate I came to see how things were! Antoine is a good
+fellow, but a hare-brained one too!" thought she.
+
+Madame de Vibray paused a moment: the light from an electric lamp shone
+on the vase and wonderfully enhanced its glittering beauty. It was a
+piece of faience decorated in the best taste. On its graceful form the
+artist had traced the lines of an old colour print, and had scrupulously
+preserved the picture born of an eighteenth-century artist's
+imagination, with its brilliancy of tone and soft background of tender
+grey. Madame de Vibray could not tear herself away from the
+contemplation of it. Not only did the design and the treatment please
+her, but she also felt a kind of maternal affection for the artist:
+"This dear Jacques," she murmured, "has decidedly a great deal of
+talent, and I like to think that in a short time his reputation...."
+
+Her reflections were interrupted by the servant. The good Antoine
+announced in a low voice, and with a touch of respectful reproach in his
+tone:
+
+"Monsieur Thomery awaits the Baroness in the small drawing-room: he has
+been waiting ten minutes."
+
+"Very well. I am coming."
+
+Madame de Vibray, whose movements were all harmonious grace, returned by
+way of the gallery to greet her guest. She paused on the threshold of
+the small drawing-room, smiling graciously.
+
+Framed in the dark drapery of the heavy door-curtains, the soft light
+from globes of ground glass falling on her, the Baroness de Vibray
+appeared a very attractive woman still. Her figure had retained its
+youthful slenderness, her neck, white as milk, was as round and fresh as
+a girl's; and had the hair about her forehead and temples not been
+turning grey--the Baroness wore it powdered, a piece of coquettish
+affection on her part--she would not have looked a day more than thirty.
+
+Monsieur Thomery rose hastily, and advanced to meet her. He kissed her
+hand with a gallant air:
+
+"My dear Mathilde," he declared with an admiring glance, "you are
+decidedly an exquisite woman!"
+
+The Baroness replied by a glance, in which there was something
+ambiguous, something of ironical mockery:
+
+"How are you, Norbert?" she asked in an affectionate tone.... "And those
+pains?"
+
+They seated themselves on a low couch, and began to discuss their
+respective aches and pains in friendly fashion. Whilst listening to his
+complaints, Madame de Vibray could not but admire his remarkable vigour,
+his air of superb health: his looks gave the lie to his words.
+
+About fifty-five, Monsieur Norbert Thomery seemed to be in the plenitude
+of his powers; his premature baldness was redeemed by the vivacity of
+his dark brown eyes, also by his long, thick moustache, probably dyed.
+He looked like an old soldier. He was the last of the great Thomery
+family who, for many generations, had been sugar refiners. His was a
+personality well known in Parisian Society; always first at his office
+or his factories, as soon as night fell he became the man of the world,
+frequenting fashionable drawing-rooms, theatrical first-nights, official
+receptions, and balls in the aristocratic circles of the faubourg
+Saint-Germain.
+
+Remarkably handsome, extremely rich, Thomery had had many love affairs.
+Gossips had it that between him and Madame de Vibray there had existed a
+tender intimacy; and, for once, gossip was right. But they had been
+tactful, had respected the conventions whilst their irregular union had
+lasted. Though now a thing of the past, for Thomery had sought other
+loves, his passion for the Baroness had changed to a calm, strong,
+semi-brotherly affection; whilst Madame de Vibray retained a more
+lively, a more tender feeling for the man whom she had known as the most
+gallant of lovers.
+
+Thomery suddenly ceased talking of his rheumatism:
+
+"But, my dear friend, I do not see that pretty smile which is your
+greatest charm! How is that?"
+
+Madame de Vibray looked sad: her beautiful eyes gazed deep into those of
+Thomery:
+
+"Ah," she murmured, "one cannot be eternally smiling; life sometimes
+holds painful surprises in store for us."
+
+"Is something worrying you?" Thomery's tone was one of anxious sympathy.
+
+"Yes and no," was her evasive reply. There was a silence; then she said:
+
+"It is always the same thing! I have no hesitation in telling you that,
+you, my old friend: it is a money wound--happily it is not mortal."
+
+Thomery nodded:
+
+"Well, I declare it is just what I expected! My poor Mathilde, are you
+never going to be sensible?"
+
+The Baroness pouted: "You know quite well I am sensible ... only it
+happens that there are moments when one is short of cash! Yesterday I
+asked my bankers to send me fifty thousand francs, and I have not heard
+a word from them!"
+
+"That is no great matter! The Barbey-Nanteuil credit cannot be shaken!"
+
+"Oh," cried the Baroness, "I have no fears on that score; but, as a
+rule, their delay in sending me what I ask for is of the briefest, yet
+no one has come from them to-day."
+
+Thomery began scolding her gently:
+
+"Ah, Mathilde, that you should be in such pressing need of so large a
+sum must mean that you have been drawn into some deplorable speculation!
+I will wager that you invested in those Oural copper mines after all!"
+
+"I thought the shares were going up," was Madame de Vibray's excuse: she
+lowered her eyes like a naughty schoolgirl caught in the act.
+
+Thomery, who had risen, and was walking up and down the room, halted in
+front of her:
+
+"I do beg of you to consult those who know all the ins and outs, persons
+competent to advise you, when you are bent on plunging into speculations
+of this description! The Barbey-Nanteuil people can give you reliable
+information; I myself, you know..."
+
+"But since it is really of no importance!" interrupted Madame de Vibray,
+who had no wish to listen to the remonstrances of her too prudent
+friend: "What does it matter? It is my only diversion now!... I love
+gambling--the emotions it arouses in one, the perpetual hopes and fears
+it excites!"
+
+Thomery was about to reply, to argue, to remonstrate further, but the
+Baroness had caught him glancing at the clock hanging beside the
+fireplace:
+
+"I am making you dine late," she said in a tone of apology. Then, with a
+touch of malice, and looking up at Thomery from under her eyes, to see
+how he took it:
+
+"You are to be rewarded for having to wait!... I have invited Princess
+Sonia Danidoff to dine with you!"
+
+Thomery started. He frowned. He again seated himself beside the
+Baroness:
+
+"You have invited her?..."
+
+"Yes ... and why not?... I believe this pretty woman is one of your
+special friends... that you consider her the most charming of all your
+friends now!..."
+
+Thomery did not take up the challenge: he simply said:
+
+"I had an idea that the Princess was not much to your taste!"
+
+The eyes of Madame de Vibray flashed a sad, strange look on her old
+friend, as she said gently:
+
+"One can accustom oneself to anything and everything, my dear
+friend.... Besides, I quite recognise that the Princess deserves
+the reputation she enjoys of being wonderfully beautiful and also
+intellectual...."
+
+Thomery did not reply to this: he looked puzzled, annoyed....
+
+The Baroness continued:
+
+"They even say that handsome bachelor, Monsieur Thomery, is not
+indifferent to her fascinations!... That, for the first time in his
+life, he is ready to link ..."
+
+"Oh, as for that!..." Thomery was protesting, when the door opened, and
+the Princess Sonia Danidoff rustled into the room, a superbly--a
+dazzlingly beautiful vision, all audacity and charm.
+
+"Accept all my apologies, dear Baroness," she cried, "for arriving so
+late; but the streets are so crowded!"
+
+"... And I live such a long way out!" added Madame de Vibray.
+
+"You live in a charming part," amended the Princess. Then, catching
+sight of Thomery:
+
+"Why, you!" she cried. And, with a gracious and dignified gesture, the
+Princess extended her hand, which the wealthy sugar refiner hastened to
+kiss.
+
+At this moment the double doors were flung wide, and Antoine, with his
+most solemn air, his most stiff-starched manner, announced:
+
+"Dinner is served!"
+
+"... No," cried she, smiling, whilst she refused the arm offered by her
+old friend; "take in the Princess, dear friend; I will follow ... by
+myself!"
+
+Thomery obeyed. He passed slowly along the gallery into the dining-room
+with the Princess. Behind them came the Baroness, who watched them as
+they went: Thomery, big, muscular, broad-shouldered: Sonia Danidoff,
+slim, pliant, refined, dainty!
+
+Checking a deep sigh, the Baroness could not help thinking, and her
+heart ached at the thought:
+
+"What a fine couple they would make!... What a fine couple they will
+make!"
+
+But, as she seated herself opposite her guests, she said to herself:
+
+"Bah!... I must send sad thoughts flying!... It is high time!"
+
+"My dear Thomery!" she cried playfully: "I wish--I expect you to show
+yourself the most charming of men to your delicious neighbour!"
+
+Ten o'clock had struck before Madame de Vibray and her guests left the
+dinner-table and proceeded to the small drawing-room. Thomery was
+allowed to smoke in their presence; besides, the Princess had accepted a
+Turkish cigarette, and the Baroness had allowed herself a liqueur. A
+most excellent dinner and choice wines had loosened tongues, and, in
+accordance with a prearranged plan, Madame de Vibray had directed the
+conversation imperceptibly into the channels she wished it to follow.
+Thus she learned what she had feared to know, namely, that a very
+serious flirtation had been going on for some time between Thomery and
+the Princess; that between this beautiful and wealthy young widow and
+the millionaire sugar refiner, the flirtation was rapidly developing
+into something much warmer and more lasting. So far, the final stage
+had evidently not been reached; nevertheless, Thomery had suggested,
+tentatively, that he would like to give a grand ball when he took
+possession of the new house which he was having built for himself in the
+park Monceau!... And had he not been so extremely anxious to secure a
+partner for the cotillion which he meant to lead!... Then Madame de
+Vibray had suggested that the person obviously fitted to play this
+important part was the Princess Sonia Danidoff! Who better!
+
+The suggestion was welcomed by both: it was settled there and then.
+
+"Yes," thought the Baroness, "Thomery's marriage is practically
+arranged, that is evident!... Well, I must resign myself to the
+inevitable!"
+
+It was about half-past eleven when Sonia Danidoff rose to take leave of
+her hostess. Thomery, hesitating, looked first at his old friend, then
+at the Princess, asking himself what he ought to do. Madame de Vibray
+felt secretly grateful to him for this momentary hesitation. As a woman
+whose mourning for a dead love is over, she spoke out bravely:
+
+"Dear friend," said she, "surely you are not going to let the Princess
+return alone?... I hope she will allow you to see her safely home?"
+
+The Princess pressed the hands of her generous hostess: she was radiant:
+
+"What a good kind friend you are!" she cried in an outburst of sincere
+affection. Then, with a questioning glance, in which there was a touch
+of uneasiness, a slight hesitation, she said:
+
+"Ah, do let me kiss you!"
+
+For all reply Madame de Vibray opened her arms; the two women clung
+together, sealing with their kiss the treaty of peace both wished to
+keep.
+
+When the humming of the motor-car, which bore off the Princess and
+Thomery, had died away in the distance, Madame de Vibray retired to her
+room. A tear rolled down her cheek:
+
+"A little bit of my heart has gone with them," she murmured. The poor
+woman sighed deeply: "Ah, it is my whole heart that has gone!"
+
+There was a discreet knock at the door. She mastered her emotion. It was
+the dignified mistress of the house who said quietly:
+
+"Come in!"
+
+It was Antoine, who presented two letters on a silver salver. He
+explained that, believing his mistress to be anxiously awaiting some
+news, he had ventured to bring up the last post at this late hour.
+
+After bidding Antoine good night, she recalled him to say:
+
+"Please tell the maid not to come up. I shall not require her. I can
+manage by myself."
+
+Madame de Vibray went towards the little writing-table, which stood in
+one corner of her room; in leisurely fashion she sat down and proceeded
+to open her letters with a wearied air.
+
+"Why, it's from that nice Jacques Dollon!" she exclaimed, as she read
+the first letter she opened: "I was thinking of him at this very
+minute!" ... "Yes," she went on, as she read, "I shall certainly pay him
+a visit soon!"
+
+Madame de Vibray put Jacques Dollon's letter in her handbag, recognising
+on the back of the second letter the initials B. N., which she knew to
+be the discreet superscription on the business paper of her bankers,
+Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil. It was long and closely written, in a fine,
+regular hand. When she began to read it her attention was wandering, for
+her mind was full of Sonia Danidoff and Thomery, and what she had
+ascertained regarding their relation to each other; but little by little
+she became absorbed in what she was reading, till her whole attention
+was taken captive. As she read on, however, her eyes opened more and
+more widely, there was a look of keenest anguish in them, her features
+contracted as if in pain, her bosom heaved, her fingers were trembling
+under the stress of some intense emotion:
+
+"Oh, my God! Ah! My God!" she gasped out several times in a half-choked
+voice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Silence had reigned for a long while in the smart town house of the
+Baroness de Vibray in the Avenue Henri-Martin....
+
+From without came no sound; the avenue was quiet, deserted; the night
+was dark. But when three o'clock struck, the bedroom of Madame de Vibray
+was still flooded with light. She had not left her writing-table since
+she had read the letter of her bankers, Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil. She
+wrote on, and on, without intermission.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+UNEXPECTED COMPLICATIONS
+
+
+At nine o'clock in the morning, the staff of that great evening paper,
+_La Capitale_, were assembled in the vast editorial room, writing out
+their copy, in the midst of a perfect hubbub of continual comings and
+goings, of regular shindies, of perpetual discussions.
+
+A stranger entering this room, which among its frequenters went by the
+name of "The Wild Beasts' Cage," might easily have thought he was
+witnessing some thirty schoolboys at play in recreation time, instead of
+being in the presence of famous journalists celebrated for their reports
+and articles.
+
+Jérôme Fandor had no sooner appeared on the threshold than he was
+accorded a variety of greetings--ironical, cordial, fault-finding,
+sympathetic. But he ignored them all; for, like most of those who came
+into the editorial room at this hour, he was preoccupied with one thing
+only--where the caprice of his editorial secretary would send him flying
+for news, in the course of a few minutes? On what difficult and delicate
+quest would he be despatched? It depended on the exigencies of passing
+events, on how questions of the hour struck the editorial secretary, in
+relation to Fandor.
+
+Just as he had expected, the editorial secretary called him.
+
+"Hey! Fandor, come here a minute! I am on the make-up: what have you got
+for to-day?"
+
+"I don't know. Who has charge of the landing of the King of Spain?"
+
+"Maray. He has just left. Have you seen the last issue of _l'Havas_?"
+
+"Here it is...."
+
+The two men ran rapidly through the night's telegrams.
+
+"Deplorably empty!" remarked the editorial secretary. "But where am I to
+send you?... Ah, now I have it! That article of yours on the rue Norvins
+affair, yesterday evening, was interesting--it made the others squirm, I
+know! Isn't there anything more to be got out of that story?"
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"Can't you stick in something just a little bit scandalous about the
+Baroness de Vibray? Or about Dollon? About no matter whom, in fact?
+After all, it's our one and only crime to-day, and you must put in
+something under that head!..."
+
+Jérôme Fandor seemed to hesitate.
+
+"Would you like me to rake up the past--refer to what happened before?"
+
+"What past?"
+
+"Come now, you must have an inkling of what I refer to!"
+
+"Not I!"
+
+"Ah, my dear fellow, it will not be the first time we have had to
+mention these personages in our columns!... Just cast your mind back to
+the Gurn affair!..."
+
+"Ah, the drama in which a great lady was implicated ... to her
+detriment! Lady ... Lady Beltham?"
+
+"You have got it! These Dollons--Jacques and Elizabeth--did you know
+it?--happen to be the children of old Dollon, who was murdered in the
+train--an extraordinary murder!--when on his way to Paris, to give
+evidence in the Gurn case?"
+
+"Why, of course! I remember perfectly!" declared the editorial
+secretary: "Dollon, the father, was the Marquise de Langrune's
+steward!... The old lady who was murdered!... Isn't that so?"
+
+"That's it!... But, after the death of his mistress, he entered the
+service of the Baroness de Vibray, she who was assassinated yesterday!"
+
+"Well, I must say they have not been favoured by fortune," said the
+secretary jokingly. "But, look here, Fandor--like father, like son,
+eh?... If this young Dollon has murdered Madame de Vibray, doesn't that
+make you think that his father was the murderer of the Marquise de
+Langrune?"
+
+Jérôme Fandor shook his head:
+
+"No, old boy, yesterday's crime was ordinary, even common-place, but the
+assassination of the Marquise de Langrune, on the contrary, gave the
+police no end of bother."
+
+"They did not find out anything, did they?"
+
+"Why, yes!... Don't you remember?... Naturally enough, it must all seem
+rather remote to you, but I have all the details as clearly in mind as
+if they had happened only yesterday.... The Gurn affair was one of the
+first I had a hand in, with Juve ... it was in connection with that very
+affair I made my start here on _La Capitale_."[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: See _Fantômas_.]
+
+Fandor grew pale:
+
+"And you were jolly proud of it, eh, Fandor?... Good Heavens, how you
+did hold forth about this Juve! And you regularly fed us up with this
+villain, so mysterious, so extraordinary, who was never run to earth,
+could not be captured, was capable of the most inhuman cruelties,
+capable of devising the most unimaginable tricks and stratagems--this
+Fantômas!"
+
+Fandor grew pale:
+
+"My dear fellow," said he, "never speak sneeringly or jokingly of
+Fantômas!... No doubt it is taken for granted, by the public at any
+rate, that Fantômas is an invention of Juve and myself: that Fantômas
+never existed!... And that because this monster, who is a man of genius,
+has never been identified; because not a soul has been able to lay hands
+on him ...; and because, as you know, this fruitless pursuit has cost
+poor Juve his life...."
+
+"The truth is, this famous detective died a foul death!"
+
+"No! You are mistaken! Juve died on the field of honour! When, after a
+terribly difficult and dangerous investigation, he succeeded (by this
+time it was no longer the Gurn-Fantômas affair, but that of the
+boulevard Inkermann at Neuilly) in cornering Fantômas, he was well aware
+that he risked his life in entering the bandit's abode. What happened
+was that the villain found means to blow up the house, and to bury Juve
+underneath the ruins.[3] Fantômas has proved the stronger; but,
+according to my ideas, Juve has had, none the less, the finest death he
+could desire--death in the midst of the fight--a useful death!"
+
+[Footnote 3: See _The Exploits of Juve_.]
+
+"Useful? In what way?..."
+
+"My dear fellow," cried Fandor, in a tone of vigorous denial, "in the
+opinion of all unprejudiced minds, the death of Juve has proved, proved
+up to the hilt, the existence of Fantômas.... More, it has forced this
+villain to disappear; it has restored peace, tranquillity to
+society.... At the cost of his life, Juve has scored a final triumph,
+he has deprived Fantômas of the power to do harm--pared his claws in
+fact."
+
+"The truth is he is never mentioned now by a soul ... for all that,
+Fandor, only to see you smile! Why--," and the editorial secretary shook
+a threatening finger at his colleague: "I'll wager you still believe in
+Fantômas!... That one fine day you will write us a rattling good
+article, announcing some fresh Fantômas crime!"
+
+Jérôme Fandor made no direct reply to this--it was useless to try and
+convince those who had not closely followed the records of crimes
+perpetrated during recent years: you could not make them believe in the
+existence of Fantômas. Fandor _knew_; but, Juve dead, was there another
+soul who could know the true facts?
+
+All he said was:
+
+"Well, my dear fellow, this does not tell us what we are to fill up the
+paper with now!... If the doings connected with Fantômas are frightful,
+rousing our feelings in the highest degree, I repeat that yesterday's
+crime bears no resemblance to them: we can put in a paragraph or
+so--that is all!"
+
+"No way, is there, of compromising anyone with our Baroness de Vibray?"
+
+"I don't think so! It's a perfectly common-place affair. An elderly
+woman patronises a young painter, whose mistress she may or may not be,
+and she ends up by getting herself assassinated when the young man
+imagines he is mentioned in her will."
+
+"Ah! good! Well, I think you will have to fall back on the opening of
+the artesian well. That suit you?"
+
+"Oh, quite all right!... If you like I can give you my copy in half an
+hour. I know who are going to speak at the inauguration ceremony, and I
+can add names this evening! You know I am a bit of a specialist as
+regards reports written beforehand!"
+
+Fandor had got well on with his article: at the rate he was going he
+would have finished that morning, he thought with pleasure, and would
+have a free afternoon. Just then an office boy appeared:
+
+"Monsieur Fandor, you are being asked for at the telephone."
+
+Like most journalists, Fandor was accustomed to reply in nine cases out
+of ten, in similar cases, that he was not to be found. On this occasion,
+however, some interior prompting made him say:
+
+"I will come."
+
+A few minutes later Fandor went up to the editorial secretary:
+
+"Look here, old fellow, something unexpected has happened.... I must go
+to the Palais de Justice ... you don't want me for anything else this
+morning, do you?"
+
+"No, go along! But what's up?"
+
+"Oh ... this Jacques Dollon, you know, the assassin of the rue Norvins?
+Well, this imbecile has gone and hanged himself in his cell!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the exit door of _La Capitale_, in the noisy rue Montmartre, crowded
+with costermongers' barrows, Jérôme Fandor hailed a taxi.
+
+"To the Palais!"
+
+Some minutes later he was crossing the hall of the Wandering Footsteps
+(as it is called), giving rapid, cordial greetings to all the barristers
+of his acquaintance--one never knew when they might impart a special
+piece of information which let an enterprising journalist into the know,
+or put him early on to a good thing--and finally reached the lobbies of
+the Law Courts proper. He was saying to himself as he went along:
+
+"He is a good fellow, Jouet! The news is not known yet! He telephoned me
+first!"
+
+His friend Jouet met him, with a warm handshake:
+
+"You did not seem to be in a good temper at the telephone just now,
+although I was giving you a nice bit of information!"
+
+"Yes," retorted Fandor, "but information which simply proved how much
+the administrators of justice, to which you have the misfortune to
+belong, can make egregious mistakes! When, for once, you succeed in
+immediately arresting the assassin of someone well known, and are in a
+position to bring into play all the power and rigour of the law, you are
+clumsy enough to give the fellow a chance of punishing himself, you let
+him commit suicide on the very first night of his arrest!"
+
+Fandor had been speaking in a fairly loud voice, as usual, but, at
+imperative signs made by his friend, he lowered his tones:
+
+"What is it?" he murmured.
+
+His friend rose:
+
+"What we are going to do, old boy, is to take a turn in the galleries!
+I have something to say to you, and, joking apart, you are not to
+breathe a word of it to a soul--sh?"
+
+"Count on me!"
+
+Presently the two friends found themselves in one of the corridors of
+the Palais, known only to barristers and those accused of law-breaking.
+
+"Come now!" cried Fandor, "your assassin has hanged himself, hasn't he?"
+
+"My assassin!" expostulated the junior barrister: "My assassin! Allow me
+to inform you that Jacques Dollon is innocent!"
+
+"Innocent?" Jérôme Fandor shrugged a disbelieving shoulder: "Innocent!
+It is the fashion of the day to transform all murderers into
+innocents!... What ground have you for making such a declaration of
+innocence?"
+
+"Here is my ground! I have just copied it out for you! Read!..."
+
+Fandor hastened to read the paper handed to him by his friend. It was
+headed thus:
+
+     "_Copy of a letter brought by Maître Gérin to the Public
+     Prosecutor, a letter addressed to Maître Gérin by the Baroness de
+     Vibray._"
+
+"Oh, it's a plant!" cried Fandor.
+
+"Go on reading, you will see...."
+
+Fandor continued:
+
+     "_My dear Maître_,--
+
+     _You will forgive me, I am certain of that, for all the
+     inconvenience I am going to cause you; I turn to you because you
+     are the only friend in whom I have confidence._
+
+     _I have just received a letter from my bankers, Messieurs
+     Barbey-Nanteuil, of whom I have often spoken to you, who you know
+     manage all my money affairs for me._
+
+     _This letter informs me that I am ruined. You quite
+     understand--absolutely, completely ruined._
+
+     _The house I am living in, my carriage, the luxurious surroundings
+     so necessary to me, I shall have to give it all up, so they tell
+     me._
+
+     _These people have dealt me a terrible blow, struck me
+     brutally...._
+
+     _My dear maître, I learned this only two hours ago, and I am still
+     stunned by it. I do not wish to wait for the inevitable moment when
+     I shall begin to console myself, because I shall begin to hope that
+     the disaster is exaggerated. I have no family, I am already old;
+     apart from the satisfaction it gives me to use my influence on
+     behalf of youthful talent, and to help forward its development, my
+     life has no sense in it, it is without aim or object. My dear
+     maître, there are not two ways of announcing to one's friends
+     resolutions analogous to that I now take: when you receive this
+     letter I shall be dead._
+
+     _I have in front of me, on my writing-table, a tiny phial of poison
+     which I am going to drink to the last drop, without any weakening
+     of will, almost without fear, as soon as I have posted this letter
+     to you myself._
+
+     _I must confess that I have an instinctive horror of being dragged
+     to the Morgue, as happens whenever there is some doubt about a
+     suicide. It is on account of this I now write to you, so that,
+     thanks to your intervention, all the mistakes justice is liable to
+     make may be avoided._
+
+     _I kill myself, I only; that is certain._
+
+     _No one must be incriminated in connection with my death, if it be
+     not Fatality, which has caused my ruin. I once more apologise, my
+     dear maître, for all the measures you will be forced to take owing
+     to my death, and I beg you to believe that my friendship for you
+     was very sincere:_
+
+     _Signed:_
+
+     BARONESS DE VIBRAY."
+
+"Good for you!" cried Fandor. "Here's a go! What a pretty petard in
+prospect!... Jacques Dollon was innocent; you arrest him; he is so
+terrified that he hangs himself! Well, old boy, I must say you make some
+fine blunders on Clock Quay!"
+
+"It is nobody's fault!" protested the young barrister.
+
+"That is to say," retorted Fandor, "it is everybody's fault! By Jove! If
+you let innocent prisoners hang themselves in their cells, I am no
+longer surprised that you leave the guilty at liberty to walk the
+streets at their sweet will!"
+
+"Don't make a joke of it, old boy!... You understand, of course, that so
+far no one in the Palais has seen the letter! It has just been brought
+to the Public Prosecutor's office by Madame de Vibray's solicitor,
+Maître Gérin. You came on the scene only a few minutes after I had sent
+up the original to the examining magistrate. The case is in Fuselier's
+hands."
+
+"Is he in his office?"
+
+"Certainly! He should proceed with the examination relative to poor
+Dollon this morning."
+
+"Very well then, I will go up. I shall jolly soon get out of this booby
+of a Fuselier the information I need to make one of the best reports I
+have ever written. And you know, I am ever so obliged to you for the
+matter you've given me! But, mind you, I am going to put together a bit
+of copy that will not deal tenderly with our gentlemen of the robe--the
+lot of you! No, it is a bad, unlucky business enough, but it is even
+more funny--it is tragi-comedy!"
+
+"For my part ..." began Fandor's barrister friend.
+
+"Yes, yes! Good day, Pontius Pilate!" cried Fandor. "I am going up to
+Fuselier.... We must meet to-morrow!"
+
+Hastening along the corridors, Fandor gained the office of the examining
+magistrate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fandor had known the magistrate a long while. Was not Fuselier the
+justice who, with Detective Juve, had had everything to do with the
+strangely mysterious cases associated with the name of Fantômas? In the
+course of his various judicial examinations he had often been able to
+give Fandor information and help. At first hostile to the constant
+preoccupation of Juve and Fandor--for long the arrest of Fantômas was
+their one aim--the young magistrate had gradually come to believe in
+what had seemed to him nothing but the detective's hypothesis.
+Open-minded, gifted with an alert intelligence, Fuselier had carefully
+followed the investigations of Juve and Fandor. He knew every detail,
+every vicissitude connected with the tracking of this elusive bandit.
+Since then the magistrate had taken the deepest interest in the pursuit
+of the criminal. Thanks to his support, Juve had been enabled to take
+various measures, otherwise almost impossible, avoid the many obstacles
+offered by legal procedure, risk the striking of many a blow he could
+not otherwise have ventured on.
+
+Fuselier had a high opinion of Juve, and his attitude to Fandor was
+sympathetic.
+
+Our journalist was going over the past as he hastened along:
+
+Ah, if only Juve were here! If only this loyal servant of Justice, this
+sincerest of friends, this bravest of the brave, had not been struck
+down, Fandor would have been full of enthusiasm for the Dollon affair;
+for its interest was increasing, its mystery deepening! But Fandor was
+single-handed now! He had had a miraculous escape from the bomb which
+had blown up Lady Beltham's house on that tragic day when Juve had all
+but laid hands on Fantômas!
+
+But Fandor would not allow himself to become disheartened--never that!
+In the school of his vanished friend he had learned to give himself up
+with single-minded devotion to any task he took up; his sole
+satisfaction being duty well fulfilled.... Well, the Dollon case should
+be cleared up!... To do so was to render a service to humanity! Having
+come to this conclusion he hastened to interview Monsieur Fuselier.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Monsieur Fuselier," cried Fandor as he shook hands with the magistrate,
+"you must know quite well why I have come to see you!"
+
+"About the rue Norvins affair?"
+
+"Say rather about the Dépôt affair! It is there the affair became
+tragic."
+
+Monsieur Fuselier smiled:
+
+"You know then?"
+
+"That Jacques Dollon has hanged himself? Yes. That he was innocent?
+Again, yes!" confessed Fandor, smiling in his turn: "You know that at
+_La Capitale_ we get all the information going, and are the first to get
+it!"
+
+"Evidently," conceded the magistrate. "But if you know all about it, why
+put my professional discretion to the torture by asking absurd
+questions?"
+
+"Now, what the deuce are they about on Clock Quay? Don't they supervise
+the accused in their cells?"
+
+"Certainly they do! When this Dollon arrived at the Dépôt he was
+immediately conducted to Monsieur Bertillon: there he was measured and
+tested, finger marks taken, and so on."
+
+"Just so," said Fandor. "I saw Bertillon before coming on to you. He
+told me Dollon seemed crushed: he submitted to all the tests without
+making the slightest objection; but he never spoke of suicide, never
+said anything which could lead one to imagine such a fatal termination."
+
+"Well, he would not cry it aloud on the housetops!... When he left
+Monsieur Bertillon, what then?"
+
+"After!... Oh, the police took him to a cell, and left him there. At
+midnight the chief warder made his rounds and saw nothing abnormal. It
+was in the morning they found this unfortunate Dollon had hanged
+himself."
+
+"What did he hang himself with?"
+
+"With strips of his shirt twisted into a rope.... Oh, my dear fellow, I
+see what you are thinking! You fancy that there has been a want of
+common prudence--that the warders were lax--that they had let him retain
+his braces, his cravat or his shoe laces!... Well, it was not
+so--precautions were taken."
+
+"And this suicide remains incomprehensible!"
+
+"Well!... This wretched youth must have been ferociously energetic,
+because he had fastened these shirt ropes of his to the iron bars of his
+bed, and strangled himself by lying on his back. Death must have been
+long in coming to release him from his agony."
+
+"Can I not see him?" asked Fandor.
+
+"Why not photograph him?" asked the magistrate in a bantering tone.
+
+"Oh, if it were possible!..." Fandor stopped short. A youth knocked and
+entered:
+
+"A lady, who wishes to see you, monsieur."
+
+"Tell her I am too busy."
+
+"She asked me to say that it is urgent."
+
+"Ask her name."
+
+"Here is her card, monsieur."
+
+Monsieur Fuselier looked at the card: he started!
+
+"Elizabeth Dollon!... Ah ... Good Heavens, what am I to say to this poor
+girl? How am I to tell her?"
+
+Just then the door was pushed violently open, and a girl, in tears,
+rushed towards him:
+
+"Monsieur, where is my brother?"
+
+"But, mademoiselle!..."
+
+Whilst the magistrate mechanically asked his distracted visitor to sit
+down, Jérôme Fandor discreetly withdrew to the further side of the room;
+he was anxious that the magistrate should forget his presence, so that
+he might be a witness of what promised to be a most exciting interview.
+
+"Pray control yourself, mademoiselle," begged the magistrate. "Your
+brother has perhaps been arrested through a mistake...."
+
+"Oh, monsieur, I am sure of it, but it is frightful!"
+
+"Mademoiselle, the dreadful thing would be that he was guilty."
+
+"But they have not set him at liberty yet? He has not been able to clear
+himself?"
+
+"Yes, yes, mademoiselle, he has vindicated himself, I even ..." Monsieur
+Fuselier stopped short, intensely pained, not knowing how to tell
+Elizabeth Dollon the terrible news.
+
+At once she cried: "Ah, monsieur, you hesitate! You have learned
+something fresh? You are on the track of the assassins?"
+
+"It is certain ... your brother is not guilty!"
+
+The poor girl's countenance suddenly brightened. She had passed a
+horrible night after her return to Paris, and the receipt of the wire
+from Police Headquarters.
+
+"What a nightmare!" she cried. "But the telegram said he was
+injured--nothing serious, is it?... Where is he now? Can I see him?"
+
+"Mademoiselle," said the magistrate, "your brother has had a terrible
+shock!... It would be better!... I fear that!..."
+
+Suddenly Elizabeth Dollon cried:
+
+"Oh, monsieur, how you said that! How can seeing me do him harm?"
+
+As Monsieur Fuselier did not reply, she burst into tears:
+
+"You are hiding something from me! The papers said this morning that he
+also was a victim! Swear to me that he is not?"
+
+"But ..."
+
+"You _are_ hiding something from me!" The poor girl was frantic with
+terror: she wrung her hands in a state of despair: "Where is he? I must
+see him! Oh, take pity on me!"
+
+As she watched the magistrate's downcast look, his air of discomfiture,
+the horrid truth flashed on Elizabeth Dollon:
+
+"Dead!" she cried. She was shaken with sobs.
+
+"Mademoiselle!... Oh, mademoiselle!" implored the magistrate, filled
+with pity. He tried to find some words of consolation, and this
+confirmed her worst fears:
+
+"I swear to you!... It is certain your brother was not guilty!"
+
+The distracted girl was beyond listening to the magistrate's words!
+Huddled up in an arm-chair, she lay inert, collapsed. Presently she rose
+like a person moving in some mad dream, her eyes wild:
+
+"Take me to him!... I want to see him! They have killed him for me!... I
+must see him!"
+
+Such was her insistence, the violence with which she claimed the right
+to go to her brother, to kneel beside him, that Monsieur Fuselier dared
+not refuse her this consolation.
+
+"Control yourself, I beg of you! I am going to take you to him; but, for
+Heaven's sake, be reasonable! Control yourself!"
+
+With his eyes he sought for the moral support of Fandor, whose presence
+he suddenly remembered. But our journalist, taking advantage of the
+momentary confusion, had quietly slipped from the room.
+
+Evidently some unpleasant occurrence had upset the routine existence of
+the functionaries at the Dépôt. The warders were coming and going,
+talking among themselves, leaning against the doors of the numerous
+cells. The chief warder called one of his men:
+
+"There must be no more of this disorder, Nibet!"
+
+The chief warder was furious: he was about to hold forth to his
+subordinate, when an inspector approached.
+
+"What is it?" he asked.
+
+"Sergeant, it is Monsieur Jouet. He has a gentleman with him. He has a
+permit. Should I allow him to enter?"
+
+"Who? Monsieur Jouet?"
+
+"No, the gentleman accompanying him!"
+
+"Hang it all! Why, yes--if he has a permit!"
+
+The sergeant moved away shrugging his shoulders disgustedly.
+
+"Not pleased with things this morning, the chief isn't," one of the
+warders remarked.
+
+"Not likely, after last night's performance!"
+
+"It's he who will catch it hot over this business!" The warder rubbed
+his hands, laughing.
+
+Meanwhile, Fandor had appeared at the entrance of the corridor, under
+the guidance of a warder. He was thinking of the splendid copy he had
+secured: he was hoping that when Fuselier learned that a journalist had
+obtained admittance to the Dépôt, and had seen the corpse of Jacques
+Dollon in his cell, that he would not turn vicious: "But after all,"
+said he to himself, "Fuselier is not the man to give me the go-by out of
+spite."
+
+Fandor walked up and down the hall of the prison. He had informed the
+warders that he was waiting for the magistrate. "How strange life is!"
+thought he. "To think that once again I should be brought into close
+contact with Elizabeth Dollon, and that there is no likelihood of her
+recognising me--we were such children when we parted--she especially!
+Had she any recollection of the little rascal I was at the time of poor
+Madame de Langrune's assassination?" And, closing his eyes, Fandor tried
+to call to mind the features of the Jacques Dollon he used to know: it
+was useless! The body of Jacques Dollon he would be gazing at in a few
+minutes would be that of an unknown person, whose name alone awakened
+memories of bygone days....
+
+So to pass the time Fandor continued his marching up and down.
+
+Monsieur Fuselier appeared at the entrance to the Dépôt, supporting the
+unsteady steps of poor Elizabeth Dollon. Fandor quickly drew back into
+an obscure corner:
+
+"Better not attract attention to myself just at present," thought
+Fandor; "I will wait until the cell door is opened. If Fuselier does
+not wish to give me permission to remain, I can at any rate cast a rapid
+glance round that ill-omened little cell!"
+
+Fandor followed, at a distance, the wavering steps of the poor girl whom
+Monsieur Fuselier was supporting with fatherly care.
+
+When they paused before one of the cells pointed out by the head warder,
+Monsieur Fuselier turned to Elizabeth Dollon:
+
+"Do you think you are strong enough to bear this trial, mademoiselle?...
+You are determined to see your brother?"
+
+Elizabeth bent her head; the magistrate turned towards the warder:
+
+"Open," said he. As the key was turned in the lock he said: "According
+to instructions from the Head, we have placed him on his bed again....
+There is nothing to frighten you ... he seems to be asleep.... Now
+then!"
+
+But as he opened the door, stretching his arm in the direction of the
+bed where the body of Jacques Dollon should be, an oath escaped him:
+
+"Great Heavens! The dead man is gone!"
+
+In this cell with its bare walls, its sole furniture an iron bedstead
+and a stool riveted to the floor, in this little cell which the eye
+could glance round in a second, there was no vestige of a corpse:
+Jacques Dollon's body was not there!
+
+"You have mistaken the cell," said the magistrate sharply.
+
+"No, no!" cried the astounded warder.
+
+"You can see, can't you, that Jacques Dollon is not there?"
+
+"He was there a few minutes ago!"
+
+"Then they must have taken him somewhere else!"
+
+"The keys have never left me!"
+
+"Oh, come now!"
+
+"No, sir. He was there ... now he isn't there! That's all I know!...
+Hey! You down there!" yelled the warder: "Who knows what has become of
+the corpse of cell 12?... The corpse we laid out just now?"
+
+One after the other the warders came running. All confirmed what their
+chief had said: the dead body of Jacques Dollon had been left there,
+lying on the bed: not a soul had entered the cell: not a soul had
+touched the corpse!... Yet it was no longer there! Jérôme Fandor, well
+in the background, followed the scene with an ironical smile. The
+frantic warders, the growing stupefaction of Monsieur Fuselier, amused
+him prodigiously. The magistrate was trying to understand the how, why,
+and wherefore of this incredible disappearance:
+
+"As this man is not here, he cannot have been dead ... he has escaped
+... but if he wanted to escape he must have been guilty!... Oh, I cannot
+make head or tail of it!"
+
+Seizing the head warder by the shoulders, almost roughly, Monsieur
+Fuselier asked:
+
+"Look here, chief, was this man dead, or was he not?"
+
+Elizabeth Dollon was repeating:
+
+"He lives! He lives!" and laughing wildly.
+
+The warder raised his hand as though taking a solemn oath:
+
+"As to being dead, he was dead right enough!... The doctor will tell you
+so, too: also my colleague, Favril, who helped me to lay out the body on
+the bed."
+
+"But how can a dead body get away from here? If he _was_ dead, he could
+not have escaped!" said the magistrate.
+
+"It is witchcraft!" declared the warder, with a shrug.
+
+Fuselier flew into a rage:
+
+"Had you not better confess that you and your colleagues did not keep
+proper watch and ward!... The investigation will show on whose shoulders
+the responsibility rests."
+
+"But, sakes alive, monsieur!" expostulated the warder: "There aren't
+only two of us who have seen him dead!... There are all the hospital
+attendants of the Dépôt as well!... There is the doctor, and there are
+my colleagues to be counted in: the truth is, monsieur, some fifty
+persons have seen him dead!"
+
+"So you say!" cried the impatient magistrate: "I am going to inform the
+Public Prosecutor of what has happened, and at once!"
+
+As he was hurrying away, he spied Jérôme Fandor, who had not missed a
+single detail of the scene.
+
+"You again!" exclaimed the irate magistrate: "How did you get in here?"
+
+"By permit," replied our journalist.
+
+"Well, you have learned what there is to know, haven't you? Be off,
+then! You are one too many here!... Frankly, there is no need for you to
+augment the scandal!... Will you, therefore, be kind enough to take
+yourself off?" And Fuselier, almost beside himself with rage, raced off
+to the Public Prosecutor's office.
+
+After the magistrate's furious attack, Fandor could not possibly linger
+in the corridors of the Dépôt. The warders, too, were pressing their
+attentions on him and on Elizabeth Dollon:
+
+"This way, monsieur!... Madame, this way!... Ah, it's a wretched
+business!... Here, this way! This way!... Be off, as fast as you can!"
+
+Presently Fandor was descending the grand staircase of the Palais,
+steadying the uncertain steps of poor Elizabeth Dollon.
+
+"I implore you to help me!" she cried: "Help me: help us! My brother is
+guiltless--I could swear to that!... He must--must be found!... This
+hideous nightmare must end!"
+
+"Mademoiselle, I ask nothing better, only ... where to find him?"
+
+"Ah, I have no idea, none!... I implore you, you who must know
+influential people in high places, do not leave any stone unturned, do
+all that is humanly possible to save him--to save us!"
+
+Intensely moved by the poor girl's anguish of mind, Fandor could not
+trust himself to speak. He bent his head in the affirmative merely.
+Hailing a cab, he put her into it, gave the address to the driver, and
+as he was closing the door Elizabeth cried:
+
+"Do all that is humanly possible--do everything in the world!"
+
+"I swear to you I will get at the truth," was Fandor's parting promise.
+The cab had disappeared, but our journalist stood motionless, absorbed
+in his reflections. At last, uttering his thoughts aloud, he said:
+
+"If the Baroness de Vibray has written that she has killed herself, then
+she has killed herself, and Dollon is innocent. It's true the letter may
+be fictitious ... therefore we must put it aside--we have no guarantee
+as to its genuineness.... Here is the problem: Jacques Dollon is dead,
+and yet has left the Dépôt! Yes, but how?"
+
+Jérôme Fandor went off in the direction of the offices of _La Capitale_
+so absorbed in thought that he jostled the passers-by, without noticing
+the angry glances bestowed on him:
+
+"Jacques Dollon, dead, has left the Dépôt!" He repeated this improbable
+statement, so absurd, of necessity incorrect; repeated it to the point
+of satiety:
+
+"Jacques Dollon is dead, and he has got away from the Dépôt!"
+
+Then, in an illuminating flash, he perceived the solution of this
+apparently insoluble problem:
+
+"A mystery such as this is incomprehensible, inexplicable, impossible,
+except in connection with one man! There is only one individual in the
+world capable of making a dead man seem to be alive after his death--and
+this individual is--Fantômas!"
+
+To formulate this conclusion was to give himself a thrilling shock....
+Since the disappearance of Juve, he had never had occasion to suspect
+the presence, the intervention of Fantômas in connection with any of
+the crimes he had investigated as reporter and student of human nature.
+
+Fantômas! The sound of that name evoked the worst horrors! Fantômas!
+This bandit, this criminal who has not shrunk from any cruelty, any
+horror--Fantômas is crime personified!
+
+Fantômas! He sticks at nothing!
+
+Pronouncing these syllables of evil omen, Fandor lived over again all
+the extraordinary, improbable, impossible things that had really
+happened, and had put him on the watch for this terrifying assassin.
+
+Fantômas!
+
+It was certain that to whatever degree he had participated in the
+assassination of the Baroness de Vibray, one must not be astonished at
+anything; neither at anything inconceivable, nor at any mysterious
+details connected with the murder.
+
+Fantômas!
+
+He was the daring criminal--daring beyond all bounds of credibility. And
+whatever might be the dexterity, the ingenuity, the ability, the
+devotion of those who were pursuing him, such were his tricks, such his
+craft and cunning, such the fertility of his invention, so well
+conceived his devices, so great his audacity, that there were grounds
+for fearing he would never be brought to justice, and punished for his
+abominable crimes!
+
+Fantômas!
+
+Ah, if life ever brought Jérôme Fandor and this bandit face to face,
+there would ensue a struggle of every hour, day, and moment--a struggle
+of the most terrible nature, a struggle in which man was pitted against
+man, a struggle without pity, without mercy--a fight to the death!
+Fantômas would assuredly defend himself with all the immense elusive
+powers at his command: Jérôme Fandor would pursue him with heart and
+soul, with his very life itself! It was not only to satisfy his sense of
+duty at the promptings of honour that the journalist would take action:
+he would have as guide for his acts, and to animate his will, the
+passion of hate, and the hope of avenging his friend Juve, fallen a
+victim to the mysterious blows of Fantômas.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In his article for _La Capitale_ Fandor did not directly mention the
+possible participation of Fantômas in the crime of the rue Norvins. When
+it was finished he returned to his modest little flat on the fifth floor
+in the rue Bergere. He was about to enter the vestibule, when he noticed
+a piece of paper, which must have been slipped under his door. He
+stooped and picked up an envelope:
+
+"Why, it is a letter--and there is no name and no stamp on it!"
+
+Entering his study, he seated himself at his table and prepared to begin
+work. Then he bethought him of the letter, which he had carelessly
+thrown on the mantelpiece. He tore it open, and drew out a sheet of
+letter paper.
+
+"Whatever is this?" he cried. His astonishment was natural enough, for
+the message was oddly put together. To prevent his handwriting being
+recognised, Fandor's correspondent had cut letters out of a newspaper,
+and had stuck them together in the desired order. The two or three lines
+of printed matter were as follows:
+
+     "Jérôme Fandor, pay attention, great attention! The affair on which
+     you are concentrating all your powers is worthy of all possible
+     interest, but may have terribly dangerous consequences."
+
+Of course there was no signature.
+
+Evidently the warning referred to the Dollon case.
+
+"Why," exclaimed Fandor, "this is simply an invitation not to busy
+myself hunting for the guilty persons!... Who has sent this invitation
+and warning? Surely the sender is the assassin, to whose interest it is
+that the inquiry into the rue Norvins murder should be dropped!... It
+must be Jacques Dollon!... But how could Dollon know my address? How
+could he have found time between his flight from the Dépôt and the
+present minute, to put this message of printed letters together, and
+take it to the rue Bergere?... And that at the risk of encountering
+someone who could recognise him, and might have him arrested afresh? Had
+he accomplices?"
+
+Fandor was puzzled, agitated:
+
+"But I am mad!... mad! It cannot be Dollon!... Dollon is dead--dead as a
+door nail--dead beyond dispute, because fifty men have seen him dead;
+dead, because the Dépôt doctors have certified his death!"
+
+Daylight was fading; evening was coming on; Fandor was still turning the
+whole affair over in his mind. Every now and again he murmured:
+
+"Fantômas! Fantômas has to do with this extraordinary, this mysterious
+affair! Fantômas is in it!... Fantômas!"
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+A SURPRISING ITINERARY
+
+
+Jérôme Fandor had passed a bad night!
+
+Visions of horror had continually arisen in his troubled mind. Between
+nightmare after nightmare he had heard all the horrors of the night
+sound out in the darkness and the glimmering dawn. Then he had fallen
+into a heavy sleep, which had left him on awaking broken with fatigue.
+He had given himself a cold douche, and this had calmed his nerves; then
+he had dressed quickly. When eight o'clock struck he was at his
+writing-table, thinking things over:
+
+"It's no laughing matter. I thought at first that the Dollon affair was
+quite ordinary; but I am mistaken. The warning I received last night
+leaves me no doubts on that head. Since the guilty person thinks it
+necessary to ask me to keep quiet, it is evident he fears my
+intervention; if he is afraid of that it is because it must be hurtful
+to him; if disastrous to him, a criminal, it is evident that it must be
+useful to honest folk. My duty, then, is to go straight ahead at all
+costs...."
+
+There was another motive besides this of duty which incited him to
+follow more closely the vicissitudes of the rue Norvins drama, a motive
+still indefinite, vague, but nevertheless terribly strong....
+
+Jérôme Fandor had sworn to Elizabeth Dollon that he would get at the
+truth.
+
+He recalled the girl's entreaty, her emotion; and when he closed his
+eyes, now and again, he seemed to see before him the tall, graceful,
+fair and fascinating sister of the vanished artist.... All Fandor would
+admit to himself was a chivalrous feeling towards her--Elizabeth Dollon
+was worth putting himself out for--that was all!
+
+Our journalist spent the entire morning seated at his writing-table, his
+head between his hands, smoking cigarette after cigarette, arranging his
+plans for investigating the Dollon case:
+
+"What I have to find out is how the dead man left the Dépôt. It is the
+first discovery to be made, the first impossibility to be
+explained--yes, and how am I to set about it?"
+
+Suddenly Fandor jumped up, marched rapidly up and down his room,
+whistled a few bars of a popular melody, and in his exuberant gaiety
+attempted an operatic air in a voice deplorably out of tune.
+
+"There are eighty chances out of a hundred that I shall not succeed,"
+cried he; "but that still leaves me twenty chances of arriving at a
+satisfactory result--let us make the attempt!"
+
+As Fandor was hurrying off, he called to the portress in passing:
+
+"Madame Oudry, I don't know whether I shall be back this evening or no.
+Perhaps I may have to leave Paris for awhile, so would you be kind
+enough to pay particular attention to any letters that may come for
+me--be very particular about them, please!"
+
+Fandor went off. A thought struck him. He turned back. He had something
+more to say to the good woman:
+
+"I forgot to ask you whether anyone called to see me yesterday
+afternoon!"
+
+"No, Monsieur Fandor, no one!"
+
+"Good! If by any chance a messenger should bring a letter for me, look
+very carefully at him, Madame Oudry. I have a colleague or two who are
+playing a joke on me, and I should not be sorry to get even with them!"
+
+This time Fandor really went off, having set his portress on the alert.
+In the rue Montmartre he hailed a cab:
+
+"To the National Library! And as quick as you can!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"By Jove! It's three o'clock! I've not a minute to lose!" cried Fandor
+as he got back his stick from the cloak-room of the National Library: he
+had handed it in there some hours ago. He entered the rue Richelieu. Now
+for an ironmonger's shop! He caught sight of one and went in:
+
+"I should like fifty yards of fine cord, please; very strong and very
+pliable," said Fandor.
+
+The shopkeeper stared at the smart young man:
+
+"What do you want it for, sir?... I have various qualities."
+
+Without the trace of a smile, and as if it were the most natural thing
+in the world, he replied:
+
+"It is for one of my friends: he wants to hang himself!"
+
+A shout of laughter was the response to this witticism, and the amused
+shopkeeper forthwith displayed various samples of cords. Fandor promptly
+made his choice and left the shop.
+
+"Now for a watchmaker's!" said our journalist. He entered a jeweller's
+close by:
+
+"I want an alarum clock--a small one--the cheapest you have!"
+
+Provided with his alarum, Fandor looked at his watch again:
+
+"Confound it all! It's half-past three!" he cried. He signalled to a
+closed cab:
+
+"To the Palais de Justice! As hard as you can lick!"
+
+Directly Fandor was well inside the vehicle, he drew down the blinds;
+took off his coat; unbuttoned his waistcoat!...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The great clock of the Palais de Justice had just struck four, and its
+silvery tones were echoing harmoniously along the corridors when Jérôme
+Fandor entered the tradesman's gallery. He turned to the right, and
+gained the little lobby in which the cloak-room is. He quietly entered
+it. Barristers were coming and going, full of business, throwing off
+their gowns, inspecting the letters put aside during the sittings of the
+Courts. Fandor made his way among the groups with the ease of custom. He
+seemed to be looking for someone, and finished by questioning one of the
+women employed in the cloak-room:
+
+"Is Madame Marguerite not here?"
+
+"Oh, yes, monsieur, she is down below."
+
+Madame Marguerite was an old friend of Fandor's. She was head of the
+cloak-room staff, and by her kind offices she had often obtained an
+interview for our journalist with one or other of the big-wigs of the
+bar, who generally object strongly to being questioned by journalists.
+When she appeared, Fandor told her he only wanted a little bit of
+information from her.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know all about that! There is someone you wish to see, and
+you want me to manage it for you!"
+
+"No! Not a bit of it! What I want to know is, where these gentlemen of
+the Court of Justice robe and unrobe? I mean the Justices of the Assize
+Courts!"
+
+This seemed to astonish Madame Marguerite considerably:
+
+"But, Monsieur Fandor, if you wish to interview one of the puisne
+judges, it would be ten times quicker for you to go and see him at his
+own home: here, at the Palais, it's almost certain he will refuse to
+answer you...."
+
+"Don't bother about that, Madame Marguerite! Just tell me where these
+worthy guardians of order, defenders of right and justice, divest
+themselves of their red robes?"
+
+Madame Marguerite was too much accustomed to our young journalist's
+ridiculous questions and absurd requests and remarks to argue with him
+any longer.
+
+"The robing-room of these gentlemen," said she, "is in one of the outer
+offices of the court, near the Council Chamber."
+
+"There is an assistant in that room, isn't there?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur Fandor."
+
+"Ah! That is just what I wanted to know! Many thanks, madame," and
+Fandor, grinning with satisfaction, made off in the direction of the
+Court of Assizes. He ran up the steps leading to the Council Chamber,
+and spying the messenger asked:
+
+"Can President Guéchand see me, do you think?"
+
+"Monsieur le President has gone."
+
+Fandor seemed to be reflecting. He gazed searchingly round the room. As
+a matter of fact, he was verifying the correctness of Madame
+Marguerite's information. All round the room Fandor saw the little
+presses where the men of law kept their red robes. Yes, it was the
+robing and unrobing room of the puisne judges, the magistrates, right
+enough!
+
+"So the President has gone? Ah, well ..." Fandor hesitated: he must
+think of some other name. He noticed the visiting cards nailed to each
+press, indicating the owner. He read one of the names and repeated it:
+
+"Well, then, could Justice Hubert see me--could he possibly? Will you
+ask him to let me see him for five minutes?"
+
+"What name shall I say?"
+
+"My name will not tell him anything. Please say it is with reference to
+the--er--Peyru case--and I come from Maître Tissot."
+
+"I will go and see," said the messenger, moving off.
+
+Whilst he was in sight Fandor walked up and down in the regulation way,
+murmuring:
+
+"Maître Tissot!... The Peyru case!... Go ahead, my good fellow! You will
+have a nice kind of reception down below there--with those made-up
+names."
+
+Some minutes later, the messenger returned to his post, prepared to
+inform the importunate young man that he could not possibly be received
+by Justice Hubert. He stopped short on the threshold: not a soul was to
+be seen!
+
+"Wherever has that young man got to? Taken himself off, most likely!...
+I expect he was one of those lawyer's clerks--confound them! A nice fool
+I should have looked if his Honour, Justice Hubert, had said he would
+receive him!"
+
+With this reflection the messenger went back to his newspaper, not
+without having ascertained that it was four o'clock, and therefore he
+had still an hour to wait before he could have his coffee and cigar at
+the "Men of the Robe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Through the great windows of the Court of Assizes, carefully closed as
+they were, not a ray of moonlight filtered into the court room. And this
+obscurity lent an added terror to a silence as profound as the grave, a
+silence which, with the falling shades of night, assumed possession of
+the vast hall, where so many criminals had listened to the fatal
+sentence--the sentence of death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the Court had risen, the assistants had, as usual, proceeded to put
+the place in order; then the police sergeant had made his rounds, and
+had gone away, double locking the doors behind him. After this the
+chamber had gradually sunk into complete repose: a repose which would be
+broken the following morning when the bustling routine of the legal day
+commenced once more.
+
+Little by little, too, the many and varied noises, which had echoed and
+re-echoed the whole day through in the galleries of the Palais de
+Justice, had died down, and sunk into silence.
+
+The custodians had made their last round; the barristers had quitted the
+robing-room; the poor wretches who had slunk in to warm themselves at
+the heating apparatus in the halls had shuffled back to the cold
+street, and the whistling blasts of the north wind. The immense pile was
+entirely deserted.
+
+A clock began to strike.
+
+Then, hardly had the last stroke of eleven sounded, awakening the echoes
+of the empty galleries, than in the Court of Assizes itself, under the
+monumental desk, before which the justices sat in state by day, a noise
+made itself heard, long, strident, nerve-racking--the noise of an alarum
+clock!
+
+Just as the alarum ceased its raucous call, a loud yawn resounded
+through the empty spaces of the chamber. The sleeper, who had selected
+this spot that he might indulge, all undisturbed, in a revivifying
+sleep, evidently took no pains to smother the sound of his voice, for,
+after yawning enough to dislocate his jaws, he uttered a loud: "Ah!" He
+accompanied his yawns with exclamations:
+
+"It's a fact, the Republic doesn't do things up to the scratch! The rugs
+here are of poor quality!... I'm aching all over!... The floor is strewn
+with peach kernels--surely?... At any rate, it's a quiet hotel, and one
+is not disturbed--a truly delectable refuge to have a jolly good snore
+in!"
+
+The sleeper sat up:
+
+"What's the time exactly? Let us have a light on it!" A match was
+struck, and a tiny flare of light shone from under the desk of the
+presiding judge:
+
+"Ten past eleven! I've still five minutes to be lazy in--and I shall
+need all of it, for I've a rough night before me! I can rest awhile, and
+think things over!"
+
+The speaker calmly lay down again, trying to find a comfortable position
+on what he christened mentally: "The administrative peach kernels":
+
+"Let me see, now!" he went on aloud. "At five in the afternoon it was
+known that Jacques Dollon had committed suicide; was probably innocent,
+and that his corpse had disappeared. Yesterday, at half-past five, _La
+Capitale_ announced that he had a very pretty sister.... To-night at
+ten past eleven behold me, shut up quite alone in the Palais de Justice,
+free to proceed to the little investigation I think of making.... Jérôme
+Fandor, my dear friend, I congratulate you! You have not managed
+badly!...
+
+"Yes," went on our journalist, "what a joke it is! Here have I got
+myself shut up in the Palais without the slightest difficulty! It is
+true, that if the assistant had been obliged to open, and verify, the
+contents of all the robing-rooms of all the judges, he would never have
+finished. As for me, in my cupboard, I followed all the good fellow's
+movements, and he never suspected my presence. If I am to be
+congratulated, he cannot be blamed for it! There I was, there I
+remained, and now I must be off!"
+
+Fandor drew a small wax taper from his pocket and lighted it with a
+match.
+
+"What's to be done with the alarum?" he went on. "To leave it will be to
+betray my having passed this way--what of it?... In any case, even if
+this reporting job fails, I shall make a story out of it ... and how can
+they accuse me of stealing if I leave my cloak as a gift for his
+judgeship!"
+
+Laughing, Fandor piled up the law books lying on the desk, and placed
+the alarum on the top; that done, he went to the principal entrance, the
+only one with double doors. He seized the heavy iron bar placed across
+the door and worked it loose. He drew the two leaves of the door towards
+him; and, although it had been locked as usual, he effected his escape,
+after a considerable trial of strength.
+
+Out on the stairs, lighted taper in hand, the laughing Fandor closed the
+two leaves of the door with the utmost care, and went forward whistling
+a marching tune. His objective was a certain little staircase leading to
+the top story of the Palais, and this he mounted with vigorous
+determination. There was no likelihood of chance encounters, for there
+was not a soul in the vast building: the police were making their rounds
+outside it. Our adventurous journalist did not make his way upwards with
+stealthy tread--there was no need for that. Having gained the top floor,
+he went straight to a corner where an ebony ladder was ensconced, a
+ladder which had long been the joy and pride of the grand master of this
+part of the Palais, the amiable Monsieur Peter.
+
+"Pretty heavy!" grumbled Fandor, as he carried it upwards. Under the
+roof he caught sight of a skylight, rested his ebony ladder against it,
+and climbed briskly on to the roof.
+
+From thence Fandor had a view that was fairy-like. Spread out in the
+distance were the sparkling lights of Paris. He was divided from them by
+the vast mass of roofs about him, by a gulf of empty space, and beyond,
+by a dark blur--the two arms of the Seine flowing on either side of the
+Palais de Justice.... The mysterious darkness! The fascination of the
+sparkling points of light!... Fandor gave himself a mental shake....
+This was no moment for dreaming under the stars!
+
+From his pocket he took a tiny, folding dark lantern; from his
+pocket-book he drew a paper, which he spread out and proceeded to study.
+As he bent over it, he murmured:
+
+"A bit of good luck that I was able to get hold of a complete and
+detailed plan of the Palais de Justice! Without it I never could have
+found my way among these roofs!"
+
+He examined the plan for some minutes; made a note of various landmarks;
+then refolding it, he gained one of the sloping roofs facing the quay of
+the Leather Dressers:
+
+"Now," thought Fandor, "I must be just above the Dépôt! And now to find
+out how Jacques Dollon, dead or living, has got out of the Dépôt! No use
+thinking of a window, for the cell has not got one! Fuselier has reason
+on his side when he declares that you do not get out of the cells of the
+Dépôt, nor out of the Palais!... Well, now--to carry off Dollon, dead
+or living, by way of the Palais Square, or by the boulevard, is out of
+the question: there are too many people about!... To carry him off by
+one of the exits, on to either of the quays, is equally out of the
+question: there are the sentries, in the first place, and then comes the
+Seine--then Jacques Dollon has left the Dépôt, or he has not, or, at any
+rate, he is still somewhere in the Palais--unless ..."
+
+Fandor interrupted his cogitations to light a cigarette: smoking helped
+him to think things out:
+
+"It is equally certain that if Dollon is still in the Palais, he cannot
+be in the Dépôt, for the Dépôt has been rigorously searched since his
+disappearance, and he would most certainly have been found, had he been
+anywhere about the Dépôt. It is also certain that he is not inside the
+Palais, because the only means of communication between the Dépôt and
+the Palais is a single staircase, and it is certain that a corpse could
+not have been taken that way unperceived.... Then it follows that
+Jacques Dollon must have got out by the only ways which are in
+communication with the Dépôt: that is to say, the drains and the
+chimneys!"
+
+"How could he have got out, or been got out by the drains? As far as I
+know, there is no system of pipes large enough to allow of the passage
+of a man through the pipes which join the main sewers; but, as a set-off
+to that, there is a chimney--the ancient chimney of Marie
+Antoinette--which communicates with the Dépôt, and the roof I am now on:
+it must have been by this chimney that the escape was made! Let us see
+whether this is so or not!"
+
+By the light of his tiny dark lantern Fandor studied afresh the plan of
+the Palais, and tried to identify the various chimneys about him. He
+soon picked out the orifice of Marie Antoinette's chimney. After a
+considering glance at it, he remarked:
+
+"That's odd! Here is the only chimney whose opening is below the ledge
+of the roofs! It is certain that unless one had been warned, and had
+examined this roof from some neighbouring building, the orifice of this
+chimney would not be noticed. If Jacques Dollon passed out by it, no one
+would notice his exit!"
+
+Our journalist continued his examination, full of excitement. Surely he
+was on the right track!
+
+"Ah! Ah! Here are stones freshly scraped and scratched!" he cried
+delightedly. "And this white mark is just the kind of mark which would
+be made by a cord scraping against the wall! And look what a size this
+chimney is! It's not only one Jacques Dollon who could pass out by it,
+but two! But three! A whole army! Ah, ha, I believe I am on the right
+track! Now for it!"
+
+Fandor bent over and looked down the interior of the chimney; and, at
+the risk of toppling over, he managed to reach something he saw shining
+in the darkness of the opening; he drew himself up, radiant:
+
+"By Jove! There are irons fixed in the walls of the chimney to climb up
+and down by; and, what is more, they bear traces of a recent
+passage--the rust has been rubbed off here and there!... Yes, it is by
+this way Dollon has come out!... To whom else could it be an advantage
+to use this as an exit from the interior of the Palais, on to the
+roofs?"
+
+Fandor was keen on the scent! Here, indeed, was matter for an article
+which would bring him into notice--good business for a journalist!
+
+"If Dollon had been alive," reflected Fandor, "it is evident that, once
+on the roofs, he had a choice of three ways to escape: he could do what
+I have just done, but the other way about; he could break a skylight,
+jump into a garret, and lie hidden under the tiles, awaiting the
+propitious moment when he could gain the corridors below and, mingling
+with the crowd, slip unobserved into the street; or, he could hide among
+the roofs, and stay there; or, he could search for an opening--one of
+those air holes which put the cellars and drains in communication with
+the exterior.... But I have come to the conclusion that Dollon is dead!
+Then his corpse could only remain up here; or, it has been put down into
+some place where nobody goes. The garrets of the Palais are so
+incessantly visited by the clerks and registrars that no corpse could
+remain undiscovered in any of them. Therefore, either Jacques Dollon's
+corpse is somewhere on the roofs of the Palais, or there is some sort of
+communication between the roofs and the drains--it is obvious!"
+
+Evidently the next step was to search every hole and corner of these
+same roofs. Armed with revolver and lantern, Fandor started on his tour
+of investigation; but prudently, for he was now almost certain that
+there were a number of accomplices involved in this Dollon affair.
+
+To go carefully over the enormous roof of the Palais de Justice was no
+light task! One has only to consider the immensity of this monumental
+pile, its complicated architecture, the numberless little courts
+enclosed within its vast confines, to understand the difficulties with
+which our intrepid journalist had to contend. But Jérôme Fandor was not
+the man to be discouraged in the face of difficulties: he was determined
+to brave them--conquer them! He examined, minutely, the entire roofing
+of the Palais; he did not leave a corner or a morsel of shadow
+unexplored; there was not a gutter which he had not searched from end to
+end. When, after two hours of strenuous exertion, he returned to his
+starting-point, the chimney of Marie Antoinette, he was fain to confess
+that if Jacques Dollon had mounted to the roof of the Palais de Justice
+he certainly had not remained there.
+
+Fandor unfolded his plan once more. It fluttered in the night breeze, as
+he carefully numbered all the chimneys opening on to this roof; then,
+one by one, he identified them with the real chimneys before his eyes.
+He exclaimed joyfully:
+
+"There, now! It's just what I suspected!"
+
+He had discovered there was one chimney not down on the plan: "Whither
+did it lead?" At all costs he must find out--make sure. He hastened to
+this extra chimney. Its orifice was large enough to allow of the passage
+of a man; also, here again, stones had been recently loosened, and a
+rope had rubbed against them:
+
+"What the deuce is this chimney?" thought Fandor. "Another mystery! This
+chimney is not a chimney; there is not a trace of soot on it, even old
+soot!"
+
+After a moment's reflection, he added:
+
+"Can it be for ventilation only? But a ventilation hole could only
+communicate with one of the apartments in the Palais itself, and how the
+deuce could they drop a corpse down there? It would have been in the
+highest degree imprudent to attempt it! No, it is not by that road they
+have carried off Dollon's body! But then by what way?"
+
+He glued his ear to the chimney. After a while, Fandor could make out a
+vague, intermittent sound--could catch a little, far-away, plashing
+sound.
+
+"Can the chimney communicate with the Seine?" he asked himself. "No, we
+are too far off it. Why this opening, then?... Ah, I have it! It is a
+drain, a sewer, it communicates with!"
+
+To verify that, there was nothing for it but to descend this chimney,
+which was no chimney! So be it!... Fandor took off his coat, and
+uncovered the long, fine cord, rolled round and round his middle.
+Weighting the cord with a flint, he let it slide down the chimney,
+testing the straightness of the descent by the balanced oscillations of
+the stone, and so ascertaining the even size of the opening, as far as
+the line would go. This was the work of a few minutes.
+
+Fandor did not hesitate: he was eager to embark on the descent.
+
+"After all," he murmured, "though I may find myself face to face with a
+band of assassins--what of it? It is all in the night's risks!"
+
+He fastened the end of the cord to one of the neighbouring
+chimneys--fastened it firmly; then, his revolver handily stuck in his
+belt, Fandor seized the cord, twisted it round his legs, and let himself
+slowly down through the narrow opening.
+
+It was a perilous descent! Fandor did not know whether his cord was long
+enough, and, lost in the darkness, with only the gleam of light from his
+lantern to guide him, he was naturally afraid of reaching the end of his
+rope unawares, and of falling into the black void beneath. But what he
+observed in the course of his descent excited him so much that he almost
+forgot the danger he was running. To those at all practised in police
+detective work, it was clear as daylight that men had passed this way,
+and recently.
+
+"Here is a dislodged stone," muttered Fandor. "And here are scrapes and
+scratches--fresh ... and ... that mark looks like blood!"
+
+Pushing his knees and his shoulders against the wall to support himself
+and stay his movements, he examined the mark. There was no doubt
+possible: Fandor's sharp eyes and the lantern's light had picked out a
+little red patch, which sullied one of the projecting stones in the
+chimney walls:
+
+"This," reflected our amateur detective, "only confirms Dollon's death:
+if the wound which caused this mark had been made by a living body, the
+mark would have been larger, and there would have been others, for it
+must come from an abrasion of the skin made during the descent. But this
+blood mark has resulted from a dead body knocking against the stones of
+the wall: it is not a mark make by flowing blood, but by blood crushed
+out."
+
+He descended a few yards further:
+
+"Here's a find!" he cried. He had just perceived some hairs sticking to
+the rough surface of the stones. Again, with arched shoulders and bent
+knees, he supported himself against the wall, examined his discovery,
+left half the hairs where they were, took the rest, and carefully placed
+them in his pocket-book:
+
+"The police must not be able to say that I have arranged this for their
+benefit," Fandor remarked. "Cost what it may, if I do not come across
+Dollon's corpse below, I must find out to-morrow whether these hairs
+resemble his."
+
+Fandor went on descending, and first in one place, then in another, he
+saw on the walls of this chimney whitish patches such as might have been
+caused by the passage of a heavy mass or body, hanging at the end of a
+rope, and striking against the walls on its way down. Whilst he still
+believed himself to be some distance off the end of his downward
+journey, he felt a point of resistance beneath his feet. At first he
+mistook it for firm ground, much to his surprise. He was about to leave
+go of his cord when a remnant of prudence restrained him:
+
+"How do I know there is not an abyss depths upon depths below me--down
+into the very bowels of the earth! I had better take care!"
+
+What Fandor had taken for firm ground was nothing but an iron staple
+projecting from the wall. Fandor seized it, stopped for a minute or
+two's breathing space, ascertained, by drawing it up, that of his cord
+there were only a few yards remaining; but he also perceived, and with
+what relief, that from where he was resting, downwards the chimney was,
+as far as he could see by his lantern's light, marked off into regular
+spaces by these iron staples which are sometimes placed there for the
+use of chimney cleaners and masons. Fandor found them a most convenient
+kind of ladder. The descent now became easy, and in a short time our
+adventurous journalist reached the bottom of the chimney. At first he
+could not understand where he had got to. In the thick gloom around him
+his lantern's gleam of light showed him a kind of vaulted wall of
+massive masonry. He advanced a step or two with noiseless tread,
+listening, on the alert. Not a sound could he hear: he decided to expose
+the full light of his lantern.
+
+The brighter light showed him that the chimney from which he was now
+standing some yards away ended in a kind of sewer, evidently no longer
+in use; and the plashing sound he had heard on the far up heights of the
+Palais roofs proceeded from a thin and muddy stream of water flowing in
+the middle of the sewer channel in the direction of the Seine. Kneeling
+at the foot of the chimney Fandor could distinguish marks of steps made
+by human feet; much deeper and very different indentations were visible
+also:
+
+"Not only have men passed this way but a short while ago," he murmured,
+"but they were carrying a heavy burden: there are two kinds of
+footmarks, made by two kinds of shoes, and the heels have made much
+deeper marks in the soil than have the tips--yes, these men bore a heavy
+burden!"
+
+Fandor was so pleased that he mentally rubbed his hands over this
+discovery. His quest was a success so far: he was on the track of
+Dollon's body! And what copy for _La Capitale_! Then a sad thought came
+to dim his delight:
+
+"Poor, poor Elizabeth Dollon! I swore to her I would get at the
+truth--and a lamentable truth it is! Her brother is dead: he died in the
+Dépôt: he was done to death--it was no suicide!"
+
+Whilst talking to himself Fandor was scrutinising every inch of the
+ground as he moved forward: there might be fresh clues:
+
+"It's a queer kind of sewer," he went on. "This streamlet is as much mud
+as water, is almost stagnant. Evidently this underground sewer way is no
+longer used--has been abandoned!"
+
+A horrid spectacle struck him motionless. His lantern made visible a
+struggling, heaving mass of rats, fighting tooth and claw, enormous rats
+devouring some hidden thing!
+
+Fandor's stomach rose at the sight.
+
+Oh, horror! Could it be Jacques Dollon's body?
+
+Fandor snatched up a stone and flung it furiously among the unclean
+beasts. They fled. On the ground he could distinguish a mass, a red,
+formless mass, saturated with congealed blood:
+
+"Assuredly, if the corpse has disappeared, it is there the assassins
+must have cut it in pieces, that they might carry it more easily, and
+those vile creatures are in the thick of feasting on the poor victim's
+remains!... Pouah!"
+
+Fandor moved on, only to discover another pool of blood almost as large,
+also besieged by rats:
+
+"Evidently I shall find nothing else," thought Fandor: "the corpse no
+longer exists!"
+
+He continued his advance, determined to find out what this underground
+way ended in. His lantern was flickering to a finish when he arrived at
+the end of the sewer and found, as he had foreseen, that its opening had
+been cut in the steep bank of the Seine:
+
+"That's a bit of luck! I can get out this way instead of having to climb
+back the way I came, up to the Palais roof and down again!"
+
+It was still night; darkness reigned save on the far horizon, where a
+faint, whitish line indicated the early dawn of an April day.
+
+Fandor was just asking himself by what gymnastic feat he could regain
+the quay, and he was leaning over the opening of the sewer, his body
+bending far forward over the inky waters of the Seine. Before he had
+time to turn, before he could regain his balance, a brutal blow from
+behind half stunned him, and a vigorous thrust precipitated his body
+into the Seine.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+MOTHER TOULOUCHE AND CRANAJOUR
+
+
+"Come along, Cranajour! Let's have a sight of what they've given you for
+the frock coat and the whole outfit!"
+
+The person thus challenged rummaged in the pockets of his old,
+much-patched and filthy garments, and after interminable fumblings and
+huntings, finished by extracting a certain number of silver pieces,
+which he counted over with the greatest care, finally he replied:
+
+"Seventeen francs, Mother Toulouche."
+
+Mother Toulouche showed her impatience:
+
+"It's details I want! How much for the coat? How much for the whole
+suit? I've got to know, I tell you! I've got to write it all down, and
+I've got to see how much I've to hand over to each of the owners of the
+duds!... Try to remember, Cranajour!"
+
+The individual who answered to this odd appellation reflected. After a
+silence, shrugging his shoulders, he replied:
+
+"I don't know. I can't make myself remember--not anyhow!... And it's a
+long time since I sold the goods!"
+
+Mother Toulouche shrugged in turn:
+
+"A long time!" she grumbled. "What a wretched job! Why, it's only two
+hours since--barely that!... It's true," she went on, with a pitying
+look at the shabby, down-at-heel fellow, who had spread out his
+seventeen francs on the table, "it's true that you're known not to have
+two ha'p'orths of memory, and that at the end of an hour you have
+forgotten what you've done!"
+
+"That's right enough," answered Cranajour.
+
+"Let's have done with it, then," cried Mother Toulouche.
+
+She held out a repulsive-looking specimen of old clothes:
+
+"Be off with you! Go and pawn this academician's cast-off! When the
+comrades catch a sight of this bit of stuff to the fore, they'll
+understand they can come without danger!... No cops about the store on
+the lookout, are there?"
+
+Mother Toulouche took the precaution to advance to the threshold of her
+store, cast a rapid glance around--not a suspicious person, nor a sign
+of one to be seen:
+
+"A good thing," muttered she, "but I was sure of it! Those police spies
+are going to give us some peace for a bit!... Likely the whole lot of
+them are on this Dollon business! Isn't it so, Cranajour?"
+
+As she retreated into her store again Mother Toulouche knocked against
+that individual, who had not budged: he had hung over his arm
+respectfully the miserable bit of stuff that had been styled an
+academician's robe:
+
+"Well, what are you waiting for?" asked she sharply.
+
+"Nothing...."
+
+"What are you going to do with that?"
+
+Cranajour seemed to reflect:
+
+"Haven't I told you," grumbled Mother Toulouche, "to go and stick it up
+outside?... Don't say you've gone and forgotten already!"
+
+"No, no!" protested Cranajour, hastening to obey orders.
+
+"What a specimen!" thought Mother Toulouche, whilst counting over the
+seventeen francs.
+
+Cranajour was a remarkably queer fish, beyond question. How had he got
+into connection with Mother Toulouche and her intimates? That remained a
+mystery. One fine day this seedy specimen of humanity was found among
+the "comrades" exchanging vague remarks with one and another. He stuck
+to them in all their shifting from this place to that: no one had been
+able to get out of him what his name was, nor where he came from, for he
+was afflicted with a memory like a sieve--he could not remember things
+for two hours together. A feeble-minded, poor sort of fellow, with not a
+halfpenny's worth of wickedness in him, always ready to do a hand's turn
+for anyone: to judge by his looks he might have been any age between
+forty and seventy, for there is nothing like privations and misery to
+alter the looks of a man! Faced by this queer fish, with a brain like a
+sieve, they had christened him "Crâne à jour"--and the nickname had
+stuck to this anonymous individual. Besides, was not Cranajour the most
+complaisant of fellows, the least exacting of collaborators--always
+content with what was given him, always willing to do his best!
+
+As to Mother Toulouche; she kept a little shop on the quay of the Clock.
+The sign over her little store read:
+
+     "_For the Curiosity Lover._"
+
+This alluring title was not justified by anything to be found inside
+this store, which was nothing but a common pick-up-anything shop: it was
+a receptacle for a hideous collection of lumber, for old broken
+furniture, for garments past decent wear, for indescribable odds and
+ends, where the wreckage of human misery lay huddled cheek by jowl with
+the beggarly offscourings of Parisian destitution.
+
+Behind the store, whose little front faced the edge of the quay and
+looked over the Seine, was a sordid back-shop: here the pallet of Mother
+Toulouche, a kitchen stove out of order, and the overflow of the goods
+which were crowded out of the store were jumbled up in ill-smelling
+disorder. This back-shop communicated with the rue de Harlay by a narrow
+dark passage; thus the lair of old Mother Toulouche had two outlets, nor
+were they superfluous; in fact, they were indispensable for such as
+she--ever on the alert to escape the inquisitive attentions of the
+police, ever receiving visitors of doubtful morals and thoroughly bad
+reputation.
+
+Mother Toulouche's quarters comprised not only the two stores, but a
+cellar both large and deep, to which one obtained access by a staircase
+pitch dark, crooked, and everlastingly covered with moisture, owing to
+the proximity of the river. The floor of the cellar was a kind of
+noisome cesspool: one slipped on the greasy mud--floundered about in it:
+for all that, this cellar was almost entirely filled with cases of all
+kinds, with queer-looking bundles, with objects of various shapes and
+sizes. Evidently the jumble store of Mother Toulouche did not confine
+itself to the rough-and-ready shop in the front; and, into the bargain,
+this basement might be used as a safe hiding-place in an emergency, a
+precious refuge for whoever might feel it necessary to cover his tracks,
+and thus escape the investigations of the police, for instance!
+
+Mother Toulouche, as a matter of fact, needed such premises as hers: if
+she took ceaseless precautions it was because she had a reason for her
+uneasy watchfulness.
+
+Mother Toulouche had already come into involuntary contact with the
+police; and her last and most serious encounter with them went as far
+back as those days of renown when the band of Numbers had as their chief
+the mysterious hooligan Loupart, also known under the name of Dr.
+Chaleck.[4] She had been arrested for complicity in a bank-note robbery,
+had been tried, and had been sentenced to twenty-two months'
+imprisonment.
+
+[Footnote 4: See _The Exploits of Juve_.]
+
+Not turned in the slightest degree from the error of her ways, and
+possessing some money, which she had kept carefully hidden, Mother
+Toulouche had decided to set up shop close to the Palais de Justice,
+that Great House where those gentlemen of the robe judged and condemned
+poor folk! She would say:
+
+"Being so close to the red-robed I shall end by making the acquaintance
+of one or two of them, and that may turn out a good job for me one of
+these days!"
+
+But this was merely a blind, for other considerations had led to Mother
+Toulouche renting this shop on the Isle of the City, in opening on the
+quay of the Clock, a quay but little frequented, her wretched jumble
+store of odds and ends. She had kept in touch with the band of Numbers,
+which had gradually come together again as soon as the various numbers
+of it had finished serving their time.
+
+For a while they had lived unmolested, but lately misfortunes had laid a
+heavy hand on the group. Still, as the band began to break up, other
+members came to replace those who had disappeared, either temporarily or
+for good and all.
+
+At any rate, they could safely count on the assistance of an individual
+more valuable to them than anyone; this was a man named Nibet, who
+although he intervened but seldom, could, thanks to his influence, save
+the band many annoyances. This Nibet held an honourable official
+position; he was a warder at the Dépôt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whilst Mother Toulouche, from the back of her store, was watching with a
+derisive air the good-natured Cranajour fasten up the Academician's robe
+in a prominent position on the front of her nondescript emporium,
+someone stepped inside, and warmly greeted Mother Toulouche with a:
+
+"Good day, old lady!"
+
+It was big Ernestine,[5] who explained volubly that for a good half hour
+she had been prowling about near the statue of Henry IV, keeping the
+store well in view, but not daring to approach until the usual signal
+had been displayed. Those who frequented the place knew that when the
+store was under police observation and Mother Toulouche feared a raid
+she took care to hang out any kind of old clothes; but if the way was
+clear, if no lurking police were on the lookout, then the rallying flag
+would be hoisted, the flag being the old, patched, rusty, musty
+Academician's robe.
+
+[Footnote 5: See _The Exploits of Juve_.]
+
+Ernestine had arrived looking thoroughly upset:
+
+"Have you heard the latest?" she cried, "the bad news?"
+
+"What news? Whose news?" questioned Mother Toulouche.
+
+"Why, that poor Emilet has come down a regular cropper!"
+
+"The poor fellow!... He isn't smashed up, is he?" Mother Toulouche
+lifted her hands.
+
+"I haven't heard anything more than what I've told you!"
+
+Consternation was on the faces of the two women.
+
+Their good Mimile! He who knew how to take care of himself without
+leaving a comrade in the lurch, who stuck to them, working for the
+common good.
+
+A few years previous to this Mimile, having refused to conform to
+military law, had been arrested in the tavern of a certain Father Korn
+during a particularly drastic police raid, and the defaulting youth had
+been straightway put under the penal military discipline administered to
+such as he. Instead of making himself notorious by his execrable conduct
+as those in his position generally did, he behaved like a little saint.
+Having thus made a reputation to trade on, he was twice able to steal
+the money from the regimental chest without a shadow of suspicion
+falling on him, and, what was worse, two of his innocent comrades had
+been accused of the crime, had been condemned and shot in his stead!
+Owing to his good conduct Mimile had been transferred to a regiment
+stationed in Algiers, and having a considerable amount of spare time on
+his hands, he got into close touch with the aeroplane mechanics.
+
+He was very much at home in this branch of work: could not Mimile
+demolish a lock as easily as one rolls a cigarette? He was daring to a
+degree, and, as soon as his time in the army was up, he began to earn
+his living as an aviator, and rightly, for he had become an able airman.
+Nevertheless, Mimile become Emilet, had aspired to greater things: a
+humdrum honest livelihood was not to his taste!
+
+He had come to the conclusion that provided he went warily nothing could
+be easier than to carry on a lucrative smuggling trade by aeroplane: he
+could fly from country to country under the pretext that he was out to
+make records in flying. Custom-house officials and police inspectors in
+the interior would never think of examining the tubes of a flying
+machine, to see whether or no they were packed with lace; nor would it
+occur to them to overhaul certain cells fore and aft to discover whether
+things of value had been secreted in them, such as thousands of matches
+or false coin.
+
+So, from time to time, Mimile would announce that he was off on a trial
+trip to Brussels from Paris, from London to Calais, and so on.
+
+For mechanics Mimile had two brokendown sharpers, who served as
+connecting links between the aviator and the band of smugglers and false
+coiners who gathered at the lair of Mother Toulouche under the seal of
+secrecy. This was why big Ernestine was so anxious when she heard of
+Mimile's accident. Had the aeroplane been totally wrecked? Would the
+very considerable prize of Malines lace they were expecting reach its
+destination safe and sound?
+
+For some time past ill-luck had pursued them, had seemed to pursue
+implacably these unfortunates who took such pains and precautions to
+carry through their unlawful operations to a successful issue. Already
+the Cooper, a member of the confraternity who had had his glorious hour
+in the famous days of Chaleck and Loupart, had scarcely left prison
+retirement before he had been nabbed again, owing to the far too sharp
+eyes of the French custom-house officials on the Belgian frontier.
+Others of the band were also under lock and key again: it really seemed
+as if Mother Toulouche and her circle were being strictly watched by the
+police ... and now here was Emilet who had come a regular cropper in his
+aeroplane--no doubt about it!
+
+Mother Toulouche was set on knowing the rights of it:
+
+"But what has happened to Emilet exactly?"
+
+She called Cranajour. The queer fellow came forward from the back store,
+where he had been loafing: he had a bewildered air.
+
+"Cranajour," said Mother Toulouche, putting a sou in his hand, "hurry
+off and buy me an evening paper! Now be quick about it!... Don't
+forget.... Make a knot in your handkerchief to remind a stupid head!"
+
+"Oh, don't be afraid, Mother Toulouche," declared Cranajour, "I shan't
+forget!" He nodded to big Ernestine, and vanished as by magic into the
+darkness, for night had fallen.
+
+Scarcely had Cranajour gone, than a surly looking individual slipped
+into the store, not by the quay entrance, but through the back store, to
+which he had gained access by the dark passage leading to the rue de
+Harlay.
+
+His collar was turned up as though he were cold; his cap was drawn well
+over his eyes, thus his face was almost entirely hidden.
+
+Having barred the door on the quay side of the store, Mother Toulouche
+joined big Ernestine and the newcomer:
+
+"Well, Nibet, anything fresh?" she asked.
+
+Removing his cap and lowering his collar Nibet's crabbed visage glowered
+on the two women: it was the Dépôt warder right enough:
+
+"Bad," he growled between his teeth: "Things are hot right at the
+Palais!"
+
+"Things to worry about--to do with comrades committed for trial?"
+questioned big Ernestine.
+
+Nibet shrugged and threw a glance of disdain at the girl:
+
+"You're going silly! It's this Dollon mess-up!"
+
+The warder gave them an account of what had happened. The two women were
+all ears, as they followed Nibet's story of events which had thrown the
+whole legal world into a state of commotion: incomprehensible
+occurrences, which threatened to turn an ordinary murder case into one
+of the most mysterious and most popular of assassination dramas.
+
+Mother Toulouche and big Ernestine were well aware that Nibet knew much
+more than he had told them about the details of the Dollon-Vibray
+affair; but they dared not cross-examine the warder who was in a nasty
+mood--nor did the announcement of Emilet's accident add to his gaiety!
+
+"It just wanted that!" he grunted: "And those bundles of lace were to
+turn up this evening too!"
+
+"Who is to bring them?" asked big Ernestine.
+
+"The Sailor," declared Nibet.
+
+"And who is to receive them?" demanded Mother Toulouche.
+
+"I and the Beadle," answered Nibet in a surly tone. "Come to think of
+it," went on Nibet, staring hard at big Ernestine, "where _is_ that man
+of yours--the Beadle?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Like someone who had been running at top speed Cranajour, who had been
+gone about an hour on his newspaper-buying errand, drew up panting
+before the dark little entry leading from the rue de Harlay to the den
+of Mother Toulouche. He slipped into the passage; but instead of
+rejoining the old storekeeper he began to mount a steep and tortuous
+staircase, which led up to the many floors of the house. He climbed up
+to the seventh story; turned the key of a shaky door, and entered an
+attic whose skylight window opened obliquely in the sloping roof.
+
+This poverty-stricken chamber was the domicile of the queer fellow who
+passed his daylight hours in the company of Mother Toulouche, hobnobbing
+with a hole-and-corner crew, cronies of the old receiver of stolen
+goods.
+
+Overheated with running, Cranajour unbuttoned his coat, opened his
+shirt, sprinkled his face and the upper part of his body with cold
+water, sponged the perspiration from his brow, and brushed the dust off
+his big shoes.
+
+It was a clear starlight night. To freshen himself up still more he put
+his head and shoulders out of the half-opened window. He was gazing at
+the roofs facing him; suddenly he started, and his eyes gleamed. They
+were the roofs, outlined against the night sky, of the Palais de
+Justice. There was a shadow on the roof of the great pile, a shadow
+which moved to and fro, passing from one roof ridge to another, now
+vanishing behind a chimney, now coming into view again. Anxiously
+Cranajour followed the odd movements of the mysterious individual who
+was making his lofty and lonely promenade up above there.
+
+"What the devil does it mean?" soliloquised the watcher. Whoever could
+have seen Cranajour at this moment would have been struck by the marked
+change produced in his physiognomy. This was not the Cranajour of the
+wandering eye, the silly smile, the stupid face, known to Mother
+Toulouche and her cronies; it was a transformed Cranajour, mobile of
+feature, lively of movement, a sharp, keen-witted Cranajour! Veritably
+another man!
+
+Puzzled by the vagaries of the promenader on the Palais roofs, Cranajour
+followed his movements intently for a few minutes longer. He would have
+remained at the window the whole night long had the unknown persisted in
+his peregrinations; but Cranajour saw him climb to the top of a chimney,
+a wide one, lower himself slowly into the opening of it, and then vanish
+from view!
+
+Cranajour waited a while in hopes that the unknown would not be long in
+coming out of his mysterious hiding-place again. He waited and expected
+in vain: the roofs of the Palais resumed their ordinary aspect: solitude
+reigned there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not long afterwards Cranajour re-entered the back store.
+
+"What a time you have been!" cried Mother Toulouche: "You've brought the
+newspaper, haven't you?"
+
+Cranajour looked at the little company with his most stupid expression
+and then lowered his eyes:
+
+"My goodness, I've forgotten to buy one!" he cried.
+
+Nibet, who had paid but scant attention to the new arrival, continued
+his conversation with big Ernestine: they were talking about her lover,
+nicknamed the Beadle.
+
+He was a terrible individual this Beadle! Though his nickname suggested
+a peaceful occupation, he really owed it to the frightful reputation he
+had won as a "_bell-ringer_"; but the bells big Ernestine's lover was in
+the habit of ringing were unfortunate pedestrians whom he would rob and
+half murder, beating them unmercifully about the head and body.
+Sometimes he would beat them to within an ace of their last gasp:
+occasionally he would beat the life out of them altogether if they tried
+to resist his brutal attacks. The Beadle was an Apache[6] of the first
+order of brutality.
+
+[Footnote 6: Hooligan.]
+
+Big Ernestine finished explaining to Nibet that he must not count on the
+Beadle that evening, for things were so queer and uncertain, the outlook
+was so gloomy that no one knew what bad business they might be in for.
+
+Mother Toulouche asked if he had got mixed up in the Dollon affair.
+
+Cranajour cocked his ear at that, whilst pretending to put a great
+bundle of old clothes in order.
+
+But Nibet replied:
+
+"The Beadle has nothing whatever to do with that business.... I know
+what I know about all that.... He's afraid of getting what the Cooper
+got, so he keeps away. He's not far out either--you've got to be careful
+these days--queer times!"
+
+Ernestine and Mother Toulouche bewailed the Cooper's fate:
+
+"Poor fellow! No sooner out of quod than back--only a fortnight's
+liberty! And with a vile accusation fastened to him--smuggling and
+coining!"
+
+Nibet tried to relieve their minds:
+
+"Haven't I told you," growled he, "that I'm going to get Maître Henri
+Robart to defend him? He knows how to get round juries: he'll get the
+Cooper off with an easy sentence."
+
+Nibet looked at his watch:
+
+"It will soon be half-past two! Got to go down! The boatman will be
+there before long, at the mouth of the sewer!"
+
+Mother Toulouche, who was always in a flurry when smuggled goods were to
+be unloaded in her cellars, tried to dissuade Nibet:
+
+"You'll never be able to manage it by yourself!"
+
+Nibet glanced at Cranajour. The warder hesitated, then said:
+
+"Since there's no one else, couldn't I take Cranajour with me?"
+
+At first objections were raised; there was a low-voiced discussion, so
+that the simpleton might not catch what they were saying: Cranajour had
+never been up to dodges of this kind: so far he had been kept out of
+them; besides, he was such a senseless cove, he might give things away,
+make a hash of it!
+
+Nibet smiled:
+
+"Why, it's just because he is such a simpleton, and because he hasn't a
+mite of memory that we can use him safely!"
+
+"That's true!" said Mother Toulouche, somewhat reassured.
+
+She called to Cranajour:
+
+"Come along, Cranajour, and just tell us where you dined this evening!"
+
+The simpleton seemed to make a prodigious effort of memory, seized his
+head between his hands, closed his eyes, and racked his brains: after
+quite a long silence, he declared emphatically and with a distressed
+air:
+
+"Faith, I can't tell you now!"
+
+Nibet, who had closely watched this performance, nodded:
+
+"It's quite all right," he said.
+
+The cellars below Mother Toulouche's store were extensive, dark, and
+ill-smelling. The walls glistened with exuding damp, and the ground was
+a sticky mass of foul mud, of all sorts of refuse, of putrefying matter.
+
+Nibet, followed by his companion, made his way down to them: it was no
+easy descent, for they had to climb over cases of all kinds, and over
+bales and bundles that moved and rolled about. They passed into a
+smaller cellar, around which were ranged long boxes of tin with rusty
+covers.
+
+Cranajour, who had been given the lantern to carry, was attracted to
+these boxes: he lifted the cover of one of them and drew back
+wonderstruck, for the box was full of shining gold pieces! Nibet, with a
+jab and thrust in the back, interrupted Cranajour's contemplation of
+this fortune:
+
+"Nothing to faint over!" he growled. "You're not such a simpleton then!
+You know the value of yellow boys? All right, then, I'll give you one or
+two, if you do your job all right! But," continued the warder, leading
+his companion to the further end of the second cellar, "you will have to
+look out if you present your banker with one of those pieces, for the
+little bits of shiny won't pass everywhere--you've got to keep your eye
+open--and jolly wide, too!"
+
+Cranajour nodded comprehension:
+
+"False money! False money!" he murmured.
+
+There was a very strong big door: an iron bar kept it closed. Nibet
+raised it with Cranajour's help. Through the door the two men passed
+into a long dark passage, swept by a sharp rush of air. The floor of it
+was paved, and at the side of it flowed a pestilential stream, carrying
+along in its slow-moving water a quantity of miscellaneous filth: it was
+thick as soup with impurities.
+
+"The little collecting sewer of the Cité," whispered Nibet. Pointing to
+a grey patch in the distance he put his mouth to Cranajour's ear:
+
+"See the daylight yonder? That's where the sewer discharges itself into
+the Seine: it's there the boatman and his load will be waiting for us
+presently."
+
+Nibet stopped dead; drew Cranajour back by the sleeve, and stepped
+stealthily backwards to the massive doors of the cellar. An unaccustomed
+noise had alarmed the warder. In profound silence the two men stood
+listening intently. There was no mistake! The sound of sharp regular
+steps could be clearly heard coming from that part of the sewer opposite
+the opening.
+
+"Someone!" said Cranajour, who was all on the alert, as he had been in
+his attic, watching the shadow and its vagaries on the roofs of the
+Palais de Justice.
+
+Nibet nodded.
+
+The light from a dark lantern gleamed on the damp, slimy walls of the
+subterranean passageway.
+
+"Come inside," murmured Nibet, in an almost inaudible voice; and, with
+infinite precaution, he closed the massive portal between the cellar and
+the sewer-way.
+
+In safe hiding the two men could watch the approaching intruder: they
+had extinguished their lantern, and were peering through the badly
+joined wood of the solid door. Friend or foe? An individual moved into
+view. The reflected light of his lantern lit up the vaulting of the
+sewer-way, and showed up his face. The man was young, fair, wore a
+small moustache!
+
+Hardly had he passed the cellar door when Nibet gripped Cranajour's arm
+and growled--intense rage was expressed in grip and tone--"It's he!
+Again! The journalist of the Dollon affair, of the Dépôt
+business--Jérôme Fandor! Ah.... This time we'll see!..."
+
+Nibet's hand plunged into his trouser pocket.
+
+Cranajour was eagerly watching the warder's every movement: he clearly
+heard the sharp snap of a pocket-knife--a long sharp knife--a deadly
+weapon!
+
+Giving prudence the go-by, Nibet had opened the door, and dragging
+Cranajour in his wake had rushed into the sewer-way, hard on the heels
+of the journalist, who was slowly going in the direction of the Seine.
+Nibet ground his teeth.
+
+"I have had enough of that beast! Always on our track! Too good a chance
+to miss! I'm going to make a hole in his skin for him!"
+
+In the twilight of early dawn, which penetrated the sewer near the
+opening, Cranajour shuddered.
+
+With stealthy step the two men drew near the journalist. Fandor walked
+on unsuspicious at a slow regular pace, his head lowered. The two
+bandits came up to within a yard of him. Noiselessly, savagely
+determined, Nibet lifted his arm for a murderous stroke. At this precise
+moment Fandor stopped at the verge of the exit, by which the sewer
+discharged its burden steeply into the Seine.
+
+Yet a moment: Nibet's knife was poised for the rapid and terrible
+stroke; it was about to bury itself in the neck of the journalist up to
+the hilt, when Cranajour lifted his foot, as if inspired by an idea on
+the spur of the moment, gave the journalist a violent kick in the lower
+part of the back, and sent him flying into space!
+
+They heard his body fall heavily into the Seine.... So roughly sudden
+had been Cranajour's movement that Nibet stood dumbfounded, arm in air,
+and staring at Cranajour:
+
+Cranajour smiled his most idiotic smile, nodded, but did not utter one
+word!...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was formidable, the rage of Nibet! Here had that crass fool,
+Cranajour, kicked away the warder's chance of ridding himself of the
+journalist for good and all! This hit-and-miss made Nibet foam with
+rage. Of all the exasperating simpletons, this fool of a Cranajour took
+the cake!
+
+The two made their way back to the store, where Mother Toulouche and big
+Ernestine anxiously awaited results; and now not only had the two men
+returned stuttering over their statements and with no news of the
+boatman, who was generally up to time, but they had missed a fine
+opportunity chance had offered them!
+
+Nibet hated the journalist like all the poisons. Taunts, jeers, abuse
+were heaped on the silly head of Cranajour, who, all in vain, raised his
+eyes to heaven, beat his chest, shrugged his shoulders, stammered,
+mumbled vague excuses:
+
+"He didn't know exactly why he had done it! He thought he was helping
+Nibet!"
+
+They disputed and contended for two hours. Suddenly Cranajour broke a
+long silence and demanded, looking as stupid as a half-witted owl:
+
+"What have I done then? What are you scolding me for?"
+
+Mother Toulouche, big Ernestine, and the wrathful Nibet stared at one
+another, taken aback--then they understood: two hours had gone by, and
+Cranajour no longer remembered what had happened!
+
+Decidedly he was more innocent than a new-born babe! There was nothing
+whatever to be done with such an idiot, that was certain!
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+IN THE OPPOSITE SENSE
+
+
+When Jérôme Fandor had been precipitated into the Seine so unexpectedly
+and with such violence he kept control of his wits: he did not utter a
+cry as he fell head foremost into the darkling river. He was an
+excellent swimmer: all aching as he was, he let himself go with the
+current and presently reached the sheltering arch of the Pont Neuf.
+There he took breath for a minute:
+
+"Queer!" was all he murmured. Then with regular strokes he made for the
+steep bank of the Seine opposite. Quitting the river, he secreted
+himself behind a heap of stones which lay on the quay. He took off his
+soaked garments and wrung the water out of them. This done, and clad in
+what looked like dry clothes, Fandor walked along the quay, hailed a
+passing cabman half asleep on his seat, jumped inside, and gave his
+address to the Jehu.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he arrived at _La Capitale_ on the Friday morning a boy approached
+him, and whispered mysteriously:
+
+"Monsieur Fandor, there's a very nice little woman in the sitting-room,
+who has been waiting for over an hour. She wishes to see you. She will
+not give her name: she declares that you know who she is."
+
+"What is she like?" Fandor asked. His curiosity was not much aroused.
+
+"Pretty, fair, all in black," replied the boy.
+
+"Good. I'll go in," interrupted Fandor.
+
+He entered the sitting-room and stood face to face with Mademoiselle
+Elizabeth Dollon. She came forward, her eyes shining, her face alight
+with welcome:
+
+"Ah, monsieur," she cried, taking his hands in hers, a movement of pure
+gratitude: "Ah, monsieur, I knew you would come to my help! I have read
+your article of yesterday. Thank you again and again! But, I implore
+you, since my brother is alive, tell me where I can see him! For mercy's
+sake don't keep me waiting!"
+
+Surprise kept Fandor silent a moment.
+
+_La Capitale_ had published the evening before a sensational article by
+Fandor, in which, under the guise of suppositions and interrogations, he
+had narrated the various adventures as they had happened to himself,
+concluding with the question--really an ironical one: "If Jacques
+Dollon, who had disappeared from his cell, where he had been left for
+dead, had escaped from the Dépôt by way of the famous chimney of Marie
+Antoinette, had reached the roof of the Palais, had redescended by
+another passageway to the sewer opening on to the Seine, did it not seem
+possible that Dollon had escaped alive from the Dépôt?"
+
+Fandor had indulged in a gentle irony, despite the gravity of the
+circumstances, in order to complicate the already complicated affair,
+and so plunge the police into a confusion worse confounded: this, in
+spite of his conviction that Dollon was dead, dead as dead could be!
+
+Now the cruelty of this professional game was brought home to him. His
+article had raised fresh hopes in Dollon's poor sister! At sight of this
+charming girl, brightened with hope, Fandor felt all pity and guilt. He
+pressed her hands; he hesitated; he was troubled. He did not know how to
+explain. At last he murmured:
+
+"It was wrong of me, mademoiselle, very wrong to write that article in
+such a way without warning you beforehand. Alas! You must not cherish
+illusions, illusions which this unfortunate article has given rise to,
+illusions I cannot believe in myself. I speak with all the sincerity of
+which I am capable, with the keenest desire to be of service to you: I
+dare not let you buoy yourself up with false hopes.... I assure you
+then, that from what I have been able to learn, to see, to know, I am
+convinced that your unfortunate brother is no more!... If there have
+been moments when I have doubted this, I am now morally certain that he
+is dead. Take courage, mademoiselle! Try, try to forget--to--to ..."
+
+Fandor was trembling with emotion: he could not continue. Elizabeth bent
+her head, her eyes full of tears. She could not speak. She was overcome
+by this cruel dashing to the ground of her hopes. Never, never, to see
+her brother again!
+
+An agonising silence reigned.
+
+Fandor was profoundly troubled by this mute grief. He sought in vain for
+some word of comfort, of encouragement.
+
+Elizabeth rose to go. The poor girl realised that nothing could be
+gained by prolonging the interview. Her one need now was to be alone,
+for then she could weep.
+
+Fandor was about to accompany her to the door, when a boy entered:
+
+"Monsieur Fandor, there's a man wishes to speak to you!"
+
+"Say I am not here," replied our journalist: he had no wish to see
+strangers just then.
+
+"But Monsieur Fandor, he says he is the keeper of the landing stage of
+the passenger boat service, and he comes with reference to the Dollon
+affair!"
+
+Both Elizabeth Dollon and Jérôme Fandor started. She was trembling. Our
+journalist said at once:
+
+"Bring him in then!"
+
+The boy went off, and Fandor turned to the trembling girl.
+
+"Tell me, Mademoiselle Elizabeth, do you feel equal to hearing what
+this man has to tell us? It is not improbable that he has seen
+something--something it would be best you should not hear--had you not
+better avoid it?"
+
+Elizabeth shook her head in the negative. She was collecting all her
+forces: she would not remain ignorant of any detail of the terrible
+tragedy which had cost her brother so dear:
+
+"I shall be strong enough," she announced firmly.
+
+The boy ushered in the visitor. He looked a good specimen of his class,
+a man about forty. On his cap were the gold anchors of those in the
+employ of the Paris boat service.
+
+"Monsieur!... Madame!... At your service!" The good fellow was very much
+embarrassed:
+
+"Monsieur Fandor," he went on, "you do not know me, but I know you very
+well, that I do!... I read your articles every day in _La Capitale_.
+They're jolly good! What I say is ..."
+
+Fandor cut short his admirer: "Now tell me what brings you here!"
+
+"Oh, well, here goes! I was reading your article yesterday, about how
+Jacques Dollon, no more dead than you or I, had escaped over the roofs
+of the Palais de Justice. That made me laugh, because I am the keeper of
+the landing stage at the Pont Neuf Station. This affair is supposed to
+have happened in my parts, don't you see?... Well, I had just come to
+the bit where you also suppose that the corpse might easily have been
+devoured by rats inside the sewer.... Well, Monsieur Fandor, I can
+assure you that it was nothing of the sort...."
+
+The journalist was all eyes and ears. He signed to Elizabeth that she
+must keep quiet, so as not to intimidate the good fellow.
+
+"Come now, what is it you have seen?"
+
+"What I've seen?... Why, I saw Dollon break bounds!"
+
+At this statement Elizabeth grew white as a sheet. She jumped up, and
+with clasped hands rushed towards the keeper:
+
+"Speak, speak quickly, I implore you!" she cried.
+
+Fandor drew Elizabeth back gently, and whispered a few words to her. He
+turned to the keeper:
+
+"Mademoiselle has also come to make a statement regarding this affair,"
+he explained. "That is why she is so interested in what you have just
+told us.... But tell us how you saw Jacques Dollon escape!"
+
+"Well, I had got up a bit earlier than usual to see that the anchors and
+mooring were all right, and I thought I saw what looked like a big
+bundle fall into the river from the sewer opening--only I was half
+asleep and didn't take much notice; for, what with all the rain we've
+been having, there's no end of filthy stuff tumbling out of the mouth of
+the sewers. But, a few minutes after that, I noticed that the bundle,
+instead of going with the flow of the current, was drifting across the
+Seine, plainly making for the bank. There could be no mistake about
+that!"
+
+Elizabeth Dollon cried:
+
+"And then? And then?"
+
+"Then, my little lady, what if this surprise packet didn't turn off
+behind an arch of the Pont-Neuf! I didn't see what became of it--but no
+one will get it out of my head that it isn't some jolly dog who had no
+wish to show himself--that's what I think!"
+
+The keeper paused, then went on:
+
+"That's all I have to tell you, Monsieur Fandor ... it might serve for
+one of your articles some time or other ... only you mustn't say that I
+told you. I might get into trouble with my chiefs about it!"
+
+Elizabeth Dollon was no longer listening. She had turned to Fandor, and
+with shining eyes murmured:
+
+"He lives!... He lives!..."
+
+Fandor thanked the keeper, and got rid of him. Directly the door closed
+on him he darted to Elizabeth:
+
+"Poor child!" he cried, full of pity for her.
+
+"Ah! Don't pity me! I don't need your pity now!... My brother is
+alive!... That man has seen him!"
+
+Fandor had to undeceive her:
+
+"Your brother is certainly dead," he declared. "If he were the
+individual in question, it would not have been yesterday morning,
+but the morning before that, when the keeper saw him; and I do
+assure you ..."
+
+"But this good fellow is telling the truth then?"
+
+"I assure you that I have good reasons, the best of reasons, for
+believing, for being certain, that the swimmer who crossed the Seine was
+not your brother!"
+
+"Great Heaven! Who was it then?"
+
+Fandor hesitated a moment.... Should he divulge his secret? All he said
+was:
+
+"It was not your brother--I know that!"
+
+So decisive was his tone, so great the sympathy vibrating through his
+words, that Elizabeth Dollon, once more convinced that Fandor was not
+speaking at random, bent her head and shed tears of deepest grief and
+bitter disappointment.
+
+Fandor allowed the sorrow-stricken girl to give way to her grief for a
+few minutes; then he gently asked her:
+
+"Mademoiselle Elizabeth, shall we have a little talk?... You see I
+simply cannot tell you everything, yet I would gladly help you!... But
+first and foremost, I beg of you to put quite out of your mind this hope
+that your brother is still alive!..."
+
+Sadly Elizabeth wiped away her tears, and in a voice which she tried to
+steady, said:
+
+"Oh, what is to become of me! I thought I had found in you a support, a
+help, and now you abandon me! And I had put my faith in your goodness of
+heart!... There are your articles on the one hand, and your attitude on
+the other--what am I to make of it? It is driving me to despair! And if
+you only knew how much I need to be supported, encouraged; I feel as if
+I should go out of my senses--out of my mind ... and I am alone, so
+terribly alone!"
+
+The poor girl's voice was broken by sobs, her whole body was shaken by
+them. Fandor went up to her, and spoke to her in a low tone
+affectionately: he felt great sympathy and an immense pity for this
+unhappy young creature, who charmed and attracted him. He tried to
+console her, and to change the current of her thoughts:
+
+"Come now, Mademoiselle, do try to control yourself a little! I have
+promised to help you, and I certainly shall--you may be sure of it. But
+consider now--if I am to be of real use to you, I must know a little
+about you: you, yourself, your family, your brother; who your friends
+are, and who are your enemies! I must enter into your existence, not as
+a judge, but as a comrade who is interested in all that concerns you.
+Will you not confide in me? Once I know what there is to know we might
+then unite our efforts to some purpose, and find out what really has
+happened, since the mystery remains inexplicable."
+
+Elizabeth Dollon felt the young man was sincere, and that what he said
+in such a gentle voice was true.
+
+This poor human waif asked no more than to be allowed to cling to
+whoever would take pity on her and be kind. She now spoke to Jérôme
+Fandor of her childhood without suspecting in the least that the same
+Jérôme Fandor--Charles Rambert--used to play with her in those days.[7]
+
+[Footnote 7: See _Fantômas_.]
+
+She mentioned the assassination of the Marquise de Langrune--the first
+tragic episode of her life; then had come the horrible death of her
+father, old Steward Dollon, who had passed from the service of the
+Marquise to that of the Baroness de Vibray, and then perished, the
+victim of a criminal.
+
+She explained how Jacques Dollon and she had come to settle in Paris,
+feeling themselves rich on the savings they had inherited from their
+parents. Elizabeth had become a dressmaker, and Jacques had become an
+artist-craftsman. Gradually the young man's talent and industry had
+enabled his sister to leave her workroom and come to live with him. His
+reputation was a growing one, and the two young people looked forward to
+an existence of honest comfort in the near future. They got to know some
+people, one or two of whom were rich, and had shown their interest in
+the brother and sister.
+
+Jérôme Fandor interrupted her:
+
+"You always remained on good terms with the Baroness de Vibray?"
+
+At this question the girl's eyes flashed:
+
+"They have put into print shameful things about this poor dear Baroness,
+and about my brother also. The papers have represented her as eccentric,
+as mad; they have said worse things than that, you know that, don't
+you?... They have declared that there was a very intimate relation
+between her and my brother--I cannot say more--it is too hateful! It is
+all false--as false as false can be! The Baroness was particularly
+interested in Jacques, but assuredly that was owing to the long standing
+relations between her family and ours.... The suicide of the Baroness
+has been a sad addition to my grief, for I was very fond of her!..."
+
+Fandor had been listening attentively to Elizabeth's story. He now said:
+
+"You have used the word 'suicide,' mademoiselle: do you then really
+think, as everyone seems to do, that your patroness killed herself of
+her own free will?"
+
+Elizabeth reflected a minute before replying:
+
+"That was what she wrote--and one must believe that, nevertheless ..."
+
+"Nevertheless?"
+
+Elizabeth hesitated, passed her hand over her forehead, then said:
+
+"Nevertheless, Monsieur Fandor, the more I think over this death, the
+more remarkable it seems. The Baroness de Vibray was not the kind of
+person to commit suicide, even if she were unhappy, even if she were
+ruined. I have often heard her speak of her money affairs; she even used
+to joke about the expostulations of her bankers, Messieurs
+Barbey-Nanteuil, because she was too fond of gambling. That was our poor
+friend's weakness: she was a dreadful gambler: she was always betting on
+horses and gambling on the Bourse."[8]
+
+[Footnote 8: Stock Exchange.]
+
+"Do you know the Barbey-Nanteuils at all, mademoiselle?"
+
+"A little. I have met them once or twice at Madame de Vibray's--when she
+had one of her little evenings. Once or twice my brother has asked their
+advice about investments--very modest investments I can assure you--and
+they got one of their friends, a Monsieur Thomery, to buy some of my
+brother's art pottery."
+
+"Have you many acquaintances in Paris, mademoiselle?"
+
+"Besides the Baroness we hardly saw anyone except Madame Bourrat, a very
+nice, kind woman, widow of an inspector of the City of Paris; she keeps
+a boarding-house at Auteuil, rue Raffet. In fact, I am staying with her
+now, for I had not the courage to go back to my brother's place: too
+many dreadful memories are connected with his studio there. I am lucky
+to find such a sympathetic friend in Madame Bourrat, and such a warm
+welcome.... I am alone now, and life is sad."
+
+Fandor went on with his cross-examination:
+
+"Nevertheless, mademoiselle, I must ask you to return in thought to that
+tragic home of yours. Please tell me what people you knew in your
+immediate neighbourhood? Acquaintances?"
+
+Elizabeth considered:
+
+"Acquaintances is the word, because we were not on really intimate terms
+with our neighbours in the Cité; for the most part they are either art
+students or work-people. However, we saw fairly often a nice man, a
+stranger, a Dutchman I think he was, called Monsieur Van Hoeren; he
+manufactures accordions; and lives in a little house opposite ours, with
+six children; he has been a widower for years! Also there was a Monsieur
+Louis, an engraver, who used to take tea with us in the evening
+sometimes, his wife also: he is employed in the Posts and Telegraphs. We
+had practically no other acquaintances."
+
+Elizabeth stopped. There was a silence. Fandor asked another question:
+
+"Tell me, mademoiselle, when you entered the studio for the first time
+after the tragedy, did you notice anything abnormal?"
+
+The poor girl shuddered at the appalling picture before her mind's eye:
+
+"Good Heavens, monsieur," she cried, "I did not examine the studio
+minutely! I had only one thought--to be with my brother, who had been so
+unjustly accused, so ..."
+
+Fandor interrupted to ask:
+
+"Do you not know that at his preliminary examination your brother
+declared that he had not received a single visitor during the evening
+preceding the tragedy? How then do you explain the fact that the
+Baroness de Vibray was found dead in his studio, and at his side, when
+no one had seen her enter it? Did your brother make a mistake? Please
+tell me what you think about it!"
+
+Elizabeth gazed anxiously at the young journalist, then fixed her eyes
+on the floor. Her hands twitched; she began to twist her fingers
+feverishly:
+
+"Do trust me!" begged Jérôme Fandor. "Please tell me what you think!"
+
+Elizabeth rose, took several steps, and placed herself in front of the
+journalist:
+
+"Ah, monsieur, there is something mysterious, which I cannot explain! As
+a matter of fact, someone must have come to see my brother that evening:
+I cannot assert it as a fact beyond dispute certainly: but in my own
+mind I feel quite sure about it."
+
+"But you must have more proof of it than that?" cried Fandor.
+
+"But--there is more!" cried Elizabeth, as if enlightened by a sudden
+discovery: "There is a fact!..."
+
+"Tell me, do!" cried Fandor, intensely interested.
+
+"Well, just imagine, then! Among the papers scattered over his table,
+and close to his book, which was open, I noticed a sort of list of names
+and addresses, written on our own note-paper, and in the kind of green
+ink we use--so--well ..."
+
+"So," interrupted the journalist, "you came to the conclusion that this
+list had been written at your brother's house?"
+
+"Yes, and it was not my brother's handwriting."
+
+"Nor that of the Baroness de Vibray?"
+
+"Nor that of the Baroness de Vibray!"
+
+"And what did this list contain?"
+
+"Names, addresses, I tell you, of persons we knew. There were also two
+or three dates...."
+
+"And is that all?"
+
+"That is all, monsieur: I saw nothing else!"
+
+"Little enough," murmured Fandor, disappointed. "Still no detail,
+however slight, must be ignored!... What have you done with that list,
+mademoiselle?"
+
+"I must have taken it with me when I collected all the papers I could
+find the day before yesterday, before going to the boarding-house at
+Auteuil."
+
+"When you have an opportunity, will you bring me that list?" requested
+Fandor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The conversation was interrupted. A boy came to tell Fandor that he was
+wanted on the telephone by someone in the Public Prosecutor's Office.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later on in the day Jérôme Fandor sent the following express message to
+Elizabeth Dollon:
+
+     _"Do not believe a word of the Police Headquarters' version which
+     you will read in this evening's 'La Capitale.'"_
+
+This despatched, our journalist commenced his article entitled:
+
+
+                 STILL THE AFFAIR OF THE RUE NORVINS
+
+     _Police Headquarters takes a view of this affair which is the very
+     reverse of that taken by our contributor, Jérôme Fandor._
+
+     _By the Seine sewer, the roofs of the Palace, and the chimney of
+     Marie Antoinette, an inspector has succeeded in reaching the
+     Dépôt._
+
+     _Police Headquarters is convinced that Jacques Dollon escaped
+     alive!_
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+PEARLS AND DIAMONDS
+
+
+"Nadine!"
+
+"Princess!"
+
+"Nadine, what time is it?"
+
+The young Circassian, with hair as black as ink, souple and slender,
+rose from her chair and was hastening from the bedroom to ascertain the
+time when her mistress recalled her:
+
+"Don't go away, Nadine! Stay with me!"
+
+The dusky Circassian obeyed: she stared with big, astonished eyes into
+those of her mistress:
+
+"But, Princess, why don't you wish me to go?"
+
+The Princess stammered in a mysterious tone:
+
+"Don't you know then, Nadine, that to-day is the anniversary?... and I
+am frightened!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Princess Sonia Danidoff was in her bath robe. It must have been a
+quarter past eleven, or even nearer midnight than that. Although she had
+lived in Paris for years, she had never been able to make up her mind to
+settle in a flat of her own. Possessing an immense fortune, she much
+preferred the American way of living, and had taken a suite of rooms in
+one of those great palace-hotels near the place de l'Etoile. Though a
+very smart staff of servants was reserved for her exclusive use, her
+favourite attendant was a pretty Circassian, in whom she had absolute
+confidence. This Nadine was a native of Southern Russia. The movement of
+city life and civilised manners and customs had at first terrified this
+little savage; but she had learned to adapt herself to her changed
+surroundings, and was now high in the favour of Princess Sonia. She, and
+she alone, was authorised to be present when the beautiful great lady
+took her daily baths. For some years past the Princess had insisted on
+the presence of a maid when she took her baths: without fail they must
+either be in the bathroom itself, or in the room next to it, within
+reach or call. But on this particular evening Sonia Danidoff, more
+nervous and restless than usual, would not allow Nadine to leave her for
+a second. As to the time--well, if she did not know the exact time it
+could not be helped! Really it did not matter to her whether she were
+half an hour or no, for the ball given in her honour by Thomery, the
+millionaire sugar refiner: in fact, it would be much better to make her
+appearance after all the guests had assembled--her arrival would give
+the crowning touch of brilliancy to this society function.
+
+Sonia Danidoff had pronounced the word "anniversary" in a tone of
+anguish so sincere that Nadine was genuinely alarmed. She knew, only too
+well, what this fatal word meant to her mistress.
+
+She had not forgotten that five years ago to the day, just when the
+Princess was enjoying her evening bath, a mysterious individual had
+appeared before her, who, after frightening her, had robbed her of a
+large sum of money. The adventure would have been little out of the
+ordinary, for hotel robberies are frequent, had not the audacious bandit
+been quickly identified as the enigmatic and elusive Fantômas, whose
+prodigious reputation had only increased with the passage of the years.
+
+Sonia Danidoff, who was not ignorant of the dramatic adventures imputed
+to this legendary hero, could not bear to think of the position she had
+been placed in that awful night, when, threatened and robbed by
+Fantômas, she had escaped death by a series of unknown and unguessable
+circumstances: the tormenting mystery of it all had preyed insistently
+upon her mind. Since then Sonia Danidoff had never taken a bath without
+thinking of Fantômas; and every year when the anniversary of his
+aggression came round she suffered cruelly: she was seized with wild,
+unreasoning fears at the idea that she might see this terrifying bandit
+appear before her again, and that this time he would be merciless.
+
+Nadine knew all this. She also shuddered at the vision this horrible
+anniversary evoked, but controlling herself, she was anxious to change
+the current of her dear mistress's thoughts:
+
+"Forget, try to forget, Sonia Danidoff," she counselled in her melodious
+voice: "You are going to a ball--at Monsieur Thomery's--at your fiancé's
+house!"
+
+The Princess shuddered:
+
+"Ah, Nadine, my Nadine!" she cried, raising herself, and regarding her
+maid with a strange look: "I cannot overcome my uneasiness--my
+alarms!... This coincidence of date agitates me.... You know how
+superstitious we are at home--in our Russia--and the life I lead in
+Paris has not destroyed in me the simplicity of soul of a daughter of
+the Steppes!"
+
+Nadine did not know what reply to make to this pathetic outburst. The
+Princess went on:
+
+"And then, do you see, I think it wrong of Monsieur Thomery to even want
+to give this ball, only a fortnight after the tragic death of that poor
+Baroness de Vibray!... I tried to dissuade him from it.... I think the
+Baroness was his most intimate friend once!..."
+
+"So it is said," murmured Nadine.
+
+Sonia Danidoff went on, as if speaking to herself:
+
+"I am not sure of it ... it is precisely to remove this suspicion from
+my mind that Thomery was determined to have his ball to-night at all
+costs!... The Baroness de Vibray, so he told me, was no more than a good
+old friend.... I cannot make her death an excuse for putting off the
+announcement of our marriage ... that would be to give colour to
+scandal."
+
+Sonia Danidoff shrugged her beautiful shoulders:
+
+"Hand me a mirror!"
+
+Nadine obeyed. The Princess gazed long and complacently at the
+marvellously lovely face reflected in the glass.
+
+"Princess," cried Nadine, "you must leave the bath, you will be late
+otherwise!"
+
+In the adjacent dressing-room, brilliantly illuminated by electric
+light, the Princess dressed with the aid of Nadine, proud and happy to
+be the sole assistant of her beloved mistress. The toilet was a triumph:
+silk of an exquisite blue, draped with silk muslin incrusted with pointe
+de Venise and bands of ermine: a costly masterpiece of the dressmaker's
+art. It enhanced the brilliant beauty of Sonia Danidoff, and threw
+Nadine into raptures.
+
+The Princess opened her jewel-box:
+
+"This evening, Nadine, I shall be pearls and diamonds!" cried the lovely
+creature, as she fixed two large grey pearls in her ears.
+
+"Oh, how beautiful you are, Princess! And what a lot they must have
+cost!" cried Nadine.
+
+"Ten thousand francs, my child, on each side of my head!"
+
+Sonia slipped on her fingers three diamond rings set in platinum:
+
+"And here are eight or nine thousand francs more," continued she, as
+Nadine's eyes grew round with wonder: her mind could hardly grasp all
+these thousands of francs-worth of diamonds and pearls. There were still
+more to come; for, rejecting a magnificent bracelet, on the plea that
+one no longer wore them at balls, the Princess smilingly bade her
+Circassian fasten round her neck a superb triple collar of pearls. To
+this was added a sparkling cascade of diamonds. Never had Nadine seen
+her beautiful mistress so richly dressed. Thus adorned, in Nadine's
+eyes, Sonia Danidoff was dazzlingly beautiful, exquisitely lovely.
+
+"You look like the Holy Virgin on the icons!" stammered Nadine,
+kneeling before her mistress, quite overcome by emotion.
+
+"Good Heavens! That is blasphemy! I am only a humble human creature!"
+said the Princess smiling. Then she once more looked at herself in the
+mirrors, well satisfied with her appearance, certain of the effect she
+would produce on her future husband Thomery. She threw over her
+shoulders a superb mantle of zibeline which was quite needed, for,
+though it was the middle of April, it was quite cold.
+
+Then, ready at last, she descended to her motor-car, and was whirled
+away to the ball.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Cranajour!... Cranajour!"
+
+Mother Toulouche shouted herself breathless: she tried to shout louder
+and louder. It was in vain. She might shout herself hoarse--there was no
+reply.
+
+The old termagant, who had left the front of her hovel and had gone to
+call her assistant, shouting in the passage at the back of the store,
+returned cursing and swearing, and seated herself near the store in the
+lean-to which did duty as a kitchen:
+
+"Where in the devil's name has that imbecile got to?" she grumbled,
+whilst sipping with gusts from the bottom of a cup, into which she had
+poured a small allowance of coffee and a copious ration of rum. It was
+about eleven in the evening. There was not a sound to be heard.
+
+Having finished her rum and tea the old receiver of stolen goods went to
+the entrance of the passage:
+
+"Cranajour!... Cranajour!" yelled the old termagant.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"He can't possibly be in his canteen," said Mother Toulouche to herself.
+"If he was he'd have answered, fool though he is, and would have come
+down!... Sure he's gone to drag his old down-at-heels somewhere--but
+where?... Oh, well, we can manage to do without him!"
+
+The old receiver went back to her store, and was starting on a queer
+sort of job when the door, which led on to the quay, burst open before a
+panting, breathless individual. He ran right up the store and stopped
+short. Mother Toulouche had seized the first thing she could find, and
+had taken up a defensive attitude. Her weapon was a great ancient
+cavalry sabre!
+
+But the newcomer intended no harm--quite the contrary! After an
+instinctive recoil, he leaned against a table and wiped his forehead,
+breathing in gasps, incapable of pronouncing a syllable.
+
+Mother Toulouche had recognised him:
+
+"Ah! It's you, Redhead!... And not a bit too soon either! I've been
+waiting for you this last half-hour! Ernestine will be there in ten
+minutes' time! However is it you are so late?"
+
+Redhead was well named! His bullet-head was covered with russet-red
+hair, cut very short; his complexion was a good match; his bloated
+cheeks and his potato-shaped nose were covered with red patches; his
+shaven chin was a tawny red; round his little gimlet eyes was a fringe
+of red lashes: it was a bestial face.
+
+He was hatless; above his waistcoat with metal buttons he wore a black
+coat; his trousers had a yellow line down them: he was evidently a
+servant, wearing the livery of some big house. The fellow was slowly
+recovering his breath; but he continued to wipe great drops of sweat off
+his narrow forehead; he was shaking all over, and his morose countenance
+was twitching and contracting nervously.
+
+"Well, what's your news? Good or bad?" questioned Mother Toulouche in a
+brutal tone.
+
+Redhead replied almost inaudibly:
+
+"That depends!... It's good on the whole."
+
+A gleam of cupidity showed in the old receiver's eyes:
+
+"Got a bit of tin on her back, that woman--eh?"
+
+Redhead nodded a "yes." Thereupon Mother Toulouche went into her back
+store and returned with a claret glass filled to the brim with rum:
+
+"Shoot that down your throat! That'll put you right!"
+
+When he had swallowed the bumper he seemed to gain courage, and said:
+
+"If I didn't get here sooner it's because I had to wait--but I saw the
+little thing...."
+
+"What's her name?"
+
+"Nadine," replied Redhead, and added: "A pretty little brat, too!...
+She's got some fire in her eyes!"
+
+"What's that to do with it?" interrupted Mother Toulouche.
+
+"You don't mean to tell me you were able to make her gabble a bit?" she
+queried contemptuously.
+
+Redhead bridled: "Likely, since I know everything now ... and I'm her
+sweetheart, let me tell you!"
+
+Mother Toulouche said in a jeering tone:
+
+"You don't tell me! You!"
+
+"Oh," replied Redhead, "it's just a way of speaking. She's a good little
+thing--there's nothing to it, you know!"
+
+"So much the worse!" declared Mother Toulouche. "Virtuous sorts aren't
+any use to our lot!... Well--what did she tell you--out with it!"
+
+"Well," said Redhead, "I waited three-quarters of an hour before Nadine
+joined me.... I had no bother in making her talk, I can tell you:
+without the asking she told me everything ... she was pretty well
+flabbergasted with all the jewels her mistress had stuck on her clothes
+and her skin.... Seems there's hundreds of thousands' worth!... All
+pearls and diamonds! Nothing but...."
+
+Mother Toulouche was calculating:
+
+"Real pearls, real diamonds--it's possible there's all that worth!"
+
+Steps could be heard on the pavement just outside.
+
+Redhead began to shake all over:
+
+"Who is it?" he asked. "Someone coming in?"
+
+Mother Toulouche grinned:
+
+"Be easy, then! Haven't I told you there's nothing to fear?"
+
+Nevertheless he asked anxiously:
+
+"There's nothing more I'm wanted for here, is there? I've told you all I
+know."
+
+"No, no, it's all right!" replied Mother Toulouche, maternal and
+conciliating, "there's nothing more for you to do here.... Still, if you
+want to see big Ernestine...."
+
+Without waiting to hear the end of her sentence Redhead hurried towards
+the exit. Mother Toulouche did not try to detain him:
+
+"After all," she said in a low tone to his back as a kind of farewell,
+"cut your sticks, my lad ... since you're funky!"
+
+When alone she grumbled aloud:
+
+"What a lot they are!... I never did!... White-livered, and for nothing
+at all!"
+
+Mother Toulouche was still muttering when big Ernestine marched in
+through the back way. She had on a large hat and was heavily veiled. She
+proceeded to remove both hat and veil:
+
+"Well?" she queried.
+
+"They've got on to it all right! Redhead has just gone! He knows through
+the little maid that the Princess went off to the ball, dressed up to
+the nines--hung with jewels like a shrine!"
+
+Big Ernestine uttered a deep sigh of satisfaction: her only reply was to
+hustle the old receiver:
+
+"Look alive, Mother Toulouche!... You've got to give me a beggar's
+outfit: it's up to you to see I'm disguised properly, and there's not a
+minute to lose either!"
+
+Mother Toulouche was an expert at disguises and make-up of every sort:
+this was not to be wondered at, considering the queer company she kept,
+and the fraudulent business she carried on, and the smuggling she was
+mixed up in!
+
+Big Ernestine, disguised as a poverty-stricken creature and rendered
+unrecognisable, looked exactly like some unfortunate reduced to
+soliciting alms. She walked into the back store, and helped Mother
+Toulouche to take from a cupboard some bottles, bandages, and medicated
+cotton-wool. By the light of a smoky lamp the two women scrutinised the
+labels, sniffing the various phials and flasks. Big Ernestine, with the
+aid of Mother Toulouche, prepared compresses of pomade and cotton-wool,
+on which she sprinkled a few drops of a yellow liquid, giving out a
+sickening odour. Besides this big Ernestine put inside her bodice a long
+phial, after making certain that the mixture, with which it was full,
+contained chloroform....
+
+Then, under Mother Toulouche's watchful eye, Ernestine prepared what was
+called in that world of light-fingered gentry "the mask": a mask of
+cotton, which is moulded by force on the face of the victim in order to
+plunge him, or her, into a heavy sleep. Whilst making these sinister
+preparations the two women talked as they went on with their evil task.
+Big Ernestine said, in reply to Mother Toulouche's questionings:
+
+"Oh, it's simple enough! It's like this:... When the motor-car stops I
+shall go to the right-hand door and begin to beg ... likely enough, the
+Princess won't want to hear what I have to say, but while I attract her
+attention, Mimile, who will be on the other side, will open the door,
+and will stick the compress on her mug.... She won't struggle--besides,
+Mimile will have hold of her--and then I'll have had time to see where
+her jewels are, and how they are fastened, and then I'll soon have them
+in my pocket--my deep 'un!"
+
+Mother Toulouche nodded:
+
+"It's arranged all right, but how will you arrest the motor?"
+
+"Oh, that's where the others come in; they'll do it all right.... I
+expect they're seeing to it now!..."
+
+"But, look here," cried Mother Toulouche, "Mimile isn't in bits then?
+They said he had fallen from his flier!"
+
+Big Ernestine gave a laugh:
+
+"He fell right enough, poor little fellow, and from pretty high too--but
+he's not broken a thing ... not this time ... a bit of luck I don't
+think--eh?"
+
+"He's a mascot, I'm certain," declared Mother Toulouche. Then she said:
+"You spoke of the others?... Who are they--the others?"
+
+"But didn't they tell you?" cried the surprised Ernestine, for she
+thought old Mother Toulouche was in the know: "Why, there's the
+Beadle--and the Beard...."
+
+"Oh," cried Mother Toulouche, much impressed: "If the Beard's in it,
+then it's a serious affair!"
+
+"Yes," replied big Ernestine, staring hard at the old receiver of stolen
+goods: "It's serious all right! If the chloroform doesn't work--oh, well
+... they'll bring the knife into play...."
+
+Big Ernestine looked at her little silver watch to mark the time:
+
+"Past midnight!" she remarked: "I must hurry off and see what they're up
+to!"
+
+As she was making off Mother Toulouche stopped her:
+
+"Have a glass of rum to start on--it puts heart into you!"
+
+The two women were quite ready for a drink together. When they had
+swallowed their dose, big Ernestine smacked her tongue:
+
+"Famous stuff!... It puts a heart into you and no mistake!"
+
+"Yes, it's the right stuff--the best," agreed Mother Toulouche: "It's
+what Nibet prefers!" she added. Then she cried: "But Nibet, how ...
+isn't he in it?"
+
+Big Ernestine put a finger on her lips:
+
+"Nibet's in it of course--as he always is--you know that, old
+Toulouche--but he's content to show the way--you know he seldom does
+anything himself ... besides, it seems he's on duty at the dépôt
+to-night!"
+
+Big Ernestine threw an old shawl over her head and went off crying:
+
+"I'm off, and in for it now!... Soon be back, Mother Toulouche!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The magnificent mansion of Thomery, the sugar refiner, overlooked the
+park Monceau. It was approached by a very quiet little avenue, in which
+were a few big houses: it opened on to the boulevard Malesherbes, and
+was known as the avenue de Valois. All the dwellings there are
+sumptuous, richly inhabited, and if the avenue is peaceful and silent by
+day, it is no uncommon thing to see it of an evening crowded with
+carriages and luxurious motor-cars, come to fetch the owners away to
+dinners and entertainments.
+
+On this particular evening the approaches to the avenue de Valois were
+full of animation. Motors and broughams succeeded one another in a long
+file, putting down the guests of Thomery under an immense marquee,
+covering the steps leading up to the vestibule.
+
+All the smart world had been invited to the reception: all Paris swarmed
+into the brilliantly illuminated entrance-halls of the mansion.
+
+Two mounted policemen sat as immovable as bronze caryatides on either
+side of the entrance, whilst a swarm of policemen made the carriages
+move on, and drove away from the aristocratic avenue de Valois the band
+of poverty-stricken and ragged creatures who crowded the pavement with
+the hope of securing a handsome tip by opening a carriage door or
+picking up some fallen object.
+
+It was no easy matter to keep order. One of the police sergeants
+accustomed to ceremonial functions remarked to one of his younger
+colleagues:
+
+"I have seen balls and receptions enough! Well, my boy, this Thomery
+affair is as fine a set out as if it were at the President's!"
+
+Although it was one o'clock in the morning, both on the boulevard
+Malesherbes and at the entrance to the rue de Monceau there was movement
+and activity. If, as seemed likely, there was a crush in the great
+reception-rooms of the Thomery mansion, it was certain that outside the
+crowd had to form up in line to get near the counters, where the wine
+sellers were serving their customers without a moment's
+intermission--serving them with drinks of every description. Thus there
+was a hubbub, there was noise and roystering clamour all around. Most of
+the chauffeurs, coachmen, and servants knew one another.
+
+Mingling with all this aristocracy of the servant class were
+pickpockets, mendicants obsequious and wheedling, who offered themselves
+as understudies to these of the upper ten of the servant world, and
+these aristocrats were ready to seize this chance of a little liberty,
+and at the same time play the generous patron to these poor failures in
+life's battle. In fact they gave more generous tips than their masters;
+for did they not rub shoulders with misery and thus realise, only too
+vividly, the measureless horrors of destitution?
+
+Ernestine and Mimile lost themselves in the noisy crowd. They were all
+eyes and ears for everything going on around them, whilst keeping in
+view their two accomplices, the Beadle and the Beard. This was more than
+usually difficult, because they were disguised almost out of
+recognition. The Beard was muffled in a blue blouse and a big soft hat,
+which gave him the look of a peasant, who had wandered into a crowd with
+which he had nothing in common. The Beadle was capitally disguised as a
+coachman in good service who is out of a situation, but who, from vanity
+and custom, sports the emblems of office.
+
+He was continually chewing a quid of tobacco; for such is the habit of
+coachmen who cannot smoke on their seats, and thus console themselves
+with two sous' worth of roll tobacco.
+
+The Beadle stopped beside a chauffeur who had just got down from his
+car, a magnificent limousine, lined with cream cloth, while its exterior
+was a dark maroon in the best taste.
+
+"Why, it's Casimir!" cried the Beadle, going up to the chauffeur with
+hands outstretched and smiling face.
+
+Mechanically the chauffeur, addressed as Casimir, responded to the
+offered handclasp. But, after a short silence, he said in a questioning
+tone, quite frankly:
+
+"I cannot recall you."
+
+"Can't you remember me!" cried the Beadle. "Why, don't you remember
+César--César who was with Rothschild last year?"
+
+No, Casimir could not remember. But he was quite willing to believe that
+he knew César, for he had seen and known so many since he had been in
+the service of Princess Sonia Danidoff, that there was nothing
+extraordinary about his forgetfulness. Besides, César looked quite a
+decent fellow, and had a taking face, and one only had to look at that
+beaming countenance of his to be sure that an invitation to take a drink
+together would soon be forthcoming!
+
+The Beadle, satisfied that he had so easily made a friend of the
+chauffeur of Sonia Danidoff, whom he had only known by sight for the
+last forty-eight hours, did in fact suggest their taking a glass
+together. The Beadle had indeed come up to expectations!
+
+Drink was Casimir's besetting sin. Excellent chauffeur, solid and
+serious fellow as he was, he had two defects: he was addicted to
+tippling, though he never drank to excess, and never got drunk. Also, he
+was fond of a gossip: he could talk for hours without stopping.
+
+The Beadle had been posted up regarding Casimir's little weaknesses and
+tastes. Thus nothing was easier than to set trap after trap, into each
+of which the simple fellow fell as they were set--fell fatally.
+
+The Beadle introduced the Beard to Casimir under the name of Father
+India-rubber: an old codger, whose trade was to buy and sell tyres to
+chauffeurs, tyres new and also second-hand. At this moment a young
+ragamuffin appeared on the scenes: he asked if he might be left in
+charge of the car. It was Mimile. The young hooligan, who had followed
+the conversation of the three men, and of Casimir in particular, whilst
+keeping in the background, now intervened at the right moment. He made
+his offer just as the chauffeur was looking about him in hopes of
+finding some poverty-stricken creatures into whose charge he could give
+his car. Casimir gave him twenty sous as an earnest of what was to
+follow in the way of coin, saying:
+
+"Take great care of my little shanty! Don't let anyone come mouching
+around it, and when I return you shall have double what you've just
+had!"
+
+"Thank you, master!" cried Mimile, bowing low before the chauffeur: "You
+may rest assured I shall keep a good look out!"
+
+Mimile exchanged signs of understanding with his two accomplices, whilst
+they, talking as they went, drew the innocent Casimir towards the
+nearest tavern, which was crowded with wine-bibbers.
+
+Mimile, as faithful guardian of the limousine, soon got bored, although
+big Ernestine was prowling around, and came to have a minute's talk with
+him now and again: they dared not be seen together too much for fear of
+attracting attention. As time went on, Mimile was surprised that neither
+the Beadle nor the Beard came to report progress. But at long last the
+majestic outline of the Beard was seen at the corner of the rue Monceau.
+The pretended seller of india-rubber was coming out of the tavern.
+
+He hastened to Mimile and, in a low, distinct voice, he gave him some
+hurried instructions, for now there was no time to lose:
+
+"That idiot would never get done with his stories about motor-cars, and
+all that stuff and rubbish--what's that to us? But--keep your ears open
+now, Mimile--it seems there are still fifteen litres of petrol in the
+tank, and that would take it a long way, for the motor consumes very
+little.... But this shanty has got to stop about five hundred yards from
+here, at the corner of the rue de Monceau and the rue de Téhéran ...
+it's by this way Casimir will take his Baroness back from the ball....
+Well, what you have to do is to take fourteen litres and a half from
+that tank and pitch them in the gutter!... When Casimir finds that his
+petrol has given out, he will have to go in search of more ... it's
+during his absence that we will work the trick on the pretty
+Princess--we'll perform an operation on her, and amputate
+her--jewellery--the whole lot!"
+
+The Beard drew from under his blouse an empty bottle, which he had
+stolen in the tavern:
+
+"Here's your measure! Count carefully fourteen litres and a half--that
+done, wait quietly till Casimir turns up: your part in the story will be
+forty sous, and not to rouse his suspicions; then, while he goes up the
+avenue de Valois to take up the Princess, you and Ernestine have to
+gallop off to the corner of the rue de Monceau and the rue de Téhéran,
+then ... wait!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mimile, with the agility of a monkey and the ability of a first-rate
+chauffeur--for there was nothing he did not know in the way of applied
+mechanics, as became an aviator--executed to the letter his accomplice's
+orders.
+
+The Beard meanwhile had returned to the tavern and Casimir.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly, all was activity in the world of carriages and coachmen! The
+great ball was drawing to its end. Casimir was once more in possession
+of his motor, and had generously tipped his understudy: thereupon the
+hooligan had made off as fast as his legs could carry him. Ernestine
+joined him at the appointed spot: there the two rogues waited.
+"Listen!" cried big Ernestine some fifteen minutes later.
+
+She stared in the direction of the boulevard Malesherbes, with neck
+outstretched and straining eyeballs. At last, after an agonising wait,
+she and Mimile saw the carriages driving by. "Attention!" cried big
+Ernestine in a sharp whisper ... "everybody's on the move at last!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Beadle and the Beard, hidden in the crowd which thronged the
+approaches to the Thomery mansion, awaited the departure of Princess
+Sonia Danidoff: the idea of this rich prey excited them. Then as they
+stared at the first outflow of departing guests, the two bandits could
+not but notice that far from looking gay and animated as people do who
+have danced and supped well, these guests of Thomery showed pale,
+dejected faces: in fact, they had all the appearance of people under the
+influence of some tragic emotion.
+
+"They look pretty down in the mouth, don't they?" whispered the Beard in
+the Beadle's ear.
+
+"That's a fact! You'd think they were returning from a funeral!"
+
+Then a vague rumour began to circulate; confirmation followed, spread
+insensibly within the Thomery mansion, was passed on by the lackeys,
+spread from the pavements to the avenue. People whispered of
+incomprehensible things incredible, but which little by little took
+definite shape. It was said that the Thomery ball had just become the
+scene of an accident, of a drama, of a robbery, of a crime!... The
+police, and of the highest grade, had intervened.... The news spread
+like a train of ignited gunpowder.... Nevertheless, if Thomery's guests
+were cognisant of the details, they did not take the beggars and
+pickpockets into their confidence: among the light-fingered gentry
+conjectures were rife.
+
+The Beadle and the Beard, who tried to catch odds and ends of talk
+separately, joined each other again, looking crestfallen, discomfited.
+The Beadle broke silence, with an oath, adding:
+
+"I am certain we have been done ... someone has got in before us--been
+too smart for us!"
+
+Beard nodded: he was of the same opinion.
+
+But who then could have had the audacity to plan such an attempt and
+carry it out, too? Who could have had the same idea as he and his
+comrades, and to realise it successfully? Whoever it was had proved
+himself the better man. In spite of himself the bandit, in thought,
+formulated one word:
+
+Fantômas!
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+END OF THE BALL
+
+
+When Sonia Danidoff entered Thomery's ball-room she made a sensation. It
+was not far off midnight when she appeared in all her brilliant beauty
+and dazzling array, leaning on the arm of her host and fiancé, who bore
+his honours proudly. Dancers paused to admire this handsome couple; then
+the Hungarian band redoubled their efforts, and the whirling, eddying
+waltz started afresh, more gay, more inspiriting than before.
+
+In a corner opposite the musicians a group of persons were in animated
+talk: among them Sonia Danidoff, Thomery, and Jérôme Fandor. Music was
+their theme, some admired Wagner and the classics, others voted for the
+moderns, for the sugariest of waltzes, for the romantic, the bizarre.
+
+"For the profane like myself," declared Thomery, laughing, "gipsy music
+has its charms!"
+
+"Oh," cried Sonia Danidoff, "you are not going to tell me that such
+hackneyed things as _The Smile of Spring_ and _The Blush Rose Waltz_ are
+to your taste!"
+
+Her tone was reproachful, but her smile was charming.
+
+Nanteuil, the fashionable banker, who was fluttering about the Princess,
+hastened to take her side:
+
+"Come now, Thomery, you would not put your signature to that?"
+
+Jérôme Fandor, who had just joined the group, declared:
+
+"For my part, I thoroughly agree with you, my dear Monsieur Thomery!"
+
+Sonia Danidoff looked her surprise.
+
+Thomery replied, with a touch of malice:
+
+"Monsieur Fandor is like myself--the Tonkinoise is more to his taste!"
+
+"More than Wagner's operatic big guns!" finished Fandor.
+
+Then turning to the Princess who still wore her air of surprise:
+
+"Yes, Princess, I confess it--my taste in music is deplorable: it comes
+from absolute ignorance. I do not understand these modern
+symphonies--the simple romantic suits me best!"
+
+"And that is?" ... queried Nanteuil:
+
+"Just some music-hall air or ditty," answered Fandor with a smile as
+frank as his confession.
+
+The Princess was amused at this little pseudo-artistic discussion. She
+was about to speak when a couple of waltzers broke into the group and
+scattered it.
+
+Jérôme Fandor slipped away and wandered through the gorgeous reception
+rooms. Here and there, when caught up in the throng and forced to halt,
+or when pressed against the wall of the ball-room, scraps of
+conversation, mingled with the strains of the Hungarian band, fell on
+his retentive ears. He took refuge at last in the embrasure of a window;
+but his retreat was soon invaded by two young men who, he gathered, had
+run across each other in the gallery, and were continuing their talk
+about old times and new.
+
+"Come, tell me, dear Charley, what has been happening to you since we
+left the school?"
+
+"Bah! I go from the Madeleine to the Opera nearly every evening, and
+then back again; I go to bed late and get up late; I go out a good deal,
+as you see; sometimes I dance, but very rarely; I often play bridge ...
+and that is about all! It's not very interesting; but you, old boy ... I
+heard you had got a jolly good billet, my dear Andral!"
+
+"Oh, hardly that, dear fellow; but I am well on the way to one, I
+fancy. I had the good luck to be introduced to Thomery, and it so
+happened he was wanting a young engineer for one of his sugar
+plantations in San Domingo."
+
+"Good Lord! At San Domingo, among the niggers?"
+
+"That's right! Not so bad, though it and the boulevards are a few miles
+apart! But, on the other hand, I am interested in my work, and I am
+married to a charming woman--Spanish."
+
+"Won't you introduce me to your wife?"
+
+"When we are nearer to her, old fellow! I came to Paris by myself to
+talk big business with Thomery. I am only here for a fortnight.... Now
+do point out some of the celebrities--you know everybody!"
+
+Charley adjusted his eyeglass and looked about the room:
+
+"Ah, there's an interesting pair! That old fellow and the young one, who
+are so extraordinarily alike--the Barbey-Nanteuils, bankers for
+generations in the financial swim, and mixed up in all sorts of big
+affairs, sugar, among them.... Look here! That's the widow of an iron
+master, Allouat--she is passing close to the orchestra--not bad looking
+in spite of her mahogany-coloured hair, granddaughter of a famous French
+peer, Flavogny de Saint-Ange.... Ah, I breathe again!... It's a detail,
+but I am quite delighted! General de Rini's daughters have at last found
+partners: they are ugly, poor things, and they've dressed themselves in
+rose-pink as though they were schoolgirls: a fine name, a distinguished
+position, but no fortune, and no husband!... Ah, now there's someone who
+looks as if he were in luck--and he is, too--matrimonial luck. The
+affair is settled this evening, it's whispered. It will interest you
+particularly, for the lucky fellow is none other than Thomery!"
+
+"What! Thomery?"
+
+"Yes, Thomery! Although he is well over fifty, he means to commit
+matrimony! I quite envy him his future wife, my Andral! There she is!
+That stately dame who is going towards the last of the reception rooms
+all alone, rather haughty, but a noble creature--it's Princess Sonia
+Danidoff, related to the Tzar in some distant way and with an immense
+fortune. Just look, dear boy, at those splendid jewels on that beautiful
+neck of hers! They say she's got on seven hundred thousand francs'
+worth--and the rest to match--millions to swell the sugar refiner's
+pouch! She is to lead the cotillion with him, so there's no doubt about
+the betrothal. By the by, you are going to stay for the cotillion?"
+
+"Hum! I..."
+
+"But you must! You simply must! We must sit together at supper, we have
+still so much to say!... Besides, if you hurry off like that, I fancy
+Thomery won't be best pleased. Oh, I say, there he is, coming our way!
+There's no denying it, he is a fine figure of a man, though he is in the
+fifties--but!... but!... but do look! What is the matter with him? He
+looks as if he had seen a ghost."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sonia Danidoff, who had been waltzing with Thomery, was a little out of
+breath. A quick glance in a mirror showed the lovely Princess that her
+cheeks were rather flushed:
+
+"I am scarlet," she thought, with that touch of feminine exaggeration
+characteristic of her! She was a true daughter of Eve!
+
+At that exact moment she felt a slight tug at the bottom of her skirt,
+and at the same time a black coat was making profuse apologies: it was
+Monsieur Nanteuil:
+
+"I am in despair, Princess!" cried the banker. "But no one is quite
+responsible for his movements in such a crush!... I am very much afraid
+that I have stepped on the muslin of your ravishing toilette and have
+slightly torn it!"
+
+The Princess protested that it did not matter in the least, and the
+banker moved away, bowing low and pouring out apologies and regrets. As
+soon as he had left her the Princess showed her annoyance: how could she
+lead the cotillion with this tear in her dress, slight though it might
+be--and the cotillion would begin in less than half an hour! Then she
+remembered that her fiancé had led her, on her arrival, to a little
+drawing-room, quite away from the reception rooms at the end of the
+gallery, that she might leave her cloak there, saying:
+
+"Dear Princess, I have prepared this boudoir for you, and _you only_."
+
+Sonia decided to retire to this boudoir at once and repair the damage to
+her dress. As she passed the cloak-room on her way a maid offered her
+services. The Princess refused them. If she could not have Nadine, she
+preferred to manage for herself, besides, she saw that two pins,
+concealed in the silk muslin, would put her dress to rights; and a touch
+of powder to her cheeks would bring her colour down to a becoming tint.
+
+She was considerably amused at the veritable arsenal of flasks and boxes
+of perfumes which Thomery, as became an attentive lover, had placed
+there in her honour: the little boudoir had been transformed into a
+comfortable ladies' dressing-room. Everything was provided, down to a
+glass of sugar and water, down to a little phial of alcohol and mint!
+
+Sonia opened a powder box; then, like all the women of her race, having
+a passion for perfumes, she took up a scent sprayer and lavishly
+sprinkled her throat and the lower part of her face with what was
+labelled, "essence of violets."
+
+The Princess may have suffered from the intense heat of the ball-room,
+and required rest without realising it, for she felt slightly faint, a
+little sick--almost a desire to sleep.... She slipped down on to a low
+divan, which occupied a corner of the room: she drew deep breaths,
+breaking in the perfume, a sweet rather strange scent, from the
+sprayer.
+
+"This scent is sickly," she thought. "If only I had some
+eau-de-Cologne!"
+
+Without rising, for she felt a real lassitude stealing over her, she
+looked round for the eau-de-Cologne she wanted: Thomery's arsenal did
+not contain any. There was only one sprayer and that Sonia Danidoff held
+in her hand.
+
+She sprinkled herself a second time, hoping that the perfume would
+revive her; but, on the contrary, her fatigue increased: her eyes closed
+for a moment.... When she opened them again the room was in darkness.
+
+Sonia tried to rise from the divan. An overpowering torpor, though not
+disagreeable, was benumbing her whole body, and before her eyes bright
+lights seemed to float, succeeded by thick darkness. Her head turned
+round and round ... she strove to cry out, but her voice stuck in her
+throat: her body jerked with a feeble convulsive movement. She heard
+indistinctly an unknown voice murmuring:
+
+"Let yourself go!... Sleep!... Have no fear!"
+
+Sonia Danidoff essayed a momentary resistance, then she succumbed and
+lost all consciousness of her surroundings....
+
+Absolute silence reigned in the boudoir Thomery had reserved for the
+sole use of his beautiful betrothed, when he arrived to lead her to the
+cotillion. He found the door shut. He knocked discreetly. There was no
+reply. Repeated knocking evoked no audible answer. Thomery opened the
+door. The room was in total darkness. He switched on the electric light:
+the boudoir was brilliantly illuminated.... The sight that met his
+startled eyes was so moving that he grew livid with horror and rushed to
+the side of his betrothed.
+
+Sonia Danidoff was extended on the divan motionless and pale as death. A
+hoarse and laboured breath came from her heaving bosom at irregular
+intervals: on the exquisite skin of neck and breast were spattered
+streaks of blood!
+
+Beside himself, Thomery rushed away in search of help.
+
+It was at this terrible crisis that the fiancé of Sonia Danidoff had
+attracted the attention of Charley, whose friend, the young engineer
+Andral, was the protégé of the man whose awful pallor and distracted air
+spelt tragedy.
+
+Thomery, his countenance ravaged by intense emotion, his hands clenched,
+shaken by nervous tremors, hastened, with unsteady steps, in the
+direction of the gallery leading to the anteroom.
+
+Suddenly a woman's shrieks broke in on the charming harmonies of a slow
+waltz, which the orchestra was rendering at the moment.... There was an
+irresistible rush towards the boudoir, where two half-fainting women had
+collapsed on chairs, and the famous surgeon, Dr. Marvier, was doing his
+utmost to prevent the crowd from entering the room. The word went round
+that a tragedy had taken place--a death! Princess Sonia Danidoff was in
+the room lying dead! The words "crime" and "murder" were freely bandied
+about: murmurs of "assassin," "robber," "assassination" could be heard.
+
+Some twenty of the guests who had entered the boudoir could give
+details. The dreadful rumours were true. Sonia Danidoff, they declared,
+was stretched out on the floor covered with blood, her breast bare, her
+pearls had vanished--a horrible sight!
+
+The uproar died down; an icy silence reigned. The dancers drew together
+in groups discussing the terrifying tragedy.... Several women were still
+in a fainting condition; pallid men were opening windows that fresh air
+might circulate in the overheated rooms; on all sides they were watching
+for the return of their host.
+
+Thomery remained invisible.
+
+General de Rini called his two daughters to his side and spoke words of
+affectionate encouragement, for they were much upset. The old soldier
+marched off with them in the direction of the grand staircase and
+towards the cloak-room on the landing. As he was preparing to take over
+his coat and hat, one of the footmen went up to him and said a few words
+in a low voice:
+
+"What!... What!" cried the General. "What's the meaning of this?... Not
+to leave the house!... But, am I under suspicion then?... It is
+shameful!... I never heard of such a thing!"
+
+A butler approached the irate General and said, very respectfully:
+
+"I beg of you, General, to speak lower! A definite order to that effect
+was given us ten minutes ago. Directly Monsieur Thomery was aware of the
+... accident he had the entrance doors closed and had the house
+surrounded by the detectives who were downstairs on duty. The sergeant
+is there to see this order carried out: you cannot leave the
+premises!... It is not that you are under suspicion, General--of course
+not--but perhaps in this way they may succeed in finding the guilty
+person who has certainly not left the house, for no one has gone from
+the house for at least an hour...."
+
+General Rini had calmed down. He understood why his host had issued the
+order. He retired to a corner of the gallery with his daughters, Yvonne
+and Marthe: the poor things seemed stunned.
+
+The reception rooms slowly emptied: the guests crowded on to the
+verandah and into the smoking-room. There was a buzz of talk--queries,
+comments, conjectures: it ceased abruptly.
+
+Monsieur Thomery had just appeared at the top of the grand staircase,
+accompanied by a gentleman, whose simple black coat was in striking
+contrast to the light dresses and brilliant uniforms of the guests.
+
+Someone whispered:
+
+"Monsieur Havard!"
+
+It was, in fact, the chief of the detective police force. Within a
+couple of minutes of his frightful discovery, Thomery had rushed to the
+telephone and had called up Police Headquarters. It was a piece of
+unexpected good fortune to find Monsieur Havard there at so advanced an
+hour. He had immediately responded to the call in person.
+
+Whilst crossing the reception rooms Thomery talked to him in a low
+voice:
+
+"Accept my grateful thanks, Monsieur, for having answered my appeal for
+help so quickly. No sooner did I discover the body of my Princess than I
+lost no time in having all the exits from the premises watched.
+Unfortunately I was obliged to leave my reception rooms for quite a
+quarter of an hour, so that I cannot tell you what happened there. If
+only I had been able to remain with my guests, I might possibly have
+surprised some movement, some gesture, some look, which would have put
+me on the track of this murderous thief ... unfortunately ..."
+
+Monsieur Havard interrupted, smiling:
+
+"That does not matter, Monsieur: if the guilty person is among your
+guests and has in some way betrayed himself, I shall hear of it. There
+are, at least, four or five plain clothes men among the dancers, I can
+assure you of that."
+
+"I can assure you to the contrary!" replied Thomery--"I know my
+guests--know who have been admitted here!"
+
+"I also am sure of what I say," insisted Monsieur Havard. "There is
+scarcely a ball, a reception, however select it may be, where you will
+not find a certain number of our men."
+
+Thomery made no reply to this: they had arrived at the door of the fatal
+room. The doctor was standing beside the victim. Dr. Marvier reassured
+Monsieur Havard. He announced that the Princess had been almost
+literally felled to the ground by a most powerful soporific and was in
+no real danger: she would certainly regain consciousness in the course
+of an hour or two.... But she must be kept perfectly quiet: that was
+absolutely necessary.
+
+Monsieur Havard did not question the doctor's statement. After a rapid
+glance he was able to form his own opinion. There had been no struggle:
+the victim's wounds were due to the haste with which the thief had torn
+the jewels from Sonia Danidoff's neck. He next considered the two
+windows which, with the door opening on to the gallery, were the only
+means of entrance and exit the room had. There were strong iron shutters
+behind the windows: these could not be very easily opened: in any case,
+it was impossible to close them again from the outside. The thief must
+have been in the house, probably in the ball-room, and had followed the
+Princess into this little retiring-room.... But what had been the
+Princess's motive for coming here alone? Monsieur Havard had learned
+that the room had not been thrown open to the other guests. Then he
+perceived that the lace at the bottom of her dress was undone. He bent
+down and examined it carefully: two pins, hastily stuck in, kept
+together a piece of this lace.... The conclusion Monsieur Havard came to
+was, that the Princess having a rent in her dress had wished to be alone
+for a minute or two in order to repair the damage, and that while she
+was stooping towards the bottom of her skirt the assassin had thrown her
+to the ground and despoiled her of her jewels.
+
+The chief of the detective force turned to Thomery abruptly:
+
+"I shall be obliged to follow a course of action which may rather annoy
+your guests; but they must excuse me. Everything leads me to think that
+the guilty person is on the premises, since no one has gone away.... I
+must hold an investigation at once. I am going to cross-examine your
+guests--probe them thoroughly--and I wish to put them through their
+paces in your office, Monsieur Thomery, one by one.... I will begin ...
+with you ... so that your guests take my questioning with a good grace
+... it is only a mere matter of form--a pure formality!..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The investigations were lengthy and trying and led to no result
+whatever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fandor, who was preoccupied by this fresh drama in which he had taken
+some part--far too slight to please him--was putting on his overcoat
+when he stopped dead.
+
+A voice--an unrecognisable voice--had murmured in his ear:
+
+"Attention! Fandor!... It is serious!..."
+
+Our journalist turned round in a flash. Ah, this time he would find out
+who the mysterious unknown was--the unknown, who wished to influence by
+word written and word spoken, the course of these investigations he had
+taken in hand:
+
+Anonymous friend?
+
+Concealed adversary?
+
+He must, at all costs, clear up the mystery.
+
+A dozen people were crowding round Fandor, insisting on being attended
+to in the cloak-room.
+
+No one noticed the journalist....
+
+No one seemed interested in what he was doing....
+
+Fandor examined every one of Thomery's guests who were standing about
+him. He knew some of them by name, some he knew by sight. He searched
+their faces with penetrating eyes; but, in vain.... Some were
+common-place looking, others calm, others impenetrable:
+
+"Hang it all," he grumbled. He went off furious and upset.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+FINGER PRINTS
+
+
+After having interrogated all the witnesses of last night's tragedy he
+could get into touch with, Jérôme Fandor returned to the Palais de
+Justice.
+
+"All the same," he confessed to himself, "I must admit that, up to the
+present, I do not know anything very definite about it. This Princess
+Sonia Danidoff has managed to get robbed in a most extraordinary way. At
+one o'clock in the morning, Havard declares that the thief can be none
+other than one of the guests, and thereupon every person present has to
+submit to being searched--an exhaustive search! Nothing comes of it.
+Then Bertillon arrives on the scene, and it seems he has obtained very
+distinct imprints of finger marks. If they are as distinct as all that,
+the task of the police will be simplified; but, on the other hand, is it
+likely the guilty person will be so simple as to respond to the summons
+issued by the Public Prosecutor, a general summons issued to all
+Thomery's guests to parade in Bertillon's office for the finger-mark
+test?... Not he! Why the moment he heard of it he would make for the
+train and pass the frontier!"
+
+When his cab arrived at the Palais, Fandor uttered a big sigh of
+satisfaction:
+
+"There are a good many things I am not clear about: let us hope
+Bertillon will give me some information."
+
+The entrance to the anthropometric department was under the discreet
+observation of two detectives:
+
+"Oh," thought Fandor. "They think it probable there will be an immediate
+arrest, do they? We are going to have some complications, I foresee, in
+connection with the finger-mark ceremony!"
+
+He sent in his card and a few minutes after he found himself in the
+presence of Monsieur Bertillon.
+
+"Well, what is it you want me to tell you?" asked this famous man of
+science.
+
+"Why, dear master, everything that took place last night! Is it true
+that you have summoned here all Thomery's guests?... Have you obtained
+such perfect reprints that, in your hasty examination, you can be
+certain of identifying them with those of the persons who will pass
+through your office to undergo the test?"
+
+Bertillon smiled:
+
+"Oh, my dear fellow, you are of those who do not put much faith in the
+results of my tests for police purposes! That, let me tell you, is
+because you are not acquainted with our procedure. The impressions I
+obtained are distinct--precise as can be; if an arrest is made before
+long it will be made on sure grounds."
+
+Fandor bowed:
+
+"I accept your statement, dear master!... But, do be kind enough to tell
+me what happened after my departure?"
+
+"Oh, nothing very extraordinary.... Of course you know about the
+affair--how the Princess Sonia Danidoff was discovered?..."
+
+"What I know is that Thomery found one of his guests, Princess Sonia
+Danidoff, in a dead faint in a small drawing-room; that Dr. Du Marvier
+declared she had been rendered unconscious; that the theft of a pearl
+necklace worn by the victim had been the motive of this criminal
+attempt; that Monsieur Havard, called in at once, first made sure that
+no one had left the house, and then had everyone on the premises
+searched ... and that is really all I know about it!"
+
+"Well, Havard did not find anything!"
+
+"No one was caught with compromising jewels in their possession. The
+last guest gone, the house searched from top to bottom, not a single
+pearl had been found.... I arrived just when the investigations had
+terminated: at the moment when they were about to take the Princess
+home. She had regained consciousness by this time and declared she knew
+nothing except that she had fallen asleep after using a perfume sprayer.
+This has been seized and chloroform has been found in it; but no one
+seems to know who filled the sprayer with this stupefying perfume."
+
+"Did Monsieur Havard send for you?"
+
+"Yes, he telephoned. You know, of course, that I am always asked to
+intervene now in any ticklish affair!... Well Dr. Du Marvier, an expert
+in his way, noticed that the Princess had been half strangled by the
+thief in his haste to secure the pearl collar, and he wished me to
+search for finger prints on the nape of the victim's neck--to discover
+the assassin's signature in fact."
+
+"And there were some?"
+
+"A quantity. The Princess had been slightly wounded in the nape of the
+neck ... blood had been pressed on to the skin of her neck, and it was
+easy to take a cast of one of the fingers."
+
+"Was that sufficient?"
+
+"Yes, and no; such an impression is something; but there is better than
+that! The thief must have given the neck a violent squeeze with his
+hands, consequently there is a complete impression of the hand ... that
+I had to get...."
+
+Fandor instinctively put his hand to his neck as if he were squeezing
+it. He said:
+
+"Are such impressions imperceptible?"
+
+"Yes; to the eye, but not to the photographing apparatus. It is
+thoroughly established that the pattern formed by the innumerable lines
+which furrow the fleshy part of our fingers is as peculiarly
+characteristic of each individual as the form of his nose, of his ears,
+or the colour of his eyes. The curves or rings, the various forms taken
+by these lines already exist in the newly born and never change to the
+day of his death. Even in case of a burn, if the skin grows again, the
+ridges reappear exactly as they were before the accident. Look you, one
+can obtain by this method--this test--such results as you would never
+dream of. For example, by taking these imprints I obtained in the early
+hours of to-day, as a basis, I can tell you, with almost absolute
+accuracy, the height of the individual...."
+
+"This is marvellous!" cried Fandor. "The service your department renders
+then is to abolish legal blunders?"
+
+"That is so. Every individual identified, is identified plainly,
+irrefutably. Unfortunately, we cannot always obtain perfect imprints on
+the spot where the crime is committed."
+
+"But this night?"
+
+"Ah, as I told you, the impressions were most satisfactory. I have the
+thief's hand--the whole of it! I will even go so far as to declare that
+the fellow who committed the crime has already been through my hands. I
+recognise that hand! You shall see, whether or no I have made a
+mistake!"...
+
+Bertillon pressed a bell, and asked the official who answered it:
+
+"Have you identified the imprints I sent you just now?"
+
+"Yes, sir. This man has already been measured here. It is register
+9200."
+
+Bertillon turned to Fandor:
+
+"You see, I was not mistaken! All I have to do is to turn up my
+alphabetical index, and for this very month, for the number is a recent
+one, and I shall know the name of the old offender--he must be one, as
+he is catalogued here--who has committed this assault."
+
+Whilst speaking, Monsieur Bertillon was turning over the leaves of an
+enormous register:
+
+"Ah! Here is the 9200 series!..."
+
+Suddenly the book slipped from his hands, and he exclaimed: "The guilty
+man is ..."
+
+"Is who?" questioned Fandor.
+
+"Is Jacques Dollon!... The hand that has robbed Princess Sonia Danidoff
+is the hand of Jacques Dollon!"
+
+"But it is impossible!"
+
+Bertillon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Impossible?... Why, since the proof of it is there?"
+
+"But Jacques Dollon is dead!"
+
+"He was the thief of yesterday's crime."
+
+"You are making a mistake!..."
+
+"I am not making a mistake!... Jacques Dollon is the thief I tell you!"
+
+This was too much for Jérôme Fandor: he could not contain himself.
+
+"And I tell you, Monsieur Bertillon, that I know that I am
+certain--positively certain, that Jacques Dollon is dead!... Now,
+then!..."
+
+The man of science shook his head.
+
+"I, in my turn, say, you are making a mistake! Look at the two imprints
+I have here! That of Jacques Dollon taken a few days ago, and this made
+from the impressions obtained this very night, or, to be exact, in the
+early morning hours of to-day! They are identical--one can be exactly
+superposed on the other!..."
+
+"Coincidence!"
+
+"There is no such coincidence possible--besides"--Monsieur Bertillon
+took up a powerful magnifying glass--"look at these characteristic
+details!... Just look at the lines of the thumb, all out of shape!...
+The presentment of the thumb itself is not normal either; it denotes
+habitual movement in a certain direction: it is the thumb of a painter,
+of a potter!... Oh, it is all as clear as daylight--believe me--there is
+no doubt about it! Jacques Dollon is the guilty person!"
+
+"But," repeated Fandor obstinately: "Jacques Dollon is dead! I swear to
+you he is dead!..."
+
+This assertion made no impression on the man of science.
+
+"As to whether Jacques Dollon is alive or dead--that is for the police
+to decide!... For my part, I can declare that the man who committed the
+theft yesterday evening is the identical man who passed through my hands
+some days ago--and that man is certainly Jacques Dollon!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jérôme Fandor left Monsieur Bertillon. The young journalist was
+perplexed.... If the finger-prints on the neck of Princess Sonia
+Danidoff were, beyond dispute, those of Jacques Dollon--then the mystery
+surrounding this affair, and not this affair only, but a series of
+incidents, so far from being cleared up, was more impenetrable than
+ever!
+
+But Fandor was obsessed by the idea of Fantômas, of Fantômas in the
+depths of mystery, presiding over this series of dramatic occurrences.
+
+"Yes, Fantômas is certainly in this!" he cried.... But Dollon has left
+traces of himself here--has, as it were, put his signature, his
+identification mark to this crime!... But Dollon is not Fantômas ...
+besides Dollon is dead!... I have proofs of it--yes, he is dead!... Well
+then?...
+
+What to make of it?
+
+Fandor could not make anything of it!
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+IDENTITY OF A NAVVY
+
+
+"The Barbey-Nanteuil bank is certainly gorgeous!" thought Jérôme Fandor
+as he traversed the hall on the ground floor, where the massive mahogany
+furniture, the thick carpets, the deep, comfortable chairs, the sober
+elegance of the window curtains breathed an atmosphere of luxury and
+good taste. "And decidedly banking is the best of businesses!" added our
+young journalist.
+
+An attendant advanced to meet him.
+
+"What do you want, monsieur?"
+
+"Will you take in my card to Monsieur Nanteuil? I should be glad to have
+a few minutes' talk with him."
+
+The attendant bowed.
+
+"On a personal matter, monsieur?"
+
+"A personal matter?... Yes."
+
+Jérôme Fandor wanted to interview the Barbey-Nanteuils on the subject of
+the recent occurrences, which had roused Paris opinion to the highest
+degree--mysterious occurrences on which no light seemed to have been
+thrown so far.... Not only were the Barbey-Nanteuils the bankers of the
+Baroness de Vibray, but they had been present at Thomery's ball, when
+the attack on Princess Sonia Danidoff had taken place.... Would they
+allow themselves to be interviewed? Fandor decided that they certainly
+would, for they were business men, and was he not going to give them a
+free advertisement?
+
+The attendant--a stately individual--returned.
+
+"Monsieur Nanteuil is sorry he cannot see you, he is taking the chair
+at an important committee meeting; but Monsieur Barbey will see you for
+a few minutes, that is to say, if he will do instead of Monsieur
+Nanteuil."
+
+"In that case, I will see Monsieur Barbey," said Fandor, rising.
+
+Following the attendant, Fandor traversed the whole length of the bank,
+and passing the half-open door of Monsieur Nanteuil's office--the name
+on the door told him this--he noticed that it was empty.
+
+Monsieur Barbey received him coldly and with a solemn bow. Fandor's
+reply was a pleasant smile.
+
+"I know," said he, "that your time is precious, Monsieur Barbey, so I
+will come straight to the object of my call.... You must be aware of the
+profound impression caused by the double crimes recently committed on
+the persons of Madame de Vibray and the Princess Sonia Danidoff?"
+
+"It is true, monsieur, that I have followed, in the papers, the account
+of the investigations regarding them: but, in what way?..."
+
+"Does it concern you?" finished Fandor. "Good heavens, monsieur, is it
+not a fact that the Baroness de Vibray was your client? And were you not
+present at Monsieur Thomery's ball?"
+
+"That is so, monsieur; but if you are hoping that I can supply you with
+further details than those already published, you will be disappointed.
+I myself have learned a good deal about these crimes only from reading
+your articles, monsieur."
+
+"Can you confirm the statement that Madame de Vibray was ruined?"
+
+"I do not think I am betraying a professional secret if I say that
+Madame de Vibray had had very heavy losses quite recently."
+
+"And Princess Sonia Danidoff?"
+
+"I do not think she is one of our clients."
+
+"You do not think so?"
+
+"But, monsieur, you cannot suppose that we know all our clients? Our
+business is a very extensive one, and neither Nanteuil, nor I, could
+possibly know the names of all those who do business with us."
+
+"You know the name of Jacques Dollon?"
+
+"Yes. I knew young Dollon. He was introduced to me by Madame de Vibray,
+who asked me to give him a helping hand, and I willingly did so. I can
+only regret now that my confidence was so ill placed."
+
+"Do you believe him guilty then?... Not really?"
+
+"I certainly do!... So do all your readers, monsieur. Is that not so?"
+
+But, whilst Monsieur Barbey was regarding Fandor with some astonishment
+because of his half-avowal, that he himself was not sure of Dollon's
+guilt, the door was flung open with violence, and Monsieur Nanteuil, out
+of breath, looking thoroughly upset, rushed into the room, followed by
+five or six men unknown to Jérôme Fandor, and showing traces of fatigue
+and emotion also.
+
+"Good Heavens! What is it?" cried Monsieur Barbey, rising to meet his
+partner....
+
+"The matter is," cried Monsieur Nanteuil, "that an abominable robbery
+has just been committed...."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Rue du Quatre Septembre!..." Still panting, he began to give
+details....
+
+Fandor did not wait to hear more. He rushed from the Barbey-Nanteuil
+bank and made for the place de l'Opéra at top speed.
+
+In consequence of the extraordinary occurrence which Monsieur Nanteuil
+had hastened to report to his partner, a considerable crowd had flocked
+to the scene of the accident; but barriers had been quickly erected, and
+the crowd, directed by the police, were able to circulate in orderly
+fashion when Fandor arrived on the scene.
+
+The agile young journalist had made his way to the front row of the
+curious, and was bent on entering the stone and wood yards of the works
+forbidden to the public; the usual palisade no longer existed owing to
+the landslip.
+
+Just as he was searching in his pocket for the precious identification
+card, which the police grant to the reporters connected with the big
+newspapers, Fandor was jostled by an individual coming out of the yards.
+It was a navvy all covered with mortar, white dust, and mud; he was
+without a hat and held his right hand pressed against his cheek; between
+his fingers there filtered a few drops of blood.
+
+The glances of the man and the journalist met, and Fandor felt as though
+someone had struck him a blow on the heart! The navvy had given him so
+strange a look. Fandor thought he had read in his eyes a threat and an
+invitation.
+
+Whilst our journalist hesitated, troubled by this sudden encounter, the
+man moved off, forcing his way through the crowd. Then Fandor caught
+sight of some of his colleagues, stumbling about amidst the ruins and
+rubble in the stone-yard. This reassured him; if he followed the navvy,
+and he had the strongest inclination to do so, he could telephone to
+some reporter friend who would supply him with the necessary details for
+his article on the accident. He had got some facts already: a sudden
+collapse of stones and mortar had buried a hand-cart, in which were
+large bars of gold belonging to the Barbey-Nanteuil bank. But the
+precious vehicle had soon been rescued, and they were taking it to the
+bank under escort.
+
+Satisfied as to this, Fandor followed with his eyes this strange navvy
+who was going further and further away.
+
+Fandor had an intuition--a very strong feeling--that he must follow the
+trail of this man and make him talk. It was of the utmost
+importance--something told him this was so.
+
+The navvy was not simply going away, he had the air of a man in flight.
+
+Fandor, who was following now and keenly observant, noticed the
+hesitating movements of the man--then there was an astonishing move on
+the navvy's part: he hailed a taxi and got in. Fandor had the good luck
+to find another taxi at once; jumping in, he said to the driver:
+
+"Follow the 4227 G.H. which is in front of you: don't let it outdistance
+you ... you shall have a good tip!"
+
+The chauffeur, a young alert fellow, understood there was a chase in
+question, and amused at the idea of pursuing a comrade through the
+crowded streets of Paris, he set off. He adroitly cut through a file of
+carriages and caught up taxi 4227 G.H. He then proceeded to follow
+closely in its track.
+
+Fandor, keen as a bloodhound on the scent, kept watch over their
+progress to an unknown destination.
+
+They rolled along the avenue de l'Opéra: they cut across the rue de
+Rivoli. Then, when they were going at a good pace through the place du
+Carrousel, Fandor felt much moved by memories of past times, those days
+of great and wonderful adventures, when he would follow this very route
+to keep some exciting appointment with his good friend, Juve. How
+frequent those appointments used to be, when the famous detective was
+alive and so actively at work--the work of unearthing criminals--those
+pests of society! Off Fandor used to set when the longed for summons
+came, and would meet Juve in his little flat on the left side of the
+Seine. Ah, those were times, indeed!
+
+When a lad, Fandor had been practically adopted by the famous detective.
+Young Jérôme Fandor had served a kind of apprenticeship with Juve, and
+this had brought him into close touch with the ups and downs of a number
+of crime dramas: he and Juve together had even been the voluntary, or
+involuntary, heroes of some of them! Then the tragic disappearance of
+Juve had occurred, when Fandor had escaped death by a kind of miracle!
+
+After that dreadful date, our journalist had found himself alone,
+isolated, with not a soul to whom he cared to confide his perplexities,
+his anxieties, his hopes! Fandor shuddered at the thought of this.
+
+The taxi had just crossed the bridge des Sainte Pères, had followed the
+quay for a few minutes, then rounding the Fine Arts School they entered
+the old and narrow rue Bonaparte....
+
+What was this? Of course, it could only be a coincidence ... but still
+... rue Bonaparte--why that only brought the memory of Juve more vividly
+to mind! For Juve had lived in this street; and now, a few yards further
+on, they would pass before the modest dwelling where, for years, the
+detective had made his home, keeping jealously hidden, from all and
+sundry, this asylum, this secret retreat.
+
+Ah, what happy hours, what jolly times, what tragic moments, too, had
+Fandor not passed in that little flat on the fourth floor! How they had
+chatted away in the detective's comfortable study! Then Fandor, full of
+spirit, would come and go from room to room, unable to sit still, all
+fire and activity; and Juve would remain in one place, calm, full of
+thought, sometimes sunk in a reverie, often silent for hours at a time,
+his eyes obstinately fixed on the ceiling, smoking methodically,
+mechanically even, his eternal cigarette. Oh, those good, good days gone
+for ever!
+
+After the disastrous disappearance of Juve, Fandor had not gone near the
+rue Bonaparte for six months. It was all too painful, to find again the
+familiar rooms and no Juve! It was too painful.
+
+However, one fine day, he determined to go and see what had happened to
+his friend's old home.... Alas, in Paris, the lapse of half a year
+suffices to alter the most familiar scene! In rue Bonaparte, the former
+house porters had left; their place had been taken by a stout, sulky
+woman who gave evasive replies to Fandor's questions. He extracted from
+her the information that the tenant of the fourth floor flat had died,
+that his furniture had been cleared out very soon after his death, and
+the flat had been let to an insurance inspector....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fandor was roused from this retrospect: he grew pale, his heart seemed
+to stop its beating: the taxi he was pursuing had slowed down--had drawn
+up beside the pavement--had stopped in front of Juve's old home!
+
+Fandor saw the navvy descend from the taxi, pay his fare, and enter the
+house, still keeping his right hand pressed to his cheek. Without a
+moment's reflection, Fandor leapt from his taxi, flung a five-franc
+piece to his driver, and without waiting for the change he rushed into
+the house, whose passages and stairs were so familiar.
+
+The navvy was swiftly mounting the stairs in front of our excited young
+journalist, who was close on his quarry's heels: the two men were
+panting as they went up that dark staircase.
+
+At the fourth floor, Fandor was nearly overcome by emotion, for the man
+entered Juve's old flat as if he had a right to do so.
+
+He was on the point of shutting the door in the face of his pursuer, but
+Fandor had foreseen this. He slipped through with a forceful push and
+caught the navvy by his jacket.
+
+Quick as lightning the navvy turned, and the two men stood face to
+face.... The result was startling!
+
+Speechless they stared at each other for what seemed an interminable
+moment; then, with a strangled cry, Fandor fell into the man's arms, and
+was crushed in a strong embrace. Two cries escaped from their lips at
+the same moment:
+
+"Juve!"
+
+"Fandor!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he came to himself again, Fandor found he was lying in one of the
+comfortable leather arm-chairs in Juve's study. His temples and the
+lobes of his ears were being bathed with some refreshing liquid: the
+commingled scent of ether and eau-de-Cologne was in the air.
+
+When he opened his eyes, it was with difficulty that he could credit the
+sight that met them!
+
+Juve, his dear Juve, was bending over him, gazing at him tenderly,
+watching his return to consciousness with some anxiety.
+
+Fandor vainly strove to rise: he felt dazed.
+
+"Fandor!" murmured Juve, in a voice trembling with emotion. "Fandor, my
+little Fandor. My lad, my own dear lad!"
+
+Oh, yes, this was Juve, his own Juve, whom Fandor saw before him!... He
+had aged a little, this dear Juve of his--had gone slightly grey at the
+temples: there were some fresh lines on his forehead, at the corners of
+his mouth, too; but it was the Juve of old times, for all that!... Juve,
+alert, souple, robust, Juve in his full vigour, in the prime of life!
+Oh, a living, breathing, fatherly Juve: his respected master and most
+intimate friend--restored to him, after mourning the irreparable loss of
+him and his incomprehensible disappearance!
+
+While Fandor slowly came to himself, Juve had lessened the disordered
+state of his appearance; he had taken off his workman's clothes, and
+also the red beard which he had worn, when he ran up against the
+journalist in the place de l'Opéra.
+
+As soon as Fandor was himself again, not only did he feel intense joy, a
+quite wild joy, but he also knew the good of a keen curiosity. Now he
+would know why the detective had felt obliged to disappear, officially
+at any rate, from Paris life for so long a period.
+
+Protestations of faithful attachment, or unalterable affection poured
+from Fandor's excited lips, intermingled with questions: he wanted to
+know everything at once.
+
+Juve smiled in silence, and gazed most affectionately at his dear lad.
+
+At last he said:
+
+"I am not going to ask you for your news, Fandor, for I have seen you
+repeatedly, and I know you are quite all right.... Why, I do believe you
+have put on flesh a little!"
+
+Juve was smiling that enigmatic smile of his.
+
+Fandor grew impatient, on fire with curiosity. Ah, this was indeed the
+Juve of bygone days, imperturbable, ironical, rather exasperating also!
+
+However, Juve took pity on Fandor, who was still under the influence of
+the shock he had received.
+
+"Well, now, dear lad, did you recognise me, a while ago?"
+
+Fandor pulled himself together.
+
+"To tell you the truth, Juve, I did not ... but, when our glances met, I
+had an intuition, a kind of interior revelation of what I had to do, and
+without any beating about the bush--I knew I had to follow you, follow
+you wherever you went."
+
+Juve nodded his approval.
+
+"Very good, dear fellow; your reply gives me infinite pleasure, and on
+two counts: in the first place, I perceive that your remarkable instinct
+for getting on to the right scent, strengthened by my teaching, has
+improved immensely since we parted; and, in the second place, I am
+delighted to know that I made my head and face so unrecognisable that
+even my old familiar friend, Fandor, did not know me when we were
+brought face to face!"
+
+"Why this disguise, Juve?" demanded Fandor, his countenance alight with
+curiosity. "How was it I came across you at the very spot where the
+Barbey-Nanteuil load of gold had been submerged, for the moment, under
+bricks and mortar? And, with regard to that, Juve, how comes it ..."
+
+Juve cut Fandor short.
+
+"Gently! Fandor! Gently! You are putting the cart before the horse, old
+fellow; and if we continue to talk by fits and starts, never shall we
+come to the end of all we have to say to each other, and must say. Are
+you aware, Fandor, that we have been drawn into a succession of
+incomprehensible occurrences--a mysterious network of them?... But I
+have good hopes that now we shall be able to work together again; and I
+like to think that if we follow the different trails we have each
+started on, we shall end up by..."
+
+It was Fandor's turn to interrupt:
+
+"Hang it all, Juve! I partly understand you, of course; but there's a
+lot I don't know yet.... What are you after, dear Juve? Are you, as I
+am, on the track of Jacques Dollon?"
+
+There was a pause, then Juve said:
+
+"I shall reserve the details for our leisure. What matters now is, that
+I should make clear to you the principal lines my existence has followed
+during the past three years or so. A few minutes will suffice to put you
+in possession of the main facts. Now, listen."
+
+The narrative went back to the time when Juve, aided by Fandor, was
+close on the heels of their mortal enemy, the mysterious and elusive
+Fantômas. The detective and the journalist had succeeded in cooping up
+the formidable bandit in a house at Neuilly, belonging to a great
+English lady, known under the name of Lady Beltham. This Englishwoman
+was the mistress and accomplice of the notorious Fantômas.[9] But at the
+precise moment when Juve was about to arrest him, a frightful explosion
+occurred, and the building, blown up by dynamite, collapsed in ruins,
+burying the two friends and some fifteen policemen and detectives.
+
+[Footnote 9: See _The Exploits of Juve_.]
+
+Rescuers were on the spot in a very short time, and uninterruptedly, for
+forty-eight hours, they searched among the ruins for the victims of the
+disaster, dead or alive.
+
+By a miraculous piece of good fortune, Fandor had been but slightly
+hurt, and at the end of a few days he was as well as ever. But the poor
+fellow had lost his best friend--Juve!
+
+The search for Juve had been a useless one. Several corpses could not be
+identified owing to the injuries they had sustained; and, as it seemed
+incredible that the detective could have escaped, they had concluded
+that one of the unrecognisable bodies must be his.
+
+Juve, however, was not one of the dead!
+
+Saved in as miraculous a fashion as Fandor had been, less injured even,
+a few seconds after the frightful crash, he had been able to rise and
+make his escape. The distracted detective had raced away from the scene
+of disaster in search of Fandor, and also in pursuit of Fantômas, for he
+believed that both had made their escape.
+
+After wandering about for some hours, he had returned to mingle with the
+crowd of rescuers, and had learned that Fandor had been found, and was
+not dangerously hurt: on the other hand, there were those present who
+declared that he, Juve, was killed!
+
+This unexpected announcement gave him an idea: for an indefinite period
+he would accept this version! For, more than ever set upon catching his
+enemy, the detective said to himself, that if Fantômas could feel
+certain that Juve no longer existed, the pretended dead would have a far
+better chance of catching the living bandit!
+
+Thereupon, Juve had submitted his project to his chief, Monsieur Havard;
+and the head of the police secret service had consented to ignore Juve's
+presence among the living.
+
+Juve knew that Lady Beltham had escaped to England.
+
+Supposing that Fantômas would rejoin her without delay, the detective
+left Paris, crossed the Channel. He then went to America. For scarcely
+had he arrived in London when he learned that the bandits had gone off
+to the United States.
+
+Juve travelled from place to place for some months. It was a vain quest:
+Fantômas had vanished, leaving not a trace behind, and the disgusted
+detective, now convinced that he had followed a false trail, returned to
+France.
+
+He determined to set himself to study anew the prison world; he was all
+the more interested in it because, before his supposed death, Juve had
+effected the arrest of several members of a band of which Fantômas was
+the leader. Among these were the Cooper, the Beard, and old Mother
+Toulouche.
+
+Then, at the prison connected with the asylum, Juve had come across a
+warder, who, some years previous to this, had been the warder in charge
+of a man condemned to death, one Gurn, who had not been guillotined
+because a substituted person had been executed in his stead. Juve was
+convinced that the condemned criminal was none other than Fantômas. Juve
+strongly suspected that this warder, Nibet by name, knew a great deal
+about this old affair. But soon Nibet passed to the Dépôt. The
+accomplices of Fantômas, having served the time of their respective
+sentences, some at Melun, others at Clermont, all this nice collection
+of criminals would meet once more on the pavements of Paris. Juve,
+therefore, had imperious reasons for mingling with this charming
+crowd!...
+
+Fandor had followed Juve's rapid narrative with the most intense
+interest.
+
+"And then, Juve, what then?" insisted Fandor.
+
+"And then," said the detective, "to make an end of it--for we must not
+be forever going over the past adventures--let me tell you, that after
+many and diverse happenings, a band of smugglers and false coiners,
+among whom are to be found individuals already known to you, notably the
+Beard, the Cooper, and also that wretch of a Mother Toulouche, one fine
+day made the acquaintance of a poor sort of creature, simple-minded, and
+anything but sharp-witted--an individual who goes by the name of
+Cranajour!"
+
+"Cranajour?" queried Fandor, "I don't in the least understand."
+
+"Yes, Cranajour," repeated Juve. "Here is how it came about. You
+remember when Fantômas got an unfortunate actor named Valgrand executed
+in his stead? Well, our mysterious Fantômas, the better to mislead and
+bamboozle those who might suspect this atrocious jugglery, our bandit of
+genius--for Fantômas has genius--took the personality of Valgrand for
+several hours, and dared to go to the theatre where the real Valgrand
+was playing. However, as Fantômas was not capable of playing the part to
+a finish, he conceived the idea of making those about Valgrand believe
+that he had been suddenly afflicted with loss of memory, and from that
+moment could not remember anything whatever: Fantômas, the false
+Valgrand, could thus pass for the true Valgrand, and be taken as such by
+the true Valgrand's intimates!... I humbly confess, Fandor, that I
+copied Fantômas by creating Cranajour...."
+
+Juve, then rapidly explained to the journalist the origin of this
+nickname, and also told him how the bandits treated him as one of
+themselves; how, as soon as they were convinced that he could not
+remember anything he had seen or heard for two hours together, they
+talked freely before him of their plans and doings!
+
+The detective went on:
+
+"I must add, my dear Fandor, that no very sensational revelations have
+come to me, so far, through my intimacy with this set of criminals. It
+seemed to me I was in the midst of common thieves, who smuggled and
+circulated false coin; but one thing did puzzle me--puzzles me still:
+these folk succeed in selling a considerable number of pounds sterling,
+false coin, of course, and that without my being able to discover, so
+far, where they sell them--who makes their market. They also sell lace
+smuggled from Belgium; that, however, interests me but little, and I was
+prepared to leave to the lower ranks of the service the duty of
+clearing Paris of this common-place brood of criminals; already, indeed,
+the regular police had arrested one of the smugglers, the Cooper, and
+two of his subordinate confederates; I was about to turn my back on this
+crew in order to give all my attention to a new trail which might put me
+on the track of Fantômas once more, when the Dollon affair blazed forth;
+and then suddenly, I meet again my Fandor, braver than ever, more
+perspicacious also, adroitly taking the affair in hand, bravely
+thrusting himself into the breach!
+
+"Is there any connection between the Dollon affair and my band of
+smugglers?"
+
+"You will appreciate the importance of this question and the reply to it
+in a minute, my Fandor, when you learn that the Dépôt warder, Nibet, is
+one of the most valuable confederates of the coiners, of Mother
+Toulouche, of that hooligan, the Beard...."
+
+"Is it possible!" cried Fandor. "Ah, Juve, all this is so strange that I
+believe you are really on Fantômas' track, once more!"
+
+Juve shook his head; then he continued:
+
+"I have still a great deal to tell you, but I must pause a moment to
+say, that I ought to apologise to you for a fairly brutal act I
+committed on your behalf--in your best interests, as you will see...."
+
+And to Fandor, who opened his eyes in astonishment, the detective
+related, in humorous fashion, the history of the famous kick he had
+administered--a kick wherewith Juve had removed his friend from the
+immediate and certain danger of assassination, at the hand and by the
+knife of Nibet.
+
+Fandor could not get over it! He grasped Juve's hands and pressed them
+warmly.
+
+"My friend! My good friend!" murmured he, moved almost to tears. "If I
+had had the least suspicion!..."
+
+Juve interrupted him.
+
+"There are many more things, Fandor, you never suspected, things you
+ought to know.... And what is more, you seem to me to be neglecting your
+work badly at this very moment, Mr. Reporter! It is already one o'clock
+in the afternoon; and if they are counting on you to supply them with
+information about this affair of the place de l'Opéra...."
+
+Fandor leapt to his feet.
+
+"It's true!" he cried. "I had quite forgotten it!... But it is of no
+importance by the side of ..."
+
+Juve interrupted.
+
+"_The affair is serious, Fandor, attention!..._ Do you remember? It is
+the formula I employed on two or three occasions, when warning you,
+after the assassination of Jacques Dollon, after the attack on Sonia
+Danidoff at Thomery's house...."
+
+"What! It was you, Juve!" cried Fandor.
+
+"Yes, it was ... but let us pass on! Time presses. I am going to
+disappear anew; but you now know where to find me, in future, and under
+what form, should occasion require it. Cranajour I am; Cranajour I
+remain--for the time being, at any rate. As to you, Fandor, be off with
+you at once ... and go and hatch out that article of yours!"
+
+Our journalist rose mechanically; but Juve, thinking better of it,
+caught him by the arm, drew him back and pointed out the writing-table.
+
+"Come to think of it, you know nothing about the affair, and I do: there
+are things which should be said, above all things, to be hinted at ...
+do you wish me to give you information?... Sit yourself there, my lad: I
+am going to dictate your article to you!"
+
+Our journalist, understanding the gravity of the situation, and well
+knowing that if Juve took this course, he had important reasons for so
+doing, did not say one word. He simply brought out his fountain pen,
+screwed it ready for action, and, with his hand resting on a pile of
+white paper, he waited.
+
+Juve dictated.
+
+"First of all, put this as your title:
+
+     _An Audacious Theft_
+
+"That does not tell the reader anything, but it awakens his
+curiosity.... Let us continue!
+
+"Write."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+AN AUDACIOUS THEFT
+
+
+Two hours after Juve had dictated his article to Fandor, our journalist
+was reading it, in proof, in the offices of _La Capitale_. His article
+ran thus:
+
+"By a fortunate coincidence we found ourselves, this very morning, in
+the directorial office of the Barbey-Nanteuil bank, chatting with
+Monsieur Barbey himself, when Monsieur Nanteuil arrived, breathless, and
+announced to his partner that a sensational robbery had just been
+committed in the rue du Quatre Septembre, a robbery involving a sum of
+twenty millions representing a clearance recently effected by the
+Federated Republic.
+
+"It seems that at ten o'clock this morning, Monsieur Nanteuil
+accompanied the little hand-cart used for transferring the bullion and
+paper money to the station, from whence it was to be despatched.
+According to custom, six of the bank clerks and three plain clothes men
+went with Monsieur Nanteuil. But, at the very moment when the hand-cart
+passed out of the place de l'Opéra and turned the corner of the rue du
+Quatre Septembre, that is to say, at the precise moment when it was
+passing the palisade, surrounding the works on the Auteuil-Opéra
+Metropolitan line, a formidable explosion was heard, and the hand-cart,
+as well as the men who were drawing it, and escorting it, including
+Monsieur Nanteuil himself, disappeared in a deep excavation caused by
+the explosion, whilst a water pipe which had burst at the same moment,
+poured out torrents of water, flooding the surrounding pavement and
+roadway.
+
+"It was then about eleven o'clock in the morning, and the rue du Quatre
+Septembre presented a very animated appearance. At the noise of the
+explosion, the passers-by were glued to the spot, dazed, stupefied. Then
+exclamations broke out on all sides.
+
+"'An accident?'
+
+"'A bomb?'
+
+"The explosion had created a veritable chasm. The first moment of
+stupefaction past, policeman 326 quickly organised the rescuers, and
+sent notice to the nearest police station. Some minutes later, the
+firemen arrived on the scene armed with ladders and ropes. Meanwhile,
+the crowd of curious onlookers was increasing with amazing rapidity.
+
+"Monsieur Nanteuil was the first to be drawn up from the pit; by a
+miracle he had escaped injury; unfortunately, the clerks of the
+Barbey-Nanteuil bank had not got off so well; bruises, contusions, cases
+of severe shock, more or less serious, had to be attended to by
+neighbouring chemists.
+
+"Monsieur Nanteuil, reassured as to the fate of his clerks, turned his
+attention to the hand-cart and its millions of bullion, and the police
+in charge were given to understand that it must be drawn up without
+delay.
+
+"Into the pit the firemen once more descended; at first they were
+surprised not to find the hand-cart and its millions! No doubt, it had
+been covered by the mass of fallen bricks and mortar! But fireman Le
+Goffic, who had advanced some yards along the railway line, caught sight
+of it. The cart was lying upside down; but, except for a few scratches,
+it was found to be unbroken.
+
+"It was immediately hauled up to the roadway. Monsieur Nanteuil at once
+ascertained that the seals were intact. He then gave orders that it was
+to be taken back to the Barbey-Nanteuil bank without delay. As the
+train, which was to have borne away the bullion, had left the station
+hours ago, Monsieur Nanteuil decided to break the seals, and place the
+bullion in one of the bank's safes for the night.
+
+"Monsieur Nanteuil's stupefaction can be imagined when, having unsealed
+and opened the hand-cart, he realised that the sacks of gold had been
+replaced by sacks of lead!
+
+"It was at this moment that Monsieur Barbey was informed of the fact by
+his half-frantic partner. We were witnesses of this dramatic scene.
+
+"Every second was of value: instant action was the thing! Police
+headquarters was warned at once; and, but a few minutes had elapsed,
+when Monsieur Havard arrived in a taxicab to take charge of the
+investigations.
+
+"Thanks to the courtesy of Monsieur Havard, we were allowed to accompany
+him to the stone-yards of the Metropolitan: the police were convinced
+that it was hereabouts that the robbery had been accomplished. We
+reached the spot about an hour after the explosion. The first
+investigations produced no result; but Monsieur Havard pursued his
+solitary search up one of the sidings, and had his reward. His
+exclamation was heard, and we hastened to the spot.... He had just found
+a second hand-cart, in all points similar to that he had recently
+examined in the courtyard of the Barbey-Nanteuil bank!
+
+"Monsieur Havard at once realised that he had before his eyes the
+original hand-cart, and that the hand-cart he had seen in the bank
+courtyard was a clever substitute! It need scarcely be said that there
+is no trace of the stolen millions to be found in the original
+hand-cart, cast away in a siding of the Metropolitan....
+
+"Our readers know something of the appearance presented by these lines,
+in course of construction on the Metropolitan railway. We have
+repeatedly published in _La Capitale_ details regarding the way in which
+the engineers and workmen supervise and execute the cutting of the
+passageway on the underground. The operations in the place de l'Opéra
+are on an enormous scale, for there is a junction here, and the soil is
+more undermined than elsewhere on the railway.
+
+"At the precise spot where the explosion occurred, there are four
+galleries in course of construction: one is the future Auteuil-Opéra
+line, the others either lead to existing lines, or are galleries made
+for the convenience of the workmen. Hand-cart number one, that is to
+say, the substituted hand-cart filled with sacks of lead, was found in
+the passageway of the Auteuil-Opéra line, which is perfectly accessible,
+and would naturally be visited by the rescuers.
+
+"The original hand-cart was hidden away in one of the lateral galleries,
+which are small and narrow, and not likely to be visited and examined,
+except as a last resource. It is, therefore, clear that the affair has
+been carefully arranged: a premeditated robbery. The presence of the two
+hand-carts would establish this--the hand-carts used by the bank for the
+transport of bullion and other forms of money are of a particular
+make--unique, in fact. Their respective positions show that the robbers
+had carefully prepared their drama, and it was skilfully arranged.
+
+"Thanks to Monsieur Havard's kindness, we were permitted to approach the
+original hand-cart. It was in a lamentable condition: the body of it was
+nearly smashed to pieces! Of course, no traces of the seals were to be
+found. The only remark we see fit to make in this connection is, that
+Monsieur Nanteuil, his clerks, and those who witnessed the accident,
+must have been greatly excited and upset, otherwise they would naturally
+have been much astonished at finding the substituted hand-cart
+practically uninjured after an accident of so crushing a nature.
+
+"We have carefully examined the soil round the original hand-cart, in
+the hope of finding some clear footprints of the thieves, or their
+accomplices; but it was impossible to draw any conclusion from this
+examination--the footmarks are intermingled, superimposed,
+undistinguishable. It must be admitted the soil of the Metropolitan,
+hereabouts, has been very much trampled over and beaten down so that it
+is difficult to believe that researches, with the object of discovering
+the robbers' footmarks, are likely to have any clear result.
+
+"At the moment these lines have been written, the investigation in the
+Metropolitan passageways still continues, and will, in all probability,
+be continued late into the night. So far, the police admit that results
+are meagre. Monsieur Havard considers it certain that the deed is a
+premeditated one, carefully prepared, and that, consequently, the
+explosion which caused the catastrophe was a deliberate act of violence.
+On the other hand, Monsieur Nanteuil declares that outside the parties
+interested, that is to say, the Barbey-Nanteuil bank and the Comptoir
+d'Escomptes, who were to receive the bullion, not a soul could know of
+the transfer on that particular morning. But the staffs of the bank and
+of the Comptoir National d'Escomptes are absolutely trustworthy: their
+honour has never been questioned.
+
+"It is evident that such a daring and desperate deed, carried through so
+successfully in the galleries of the Metropolitan, in the sight of all
+Paris, at eleven o'clock in the morning, could only be the work of a
+band of criminals, numerous and perfectly organised.
+
+"'Are we returning to the days of--Fantômas?'
+
+"Let us add, that owing to the number of individuals probably involved,
+and the daring nature of the crime, Monsieur Havard considers that it
+will be extremely difficult for the guilty persons to escape from the
+police."
+
+Jérôme Fandor had just finished correcting this sensational article,
+when slips from the Havas Agency arrived at _La Capitale_.
+
+Our journalist cast his eyes over them, thinking he might find some
+piece of news which had come to hand at the last minute. As he read he
+grew pale. He struck his writing-table a violent blow with his fist.
+
+"For all that, I am not mad!" he cried.
+
+And, holding his head between his hands, spelling out each word, he
+reread the following telegram from the Havas Agency:
+
+
+_Affair of the rue du Quatre Septembre_
+
+     "_At the last moment of going to press, a bloody imprint has been
+     discovered on hand-cart number 2. Monsieur Bertillon immediately
+     identified this imprint: it was made by the hand of Jacques Dollon,
+     the criminal who is already wanted by the police for the murder of
+     the Baroness de Vibray, and the robbery committed on the Princess
+     Sonia Danidoff._"
+
+"But I am not mad!" cried Fandor, when he had read these lines. "I
+declare I am not mad! By all that's holy, Jacques Dollon is dead!...
+Fifty persons have seen him dead! But, for all that, Bertillon cannot be
+mistaken!"
+
+After a minute or two, Fandor took up his pen again, and added a note to
+his article, entitled:--
+
+     _Sensational development. The police say: "It is the late Jacques
+     Dollon who has stolen the millions!"_
+
+This note showed clearly that Jérôme Fandor did not believe that Jacques
+Dollon could possibly be involved in this affair, or in either of the
+other crimes in connection with which his name had been mentioned.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+INVESTIGATIONS
+
+
+A man jumped quickly out of the Auteuil-Madeleine tram.
+
+It would have been difficult to guess his age, or see his face. He wore
+a large soft hat--a Brazilian sombrero--whose edges he had turned down.
+The collar of his overcoat was turned up, so that the lower part of his
+face was so far buried in it that his features were almost hidden. Then,
+during the entire journey, seated at the end of the tramcar he had kept
+his back turned on the other passenger: he seemed to be absorbed in
+watching the movements of the driver. At the end of the rue Mozart,
+where the rues La Fontaine, Poussin, des Perchamps meet, he had quitted
+the tram with real satisfaction.
+
+Then, in the silence of the evening, the clock of Auteuil church had
+slowly struck eight silvery strokes.
+
+The listening man murmured:
+
+"Oh, there's no hurry after all. I've a two good hours' wait in front of
+me!"
+
+Leaving the frequented ways, he plunged into the little by-streets,
+newly made and not yet named, which join the end of the rue Mozart with
+the boulevard Montmorency. He walked fast, at the same time taking his
+bearings.
+
+"Rue Raffet?... If I don't deceive myself, it lies in this direction!"
+
+He reached the hilly and lonely road bearing that name, which, on both
+sides of its entire length, is bordered by attractive private
+residences.
+
+Swiftly, silently, stealthily, this individual approached one of these
+houses. He glanced through the garden railing, scrutinising the windows
+which were lighted up.
+
+"Good! Good! Decidedly good!" he said, in a low tone of satisfaction....
+"But there's two hours to wait ... they are still in the dining-room, if
+I am to go by the lighted windows."
+
+The watcher now inspected the rue Raffet. The house which interested him
+so much, was situated just where the rue du Docteur Blanche opens into
+the street at right angles. Auteuil is certainly not a frequented part,
+but, as a rule, the rue Raffet is generally more lonely than any of the
+streets in Auteuil: no carriages, no pedestrians.
+
+From an early hour in the evening, that hilly road was, more often than
+not, quite deserted, so was the rue du Docteur Blanche, still surrounded
+by waste land, and more especially at the rue Raffet end.
+
+A glance or two sufficed to show the man the lie of the land. He noted
+the feeble glimmer of the street lamps; he made certain that not one of
+the neighbouring houses could perceive his actions, mark his movements.
+He repeated in a theatrical tone of voice with a note of amusement in
+it.
+
+"Not a soul! Not a solitary soul! Well, it is no joke to wait here; but,
+after all, it is a quiet spot, and I can count on not being disturbed in
+the job I have in hand to-night...."
+
+This individual traversed the rue Raffet, gained the rue du Docteur
+Blanche, and, wrapping himself up in his voluminous black cloak,
+ensconced himself in a break in the palisades bordering the pavement. He
+stood there motionless; anyone might have passed within a few yards of
+him without suspecting his presence, so still was he, so imperceptibly
+did his dark figure blend with the blackness of the night.
+
+He started slightly. The church clock struck nine, its notes sounding
+silvery clear through the tranquil night ... in the distance some
+convent clock chimed an evening prayer, then a deeper silence fell on
+the darkness of night....
+
+Suddenly, the front door of the house, which the stranger had watched
+with scrutinising intentness, was thrown wide open, showing a large,
+luminous square in the darkness. Two women were speaking.
+
+"Are you going out, my darling?" asked the elder.
+
+"Don't be anxious, madame," replied a girlish voice. "There is no need
+to wait for me. I am only going to the post...."
+
+"Why not give Jules your letter?"
+
+"No, I prefer to post it myself."
+
+"You would not like someone to go with you? There are not many people
+about at this hour...."
+
+The same fresh, young voice replied:
+
+"Oh, I am not frightened ... besides it's only rue Raffet which is
+deserted; as soon as I reach rue Mozart there will be nothing more to
+fear!"
+
+The luminous square, drawn on the obscurity of the garden, disappeared.
+
+The mysterious stranger, who had not lost a word of this conversation,
+heard the door of the vestibule close, then the gravel of the garden
+crunch under the feet of the girl coming down the path. Very soon the
+gate of the garden grated on its badly oiled hinges, and then the
+elegant outline of a young girl was visible on the badly lighted
+pavement. She was walking fast....
+
+The stranger remained stationary until the girl had gone some way; then
+pressing against the wall, concealing his movements with practised
+ability, he followed her at a discreet distance....
+
+"There can be no doubt about it," he murmured. "I recognised her voice
+directly!... It's the very deuce!... It's going to complicate
+matters!... A lover's meeting? Not likely!... She must be going to the
+post, as she said.... She will return in about a quarter of an hour, and
+then ... then!..."
+
+The girl was far from suspecting that she was being followed. She had
+walked down rue Mozart, turned into rue Poussin, posted her letter, and
+then walked quietly back to the house.
+
+The stranger had not followed her into the more frequented streets: he
+awaited her return in a dark and deserted side street. When she came
+into view again, he sighed a sigh of great satisfaction.
+
+"Ah, there is the dear child!... That's all right.... Now we shall have
+some fun!... or, rather, I shall!"
+
+Anyone seeing his face, whilst making these significant exclamations,
+would have been frightened by his sneering chuckle, his hideous grin.
+
+A few minutes later, the girl re-entered the little garden of the house
+in the rue Raffet. A stout woman opened to her ring.
+
+"Ah, there you are, darling." There was relief in her tone.
+
+"Yes, here I am, safe and sound, madame!"
+
+"Nothing unpleasant--no one molested you, Elizabeth?"
+
+Elizabeth Dollon, for she it was, shook her head and smiled a smile both
+sad and sweet.
+
+"Ah, no, madame!... I was sure you would be waiting for me--I am so
+sorry!"
+
+"No, not at all!... Tell me, Elizabeth.... Jules has told me that you
+would not be going out to-morrow. The poor fellow is so stupid that I
+ask myself if he has not made a mistake?"
+
+"No," said Elizabeth. "It is quite true.... I do not think I shall go
+out, either in the morning or the afternoon."
+
+"You expect a caller?"
+
+"It is possible someone may come to see me.... If by any chance I have
+to go out for a few minutes, to get something or other, I must warn
+Jules: he must make the visitor wait: I shall not go far in case..."
+
+"All right! That's settled then, darling. Now, good night, I am going to
+my room."
+
+"Good evening, madame, and good night!"
+
+Leaving stout and kindly Madame Bourrat, owner of this private
+boarding-house where Elizabeth Dollon had found a refuge, the poor girl,
+still with a smile on her pale lips, made her way upstairs, entered her
+bedroom, and carefully locked the door. She lit the lamp. Her face now
+wore a tragic look: its expression was wild and desperate....
+
+"If only he would come!" she sighed.... "Ah, I am afraid! I am
+afraid!... I am terribly afraid!"
+
+Elizabeth stood motionless--a frozen image of fear--all but her eyes:
+they were casting terrified glances about her....
+
+And no wonder! Elizabeth was neatness personified, and her room was kept
+with exquisite care--but now, everything was in the greatest
+disorder.... The drawers of her chest of drawers were piled one on top
+of the other in a corner of the room; their contents were thrown down in
+heaps a little way off; books had been cast pell-mell on a sofa; a great
+wicker trunk, wherein Elizabeth had packed numerous papers belonging to
+her brother, was overturned on the floor, the lid open.
+
+Its contents were scattered near--a confused mass of documents and
+crumpled papers.
+
+Elizabeth stared about her for a long minute, and again she cried:
+
+"Oh, if only he would come! What is the meaning of all this?..."
+
+She regained her self-control. Her usual expression of serene gravity
+returned.
+
+"To go to sleep," she murmured. "That is the best thing--to-morrow will
+come more quickly so--and, oh, I am so sleepy, so very, very tired!"
+
+Soon Elizabeth blew out her lamp--darkness reigned in her room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was about half-past ten o'clock, and the light in Elizabeth Dollon's
+room had been extinguished for some little while, when the front door
+of the little house was opened again....
+
+Noiselessly, with infinite precautions, with searching and suspicious
+glances, taking care to keep off the gravel of the paths, tip-toeing on
+the grass edging the flower beds, where his steps made no sound, a man
+left the house and went towards the garden gate.
+
+He quickly reached it; and there he commenced to whistle a soft, slow,
+monotonous, and continuous whistle.
+
+Second succeeded second; then another whistle, identical in rhythm,
+replied: soon a voice asked:
+
+"It's you, Jules?"
+
+"It is I, master!"
+
+The man whom Jules named "master," was the stranger, who, for two weary
+hours, had kept strict watch over the goings and comings of the
+house....
+
+"All well, Jules?"
+
+"All well, master!"
+
+"And nothing new?..."
+
+"I don't know about that, master: she has written a letter...."
+
+"To whom?..."
+
+"I couldn't say.... I could not see the address, master...."
+
+"You red-headed idiot!"
+
+The servant protested.
+
+"No, it was not my fault!... She did not write in the drawing-room, but
+in her own room.... I couldn't get a squint at her paper...."
+
+"Did she not say anything?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Did she look upset?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"No one suspects anything?"
+
+"I hope not, master!... Gods and little fishes, if anyone suspected!"
+
+The visitor's voice grew harsh, imperious.
+
+"Enough," said he. "We have no time to lose!"
+
+"How? No time...."
+
+"That's it! We must set to work...."
+
+"Work?... Now?... This very night?... Oh, master, surely not!"
+
+"Don't I? Do you imagine that I arranged a meeting only for the pleasure
+of talking to you?... Come on, now!... March!"
+
+"What are we to do?"
+
+A moment's silence.
+
+"I cannot see the house very well, because of the branches:
+listen--look!... Isn't there a light?... Someone still up?"
+
+"No. They've all gone to bed."
+
+"Good. And she?"
+
+"She, too."
+
+"You did what I told you?"
+
+"Yes, master."
+
+"You were able to pour out the narcotic?"
+
+"Yes, master."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"What do you mean by then?"
+
+"Have you carried out all my orders ... the last?"
+
+"Yes, it is all right!... I went into her room and blew out the lamp."
+
+"Good! Now for it!..."
+
+A slight brushing sound, along the low stone wall of the garden, was
+barely perceptible to a listening ear. The wall was topped by railings,
+and the gate had sheets of iron fastened to it. In a twinkling, the
+stranger leaped down beside Jules.
+
+"It's child's play to vault that gate," he said.
+
+By the uncertain light of the stars, Jules could see the individual who
+had just joined him. His appearance was fantastic, and the wretched
+Jules started and trembled in every limb. The stranger, who had thus
+invaded Madame Bourrat's domain, who a short while before had been
+wearing a long cloak and immense sombrero, wore them no longer. Probably
+he had rid himself of them by casting them among the bramble bushes on
+the waste ground around rue Docteur Blanche.... Now he was clad in a
+long black knitted garment moulded tightly to his figure, a sinister
+garment, by means of which the wearer can blend with the darkness so as
+to be almost indistinguishable. His face was entirely concealed by a
+long black hood, a movable mask, which prevented his features being
+seen: through two slits gleamed two eyeballs: they might have burned a
+way through like glowing coals.
+
+"Master!... Master!" murmured Jules. "What are you going to do now?"
+
+This spectral figure replied in a low tone:
+
+"Fool!... go on in front--or no--better follow me! And not a sound--it's
+as much as your skin is worth!... Take care--great care!"
+
+The two men advanced in silence. But, while Jules seemed to take
+exaggerated precautions to prevent being heard, his companion seemed
+naturally shod with silence.
+
+He advanced noiselessly, almost invisible in his black garment.
+
+The two accomplices were soon at the front-door steps of the house.
+
+"Open," commanded the master.
+
+Jules slipped a key into the lock: noiselessly the door turned on its
+hinges.
+
+"Listen," whispered the cloaked man. "Half-way up the stairs, you must
+stop: I do not wish you to go right up...."
+
+"But..."
+
+"Do as I say! You must keep watch.... If, by chance, you should hear a
+noise, if I were to be taken by surprise, you must go downstairs, making
+a great noise and shouting at the top of your voice: 'Stop him!... Stop
+him!...' Thus, in the first moment of confusion, everyone will rush
+after you, and that will give me time to choose my way of escape."
+
+Jules, whatever his fears, did not dare to question his instructions.
+
+"Very good, master," he breathed. "I'll do as you say."
+
+"I should think you would," scoffed his master, almost inaudibly.
+
+Leaving his accomplice on the stairs, the masked man went forward. He
+seemed to know the ins and outs of the house, for he turned into the
+corridor and, without a moment's hesitation, walked towards the door of
+Elizabeth Dollon's room. He put his ear against it.
+
+"She sleeps," he murmured.
+
+He had inserted a key in the lock: there was an obstacle to its easy
+entrance.
+
+"Confound it! The girl has left her own key in the lock!" he said
+softly.... "What the deuce am I to do now? What did Jules do when he got
+in and put out the lamp?... Why, of course, he took off the screw that
+fixes the staple--a simple push will suffice." With a push of his
+shoulder the door yielded. The stranger entered and carefully closed the
+door. He walked to the window and drew the curtains, muttering:
+
+"That fool should have thought of this just now."
+
+Taking a small electric torch from his pocket he turned on the light.
+Calmly, collectedly, he approached a couch at one side of the room....
+On it lay Elizabeth Dollon in a deep sleep. She looked white as death.
+
+"An excellent narcotic," he muttered, bending over the unconscious girl.
+"When one thinks that she took it at dinner, then went out, and that
+then it produced its effect!..."
+
+Moving away from Elizabeth, he crossed the room to where the contents of
+the overturned trunk lay.
+
+"Damnable papers!" he growled low. "To think!... It is too late now to
+continue the search.... Bah! By shutting the mouth of an informant ...
+that's the way to settle it ... the best way too!... Now for it!..."
+
+Without apparent effort, the man in the hooded mask seized Elizabeth
+Dollon in his muscular arms.
+
+"Come, mademoiselle," he said in a jeering tone. "Come to bye-bye! Sleep
+better than on this sofa! You will sleep a longer sleep, that's
+certain!" An evil smile punctuated these sinister remarks.
+
+He laid the poor girl's body on the floor in the middle of the room;
+then, approaching a little gas stove, he detached the india-rubber tube
+and slipped the end of it between his victim's teeth.
+
+He turned the gas tap....
+
+"Perfect!" he said, as he straightened himself.
+
+"To-morrow morning, early, at eight o'clock, or at nine, the excellent
+Madame Bourrat will open the meter. The narcotic this child has taken
+will prevent her from waking, so that, without suffering, without cries,
+quite gently--pfuit!... sweet Elizabeth will pass from life to death!...
+But it will not do to linger here ... let us find Jules and give him the
+necessary instructions!"
+
+The stranger went out into the corridor closing the door. The thing had
+been well managed; the screws keeping the bolt case in position were put
+back in their holes--the key remained inside--no one would suspect that
+only a slight push was necessary to get into the room.
+
+With a chuckle, the stranger bent down and pushed a tassel under the
+door.
+
+The servant must not discover the trick when she is sweeping the
+passage: now with this wedge, the door cannot be opened without a
+violent push.
+
+With a last glance up and down the passage, illuminated for a moment by
+his electric torch, the stranger made sure that there was no one about
+to see him; then, with silent tread, he began to go downstairs....
+
+Half-way down, his accomplice awaited him.
+
+"Well, master?" questioned Jules in a low, trembling voice.
+
+In a calm, quiet voice, the man in the hood mask replied:
+
+"It is done--is successful.... I have wedged the door to. You will be
+careful when you are sweeping to-morrow."
+
+Jules lowered his head.
+
+"Yes ... yes.... Have you?..."
+
+The stranger put his hand on the servant's shoulder.
+
+"Listen," whispered the stranger, "I do not repeat my orders twenty
+times over,... have I not already told you that I do not allow myself to
+be questioned?... try to remember that!... You wish to know whether I
+have killed her?... Well, I will tell you this: I have not killed her.
+But I have so managed things that she will kill herself!... A suicide,
+you understand.... One piece of advice: to-morrow, keep anyone from
+going to her room as long as you can ... if Madame Bourrat, or anyone
+else asks for her, you must say that you saw her leave the house--that
+she has gone out...."
+
+"But," protested Jules, "it is impossible, what you tell me to say,
+master! It just happens that she is expecting visitors to-morrow!... She
+told me that, on this account, she meant to stay indoors all day!"
+
+The man with the hood mask ground his teeth.
+
+"You idiot! What does that matter?... You are to say: Mademoiselle
+Elizabeth has just gone out, but she told me that she was not going far,
+and that she would return in about twenty minutes.... If anyone should
+ask for her again, you are to answer that she has not come in yet!..."
+
+"But ... master ... when they find out what's happened really?..."
+
+"Ho! When it is discovered, it will seem quite natural that a person who
+means to commit suicide--for she will have committed suicide, you
+understand--should have taken precautions not to be disturbed ... you
+grasp this?"
+
+"Yes, master ... yes!..."
+
+They had returned to the garden: the man in the hooded mask was
+preparing to get over the gate....
+
+"Farewell! Be faithful! Be intelligent!... You know what you have to
+gain?... You also know what risks you run?... Eh!... Now go!"
+
+"You will return to-morrow, master?"
+
+The man with the hooded mask looked his accomplice up and down.
+
+"I shall return when it pleases me to do so."
+
+Then, with marvellous agility, without making a spring for it, with a
+quite extraordinary muscular flexibility and power, the stranger leaped
+on to the little wall, cleared the gate, and disappeared into the
+night....
+
+Jules, with bent head, much moved, terribly anxious, slowly walked back
+to the house....
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+RUE RAFFET
+
+
+Maray, second reporter of _La Capitale_, shook hands with Fandor.
+
+"Are you in a good humour, dear boy?"
+
+"So--so...."
+
+"Ah! Well, here is something which will cheer you up, I'm sure!...
+Here's a letter from a lady for you.... I found it in my pigeon-hole by
+mistake!"
+
+Fandor smiled.
+
+"From a lady?... You must be mistaken!... How do you know it is?"
+
+"By the handwriting, the paper, and so on--I'm not mistaken--am I
+ever?..." Laughing, Maray threw down on Fandor's table a small envelope
+with a deep black border.
+
+"Yes, it is a letter from a woman," said Fandor, as he picked it up:
+"from whom?... Ah,... why yes!..."
+
+With a hasty finger, he tore open the envelope whilst his colleague
+withdrew making a joking remark.
+
+"Dear boy, I leave you to this tender missive: I should be annoyed with
+myself were I to interrupt your reflections!"
+
+Fandor's friend would have been surprised, if he could have seen the
+gloomy expression which the perusal of this so-called love-letter
+produced. Jérôme had turned to the signature--_Elizabeth Dollon_.
+
+"What does she want with me?" he asked himself. "After the extraordinary
+affair of rue du Quatre Septembre, one must suppose that she has arrived
+at some conclusion regarding the possible guilt of her brother ... so
+long as she does not let her imagination run away with her, and, like
+the police, fancy that Jacques Dollon is still in the land of the
+living? The position the poor thing is in is a very cruel one!"
+
+Fandor had met Jacques Dollon's young sister repeatedly; and, every
+time, he had been more and more troubled by the poor girl's touching
+grief, as well as by her pathetic beauty, which had made a great
+impression on him.... He began to read her letter.
+
+     _"Dear Sir,_
+
+     _You have been so good to me in all my troubles, you have shown me
+     such true sympathy, that I do not hesitate to ask your help once
+     more._
+
+     _Such an extraordinary thing has happened to me which I cannot
+     account for at all, which, nevertheless, makes me think, more than
+     ever, that my poor brother is living, innocent, and kept prisoner,
+     perhaps by those who compel him to accept the responsibility for
+     all those horrible crimes you know about._
+
+     _To-day, whilst I was in Paris on business, some people, of whom I
+     know nothing, I need hardly say, whom not a soul in the private
+     boarding-house where I am saw, these persons entered my room!_
+
+     _I found all my belongings turned upside down; my papers scattered
+     over the floor, every drawer and trunk and box ransacked from top
+     to bottom!_
+
+     _You can guess how frightened I was...._
+
+     _I do not think they had come to do me any personal harm, not even
+     to rob me, for I had left my modest jewellery on the mantelpiece
+     and found them still there: those who entered my room did not covet
+     valuables._
+
+     _Then, why did they come?_
+
+     _You are perhaps going to say that my imagination is playing me
+     tricks!... Nevertheless, I assure you that I try to keep calm, but
+     I cannot keep control of myself, and I am terribly afraid!_
+
+     _I have just said that nothing was stolen from me; I think,
+     however, it right to mention one strange coincidence._
+
+     _I was convinced that I had left, in a little red pocket-book, the
+     list I spoke to you of, which had been retrieved at my brother's
+     house on the day of Madame de Vibray's death. It was, as I have
+     told you, written in green ink by a person whose handwriting I do
+     not know. I can hardly tell why, but amidst all the disorders in my
+     room I immediately searched for this list. The little pocket-book
+     was on the floor amongst other papers, but the list was not to be
+     found in it._
+
+     _Am I mistaken? Have I packed it in somewhere else, or, allowing
+     for the fact that everything had been turned upside down, has this
+     paper slipped among other papers, which would explain why I had not
+     come across it again?_
+
+     _In spite of myself, I must confess to you that the thieves, I
+     fancy, had only one aim in view when they entered my room, and that
+     was to get hold of this list._
+
+     _What is your opinion?_
+
+     _I feel that perhaps I am about to show myself both inconsiderate
+     and injudicious, but you know how miserable I am, and you will
+     understand how the position I am in gives me grounds for being
+     distracted. I am bent on talking this over with you, on knowing
+     what you think of it. Perhaps even, knowing how clever you are, you
+     might be able to find something, an indication, some detail, in my
+     room? I have not touched anything._
+
+     _I shall stay indoors all to-morrow in the hope of seeing you; do
+     come if you possibly can. It seems to me that I am forsaken by
+     everyone, and I trust only you...."_
+
+Jérôme Fandor read and reread this letter, which had been written with a
+trembling hand.
+
+"Poor little soul!" he murmured. "Here is something more to add to her
+troubles! It is really terrible! It seems to me as if we should never
+come to the end of it; and I ask myself, whether the police will ever
+find the key to all these mysteries!...
+
+"Did someone really break into Elizabeth Dollon's room to steal this
+paper? It is rather improbable. Judging from what she told me, there is
+nothing compromising in it. But then, why this search?... She is right
+so far: if the intruders had been merely thieves, they would have
+carried off her jewellery!... Then it is for that paper they came?
+Besides, ordinary burglars would have had considerable difficulty in
+getting into her room, where she is remarkably well guarded, by the very
+fact of there being other boarders in the house....
+
+"No, the very audacity of this attempted theft seems to prove, that it
+is connected with the other affairs which have brought the name of
+Jacques Dollon into such prominence!
+
+"I see in this the same extraordinary audacity, the same certainty of
+escape, the same long and careful preparation, for it is a by no means
+convenient place for a burglary in open day: comings and goings are
+perpetual, and the guilty persons ran a hundred risks of being
+caught...."
+
+Fandor interrupted his reflections to read Elizabeth's letter once more.
+
+"She is dying of fright! That is evident!... In any case she calls to me
+for help. Her letter was posted yesterday evening.... I will go and see
+her--and at once.... Who knows but I might find some clue which would
+put me on the right track?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jérôme Fandor did not feel very hopeful.
+
+After having gone carefully over every point connected with, and
+pertaining to, the affair of rue du Quatre Septembre, he had almost come
+to the conclusion, optimistic as he was regarding the police, that
+chance alone would bring about the arrest of the guilty parties.
+
+"To lay these criminals by the heels," he had frankly declared,
+"requires the aid of very favourable circumstances, and without them,
+neither I nor the police will get at the truth of it all."
+
+Fandor made a definite distinction between the opinion of the police and
+his own, because two different theories now obtained with regard to the
+two affairs: that of the attack on the Princess Sonia Danidoff, and that
+of the robbery of rue du Quatre Septembre, where the imprints of Jacques
+Dollon's fingers had been found.
+
+The police and Fandor coupled Monsieur Havard with Monsieur Bertillon
+under this definition; the police held it for certain that Jacques
+Dollon was alive, very much alive, and the probabilities were great that
+he was guilty of the different crimes attributed to him.
+
+In an interview granted to a press rival of _La Capitale_ Monsieur
+Bertillon had stated:
+
+"We base our assertion that Dollon is alive, and consequently guilty, on
+material facts: we have found his signature attached to each of the
+crimes, and it is a signature which cannot be imitated by anyone...."
+
+For his part, Fandor held it as certain that Jacques was dead.
+
+"I maintain that, since fifty persons have seen Jacques Dollon dead, it
+is infinitely more likely that he is dead than that he is alive! The
+imprints of his fingers, his hand, are equally visible, it is true, and
+seem to prove that he is alive. But the conclusive nature of this test
+is nullified by the fact that, before the discovery of these imprints,
+before these imprints had been made, Jacques Dollon was dead!"
+
+And in his articles in _La Capitale_, Jérôme Fandor, with a persistency
+which finished by disconcerting even the most convinced partisans of the
+police contention, continued to maintain that Jacques Dollon was dead,
+dead as dead, and, to use his own expression, "as dead as it was
+possible for anyone to be dead!"
+
+Jérôme Fandor had just rung the bell at the garden gate of Madame
+Bourrat's private boarding-house in Auteuil.
+
+Jules hastened to answer this ring, and was met by the question:
+
+"Is Mademoiselle Elizabeth Dollon at home?"
+
+"No, monsieur. She went out not an hour ago!"
+
+"And you are certain she has not returned?"
+
+"Absolutely, monsieur.... There are two visitors waiting for her
+already."
+
+"She will be in soon, then?"
+
+"Certainly, monsieur: she will not be long...."
+
+Fandor looked at his watch.
+
+"A quarter past ten!... Very well, I will wait for her."
+
+"If monsieur will kindly follow me?"
+
+Fandor was shown into the drawing-room. He had advanced only a step or
+two when he was greeted with:
+
+"Why! Monsieur Fandor!"
+
+"I am delighted to see you!" cried Fandor, shaking hands with Monsieur
+Barbey and Monsieur Nanteuil. Both gave him a pleasant smile of welcome.
+
+"You have come to see Mademoiselle Dollon, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes. We have come to assure her that we will do all in our power to
+help her out of her terrible difficulties. She wrote to us a few days
+ago to ask if we would act as intermediaries regarding the sale of some
+of her unfortunate brother's productions, also to see if we could get
+her a situation in some dressmaking establishment.... We have come to
+assure her of our entire sympathy."
+
+"That is most kind of you! They told you, did they not, that she had
+gone out? I think she will not be absent long, for I have an appointment
+with her. But, if you will allow me, I will go to the office and ask if
+they have the least idea of which way she has gone, for I have little
+time to spare, and if we could go to meet her, it would save, at least,
+a few minutes...."
+
+Jérôme Fandor rose and went towards one of the drawing-room doors.
+
+"You are making a mistake," said Monsieur Nanteuil, "the office is this
+way," and he pointed to another door.
+
+"Bah! All roads lead to Rome!" With that, Fandor went out by the door he
+had approached first....
+
+"They are nice fellows," said Fandor to himself. "If Elizabeth Dollon is
+really not in!... but... Is she really not in the house? I am by no
+means sure.... If she feels timid at the idea of seeing the
+bankers--their visit may have made her nervous, considering the state
+she is in ... she might have sent to say she was not at home in order to
+have time to add some finishing touches to her toilette."
+
+Fandor, who knew the house, mounted the little staircase leading to the
+first floor. Elizabeth's room was on this floor. Before her door he
+stopped and sniffed.
+
+"Queer smell!" he murmured. "It smells like gas!"
+
+He knocked boldly, calling:
+
+"Mademoiselle Elizabeth! It is I, Fandor!"
+
+The smell of gas became more pronounced as he waited.
+
+A horrible idea, an agonising fear, flashed through his mind.
+
+He knocked as hard as he could on the door.
+
+"Mademoiselle Elizabeth! Mademoiselle!"
+
+No answer.
+
+He called down the stairs:
+
+"Waiter!... Porter!"
+
+But apparently the one and only manservant the house boasted was
+occupied elsewhere, for no one answered.
+
+Fandor returned to the door of Elizabeth's room, knelt down and tried to
+look through the keyhole. The inside key was there, which seemed to
+confirm his agonising fear.
+
+"She has not gone out then?"
+
+He took a deep breath.
+
+"What a horrible smell of gas!"
+
+This time he did not hesitate. He rose, stepped back, sprang forward,
+and with a vigorous push from the shoulder, he drove the door off its
+hinges.
+
+"My God!" he shouted.
+
+In the centre of the room, Fandor had just seen Elizabeth Dollon lying
+unconscious. A tube, detached from a portable gas stove, was between her
+tightly closed lips! The tap was turned full on. He flung himself on his
+knees near the poor girl, pulled away the deadly tube, and put his ear
+to her heart.
+
+What joy, what happiness, he felt when he heard, very feeble but quite
+unmistakable beatings of Elizabeth's heart!
+
+"She lives!" What unspeakable relief Jérôme Fandor felt! What
+thankfulness!
+
+The noise he had made breaking the door off its hinges brought the whole
+household running to the spot. As the manservant, followed by Madame
+Bourrat, followed in turn by Monsieur Barbey and Nanteuil, appeared in
+the doorway uttering cries of terror, Jérôme called out:
+
+"No one is to come in!... It is an accident!"
+
+Then lifting Elizabeth in his strong arms, he carried her out of the
+room.
+
+"What she needs is air!"
+
+He hurried downstairs and out into the garden with his precious burden,
+followed by the terrified witnesses of the scene.
+
+"You have saved her life, monsieur!" cried Madame Bourrat in a tragic
+voice. She groaned. "Oh, what a scandal!"
+
+"Yes, I have saved her," replied Fandor as, panting with his exertions,
+he laid Elizabeth Dollon flat on a garden seat.... "But from whom?... It
+is certainly not attempted suicide! There is some mystery behind this
+business: it's a regular theatrical performance arranged simply for
+effect, and to mislead us," declared Fandor. Then, turning to the
+bankers, he said courteously but with an air of command:
+
+"Please lay information with the superintendent of police at once ...
+the nearest police station, you understand!"
+
+"Madame," he said, addressing the overwhelmed Madame Bourrat, "you will
+be good enough to look after Mademoiselle Dollon, will you not?... Take
+every care of her. There is not much to be done, however! I have seen
+many cases of commencing asphyxia: she will regain consciousness now, in
+a few minutes."
+
+Then, looking at the manservant, he said in a sharp tone:
+
+"Come with me! You will mount guard at the door of Mademoiselle
+Elizabeth's room, whilst I try to discover some clues, before the police
+arrive on the scene."
+
+To tell the truth, our young journalist felt embarrassed at the idea
+that Elizabeth Dollon was about to regain consciousness, and that he
+would have to submit to being thanked by her, when she knew who had
+saved her.
+
+Accompanied by the manservant, he went quickly upstairs and into
+Elizabeth's room.
+
+"You must not enter Mademoiselle Dollon's room on any account!" said
+Fandor sternly. "It is quite enough that I should run the risk of
+effacing the, probably very slight, clues which the delinquents have
+left behind them...."
+
+"But, monsieur, if the young lady put the tubing between her lips, it
+must have been because she wished to destroy herself!"
+
+"On the face of it you are right, my good fellow. But, when one is
+right, one is often wrong!"
+
+Without more ado, Fandor started on a minute inspection of the room.
+Elizabeth had but stated the truth when she wrote that it had been
+thoroughly ransacked. Only her toilet things had been spared; but some
+books had been taken from their shelves and thrown about the floor,
+their pages crumpled and spoilt. He noticed the emptied trunk: its
+contents--copy books, letters, pieces of music--had been roughly dealt
+with. On the mantelpiece, in full view, lay Elizabeth's jewellery--some
+rings and brooches, a small gold watch, a purse.
+
+"A very queer affair," murmured Fandor, who was kneeling in the middle
+of the room, rummaging, searching, and not finding any clue. He rose,
+carefully examined all the woodwork, but found nothing incriminating. He
+examined the lock of the unhinged door, which had subsided on the floor.
+The lock was intact, the bolt moved freely: the screws only of the
+staple had given way.
+
+"That," thought Fandor, "is probably owing to the force of my thrust!"
+
+The window fastening was intact: the window closed.
+
+"If the robbers," reflected Fandor, "got into a closed room, they must
+have used false keys."
+
+Having examined the means of access to the room, Fandor started on a
+still more minute examination of the interior. He scrutinised the
+furniture and the slight powdering of dust on each article: in vain!...
+Then the washstand had its turn: nothing!... He scrutinised the soap.
+
+"Ah! This is interesting!" he cried. The manservant had made himself
+scarce; and Fandor, unobserved, could wrap up the piece of soap in his
+handkerchief and hide it in the lowest drawer of the chest of drawers,
+under a pile of linen. He was whistling now.
+
+"That bit of soap is interesting--very!" he cried. "Let the police come!
+I am not afraid of their blundering!... Now to see how Elizabeth is
+getting on!"
+
+When he reached her side, he found she had recovered full consciousness,
+and was preparing to answer the questions of a police superintendent,
+who, summoned by the bankers, had hastened to the scene of action. He
+was a stout, apoplectic man, very full of his own importance.
+
+"Come now, mademoiselle, tell us just how things happened from beginning
+to end! We ask nothing better than to believe you, but do not conceal
+any detail--not the slightest...."
+
+Poor Elizabeth Dollon, when she heard this speech, stared at the pompous
+police official, astonished. What had she to conceal? What had she to
+gain by lying? What did he think, this fat policeman, who took it upon
+himself to issue orders, when he should rather have tried to comfort
+her! Nevertheless, she at once began telling him all that she knew with
+regard to the affair. She told him of her letter to Fandor: that her
+room had been visited the evening before: by whom she did not know ...
+that she had not said a word about it to anyone, fearing vengeance would
+fall on her, frightened, not understanding what it all meant....
+
+Then she came to what the police dignitary called "her suicide." As she
+finished her recital with a reference to her rescue by Fandor, she
+looked at the young journalist. It was a look of great gratitude and a
+kind of ardent tenderness, with a touch of fear in it.
+
+"Strange, very strange!" pronounced the superintendent of police, who
+had been taking notes with an air of great gravity. "So very strange,
+mademoiselle, that it is very difficult to credit your statements!...
+very difficult indeed!..."
+
+Whilst he was speaking, Fandor was saying to himself:
+
+"Decidedly, it is that!... Just what I was thinking! It is quite clear,
+clear as the sun in the sky, evident, indisputable!" And he refused,
+very politely of course--for one has to respect the authorities--to
+accompany the superintendent, who, in his turn, went upstairs to
+Elizabeth's room, in order to carry out the necessary legal
+verification....
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+SOMEONE TELEPHONED
+
+
+The nuns of the order of Saint Augustin were not expelled in consequence
+of the Decrees. This was a special favour, but one fully justified,
+because of the incalculable benefits this community conferred on
+suffering humanity. The vast convent of rue de la Glacière continues to
+serve as a shelter for these holy women, and as a sort of hospital for
+the sick. For close on a hundred years, generation after generation of
+those living near its walls have heard the convent clock sound the hours
+in solemn tones; so, too, the convent chapel's shrill-voiced bells have
+never failed to remind the faithful that the daily offices of their
+church are being said and sung by the holy sisters within the hallowed
+walls.
+
+In the vast quarter of Paris, peopled with hospitals and prisons, the
+convent shows a stern front in the shape of a high, blackened wall. A
+great courtyard gate, in which a window with iron bars and grating is
+the only visible opening to the exterior world.
+
+About half-past six in the morning, slightly out of breath with his
+rapid walk from the Metropolitan station, Jérôme Fandor rang the convent
+door bell. The sound could be heard echoing and re-echoing in the
+vaulted corridors, till it died away in the stony distance. There was a
+silence: then the iron-barred window was half opened, and Fandor heard a
+voice asking:
+
+"What do you want, monsieur?"
+
+"I wish to speak to Madame the Superior," replied Fandor.
+
+The window was closed again and a lengthy silence followed. Then,
+slowly, the heavy entrance gate swung half open. Fandor entered the
+convent. Under the arched doorway, a nun received him with a slight
+salutation, and turned her back.
+
+"Kindly follow me," she murmured.
+
+Fandor followed along a narrow passage, on one side of which were cells,
+whilst on the other, it opened by means of large bays, on a vast
+rectangular cloister quite deserted. A door-window in the passage was
+ajar: the nun stopped here and said:
+
+"Kindly wait in this parlour, and be good enough to let me have your
+card. I will inform our Mother Superior that you wish to see her."
+
+The room in which our journalist found himself was severely furnished:
+its walls were white, on them hung a great ivory crucifix, and here and
+there, a simple religious picture framed in ebony. A few chairs were
+ranged in a circle about an oval table: on the floor, polished till it
+shone like a mirror, were a few small mats, which gave a touch of
+common-place comfort to the icy regularity of this parlour, set apart
+for official visits.
+
+What emotions, what dramas, what joys, have had this parlour for a
+setting! It is there that the life of the cloister touches mundane
+existence; it is there the nuns receive their future companions in the
+religious life and their weeping families; it is there the parents of
+those in the convent infirmary come to hear from the doctor's lips the
+decrees of life or death; for the convent is not only a retreat, it is
+an asylum for the sick, the ailing, recommended to their patients by the
+most eminent doctors, the most prominent surgeons.
+
+Accustomed though he was to every kind of human misery, Fandor shuddered
+at the thought of all these walls had seen and heard. His reflections
+were broken by the arrival of a little old lady, whose eyes shone
+strangely luminous in her pale and wrinkled face--a face showing the
+highest distinction.
+
+Fandor made a deep bow: it might have expressed the reverence of the
+world to religion.
+
+"Madame la Supérieure," murmured he, "I have come to pay my respects to
+you and to ask for news of your boarder."
+
+The Mother Superior, in a gay tone, which contrasted with her cold and
+reserved appearance, replied at once:
+
+"Ah, you preferred to come yourself! You had not the patience to wait at
+the telephone? I quite understand. Would you believe it, while the
+sister, who has charge of this young girl, was being sent for, the
+communication was cut off. That is why we could not give you any
+information."
+
+Fandor stared.
+
+"But I do not understand, madame?"
+
+The Mother Superior replied:
+
+"Was it not you then who telephoned this morning to ask for news of
+Mademoiselle Dollon?"
+
+"I certainly did not do so!"
+
+"In that case, I do not understand what it means, either! But it does
+not matter much: you shall see your protégée now."
+
+The Mother Superior rang: a sister appeared.
+
+"Sister, will you take this gentleman to Mademoiselle Dollon! She was
+walking in the park a short while ago, and is probably there now....
+Monsieur, I bid you good day."
+
+Gliding swiftly and noiselessly over the polished floor, the Mother
+Superior disappeared. The nun led the way and Fandor followed: he was
+very much upset by what the Mother Superior had just told him.
+
+"How had Elizabeth's place of refuge been so quickly discovered?... Who
+could have telephoned to get news of her?"
+
+The nun had led Fandor across the great rectangular courtyard; then by
+corridors, and many winding, vaulted passages, they had come out on to a
+terrace, overlooking an immense park, which extended further than the
+eye could see. Here were bosky dells, ancient trees, bowers and grooves,
+meadows where milky mothers chewed the cud in the shade of blossoming
+apple trees. It might have been in Normandy, a hundred leagues from
+Paris!
+
+The nun turned to the admiring Fandor.
+
+"The young lady you seek, monsieur, is coming along this path: there she
+is!... I will leave you."
+
+Fandor had seen Elizabeth's graceful figure moving towards him, thrown
+into charming relief by the country landscape flooded with sunshine. In
+her modest mourning dress, with her fair shining hair, she appeared
+prettier than ever: a touching figure of sorrowing beauty!
+
+Elizabeth pressed Fandor's hands warmly.
+
+"Oh, thank you, monsieur, thank you!" she cried, "for having come to see
+me this morning. I know how little spare time you have! I feel vexed
+with myself for putting you out so ... but you see"--Elizabeth could not
+repress a sob--"I am so alone ... so desolate ... I have lost everything
+I cared for ... and you are the only person I can trust and confide in
+now!... I feel like a bit of wreckage at the mercy of wind and wave; I
+feel as though I were surrounded by enemies: I live in a nightmare....
+What should I do without you to turn to?..."
+
+Our young journalist, moved by such great misfortune so simply, so
+candidly expressed, returned the pressure of Elizabeth's hands.
+
+"You know, mademoiselle," he said softly, but in a voice vibrating with
+sympathetic emotion--the only sign of feeling he permitted himself to
+show--"you know that you can count absolutely on me. In getting you to
+take a few days' rest in this retreat, I felt I was doing what was best
+for you. You are not solitary; but your surroundings are peaceful and
+friendly, and should you have enemies, though I am loath to think it,
+you are sheltered here beyond their reach. With reference to that, have
+you given your address to anyone, since yesterday?"
+
+"To no one," replied Elizabeth. "Has anyone by chance?..."
+
+She looked troubled, and gave an anxious questioning glance at Fandor.
+
+He did not want to frighten the much-tried girl, but he wished to solve
+the mystery of the unaccountable telephone call.
+
+"Oh, I just wished to know, mademoiselle.... Now, tell me, have you
+quite recovered from ... your experience of the other day?"
+
+"Ah, monsieur, I owe my life to you!" cried Elizabeth. "For, I am
+certain that someone wished to get rid of me ... don't you agree with
+me?... I must have been dosed with some narcotic, just as they dosed my
+poor brother, for I am now absolutely convinced that he also was sent to
+sleep and poisoned...."
+
+"And that he is dead! Is that not so?" asked Fandor in a low voice.
+
+Without hesitation, in a tearful voice, Elizabeth repeated:
+
+"And that he is dead. You have given me so many proofs that it is so,
+that I can no longer doubt it, alas! But I will take courage, as I
+promised you I would. I ought to live, that I may strive to rehabilitate
+his memory, and restore to him his reputation as a man of probity, of
+honour, to which he is entitled. But directly I begin to think about the
+horrible mystery in which I am involved, my very reason seems to
+totter--you can understand that, can you not? I don't understand, I
+don't know, I can't guess ... oh!..."
+
+"But," interrupted Fandor, "we must seriously consider the situation in
+all its bearings. It may cause you atrocious suffering, but you must
+summon all your courage, mademoiselle. We must discuss it."
+
+Fandor and Elizabeth had moved away from the terrace, and were now in
+the leafy solitudes of the park.
+
+Fandor began:
+
+"There is that paper with its list of names, written in green ink,
+mademoiselle! It was a mistake on your part not to attach any importance
+to it until you fancied, and perhaps rightly, that someone had tried to
+steal it from you. Come now, can you tell me whether this list is still
+in your possession, or not?"
+
+Elizabeth shook her head sadly.
+
+"I do not know, I cannot tell! My poor head is so bewildered, and I find
+it all the trouble in the world to collect my thoughts. I told you, the
+other day, that this list had disappeared from a little red pocket book,
+that I had put on the chimney piece of my room at Auteuil. But the more
+I think it over, the more doubtful I am.... It seems to me now, that
+this list ought to be, must be still--unless it has been stolen
+since--in the big trunk, into which I threw, pell-mell, the papers and
+books my brother left scattered about his writing table. To be quite
+sure about this, we must return to Auteuil.... But perhaps it is
+useless; because when I wanted to send it to you some forty-eight hours
+ago, I searched everywhere for the wretched thing, and in vain!... I am
+not even sure now that I brought it away with me from rue Norvins!"
+
+Fandor gently comforted the distracted girl whose eyes were full of
+tears.
+
+"Do not be disheartened. Try rather to put together in your memory what
+was written in this paper! You told me, surely, that there were names in
+this list of persons you knew, or had heard of? Search your memory a
+little, mademoiselle."
+
+"I don't know! I cannot remember!" cried Elizabeth nervously.
+
+"Come now," said Fandor encouragingly, "I know an excellent way of
+assisting the memory. The eyes are like a sensitive photographic plate:
+what the brain does not always retain, the mirror of the eye registers:
+do not try to remember, but try, as it were, to read on white paper what
+your eyes saw!..."
+
+"Let us sit down a minute and I will help you to do it!" Fandor pointed
+out a rustic seat, under the trees, in front of which was a garden
+table. They sat down together and Fandor drew from his pocket a sheet of
+white paper and his fountain pen.
+
+Elizabeth's arm touched his shoulder.
+
+As though electrified by this contact, the two young people trembled,
+their eyes met in a glance full of troubled emotion--a feeling new to
+both--whose immense significance neither understood. Fandor remained
+speechless, and Elizabeth blushed.
+
+They gazed at each other, embarrassed, not knowing what to say for
+themselves; and their embarrassment was only relieved by the appearance
+of the sister who attended to the turning box at the entrance gate. She
+stood at the top of the steps leading down to the park and called
+Elizabeth.
+
+"Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! There is someone on the telephone who
+wishes to speak to you!"
+
+Fandor rose.
+
+"Will you allow me to accompany you, mademoiselle? I am very curious to
+know whether the person now asking for you is identical with the person
+who asked for you a little while ago?"
+
+The young couple hurried to the big parlour, and Elizabeth went to the
+telephone.
+
+"Hullo?..."
+
+Elizabeth had handed one of the receivers to Fandor. He heard a
+voice--an unknown voice, but beyond question masculine--who said, over
+the wire:
+
+"Hullo!... Is it really Mademoiselle Dollon to whom I have the honour of
+speaking?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur. Who is speaking to me?"
+
+But just as Elizabeth was about to repeat her question, Fandor thought
+he heard whoever had called up Elizabeth, hang up the receivers. No
+reply reached them!...
+
+Elizabeth cried impatiently:
+
+"Hullo!... Hullo!... Who is speaking to me?"
+
+But there was no one at the end of the line!
+
+Fandor swore softly to himself, then seizing the two receivers he
+called:
+
+"Hullo! Come, monsieur, reply!... Whom do you want? Who are you?"
+
+He could not obtain any reply.
+
+Fandor rang up the central office. When the telephone girl answered, he
+called:
+
+"Mademoiselle, why have you cut me off?"
+
+"But I have done nothing of the kind, monsieur!"
+
+"But I cannot get any reply!"
+
+"It is because the receivers have been hung up by whoever called you. I
+assure you that is so."
+
+"What was my caller's number?"
+
+"I cannot tell you that, monsieur--the rules forbid it."
+
+Fandor knew this quite well, so he did not insist further. But, as he
+turned away from the telephone, a dull anger smouldered within him.
+
+"Who was this mysterious individual who had called Elizabeth twice over
+the telephone, and then, no sooner put into communication with her, had
+refused to talk to her?"
+
+Fandor felt nervous, anxious, exasperated by this incident; but it would
+never do to trouble his young friend to no good purpose. He led her back
+to the garden.
+
+"Where were we in our talk, monsieur?" asked Elizabeth.
+
+With a considerable effort, the journalist collected his thoughts.
+
+"We were discussing the mysterious paper found at your brother's,
+mademoiselle."
+
+In agreement with Elizabeth, Jérôme Fandor determined the approximate
+size of this list of addresses. He tore from his note-book a sheet of
+white paper.
+
+Elizabeth looked fixedly at the white sheet for a long time, as though,
+by concentrated will power, she could force the mysterious names which
+she read some days before on the original paper, to rise up in front of
+her eyes. Certainly it seemed to her that on this list figured the name
+of her brother, that of the Baroness de Vibray, lawyer Gérin's also:
+then she remembered a double name, a name not unknown to her, which had
+appeared in the list.
+
+"Barbey-Nanteuil!" she suddenly cried. "Yes, I do believe those two
+names were on it!"
+
+Fandor smiled. Encouraged by his smile and the results of this
+semi-clairvoyant attempt, Elizabeth allowed her thoughts free play.
+
+"I am sure of it: there was even a mistake in spelling: _Nanteuil_ was
+spelled _Nauteuil_: the bankers were third or fourth on the list, and I
+am certain now that the Baroness de Vibray's name headed the list....
+There was also a date, composed of two figures--a 1 ... then--wait a
+minute!... a figure with a tail to it ... that is to say, it could only
+have been a 5, a 7, or a 9.... I cannot remember which. Then there were
+other names I had never heard of."
+
+"Try, mademoiselle, to remember...."
+
+There was a silence. Fandor was puzzling over the figures
+he had written down in the order Elizabeth had mentioned
+them--fifteen--seventeen--nineteen--but what could he deduce from
+them?... Ah!... The mysterious robbery of rue du Quatre Septembre was
+committed on May 15th! There may be a clue there! The thread of Fandor's
+reflections were abruptly broken by a cry from Elizabeth.
+
+"I have recalled a name--something like ... Thomas!... Does that tell
+you anything?"
+
+"Thomas?" repeated Jérôme Fandor slowly.... "I don't see...."
+
+But suddenly he saw light!
+
+He jumped up:
+
+"Isn't it Thomery?" cried he, intensely excited. "Are you not
+confounding Thomas with Thomery?"
+
+Elizabeth, taken aback, confused, tried hard to remember: she threshed
+her memory with knitted brows.
+
+"It may be so," she declared. "I see quite clearly the first letters of
+the word--Thom ... written in a large hand,... then the rest is
+indistinct ... but I have the impression that the end of the word is
+longer than the last syllable of Thomas."
+
+"Perhaps you are right!"
+
+Fandor was no longer listening to her. He had left the rustic bench, and
+without paying any attention to Elizabeth, he began walking up and down
+the shady path, talking to himself in a low tone, as was his habit when
+he wished to reduce his thoughts to order.
+
+"Thomas--that is Thomery; Jacques Dollon, the Baroness de Vibray,
+Barbey-Nanteuil, lawyer Gérin--but they are all the victims of the
+mysterious band that plots and plans in the shade!... It is
+incomprehensible--but we shall find a way to get to the bottom of it
+all!"
+
+Fandor returned to Elizabeth.
+
+"We shall get to the bottom of these mysteries," cried he, with so
+triumphant an air, his face shining with joy, that Elizabeth, in spite
+of her torturing anxieties, could not help smiling.
+
+They were alone in these green and flowery spaces. A great peace was all
+about them. The birds were singing, the breeze lightly stirred the trees
+and bushes with caressing breaths.... Fandor gazed tenderly at
+Elizabeth, very tenderly.... The young girl smiled tremulously, as she
+met this glance of lover-like tenderness.
+
+"We shall get to the bottom of it," repeated Fandor. "You will see, I
+promise you...."
+
+Their glances mingled in a mute communion of thought and feeling....
+Spontaneously, their hands met and clasped.... They were standing close
+together, and theirs the consciousness of living through an
+unforgettable moment: they felt most vividly alive together. How young
+they were! How intoxicating, a moment!... The world of outside things
+ceased to exist for them.... They were enwrapt in a glowing world of
+their own!... Fandor's hand slid to Elizabeth's shoulder; he leaned
+towards the unresisting girl, and with closed eyes, their lips met in a
+long kiss--a kiss all ecstasy....
+
+It was a moment's mutual madness!... The instant past, both knew it.
+Torn from this momentary dream of bliss, they gazed at each other,
+embarrassed, greatly moved: for that very reason they wished to part.
+Ah, this was not the moment to speak of love, to dream of happiness and
+mutual joy! Dark, dreadful mysteries enclosed them: it was a sinister
+net they struggled in: as yet they could see no clear way out!... They
+had no right to be themselves until the mysteries were cleared away....
+They could not belong to each other now!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fandor, when taking leave of Elizabeth, expressed a wish that she should
+not accompany him to the convent; and she, still shaken with emotion,
+had not insisted on doing so.
+
+As he was on the point of stepping into the street, a sister came up to
+him.
+
+"You are Monsieur Jérôme Fandor?"
+
+"Yes, sister."
+
+"Our Mother Superior wishes to speak to you."
+
+Our journalist bowed acquiescence.
+
+Some minutes later, the Mother Superior joined him in the large parlour.
+
+"Monsieur," she began, "I must apologise for having sent for you, but I
+wished to have a necessary talk with you."
+
+Fandor interrupted the saintly nun.
+
+"And I must apologise, reverend Mother, for not having come to pay my
+respects to you before leaving. Had I not been much troubled, I should
+never have dreamt of leaving without thanking you for the help you have
+been good enough to give me."
+
+The nun looked at him questioningly. Fandor continued:
+
+"In agreeing to receive Mademoiselle Elizabeth Dollon as a boarder, you
+have done a deed of true charity: this poor girl is so unhappy, so
+tried, so unfortunate, that I really do not know where she could have
+found a better refuge than in this convent under your sheltering
+care.... I ..."
+
+But the nun would not allow Fandor to continue.
+
+"It is precisely about Mademoiselle Dollon that I wish to speak to
+you.... Of course, I should be glad to help and comfort one suffering
+from a real misfortune; but I must confess, that when Mademoiselle
+Dollon presented herself here as a boarder, I was ignorant of the exact
+nature of the scandal in which she is involved."
+
+Fandor was taken aback at the harsh tone of the nun's speech.
+
+"Good Heavens, madame, what do you mean to insinuate?"
+
+"I have just been informed, monsieur, of the exact nature of the
+relations which existed between the criminal, Jacques Dollon, and Madame
+de Vibray."
+
+Fandor stiffened with indignation.
+
+"It is false!" he cried. "Utterly false! You have been misinformed!"
+
+He stopped short. The nun signified by a movement of her hand that
+further protests were useless.
+
+"In any case, whether false or not, it is quite certain that we cannot
+keep this girl here any longer, for her name will, in the end, do harm
+to the respectability of this house."
+
+Fandor was astounded at this extraordinary statement.
+
+"In other words," said he, "you refuse to keep Mademoiselle here any
+longer as a boarder?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur!"
+
+The journalist moved a step or two, then, with bent head, seemed to be
+turning something over in his mind.
+
+"It comes to this, madame, you are not giving me your true reasons
+for ..."
+
+Again the nun interrupted the young man with a gesture.
+
+"True, monsieur, I should have preferred not to mention my real and very
+definite reasons which make it an imperative duty that I should request
+Mademoiselle Dollon to seek another refuge. Nevertheless, since you
+insist, I will tell you that Mademoiselle Dollon's attitude just
+now--her behaviour--is what we cannot possibly allow...."
+
+"Good Heavens! What do you wish to insinuate now, madame?"
+
+"You kissed her, monsieur. I regret that you have forced me to go into
+details. I regret that you have compelled me to put into words this--I
+will not allow you to turn this religious house into a lover's meeting
+place! Am I clear?"
+
+Before Fandor had time to protest, the nun gave him a curt bow, and
+prepared to leave him.
+
+The young journalist recalled her. He was angry; all the more so,
+because he knew that the Mother Superior had some justification for the
+attitude she had taken up. Alas! All his protestations were vain!
+
+"Very well, madame," he said at last. "You are utterly mistaken; but I
+recognise that your attitude has some colour of justification, and I bow
+to your decision, based on misinformation and a mistake though it be.
+Kindly allow me two days' grace, that I may find another refuge for
+Mademoiselle Dollon!"
+
+With a movement of her head the nun signified her assent; then, with a
+final bow, she left the parlour.
+
+Crestfallen, but full of angry resolve, Jérôme Fandor turned his back on
+the convent.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+VAGUE SUSPICIONS
+
+
+Fandor was talking to himself--an inveterate habit of his--as he sat in
+the cab which was carrying him to the Palais de Justice.
+
+"Beyond question, I ought to have examined that paper they have stolen
+from Mademoiselle Elizabeth. I should have looked through it at the
+first opportunity. That sequence of names; those dates, which seem to
+almost coincide with the different criminal attempts, probably relate to
+the mysterious plan which the assassins are carrying out
+systematically.... But, that means there are to be more victims, and we
+shall witness fresh tragedies!... I am not at all easy about Elizabeth
+either!... Who the deuce could have telephoned to her at the convent?...
+Perhaps what I am going to do is stupid, but no chance must be
+neglected.... I wonder if I shall learn anything worth knowing at the
+court to-day?...
+
+"When they arrested these smugglers, five months ago, I recollect
+perfectly that Monsieur Thomery's name was mentioned in connection with
+the business.... If I only held the connecting link of interest in my
+hands, which would make it clear why all these people--Jacques Dollon,
+the Baroness de Vibray, Princess Sonia Danidoff, Barbey-Nanteuil, and
+even Elizabeth Dollon--have been the victims of the horrible band I am
+pursuing.... The motive? Evidently robbery! But there must be some other
+reason, for--and it is a significant fact--all these people know one
+another, meet one another, or at least are either clients of the
+Barbey-Nanteuil bank, or are friends of Monsieur Thomery.... It's the
+devil's own mystery!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jérôme Fandor had arrived at the Palais de Justice. He crossed the great
+hall des Pas-Perdus and entered the Assize Court.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The trial of the Cooper and his accomplices was a small affair, and had
+not attracted many listeners, for these smuggling and coining cases were
+apt to be dull. As a matter of fact, there would not have been a soul
+present, if the accused had not had the most popular of counsels to
+defend them--Maître Henri Robart!
+
+Fandor joined a group who were on familiar terms evidently, and,
+although he had not seen her for many a day, he at once recognised
+Mother Toulouche by her remarkable appearance and grotesque get up. He
+had had so many other irons in the fire, that he had not followed this
+smuggling case at all closely: he was surprised, therefore, to see
+Mother Toulouche in the little passage adjoining the court, for he had
+the impression that the old receiver of stolen goods had been under lock
+and key for some weeks.... She was now being interviewed by one of his
+colleagues. Fandor went up to them.
+
+Though she had not been accused of anything so far, the old storekeeper
+was vehemently protesting her innocence.
+
+"Yes," she declared to her interviewer, "it is abominable, when such
+things are discovered all of a sudden!"
+
+Mother Toulouche went on to explain that on Clock Quay she rented a
+small shop for the sale of curiosities: that she was an honest woman,
+who had never wronged a soul by as much as a farthing: all she asked was
+to be left in peace to earn a decent living, so that she could retire
+from business some day or other.... Everyone had a right to ask as much
+as that!... Her store consisted of two rooms and an underground cellar,
+in which she had put a quantity of old odds and ends, when she had moved
+to her present abode.... She never descended to this cellar, never at
+all: she was far too much afraid of rats to venture down there! Not she!
+But, one day, if you please, when she was quietly engaged in mending
+some old clothes, the police had suddenly burst into her store!... And
+they had accused her of receiving smuggled goods and false money, and
+she didn't know what more besides!...
+
+The police, not content with this, had made her go down to the cellar to
+find out whether or no there were such things in the second cellar
+belonging to her store!... Who had been most surprised then? Why who but
+Mother Toulouche, who, until that very minute, had not known that this
+second cellar existed! How then was she to know that it communicated
+with the sewer, still less that the sewer opened on to the Seine, and
+that by the Seine arrived bales of smuggled goods, which were concealed
+in her cellar by the smugglers?... Fortunately, the judges had
+understood this, and after twenty-four hours' detention on suspicion,
+Mother Toulouche had been set at liberty!
+
+At first, she had declared that she did not know the accused persons
+summoned to appear that day, the Cooper in particular; to tell the
+truth, she had made a mistake; she did know them, through having met
+them a long time ago, when she lived near la Capelle; so long ago was it
+that she had forgotten all about it! Anyhow, she wanted to have done
+with the business!
+
+From the very beginning of the trial, Mother Toulouche had been
+disagreeably struck by the inquisitorial glances and pointed questions
+of the Public Prosecutor throughout the proceedings. Now, in her turn,
+the old storekeeper was questioning her audience, trying hard to find
+out what would be the probable attitude of the magistrate, when she
+herself should be summoned to the witness-box.
+
+"Witness!... Mother Toulouche!"
+
+Fandor smiled as he listened to the loquacious old storekeeper,
+for he knew how much faith was to be put in her veracity and
+respectability!... It was pretty clear that she was every whit as guilty
+as the handcuffed individuals now in the dock. As she had not been
+arrested, it simply meant that, in Juve's opinion, this was not an
+opportune moment to put a stopper on the nefarious activities of this
+bad old woman.
+
+At this precise moment, Fandor recognised Juve. He was leaving a group
+of barristers and officials, who had been hugely entertained by his
+stupid answers and remarks. Yes, it was Juve, so admirably made up and
+disguised that Fandor had difficulty in recognising him. Here was
+Cranajour on the scene! He approached Mother Toulouche and stood
+there--a Cranajour who was the picture of gaping imbecility!
+
+"You, too?" cried Mother Toulouche, looking askance at him. "Are you one
+of the witnesses?"
+
+Cranajour's reply was a comical grimace. He scratched his beard,
+remarking finally:
+
+"I have forgotten! I don't know!"
+
+His audience burst into roars of laughter: Fandor laughed loudest of
+all!
+
+One of Maître Henri Robart's juniors whispered in Fandor's ear, with an
+air of giving the journalist a piece of information worth having.
+
+"A simple-minded soul, that!--a kind of idiot! You can guess that, at
+the preliminary inquiry, they soon found that out!... He may be
+heard--or he may not?"
+
+Fandor nodded. He found it difficult not to laugh.
+
+"Thanks many for the information," he stammered. The young barrister did
+not understand the ironical tone of our journalist.
+
+Mother Toulouche was envying Cranajour.
+
+"You're in luck, you are--to be too silly to go and talk to those
+inquisitive fellows in there! Eh?"
+
+Conversations stopped. The little low door, giving entrance to the
+court, had just opened: an usher announced:
+
+"The case is resumed!... Witnesses this way!... The woman Toulouche?...
+It is your turn!..."
+
+They jostled and pushed their way through the narrow entrance in order
+to get into the court room quickly.
+
+Fandor, however, instead of following the crowd, had grasped the simple
+Cranajour by the shoulder, and shouted loud enough to be heard by those
+who might have been surprised at his action.
+
+"You duffer of a Cranajour! Go along with you! You're the man for my
+money, old fellow! Here's something for a glass--but come with me for
+five minutes: I want to interview you and make a jolly good article out
+of it!"
+
+Fandor went off, followed by the detective. When they were quite away
+from everyone, Fandor turned quickly to his friend.
+
+"Well, Juve?"
+
+"Nothing, so far...."
+
+"You have not run in the whole gang?"
+
+"Not I!" replied Juve. "These are only the supernumeraries, and there
+are some of them out of my reach!... Look here, Fandor," continued Juve
+in a low tone. "You will see someone in court presently whose presence
+will astonish you--it is an aviator--the aviator Emilet.... Well, my
+boy, I have a notion that this fellow is no stranger to all these
+goings-on!... But patience!... besides, you know, Fandor, it's not my
+way of doing things to put the bracelets on mediocrities such as he: I
+fly higher!... Good-bye. Shall see you later on!"
+
+Fandor asked, in a low tone:
+
+"Shall I remain for the sitting?"
+
+"Yes," said Juve. "It is quite likely that I shall not be present; and
+it would be a good thing if you were to get a general idea of this
+affair: you may pick up some useful information."
+
+"Juve, I very much wish to have a longer talk with you--there are things
+I want to say--to tell you!"
+
+Steps could be heard coming in their direction: the two men separated at
+once; but Juve had just time to say:
+
+"This evening then, at eight, I shall come to your place, Fandor. Expect
+me!"
+
+Half an hour later, Fandor entered the court room....
+
+The speech for the Crown had just been concluded.
+
+The arrest of these smugglers, now on their trial, had made some stir,
+about five months ago. Public opinion had been aroused almost to fever
+pitch, when it became known that the accused had, for nearly two years
+past, succeeded in getting through into Paris, without having paid town
+dues, quantities of the most highly taxed articles, and thus had
+accumulated a large store of riches in contraband goods and money. They
+owed their arrest to the betrayal of a wretched dealer, who was
+dissatisfied with his remuneration.
+
+The journalists had, after their manner, amplified all the details, had
+exaggerated the realities, and had given a romantic colouring to the
+various incidents in the varied lives and adventures of this daring band
+of smugglers.
+
+They had been represented as perfect gentlemen, who had formed
+themselves into a marvellously organised Black Band, led by a chief
+having right of life or death over them: a band fertile in tricks and
+extraordinary stratagems, who massed their plunder in immense vaults and
+cellars under the very heart of Paris, in the Isle of the Cité, and
+communicating with the river, which, under the eyes of the police,
+served to bear the barges laden with their booty.
+
+Cellars and vaults in the Isle of the Cité!
+
+"Well," thought Fandor, "men organised into such a powerful association
+in this part of Paris might well put one on the track of strange
+discoveries regarding the mysterious events connected with the Jacques
+Dollon affair!"
+
+Then, having spoken to his colleagues on the press, Fandor turned in the
+direction of the jury and set himself to follow attentively Maître Henri
+Robart's speech for the defence.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+DISCUSSIONS
+
+
+The portress rang up Fandor on the telephone.
+
+"Monsieur Fandor! There is a stout little lady down here! She wants to
+see you! Should I let her go up?"
+
+Fandor's first impulse was to say "no." He glanced at the timepiece: it
+was exactly two minutes past eight and Juve might be here at any minute.
+He was sure to keep his appointment.
+
+After an instant's hesitation, Fandor decided on a "yes." He called down
+to the portress:
+
+"Let her come up!"
+
+Fandor had an idea: perhaps this person knew something about the
+appointment made that afternoon at the Palais de Justice! It would be
+well to find out the why and wherefore of this call. In any case, it was
+best for a journalist to see all comers, if possible.
+
+There was a discreet ring, announcing that the stout little lady had
+already mounted the five flights of stairs and was now on Fandor's
+landing.
+
+Our journalist went to open the door, standing well back in the shadow,
+so that his visitor might show herself first, as she passed into the
+little hall.
+
+Yes, she was certainly stout, short, and also elderly. She wore a bonnet
+with strings, perched on a thick crop of grey curls, yellowish at the
+tips. This elderly dame wore glasses; she was wrapped in a large brown
+shawl, and she supported herself, as she walked, with a crook-handled
+stick.
+
+Whilst the puzzled Fandor closed his front door, the visitor made
+straight for the little sitting-room, where our journalist usually sat,
+surrounded by his books and papers.
+
+"Ah, she seems to know my flat!" thought Fandor. The next moment he
+jumped back; for, no sooner had the visitor got well into the room, than
+she straightened her bent back, threw off her shawl, and dropped her
+stick! Then, tearing off her grey curls and her spectacles, the visitor
+revealed herself as--Juve!
+
+Fandor burst out laughing.
+
+"Juve! Well, I never!"
+
+"It's Juve, all right, my boy!" cried the smiling detective, as he rid
+himself of the feminine get-up which impeded his movements. "I was
+pleased to see, my lad, that you did not suspect my identity until I had
+thrown off this second-hand wardrobe I bulked myself out with!"
+
+"Oh!" cried Fandor, "that's only because I hardly looked at you. If I
+had, Juve, you may be sure I should have recognised you!"
+
+"Possibly! But what do you think of the disguise?"
+
+"Not so bad, Juve; but why did you change your sex this evening?"
+
+"Oh, for the fun of it, and to keep my hand in ... besides, the more
+precautions we take when we meet, the better. Admit for a moment that
+our enemies are keeping a watch on you here: what will they recollect
+about your doings this evening? Why, that Fandor, the journalist, had a
+call from a lady, and that she did not leave in a hurry either!"
+
+"Hang it all! I've no objection to a Don Juan reputation, but I may say,
+without offence, that, as a woman, there's nothing particularly
+attractive about you, Juve, in the garb you've just discarded!"
+
+"Bah!" replied Juve. "You mustn't be so particular, my dear boy--as if
+dress mattered--or appearance either!"
+
+Juve was lighting a cigarette as he walked about the room, examining the
+books and other objects with which Fandor had surrounded himself.
+
+"A charming home!" murmured the detective....
+
+Then, he inspected the contents of a little show-case, in which Fandor
+had collected what he called his "Circumstantial Evidence"; in other
+words, various objects relating to cases he had been engaged on, such as
+scraps of clothing, blood-stained weapons, broken locks: these records
+of crimes, new and old, were carefully labelled. Juve began questioning
+Fandor about these sinister relics. Five minutes of jokes and laughter,
+then Fandor became serious. He drew his friend to a corner settee.
+
+"Juve," said he, in an impressive tone, "I have found the connecting
+link!"
+
+"By Jove! You have, have you!" cried Juve in a bantering tone, and with
+a quizzical look. "Let us see it!... Explain!..."
+
+Regardless of his friend's scepticism, Fandor proceeded to expound his
+theory.
+
+"I did as you suggested. I was present at the trial of the smugglers: I
+listened to Counsel's speech for the defence, but judged it useless to
+stay to the end. When Maître Henri Robart began a disquisition on the
+facts, I left. Here is what I have noted:
+
+"Someone owns a house in the Isle of the Cité; a house which is a
+meeting place for receivers of stolen goods, ruffians, robbers, and
+vagabonds: a house possessing underground cellars of no ordinary kind.
+Now, this Someone never mentions this strange house of his, though he
+must be aware of its existence; then this Someone knows intimately
+several, at least, of the people more or less involved in the Jacques
+Dollon affair, and--one may boldly assert it--the Dollon plot was
+hatched in a cellar, in a sewer of the Cité.
+
+"One of two things!...
+
+"Either this personage is timorous, is afraid of being compromised,
+and does not consider in what an awkward position this coincidence
+places him--if that be so, he is a singularly thick-headed
+individual--or--well--Monsieur Thomery ... you are the most rascally
+scoundrel it has been my lot to admire, up to now! But I assure you, we
+know how to get even with you! From the moment we have established, in
+the first place, a connection between all these affairs--that they
+indubitably hang together; secondly, that you, Monsieur Thomery, are the
+connecting link...."
+
+"No," interrupted Juve, sharply....
+
+"What is that you say?..."
+
+"I say--_no_."
+
+"What?" cried Fandor, taken aback. He stared at Juve, who continued to
+smoke his cigarette, unmoved. But Fandor was obstinately set on stating
+his point of view.
+
+"The primary cause of the Dollon affair seems to be the suicide
+of the Baroness de Vibray, a suicide probably owing to a love
+disappointment--the old lady had been forsaken by her lover--Monsieur
+Thomery!..."
+
+"No."
+
+Juve's denial slightly annoyed Fandor, but did not stop him.
+
+"I ask: was the man who robbed Sonia Danidoff one of the guests? It is
+very unlikely; for, not only were the clothes of all those present
+searched, but all Thomery's guests were known, well known!..."
+
+"No!"
+
+Fandor bit his lip.
+
+"It's true, Juve! You were there yourself, and no one penetrated your
+disguise, and discovered who you really were! My last argument is,
+therefore, worthless ... but I fancy your attitude, your way of
+receiving my deductions, hides something. Have you got new information!
+Fresh facts to go on? You know who stole the jewels?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Good Heavens! How aggravating you are, Juve!... But this time you will
+simply have to agree with me! Listen!... When we first met, after our
+long separation, you admitted that one thing bothered you--the ease with
+which your nefarious band of villains of the Isle of the Cité were able
+to get rid of considerable sums of false money; and you were trying to
+find their market--by what means these wretches were able to rid
+themselves of the coin; when, apparently, they were not acquainted with
+any influential people in the business world, or in the circles of high
+finance.... Well, I have discovered their channel of distribution--it is
+none other than the proprietor of this house properly, the ground floor
+and basement of which are occupied by Mother Toulouche--obviously, it is
+Thomery!..."
+
+"No!"
+
+Fandor lifted hands to heaven in despairing fashion and sat silent. He
+was deeply mortified. There was a long pause, during which Juve calmly
+smoked on. At last, Fandor asked in a hopeless sort of tone:
+
+"Well?... What do you think?"
+
+Slowly, as if awakening from a dream, Juve began to speak.
+
+"We know nothing for certain so far, my lad, except that the Baroness de
+Vibray has committed suicide; that Princess Sonia Danidoff has recovered
+from the shock of her jewel robbery, and is to marry Thomery next month
+... there is nothing extraordinary in that ... just as there is,
+perhaps, nothing surprising or extraordinary in the series of robberies,
+nor even in the crimes occupying our attention at the present moment!"
+
+Fandor jumped up. "Nothing!" he shouted. "You are joking, Juve! It is
+absurd what you say! Do just think a minute, my dear fellow! Why, all
+these affairs are closely connected, from the Jacques Dollon affair, up
+to ... up to ..."
+
+Fandor stopped short. Juve, who had been listening to him with seeming
+inattention, now appeared wholly anxious to hear the end of the
+sentence: he stared hard at Fandor.
+
+"Go on! Go on! I want to make you say it!..."
+
+And Fandor, as though in spite of himself, finished with:
+
+"Up to Fantômas!"
+
+"Yes, at last we have got it!" cried Juve.
+
+The two men gazed at each other; once more the logic of deductions, the
+chain of circumstances had inevitably led him to pronounce the name of
+the formidable bandit, of whom they could not think without a shudder;
+whose memory they could not evoke without immediately feeling themselves
+surrounded by sinister gloom, lost in a thick fog of mystery, of what
+was strange, hidden, occult!
+
+Fandor's countenance cleared suddenly as he gave utterance to the idea
+which had just crossed his mind.
+
+"Juve, do you not think that this mysterious prison warder, called
+Nibet, might very well be an incarnation of Fantômas, because in so many
+circumstances ..."
+
+Juve interrupted Fandor with a gesture of denial.
+
+"No, old fellow," said he gravely. "Don't start on that trail, it is
+assuredly a bad one: Nibet is not Fantômas. Nibet does not count for
+much, one might say, for nothing at all; he can scarcely be called a
+tiny wheel even in the great machine driven on its diabolical course by
+our fiendish enemy ... we must look higher than that!"
+
+"Thomery?" insisted Fandor, who still held to his idea, and was
+determined to turn Juve to his way of thinking....
+
+But Juve still said "no!" to that.
+
+"Let us drop Thomery, my lad! As to Fantômas, how do you think we can
+identify him in this haphazard fashion, basing our idea on pure
+supposition? ... For, who is Fantômas--the real Fantômas, among so many
+probable Fantômas?
+
+"Can you tell me that, Fandor?" continued Juve, who was getting excited
+at last.... "I grant you that we have seen, in the course of our
+chequered existence, an old gentleman, like Etienne Rambert, a thickset
+Englishman like Gurn, a robust fellow like Loupart, a weak and sickly
+individual like Chaleck. We have identified each one of them, in turn,
+as Fantômas--and that is all.
+
+"As for seeing Fantômas himself, just as he is, without artificial aid,
+without paint and powder, without a false beard, without a wig, Fantômas
+as his face really is under his hooded mask of black--that we have not
+yet done. It is that fact which makes our hunt for the villain
+ceaselessly difficult, often dangerous!... Fantômas is always someone,
+sometimes two persons, never himself!"
+
+Juve, once started on this subject, could go on for ever, and Fandor did
+not try to stop him: when the course of conversation led them to talk of
+Fantômas the two men were as though hypnotised by this mysterious
+creature, so well named, for he was really "Fantômatic," a spectral
+entity: the two friends could not turn their minds to any other subject.
+They discussed Fantômas up and down, in and out, and round about!...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was getting on towards one o'clock when Fandor saw Juve off as far as
+the staircase. The detective had resumed his disguise, but neither man
+was in a joking mood now. Fandor had given Juve an account of the
+annoying, yet rather absurd incident at the convent, when he and
+Elizabeth were unsuspectingly bidding each other a passionate farewell
+under the watchful and scandalised eye of a nun! Fandor had thought it
+better to take Juve into his confidence on the point, though it went
+against the grain, for he was bashful with regard to his feelings.
+
+Juve had openly laughed at first, but when he understood that Elizabeth,
+requested to leave the convent, would again be without a safe shelter,
+he became serious, reflected for a minute or two, then gave his dear lad
+a piece of advice, advice which Fandor had seemingly taken objection to,
+and had finished by agreeing to....
+
+They parted with these words:
+
+"The more you think it over, dear lad, the better you will like my
+idea," said Juve.
+
+Fandor had not said "No" to it!
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+AN ARREST
+
+
+The day after his memorable talk with Juve, Fandor was summoned to
+appear before the police magistrate, because he could give evidence
+regarding the rue Raffet affair, and had saved Elizabeth Dollon's life.
+
+It was about four in the afternoon, and he had just entered the passage
+leading to the offices so familiar to him, when he met Elizabeth. Behind
+her came several persons whom he recognised: among them were the
+Barbey-Nanteuil partners, Madame Bourrat, and the servant, Jules. They
+were together and were talking. The moment she saw him, Elizabeth went
+up to him.
+
+"Ah, monsieur!" she cried, with a reproachful look. "We had given up all
+hope of seeing you.... Just imagine, the magistrate has finished his
+enquiry already! Twice he asked if you had come!"
+
+Fandor seemed surprised.
+
+"The summons was for four this afternoon, was it not?" he asked, taking
+from his pocket the summoning letter. A glance showed that he was not
+mistaken: he gave Elizabeth the letter to read. She smiled.
+
+"You were summoned for four o'clock, I see; but we had to appear
+earlier: I was examined as soon as I arrived, and I was summoned to
+appear at half-past two."
+
+Fandor was annoyed with himself: he might have guessed it! He was vexed
+because he had not been on the watch in the passage whilst this
+examination was proceeding. He was moving towards Monsieur Fuselier's
+room, the magistrate in charge of the Auteuil affair, and he must have
+looked his vexation, for Elizabeth said:
+
+"I am a little to blame, perhaps, that you had not due notice, but what
+could I do! Yesterday evening when you telephoned to the convent to ask
+for news of me, I was just going to tell you at what time I was
+summoned, but when I went to the telephone...."
+
+"What's this you are telling me?" asked Fandor, staring hard at
+Elizabeth. "I never telephoned to you yesterday evening. Who told you I
+had been asking for you on the telephone?"
+
+"Nobody said so; but I supposed it was you! Who else would be so kindly
+interested in my doings?"
+
+Fandor made no reply to this. Here was the telephone mystery again--an
+alarming mystery. Elizabeth had not given her address to anyone: Fandor
+had been careful not to give it to a soul.... Clearly, this poor girl,
+even in the heart of this peaceful convent, was not secure from some
+unknown, outside interference; and Fandor, optimist though he was, could
+not help shuddering at the thought of these mysterious adversaries,
+implacable and formidable, who might work harm to this unfortunate girl,
+whose devoted protector he now was.... Besides ... did he not feel for
+Jacques Dollon's pretty sister something sweeter and more tender than
+pure sympathy?... Whenever he was near her, did he not experience a
+thrill of emotion? Fandor did not analyse his feelings, but they
+influenced him unconsciously.
+
+He turned to Elizabeth.
+
+"Since you cannot remain any longer at the convent, where do you think
+of staying?"
+
+"Well, monsieur, I shall go back to the convent this evening, though it
+is painful to me--very, very painful--to be obliged to accept their icy
+hospitality ... as for to-morrow!"
+
+Fandor was about to make a suggestion, when the door of Monsieur
+Fuselier's room opened half-way. The magistrate's clerk appeared, and,
+glancing round the passage over his spectacles, called, in a dull tone:
+
+"Monsieur Jérôme Fandor!"
+
+"Here!" replied our journalist. "I am coming!"
+
+Then, taking a hasty farewell of Elizabeth as he went towards the
+magistrate's room, he whispered:
+
+"Wait for me, mademoiselle; and, for the love of Heaven, remember
+this--whatever I may say, whatever happens, whether we are alone,
+together, or in the presence of others, whether it be in a few minutes,
+or later on, do not be astonished at what may befall you, even though it
+be my fault--be absolutely convinced of this--whatever I may do will be
+for your good--more than that I must not say!"
+
+Elizabeth had not a word to say, but his words were humming and buzzing
+in her ears when Fandor was in the magistrate's room.
+
+With a cordial handshake, Monsieur Fuselier began by congratulating him
+on having saved Elizabeth Dollon's life.
+
+"Ah," said he, smiling, "you journalists have all the luck; and, between
+yourselves, I envy you a little, for your lucky star has led you to the
+discovery of a drama, and has enabled you to prevent a fatal ending to
+it. Now, do you not think, as I do, that this Auteuil affair is not a
+case of suicide, but of attempted assassination?"
+
+"There is no doubt about it," replied Fandor quietly.
+
+The magistrate drew himself up with a satisfied air.
+
+"That is also my opinion--has been so from the start."
+
+The clerk now interrupted the two men, who were talking as friends
+rather than as magistrate and witness, asking, in nasal tone:
+
+"Does His Honour wish to take the evidence of Monsieur Jérôme Fandor?"
+
+"In four lines then. I do not think Monsieur Fandor has anything more to
+tell us than what he has already told us in the columns of _La
+Capitale_. That is so, is it not?" asked the magistrate, looking at
+Fandor.
+
+"That is correct," replied our journalist.
+
+The clerk rapidly drew up the deposition of Monsieur Jérôme Fandor, in
+due form, and read it aloud in a monotonous voice.
+
+Fandor signed it. It did not compromise him at all. He was about to
+leave when Monsieur Fuselier caught him by the arm.
+
+"Please wait a minute! There are one or two points to be cleared up: I
+am going to ask the witnesses a few questions: we will have a general
+confrontation--we will compare evidence!"
+
+Then, the journalist's friend, now all the magistrate, asked the
+assembled witnesses certain questions, in an emphatic and professional
+tone.
+
+Fandor, seated a little apart, had leisure to examine the faces of the
+different persons whom circumstances had brought together in this room.
+
+His first look was for Elizabeth: energy and courage were plainly marked
+on her pretty, sad face. Then there was the proprietor of the Auteuil
+boarding-house: an honest, vulgar creature, red-faced, perpetually
+mopping her brow and raising her hands to heaven; ready to bewail her
+position, deploring the untimely publicity given to this affair, a
+publicity which threatened discredit to her boarding-house.
+
+As he was seated directly behind the manservant, Jules, Fandor had a
+view of his broad back, surmounted by a big bullet head and ruffled
+hair. This witness spoke with a strong Picardy accent, and there was
+nothing remarkable about his answers: he seemed the conventional
+second-rate type of servant. He did not seem to have understood much of
+what occurred on the famous day: when questioned as to the order of
+events, his answers were vague, uncertain.
+
+Then, seated beside Fandor were the bankers: Barbey, a grave-looking
+man, no longer young, judging by his beard, which was going grey; he was
+decorated with the Legion of Honour: the other, Nanteuil, looked about
+thirty, elegant, distinguished, lively. These two were well known in the
+highest Parisian society as representing finance of the best kind. They
+were highly thought of.
+
+The magistrate asked the bankers a question.
+
+"Why," asked he, "did Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil call on Mademoiselle
+Dollon? Was it to bring her some help, as has been stated?"
+
+Elizabeth blushed with humiliation at the magistrate's question.
+Monsieur Nanteuil answered:
+
+"There is a slight distinction to be made, your Honour, and Mademoiselle
+Dollon certainly will not object to our mentioning it. It never entered
+our minds to offer Mademoiselle Dollon charity--charity she never asked
+of us, be it clearly understood. Mademoiselle Dollon, with whom we had
+previously been acquainted, whose misfortunes have inspired us with deep
+sympathy, wrote to ask us if we could find her some employment. Hoping
+to find some post for her, we came to see her, to talk with her, to find
+out what her capabilities were. That is all. We were very glad it so
+happened, that we were able to aid Monsieur Fandor in restoring her to
+life."
+
+"Can you tell me, Monsieur Fandor, did you notice anything suspicious in
+Mademoiselle Dollon's room when you entered it? You wrote, in your
+article, that at first you had thought it simply an attempted burglary,
+followed by an attempted murder?"
+
+"That is so," replied Fandor. "Directly the window was opened, I leaned
+out: I wanted to see if there was anything suspicious on the wall of the
+house. I also looked behind the shutters."
+
+"Why?" asked the examining magistrate.
+
+"Because I had not forgotten the close of the Thomery drama--the same
+Monsieur Thomery mentioned in the Assize Court yesterday--oh, in all
+honour, of course; but you have not forgotten--although that examination
+was not in your hands, and I regret it, because I am of the opinion that
+there are points of connection interlinking all these mysterious
+affairs--you have not forgotten, I am sure, that when the investigations
+were over and Monsieur Thomery's guests had been allowed to leave the
+house, that a thread of flax was discovered hanging to the window
+fastening of the room in which Princess Danidoff had been found
+unconscious. This flax thread was very strong, and was broken at the
+end: it is easy to conclude that the stolen pearls had been temporarily
+fastened to it. This led me to think that the aggressor, or aggressors,
+had remained in the reception rooms during the whole course of the
+investigations, since it is proved that no one left the house....
+
+"... But, after all, we are not here to investigate the Thomery
+affair.... I wished to explain why I had examined the window and
+shutters Of Mademoiselle Dollon's room: I wanted to ascertain whether
+the procedure of the would-be murderer of Mademoiselle Dollon was
+similar to that of the robber in the Danidoff-Thomery case."
+
+"And what conclusion did you come to?" asked the magistrate.
+
+"Window and shutters bore no traces that I could see," said Fandor. "I
+could not come to any conclusion."
+
+Here Monsieur Barbey intervened.
+
+"If I may be allowed to say so"--he glanced at the magistrate for the
+required permission, which was given with a smile and gesture of
+assent--"I quite agree with Monsieur Jérôme Fandor. I also am convinced
+that, even if there is not a close connection between the Thomery affair
+and the Auteuil affair, at least there exists such a connection between
+the Auteuil affair and the terrible drama of rue Norvins."
+
+"I would go even further than that," declared Monsieur Nanteuil. "The
+robbery of rue du Quatre Septembre, of which we are the victims, is also
+connected with this same series of mysterious cases."
+
+The magistrate asked a question.
+
+"It is a matter of twenty millions, is it not? It must have been a
+terrible blow to you?"
+
+"Fearful, monsieur," replied Monsieur Nanteuil. "Our credit was shaken:
+it affected a considerable number of our clients, Monsieur Thomery
+among them, and we consider him one of our most important clients. You
+are aware, of course, that in financial matters confidence is almost
+everything!... Our losses have just been covered by an insurance, but we
+have suffered other than direct material losses. Still"--the banker
+turned towards Elizabeth, who was wiping tears from her eyes--"still,
+what are our troubles compared with those which have struck Mademoiselle
+Dollon blow upon blow? Assassination of the Baroness de Vibray,
+mysterious death----"
+
+"The Baroness de Vibray was not assassinated, she committed suicide,"
+interrupted Fandor sharply. "Most certainly, I do not wish to make you
+responsible for that, gentlemen; but when you wrote, announcing her
+ruin, you dealt her a very hard blow!"
+
+"Could we have done otherwise?" replied Monsieur Barbey, with his
+customary gravity of manner and tone. "In our matter of fact business,
+where all must be clear and definite, we do not mince our words: we are
+bound to state things as they actually are. What is more, we do not
+share your point of view, and are convinced that the Baroness de Vibray
+was certainly murdered."
+
+Monsieur Fuselier now expressed his opinion, or at least, what he wished
+to be considered as his opinion:
+
+"Gentlemen, consider yourselves for the moment as not in the presence of
+the examining magistrate, but as being in the drawing-room of Monsieur
+Fuselier. In my private capacity, I will give you my opinion regarding
+the rue Norvins affair. I am decidedly less and less in agreement with
+Monsieur Fandor, though I recognise with pleasure his fine detective
+gifts."
+
+"Thanks," interrupted Fandor ironically. "That is a poor compliment!"
+
+Smiling, the magistrate continued:
+
+"I am of the same opinion as Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil: I believe Madame
+de Vibray was murdered."
+
+Fandor could not control his impatience.
+
+"Be logical, messieurs, I beg of you!" he cried. "The Baroness de
+Vibray committed suicide. Her letter states her intention. The
+authenticity of this letter has not been disputed. The disastrous
+revelations, contained in Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil's communication,
+proved too severe a shock for the poor lady's unbalanced brain: the news
+of her ruin, abruptly conveyed, drove her to desperation. The death of
+the Baroness de Vibray was voluntary and self-inflicted."
+
+There was a dead silence. Then Monsieur Barbey asked a question.
+
+"Well, then, Monsieur Fandor, will you explain to us how it happened
+that the Baroness de Vibray was found dead in the studio of the painter,
+Jacques Dollon?"
+
+Fandor seemed to expect this question from the banker.
+
+"There are two hypotheses," he declared. "The first, and, in my humble
+opinion, the more improbable, is this: Madame de Vibray at the same time
+that she decided to put an end to her life, wished to pay her protégé a
+last visit; all the more so, because he had asked her to come and see
+his work before it was sent in to the Salon. Perhaps the Baroness
+intended to perform an act of charity, in this instance, before her
+supreme hour struck. Perhaps she miscalculated the effect of the poison
+she had taken, and so died in the house of the friend she had come to
+see and help: her death there could not have been her choice, for she
+must have known what serious trouble it would involve the artist in,
+were her dead body found in his studio.
+
+"Here is the second hypothesis, which seems the more plausible. The
+Baroness de Vibray learns that she is ruined, she decides to die, and by
+chance or coincidence, which remains to be explained, for I have not the
+key to it yet, some third parties interested in her fate, learn her
+decision. They let her write to her lawyer; they do not prevent her
+poisoning herself; but, as soon as she is dead, they straightway take
+possession of her dead body and hasten to carry it to Jacques Dollon's
+studio. To the painter himself they administered either with his consent
+or by force--probably by force--a powerful narcotic, so that when the
+police are called in next day they not only find the Baroness lying dead
+in the studio, but they also find the painter unconscious, close by his
+visitor. When Jacques Dollon is restored to consciousness, he is quite
+unable to give any sort of explanation of the tragedy; naturally enough,
+the police look upon him as the murderer of her who was well known to
+have been his patroness.... How does that strike you?"
+
+It was now Monsieur Fuselier's turn to hold forth.
+
+"You forget a detail which has its importance! I do not pretend to judge
+as to whether she was poisoned by her own free act or not; but, in any
+case, we have this proof--an uncorked phial of cyanide of potassium was
+found in Jacques Dollon's studio. It seemed to have been recently
+opened; but, when the painter was questioned about it, he declared that
+he had not made use of this ingredient for a very long time."
+
+Fandor replied:
+
+"I can turn your argument against you, monsieur. If the Baroness de
+Vibray had been poisoned, voluntarily or not, with the cyanide of
+potassium in Dollon's studio, he would have taken the precaution to
+banish all traces of the poison in question. It would have been his
+first care! When questioned by the police inspector, he would not have
+declared that he had not made use of this poison for a very long time!
+the contradiction involved is proof that Dollon was sincere; therefore,
+we are faced by a fact which, if not inexplicable, is, at least,
+unexplained."
+
+Monsieur Barbey now had something to say:
+
+"You criticise and hair-split in a remarkable fashion, monsieur, and are
+an adept in the science of induction; but, let me say without offence
+meant, that you give me the impression of being rather a romancing
+journalist than a judicial investigator!... Admitting that the Baroness
+de Vibray was carried to the painter Dollon's studio after her death,
+and that seems to be your opinion, what advantage would it be to the
+criminals to act in such a fashion?"
+
+Jérôme Fandor had risen, his eyes shining, his body vibrating with
+excitement.
+
+"I expected your question, monsieur," he cried; "and the answer is
+simple. The mysterious criminals seized the Baroness de Vibray's body
+and brought it to Dollon's studio to create an alibi, and to cast
+suspicion on an innocent man. As you know, the stratagem was successful:
+two hours after the discovery of the crime, the police arrested
+Mademoiselle Dollon's unfortunate brother!"
+
+With a dramatic gesture Fandor pointed to Elizabeth, who, no longer able
+to contain her grief, was weeping bitterly.
+
+The audience had risen, moved, troubled, subjugated, in spite of
+themselves, by the journalist's eloquent and persuasive tones. Even
+Monsieur Fuselier had quitted his classic green leather arm-chair and
+had approached the two bankers: Madame Bourrat was behind them, and the
+servant, Jules, with his smooth face and staring eyes.
+
+Fandor continued:
+
+"This is not all, messieurs!... There is still something that must be
+said, and I beg of you to listen with all your attention, for what the
+result of my declarations will be, I do not know! It is no longer my
+reason that speaks, instinct dictates my words! Listen!..."
+
+It was a poignant moment! All the witnesses, the magistrate included,
+were thrilled with the certainty that the journalist was about to make a
+sensational revelation.
+
+Taking his time, Jérôme Fandor walked slowly, quietly up to Elizabeth
+who, distraught with grief, was in floods of tears.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said, in a clear level voice, which was in strange
+contrast with his recent persuasive and authoritative tones.
+"Mademoiselle, you must tell us everything!... You are here, not in the
+presence of a judge, and of enemies, but amidst friends who wish you
+nothing but good.... I understand your affectionate feelings, I know
+what an unreasoning, but quite natural, attachment you have for your
+unfortunate brother--but, mademoiselle, it is now imperatively necessary
+that you should do violence to yourself--you must tell us the truth, the
+whole truth!"
+
+Interrupting his appeal to Elizabeth, Fandor turned to the magistrate
+with a smile so enigmatic that his audience could not tell whether he
+was speaking sincerely or was acting a part.
+
+"I have contended in my articles up to now that Jacques Dollon was dead,
+dead beyond recall; but when confronted with recent facts my theory
+seems to fall to the ground." Fandor turned once more to Elizabeth,
+resuming his authoritative tone and manner: "Since the affair of the
+Dépôt, the legal authorities have recognised indelible traces of Jacques
+Dollon's hand in the series of crimes which have been recently
+perpetrated. Up to the present, I have determinedly denied such a
+possibility. But, mademoiselle, I put it to you: you have forgotten to
+tell us something of the very utmost importance, something quite out of
+the range of ordinary happenings, something phenomenal. Now here is the
+staggering fact I am faced with! The other day, between two and three in
+the afternoon, at the Auteuil boarding-house where you are staying, you
+received a visit from your brother, Jacques Dollon, the supposed robber
+of the Princess Sonia Danidoff's pearls, the suspected author of the
+robbery of rue du Quatre Septembre; and, lastly, the fratricide, for
+what other explanation of the attack on you can be given--an attempted
+murder beyond question--and I add ..." Fandor could not continue. His
+eyes were fixed on those of Elizabeth who, at the first words addressed
+to her by the journalist, had started up, trembling from head to
+foot.... Their glances met, challenging, each seeking to quell, to
+subjugate the other.... It seemed to the onlookers that they were
+witnessing an intense struggle between two very strong natures separated
+by a deep, a fathomless gulf; that a veil, dark as night, hanging
+between them had been rent asunder, giving passage to an illuminating
+flash; that this luminous ray carried with it all the revelations and
+the key to the fantastic mystery!
+
+But to a calm, perspicacious observer of the two beings standing face to
+face, it would have been clear that Jérôme Fandor's real attitude was
+both suppliant and persuasive, and that Elizabeth Dollon's was one of
+overwhelming surprise.
+
+Monsieur Fuselier, carried away by the journalist's startling and
+extraordinary statements, did not perceive this. Suddenly, he saw in
+Jérôme Fandor the denunciator, and in Elizabeth Dollon, the accomplice
+unmasked. Nevertheless, he said quietly:
+
+"Monsieur Fandor, you have just uttered words of such gravity that you
+are bound to confirm them by indisputable evidence. Do you mean to
+persist on these lines?"
+
+Fandor looked away from the stupefied Elizabeth and her questioning
+glance: he answered the magistrate at once.
+
+"The proof of what I advance, you will find by searching Mademoiselle
+Dollon's room.... I would rather not say more than that...."
+
+"Allow me to state, monsieur, that I cannot arrange for such an
+investigation until to-morrow morning!"
+
+Then, addressing the astounded Madame Bourrat, the two bankers, and the
+manservant, Jules.
+
+"Madame, messieurs, will you be kind enough to withdraw? Madame, I
+advise you, under pain of the most serious consequences, not to allow
+anyone whatever to enter your premises, nor go into Mademoiselle
+Dollon's room, before this matter has been fully sifted by the legal
+authorities. Be good enough to wait in the passage--all of you!"
+
+Having witnessed their exit, the magistrate walked up to Fandor, and
+looking him straight in the eyes said:
+
+"Well!... Out with it!"
+
+"Well," replied the journalist, "if you institute a search in the place
+I have indicated, you will find, in the chest of drawers, under a pile
+of Mademoiselle Dollon's personal linen a piece of soap wrapped up in a
+cambric handkerchief. Take this soap to Monsieur Bertillon's department,
+and after the scientific tests have been applied to it, you will be able
+to say that it bears distinct impressions of Dollon's hand!"
+
+"Dollon's?"
+
+The magistrate gasped.
+
+Elizabeth Dollon had fallen back into the arm-chair, from which she had
+risen all trembling. Her tears had ceased. She stared at the two men
+with wide open, terrified eyes. All the time, the clerk in spectacles
+wrote steadily on at his table, noting down the details of the scenes he
+was witnessing.
+
+There was a palpitating silence.
+
+Monsieur Fuselier had returned to his writing table.
+
+Jérôme Fandor seemed to have recovered his composure, an ironic smile
+curved his lips beneath his small moustache, whilst his hand sought that
+of Elizabeth: it was the only way he could, at the moment, express the
+sympathy he had never ceased to feel for her.
+
+Monsieur Fuselier filled in a printed paper and pressed an electric
+bell.
+
+Two municipal guards appeared.
+
+Monsieur Fuselier rose and signing to the soldiers to wait, he faced
+Elizabeth Dollon.
+
+"Mademoiselle, have you any objections to make to the statements of
+Monsieur Jérôme Fandor? Will you say whether or no you received a visit
+from your brother?"
+
+Elizabeth, tortured by intense emotion, her throat contracted, strove in
+vain to pronounce a word; at last, by a supreme effort, she murmured in
+a strangled voice:
+
+"Oh! Why, you are all mad here!"
+
+As she gave no direct reply to his question, Monsieur Fuselier, after a
+pause, announced in a grave voice:
+
+"Mademoiselle! Until I have more ample information, I am under the cruel
+necessity of ordering your arrest!... Guards, arrest the accused!" cried
+the magistrate sternly.
+
+Elizabeth Dollon made a movement of revolt, when she saw herself
+surrounded and felt her arms seized by the two representatives of
+authority. She was about to cry out in protest, but a glance--it seemed
+to her a tender glance--from Fandor restrained her.... She stood
+speechless, inert. After all, had she not confidence in him, although
+she could not understand his attitude! Had he not been her staunch
+defender up to now? Had he not warned her that she must not be
+astonished at anything that occurred--that she must be prepared for
+anything?... Nevertheless, Elizabeth Dollon felt her brain reeling--she
+was astounded beyond words.... The surprise was too strong for her....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+About a quarter of an hour after this tragic scene, Fandor was pacing up
+and down the asphalt of the boulevard du Palais, plunged in thought,
+when someone clapped him on the shoulder. He turned. It was Monsieur
+Fuselier.
+
+"Well, my dear fellow!" cried the magistrate, resuming his customary
+tone of good fellowship. "Well, what an adventure! You have been playing
+some fine tricks! I never expected such a stroke as that, the deuce if I
+did!"
+
+"Ho, ho!" laughed Fandor, "I think that a week from to-day we shall know
+a good many things!"
+
+"Well," replied the magistrate, "I have had the girl placed in solitary
+confinement--that makes them willing to speak out!...."
+
+Fandor looked the magistrate up and down.
+
+"Ah!" murmured he, with a scarcely perceptible note of contempt in his
+voice:
+
+"You think you will extract information from that quarter, do you?"
+
+"But why not? Why not?" interrupted the dapper Monsieur Fuselier, in a
+sprightly tone; and, leaving Fandor abruptly, he leapt into a passing
+tramcar.
+
+Fandor watched Fuselier cross the road and climb to an outside seat.
+Whilst the magistrate waved a friendly farewell from the top of the
+disappearing car, Fandor shrugged disdainful shoulders, and, with
+pitying lips, muttered one word:
+
+"Fool!"
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TRUNK
+
+
+After Monsieur Fuselier's departure, Fandor rejoined Madame Bourrat on
+the boulevard. The good woman was very much upset by the dramatic scene
+she had witnessed. She had sent off her manservant, and was preparing to
+take the tram back to Auteuil. Fandor asked if he might accompany her,
+and Madame Bourrat was only too delighted to have a chance of further
+talk with the journalist, for she had a lively desire to learn all she
+could about the extraordinary drama in which she found herself involved.
+
+When they arrived at Auteuil, Madame Bourrat had learned nothing
+definite, for the journalist had given only evasive answers to her
+questions. Still, one point was obvious: Madame Bourrat considered
+Monsieur Jérôme Fandor as the most amiable man in the world, and she was
+disposed to help him to the utmost of her powers, in defence of any
+interests he wished to safeguard....
+
+Madame Bourrat was absolutely set on receiving Monsieur Fandor in her
+private apartments. She then seized the opportunity to complain of the
+trouble this affair had brought into her regular and peaceful existence.
+Certainly, in summer, her boarders were less numerous; their numbers
+being, in fact, reduced to two or three.
+
+This season there had been fewer than usual; but the accident, or
+attempted assassination of Mademoiselle Dollon, had undoubtedly brought
+discredit on the house. An old paralysed gentleman, who had been in
+residence on the day of the drama, had departed the day after. There
+was not a single boarder in the house: it was empty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having made certain that her manservant, Jules, and her cook, Marianne,
+had retired to their respective rooms, Madame Bourrat conducted Fandor
+as far as the door of her dwelling. They had been so interested in their
+talk, that they had forgotten all about dinner: their experiences of the
+past few hours had left them with little appetite. It was about nine
+o'clock; night had fallen: house and garden were wrapped in a mantle of
+darkness.
+
+"Can you find your way?" asked Madame Bourrat. If she accompanied the
+journalist to her garden gate she would have to grope back to the house
+in the dark, and alone! Her nerves were shaken by recent events. She did
+not wish to venture forth and back in the mysterious gloom of night,
+even on the familiar path of her garden. What might that darkness not
+hide! What robbers, what murderers might there not be lurking near!
+
+Fandor laughed.
+
+"Why, of course I can, madame! To find the points of the compass, to
+cultivate the sense of locality, is part of a journalist's profession."
+
+"Do not forget to draw to behind you--it needs a strong pull--the gate
+which separates us from the street: once shut, no one can open it from
+outside."
+
+Fandor, shaking hands with the boarding-house keeper, promised to close
+the gate. As the sound of his steps on the gravel grew less and less, as
+the gate fell to with a loud noise, and an absolute silence followed,
+Madame Bourrat felt sure that her guest had left the garden--had gone
+away.
+
+But he had done nothing of the sort!
+
+Fandor had shut the gate noiselessly, but he had remained inside the
+grounds. He stood motionless, holding his breath, wishing neither to be
+seen nor heard. He remained so for a long twenty minutes. Then, being
+assured that Madame Bourrat had retired for the night--she had closed
+her shutters and put out her light--he rubbed his hands, murmuring:
+
+"Now we shall see!"
+
+Stepping gingerly along by the side of the wall, he reached the main
+building of the boarding-house: luckily, it was empty as far as boarders
+were concerned. He recognised Elizabeth Dollon's window on the first
+floor and was glad to see that it was half open. Chance favoured
+him--there was even a gutter pipe running down the wall and passing
+close to the window. Providence had favoured him with a fine staircase;
+there would not be much difficulty in climbing that!
+
+No sooner thought than done! Accustomed as he was to exercise and games,
+Fandor, agile as a young man in good training can be, squirmed up the
+pipe as far as Elizabeth's window. He caught hold of the sill, recovered
+his balance, jerked himself up, and, two seconds after, had landed in
+the room.
+
+Dared he strike a light! He remembered pretty accurately the position of
+the various pieces of furniture, but he would like to study the room
+more in detail. His luck still held, for a ray of moonlight suddenly
+shone out from behind a cloud. He saw the moon sailing in a clear sky.
+There would be sufficient light from the moon rays to enable him to
+pursue his investigations.
+
+It was an essentially modern room; the white walls were painted with
+ripolin, and were as bare of ornament as a nun's cell. An iron bedstead
+stood in the middle of the room: a wardrobe, with a mirror panel in
+front, and locked, occupied one of the corners; behind a folding screen
+was a toilette table, a Louis XV bureau, two chairs, an arm-chair: that
+was all.
+
+After making this rapid inventory, Fandor considered:
+
+"The situation is growing complicated," said he to himself. "I am quite
+persuaded that this room will shortly receive a visit from some
+individuals who will not court recognition--their interests are all
+against that--and they certainly will not be anxious to meet me here!
+These individuals assuredly know, at this minute, that the examining
+magistrate is going to make a thorough investigation here to-morrow
+morning.... How do they know it? It's very simple. The prime mover in
+the attempted murder, or one of his accomplices, was assuredly among the
+witnesses this afternoon. Is it the amiable Madame Bourrat? Is it that
+doltish Jules, who looks an absolute fool, but may be masking his game!
+Suppose the serious Barbey pops up? Or the elegant Nanteuil? But I do
+not think so--they are rather victims than attackers--everything leads
+me to that opinion. But--all this does not tell me whether the place has
+already been visited or not!"
+
+Fandor unlocked the drawer, searched for the piece of soap under the
+pile of Elizabeth's linen, and had the extreme satisfaction of finding
+the soap had not been moved.
+
+"Good! I am here first! Ah, we shall see our men presently! Which, and
+how many?"
+
+Fandor seated himself and let his imagination work. He tried to picture
+the faces of the mysterious individuals he was determined to track
+down--but, so far, in vain!... Then with strange, uncanny persistence,
+one face rose again and again before his mental vision, clear,
+vital--the face of the enigmatic Thomery, with his silver white hair,
+his red face, his light blue eyes, that Yankee head of his, well set on
+his robust torso....
+
+"Thomery!" cried Fandor almost aloud. "The fact is, everything leads me
+to think ... but don't let us anticipate! Concealment is the next item
+on the programme!"
+
+Fandor realised that to hide under the bed was impossible: he would be
+discovered immediately.... The screen was no better!... There was
+Elizabeth's trunk!... Why, it was a kind of monument in wicker work! The
+very thing! It was quite big enough to hold him--it was one of those
+enormous trunks beloved of women!... To hide in it would be an
+excellent trick--a real joke! Let me burrow in there, and see the
+stupefaction of these estimable characters when they open it to rummage
+about among Elizabeth's belongings and find themselves face to face with
+me! They will see besides my sympathetic countenance the stern mouth of
+my revolver!... Let us see whether it is a possible hiding place!
+
+Fandor raised the cover and lifted out a top compartment, in which were
+scattered, among objects of feminine apparel, papers, books, and all
+sorts of things which had evidently belonged to the unfortunate painter.
+The distracted Elizabeth, in the hurry of departure from rue Norvins,
+must have thrust them in pell-mell. The lower division of the trunk was
+empty.
+
+"Another bit of luck!" thought Fandor. "Now to sample my little
+hide-hole!"
+
+Fandor found he could get into a fairly comfortable position. Then he
+calculated, that with the compartment back in its place and the cover
+open, all he had to do to close it was to shake the trunk transversely.
+He could certainly remain inside for several hours without intolerable
+discomfort.
+
+Raising the cover, Fandor slipped out.
+
+The interminable hours crawled by. To smoke was out of the question.
+Fandor's pride in his exploit was sinking to zero: was he passing a
+wretched night to no purpose? A violent ring sounded. Someone was
+ringing at the garden gate--ringing loudly, insistently--an imperative
+summons!
+
+Instantly Fandor was on the alert. Useless to slip to the window and
+peer cautiously out, for Elizabeth's window did not face the gate: even
+by leaning out he could not catch any glimpse of any visitors, either
+coming to the house or passing along towards Madame Bourrat's apartments
+in the annex.... Besides, Fandor feared to make a noise, and the
+polished boards of the floor cracked and creaked at the least movement!
+
+"The one thing for me to do," thought he, "is to creep back into my
+retreat and wait. Now who can it be at this time of night?"
+
+Fandor's curiosity was rapidly satisfied--after a fashion! The call of
+the bell had been answered by noises and hurried footsteps, whisperings,
+an outburst of voices, then silence.... A few minutes after, Fandor
+clearly heard some persons entering the ground floor of the house.
+
+He listened intently: he could hear his own heartbeats.
+
+Then a voice said:
+
+"In Heaven's name! Is it possible? Why do you come to upset people at
+this time of night? As if we had not had enough to put up with during
+the day! It is a dreadful business! There's no doubt about it! Are we
+never to be left in peace?"
+
+"Why, it's Madame Bourrat's voice!" said Fandor. "Poor woman! What's
+up?" He listened. Someone said:
+
+"The law is the law, madame, and we are it's humble executors. As the
+examining judge has ordered me to make an investigating distraint, we
+are compelled to carry out his instructions to the letter. Be good
+enough to tell your servant to lead us to the actual spot where the
+crime was attempted."
+
+"Now what is all this?" asked Fandor. "And from whence comes this police
+inspector? It only wanted that! He won't know what to make of it when I
+tell him who I am--and how am I to explain my presence here? Anyhow,
+wait, and see what happens!"
+
+"Someone was coming upstairs--more than one!"
+
+"This way, messieurs!" said a hoarse voice. "The room the young lady
+occupied is at the end of this passage!"
+
+"This time I recognise my fine fellow!" thought Fandor. "It is that
+imbecile of a Jules. But what a triumphant tone! And how different his
+voice sounds to what it did, this afternoon, at the examination!"
+
+Then Fandor all but jumped from his hiding place.
+
+"Oh! What an egregious fool I am! Why, there is not a police inspector
+in France who would come at this hour to carry out an investigation--and
+a distraint to boot! What the devil does it mean? Can they be the fine
+fellows I am lying in wait to meet?"
+
+The dubious individuals who had roused the house at such an unholy hour
+entered the room. Someone turned on the electric light.
+
+Though Fandor could obtain a sufficient supply of air through the
+openings in the wickerwork, he could not see what was going on: he could
+only listen with all his ears.
+
+Madame Bourrat accompanied her strange visitors.
+
+"It is here," she exclaimed, "that the journalist, Jérôme Fandor, found
+my boarder stretched out on the floor.... You see, in this corner, is
+the gas stove with its tubing! They have forgotten to refix it to the
+pipe; but there is no danger, the tap is turned off and so is the
+meter."
+
+The personage who had given out that he was a police inspector, whose
+voice was probably an assumed one, replied only by monosyllables. Fandor
+did not recognise his voice. But there was another speaker, who also had
+very little to say for himself; and Fandor thought he recognised certain
+tones as belonging to a man who had been much in his thoughts of late.
+
+"Thomery!" thought he. "Is it Thomery?"
+
+But he only knew the sugar refiner by sight, and had heard him speak but
+once or twice at the ball: that was not enough to go on, for Fandor had
+not paid special attention to the distinguishing tone and quality of his
+host's voice. Nevertheless, he could not get out of his head the idea
+that the celebrated sugar refiner, honoured by all Paris, esteemed by
+everybody, was standing only a step or two away from him now in this
+house of strange happenings, and under very peculiar circumstances. "Was
+he a burglar--an assassin? One of a nefarious band?"
+
+For Fandor was now convinced that these were not police emissaries
+bearing a legal mandate to search and distrain: no, they were robbers,
+criminals! He was preparing to rise from his hiding place and appear
+before the bandits: he would fire a few shots and make the deuce of a
+row and rouse the neighbourhood. He would also save poor Madame Bourrat,
+who was certainly not their accomplice. Just then he heard the pretended
+police inspector say:
+
+"Will you provide us with writing materials, madame? We must write an
+official report."
+
+"Why, certainly, monsieur," replied Madame Bourrat. "I will go
+downstairs and get what you require."
+
+Fandor heard her leave the room. No sooner had she gone than a hurried
+conversation began in low tones. Clearly Jules was guilty, for the
+pretended police inspector asked:
+
+"No one this evening? Nothing happened?"
+
+"No," replied Jules in a servile tone. "The journalist brought the
+mistress back and then went off at nine o'clock...."
+
+"No news of Alfred?" asked the voice.
+
+The third person answered:
+
+"Why, no. You know very well he is always at the Dépôt."
+
+"Let us set to work!" said voice number one.
+
+Fandor felt that the decisive moment had arrived: someone opened the
+cover of the trunk and feverish hands were turning over the confused
+mass of objects in the top compartment.
+
+"Didn't you find anything?" asked the voice of Jules.
+
+"No, no, monsieur! I searched everywhere; but as I do not read easily,
+it's difficult for me...."
+
+"Imbecile!" murmured the voice.
+
+"Ah!" said Fandor to himself. "This fellow pleases me! He has the same
+opinion of this dolt of a Jules as I have!"
+
+Revolver in hand, Fandor was on the alert. The moment they lifted up the
+compartment out he would jump. Just then, Madame Bourrat could be heard
+approaching.
+
+"Confound it! We shall not have time to go through everything!"
+muttered a voice. The trunk cover was hastily closed.
+
+Fandor heard Madame Bourrat enter the room with slow, heavy step.
+
+"Here are ink and paper, messieurs!" she said.
+
+Then the pretended police inspector made a statement that startled the
+concealed Fandor.
+
+"Madame, we have no time, nor are we able to make a minute investigation
+now. Besides, with one exception, there does not seem to be anything
+suspicious about the room; but here is a trunk which contains papers of
+great importance. We are going to take it to the police station."
+
+"As you please," replied Madame Bourrat. "I ask only one thing and that
+is to be left in peace. I do not want to hear anything more about this
+abominable affair!"
+
+A rapid turn of the key given to each of the locks and Fandor knew that
+he was now a prisoner! Brave as he was, he felt a rush of blood to his
+heart and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
+
+"Dash it all! I am in an awful position! Impossible to move! If these
+brutes suspected they had me tight in here they would pitch me into the
+river as sure as Fate! Then good-bye to _La Capitale_!"
+
+Then, before Fandor's mental vision rose a sweet consoling figure, the
+figure of the girl for whom he was braving danger, for love of whom--he
+certainly did love her--he had placed himself in such a serious
+position.... Then all that was optimistic in his nature--and that was
+much--rose to the surface, and declared the dilemma was not as serious
+as it seemed.... How could the bandits know of his presence in the
+trunk? They never would think Jérôme Fandor so stupid as to shut himself
+up in the trap!
+
+"Jules and I might shake hands as equals in folly!" concluded Fandor....
+Just then the trunk began to move. They were trying to lift it. Whilst
+trying to preserve an unstable equilibrium, he said to himself in a
+satisfied way:
+
+"And just to think now that they have not rummaged in the chest of
+drawers, nor have they seized the tell-tale piece of soap!... It's true
+that Fuselier alone knows of its being there--I was careful not to tell
+anyone else.... But, where the deuce are they going? It's the stairs, of
+course! It might be a rough precipice by the shaking up they're giving
+me!"
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+CRIMINAL OR VICTIM?
+
+
+At the bottom of his trunk Jérôme Fandor was foaming with rage, furious
+at being caught in the trap and uneasy as to how this adventure would
+end.
+
+Whilst he was realising that his unknown porters were carrying their
+heavy weight with difficulty to the pavement of rue Raffet, he made up
+his mind to a definite course of action: regardless of consequences, he
+was going to shout, move about, make a regular disturbance, rouse the
+attention of the passers-by--if there happened to be any--but, at all
+costs, he meant to get out of the trap!... He saw a ray of hope: Madame
+Bourrat had accompanied her visitors as far as the gate. In presence of
+such a witness, they would, at least, hesitate to do him serious bodily
+harm when he made his presence unmistakably known, furious though they
+would be. He would take every advantage of the situation....
+
+Fandor was about to act: a second more and he would have started, when
+he heard them speaking. He kept quiet.
+
+"We must have a taxi, or at the very least a cab to transport this big
+trunk. Do you know where one is likely to be found?"
+
+"I doubt if one will be passing at this hour, monsieur. We retire early
+in these parts; but, if you like, Jules can go to the station."
+
+"That's settled. Let him go as fast as he can!"
+
+"Well, that is reassuring," thought Fandor. "If these fine fellows take
+a cab, it is not with the intention of chucking my cage and me into the
+river--and that is what I feared most. They may be going to leave me in
+a cloak-room till called for; or they may pack us off as luggage to some
+destination unknown! ... Oh, well, I shall only be a traveller without a
+ticket and I shall be sure to find some way out of the difficulty! And
+then, what stuff for an article I shall have when I get back to _La
+Capitale_!... What must they be thinking at the offices! It's
+forty-eight hours since I put foot in them! Never mind! When they
+know!..."
+
+Fandor was listening with all his ears; but the bandits had little to
+say; and, when they did speak, their voices were plainly disguised. Was
+it as a general precaution, or was it on account of Madame Bourrat?...
+But, unless they were known to her, why the necessity? If, however, she
+knew one or more of them personally, why, they must have disguised their
+faces and figures as well as their voices!... If only he could have a
+peep at them!
+
+The sound of wheels made him suppose that Jules had succeeded in getting
+a cab at the Auteuil station. Then the trot-trot-trot of a horse became
+audible: a few moments later a cab drew up at the edge of the pavement.
+
+A hoarse voice was heard.
+
+"It's not a long journey, I hope!" said the hoarse, grumbling voice of
+the cabman.
+
+"To Police Headquarters," replied the pretended police inspector.
+
+"We shall see about that!" thought Fandor. "That address is to throw
+dust in Madame Bourrat's eyes. They will change their destination on the
+way. I bet on it!..."
+
+"The brutes! Are they going to jam my cage and me on to the seat?"
+Fandor asked himself, for they had seized the trunk and were beginning
+to lift it up. ... "Am I to be stuck upside down beside the driver? I
+don't fancy so!... We must weigh at least ninety kilos, as I weigh
+seventy myself!"
+
+Fandor's mind was soon made easy on that score. After a fruitless
+attempt to hoist the trunk to the box seat, they decided to put it on to
+the back seat of the Victoria. One of the bandits planted himself on the
+little folding seat opposite the trunk: the other bandit mounted to the
+box seat next the driver.
+
+The two bandits took leave of Madame Bourrat. The rickety old vehicle
+started off. Presently, Fandor heard what he had expected to hear: one
+of his captors told the driver to take them to some other address than
+Police Headquarters. Owing to the rattling of the ramshackle cab--it
+lacked rubber tyres--Fandor, though listening with ears astretch, could
+not hear one word distinctly.
+
+Soon pale gleams of light began to filter through the wickerwork: dawn
+was near.
+
+"Ah, we shall soon reach our destination," thought Fandor. "I don't
+fancy my trunk lifters will wish to be seen with this turnout in broad
+daylight! Now, where the deuce are we going?"
+
+In vain did Fandor strive to follow the route taken by the bandits! He
+had noted each shock and counter-shock produced by cobbled streets and
+smooth roads, by bumping against pavements, by crossed tram lines and
+sharp turnings!...
+
+The cab stopped with a jolt and a jerk. The two men got out. The trunk
+was lifted down to the pavement. The driver was paid. He rattled off.
+
+"Now trunk and I are in for it!" thought Fandor.
+
+A bell pealed. A courtyard entrance gate was thrown open. The two men
+lifted the trunk, cursing under their breath at its weight.
+
+In passing under the archway they called some name unknown to Fandor and
+so unintelligible that he could not remember it; then it was a painful
+ascension: up a staircase they went with prodigious effort, stopping on
+two landings.
+
+"Two floors," counted Fandor. "We are coming to the end, and, all said
+and done, I would rather be in a house than at the bottom of the river!"
+
+A key turned in a lock; the trunk was pushed rapidly inside; then the
+noise of a door being shut.
+
+Fandor was in a room; no doubt, alone with the two bandits, and at their
+mercy! He was plunged into complete darkness. Evidently the shutters
+were still closed. The noise made by footsteps on the floor showed that
+it was uncarpeted. Judging from the sound, there seemed to be little
+furniture and no hangings in the room.
+
+"Am I and my cage in an ordinary room, in a studio, or in a hall?"
+wondered Fandor. In any case, the fellows who had brought him there
+seemed anxious to avoid making a noise.
+
+Then he felt the cover of the wickerwork trunk bend slightly and heard
+it creak. For a moment, he thought the two men were about to open his
+prison. He had his revolver ready: every inch of him was on the
+defensive! Then he realised that his captors had merely seated
+themselves on the trunk to rest!
+
+They began to talk.
+
+"This," thought Fandor, "is splendid! I shall hear everything they say.
+Why, it is a conversation in my honour! What luck!"
+
+Fandor was delighted: thanks to his position he would hear some
+interesting secrets. He listened. Alas! He could hear every word they
+uttered, but he could not understand what they were saying! Fandor swore
+strictly to himself. The two wretches were conversing in German.
+
+To the best of his judgment, a good hour had passed since the false
+police inspector and his acolyte had left the room. They had simply
+drawn to the door behind them, not troubling to lock it, much to the joy
+of Jérôme Fandor.
+
+Absolute silence reigned.
+
+Fandor attempted some discreet movements as a test. The wickerwork
+creaked as he gently shook the trunk at short intervals. Not an
+answering sound came from outside! Menaced with cramp, Fandor felt that
+the moment of escape had arrived.
+
+He was, certainly, the only living soul in the place: listen as he
+might, and his sense of hearing was acute, he could not hear any sound
+of breathing. Yes, the time to quit his prison had come!
+
+Fandor had with him, besides his revolver, a box of matches, and a
+hunter's knife consisting of several blades, and a little saw. Getting
+out his knife with some difficulty, he began to hack at the wickerwork.
+Dry and pliant, the interlaced rods did not long resist the saw's steel
+teeth. It took him a bare ten minutes to make an opening, sufficiently
+large to push his head and shoulders through: the rest of his body
+followed easily. Such was his haste to be free, that he tore, not only
+his clothes, but his elbows and hands, on the jagged ends of the broken
+wickerwork: large drops of blood fell on the flooring.
+
+"Bah! I've got off cheaply!" cried Fandor, standing up to relax his
+cramped muscles and stretching his aching legs and arms.
+
+"Unless I am jolly well mistaken, I am lord of all I survey. I am alone
+in my glory! There's not a soul in the place! Good luck indeed!"
+
+He turned for a last look at his broken prison house, the cage in which
+he had spent such exciting hours. He suddenly stiffened and drew back: a
+nervous trembling seized him--the nervous trembling due to sudden shock.
+Between the trunk which had been dumped down in the centre of a large
+square room, without a scrap of furniture in it, and the window, through
+whose shutters the rays of morning sunshine shone, Fandor had caught
+sight of a body lying on the floor--a man's body! Fandor leapt forward.
+Was this same cunning criminal feigning sleep for some evil purpose?
+Standing over that motionless figure, Fandor bent and touched one of the
+man's hands: it was ice-cold and rigid. The man was dead!
+
+To see his face was imperative: it was turned towards the floor. With
+difficulty Fandor raised the head and shoulders, for they were unusually
+large and strongly built. Fandor glanced at the face and suddenly
+withdrew his hand: the corpse fell back on the floor with a thud!
+
+"Thomery!" murmured Fandor. "Why, it's Thomery!"
+
+It was the well-known sugar refiner's body. The face was purple, the
+tongue protruding. Round his neck was tied a tricoloured scarf, the
+scarf of a police inspector! Was this the murderer's ironic touch?
+
+Fandor sank down quite overcome. He tried to collect his thoughts.
+
+"A disgusting joke this! If someone should take into his head to enter
+the room at this moment, what kind of explanation could I give? Here I
+am, alone with the dead body of a man I know, and in a room I don't
+know, in a neighbourhood whose whereabouts I know no more than the man
+in the moon."
+
+"Where am I?... In whose house?... For what purpose?... Have those
+beauties of last night no suspicion of the truth?... Did they leave me
+in this lair of theirs of set purpose, knowing I was cooped up inside
+the trunk?"
+
+Just then, Fandor felt a slight moisture on the palm of his hand: it was
+all red: the scratches, made by the jagged edges of the wickerwork, were
+still bleeding.
+
+"Better and better I declare!" murmured Fandor. "If I don't look like a
+little holy Saint John! A corpse, and a man with blood on his hands
+seated beside the dead body of this murdered man! Nothing more is
+required to jail me with all the power of the law!... To go to prison
+under such suspicious circumstances is serious!... The police, who are
+floundering about in a maze of investigations, without any result so
+far, will be only too delighted to kill two birds with one stone--to
+suppress a journalist and discover a criminal!... I have got to get out
+of here; that is plain as a pikestaff!... Get away? Yes, but with the
+honour of war!... I must establish an alibi--that is absolutely
+necessary.... I like to think that my false police inspector and his
+accomplice have cut and run for some time; at any rate, that they will
+be in no hurry to come back to see what is happening where they have so
+neatly and nicely left the corpse of this Thomery.... What part did this
+fellow play in the drama?... Criminal or victim?"
+
+Fandor had reached the door of the hall opening on to the main
+staircase. He was listening.... He had explored the flat. It was empty.
+He had found water in the kitchen, had washed his face, and removed
+every trace of blood from his person. It was a flat suitable for a
+middle-class household. There were three large rooms, decorated with a
+certain amount of luxury.
+
+Fandor looked at his watch. It was seven o'clock. He stood listening.
+Someone, a man, was coming downstairs: someone, a woman, was coming up.
+They met on the landing just outside.
+
+"Monsieur Mercadier, here are your letters! I was bringing them up to
+you!"
+
+"It was hardly worth while, my good lady. I have to come down, you see,
+so you can save yourself five flights of stairs!"
+
+"Oh, no, monsieur! I have to come up to go down my stairs."
+
+Monsieur Mercadier continued to descend, and the portress continued to
+mount.
+
+Fandor's heart beat faster when he realised that she was approaching the
+door. Would she come in and find him there? Had the new tenants left a
+key of the flat with her? No, the portress dusted the landing quickly
+and continued her ascent: he heard her going up and up....
+
+He made up his mind to slip out on to the landing. Despite his efforts,
+he could not prevent his shoes creaking: it was spring-time, and already
+the stair carpet had been taken up. He was on the point of going
+downstairs, when he heard the portress calling from above:
+
+"Who's there?... What do you want?"
+
+Had she heard him leave the flat? Was he to be stupidly caught, just as
+he was escaping?... He must act at once. He went up a step or two of the
+next flight of stairs and called out:
+
+"Is Monsieur Mercadier at home?"
+
+"Ah, no, monsieur! He has just this minute gone out! I am surprised you
+did not meet him!..."
+
+"Very good, madame. I will come another time!"
+
+Fandor turned on his heel, and, whistling, with hands in pockets, he
+gained the ground floor, passed the entrance gate, and found himself in
+the street. He mingled with the passers-by, and learned from the first
+plaque he came to with the name of the street on it, that he was in rue
+Lecourbe, Vaugirard....
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+UNDER THE HOODED MASK
+
+
+What had happened? By way of what mysterious adventures had the corpse
+of sugar refiner Thomery reached that empty room in rue Lecourbe, where
+Jérôme Fandor had come across it?
+
+Two days previous, on the afternoon of Elizabeth Dollon's arrest,
+Monsieur Thomery was working in his study, when a servant came to tell
+him that a lady wished to speak to him.
+
+"Did she give you her name?" asked Thomery.
+
+"No, monsieur, this person said her name would tell you nothing; but she
+was sure monsieur would see her, for she would only detain him a minute
+or two...."
+
+Piles of papers were stacked on the great sugar refiner's study table:
+typists were laying numerous letters before him, which awaited his
+signature. Thomery thought to himself:
+
+"I have still a good half-hour's work before me ... deuce take this
+importunate visitor!" He was on the point of saying he could not see any
+one, when the servant added:
+
+"This person declares she comes with reference to Madame the Princess
+Danidoff."
+
+Though he was a man of business, Thomery was a gallant man also; and
+very much in love; his approaching marriage with the Princess, which had
+been kept secret, was now known. The name of Princess Danidoff settled
+the question.
+
+"Very well, let her come in!"
+
+The manservant disappeared a minute, then ushered into the study a very
+unassuming woman of uncertain age and quite ordinary looking.
+
+Thomery rose to meet her, pointing pleasantly to one of the large
+arm-chairs in the room. The visitor was profusely apologetic.
+
+"I am so exceedingly sorry, Monsieur Thomery, to disturb you at such an
+hour, when you must certainly have a great deal to occupy your
+attention; but the matter I have come about will not wait, and I am sure
+it will interest you...."
+
+This little person seemed very intelligent, and Thomery was favourably
+impressed by her manner, which was both simple and decided.
+
+"Madame, I am listening to you. In what way can I be of service to you?"
+
+"I am not here, monsieur," she protested, "to pester you with any wants
+and wishes for myself. I am a diamond broker and ..."
+
+She had not finished her sentence when Thomery, smiling but firm, rose,
+and said sharply:
+
+"In that case, madame, I can guess the motive of your call...."
+
+"But, monsieur ..."
+
+"Yes!... That is so!... Ever since my approaching marriage has been
+announced, I have received, every day, a dozen visits from jewellers,
+goldsmiths, upholsterers, and so on ... I regret to have to tell you
+that you will not be able to persuade me to buy ... that my betrothed
+has received so many wedding presents that there is no room for more....
+I do not require one single thing...."
+
+Although Thomery had spoken in a tone which did not admit of any reply,
+although he had risen the better to mark his intention of cutting short
+the call, the diamond broker had remained seated, leaning back in her
+arm-chair.... She gave no sign of being ready to go away.
+
+"Consequently, madame," continued Thomery....
+
+His visitor laughed.
+
+"Monsieur, you have very quickly made up your mind that I have nothing
+interesting to offer you! I have not come to offer you ordinary
+jewels...."
+
+It was Thomery's turn to smile slightly.
+
+"I quite understand, madame, that you should think your merchandise
+exceptional.... But once more ..."
+
+The broker interrupted the sugar refiner with a movement of her hand.
+
+"Do listen to me a moment, monsieur!... Though I am a diamond broker,
+diamonds are not what I have come to ask you to purchase ... it is a
+question of something quite different...."
+
+She paused deliberately: Thomery gazed at her without saying a word.
+
+"You know, monsieur," continued the broker, "that in such a business as
+mine, one is obliged to see a great many jewellers every day; well, in
+the course of my peregrinations, I found at a jeweller's--you must allow
+me to withhold his name--some pearls, which I am certain you will find
+are a wonderful bargain...."
+
+"For the last time, madame, I do not want a wonderful bargain!"
+
+The agent smiled curiously.
+
+"There are some things which simply do not allow themselves to be
+refused," she declared.... She now drew from her pocket a little
+jewel-case; and, notwithstanding Thomery's unconcealed impatience,
+opened it, and selected two pearls which she held out to him.
+
+"Do examine these jewels! You are going to tell me that they are
+perfectly beautiful, are you not, Monsieur Thomery?"
+
+The diamond broker offered them so naturally that Thomery gave way. He
+examined the pearls: he was a connoisseur.
+
+"In truth, madame, these pearls are superb; unfortunately I am not
+enough of an expert to buy them without taking competent advice, that is
+if I thought of acquiring them eventually, but I repeat, I have no wish
+to acquire such things!"
+
+"Deuce take it!" thought Thomery. "This broker won't take 'no' for an
+answer! Since I cannot rid myself of her by being pleasant, I shall make
+myself disagreeable!"
+
+But the would-be seller still insisted.
+
+"Monsieur, you really cannot be a connoisseur, otherwise I am sure you
+would not return these pearls to me."
+
+"But, madame!..."
+
+"And I am convinced that if Princess Sonia Danidoff had had them in her
+hand instead of you, she would have been greatly taken with them!"
+
+The broker had emphasised her words so strangely that, suddenly, Thomery
+hesitated.
+
+What did this mysterious visitor mean? What was it she considered so
+"extraordinary" about the jewels she had just submitted to him?... A
+suspicion flashed across his mind.
+
+"Whence come these pearls, madame?"
+
+But, at this question, the broker got up.
+
+"Monsieur Thomery," declared she, "I should be very vexed with myself
+were I to make you lose your evening ... your time is precious; besides,
+in order to give you a proper answer to your question, I should have to
+make certain of facts I only now guess at.... Still, I think that
+without having told you anything definite, I have made you sufficiently
+understand what is in my mind,... you will not now doubt the interest
+that the Princess Sonia Danidoff would have, were she able to examine
+these jewels...."
+
+"Is that so?"
+
+"Consequently, Monsieur Thomery, I am going to ask you if you will
+kindly show these pearls to the Princess; and then if you will be good
+enough to let me know what decision you come to, jointly with her.... If
+you were a buyer, I fancy I might let you have these jewels on quite
+exceptional terms."
+
+Thomery visibly hesitated.... He was looking at the pearls, which he was
+still holding in his hand, and he thought.
+
+"One might swear that these are two of the pearls stolen from Sonia at
+my ball!"
+
+Thomery did not reply at once. The broker was looking at him with a
+smile; she seemed to guess his thoughts. Thomery, on his side, was
+examining the woman.
+
+"Is she simply a police informer?" he asked himself. "One of these women
+who apparently are dealers, but are really in the pay of the police, and
+frequent jewellers for the purpose of tracing stolen jewels?"
+
+He was on the verge of asking her who she was, but he refrained.
+
+If this woman had not presented herself under her true colours,
+evidently she wished to pass for an ordinary dealer. It was possible
+that she was really a receiver of stolen goods!
+
+Thomery came to a decision.
+
+"I shall have the privilege of seeing the Princess Danidoff to-morrow
+afternoon; will you therefore leave the pearls with me?... I will show
+them to her. Should she express the slightest wish to possess them, I
+might possibly come to terms with you...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Dearest, it is sweet of you to make no objection to the way in which I
+obtained this jewel for you to see, and to choose for your own, if you
+will.... The correct thing would have been to ask you to accompany me to
+some well-known jeweller, instead of which, I frankly confess, that
+these pearls were offered to me on very advantageous terms. If they
+please you, it will give me the greatest pleasure to see them adorning
+your graceful neck."
+
+Princess Sonia laughed.
+
+"My dear, for Heaven's sake, don't worry about such a thing as that!...
+A pearl is not less beautiful because it comes from some unpretentious
+jeweller's shop. I am too fond of jewels for their own sake, to trouble
+about the casket that enshrines them!"
+
+Thomery bowed, well pleased.
+
+"Here then, dear Sonia, are the two pearls entrusted to me as samples
+... please, dearest, examine them carefully, very carefully ... and if
+you like them, tell me so frankly...."
+
+The Princess took the two pearls from the betrothed, and, crossing the
+great drawing-room, she approached one of the bay windows, lifting the
+thin hangings that she might the better examine the pearls.
+
+"They are marvellous!" she cried.
+
+"Dear Sonia, you think these gems rarely beautiful?"
+
+"Indeed I do! Their lustre is superb; their quality, their shape,
+perfect!... Why, my dear, these are the most splendid pearls I have ever
+seen--with one exception--the only pearls to equal them are those that
+were stolen from me!... The loss of them has been a bitter grief ...
+they came to me, you know, from my dear mother!... I never thought to
+find pearls of such quality again...."
+
+"You consider these to be of as pure a quality then, dear?"
+
+Sonia Danidoff continued to examine the two pearls.
+
+"It is really extraordinary," she cried suddenly. "Do you know, my dear,
+there are certain peculiarities about their lustre,... yes ... I could
+swear that these very pearls you are offering me are two of those stolen
+from me!..."
+
+Thomery appeared to have been impatiently awaiting these very words.
+
+"You really, truly believe, Sonia, that they resemble the pearls stolen
+from you that unlucky evening?"
+
+"I repeat--they are identical!"
+
+Thomery looked smilingly at Sonia.
+
+"Well, then, my dear one, I do not think you are mistaken!... I have all
+sorts of reasons for supposing that they really are two of your own
+pearls you are now holding in your hand...." And, then and there,
+Thomery told his fiancée all about the strange visit he had received the
+evening before, as well as his hope that he would be able to recover
+the stolen triple collar in its entirety.
+
+"That intriguing dealer," said he finally, "must be a police
+informer.... In any case, I am persuaded that, before long, she will
+take me to some receiver or other who is in possession of your pearl
+collar."
+
+"Oh, tell me you are not going among such people, all alone?" cried
+Sonia, with a note of sharp anxiety in her voice.
+
+"But, why not?"
+
+"If they are, as you think, thieves?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well! Don't you see, my dear, that if you go to buy the pearls, they
+will count on your bringing a large sum of money with you!... Why, it
+would be a most imprudent thing to do!..."
+
+Thomery shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Really, that's nonsense, Sonia! If these assassins meant to set a trap
+for me, they have a thousand other means of doing so ... besides, it
+would be remarkably daring of them to advise me to show you these
+pearls, and draw my attention to the question of their being stolen
+ones!... No, Sonia, this dealer is not the emissary of a band of robbers
+and assassins: she is a police informer, who has taken precautions. I
+run no dangerous risks by accompanying her! Reassure yourself on that
+point!..."
+
+But Sonia Danidoff was not reassured by Thomery's arguments.
+
+"All that only frightens me!" said she.... "If you do not really think
+you are running any risk, will you let me go with you?... My dear, we
+will go together to identify those pearls, will we not?"
+
+Thomery rose to take his leave, laughing and protesting.
+
+"Why, dear Sonia, it would be in the highest degree improper on my part,
+were I to agree to such a proposition!... One of two things: either
+there is no danger, and I should be very sorry that I had let you go out
+in such shocking weather; or, if there is danger, I should be still
+more distressed were I to drag you into it with me.... I do beg of you,
+Sonia, do not insist on it.... I am not a child!... And I will be very
+careful--very wary!..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Shortly after this, Thomery took leave of Sonia Danidoff. He went
+straight to the Café de la Paix, where he had arranged to meet the
+diamond broker....
+
+She was punctual. She greeted Thomery with her most winning smile.
+
+"I am persuaded, monsieur, that Madame Sonia Danidoff was interested by
+the offer you made her?"
+
+"Quite so," replied Thomery.... "Should we go to your jeweller's,
+without further loss of time?"
+
+"If you really wish to do so, monsieur! Indeed it would be the best
+thing to do...."
+
+Thomery hailed a cab. He and the diamond agent entered it together, and
+she gave the driver an address. Twenty minutes later they left the cab
+and were standing before the house where the present possessor of the
+pearls was to be found. Thomery knew no more now about the person he had
+come to interview, than he did when he started: that is to say,
+practically nothing.
+
+The diamond broker had cleverly evaded giving any direct answers to the
+sugar refiner's questions: she had confined herself to stating what
+would be the probable price demanded for the pearl collar--which
+question interested Thomery least of all!
+
+They mounted, in single file, a rather poor sort of staircase: on the
+second floor the woman stopped. A narrow door faced them.... The woman
+rang.... They waited....
+
+"Someone is coming!" said the woman. "I hear footsteps."
+
+The door was opened half-way.
+
+"Who is it?" asked a man's voice.
+
+"I, dear friend," answered the woman.
+
+The door opened wide: the same voice said:
+
+"Come in, monsieur."
+
+Thomery had barely stepped inside the room, when the diamond broker, who
+was close behind, flung a long silk scarf round his neck, and, pushing
+his knee into his victim's back for a support, he attempted to give,
+with Herculean force, the famous stroke of Father Francis Vigozous;
+energetic, Thomery did not lose his presence of mind.... He knew that to
+resist such a pull by simple force was impossible.... Quickly he threw
+himself backwards, thus giving to the strangling pull and falling on top
+of the woman, who had played this dastardly trick on him. From his
+constricted throat came a hoarse "Ah!" like a death rattle.
+
+As he was falling, for one flashing second, it seemed as though he were
+going to escape from the vise which was crushing in his throat... then,
+out of the shadow, there had appeared the fantastic vision of a man in a
+tight fitting sort of black jersey, which covered him from head to
+foot.... His face was concealed by a hooded mask....
+
+This man had leapt out of the shadow.
+
+He held a dagger in his hand.
+
+Before Thomery had time to make a movement, the masked man had pierced
+his chest with a single stroke!... The sugar refiner was naught but a
+convulsive corpse.
+
+"Ah, well!" declared the so-called diamond broker, who had got to his
+feet and was kicking Thomery's body aside. "Ah, well, he is a dead
+weight this fellow!... By Jove, master, I fancied he was going to crush
+me, and that I should have to let him free!... You did well to come to
+the rescue!"
+
+The masked man remarked in an indifferent tone:
+
+"It really does not matter in the slightest!... Tell me, does anyone
+suspect?"
+
+"No one, master. He came like a sheep to the slaughter."
+
+"Princess Danidoff?"
+
+"Ah, as for her--she must be waiting for the return of her beloved
+friend.... I do not advise you to pay her a visit!"
+
+"Be silent, chatter-box!" ordered the masked assassin sharply. "Get rid
+of your clothes.... We must hurry!... We have work to do!"
+
+"This evening?"
+
+"This evening!"
+
+And, whilst the diamond broker rid himself rapidly of skirt and bodice
+and regained his masculine appearance--for this diamond broker was a
+man--the masked assassin added:
+
+"Nibet, you have played your part perfectly, and I will pay you
+to-morrow the sum we agreed on; but, I repeat, we have work before us
+this evening--so, be quick!"
+
+There was a short silence, then the bandit asked:
+
+"You have arranged to put among this fool's papers the rent receipts,
+which will enable the police to find this flat?"
+
+"Yes, master!"
+
+"Good! Now all we have to do, is to get away from this room, which we
+shall not see again ... until this evening at any rate!"
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+IN A PRISON VAN
+
+
+In one of the rooms reserved for readers of _La Capitale_, Jérôme Fandor
+was gravely listening to Madame Bourrat's account of what had occurred
+at her boarding-house during the night. She had rushed off to tell him
+and to ask his advice.
+
+"What you tell me, madame, is truly extraordinary!" said Fandor, with an
+air of profound astonishment....
+
+"How did you discover that the police inspector who seized the trunk and
+carried it away was not a genuine policeman?"
+
+"Why, through the arrival of Monsieur Xavié, the police inspector of our
+district! I know him.... There was no mistaking who and what he was; and
+when I told him that the trunk had been carried off the preceding
+evening, rather in the dead of night, he guessed everything...."
+
+"And what did he say?..."
+
+"Oh, he made us all come to the police station; and I can assure you
+that he looked far from pleased!"
+
+"You must admit, dear madame, that his annoyance was not without
+reason!... The police were made fine fools of in this affair.... But
+afterwards?... Whom did he take back with him to the police station?"
+
+"He took me and my manservant."
+
+"And when you got to the police station?"
+
+"Well, Monsieur Fandor, when we reached the police station, he made us
+come into his office, and there he put us through a regular
+examination,... just as though he suspected us!"
+
+"But there must have been an accomplice in your house who let the
+robbers in," said Fandor. "I do not suppose the false police inspector
+forced the door open!"
+
+"Ah, but, Monsieur Fandor, here is something I do not understand, nor
+does anybody else!... No, they did not try to hide themselves--not the
+least in the world! They rang the bell; they asked to see me; they told
+me what they had come for; and, accompanied by my manservant, carried
+away the trunk, and had it put on the cab--all in the most open and
+bare-faced manner!"
+
+"It was your manservant who accompanied them?"
+
+"But most certainly ... and that very fact turned against Jules, in a
+very nasty manner.... Poor Jules! Just imagine, the police inspector
+finished by ordering my house to be thoroughly searched from top to
+bottom! And when the policemen returned, without a why or wherefore,
+they took Jules away to another part of the police station!"
+
+"I say! I say!"
+
+"Oh, it was all explained! As soon as Jules had gone, the police
+inspector told me that they had found keys in his rooms, keys which
+could be made to fit any kind of lock whatever. Monsieur Xavié was
+convinced that my poor Jules was a burglar--imagine it!"
+
+"And you, yourself, madame, are convinced of the contrary?"
+
+"Oh, assuredly! Why, I have known Jules a very long time! And in many
+little ways on many occasions, he has shown himself to be strictly
+honest."
+
+"But those false keys?"
+
+"Those false keys, Monsieur Fandor, why I myself made Jules buy them,
+hoping to find among them one that would open my coach-house."
+
+"So that?..."
+
+"So that, Monsieur Fandor, the police inspector was obliged to agree
+with me that Jules was honest!"
+
+"And he released this servant of yours?" asked Fandor.
+
+His tone expressed annoyance.
+
+"No, and that is why I am so distressed. He said, that provisionally, at
+least, my servant, Jules, was to be considered as under arrest! What
+ought to be done to get him let out?"
+
+"But, madame!... He will be set free to-morrow, you may be certain of
+it!..."
+
+"No doubt he will!... All the same, there is my house turned upside
+down, and I need Jules to help me to-night!... I really do not know what
+I shall do without him! Poor fellow!... I simply cannot imagine how it
+is they suspect him!"
+
+Fandor said, with mock gravity:
+
+"Ah, madame, Justice is sometimes so stupid--so wrongheaded!... Look
+here now, would you like a bit of good advice?... Telephone to Messieurs
+Barbey-Nanteuil. They are well known and powerful--perhaps they would
+exert their influence in your servant's favour? He might be set free
+this evening! I, you see, am but a journalist, and without a scrap of
+influence!"
+
+Madame Bourrat thought this a good idea. Fandor rang for an attendant.
+
+"Take madame to the telephone!"
+
+Left to himself, the reporter could not help rubbing his hands.
+
+"I must get rid of this excellent woman, who is certainly the most
+foolish person it has ever been my lot to meet. Good hearing! That
+servant of hers is under lock and key--things are going in the right
+direction ... but they are not going well for me!... If he confesses,
+to-morrow, when he is had up for examination, then the police will have
+the information before me!... Then, too, they are such duffers--such
+bunglers--that they are quite capable of giving that Jules his
+liberty!... What the deuce must I do to prevent his being let loose, and
+how am I to stop the judicial interrogation?... What a dog's life a
+journalist's is!"
+
+Madame Bourrat reappeared.
+
+"Monsieur Nanteuil is not there," she said. "But I got into
+communication with Monsieur Barbey.... He advised me to wait till
+to-morrow: he said it was too late in the day to do anything...."
+
+"But, will he not intervene to-morrow?"
+
+"I don't know. To tell the truth, I am sure Monsieur Barbey thought it
+very inconsiderate of me to disturb him about a matter in which he takes
+not the slightest interest."
+
+"That's a fact. What possible interest can the bankers take in such a
+matter?... My advice was absurd!"
+
+Fandor rose. As he was seeing his visitor out, he said:
+
+"In any case, dear madame, count on me to-morrow morning. I shall call
+at your house about eleven. If there is anything fresh, we can talk it
+over!..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Oh, here's Janson-de-Sailly College!... Oh, what detestable
+remembrances you conjure up!... But--this won't do!... Go it, my boy!...
+I must play the part!"
+
+The plumber, who had just given utterance to these remarks, glanced
+sharply about him. When he had made sure that there was no one close on
+his heels, he stepped into the roadway, and started on a zigzag course
+which seemed likely to upset his balance. Crossing the avenue
+Henri-Martin, going straight, towards the town hall at the corner of the
+rue de la Pompe, the good plumber, who was staggering more than a
+little, began to stutter and stammer in a drunken voice:
+
+"_It is the final struggle!_"
+
+The passers-by looked round.
+
+"They sing the _Internationale_ in the streets now, it seems!" remarked
+a severe-looking gentleman.
+
+The workman turned to this correct personage.
+
+"What of it?... Don't you think it a jolly fine thing then?"
+
+In a thick voice he continued to sing:
+
+"_Let us gather, and on the morrow..._"
+
+The severe and correct personage spoke.
+
+"My friend, you would do better to hold your tongue!... You forget that
+there is a police station close by!..."
+
+But the incorrigible plumber caught the correct personage by his coat
+tails.
+
+"If I sing the _Internationale_, it's because I'm a free man--ain't
+I?... A free man can sing if he likes, can't he? Eh!... Why don't you
+sing then?... Eh!..."
+
+The correct personage drew himself up stiffly: tried to push the
+obnoxious plumber away.... The workman had now reached that stage of
+drunkenness when discussions tend to become interminable.
+
+The gentleman pushed the drunken man aside, saying:
+
+"Come! Come! Go away!... Leave me alone!"
+
+But the maudlin plumber was attracting the attention of the passers by
+his gestures. He addressed the world at large.
+
+"Would you believe it--that fellow there don't want me to sing!... No!
+Well, I'm going to!" and he started triumphantly.
+
+"_It is the--the--final ... strug-gle!_"
+
+A policeman came out of the station with a solemn air. He put his hand
+on the tipsy plumber's shoulder in paternal fashion.
+
+"Go along with you, my friend!... Come now--pass along--pass along!" But
+he could not make the plumber budge before he had finished his verse,
+any more than he could teach him to walk straight on the spur of the
+moment!... Leaving hold of the gentleman's coat tails, the worthy
+plumber seized the policeman's arm.'
+
+"Oh, you, you're a brother!... I have education, I have! You're a
+workman too, I know!..."
+
+As the police inspector pushed him off, trying to make him go on his
+way, the plumber put his arm round him.
+
+"No! No!... show you're a workman! Sing with me!"
+
+"_It is the final ..._"
+
+The scandal could no longer be tolerated! Street-corner idlers were
+gathering, people were laughing at the policeman: strong measures were
+necessary.
+
+"Come now," said the policeman. "Yes, or no! Will you be off, and go
+home?... Eh!... Or shall I take you to the station?..."
+
+"You take me?... You take me?... Why, it would take four of you to take
+me!..."
+
+There was no shilly-shallying after this! Wounded in his vanity, the
+servant of the law did not hesitate.
+
+"All right!" said he; and seizing the plumber by the collar, although
+there was no attempt at resistance, he dragged his prisoner towards the
+town hall of the district, for the police station was there also.
+
+"Some more game for the Dépôt!" said the policeman as he passed the
+guard.... "A fellow I can't get rid of! Are the cells full up?"
+
+Other policemen came up. An arrest in a peaceful district gives interest
+to the dull routine of the men on duty.
+
+"The cells full? Go along with you! There's only a small shopkeeper who
+had no papers."
+
+Thereupon the unfortunate singer, who continued to stagger about, was
+quickly pushed into the dark room called "the detention room."
+
+An ordinary every day incident of the streets, this arrest of a
+drunkard!
+
+"I shall have to write out a report for this fellow!" said the
+policeman, who had arrested the songster... "and the 'Salad Basket'[10]
+passes in an hour's time! ... I shall just do it!"
+
+[Footnote 10: Prison van.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Have you anyone for the Dépôt to-day?" asked the driver from his high
+seat on the prison van. He was on a collecting journey as is usual every
+evening, when the Salad Baskets, as they are vulgarly called, pass to
+the various police stations of Paris to pick up the individuals arrested
+during the day.
+
+"Two of 'em," answered the police sergeant on duty. Whilst official
+papers were being interchanged and forms were being filled in according
+to rule, policemen went to the cells to bring out the two prisoners to
+be despatched to the Dépôt.
+
+The first to pass out was the costermonger. He was straightway put into
+one of the narrow compartments in the Salad Basket. Then it was the turn
+of the tipsy and obstreperous workman, who was now silent, moody, and
+apparently sober.
+
+"Hop it now!" cried the policeman. "Come along with you, you miserable
+drunk!... March now!... Foot it!"
+
+As the "drunk" hit against the partition of the narrow passageway
+running up the middle of the Salad Basket, the policeman, with a shove,
+pushed him into one of the compartments, carefully shutting the little
+door on him and fastening it.
+
+"My word!" he exclaimed. "That fellow wouldn't have been capable of
+walking three steps in an hour's time!"
+
+As the driver climbed to his seat on the van, the policeman called out,
+with a laugh:
+
+"You have a traveller inside who doesn't detest wine!... It's a pity to
+see a man in such a hoggish state!"
+
+This same policeman would have been surprised, could he have seen the
+bibulous one's face when the Salad Basket cast loose from her moorings
+and started off in the direction of the Point-du-Jour police station,
+the last on the round to be visited!
+
+The "drunk" whom one push had sufficed to plant on his seat, had briskly
+drawn himself upright and was smiling broadly, a wide, noiseless smile!
+
+"What a joke!... And what a jolly good actor I should have made!"
+thought Jérôme Fandor, giving himself a mental hug of satisfaction....
+"Ah! They arrest the individuals I want to set talking!... The police
+imagine they are going to push in first and find out the answer to the
+riddle!... We shall see!"
+
+Fandor was listening intensely and trying to discover from the movements
+of the Salad Basket what street they were passing along.
+
+"Smooth going ... evidently we are still in the rue de la Pompe, so I
+have about a quarter of an hour more of it!"
+
+Fandor examined the tiny cell in which he had been imprisoned of his own
+free will.
+
+"Not much to be said for it!" ran his thoughts. "There is scarcely room
+to sit ... impossible to stand up or turn around ... nearly dark ... and
+precious little air comes in through those wooden shutters!... I
+shouldn't think there ever had been an escape from these vans!..."
+
+Fandor smiled broadly.
+
+"Even if I don't succeed, it is worth while making the attempt!... But I
+shall succeed--see if I don't!... I settled it in my mind that I was to
+leave the cells after this costermonger: he is in front of me, therefore
+the cell behind me is empty. It will be deucedly queer if, at Auteuil
+police station, they don't put that confounded Jules in it, whom I
+intend to interview under the nose of the police!... I shall start
+talking to him by tapping on the partition in prisoner's language. The
+fellow is pretty sure to be an old offender, so he will know the
+system.... If he doesn't, when we get to the Dépôt, I will push up to
+him somehow and get a few words with him.... If the Dépôt is full, we
+shall be stuck into the common cell until morning.... So, I take it as
+certain that my interview with this true and faithful servant will come
+off, and I shall get to know a good deal about the mystery!..."
+
+As an afterthought, it occurred to Fandor that probably there had never
+been such a light-hearted occupant of this cell as he....
+
+"Ah, that's the sound of the trams!... One jolt! Two jolts! Good!... The
+rails!... We are crossing rue Mozart! We are going faster--in five
+minutes we shall be at the Auteuil police station, and there we can
+start our little operations!"
+
+There was one thing that attracted Fandor's attention, which was keenly
+on the alert. There was a violent jolt, and he had a distinct impression
+that the vehicle turned to the right.
+
+"Why, where the deuce are they taking us?" Fandor asked himself. "To the
+boulevard Exelmans station?... We had not reached the end of the rue
+Mozart, surely!... Where did we turn then? Rue du Ranelagh?... No, there
+is a channel stone at the entrance, and I should have felt it!... Rue de
+l'Assomption!... Again no. The roadway is up: I should be knocked about
+more than this on my wooden seat. We are going over a perfectly kept
+road, which cannot have much traffic!... Why, of course, it is rue du
+Docteur-Blanche!... Isn't rue Mozart barred at the end? Yes. The driver
+must be going round by the boulevard Montmorency.... Ah, well! I am in
+no hurry! There will be time enough for me to pay my respects to the
+illustrious Jules!"
+
+Just as Fandor was thus congratulating himself, he was thrown against
+the side of his cell! The van seemed to have come into violent collision
+with some object and had tilted over to a considerable extent.
+
+Muffled oaths came from neighbouring cells; a stifled exclamation
+reached Fandor's ears; then louder still, came the intermittent humming
+and snorting of a motor-car.
+
+"Confound you!... can't you pay attention to where you are going?...
+Keep to your right!"
+
+Slightly stunned, Fandor heard some one knocking.
+
+A voice asked:
+
+"Are you hurt?"
+
+"No, but ..."
+
+Already the questioner had moved away.
+
+"Evidently," thought Fandor, "the driver wants to know whether his human
+packages are damaged or not! We have collided with another vehicle!...
+Cheerful!"
+
+Fandor's cell was now at such an angle that he could only suppose that
+the Salad Basket had had one of its wheels broken.
+
+"What a nuisance!" he murmured. "Before they have finished their palaver
+as to how the accident happened and have repaired the damage, we shall
+have been here a full half-hour.... Jules will be in a temper!"
+
+Minute succeeded minute, long, interminable minutes, and Fandor could
+not hear clearly what was said, what was being done to put the Salad
+Basket on its legs again.... The atmosphere in the little cell was
+becoming intolerable; for the movement of the vehicle had driven fresh
+air inside the shutter, and now that the Salad Basket was stationary,
+the air was becoming almost unbreathable.
+
+Fandor's nerves were on edge.
+
+"It cannot be that they are going to leave us stranded here!" thought
+he.... "Ah, now they have started repairs!" Fandor noticed that his cell
+was gradually regaining its ordinary level.... A lifting-jack must have
+been slipped under the vehicle, for there was a melancholy creaking
+sound. They must be putting the wheel on again!...
+
+"No," thought Fandor, after some time had passed. "Never would I have
+supposed that it could have taken so much time to repair a Salad
+Basket!... Why we shall soon have been stuck here for two mortal
+hours!... I hope it won't make any difference to our going to the Dépôt,
+nor stop my getting into close touch with that villain Jules!"
+
+There was a further period of waiting. Then our exasperated journalist
+heard the driver pass down the centre of the van. The van door
+slammed.... Once more the Salad Basket was loosed from its moorings.
+
+"Something queer is going on!" said Fandor suddenly. He felt certain the
+van had turned completely round and was going in the direction it came
+from.
+
+"Now where in the world are we going?... By what kind of a route are we
+making for that blessed police station?"
+
+There were spaces of asphalt, succeeded by wood pavement, then by hard
+stones, then asphalt and wood again, and turning succeeded turning,
+whilst a new Tom Thumb was doing his possible to guess the route the
+Salad Basket was taking. Presently Fandor gave it up. He had to admit
+that he was completely lost.... Which way the Salad Basket was going he
+knew no more than the Man in the Moon!
+
+"We have been trotting along for more than half an hour; therefore we
+cannot be going to the boulevard Exelmans police station ... the
+distance from the rue du Docteur-Blanche to the Point-du-Jour is not
+great...."
+
+As Fandor was murmuring these words, the van slowed down, turned round;
+then, with a bump and a jolt, it mounted the footpath.
+
+"Now for it," said Fandor. "This is certainly not the Point-du-Jour
+station!... We are passing under an archway--now we are turning
+again.... Ah, we draw up, at last!... Not too soon!"
+
+The van did stop.
+
+Again a wait. Fandor cocked both ears; he wondered who was going to
+enter the cell next his. Then a man approached the door of his little
+cell, where he was indeed "cribbed, cabined and confined"; inserted a
+key in the lock, opened, and shouted in a brutal tone:
+
+"Out with you!... March! Quick now!"
+
+Fandor had no choice but to obey the orders hurled at him. But no sooner
+had he descended the steps of the prison van than he exclaimed:
+
+"By Jove! The Dépôt!"
+
+This was not the moment to express all the surprise he felt at being
+landed at Police Headquarters in this fashion.... All round the Salad
+Basket the police were ranged in irregular order. They shouted to him to
+be quick.
+
+"Come on with you! Hurry there!"
+
+Fandor, followed by the costermonger, was pushed towards a little open
+door in the grey wall which led into a kind of office, where an old
+frowning man was already looking through the papers, which had been
+respectfully handed to him by a warder.
+
+"So you have brought only two of the birds?" remarked the frowning
+official.
+
+"Yes, superintendent."
+
+"Good, that will do!..."
+
+Turning to the warders, the frowning little superintendent ordered:
+"Take them away!... Cell 14.... Useless to rouse the whole place!"
+
+Once more the warders pushed Fandor before them, as well as the poor
+costermonger: they were driven into a dark corridor on to which a row of
+cells opened.
+
+The head warder opened a door.
+
+"In with you, my merry men! You will be put through your paces
+to-morrow!"
+
+As the door fell to with a resounding clang, Jérôme had inspected the
+place by the light of a lantern.
+
+"Empty!... No luck!... My plan has been spoiled: I shall not be able to
+interview Jules!"
+
+Philosophically, Jérôme Fandor was preparing to go to sleep on the plank
+bed which decorated one end of the cell, when the little costermonger,
+roused from his torpid condition, began to moan and groan.
+
+"Oh, what a misfortune!... To think I am innocent! Innocent as an unborn
+babe!... What's to be done!... Oh, what's to be done!"
+
+The last thing Fandor wished to do was to start a conversation with his
+lamenting companion. He tapped the costermonger on the shoulder.
+
+"Good Heavens, man, the best thing you can do is to go to sleep! Take my
+word for it!"
+
+Without puzzling his brains any further over the enigmas he wished to
+get to the bottom of, Fandor stretched himself on his plank bed, and was
+soon sleeping the sleep of the innocent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Monsieur Fuselier looked perplexed.
+
+"You, Fandor! You arrested!... But am I going mad?"
+
+Our journalist had been taken from his cell at eight in the morning, and
+had been conducted to the office of the Public Prosecutor. Here, the
+acting magistrate, in conformity with the law, wished to put him through
+the examination which would establish his identity. All arrested persons
+have to submit to this interrogation within twenty-four hours of their
+arrival at the Dépôt.
+
+Jérôme Fandor had given his name at once, and, in order to prove the
+truth of his statements, he had asked that Monsieur Fuselier should be
+sent for, so that the magistrate might vouch for his identity and say a
+word in his favour.
+
+Monsieur Fuselier had hastened to the Dépôt, had taken Fandor to his
+office, and had anxiously questioned him. Why, he asked, had the police
+been obliged to arrest him for drunkenness in the open thoroughfare?
+
+When Fandor had concluded his statement, the magistrate exclaimed:
+
+"Your ruse is inconceivable!... I must compliment you highly on your
+ability and your detective gifts!"
+
+"I wish I could agree with you," replied Fandor in a depressed tone. "In
+spite of everything, I have not got into communication with Jules. But,
+Monsieur Fuselier, have you interrogated him yet?"
+
+The magistrate shook his head.
+
+"Alas, my poor friend, you have no idea of the extraordinary events of
+the past night; evidently, notwithstanding the fact that you played a
+passive part in them!"
+
+"I played a part?... Extraordinary events?... What the deuce do you
+mean?"
+
+"I mean, dear Fandor, that all Paris is laughing over it. The police
+have been tricked! You have been tricked! Did you not tell me, just now,
+that your prison van had had an accident? Do you know what really
+happened?"
+
+"I ask you to tell me."
+
+"Your vehicle was run into by a motor-car. The driver was extremely
+clumsy ... or very capable!"
+
+"What's that?" Fandor leaned forward, keen as a pointer on the scent.
+
+"It was like this," replied Monsieur Fuselier. "Your Salad Basket was
+very badly knocked about by the collision. The driver could not possibly
+repair it single-handed. He telephoned to Headquarters. Help was sent at
+once, and he had orders to drive to the Dépôt as soon as he could: he
+was not to trouble about the boulevard Exelmans station; that, for once,
+could be cleared the following morning. Unfortunately the telephone
+messages and replies had taken up a certain amount of time. When they
+telephoned to the boulevard Exelmans station, from Headquarters, to warn
+them not to expect the injured Salad Basket, the Dépôt man who was
+telephoning was extremely surprised to hear that the Salad Basket had
+already passed on to the Auteuil station and had taken away the arrested
+individuals there, notably this famous Jules!..."
+
+"I never calculated on this!" cried Fandor.
+
+"The truth is, my dear fellow, that Salad Basket of yours was not
+knocked out of action by an unlucky accident--the knock-out was
+intentional--was carefully planned! It was done to stop your van from
+reaching the Auteuil station!... While your Basket was being repaired,
+another Basket appeared at the Auteuil clearing station! This, if you
+please, had been stolen! It was standing before the Palais de Justice.
+Two accomplices took possession of it and drove away. The daring rascals
+were suitably disguised, of course! They produced false papers at
+Auteuil, got them endorsed, went through the regular forms, and carried
+off the men from the detention cells, under the very nose and eyes of
+the superintendent himself!"
+
+"What became of the stolen Basket?" snapped Fandor.
+
+"It was found at dawn near the fortifications, and, need I say--empty!"
+
+"So that Jules has escaped?"
+
+"As you say!..."
+
+"And the car which intentionally knocked my Salad Basket out of
+action--whose was it?"
+
+Monsieur Fuselier smiled.
+
+"Oh, it's a queer affair, in fact, it may lead to the wind-up of all the
+Dollon business--we may now get to the bottom of that series of
+crimes!... You will never guess who is the owner of that car,
+Fandor?..."
+
+"No, I am no good at guessing riddles just now ... besides, I hate
+them!" Fandor was nettled, exasperated!
+
+"We got the number of the car from a witness of the smash-up; and we
+have verified its correctness. Well, my dear fellow, the owner of that
+car is--Thomery!"
+
+"Thomery!" gasped Fandor.
+
+"Yes. I have summoned him to appear before me--the summons has just been
+issued. Between you and me, I think Thomery is guilty. When he appears
+here, in, say an hour from now, I shall issue a writ of arrest against
+this sugar refiner financier, and we don't know what else!"
+
+But, no sooner had Monsieur Fuselier finished his statement--a statement
+which he fully expected would strike his young reporter friend dumb with
+amazement--than Fandor threw himself back in his chair and roared with
+laughter.
+
+The magistrate was taken aback!...
+
+"But ... what the devil do you find to laugh at in that?"
+
+Fandor had already checked his hilarity.
+
+"Oh, it's nothing! Only, Fuselier, I ask myself, if really and truly,
+Monsieur Thomery, who is a very big fellow solidly built, has been able
+to discover a dodge, by means of which he can leave Jacques Dollon's
+imprints here, there and everywhere!"
+
+"But he does not leave Jacques Dollon's imprints, because Dollon is
+living, because he came to see his sister--why, you admitted that
+yourself!"
+
+"Why, of course! It's true!... Jacques Dollon is alive.... I had
+forgotten.... Thomery can only be his accomplice then!" declared Fandor.
+And as Monsieur Fuselier stared at him, astonished at the way he had
+received the sensational news of the night, Fandor rose to take his
+leave.
+
+"My dear Fuselier, will you allow me to express my opinion?..."
+
+Monsieur Fuselier nodded.
+
+"Well, I am sure, that with regard to this affair, there are more
+surprises in store for us: you have not got the answer to the
+riddle--not yet!"
+
+With that, Fandor smiled and bowed, and left the magistrate's room. He
+quitted the Palais, half-smiling, half-serious.... What was he going to
+do next?
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+AN EXECUTION
+
+
+"Not much water about, is there?"
+
+"That's so, old 'un.... If I'd known, it's boats I'd have taken to!"
+
+"Bah! Your shoes are big enough. That's not saying it's weather for a
+Christian to be out in!"
+
+"Don't you grumble, old 'un! The more it comes down cats and dogs, the
+fewer stumps will be stirring out doors!... But a comrade or two will be
+on the prowl, eh?"
+
+"Right-o, old bird!... Keep a lookout!... Sure he'll come this way?"
+
+"You bet your nut he will!... He got my bit of a scrawl this
+morning...."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Shut up! Shut up! Folks coming!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The night was inky black. Rain fell with sudden violence, threshed and
+driven by icy gusts of wind. The hour was late: the rue Raffet deserted
+save for the two men who had ventured out into the tempestuous darkness.
+They advanced with difficulty, side by side, speaking low. Rough
+customers to deal with. Their faces were emaciated from excessive
+drinking: their eyes gleamed, their voices were hoarse: a brutal pair!
+But their movements were souple and lively: they walked with that
+ungainly swagger affected by the light-fingered gentry and the criminals
+of the underworld of Paris.
+
+"And what did you say in your scrawl?"
+
+"Oh, medlars! Take-ins! You know!... I didn't put my fist to it,
+though!"
+
+"Who then?"
+
+"You ask that?"
+
+"I'm no wizard! If it wasn't your fist, whose then?"
+
+"My woman...."
+
+"Ernestine?"
+
+"Yes. Ernestine."
+
+They struggled on through the squally darkness. Then one of the two
+broke the silence.
+
+"You're not jealous, Beadle, making your girl write letters to such
+folk?"
+
+That sinister hooligan, the Beadle, burst out laughing.
+
+"Jealous? Me? Jealous of Ernestine? You make me laugh, you really do,
+old Beard!"
+
+But Beard did not share his companion's mirth. He leaned against a
+palisade to take breath, while a little sheltered from the fierce
+onslaughts of the wind.
+
+"I tell you what," he said in a gruff and threatening voice: "I don't
+like such dodges--like those of this evening...."
+
+"Why so, monsieur?"
+
+"Why, because, after all, it's a comrade!"
+
+"But he's betrayed--a traitor he is!"
+
+"What do we know about it?"
+
+The Beadle nodded; reflected.
+
+"What does anyone know about it?" he said at last....
+
+"Why, when the comrades told us, weren't they surprised, one and all?
+Nibet, Toulouche, even Mimile--they didn't hesitate, not one of them!...
+Well then, old 'un, as all the pals were of one mind, why hesitate?
+What's the use of discussing!... but, between you and me, I don't relish
+it either--it bothers me to go for a pal!..."
+
+Just then the tempest redoubled its fury: it seemed to the cowering men
+as though all the devils of the storm were galloping down the wind.
+Somewhere there was a moon, for scurrying clouds were dancing a witches'
+saraband across a faintly clearer sky. The unseen moon was mastering the
+obscurity of this midnight hour.
+
+By now, the two sinister beings were nearing the rue du Docteur-Blanche.
+They were passing a garden, in which tall poplars, caught by the squall,
+took fantastic shapes: they were nightmare trees, terrifyingly strange.
+
+"No more to be said," remarked the Beadle. "The scene is set!... Where
+is the meeting place?"
+
+"A hundred yards from there--a little before the corner of the boulevard
+Montmorency...."
+
+"Good! And the trap?"
+
+"It waits for us a little further off."
+
+"Who's aboard it?"
+
+"Mimile."
+
+"That's good."
+
+The two men were now half-way along rue Raffet. The watch had begun.
+Gripped by the cold they waited in silence.... The minutes passed
+slowly, slowly, in the deserted street ... The Beard put his hand on the
+Beadle's shoulder.... A vague sound could be heard in the distance: the
+steps could be distinguished; some pedestrian was coming up the rue
+Raffet in their direction.
+
+"It is he!" whispered the Beadle.
+
+"It is he!" affirmed the Beard. "He's not oversteady on his feet!"
+
+"Perhaps he's ill shod!"
+
+The two spoke low and in a jesting tone: it relieved the painful tension
+of the moment--a comrade was marching to meet his death, and theirs the
+hands to deal that death--but not yet: it was a reaction against their
+sense of the looming tragedy of this dark hour!
+
+Now a man's advancing figure could be discerned. He came nearer. He was
+plainly, by the cut of his garments, an indoor servant. The collar of
+his coat was turned up: he had his hands in his pockets: he walked fast.
+
+"Hey! You down there! The gang!" cried the Beard, hailing the oncoming
+figure.
+
+"Ah, it's you?"
+
+"Yes, it's me, comrade."
+
+"And you too, Beadle?"
+
+"As you say...."
+
+"What do you want of me? Since my arrest and escape from the Salad
+Basket, I'm not anxious to stroll about this neighbourhood--out with
+it!"
+
+The Beard said in a joking tone:
+
+"You don't suspect, then? Speak out, Jules!..."
+
+Jules--for it was indeed he--shook his head.
+
+"My word, I have no idea what you want!... Who wrote to me this morning?
+Ernestine?"
+
+Neither the Beadle nor Beard replied.
+
+The three men stood talking in the deserted street, bending their heads
+and backs under the rain, which was now pouring harder than ever.
+
+"Come on then! Make haste!" said Jules. "Come now, tell me what's the
+point--what's up--spit it out, comrades!... I don't want to be soaked to
+the skin, you know!"
+
+The Beadle forced the pace: he lifted his great hairy sinewy hand,
+brought it down heavily on Jules' shoulder, and in a changed voice,
+harsh, rough, imperative, he commanded:
+
+"You must follow us!" Already he had his man fast. The unsuspicious
+Jules did not grasp the situation in the least.
+
+"Follow you?" he asked. "As to that, certainly not!... No more walking
+for me in such weather. Wait for a sunny day, say I!... But whatever is
+the matter with you--eh?... What?... Why are you sticking out your jaws
+at me like this? Out with it, my lambs!... Where am I to follow you?...
+You won't say, Messieurs Beadle and Beard?
+
+"You won't say?..."
+
+Beard moved a step and got behind Jules unnoticed. He repeated in the
+same tone, harsh, threatening:
+
+"You've got to follow us, I tell you!"
+
+Instinctively Jules tried to turn round. The Beadle's strong grip kept
+him motionless. Then he understood. He was afraid.
+
+"What's come to you?" he cried in a trembling voice.
+
+The Beadle cut him short.
+
+"Enough! Will you follow us? Yes or no?"
+
+Jules was going to say "no!" but he had not the time! Quick as lightning
+the Beadle flung a long scarf round his neck, stuck his knee into his
+victim's back, and pulled!
+
+Jules uttered a faint groan; but, half stifled, nearly strangled, he had
+not the strength to attempt the slightest self-defence.
+
+Directly he was flung backwards on the ground, where he measured his
+length and lay nearly stunned, Beard jumped on him, knelt on his chest,
+and pinioned him. Jules lay motionless.
+
+The Beard now began tying up the legs of their victim.
+
+"Pass me a scarf!"
+
+"There it is, old 'un!"
+
+"Very good, I am going to apply a 'Be Discreet.'"
+
+The "Be Discreet" of the Beard was a gag, which he rolled round the
+servant's head in expert fashion.
+
+"Feet firm?" asked the Beard.
+
+"Oh, jolly fine!" said the Beadle. He turned his man over as though he
+were a bale of goods. Now he tied his victim's hands behind his back.
+
+"Is it far to go to the jaunting car?"
+
+"No--for two sous, that's it!"
+
+A motor-car was indeed coming slowly and noiselessly along rue Raffet:
+it was a sumptuous car!
+
+"And if it is not he?"
+
+"Stick him up against the bank ... dark as it is, there's every chance
+he won't be seen."
+
+Rapidly, the doughty two stuck Jules against the bank at the side of the
+road: the unfortunate creature had fainted. Then they took out their
+cigarettes, and going a few steps away, they pretended to be sheltering
+themselves in order to strike a light.
+
+They need not have taken this precaution.
+
+The car stopped in front of them. The familiar voice of Mimile was
+heard:
+
+"Got the rabbit then?"
+
+"Yes, old 'un!"
+
+"Pitch it into the balloon then!"
+
+"The balloon?" questioned the Beadle. "Whatever's that?"
+
+Emilet laughed.
+
+"At times, my brothers, your ignorance, mechanically speaking, is
+crass!... The balloon is the back part of my car, I'd have you know."
+
+The Beard sniggered.
+
+"Good!... Pick it up! Now, Beadle!"
+
+The two seized the body of Jules by shoulders and feet, and flung it
+brutally into the limousine.
+
+A rug, negligently flung over the body of the trussed Jules, hid him
+from observation.
+
+"Now we'll embark," announced Emilet.
+
+As a precaution, the young hooligan asked:
+
+"The bloke snores?"
+
+"Yes," replied the Beadle. "He is travelling in No Nightmare Land...."
+The Beadle laughed.
+
+But Emilet was alarmed.
+
+"You haven't snuffed him out, have you?"
+
+"No danger of it! He's only shamming!"
+
+"Off, then!" said Emilet.
+
+They rolled away at top speed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The bandits' lair had been well chosen by their chiefs. It was a vast
+cellar, with a vaulted roof, and earthen walls bedewed with an icy
+humidity. Axes, mattocks, shovels, rakes, and watering cans lay
+scattered on the ground: these were worn out tools: they had not served
+their purpose for many a day.
+
+The lantern, a kind of cresset protected by a wire globe, was suspended
+from the roof by a string. It shed a faint and wavering light, creating
+weird shadows in that far-stretching space, too vast for the
+insufficient illumination.
+
+Directly beneath the cresset lantern, inside the circle of light it
+threw upon the ground, a fantastic group of human creatures pressed
+close to one another, drinking, shouting, chattering, singing.
+
+A clean-shaven man, whose suspicious little eyes were perpetually
+blinking, turned to a young woman.
+
+"Look here, Ernestine, my beauty, are you certain the Beadle understood
+that we should be waiting for him here?"
+
+Big Ernestine, who was crouching on the ground and warming her hands at
+a wood fire, throwing up clouds of smoke, shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Stop it, do! You say things over and over again, like a clock,
+Nibet!... Since I've told you _yes_--_yes_ it is--there now, and be
+hanged to you!... You don't by chance fancy the Beadle has been made a
+mouthful of, do you?"
+
+Roars of laughter greeted this. Nibet was not one of the inner circle;
+he was not much of a favourite in the band of Numbers. It is true that
+they reckoned him a comrade, useful, faithful, that they felt safe with
+him; but they bore him a grudge because of his regular employment,
+because of his position, because he was an official.... And, first and
+last, his warder's uniform impressed the jail birds unpleasantly.
+
+But Nibet was not the man to allow himself to be intimidated.
+
+"All the same," said he, "I ask where the three of them have got to?...
+If they know the mushroom bed, they should have been back long ago!" He
+shouted to an old woman.
+
+"Eh, Toulouche, tell us the time!"
+
+But Mother Toulouche shook her head.
+
+"I haven't a watch!"
+
+There was a murmur of protestation. The seven or eight hooligans
+assembled there awaiting the return of the Beard and the Beadle, sent
+with Emilet to kidnap Jules, could not believe that. Mother Toulouche
+had told the truth.
+
+The Sailor caught the old woman by the shoulders and shook her, and went
+on shaking her.
+
+"Liar! Aren't you ashamed to be in a funk with us?... Ever since this
+blessed Mother Toulouche has sold winkles and many other things, ever
+since she began to make a little purse for herself, which must be a big
+purse by now, a purse everyone here has sweated to fill to the brim, she
+has always distrusted us!... You say you haven't a watch! I tell you,
+you've got dozens of 'em!..."
+
+Big Ernestine interrupted.
+
+"It's a half-hour over the hour agreed...."
+
+A shudder ran through the assembly: Nibet, finger on lip, made a sign
+that they were to listen.
+
+Then, in the mushroom bed, no longer in use, which the band of Numbers
+had recently adopted as their meeting place, a profound silence fell....
+
+"There they are!" said Nibet.
+
+Big Ernestine leaped up, left the fire, advanced to the far end of the
+cellar, and imitated the cry of a screech owl to perfection. There was a
+similar cry in response.
+
+"It's all right. They're here!" she said. She returned to the fire and
+sat down. But Nibet seized the girl and forced her to get up again.
+
+"Go along with you! Quick march!" he said roughly.
+
+She protested. Nibet stopped her.
+
+"Oh, we can't stand listening to you!... Ho there, Sailor!... Come
+here!... Sit down on this plank! You, the Beadle, and me--we're to be
+the judges.... Beard makes the accusation: and, if her heart tells her
+to, Ernestine will defend him."
+
+"I'd rather spit at the tell-tale!... You can tear him to bits as far as
+I'm concerned!" cried the girl. "There's nothing disgusts me so much as
+a tell-tale!"
+
+The hooligans crowded round big Ernestine. They applauded her
+ironically; for they all knew that, once upon a time, she had been
+strongly suspected of having dealings with, what they called, "The dirty
+lot at the Bobby's Nest."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Silence fell once more. They could hear the rasp of the rope unrolling
+from a hand windlass attached to an enormous bucket. This was the
+primitive lift.
+
+Moments passed. The hooligans had formed a circle beneath the black hole
+where the bucket moved up and down.
+
+"It goes, old Beard?" questioned Nibet, gazing upwards.
+
+"It goes, old bloke!"
+
+"Brought the game?"
+
+"That's what we're sending down now!..."
+
+"That's a bit of all right!"
+
+Sailor now seized the trussed Jules from the bucket and flung him on the
+ground.
+
+"Damaged goods, that--eh?" he laughed evilly.
+
+The Beadle, Beard, and Emilet were coming down in turn. The group below
+bent curiously over the prisoner.
+
+"He's soft--that sort is!" cried Ernestine. And tapping him on the face
+with her foot, big Ernestine tried to make Jules show signs of life.
+Beard dropped out of the bucket and stopped the game.
+
+"Let's see, Ernestine?... Stop it now!"
+
+After gripping the hand of each comrade in turn, after hugging a bottle
+and draining it in a long draught, emptying it to the dregs, Beard flung
+it aside.
+
+"Let's get to work--no time to waste!... If we finish him off, we'll
+have to get rid of him before morning!"
+
+Sailor lifted Jules with the aid of two comrades. They propped him
+against a massive pillar of wood which supported the cellar roof. They
+bound their wretched victim to it with strong cords.
+
+Meanwhile, Ernestine was unwinding the gag.
+
+"Take your places on the tribunal!" commanded Nibet.
+
+"And you others, a glass of pick-me-up for the fellow!"
+
+The pick-me-up intended to restore Jules to consciousness was brought by
+Mother Toulouche, under the form of a large earthen pot full of cold
+water. She dashed the water in the prisoner's face.
+
+Jules slowly opened his eyes and regained his wits, amidst an ominous
+silence. The band watched his return to life with evil smiles: they
+quietly watched his pallid face turn a livid green with terror.
+
+The wretched creature could not utter a syllable. He stared wildly at
+those about him, his friends of yesterday, at those seated on the mock
+judgment bench who, crouching forward, were observing him with sardonic
+smiles.
+
+Nibet put a question.
+
+"You hear and understand us, Jules?"
+
+"Pity!" howled the victim.
+
+Nibet was indifferent to the cry.
+
+"He understands!... For my part, I am all for keeping to a proper
+procedure.... I would not have agreed to sit in judgment on him if he
+had been unable to defend himself.... We don't act that way down here!"
+
+Turning to his acolytes for signs of their approval, he continued:
+
+"Beard! The word is with you! Let us hear why he has been brought up to
+judgment!... Tell us what he is accused of!... Bring up all there is
+against him!"
+
+Beard, who was marching up and down between the hooligan tribunal and
+the accused, who was half dead, and incapable of making a rational
+statement, stopped, squared himself with an air of satisfaction, and
+began his speech for the prosecution.
+
+"Jules, has anyone ever done you any harm here?... Has anyone played
+cowardly tricks on you?... Set traps to catch you in?... Have you ever
+been cheated out of your fair share of the spoil?... Is there anything
+you can bring up against us?... No?... Well, here's what we have against
+you ... it's not worth while lying about it either!... You are the one
+who has taken the wind out of our sails over the Danidoff affair ... do
+you confess that?"
+
+In a voice barely intelligible Jules gasped out:
+
+"Beard ... I don't understand you!... I have done nothing--nothing....
+What have you against me?..."
+
+Beard took his time.
+
+Planted before the prisoner, with hip stuck out and hand in pocket, the
+other hand raised in tragic invocation towards his comrades:
+
+"You have heard?... Monsieur does not understand!... He has not the
+pluck to be open and aboveboard!"
+
+Turning again to the wretched captive, he continued:
+
+"Well, I'm going to explain ... it was you, wasn't it, who had to put
+through the robbery of the lady's jewels?... Well, do you know what you
+did? Do you want me to tell you?... Instead of lending us a hand as was
+promised and sworn, you kept the cake for yourself!... In other words,
+you, and some of your sort, serving at the ball, put your heads
+together, and shut up the lady in the room they found her in; and that
+way, you got out of sharing with us!... So we have been done in the eye
+over that deal!... The proof that you have comrades we know nothing
+about is, that yesterday when you were done in, they found a way to get
+you out of the Salad Basket!... It wasn't us!... But to return to the
+Danidoff robbery ... oh, you must have laughed then!... But everyone has
+his turn ... you are going to laugh on the wrong side of your mouth
+now!... Do you know what they call it--what you've done--dared to do?"
+
+In the same strangled voice, Jules managed to get out the words:
+
+"But it's not true!... I swear to you ..."
+
+Beard did not listen.
+
+"There's not one of our lot who would give me the lie!... To behave like
+that is treachery!... You have betrayed the Numbers. There it is in a
+nutshell!... What have you to reply to that?"
+
+For the third time, Jules repeated in a hoarse whisper, for he felt life
+was gradually leaving him: an awful fear gripped him, he saw he was
+completely done for.
+
+"I swear I did not do that!... I didn't rob the princess.... I don't
+even know who did!"
+
+Jules was, perhaps, speaking the truth, but he took the worst way to
+defend himself.... If he had had pluck and wit enough to take the
+Beard's accusation with a high hand, if he had met threats with violent
+denial and assertion, it is quite possible he might have made an
+impression in his favour; but he cried for pity and for mercy from men
+who were pitiless!
+
+He was afraid!... His fear was shown by the convulsive trembling which
+agitated his wretched body, by his ghastly pallor, by the cold drops of
+sweat rolling down his forehead.... He was no longer a man: it was a
+lamentable bit of human wreckage the hooligans had before them!... And
+the more lamentable this wreck showed itself to be, the less worthy of
+their interest it seemed!
+
+When Jules gasped out once again:
+
+"I swear to you it was not I! No!... I did not do it!"
+
+The hooligans, moved by a common impulse, rose, indignant, furious, mad
+with rage.
+
+"That's a good one, that is!" yelled Nibet, who, beside himself with
+rage, suddenly forgot his avowed respect for judicial forms.
+
+"Since he is determined to tell lies, and hasn't the pluck to say what
+he's done, there's only one thing for us to do, and that's to stop his
+mouth up!... Ernestine, put the plug back!"
+
+And as the girl once more rolled the scarf round and round the head of
+the miserable Jules, Nibet turned to his comrades.
+
+"Now then? One hasn't any need to waste more time over it!... We know
+all the story--not so?... It's settled, I tell you!... A fellow who has
+done what he has done, what does he deserve?... You answer first,
+Mother Toulouche, since you are the oldest?..."
+
+Mother Toulouche stretched out a trembling hand, as though calling on
+Heaven to witness an oath.
+
+"I," said the old woman, with a wicked gleam in her eyes. "I don't
+hesitate!... Comrades who flinch, sneaks who betray, get rid of them,
+say I!... I condemn him to death!..."
+
+The old woman's sentence was greeted with loud applause.
+
+Nibet resumed.
+
+"It is said!... It is unanimous!... Make a quick finish, my lads!...
+Since each has been injured, let each take his revenge! I say: Death by
+the hammer!"
+
+In that smoke-thickened air rose a chorus of hate and of vengeance.
+
+"Death by the hammer! Death by the hammer!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In that noisome lair of the bandits a horrible scene ensued.
+
+Mother Toulouche went groping in a dark corner. She searched for, and
+found, a blacksmith's hammer. She lifted it with trembling hands, and
+planting herself in front of the victim, more dead than alive, she said
+in a menacing voice:
+
+"You did harm to the Numbers! You wronged them! Here goes for that
+then!"
+
+The hammer described a quarter of a circle in the air and descended in a
+smashing blow on the wretched victim's face!
+
+The awful punishment had begun!
+
+According to age, one after another, the hooligans passed on the hammer,
+and, in a blind passion of hate, beat followed beat on the agonising
+body of Jules!
+
+At last the terrible agony was over and done! The passion of hate, the
+lust for revenge had burnt themselves out. Jules had expiated the crime
+they had imputed to him!
+
+The band were the victims of a paralysing fatigue. Emilet flung the
+blood-stained hammer into a far corner of their den.
+
+"Well done!" said he. "He has paid the price!"
+
+Emilet's eyes fell on Nibet. He was leaning against the wall, and, with
+folded arms, was watching the scene in which he had taken no part.
+Walking up to the warder, Emilet demanded:
+
+"Ho! Ho! You backed out of it, did you, my boy?... You didn't have a
+throw, did you?... No?..."
+
+Nibet grinned sardonically.
+
+"Don't talk rubbish, Emilet!... If I have stood aside, I had my reasons
+for doing so.... We haven't done with Jules yet!... Not by a long
+chalk!... Now that he's been killed, he's got to be got rid of--isn't
+that true?... Look at yourselves, my lambs! You are covered with red!...
+It will take you all of an hour to make yourselves presentable!... Now,
+look at me! I'm neat and clean ... and I have a plan ... a famous plan
+to rid us of that corpse there! Now, just you stir your stumps,
+Emilet!... I am going off to make preparations!... I'll give you ten
+minutes to make yourself fit to be seen ... it's we two are to be the
+undertakers; and I swear to you, that we will give them no end of
+trouble to the curiosity mongers at Police Headquarters!"
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+FROM VAUGIRARD TO MONTMARTRE
+
+
+On the boulevard du Palais, Jérôme Fandor looked at his watch: it was
+half an hour after noon.
+
+"The hour for copy! Courage! I will go to _La Capitale_."
+
+Scarcely had he put foot in the large hall when the editorial secretary
+called:
+
+"There you are, Fandor!... At last!... That's a good thing!... Whatever
+have you been up to since yesterday evening? I got them to telephone to
+you twice, but they could not get on to you, try as they might. My dear
+fellow, you really mustn't absent yourself without giving us warning."
+
+Fandor looked jovial: certainly not repentant.
+
+"Oh, say at once that I've been in the country!... But seriously, what
+did you want me for? Is there anything new?..."
+
+"A most mysterious scandal!..."
+
+"Another?"
+
+"Yes. You know Thomery, the sugar refiner?"
+
+"Yes, I know him!"
+
+"Well--he has disappeared!... No one knows where he is!"
+
+Fandor took the news stolidly.
+
+"You don't astonish me: you must be prepared for anything from those
+sort of people!..."
+
+It was the turn of the secretary to be surprised at Fandor's calmness.
+
+"But, old man, I am telling you of a disappearance which is causing any
+amount of talk in Paris!... You don't seem to grasp the situation!
+Surely you know that Thomery represents one of the biggest fortunes
+known?"
+
+"I know he is worth a lot."
+
+"His flight will bring ruin to many."
+
+"Others will probably be enriched by it!"
+
+"Probably. That is not our concern. What we are after are details about
+his disappearance. You are free to-day, are you not? Will you take the
+affair in hand then? I would put off the appearance of the paper for
+half an hour rather than not have details to report which would throw
+some light on this extraordinary affair."
+
+Then, as Fandor did not show the slightest intention of going in search
+of material for a Thomery article, the secretary laughed.
+
+"Why don't you start on the trail, Fandor?... My word, I don't recognise
+a Fandor who is not off like a zigzag of lightning on such a reporting
+job as this!... We want illuminating details, my dear man!"
+
+"You think I haven't got any, then?... Be easy: this evening's issue of
+_La Capitale_ will have all the details you could desire on the
+vanishing of Thomery."
+
+Thereupon, Fandor turned on his heel without further explanation, and
+went towards one of his colleagues, who went by the title of "Financier
+of the paper." The Financier had an official manner, and had an office
+of his own, the walls of which were carefully padded, for Marville--that
+was his name--frequently received visits from important personages.
+
+Fandor began questioning him on the subject of Thomery's disappearance.
+
+"Tell me, my dear fellow, what is happening in the financial world, now
+that Thomery has disappeared."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Where is the money going--all the coppers?"
+
+"The coppers?"
+
+"Why, yes! I fancy that when an old fellow like that does the vanishing
+trick, there are terrible results on the Bourse? Will you be kind
+enough to explain what does happen in such a case?"
+
+Very much flattered by Fandor's request, Marville cried:
+
+"But, my boy, you are asking for nothing less than a course of political
+economy--but I cannot do that--on the spur of the moment!... State
+precisely what you want to know."
+
+"What I want to know is just this: Who loses money through Thomery's
+disappearance?"
+
+The Financier raised his hands to Heaven.
+
+"But everybody! Everybody!... Thomery was a daring fellow: without him
+his business is nothing!... There was a big failure on the market
+to-day."
+
+"Good, but who gains by it?"
+
+"How, who gains by it?"
+
+"Yes. I presume Thomery's disappearance must be profitable to someone?
+Can you think of any people to whose interest it would be that this old
+fellow should disappear?"
+
+The Financier reflected.
+
+"Those who gain money by the disappearance of Thomery--only the
+speculators, I should say. Suppose now that a Monsieur Tartempion had
+bought Thomery shares at ninety francs. To-day these shares would not be
+worth more than seventy francs: Tartempion loses money. But let us
+suppose some financier speculates on the probable fall of Thomery
+shares, and has sold to clients speculating on the rise of these shares;
+these shares to be delivered in a fortnight, at a price of ninety
+francs. If Thomery was still there, his shares would be worth, possibly,
+the ninety francs, possibly more. In the first case, the financier's
+deal would amount to nothing: in the second case, his deal would be a
+deplorable one, because he would be obliged to deliver at an inferior
+price, and would be responsible for the difference...."
+
+"Whilst Thomery dead ..."
+
+"Dead--no! But simply in flight, his shares fall to nothing, and this
+same financier may buy at sixty francs which he must deliver at ninety
+francs in fifteen days. In that case he has done excellent business."
+
+"Excellent, certainly ... and ... tell me, my dear Marville, do you know
+if there has been any such deal in Thomery shares on a large scale?"
+
+"Ah! You ask me more than I can tell you now ... but that would be known
+at the Bourse."
+
+No doubt Jérôme Fandor was going to continue his interrogation, but
+there was a great disturbance in the editorial room near by. They were
+shouting:
+
+"Fandor! Fandor!"
+
+The editorial secretary entered the Financier's room, and, catching
+sight of Fandor, he cried:
+
+"What's the meaning of this? What are you up to here? I told you this
+Thomery affair was important.... Be off for the news as quick as you
+can.... Here is the _Havas_. It seems they have just found Thomery's
+body in a little apartment in the rue Lecourbe."
+
+Fandor forced himself to appear very interested.
+
+"Already! The police have been quick!... I also had an idea that that
+Thomery had more than simply disappeared!"
+
+"You had that idea?" asked the startled secretary.
+
+"Yes, my dear fellow, I had--absolutely!"
+
+After a silence, Fandor added:
+
+"All the same, I am going out to get news. In half an hour's time, I
+will telephone details of the death. Does the _Havas_ say whether it is
+a crime or a suicide?"
+
+"No. Evidently the police know nothing."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Monsieur Havard, I am delighted to meet you!... Surely now, you will
+not refuse me a little interview?"
+
+"Not I, my dear Fandor! I know only too well that you would not take
+'no' for an answer."
+
+"And you are right. I beg of you to give me some details, not as regards
+Thomery's death, for I have already made my little investigation
+touching that; but as to how the police managed to find the poor man's
+body."
+
+"In the easiest way in the world. Monsieur Thomery's servants were very
+much astonished yesterday morning, when they could not find their master
+in the house.
+
+"After eleven, Thomery's absence from the Bourse gave rise to
+disquieting rumors. He had some big deals to put through, therefore his
+absence could only be accounted for in one way--he had had an accident
+of some sort.
+
+"Naturally enough, they warned Headquarters, and at once I suspected
+there might be a little scandal of some sort.... You guess that I
+immediately went myself to Thomery's house?... I examined his papers;
+and I found by chance three receipts for the rent of a flat, in the name
+of Monsieur Durand, rue Lecourbe. One of them was of recent date. I, of
+course, sent one of my men to ascertain who lived there! This man
+learned from the portress that there was a new tenant there, who had not
+yet moved in with his furniture; but who, the evening before, had
+brought in a heavy trunk.... My man went up to this flat, and had the
+door opened. You know under what conditions he found Thomery's dead
+body."
+
+"And you did not find indications which went to show why Monsieur
+Thomery committed suicide?"
+
+"Committed suicide?... When a financier disappears, my Fandor, one is
+always tempted to cry 'suicide'; but, this time, I confess to you that I
+do not think it was anything of the kind!..."
+
+"Because?"
+
+"Because"--and Monsieur Havard bent his head. "Well, when I reached the
+scene of the crime I immediately thought that we were not face to face
+with a suicide. A man who wishes to kill himself, and to kill himself
+because of money affairs, a man like Thomery, does not feel the
+necessity of committing suicide in a little flat rented under a false
+name, and in front of a trunk, which you know, do you not, belonged to
+Mademoiselle Dollon! One might swear that everything was arranged
+expressly to make anyone believe that Thomery had strangled himself,
+after having stolen the trunk, for some unknown reason!"
+
+"You did not find any kind of clue?"
+
+"Yes, indeed! And you know it as well as I do, for I have no doubt the
+extraordinary event has been the gossip of the neighbourhood. On the
+cover of the trunk we have once again found an imprint, a very clear
+impression--the famous imprint of Jacques Dollon!..."
+
+"And you found nothing else?"
+
+"Yes, in the dust on the floor, we found the marks of steps, numerous
+foot marks: we have made tracings of them."
+
+"My steps, evidently," thought Fandor. But what he said was:
+
+"What, in short, is your view of the general position, Monsieur Havard?"
+
+"I am very much bothered about it. For my part, I think we are once
+again faced by another of Jacques Dollon's crimes. This wretch, after
+having attempted to assassinate his sister, has learned that we were
+going to search mademoiselle's room. He then made arrangements to steal
+this trunk, by pretending to be a police inspector, as you know; then he
+brought the trunk to this flat, examined its contents thoroughly, and
+having some special interest in the sugar refiner's death, he managed to
+get him to come to the flat, and there assassinated him, leaving his
+dead body in front of this trunk, where it was bound to be seen; all
+this he did in order to tangle the traces and perplex those on his
+track...."
+
+"But how do you explain the fact of Jacques Dollon being so simple as to
+leave the imprints of his hand everywhere?... Deuce take it, this
+individual is at liberty: he reads the papers.... He knows that Monsieur
+Bertillon is tracing him!... So great a criminal would certainly be on
+his guard!"
+
+"Of course! Such a successful criminal as Dollon has shown himself to
+be, must have resources at his disposal, which allow him to laugh at the
+police. He does not trouble to cover his tracks; it is enough for him
+that he should escape us."
+
+As Fandor could not suppress a smile, the chief of the detective force
+added:
+
+"Oh, we shall finish by arresting Dollon, have no fear! So far he has
+quite extraordinary luck in his favour, but the luck will turn, and we
+shall put our hand on his collar!"
+
+"I certainly hope you may. But what are you going to do now?"
+
+The two had stopped on the edge of the pavement, and were talking
+without paying any attention to the passers-by who rubbed shoulders with
+them. The well-known journalist and the important police official were
+unrecognised.
+
+Monsieur Havard took Fandor's arm.
+
+"Look here, come along with me, Fandor? Just the time to telephone to a
+police station, and then I will take you with me to make a fresh
+investigation."
+
+"Where!"
+
+"At Jacques Dollon's studio. I have kept the key of the house, and I
+wish to see whether I can find any other rent receipts made out in the
+name of Durand. Though I can see how Dollon inveigled Dollon into a
+trap, I do not understand how it came about that Thomery paid the rent
+of that trap. There is some subtle contrivance of Dollon's here; I want
+to get to the bottom of it.... Will you come to rue Norvins?"
+
+"I jolly well will!" cried Fandor.
+
+The chief of the detective force telephoned to Headquarters, whilst
+Fandor got into communication with _La Capitale_. He sent on a report of
+the Thomery case up to that moment.
+
+Quitting the police station, the two men hailed a cab, and were driven
+to the rue Norvins.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As far as they could tell, the artist's house had not been entered since
+Elizabeth Dollon's departure.
+
+The neglected garden, with its rank growth of grass and weeds, gave an
+added air of melancholy to the deserted house.
+
+Monsieur Havard put the key in the lock of the front door.
+
+"Don't you think, Fandor, it gives one a queer feeling to enter a house
+where an unaccountable crime has been committed?" The key grated in the
+lock, and Monsieur Havard added:
+
+"In spite of oneself, there is the feeling that some terrifying spectre
+is lurking within!"
+
+"Or a ghost!" said Fandor.
+
+And as the door was unlocked and opened, our journalist asked:
+
+"Where shall we start this domiciliary visit?"
+
+"Let us begin with the studio," replied Monsieur Havard, mounting to the
+first story.
+
+No sooner had they entered the room, than a double cry escaped from the
+two men.
+
+"Oh!..."
+
+"Great Heaven!..."
+
+In the very middle of the studio, there was the rigid body of a man
+hanging.
+
+They rushed forward....
+
+"Dead!" was Monsieur Havard's cry.
+
+"Horribly dead!" echoed Fandor.
+
+"Shall we never lay hands on those wretches?" Monsieur Havard stared,
+horrified, at the hanging corpse. He brought a chair, grasped the strong
+sharp knife he always carried about him, and, aided by Fandor, he cut
+the rope, laid the hanged man flat on the floor, and proceeded to
+examine the miserable remnant of a human being.
+
+The face was swollen, gashed, crushed....
+
+"The hands have been dipped in vitriol--they did not want finger prints
+taken--it is--it is Jacques Dollon!"
+
+Fandor shook his head.
+
+"Jacques Dollon? Of course, it isn't!... If it were Dollon, he would not
+hang himself here.... Why should he hang himself?"
+
+Monsieur Havard remarked:
+
+"He has not hanged himself. Again the stage has been set!... I could
+swear the man had been killed by blows from a hammer and hanged
+afterwards!... It seems to me, that if death had been caused through
+strangulation, there would have been marks round the neck.... But see,
+Fandor, the rope has hardly made a mark."
+
+"No, the man was dead when they strung him up."
+
+"It is of secondary importance!" remarked Fandor, who was preoccupied.
+
+"You are mistaken: it matters a great deal! It decidedly looks as if
+Dollon had accomplices, who wished to be rid of him."
+
+Fandor shook his head.
+
+"It is not Dollon! It cannot be Dollon!"
+
+"Look at the vitriolised hands--that was a precaution."
+
+"I say, as you did just now: it's like a set piece--a bit of slag
+assassins' stage craft."
+
+"I say, in Dollon's house, we have found Dollon at home!"
+
+Fandor was not convinced. He felt certain Dollon had lied in the Dépôt.
+
+"Well, Elizabeth Dollon can settle the question for us. There may be
+some physical peculiarity, some mark by which she can identify her
+brother's body!"
+
+But Fandor was examining the body very carefully. Suddenly he rose from
+his stooping posture, exclaiming:
+
+"I know who it is!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Jules! None other than Madame Bourrat's servant, Jules!... That is to
+say, an accomplice whom the bandits we are after wanted to be rid of. He
+might give them away when brought up for examination. That was why they
+managed his escape: they killed him afterwards, because he had served
+their turn, and was now an encumbrance."
+
+"Your explanation is plausible, Fandor; but how about the truth of it?"
+
+"This proves the truth of it!" cried Fandor, pointing to a cicatrice on
+the back of the neck of the murdered man: it was the clear mark of where
+an abscess had been.
+
+"I am certain I noticed a similar mark on the neck of Jules. He sat in
+front of me the other day, and I particularly noticed this mark. The
+dead man is Jules. I am certain it is Jules!"
+
+Monsieur Havard was silent. Presently he said:
+
+"If it is Jules ... it must be admitted that we are no further forward!"
+
+Fandor was about to utter a protest, when there was a knock on the
+studio door. Startled, the two men looked at each other anxiously.
+
+"It can only be one of the force," murmured Monsieur Havard. "I told
+them I was coming here with you, and that they were to send for me if
+necessary."
+
+The two men walked to the door. Monsieur Havard opened it. There stood a
+cyclist member of the police force. He saluted respectfully, and told
+his chief that he had come with a message from Michel.
+
+"The message?"
+
+"That the arrest is successful, chief."
+
+"Which?"
+
+"That of the band of Numbers, chief."
+
+"Good! Whom have you bagged?"
+
+"Almost the whole lot, chief!"
+
+"That is to say?"
+
+"Mother Toulouche, Beard, Mimile, otherwise Emilet, and the Cooper--and
+a few more whose names are not known."
+
+Fandor said, laughing:
+
+"Not Cranajour, I am certain."
+
+"No. Cranajour has escaped," answered the policeman.
+
+Turning to Monsieur Havard, he asked:
+
+"You have no instructions, chief?"
+
+"No. Tell me, how did the capture go?"
+
+"Perfectly, chief. They were assembled in Mother Toulouche's store. They
+went like lambs."
+
+"Good!... Good!"
+
+Monsieur Havard gave the policeman some orders. The cyclist leaped into
+the saddle and disappeared.
+
+"How did you guess that Cranajour was still at liberty?" asked Monsieur
+Havard.
+
+Fandor smiled.
+
+"Good business! You take me to be more stupid than I am. It is
+Cranajour's information which has enabled you to arrest the band of
+Numbers. Consequently!..."
+
+"Cranajour's information? You are mad, Fandor!... Whatever makes you
+imagine that Cranajour belongs to our force?"
+
+Fandor looked Monsieur Havard straight in the eye and said coolly:
+
+"Juve has never told me that he had sent in his resignation!"
+
+Monsieur Havard looked searchingly at our journalist, before remarking:
+
+"Come now! What is this you are telling me? Poor Juve?..."
+
+Fandor wished to save the chief of the detective department from telling
+useless falsehoods.
+
+"Monsieur Havard! Monsieur Havard! Interrogate the members of the band
+of Numbers, and don't trouble about how I got my information ... but, be
+sure of one thing, there are dead men of whom I could tell tales, of
+whose existence I am as well aware of as you yourself!"
+
+As the chief stared at the journalist, looking more and more astonished,
+Fandor added:
+
+"And I do not refer to Dollon! I am referring to Juve, to my dear friend
+Juve, the king of detectives!"
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+AT SAINT LAZARE
+
+
+"Hop along there! See if you can't hurry up a bit!"
+
+The warder opened the door of Elizabeth's Dollon's cell and pushed in an
+old woman--a horrid looking creature.
+
+"In with you!" commanded the warder in a harsh tone. "You are to stay
+here till to-morrow. We will find another place for you when we get
+instructions...."
+
+Poor Elizabeth Dollon stared miserably at this strange companion which
+Fate, in the person of a warder, had thrust on her.
+
+The old woman stared with no little curiosity at the pale, sad girl....
+Silence fell for a few minutes, then the new prisoner asked, in a tone
+of rough familiarity:
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"I call myself Elizabeth!"
+
+"Don't know it!... Elizabeth, who?..."
+
+"Elizabeth Dollon...."
+
+The old woman rose from the corner of the mattress she had seated
+herself on.
+
+"True? You're Elizabeth Dollon?... Well, that's funny! Have you been
+nabbed long?..."
+
+"You ask if it is long since I was...?"
+
+"Nabbed!... Taken!... Arrested!... Eh?"
+
+Elizabeth nodded in the affirmative. It seemed to her that an infinity
+of time had passed since her imprisonment at Saint Lazare.
+
+"I was nabbed last night. If you want to know my name, I'm called Mother
+Toulouche. They say I'm one of the band of Numbers, and that I receive
+stolen goods! Lies! That's well understood!"
+
+Elizabeth had no desire to go into such an unsavoury question. This
+horrid old woman rather frightened her; but, such had been her distress
+and fears since she had been a prisoner, that it was a relief not to be
+quite alone; to have even this old creature to speak to was better than
+solitary confinement.
+
+In her character of old jail-bird, Mother Toulouche made herself quickly
+at home.
+
+"Moved to-morrow, they say I'm to be! Pity! At bottom you're not one of
+the scurvy sort, but you must be here to play spy on me, for all
+that!... When do you go out? Are you long for Saint Lago?" Alas, how
+could Elizabeth tell?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I like being a barrister," thought Fandor, as he entered Saint Lazare.
+"For the last hour I have felt a different person, much more serious,
+more sure of myself, not to say, more eloquent!... I must be eloquent,
+since I have succeeded in persuading my friend, Maître Dubard, to get
+himself appointed officially as Mademoiselle Dollon's counsel; then to
+obtain a permit of communication, and to hand this same permit over to
+me, so that his identification papers, safely tucked away in my
+portfolio, make of me the most indisputable of Maîtres Dubard!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fandor might well congratulate himself! By means of this ruse--his own
+idea--he was enabled to see Elizabeth, not in the prison parlour, but in
+a special cell, and without a witness. As Fandor crossed the threshold
+of the sordid building, he said to himself:
+
+"I am Maître Dubard, visiting his client, in order to prepare her
+defence!"
+
+He easily accomplished the necessary formalities, and, at last, he saw
+himself being conducted by a morose warder to a little parlour, scantily
+furnished with a table and a few stools.
+
+"Please be seated, maître," said the surly fellow. "I'll fetch your
+client along!"
+
+Fandor put down his portfolio, but remained standing, anxious, all
+aquiver at the thought that he was about to see his dear Elizabeth
+appear between two warders, just like a common prisoner!
+
+"In a moment she will be here," thought he.... But she must on no
+account recognise him on entering! By an exclamation she might betray
+his identity and complicate things! Therefore, Fandor feigned to be
+absorbed in a newspaper he unfolded and raised, so as to hide his face
+from the approaching pair. The door opened.
+
+"Come now! Go in!..." growled the warder. "Maître, when you wish to
+leave, you have only to ring."
+
+The door fell to, heavily, behind the warder.
+
+Fandor made a sharp movement. He stood revealed. He hurried up to
+Elizabeth.
+
+"Oh, tell me how you are, Mademoiselle Elizabeth!" he cried.
+
+But the girl was struck dumb: she grew suddenly pale, and made no reply.
+
+"Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Will you not give me your hand even? You do not
+understand why I am here? I had to see you, speak to you without a
+witness ... that's why I have passed myself off as an advocate!"
+
+The startled girl was regaining her self-control. Fandor was gazing at
+her with frankly admiring eyes.
+
+"Poor Elizabeth! How I have made you suffer!"
+
+The poor girl's eyes filled with tears.
+
+"Why have you betrayed me?" she demanded in a voice trembling with
+restrained emotion. "Oh, how could you get me arrested? You, who well
+know I am not guilty?"
+
+"You really believe I have betrayed you? You actually credited me with
+that?"
+
+These two young people, meeting in a prison parlour under such tragic
+circumstances, were hurt and even angry with each other.
+
+Elizabeth Dollon went on:
+
+"Why did you not tell me that you had found on that piece of soap traces
+of my brother's finger-marks? Why did you accuse me of having received a
+visit from him, when you yourself had proved that he was dead?"
+
+Fandor took Elizabeth's two little hands in his and pressed them long
+and tenderly.
+
+"My dear Elizabeth, when I engineered this theatrical stroke in the
+presence of the examining magistrate, in order to secure your arrest,
+believe me, I had no time to warn you of what I meant to do.... Ah, if I
+could have warned you--but it would have only disturbed you to no good
+purpose, besides--your being really taken by surprise was a help--there
+could not be any idea of collusion.... Of course, you want the answer to
+this riddle? You shall have it--that is why I am here.... Don't you
+remember, Elizabeth, that on the evening before the fatal day you told
+me that I had twice rung you up on the telephone? And that each time you
+answered the call you could not find me at the end of the line?... You
+cannot imagine what I felt when I heard you say that! I never
+telephoned! I never telephoned to the convent!
+
+"The obvious conclusion was, that the individuals who, for some reason,
+did not wish to make themselves known, did wish to keep track of you,
+and to assure themselves that you were still at the convent, rue de la
+Glacière...."
+
+Fandor's voice trembled a little, as he went on:
+
+"And I was at once afraid, my poor child, that these people who were
+pursuing you, might be the very same who had got into Madame Bourrat's
+house, and had tried to kill you.... Ah, do you not see how greatly it
+hurt and troubled me to think that I had taken you to the convent, and
+had there placed you in security--as I thought--but where you were far
+from being safe?"
+
+Again Fandor took Elizabeth's hands in his.
+
+"You do understand now, dear child, why I had you arrested?... I felt
+you would be safe here.... You see, I could not get your persecutors
+imprisoned and so prevent them from getting at you. To imprison you was
+the alternative: you are better guarded here than elsewhere."
+
+Elizabeth smiled a little smile when she saw how moved Fandor was.
+
+"But," replied she, "there is the other point! You certainly told me
+that you were sure my brother was killed in prison--in his cell!"
+
+"Certainly, I did! The assassination of your brother was premeditated.
+If the criminals have had accomplices at the Dépôt, and such there
+certainly were, they have been bought over little by little.... The fact
+of your brother's murder is fresh in the memory of the police, of all,
+therefore, a special watch is kept over you. I ascertained that it would
+be so, and Fuselier himself assured me of it: there is a warder
+specially told off to keep a close guard over you, a safe man, known to
+be beyond suspicion.... No, Elizabeth, do believe me, if I was the cause
+of your horrified surprise the other day, and then of your imprisonment,
+I wished to be sure that you were as safe as it was possible to be;
+then, freed from such intense anxiety, I felt I should be at liberty to
+continue my investigations.... Do say you forgive me!"
+
+All Elizabeth could say was:
+
+"But why not have warned me?... I still can't quite see!..."
+
+"Why, because, I only thought of the plan at the last moment! Also,
+because I feared you might not be able to act surprise naturally
+enough!... It was absolutely--yes, absolutely necessary--that everyone
+should take your arrest seriously.... Surely, Elizabeth, you can
+understand that!"
+
+He repeated his plea.
+
+"Do, do say you forgive me, Elizabeth!"
+
+The smile returned to Elizabeth's lips: she was much moved.
+
+"Indeed, I do... You are always my very good friend: you think of
+everything, and you watch over me as if ..."
+
+Intimidated, blushing hotly, she stopped short, then changed the
+conversation.
+
+"Do tell me if you have heard anything fresh!"
+
+Fandor returned to his normal self also. He had sworn to himself that he
+would not tell Elizabeth he loved her, until he had succeeded in
+unravelling the tangled skein of the terrible Dollon affair.
+
+"I shall speak," thought he, "when she is once more at peace and free,
+when she is out of danger. I do not want her to consent to love me just
+because I have devoted myself to her brother's case. Elizabeth shall be
+my wife, please God; but only if I deserve her, if I can win her."
+
+And Jérôme Fandor told her the story of the famous wicker trunk--but he
+did not mention Thomery's death, nor did he speak of the horrible murder
+of Jules.... What was the use of saddening Elizabeth, of adding
+needlessly to her terrors? Instead, he thought it better to learn what
+he could from her.
+
+"I have not found that famous list!" said he.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Elizabeth. "I was so worried!... Just
+imagine that, I found the list after all, and I thought I had lost it!
+It was in one of my little handbags. I had put it there to bring to you.
+Here it is: they were quite willing to let me keep it!"
+
+Fandor eagerly took the paper from Elizabeth and proceeded to examine
+it. Yes, it certainly was a page torn from a note-book of medium size.
+An unknown hand had traced the following words in bold writing. The
+names succeeded one another in the form of a list.
+
+    _Baroness de Vibray, April 3. Jacques Dollon._
+    _Dep.... idem._
+    _Sonia Danidoff, April 12._
+    _Barbey-Nanteuil, May 15._
+    _Gérin...?_
+    _Madame B...?_
+    _Thomery, during May._
+    _Barbey-Nanteuil, end May._
+
+Fandor could not find anything more on the paper. Whilst Elizabeth sat
+silent, Fandor reflected:
+
+"Baroness de Vibray, April 3. Jacques Dollon ... these correspond
+exactly with the commencement of this mysterious affair: the two first
+deaths, and the date of their death.... What does _Dep._ signify? The
+initials of a name--or--yes, Dep ... Dépôt idem--yes, _Dépôt the same
+day!_ That's it! _Sonia Danidoff, April 12_ ... the full name, the exact
+date. _Barbey-Nanteuil, May 15_: the affair of rue du Quatre Septembre
+occurred May 20; that's pretty near. Two more names, and one date which
+exactly tallies. _Gérin?_... _Madame B_....? Who are they? Why no date?
+Ah, Gérin, lawyer of Madame de Vibray, a crime planned, without date,
+perhaps because he was not indispensable ... and _Thomery_! Thomery, who
+died in the middle of May, as this plan indicates! But, how about the
+last line? _Barbey-Nanteuil, end of May?_ Oh, beyond a doubt the bankers
+were to be victims of some fresh aggression on the part of the
+mysterious author of these lines!"
+
+"_Barbey-Nanteuil, end of May!_ We are at the 28th of the month: only
+three more days before the sinister date falls due! Are they to be
+attacked, or is it their money? How to defend them? How organise a trap
+for the mice?"
+
+Suddenly, Fandor looked up, saw Elizabeth's anxiety, and said quietly:
+
+"Well, this list agrees in every particular with the description you
+gave me of it, and I don't quite see what fresh information we are
+likely to get from it. However, will you leave it with me?"
+
+Fandor rose.
+
+"Ah, there is one point which has just occurred to me"--Fandor's voice
+trembled a good deal--"Do you know for a fact that your brother had
+bought Thomery shares?"
+
+"He had very few, three or four. I think the Barbey-Nanteuil got them
+for him."
+
+"And your brother had to pay for them by a certain date?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Fandor now felt he must tear himself away. He was deeply moved.
+
+"Elizabeth!... Elizabeth!" he cried. "I swear to you we shall clear up
+these dreadful mysteries amidst which we live, and more, you and I! Only
+have confidence, I implore you! Grant me a week's grace, less even!"
+Fandor pressed Elizabeth's hands as though he could never let them go!
+Such little hands, and so dear!
+
+It was not a farewell he took--it was a veritable flight he took from
+the girl who now meant so much to him!
+
+Leaving the prison, Fandor walked straight ahead, thinking aloud.
+
+"It is clear--evident! The Barbey-Nanteuils have sold Thomery shares to
+be paid up on a certain date. Thomery was murdered so that his shares
+should fall to zero, and so that the Barbey-Nanteuils should realise
+enormous sums at their monthly clearance. Next Saturday, the coffers of
+the Barbey-Nanteuil bank will be full of gold, and this same Saturday is
+the last day of May, the fatal day inscribed on the list. Yes, this
+coming Saturday, they will pillage the Barbey-Nanteuil bank!"
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+A MOUSE TRAP
+
+
+Jérôme Fandor had been ringing Juve's door bell in vain: the great
+detective was not at home.
+
+"What the deuce is he doing? What has become of him? Never have I needed
+his advice as I need it now!... His support, encouragement--what a
+comfort they would be!... It is possible he would have dissuaded me
+against the attempt--or, he might have joined forces with me! Hang it
+all! It was a jolly bad move on Juve's part to make himself scarce at
+such a critical moment for me!... It is a long time, too, since I had
+news of him! Were I not certain that he has sound reasons for his
+absence--Juve never acts haphazard--I should be desperately anxious!"
+
+Fandor consulted his watch--four o'clock! He had time then! He could
+think over all the dramatic events in which he had been involved during
+the past weeks, beginning with the rue Norvins affair, and ending--how,
+and when?
+
+At last, our journalist arrived before the immense building which forms
+the corner of the rue de Clichy. He saw, in front of him, the tall
+windows of the flat occupied by Nanteuil: on the ground floor were the
+bank offices.
+
+"Well," thought Fandor, "I certainly am going to do an unconventional
+thing. If my summing up of them is right, these bankers are balanced,
+calm, cold, without imagination, and distrusting it in others. I shall
+have to be eloquent to convince them, to make them listen to me and get
+them to do what I want. Will they show me the door, as though I were an
+intriguer or a madman?... I shall not let them do it!... Ah, they will
+owe me a fine candle if I have the good luck.... Whether there will be
+good luck for my venture, and gratitude from the bankers, remains to be
+seen.... Here goes!..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Seated behind their large and important looking writing table, as though
+judges behind a judgment seat, Messieurs Barbey and Nanteuil, in their
+immense reception office, separated from the rest of the world by a
+number of padded doors, had just said to Fandor, who was standing in
+front of them:
+
+"We are listening to you, monsieur."
+
+Fandor had asked to see the bankers, and to see them only, stating that
+he would wait if they were engaged. He had been shown into a handsomely
+furnished room, then into another, then into a third; finally, he had
+been ushered into the office of the partners. He had waited there for a
+few minutes alone. He recognised it as the same room in which he had
+interviewed Monsieur Barbey a few weeks earlier. Again he saw the same
+hangings, the same fine rugs, the same velvet arm-chair of classic
+design.
+
+Then Barbey, solemn, and Nanteuil, elegant, a rose in his buttonhole,
+had entered the room, their manner stiff-starched, showing no surprise,
+accustomed as they were to receive visitors of all sorts and kinds: they
+were polite, but not cordial.
+
+Fandor, accustomed to society as he was, and audacious as he had to be
+in the exercise of his profession, was intimidated, for a moment, by the
+calm simplicity of the two men--these strictly conventional bankers, to
+whom he was about to say such strange things, and make a most unexpected
+proposition!
+
+First of all, he made excuse on excuse for having disturbed the bankers
+at their post time. Then anxiety overcame every consideration of
+conventional propriety. Full of persuasive ardour, he went straight to
+the point.
+
+"Messieurs," declared he, "you are more deeply involved than you might
+think in the mysterious affairs occupying the attention of the police at
+this moment. So far, they have not got to the bottom of them. I, myself,
+through the necessities of my profession, and owing to other
+circumstances, have been drawn into an investigation, conjointly with
+the detective department, an investigation which has had definite
+results: it has enabled me to discover clues of the highest importance.
+I learned, too late, alas, to prevent the tragedies, that certain
+persons were the chosen victims of these mysterious criminals. Madame de
+Vibray, the Princess Danidoff were condemned beforehand; the robbery of
+your gold was carefully arranged. Now to my point! Messieurs, you
+yourselves are sentenced: the execution of the sentence to be carried
+out three days hence. Do you believe me?"
+
+Fandor had drawn nearer the two bankers: only the immense mahogany
+writing-table stood between them!
+
+The partners had listened with cold attention: nevertheless, a slight
+trembling of Monsieur Barbey's lips betrayed hidden feeling. Noticing
+this, Fandor was emboldened to proceed.
+
+Monsieur Nanteuil, in a slightly sneering tone, but with a perfectly
+correct manner, replied to the ardent young journalist:
+
+"We are greatly obliged to you, monsieur, for the sympathy you have
+shown us by coming to give us information regarding the mysterious
+assassins, whom the police are so zealously trying to round up. Believe
+me, we are accustomed to take our precautions, seeing that we have the
+handling of enormous sums of money. We are none the less grateful to you
+for your interest in us, and for your warning."
+
+"It is not a question of gratitude," interrupted Fandor sharply. "We
+have to deal with very strong opponents. I say 'we' because I have
+become more and more personally involved in all these crime-tragedies.
+Believe me, I speak from five years' experience as a reporter, who has
+had to report, on an average, one crime a day!... Up to now, nothing,
+absolutely nothing has hindered the criminals from executing their
+plans; but, warned in time, we may be able to thwart them."
+
+"But," interrupted Monsieur Barbey, who had grown more and more serious.
+"What are you aiming at?"
+
+Fandor felt that the decisive moment had arrived. Bending across the
+table, his face almost touching the faces of the two men, he said slowly
+and distinctly:
+
+"Messieurs, I have asked _La Capitale_ to grant me three days' leave. I
+have brought a little travelling bag with me: here it is! Leaving home
+as I did about half an hour ago, I consider I have arrived at the end of
+my journey!... Will you offer me hospitality for the next forty-eight
+hours?... I know that you, Monsieur Nanteuil, live above your offices,
+whilst Monsieur Barbey goes home every evening to his place at Saint
+Germain. I ask you to give up your room to me, for I am determined not
+to leave here for an instant!"
+
+Fandor, in his eagerness, had spoken faster and faster, and his heart
+was beating violently. He stared fixedly at the two men; he quite
+expected that his demand would excite astonishment; that objections
+would be raised; and he was ready with a crowd of arguments by which to
+convince them and carry his point.... But, the surprise was his, for the
+bankers did not seem particularly astonished.
+
+They consulted each other with a look. Then, as Barbey opened his mouth
+to reply, Nanteuil began to speak, rising politely at the same time.
+
+"Monsieur Fandor, your last statements and remarks are too serious to be
+passed over lightly. Your offer is too generous to be rejected without
+consideration. Will you allow us to retire for a minute or two: my
+partner and I will discuss the question."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For about ten minutes Fandor marched up and down the sumptuous room.
+Then one of the padded doors opened silently, and Barbey entered more
+solemn than ever: Nanteuil was smiling.
+
+"Monsieur," said Barbey, in weighty tones, "my partner and I, in view of
+the exceptional seriousness of the situation, for your words carry
+conviction--have come to a decision: we beg of you to consider yourself
+our guest from this moment, and to consider this house as your own!"
+
+"And it is understood, of course, that you dine with us this evening!"
+added Nanteuil with friendly graciousness. "Monsieur Barbey will be of
+the party, and will pass the night in our company ... and you can count
+on it, that we shall drink a good bottle of Burgundy to enable us to
+await with patience and serenity the audacious individuals you say we
+are to expect.... Dear Monsieur Fandor, here are some illustrated papers
+with some gay sketches of dear little women to exercise your patience
+over, whilst we sign our outgoing letters as fast as possible...."
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+IN THE TRAP
+
+
+The servant had retired, leaving the three men to their fruit and wine.
+His hosts turned to Fandor in mute interrogation.... But Fandor
+continued to peel a superb peach with the utmost coolness: he did not
+seem disposed to talk.
+
+Barbey broke the silence.
+
+"Tell me, now that your first day on guard is ended, and you have not
+left us for a moment--have you noticed anything at all suspicious?"
+
+Fandor shook his head. "Nothing whatever."
+
+This was not strictly true; for he had noticed an individual in the
+bank, occupied in repairing the telephone. He had made discreet
+inquiries, and had been told that he was a workman sent by the State, at
+the request of the bankers, to see that the lines were in good working
+order. This explanation had at first set his mind at rest regarding the
+comings and goings of this individual.
+
+But, just when he was going in to dinner at seven o'clock, Fandor had
+come across the man in the vestibule of the bank making preparations to
+depart. It had been a painful surprise for Fandor. He recognised the
+man, but could not remember exactly who he was, or where he had seen
+him....
+
+Was this workman one of the mysterious band of criminals who, he was
+more and more convinced, meant to strike a blow at Monsieur Barbey, and
+his partner, Nanteuil?
+
+If Fandor had had anything to go upon, he would have had the man
+shadowed. But he had no sure ground for his suspicions; besides, sent
+by the State, the man was most probably what he seemed. As he was
+working for the Government, he could easily be traced should such a step
+be found necessary. But to make certain that all was as it should be,
+Fandor had examined the work done by this individual during the day.
+There was nothing wrong with it: beyond a doubt, the man was an expert.
+Therefore, Fandor had felt justified in saying that he had noticed
+nothing suspicious during the day.
+
+"So much the worse," remarked Monsieur Barbey, with a shrug....
+"Probably the individuals who are threatening us, have been warned of
+your presence here, and are on their guard. I rejoice as far as we are
+concerned; but, as regards the general interest, I almost regret it:
+that your trap should prove effective, is what we must wish."
+
+"Have no fear, dear Monsieur Barbey, it will not be laid in vain!
+Knowing the cunning, the cleverness of my adversaries, I have not the
+least doubt they know I am here; but I also know that the audacity of
+these criminals is such, that my presence here would not deter them from
+making their attempt. They believe themselves the stronger, but I hope
+to undeceive them."
+
+"What is your plan of campaign to-night?" asked Monsieur Nanteuil.
+
+"Before replying to that, will you show me all the means of access to
+the house?"
+
+"With the greatest pleasure."
+
+The three men left the dining-room: then went into the vestibule.
+
+"Our courtyard gate is at the far end of the house, on the right," said
+Nanteuil. "On the left, there are the Bank offices: they occupy this
+ground floor. The only entrance to them is through this vestibule. This
+door closed, it is impossible to get in."
+
+"Not by the windows looking on to the street?" asked Fandor.
+
+"No, those windows have heavy iron bars before them. To remove them
+would be difficult--very ... As to the windows looking on to the garden,
+they are closed every evening--you can see for yourself--by strong
+wooden shutters fastened on the inside."
+
+"So the Bank offices are perfectly protected?" said Fandor.
+
+"We believe so. Now, come upstairs to the floor above!... Here is a
+large corridor, and that door, on the right, opens into a library. The
+two rooms which come next, are my own room and a dressing-room. The
+other rooms are unoccupied."
+
+"Does your room face the street or the garden?" asked Fandor.
+
+"The garden."
+
+"And the windows?"
+
+"The windows?"
+
+"Yes. Would it be difficult, or impossible to climb up to them?"
+
+"It would be difficult, but not impossible. No one ever enters the
+garden. If absolutely necessary, a ladder could be placed against them,
+a square of glass could be cut out, and the fastening could be undone
+... but come and see the room, you can then judge for yourself."
+
+Fandor inspected the room most carefully. The banker was right. It would
+be comparatively easy to get into the room by the window; but the other
+entrances to the room could be easily watched; they resolved themselves
+into one door, which opened on to the corridor.
+
+Monsieur Nanteuil's room was lightly furnished: he evidently favoured
+the modern method: it was a bare apartment, but it was hygienic.
+
+"Ah," said Fandor, "the bed has its back to the door, and faces the
+window. Very right. You have electric light, I see, near the fireplace,
+and above your bed. Then it is possible to switch on a bright light at
+any time.... Valuable, that!"
+
+Having finished a minute inspection of the room, and, to the amusement
+of the bankers, having looked under the bed to make sure that no one
+had hidden himself beneath it, Fandor declared:
+
+"I am decidedly pleased with this room, and if you see no objection, I
+wish to stay here and await the visitors of to-night."
+
+"You think of sleeping here alone?"
+
+"Alone! Decidedly, I do! It is pretty certain that these men know every
+inch of your flat; and if they are the sort I take them to be, they will
+make certain that everything here is as usual before attempting to
+attack the Bank. I do not wish them to be frightened off by finding a
+companion at my side, and I particularly wish them to mistake me for
+you...."
+
+"But that is frightfully dangerous, surely?" objected Nanteuil.
+
+"Reassure yourself, monsieur, I do not run any great risk. They won't
+know I am watching them; but I shall have this advantage over them--I am
+on the lookout for the rascally assassins and robbers, and I do not fear
+them in the slightest."
+
+Fandor was not going to own that he knew there was danger; but he was
+keenly set on running this particular risk, for, by so doing, might he
+not discover the truth?
+
+When the bankers left him for the night, Fandor again examined every
+corner of the room, and all it contained. He tested the electric light
+switch; he took a mental photograph of the situation of the pieces of
+furniture. He got into bed, half dressed, and lay quietly, grasping his
+revolver, fully loaded.
+
+He switched off the light, and in that large room, veiled in darkness,
+he awaited the events of the night. Noises from the street reached him
+indistinctly. The silence about him was menacing: something was going to
+happen here, something sudden, unforeseen, perhaps irremediable.
+
+Minute by minute, time went by, interminable, monotonous, casting a soft
+veil of sleep over the eyes of Fandor. But thoughts were rising within
+him: more and more keenly he was realising the horrible danger he was
+exposing himself to. Beneath closed eyes his brain was active, his
+imagination afire.
+
+"Elizabeth Dollon must be avenged," was his persistent thought.
+"Consequently, I must run some risks to achieve that!"
+
+A definite fear tormented him. He thought of the curious sleep Elizabeth
+had fallen victim to in the boarding-house.
+
+"Provided I have not taken some narcotic without knowing it!... Suppose
+the villains are going to inject into the room some gas which would
+suffocate me, and I should not know I was breathing it in? Suppose I
+lose consciousness and slip into death?"
+
+But Fandor drew himself together; he stiffened his will.
+
+Do they know I am in this room waiting to entrap them? Do they think
+they will find Nanteuil here defenceless? Who was that workman?... I
+ought to be able to put a name to that familiar face?
+
+How slow, how deadly slow, the tic-tac, tic-tac, of the timepiece?
+Centuries passed between the striking of the hours!... Would it be
+to-night?... To-morrow night?... Or ...
+
+On the corridor carpet outside the room, a slight rustling sound,
+continuous, barely perceptible, caught Fandor's listening ear.... Who
+was it?... Was it anyone at all?... Was it imagination? He listened
+intently ... not a sound now.... But, yes ... the same rustling sound
+... it was nearer--moving along the wall. Fandor closed his eyes an
+instant, so vividly did he feel that someone was looking at him through
+the wall!
+
+Seconds beat by--seconds that might culminate in a moment of
+horror--seconds passing steadily by in regular succession, sinking into
+nothingness....
+
+Had someone moved? Were there steps by the door?...
+
+Fandor thought he heard strange sounds all around him, in the room
+itself! His nerves were tensely strung: he was overwrought. Someone was
+certainly walking in the corridor!... He had felt a movement along the
+wall against which his bed stood!
+
+Impossible to hesitate longer! The door knob, which he could not see in
+the darkness, must have moved.... Fandor sensed this movement as surely
+as though he himself had placed his hand on the knob....
+
+Yes, the door was going to open!...
+
+It was ajar ... it was turning on its hinges--it was open.... Someone
+was coming in.... Who?...
+
+Fandor lay still--he dared not move an eyelid; but in his mind he said:
+
+"Come in, then! Take the trouble to come in!"
+
+Thus Fandor, who believed Death was entering the room, dared to welcome
+the grim visitor--with a smile!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nothing was happening.... Fandor's feverish excitement sank down to
+depression.... He must have deceived himself--no one was entering the
+room--nothing untoward was happening! He had simply imagined the noises
+outside in the corridor, for nothing happened--nothing ... and once more
+he was following the eternal tic-tac, tic-tac of the timepiece!
+
+The head of Fandor's bed was near the door. He could not, in the dense
+darkness, fix the point where he supposed the enemy would find him, and
+he had the agonising conviction that they were very much at their
+ease--that they knew exactly where he was, and were quietly preparing
+their attack.
+
+But had these unknown assassins entered the room?... Yes, it was
+certain--there were men behind him--bending over him with outstretched
+hands to strangle him!... He could hear the sound their fingers made in
+passing through the air to grip his throat, to squeeze his life out!...
+
+Though he lived a hundred years, never could Fandor forget the agonising
+thrill when he sensed that hidden danger! He held his revolver ready to
+fire. He thought:
+
+"In whatever way I am attacked, I must not let slip this unique chance
+to learn the truth! I must seize the attacker at all costs, and leap to
+the electric switch, turn on the light--and I shall be saved! Saved!..."
+
+Without a cry, without a warning sound, without a moment's time to cope
+with the violence of the attack, Fandor felt a cloth over his face,
+strong hands on his throat, a heavy weight crushing his chest.
+
+"I am lost!" flashed through his mind.
+
+"I mean to find out the truth!" his will declared.
+
+With all the force of resistant muscle and will he disengaged himself
+from the power crushing him to death; seized an arm by chance, hung on
+to it, gripped it, threw off the man, ran to the switch, shouting:
+
+"Help!"
+
+Again, Fandor thought he was done for: the switch acted, but no light
+flashed forth!
+
+They had cut the wire!
+
+Men were holding on to him: their grip was tightening!
+
+A voice gave a strangled cry.
+
+"Help!"
+
+A strange voice! Whose?
+
+Fandor was weakening. His right hand seemed to be caught in a vise which
+would break and crush it: it was growing tighter and tighter: it was
+wrenching his arm, was dragging him backwards: it would fracture his
+shoulder blade! Who?... Who?...
+
+By a miraculous effort he freed himself. He leaped away; sprang to the
+mantelpiece; seized a pocket electric torch he had placed there--clac--a
+light flashed out!... Fandor saw, recognised his attacker!...
+
+Ah! The form he had seen before--a slim figure, clothed in black!... Ah,
+this murderer, whose face was concealed by a hooded mask!
+
+Fandor shouted at him.
+
+"Fantômas! It's you and I, Fantômas!"
+
+But, already, this mysterious bandit, unmasked by the unexpected light,
+had rushed on our journalist.
+
+The electric torch was extinguished.
+
+The struggle recommenced, fierce, formidable, desperate! Fandor was
+seized by the throat in a strangling grip: he was choking!
+
+His right arm, so twisted, so bruised, was powerless--and in that hand,
+now so deadened and helpless that it seemed detached from his body, was
+his revolver. He must shoot, though almost powerless in the formidable
+grip of the bandit. He must shoot if he was to be saved. He managed to
+pull the trigger.
+
+There was a loud report.
+
+Fandor felt himself flung towards the wall. The vise loosed its grip.
+There was a terrific din. The window panes were shattered, a heavy piece
+of furniture was pushed aside, oscillated, fell with a crash; then a
+sudden silence; but a silence broken by gaspings, loud breathings,
+hoarse sounds, an agonising death rattle.
+
+The dead pause seemed interminable.... Fandor was about to shoot again,
+when a voice close to him cried:
+
+"He is escaping!..."
+
+Jérôme Fandor recognised that voice!...
+
+Another voice said:
+
+"We must have a light!"
+
+A wax match flamed and flared.
+
+By its wavering light Fandor could distinguish three men in the room....
+Their clothes were torn: there was blood on their faces, they were
+panting: they stared at one another.
+
+Fandor recognised them instantly.
+
+Leaning against the bed, a gash in his cheek, was Monsieur Barbey.
+
+Lying on the floor, apparently half dead, was Monsieur Nanteuil.
+
+Calmly lighting a candle was the telephone workman. He alone seemed
+unmoved.
+
+Fandor threw down his revolver and, coolly marching to the door, locked
+it.
+
+Monsieur Barbey followed the journalist with a look. He made a gesture
+of discouragement and pointed to the window: its panes were smashed to
+pieces.
+
+"We are tricked--done!" he said. "The assassin has got away!"
+
+But Fandor, with a shrug, marched up to the window, returned, and said
+in a matter-of-fact tone:
+
+"It is impossible that Fantômas could have made his escape that way!"
+
+The workman nodded gravely.
+
+"Monsieur Fandor," said he, "I am entirely of your opinion."
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+THE IMPRINT
+
+
+"Monsieur Fandor, I am entirely of your opinion!"
+
+Hearing these words, Fandor, who had regained his self-possession, and
+was ready to start fighting again if necessary, looked at the individual
+who had made this statement--the individual whose face was oddly
+familiar.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked.
+
+The individual smiled broadly.
+
+"Don't you recognise me?" he asked.
+
+He removed his wig, threw the candle light on himself, and smilingly
+announced his style and title.
+
+"Sergeant Juve, once of the detective force; formerly dead: now amateur
+policeman!"
+
+"You! You, Juve!" cried Fandor. "And to think I suspected you...."
+
+But the two bankers interrupted at one and the same moment.
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+Juve smiled.
+
+"The art I practise brought me! Since my interest in the Dollon affair
+is so keen, I follow it up, I wish to find the secret of it, just
+through love of my art. I dabble in it nowadays."
+
+"But Juve--how did you get here?" questioned Fandor.
+
+"Ah, ha! If you have made some psychological discoveries: if reasoning
+has landed you here, now facts have led me here!... You know I was
+shadowing the band of Numbers. You know that in the skin of Cranajour I
+was intimate with those rascals. To my astonishment I found that my
+wretched companions had dealings with the Barbey-Nanteuil bank, who, of
+course, had no suspicion of it! Are you surprised then that I felt it
+incumbent on me to visit this bank?... Besides, yesterday, I saw you
+enter here; but you never came out again! You had reasons for acting so.
+I determined to be near you, in case you needed my help. I therefore
+passed myself off as a workman come to attend to the telephone
+installation. It was easy enough, for I am a good electrician.... Well,
+when I found that you were preparing to pass the night here, I laid my
+plans accordingly. I pretended to leave the premises, but really I hid
+myself in the house. Just now, when you called for help, I came to your
+aid as quickly as I could, naturally!"
+
+"Just as we did!" remarked Monsieur Barbey, looking at his partner.
+
+Monsieur Nanteuil contented himself with a nod. He added:
+
+"Alas, once again that criminal has escaped! Fantômas, since it was
+Fantômas who was here, just now, Fantômas has got away!" And Nanteuil
+pointed to the broken window by which it would seem the criminal, taking
+advantage of the noise, had escaped.
+
+But both Fandor and Juve shrugged doubtfully.
+
+"You believe then, Monsieur Nanteuil, that Fantômas has left this room?"
+questioned our young journalist.
+
+"What the devil do you mean?" asked Nanteuil.
+
+Juve demanded.
+
+"Which way did he make his escape?"
+
+Nanteuil pointed.
+
+"Why that way! By this window ... where else?... You can see quite well
+that he has broken the panes!... Why, look! His hooded cloak has got
+caught on the window latch!..."
+
+Fandor lay back in an arm-chair. He seemed much amused. He silenced Juve
+with a gesture, and turned to Nanteuil.
+
+"I can assure, dear Monsieur Nanteuil, that Fantômas has not left the
+room by this window!..."
+
+"Because?..."
+
+"Because this window has been broken by means of this chair: this chair,
+which he flung against the panes to put us on the wrong scent, and make
+us believe he had escaped that way!... Just look at this chair! It is
+still strewn with broken bits of glass ... look, there is even a little
+bit stuck into the wood!"
+
+"But that proves nothing!... Fantômas has broken the window panes as
+best he could, and then made his escape!"
+
+"In that case," insisted Fandor, "dear Monsieur Nanteuil, can you
+explain how it was he troubled to remove his cloak, hood and all; and,
+after that, how is it he has left no footprints in the flower-beds
+beneath the window? When day dawns you will see for yourself that my
+statement is correct, though I have not verified it! The flower-beds are
+too wide, too big, for a man jumping from here, to jump clear of them!
+And the earth is soft enough to take and retain the footprints of a man
+who leaps down on to them from this height!... Nevertheless, such
+footprints are conspicuous by their absence!"
+
+Monsieur Barbey seemed overwhelmed--aghast.
+
+"If Fantômas did not escape by the window, how then did he get away?" he
+asked.
+
+Fandor said in clear, distinct tones:
+
+"Fantômas was not able to escape!..."
+
+"But he cannot be in the room?... Where, then, can he have hidden
+himself?"
+
+In a hard voice, Fandor made answer.
+
+"He is not hidden in the room...."
+
+"You think then that he has hidden himself somewhere in the house?"
+
+Speaking in the same hard, decisive tone, Fandor asserted:
+
+"He is not hidden in the house! In the very height of the struggle, I
+kept a strict watch on the direction taken by the man who was doing his
+utmost to strangle me. I am positive I had my back against the door
+when I fired, so that exit was barred! Neither by door nor window did
+Fantômas escape!" Fandor's tone was one of absolute assurance.
+
+"If you are certain of that," said Nanteuil, "can you tell us how
+Fantômas did escape?"
+
+Fandor's reply was to rise from his arm-chair. He took the candlestick
+from the table where Juve had placed it and walked towards a large
+mirror. He carefully examined his neck.
+
+"Very curious!" said he, in a low voice...: "Now, monsieur, the man who
+tried to strangle me was Fantômas--we have seen him.... Well, this man
+had a wound on his thumb, or, more probably, he wounded me, anyhow he
+has left on my collar the mark of his thumb in blood--you guess what
+this thumb-mark is?"
+
+Simultaneously, Barbey, Nanteuil, and Juve rushed towards the young
+journalist.... Fandor showed them a little red mark, clear cut on the
+white surface of the collar; it was a finger-print so characteristic,
+that the two bankers cried in a trembling voice:
+
+"Again the imprint of Jacques Dollon!"
+
+Silence fell--a pregnant silence. The four men gazed at one another.
+Fandor soon started whistling a popular air. Juve smiled: Monsieur
+Barbey was the first to speak:
+
+"Good Heavens! Do you mean to say that Jacques Dollon was here--in this
+room!... It is certain, you say, Monsieur Fandor, that he did not get
+away either by door or window--for pity's sake explain the mystery!"
+
+But Fandor contented himself with a smile and a question.
+
+"Do you really think, then, that I know it?..."
+
+Nanteuil stamped with impatience.
+
+"But hang it all! If you don't know anything, don't let us waste time!
+Let us begin the search! Hunt through the house! Search the garden from
+end to end!..."
+
+Fandor went on--his tone was ironic.
+
+"And warn the police? Well, no, Monsieur Nanteuil, we will not make any
+search whatever, you can rely on that!... For the last three months we
+have been striving and struggling to solve a maddening mystery: we never
+could reach a certain solution of it: we have been vainly pursuing an
+assassin, who for ever escaped us ... and now, when for once, we get
+hold of a definite fact, an indisputable reality, are we going to risk
+muddling up the whole business?... Not if I know it!"
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded Monsieur Barbey.
+
+"Listen!" replied Fandor: "Some minutes ago, I was alone in this room;
+Jacques Dollon entered the room, because I bear on my neck the imprint
+of his thumb. Jacques Dollon was Fantômas, because he declared it
+himself when he believed he would emerge victorious from the struggle.
+Jacques Dollon--Fantômas--has not left this room, either by door or
+window. On the other hand, you have entered the room--you Monsieur
+Barbey, you Monsieur Nanteuil, and you Juve. Since these individuals
+have entered the room, and no one has left it, it necessarily follows
+that the personage, Jacques Dollon--Fantômas, must have entered among
+you, and that he has remained here, between these four walls."
+
+Simultaneously, Barbey and Nanteuil raised protesting voices: but Juve
+continued to smile.
+
+"Do you believe then?..."
+
+But Jérôme Fandor did not allow him to finish.
+
+"I do not _think_ anything," said he. "I _know_ that I, Jérôme Fandor,
+am I, and that I am not Jacques Dollon!... Juve knows that he is Juve,
+and that he is not Jacques Dollon. You, Monsieur Barbey; you, Monsieur
+Nanteuil, you know who you are, and who you are not! None of us can
+leave imprints similar to those of Jacques Dollon. But, I also know,
+that Jacques Dollon has entered this room, and that he has not left
+it--this is all that I know!"
+
+To this extraordinary declaration, Monsieur Nanteuil, with an
+incredulous shrug of the shoulders, exclaimed:
+
+"This is downright madness, monsieur!"
+
+But Juve congratulated Fandor.
+
+"That's logic, my boy! You are going it strong, lad!"
+
+Fandor continued.
+
+"It follows, that if Jacques Dollon has not left the room, he must be
+here in this room. He must be arrested. In order to arrest him, we must
+beg Monsieur Havard to come here as fast as he possibly can! Jacques
+Dollon is Fantômas, or I should say, Fantômas is Jacques Dollon.
+Monsieur Havard will not hesitate to put himself to any inconvenience in
+order to effect such a capture! I am going to call him up at once,
+messieurs, thanks to this telephone!"
+
+And profiting by the bewilderment of his hearers, Fandor, then and
+there, telephoned to Police Headquarters; he spoke to one of the
+officials, who undertook to inform his chief that he was wanted at the
+telephone on most urgent business.
+
+A minute or two later, Fandor was telling Monsieur Havard what had
+happened. He terminated his narrative thus:
+
+"I myself had locked the door of the room in which the struggle took
+place. No one left the room, nor shall anyone leave it before your
+arrival, I give you my word of honour on that! Come, post-haste. It is
+of the utmost urgency. Bring a locksmith. He must open the great door of
+the house. He will have to force open the door of the room in which we
+now are. I must keep an incessant watch over this room. I do not see
+Fantômas--Jacques Dollon--in this room; but in this room he must
+inevitably be--he _is_ in it!"
+
+Fandor, listening to Monsieur Havard's answer, repeated it to his
+companions.
+
+"In a very short time, the chief will be here; in a very short time,
+messieurs, we shall witness the arrest of Fantômas, that is, of the most
+inhuman monster that has ever existed!"
+
+"It seems to me you are going too fast!" remarked Monsieur Barbey. "All
+is mystery--yet you talk of making an arrest!"
+
+"But what do you consider mysterious now?" asked Fandor, laughing.
+
+"Why, everything! Take one thing: do you know what were the motives of
+the different Fantômas-Dollon crimes?"
+
+Juve replied to this:
+
+"Oh, as for that, perfectly! The motives are clear as crystal!... Madame
+de Vibray was ruined, and really committed suicide because--you will
+pardon me, I am sure--because the Bourse transactions you advised were
+not successful.... She poisoned herself, and went to Jacques Dollon's
+studio to die: perhaps she felt for him a secret attachment! Fate willed
+it that the assassins should choose this very evening to make their way
+into the painter's studio ... by means of this first corpse they created
+an alibi for themselves, and prepared the scene which was bound to
+mislead justice and make lawyers and police believe in the murder of
+Madame de Vibray and the suicide of her murderer.... Unfortunately for
+them, Dollon was discovered before the poison they administered had done
+its deadly work on him, and Dollon was arrested.... You can imagine the
+fury, the distracted state of the guilty! Dollon had seen them--he was
+going to speak at the legal interrogation--very well, then--they will
+kill him--and they do kill him...."
+
+"But Jacques Dollon lives, since his imprints are found here, there and
+everywhere!..." cried Monsieur Barbey.
+
+Fandor replied:
+
+"They kill Jacques Dollon, since it has been formally established that
+Jacques Dollon was seen dead; and once they have killed Dollon, they
+think that a dead man cannot be arrested by the police, and _they accept
+this dead man as one of their band_.... He, they decide, shall steal the
+pearls of Princess Danidoff!..."
+
+"This is raving lunacy!"
+
+"All that is pretty clearly proved, Monsieur Nanteuil!... It is he also
+who stole the millions in the rue du Quatre Septembre, a sensational
+robbery which would have ruined your bank, had not this issue of bullion
+been well covered by an insurance: this insurance signified that you
+were no losers by this robbery--in fact, owing to an ingenious
+combination of insurances, you have actually gained by the robbery! As
+we are on this subject, I might add that were I a member of the Band I
+should propose restoring to you the vanished ingots--robbers find
+bullion somewhat difficult to put into circulation: you might buy them
+back; then turn them into false coin, for instance--that would be all
+profit--for you!..."
+
+"I wonder at you--making such a joke as that!" remarked Nanteuil.
+
+"Please wonder at me!... To continue!... Having carried out their plan
+successfully, these robbers remembered something they had forgotten--a
+compromising paper, or something like it, which had been left in
+Elizabeth Dollon's possession. Thereupon, they send the dead
+man--Jacques Dollon--to look for it: he attempts to murder his sister: I
+arrive just in time to open the windows before she is past all human
+aid.... Meanwhile a series of cleverly arranged deals on the Bourse are
+brought off, so that if Thomery disappeared the Barbey-Nanteuil Bank
+would rake in important profits ... in haste the assassins get rid of an
+accomplice who is in their way--that duffer of a Jules, the rue Raffet
+servant, and they send Dollon to kill Thomery. After that they decide to
+rob your Bank which is stuffed with gold; for, were it not for this
+theft, it would be your Bank, burdened as it is, with Thomery shares,
+which would pay out to speculators the differences in value between past
+and present prices--which amounts would have to come out of the money
+paid in the day before. Messieurs, with regard to this, Thomery's death
+did you a great service.... Without his death, which enriched you, you
+would have had to settle up your sales by a certain date, and you would
+have lost more than you gained at the moment, owing to the sole fact of
+his disappearance!... I think you are very grateful to Jacques Dollon
+because of what he has done for you."
+
+Monsieur Nanteuil, on hearing these last words, rose. He walked up to
+the journalist and said, in a voice quivering with some emotion:
+
+"For my part, Monsieur Fandor, I think your way of explaining the Dollon
+affair is a very strange way!... You assert that this painter is dead,
+and you make him behave as if he were alive!... Besides, I have
+understood your words! In truth, what you say is senseless: you make
+wild statements! You have involved our Bank in every one of the Dollon
+crimes!... You have shown us as interested parties in all these
+robberies!"
+
+Fandor said quietly:
+
+"Nevertheless, it is unquestionably true that you are the gainers by
+these crimes: beginning with Madame de Vibray and ending with Thomery.
+Madame de Vibray might have brought an action against you for the loss
+of her fortune, owing to your risky speculations and bad management.
+Thomery's murder brought down his shares with a run, and you found that
+a most advantageous state of affairs--you gained by it!... But, of
+course, this is coincidence, since you are not Fantômas, since you are
+not Jacques Dollon, since you cannot imitate the imprint of his
+thumb!... I have only said this to show ..." Fandor stopped short.
+
+"Hark!... Someone is coming upstairs! Here is Monsieur Havard!"
+
+As the bankers were hurrying impatiently to the door, Fandor said in a
+bantering tone:
+
+"Do not stir a step further, I beg of you! Not a step! Let us receive
+the chief of the detective force exactly in the position we were, not an
+hour ago, when we encountered him whom the chief has now come to
+arrest!"
+
+Barbey and Nanteuil returned to their former positions. Those in the
+room could hear voices on the other side of the door exchanging brief
+remarks. The lock was being picked. Monsieur Havard entered and hurried
+up to the journalist.
+
+"Well, my dear Fandor, I have followed all your instructions to the
+letter!... Ah! you here, too, Juve! Well?... Speak! Anything fresh since
+your extraordinary telephone communication?... What were you telling
+me?"
+
+"I was saying, Monsieur Havard, that the assassin had entered this room,
+and assuredly had not left it--that he was here!..."
+
+"Here?"
+
+Monsieur Havard had recognised the bankers at the first glance.... His
+question betrayed a certain incredulity which piqued Fandor.
+
+"Here! Yes! That is absolutely so, because it is impossible that he can
+have left the room! Besides, you shall convince yourself of that!...
+Monsieur Nanteuil, will you do me a small service? Will you draw a plan
+of the first floor of your house?"
+
+The banker rose and seated himself at his writing-table, which was
+placed in a corner of the room.
+
+"I am at your disposal." And he began to trace a plan, a pretty rough
+one, of the various rooms which made up the first floor of his house.
+
+"Is that what you want?" he asked.
+
+Jérôme Fandor rose quickly and went towards Nanteuil.
+
+The journalist's nerves must have been out of order--in a jumpy state,
+despite his apparent calm, for, in approaching the writing-table, he
+suddenly staggered, nearly fell, tried to regain his balance, and that
+so clumsily that he upset the contents of a large ink-pot on the
+writing-desk....
+
+"Take care!" said Monsieur Nanteuil, who, to save himself from coming
+into contact with this inky inundation, threw himself back in his chair,
+and lifted his hands above the flood of ink....
+
+The banker repeated:
+
+"Take care!... Here is a fresh catastrophe!..."
+
+But he did not finish what he intended to say! Quick as thought, Fandor
+steadied himself, and before anyone could guess his intention he seized
+the banker's right hand, pushed it forcibly into the wide-spreading ink,
+then, immediately after, pressed it on to a sheet of blotting paper
+which took the hand's imprint quite clearly....
+
+This imprint he glanced at but a moment.... Like a flag, he waved it
+above his head!
+
+"_It is the Jacques Dollon imprint!_" he shouted. "_The hand of Monsieur
+Nanteuil, whose characteristics are known in the anthropometric section,
+has just left the imprint of--Jacques Dollon!..._"
+
+The journalist's action created a momentary stupour!
+
+Juve rushed to him.
+
+"Bravo! Bravo!" he cried.
+
+But Monsieur Havard had gone quite pale. He said in a low voice:
+
+"I don't understand!"
+
+Barbey and Nanteuil retained their self-possession!
+
+Then Monsieur Barbey rose. He looked fixedly at his partner. He spoke in
+a tone of sad finality:
+
+"I suspected this!... Farewell...."
+
+A shout of horror answered him: he had drawn a sharp dagger from inside
+his coat, and had plunged it in his heart up to the hilt!
+
+Juve knelt by the fallen man. Monsieur Havard kept a sharp eye on
+Nanteuil.
+
+"Here, then, is Jacques Dollon, the dead-alive!... Here is the elusive
+Fantômas!" said the chief of the detective force.
+
+But the bandit brazened it out as he recoiled before the chief.
+
+"Why do you arrest me because of this imprint?" he demanded. "It is a
+piece of juggling on the part of this journalist!... Take a fresh
+imprint of my hand, my fingers, my thumb, and you will see whether my
+hand could possibly leave such an impression as that put on the blotting
+pad, by some sleight-of-hand trick of this much too smart reporter!" He
+stretched out his arm in the direction of the blotting pad, as though
+begging for a fresh trial....
+
+Fandor marched up to Nanteuil.
+
+"Useless," said he, in a curt tone. "I have been watching you!... I know
+the trick!"
+
+Nanteuil stood stock-still, dumb. Fandor lifted the cuff of Nanteuil's
+coat, and pointed out to Monsieur Havard, and to Juve, a sort of thin
+film of glove-like form. It was fastened to the wrist by an almost
+imperceptible piece of elastic.
+
+"This is human skin," said Fandor. "Human skin marvellously preserved by
+some special process: all its lines and marks are intact. Can you not
+guess whence it came? Do you need to be told whose dead body has
+supplied this phantom glove?"
+
+Monsieur Havard was as white as a sheet.
+
+"The body of Jacques Dollon," he murmured.... "Yes, that is it!..."
+
+There was a moment's intense silence in the room.
+
+"How do you imagine this wretch set to work?" demanded Monsieur Havard.
+
+"Simple enough," replied Fandor.... "Fantômas knows the danger criminals
+run, owing to the exact science of anthropometry: he knows that every
+imprint denounces the assassin: he knows that it is difficult to do
+anything without leaving such imprints--and that is why, every time he
+has committed a crime, he has taken care to glove his hands in the skin
+of Jacques Dollon's hands."
+
+Nanteuil, at bay, attempted denial.
+
+"You are talking mere newspaper romance," said he.
+
+Fandor looked the banker in the eye.
+
+"Fantômas!" said he. "Do not attempt to deny what is no longer possible
+to deny!... The trick is remarkably clever, and you have reason to be
+proud of your invention. Perhaps I should never have discovered it, if
+in this very room, this very night, you had not been imprudent enough to
+leave those imprints on my collar!... No one had left the room,
+therefore the guilty person was in the room--of necessity he was:
+_therefore, it followed, that someone had the hands of Dollon!..._ But
+how could this someone have the hands of Dollon?... Of course,
+naturally, the idea of these gloves occurred to me!..."
+
+Fandor turned to the chief of the detective force.
+
+"Monsieur Havard, Madame de Vibray committed suicide because she lost
+her fortune through Barbey-Nanteuil mismanagement--she might even have
+been poisoned by them! But that does not matter! Her death might
+compromise the Bank: they carried her dead body to Jacques Dollon's
+studio, and they tried to poison this painter, in order to put the law
+off their track. You know Dollon was saved! He was a dangerous witness.
+They killed him in his cell, some warder being accessory to the
+fact--killed him before his innocence could be established! Then they
+took his hands, that they might commit murders with them!... Dollon is
+dead, as I have held all along. It is Nanteuil who has committed the
+crimes ascribed to the most unfortunate Dollon. These crimes have
+profited the Barbey-Nanteuil Bank--as I pointed out just now!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whilst Nanteuil stood speechless, whilst Barbey, whom they had lifted to
+a sofa, was gasping out his last breath, whilst Juve was giving little
+nods of approval to what his dear lad was saying, Fandor was treating
+Monsieur Havard to a further version of the affair.
+
+"When I telephoned to you I was morally certain of the approaching
+arrest. Not a soul quitted the room after the hands of Dollon had left
+imprints on my collar and on my neck. Therefore someone had the hands of
+Dollon. The finger imprints of all the personages present were known to
+me--therefore someone had a method by which he changed his own
+finger-prints into those of Dollon.... How was it done? It must be a
+removable method or means ... why, of course, it could only be by a pair
+of gloves that the trick was done ... of course it must be by means of
+_a pair of gloves made with the skin of Jacques Dollon's hands_!... I
+noticed that Nanteuil kept his hands obstinately behind his back. I
+guessed that it was he who had played the part of Dollon to-night, so I
+managed to prevent him removing those Dollon gloves, that I might take
+their imprint before your eyes--the rest can be guessed, can it not?...
+The imprint taken, profiting by the confusion, Nanteuil slipped off the
+glove which, as you see, was no thicker than a cigarette when rolled
+up.... To throw it aside was risky: he pushed it up his sleeve while
+pretending to arrange his cuff, and at the same time to put ink on his
+ungloved hand and so hide his trick!... Only I saw it all.... Monsieur
+Havard, it is not only the false Jacques Dollon I denounce, for Juve and
+I fully realised that he was also the elusive Fantômas! Here is this
+cloak with hooded mask, which is an irrefutable proof: besides he
+himself declared he was Fantômas.... Monsieur Havard, all you have to do
+now is seize this man: Juve and I will hand him over to you!"
+
+It was a thrilling moment! Juve and Fandor, in this hour of decisive
+victory, mutely embraced. Monsieur Havard advanced with raised hands
+towards Nanteuil who retreated.
+
+"Fantômas," he commenced, "in the name of the law I arr..."
+
+The word was strangled in his throat!...
+
+As he advanced another step, Nanteuil suddenly sprang backwards, and his
+hand rested on the moulding of a wooden panel.... At the same moment,
+Monsieur Havard, as if hampered by some invisible obstacle, stretched
+his length on the floor!
+
+Juve and Fandor were about to rush to his aid ... but while Fandor, in
+his turn, measured his length on the floor also, Juve yelled:
+
+"Good lord!... We are caught!... He escapes!..."
+
+Whilst the detective made a frantic effort to move a step--_he seemed
+nailed to the floor_--Fantômas, quick as lightning, leaped over the
+prone body of Monsieur Havard, gained the door, and banged it to behind
+him!... They heard a triumphant burst of laughter.... Fantômas was
+escaping!
+
+"This is sorcery!" shouted the chief of the detective force, in a voice
+hoarse with rage.
+
+"Take your boots off!... Take your boots off!" yelled Juve, who, with
+bare feet, was rushing through the house, revolver in hand, hoping to
+come up with the banker bandit!...
+
+But, when the detective arrived at the entrance gateway of the house, he
+found the policemen brought by Monsieur Havard chatting away quietly ...
+they had not seen a thing ... the street was deserted ... in a second
+Fantômas had disappeared, vanished into thin air ... he, the elusive
+one, had got away: once more he had escaped those who were pursuing him
+with such keen determination!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"It is very simple," explained Juve to Monsieur Havard and Fandor, who
+seemed deprived of speech. "Yes, it is simple enough; I guessed it at
+once when I saw you fall, Monsieur Havard, just after Fantômas had
+pressed the woodwork."
+
+"He pressed an electric button, did he not?"
+
+"Yes, Fandor, he established a current!... The wretch must have placed
+powerful electric magnets under the floor ... and the moment he realised
+that it was impossible to brazen it out any longer--was on the very
+point of being arrested--he established the current ... so we three were
+nailed to the ground by the attraction exercised by these
+electro-magnets on the nails of our shoes--he, Fantômas, was then free
+to cut and run for it, whose shoes must certainly have had soles made of
+some insulating material...."
+
+Monsieur Havard and Fandor made no answer to this.
+
+To have held Fantômas at their mercy, if only for a minute; to have
+believed that they were going to lay hands on the atrocious criminal,
+at last; to have seen him slip through their fingers--the thought of
+this almost brought tears to their eyes: they were in a state of the
+deepest despondency.
+
+"There's a curse on us!" cried Fandor. "This time, at any rate, we have
+nothing to reproach ourselves with! We could not foresee that!..." Then,
+to himself in a low tone, he added:
+
+"Poor Elizabeth!... How are we to tell her that we have let her
+brother's murderer escape?"
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+COURAGE
+
+
+"Have some more chicken?"
+
+"No, thanks: I am not hungry."
+
+"But you should eat all the same!"
+
+"Are you eating anything yourself?"
+
+"Faith, I am not!"
+
+"Well, then?"
+
+In the private room of the Fat-Pheasant restaurant, where Juve and
+Fandor were dining, silence again fell. The two men sat motionless,
+gazing into space. They neither wished to eat food nor do anything at
+all. They were depressed to the last degree; they felt baffled: they
+were sick of every mortal thing!
+
+All of a sudden, Fandor burst into tears. Juve, looking at his dear lad
+in such grief, bit his lip; his face with wrinkled brow wore a dejected,
+worried look.
+
+An hour or two previous to that, Fandor, on returning to his flat, had
+found a black-edged envelope: the address in Elizabeth Dollon's
+handwriting. Fandor had opened it with fast beating heart and trembling
+hand!
+
+For these past days, an evil Fate seemed relentlessly pursuing them. Now
+he feared to read of some fresh catastrophe.
+
+He was reassured by the opening lines; but as he read on, and took in
+the meaning of Elizabeth's words, Fandor felt as though his heart were
+bursting with grief.
+
+Elizabeth Dollon had written:
+
+"I seem to be going mad ... yes, I love you!... Yesterday, I should have
+been glad to become your wife; but there came by the same post as your
+letter, another, which contained terrible revelations, proofs of their
+truth were given me!... I have not the right to curse you--or rather I
+have not the strength to do it; but never will I marry you, Jérôme
+Fandor, you, Charles Rambert!..."[11]
+
+[Footnote 11: See _Fantômas_ and _The Exploits of Juve_.]
+
+It seemed to Fandor that everything was turning round about him.... He
+took a few steps, staggering. The weight of this terrible past, a past
+in which he was the innocent victim, but of which he could not clear
+himself, overwhelmed him!
+
+Fandor cried, in a voice of despair:
+
+"Fantômas! Fantômas has taken his revenge!"
+
+And before the astounded portress, the unhappy young man turned about
+and fell in a heap on the ground.
+
+On the other hand, shortly after the extraordinary flight of the
+banker--Nanteuil to the world in general--but Fantômas to him and
+Fandor--Juve had received from Monsieur Annion, the supreme head of the
+police detective department, who only manifested himself on sensational
+occasions, a note sent by pneumatic post:
+
+     "_Regret keenly that you revealed your personality in such
+     ridiculous circumstances, and that you failed to arrest a great
+     criminal._"
+
+As Juve read these observations, he clinched his fists: he grew livid
+with rage!
+
+Dinner was a mere farce to the two friends: they did not dine: they had
+no appetite! Juve and Fandor went over and over in their minds the
+deplorable events of which, all said and done, they were the victims.
+They gazed at each other full of self-pity. They felt they were two
+derelicts afloat on the immense sea of indifferent humanity.
+
+"The worst suffering," said Fandor, with tears of misery in his voice,
+"is the pain of love."
+
+"The most painful of wounds," said Juve bitterly, "is a wound to
+self-respect!..."
+
+These two, men every inch of them, might have their moments of
+discouragement, but they were a sporting pair of the finest quality.
+
+"Fandor!"
+
+"Juve?"
+
+"You are courageous?"
+
+"I have courage, Juve!"
+
+"Very well, my lad, let us sponge out the past, and start off afresh in
+pursuit of Fantômas!... I tell you the struggle has only begun....
+Listen!..."
+
+END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Messengers of Evil, by 
+Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain
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+
+
+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's Messengers of Evil, by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Messengers of Evil
+       Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantômas
+
+Author: Pierre Souvestre
+        Marcel Allain
+
+Release Date: March 15, 2009 [EBook #28333]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MESSENGERS OF EVIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>MESSENGERS OF EVIL</h1>
+
+<h2>BEING A FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE LURES AND DEVICES OF FANT&Ocirc;MAS</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FANT&Ocirc;MAS DETECTIVE NOVELS</h3>
+
+<h2>BY PIERRE SOUVESTRE AND MARCEL ALLAIN</h2>
+
+<h3>AUTHORS OF "FANT&Ocirc;MAS," "THE EXPLOITS OF JUVE," ETC.</h3>
+
+
+<h4>NEW YORK<br />
+BRENTANO'S<br />
+1917</h4>
+
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1917, by Brentano's</span></h4>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+<p>
+<a href="#I">I. <span class="smcap">The Drama of the Rue Norvins</span></a><br />
+<a href="#II">II. <span class="smcap">Thomery's Two Loves</span></a><br />
+<a href="#III">III. <span class="smcap">Unexpected Complications</span></a><br />
+<a href="#IV">IV. <span class="smcap">A Surprising Itinerary</span></a><br />
+<a href="#V">V. <span class="smcap">Mother Toulouche and Cranajour</span></a><br />
+<a href="#VI">VI. <span class="smcap">In the Opposite Sense</span></a><br />
+<a href="#VII">VII. <span class="smcap">Pearls and Diamonds</span></a><br />
+<a href="#VIII">VIII. <span class="smcap">End of the Ball</span></a><br />
+<a href="#IX">IX. <span class="smcap">Finger Prints</span></a><br />
+<a href="#X">X. <span class="smcap">Identity of a Navvy</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XI">XI. <span class="smcap">An Audacious Theft</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XII">XII. <span class="smcap">Investigations</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XIII">XIII. <span class="smcap">Rue Raffet</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XIV">XIV. <span class="smcap">Someone Telephoned</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XV">XV. <span class="smcap">Vague Suspicions</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XVI">XVI. <span class="smcap">Discussions</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XVII">XVII. <span class="smcap">An Arrest</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XVIII">XVIII. <span class="smcap">At the Bottom of the Trunk</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XIX">XIX. <span class="smcap">Criminal or Victim?</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XX">XX. <span class="smcap">Under the Hooded Mask</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XXI">XXI. <span class="smcap">In a Prison Van</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XXII">XXII. <span class="smcap">An Execution</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XXIII">XXIII. <span class="smcap">From Vaugirard to Montmartre</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XXIV">XXIV. <span class="smcap">At Saint Lazare</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XXV">XXV. <span class="smcap">A Mouse Trap</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XXVI">XXVI. <span class="smcap">In the Trap</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XXVII">XXVII. <span class="smcap">The Imprint</span></a><br />
+<a href="#XXVIII">XXVIII. <span class="smcap">Courage</span></a><br />
+</p>
+<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. -->
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>MESSENGERS OF EVIL</h2>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I</h2>
+
+<h3>THE DRAMA OF THE RUE NORVINS</h3>
+
+
+<p>On Monday, April 4th, 19&mdash;, the evening paper <i>La Capitale</i> published
+the following article on its first page:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>A drama, over the motives of which there is a bewildering host of
+conjectures, was unfolded this morning on the heights of Montmartre. The
+Baroness de Vibray, well known in the Parisian world and among artists,
+whose generous patroness she was, has been found dead in the studio of
+the ceramic painter, Jacques Dollon. The young painter, rendered
+completely helpless by a soporific, lay stretched out beside her when
+the crime was discovered. We say 'crime' designedly, because, when the
+preliminary medical examination was completed, it was clear that the
+death of the Baroness de Vibray was due to the absorption of some
+poison.</p>
+
+<p>The painter, Jacques Dollon, whom the enlightened attentions of Doctor
+Mayran had drawn from his condition of torpor, underwent a short
+examination from the superintendent of police, in the course of which he
+made remarks of so suspicious a nature that the examining magistrate put
+him under arrest then and there. At police headquarters they are
+absolutely dumb regarding this strange affair. Nevertheless, the
+personal investigation undertaken by us throws a little light on what is
+already called: <i>The Drama of the Rue Norvins</i>.</p>
+
+<h4><i>The Discovery of the Crime</i></h4>
+
+<p>This morning, about seven o'clock, Madame B&eacute;ju, a housekeeper in the
+service of the painter, Jacques Dollon, who, with his sister,
+Mademoiselle Elizabeth Dollon, occupied lodge number six, in the Close
+of the rue Norvins, was on the ground-floor of the house, attending to
+her customary duties. She had been on the premises about half an hour,
+and, so far, had not noticed anything abnormal; however, astonished at
+not hearing any movements on the floor above, for the painter generally
+rose pretty early, Madame B&eacute;ju decided to go upstairs and wake her
+master, who would be vexed at having let himself sleep so late. She had
+to pass through the studio to reach Monsieur Jacques Dollon's bedroom.
+No sooner had she raised the door curtain of the studio than she
+recoiled, horrorstruck!</p>
+
+<p>Disorder reigned in the studio: a startling disorder!</p>
+
+<p>Pieces of furniture displaced, some of them overturned, showed that
+something extraordinary had happened there. In the middle of the room,
+on the floor, lay the inanimate form of a person whom Madame B&eacute;ju knew
+well, for she had seen her at the painter's house many a time&mdash;the
+Baroness de Vibray. Not far from her, buried in a large arm-chair,
+motionless, giving no sign of life, was Monsieur Jacques Dollon!</p>
+
+<p>When the good woman saw the rigid attitude of these two persons, she
+realised that she was in the presence of a tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>Stirred to the depths, she redescended the stairs, calling for help:
+shortly afterwards, the entire Close was in a state of ferment: house
+porters, neighbours, male and female, crowded round Madame B&eacute;ju,
+endeavouring to understand her disconnected account of the terrifying
+spectacle she had come face to face with but a minute before.</p>
+
+<p>Sudden death, suicide, crime&mdash;all were plausible suppositions. The more
+audacious of these gossip-mongers had ventured as far as the studio
+door; from that standpoint, a rapid glance round enabled them to get a
+clear idea of the truth of the housekeeper's statements: they returned
+to give a confirmation of them to the inquisitive and increasing crowd
+in the principal avenue of the Close.</p>
+
+<p>'The police! The police must be informed!' cried the Close portress.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst this woman, with considerable presence of mind, and aided by
+Madame B&eacute;ju, exerted herself to keep out the people of the neighbourhood
+who had got wind of the tragedy, two men had set off to seek the police.</p>
+
+<h4><i>Lodge Number 6</i></h4>
+
+<p>On the summit of Montmartre is the rue Norvins. In shape it resembles a
+donkey's back, and at one particular spot it hugs the accentuated curve
+of the Butte. The Close of the rue Norvins is situated at number 47. It
+is separated from the street by a strong iron gate, the porter's lodge
+being at the side. The Close consists of a series of little dwellings,
+separated by wooden railings, up which climbing plants grow. Fine trees
+encircle these abodes with so thick a curtain of leafage that the
+inhabitants might think themselves buried in the depths of the country.</p>
+
+<p>Lodge Number 6 is even more isolated than the others. It consists of a
+ground floor and a first floor, with an immense studio attached. Three
+years ago, Number 6 was leased to Monsieur Jacques Dollon, then a
+student at the Fine Arts School. It has been continuously occupied by
+the tenant and his sister, Miss Elizabeth Dollon, who has kept house for
+her brother. For the last fortnight the painter has been alone: his
+sister, who had gone to Switzerland to convalesce after a long illness,
+was expected back that same day, or the day following.</p>
+
+<p>The reputation of the two young people is considered by their neighbours
+to be beyond criticism. The artist has led a regular and hard-working
+life: last year the Salon accorded him a medal of the second class.</p>
+
+<p>His sister, an affable and unassuming girl, seemed always much attached
+to her brother. In that very Bohemian neighbourhood she is highly
+thought of as a girl of the most estimable character.</p>
+
+<p>The Baroness de Vibray visited them frequently, and her motor-car used
+to attract attention in that high, remote suburb&mdash;the wilds of
+Montmartre. The old lady liked to dress in rather showy colours; she was
+considered eccentric, but was also known to be good and generous. She
+took a particular interest in the Dollons, whose family, so it was said,
+she had known in Provence. Jacques Dollon and his sister highly valued
+their intimacy with the Baroness de Vibray, who was known all over Paris
+as a patroness of artists and the arts.</p>
+
+<h4><i>First Verifications</i></h4>
+
+<p>Already slander and imagination between them had concocted the wildest
+stories, when Monsieur Agram, the eminent police superintendent of the
+Clignancourt Quarter, appeared at the entrance to the Close. Accompanied
+by his secretary, he at once entered Number 6, charging the two
+policemen, who were assisting him, on no account to allow anyone to
+enter, excepting the doctor, whom he had at once sent for.</p>
+
+<p>He requested the portress to hold herself at his disposal in the garden,
+and made Madame B&eacute;ju accompany him to the studio. Barely twenty minutes
+had elapsed since the housekeeper had been terror-struck by the dreadful
+spectacle which had met her eyes there. When she entered with the
+superintendent of police nothing had been altered. Madame de Vibray,
+horribly pale, her eyes closed, her lips violet-hued, lay stretched on
+the floor: her body had assumed the rigidity of a corpse. That of
+Jacques Dollon, huddled in an arm-chair, was in a state of immobility.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Agram at once noticed long, intersecting streaks on the floor,
+such as might have been traced by heavy furniture dragged over the waxed
+boards of the flooring. A pungent medicinal odour caught the throats of
+the visitors: Madame B&eacute;ju was about to open a window: the superintendent
+stopped her:</p>
+
+<p>'Let things remain as they are for the present,' was his order. After
+casting an observant eye round the room he questioned the housekeeper:</p>
+
+<p>'Is this state of disorder usual?'</p>
+
+<p>'Never in this world, sir!' declared the good woman. 'Monsieur Dollon
+and his sister are very steady, very regular in their habits, especially
+the young lady. It is true that she has been absent for nearly a month,
+but her brother has often been left alone, and he has always insisted on
+his studio being kept in good order.'</p>
+
+<p>'Did Monsieur Dollon have many visitors?'</p>
+
+<p>'Very seldom, monsieur. Sometimes his neighbours would come in; and then
+there was that poor lady lying there so deathly pale that it makes me
+ill to look at her....'</p>
+
+<h4><i>Jacques Dollon lives</i></h4>
+
+<p>The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the doctor employed
+in connection with relief for the poor. The superintendent of police
+pointed out to this Dr. Mayran the two inanimate figures. A glance of
+the doctor's trained eye sufficed to show him that Madame de Vibray had
+been dead for some time. Approaching Jacques Dollon, Dr. Mayran examined
+him attentively:</p>
+
+<p>'Will you help me to lift him on to a bed or a table?' he asked. 'It
+seems to me that this one is not dead.'</p>
+
+<p>'His bedroom is next to this!' cried Madame B&eacute;ju. 'Oh, heavens above! If
+only the poor young man would recover!'</p>
+
+<p>Silently the doctor, aided by the superintendent and a policeman,
+transported young Dollon into the next room.</p>
+
+<p>'Air!' cried the doctor, 'give him air! Open all the windows! It seems
+to me a case of suspended animation! There is partial suffocation. This
+will probably yield to energetic treatment.'</p>
+
+<p>Whilst good Madame B&eacute;ju, whose legs were shaking under her, was carrying
+out the doctor's orders, the superintendent of police kept watch to see
+that nothing was touched. The doctor's attention was concentrated on
+Jacques Dollon. Monsieur Agram was searching for some indication which
+might throw light on the drama. So far he had been unable to formulate
+any hypothesis. Should the moribund painter return to consciousness, the
+explanation he could give would certainly clear up the situation. At
+this point in the superintendent's cogitations, the doctor called out:</p>
+
+<p>'He lives! He lives! Bring me a glass of water!'</p>
+
+<p>Jacques Dollon was returning to consciousness! Slowly, painfully, his
+features contracting as at the remembrance of a horrible nightmare, the
+young man stretched his limbs, opened his eyes: he turned a dull gaze on
+those about him, a gaze which became one of stupefaction when he
+perceived these unknown faces gathered round his bed. His eyes fell on
+his housekeeper. He murmured:</p>
+
+<p>'Mme ... B&eacute;-ju ... je...,' and fell back into unconsciousness.</p>
+
+<p>'Is he dead?' whispered Monsieur Agram.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor smiled:</p>
+
+<p>'Be reassured, monsieur: he lives; but he finds it terribly difficult to
+wake up. He has certainly swallowed some powerful narcotic and is still
+under its influence; but its effects will soon pass off now.'</p>
+
+<p>The good doctor spoke the truth.</p>
+
+<p>In a short time Jacques Dollon, making a violent effort, sat up. Casting
+scared and bewildered glances about him, he cried:</p>
+
+<p>'Who are you? What do you want of me?... Ah, the ruffians! The bandits!'</p>
+
+<p>'There is nothing to fear, monsieur. I am simply the doctor they have
+called in to attend to you! Be calm!... You must recover your senses,
+and tell us what has happened!'</p>
+
+<p>Jacques Dollon pressed his hands to his forehead, as though in pain:</p>
+
+<p>'How heavy my head is!' he muttered. 'What has happened to me?... Let me
+see!... Wait.... Ah ... yes ... that's it!'</p>
+
+<p>At a sign from the doctor, the superintendent had stationed himself
+beside the bed, behind the young painter.</p>
+
+<p>Keeping a finger on his patient's pulse, the doctor asked him, in a
+fatherly fashion, to tell him all about it.</p>
+
+<p>'It is like this,' replied Jacques Dollon.... 'Yesterday evening I was
+sitting in my arm-chair reading. It was getting late. I had been working
+hard.... I was tired.... All of a sudden I was surrounded by masked men,
+clothed in long black garments: they flung themselves on me. Before I
+could make a movement I was gagged, bound with cords.... I felt
+something pointed driven into my leg&mdash;into my arm.... Then an
+overpowering drowsiness overcame me, the strangest visions passed before
+my eyes; I lost consciousness rapidly.... I wanted to move, to cry
+out ... in vain ... there was no strength in me ... powerless ... and
+that's all!'</p>
+
+<p>'Is there nothing more?' asked the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>After a minute's reflection Jacques answered:</p>
+
+<p>'That is all.'</p>
+
+<p>He now seemed fully awake. He moved: the movement was evidently painful:
+'It hurts,' he said, instinctively putting his hand on his left thigh.</p>
+
+<p>'Let us see what is wrong,' said the doctor, and was preparing to
+examine the place when a voice from the studio called:</p>
+
+<p>'Monsieur!'</p>
+
+<p>It was Monsieur Agram's secretary. The magistrate left his post by the
+bed and went into the studio.</p>
+
+<p>'Monsieur,' said the secretary, 'I have just found this paper under the
+chair in which Monsieur Dollon was: will you acquaint yourself with its
+contents?'</p>
+
+<p>The magistrate seized the paper: it was a letter, couched in the
+following terms:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Dear Madame,</i></p>
+
+<p><i>If you do not fear to climb the heights of Montmartre some
+evening, will you come to see the painted pottery I am preparing
+for the Salon: you will be welcome, and will confer on us a great
+pleasure. I say 'us,' because I have excellent news of Elizabeth,
+who is returning shortly: perhaps she will be here to receive you
+with me.</i></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>I am your respectful and devoted</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Jacques Dollon.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<p>The magistrate was frowning as he handed back the letter to his
+secretary, saying: 'Keep it carefully.' Then he went into the bedroom,
+where the doctor was talking to the invalid. The doctor turned to
+Monsieur Agram:</p>
+
+<p>'Monsieur Dollon has just asked me who you are: I did not think I ought
+to hide from him that you are a superintendent of police, monsieur.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah!' cried Jacques Dollon. 'Can you help me to discover what happened
+to me last night?'</p>
+
+<p>'You have just told us yourself, monsieur,' replied the
+magistrate.... 'But have you nothing further to tell us? Can you not
+recollect whether or no you had a visitor before the arrival of the
+men who attacked you?'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, no, monsieur, no one called.'</p>
+
+<p>The doctor here intervened:</p>
+
+<p>'The pain in the leg, Monsieur Dollon complained of, need not cause any
+anxiety. It is a very slight superficial wound. A slight swelling above
+the broken skin possibly indicates an intra-muscular puncture, which
+might have been made by someone unaccustomed to such operations, for it
+is a clumsy performance. It is a queer business!...'</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Agram, who had been steadily observing Jacques Dollon,
+persisted:</p>
+
+<p>'Is there not a gap, monsieur, in your recollections of what
+occurred?... Were you quite alone yesterday evening? Were you not
+expecting anyone?... Are you certain that you did not have a visitor?
+Did not someone pay you a visit&mdash;someone you had asked to come and see
+you?'</p>
+
+<p>Jacques Dollon opened his eyes&mdash;eyes of stupefaction&mdash;and stared at the
+superintendent:</p>
+
+<p>'No, monsieur.'</p>
+
+<p>'It is that&mdash;&mdash;' went on Monsieur Agram. Then stopping short, and
+drawing the doctor aside, he asked:</p>
+
+<p>'Do you consider him in a fit state to bear a severe moral shock?... A
+confrontation?'</p>
+
+<p>The doctor glanced at his patient:</p>
+
+<p>'He appears to me to be quite himself again: you can act as you see fit,
+monsieur.'</p>
+
+<p>Jacques Dollon, astonished at this confabulation, and vaguely uneasy,
+was, in fact, able to get up without help.</p>
+
+<p>'Be good enough to go into your studio, monsieur,' said the magistrate.</p>
+
+<p>Jacques Dollon complied without a word. No sooner did he cross the
+threshold than he recoiled, terror-struck.</p>
+
+<p>He was shaking from head to foot; his lips were quivering; every feature
+expressed horrified shrinking from the spectacle confronting him.</p>
+
+<p>'The&mdash;the&mdash;the Baroness de Vibray!' he barely articulated: 'how can it
+be possible?'</p>
+
+<p>The superintendent of police did not lose a single movement made by the
+young painter, keeping a lynx-eyed watch on every expression that
+flitted across his countenance. He said:</p>
+
+<p>'It certainly is the Baroness de Vibray, dead&mdash;assassinated, no doubt.
+How do you explain that?'</p>
+
+<p>'But,' retorted Jacques Dollon, who appeared overwhelmed: 'I do not
+know! I do not understand!'</p>
+
+<p>The magistrate replied:</p>
+
+<p>'Yet, did you not invite her to your studio? Had you not asked her to
+come some evening soon? Had you not certain pieces of painted pottery to
+show her?'</p>
+
+<p>'That is so,' confessed the painter: 'but I was not aware.... I did not
+know....' He seemed about to faint. The doctor made him sit down in the
+chair where he had been found unconscious. Whilst he was recovering,
+Monsieur Agram continued his investigations. He opened a little
+cupboard, in which were several poisonous powders: this was shown by the
+writing on the flasks containing them. He spoke to the doctor, taking
+care that Jacques Dollon should not overhear him:</p>
+
+<p>'Did you not say that this woman's death is due to poison?'</p>
+
+<p>'It certainly looks like it.... A post-mortem will ...'</p>
+
+<h4><i>The Arrest</i></h4>
+
+<p>Interrupting the doctor, Monsieur Agram went up to Jacques Dollon:</p>
+
+<p>'In the exercise of your profession, monsieur, do you not make use of
+various poisons, of which you have a reserve supply here?'</p>
+
+<p>'That is so,' confirmed Jacques Dollon, in a faint voice: 'But it is a
+very long time since I employed any of them.'</p>
+
+<p>'Very good, monsieur.'</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Agram now made Madame B&eacute;ju leave the room. He asked her to
+transmit an order to his policemen: they were to drive back the crowd.
+Soon a cab brought by a constable entered the Close, and drew up before
+the door of Number 6.</p>
+
+<p>Jacques Dollon, supported by two people, descended and entered the cab.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately a rumour spread that he had been arrested.</p>
+
+<p>This rumour was correct.</p>
+
+<h4><i>Our Inquiry&mdash;Silence at Police Headquarters&mdash;Probable Motives of
+the Crime</i></h4>
+
+<p>Such are the details referring to this strange affair, which we have
+been able to procure from those who were present. But the motives which
+determined the arrest of Monsieur Dollon are obscure.</p>
+
+<p>There are, however, two suspicious facts. The first is the puncture made
+in Monsieur Jacques Dollon's left leg: this puncture is aggravated by a
+scratch. According to the doctors, soporific, injected into the human
+body by the de Pravaz syringe, acts violently and efficaciously. It is
+beyond a doubt that Monsieur Jacques Dollon has been rendered
+unconscious in this manner.</p>
+
+<p>To begin with, the painter's first version was considered the true one,
+namely, that he had been surprised by robbers, who rendered him
+unconscious; but, on reflection, this explanation would not hold water.
+Murderous house-thieves do not send people to sleep: they kill them. Add
+to this that nothing has been stolen from Monsieur Dollon: therefore,
+mere robbery was not the motive of the crime.</p>
+
+<p>Besides, Monsieur Dollon maintained that he was alone; yet at that time
+Madame de Vibray was in his studio, and was there precisely because the
+artist himself had asked her to come. We know that the Baroness de
+Vibray, who was very wealthy, took a particular interest in this young
+man and his sister.</p>
+
+<p>We should consider ourselves to blame, did we not now remind our readers
+that the names of those personages&mdash;Dollon, Vibray&mdash;implicated in the
+drama of the rue Norvins, have already figured in the chronicles of
+crimes, both recent and celebrated.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the assassination of the Marquise de Langrune cannot have been
+forgotten, an assassination which has remained a mystery, which was
+perpetrated a few years ago, and brought into prominence the
+personalities of Monsieur Rambert and the charming Th&eacute;r&egrave;se
+Auvernois....</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Vibray, who has just been so tragically done to death, was an
+intimate friend of the Marquise de Langrune....</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Jacques Dollon is a son of Madame de Langrune's old steward....</p>
+
+<p>We do not, of course, pretend to connect, in any way whatever, the drama
+of the rue Norvins with the bygone drama which ended in the execution of
+Gurn,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> but we cannot pass over in silence the strange coincidence
+that, within the space of a few years, the same halo of mystery
+surrounds the same group of individuals....</p>
+
+<p>But let us return to our narrative:</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Jacques Dollon, interrogated by the superintendent of police,
+declared that he very rarely made use of the poisons locked up in the
+little cupboard of his studio....</p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding this, it was discovered, during the course of the
+perquisition, that one of the phials containing poison had been recently
+opened, and that traces of the powder were still to be found on the
+floor. This powder is now being analysed, whilst the faculty are engaged
+in a post-mortem examination of the unfortunate victim's body; but, at
+the present moment, everything leads to the belief that there does not
+exist an immediate and certain link between this poison and the sudden
+death of the Baroness de Vibray.</p>
+
+<p>It might easily be supposed, and this we believe is the view taken at
+Police Headquarters, that for a motive as yet unknown, a motive the
+judicial examination will certainly bring to light, the artist has
+poisoned his patroness; and, in order to put the authorities on the
+wrong scent (perhaps he hoped she would leave the studio before the
+death-agony commenced), he has devised this species of tableau, invented
+the story of the masked men.</p>
+
+<p>In fact, the doctor who first attended him has declared that the
+puncture, clumsily made, might very well have been done by Jacques
+Dollon himself.</p>
+
+<p>It is worth noting that not a soul saw the Baroness de Vibray enter
+Monsieur Dollon's house yesterday evening: as a rule, she comes in her
+motor-car, and all the neighbourhood can hear her arrival.</p>
+
+<p>It seems evident that Jacques Dollon will abandon the line of defence he
+has adopted: it can hardly be described as rational.</p>
+
+<p>There is little doubt but that we shall have sensational revelations
+regarding the crime of the rue Norvins.</p>
+
+<h4><i>Last Hour</i></h4>
+
+<p>Mademoiselle Elizabeth Dollon, to whom Police Headquarters has
+telegraphed that a serious accident has happened to her brother, has
+sent a reply telegram from Lausanne to the effect that she will return
+to-night.</p>
+
+<p>The unfortunate girl is probably ignorant of all that has occurred.
+Nevertheless, we believe that two detectives have left at once for the
+frontier, where they will meet her, and shadow her as far as Paris, in
+case she should get news on the way of what had occurred, and should
+either attempt to escape, or make an attempt on her life.</p>
+
+<p>Decidedly, to-morrow promises to be a day full of vicissitudes.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>This article, published on the first page of <i>La Capitale</i>, was signed:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><span class="smcap">J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor.</span><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="II" id="II"></a>II</h2>
+
+<h3>THOMERY'S TWO LOVES</h3>
+
+
+<p>Two days before the sinister drama, details of which J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor had
+given in <i>La Capitale</i>, the smart little town house inhabited by the
+Baroness de Vibray, in the Avenue Henri-Martin, assumed a festive
+appearance.</p>
+
+<p>This did not surprise her neighbours, for they knew the owner of this
+charming residence was very much a woman of the world, whose
+reception-rooms were constantly opened to the many distinguished
+Parisians forming her circle of acquaintances.</p>
+
+<p>It was seven in the evening when the Baroness, dressed for dinner,
+passed from her own room into the small drawing-room adjoining. Crossing
+a carpet so thick and soft that it deadened the sound of footsteps, she
+pressed the button of an electric bell beside the fireplace. A
+major-domo, of the most correct appearance, presented himself.</p>
+
+<p>"The Baroness rang for me?"</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Vibray, who had instinctively sought the flattering approval
+of her mirror, half turned:</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to know if anyone called this afternoon, Antoine?"</p>
+
+<p>"For the Baroness?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!" she replied, a note of impatience in her voice: "I want to
+know if anyone called to see <i>me</i> this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, madame."</p>
+
+<p>"No one has telephoned from the Barbey-Nanteuil Bank?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, madame."</p>
+
+<p>Repressing a slight feeling of annoyance, Madame de Vibray changed the
+subject:</p>
+
+<p>"You will have dinner served as soon as the guests arrive. They will not
+be later than half-past seven, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>Antoine bowed solemnly, vanished into the anteroom, and from thence
+gained the servants' hall.</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Vibray quitted the small drawing-room. Traversing the great
+gallery with its glass roof, encircling the staircase, she entered the
+dining-room. Covers were laid for three.</p>
+
+<p>Inspecting the table arrangements with the eye of a mistress of the
+house, she straightened the line of some plates, gave a touch of
+distinction to the flowers scattered over the table in a conventional
+disorder; then she went to the sideboard, where the major-domo had left
+a china pot filled with flowers. With a slight shrug, the Baroness
+carried the pot to its usual place&mdash;a marble column at the further end
+of the room:</p>
+
+<p>"It was fortunate I came to see how things were! Antoine is a good
+fellow, but a hare-brained one too!" thought she.</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Vibray paused a moment: the light from an electric lamp shone
+on the vase and wonderfully enhanced its glittering beauty. It was a
+piece of faience decorated in the best taste. On its graceful form the
+artist had traced the lines of an old colour print, and had scrupulously
+preserved the picture born of an eighteenth-century artist's
+imagination, with its brilliancy of tone and soft background of tender
+grey. Madame de Vibray could not tear herself away from the
+contemplation of it. Not only did the design and the treatment please
+her, but she also felt a kind of maternal affection for the artist:
+"This dear Jacques," she murmured, "has decidedly a great deal of
+talent, and I like to think that in a short time his reputation...."</p>
+
+<p>Her reflections were interrupted by the servant. The good Antoine
+announced in a low voice, and with a touch of respectful reproach in his
+tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Thomery awaits the Baroness in the small drawing-room: he has
+been waiting ten minutes."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. I am coming."</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Vibray, whose movements were all harmonious grace, returned by
+way of the gallery to greet her guest. She paused on the threshold of
+the small drawing-room, smiling graciously.</p>
+
+<p>Framed in the dark drapery of the heavy door-curtains, the soft light
+from globes of ground glass falling on her, the Baroness de Vibray
+appeared a very attractive woman still. Her figure had retained its
+youthful slenderness, her neck, white as milk, was as round and fresh as
+a girl's; and had the hair about her forehead and temples not been
+turning grey&mdash;the Baroness wore it powdered, a piece of coquettish
+affection on her part&mdash;she would not have looked a day more than thirty.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Thomery rose hastily, and advanced to meet her. He kissed her
+hand with a gallant air:</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Mathilde," he declared with an admiring glance, "you are
+decidedly an exquisite woman!"</p>
+
+<p>The Baroness replied by a glance, in which there was something
+ambiguous, something of ironical mockery:</p>
+
+<p>"How are you, Norbert?" she asked in an affectionate tone.... "And those
+pains?"</p>
+
+<p>They seated themselves on a low couch, and began to discuss their
+respective aches and pains in friendly fashion. Whilst listening to his
+complaints, Madame de Vibray could not but admire his remarkable vigour,
+his air of superb health: his looks gave the lie to his words.</p>
+
+<p>About fifty-five, Monsieur Norbert Thomery seemed to be in the plenitude
+of his powers; his premature baldness was redeemed by the vivacity of
+his dark brown eyes, also by his long, thick moustache, probably dyed.
+He looked like an old soldier. He was the last of the great Thomery
+family who, for many generations, had been sugar refiners. His was a
+personality well known in Parisian Society; always first at his office
+or his factories, as soon as night fell he became the man of the world,
+frequenting fashionable drawing-rooms, theatrical first-nights, official
+receptions, and balls in the aristocratic circles of the faubourg
+Saint-Germain.</p>
+
+<p>Remarkably handsome, extremely rich, Thomery had had many love affairs.
+Gossips had it that between him and Madame de Vibray there had existed a
+tender intimacy; and, for once, gossip was right. But they had been
+tactful, had respected the conventions whilst their irregular union had
+lasted. Though now a thing of the past, for Thomery had sought other
+loves, his passion for the Baroness had changed to a calm, strong,
+semi-brotherly affection; whilst Madame de Vibray retained a more
+lively, a more tender feeling for the man whom she had known as the most
+gallant of lovers.</p>
+
+<p>Thomery suddenly ceased talking of his rheumatism:</p>
+
+<p>"But, my dear friend, I do not see that pretty smile which is your
+greatest charm! How is that?"</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Vibray looked sad: her beautiful eyes gazed deep into those of
+Thomery:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," she murmured, "one cannot be eternally smiling; life sometimes
+holds painful surprises in store for us."</p>
+
+<p>"Is something worrying you?" Thomery's tone was one of anxious sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes and no," was her evasive reply. There was a silence; then she said:</p>
+
+<p>"It is always the same thing! I have no hesitation in telling you that,
+you, my old friend: it is a money wound&mdash;happily it is not mortal."</p>
+
+<p>Thomery nodded:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I declare it is just what I expected! My poor Mathilde, are you
+never going to be sensible?"</p>
+
+<p>The Baroness pouted: "You know quite well I am sensible ... only it
+happens that there are moments when one is short of cash! Yesterday I
+asked my bankers to send me fifty thousand francs, and I have not heard
+a word from them!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is no great matter! The Barbey-Nanteuil credit cannot be shaken!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," cried the Baroness, "I have no fears on that score; but, as a
+rule, their delay in sending me what I ask for is of the briefest, yet
+no one has come from them to-day."</p>
+
+<p>Thomery began scolding her gently:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Mathilde, that you should be in such pressing need of so large a
+sum must mean that you have been drawn into some deplorable speculation!
+I will wager that you invested in those Oural copper mines after all!"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought the shares were going up," was Madame de Vibray's excuse: she
+lowered her eyes like a naughty schoolgirl caught in the act.</p>
+
+<p>Thomery, who had risen, and was walking up and down the room, halted in
+front of her:</p>
+
+<p>"I do beg of you to consult those who know all the ins and outs, persons
+competent to advise you, when you are bent on plunging into speculations
+of this description! The Barbey-Nanteuil people can give you reliable
+information; I myself, you know..."</p>
+
+<p>"But since it is really of no importance!" interrupted Madame de Vibray,
+who had no wish to listen to the remonstrances of her too prudent
+friend: "What does it matter? It is my only diversion now!... I love
+gambling&mdash;the emotions it arouses in one, the perpetual hopes and fears
+it excites!"</p>
+
+<p>Thomery was about to reply, to argue, to remonstrate further, but the
+Baroness had caught him glancing at the clock hanging beside the
+fireplace:</p>
+
+<p>"I am making you dine late," she said in a tone of apology. Then, with a
+touch of malice, and looking up at Thomery from under her eyes, to see
+how he took it:</p>
+
+<p>"You are to be rewarded for having to wait!... I have invited Princess
+Sonia Danidoff to dine with you!"</p>
+
+<p>Thomery started. He frowned. He again seated himself beside the
+Baroness:</p>
+
+<p>"You have invited her?..."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes ... and why not?... I believe this pretty woman is one of your
+special friends... that you consider her the most charming of all your
+friends now!..."</p>
+
+<p>Thomery did not take up the challenge: he simply said:</p>
+
+<p>"I had an idea that the Princess was not much to your taste!"</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of Madame de Vibray flashed a sad, strange look on her old
+friend, as she said gently:</p>
+
+<p>"One can accustom oneself to anything and everything, my dear
+friend.... Besides, I quite recognise that the Princess deserves
+the reputation she enjoys of being wonderfully beautiful and also
+intellectual...."</p>
+
+<p>Thomery did not reply to this: he looked puzzled, annoyed....</p>
+
+<p>The Baroness continued:</p>
+
+<p>"They even say that handsome bachelor, Monsieur Thomery, is not
+indifferent to her fascinations!... That, for the first time in his
+life, he is ready to link ..."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, as for that!..." Thomery was protesting, when the door opened, and
+the Princess Sonia Danidoff rustled into the room, a superbly&mdash;a
+dazzlingly beautiful vision, all audacity and charm.</p>
+
+<p>"Accept all my apologies, dear Baroness," she cried, "for arriving so
+late; but the streets are so crowded!"</p>
+
+<p>"... And I live such a long way out!" added Madame de Vibray.</p>
+
+<p>"You live in a charming part," amended the Princess. Then, catching
+sight of Thomery:</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you!" she cried. And, with a gracious and dignified gesture, the
+Princess extended her hand, which the wealthy sugar refiner hastened to
+kiss.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment the double doors were flung wide, and Antoine, with his
+most solemn air, his most stiff-starched manner, announced:</p>
+
+<p>"Dinner is served!"</p>
+
+<p>"... No," cried she, smiling, whilst she refused the arm offered by her
+old friend; "take in the Princess, dear friend; I will follow ... by
+myself!"</p>
+
+<p>Thomery obeyed. He passed slowly along the gallery into the dining-room
+with the Princess. Behind them came the Baroness, who watched them as
+they went: Thomery, big, muscular, broad-shouldered: Sonia Danidoff,
+slim, pliant, refined, dainty!</p>
+
+<p>Checking a deep sigh, the Baroness could not help thinking, and her
+heart ached at the thought:</p>
+
+<p>"What a fine couple they would make!... What a fine couple they will
+make!"</p>
+
+<p>But, as she seated herself opposite her guests, she said to herself:</p>
+
+<p>"Bah!... I must send sad thoughts flying!... It is high time!"</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Thomery!" she cried playfully: "I wish&mdash;I expect you to show
+yourself the most charming of men to your delicious neighbour!"</p>
+
+<p>Ten o'clock had struck before Madame de Vibray and her guests left the
+dinner-table and proceeded to the small drawing-room. Thomery was
+allowed to smoke in their presence; besides, the Princess had accepted a
+Turkish cigarette, and the Baroness had allowed herself a liqueur. A
+most excellent dinner and choice wines had loosened tongues, and, in
+accordance with a prearranged plan, Madame de Vibray had directed the
+conversation imperceptibly into the channels she wished it to follow.
+Thus she learned what she had feared to know, namely, that a very
+serious flirtation had been going on for some time between Thomery and
+the Princess; that between this beautiful and wealthy young widow and
+the millionaire sugar refiner, the flirtation was rapidly developing
+into something much warmer and more lasting. So far, the final stage
+had evidently not been reached; nevertheless, Thomery had suggested,
+tentatively, that he would like to give a grand ball when he took
+possession of the new house which he was having built for himself in the
+park Monceau!... And had he not been so extremely anxious to secure a
+partner for the cotillion which he meant to lead!... Then Madame de
+Vibray had suggested that the person obviously fitted to play this
+important part was the Princess Sonia Danidoff! Who better!</p>
+
+<p>The suggestion was welcomed by both: it was settled there and then.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," thought the Baroness, "Thomery's marriage is practically
+arranged, that is evident!... Well, I must resign myself to the
+inevitable!"</p>
+
+<p>It was about half-past eleven when Sonia Danidoff rose to take leave of
+her hostess. Thomery, hesitating, looked first at his old friend, then
+at the Princess, asking himself what he ought to do. Madame de Vibray
+felt secretly grateful to him for this momentary hesitation. As a woman
+whose mourning for a dead love is over, she spoke out bravely:</p>
+
+<p>"Dear friend," said she, "surely you are not going to let the Princess
+return alone?... I hope she will allow you to see her safely home?"</p>
+
+<p>The Princess pressed the hands of her generous hostess: she was radiant:</p>
+
+<p>"What a good kind friend you are!" she cried in an outburst of sincere
+affection. Then, with a questioning glance, in which there was a touch
+of uneasiness, a slight hesitation, she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, do let me kiss you!"</p>
+
+<p>For all reply Madame de Vibray opened her arms; the two women clung
+together, sealing with their kiss the treaty of peace both wished to
+keep.</p>
+
+<p>When the humming of the motor-car, which bore off the Princess and
+Thomery, had died away in the distance, Madame de Vibray retired to her
+room. A tear rolled down her cheek:</p>
+
+<p>"A little bit of my heart has gone with them," she murmured. The poor
+woman sighed deeply: "Ah, it is my whole heart that has gone!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a discreet knock at the door. She mastered her emotion. It was
+the dignified mistress of the house who said quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"Come in!"</p>
+
+<p>It was Antoine, who presented two letters on a silver salver. He
+explained that, believing his mistress to be anxiously awaiting some
+news, he had ventured to bring up the last post at this late hour.</p>
+
+<p>After bidding Antoine good night, she recalled him to say:</p>
+
+<p>"Please tell the maid not to come up. I shall not require her. I can
+manage by myself."</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Vibray went towards the little writing-table, which stood in
+one corner of her room; in leisurely fashion she sat down and proceeded
+to open her letters with a wearied air.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it's from that nice Jacques Dollon!" she exclaimed, as she read
+the first letter she opened: "I was thinking of him at this very
+minute!" ... "Yes," she went on, as she read, "I shall certainly pay him
+a visit soon!"</p>
+
+<p>Madame de Vibray put Jacques Dollon's letter in her handbag, recognising
+on the back of the second letter the initials B. N., which she knew to
+be the discreet superscription on the business paper of her bankers,
+Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil. It was long and closely written, in a fine,
+regular hand. When she began to read it her attention was wandering, for
+her mind was full of Sonia Danidoff and Thomery, and what she had
+ascertained regarding their relation to each other; but little by little
+she became absorbed in what she was reading, till her whole attention
+was taken captive. As she read on, however, her eyes opened more and
+more widely, there was a look of keenest anguish in them, her features
+contracted as if in pain, her bosom heaved, her fingers were trembling
+under the stress of some intense emotion:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my God! Ah! My God!" she gasped out several times in a half-choked
+voice.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Silence had reigned for a long while in the smart town house of the
+Baroness de Vibray in the Avenue Henri-Martin....</p>
+
+<p>From without came no sound; the avenue was quiet, deserted; the night
+was dark. But when three o'clock struck, the bedroom of Madame de Vibray
+was still flooded with light. She had not left her writing-table since
+she had read the letter of her bankers, Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil. She
+wrote on, and on, without intermission.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III</h2>
+
+<h3>UNEXPECTED COMPLICATIONS</h3>
+
+
+<p>At nine o'clock in the morning, the staff of that great evening paper,
+<i>La Capitale</i>, were assembled in the vast editorial room, writing out
+their copy, in the midst of a perfect hubbub of continual comings and
+goings, of regular shindies, of perpetual discussions.</p>
+
+<p>A stranger entering this room, which among its frequenters went by the
+name of "The Wild Beasts' Cage," might easily have thought he was
+witnessing some thirty schoolboys at play in recreation time, instead of
+being in the presence of famous journalists celebrated for their reports
+and articles.</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor had no sooner appeared on the threshold than he was
+accorded a variety of greetings&mdash;ironical, cordial, fault-finding,
+sympathetic. But he ignored them all; for, like most of those who came
+into the editorial room at this hour, he was preoccupied with one thing
+only&mdash;where the caprice of his editorial secretary would send him flying
+for news, in the course of a few minutes? On what difficult and delicate
+quest would he be despatched? It depended on the exigencies of passing
+events, on how questions of the hour struck the editorial secretary, in
+relation to Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>Just as he had expected, the editorial secretary called him.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! Fandor, come here a minute! I am on the make-up: what have you got
+for to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. Who has charge of the landing of the King of Spain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Maray. He has just left. Have you seen the last issue of <i>l'Havas</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here it is...."</p>
+
+<p>The two men ran rapidly through the night's telegrams.</p>
+
+<p>"Deplorably empty!" remarked the editorial secretary. "But where am I to
+send you?... Ah, now I have it! That article of yours on the rue Norvins
+affair, yesterday evening, was interesting&mdash;it made the others squirm, I
+know! Isn't there anything more to be got out of that story?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you stick in something just a little bit scandalous about the
+Baroness de Vibray? Or about Dollon? About no matter whom, in fact?
+After all, it's our one and only crime to-day, and you must put in
+something under that head!..."</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor seemed to hesitate.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like me to rake up the past&mdash;refer to what happened before?"</p>
+
+<p>"What past?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come now, you must have an inkling of what I refer to!"</p>
+
+<p>"Not I!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, my dear fellow, it will not be the first time we have had to
+mention these personages in our columns!... Just cast your mind back to
+the Gurn affair!..."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, the drama in which a great lady was implicated ... to her
+detriment! Lady ... Lady Beltham?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have got it! These Dollons&mdash;Jacques and Elizabeth&mdash;did you know
+it?&mdash;happen to be the children of old Dollon, who was murdered in the
+train&mdash;an extraordinary murder!&mdash;when on his way to Paris, to give
+evidence in the Gurn case?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course! I remember perfectly!" declared the editorial
+secretary: "Dollon, the father, was the Marquise de Langrune's
+steward!... The old lady who was murdered!... Isn't that so?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's it!... But, after the death of his mistress, he entered the
+service of the Baroness de Vibray, she who was assassinated yesterday!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I must say they have not been favoured by fortune," said the
+secretary jokingly. "But, look here, Fandor&mdash;like father, like son,
+eh?... If this young Dollon has murdered Madame de Vibray, doesn't that
+make you think that his father was the murderer of the Marquise de
+Langrune?"</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor shook his head:</p>
+
+<p>"No, old boy, yesterday's crime was ordinary, even common-place, but the
+assassination of the Marquise de Langrune, on the contrary, gave the
+police no end of bother."</p>
+
+<p>"They did not find out anything, did they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes!... Don't you remember?... Naturally enough, it must all seem
+rather remote to you, but I have all the details as clearly in mind as
+if they had happened only yesterday.... The Gurn affair was one of the
+first I had a hand in, with Juve ... it was in connection with that very
+affair I made my start here on <i>La Capitale</i>."<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p>Fandor grew pale:</p>
+
+<p>"And you were jolly proud of it, eh, Fandor?... Good Heavens, how you
+did hold forth about this Juve! And you regularly fed us up with this
+villain, so mysterious, so extraordinary, who was never run to earth,
+could not be captured, was capable of the most inhuman cruelties,
+capable of devising the most unimaginable tricks and stratagems&mdash;this
+Fant&ocirc;mas!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor grew pale:</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow," said he, "never speak sneeringly or jokingly of
+Fant&ocirc;mas!... No doubt it is taken for granted, by the public at any
+rate, that Fant&ocirc;mas is an invention of Juve and myself: that Fant&ocirc;mas
+never existed!... And that because this monster, who is a man of genius,
+has never been identified; because not a soul has been able to lay hands
+on him ...; and because, as you know, this fruitless pursuit has cost
+poor Juve his life...."</p>
+
+<p>"The truth is, this famous detective died a foul death!"</p>
+
+<p>"No! You are mistaken! Juve died on the field of honour! When, after a
+terribly difficult and dangerous investigation, he succeeded (by this
+time it was no longer the Gurn-Fant&ocirc;mas affair, but that of the
+boulevard Inkermann at Neuilly) in cornering Fant&ocirc;mas, he was well aware
+that he risked his life in entering the bandit's abode. What happened
+was that the villain found means to blow up the house, and to bury Juve
+underneath the ruins.<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Fant&ocirc;mas has proved the stronger; but,
+according to my ideas, Juve has had, none the less, the finest death he
+could desire&mdash;death in the midst of the fight&mdash;a useful death!"</p>
+
+<p>"Useful? In what way?..."</p>
+
+<p>"My dear fellow," cried Fandor, in a tone of vigorous denial, "in the
+opinion of all unprejudiced minds, the death of Juve has proved, proved
+up to the hilt, the existence of Fant&ocirc;mas.... More, it has forced this
+villain to disappear; it has restored peace, tranquillity to
+society.... At the cost of his life, Juve has scored a final triumph,
+he has deprived Fant&ocirc;mas of the power to do harm&mdash;pared his claws in
+fact."</p>
+
+<p>"The truth is he is never mentioned now by a soul ... for all that,
+Fandor, only to see you smile! Why&mdash;," and the editorial secretary shook
+a threatening finger at his colleague: "I'll wager you still believe in
+Fant&ocirc;mas!... That one fine day you will write us a rattling good
+article, announcing some fresh Fant&ocirc;mas crime!"</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor made no direct reply to this&mdash;it was useless to try and
+convince those who had not closely followed the records of crimes
+perpetrated during recent years: you could not make them believe in the
+existence of Fant&ocirc;mas. Fandor <i>knew</i>; but, Juve dead, was there another
+soul who could know the true facts?</p>
+
+<p>All he said was:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear fellow, this does not tell us what we are to fill up the
+paper with now!... If the doings connected with Fant&ocirc;mas are frightful,
+rousing our feelings in the highest degree, I repeat that yesterday's
+crime bears no resemblance to them: we can put in a paragraph or
+so&mdash;that is all!"</p>
+
+<p>"No way, is there, of compromising anyone with our Baroness de Vibray?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so! It's a perfectly common-place affair. An elderly
+woman patronises a young painter, whose mistress she may or may not be,
+and she ends up by getting herself assassinated when the young man
+imagines he is mentioned in her will."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! good! Well, I think you will have to fall back on the opening of
+the artesian well. That suit you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, quite all right!... If you like I can give you my copy in half an
+hour. I know who are going to speak at the inauguration ceremony, and I
+can add names this evening! You know I am a bit of a specialist as
+regards reports written beforehand!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had got well on with his article: at the rate he was going he
+would have finished that morning, he thought with pleasure, and would
+have a free afternoon. Just then an office boy appeared:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Fandor, you are being asked for at the telephone."</p>
+
+<p>Like most journalists, Fandor was accustomed to reply in nine cases out
+of ten, in similar cases, that he was not to be found. On this occasion,
+however, some interior prompting made him say:</p>
+
+<p>"I will come."</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later Fandor went up to the editorial secretary:</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, old fellow, something unexpected has happened.... I must go
+to the Palais de Justice ... you don't want me for anything else this
+morning, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, go along! But what's up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh ... this Jacques Dollon, you know, the assassin of the rue Norvins?
+Well, this imbecile has gone and hanged himself in his cell!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>At the exit door of <i>La Capitale</i>, in the noisy rue Montmartre, crowded
+with costermongers' barrows, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor hailed a taxi.</p>
+
+<p>"To the Palais!"</p>
+
+<p>Some minutes later he was crossing the hall of the Wandering Footsteps
+(as it is called), giving rapid, cordial greetings to all the barristers
+of his acquaintance&mdash;one never knew when they might impart a special
+piece of information which let an enterprising journalist into the know,
+or put him early on to a good thing&mdash;and finally reached the lobbies of
+the Law Courts proper. He was saying to himself as he went along:</p>
+
+<p>"He is a good fellow, Jouet! The news is not known yet! He telephoned me
+first!"</p>
+
+<p>His friend Jouet met him, with a warm handshake:</p>
+
+<p>"You did not seem to be in a good temper at the telephone just now,
+although I was giving you a nice bit of information!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," retorted Fandor, "but information which simply proved how much
+the administrators of justice, to which you have the misfortune to
+belong, can make egregious mistakes! When, for once, you succeed in
+immediately arresting the assassin of someone well known, and are in a
+position to bring into play all the power and rigour of the law, you are
+clumsy enough to give the fellow a chance of punishing himself, you let
+him commit suicide on the very first night of his arrest!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had been speaking in a fairly loud voice, as usual, but, at
+imperative signs made by his friend, he lowered his tones:</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>His friend rose:</p>
+
+<p>"What we are going to do, old boy, is to take a turn in the galleries!
+I have something to say to you, and, joking apart, you are not to
+breathe a word of it to a soul&mdash;sh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Count on me!"</p>
+
+<p>Presently the two friends found themselves in one of the corridors of
+the Palais, known only to barristers and those accused of law-breaking.</p>
+
+<p>"Come now!" cried Fandor, "your assassin has hanged himself, hasn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"My assassin!" expostulated the junior barrister: "My assassin! Allow me
+to inform you that Jacques Dollon is innocent!"</p>
+
+<p>"Innocent?" J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor shrugged a disbelieving shoulder: "Innocent!
+It is the fashion of the day to transform all murderers into
+innocents!... What ground have you for making such a declaration of
+innocence?"</p>
+
+<p>"Here is my ground! I have just copied it out for you! Read!..."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor hastened to read the paper handed to him by his friend. It was
+headed thus:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>Copy of a letter brought by Ma&icirc;tre G&eacute;rin to the Public
+Prosecutor, a letter addressed to Ma&icirc;tre G&eacute;rin by the Baroness de
+Vibray.</i>"</p></div>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's a plant!" cried Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on reading, you will see...."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor continued:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>My dear Ma&icirc;tre</i>,&mdash;</p>
+
+<p><i>You will forgive me, I am certain of that, for all the
+inconvenience I am going to cause you; I turn to you because you
+are the only friend in whom I have confidence.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I have just received a letter from my bankers, Messieurs
+Barbey-Nanteuil, of whom I have often spoken to you, who you know
+manage all my money affairs for me.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>This letter informs me that I am ruined. You quite
+understand&mdash;absolutely, completely ruined.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>The house I am living in, my carriage, the luxurious surroundings
+so necessary to me, I shall have to give it all up, so they tell
+me.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>These people have dealt me a terrible blow, struck me
+brutally....</i></p>
+
+<p><i>My dear ma&icirc;tre, I learned this only two hours ago, and I am still
+stunned by it. I do not wish to wait for the inevitable moment when
+I shall begin to console myself, because I shall begin to hope that
+the disaster is exaggerated. I have no family, I am already old;
+apart from the satisfaction it gives me to use my influence on
+behalf of youthful talent, and to help forward its development, my
+life has no sense in it, it is without aim or object. My dear
+ma&icirc;tre, there are not two ways of announcing to one's friends
+resolutions analogous to that I now take: when you receive this
+letter I shall be dead.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I have in front of me, on my writing-table, a tiny phial of poison
+which I am going to drink to the last drop, without any weakening
+of will, almost without fear, as soon as I have posted this letter
+to you myself.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I must confess that I have an instinctive horror of being dragged
+to the Morgue, as happens whenever there is some doubt about a
+suicide. It is on account of this I now write to you, so that,
+thanks to your intervention, all the mistakes justice is liable to
+make may be avoided.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I kill myself, I only; that is certain.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>No one must be incriminated in connection with my death, if it be
+not Fatality, which has caused my ruin. I once more apologise, my
+dear ma&icirc;tre, for all the measures you will be forced to take owing
+to my death, and I beg you to believe that my friendship for you
+was very sincere:</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Signed:</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Baroness de Vibray</span>."</p></div>
+
+<p>"Good for you!" cried Fandor. "Here's a go! What a pretty petard in
+prospect!... Jacques Dollon was innocent; you arrest him; he is so
+terrified that he hangs himself! Well, old boy, I must say you make some
+fine blunders on Clock Quay!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is nobody's fault!" protested the young barrister.</p>
+
+<p>"That is to say," retorted Fandor, "it is everybody's fault! By Jove! If
+you let innocent prisoners hang themselves in their cells, I am no
+longer surprised that you leave the guilty at liberty to walk the
+streets at their sweet will!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't make a joke of it, old boy!... You understand, of course, that so
+far no one in the Palais has seen the letter! It has just been brought
+to the Public Prosecutor's office by Madame de Vibray's solicitor,
+Ma&icirc;tre G&eacute;rin. You came on the scene only a few minutes after I had sent
+up the original to the examining magistrate. The case is in Fuselier's
+hands."</p>
+
+<p>"Is he in his office?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly! He should proceed with the examination relative to poor
+Dollon this morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well then, I will go up. I shall jolly soon get out of this booby
+of a Fuselier the information I need to make one of the best reports I
+have ever written. And you know, I am ever so obliged to you for the
+matter you've given me! But, mind you, I am going to put together a bit
+of copy that will not deal tenderly with our gentlemen of the robe&mdash;the
+lot of you! No, it is a bad, unlucky business enough, but it is even
+more funny&mdash;it is tragi-comedy!"</p>
+
+<p>"For my part ..." began Fandor's barrister friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes! Good day, Pontius Pilate!" cried Fandor. "I am going up to
+Fuselier.... We must meet to-morrow!"</p>
+
+<p>Hastening along the corridors, Fandor gained the office of the examining
+magistrate.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Fandor had known the magistrate a long while. Was not Fuselier the
+justice who, with Detective Juve, had had everything to do with the
+strangely mysterious cases associated with the name of Fant&ocirc;mas? In the
+course of his various judicial examinations he had often been able to
+give Fandor information and help. At first hostile to the constant
+preoccupation of Juve and Fandor&mdash;for long the arrest of Fant&ocirc;mas was
+their one aim&mdash;the young magistrate had gradually come to believe in
+what had seemed to him nothing but the detective's hypothesis.
+Open-minded, gifted with an alert intelligence, Fuselier had carefully
+followed the investigations of Juve and Fandor. He knew every detail,
+every vicissitude connected with the tracking of this elusive bandit.
+Since then the magistrate had taken the deepest interest in the pursuit
+of the criminal. Thanks to his support, Juve had been enabled to take
+various measures, otherwise almost impossible, avoid the many obstacles
+offered by legal procedure, risk the striking of many a blow he could
+not otherwise have ventured on.</p>
+
+<p>Fuselier had a high opinion of Juve, and his attitude to Fandor was
+sympathetic.</p>
+
+<p>Our journalist was going over the past as he hastened along:</p>
+
+<p>Ah, if only Juve were here! If only this loyal servant of Justice, this
+sincerest of friends, this bravest of the brave, had not been struck
+down, Fandor would have been full of enthusiasm for the Dollon affair;
+for its interest was increasing, its mystery deepening! But Fandor was
+single-handed now! He had had a miraculous escape from the bomb which
+had blown up Lady Beltham's house on that tragic day when Juve had all
+but laid hands on Fant&ocirc;mas!</p>
+
+<p>But Fandor would not allow himself to become disheartened&mdash;never that!
+In the school of his vanished friend he had learned to give himself up
+with single-minded devotion to any task he took up; his sole
+satisfaction being duty well fulfilled.... Well, the Dollon case should
+be cleared up!... To do so was to render a service to humanity! Having
+come to this conclusion he hastened to interview Monsieur Fuselier.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Monsieur Fuselier," cried Fandor as he shook hands with the magistrate,
+"you must know quite well why I have come to see you!"</p>
+
+<p>"About the rue Norvins affair?"</p>
+
+<p>"Say rather about the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t affair! It is there the affair became
+tragic."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Fuselier smiled:</p>
+
+<p>"You know then?"</p>
+
+<p>"That Jacques Dollon has hanged himself? Yes. That he was innocent?
+Again, yes!" confessed Fandor, smiling in his turn: "You know that at
+<i>La Capitale</i> we get all the information going, and are the first to get
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently," conceded the magistrate. "But if you know all about it, why
+put my professional discretion to the torture by asking absurd
+questions?"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, what the deuce are they about on Clock Quay? Don't they supervise
+the accused in their cells?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly they do! When this Dollon arrived at the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t he was
+immediately conducted to Monsieur Bertillon: there he was measured and
+tested, finger marks taken, and so on."</p>
+
+<p>"Just so," said Fandor. "I saw Bertillon before coming on to you. He
+told me Dollon seemed crushed: he submitted to all the tests without
+making the slightest objection; but he never spoke of suicide, never
+said anything which could lead one to imagine such a fatal termination."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he would not cry it aloud on the housetops!... When he left
+Monsieur Bertillon, what then?"</p>
+
+<p>"After!... Oh, the police took him to a cell, and left him there. At
+midnight the chief warder made his rounds and saw nothing abnormal. It
+was in the morning they found this unfortunate Dollon had hanged
+himself."</p>
+
+<p>"What did he hang himself with?"</p>
+
+<p>"With strips of his shirt twisted into a rope.... Oh, my dear fellow, I
+see what you are thinking! You fancy that there has been a want of
+common prudence&mdash;that the warders were lax&mdash;that they had let him retain
+his braces, his cravat or his shoe laces!... Well, it was not
+so&mdash;precautions were taken."</p>
+
+<p>"And this suicide remains incomprehensible!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well!... This wretched youth must have been ferociously energetic,
+because he had fastened these shirt ropes of his to the iron bars of his
+bed, and strangled himself by lying on his back. Death must have been
+long in coming to release him from his agony."</p>
+
+<p>"Can I not see him?" asked Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not photograph him?" asked the magistrate in a bantering tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if it were possible!..." Fandor stopped short. A youth knocked and
+entered:</p>
+
+<p>"A lady, who wishes to see you, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her I am too busy."</p>
+
+<p>"She asked me to say that it is urgent."</p>
+
+<p>"Ask her name."</p>
+
+<p>"Here is her card, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Fuselier looked at the card: he started!</p>
+
+<p>"Elizabeth Dollon!... Ah ... Good Heavens, what am I to say to this poor
+girl? How am I to tell her?"</p>
+
+<p>Just then the door was pushed violently open, and a girl, in tears,
+rushed towards him:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, where is my brother?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, mademoiselle!..."</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the magistrate mechanically asked his distracted visitor to sit
+down, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor discreetly withdrew to the further side of the room;
+he was anxious that the magistrate should forget his presence, so that
+he might be a witness of what promised to be a most exciting interview.</p>
+
+<p>"Pray control yourself, mademoiselle," begged the magistrate. "Your
+brother has perhaps been arrested through a mistake...."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, monsieur, I am sure of it, but it is frightful!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle, the dreadful thing would be that he was guilty."</p>
+
+<p>"But they have not set him at liberty yet? He has not been able to clear
+himself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, mademoiselle, he has vindicated himself, I even ..." Monsieur
+Fuselier stopped short, intensely pained, not knowing how to tell
+Elizabeth Dollon the terrible news.</p>
+
+<p>At once she cried: "Ah, monsieur, you hesitate! You have learned
+something fresh? You are on the track of the assassins?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is certain ... your brother is not guilty!"</p>
+
+<p>The poor girl's countenance suddenly brightened. She had passed a
+horrible night after her return to Paris, and the receipt of the wire
+from Police Headquarters.</p>
+
+<p>"What a nightmare!" she cried. "But the telegram said he was
+injured&mdash;nothing serious, is it?... Where is he now? Can I see him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle," said the magistrate, "your brother has had a terrible
+shock!... It would be better!... I fear that!..."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Elizabeth Dollon cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, monsieur, how you said that! How can seeing me do him harm?"</p>
+
+<p>As Monsieur Fuselier did not reply, she burst into tears:</p>
+
+<p>"You are hiding something from me! The papers said this morning that he
+also was a victim! Swear to me that he is not?"</p>
+
+<p>"But ..."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>are</i> hiding something from me!" The poor girl was frantic with
+terror: she wrung her hands in a state of despair: "Where is he? I must
+see him! Oh, take pity on me!"</p>
+
+<p>As she watched the magistrate's downcast look, his air of discomfiture,
+the horrid truth flashed on Elizabeth Dollon:</p>
+
+<p>"Dead!" she cried. She was shaken with sobs.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle!... Oh, mademoiselle!" implored the magistrate, filled
+with pity. He tried to find some words of consolation, and this
+confirmed her worst fears:</p>
+
+<p>"I swear to you!... It is certain your brother was not guilty!"</p>
+
+<p>The distracted girl was beyond listening to the magistrate's words!
+Huddled up in an arm-chair, she lay inert, collapsed. Presently she rose
+like a person moving in some mad dream, her eyes wild:</p>
+
+<p>"Take me to him!... I want to see him! They have killed him for me!... I
+must see him!"</p>
+
+<p>Such was her insistence, the violence with which she claimed the right
+to go to her brother, to kneel beside him, that Monsieur Fuselier dared
+not refuse her this consolation.</p>
+
+<p>"Control yourself, I beg of you! I am going to take you to him; but, for
+Heaven's sake, be reasonable! Control yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>With his eyes he sought for the moral support of Fandor, whose presence
+he suddenly remembered. But our journalist, taking advantage of the
+momentary confusion, had quietly slipped from the room.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently some unpleasant occurrence had upset the routine existence of
+the functionaries at the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t. The warders were coming and going,
+talking among themselves, leaning against the doors of the numerous
+cells. The chief warder called one of his men:</p>
+
+<p>"There must be no more of this disorder, Nibet!"</p>
+
+<p>The chief warder was furious: he was about to hold forth to his
+subordinate, when an inspector approached.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Sergeant, it is Monsieur Jouet. He has a gentleman with him. He has a
+permit. Should I allow him to enter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who? Monsieur Jouet?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, the gentleman accompanying him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hang it all! Why, yes&mdash;if he has a permit!"</p>
+
+<p>The sergeant moved away shrugging his shoulders disgustedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not pleased with things this morning, the chief isn't," one of the
+warders remarked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not likely, after last night's performance!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's he who will catch it hot over this business!" The warder rubbed
+his hands, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Fandor had appeared at the entrance of the corridor, under
+the guidance of a warder. He was thinking of the splendid copy he had
+secured: he was hoping that when Fuselier learned that a journalist had
+obtained admittance to the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t, and had seen the corpse of Jacques
+Dollon in his cell, that he would not turn vicious: "But after all,"
+said he to himself, "Fuselier is not the man to give me the go-by out of
+spite."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor walked up and down the hall of the prison. He had informed the
+warders that he was waiting for the magistrate. "How strange life is!"
+thought he. "To think that once again I should be brought into close
+contact with Elizabeth Dollon, and that there is no likelihood of her
+recognising me&mdash;we were such children when we parted&mdash;she especially!
+Had she any recollection of the little rascal I was at the time of poor
+Madame de Langrune's assassination?" And, closing his eyes, Fandor tried
+to call to mind the features of the Jacques Dollon he used to know: it
+was useless! The body of Jacques Dollon he would be gazing at in a few
+minutes would be that of an unknown person, whose name alone awakened
+memories of bygone days....</p>
+
+<p>So to pass the time Fandor continued his marching up and down.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Fuselier appeared at the entrance to the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t, supporting the
+unsteady steps of poor Elizabeth Dollon. Fandor quickly drew back into
+an obscure corner:</p>
+
+<p>"Better not attract attention to myself just at present," thought
+Fandor; "I will wait until the cell door is opened. If Fuselier does
+not wish to give me permission to remain, I can at any rate cast a rapid
+glance round that ill-omened little cell!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor followed, at a distance, the wavering steps of the poor girl whom
+Monsieur Fuselier was supporting with fatherly care.</p>
+
+<p>When they paused before one of the cells pointed out by the head warder,
+Monsieur Fuselier turned to Elizabeth Dollon:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think you are strong enough to bear this trial, mademoiselle?...
+You are determined to see your brother?"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth bent her head; the magistrate turned towards the warder:</p>
+
+<p>"Open," said he. As the key was turned in the lock he said: "According
+to instructions from the Head, we have placed him on his bed again....
+There is nothing to frighten you ... he seems to be asleep.... Now
+then!"</p>
+
+<p>But as he opened the door, stretching his arm in the direction of the
+bed where the body of Jacques Dollon should be, an oath escaped him:</p>
+
+<p>"Great Heavens! The dead man is gone!"</p>
+
+<p>In this cell with its bare walls, its sole furniture an iron bedstead
+and a stool riveted to the floor, in this little cell which the eye
+could glance round in a second, there was no vestige of a corpse:
+Jacques Dollon's body was not there!</p>
+
+<p>"You have mistaken the cell," said the magistrate sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" cried the astounded warder.</p>
+
+<p>"You can see, can't you, that Jacques Dollon is not there?"</p>
+
+<p>"He was there a few minutes ago!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then they must have taken him somewhere else!"</p>
+
+<p>"The keys have never left me!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come now!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir. He was there ... now he isn't there! That's all I know!...
+Hey! You down there!" yelled the warder: "Who knows what has become of
+the corpse of cell 12?... The corpse we laid out just now?"</p>
+
+<p>One after the other the warders came running. All confirmed what their
+chief had said: the dead body of Jacques Dollon had been left there,
+lying on the bed: not a soul had entered the cell: not a soul had
+touched the corpse!... Yet it was no longer there! J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor, well
+in the background, followed the scene with an ironical smile. The
+frantic warders, the growing stupefaction of Monsieur Fuselier, amused
+him prodigiously. The magistrate was trying to understand the how, why,
+and wherefore of this incredible disappearance:</p>
+
+<p>"As this man is not here, he cannot have been dead ... he has escaped
+... but if he wanted to escape he must have been guilty!... Oh, I cannot
+make head or tail of it!"</p>
+
+<p>Seizing the head warder by the shoulders, almost roughly, Monsieur
+Fuselier asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, chief, was this man dead, or was he not?"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth Dollon was repeating:</p>
+
+<p>"He lives! He lives!" and laughing wildly.</p>
+
+<p>The warder raised his hand as though taking a solemn oath:</p>
+
+<p>"As to being dead, he was dead right enough!... The doctor will tell you
+so, too: also my colleague, Favril, who helped me to lay out the body on
+the bed."</p>
+
+<p>"But how can a dead body get away from here? If he <i>was</i> dead, he could
+not have escaped!" said the magistrate.</p>
+
+<p>"It is witchcraft!" declared the warder, with a shrug.</p>
+
+<p>Fuselier flew into a rage:</p>
+
+<p>"Had you not better confess that you and your colleagues did not keep
+proper watch and ward!... The investigation will show on whose shoulders
+the responsibility rests."</p>
+
+<p>"But, sakes alive, monsieur!" expostulated the warder: "There aren't
+only two of us who have seen him dead!... There are all the hospital
+attendants of the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t as well!... There is the doctor, and there are
+my colleagues to be counted in: the truth is, monsieur, some fifty
+persons have seen him dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"So you say!" cried the impatient magistrate: "I am going to inform the
+Public Prosecutor of what has happened, and at once!"</p>
+
+<p>As he was hurrying away, he spied J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor, who had not missed a
+single detail of the scene.</p>
+
+<p>"You again!" exclaimed the irate magistrate: "How did you get in here?"</p>
+
+<p>"By permit," replied our journalist.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you have learned what there is to know, haven't you? Be off,
+then! You are one too many here!... Frankly, there is no need for you to
+augment the scandal!... Will you, therefore, be kind enough to take
+yourself off?" And Fuselier, almost beside himself with rage, raced off
+to the Public Prosecutor's office.</p>
+
+<p>After the magistrate's furious attack, Fandor could not possibly linger
+in the corridors of the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t. The warders, too, were pressing their
+attentions on him and on Elizabeth Dollon:</p>
+
+<p>"This way, monsieur!... Madame, this way!... Ah, it's a wretched
+business!... Here, this way! This way!... Be off, as fast as you can!"</p>
+
+<p>Presently Fandor was descending the grand staircase of the Palais,
+steadying the uncertain steps of poor Elizabeth Dollon.</p>
+
+<p>"I implore you to help me!" she cried: "Help me: help us! My brother is
+guiltless&mdash;I could swear to that!... He must&mdash;must be found!... This
+hideous nightmare must end!"</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle, I ask nothing better, only ... where to find him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I have no idea, none!... I implore you, you who must know
+influential people in high places, do not leave any stone unturned, do
+all that is humanly possible to save him&mdash;to save us!"</p>
+
+<p>Intensely moved by the poor girl's anguish of mind, Fandor could not
+trust himself to speak. He bent his head in the affirmative merely.
+Hailing a cab, he put her into it, gave the address to the driver, and
+as he was closing the door Elizabeth cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Do all that is humanly possible&mdash;do everything in the world!"</p>
+
+<p>"I swear to you I will get at the truth," was Fandor's parting promise.
+The cab had disappeared, but our journalist stood motionless, absorbed
+in his reflections. At last, uttering his thoughts aloud, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"If the Baroness de Vibray has written that she has killed herself, then
+she has killed herself, and Dollon is innocent. It's true the letter may
+be fictitious ... therefore we must put it aside&mdash;we have no guarantee
+as to its genuineness.... Here is the problem: Jacques Dollon is dead,
+and yet has left the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t! Yes, but how?"</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor went off in the direction of the offices of <i>La Capitale</i>
+so absorbed in thought that he jostled the passers-by, without noticing
+the angry glances bestowed on him:</p>
+
+<p>"Jacques Dollon, dead, has left the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t!" He repeated this improbable
+statement, so absurd, of necessity incorrect; repeated it to the point
+of satiety:</p>
+
+<p>"Jacques Dollon is dead, and he has got away from the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, in an illuminating flash, he perceived the solution of this
+apparently insoluble problem:</p>
+
+<p>"A mystery such as this is incomprehensible, inexplicable, impossible,
+except in connection with one man! There is only one individual in the
+world capable of making a dead man seem to be alive after his death&mdash;and
+this individual is&mdash;Fant&ocirc;mas!"</p>
+
+<p>To formulate this conclusion was to give himself a thrilling shock....
+Since the disappearance of Juve, he had never had occasion to suspect
+the presence, the intervention of Fant&ocirc;mas in connection with any of
+the crimes he had investigated as reporter and student of human nature.</p>
+
+<p>Fant&ocirc;mas! The sound of that name evoked the worst horrors! Fant&ocirc;mas!
+This bandit, this criminal who has not shrunk from any cruelty, any
+horror&mdash;Fant&ocirc;mas is crime personified!</p>
+
+<p>Fant&ocirc;mas! He sticks at nothing!</p>
+
+<p>Pronouncing these syllables of evil omen, Fandor lived over again all
+the extraordinary, improbable, impossible things that had really
+happened, and had put him on the watch for this terrifying assassin.</p>
+
+<p>Fant&ocirc;mas!</p>
+
+<p>It was certain that to whatever degree he had participated in the
+assassination of the Baroness de Vibray, one must not be astonished at
+anything; neither at anything inconceivable, nor at any mysterious
+details connected with the murder.</p>
+
+<p>Fant&ocirc;mas!</p>
+
+<p>He was the daring criminal&mdash;daring beyond all bounds of credibility. And
+whatever might be the dexterity, the ingenuity, the ability, the
+devotion of those who were pursuing him, such were his tricks, such his
+craft and cunning, such the fertility of his invention, so well
+conceived his devices, so great his audacity, that there were grounds
+for fearing he would never be brought to justice, and punished for his
+abominable crimes!</p>
+
+<p>Fant&ocirc;mas!</p>
+
+<p>Ah, if life ever brought J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor and this bandit face to face,
+there would ensue a struggle of every hour, day, and moment&mdash;a struggle
+of the most terrible nature, a struggle in which man was pitted against
+man, a struggle without pity, without mercy&mdash;a fight to the death!
+Fant&ocirc;mas would assuredly defend himself with all the immense elusive
+powers at his command: J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor would pursue him with heart and
+soul, with his very life itself! It was not only to satisfy his sense of
+duty at the promptings of honour that the journalist would take action:
+he would have as guide for his acts, and to animate his will, the
+passion of hate, and the hope of avenging his friend Juve, fallen a
+victim to the mysterious blows of Fant&ocirc;mas.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In his article for <i>La Capitale</i> Fandor did not directly mention the
+possible participation of Fant&ocirc;mas in the crime of the rue Norvins. When
+it was finished he returned to his modest little flat on the fifth floor
+in the rue Bergere. He was about to enter the vestibule, when he noticed
+a piece of paper, which must have been slipped under his door. He
+stooped and picked up an envelope:</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it is a letter&mdash;and there is no name and no stamp on it!"</p>
+
+<p>Entering his study, he seated himself at his table and prepared to begin
+work. Then he bethought him of the letter, which he had carelessly
+thrown on the mantelpiece. He tore it open, and drew out a sheet of
+letter paper.</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever is this?" he cried. His astonishment was natural enough, for
+the message was oddly put together. To prevent his handwriting being
+recognised, Fandor's correspondent had cut letters out of a newspaper,
+and had stuck them together in the desired order. The two or three lines
+of printed matter were as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor, pay attention, great attention! The affair on which
+you are concentrating all your powers is worthy of all possible
+interest, but may have terribly dangerous consequences."</p></div>
+
+<p>Of course there was no signature.</p>
+
+<p>Evidently the warning referred to the Dollon case.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," exclaimed Fandor, "this is simply an invitation not to busy
+myself hunting for the guilty persons!... Who has sent this invitation
+and warning? Surely the sender is the assassin, to whose interest it is
+that the inquiry into the rue Norvins murder should be dropped!... It
+must be Jacques Dollon!... But how could Dollon know my address? How
+could he have found time between his flight from the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t and the
+present minute, to put this message of printed letters together, and
+take it to the rue Bergere?... And that at the risk of encountering
+someone who could recognise him, and might have him arrested afresh? Had
+he accomplices?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was puzzled, agitated:</p>
+
+<p>"But I am mad!... mad! It cannot be Dollon!... Dollon is dead&mdash;dead as a
+door nail&mdash;dead beyond dispute, because fifty men have seen him dead;
+dead, because the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t doctors have certified his death!"</p>
+
+<p>Daylight was fading; evening was coming on; Fandor was still turning the
+whole affair over in his mind. Every now and again he murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"Fant&ocirc;mas! Fant&ocirc;mas has to do with this extraordinary, this mysterious
+affair! Fant&ocirc;mas is in it!... Fant&ocirc;mas!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IV" id="IV"></a>IV</h2>
+
+<h3>A SURPRISING ITINERARY</h3>
+
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor had passed a bad night!</p>
+
+<p>Visions of horror had continually arisen in his troubled mind. Between
+nightmare after nightmare he had heard all the horrors of the night
+sound out in the darkness and the glimmering dawn. Then he had fallen
+into a heavy sleep, which had left him on awaking broken with fatigue.
+He had given himself a cold douche, and this had calmed his nerves; then
+he had dressed quickly. When eight o'clock struck he was at his
+writing-table, thinking things over:</p>
+
+<p>"It's no laughing matter. I thought at first that the Dollon affair was
+quite ordinary; but I am mistaken. The warning I received last night
+leaves me no doubts on that head. Since the guilty person thinks it
+necessary to ask me to keep quiet, it is evident he fears my
+intervention; if he is afraid of that it is because it must be hurtful
+to him; if disastrous to him, a criminal, it is evident that it must be
+useful to honest folk. My duty, then, is to go straight ahead at all
+costs...."</p>
+
+<p>There was another motive besides this of duty which incited him to
+follow more closely the vicissitudes of the rue Norvins drama, a motive
+still indefinite, vague, but nevertheless terribly strong....</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor had sworn to Elizabeth Dollon that he would get at the
+truth.</p>
+
+<p>He recalled the girl's entreaty, her emotion; and when he closed his
+eyes, now and again, he seemed to see before him the tall, graceful,
+fair and fascinating sister of the vanished artist.... All Fandor would
+admit to himself was a chivalrous feeling towards her&mdash;Elizabeth Dollon
+was worth putting himself out for&mdash;that was all!</p>
+
+<p>Our journalist spent the entire morning seated at his writing-table, his
+head between his hands, smoking cigarette after cigarette, arranging his
+plans for investigating the Dollon case:</p>
+
+<p>"What I have to find out is how the dead man left the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t. It is the
+first discovery to be made, the first impossibility to be
+explained&mdash;yes, and how am I to set about it?"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Fandor jumped up, marched rapidly up and down his room,
+whistled a few bars of a popular melody, and in his exuberant gaiety
+attempted an operatic air in a voice deplorably out of tune.</p>
+
+<p>"There are eighty chances out of a hundred that I shall not succeed,"
+cried he; "but that still leaves me twenty chances of arriving at a
+satisfactory result&mdash;let us make the attempt!"</p>
+
+<p>As Fandor was hurrying off, he called to the portress in passing:</p>
+
+<p>"Madame Oudry, I don't know whether I shall be back this evening or no.
+Perhaps I may have to leave Paris for awhile, so would you be kind
+enough to pay particular attention to any letters that may come for
+me&mdash;be very particular about them, please!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor went off. A thought struck him. He turned back. He had something
+more to say to the good woman:</p>
+
+<p>"I forgot to ask you whether anyone called to see me yesterday
+afternoon!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Monsieur Fandor, no one!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good! If by any chance a messenger should bring a letter for me, look
+very carefully at him, Madame Oudry. I have a colleague or two who are
+playing a joke on me, and I should not be sorry to get even with them!"</p>
+
+<p>This time Fandor really went off, having set his portress on the alert.
+In the rue Montmartre he hailed a cab:</p>
+
+<p>"To the National Library! And as quick as you can!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"By Jove! It's three o'clock! I've not a minute to lose!" cried Fandor
+as he got back his stick from the cloak-room of the National Library: he
+had handed it in there some hours ago. He entered the rue Richelieu. Now
+for an ironmonger's shop! He caught sight of one and went in:</p>
+
+<p>"I should like fifty yards of fine cord, please; very strong and very
+pliable," said Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>The shopkeeper stared at the smart young man:</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want it for, sir?... I have various qualities."</p>
+
+<p>Without the trace of a smile, and as if it were the most natural thing
+in the world, he replied:</p>
+
+<p>"It is for one of my friends: he wants to hang himself!"</p>
+
+<p>A shout of laughter was the response to this witticism, and the amused
+shopkeeper forthwith displayed various samples of cords. Fandor promptly
+made his choice and left the shop.</p>
+
+<p>"Now for a watchmaker's!" said our journalist. He entered a jeweller's
+close by:</p>
+
+<p>"I want an alarum clock&mdash;a small one&mdash;the cheapest you have!"</p>
+
+<p>Provided with his alarum, Fandor looked at his watch again:</p>
+
+<p>"Confound it all! It's half-past three!" he cried. He signalled to a
+closed cab:</p>
+
+<p>"To the Palais de Justice! As hard as you can lick!"</p>
+
+<p>Directly Fandor was well inside the vehicle, he drew down the blinds;
+took off his coat; unbuttoned his waistcoat!...</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The great clock of the Palais de Justice had just struck four, and its
+silvery tones were echoing harmoniously along the corridors when J&eacute;r&ocirc;me
+Fandor entered the tradesman's gallery. He turned to the right, and
+gained the little lobby in which the cloak-room is. He quietly entered
+it. Barristers were coming and going, full of business, throwing off
+their gowns, inspecting the letters put aside during the sittings of the
+Courts. Fandor made his way among the groups with the ease of custom. He
+seemed to be looking for someone, and finished by questioning one of the
+women employed in the cloak-room:</p>
+
+<p>"Is Madame Marguerite not here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, monsieur, she is down below."</p>
+
+<p>Madame Marguerite was an old friend of Fandor's. She was head of the
+cloak-room staff, and by her kind offices she had often obtained an
+interview for our journalist with one or other of the big-wigs of the
+bar, who generally object strongly to being questioned by journalists.
+When she appeared, Fandor told her he only wanted a little bit of
+information from her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I know all about that! There is someone you wish to see, and
+you want me to manage it for you!"</p>
+
+<p>"No! Not a bit of it! What I want to know is, where these gentlemen of
+the Court of Justice robe and unrobe? I mean the Justices of the Assize
+Courts!"</p>
+
+<p>This seemed to astonish Madame Marguerite considerably:</p>
+
+<p>"But, Monsieur Fandor, if you wish to interview one of the puisne
+judges, it would be ten times quicker for you to go and see him at his
+own home: here, at the Palais, it's almost certain he will refuse to
+answer you...."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't bother about that, Madame Marguerite! Just tell me where these
+worthy guardians of order, defenders of right and justice, divest
+themselves of their red robes?"</p>
+
+<p>Madame Marguerite was too much accustomed to our young journalist's
+ridiculous questions and absurd requests and remarks to argue with him
+any longer.</p>
+
+<p>"The robing-room of these gentlemen," said she, "is in one of the outer
+offices of the court, near the Council Chamber."</p>
+
+<p>"There is an assistant in that room, isn't there?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Monsieur Fandor."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! That is just what I wanted to know! Many thanks, madame," and
+Fandor, grinning with satisfaction, made off in the direction of the
+Court of Assizes. He ran up the steps leading to the Council Chamber,
+and spying the messenger asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Can President Gu&eacute;chand see me, do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur le President has gone."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor seemed to be reflecting. He gazed searchingly round the room. As
+a matter of fact, he was verifying the correctness of Madame
+Marguerite's information. All round the room Fandor saw the little
+presses where the men of law kept their red robes. Yes, it was the
+robing and unrobing room of the puisne judges, the magistrates, right
+enough!</p>
+
+<p>"So the President has gone? Ah, well ..." Fandor hesitated: he must
+think of some other name. He noticed the visiting cards nailed to each
+press, indicating the owner. He read one of the names and repeated it:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, could Justice Hubert see me&mdash;could he possibly? Will you
+ask him to let me see him for five minutes?"</p>
+
+<p>"What name shall I say?"</p>
+
+<p>"My name will not tell him anything. Please say it is with reference to
+the&mdash;er&mdash;Peyru case&mdash;and I come from Ma&icirc;tre Tissot."</p>
+
+<p>"I will go and see," said the messenger, moving off.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst he was in sight Fandor walked up and down in the regulation way,
+murmuring:</p>
+
+<p>"Ma&icirc;tre Tissot!... The Peyru case!... Go ahead, my good fellow! You will
+have a nice kind of reception down below there&mdash;with those made-up
+names."</p>
+
+<p>Some minutes later, the messenger returned to his post, prepared to
+inform the importunate young man that he could not possibly be received
+by Justice Hubert. He stopped short on the threshold: not a soul was to
+be seen!</p>
+
+<p>"Wherever has that young man got to? Taken himself off, most likely!...
+I expect he was one of those lawyer's clerks&mdash;confound them! A nice fool
+I should have looked if his Honour, Justice Hubert, had said he would
+receive him!"</p>
+
+<p>With this reflection the messenger went back to his newspaper, not
+without having ascertained that it was four o'clock, and therefore he
+had still an hour to wait before he could have his coffee and cigar at
+the "Men of the Robe."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Through the great windows of the Court of Assizes, carefully closed as
+they were, not a ray of moonlight filtered into the court room. And this
+obscurity lent an added terror to a silence as profound as the grave, a
+silence which, with the falling shades of night, assumed possession of
+the vast hall, where so many criminals had listened to the fatal
+sentence&mdash;the sentence of death.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>When the Court had risen, the assistants had, as usual, proceeded to put
+the place in order; then the police sergeant had made his rounds, and
+had gone away, double locking the doors behind him. After this the
+chamber had gradually sunk into complete repose: a repose which would be
+broken the following morning when the bustling routine of the legal day
+commenced once more.</p>
+
+<p>Little by little, too, the many and varied noises, which had echoed and
+re-echoed the whole day through in the galleries of the Palais de
+Justice, had died down, and sunk into silence.</p>
+
+<p>The custodians had made their last round; the barristers had quitted the
+robing-room; the poor wretches who had slunk in to warm themselves at
+the heating apparatus in the halls had shuffled back to the cold
+street, and the whistling blasts of the north wind. The immense pile was
+entirely deserted.</p>
+
+<p>A clock began to strike.</p>
+
+<p>Then, hardly had the last stroke of eleven sounded, awakening the echoes
+of the empty galleries, than in the Court of Assizes itself, under the
+monumental desk, before which the justices sat in state by day, a noise
+made itself heard, long, strident, nerve-racking&mdash;the noise of an alarum
+clock!</p>
+
+<p>Just as the alarum ceased its raucous call, a loud yawn resounded
+through the empty spaces of the chamber. The sleeper, who had selected
+this spot that he might indulge, all undisturbed, in a revivifying
+sleep, evidently took no pains to smother the sound of his voice, for,
+after yawning enough to dislocate his jaws, he uttered a loud: "Ah!" He
+accompanied his yawns with exclamations:</p>
+
+<p>"It's a fact, the Republic doesn't do things up to the scratch! The rugs
+here are of poor quality!... I'm aching all over!... The floor is strewn
+with peach kernels&mdash;surely?... At any rate, it's a quiet hotel, and one
+is not disturbed&mdash;a truly delectable refuge to have a jolly good snore
+in!"</p>
+
+<p>The sleeper sat up:</p>
+
+<p>"What's the time exactly? Let us have a light on it!" A match was
+struck, and a tiny flare of light shone from under the desk of the
+presiding judge:</p>
+
+<p>"Ten past eleven! I've still five minutes to be lazy in&mdash;and I shall
+need all of it, for I've a rough night before me! I can rest awhile, and
+think things over!"</p>
+
+<p>The speaker calmly lay down again, trying to find a comfortable position
+on what he christened mentally: "The administrative peach kernels":</p>
+
+<p>"Let me see, now!" he went on aloud. "At five in the afternoon it was
+known that Jacques Dollon had committed suicide; was probably innocent,
+and that his corpse had disappeared. Yesterday, at half-past five, <i>La
+Capitale</i> announced that he had a very pretty sister.... To-night at
+ten past eleven behold me, shut up quite alone in the Palais de Justice,
+free to proceed to the little investigation I think of making.... J&eacute;r&ocirc;me
+Fandor, my dear friend, I congratulate you! You have not managed
+badly!...</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," went on our journalist, "what a joke it is! Here have I got
+myself shut up in the Palais without the slightest difficulty! It is
+true, that if the assistant had been obliged to open, and verify, the
+contents of all the robing-rooms of all the judges, he would never have
+finished. As for me, in my cupboard, I followed all the good fellow's
+movements, and he never suspected my presence. If I am to be
+congratulated, he cannot be blamed for it! There I was, there I
+remained, and now I must be off!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor drew a small wax taper from his pocket and lighted it with a
+match.</p>
+
+<p>"What's to be done with the alarum?" he went on. "To leave it will be to
+betray my having passed this way&mdash;what of it?... In any case, even if
+this reporting job fails, I shall make a story out of it ... and how can
+they accuse me of stealing if I leave my cloak as a gift for his
+judgeship!"</p>
+
+<p>Laughing, Fandor piled up the law books lying on the desk, and placed
+the alarum on the top; that done, he went to the principal entrance, the
+only one with double doors. He seized the heavy iron bar placed across
+the door and worked it loose. He drew the two leaves of the door towards
+him; and, although it had been locked as usual, he effected his escape,
+after a considerable trial of strength.</p>
+
+<p>Out on the stairs, lighted taper in hand, the laughing Fandor closed the
+two leaves of the door with the utmost care, and went forward whistling
+a marching tune. His objective was a certain little staircase leading to
+the top story of the Palais, and this he mounted with vigorous
+determination. There was no likelihood of chance encounters, for there
+was not a soul in the vast building: the police were making their rounds
+outside it. Our adventurous journalist did not make his way upwards with
+stealthy tread&mdash;there was no need for that. Having gained the top floor,
+he went straight to a corner where an ebony ladder was ensconced, a
+ladder which had long been the joy and pride of the grand master of this
+part of the Palais, the amiable Monsieur Peter.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty heavy!" grumbled Fandor, as he carried it upwards. Under the
+roof he caught sight of a skylight, rested his ebony ladder against it,
+and climbed briskly on to the roof.</p>
+
+<p>From thence Fandor had a view that was fairy-like. Spread out in the
+distance were the sparkling lights of Paris. He was divided from them by
+the vast mass of roofs about him, by a gulf of empty space, and beyond,
+by a dark blur&mdash;the two arms of the Seine flowing on either side of the
+Palais de Justice.... The mysterious darkness! The fascination of the
+sparkling points of light!... Fandor gave himself a mental shake....
+This was no moment for dreaming under the stars!</p>
+
+<p>From his pocket he took a tiny, folding dark lantern; from his
+pocket-book he drew a paper, which he spread out and proceeded to study.
+As he bent over it, he murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"A bit of good luck that I was able to get hold of a complete and
+detailed plan of the Palais de Justice! Without it I never could have
+found my way among these roofs!"</p>
+
+<p>He examined the plan for some minutes; made a note of various landmarks;
+then refolding it, he gained one of the sloping roofs facing the quay of
+the Leather Dressers:</p>
+
+<p>"Now," thought Fandor, "I must be just above the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t! And now to find
+out how Jacques Dollon, dead or living, has got out of the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t! No use
+thinking of a window, for the cell has not got one! Fuselier has reason
+on his side when he declares that you do not get out of the cells of the
+D&eacute;p&ocirc;t, nor out of the Palais!... Well, now&mdash;to carry off Dollon, dead
+or living, by way of the Palais Square, or by the boulevard, is out of
+the question: there are too many people about!... To carry him off by
+one of the exits, on to either of the quays, is equally out of the
+question: there are the sentries, in the first place, and then comes the
+Seine&mdash;then Jacques Dollon has left the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t, or he has not, or, at any
+rate, he is still somewhere in the Palais&mdash;unless ..."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor interrupted his cogitations to light a cigarette: smoking helped
+him to think things out:</p>
+
+<p>"It is equally certain that if Dollon is still in the Palais, he cannot
+be in the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t, for the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t has been rigorously searched since his
+disappearance, and he would most certainly have been found, had he been
+anywhere about the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t. It is also certain that he is not inside the
+Palais, because the only means of communication between the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t and
+the Palais is a single staircase, and it is certain that a corpse could
+not have been taken that way unperceived.... Then it follows that
+Jacques Dollon must have got out by the only ways which are in
+communication with the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t: that is to say, the drains and the
+chimneys!"</p>
+
+<p>"How could he have got out, or been got out by the drains? As far as I
+know, there is no system of pipes large enough to allow of the passage
+of a man through the pipes which join the main sewers; but, as a set-off
+to that, there is a chimney&mdash;the ancient chimney of Marie
+Antoinette&mdash;which communicates with the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t, and the roof I am now on:
+it must have been by this chimney that the escape was made! Let us see
+whether this is so or not!"</p>
+
+<p>By the light of his tiny dark lantern Fandor studied afresh the plan of
+the Palais, and tried to identify the various chimneys about him. He
+soon picked out the orifice of Marie Antoinette's chimney. After a
+considering glance at it, he remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"That's odd! Here is the only chimney whose opening is below the ledge
+of the roofs! It is certain that unless one had been warned, and had
+examined this roof from some neighbouring building, the orifice of this
+chimney would not be noticed. If Jacques Dollon passed out by it, no one
+would notice his exit!"</p>
+
+<p>Our journalist continued his examination, full of excitement. Surely he
+was on the right track!</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Ah! Here are stones freshly scraped and scratched!" he cried
+delightedly. "And this white mark is just the kind of mark which would
+be made by a cord scraping against the wall! And look what a size this
+chimney is! It's not only one Jacques Dollon who could pass out by it,
+but two! But three! A whole army! Ah, ha, I believe I am on the right
+track! Now for it!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor bent over and looked down the interior of the chimney; and, at
+the risk of toppling over, he managed to reach something he saw shining
+in the darkness of the opening; he drew himself up, radiant:</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove! There are irons fixed in the walls of the chimney to climb up
+and down by; and, what is more, they bear traces of a recent
+passage&mdash;the rust has been rubbed off here and there!... Yes, it is by
+this way Dollon has come out!... To whom else could it be an advantage
+to use this as an exit from the interior of the Palais, on to the
+roofs?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was keen on the scent! Here, indeed, was matter for an article
+which would bring him into notice&mdash;good business for a journalist!</p>
+
+<p>"If Dollon had been alive," reflected Fandor, "it is evident that, once
+on the roofs, he had a choice of three ways to escape: he could do what
+I have just done, but the other way about; he could break a skylight,
+jump into a garret, and lie hidden under the tiles, awaiting the
+propitious moment when he could gain the corridors below and, mingling
+with the crowd, slip unobserved into the street; or, he could hide among
+the roofs, and stay there; or, he could search for an opening&mdash;one of
+those air holes which put the cellars and drains in communication with
+the exterior.... But I have come to the conclusion that Dollon is dead!
+Then his corpse could only remain up here; or, it has been put down into
+some place where nobody goes. The garrets of the Palais are so
+incessantly visited by the clerks and registrars that no corpse could
+remain undiscovered in any of them. Therefore, either Jacques Dollon's
+corpse is somewhere on the roofs of the Palais, or there is some sort of
+communication between the roofs and the drains&mdash;it is obvious!"</p>
+
+<p>Evidently the next step was to search every hole and corner of these
+same roofs. Armed with revolver and lantern, Fandor started on his tour
+of investigation; but prudently, for he was now almost certain that
+there were a number of accomplices involved in this Dollon affair.</p>
+
+<p>To go carefully over the enormous roof of the Palais de Justice was no
+light task! One has only to consider the immensity of this monumental
+pile, its complicated architecture, the numberless little courts
+enclosed within its vast confines, to understand the difficulties with
+which our intrepid journalist had to contend. But J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor was not
+the man to be discouraged in the face of difficulties: he was determined
+to brave them&mdash;conquer them! He examined, minutely, the entire roofing
+of the Palais; he did not leave a corner or a morsel of shadow
+unexplored; there was not a gutter which he had not searched from end to
+end. When, after two hours of strenuous exertion, he returned to his
+starting-point, the chimney of Marie Antoinette, he was fain to confess
+that if Jacques Dollon had mounted to the roof of the Palais de Justice
+he certainly had not remained there.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor unfolded his plan once more. It fluttered in the night breeze, as
+he carefully numbered all the chimneys opening on to this roof; then,
+one by one, he identified them with the real chimneys before his eyes.
+He exclaimed joyfully:</p>
+
+<p>"There, now! It's just what I suspected!"</p>
+
+<p>He had discovered there was one chimney not down on the plan: "Whither
+did it lead?" At all costs he must find out&mdash;make sure. He hastened to
+this extra chimney. Its orifice was large enough to allow of the passage
+of a man; also, here again, stones had been recently loosened, and a
+rope had rubbed against them:</p>
+
+<p>"What the deuce is this chimney?" thought Fandor. "Another mystery! This
+chimney is not a chimney; there is not a trace of soot on it, even old
+soot!"</p>
+
+<p>After a moment's reflection, he added:</p>
+
+<p>"Can it be for ventilation only? But a ventilation hole could only
+communicate with one of the apartments in the Palais itself, and how the
+deuce could they drop a corpse down there? It would have been in the
+highest degree imprudent to attempt it! No, it is not by that road they
+have carried off Dollon's body! But then by what way?"</p>
+
+<p>He glued his ear to the chimney. After a while, Fandor could make out a
+vague, intermittent sound&mdash;could catch a little, far-away, plashing
+sound.</p>
+
+<p>"Can the chimney communicate with the Seine?" he asked himself. "No, we
+are too far off it. Why this opening, then?... Ah, I have it! It is a
+drain, a sewer, it communicates with!"</p>
+
+<p>To verify that, there was nothing for it but to descend this chimney,
+which was no chimney! So be it!... Fandor took off his coat, and
+uncovered the long, fine cord, rolled round and round his middle.
+Weighting the cord with a flint, he let it slide down the chimney,
+testing the straightness of the descent by the balanced oscillations of
+the stone, and so ascertaining the even size of the opening, as far as
+the line would go. This was the work of a few minutes.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor did not hesitate: he was eager to embark on the descent.</p>
+
+<p>"After all," he murmured, "though I may find myself face to face with a
+band of assassins&mdash;what of it? It is all in the night's risks!"</p>
+
+<p>He fastened the end of the cord to one of the neighbouring
+chimneys&mdash;fastened it firmly; then, his revolver handily stuck in his
+belt, Fandor seized the cord, twisted it round his legs, and let himself
+slowly down through the narrow opening.</p>
+
+<p>It was a perilous descent! Fandor did not know whether his cord was long
+enough, and, lost in the darkness, with only the gleam of light from his
+lantern to guide him, he was naturally afraid of reaching the end of his
+rope unawares, and of falling into the black void beneath. But what he
+observed in the course of his descent excited him so much that he almost
+forgot the danger he was running. To those at all practised in police
+detective work, it was clear as daylight that men had passed this way,
+and recently.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is a dislodged stone," muttered Fandor. "And here are scrapes and
+scratches&mdash;fresh ... and ... that mark looks like blood!"</p>
+
+<p>Pushing his knees and his shoulders against the wall to support himself
+and stay his movements, he examined the mark. There was no doubt
+possible: Fandor's sharp eyes and the lantern's light had picked out a
+little red patch, which sullied one of the projecting stones in the
+chimney walls:</p>
+
+<p>"This," reflected our amateur detective, "only confirms Dollon's death:
+if the wound which caused this mark had been made by a living body, the
+mark would have been larger, and there would have been others, for it
+must come from an abrasion of the skin made during the descent. But this
+blood mark has resulted from a dead body knocking against the stones of
+the wall: it is not a mark make by flowing blood, but by blood crushed
+out."</p>
+
+<p>He descended a few yards further:</p>
+
+<p>"Here's a find!" he cried. He had just perceived some hairs sticking to
+the rough surface of the stones. Again, with arched shoulders and bent
+knees, he supported himself against the wall, examined his discovery,
+left half the hairs where they were, took the rest, and carefully placed
+them in his pocket-book:</p>
+
+<p>"The police must not be able to say that I have arranged this for their
+benefit," Fandor remarked. "Cost what it may, if I do not come across
+Dollon's corpse below, I must find out to-morrow whether these hairs
+resemble his."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor went on descending, and first in one place, then in another, he
+saw on the walls of this chimney whitish patches such as might have been
+caused by the passage of a heavy mass or body, hanging at the end of a
+rope, and striking against the walls on its way down. Whilst he still
+believed himself to be some distance off the end of his downward
+journey, he felt a point of resistance beneath his feet. At first he
+mistook it for firm ground, much to his surprise. He was about to leave
+go of his cord when a remnant of prudence restrained him:</p>
+
+<p>"How do I know there is not an abyss depths upon depths below me&mdash;down
+into the very bowels of the earth! I had better take care!"</p>
+
+<p>What Fandor had taken for firm ground was nothing but an iron staple
+projecting from the wall. Fandor seized it, stopped for a minute or
+two's breathing space, ascertained, by drawing it up, that of his cord
+there were only a few yards remaining; but he also perceived, and with
+what relief, that from where he was resting, downwards the chimney was,
+as far as he could see by his lantern's light, marked off into regular
+spaces by these iron staples which are sometimes placed there for the
+use of chimney cleaners and masons. Fandor found them a most convenient
+kind of ladder. The descent now became easy, and in a short time our
+adventurous journalist reached the bottom of the chimney. At first he
+could not understand where he had got to. In the thick gloom around him
+his lantern's gleam of light showed him a kind of vaulted wall of
+massive masonry. He advanced a step or two with noiseless tread,
+listening, on the alert. Not a sound could he hear: he decided to expose
+the full light of his lantern.</p>
+
+<p>The brighter light showed him that the chimney from which he was now
+standing some yards away ended in a kind of sewer, evidently no longer
+in use; and the plashing sound he had heard on the far up heights of the
+Palais roofs proceeded from a thin and muddy stream of water flowing in
+the middle of the sewer channel in the direction of the Seine. Kneeling
+at the foot of the chimney Fandor could distinguish marks of steps made
+by human feet; much deeper and very different indentations were visible
+also:</p>
+
+<p>"Not only have men passed this way but a short while ago," he murmured,
+"but they were carrying a heavy burden: there are two kinds of
+footmarks, made by two kinds of shoes, and the heels have made much
+deeper marks in the soil than have the tips&mdash;yes, these men bore a heavy
+burden!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was so pleased that he mentally rubbed his hands over this
+discovery. His quest was a success so far: he was on the track of
+Dollon's body! And what copy for <i>La Capitale</i>! Then a sad thought came
+to dim his delight:</p>
+
+<p>"Poor, poor Elizabeth Dollon! I swore to her I would get at the
+truth&mdash;and a lamentable truth it is! Her brother is dead: he died in the
+D&eacute;p&ocirc;t: he was done to death&mdash;it was no suicide!"</p>
+
+<p>Whilst talking to himself Fandor was scrutinising every inch of the
+ground as he moved forward: there might be fresh clues:</p>
+
+<p>"It's a queer kind of sewer," he went on. "This streamlet is as much mud
+as water, is almost stagnant. Evidently this underground sewer way is no
+longer used&mdash;has been abandoned!"</p>
+
+<p>A horrid spectacle struck him motionless. His lantern made visible a
+struggling, heaving mass of rats, fighting tooth and claw, enormous rats
+devouring some hidden thing!</p>
+
+<p>Fandor's stomach rose at the sight.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, horror! Could it be Jacques Dollon's body?</p>
+
+<p>Fandor snatched up a stone and flung it furiously among the unclean
+beasts. They fled. On the ground he could distinguish a mass, a red,
+formless mass, saturated with congealed blood:</p>
+
+<p>"Assuredly, if the corpse has disappeared, it is there the assassins
+must have cut it in pieces, that they might carry it more easily, and
+those vile creatures are in the thick of feasting on the poor victim's
+remains!... Pouah!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor moved on, only to discover another pool of blood almost as large,
+also besieged by rats:</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently I shall find nothing else," thought Fandor: "the corpse no
+longer exists!"</p>
+
+<p>He continued his advance, determined to find out what this underground
+way ended in. His lantern was flickering to a finish when he arrived at
+the end of the sewer and found, as he had foreseen, that its opening had
+been cut in the steep bank of the Seine:</p>
+
+<p>"That's a bit of luck! I can get out this way instead of having to climb
+back the way I came, up to the Palais roof and down again!"</p>
+
+<p>It was still night; darkness reigned save on the far horizon, where a
+faint, whitish line indicated the early dawn of an April day.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was just asking himself by what gymnastic feat he could regain
+the quay, and he was leaning over the opening of the sewer, his body
+bending far forward over the inky waters of the Seine. Before he had
+time to turn, before he could regain his balance, a brutal blow from
+behind half stunned him, and a vigorous thrust precipitated his body
+into the Seine.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="V" id="V"></a>V</h2>
+
+<h3>MOTHER TOULOUCHE AND CRANAJOUR</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Come along, Cranajour! Let's have a sight of what they've given you for
+the frock coat and the whole outfit!"</p>
+
+<p>The person thus challenged rummaged in the pockets of his old,
+much-patched and filthy garments, and after interminable fumblings and
+huntings, finished by extracting a certain number of silver pieces,
+which he counted over with the greatest care, finally he replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Seventeen francs, Mother Toulouche."</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche showed her impatience:</p>
+
+<p>"It's details I want! How much for the coat? How much for the whole
+suit? I've got to know, I tell you! I've got to write it all down, and
+I've got to see how much I've to hand over to each of the owners of the
+duds!... Try to remember, Cranajour!"</p>
+
+<p>The individual who answered to this odd appellation reflected. After a
+silence, shrugging his shoulders, he replied:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. I can't make myself remember&mdash;not anyhow!... And it's a
+long time since I sold the goods!"</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche shrugged in turn:</p>
+
+<p>"A long time!" she grumbled. "What a wretched job! Why, it's only two
+hours since&mdash;barely that!... It's true," she went on, with a pitying
+look at the shabby, down-at-heel fellow, who had spread out his
+seventeen francs on the table, "it's true that you're known not to have
+two ha'p'orths of memory, and that at the end of an hour you have
+forgotten what you've done!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's right enough," answered Cranajour.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's have done with it, then," cried Mother Toulouche.</p>
+
+<p>She held out a repulsive-looking specimen of old clothes:</p>
+
+<p>"Be off with you! Go and pawn this academician's cast-off! When the
+comrades catch a sight of this bit of stuff to the fore, they'll
+understand they can come without danger!... No cops about the store on
+the lookout, are there?"</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche took the precaution to advance to the threshold of her
+store, cast a rapid glance around&mdash;not a suspicious person, nor a sign
+of one to be seen:</p>
+
+<p>"A good thing," muttered she, "but I was sure of it! Those police spies
+are going to give us some peace for a bit!... Likely the whole lot of
+them are on this Dollon business! Isn't it so, Cranajour?"</p>
+
+<p>As she retreated into her store again Mother Toulouche knocked against
+that individual, who had not budged: he had hung over his arm
+respectfully the miserable bit of stuff that had been styled an
+academician's robe:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what are you waiting for?" asked she sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing...."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do with that?"</p>
+
+<p>Cranajour seemed to reflect:</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't I told you," grumbled Mother Toulouche, "to go and stick it up
+outside?... Don't say you've gone and forgotten already!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" protested Cranajour, hastening to obey orders.</p>
+
+<p>"What a specimen!" thought Mother Toulouche, whilst counting over the
+seventeen francs.</p>
+
+<p>Cranajour was a remarkably queer fish, beyond question. How had he got
+into connection with Mother Toulouche and her intimates? That remained a
+mystery. One fine day this seedy specimen of humanity was found among
+the "comrades" exchanging vague remarks with one and another. He stuck
+to them in all their shifting from this place to that: no one had been
+able to get out of him what his name was, nor where he came from, for he
+was afflicted with a memory like a sieve&mdash;he could not remember things
+for two hours together. A feeble-minded, poor sort of fellow, with not a
+halfpenny's worth of wickedness in him, always ready to do a hand's turn
+for anyone: to judge by his looks he might have been any age between
+forty and seventy, for there is nothing like privations and misery to
+alter the looks of a man! Faced by this queer fish, with a brain like a
+sieve, they had christened him "Cr&acirc;ne &agrave; jour"&mdash;and the nickname had
+stuck to this anonymous individual. Besides, was not Cranajour the most
+complaisant of fellows, the least exacting of collaborators&mdash;always
+content with what was given him, always willing to do his best!</p>
+
+<p>As to Mother Toulouche; she kept a little shop on the quay of the Clock.
+The sign over her little store read:</p>
+
+<h4>"<i>For the Curiosity Lover.</i>"</h4>
+
+<p>This alluring title was not justified by anything to be found inside
+this store, which was nothing but a common pick-up-anything shop: it was
+a receptacle for a hideous collection of lumber, for old broken
+furniture, for garments past decent wear, for indescribable odds and
+ends, where the wreckage of human misery lay huddled cheek by jowl with
+the beggarly offscourings of Parisian destitution.</p>
+
+<p>Behind the store, whose little front faced the edge of the quay and
+looked over the Seine, was a sordid back-shop: here the pallet of Mother
+Toulouche, a kitchen stove out of order, and the overflow of the goods
+which were crowded out of the store were jumbled up in ill-smelling
+disorder. This back-shop communicated with the rue de Harlay by a narrow
+dark passage; thus the lair of old Mother Toulouche had two outlets, nor
+were they superfluous; in fact, they were indispensable for such as
+she&mdash;ever on the alert to escape the inquisitive attentions of the
+police, ever receiving visitors of doubtful morals and thoroughly bad
+reputation.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche's quarters comprised not only the two stores, but a
+cellar both large and deep, to which one obtained access by a staircase
+pitch dark, crooked, and everlastingly covered with moisture, owing to
+the proximity of the river. The floor of the cellar was a kind of
+noisome cesspool: one slipped on the greasy mud&mdash;floundered about in it:
+for all that, this cellar was almost entirely filled with cases of all
+kinds, with queer-looking bundles, with objects of various shapes and
+sizes. Evidently the jumble store of Mother Toulouche did not confine
+itself to the rough-and-ready shop in the front; and, into the bargain,
+this basement might be used as a safe hiding-place in an emergency, a
+precious refuge for whoever might feel it necessary to cover his tracks,
+and thus escape the investigations of the police, for instance!</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche, as a matter of fact, needed such premises as hers: if
+she took ceaseless precautions it was because she had a reason for her
+uneasy watchfulness.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche had already come into involuntary contact with the
+police; and her last and most serious encounter with them went as far
+back as those days of renown when the band of Numbers had as their chief
+the mysterious hooligan Loupart, also known under the name of Dr.
+Chaleck.<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> She had been arrested for complicity in a bank-note robbery,
+had been tried, and had been sentenced to twenty-two months'
+imprisonment.</p>
+
+<p>Not turned in the slightest degree from the error of her ways, and
+possessing some money, which she had kept carefully hidden, Mother
+Toulouche had decided to set up shop close to the Palais de Justice,
+that Great House where those gentlemen of the robe judged and condemned
+poor folk! She would say:</p>
+
+<p>"Being so close to the red-robed I shall end by making the acquaintance
+of one or two of them, and that may turn out a good job for me one of
+these days!"</p>
+
+<p>But this was merely a blind, for other considerations had led to Mother
+Toulouche renting this shop on the Isle of the City, in opening on the
+quay of the Clock, a quay but little frequented, her wretched jumble
+store of odds and ends. She had kept in touch with the band of Numbers,
+which had gradually come together again as soon as the various numbers
+of it had finished serving their time.</p>
+
+<p>For a while they had lived unmolested, but lately misfortunes had laid a
+heavy hand on the group. Still, as the band began to break up, other
+members came to replace those who had disappeared, either temporarily or
+for good and all.</p>
+
+<p>At any rate, they could safely count on the assistance of an individual
+more valuable to them than anyone; this was a man named Nibet, who
+although he intervened but seldom, could, thanks to his influence, save
+the band many annoyances. This Nibet held an honourable official
+position; he was a warder at the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Whilst Mother Toulouche, from the back of her store, was watching with a
+derisive air the good-natured Cranajour fasten up the Academician's robe
+in a prominent position on the front of her nondescript emporium,
+someone stepped inside, and warmly greeted Mother Toulouche with a:</p>
+
+<p>"Good day, old lady!"</p>
+
+<p>It was big Ernestine,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> who explained volubly that for a good half hour
+she had been prowling about near the statue of Henry IV, keeping the
+store well in view, but not daring to approach until the usual signal
+had been displayed. Those who frequented the place knew that when the
+store was under police observation and Mother Toulouche feared a raid
+she took care to hang out any kind of old clothes; but if the way was
+clear, if no lurking police were on the lookout, then the rallying flag
+would be hoisted, the flag being the old, patched, rusty, musty
+Academician's robe.</p>
+
+<p>Ernestine had arrived looking thoroughly upset:</p>
+
+<p>"Have you heard the latest?" she cried, "the bad news?"</p>
+
+<p>"What news? Whose news?" questioned Mother Toulouche.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that poor Emilet has come down a regular cropper!"</p>
+
+<p>"The poor fellow!... He isn't smashed up, is he?" Mother Toulouche
+lifted her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't heard anything more than what I've told you!"</p>
+
+<p>Consternation was on the faces of the two women.</p>
+
+<p>Their good Mimile! He who knew how to take care of himself without
+leaving a comrade in the lurch, who stuck to them, working for the
+common good.</p>
+
+<p>A few years previous to this Mimile, having refused to conform to
+military law, had been arrested in the tavern of a certain Father Korn
+during a particularly drastic police raid, and the defaulting youth had
+been straightway put under the penal military discipline administered to
+such as he. Instead of making himself notorious by his execrable conduct
+as those in his position generally did, he behaved like a little saint.
+Having thus made a reputation to trade on, he was twice able to steal
+the money from the regimental chest without a shadow of suspicion
+falling on him, and, what was worse, two of his innocent comrades had
+been accused of the crime, had been condemned and shot in his stead!
+Owing to his good conduct Mimile had been transferred to a regiment
+stationed in Algiers, and having a considerable amount of spare time on
+his hands, he got into close touch with the aeroplane mechanics.</p>
+
+<p>He was very much at home in this branch of work: could not Mimile
+demolish a lock as easily as one rolls a cigarette? He was daring to a
+degree, and, as soon as his time in the army was up, he began to earn
+his living as an aviator, and rightly, for he had become an able airman.
+Nevertheless, Mimile become Emilet, had aspired to greater things: a
+humdrum honest livelihood was not to his taste!</p>
+
+<p>He had come to the conclusion that provided he went warily nothing could
+be easier than to carry on a lucrative smuggling trade by aeroplane: he
+could fly from country to country under the pretext that he was out to
+make records in flying. Custom-house officials and police inspectors in
+the interior would never think of examining the tubes of a flying
+machine, to see whether or no they were packed with lace; nor would it
+occur to them to overhaul certain cells fore and aft to discover whether
+things of value had been secreted in them, such as thousands of matches
+or false coin.</p>
+
+<p>So, from time to time, Mimile would announce that he was off on a trial
+trip to Brussels from Paris, from London to Calais, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>For mechanics Mimile had two brokendown sharpers, who served as
+connecting links between the aviator and the band of smugglers and false
+coiners who gathered at the lair of Mother Toulouche under the seal of
+secrecy. This was why big Ernestine was so anxious when she heard of
+Mimile's accident. Had the aeroplane been totally wrecked? Would the
+very considerable prize of Malines lace they were expecting reach its
+destination safe and sound?</p>
+
+<p>For some time past ill-luck had pursued them, had seemed to pursue
+implacably these unfortunates who took such pains and precautions to
+carry through their unlawful operations to a successful issue. Already
+the Cooper, a member of the confraternity who had had his glorious hour
+in the famous days of Chaleck and Loupart, had scarcely left prison
+retirement before he had been nabbed again, owing to the far too sharp
+eyes of the French custom-house officials on the Belgian frontier.
+Others of the band were also under lock and key again: it really seemed
+as if Mother Toulouche and her circle were being strictly watched by the
+police ... and now here was Emilet who had come a regular cropper in his
+aeroplane&mdash;no doubt about it!</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche was set on knowing the rights of it:</p>
+
+<p>"But what has happened to Emilet exactly?"</p>
+
+<p>She called Cranajour. The queer fellow came forward from the back store,
+where he had been loafing: he had a bewildered air.</p>
+
+<p>"Cranajour," said Mother Toulouche, putting a sou in his hand, "hurry
+off and buy me an evening paper! Now be quick about it!... Don't
+forget.... Make a knot in your handkerchief to remind a stupid head!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't be afraid, Mother Toulouche," declared Cranajour, "I shan't
+forget!" He nodded to big Ernestine, and vanished as by magic into the
+darkness, for night had fallen.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had Cranajour gone, than a surly looking individual slipped
+into the store, not by the quay entrance, but through the back store, to
+which he had gained access by the dark passage leading to the rue de
+Harlay.</p>
+
+<p>His collar was turned up as though he were cold; his cap was drawn well
+over his eyes, thus his face was almost entirely hidden.</p>
+
+<p>Having barred the door on the quay side of the store, Mother Toulouche
+joined big Ernestine and the newcomer:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Nibet, anything fresh?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>Removing his cap and lowering his collar Nibet's crabbed visage glowered
+on the two women: it was the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t warder right enough:</p>
+
+<p>"Bad," he growled between his teeth: "Things are hot right at the
+Palais!"</p>
+
+<p>"Things to worry about&mdash;to do with comrades committed for trial?"
+questioned big Ernestine.</p>
+
+<p>Nibet shrugged and threw a glance of disdain at the girl:</p>
+
+<p>"You're going silly! It's this Dollon mess-up!"</p>
+
+<p>The warder gave them an account of what had happened. The two women were
+all ears, as they followed Nibet's story of events which had thrown the
+whole legal world into a state of commotion: incomprehensible
+occurrences, which threatened to turn an ordinary murder case into one
+of the most mysterious and most popular of assassination dramas.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche and big Ernestine were well aware that Nibet knew much
+more than he had told them about the details of the Dollon-Vibray
+affair; but they dared not cross-examine the warder who was in a nasty
+mood&mdash;nor did the announcement of Emilet's accident add to his gaiety!</p>
+
+<p>"It just wanted that!" he grunted: "And those bundles of lace were to
+turn up this evening too!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who is to bring them?" asked big Ernestine.</p>
+
+<p>"The Sailor," declared Nibet.</p>
+
+<p>"And who is to receive them?" demanded Mother Toulouche.</p>
+
+<p>"I and the Beadle," answered Nibet in a surly tone. "Come to think of
+it," went on Nibet, staring hard at big Ernestine, "where <i>is</i> that man
+of yours&mdash;the Beadle?"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Like someone who had been running at top speed Cranajour, who had been
+gone about an hour on his newspaper-buying errand, drew up panting
+before the dark little entry leading from the rue de Harlay to the den
+of Mother Toulouche. He slipped into the passage; but instead of
+rejoining the old storekeeper he began to mount a steep and tortuous
+staircase, which led up to the many floors of the house. He climbed up
+to the seventh story; turned the key of a shaky door, and entered an
+attic whose skylight window opened obliquely in the sloping roof.</p>
+
+<p>This poverty-stricken chamber was the domicile of the queer fellow who
+passed his daylight hours in the company of Mother Toulouche, hobnobbing
+with a hole-and-corner crew, cronies of the old receiver of stolen
+goods.</p>
+
+<p>Overheated with running, Cranajour unbuttoned his coat, opened his
+shirt, sprinkled his face and the upper part of his body with cold
+water, sponged the perspiration from his brow, and brushed the dust off
+his big shoes.</p>
+
+<p>It was a clear starlight night. To freshen himself up still more he put
+his head and shoulders out of the half-opened window. He was gazing at
+the roofs facing him; suddenly he started, and his eyes gleamed. They
+were the roofs, outlined against the night sky, of the Palais de
+Justice. There was a shadow on the roof of the great pile, a shadow
+which moved to and fro, passing from one roof ridge to another, now
+vanishing behind a chimney, now coming into view again. Anxiously
+Cranajour followed the odd movements of the mysterious individual who
+was making his lofty and lonely promenade up above there.</p>
+
+<p>"What the devil does it mean?" soliloquised the watcher. Whoever could
+have seen Cranajour at this moment would have been struck by the marked
+change produced in his physiognomy. This was not the Cranajour of the
+wandering eye, the silly smile, the stupid face, known to Mother
+Toulouche and her cronies; it was a transformed Cranajour, mobile of
+feature, lively of movement, a sharp, keen-witted Cranajour! Veritably
+another man!</p>
+
+<p>Puzzled by the vagaries of the promenader on the Palais roofs, Cranajour
+followed his movements intently for a few minutes longer. He would have
+remained at the window the whole night long had the unknown persisted in
+his peregrinations; but Cranajour saw him climb to the top of a chimney,
+a wide one, lower himself slowly into the opening of it, and then vanish
+from view!</p>
+
+<p>Cranajour waited a while in hopes that the unknown would not be long in
+coming out of his mysterious hiding-place again. He waited and expected
+in vain: the roofs of the Palais resumed their ordinary aspect: solitude
+reigned there.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Not long afterwards Cranajour re-entered the back store.</p>
+
+<p>"What a time you have been!" cried Mother Toulouche: "You've brought the
+newspaper, haven't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Cranajour looked at the little company with his most stupid expression
+and then lowered his eyes:</p>
+
+<p>"My goodness, I've forgotten to buy one!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>Nibet, who had paid but scant attention to the new arrival, continued
+his conversation with big Ernestine: they were talking about her lover,
+nicknamed the Beadle.</p>
+
+<p>He was a terrible individual this Beadle! Though his nickname suggested
+a peaceful occupation, he really owed it to the frightful reputation he
+had won as a "<i>bell-ringer</i>"; but the bells big Ernestine's lover was in
+the habit of ringing were unfortunate pedestrians whom he would rob and
+half murder, beating them unmercifully about the head and body.
+Sometimes he would beat them to within an ace of their last gasp:
+occasionally he would beat the life out of them altogether if they tried
+to resist his brutal attacks. The Beadle was an Apache<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> of the first
+order of brutality.</p>
+
+<p>Big Ernestine finished explaining to Nibet that he must not count on the
+Beadle that evening, for things were so queer and uncertain, the outlook
+was so gloomy that no one knew what bad business they might be in for.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche asked if he had got mixed up in the Dollon affair.</p>
+
+<p>Cranajour cocked his ear at that, whilst pretending to put a great
+bundle of old clothes in order.</p>
+
+<p>But Nibet replied:</p>
+
+<p>"The Beadle has nothing whatever to do with that business.... I know
+what I know about all that.... He's afraid of getting what the Cooper
+got, so he keeps away. He's not far out either&mdash;you've got to be careful
+these days&mdash;queer times!"</p>
+
+<p>Ernestine and Mother Toulouche bewailed the Cooper's fate:</p>
+
+<p>"Poor fellow! No sooner out of quod than back&mdash;only a fortnight's
+liberty! And with a vile accusation fastened to him&mdash;smuggling and
+coining!"</p>
+
+<p>Nibet tried to relieve their minds:</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't I told you," growled he, "that I'm going to get Ma&icirc;tre Henri
+Robart to defend him? He knows how to get round juries: he'll get the
+Cooper off with an easy sentence."</p>
+
+<p>Nibet looked at his watch:</p>
+
+<p>"It will soon be half-past two! Got to go down! The boatman will be
+there before long, at the mouth of the sewer!"</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche, who was always in a flurry when smuggled goods were to
+be unloaded in her cellars, tried to dissuade Nibet:</p>
+
+<p>"You'll never be able to manage it by yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>Nibet glanced at Cranajour. The warder hesitated, then said:</p>
+
+<p>"Since there's no one else, couldn't I take Cranajour with me?"</p>
+
+<p>At first objections were raised; there was a low-voiced discussion, so
+that the simpleton might not catch what they were saying: Cranajour had
+never been up to dodges of this kind: so far he had been kept out of
+them; besides, he was such a senseless cove, he might give things away,
+make a hash of it!</p>
+
+<p>Nibet smiled:</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it's just because he is such a simpleton, and because he hasn't a
+mite of memory that we can use him safely!"</p>
+
+<p>"That's true!" said Mother Toulouche, somewhat reassured.</p>
+
+<p>She called to Cranajour:</p>
+
+<p>"Come along, Cranajour, and just tell us where you dined this evening!"</p>
+
+<p>The simpleton seemed to make a prodigious effort of memory, seized his
+head between his hands, closed his eyes, and racked his brains: after
+quite a long silence, he declared emphatically and with a distressed
+air:</p>
+
+<p>"Faith, I can't tell you now!"</p>
+
+<p>Nibet, who had closely watched this performance, nodded:</p>
+
+<p>"It's quite all right," he said.</p>
+
+<p>The cellars below Mother Toulouche's store were extensive, dark, and
+ill-smelling. The walls glistened with exuding damp, and the ground was
+a sticky mass of foul mud, of all sorts of refuse, of putrefying matter.</p>
+
+<p>Nibet, followed by his companion, made his way down to them: it was no
+easy descent, for they had to climb over cases of all kinds, and over
+bales and bundles that moved and rolled about. They passed into a
+smaller cellar, around which were ranged long boxes of tin with rusty
+covers.</p>
+
+<p>Cranajour, who had been given the lantern to carry, was attracted to
+these boxes: he lifted the cover of one of them and drew back
+wonderstruck, for the box was full of shining gold pieces! Nibet, with a
+jab and thrust in the back, interrupted Cranajour's contemplation of
+this fortune:</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing to faint over!" he growled. "You're not such a simpleton then!
+You know the value of yellow boys? All right, then, I'll give you one or
+two, if you do your job all right! But," continued the warder, leading
+his companion to the further end of the second cellar, "you will have to
+look out if you present your banker with one of those pieces, for the
+little bits of shiny won't pass everywhere&mdash;you've got to keep your eye
+open&mdash;and jolly wide, too!"</p>
+
+<p>Cranajour nodded comprehension:</p>
+
+<p>"False money! False money!" he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>There was a very strong big door: an iron bar kept it closed. Nibet
+raised it with Cranajour's help. Through the door the two men passed
+into a long dark passage, swept by a sharp rush of air. The floor of it
+was paved, and at the side of it flowed a pestilential stream, carrying
+along in its slow-moving water a quantity of miscellaneous filth: it was
+thick as soup with impurities.</p>
+
+<p>"The little collecting sewer of the Cit&eacute;," whispered Nibet. Pointing to
+a grey patch in the distance he put his mouth to Cranajour's ear:</p>
+
+<p>"See the daylight yonder? That's where the sewer discharges itself into
+the Seine: it's there the boatman and his load will be waiting for us
+presently."</p>
+
+<p>Nibet stopped dead; drew Cranajour back by the sleeve, and stepped
+stealthily backwards to the massive doors of the cellar. An unaccustomed
+noise had alarmed the warder. In profound silence the two men stood
+listening intently. There was no mistake! The sound of sharp regular
+steps could be clearly heard coming from that part of the sewer opposite
+the opening.</p>
+
+<p>"Someone!" said Cranajour, who was all on the alert, as he had been in
+his attic, watching the shadow and its vagaries on the roofs of the
+Palais de Justice.</p>
+
+<p>Nibet nodded.</p>
+
+<p>The light from a dark lantern gleamed on the damp, slimy walls of the
+subterranean passageway.</p>
+
+<p>"Come inside," murmured Nibet, in an almost inaudible voice; and, with
+infinite precaution, he closed the massive portal between the cellar and
+the sewer-way.</p>
+
+<p>In safe hiding the two men could watch the approaching intruder: they
+had extinguished their lantern, and were peering through the badly
+joined wood of the solid door. Friend or foe? An individual moved into
+view. The reflected light of his lantern lit up the vaulting of the
+sewer-way, and showed up his face. The man was young, fair, wore a
+small moustache!</p>
+
+<p>Hardly had he passed the cellar door when Nibet gripped Cranajour's arm
+and growled&mdash;intense rage was expressed in grip and tone&mdash;"It's he!
+Again! The journalist of the Dollon affair, of the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t
+business&mdash;J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor! Ah.... This time we'll see!..."</p>
+
+<p>Nibet's hand plunged into his trouser pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Cranajour was eagerly watching the warder's every movement: he clearly
+heard the sharp snap of a pocket-knife&mdash;a long sharp knife&mdash;a deadly
+weapon!</p>
+
+<p>Giving prudence the go-by, Nibet had opened the door, and dragging
+Cranajour in his wake had rushed into the sewer-way, hard on the heels
+of the journalist, who was slowly going in the direction of the Seine.
+Nibet ground his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"I have had enough of that beast! Always on our track! Too good a chance
+to miss! I'm going to make a hole in his skin for him!"</p>
+
+<p>In the twilight of early dawn, which penetrated the sewer near the
+opening, Cranajour shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>With stealthy step the two men drew near the journalist. Fandor walked
+on unsuspicious at a slow regular pace, his head lowered. The two
+bandits came up to within a yard of him. Noiselessly, savagely
+determined, Nibet lifted his arm for a murderous stroke. At this precise
+moment Fandor stopped at the verge of the exit, by which the sewer
+discharged its burden steeply into the Seine.</p>
+
+<p>Yet a moment: Nibet's knife was poised for the rapid and terrible
+stroke; it was about to bury itself in the neck of the journalist up to
+the hilt, when Cranajour lifted his foot, as if inspired by an idea on
+the spur of the moment, gave the journalist a violent kick in the lower
+part of the back, and sent him flying into space!</p>
+
+<p>They heard his body fall heavily into the Seine.... So roughly sudden
+had been Cranajour's movement that Nibet stood dumbfounded, arm in air,
+and staring at Cranajour:</p>
+
+<p>Cranajour smiled his most idiotic smile, nodded, but did not utter one
+word!...</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It was formidable, the rage of Nibet! Here had that crass fool,
+Cranajour, kicked away the warder's chance of ridding himself of the
+journalist for good and all! This hit-and-miss made Nibet foam with
+rage. Of all the exasperating simpletons, this fool of a Cranajour took
+the cake!</p>
+
+<p>The two made their way back to the store, where Mother Toulouche and big
+Ernestine anxiously awaited results; and now not only had the two men
+returned stuttering over their statements and with no news of the
+boatman, who was generally up to time, but they had missed a fine
+opportunity chance had offered them!</p>
+
+<p>Nibet hated the journalist like all the poisons. Taunts, jeers, abuse
+were heaped on the silly head of Cranajour, who, all in vain, raised his
+eyes to heaven, beat his chest, shrugged his shoulders, stammered,
+mumbled vague excuses:</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't know exactly why he had done it! He thought he was helping
+Nibet!"</p>
+
+<p>They disputed and contended for two hours. Suddenly Cranajour broke a
+long silence and demanded, looking as stupid as a half-witted owl:</p>
+
+<p>"What have I done then? What are you scolding me for?"</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche, big Ernestine, and the wrathful Nibet stared at one
+another, taken aback&mdash;then they understood: two hours had gone by, and
+Cranajour no longer remembered what had happened!</p>
+
+<p>Decidedly he was more innocent than a new-born babe! There was nothing
+whatever to be done with such an idiot, that was certain!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI</h2>
+
+<h3>IN THE OPPOSITE SENSE</h3>
+
+
+<p>When J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor had been precipitated into the Seine so unexpectedly
+and with such violence he kept control of his wits: he did not utter a
+cry as he fell head foremost into the darkling river. He was an
+excellent swimmer: all aching as he was, he let himself go with the
+current and presently reached the sheltering arch of the Pont Neuf.
+There he took breath for a minute:</p>
+
+<p>"Queer!" was all he murmured. Then with regular strokes he made for the
+steep bank of the Seine opposite. Quitting the river, he secreted
+himself behind a heap of stones which lay on the quay. He took off his
+soaked garments and wrung the water out of them. This done, and clad in
+what looked like dry clothes, Fandor walked along the quay, hailed a
+passing cabman half asleep on his seat, jumped inside, and gave his
+address to the Jehu.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>When he arrived at <i>La Capitale</i> on the Friday morning a boy approached
+him, and whispered mysteriously:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Fandor, there's a very nice little woman in the sitting-room,
+who has been waiting for over an hour. She wishes to see you. She will
+not give her name: she declares that you know who she is."</p>
+
+<p>"What is she like?" Fandor asked. His curiosity was not much aroused.</p>
+
+<p>"Pretty, fair, all in black," replied the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Good. I'll go in," interrupted Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>He entered the sitting-room and stood face to face with Mademoiselle
+Elizabeth Dollon. She came forward, her eyes shining, her face alight
+with welcome:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, monsieur," she cried, taking his hands in hers, a movement of pure
+gratitude: "Ah, monsieur, I knew you would come to my help! I have read
+your article of yesterday. Thank you again and again! But, I implore
+you, since my brother is alive, tell me where I can see him! For mercy's
+sake don't keep me waiting!"</p>
+
+<p>Surprise kept Fandor silent a moment.</p>
+
+<p><i>La Capitale</i> had published the evening before a sensational article by
+Fandor, in which, under the guise of suppositions and interrogations, he
+had narrated the various adventures as they had happened to himself,
+concluding with the question&mdash;really an ironical one: "If Jacques
+Dollon, who had disappeared from his cell, where he had been left for
+dead, had escaped from the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t by way of the famous chimney of Marie
+Antoinette, had reached the roof of the Palais, had redescended by
+another passageway to the sewer opening on to the Seine, did it not seem
+possible that Dollon had escaped alive from the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had indulged in a gentle irony, despite the gravity of the
+circumstances, in order to complicate the already complicated affair,
+and so plunge the police into a confusion worse confounded: this, in
+spite of his conviction that Dollon was dead, dead as dead could be!</p>
+
+<p>Now the cruelty of this professional game was brought home to him. His
+article had raised fresh hopes in Dollon's poor sister! At sight of this
+charming girl, brightened with hope, Fandor felt all pity and guilt. He
+pressed her hands; he hesitated; he was troubled. He did not know how to
+explain. At last he murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"It was wrong of me, mademoiselle, very wrong to write that article in
+such a way without warning you beforehand. Alas! You must not cherish
+illusions, illusions which this unfortunate article has given rise to,
+illusions I cannot believe in myself. I speak with all the sincerity of
+which I am capable, with the keenest desire to be of service to you: I
+dare not let you buoy yourself up with false hopes.... I assure you
+then, that from what I have been able to learn, to see, to know, I am
+convinced that your unfortunate brother is no more!... If there have
+been moments when I have doubted this, I am now morally certain that he
+is dead. Take courage, mademoiselle! Try, try to forget&mdash;to&mdash;to ..."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was trembling with emotion: he could not continue. Elizabeth bent
+her head, her eyes full of tears. She could not speak. She was overcome
+by this cruel dashing to the ground of her hopes. Never, never, to see
+her brother again!</p>
+
+<p>An agonising silence reigned.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was profoundly troubled by this mute grief. He sought in vain for
+some word of comfort, of encouragement.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth rose to go. The poor girl realised that nothing could be
+gained by prolonging the interview. Her one need now was to be alone,
+for then she could weep.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was about to accompany her to the door, when a boy entered:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Fandor, there's a man wishes to speak to you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Say I am not here," replied our journalist: he had no wish to see
+strangers just then.</p>
+
+<p>"But Monsieur Fandor, he says he is the keeper of the landing stage of
+the passenger boat service, and he comes with reference to the Dollon
+affair!"</p>
+
+<p>Both Elizabeth Dollon and J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor started. She was trembling. Our
+journalist said at once:</p>
+
+<p>"Bring him in then!"</p>
+
+<p>The boy went off, and Fandor turned to the trembling girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, Mademoiselle Elizabeth, do you feel equal to hearing what
+this man has to tell us? It is not improbable that he has seen
+something&mdash;something it would be best you should not hear&mdash;had you not
+better avoid it?"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth shook her head in the negative. She was collecting all her
+forces: she would not remain ignorant of any detail of the terrible
+tragedy which had cost her brother so dear:</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be strong enough," she announced firmly.</p>
+
+<p>The boy ushered in the visitor. He looked a good specimen of his class,
+a man about forty. On his cap were the gold anchors of those in the
+employ of the Paris boat service.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur!... Madame!... At your service!" The good fellow was very much
+embarrassed:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Fandor," he went on, "you do not know me, but I know you very
+well, that I do!... I read your articles every day in <i>La Capitale</i>.
+They're jolly good! What I say is ..."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor cut short his admirer: "Now tell me what brings you here!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well, here goes! I was reading your article yesterday, about how
+Jacques Dollon, no more dead than you or I, had escaped over the roofs
+of the Palais de Justice. That made me laugh, because I am the keeper of
+the landing stage at the Pont Neuf Station. This affair is supposed to
+have happened in my parts, don't you see?... Well, I had just come to
+the bit where you also suppose that the corpse might easily have been
+devoured by rats inside the sewer.... Well, Monsieur Fandor, I can
+assure you that it was nothing of the sort...."</p>
+
+<p>The journalist was all eyes and ears. He signed to Elizabeth that she
+must keep quiet, so as not to intimidate the good fellow.</p>
+
+<p>"Come now, what is it you have seen?"</p>
+
+<p>"What I've seen?... Why, I saw Dollon break bounds!"</p>
+
+<p>At this statement Elizabeth grew white as a sheet. She jumped up, and
+with clasped hands rushed towards the keeper:</p>
+
+<p>"Speak, speak quickly, I implore you!" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor drew Elizabeth back gently, and whispered a few words to her. He
+turned to the keeper:</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle has also come to make a statement regarding this affair,"
+he explained. "That is why she is so interested in what you have just
+told us.... But tell us how you saw Jacques Dollon escape!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I had got up a bit earlier than usual to see that the anchors and
+mooring were all right, and I thought I saw what looked like a big
+bundle fall into the river from the sewer opening&mdash;only I was half
+asleep and didn't take much notice; for, what with all the rain we've
+been having, there's no end of filthy stuff tumbling out of the mouth of
+the sewers. But, a few minutes after that, I noticed that the bundle,
+instead of going with the flow of the current, was drifting across the
+Seine, plainly making for the bank. There could be no mistake about
+that!"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth Dollon cried:</p>
+
+<p>"And then? And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then, my little lady, what if this surprise packet didn't turn off
+behind an arch of the Pont-Neuf! I didn't see what became of it&mdash;but no
+one will get it out of my head that it isn't some jolly dog who had no
+wish to show himself&mdash;that's what I think!"</p>
+
+<p>The keeper paused, then went on:</p>
+
+<p>"That's all I have to tell you, Monsieur Fandor ... it might serve for
+one of your articles some time or other ... only you mustn't say that I
+told you. I might get into trouble with my chiefs about it!"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth Dollon was no longer listening. She had turned to Fandor, and
+with shining eyes murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"He lives!... He lives!..."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor thanked the keeper, and got rid of him. Directly the door closed
+on him he darted to Elizabeth:</p>
+
+<p>"Poor child!" he cried, full of pity for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Don't pity me! I don't need your pity now!... My brother is
+alive!... That man has seen him!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had to undeceive her:</p>
+
+<p>"Your brother is certainly dead," he declared. "If he were the
+individual in question, it would not have been yesterday morning,
+but the morning before that, when the keeper saw him; and I do
+assure you ..."</p>
+
+<p>"But this good fellow is telling the truth then?"</p>
+
+<p>"I assure you that I have good reasons, the best of reasons, for
+believing, for being certain, that the swimmer who crossed the Seine was
+not your brother!"</p>
+
+<p>"Great Heaven! Who was it then?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor hesitated a moment.... Should he divulge his secret? All he said
+was:</p>
+
+<p>"It was not your brother&mdash;I know that!"</p>
+
+<p>So decisive was his tone, so great the sympathy vibrating through his
+words, that Elizabeth Dollon, once more convinced that Fandor was not
+speaking at random, bent her head and shed tears of deepest grief and
+bitter disappointment.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor allowed the sorrow-stricken girl to give way to her grief for a
+few minutes; then he gently asked her:</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle Elizabeth, shall we have a little talk?... You see I
+simply cannot tell you everything, yet I would gladly help you!... But
+first and foremost, I beg of you to put quite out of your mind this hope
+that your brother is still alive!..."</p>
+
+<p>Sadly Elizabeth wiped away her tears, and in a voice which she tried to
+steady, said:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what is to become of me! I thought I had found in you a support, a
+help, and now you abandon me! And I had put my faith in your goodness of
+heart!... There are your articles on the one hand, and your attitude on
+the other&mdash;what am I to make of it? It is driving me to despair! And if
+you only knew how much I need to be supported, encouraged; I feel as if
+I should go out of my senses&mdash;out of my mind ... and I am alone, so
+terribly alone!"</p>
+
+<p>The poor girl's voice was broken by sobs, her whole body was shaken by
+them. Fandor went up to her, and spoke to her in a low tone
+affectionately: he felt great sympathy and an immense pity for this
+unhappy young creature, who charmed and attracted him. He tried to
+console her, and to change the current of her thoughts:</p>
+
+<p>"Come now, Mademoiselle, do try to control yourself a little! I have
+promised to help you, and I certainly shall&mdash;you may be sure of it. But
+consider now&mdash;if I am to be of real use to you, I must know a little
+about you: you, yourself, your family, your brother; who your friends
+are, and who are your enemies! I must enter into your existence, not as
+a judge, but as a comrade who is interested in all that concerns you.
+Will you not confide in me? Once I know what there is to know we might
+then unite our efforts to some purpose, and find out what really has
+happened, since the mystery remains inexplicable."</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth Dollon felt the young man was sincere, and that what he said
+in such a gentle voice was true.</p>
+
+<p>This poor human waif asked no more than to be allowed to cling to
+whoever would take pity on her and be kind. She now spoke to J&eacute;r&ocirc;me
+Fandor of her childhood without suspecting in the least that the same
+J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor&mdash;Charles Rambert&mdash;used to play with her in those days.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p>
+
+<p>She mentioned the assassination of the Marquise de Langrune&mdash;the first
+tragic episode of her life; then had come the horrible death of her
+father, old Steward Dollon, who had passed from the service of the
+Marquise to that of the Baroness de Vibray, and then perished, the
+victim of a criminal.</p>
+
+<p>She explained how Jacques Dollon and she had come to settle in Paris,
+feeling themselves rich on the savings they had inherited from their
+parents. Elizabeth had become a dressmaker, and Jacques had become an
+artist-craftsman. Gradually the young man's talent and industry had
+enabled his sister to leave her workroom and come to live with him. His
+reputation was a growing one, and the two young people looked forward to
+an existence of honest comfort in the near future. They got to know some
+people, one or two of whom were rich, and had shown their interest in
+the brother and sister.</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor interrupted her:</p>
+
+<p>"You always remained on good terms with the Baroness de Vibray?"</p>
+
+<p>At this question the girl's eyes flashed:</p>
+
+<p>"They have put into print shameful things about this poor dear Baroness,
+and about my brother also. The papers have represented her as eccentric,
+as mad; they have said worse things than that, you know that, don't
+you?... They have declared that there was a very intimate relation
+between her and my brother&mdash;I cannot say more&mdash;it is too hateful! It is
+all false&mdash;as false as false can be! The Baroness was particularly
+interested in Jacques, but assuredly that was owing to the long standing
+relations between her family and ours.... The suicide of the Baroness
+has been a sad addition to my grief, for I was very fond of her!..."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had been listening attentively to Elizabeth's story. He now said:</p>
+
+<p>"You have used the word 'suicide,' mademoiselle: do you then really
+think, as everyone seems to do, that your patroness killed herself of
+her own free will?"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth reflected a minute before replying:</p>
+
+<p>"That was what she wrote&mdash;and one must believe that, nevertheless ..."</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless?"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth hesitated, passed her hand over her forehead, then said:</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless, Monsieur Fandor, the more I think over this death, the
+more remarkable it seems. The Baroness de Vibray was not the kind of
+person to commit suicide, even if she were unhappy, even if she were
+ruined. I have often heard her speak of her money affairs; she even used
+to joke about the expostulations of her bankers, Messieurs
+Barbey-Nanteuil, because she was too fond of gambling. That was our poor
+friend's weakness: she was a dreadful gambler: she was always betting on
+horses and gambling on the Bourse."<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
+
+<p>"Do you know the Barbey-Nanteuils at all, mademoiselle?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little. I have met them once or twice at Madame de Vibray's&mdash;when she
+had one of her little evenings. Once or twice my brother has asked their
+advice about investments&mdash;very modest investments I can assure you&mdash;and
+they got one of their friends, a Monsieur Thomery, to buy some of my
+brother's art pottery."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you many acquaintances in Paris, mademoiselle?"</p>
+
+<p>"Besides the Baroness we hardly saw anyone except Madame Bourrat, a very
+nice, kind woman, widow of an inspector of the City of Paris; she keeps
+a boarding-house at Auteuil, rue Raffet. In fact, I am staying with her
+now, for I had not the courage to go back to my brother's place: too
+many dreadful memories are connected with his studio there. I am lucky
+to find such a sympathetic friend in Madame Bourrat, and such a warm
+welcome.... I am alone now, and life is sad."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor went on with his cross-examination:</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless, mademoiselle, I must ask you to return in thought to that
+tragic home of yours. Please tell me what people you knew in your
+immediate neighbourhood? Acquaintances?"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth considered:</p>
+
+<p>"Acquaintances is the word, because we were not on really intimate terms
+with our neighbours in the Cit&eacute;; for the most part they are either art
+students or work-people. However, we saw fairly often a nice man, a
+stranger, a Dutchman I think he was, called Monsieur Van Hoeren; he
+manufactures accordions; and lives in a little house opposite ours, with
+six children; he has been a widower for years! Also there was a Monsieur
+Louis, an engraver, who used to take tea with us in the evening
+sometimes, his wife also: he is employed in the Posts and Telegraphs. We
+had practically no other acquaintances."</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth stopped. There was a silence. Fandor asked another question:</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, mademoiselle, when you entered the studio for the first time
+after the tragedy, did you notice anything abnormal?"</p>
+
+<p>The poor girl shuddered at the appalling picture before her mind's eye:</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heavens, monsieur," she cried, "I did not examine the studio
+minutely! I had only one thought&mdash;to be with my brother, who had been so
+unjustly accused, so ..."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor interrupted to ask:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you not know that at his preliminary examination your brother
+declared that he had not received a single visitor during the evening
+preceding the tragedy? How then do you explain the fact that the
+Baroness de Vibray was found dead in his studio, and at his side, when
+no one had seen her enter it? Did your brother make a mistake? Please
+tell me what you think about it!"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth gazed anxiously at the young journalist, then fixed her eyes
+on the floor. Her hands twitched; she began to twist her fingers
+feverishly:</p>
+
+<p>"Do trust me!" begged J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor. "Please tell me what you think!"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth rose, took several steps, and placed herself in front of the
+journalist:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, monsieur, there is something mysterious, which I cannot explain! As
+a matter of fact, someone must have come to see my brother that evening:
+I cannot assert it as a fact beyond dispute certainly: but in my own
+mind I feel quite sure about it."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must have more proof of it than that?" cried Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"But&mdash;there is more!" cried Elizabeth, as if enlightened by a sudden
+discovery: "There is a fact!..."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, do!" cried Fandor, intensely interested.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, just imagine, then! Among the papers scattered over his table,
+and close to his book, which was open, I noticed a sort of list of names
+and addresses, written on our own note-paper, and in the kind of green
+ink we use&mdash;so&mdash;well ..."</p>
+
+<p>"So," interrupted the journalist, "you came to the conclusion that this
+list had been written at your brother's house?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and it was not my brother's handwriting."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor that of the Baroness de Vibray?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nor that of the Baroness de Vibray!"</p>
+
+<p>"And what did this list contain?"</p>
+
+<p>"Names, addresses, I tell you, of persons we knew. There were also two
+or three dates...."</p>
+
+<p>"And is that all?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is all, monsieur: I saw nothing else!"</p>
+
+<p>"Little enough," murmured Fandor, disappointed. "Still no detail,
+however slight, must be ignored!... What have you done with that list,
+mademoiselle?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must have taken it with me when I collected all the papers I could
+find the day before yesterday, before going to the boarding-house at
+Auteuil."</p>
+
+<p>"When you have an opportunity, will you bring me that list?" requested
+Fandor.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The conversation was interrupted. A boy came to tell Fandor that he was
+wanted on the telephone by someone in the Public Prosecutor's Office.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Later on in the day J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor sent the following express message to
+Elizabeth Dollon:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>"Do not believe a word of the Police Headquarters' version which
+you will read in this evening's 'La Capitale.'"</i></p></div>
+
+<p>This despatched, our journalist commenced his article entitled:</p>
+
+<h4><span class="smcap">Still the Affair of the Rue Norvins</span></h4>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Police Headquarters takes a view of this affair which is the very
+reverse of that taken by our contributor, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>By the Seine sewer, the roofs of the Palace, and the chimney of
+Marie Antoinette, an inspector has succeeded in reaching the
+D&eacute;p&ocirc;t.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Police Headquarters is convinced that Jacques Dollon escaped
+alive!</i></p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VII" id="VII"></a>VII</h2>
+
+<h3>PEARLS AND DIAMONDS</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Nadine!"</p>
+
+<p>"Princess!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nadine, what time is it?"</p>
+
+<p>The young Circassian, with hair as black as ink, souple and slender,
+rose from her chair and was hastening from the bedroom to ascertain the
+time when her mistress recalled her:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go away, Nadine! Stay with me!"</p>
+
+<p>The dusky Circassian obeyed: she stared with big, astonished eyes into
+those of her mistress:</p>
+
+<p>"But, Princess, why don't you wish me to go?"</p>
+
+<p>The Princess stammered in a mysterious tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you know then, Nadine, that to-day is the anniversary?... and I
+am frightened!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Princess Sonia Danidoff was in her bath robe. It must have been a
+quarter past eleven, or even nearer midnight than that. Although she had
+lived in Paris for years, she had never been able to make up her mind to
+settle in a flat of her own. Possessing an immense fortune, she much
+preferred the American way of living, and had taken a suite of rooms in
+one of those great palace-hotels near the place de l'Etoile. Though a
+very smart staff of servants was reserved for her exclusive use, her
+favourite attendant was a pretty Circassian, in whom she had absolute
+confidence. This Nadine was a native of Southern Russia. The movement of
+city life and civilised manners and customs had at first terrified this
+little savage; but she had learned to adapt herself to her changed
+surroundings, and was now high in the favour of Princess Sonia. She, and
+she alone, was authorised to be present when the beautiful great lady
+took her daily baths. For some years past the Princess had insisted on
+the presence of a maid when she took her baths: without fail they must
+either be in the bathroom itself, or in the room next to it, within
+reach or call. But on this particular evening Sonia Danidoff, more
+nervous and restless than usual, would not allow Nadine to leave her for
+a second. As to the time&mdash;well, if she did not know the exact time it
+could not be helped! Really it did not matter to her whether she were
+half an hour or no, for the ball given in her honour by Thomery, the
+millionaire sugar refiner: in fact, it would be much better to make her
+appearance after all the guests had assembled&mdash;her arrival would give
+the crowning touch of brilliancy to this society function.</p>
+
+<p>Sonia Danidoff had pronounced the word "anniversary" in a tone of
+anguish so sincere that Nadine was genuinely alarmed. She knew, only too
+well, what this fatal word meant to her mistress.</p>
+
+<p>She had not forgotten that five years ago to the day, just when the
+Princess was enjoying her evening bath, a mysterious individual had
+appeared before her, who, after frightening her, had robbed her of a
+large sum of money. The adventure would have been little out of the
+ordinary, for hotel robberies are frequent, had not the audacious bandit
+been quickly identified as the enigmatic and elusive Fant&ocirc;mas, whose
+prodigious reputation had only increased with the passage of the years.</p>
+
+<p>Sonia Danidoff, who was not ignorant of the dramatic adventures imputed
+to this legendary hero, could not bear to think of the position she had
+been placed in that awful night, when, threatened and robbed by
+Fant&ocirc;mas, she had escaped death by a series of unknown and unguessable
+circumstances: the tormenting mystery of it all had preyed insistently
+upon her mind. Since then Sonia Danidoff had never taken a bath without
+thinking of Fant&ocirc;mas; and every year when the anniversary of his
+aggression came round she suffered cruelly: she was seized with wild,
+unreasoning fears at the idea that she might see this terrifying bandit
+appear before her again, and that this time he would be merciless.</p>
+
+<p>Nadine knew all this. She also shuddered at the vision this horrible
+anniversary evoked, but controlling herself, she was anxious to change
+the current of her dear mistress's thoughts:</p>
+
+<p>"Forget, try to forget, Sonia Danidoff," she counselled in her melodious
+voice: "You are going to a ball&mdash;at Monsieur Thomery's&mdash;at your fianc&eacute;'s
+house!"</p>
+
+<p>The Princess shuddered:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Nadine, my Nadine!" she cried, raising herself, and regarding her
+maid with a strange look: "I cannot overcome my uneasiness&mdash;my
+alarms!... This coincidence of date agitates me.... You know how
+superstitious we are at home&mdash;in our Russia&mdash;and the life I lead in
+Paris has not destroyed in me the simplicity of soul of a daughter of
+the Steppes!"</p>
+
+<p>Nadine did not know what reply to make to this pathetic outburst. The
+Princess went on:</p>
+
+<p>"And then, do you see, I think it wrong of Monsieur Thomery to even want
+to give this ball, only a fortnight after the tragic death of that poor
+Baroness de Vibray!... I tried to dissuade him from it.... I think the
+Baroness was his most intimate friend once!..."</p>
+
+<p>"So it is said," murmured Nadine.</p>
+
+<p>Sonia Danidoff went on, as if speaking to herself:</p>
+
+<p>"I am not sure of it ... it is precisely to remove this suspicion from
+my mind that Thomery was determined to have his ball to-night at all
+costs!... The Baroness de Vibray, so he told me, was no more than a good
+old friend.... I cannot make her death an excuse for putting off the
+announcement of our marriage ... that would be to give colour to
+scandal."</p>
+
+<p>Sonia Danidoff shrugged her beautiful shoulders:</p>
+
+<p>"Hand me a mirror!"</p>
+
+<p>Nadine obeyed. The Princess gazed long and complacently at the
+marvellously lovely face reflected in the glass.</p>
+
+<p>"Princess," cried Nadine, "you must leave the bath, you will be late
+otherwise!"</p>
+
+<p>In the adjacent dressing-room, brilliantly illuminated by electric
+light, the Princess dressed with the aid of Nadine, proud and happy to
+be the sole assistant of her beloved mistress. The toilet was a triumph:
+silk of an exquisite blue, draped with silk muslin incrusted with pointe
+de Venise and bands of ermine: a costly masterpiece of the dressmaker's
+art. It enhanced the brilliant beauty of Sonia Danidoff, and threw
+Nadine into raptures.</p>
+
+<p>The Princess opened her jewel-box:</p>
+
+<p>"This evening, Nadine, I shall be pearls and diamonds!" cried the lovely
+creature, as she fixed two large grey pearls in her ears.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how beautiful you are, Princess! And what a lot they must have
+cost!" cried Nadine.</p>
+
+<p>"Ten thousand francs, my child, on each side of my head!"</p>
+
+<p>Sonia slipped on her fingers three diamond rings set in platinum:</p>
+
+<p>"And here are eight or nine thousand francs more," continued she, as
+Nadine's eyes grew round with wonder: her mind could hardly grasp all
+these thousands of francs-worth of diamonds and pearls. There were still
+more to come; for, rejecting a magnificent bracelet, on the plea that
+one no longer wore them at balls, the Princess smilingly bade her
+Circassian fasten round her neck a superb triple collar of pearls. To
+this was added a sparkling cascade of diamonds. Never had Nadine seen
+her beautiful mistress so richly dressed. Thus adorned, in Nadine's
+eyes, Sonia Danidoff was dazzlingly beautiful, exquisitely lovely.</p>
+
+<p>"You look like the Holy Virgin on the icons!" stammered Nadine,
+kneeling before her mistress, quite overcome by emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heavens! That is blasphemy! I am only a humble human creature!"
+said the Princess smiling. Then she once more looked at herself in the
+mirrors, well satisfied with her appearance, certain of the effect she
+would produce on her future husband Thomery. She threw over her
+shoulders a superb mantle of zibeline which was quite needed, for,
+though it was the middle of April, it was quite cold.</p>
+
+<p>Then, ready at last, she descended to her motor-car, and was whirled
+away to the ball.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Cranajour!... Cranajour!"</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche shouted herself breathless: she tried to shout louder
+and louder. It was in vain. She might shout herself hoarse&mdash;there was no
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>The old termagant, who had left the front of her hovel and had gone to
+call her assistant, shouting in the passage at the back of the store,
+returned cursing and swearing, and seated herself near the store in the
+lean-to which did duty as a kitchen:</p>
+
+<p>"Where in the devil's name has that imbecile got to?" she grumbled,
+whilst sipping with gusts from the bottom of a cup, into which she had
+poured a small allowance of coffee and a copious ration of rum. It was
+about eleven in the evening. There was not a sound to be heard.</p>
+
+<p>Having finished her rum and tea the old receiver of stolen goods went to
+the entrance of the passage:</p>
+
+<p>"Cranajour!... Cranajour!" yelled the old termagant.</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"He can't possibly be in his canteen," said Mother Toulouche to herself.
+"If he was he'd have answered, fool though he is, and would have come
+down!... Sure he's gone to drag his old down-at-heels somewhere&mdash;but
+where?... Oh, well, we can manage to do without him!"</p>
+
+<p>The old receiver went back to her store, and was starting on a queer
+sort of job when the door, which led on to the quay, burst open before a
+panting, breathless individual. He ran right up the store and stopped
+short. Mother Toulouche had seized the first thing she could find, and
+had taken up a defensive attitude. Her weapon was a great ancient
+cavalry sabre!</p>
+
+<p>But the newcomer intended no harm&mdash;quite the contrary! After an
+instinctive recoil, he leaned against a table and wiped his forehead,
+breathing in gasps, incapable of pronouncing a syllable.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche had recognised him:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! It's you, Redhead!... And not a bit too soon either! I've been
+waiting for you this last half-hour! Ernestine will be there in ten
+minutes' time! However is it you are so late?"</p>
+
+<p>Redhead was well named! His bullet-head was covered with russet-red
+hair, cut very short; his complexion was a good match; his bloated
+cheeks and his potato-shaped nose were covered with red patches; his
+shaven chin was a tawny red; round his little gimlet eyes was a fringe
+of red lashes: it was a bestial face.</p>
+
+<p>He was hatless; above his waistcoat with metal buttons he wore a black
+coat; his trousers had a yellow line down them: he was evidently a
+servant, wearing the livery of some big house. The fellow was slowly
+recovering his breath; but he continued to wipe great drops of sweat off
+his narrow forehead; he was shaking all over, and his morose countenance
+was twitching and contracting nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what's your news? Good or bad?" questioned Mother Toulouche in a
+brutal tone.</p>
+
+<p>Redhead replied almost inaudibly:</p>
+
+<p>"That depends!... It's good on the whole."</p>
+
+<p>A gleam of cupidity showed in the old receiver's eyes:</p>
+
+<p>"Got a bit of tin on her back, that woman&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Redhead nodded a "yes." Thereupon Mother Toulouche went into her back
+store and returned with a claret glass filled to the brim with rum:</p>
+
+<p>"Shoot that down your throat! That'll put you right!"</p>
+
+<p>When he had swallowed the bumper he seemed to gain courage, and said:</p>
+
+<p>"If I didn't get here sooner it's because I had to wait&mdash;but I saw the
+little thing...."</p>
+
+<p>"What's her name?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nadine," replied Redhead, and added: "A pretty little brat, too!...
+She's got some fire in her eyes!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's that to do with it?" interrupted Mother Toulouche.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't mean to tell me you were able to make her gabble a bit?" she
+queried contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>Redhead bridled: "Likely, since I know everything now ... and I'm her
+sweetheart, let me tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche said in a jeering tone:</p>
+
+<p>"You don't tell me! You!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," replied Redhead, "it's just a way of speaking. She's a good little
+thing&mdash;there's nothing to it, you know!"</p>
+
+<p>"So much the worse!" declared Mother Toulouche. "Virtuous sorts aren't
+any use to our lot!... Well&mdash;what did she tell you&mdash;out with it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Redhead, "I waited three-quarters of an hour before Nadine
+joined me.... I had no bother in making her talk, I can tell you:
+without the asking she told me everything ... she was pretty well
+flabbergasted with all the jewels her mistress had stuck on her clothes
+and her skin.... Seems there's hundreds of thousands' worth!... All
+pearls and diamonds! Nothing but...."</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche was calculating:</p>
+
+<p>"Real pearls, real diamonds&mdash;it's possible there's all that worth!"</p>
+
+<p>Steps could be heard on the pavement just outside.</p>
+
+<p>Redhead began to shake all over:</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it?" he asked. "Someone coming in?"</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche grinned:</p>
+
+<p>"Be easy, then! Haven't I told you there's nothing to fear?"</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless he asked anxiously:</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing more I'm wanted for here, is there? I've told you all I
+know."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, it's all right!" replied Mother Toulouche, maternal and
+conciliating, "there's nothing more for you to do here.... Still, if you
+want to see big Ernestine...."</p>
+
+<p>Without waiting to hear the end of her sentence Redhead hurried towards
+the exit. Mother Toulouche did not try to detain him:</p>
+
+<p>"After all," she said in a low tone to his back as a kind of farewell,
+"cut your sticks, my lad ... since you're funky!"</p>
+
+<p>When alone she grumbled aloud:</p>
+
+<p>"What a lot they are!... I never did!... White-livered, and for nothing
+at all!"</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche was still muttering when big Ernestine marched in
+through the back way. She had on a large hat and was heavily veiled. She
+proceeded to remove both hat and veil:</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" she queried.</p>
+
+<p>"They've got on to it all right! Redhead has just gone! He knows through
+the little maid that the Princess went off to the ball, dressed up to
+the nines&mdash;hung with jewels like a shrine!"</p>
+
+<p>Big Ernestine uttered a deep sigh of satisfaction: her only reply was to
+hustle the old receiver:</p>
+
+<p>"Look alive, Mother Toulouche!... You've got to give me a beggar's
+outfit: it's up to you to see I'm disguised properly, and there's not a
+minute to lose either!"</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche was an expert at disguises and make-up of every sort:
+this was not to be wondered at, considering the queer company she kept,
+and the fraudulent business she carried on, and the smuggling she was
+mixed up in!</p>
+
+<p>Big Ernestine, disguised as a poverty-stricken creature and rendered
+unrecognisable, looked exactly like some unfortunate reduced to
+soliciting alms. She walked into the back store, and helped Mother
+Toulouche to take from a cupboard some bottles, bandages, and medicated
+cotton-wool. By the light of a smoky lamp the two women scrutinised the
+labels, sniffing the various phials and flasks. Big Ernestine, with the
+aid of Mother Toulouche, prepared compresses of pomade and cotton-wool,
+on which she sprinkled a few drops of a yellow liquid, giving out a
+sickening odour. Besides this big Ernestine put inside her bodice a long
+phial, after making certain that the mixture, with which it was full,
+contained chloroform....</p>
+
+<p>Then, under Mother Toulouche's watchful eye, Ernestine prepared what was
+called in that world of light-fingered gentry "the mask": a mask of
+cotton, which is moulded by force on the face of the victim in order to
+plunge him, or her, into a heavy sleep. Whilst making these sinister
+preparations the two women talked as they went on with their evil task.
+Big Ernestine said, in reply to Mother Toulouche's questionings:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's simple enough! It's like this:... When the motor-car stops I
+shall go to the right-hand door and begin to beg ... likely enough, the
+Princess won't want to hear what I have to say, but while I attract her
+attention, Mimile, who will be on the other side, will open the door,
+and will stick the compress on her mug.... She won't struggle&mdash;besides,
+Mimile will have hold of her&mdash;and then I'll have had time to see where
+her jewels are, and how they are fastened, and then I'll soon have them
+in my pocket&mdash;my deep 'un!"</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche nodded:</p>
+
+<p>"It's arranged all right, but how will you arrest the motor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's where the others come in; they'll do it all right.... I
+expect they're seeing to it now!..."</p>
+
+<p>"But, look here," cried Mother Toulouche, "Mimile isn't in bits then?
+They said he had fallen from his flier!"</p>
+
+<p>Big Ernestine gave a laugh:</p>
+
+<p>"He fell right enough, poor little fellow, and from pretty high too&mdash;but
+he's not broken a thing ... not this time ... a bit of luck I don't
+think&mdash;eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"He's a mascot, I'm certain," declared Mother Toulouche. Then she said:
+"You spoke of the others?... Who are they&mdash;the others?"</p>
+
+<p>"But didn't they tell you?" cried the surprised Ernestine, for she
+thought old Mother Toulouche was in the know: "Why, there's the
+Beadle&mdash;and the Beard...."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," cried Mother Toulouche, much impressed: "If the Beard's in it,
+then it's a serious affair!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied big Ernestine, staring hard at the old receiver of stolen
+goods: "It's serious all right! If the chloroform doesn't work&mdash;oh, well
+... they'll bring the knife into play...."</p>
+
+<p>Big Ernestine looked at her little silver watch to mark the time:</p>
+
+<p>"Past midnight!" she remarked: "I must hurry off and see what they're up
+to!"</p>
+
+<p>As she was making off Mother Toulouche stopped her:</p>
+
+<p>"Have a glass of rum to start on&mdash;it puts heart into you!"</p>
+
+<p>The two women were quite ready for a drink together. When they had
+swallowed their dose, big Ernestine smacked her tongue:</p>
+
+<p>"Famous stuff!... It puts a heart into you and no mistake!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's the right stuff&mdash;the best," agreed Mother Toulouche: "It's
+what Nibet prefers!" she added. Then she cried: "But Nibet, how ...
+isn't he in it?"</p>
+
+<p>Big Ernestine put a finger on her lips:</p>
+
+<p>"Nibet's in it of course&mdash;as he always is&mdash;you know that, old
+Toulouche&mdash;but he's content to show the way&mdash;you know he seldom does
+anything himself ... besides, it seems he's on duty at the d&eacute;p&ocirc;t
+to-night!"</p>
+
+<p>Big Ernestine threw an old shawl over her head and went off crying:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm off, and in for it now!... Soon be back, Mother Toulouche!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The magnificent mansion of Thomery, the sugar refiner, overlooked the
+park Monceau. It was approached by a very quiet little avenue, in which
+were a few big houses: it opened on to the boulevard Malesherbes, and
+was known as the avenue de Valois. All the dwellings there are
+sumptuous, richly inhabited, and if the avenue is peaceful and silent by
+day, it is no uncommon thing to see it of an evening crowded with
+carriages and luxurious motor-cars, come to fetch the owners away to
+dinners and entertainments.</p>
+
+<p>On this particular evening the approaches to the avenue de Valois were
+full of animation. Motors and broughams succeeded one another in a long
+file, putting down the guests of Thomery under an immense marquee,
+covering the steps leading up to the vestibule.</p>
+
+<p>All the smart world had been invited to the reception: all Paris swarmed
+into the brilliantly illuminated entrance-halls of the mansion.</p>
+
+<p>Two mounted policemen sat as immovable as bronze caryatides on either
+side of the entrance, whilst a swarm of policemen made the carriages
+move on, and drove away from the aristocratic avenue de Valois the band
+of poverty-stricken and ragged creatures who crowded the pavement with
+the hope of securing a handsome tip by opening a carriage door or
+picking up some fallen object.</p>
+
+<p>It was no easy matter to keep order. One of the police sergeants
+accustomed to ceremonial functions remarked to one of his younger
+colleagues:</p>
+
+<p>"I have seen balls and receptions enough! Well, my boy, this Thomery
+affair is as fine a set out as if it were at the President's!"</p>
+
+<p>Although it was one o'clock in the morning, both on the boulevard
+Malesherbes and at the entrance to the rue de Monceau there was movement
+and activity. If, as seemed likely, there was a crush in the great
+reception-rooms of the Thomery mansion, it was certain that outside the
+crowd had to form up in line to get near the counters, where the wine
+sellers were serving their customers without a moment's
+intermission&mdash;serving them with drinks of every description. Thus there
+was a hubbub, there was noise and roystering clamour all around. Most of
+the chauffeurs, coachmen, and servants knew one another.</p>
+
+<p>Mingling with all this aristocracy of the servant class were
+pickpockets, mendicants obsequious and wheedling, who offered themselves
+as understudies to these of the upper ten of the servant world, and
+these aristocrats were ready to seize this chance of a little liberty,
+and at the same time play the generous patron to these poor failures in
+life's battle. In fact they gave more generous tips than their masters;
+for did they not rub shoulders with misery and thus realise, only too
+vividly, the measureless horrors of destitution?</p>
+
+<p>Ernestine and Mimile lost themselves in the noisy crowd. They were all
+eyes and ears for everything going on around them, whilst keeping in
+view their two accomplices, the Beadle and the Beard. This was more than
+usually difficult, because they were disguised almost out of
+recognition. The Beard was muffled in a blue blouse and a big soft hat,
+which gave him the look of a peasant, who had wandered into a crowd with
+which he had nothing in common. The Beadle was capitally disguised as a
+coachman in good service who is out of a situation, but who, from vanity
+and custom, sports the emblems of office.</p>
+
+<p>He was continually chewing a quid of tobacco; for such is the habit of
+coachmen who cannot smoke on their seats, and thus console themselves
+with two sous' worth of roll tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>The Beadle stopped beside a chauffeur who had just got down from his
+car, a magnificent limousine, lined with cream cloth, while its exterior
+was a dark maroon in the best taste.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it's Casimir!" cried the Beadle, going up to the chauffeur with
+hands outstretched and smiling face.</p>
+
+<p>Mechanically the chauffeur, addressed as Casimir, responded to the
+offered handclasp. But, after a short silence, he said in a questioning
+tone, quite frankly:</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot recall you."</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you remember me!" cried the Beadle. "Why, don't you remember
+C&eacute;sar&mdash;C&eacute;sar who was with Rothschild last year?"</p>
+
+<p>No, Casimir could not remember. But he was quite willing to believe that
+he knew C&eacute;sar, for he had seen and known so many since he had been in
+the service of Princess Sonia Danidoff, that there was nothing
+extraordinary about his forgetfulness. Besides, C&eacute;sar looked quite a
+decent fellow, and had a taking face, and one only had to look at that
+beaming countenance of his to be sure that an invitation to take a drink
+together would soon be forthcoming!</p>
+
+<p>The Beadle, satisfied that he had so easily made a friend of the
+chauffeur of Sonia Danidoff, whom he had only known by sight for the
+last forty-eight hours, did in fact suggest their taking a glass
+together. The Beadle had indeed come up to expectations!</p>
+
+<p>Drink was Casimir's besetting sin. Excellent chauffeur, solid and
+serious fellow as he was, he had two defects: he was addicted to
+tippling, though he never drank to excess, and never got drunk. Also, he
+was fond of a gossip: he could talk for hours without stopping.</p>
+
+<p>The Beadle had been posted up regarding Casimir's little weaknesses and
+tastes. Thus nothing was easier than to set trap after trap, into each
+of which the simple fellow fell as they were set&mdash;fell fatally.</p>
+
+<p>The Beadle introduced the Beard to Casimir under the name of Father
+India-rubber: an old codger, whose trade was to buy and sell tyres to
+chauffeurs, tyres new and also second-hand. At this moment a young
+ragamuffin appeared on the scenes: he asked if he might be left in
+charge of the car. It was Mimile. The young hooligan, who had followed
+the conversation of the three men, and of Casimir in particular, whilst
+keeping in the background, now intervened at the right moment. He made
+his offer just as the chauffeur was looking about him in hopes of
+finding some poverty-stricken creatures into whose charge he could give
+his car. Casimir gave him twenty sous as an earnest of what was to
+follow in the way of coin, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Take great care of my little shanty! Don't let anyone come mouching
+around it, and when I return you shall have double what you've just
+had!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, master!" cried Mimile, bowing low before the chauffeur: "You
+may rest assured I shall keep a good look out!"</p>
+
+<p>Mimile exchanged signs of understanding with his two accomplices, whilst
+they, talking as they went, drew the innocent Casimir towards the
+nearest tavern, which was crowded with wine-bibbers.</p>
+
+<p>Mimile, as faithful guardian of the limousine, soon got bored, although
+big Ernestine was prowling around, and came to have a minute's talk with
+him now and again: they dared not be seen together too much for fear of
+attracting attention. As time went on, Mimile was surprised that neither
+the Beadle nor the Beard came to report progress. But at long last the
+majestic outline of the Beard was seen at the corner of the rue Monceau.
+The pretended seller of india-rubber was coming out of the tavern.</p>
+
+<p>He hastened to Mimile and, in a low, distinct voice, he gave him some
+hurried instructions, for now there was no time to lose:</p>
+
+<p>"That idiot would never get done with his stories about motor-cars, and
+all that stuff and rubbish&mdash;what's that to us? But&mdash;keep your ears open
+now, Mimile&mdash;it seems there are still fifteen litres of petrol in the
+tank, and that would take it a long way, for the motor consumes very
+little.... But this shanty has got to stop about five hundred yards from
+here, at the corner of the rue de Monceau and the rue de T&eacute;h&eacute;ran ...
+it's by this way Casimir will take his Baroness back from the ball....
+Well, what you have to do is to take fourteen litres and a half from
+that tank and pitch them in the gutter!... When Casimir finds that his
+petrol has given out, he will have to go in search of more ... it's
+during his absence that we will work the trick on the pretty
+Princess&mdash;we'll perform an operation on her, and amputate
+her&mdash;jewellery&mdash;the whole lot!"</p>
+
+<p>The Beard drew from under his blouse an empty bottle, which he had
+stolen in the tavern:</p>
+
+<p>"Here's your measure! Count carefully fourteen litres and a half&mdash;that
+done, wait quietly till Casimir turns up: your part in the story will be
+forty sous, and not to rouse his suspicions; then, while he goes up the
+avenue de Valois to take up the Princess, you and Ernestine have to
+gallop off to the corner of the rue de Monceau and the rue de T&eacute;h&eacute;ran,
+then ... wait!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Mimile, with the agility of a monkey and the ability of a first-rate
+chauffeur&mdash;for there was nothing he did not know in the way of applied
+mechanics, as became an aviator&mdash;executed to the letter his accomplice's
+orders.</p>
+
+<p>The Beard meanwhile had returned to the tavern and Casimir.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Suddenly, all was activity in the world of carriages and coachmen! The
+great ball was drawing to its end. Casimir was once more in possession
+of his motor, and had generously tipped his understudy: thereupon the
+hooligan had made off as fast as his legs could carry him. Ernestine
+joined him at the appointed spot: there the two rogues waited.
+"Listen!" cried big Ernestine some fifteen minutes later.</p>
+
+<p>She stared in the direction of the boulevard Malesherbes, with neck
+outstretched and straining eyeballs. At last, after an agonising wait,
+she and Mimile saw the carriages driving by. "Attention!" cried big
+Ernestine in a sharp whisper ... "everybody's on the move at last!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The Beadle and the Beard, hidden in the crowd which thronged the
+approaches to the Thomery mansion, awaited the departure of Princess
+Sonia Danidoff: the idea of this rich prey excited them. Then as they
+stared at the first outflow of departing guests, the two bandits could
+not but notice that far from looking gay and animated as people do who
+have danced and supped well, these guests of Thomery showed pale,
+dejected faces: in fact, they had all the appearance of people under the
+influence of some tragic emotion.</p>
+
+<p>"They look pretty down in the mouth, don't they?" whispered the Beard in
+the Beadle's ear.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a fact! You'd think they were returning from a funeral!"</p>
+
+<p>Then a vague rumour began to circulate; confirmation followed, spread
+insensibly within the Thomery mansion, was passed on by the lackeys,
+spread from the pavements to the avenue. People whispered of
+incomprehensible things incredible, but which little by little took
+definite shape. It was said that the Thomery ball had just become the
+scene of an accident, of a drama, of a robbery, of a crime!... The
+police, and of the highest grade, had intervened.... The news spread
+like a train of ignited gunpowder.... Nevertheless, if Thomery's guests
+were cognisant of the details, they did not take the beggars and
+pickpockets into their confidence: among the light-fingered gentry
+conjectures were rife.</p>
+
+<p>The Beadle and the Beard, who tried to catch odds and ends of talk
+separately, joined each other again, looking crestfallen, discomfited.
+The Beadle broke silence, with an oath, adding:</p>
+
+<p>"I am certain we have been done ... someone has got in before us&mdash;been
+too smart for us!"</p>
+
+<p>Beard nodded: he was of the same opinion.</p>
+
+<p>But who then could have had the audacity to plan such an attempt and
+carry it out, too? Who could have had the same idea as he and his
+comrades, and to realise it successfully? Whoever it was had proved
+himself the better man. In spite of himself the bandit, in thought,
+formulated one word:</p>
+
+<p>Fant&ocirc;mas!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>END OF THE BALL</h3>
+
+
+<p>When Sonia Danidoff entered Thomery's ball-room she made a sensation. It
+was not far off midnight when she appeared in all her brilliant beauty
+and dazzling array, leaning on the arm of her host and fianc&eacute;, who bore
+his honours proudly. Dancers paused to admire this handsome couple; then
+the Hungarian band redoubled their efforts, and the whirling, eddying
+waltz started afresh, more gay, more inspiriting than before.</p>
+
+<p>In a corner opposite the musicians a group of persons were in animated
+talk: among them Sonia Danidoff, Thomery, and J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor. Music was
+their theme, some admired Wagner and the classics, others voted for the
+moderns, for the sugariest of waltzes, for the romantic, the bizarre.</p>
+
+<p>"For the profane like myself," declared Thomery, laughing, "gipsy music
+has its charms!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," cried Sonia Danidoff, "you are not going to tell me that such
+hackneyed things as <i>The Smile of Spring</i> and <i>The Blush Rose Waltz</i> are
+to your taste!"</p>
+
+<p>Her tone was reproachful, but her smile was charming.</p>
+
+<p>Nanteuil, the fashionable banker, who was fluttering about the Princess,
+hastened to take her side:</p>
+
+<p>"Come now, Thomery, you would not put your signature to that?"</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor, who had just joined the group, declared:</p>
+
+<p>"For my part, I thoroughly agree with you, my dear Monsieur Thomery!"</p>
+
+<p>Sonia Danidoff looked her surprise.</p>
+
+<p>Thomery replied, with a touch of malice:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Fandor is like myself&mdash;the Tonkinoise is more to his taste!"</p>
+
+<p>"More than Wagner's operatic big guns!" finished Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>Then turning to the Princess who still wore her air of surprise:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Princess, I confess it&mdash;my taste in music is deplorable: it comes
+from absolute ignorance. I do not understand these modern
+symphonies&mdash;the simple romantic suits me best!"</p>
+
+<p>"And that is?" ... queried Nanteuil:</p>
+
+<p>"Just some music-hall air or ditty," answered Fandor with a smile as
+frank as his confession.</p>
+
+<p>The Princess was amused at this little pseudo-artistic discussion. She
+was about to speak when a couple of waltzers broke into the group and
+scattered it.</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor slipped away and wandered through the gorgeous reception
+rooms. Here and there, when caught up in the throng and forced to halt,
+or when pressed against the wall of the ball-room, scraps of
+conversation, mingled with the strains of the Hungarian band, fell on
+his retentive ears. He took refuge at last in the embrasure of a window;
+but his retreat was soon invaded by two young men who, he gathered, had
+run across each other in the gallery, and were continuing their talk
+about old times and new.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, tell me, dear Charley, what has been happening to you since we
+left the school?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bah! I go from the Madeleine to the Opera nearly every evening, and
+then back again; I go to bed late and get up late; I go out a good deal,
+as you see; sometimes I dance, but very rarely; I often play bridge ...
+and that is about all! It's not very interesting; but you, old boy ... I
+heard you had got a jolly good billet, my dear Andral!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, hardly that, dear fellow; but I am well on the way to one, I
+fancy. I had the good luck to be introduced to Thomery, and it so
+happened he was wanting a young engineer for one of his sugar
+plantations in San Domingo."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord! At San Domingo, among the niggers?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's right! Not so bad, though it and the boulevards are a few miles
+apart! But, on the other hand, I am interested in my work, and I am
+married to a charming woman&mdash;Spanish."</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you introduce me to your wife?"</p>
+
+<p>"When we are nearer to her, old fellow! I came to Paris by myself to
+talk big business with Thomery. I am only here for a fortnight.... Now
+do point out some of the celebrities&mdash;you know everybody!"</p>
+
+<p>Charley adjusted his eyeglass and looked about the room:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, there's an interesting pair! That old fellow and the young one, who
+are so extraordinarily alike&mdash;the Barbey-Nanteuils, bankers for
+generations in the financial swim, and mixed up in all sorts of big
+affairs, sugar, among them.... Look here! That's the widow of an iron
+master, Allouat&mdash;she is passing close to the orchestra&mdash;not bad looking
+in spite of her mahogany-coloured hair, granddaughter of a famous French
+peer, Flavogny de Saint-Ange.... Ah, I breathe again!... It's a detail,
+but I am quite delighted! General de Rini's daughters have at last found
+partners: they are ugly, poor things, and they've dressed themselves in
+rose-pink as though they were schoolgirls: a fine name, a distinguished
+position, but no fortune, and no husband!... Ah, now there's someone who
+looks as if he were in luck&mdash;and he is, too&mdash;matrimonial luck. The
+affair is settled this evening, it's whispered. It will interest you
+particularly, for the lucky fellow is none other than Thomery!"</p>
+
+<p>"What! Thomery?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Thomery! Although he is well over fifty, he means to commit
+matrimony! I quite envy him his future wife, my Andral! There she is!
+That stately dame who is going towards the last of the reception rooms
+all alone, rather haughty, but a noble creature&mdash;it's Princess Sonia
+Danidoff, related to the Tzar in some distant way and with an immense
+fortune. Just look, dear boy, at those splendid jewels on that beautiful
+neck of hers! They say she's got on seven hundred thousand francs'
+worth&mdash;and the rest to match&mdash;millions to swell the sugar refiner's
+pouch! She is to lead the cotillion with him, so there's no doubt about
+the betrothal. By the by, you are going to stay for the cotillion?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hum! I..."</p>
+
+<p>"But you must! You simply must! We must sit together at supper, we have
+still so much to say!... Besides, if you hurry off like that, I fancy
+Thomery won't be best pleased. Oh, I say, there he is, coming our way!
+There's no denying it, he is a fine figure of a man, though he is in the
+fifties&mdash;but!... but!... but do look! What is the matter with him? He
+looks as if he had seen a ghost."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Sonia Danidoff, who had been waltzing with Thomery, was a little out of
+breath. A quick glance in a mirror showed the lovely Princess that her
+cheeks were rather flushed:</p>
+
+<p>"I am scarlet," she thought, with that touch of feminine exaggeration
+characteristic of her! She was a true daughter of Eve!</p>
+
+<p>At that exact moment she felt a slight tug at the bottom of her skirt,
+and at the same time a black coat was making profuse apologies: it was
+Monsieur Nanteuil:</p>
+
+<p>"I am in despair, Princess!" cried the banker. "But no one is quite
+responsible for his movements in such a crush!... I am very much afraid
+that I have stepped on the muslin of your ravishing toilette and have
+slightly torn it!"</p>
+
+<p>The Princess protested that it did not matter in the least, and the
+banker moved away, bowing low and pouring out apologies and regrets. As
+soon as he had left her the Princess showed her annoyance: how could she
+lead the cotillion with this tear in her dress, slight though it might
+be&mdash;and the cotillion would begin in less than half an hour! Then she
+remembered that her fianc&eacute; had led her, on her arrival, to a little
+drawing-room, quite away from the reception rooms at the end of the
+gallery, that she might leave her cloak there, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Princess, I have prepared this boudoir for you, and <i>you only</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Sonia decided to retire to this boudoir at once and repair the damage to
+her dress. As she passed the cloak-room on her way a maid offered her
+services. The Princess refused them. If she could not have Nadine, she
+preferred to manage for herself, besides, she saw that two pins,
+concealed in the silk muslin, would put her dress to rights; and a touch
+of powder to her cheeks would bring her colour down to a becoming tint.</p>
+
+<p>She was considerably amused at the veritable arsenal of flasks and boxes
+of perfumes which Thomery, as became an attentive lover, had placed
+there in her honour: the little boudoir had been transformed into a
+comfortable ladies' dressing-room. Everything was provided, down to a
+glass of sugar and water, down to a little phial of alcohol and mint!</p>
+
+<p>Sonia opened a powder box; then, like all the women of her race, having
+a passion for perfumes, she took up a scent sprayer and lavishly
+sprinkled her throat and the lower part of her face with what was
+labelled, "essence of violets."</p>
+
+<p>The Princess may have suffered from the intense heat of the ball-room,
+and required rest without realising it, for she felt slightly faint, a
+little sick&mdash;almost a desire to sleep.... She slipped down on to a low
+divan, which occupied a corner of the room: she drew deep breaths,
+breaking in the perfume, a sweet rather strange scent, from the
+sprayer.</p>
+
+<p>"This scent is sickly," she thought. "If only I had some
+eau-de-Cologne!"</p>
+
+<p>Without rising, for she felt a real lassitude stealing over her, she
+looked round for the eau-de-Cologne she wanted: Thomery's arsenal did
+not contain any. There was only one sprayer and that Sonia Danidoff held
+in her hand.</p>
+
+<p>She sprinkled herself a second time, hoping that the perfume would
+revive her; but, on the contrary, her fatigue increased: her eyes closed
+for a moment.... When she opened them again the room was in darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Sonia tried to rise from the divan. An overpowering torpor, though not
+disagreeable, was benumbing her whole body, and before her eyes bright
+lights seemed to float, succeeded by thick darkness. Her head turned
+round and round ... she strove to cry out, but her voice stuck in her
+throat: her body jerked with a feeble convulsive movement. She heard
+indistinctly an unknown voice murmuring:</p>
+
+<p>"Let yourself go!... Sleep!... Have no fear!"</p>
+
+<p>Sonia Danidoff essayed a momentary resistance, then she succumbed and
+lost all consciousness of her surroundings....</p>
+
+<p>Absolute silence reigned in the boudoir Thomery had reserved for the
+sole use of his beautiful betrothed, when he arrived to lead her to the
+cotillion. He found the door shut. He knocked discreetly. There was no
+reply. Repeated knocking evoked no audible answer. Thomery opened the
+door. The room was in total darkness. He switched on the electric light:
+the boudoir was brilliantly illuminated.... The sight that met his
+startled eyes was so moving that he grew livid with horror and rushed to
+the side of his betrothed.</p>
+
+<p>Sonia Danidoff was extended on the divan motionless and pale as death. A
+hoarse and laboured breath came from her heaving bosom at irregular
+intervals: on the exquisite skin of neck and breast were spattered
+streaks of blood!</p>
+
+<p>Beside himself, Thomery rushed away in search of help.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this terrible crisis that the fianc&eacute; of Sonia Danidoff had
+attracted the attention of Charley, whose friend, the young engineer
+Andral, was the prot&eacute;g&eacute; of the man whose awful pallor and distracted air
+spelt tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>Thomery, his countenance ravaged by intense emotion, his hands clenched,
+shaken by nervous tremors, hastened, with unsteady steps, in the
+direction of the gallery leading to the anteroom.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a woman's shrieks broke in on the charming harmonies of a slow
+waltz, which the orchestra was rendering at the moment.... There was an
+irresistible rush towards the boudoir, where two half-fainting women had
+collapsed on chairs, and the famous surgeon, Dr. Marvier, was doing his
+utmost to prevent the crowd from entering the room. The word went round
+that a tragedy had taken place&mdash;a death! Princess Sonia Danidoff was in
+the room lying dead! The words "crime" and "murder" were freely bandied
+about: murmurs of "assassin," "robber," "assassination" could be heard.</p>
+
+<p>Some twenty of the guests who had entered the boudoir could give
+details. The dreadful rumours were true. Sonia Danidoff, they declared,
+was stretched out on the floor covered with blood, her breast bare, her
+pearls had vanished&mdash;a horrible sight!</p>
+
+<p>The uproar died down; an icy silence reigned. The dancers drew together
+in groups discussing the terrifying tragedy.... Several women were still
+in a fainting condition; pallid men were opening windows that fresh air
+might circulate in the overheated rooms; on all sides they were watching
+for the return of their host.</p>
+
+<p>Thomery remained invisible.</p>
+
+<p>General de Rini called his two daughters to his side and spoke words of
+affectionate encouragement, for they were much upset. The old soldier
+marched off with them in the direction of the grand staircase and
+towards the cloak-room on the landing. As he was preparing to take over
+his coat and hat, one of the footmen went up to him and said a few words
+in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"What!... What!" cried the General. "What's the meaning of this?... Not
+to leave the house!... But, am I under suspicion then?... It is
+shameful!... I never heard of such a thing!"</p>
+
+<p>A butler approached the irate General and said, very respectfully:</p>
+
+<p>"I beg of you, General, to speak lower! A definite order to that effect
+was given us ten minutes ago. Directly Monsieur Thomery was aware of the
+... accident he had the entrance doors closed and had the house
+surrounded by the detectives who were downstairs on duty. The sergeant
+is there to see this order carried out: you cannot leave the
+premises!... It is not that you are under suspicion, General&mdash;of course
+not&mdash;but perhaps in this way they may succeed in finding the guilty
+person who has certainly not left the house, for no one has gone from
+the house for at least an hour...."</p>
+
+<p>General Rini had calmed down. He understood why his host had issued the
+order. He retired to a corner of the gallery with his daughters, Yvonne
+and Marthe: the poor things seemed stunned.</p>
+
+<p>The reception rooms slowly emptied: the guests crowded on to the
+verandah and into the smoking-room. There was a buzz of talk&mdash;queries,
+comments, conjectures: it ceased abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Thomery had just appeared at the top of the grand staircase,
+accompanied by a gentleman, whose simple black coat was in striking
+contrast to the light dresses and brilliant uniforms of the guests.</p>
+
+<p>Someone whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Havard!"</p>
+
+<p>It was, in fact, the chief of the detective police force. Within a
+couple of minutes of his frightful discovery, Thomery had rushed to the
+telephone and had called up Police Headquarters. It was a piece of
+unexpected good fortune to find Monsieur Havard there at so advanced an
+hour. He had immediately responded to the call in person.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst crossing the reception rooms Thomery talked to him in a low
+voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Accept my grateful thanks, Monsieur, for having answered my appeal for
+help so quickly. No sooner did I discover the body of my Princess than I
+lost no time in having all the exits from the premises watched.
+Unfortunately I was obliged to leave my reception rooms for quite a
+quarter of an hour, so that I cannot tell you what happened there. If
+only I had been able to remain with my guests, I might possibly have
+surprised some movement, some gesture, some look, which would have put
+me on the track of this murderous thief ... unfortunately ..."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Havard interrupted, smiling:</p>
+
+<p>"That does not matter, Monsieur: if the guilty person is among your
+guests and has in some way betrayed himself, I shall hear of it. There
+are, at least, four or five plain clothes men among the dancers, I can
+assure you of that."</p>
+
+<p>"I can assure you to the contrary!" replied Thomery&mdash;"I know my
+guests&mdash;know who have been admitted here!"</p>
+
+<p>"I also am sure of what I say," insisted Monsieur Havard. "There is
+scarcely a ball, a reception, however select it may be, where you will
+not find a certain number of our men."</p>
+
+<p>Thomery made no reply to this: they had arrived at the door of the fatal
+room. The doctor was standing beside the victim. Dr. Marvier reassured
+Monsieur Havard. He announced that the Princess had been almost
+literally felled to the ground by a most powerful soporific and was in
+no real danger: she would certainly regain consciousness in the course
+of an hour or two.... But she must be kept perfectly quiet: that was
+absolutely necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Havard did not question the doctor's statement. After a rapid
+glance he was able to form his own opinion. There had been no struggle:
+the victim's wounds were due to the haste with which the thief had torn
+the jewels from Sonia Danidoff's neck. He next considered the two
+windows which, with the door opening on to the gallery, were the only
+means of entrance and exit the room had. There were strong iron shutters
+behind the windows: these could not be very easily opened: in any case,
+it was impossible to close them again from the outside. The thief must
+have been in the house, probably in the ball-room, and had followed the
+Princess into this little retiring-room.... But what had been the
+Princess's motive for coming here alone? Monsieur Havard had learned
+that the room had not been thrown open to the other guests. Then he
+perceived that the lace at the bottom of her dress was undone. He bent
+down and examined it carefully: two pins, hastily stuck in, kept
+together a piece of this lace.... The conclusion Monsieur Havard came to
+was, that the Princess having a rent in her dress had wished to be alone
+for a minute or two in order to repair the damage, and that while she
+was stooping towards the bottom of her skirt the assassin had thrown her
+to the ground and despoiled her of her jewels.</p>
+
+<p>The chief of the detective force turned to Thomery abruptly:</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be obliged to follow a course of action which may rather annoy
+your guests; but they must excuse me. Everything leads me to think that
+the guilty person is on the premises, since no one has gone away.... I
+must hold an investigation at once. I am going to cross-examine your
+guests&mdash;probe them thoroughly&mdash;and I wish to put them through their
+paces in your office, Monsieur Thomery, one by one.... I will begin ...
+with you ... so that your guests take my questioning with a good grace
+... it is only a mere matter of form&mdash;a pure formality!..."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The investigations were lengthy and trying and led to no result
+whatever.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Fandor, who was preoccupied by this fresh drama in which he had taken
+some part&mdash;far too slight to please him&mdash;was putting on his overcoat
+when he stopped dead.</p>
+
+<p>A voice&mdash;an unrecognisable voice&mdash;had murmured in his ear:</p>
+
+<p>"Attention! Fandor!... It is serious!..."</p>
+
+<p>Our journalist turned round in a flash. Ah, this time he would find out
+who the mysterious unknown was&mdash;the unknown, who wished to influence by
+word written and word spoken, the course of these investigations he had
+taken in hand:</p>
+
+<p>Anonymous friend?</p>
+
+<p>Concealed adversary?</p>
+
+<p>He must, at all costs, clear up the mystery.</p>
+
+<p>A dozen people were crowding round Fandor, insisting on being attended
+to in the cloak-room.</p>
+
+<p>No one noticed the journalist....</p>
+
+<p>No one seemed interested in what he was doing....</p>
+
+<p>Fandor examined every one of Thomery's guests who were standing about
+him. He knew some of them by name, some he knew by sight. He searched
+their faces with penetrating eyes; but, in vain.... Some were
+common-place looking, others calm, others impenetrable:</p>
+
+<p>"Hang it all," he grumbled. He went off furious and upset.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="IX" id="IX"></a>IX</h2>
+
+<h3>FINGER PRINTS</h3>
+
+
+<p>After having interrogated all the witnesses of last night's tragedy he
+could get into touch with, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor returned to the Palais de
+Justice.</p>
+
+<p>"All the same," he confessed to himself, "I must admit that, up to the
+present, I do not know anything very definite about it. This Princess
+Sonia Danidoff has managed to get robbed in a most extraordinary way. At
+one o'clock in the morning, Havard declares that the thief can be none
+other than one of the guests, and thereupon every person present has to
+submit to being searched&mdash;an exhaustive search! Nothing comes of it.
+Then Bertillon arrives on the scene, and it seems he has obtained very
+distinct imprints of finger marks. If they are as distinct as all that,
+the task of the police will be simplified; but, on the other hand, is it
+likely the guilty person will be so simple as to respond to the summons
+issued by the Public Prosecutor, a general summons issued to all
+Thomery's guests to parade in Bertillon's office for the finger-mark
+test?... Not he! Why the moment he heard of it he would make for the
+train and pass the frontier!"</p>
+
+<p>When his cab arrived at the Palais, Fandor uttered a big sigh of
+satisfaction:</p>
+
+<p>"There are a good many things I am not clear about: let us hope
+Bertillon will give me some information."</p>
+
+<p>The entrance to the anthropometric department was under the discreet
+observation of two detectives:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," thought Fandor. "They think it probable there will be an immediate
+arrest, do they? We are going to have some complications, I foresee, in
+connection with the finger-mark ceremony!"</p>
+
+<p>He sent in his card and a few minutes after he found himself in the
+presence of Monsieur Bertillon.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what is it you want me to tell you?" asked this famous man of
+science.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, dear master, everything that took place last night! Is it true
+that you have summoned here all Thomery's guests?... Have you obtained
+such perfect reprints that, in your hasty examination, you can be
+certain of identifying them with those of the persons who will pass
+through your office to undergo the test?"</p>
+
+<p>Bertillon smiled:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my dear fellow, you are of those who do not put much faith in the
+results of my tests for police purposes! That, let me tell you, is
+because you are not acquainted with our procedure. The impressions I
+obtained are distinct&mdash;precise as can be; if an arrest is made before
+long it will be made on sure grounds."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor bowed:</p>
+
+<p>"I accept your statement, dear master!... But, do be kind enough to tell
+me what happened after my departure?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing very extraordinary.... Of course you know about the
+affair&mdash;how the Princess Sonia Danidoff was discovered?..."</p>
+
+<p>"What I know is that Thomery found one of his guests, Princess Sonia
+Danidoff, in a dead faint in a small drawing-room; that Dr. Du Marvier
+declared she had been rendered unconscious; that the theft of a pearl
+necklace worn by the victim had been the motive of this criminal
+attempt; that Monsieur Havard, called in at once, first made sure that
+no one had left the house, and then had everyone on the premises
+searched ... and that is really all I know about it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Havard did not find anything!"</p>
+
+<p>"No one was caught with compromising jewels in their possession. The
+last guest gone, the house searched from top to bottom, not a single
+pearl had been found.... I arrived just when the investigations had
+terminated: at the moment when they were about to take the Princess
+home. She had regained consciousness by this time and declared she knew
+nothing except that she had fallen asleep after using a perfume sprayer.
+This has been seized and chloroform has been found in it; but no one
+seems to know who filled the sprayer with this stupefying perfume."</p>
+
+<p>"Did Monsieur Havard send for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he telephoned. You know, of course, that I am always asked to
+intervene now in any ticklish affair!... Well Dr. Du Marvier, an expert
+in his way, noticed that the Princess had been half strangled by the
+thief in his haste to secure the pearl collar, and he wished me to
+search for finger prints on the nape of the victim's neck&mdash;to discover
+the assassin's signature in fact."</p>
+
+<p>"And there were some?"</p>
+
+<p>"A quantity. The Princess had been slightly wounded in the nape of the
+neck ... blood had been pressed on to the skin of her neck, and it was
+easy to take a cast of one of the fingers."</p>
+
+<p>"Was that sufficient?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and no; such an impression is something; but there is better than
+that! The thief must have given the neck a violent squeeze with his
+hands, consequently there is a complete impression of the hand ... that
+I had to get...."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor instinctively put his hand to his neck as if he were squeezing
+it. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"Are such impressions imperceptible?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; to the eye, but not to the photographing apparatus. It is
+thoroughly established that the pattern formed by the innumerable lines
+which furrow the fleshy part of our fingers is as peculiarly
+characteristic of each individual as the form of his nose, of his ears,
+or the colour of his eyes. The curves or rings, the various forms taken
+by these lines already exist in the newly born and never change to the
+day of his death. Even in case of a burn, if the skin grows again, the
+ridges reappear exactly as they were before the accident. Look you, one
+can obtain by this method&mdash;this test&mdash;such results as you would never
+dream of. For example, by taking these imprints I obtained in the early
+hours of to-day, as a basis, I can tell you, with almost absolute
+accuracy, the height of the individual...."</p>
+
+<p>"This is marvellous!" cried Fandor. "The service your department renders
+then is to abolish legal blunders?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is so. Every individual identified, is identified plainly,
+irrefutably. Unfortunately, we cannot always obtain perfect imprints on
+the spot where the crime is committed."</p>
+
+<p>"But this night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, as I told you, the impressions were most satisfactory. I have the
+thief's hand&mdash;the whole of it! I will even go so far as to declare that
+the fellow who committed the crime has already been through my hands. I
+recognise that hand! You shall see, whether or no I have made a
+mistake!"...</p>
+
+<p>Bertillon pressed a bell, and asked the official who answered it:</p>
+
+<p>"Have you identified the imprints I sent you just now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir. This man has already been measured here. It is register
+9200."</p>
+
+<p>Bertillon turned to Fandor:</p>
+
+<p>"You see, I was not mistaken! All I have to do is to turn up my
+alphabetical index, and for this very month, for the number is a recent
+one, and I shall know the name of the old offender&mdash;he must be one, as
+he is catalogued here&mdash;who has committed this assault."</p>
+
+<p>Whilst speaking, Monsieur Bertillon was turning over the leaves of an
+enormous register:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Here is the 9200 series!..."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the book slipped from his hands, and he exclaimed: "The guilty
+man is ..."</p>
+
+<p>"Is who?" questioned Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"Is Jacques Dollon!... The hand that has robbed Princess Sonia Danidoff
+is the hand of Jacques Dollon!"</p>
+
+<p>"But it is impossible!"</p>
+
+<p>Bertillon shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Impossible?... Why, since the proof of it is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"But Jacques Dollon is dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"He was the thief of yesterday's crime."</p>
+
+<p>"You are making a mistake!..."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not making a mistake!... Jacques Dollon is the thief I tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>This was too much for J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor: he could not contain himself.</p>
+
+<p>"And I tell you, Monsieur Bertillon, that I know that I am
+certain&mdash;positively certain, that Jacques Dollon is dead!... Now,
+then!..."</p>
+
+<p>The man of science shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"I, in my turn, say, you are making a mistake! Look at the two imprints
+I have here! That of Jacques Dollon taken a few days ago, and this made
+from the impressions obtained this very night, or, to be exact, in the
+early morning hours of to-day! They are identical&mdash;one can be exactly
+superposed on the other!..."</p>
+
+<p>"Coincidence!"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no such coincidence possible&mdash;besides"&mdash;Monsieur Bertillon
+took up a powerful magnifying glass&mdash;"look at these characteristic
+details!... Just look at the lines of the thumb, all out of shape!...
+The presentment of the thumb itself is not normal either; it denotes
+habitual movement in a certain direction: it is the thumb of a painter,
+of a potter!... Oh, it is all as clear as daylight&mdash;believe me&mdash;there is
+no doubt about it! Jacques Dollon is the guilty person!"</p>
+
+<p>"But," repeated Fandor obstinately: "Jacques Dollon is dead! I swear to
+you he is dead!..."</p>
+
+<p>This assertion made no impression on the man of science.</p>
+
+<p>"As to whether Jacques Dollon is alive or dead&mdash;that is for the police
+to decide!... For my part, I can declare that the man who committed the
+theft yesterday evening is the identical man who passed through my hands
+some days ago&mdash;and that man is certainly Jacques Dollon!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor left Monsieur Bertillon. The young journalist was
+perplexed.... If the finger-prints on the neck of Princess Sonia
+Danidoff were, beyond dispute, those of Jacques Dollon&mdash;then the mystery
+surrounding this affair, and not this affair only, but a series of
+incidents, so far from being cleared up, was more impenetrable than
+ever!</p>
+
+<p>But Fandor was obsessed by the idea of Fant&ocirc;mas, of Fant&ocirc;mas in the
+depths of mystery, presiding over this series of dramatic occurrences.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Fant&ocirc;mas is certainly in this!" he cried.... But Dollon has left
+traces of himself here&mdash;has, as it were, put his signature, his
+identification mark to this crime!... But Dollon is not Fant&ocirc;mas ...
+besides Dollon is dead!... I have proofs of it&mdash;yes, he is dead!... Well
+then?...</p>
+
+<p>What to make of it?</p>
+
+<p>Fandor could not make anything of it!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="X" id="X"></a>X</h2>
+
+<h3>IDENTITY OF A NAVVY</h3>
+
+
+<p>"The Barbey-Nanteuil bank is certainly gorgeous!" thought J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor
+as he traversed the hall on the ground floor, where the massive mahogany
+furniture, the thick carpets, the deep, comfortable chairs, the sober
+elegance of the window curtains breathed an atmosphere of luxury and
+good taste. "And decidedly banking is the best of businesses!" added our
+young journalist.</p>
+
+<p>An attendant advanced to meet him.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want, monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p>"Will you take in my card to Monsieur Nanteuil? I should be glad to have
+a few minutes' talk with him."</p>
+
+<p>The attendant bowed.</p>
+
+<p>"On a personal matter, monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p>"A personal matter?... Yes."</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor wanted to interview the Barbey-Nanteuils on the subject of
+the recent occurrences, which had roused Paris opinion to the highest
+degree&mdash;mysterious occurrences on which no light seemed to have been
+thrown so far.... Not only were the Barbey-Nanteuils the bankers of the
+Baroness de Vibray, but they had been present at Thomery's ball, when
+the attack on Princess Sonia Danidoff had taken place.... Would they
+allow themselves to be interviewed? Fandor decided that they certainly
+would, for they were business men, and was he not going to give them a
+free advertisement?</p>
+
+<p>The attendant&mdash;a stately individual&mdash;returned.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Nanteuil is sorry he cannot see you, he is taking the chair
+at an important committee meeting; but Monsieur Barbey will see you for
+a few minutes, that is to say, if he will do instead of Monsieur
+Nanteuil."</p>
+
+<p>"In that case, I will see Monsieur Barbey," said Fandor, rising.</p>
+
+<p>Following the attendant, Fandor traversed the whole length of the bank,
+and passing the half-open door of Monsieur Nanteuil's office&mdash;the name
+on the door told him this&mdash;he noticed that it was empty.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Barbey received him coldly and with a solemn bow. Fandor's
+reply was a pleasant smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said he, "that your time is precious, Monsieur Barbey, so I
+will come straight to the object of my call.... You must be aware of the
+profound impression caused by the double crimes recently committed on
+the persons of Madame de Vibray and the Princess Sonia Danidoff?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is true, monsieur, that I have followed, in the papers, the account
+of the investigations regarding them: but, in what way?..."</p>
+
+<p>"Does it concern you?" finished Fandor. "Good heavens, monsieur, is it
+not a fact that the Baroness de Vibray was your client? And were you not
+present at Monsieur Thomery's ball?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is so, monsieur; but if you are hoping that I can supply you with
+further details than those already published, you will be disappointed.
+I myself have learned a good deal about these crimes only from reading
+your articles, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you confirm the statement that Madame de Vibray was ruined?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think I am betraying a professional secret if I say that
+Madame de Vibray had had very heavy losses quite recently."</p>
+
+<p>"And Princess Sonia Danidoff?"</p>
+
+<p>"I do not think she is one of our clients."</p>
+
+<p>"You do not think so?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, monsieur, you cannot suppose that we know all our clients? Our
+business is a very extensive one, and neither Nanteuil, nor I, could
+possibly know the names of all those who do business with us."</p>
+
+<p>"You know the name of Jacques Dollon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I knew young Dollon. He was introduced to me by Madame de Vibray,
+who asked me to give him a helping hand, and I willingly did so. I can
+only regret now that my confidence was so ill placed."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe him guilty then?... Not really?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly do!... So do all your readers, monsieur. Is that not so?"</p>
+
+<p>But, whilst Monsieur Barbey was regarding Fandor with some astonishment
+because of his half-avowal, that he himself was not sure of Dollon's
+guilt, the door was flung open with violence, and Monsieur Nanteuil, out
+of breath, looking thoroughly upset, rushed into the room, followed by
+five or six men unknown to J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor, and showing traces of fatigue
+and emotion also.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heavens! What is it?" cried Monsieur Barbey, rising to meet his
+partner....</p>
+
+<p>"The matter is," cried Monsieur Nanteuil, "that an abominable robbery
+has just been committed...."</p>
+
+<p>"Where?"</p>
+
+<p>"Rue du Quatre Septembre!..." Still panting, he began to give
+details....</p>
+
+<p>Fandor did not wait to hear more. He rushed from the Barbey-Nanteuil
+bank and made for the place de l'Op&eacute;ra at top speed.</p>
+
+<p>In consequence of the extraordinary occurrence which Monsieur Nanteuil
+had hastened to report to his partner, a considerable crowd had flocked
+to the scene of the accident; but barriers had been quickly erected, and
+the crowd, directed by the police, were able to circulate in orderly
+fashion when Fandor arrived on the scene.</p>
+
+<p>The agile young journalist had made his way to the front row of the
+curious, and was bent on entering the stone and wood yards of the works
+forbidden to the public; the usual palisade no longer existed owing to
+the landslip.</p>
+
+<p>Just as he was searching in his pocket for the precious identification
+card, which the police grant to the reporters connected with the big
+newspapers, Fandor was jostled by an individual coming out of the yards.
+It was a navvy all covered with mortar, white dust, and mud; he was
+without a hat and held his right hand pressed against his cheek; between
+his fingers there filtered a few drops of blood.</p>
+
+<p>The glances of the man and the journalist met, and Fandor felt as though
+someone had struck him a blow on the heart! The navvy had given him so
+strange a look. Fandor thought he had read in his eyes a threat and an
+invitation.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst our journalist hesitated, troubled by this sudden encounter, the
+man moved off, forcing his way through the crowd. Then Fandor caught
+sight of some of his colleagues, stumbling about amidst the ruins and
+rubble in the stone-yard. This reassured him; if he followed the navvy,
+and he had the strongest inclination to do so, he could telephone to
+some reporter friend who would supply him with the necessary details for
+his article on the accident. He had got some facts already: a sudden
+collapse of stones and mortar had buried a hand-cart, in which were
+large bars of gold belonging to the Barbey-Nanteuil bank. But the
+precious vehicle had soon been rescued, and they were taking it to the
+bank under escort.</p>
+
+<p>Satisfied as to this, Fandor followed with his eyes this strange navvy
+who was going further and further away.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had an intuition&mdash;a very strong feeling&mdash;that he must follow the
+trail of this man and make him talk. It was of the utmost
+importance&mdash;something told him this was so.</p>
+
+<p>The navvy was not simply going away, he had the air of a man in flight.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor, who was following now and keenly observant, noticed the
+hesitating movements of the man&mdash;then there was an astonishing move on
+the navvy's part: he hailed a taxi and got in. Fandor had the good luck
+to find another taxi at once; jumping in, he said to the driver:</p>
+
+<p>"Follow the 4227 G.H. which is in front of you: don't let it outdistance
+you ... you shall have a good tip!"</p>
+
+<p>The chauffeur, a young alert fellow, understood there was a chase in
+question, and amused at the idea of pursuing a comrade through the
+crowded streets of Paris, he set off. He adroitly cut through a file of
+carriages and caught up taxi 4227 G.H. He then proceeded to follow
+closely in its track.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor, keen as a bloodhound on the scent, kept watch over their
+progress to an unknown destination.</p>
+
+<p>They rolled along the avenue de l'Op&eacute;ra: they cut across the rue de
+Rivoli. Then, when they were going at a good pace through the place du
+Carrousel, Fandor felt much moved by memories of past times, those days
+of great and wonderful adventures, when he would follow this very route
+to keep some exciting appointment with his good friend, Juve. How
+frequent those appointments used to be, when the famous detective was
+alive and so actively at work&mdash;the work of unearthing criminals&mdash;those
+pests of society! Off Fandor used to set when the longed for summons
+came, and would meet Juve in his little flat on the left side of the
+Seine. Ah, those were times, indeed!</p>
+
+<p>When a lad, Fandor had been practically adopted by the famous detective.
+Young J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor had served a kind of apprenticeship with Juve, and
+this had brought him into close touch with the ups and downs of a number
+of crime dramas: he and Juve together had even been the voluntary, or
+involuntary, heroes of some of them! Then the tragic disappearance of
+Juve had occurred, when Fandor had escaped death by a kind of miracle!</p>
+
+<p>After that dreadful date, our journalist had found himself alone,
+isolated, with not a soul to whom he cared to confide his perplexities,
+his anxieties, his hopes! Fandor shuddered at the thought of this.</p>
+
+<p>The taxi had just crossed the bridge des Sainte P&egrave;res, had followed the
+quay for a few minutes, then rounding the Fine Arts School they entered
+the old and narrow rue Bonaparte....</p>
+
+<p>What was this? Of course, it could only be a coincidence ... but still
+... rue Bonaparte&mdash;why that only brought the memory of Juve more vividly
+to mind! For Juve had lived in this street; and now, a few yards further
+on, they would pass before the modest dwelling where, for years, the
+detective had made his home, keeping jealously hidden, from all and
+sundry, this asylum, this secret retreat.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, what happy hours, what jolly times, what tragic moments, too, had
+Fandor not passed in that little flat on the fourth floor! How they had
+chatted away in the detective's comfortable study! Then Fandor, full of
+spirit, would come and go from room to room, unable to sit still, all
+fire and activity; and Juve would remain in one place, calm, full of
+thought, sometimes sunk in a reverie, often silent for hours at a time,
+his eyes obstinately fixed on the ceiling, smoking methodically,
+mechanically even, his eternal cigarette. Oh, those good, good days gone
+for ever!</p>
+
+<p>After the disastrous disappearance of Juve, Fandor had not gone near the
+rue Bonaparte for six months. It was all too painful, to find again the
+familiar rooms and no Juve! It was too painful.</p>
+
+<p>However, one fine day, he determined to go and see what had happened to
+his friend's old home.... Alas, in Paris, the lapse of half a year
+suffices to alter the most familiar scene! In rue Bonaparte, the former
+house porters had left; their place had been taken by a stout, sulky
+woman who gave evasive replies to Fandor's questions. He extracted from
+her the information that the tenant of the fourth floor flat had died,
+that his furniture had been cleared out very soon after his death, and
+the flat had been let to an insurance inspector....</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Fandor was roused from this retrospect: he grew pale, his heart seemed
+to stop its beating: the taxi he was pursuing had slowed down&mdash;had drawn
+up beside the pavement&mdash;had stopped in front of Juve's old home!</p>
+
+<p>Fandor saw the navvy descend from the taxi, pay his fare, and enter the
+house, still keeping his right hand pressed to his cheek. Without a
+moment's reflection, Fandor leapt from his taxi, flung a five-franc
+piece to his driver, and without waiting for the change he rushed into
+the house, whose passages and stairs were so familiar.</p>
+
+<p>The navvy was swiftly mounting the stairs in front of our excited young
+journalist, who was close on his quarry's heels: the two men were
+panting as they went up that dark staircase.</p>
+
+<p>At the fourth floor, Fandor was nearly overcome by emotion, for the man
+entered Juve's old flat as if he had a right to do so.</p>
+
+<p>He was on the point of shutting the door in the face of his pursuer, but
+Fandor had foreseen this. He slipped through with a forceful push and
+caught the navvy by his jacket.</p>
+
+<p>Quick as lightning the navvy turned, and the two men stood face to
+face.... The result was startling!</p>
+
+<p>Speechless they stared at each other for what seemed an interminable
+moment; then, with a strangled cry, Fandor fell into the man's arms, and
+was crushed in a strong embrace. Two cries escaped from their lips at
+the same moment:</p>
+
+<p>"Juve!"</p>
+
+<p>"Fandor!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>When he came to himself again, Fandor found he was lying in one of the
+comfortable leather arm-chairs in Juve's study. His temples and the
+lobes of his ears were being bathed with some refreshing liquid: the
+commingled scent of ether and eau-de-Cologne was in the air.</p>
+
+<p>When he opened his eyes, it was with difficulty that he could credit the
+sight that met them!</p>
+
+<p>Juve, his dear Juve, was bending over him, gazing at him tenderly,
+watching his return to consciousness with some anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor vainly strove to rise: he felt dazed.</p>
+
+<p>"Fandor!" murmured Juve, in a voice trembling with emotion. "Fandor, my
+little Fandor. My lad, my own dear lad!"</p>
+
+<p>Oh, yes, this was Juve, his own Juve, whom Fandor saw before him!... He
+had aged a little, this dear Juve of his&mdash;had gone slightly grey at the
+temples: there were some fresh lines on his forehead, at the corners of
+his mouth, too; but it was the Juve of old times, for all that!... Juve,
+alert, souple, robust, Juve in his full vigour, in the prime of life!
+Oh, a living, breathing, fatherly Juve: his respected master and most
+intimate friend&mdash;restored to him, after mourning the irreparable loss of
+him and his incomprehensible disappearance!</p>
+
+<p>While Fandor slowly came to himself, Juve had lessened the disordered
+state of his appearance; he had taken off his workman's clothes, and
+also the red beard which he had worn, when he ran up against the
+journalist in the place de l'Op&eacute;ra.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Fandor was himself again, not only did he feel intense joy, a
+quite wild joy, but he also knew the good of a keen curiosity. Now he
+would know why the detective had felt obliged to disappear, officially
+at any rate, from Paris life for so long a period.</p>
+
+<p>Protestations of faithful attachment, or unalterable affection poured
+from Fandor's excited lips, intermingled with questions: he wanted to
+know everything at once.</p>
+
+<p>Juve smiled in silence, and gazed most affectionately at his dear lad.</p>
+
+<p>At last he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I am not going to ask you for your news, Fandor, for I have seen you
+repeatedly, and I know you are quite all right.... Why, I do believe you
+have put on flesh a little!"</p>
+
+<p>Juve was smiling that enigmatic smile of his.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor grew impatient, on fire with curiosity. Ah, this was indeed the
+Juve of bygone days, imperturbable, ironical, rather exasperating also!</p>
+
+<p>However, Juve took pity on Fandor, who was still under the influence of
+the shock he had received.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, dear lad, did you recognise me, a while ago?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor pulled himself together.</p>
+
+<p>"To tell you the truth, Juve, I did not ... but, when our glances met, I
+had an intuition, a kind of interior revelation of what I had to do, and
+without any beating about the bush&mdash;I knew I had to follow you, follow
+you wherever you went."</p>
+
+<p>Juve nodded his approval.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, dear fellow; your reply gives me infinite pleasure, and on
+two counts: in the first place, I perceive that your remarkable instinct
+for getting on to the right scent, strengthened by my teaching, has
+improved immensely since we parted; and, in the second place, I am
+delighted to know that I made my head and face so unrecognisable that
+even my old familiar friend, Fandor, did not know me when we were
+brought face to face!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why this disguise, Juve?" demanded Fandor, his countenance alight with
+curiosity. "How was it I came across you at the very spot where the
+Barbey-Nanteuil load of gold had been submerged, for the moment, under
+bricks and mortar? And, with regard to that, Juve, how comes it ..."</p>
+
+<p>Juve cut Fandor short.</p>
+
+<p>"Gently! Fandor! Gently! You are putting the cart before the horse, old
+fellow; and if we continue to talk by fits and starts, never shall we
+come to the end of all we have to say to each other, and must say. Are
+you aware, Fandor, that we have been drawn into a succession of
+incomprehensible occurrences&mdash;a mysterious network of them?... But I
+have good hopes that now we shall be able to work together again; and I
+like to think that if we follow the different trails we have each
+started on, we shall end up by..."</p>
+
+<p>It was Fandor's turn to interrupt:</p>
+
+<p>"Hang it all, Juve! I partly understand you, of course; but there's a
+lot I don't know yet.... What are you after, dear Juve? Are you, as I
+am, on the track of Jacques Dollon?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause, then Juve said:</p>
+
+<p>"I shall reserve the details for our leisure. What matters now is, that
+I should make clear to you the principal lines my existence has followed
+during the past three years or so. A few minutes will suffice to put you
+in possession of the main facts. Now, listen."</p>
+
+<p>The narrative went back to the time when Juve, aided by Fandor, was
+close on the heels of their mortal enemy, the mysterious and elusive
+Fant&ocirc;mas. The detective and the journalist had succeeded in cooping up
+the formidable bandit in a house at Neuilly, belonging to a great
+English lady, known under the name of Lady Beltham. This Englishwoman
+was the mistress and accomplice of the notorious Fant&ocirc;mas.<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> But at the
+precise moment when Juve was about to arrest him, a frightful explosion
+occurred, and the building, blown up by dynamite, collapsed in ruins,
+burying the two friends and some fifteen policemen and detectives.</p>
+
+<p>Rescuers were on the spot in a very short time, and uninterruptedly, for
+forty-eight hours, they searched among the ruins for the victims of the
+disaster, dead or alive.</p>
+
+<p>By a miraculous piece of good fortune, Fandor had been but slightly
+hurt, and at the end of a few days he was as well as ever. But the poor
+fellow had lost his best friend&mdash;Juve!</p>
+
+<p>The search for Juve had been a useless one. Several corpses could not be
+identified owing to the injuries they had sustained; and, as it seemed
+incredible that the detective could have escaped, they had concluded
+that one of the unrecognisable bodies must be his.</p>
+
+<p>Juve, however, was not one of the dead!</p>
+
+<p>Saved in as miraculous a fashion as Fandor had been, less injured even,
+a few seconds after the frightful crash, he had been able to rise and
+make his escape. The distracted detective had raced away from the scene
+of disaster in search of Fandor, and also in pursuit of Fant&ocirc;mas, for he
+believed that both had made their escape.</p>
+
+<p>After wandering about for some hours, he had returned to mingle with the
+crowd of rescuers, and had learned that Fandor had been found, and was
+not dangerously hurt: on the other hand, there were those present who
+declared that he, Juve, was killed!</p>
+
+<p>This unexpected announcement gave him an idea: for an indefinite period
+he would accept this version! For, more than ever set upon catching his
+enemy, the detective said to himself, that if Fant&ocirc;mas could feel
+certain that Juve no longer existed, the pretended dead would have a far
+better chance of catching the living bandit!</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon, Juve had submitted his project to his chief, Monsieur Havard;
+and the head of the police secret service had consented to ignore Juve's
+presence among the living.</p>
+
+<p>Juve knew that Lady Beltham had escaped to England.</p>
+
+<p>Supposing that Fant&ocirc;mas would rejoin her without delay, the detective
+left Paris, crossed the Channel. He then went to America. For scarcely
+had he arrived in London when he learned that the bandits had gone off
+to the United States.</p>
+
+<p>Juve travelled from place to place for some months. It was a vain quest:
+Fant&ocirc;mas had vanished, leaving not a trace behind, and the disgusted
+detective, now convinced that he had followed a false trail, returned to
+France.</p>
+
+<p>He determined to set himself to study anew the prison world; he was all
+the more interested in it because, before his supposed death, Juve had
+effected the arrest of several members of a band of which Fant&ocirc;mas was
+the leader. Among these were the Cooper, the Beard, and old Mother
+Toulouche.</p>
+
+<p>Then, at the prison connected with the asylum, Juve had come across a
+warder, who, some years previous to this, had been the warder in charge
+of a man condemned to death, one Gurn, who had not been guillotined
+because a substituted person had been executed in his stead. Juve was
+convinced that the condemned criminal was none other than Fant&ocirc;mas. Juve
+strongly suspected that this warder, Nibet by name, knew a great deal
+about this old affair. But soon Nibet passed to the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t. The
+accomplices of Fant&ocirc;mas, having served the time of their respective
+sentences, some at Melun, others at Clermont, all this nice collection
+of criminals would meet once more on the pavements of Paris. Juve,
+therefore, had imperious reasons for mingling with this charming
+crowd!...</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had followed Juve's rapid narrative with the most intense
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>"And then, Juve, what then?" insisted Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"And then," said the detective, "to make an end of it&mdash;for we must not
+be forever going over the past adventures&mdash;let me tell you, that after
+many and diverse happenings, a band of smugglers and false coiners,
+among whom are to be found individuals already known to you, notably the
+Beard, the Cooper, and also that wretch of a Mother Toulouche, one fine
+day made the acquaintance of a poor sort of creature, simple-minded, and
+anything but sharp-witted&mdash;an individual who goes by the name of
+Cranajour!"</p>
+
+<p>"Cranajour?" queried Fandor, "I don't in the least understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Cranajour," repeated Juve. "Here is how it came about. You
+remember when Fant&ocirc;mas got an unfortunate actor named Valgrand executed
+in his stead? Well, our mysterious Fant&ocirc;mas, the better to mislead and
+bamboozle those who might suspect this atrocious jugglery, our bandit of
+genius&mdash;for Fant&ocirc;mas has genius&mdash;took the personality of Valgrand for
+several hours, and dared to go to the theatre where the real Valgrand
+was playing. However, as Fant&ocirc;mas was not capable of playing the part to
+a finish, he conceived the idea of making those about Valgrand believe
+that he had been suddenly afflicted with loss of memory, and from that
+moment could not remember anything whatever: Fant&ocirc;mas, the false
+Valgrand, could thus pass for the true Valgrand, and be taken as such by
+the true Valgrand's intimates!... I humbly confess, Fandor, that I
+copied Fant&ocirc;mas by creating Cranajour...."</p>
+
+<p>Juve, then rapidly explained to the journalist the origin of this
+nickname, and also told him how the bandits treated him as one of
+themselves; how, as soon as they were convinced that he could not
+remember anything he had seen or heard for two hours together, they
+talked freely before him of their plans and doings!</p>
+
+<p>The detective went on:</p>
+
+<p>"I must add, my dear Fandor, that no very sensational revelations have
+come to me, so far, through my intimacy with this set of criminals. It
+seemed to me I was in the midst of common thieves, who smuggled and
+circulated false coin; but one thing did puzzle me&mdash;puzzles me still:
+these folk succeed in selling a considerable number of pounds sterling,
+false coin, of course, and that without my being able to discover, so
+far, where they sell them&mdash;who makes their market. They also sell lace
+smuggled from Belgium; that, however, interests me but little, and I was
+prepared to leave to the lower ranks of the service the duty of
+clearing Paris of this common-place brood of criminals; already, indeed,
+the regular police had arrested one of the smugglers, the Cooper, and
+two of his subordinate confederates; I was about to turn my back on this
+crew in order to give all my attention to a new trail which might put me
+on the track of Fant&ocirc;mas once more, when the Dollon affair blazed forth;
+and then suddenly, I meet again my Fandor, braver than ever, more
+perspicacious also, adroitly taking the affair in hand, bravely
+thrusting himself into the breach!</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any connection between the Dollon affair and my band of
+smugglers?"</p>
+
+<p>"You will appreciate the importance of this question and the reply to it
+in a minute, my Fandor, when you learn that the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t warder, Nibet, is
+one of the most valuable confederates of the coiners, of Mother
+Toulouche, of that hooligan, the Beard...."</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible!" cried Fandor. "Ah, Juve, all this is so strange that I
+believe you are really on Fant&ocirc;mas' track, once more!"</p>
+
+<p>Juve shook his head; then he continued:</p>
+
+<p>"I have still a great deal to tell you, but I must pause a moment to
+say, that I ought to apologise to you for a fairly brutal act I
+committed on your behalf&mdash;in your best interests, as you will see...."</p>
+
+<p>And to Fandor, who opened his eyes in astonishment, the detective
+related, in humorous fashion, the history of the famous kick he had
+administered&mdash;a kick wherewith Juve had removed his friend from the
+immediate and certain danger of assassination, at the hand and by the
+knife of Nibet.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor could not get over it! He grasped Juve's hands and pressed them
+warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"My friend! My good friend!" murmured he, moved almost to tears. "If I
+had had the least suspicion!..."</p>
+
+<p>Juve interrupted him.</p>
+
+<p>"There are many more things, Fandor, you never suspected, things you
+ought to know.... And what is more, you seem to me to be neglecting your
+work badly at this very moment, Mr. Reporter! It is already one o'clock
+in the afternoon; and if they are counting on you to supply them with
+information about this affair of the place de l'Op&eacute;ra...."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor leapt to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"It's true!" he cried. "I had quite forgotten it!... But it is of no
+importance by the side of ..."</p>
+
+<p>Juve interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>The affair is serious, Fandor, attention!...</i> Do you remember? It is
+the formula I employed on two or three occasions, when warning you,
+after the assassination of Jacques Dollon, after the attack on Sonia
+Danidoff at Thomery's house...."</p>
+
+<p>"What! It was you, Juve!" cried Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it was ... but let us pass on! Time presses. I am going to
+disappear anew; but you now know where to find me, in future, and under
+what form, should occasion require it. Cranajour I am; Cranajour I
+remain&mdash;for the time being, at any rate. As to you, Fandor, be off with
+you at once ... and go and hatch out that article of yours!"</p>
+
+<p>Our journalist rose mechanically; but Juve, thinking better of it,
+caught him by the arm, drew him back and pointed out the writing-table.</p>
+
+<p>"Come to think of it, you know nothing about the affair, and I do: there
+are things which should be said, above all things, to be hinted at ...
+do you wish me to give you information?... Sit yourself there, my lad: I
+am going to dictate your article to you!"</p>
+
+<p>Our journalist, understanding the gravity of the situation, and well
+knowing that if Juve took this course, he had important reasons for so
+doing, did not say one word. He simply brought out his fountain pen,
+screwed it ready for action, and, with his hand resting on a pile of
+white paper, he waited.</p>
+
+<p>Juve dictated.</p>
+
+<p>"First of all, put this as your title:</p>
+
+<h4><i>An Audacious Theft</i></h4>
+
+<p>"That does not tell the reader anything, but it awakens his
+curiosity.... Let us continue!</p>
+
+<p>"Write."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XI" id="XI"></a>XI</h2>
+
+<h3>AN AUDACIOUS THEFT</h3>
+
+
+<p>Two hours after Juve had dictated his article to Fandor, our journalist
+was reading it, in proof, in the offices of <i>La Capitale</i>. His article
+ran thus:</p>
+
+<p>"By a fortunate coincidence we found ourselves, this very morning, in
+the directorial office of the Barbey-Nanteuil bank, chatting with
+Monsieur Barbey himself, when Monsieur Nanteuil arrived, breathless, and
+announced to his partner that a sensational robbery had just been
+committed in the rue du Quatre Septembre, a robbery involving a sum of
+twenty millions representing a clearance recently effected by the
+Federated Republic.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems that at ten o'clock this morning, Monsieur Nanteuil
+accompanied the little hand-cart used for transferring the bullion and
+paper money to the station, from whence it was to be despatched.
+According to custom, six of the bank clerks and three plain clothes men
+went with Monsieur Nanteuil. But, at the very moment when the hand-cart
+passed out of the place de l'Op&eacute;ra and turned the corner of the rue du
+Quatre Septembre, that is to say, at the precise moment when it was
+passing the palisade, surrounding the works on the Auteuil-Op&eacute;ra
+Metropolitan line, a formidable explosion was heard, and the hand-cart,
+as well as the men who were drawing it, and escorting it, including
+Monsieur Nanteuil himself, disappeared in a deep excavation caused by
+the explosion, whilst a water pipe which had burst at the same moment,
+poured out torrents of water, flooding the surrounding pavement and
+roadway.</p>
+
+<p>"It was then about eleven o'clock in the morning, and the rue du Quatre
+Septembre presented a very animated appearance. At the noise of the
+explosion, the passers-by were glued to the spot, dazed, stupefied. Then
+exclamations broke out on all sides.</p>
+
+<p>"'An accident?'</p>
+
+<p>"'A bomb?'</p>
+
+<p>"The explosion had created a veritable chasm. The first moment of
+stupefaction past, policeman 326 quickly organised the rescuers, and
+sent notice to the nearest police station. Some minutes later, the
+firemen arrived on the scene armed with ladders and ropes. Meanwhile,
+the crowd of curious onlookers was increasing with amazing rapidity.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Nanteuil was the first to be drawn up from the pit; by a
+miracle he had escaped injury; unfortunately, the clerks of the
+Barbey-Nanteuil bank had not got off so well; bruises, contusions, cases
+of severe shock, more or less serious, had to be attended to by
+neighbouring chemists.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Nanteuil, reassured as to the fate of his clerks, turned his
+attention to the hand-cart and its millions of bullion, and the police
+in charge were given to understand that it must be drawn up without
+delay.</p>
+
+<p>"Into the pit the firemen once more descended; at first they were
+surprised not to find the hand-cart and its millions! No doubt, it had
+been covered by the mass of fallen bricks and mortar! But fireman Le
+Goffic, who had advanced some yards along the railway line, caught sight
+of it. The cart was lying upside down; but, except for a few scratches,
+it was found to be unbroken.</p>
+
+<p>"It was immediately hauled up to the roadway. Monsieur Nanteuil at once
+ascertained that the seals were intact. He then gave orders that it was
+to be taken back to the Barbey-Nanteuil bank without delay. As the
+train, which was to have borne away the bullion, had left the station
+hours ago, Monsieur Nanteuil decided to break the seals, and place the
+bullion in one of the bank's safes for the night.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Nanteuil's stupefaction can be imagined when, having unsealed
+and opened the hand-cart, he realised that the sacks of gold had been
+replaced by sacks of lead!</p>
+
+<p>"It was at this moment that Monsieur Barbey was informed of the fact by
+his half-frantic partner. We were witnesses of this dramatic scene.</p>
+
+<p>"Every second was of value: instant action was the thing! Police
+headquarters was warned at once; and, but a few minutes had elapsed,
+when Monsieur Havard arrived in a taxicab to take charge of the
+investigations.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks to the courtesy of Monsieur Havard, we were allowed to accompany
+him to the stone-yards of the Metropolitan: the police were convinced
+that it was hereabouts that the robbery had been accomplished. We
+reached the spot about an hour after the explosion. The first
+investigations produced no result; but Monsieur Havard pursued his
+solitary search up one of the sidings, and had his reward. His
+exclamation was heard, and we hastened to the spot.... He had just found
+a second hand-cart, in all points similar to that he had recently
+examined in the courtyard of the Barbey-Nanteuil bank!</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Havard at once realised that he had before his eyes the
+original hand-cart, and that the hand-cart he had seen in the bank
+courtyard was a clever substitute! It need scarcely be said that there
+is no trace of the stolen millions to be found in the original
+hand-cart, cast away in a siding of the Metropolitan....</p>
+
+<p>"Our readers know something of the appearance presented by these lines,
+in course of construction on the Metropolitan railway. We have
+repeatedly published in <i>La Capitale</i> details regarding the way in which
+the engineers and workmen supervise and execute the cutting of the
+passageway on the underground. The operations in the place de l'Op&eacute;ra
+are on an enormous scale, for there is a junction here, and the soil is
+more undermined than elsewhere on the railway.</p>
+
+<p>"At the precise spot where the explosion occurred, there are four
+galleries in course of construction: one is the future Auteuil-Op&eacute;ra
+line, the others either lead to existing lines, or are galleries made
+for the convenience of the workmen. Hand-cart number one, that is to
+say, the substituted hand-cart filled with sacks of lead, was found in
+the passageway of the Auteuil-Op&eacute;ra line, which is perfectly accessible,
+and would naturally be visited by the rescuers.</p>
+
+<p>"The original hand-cart was hidden away in one of the lateral galleries,
+which are small and narrow, and not likely to be visited and examined,
+except as a last resource. It is, therefore, clear that the affair has
+been carefully arranged: a premeditated robbery. The presence of the two
+hand-carts would establish this&mdash;the hand-carts used by the bank for the
+transport of bullion and other forms of money are of a particular
+make&mdash;unique, in fact. Their respective positions show that the robbers
+had carefully prepared their drama, and it was skilfully arranged.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks to Monsieur Havard's kindness, we were permitted to approach the
+original hand-cart. It was in a lamentable condition: the body of it was
+nearly smashed to pieces! Of course, no traces of the seals were to be
+found. The only remark we see fit to make in this connection is, that
+Monsieur Nanteuil, his clerks, and those who witnessed the accident,
+must have been greatly excited and upset, otherwise they would naturally
+have been much astonished at finding the substituted hand-cart
+practically uninjured after an accident of so crushing a nature.</p>
+
+<p>"We have carefully examined the soil round the original hand-cart, in
+the hope of finding some clear footprints of the thieves, or their
+accomplices; but it was impossible to draw any conclusion from this
+examination&mdash;the footmarks are intermingled, superimposed,
+undistinguishable. It must be admitted the soil of the Metropolitan,
+hereabouts, has been very much trampled over and beaten down so that it
+is difficult to believe that researches, with the object of discovering
+the robbers' footmarks, are likely to have any clear result.</p>
+
+<p>"At the moment these lines have been written, the investigation in the
+Metropolitan passageways still continues, and will, in all probability,
+be continued late into the night. So far, the police admit that results
+are meagre. Monsieur Havard considers it certain that the deed is a
+premeditated one, carefully prepared, and that, consequently, the
+explosion which caused the catastrophe was a deliberate act of violence.
+On the other hand, Monsieur Nanteuil declares that outside the parties
+interested, that is to say, the Barbey-Nanteuil bank and the Comptoir
+d'Escomptes, who were to receive the bullion, not a soul could know of
+the transfer on that particular morning. But the staffs of the bank and
+of the Comptoir National d'Escomptes are absolutely trustworthy: their
+honour has never been questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"It is evident that such a daring and desperate deed, carried through so
+successfully in the galleries of the Metropolitan, in the sight of all
+Paris, at eleven o'clock in the morning, could only be the work of a
+band of criminals, numerous and perfectly organised.</p>
+
+<p>"'Are we returning to the days of&mdash;Fant&ocirc;mas?'</p>
+
+<p>"Let us add, that owing to the number of individuals probably involved,
+and the daring nature of the crime, Monsieur Havard considers that it
+will be extremely difficult for the guilty persons to escape from the
+police."</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor had just finished correcting this sensational article,
+when slips from the Havas Agency arrived at <i>La Capitale</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Our journalist cast his eyes over them, thinking he might find some
+piece of news which had come to hand at the last minute. As he read he
+grew pale. He struck his writing-table a violent blow with his fist.</p>
+
+<p>"For all that, I am not mad!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>And, holding his head between his hands, spelling out each word, he
+reread the following telegram from the Havas Agency:</p>
+
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Affair of the rue du Quatre Septembre</i></p>
+
+<p>"<i>At the last moment of going to press, a bloody imprint has been
+discovered on hand-cart number 2. Monsieur Bertillon immediately
+identified this imprint: it was made by the hand of Jacques Dollon,
+the criminal who is already wanted by the police for the murder of
+the Baroness de Vibray, and the robbery committed on the Princess
+Sonia Danidoff.</i>"</p></div>
+
+<p>"But I am not mad!" cried Fandor, when he had read these lines. "I
+declare I am not mad! By all that's holy, Jacques Dollon is dead!...
+Fifty persons have seen him dead! But, for all that, Bertillon cannot be
+mistaken!"</p>
+
+<p>After a minute or two, Fandor took up his pen again, and added a note to
+his article, entitled:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>Sensational development. The police say: "It is the late Jacques
+Dollon who has stolen the millions!"</i></p></div>
+
+<p>This note showed clearly that J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor did not believe that Jacques
+Dollon could possibly be involved in this affair, or in either of the
+other crimes in connection with which his name had been mentioned.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII</h2>
+
+<h3>INVESTIGATIONS</h3>
+
+
+<p>A man jumped quickly out of the Auteuil-Madeleine tram.</p>
+
+<p>It would have been difficult to guess his age, or see his face. He wore
+a large soft hat&mdash;a Brazilian sombrero&mdash;whose edges he had turned down.
+The collar of his overcoat was turned up, so that the lower part of his
+face was so far buried in it that his features were almost hidden. Then,
+during the entire journey, seated at the end of the tramcar he had kept
+his back turned on the other passenger: he seemed to be absorbed in
+watching the movements of the driver. At the end of the rue Mozart,
+where the rues La Fontaine, Poussin, des Perchamps meet, he had quitted
+the tram with real satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Then, in the silence of the evening, the clock of Auteuil church had
+slowly struck eight silvery strokes.</p>
+
+<p>The listening man murmured:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, there's no hurry after all. I've a two good hours' wait in front of
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the frequented ways, he plunged into the little by-streets,
+newly made and not yet named, which join the end of the rue Mozart with
+the boulevard Montmorency. He walked fast, at the same time taking his
+bearings.</p>
+
+<p>"Rue Raffet?... If I don't deceive myself, it lies in this direction!"</p>
+
+<p>He reached the hilly and lonely road bearing that name, which, on both
+sides of its entire length, is bordered by attractive private
+residences.</p>
+
+<p>Swiftly, silently, stealthily, this individual approached one of these
+houses. He glanced through the garden railing, scrutinising the windows
+which were lighted up.</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Good! Decidedly good!" he said, in a low tone of satisfaction....
+"But there's two hours to wait ... they are still in the dining-room, if
+I am to go by the lighted windows."</p>
+
+<p>The watcher now inspected the rue Raffet. The house which interested him
+so much, was situated just where the rue du Docteur Blanche opens into
+the street at right angles. Auteuil is certainly not a frequented part,
+but, as a rule, the rue Raffet is generally more lonely than any of the
+streets in Auteuil: no carriages, no pedestrians.</p>
+
+<p>From an early hour in the evening, that hilly road was, more often than
+not, quite deserted, so was the rue du Docteur Blanche, still surrounded
+by waste land, and more especially at the rue Raffet end.</p>
+
+<p>A glance or two sufficed to show the man the lie of the land. He noted
+the feeble glimmer of the street lamps; he made certain that not one of
+the neighbouring houses could perceive his actions, mark his movements.
+He repeated in a theatrical tone of voice with a note of amusement in
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a soul! Not a solitary soul! Well, it is no joke to wait here; but,
+after all, it is a quiet spot, and I can count on not being disturbed in
+the job I have in hand to-night...."</p>
+
+<p>This individual traversed the rue Raffet, gained the rue du Docteur
+Blanche, and, wrapping himself up in his voluminous black cloak,
+ensconced himself in a break in the palisades bordering the pavement. He
+stood there motionless; anyone might have passed within a few yards of
+him without suspecting his presence, so still was he, so imperceptibly
+did his dark figure blend with the blackness of the night.</p>
+
+<p>He started slightly. The church clock struck nine, its notes sounding
+silvery clear through the tranquil night ... in the distance some
+convent clock chimed an evening prayer, then a deeper silence fell on
+the darkness of night....</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, the front door of the house, which the stranger had watched
+with scrutinising intentness, was thrown wide open, showing a large,
+luminous square in the darkness. Two women were speaking.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you going out, my darling?" asked the elder.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be anxious, madame," replied a girlish voice. "There is no need
+to wait for me. I am only going to the post...."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not give Jules your letter?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I prefer to post it myself."</p>
+
+<p>"You would not like someone to go with you? There are not many people
+about at this hour...."</p>
+
+<p>The same fresh, young voice replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am not frightened ... besides it's only rue Raffet which is
+deserted; as soon as I reach rue Mozart there will be nothing more to
+fear!"</p>
+
+<p>The luminous square, drawn on the obscurity of the garden, disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>The mysterious stranger, who had not lost a word of this conversation,
+heard the door of the vestibule close, then the gravel of the garden
+crunch under the feet of the girl coming down the path. Very soon the
+gate of the garden grated on its badly oiled hinges, and then the
+elegant outline of a young girl was visible on the badly lighted
+pavement. She was walking fast....</p>
+
+<p>The stranger remained stationary until the girl had gone some way; then
+pressing against the wall, concealing his movements with practised
+ability, he followed her at a discreet distance....</p>
+
+<p>"There can be no doubt about it," he murmured. "I recognised her voice
+directly!... It's the very deuce!... It's going to complicate
+matters!... A lover's meeting? Not likely!... She must be going to the
+post, as she said.... She will return in about a quarter of an hour, and
+then ... then!..."</p>
+
+<p>The girl was far from suspecting that she was being followed. She had
+walked down rue Mozart, turned into rue Poussin, posted her letter, and
+then walked quietly back to the house.</p>
+
+<p>The stranger had not followed her into the more frequented streets: he
+awaited her return in a dark and deserted side street. When she came
+into view again, he sighed a sigh of great satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, there is the dear child!... That's all right.... Now we shall have
+some fun!... or, rather, I shall!"</p>
+
+<p>Anyone seeing his face, whilst making these significant exclamations,
+would have been frightened by his sneering chuckle, his hideous grin.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later, the girl re-entered the little garden of the house
+in the rue Raffet. A stout woman opened to her ring.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, there you are, darling." There was relief in her tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, here I am, safe and sound, madame!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing unpleasant&mdash;no one molested you, Elizabeth?"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth Dollon, for she it was, shook her head and smiled a smile both
+sad and sweet.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, no, madame!... I was sure you would be waiting for me&mdash;I am so
+sorry!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not at all!... Tell me, Elizabeth.... Jules has told me that you
+would not be going out to-morrow. The poor fellow is so stupid that I
+ask myself if he has not made a mistake?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Elizabeth. "It is quite true.... I do not think I shall go
+out, either in the morning or the afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"You expect a caller?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is possible someone may come to see me.... If by any chance I have
+to go out for a few minutes, to get something or other, I must warn
+Jules: he must make the visitor wait: I shall not go far in case..."</p>
+
+<p>"All right! That's settled then, darling. Now, good night, I am going to
+my room."</p>
+
+<p>"Good evening, madame, and good night!"</p>
+
+<p>Leaving stout and kindly Madame Bourrat, owner of this private
+boarding-house where Elizabeth Dollon had found a refuge, the poor girl,
+still with a smile on her pale lips, made her way upstairs, entered her
+bedroom, and carefully locked the door. She lit the lamp. Her face now
+wore a tragic look: its expression was wild and desperate....</p>
+
+<p>"If only he would come!" she sighed.... "Ah, I am afraid! I am
+afraid!... I am terribly afraid!"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth stood motionless&mdash;a frozen image of fear&mdash;all but her eyes:
+they were casting terrified glances about her....</p>
+
+<p>And no wonder! Elizabeth was neatness personified, and her room was kept
+with exquisite care&mdash;but now, everything was in the greatest
+disorder.... The drawers of her chest of drawers were piled one on top
+of the other in a corner of the room; their contents were thrown down in
+heaps a little way off; books had been cast pell-mell on a sofa; a great
+wicker trunk, wherein Elizabeth had packed numerous papers belonging to
+her brother, was overturned on the floor, the lid open.</p>
+
+<p>Its contents were scattered near&mdash;a confused mass of documents and
+crumpled papers.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth stared about her for a long minute, and again she cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if only he would come! What is the meaning of all this?..."</p>
+
+<p>She regained her self-control. Her usual expression of serene gravity
+returned.</p>
+
+<p>"To go to sleep," she murmured. "That is the best thing&mdash;to-morrow will
+come more quickly so&mdash;and, oh, I am so sleepy, so very, very tired!"</p>
+
+<p>Soon Elizabeth blew out her lamp&mdash;darkness reigned in her room.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It was about half-past ten o'clock, and the light in Elizabeth Dollon's
+room had been extinguished for some little while, when the front door
+of the little house was opened again....</p>
+
+<p>Noiselessly, with infinite precautions, with searching and suspicious
+glances, taking care to keep off the gravel of the paths, tip-toeing on
+the grass edging the flower beds, where his steps made no sound, a man
+left the house and went towards the garden gate.</p>
+
+<p>He quickly reached it; and there he commenced to whistle a soft, slow,
+monotonous, and continuous whistle.</p>
+
+<p>Second succeeded second; then another whistle, identical in rhythm,
+replied: soon a voice asked:</p>
+
+<p>"It's you, Jules?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is I, master!"</p>
+
+<p>The man whom Jules named "master," was the stranger, who, for two weary
+hours, had kept strict watch over the goings and comings of the
+house....</p>
+
+<p>"All well, Jules?"</p>
+
+<p>"All well, master!"</p>
+
+<p>"And nothing new?..."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know about that, master: she has written a letter...."</p>
+
+<p>"To whom?..."</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't say.... I could not see the address, master...."</p>
+
+<p>"You red-headed idiot!"</p>
+
+<p>The servant protested.</p>
+
+<p>"No, it was not my fault!... She did not write in the drawing-room, but
+in her own room.... I couldn't get a squint at her paper...."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she not say anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing."</p>
+
+<p>"Did she look upset?"</p>
+
+<p>"A little."</p>
+
+<p>"No one suspects anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope not, master!... Gods and little fishes, if anyone suspected!"</p>
+
+<p>The visitor's voice grew harsh, imperious.</p>
+
+<p>"Enough," said he. "We have no time to lose!"</p>
+
+<p>"How? No time...."</p>
+
+<p>"That's it! We must set to work...."</p>
+
+<p>"Work?... Now?... This very night?... Oh, master, surely not!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't I? Do you imagine that I arranged a meeting only for the pleasure
+of talking to you?... Come on, now!... March!"</p>
+
+<p>"What are we to do?"</p>
+
+<p>A moment's silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot see the house very well, because of the branches:
+listen&mdash;look!... Isn't there a light?... Someone still up?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. They've all gone to bed."</p>
+
+<p>"Good. And she?"</p>
+
+<p>"She, too."</p>
+
+<p>"You did what I told you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, master."</p>
+
+<p>"You were able to pour out the narcotic?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, master."</p>
+
+<p>"And then?"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean by then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you carried out all my orders ... the last?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is all right!... I went into her room and blew out the lamp."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Now for it!..."</p>
+
+<p>A slight brushing sound, along the low stone wall of the garden, was
+barely perceptible to a listening ear. The wall was topped by railings,
+and the gate had sheets of iron fastened to it. In a twinkling, the
+stranger leaped down beside Jules.</p>
+
+<p>"It's child's play to vault that gate," he said.</p>
+
+<p>By the uncertain light of the stars, Jules could see the individual who
+had just joined him. His appearance was fantastic, and the wretched
+Jules started and trembled in every limb. The stranger, who had thus
+invaded Madame Bourrat's domain, who a short while before had been
+wearing a long cloak and immense sombrero, wore them no longer. Probably
+he had rid himself of them by casting them among the bramble bushes on
+the waste ground around rue Docteur Blanche.... Now he was clad in a
+long black knitted garment moulded tightly to his figure, a sinister
+garment, by means of which the wearer can blend with the darkness so as
+to be almost indistinguishable. His face was entirely concealed by a
+long black hood, a movable mask, which prevented his features being
+seen: through two slits gleamed two eyeballs: they might have burned a
+way through like glowing coals.</p>
+
+<p>"Master!... Master!" murmured Jules. "What are you going to do now?"</p>
+
+<p>This spectral figure replied in a low tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Fool!... go on in front&mdash;or no&mdash;better follow me! And not a sound&mdash;it's
+as much as your skin is worth!... Take care&mdash;great care!"</p>
+
+<p>The two men advanced in silence. But, while Jules seemed to take
+exaggerated precautions to prevent being heard, his companion seemed
+naturally shod with silence.</p>
+
+<p>He advanced noiselessly, almost invisible in his black garment.</p>
+
+<p>The two accomplices were soon at the front-door steps of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"Open," commanded the master.</p>
+
+<p>Jules slipped a key into the lock: noiselessly the door turned on its
+hinges.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen," whispered the cloaked man. "Half-way up the stairs, you must
+stop: I do not wish you to go right up...."</p>
+
+<p>"But..."</p>
+
+<p>"Do as I say! You must keep watch.... If, by chance, you should hear a
+noise, if I were to be taken by surprise, you must go downstairs, making
+a great noise and shouting at the top of your voice: 'Stop him!... Stop
+him!...' Thus, in the first moment of confusion, everyone will rush
+after you, and that will give me time to choose my way of escape."</p>
+
+<p>Jules, whatever his fears, did not dare to question his instructions.</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, master," he breathed. "I'll do as you say."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think you would," scoffed his master, almost inaudibly.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving his accomplice on the stairs, the masked man went forward. He
+seemed to know the ins and outs of the house, for he turned into the
+corridor and, without a moment's hesitation, walked towards the door of
+Elizabeth Dollon's room. He put his ear against it.</p>
+
+<p>"She sleeps," he murmured.</p>
+
+<p>He had inserted a key in the lock: there was an obstacle to its easy
+entrance.</p>
+
+<p>"Confound it! The girl has left her own key in the lock!" he said
+softly.... "What the deuce am I to do now? What did Jules do when he got
+in and put out the lamp?... Why, of course, he took off the screw that
+fixes the staple&mdash;a simple push will suffice." With a push of his
+shoulder the door yielded. The stranger entered and carefully closed the
+door. He walked to the window and drew the curtains, muttering:</p>
+
+<p>"That fool should have thought of this just now."</p>
+
+<p>Taking a small electric torch from his pocket he turned on the light.
+Calmly, collectedly, he approached a couch at one side of the room....
+On it lay Elizabeth Dollon in a deep sleep. She looked white as death.</p>
+
+<p>"An excellent narcotic," he muttered, bending over the unconscious girl.
+"When one thinks that she took it at dinner, then went out, and that
+then it produced its effect!..."</p>
+
+<p>Moving away from Elizabeth, he crossed the room to where the contents of
+the overturned trunk lay.</p>
+
+<p>"Damnable papers!" he growled low. "To think!... It is too late now to
+continue the search.... Bah! By shutting the mouth of an informant ...
+that's the way to settle it ... the best way too!... Now for it!..."</p>
+
+<p>Without apparent effort, the man in the hooded mask seized Elizabeth
+Dollon in his muscular arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, mademoiselle," he said in a jeering tone. "Come to bye-bye! Sleep
+better than on this sofa! You will sleep a longer sleep, that's
+certain!" An evil smile punctuated these sinister remarks.</p>
+
+<p>He laid the poor girl's body on the floor in the middle of the room;
+then, approaching a little gas stove, he detached the india-rubber tube
+and slipped the end of it between his victim's teeth.</p>
+
+<p>He turned the gas tap....</p>
+
+<p>"Perfect!" he said, as he straightened himself.</p>
+
+<p>"To-morrow morning, early, at eight o'clock, or at nine, the excellent
+Madame Bourrat will open the meter. The narcotic this child has taken
+will prevent her from waking, so that, without suffering, without cries,
+quite gently&mdash;pfuit!... sweet Elizabeth will pass from life to death!...
+But it will not do to linger here ... let us find Jules and give him the
+necessary instructions!"</p>
+
+<p>The stranger went out into the corridor closing the door. The thing had
+been well managed; the screws keeping the bolt case in position were put
+back in their holes&mdash;the key remained inside&mdash;no one would suspect that
+only a slight push was necessary to get into the room.</p>
+
+<p>With a chuckle, the stranger bent down and pushed a tassel under the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>The servant must not discover the trick when she is sweeping the
+passage: now with this wedge, the door cannot be opened without a
+violent push.</p>
+
+<p>With a last glance up and down the passage, illuminated for a moment by
+his electric torch, the stranger made sure that there was no one about
+to see him; then, with silent tread, he began to go downstairs....</p>
+
+<p>Half-way down, his accomplice awaited him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, master?" questioned Jules in a low, trembling voice.</p>
+
+<p>In a calm, quiet voice, the man in the hood mask replied:</p>
+
+<p>"It is done&mdash;is successful.... I have wedged the door to. You will be
+careful when you are sweeping to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Jules lowered his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes ... yes.... Have you?..."</p>
+
+<p>The stranger put his hand on the servant's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen," whispered the stranger, "I do not repeat my orders twenty
+times over,... have I not already told you that I do not allow myself to
+be questioned?... try to remember that!... You wish to know whether I
+have killed her?... Well, I will tell you this: I have not killed her.
+But I have so managed things that she will kill herself!... A suicide,
+you understand.... One piece of advice: to-morrow, keep anyone from
+going to her room as long as you can ... if Madame Bourrat, or anyone
+else asks for her, you must say that you saw her leave the house&mdash;that
+she has gone out...."</p>
+
+<p>"But," protested Jules, "it is impossible, what you tell me to say,
+master! It just happens that she is expecting visitors to-morrow!... She
+told me that, on this account, she meant to stay indoors all day!"</p>
+
+<p>The man with the hood mask ground his teeth.</p>
+
+<p>"You idiot! What does that matter?... You are to say: Mademoiselle
+Elizabeth has just gone out, but she told me that she was not going far,
+and that she would return in about twenty minutes.... If anyone should
+ask for her again, you are to answer that she has not come in yet!..."</p>
+
+<p>"But ... master ... when they find out what's happened really?..."</p>
+
+<p>"Ho! When it is discovered, it will seem quite natural that a person who
+means to commit suicide&mdash;for she will have committed suicide, you
+understand&mdash;should have taken precautions not to be disturbed ... you
+grasp this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, master ... yes!..."</p>
+
+<p>They had returned to the garden: the man in the hooded mask was
+preparing to get over the gate....</p>
+
+<p>"Farewell! Be faithful! Be intelligent!... You know what you have to
+gain?... You also know what risks you run?... Eh!... Now go!"</p>
+
+<p>"You will return to-morrow, master?"</p>
+
+<p>The man with the hooded mask looked his accomplice up and down.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall return when it pleases me to do so."</p>
+
+<p>Then, with marvellous agility, without making a spring for it, with a
+quite extraordinary muscular flexibility and power, the stranger leaped
+on to the little wall, cleared the gate, and disappeared into the
+night....</p>
+
+<p>Jules, with bent head, much moved, terribly anxious, slowly walked back
+to the house....</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XIII" id="XIII"></a>XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>RUE RAFFET</h3>
+
+
+<p>Maray, second reporter of <i>La Capitale</i>, shook hands with Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you in a good humour, dear boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"So&mdash;so...."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! Well, here is something which will cheer you up, I'm sure!...
+Here's a letter from a lady for you.... I found it in my pigeon-hole by
+mistake!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"From a lady?... You must be mistaken!... How do you know it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"By the handwriting, the paper, and so on&mdash;I'm not mistaken&mdash;am I
+ever?..." Laughing, Maray threw down on Fandor's table a small envelope
+with a deep black border.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is a letter from a woman," said Fandor, as he picked it up:
+"from whom?... Ah,... why yes!..."</p>
+
+<p>With a hasty finger, he tore open the envelope whilst his colleague
+withdrew making a joking remark.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear boy, I leave you to this tender missive: I should be annoyed with
+myself were I to interrupt your reflections!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor's friend would have been surprised, if he could have seen the
+gloomy expression which the perusal of this so-called love-letter
+produced. J&eacute;r&ocirc;me had turned to the signature&mdash;<i>Elizabeth Dollon</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"What does she want with me?" he asked himself. "After the extraordinary
+affair of rue du Quatre Septembre, one must suppose that she has arrived
+at some conclusion regarding the possible guilt of her brother ... so
+long as she does not let her imagination run away with her, and, like
+the police, fancy that Jacques Dollon is still in the land of the
+living? The position the poor thing is in is a very cruel one!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had met Jacques Dollon's young sister repeatedly; and, every
+time, he had been more and more troubled by the poor girl's touching
+grief, as well as by her pathetic beauty, which had made a great
+impression on him.... He began to read her letter.</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>"Dear Sir,</i></p>
+
+<p><i>You have been so good to me in all my troubles, you have shown me
+such true sympathy, that I do not hesitate to ask your help once
+more.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Such an extraordinary thing has happened to me which I cannot
+account for at all, which, nevertheless, makes me think, more than
+ever, that my poor brother is living, innocent, and kept prisoner,
+perhaps by those who compel him to accept the responsibility for
+all those horrible crimes you know about.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>To-day, whilst I was in Paris on business, some people, of whom I
+know nothing, I need hardly say, whom not a soul in the private
+boarding-house where I am saw, these persons entered my room!</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I found all my belongings turned upside down; my papers scattered
+over the floor, every drawer and trunk and box ransacked from top
+to bottom!</i></p>
+
+<p><i>You can guess how frightened I was....</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I do not think they had come to do me any personal harm, not even
+to rob me, for I had left my modest jewellery on the mantelpiece
+and found them still there: those who entered my room did not covet
+valuables.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Then, why did they come?</i></p>
+
+<p><i>You are perhaps going to say that my imagination is playing me
+tricks!... Nevertheless, I assure you that I try to keep calm, but
+I cannot keep control of myself, and I am terribly afraid!</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I have just said that nothing was stolen from me; I think,
+however, it right to mention one strange coincidence.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I was convinced that I had left, in a little red pocket-book, the
+list I spoke to you of, which had been retrieved at my brother's
+house on the day of Madame de Vibray's death. It was, as I have
+told you, written in green ink by a person whose handwriting I do
+not know. I can hardly tell why, but amidst all the disorders in my
+room I immediately searched for this list. The little pocket-book
+was on the floor amongst other papers, but the list was not to be
+found in it.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Am I mistaken? Have I packed it in somewhere else, or, allowing
+for the fact that everything had been turned upside down, has this
+paper slipped among other papers, which would explain why I had not
+come across it again?</i></p>
+
+<p><i>In spite of myself, I must confess to you that the thieves, I
+fancy, had only one aim in view when they entered my room, and that
+was to get hold of this list.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>What is your opinion?</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I feel that perhaps I am about to show myself both inconsiderate
+and injudicious, but you know how miserable I am, and you will
+understand how the position I am in gives me grounds for being
+distracted. I am bent on talking this over with you, on knowing
+what you think of it. Perhaps even, knowing how clever you are, you
+might be able to find something, an indication, some detail, in my
+room? I have not touched anything.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I shall stay indoors all to-morrow in the hope of seeing you; do
+come if you possibly can. It seems to me that I am forsaken by
+everyone, and I trust only you...."</i></p></div>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor read and reread this letter, which had been written with a
+trembling hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor little soul!" he murmured. "Here is something more to add to her
+troubles! It is really terrible! It seems to me as if we should never
+come to the end of it; and I ask myself, whether the police will ever
+find the key to all these mysteries!...</p>
+
+<p>"Did someone really break into Elizabeth Dollon's room to steal this
+paper? It is rather improbable. Judging from what she told me, there is
+nothing compromising in it. But then, why this search?... She is right
+so far: if the intruders had been merely thieves, they would have
+carried off her jewellery!... Then it is for that paper they came?
+Besides, ordinary burglars would have had considerable difficulty in
+getting into her room, where she is remarkably well guarded, by the very
+fact of there being other boarders in the house....</p>
+
+<p>"No, the very audacity of this attempted theft seems to prove, that it
+is connected with the other affairs which have brought the name of
+Jacques Dollon into such prominence!</p>
+
+<p>"I see in this the same extraordinary audacity, the same certainty of
+escape, the same long and careful preparation, for it is a by no means
+convenient place for a burglary in open day: comings and goings are
+perpetual, and the guilty persons ran a hundred risks of being
+caught...."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor interrupted his reflections to read Elizabeth's letter once more.</p>
+
+<p>"She is dying of fright! That is evident!... In any case she calls to me
+for help. Her letter was posted yesterday evening.... I will go and see
+her&mdash;and at once.... Who knows but I might find some clue which would
+put me on the right track?"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor did not feel very hopeful.</p>
+
+<p>After having gone carefully over every point connected with, and
+pertaining to, the affair of rue du Quatre Septembre, he had almost come
+to the conclusion, optimistic as he was regarding the police, that
+chance alone would bring about the arrest of the guilty parties.</p>
+
+<p>"To lay these criminals by the heels," he had frankly declared,
+"requires the aid of very favourable circumstances, and without them,
+neither I nor the police will get at the truth of it all."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor made a definite distinction between the opinion of the police and
+his own, because two different theories now obtained with regard to the
+two affairs: that of the attack on the Princess Sonia Danidoff, and that
+of the robbery of rue du Quatre Septembre, where the imprints of Jacques
+Dollon's fingers had been found.</p>
+
+<p>The police and Fandor coupled Monsieur Havard with Monsieur Bertillon
+under this definition; the police held it for certain that Jacques
+Dollon was alive, very much alive, and the probabilities were great that
+he was guilty of the different crimes attributed to him.</p>
+
+<p>In an interview granted to a press rival of <i>La Capitale</i> Monsieur
+Bertillon had stated:</p>
+
+<p>"We base our assertion that Dollon is alive, and consequently guilty, on
+material facts: we have found his signature attached to each of the
+crimes, and it is a signature which cannot be imitated by anyone...."</p>
+
+<p>For his part, Fandor held it as certain that Jacques was dead.</p>
+
+<p>"I maintain that, since fifty persons have seen Jacques Dollon dead, it
+is infinitely more likely that he is dead than that he is alive! The
+imprints of his fingers, his hand, are equally visible, it is true, and
+seem to prove that he is alive. But the conclusive nature of this test
+is nullified by the fact that, before the discovery of these imprints,
+before these imprints had been made, Jacques Dollon was dead!"</p>
+
+<p>And in his articles in <i>La Capitale</i>, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor, with a persistency
+which finished by disconcerting even the most convinced partisans of the
+police contention, continued to maintain that Jacques Dollon was dead,
+dead as dead, and, to use his own expression, "as dead as it was
+possible for anyone to be dead!"</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor had just rung the bell at the garden gate of Madame
+Bourrat's private boarding-house in Auteuil.</p>
+
+<p>Jules hastened to answer this ring, and was met by the question:</p>
+
+<p>"Is Mademoiselle Elizabeth Dollon at home?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, monsieur. She went out not an hour ago!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you are certain she has not returned?"</p>
+
+<p>"Absolutely, monsieur.... There are two visitors waiting for her
+already."</p>
+
+<p>"She will be in soon, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, monsieur: she will not be long...."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor looked at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"A quarter past ten!... Very well, I will wait for her."</p>
+
+<p>"If monsieur will kindly follow me?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was shown into the drawing-room. He had advanced only a step or
+two when he was greeted with:</p>
+
+<p>"Why! Monsieur Fandor!"</p>
+
+<p>"I am delighted to see you!" cried Fandor, shaking hands with Monsieur
+Barbey and Monsieur Nanteuil. Both gave him a pleasant smile of welcome.</p>
+
+<p>"You have come to see Mademoiselle Dollon, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. We have come to assure her that we will do all in our power to
+help her out of her terrible difficulties. She wrote to us a few days
+ago to ask if we would act as intermediaries regarding the sale of some
+of her unfortunate brother's productions, also to see if we could get
+her a situation in some dressmaking establishment.... We have come to
+assure her of our entire sympathy."</p>
+
+<p>"That is most kind of you! They told you, did they not, that she had
+gone out? I think she will not be absent long, for I have an appointment
+with her. But, if you will allow me, I will go to the office and ask if
+they have the least idea of which way she has gone, for I have little
+time to spare, and if we could go to meet her, it would save, at least,
+a few minutes...."</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor rose and went towards one of the drawing-room doors.</p>
+
+<p>"You are making a mistake," said Monsieur Nanteuil, "the office is this
+way," and he pointed to another door.</p>
+
+<p>"Bah! All roads lead to Rome!" With that, Fandor went out by the door he
+had approached first....</p>
+
+<p>"They are nice fellows," said Fandor to himself. "If Elizabeth Dollon is
+really not in!... but... Is she really not in the house? I am by no
+means sure.... If she feels timid at the idea of seeing the
+bankers&mdash;their visit may have made her nervous, considering the state
+she is in ... she might have sent to say she was not at home in order to
+have time to add some finishing touches to her toilette."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor, who knew the house, mounted the little staircase leading to the
+first floor. Elizabeth's room was on this floor. Before her door he
+stopped and sniffed.</p>
+
+<p>"Queer smell!" he murmured. "It smells like gas!"</p>
+
+<p>He knocked boldly, calling:</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle Elizabeth! It is I, Fandor!"</p>
+
+<p>The smell of gas became more pronounced as he waited.</p>
+
+<p>A horrible idea, an agonising fear, flashed through his mind.</p>
+
+<p>He knocked as hard as he could on the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle Elizabeth! Mademoiselle!"</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>He called down the stairs:</p>
+
+<p>"Waiter!... Porter!"</p>
+
+<p>But apparently the one and only manservant the house boasted was
+occupied elsewhere, for no one answered.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor returned to the door of Elizabeth's room, knelt down and tried to
+look through the keyhole. The inside key was there, which seemed to
+confirm his agonising fear.</p>
+
+<p>"She has not gone out then?"</p>
+
+<p>He took a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"What a horrible smell of gas!"</p>
+
+<p>This time he did not hesitate. He rose, stepped back, sprang forward,
+and with a vigorous push from the shoulder, he drove the door off its
+hinges.</p>
+
+<p>"My God!" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>In the centre of the room, Fandor had just seen Elizabeth Dollon lying
+unconscious. A tube, detached from a portable gas stove, was between her
+tightly closed lips! The tap was turned full on. He flung himself on his
+knees near the poor girl, pulled away the deadly tube, and put his ear
+to her heart.</p>
+
+<p>What joy, what happiness, he felt when he heard, very feeble but quite
+unmistakable beatings of Elizabeth's heart!</p>
+
+<p>"She lives!" What unspeakable relief J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor felt! What
+thankfulness!</p>
+
+<p>The noise he had made breaking the door off its hinges brought the whole
+household running to the spot. As the manservant, followed by Madame
+Bourrat, followed in turn by Monsieur Barbey and Nanteuil, appeared in
+the doorway uttering cries of terror, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me called out:</p>
+
+<p>"No one is to come in!... It is an accident!"</p>
+
+<p>Then lifting Elizabeth in his strong arms, he carried her out of the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>"What she needs is air!"</p>
+
+<p>He hurried downstairs and out into the garden with his precious burden,
+followed by the terrified witnesses of the scene.</p>
+
+<p>"You have saved her life, monsieur!" cried Madame Bourrat in a tragic
+voice. She groaned. "Oh, what a scandal!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I have saved her," replied Fandor as, panting with his exertions,
+he laid Elizabeth Dollon flat on a garden seat.... "But from whom?... It
+is certainly not attempted suicide! There is some mystery behind this
+business: it's a regular theatrical performance arranged simply for
+effect, and to mislead us," declared Fandor. Then, turning to the
+bankers, he said courteously but with an air of command:</p>
+
+<p>"Please lay information with the superintendent of police at once ...
+the nearest police station, you understand!"</p>
+
+<p>"Madame," he said, addressing the overwhelmed Madame Bourrat, "you will
+be good enough to look after Mademoiselle Dollon, will you not?... Take
+every care of her. There is not much to be done, however! I have seen
+many cases of commencing asphyxia: she will regain consciousness now, in
+a few minutes."</p>
+
+<p>Then, looking at the manservant, he said in a sharp tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Come with me! You will mount guard at the door of Mademoiselle
+Elizabeth's room, whilst I try to discover some clues, before the police
+arrive on the scene."</p>
+
+<p>To tell the truth, our young journalist felt embarrassed at the idea
+that Elizabeth Dollon was about to regain consciousness, and that he
+would have to submit to being thanked by her, when she knew who had
+saved her.</p>
+
+<p>Accompanied by the manservant, he went quickly upstairs and into
+Elizabeth's room.</p>
+
+<p>"You must not enter Mademoiselle Dollon's room on any account!" said
+Fandor sternly. "It is quite enough that I should run the risk of
+effacing the, probably very slight, clues which the delinquents have
+left behind them...."</p>
+
+<p>"But, monsieur, if the young lady put the tubing between her lips, it
+must have been because she wished to destroy herself!"</p>
+
+<p>"On the face of it you are right, my good fellow. But, when one is
+right, one is often wrong!"</p>
+
+<p>Without more ado, Fandor started on a minute inspection of the room.
+Elizabeth had but stated the truth when she wrote that it had been
+thoroughly ransacked. Only her toilet things had been spared; but some
+books had been taken from their shelves and thrown about the floor,
+their pages crumpled and spoilt. He noticed the emptied trunk: its
+contents&mdash;copy books, letters, pieces of music&mdash;had been roughly dealt
+with. On the mantelpiece, in full view, lay Elizabeth's jewellery&mdash;some
+rings and brooches, a small gold watch, a purse.</p>
+
+<p>"A very queer affair," murmured Fandor, who was kneeling in the middle
+of the room, rummaging, searching, and not finding any clue. He rose,
+carefully examined all the woodwork, but found nothing incriminating. He
+examined the lock of the unhinged door, which had subsided on the floor.
+The lock was intact, the bolt moved freely: the screws only of the
+staple had given way.</p>
+
+<p>"That," thought Fandor, "is probably owing to the force of my thrust!"</p>
+
+<p>The window fastening was intact: the window closed.</p>
+
+<p>"If the robbers," reflected Fandor, "got into a closed room, they must
+have used false keys."</p>
+
+<p>Having examined the means of access to the room, Fandor started on a
+still more minute examination of the interior. He scrutinised the
+furniture and the slight powdering of dust on each article: in vain!...
+Then the washstand had its turn: nothing!... He scrutinised the soap.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! This is interesting!" he cried. The manservant had made himself
+scarce; and Fandor, unobserved, could wrap up the piece of soap in his
+handkerchief and hide it in the lowest drawer of the chest of drawers,
+under a pile of linen. He was whistling now.</p>
+
+<p>"That bit of soap is interesting&mdash;very!" he cried. "Let the police come!
+I am not afraid of their blundering!... Now to see how Elizabeth is
+getting on!"</p>
+
+<p>When he reached her side, he found she had recovered full consciousness,
+and was preparing to answer the questions of a police superintendent,
+who, summoned by the bankers, had hastened to the scene of action. He
+was a stout, apoplectic man, very full of his own importance.</p>
+
+<p>"Come now, mademoiselle, tell us just how things happened from beginning
+to end! We ask nothing better than to believe you, but do not conceal
+any detail&mdash;not the slightest...."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Elizabeth Dollon, when she heard this speech, stared at the pompous
+police official, astonished. What had she to conceal? What had she to
+gain by lying? What did he think, this fat policeman, who took it upon
+himself to issue orders, when he should rather have tried to comfort
+her! Nevertheless, she at once began telling him all that she knew with
+regard to the affair. She told him of her letter to Fandor: that her
+room had been visited the evening before: by whom she did not know ...
+that she had not said a word about it to anyone, fearing vengeance would
+fall on her, frightened, not understanding what it all meant....</p>
+
+<p>Then she came to what the police dignitary called "her suicide." As she
+finished her recital with a reference to her rescue by Fandor, she
+looked at the young journalist. It was a look of great gratitude and a
+kind of ardent tenderness, with a touch of fear in it.</p>
+
+<p>"Strange, very strange!" pronounced the superintendent of police, who
+had been taking notes with an air of great gravity. "So very strange,
+mademoiselle, that it is very difficult to credit your statements!...
+very difficult indeed!..."</p>
+
+<p>Whilst he was speaking, Fandor was saying to himself:</p>
+
+<p>"Decidedly, it is that!... Just what I was thinking! It is quite clear,
+clear as the sun in the sky, evident, indisputable!" And he refused,
+very politely of course&mdash;for one has to respect the authorities&mdash;to
+accompany the superintendent, who, in his turn, went upstairs to
+Elizabeth's room, in order to carry out the necessary legal
+verification....</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XIV" id="XIV"></a>XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>SOMEONE TELEPHONED</h3>
+
+
+<p>The nuns of the order of Saint Augustin were not expelled in consequence
+of the Decrees. This was a special favour, but one fully justified,
+because of the incalculable benefits this community conferred on
+suffering humanity. The vast convent of rue de la Glaci&egrave;re continues to
+serve as a shelter for these holy women, and as a sort of hospital for
+the sick. For close on a hundred years, generation after generation of
+those living near its walls have heard the convent clock sound the hours
+in solemn tones; so, too, the convent chapel's shrill-voiced bells have
+never failed to remind the faithful that the daily offices of their
+church are being said and sung by the holy sisters within the hallowed
+walls.</p>
+
+<p>In the vast quarter of Paris, peopled with hospitals and prisons, the
+convent shows a stern front in the shape of a high, blackened wall. A
+great courtyard gate, in which a window with iron bars and grating is
+the only visible opening to the exterior world.</p>
+
+<p>About half-past six in the morning, slightly out of breath with his
+rapid walk from the Metropolitan station, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor rang the convent
+door bell. The sound could be heard echoing and re-echoing in the
+vaulted corridors, till it died away in the stony distance. There was a
+silence: then the iron-barred window was half opened, and Fandor heard a
+voice asking:</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want, monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish to speak to Madame the Superior," replied Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>The window was closed again and a lengthy silence followed. Then,
+slowly, the heavy entrance gate swung half open. Fandor entered the
+convent. Under the arched doorway, a nun received him with a slight
+salutation, and turned her back.</p>
+
+<p>"Kindly follow me," she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor followed along a narrow passage, on one side of which were cells,
+whilst on the other, it opened by means of large bays, on a vast
+rectangular cloister quite deserted. A door-window in the passage was
+ajar: the nun stopped here and said:</p>
+
+<p>"Kindly wait in this parlour, and be good enough to let me have your
+card. I will inform our Mother Superior that you wish to see her."</p>
+
+<p>The room in which our journalist found himself was severely furnished:
+its walls were white, on them hung a great ivory crucifix, and here and
+there, a simple religious picture framed in ebony. A few chairs were
+ranged in a circle about an oval table: on the floor, polished till it
+shone like a mirror, were a few small mats, which gave a touch of
+common-place comfort to the icy regularity of this parlour, set apart
+for official visits.</p>
+
+<p>What emotions, what dramas, what joys, have had this parlour for a
+setting! It is there that the life of the cloister touches mundane
+existence; it is there the nuns receive their future companions in the
+religious life and their weeping families; it is there the parents of
+those in the convent infirmary come to hear from the doctor's lips the
+decrees of life or death; for the convent is not only a retreat, it is
+an asylum for the sick, the ailing, recommended to their patients by the
+most eminent doctors, the most prominent surgeons.</p>
+
+<p>Accustomed though he was to every kind of human misery, Fandor shuddered
+at the thought of all these walls had seen and heard. His reflections
+were broken by the arrival of a little old lady, whose eyes shone
+strangely luminous in her pale and wrinkled face&mdash;a face showing the
+highest distinction.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor made a deep bow: it might have expressed the reverence of the
+world to religion.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame la Sup&eacute;rieure," murmured he, "I have come to pay my respects to
+you and to ask for news of your boarder."</p>
+
+<p>The Mother Superior, in a gay tone, which contrasted with her cold and
+reserved appearance, replied at once:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you preferred to come yourself! You had not the patience to wait at
+the telephone? I quite understand. Would you believe it, while the
+sister, who has charge of this young girl, was being sent for, the
+communication was cut off. That is why we could not give you any
+information."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor stared.</p>
+
+<p>"But I do not understand, madame?"</p>
+
+<p>The Mother Superior replied:</p>
+
+<p>"Was it not you then who telephoned this morning to ask for news of
+Mademoiselle Dollon?"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly did not do so!"</p>
+
+<p>"In that case, I do not understand what it means, either! But it does
+not matter much: you shall see your prot&eacute;g&eacute;e now."</p>
+
+<p>The Mother Superior rang: a sister appeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Sister, will you take this gentleman to Mademoiselle Dollon! She was
+walking in the park a short while ago, and is probably there now....
+Monsieur, I bid you good day."</p>
+
+<p>Gliding swiftly and noiselessly over the polished floor, the Mother
+Superior disappeared. The nun led the way and Fandor followed: he was
+very much upset by what the Mother Superior had just told him.</p>
+
+<p>"How had Elizabeth's place of refuge been so quickly discovered?... Who
+could have telephoned to get news of her?"</p>
+
+<p>The nun had led Fandor across the great rectangular courtyard; then by
+corridors, and many winding, vaulted passages, they had come out on to a
+terrace, overlooking an immense park, which extended further than the
+eye could see. Here were bosky dells, ancient trees, bowers and grooves,
+meadows where milky mothers chewed the cud in the shade of blossoming
+apple trees. It might have been in Normandy, a hundred leagues from
+Paris!</p>
+
+<p>The nun turned to the admiring Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"The young lady you seek, monsieur, is coming along this path: there she
+is!... I will leave you."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had seen Elizabeth's graceful figure moving towards him, thrown
+into charming relief by the country landscape flooded with sunshine. In
+her modest mourning dress, with her fair shining hair, she appeared
+prettier than ever: a touching figure of sorrowing beauty!</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth pressed Fandor's hands warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank you, monsieur, thank you!" she cried, "for having come to see
+me this morning. I know how little spare time you have! I feel vexed
+with myself for putting you out so ... but you see"&mdash;Elizabeth could not
+repress a sob&mdash;"I am so alone ... so desolate ... I have lost everything
+I cared for ... and you are the only person I can trust and confide in
+now!... I feel like a bit of wreckage at the mercy of wind and wave; I
+feel as though I were surrounded by enemies: I live in a nightmare....
+What should I do without you to turn to?..."</p>
+
+<p>Our young journalist, moved by such great misfortune so simply, so
+candidly expressed, returned the pressure of Elizabeth's hands.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, mademoiselle," he said softly, but in a voice vibrating with
+sympathetic emotion&mdash;the only sign of feeling he permitted himself to
+show&mdash;"you know that you can count absolutely on me. In getting you to
+take a few days' rest in this retreat, I felt I was doing what was best
+for you. You are not solitary; but your surroundings are peaceful and
+friendly, and should you have enemies, though I am loath to think it,
+you are sheltered here beyond their reach. With reference to that, have
+you given your address to anyone, since yesterday?"</p>
+
+<p>"To no one," replied Elizabeth. "Has anyone by chance?..."</p>
+
+<p>She looked troubled, and gave an anxious questioning glance at Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>He did not want to frighten the much-tried girl, but he wished to solve
+the mystery of the unaccountable telephone call.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I just wished to know, mademoiselle.... Now, tell me, have you
+quite recovered from ... your experience of the other day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, monsieur, I owe my life to you!" cried Elizabeth. "For, I am
+certain that someone wished to get rid of me ... don't you agree with
+me?... I must have been dosed with some narcotic, just as they dosed my
+poor brother, for I am now absolutely convinced that he also was sent to
+sleep and poisoned...."</p>
+
+<p>"And that he is dead! Is that not so?" asked Fandor in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>Without hesitation, in a tearful voice, Elizabeth repeated:</p>
+
+<p>"And that he is dead. You have given me so many proofs that it is so,
+that I can no longer doubt it, alas! But I will take courage, as I
+promised you I would. I ought to live, that I may strive to rehabilitate
+his memory, and restore to him his reputation as a man of probity, of
+honour, to which he is entitled. But directly I begin to think about the
+horrible mystery in which I am involved, my very reason seems to
+totter&mdash;you can understand that, can you not? I don't understand, I
+don't know, I can't guess ... oh!..."</p>
+
+<p>"But," interrupted Fandor, "we must seriously consider the situation in
+all its bearings. It may cause you atrocious suffering, but you must
+summon all your courage, mademoiselle. We must discuss it."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor and Elizabeth had moved away from the terrace, and were now in
+the leafy solitudes of the park.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor began:</p>
+
+<p>"There is that paper with its list of names, written in green ink,
+mademoiselle! It was a mistake on your part not to attach any importance
+to it until you fancied, and perhaps rightly, that someone had tried to
+steal it from you. Come now, can you tell me whether this list is still
+in your possession, or not?"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth shook her head sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not know, I cannot tell! My poor head is so bewildered, and I find
+it all the trouble in the world to collect my thoughts. I told you, the
+other day, that this list had disappeared from a little red pocket book,
+that I had put on the chimney piece of my room at Auteuil. But the more
+I think it over, the more doubtful I am.... It seems to me now, that
+this list ought to be, must be still&mdash;unless it has been stolen
+since&mdash;in the big trunk, into which I threw, pell-mell, the papers and
+books my brother left scattered about his writing table. To be quite
+sure about this, we must return to Auteuil.... But perhaps it is
+useless; because when I wanted to send it to you some forty-eight hours
+ago, I searched everywhere for the wretched thing, and in vain!... I am
+not even sure now that I brought it away with me from rue Norvins!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor gently comforted the distracted girl whose eyes were full of
+tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Do not be disheartened. Try rather to put together in your memory what
+was written in this paper! You told me, surely, that there were names in
+this list of persons you knew, or had heard of? Search your memory a
+little, mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know! I cannot remember!" cried Elizabeth nervously.</p>
+
+<p>"Come now," said Fandor encouragingly, "I know an excellent way of
+assisting the memory. The eyes are like a sensitive photographic plate:
+what the brain does not always retain, the mirror of the eye registers:
+do not try to remember, but try, as it were, to read on white paper what
+your eyes saw!..."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us sit down a minute and I will help you to do it!" Fandor pointed
+out a rustic seat, under the trees, in front of which was a garden
+table. They sat down together and Fandor drew from his pocket a sheet of
+white paper and his fountain pen.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth's arm touched his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>As though electrified by this contact, the two young people trembled,
+their eyes met in a glance full of troubled emotion&mdash;a feeling new to
+both&mdash;whose immense significance neither understood. Fandor remained
+speechless, and Elizabeth blushed.</p>
+
+<p>They gazed at each other, embarrassed, not knowing what to say for
+themselves; and their embarrassment was only relieved by the appearance
+of the sister who attended to the turning box at the entrance gate. She
+stood at the top of the steps leading down to the park and called
+Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! There is someone on the telephone who
+wishes to speak to you!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you allow me to accompany you, mademoiselle? I am very curious to
+know whether the person now asking for you is identical with the person
+who asked for you a little while ago?"</p>
+
+<p>The young couple hurried to the big parlour, and Elizabeth went to the
+telephone.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo?..."</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth had handed one of the receivers to Fandor. He heard a
+voice&mdash;an unknown voice, but beyond question masculine&mdash;who said, over
+the wire:</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!... Is it really Mademoiselle Dollon to whom I have the honour of
+speaking?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, monsieur. Who is speaking to me?"</p>
+
+<p>But just as Elizabeth was about to repeat her question, Fandor thought
+he heard whoever had called up Elizabeth, hang up the receivers. No
+reply reached them!...</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth cried impatiently:</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo!... Hullo!... Who is speaking to me?"</p>
+
+<p>But there was no one at the end of the line!</p>
+
+<p>Fandor swore softly to himself, then seizing the two receivers he
+called:</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo! Come, monsieur, reply!... Whom do you want? Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>He could not obtain any reply.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor rang up the central office. When the telephone girl answered, he
+called:</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle, why have you cut me off?"</p>
+
+<p>"But I have done nothing of the kind, monsieur!"</p>
+
+<p>"But I cannot get any reply!"</p>
+
+<p>"It is because the receivers have been hung up by whoever called you. I
+assure you that is so."</p>
+
+<p>"What was my caller's number?"</p>
+
+<p>"I cannot tell you that, monsieur&mdash;the rules forbid it."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor knew this quite well, so he did not insist further. But, as he
+turned away from the telephone, a dull anger smouldered within him.</p>
+
+<p>"Who was this mysterious individual who had called Elizabeth twice over
+the telephone, and then, no sooner put into communication with her, had
+refused to talk to her?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor felt nervous, anxious, exasperated by this incident; but it would
+never do to trouble his young friend to no good purpose. He led her back
+to the garden.</p>
+
+<p>"Where were we in our talk, monsieur?" asked Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>With a considerable effort, the journalist collected his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"We were discussing the mysterious paper found at your brother's,
+mademoiselle."</p>
+
+<p>In agreement with Elizabeth, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor determined the approximate
+size of this list of addresses. He tore from his note-book a sheet of
+white paper.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth looked fixedly at the white sheet for a long time, as though,
+by concentrated will power, she could force the mysterious names which
+she read some days before on the original paper, to rise up in front of
+her eyes. Certainly it seemed to her that on this list figured the name
+of her brother, that of the Baroness de Vibray, lawyer G&eacute;rin's also:
+then she remembered a double name, a name not unknown to her, which had
+appeared in the list.</p>
+
+<p>"Barbey-Nanteuil!" she suddenly cried. "Yes, I do believe those two
+names were on it!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor smiled. Encouraged by his smile and the results of this
+semi-clairvoyant attempt, Elizabeth allowed her thoughts free play.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure of it: there was even a mistake in spelling: <i>Nanteuil</i> was
+spelled <i>Nauteuil</i>: the bankers were third or fourth on the list, and I
+am certain now that the Baroness de Vibray's name headed the list....
+There was also a date, composed of two figures&mdash;a 1 ... then&mdash;wait a
+minute!... a figure with a tail to it ... that is to say, it could only
+have been a 5, a 7, or a 9.... I cannot remember which. Then there were
+other names I had never heard of."</p>
+
+<p>"Try, mademoiselle, to remember...."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence. Fandor was puzzling over the figures
+he had written down in the order Elizabeth had mentioned
+them&mdash;fifteen&mdash;seventeen&mdash;nineteen&mdash;but what could he deduce from
+them?... Ah!... The mysterious robbery of rue du Quatre Septembre was
+committed on May 15th! There may be a clue there! The thread of Fandor's
+reflections were abruptly broken by a cry from Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>"I have recalled a name&mdash;something like ... Thomas!... Does that tell
+you anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thomas?" repeated J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor slowly.... "I don't see...."</p>
+
+<p>But suddenly he saw light!</p>
+
+<p>He jumped up:</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it Thomery?" cried he, intensely excited. "Are you not
+confounding Thomas with Thomery?"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth, taken aback, confused, tried hard to remember: she threshed
+her memory with knitted brows.</p>
+
+<p>"It may be so," she declared. "I see quite clearly the first letters of
+the word&mdash;Thom ... written in a large hand,... then the rest is
+indistinct ... but I have the impression that the end of the word is
+longer than the last syllable of Thomas."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you are right!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was no longer listening to her. He had left the rustic bench, and
+without paying any attention to Elizabeth, he began walking up and down
+the shady path, talking to himself in a low tone, as was his habit when
+he wished to reduce his thoughts to order.</p>
+
+<p>"Thomas&mdash;that is Thomery; Jacques Dollon, the Baroness de Vibray,
+Barbey-Nanteuil, lawyer G&eacute;rin&mdash;but they are all the victims of the
+mysterious band that plots and plans in the shade!... It is
+incomprehensible&mdash;but we shall find a way to get to the bottom of it
+all!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor returned to Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall get to the bottom of these mysteries," cried he, with so
+triumphant an air, his face shining with joy, that Elizabeth, in spite
+of her torturing anxieties, could not help smiling.</p>
+
+<p>They were alone in these green and flowery spaces. A great peace was all
+about them. The birds were singing, the breeze lightly stirred the trees
+and bushes with caressing breaths.... Fandor gazed tenderly at
+Elizabeth, very tenderly.... The young girl smiled tremulously, as she
+met this glance of lover-like tenderness.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall get to the bottom of it," repeated Fandor. "You will see, I
+promise you...."</p>
+
+<p>Their glances mingled in a mute communion of thought and feeling....
+Spontaneously, their hands met and clasped.... They were standing close
+together, and theirs the consciousness of living through an
+unforgettable moment: they felt most vividly alive together. How young
+they were! How intoxicating, a moment!... The world of outside things
+ceased to exist for them.... They were enwrapt in a glowing world of
+their own!... Fandor's hand slid to Elizabeth's shoulder; he leaned
+towards the unresisting girl, and with closed eyes, their lips met in a
+long kiss&mdash;a kiss all ecstasy....</p>
+
+<p>It was a moment's mutual madness!... The instant past, both knew it.
+Torn from this momentary dream of bliss, they gazed at each other,
+embarrassed, greatly moved: for that very reason they wished to part.
+Ah, this was not the moment to speak of love, to dream of happiness and
+mutual joy! Dark, dreadful mysteries enclosed them: it was a sinister
+net they struggled in: as yet they could see no clear way out!... They
+had no right to be themselves until the mysteries were cleared away....
+They could not belong to each other now!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Fandor, when taking leave of Elizabeth, expressed a wish that she should
+not accompany him to the convent; and she, still shaken with emotion,
+had not insisted on doing so.</p>
+
+<p>As he was on the point of stepping into the street, a sister came up to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"You are Monsieur J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sister."</p>
+
+<p>"Our Mother Superior wishes to speak to you."</p>
+
+<p>Our journalist bowed acquiescence.</p>
+
+<p>Some minutes later, the Mother Superior joined him in the large parlour.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," she began, "I must apologise for having sent for you, but I
+wished to have a necessary talk with you."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor interrupted the saintly nun.</p>
+
+<p>"And I must apologise, reverend Mother, for not having come to pay my
+respects to you before leaving. Had I not been much troubled, I should
+never have dreamt of leaving without thanking you for the help you have
+been good enough to give me."</p>
+
+<p>The nun looked at him questioningly. Fandor continued:</p>
+
+<p>"In agreeing to receive Mademoiselle Elizabeth Dollon as a boarder, you
+have done a deed of true charity: this poor girl is so unhappy, so
+tried, so unfortunate, that I really do not know where she could have
+found a better refuge than in this convent under your sheltering
+care.... I ..."</p>
+
+<p>But the nun would not allow Fandor to continue.</p>
+
+<p>"It is precisely about Mademoiselle Dollon that I wish to speak to
+you.... Of course, I should be glad to help and comfort one suffering
+from a real misfortune; but I must confess, that when Mademoiselle
+Dollon presented herself here as a boarder, I was ignorant of the exact
+nature of the scandal in which she is involved."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was taken aback at the harsh tone of the nun's speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heavens, madame, what do you mean to insinuate?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have just been informed, monsieur, of the exact nature of the
+relations which existed between the criminal, Jacques Dollon, and Madame
+de Vibray."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor stiffened with indignation.</p>
+
+<p>"It is false!" he cried. "Utterly false! You have been misinformed!"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped short. The nun signified by a movement of her hand that
+further protests were useless.</p>
+
+<p>"In any case, whether false or not, it is quite certain that we cannot
+keep this girl here any longer, for her name will, in the end, do harm
+to the respectability of this house."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was astounded at this extraordinary statement.</p>
+
+<p>"In other words," said he, "you refuse to keep Mademoiselle here any
+longer as a boarder?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, monsieur!"</p>
+
+<p>The journalist moved a step or two, then, with bent head, seemed to be
+turning something over in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"It comes to this, madame, you are not giving me your true reasons
+for ..."</p>
+
+<p>Again the nun interrupted the young man with a gesture.</p>
+
+<p>"True, monsieur, I should have preferred not to mention my real and very
+definite reasons which make it an imperative duty that I should request
+Mademoiselle Dollon to seek another refuge. Nevertheless, since you
+insist, I will tell you that Mademoiselle Dollon's attitude just
+now&mdash;her behaviour&mdash;is what we cannot possibly allow...."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heavens! What do you wish to insinuate now, madame?"</p>
+
+<p>"You kissed her, monsieur. I regret that you have forced me to go into
+details. I regret that you have compelled me to put into words this&mdash;I
+will not allow you to turn this religious house into a lover's meeting
+place! Am I clear?"</p>
+
+<p>Before Fandor had time to protest, the nun gave him a curt bow, and
+prepared to leave him.</p>
+
+<p>The young journalist recalled her. He was angry; all the more so,
+because he knew that the Mother Superior had some justification for the
+attitude she had taken up. Alas! All his protestations were vain!</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, madame," he said at last. "You are utterly mistaken; but I
+recognise that your attitude has some colour of justification, and I bow
+to your decision, based on misinformation and a mistake though it be.
+Kindly allow me two days' grace, that I may find another refuge for
+Mademoiselle Dollon!"</p>
+
+<p>With a movement of her head the nun signified her assent; then, with a
+final bow, she left the parlour.</p>
+
+<p>Crestfallen, but full of angry resolve, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor turned his back on
+the convent.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XV" id="XV"></a>XV</h2>
+
+<h3>VAGUE SUSPICIONS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Fandor was talking to himself&mdash;an inveterate habit of his&mdash;as he sat in
+the cab which was carrying him to the Palais de Justice.</p>
+
+<p>"Beyond question, I ought to have examined that paper they have stolen
+from Mademoiselle Elizabeth. I should have looked through it at the
+first opportunity. That sequence of names; those dates, which seem to
+almost coincide with the different criminal attempts, probably relate to
+the mysterious plan which the assassins are carrying out
+systematically.... But, that means there are to be more victims, and we
+shall witness fresh tragedies!... I am not at all easy about Elizabeth
+either!... Who the deuce could have telephoned to her at the convent?...
+Perhaps what I am going to do is stupid, but no chance must be
+neglected.... I wonder if I shall learn anything worth knowing at the
+court to-day?...</p>
+
+<p>"When they arrested these smugglers, five months ago, I recollect
+perfectly that Monsieur Thomery's name was mentioned in connection with
+the business.... If I only held the connecting link of interest in my
+hands, which would make it clear why all these people&mdash;Jacques Dollon,
+the Baroness de Vibray, Princess Sonia Danidoff, Barbey-Nanteuil, and
+even Elizabeth Dollon&mdash;have been the victims of the horrible band I am
+pursuing.... The motive? Evidently robbery! But there must be some other
+reason, for&mdash;and it is a significant fact&mdash;all these people know one
+another, meet one another, or at least are either clients of the
+Barbey-Nanteuil bank, or are friends of Monsieur Thomery.... It's the
+devil's own mystery!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor had arrived at the Palais de Justice. He crossed the great
+hall des Pas-Perdus and entered the Assize Court.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The trial of the Cooper and his accomplices was a small affair, and had
+not attracted many listeners, for these smuggling and coining cases were
+apt to be dull. As a matter of fact, there would not have been a soul
+present, if the accused had not had the most popular of counsels to
+defend them&mdash;Ma&icirc;tre Henri Robart!</p>
+
+<p>Fandor joined a group who were on familiar terms evidently, and,
+although he had not seen her for many a day, he at once recognised
+Mother Toulouche by her remarkable appearance and grotesque get up. He
+had had so many other irons in the fire, that he had not followed this
+smuggling case at all closely: he was surprised, therefore, to see
+Mother Toulouche in the little passage adjoining the court, for he had
+the impression that the old receiver of stolen goods had been under lock
+and key for some weeks.... She was now being interviewed by one of his
+colleagues. Fandor went up to them.</p>
+
+<p>Though she had not been accused of anything so far, the old storekeeper
+was vehemently protesting her innocence.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she declared to her interviewer, "it is abominable, when such
+things are discovered all of a sudden!"</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche went on to explain that on Clock Quay she rented a
+small shop for the sale of curiosities: that she was an honest woman,
+who had never wronged a soul by as much as a farthing: all she asked was
+to be left in peace to earn a decent living, so that she could retire
+from business some day or other.... Everyone had a right to ask as much
+as that!... Her store consisted of two rooms and an underground cellar,
+in which she had put a quantity of old odds and ends, when she had moved
+to her present abode.... She never descended to this cellar, never at
+all: she was far too much afraid of rats to venture down there! Not she!
+But, one day, if you please, when she was quietly engaged in mending
+some old clothes, the police had suddenly burst into her store!... And
+they had accused her of receiving smuggled goods and false money, and
+she didn't know what more besides!...</p>
+
+<p>The police, not content with this, had made her go down to the cellar to
+find out whether or no there were such things in the second cellar
+belonging to her store!... Who had been most surprised then? Why who but
+Mother Toulouche, who, until that very minute, had not known that this
+second cellar existed! How then was she to know that it communicated
+with the sewer, still less that the sewer opened on to the Seine, and
+that by the Seine arrived bales of smuggled goods, which were concealed
+in her cellar by the smugglers?... Fortunately, the judges had
+understood this, and after twenty-four hours' detention on suspicion,
+Mother Toulouche had been set at liberty!</p>
+
+<p>At first, she had declared that she did not know the accused persons
+summoned to appear that day, the Cooper in particular; to tell the
+truth, she had made a mistake; she did know them, through having met
+them a long time ago, when she lived near la Capelle; so long ago was it
+that she had forgotten all about it! Anyhow, she wanted to have done
+with the business!</p>
+
+<p>From the very beginning of the trial, Mother Toulouche had been
+disagreeably struck by the inquisitorial glances and pointed questions
+of the Public Prosecutor throughout the proceedings. Now, in her turn,
+the old storekeeper was questioning her audience, trying hard to find
+out what would be the probable attitude of the magistrate, when she
+herself should be summoned to the witness-box.</p>
+
+<p>"Witness!... Mother Toulouche!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor smiled as he listened to the loquacious old storekeeper,
+for he knew how much faith was to be put in her veracity and
+respectability!... It was pretty clear that she was every whit as guilty
+as the handcuffed individuals now in the dock. As she had not been
+arrested, it simply meant that, in Juve's opinion, this was not an
+opportune moment to put a stopper on the nefarious activities of this
+bad old woman.</p>
+
+<p>At this precise moment, Fandor recognised Juve. He was leaving a group
+of barristers and officials, who had been hugely entertained by his
+stupid answers and remarks. Yes, it was Juve, so admirably made up and
+disguised that Fandor had difficulty in recognising him. Here was
+Cranajour on the scene! He approached Mother Toulouche and stood
+there&mdash;a Cranajour who was the picture of gaping imbecility!</p>
+
+<p>"You, too?" cried Mother Toulouche, looking askance at him. "Are you one
+of the witnesses?"</p>
+
+<p>Cranajour's reply was a comical grimace. He scratched his beard,
+remarking finally:</p>
+
+<p>"I have forgotten! I don't know!"</p>
+
+<p>His audience burst into roars of laughter: Fandor laughed loudest of
+all!</p>
+
+<p>One of Ma&icirc;tre Henri Robart's juniors whispered in Fandor's ear, with an
+air of giving the journalist a piece of information worth having.</p>
+
+<p>"A simple-minded soul, that!&mdash;a kind of idiot! You can guess that, at
+the preliminary inquiry, they soon found that out!... He may be
+heard&mdash;or he may not?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor nodded. He found it difficult not to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks many for the information," he stammered. The young barrister did
+not understand the ironical tone of our journalist.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche was envying Cranajour.</p>
+
+<p>"You're in luck, you are&mdash;to be too silly to go and talk to those
+inquisitive fellows in there! Eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Conversations stopped. The little low door, giving entrance to the
+court, had just opened: an usher announced:</p>
+
+<p>"The case is resumed!... Witnesses this way!... The woman Toulouche?...
+It is your turn!..."</p>
+
+<p>They jostled and pushed their way through the narrow entrance in order
+to get into the court room quickly.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor, however, instead of following the crowd, had grasped the simple
+Cranajour by the shoulder, and shouted loud enough to be heard by those
+who might have been surprised at his action.</p>
+
+<p>"You duffer of a Cranajour! Go along with you! You're the man for my
+money, old fellow! Here's something for a glass&mdash;but come with me for
+five minutes: I want to interview you and make a jolly good article out
+of it!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor went off, followed by the detective. When they were quite away
+from everyone, Fandor turned quickly to his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Juve?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, so far...."</p>
+
+<p>"You have not run in the whole gang?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not I!" replied Juve. "These are only the supernumeraries, and there
+are some of them out of my reach!... Look here, Fandor," continued Juve
+in a low tone. "You will see someone in court presently whose presence
+will astonish you&mdash;it is an aviator&mdash;the aviator Emilet.... Well, my
+boy, I have a notion that this fellow is no stranger to all these
+goings-on!... But patience!... besides, you know, Fandor, it's not my
+way of doing things to put the bracelets on mediocrities such as he: I
+fly higher!... Good-bye. Shall see you later on!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor asked, in a low tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I remain for the sitting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Juve. "It is quite likely that I shall not be present; and
+it would be a good thing if you were to get a general idea of this
+affair: you may pick up some useful information."</p>
+
+<p>"Juve, I very much wish to have a longer talk with you&mdash;there are things
+I want to say&mdash;to tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>Steps could be heard coming in their direction: the two men separated at
+once; but Juve had just time to say:</p>
+
+<p>"This evening then, at eight, I shall come to your place, Fandor. Expect
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later, Fandor entered the court room....</p>
+
+<p>The speech for the Crown had just been concluded.</p>
+
+<p>The arrest of these smugglers, now on their trial, had made some stir,
+about five months ago. Public opinion had been aroused almost to fever
+pitch, when it became known that the accused had, for nearly two years
+past, succeeded in getting through into Paris, without having paid town
+dues, quantities of the most highly taxed articles, and thus had
+accumulated a large store of riches in contraband goods and money. They
+owed their arrest to the betrayal of a wretched dealer, who was
+dissatisfied with his remuneration.</p>
+
+<p>The journalists had, after their manner, amplified all the details, had
+exaggerated the realities, and had given a romantic colouring to the
+various incidents in the varied lives and adventures of this daring band
+of smugglers.</p>
+
+<p>They had been represented as perfect gentlemen, who had formed
+themselves into a marvellously organised Black Band, led by a chief
+having right of life or death over them: a band fertile in tricks and
+extraordinary stratagems, who massed their plunder in immense vaults and
+cellars under the very heart of Paris, in the Isle of the Cit&eacute;, and
+communicating with the river, which, under the eyes of the police,
+served to bear the barges laden with their booty.</p>
+
+<p>Cellars and vaults in the Isle of the Cit&eacute;!</p>
+
+<p>"Well," thought Fandor, "men organised into such a powerful association
+in this part of Paris might well put one on the track of strange
+discoveries regarding the mysterious events connected with the Jacques
+Dollon affair!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, having spoken to his colleagues on the press, Fandor turned in the
+direction of the jury and set himself to follow attentively Ma&icirc;tre Henri
+Robart's speech for the defence.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XVI" id="XVI"></a>XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>DISCUSSIONS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The portress rang up Fandor on the telephone.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Fandor! There is a stout little lady down here! She wants to
+see you! Should I let her go up?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor's first impulse was to say "no." He glanced at the timepiece: it
+was exactly two minutes past eight and Juve might be here at any minute.
+He was sure to keep his appointment.</p>
+
+<p>After an instant's hesitation, Fandor decided on a "yes." He called down
+to the portress:</p>
+
+<p>"Let her come up!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had an idea: perhaps this person knew something about the
+appointment made that afternoon at the Palais de Justice! It would be
+well to find out the why and wherefore of this call. In any case, it was
+best for a journalist to see all comers, if possible.</p>
+
+<p>There was a discreet ring, announcing that the stout little lady had
+already mounted the five flights of stairs and was now on Fandor's
+landing.</p>
+
+<p>Our journalist went to open the door, standing well back in the shadow,
+so that his visitor might show herself first, as she passed into the
+little hall.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, she was certainly stout, short, and also elderly. She wore a bonnet
+with strings, perched on a thick crop of grey curls, yellowish at the
+tips. This elderly dame wore glasses; she was wrapped in a large brown
+shawl, and she supported herself, as she walked, with a crook-handled
+stick.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the puzzled Fandor closed his front door, the visitor made
+straight for the little sitting-room, where our journalist usually sat,
+surrounded by his books and papers.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, she seems to know my flat!" thought Fandor. The next moment he
+jumped back; for, no sooner had the visitor got well into the room, than
+she straightened her bent back, threw off her shawl, and dropped her
+stick! Then, tearing off her grey curls and her spectacles, the visitor
+revealed herself as&mdash;Juve!</p>
+
+<p>Fandor burst out laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Juve! Well, I never!"</p>
+
+<p>"It's Juve, all right, my boy!" cried the smiling detective, as he rid
+himself of the feminine get-up which impeded his movements. "I was
+pleased to see, my lad, that you did not suspect my identity until I had
+thrown off this second-hand wardrobe I bulked myself out with!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Fandor, "that's only because I hardly looked at you. If I
+had, Juve, you may be sure I should have recognised you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Possibly! But what do you think of the disguise?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so bad, Juve; but why did you change your sex this evening?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, for the fun of it, and to keep my hand in ... besides, the more
+precautions we take when we meet, the better. Admit for a moment that
+our enemies are keeping a watch on you here: what will they recollect
+about your doings this evening? Why, that Fandor, the journalist, had a
+call from a lady, and that she did not leave in a hurry either!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hang it all! I've no objection to a Don Juan reputation, but I may say,
+without offence, that, as a woman, there's nothing particularly
+attractive about you, Juve, in the garb you've just discarded!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bah!" replied Juve. "You mustn't be so particular, my dear boy&mdash;as if
+dress mattered&mdash;or appearance either!"</p>
+
+<p>Juve was lighting a cigarette as he walked about the room, examining the
+books and other objects with which Fandor had surrounded himself.</p>
+
+<p>"A charming home!" murmured the detective....</p>
+
+<p>Then, he inspected the contents of a little show-case, in which Fandor
+had collected what he called his "Circumstantial Evidence"; in other
+words, various objects relating to cases he had been engaged on, such as
+scraps of clothing, blood-stained weapons, broken locks: these records
+of crimes, new and old, were carefully labelled. Juve began questioning
+Fandor about these sinister relics. Five minutes of jokes and laughter,
+then Fandor became serious. He drew his friend to a corner settee.</p>
+
+<p>"Juve," said he, in an impressive tone, "I have found the connecting
+link!"</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove! You have, have you!" cried Juve in a bantering tone, and with
+a quizzical look. "Let us see it!... Explain!..."</p>
+
+<p>Regardless of his friend's scepticism, Fandor proceeded to expound his
+theory.</p>
+
+<p>"I did as you suggested. I was present at the trial of the smugglers: I
+listened to Counsel's speech for the defence, but judged it useless to
+stay to the end. When Ma&icirc;tre Henri Robart began a disquisition on the
+facts, I left. Here is what I have noted:</p>
+
+<p>"Someone owns a house in the Isle of the Cit&eacute;; a house which is a
+meeting place for receivers of stolen goods, ruffians, robbers, and
+vagabonds: a house possessing underground cellars of no ordinary kind.
+Now, this Someone never mentions this strange house of his, though he
+must be aware of its existence; then this Someone knows intimately
+several, at least, of the people more or less involved in the Jacques
+Dollon affair, and&mdash;one may boldly assert it&mdash;the Dollon plot was
+hatched in a cellar, in a sewer of the Cit&eacute;.</p>
+
+<p>"One of two things!...</p>
+
+<p>"Either this personage is timorous, is afraid of being compromised,
+and does not consider in what an awkward position this coincidence
+places him&mdash;if that be so, he is a singularly thick-headed
+individual&mdash;or&mdash;well&mdash;Monsieur Thomery ... you are the most rascally
+scoundrel it has been my lot to admire, up to now! But I assure you, we
+know how to get even with you! From the moment we have established, in
+the first place, a connection between all these affairs&mdash;that they
+indubitably hang together; secondly, that you, Monsieur Thomery, are the
+connecting link...."</p>
+
+<p>"No," interrupted Juve, sharply....</p>
+
+<p>"What is that you say?..."</p>
+
+<p>"I say&mdash;<i>no</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" cried Fandor, taken aback. He stared at Juve, who continued to
+smoke his cigarette, unmoved. But Fandor was obstinately set on stating
+his point of view.</p>
+
+<p>"The primary cause of the Dollon affair seems to be the suicide
+of the Baroness de Vibray, a suicide probably owing to a love
+disappointment&mdash;the old lady had been forsaken by her lover&mdash;Monsieur
+Thomery!..."</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>Juve's denial slightly annoyed Fandor, but did not stop him.</p>
+
+<p>"I ask: was the man who robbed Sonia Danidoff one of the guests? It is
+very unlikely; for, not only were the clothes of all those present
+searched, but all Thomery's guests were known, well known!..."</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor bit his lip.</p>
+
+<p>"It's true, Juve! You were there yourself, and no one penetrated your
+disguise, and discovered who you really were! My last argument is,
+therefore, worthless ... but I fancy your attitude, your way of
+receiving my deductions, hides something. Have you got new information!
+Fresh facts to go on? You know who stole the jewels?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heavens! How aggravating you are, Juve!... But this time you will
+simply have to agree with me! Listen!... When we first met, after our
+long separation, you admitted that one thing bothered you&mdash;the ease with
+which your nefarious band of villains of the Isle of the Cit&eacute; were able
+to get rid of considerable sums of false money; and you were trying to
+find their market&mdash;by what means these wretches were able to rid
+themselves of the coin; when, apparently, they were not acquainted with
+any influential people in the business world, or in the circles of high
+finance.... Well, I have discovered their channel of distribution&mdash;it is
+none other than the proprietor of this house properly, the ground floor
+and basement of which are occupied by Mother Toulouche&mdash;obviously, it is
+Thomery!..."</p>
+
+<p>"No!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor lifted hands to heaven in despairing fashion and sat silent. He
+was deeply mortified. There was a long pause, during which Juve calmly
+smoked on. At last, Fandor asked in a hopeless sort of tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Well?... What do you think?"</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, as if awakening from a dream, Juve began to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"We know nothing for certain so far, my lad, except that the Baroness de
+Vibray has committed suicide; that Princess Sonia Danidoff has recovered
+from the shock of her jewel robbery, and is to marry Thomery next month
+... there is nothing extraordinary in that ... just as there is,
+perhaps, nothing surprising or extraordinary in the series of robberies,
+nor even in the crimes occupying our attention at the present moment!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor jumped up. "Nothing!" he shouted. "You are joking, Juve! It is
+absurd what you say! Do just think a minute, my dear fellow! Why, all
+these affairs are closely connected, from the Jacques Dollon affair, up
+to ... up to ..."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor stopped short. Juve, who had been listening to him with seeming
+inattention, now appeared wholly anxious to hear the end of the
+sentence: he stared hard at Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on! Go on! I want to make you say it!..."</p>
+
+<p>And Fandor, as though in spite of himself, finished with:</p>
+
+<p>"Up to Fant&ocirc;mas!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, at last we have got it!" cried Juve.</p>
+
+<p>The two men gazed at each other; once more the logic of deductions, the
+chain of circumstances had inevitably led him to pronounce the name of
+the formidable bandit, of whom they could not think without a shudder;
+whose memory they could not evoke without immediately feeling themselves
+surrounded by sinister gloom, lost in a thick fog of mystery, of what
+was strange, hidden, occult!</p>
+
+<p>Fandor's countenance cleared suddenly as he gave utterance to the idea
+which had just crossed his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Juve, do you not think that this mysterious prison warder, called
+Nibet, might very well be an incarnation of Fant&ocirc;mas, because in so many
+circumstances ..."</p>
+
+<p>Juve interrupted Fandor with a gesture of denial.</p>
+
+<p>"No, old fellow," said he gravely. "Don't start on that trail, it is
+assuredly a bad one: Nibet is not Fant&ocirc;mas. Nibet does not count for
+much, one might say, for nothing at all; he can scarcely be called a
+tiny wheel even in the great machine driven on its diabolical course by
+our fiendish enemy ... we must look higher than that!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thomery?" insisted Fandor, who still held to his idea, and was
+determined to turn Juve to his way of thinking....</p>
+
+<p>But Juve still said "no!" to that.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us drop Thomery, my lad! As to Fant&ocirc;mas, how do you think we can
+identify him in this haphazard fashion, basing our idea on pure
+supposition? ... For, who is Fant&ocirc;mas&mdash;the real Fant&ocirc;mas, among so many
+probable Fant&ocirc;mas?</p>
+
+<p>"Can you tell me that, Fandor?" continued Juve, who was getting excited
+at last.... "I grant you that we have seen, in the course of our
+chequered existence, an old gentleman, like Etienne Rambert, a thickset
+Englishman like Gurn, a robust fellow like Loupart, a weak and sickly
+individual like Chaleck. We have identified each one of them, in turn,
+as Fant&ocirc;mas&mdash;and that is all.</p>
+
+<p>"As for seeing Fant&ocirc;mas himself, just as he is, without artificial aid,
+without paint and powder, without a false beard, without a wig, Fant&ocirc;mas
+as his face really is under his hooded mask of black&mdash;that we have not
+yet done. It is that fact which makes our hunt for the villain
+ceaselessly difficult, often dangerous!... Fant&ocirc;mas is always someone,
+sometimes two persons, never himself!"</p>
+
+<p>Juve, once started on this subject, could go on for ever, and Fandor did
+not try to stop him: when the course of conversation led them to talk of
+Fant&ocirc;mas the two men were as though hypnotised by this mysterious
+creature, so well named, for he was really "Fant&ocirc;matic," a spectral
+entity: the two friends could not turn their minds to any other subject.
+They discussed Fant&ocirc;mas up and down, in and out, and round about!...</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>It was getting on towards one o'clock when Fandor saw Juve off as far as
+the staircase. The detective had resumed his disguise, but neither man
+was in a joking mood now. Fandor had given Juve an account of the
+annoying, yet rather absurd incident at the convent, when he and
+Elizabeth were unsuspectingly bidding each other a passionate farewell
+under the watchful and scandalised eye of a nun! Fandor had thought it
+better to take Juve into his confidence on the point, though it went
+against the grain, for he was bashful with regard to his feelings.</p>
+
+<p>Juve had openly laughed at first, but when he understood that Elizabeth,
+requested to leave the convent, would again be without a safe shelter,
+he became serious, reflected for a minute or two, then gave his dear lad
+a piece of advice, advice which Fandor had seemingly taken objection to,
+and had finished by agreeing to....</p>
+
+<p>They parted with these words:</p>
+
+<p>"The more you think it over, dear lad, the better you will like my
+idea," said Juve.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had not said "No" to it!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XVII" id="XVII"></a>XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>AN ARREST</h3>
+
+
+<p>The day after his memorable talk with Juve, Fandor was summoned to
+appear before the police magistrate, because he could give evidence
+regarding the rue Raffet affair, and had saved Elizabeth Dollon's life.</p>
+
+<p>It was about four in the afternoon, and he had just entered the passage
+leading to the offices so familiar to him, when he met Elizabeth. Behind
+her came several persons whom he recognised: among them were the
+Barbey-Nanteuil partners, Madame Bourrat, and the servant, Jules. They
+were together and were talking. The moment she saw him, Elizabeth went
+up to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, monsieur!" she cried, with a reproachful look. "We had given up all
+hope of seeing you.... Just imagine, the magistrate has finished his
+enquiry already! Twice he asked if you had come!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor seemed surprised.</p>
+
+<p>"The summons was for four this afternoon, was it not?" he asked, taking
+from his pocket the summoning letter. A glance showed that he was not
+mistaken: he gave Elizabeth the letter to read. She smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"You were summoned for four o'clock, I see; but we had to appear
+earlier: I was examined as soon as I arrived, and I was summoned to
+appear at half-past two."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was annoyed with himself: he might have guessed it! He was vexed
+because he had not been on the watch in the passage whilst this
+examination was proceeding. He was moving towards Monsieur Fuselier's
+room, the magistrate in charge of the Auteuil affair, and he must have
+looked his vexation, for Elizabeth said:</p>
+
+<p>"I am a little to blame, perhaps, that you had not due notice, but what
+could I do! Yesterday evening when you telephoned to the convent to ask
+for news of me, I was just going to tell you at what time I was
+summoned, but when I went to the telephone...."</p>
+
+<p>"What's this you are telling me?" asked Fandor, staring hard at
+Elizabeth. "I never telephoned to you yesterday evening. Who told you I
+had been asking for you on the telephone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody said so; but I supposed it was you! Who else would be so kindly
+interested in my doings?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor made no reply to this. Here was the telephone mystery again&mdash;an
+alarming mystery. Elizabeth had not given her address to anyone: Fandor
+had been careful not to give it to a soul.... Clearly, this poor girl,
+even in the heart of this peaceful convent, was not secure from some
+unknown, outside interference; and Fandor, optimist though he was, could
+not help shuddering at the thought of these mysterious adversaries,
+implacable and formidable, who might work harm to this unfortunate girl,
+whose devoted protector he now was.... Besides ... did he not feel for
+Jacques Dollon's pretty sister something sweeter and more tender than
+pure sympathy?... Whenever he was near her, did he not experience a
+thrill of emotion? Fandor did not analyse his feelings, but they
+influenced him unconsciously.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Since you cannot remain any longer at the convent, where do you think
+of staying?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, monsieur, I shall go back to the convent this evening, though it
+is painful to me&mdash;very, very painful&mdash;to be obliged to accept their icy
+hospitality ... as for to-morrow!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was about to make a suggestion, when the door of Monsieur
+Fuselier's room opened half-way. The magistrate's clerk appeared, and,
+glancing round the passage over his spectacles, called, in a dull tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor!"</p>
+
+<p>"Here!" replied our journalist. "I am coming!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, taking a hasty farewell of Elizabeth as he went towards the
+magistrate's room, he whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Wait for me, mademoiselle; and, for the love of Heaven, remember
+this&mdash;whatever I may say, whatever happens, whether we are alone,
+together, or in the presence of others, whether it be in a few minutes,
+or later on, do not be astonished at what may befall you, even though it
+be my fault&mdash;be absolutely convinced of this&mdash;whatever I may do will be
+for your good&mdash;more than that I must not say!"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth had not a word to say, but his words were humming and buzzing
+in her ears when Fandor was in the magistrate's room.</p>
+
+<p>With a cordial handshake, Monsieur Fuselier began by congratulating him
+on having saved Elizabeth Dollon's life.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," said he, smiling, "you journalists have all the luck; and, between
+yourselves, I envy you a little, for your lucky star has led you to the
+discovery of a drama, and has enabled you to prevent a fatal ending to
+it. Now, do you not think, as I do, that this Auteuil affair is not a
+case of suicide, but of attempted assassination?"</p>
+
+<p>"There is no doubt about it," replied Fandor quietly.</p>
+
+<p>The magistrate drew himself up with a satisfied air.</p>
+
+<p>"That is also my opinion&mdash;has been so from the start."</p>
+
+<p>The clerk now interrupted the two men, who were talking as friends
+rather than as magistrate and witness, asking, in nasal tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Does His Honour wish to take the evidence of Monsieur J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor?"</p>
+
+<p>"In four lines then. I do not think Monsieur Fandor has anything more to
+tell us than what he has already told us in the columns of <i>La
+Capitale</i>. That is so, is it not?" asked the magistrate, looking at
+Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"That is correct," replied our journalist.</p>
+
+<p>The clerk rapidly drew up the deposition of Monsieur J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor, in
+due form, and read it aloud in a monotonous voice.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor signed it. It did not compromise him at all. He was about to
+leave when Monsieur Fuselier caught him by the arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Please wait a minute! There are one or two points to be cleared up: I
+am going to ask the witnesses a few questions: we will have a general
+confrontation&mdash;we will compare evidence!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, the journalist's friend, now all the magistrate, asked the
+assembled witnesses certain questions, in an emphatic and professional
+tone.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor, seated a little apart, had leisure to examine the faces of the
+different persons whom circumstances had brought together in this room.</p>
+
+<p>His first look was for Elizabeth: energy and courage were plainly marked
+on her pretty, sad face. Then there was the proprietor of the Auteuil
+boarding-house: an honest, vulgar creature, red-faced, perpetually
+mopping her brow and raising her hands to heaven; ready to bewail her
+position, deploring the untimely publicity given to this affair, a
+publicity which threatened discredit to her boarding-house.</p>
+
+<p>As he was seated directly behind the manservant, Jules, Fandor had a
+view of his broad back, surmounted by a big bullet head and ruffled
+hair. This witness spoke with a strong Picardy accent, and there was
+nothing remarkable about his answers: he seemed the conventional
+second-rate type of servant. He did not seem to have understood much of
+what occurred on the famous day: when questioned as to the order of
+events, his answers were vague, uncertain.</p>
+
+<p>Then, seated beside Fandor were the bankers: Barbey, a grave-looking
+man, no longer young, judging by his beard, which was going grey; he was
+decorated with the Legion of Honour: the other, Nanteuil, looked about
+thirty, elegant, distinguished, lively. These two were well known in the
+highest Parisian society as representing finance of the best kind. They
+were highly thought of.</p>
+
+<p>The magistrate asked the bankers a question.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," asked he, "did Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil call on Mademoiselle
+Dollon? Was it to bring her some help, as has been stated?"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth blushed with humiliation at the magistrate's question.
+Monsieur Nanteuil answered:</p>
+
+<p>"There is a slight distinction to be made, your Honour, and Mademoiselle
+Dollon certainly will not object to our mentioning it. It never entered
+our minds to offer Mademoiselle Dollon charity&mdash;charity she never asked
+of us, be it clearly understood. Mademoiselle Dollon, with whom we had
+previously been acquainted, whose misfortunes have inspired us with deep
+sympathy, wrote to ask us if we could find her some employment. Hoping
+to find some post for her, we came to see her, to talk with her, to find
+out what her capabilities were. That is all. We were very glad it so
+happened, that we were able to aid Monsieur Fandor in restoring her to
+life."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you tell me, Monsieur Fandor, did you notice anything suspicious in
+Mademoiselle Dollon's room when you entered it? You wrote, in your
+article, that at first you had thought it simply an attempted burglary,
+followed by an attempted murder?"</p>
+
+<p>"That is so," replied Fandor. "Directly the window was opened, I leaned
+out: I wanted to see if there was anything suspicious on the wall of the
+house. I also looked behind the shutters."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" asked the examining magistrate.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I had not forgotten the close of the Thomery drama&mdash;the same
+Monsieur Thomery mentioned in the Assize Court yesterday&mdash;oh, in all
+honour, of course; but you have not forgotten&mdash;although that examination
+was not in your hands, and I regret it, because I am of the opinion that
+there are points of connection interlinking all these mysterious
+affairs&mdash;you have not forgotten, I am sure, that when the investigations
+were over and Monsieur Thomery's guests had been allowed to leave the
+house, that a thread of flax was discovered hanging to the window
+fastening of the room in which Princess Danidoff had been found
+unconscious. This flax thread was very strong, and was broken at the
+end: it is easy to conclude that the stolen pearls had been temporarily
+fastened to it. This led me to think that the aggressor, or aggressors,
+had remained in the reception rooms during the whole course of the
+investigations, since it is proved that no one left the house....</p>
+
+<p>"... But, after all, we are not here to investigate the Thomery
+affair.... I wished to explain why I had examined the window and
+shutters Of Mademoiselle Dollon's room: I wanted to ascertain whether
+the procedure of the would-be murderer of Mademoiselle Dollon was
+similar to that of the robber in the Danidoff-Thomery case."</p>
+
+<p>"And what conclusion did you come to?" asked the magistrate.</p>
+
+<p>"Window and shutters bore no traces that I could see," said Fandor. "I
+could not come to any conclusion."</p>
+
+<p>Here Monsieur Barbey intervened.</p>
+
+<p>"If I may be allowed to say so"&mdash;he glanced at the magistrate for the
+required permission, which was given with a smile and gesture of
+assent&mdash;"I quite agree with Monsieur J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor. I also am convinced
+that, even if there is not a close connection between the Thomery affair
+and the Auteuil affair, at least there exists such a connection between
+the Auteuil affair and the terrible drama of rue Norvins."</p>
+
+<p>"I would go even further than that," declared Monsieur Nanteuil. "The
+robbery of rue du Quatre Septembre, of which we are the victims, is also
+connected with this same series of mysterious cases."</p>
+
+<p>The magistrate asked a question.</p>
+
+<p>"It is a matter of twenty millions, is it not? It must have been a
+terrible blow to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fearful, monsieur," replied Monsieur Nanteuil. "Our credit was shaken:
+it affected a considerable number of our clients, Monsieur Thomery
+among them, and we consider him one of our most important clients. You
+are aware, of course, that in financial matters confidence is almost
+everything!... Our losses have just been covered by an insurance, but we
+have suffered other than direct material losses. Still"&mdash;the banker
+turned towards Elizabeth, who was wiping tears from her eyes&mdash;"still,
+what are our troubles compared with those which have struck Mademoiselle
+Dollon blow upon blow? Assassination of the Baroness de Vibray,
+mysterious death&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The Baroness de Vibray was not assassinated, she committed suicide,"
+interrupted Fandor sharply. "Most certainly, I do not wish to make you
+responsible for that, gentlemen; but when you wrote, announcing her
+ruin, you dealt her a very hard blow!"</p>
+
+<p>"Could we have done otherwise?" replied Monsieur Barbey, with his
+customary gravity of manner and tone. "In our matter of fact business,
+where all must be clear and definite, we do not mince our words: we are
+bound to state things as they actually are. What is more, we do not
+share your point of view, and are convinced that the Baroness de Vibray
+was certainly murdered."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Fuselier now expressed his opinion, or at least, what he wished
+to be considered as his opinion:</p>
+
+<p>"Gentlemen, consider yourselves for the moment as not in the presence of
+the examining magistrate, but as being in the drawing-room of Monsieur
+Fuselier. In my private capacity, I will give you my opinion regarding
+the rue Norvins affair. I am decidedly less and less in agreement with
+Monsieur Fandor, though I recognise with pleasure his fine detective
+gifts."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," interrupted Fandor ironically. "That is a poor compliment!"</p>
+
+<p>Smiling, the magistrate continued:</p>
+
+<p>"I am of the same opinion as Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil: I believe Madame
+de Vibray was murdered."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor could not control his impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"Be logical, messieurs, I beg of you!" he cried. "The Baroness de
+Vibray committed suicide. Her letter states her intention. The
+authenticity of this letter has not been disputed. The disastrous
+revelations, contained in Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil's communication,
+proved too severe a shock for the poor lady's unbalanced brain: the news
+of her ruin, abruptly conveyed, drove her to desperation. The death of
+the Baroness de Vibray was voluntary and self-inflicted."</p>
+
+<p>There was a dead silence. Then Monsieur Barbey asked a question.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, Monsieur Fandor, will you explain to us how it happened
+that the Baroness de Vibray was found dead in the studio of the painter,
+Jacques Dollon?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor seemed to expect this question from the banker.</p>
+
+<p>"There are two hypotheses," he declared. "The first, and, in my humble
+opinion, the more improbable, is this: Madame de Vibray at the same time
+that she decided to put an end to her life, wished to pay her prot&eacute;g&eacute; a
+last visit; all the more so, because he had asked her to come and see
+his work before it was sent in to the Salon. Perhaps the Baroness
+intended to perform an act of charity, in this instance, before her
+supreme hour struck. Perhaps she miscalculated the effect of the poison
+she had taken, and so died in the house of the friend she had come to
+see and help: her death there could not have been her choice, for she
+must have known what serious trouble it would involve the artist in,
+were her dead body found in his studio.</p>
+
+<p>"Here is the second hypothesis, which seems the more plausible. The
+Baroness de Vibray learns that she is ruined, she decides to die, and by
+chance or coincidence, which remains to be explained, for I have not the
+key to it yet, some third parties interested in her fate, learn her
+decision. They let her write to her lawyer; they do not prevent her
+poisoning herself; but, as soon as she is dead, they straightway take
+possession of her dead body and hasten to carry it to Jacques Dollon's
+studio. To the painter himself they administered either with his consent
+or by force&mdash;probably by force&mdash;a powerful narcotic, so that when the
+police are called in next day they not only find the Baroness lying dead
+in the studio, but they also find the painter unconscious, close by his
+visitor. When Jacques Dollon is restored to consciousness, he is quite
+unable to give any sort of explanation of the tragedy; naturally enough,
+the police look upon him as the murderer of her who was well known to
+have been his patroness.... How does that strike you?"</p>
+
+<p>It was now Monsieur Fuselier's turn to hold forth.</p>
+
+<p>"You forget a detail which has its importance! I do not pretend to judge
+as to whether she was poisoned by her own free act or not; but, in any
+case, we have this proof&mdash;an uncorked phial of cyanide of potassium was
+found in Jacques Dollon's studio. It seemed to have been recently
+opened; but, when the painter was questioned about it, he declared that
+he had not made use of this ingredient for a very long time."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor replied:</p>
+
+<p>"I can turn your argument against you, monsieur. If the Baroness de
+Vibray had been poisoned, voluntarily or not, with the cyanide of
+potassium in Dollon's studio, he would have taken the precaution to
+banish all traces of the poison in question. It would have been his
+first care! When questioned by the police inspector, he would not have
+declared that he had not made use of this poison for a very long time!
+the contradiction involved is proof that Dollon was sincere; therefore,
+we are faced by a fact which, if not inexplicable, is, at least,
+unexplained."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Barbey now had something to say:</p>
+
+<p>"You criticise and hair-split in a remarkable fashion, monsieur, and are
+an adept in the science of induction; but, let me say without offence
+meant, that you give me the impression of being rather a romancing
+journalist than a judicial investigator!... Admitting that the Baroness
+de Vibray was carried to the painter Dollon's studio after her death,
+and that seems to be your opinion, what advantage would it be to the
+criminals to act in such a fashion?"</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor had risen, his eyes shining, his body vibrating with
+excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"I expected your question, monsieur," he cried; "and the answer is
+simple. The mysterious criminals seized the Baroness de Vibray's body
+and brought it to Dollon's studio to create an alibi, and to cast
+suspicion on an innocent man. As you know, the stratagem was successful:
+two hours after the discovery of the crime, the police arrested
+Mademoiselle Dollon's unfortunate brother!"</p>
+
+<p>With a dramatic gesture Fandor pointed to Elizabeth, who, no longer able
+to contain her grief, was weeping bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>The audience had risen, moved, troubled, subjugated, in spite of
+themselves, by the journalist's eloquent and persuasive tones. Even
+Monsieur Fuselier had quitted his classic green leather arm-chair and
+had approached the two bankers: Madame Bourrat was behind them, and the
+servant, Jules, with his smooth face and staring eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor continued:</p>
+
+<p>"This is not all, messieurs!... There is still something that must be
+said, and I beg of you to listen with all your attention, for what the
+result of my declarations will be, I do not know! It is no longer my
+reason that speaks, instinct dictates my words! Listen!..."</p>
+
+<p>It was a poignant moment! All the witnesses, the magistrate included,
+were thrilled with the certainty that the journalist was about to make a
+sensational revelation.</p>
+
+<p>Taking his time, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor walked slowly, quietly up to Elizabeth
+who, distraught with grief, was in floods of tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle," he said, in a clear level voice, which was in strange
+contrast with his recent persuasive and authoritative tones.
+"Mademoiselle, you must tell us everything!... You are here, not in the
+presence of a judge, and of enemies, but amidst friends who wish you
+nothing but good.... I understand your affectionate feelings, I know
+what an unreasoning, but quite natural, attachment you have for your
+unfortunate brother&mdash;but, mademoiselle, it is now imperatively necessary
+that you should do violence to yourself&mdash;you must tell us the truth, the
+whole truth!"</p>
+
+<p>Interrupting his appeal to Elizabeth, Fandor turned to the magistrate
+with a smile so enigmatic that his audience could not tell whether he
+was speaking sincerely or was acting a part.</p>
+
+<p>"I have contended in my articles up to now that Jacques Dollon was dead,
+dead beyond recall; but when confronted with recent facts my theory
+seems to fall to the ground." Fandor turned once more to Elizabeth,
+resuming his authoritative tone and manner: "Since the affair of the
+D&eacute;p&ocirc;t, the legal authorities have recognised indelible traces of Jacques
+Dollon's hand in the series of crimes which have been recently
+perpetrated. Up to the present, I have determinedly denied such a
+possibility. But, mademoiselle, I put it to you: you have forgotten to
+tell us something of the very utmost importance, something quite out of
+the range of ordinary happenings, something phenomenal. Now here is the
+staggering fact I am faced with! The other day, between two and three in
+the afternoon, at the Auteuil boarding-house where you are staying, you
+received a visit from your brother, Jacques Dollon, the supposed robber
+of the Princess Sonia Danidoff's pearls, the suspected author of the
+robbery of rue du Quatre Septembre; and, lastly, the fratricide, for
+what other explanation of the attack on you can be given&mdash;an attempted
+murder beyond question&mdash;and I add ..." Fandor could not continue. His
+eyes were fixed on those of Elizabeth who, at the first words addressed
+to her by the journalist, had started up, trembling from head to
+foot.... Their glances met, challenging, each seeking to quell, to
+subjugate the other.... It seemed to the onlookers that they were
+witnessing an intense struggle between two very strong natures separated
+by a deep, a fathomless gulf; that a veil, dark as night, hanging
+between them had been rent asunder, giving passage to an illuminating
+flash; that this luminous ray carried with it all the revelations and
+the key to the fantastic mystery!</p>
+
+<p>But to a calm, perspicacious observer of the two beings standing face to
+face, it would have been clear that J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor's real attitude was
+both suppliant and persuasive, and that Elizabeth Dollon's was one of
+overwhelming surprise.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Fuselier, carried away by the journalist's startling and
+extraordinary statements, did not perceive this. Suddenly, he saw in
+J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor the denunciator, and in Elizabeth Dollon, the accomplice
+unmasked. Nevertheless, he said quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Fandor, you have just uttered words of such gravity that you
+are bound to confirm them by indisputable evidence. Do you mean to
+persist on these lines?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor looked away from the stupefied Elizabeth and her questioning
+glance: he answered the magistrate at once.</p>
+
+<p>"The proof of what I advance, you will find by searching Mademoiselle
+Dollon's room.... I would rather not say more than that...."</p>
+
+<p>"Allow me to state, monsieur, that I cannot arrange for such an
+investigation until to-morrow morning!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, addressing the astounded Madame Bourrat, the two bankers, and the
+manservant, Jules.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame, messieurs, will you be kind enough to withdraw? Madame, I
+advise you, under pain of the most serious consequences, not to allow
+anyone whatever to enter your premises, nor go into Mademoiselle
+Dollon's room, before this matter has been fully sifted by the legal
+authorities. Be good enough to wait in the passage&mdash;all of you!"</p>
+
+<p>Having witnessed their exit, the magistrate walked up to Fandor, and
+looking him straight in the eyes said:</p>
+
+<p>"Well!... Out with it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," replied the journalist, "if you institute a search in the place
+I have indicated, you will find, in the chest of drawers, under a pile
+of Mademoiselle Dollon's personal linen a piece of soap wrapped up in a
+cambric handkerchief. Take this soap to Monsieur Bertillon's department,
+and after the scientific tests have been applied to it, you will be able
+to say that it bears distinct impressions of Dollon's hand!"</p>
+
+<p>"Dollon's?"</p>
+
+<p>The magistrate gasped.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth Dollon had fallen back into the arm-chair, from which she had
+risen all trembling. Her tears had ceased. She stared at the two men
+with wide open, terrified eyes. All the time, the clerk in spectacles
+wrote steadily on at his table, noting down the details of the scenes he
+was witnessing.</p>
+
+<p>There was a palpitating silence.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Fuselier had returned to his writing table.</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor seemed to have recovered his composure, an ironic smile
+curved his lips beneath his small moustache, whilst his hand sought that
+of Elizabeth: it was the only way he could, at the moment, express the
+sympathy he had never ceased to feel for her.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Fuselier filled in a printed paper and pressed an electric
+bell.</p>
+
+<p>Two municipal guards appeared.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Fuselier rose and signing to the soldiers to wait, he faced
+Elizabeth Dollon.</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle, have you any objections to make to the statements of
+Monsieur J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor? Will you say whether or no you received a visit
+from your brother?"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth, tortured by intense emotion, her throat contracted, strove in
+vain to pronounce a word; at last, by a supreme effort, she murmured in
+a strangled voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Why, you are all mad here!"</p>
+
+<p>As she gave no direct reply to his question, Monsieur Fuselier, after a
+pause, announced in a grave voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Mademoiselle! Until I have more ample information, I am under the cruel
+necessity of ordering your arrest!... Guards, arrest the accused!" cried
+the magistrate sternly.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth Dollon made a movement of revolt, when she saw herself
+surrounded and felt her arms seized by the two representatives of
+authority. She was about to cry out in protest, but a glance&mdash;it seemed
+to her a tender glance&mdash;from Fandor restrained her.... She stood
+speechless, inert. After all, had she not confidence in him, although
+she could not understand his attitude! Had he not been her staunch
+defender up to now? Had he not warned her that she must not be
+astonished at anything that occurred&mdash;that she must be prepared for
+anything?... Nevertheless, Elizabeth Dollon felt her brain reeling&mdash;she
+was astounded beyond words.... The surprise was too strong for her....</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>About a quarter of an hour after this tragic scene, Fandor was pacing up
+and down the asphalt of the boulevard du Palais, plunged in thought,
+when someone clapped him on the shoulder. He turned. It was Monsieur
+Fuselier.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear fellow!" cried the magistrate, resuming his customary
+tone of good fellowship. "Well, what an adventure! You have been playing
+some fine tricks! I never expected such a stroke as that, the deuce if I
+did!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ho, ho!" laughed Fandor, "I think that a week from to-day we shall know
+a good many things!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," replied the magistrate, "I have had the girl placed in solitary
+confinement&mdash;that makes them willing to speak out!...."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor looked the magistrate up and down.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" murmured he, with a scarcely perceptible note of contempt in his
+voice:</p>
+
+<p>"You think you will extract information from that quarter, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"But why not? Why not?" interrupted the dapper Monsieur Fuselier, in a
+sprightly tone; and, leaving Fandor abruptly, he leapt into a passing
+tramcar.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor watched Fuselier cross the road and climb to an outside seat.
+Whilst the magistrate waved a friendly farewell from the top of the
+disappearing car, Fandor shrugged disdainful shoulders, and, with
+pitying lips, muttered one word:</p>
+
+<p>"Fool!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XVIII" id="XVIII"></a>XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TRUNK</h3>
+
+
+<p>After Monsieur Fuselier's departure, Fandor rejoined Madame Bourrat on
+the boulevard. The good woman was very much upset by the dramatic scene
+she had witnessed. She had sent off her manservant, and was preparing to
+take the tram back to Auteuil. Fandor asked if he might accompany her,
+and Madame Bourrat was only too delighted to have a chance of further
+talk with the journalist, for she had a lively desire to learn all she
+could about the extraordinary drama in which she found herself involved.</p>
+
+<p>When they arrived at Auteuil, Madame Bourrat had learned nothing
+definite, for the journalist had given only evasive answers to her
+questions. Still, one point was obvious: Madame Bourrat considered
+Monsieur J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor as the most amiable man in the world, and she was
+disposed to help him to the utmost of her powers, in defence of any
+interests he wished to safeguard....</p>
+
+<p>Madame Bourrat was absolutely set on receiving Monsieur Fandor in her
+private apartments. She then seized the opportunity to complain of the
+trouble this affair had brought into her regular and peaceful existence.
+Certainly, in summer, her boarders were less numerous; their numbers
+being, in fact, reduced to two or three.</p>
+
+<p>This season there had been fewer than usual; but the accident, or
+attempted assassination of Mademoiselle Dollon, had undoubtedly brought
+discredit on the house. An old paralysed gentleman, who had been in
+residence on the day of the drama, had departed the day after. There
+was not a single boarder in the house: it was empty.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Having made certain that her manservant, Jules, and her cook, Marianne,
+had retired to their respective rooms, Madame Bourrat conducted Fandor
+as far as the door of her dwelling. They had been so interested in their
+talk, that they had forgotten all about dinner: their experiences of the
+past few hours had left them with little appetite. It was about nine
+o'clock; night had fallen: house and garden were wrapped in a mantle of
+darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Can you find your way?" asked Madame Bourrat. If she accompanied the
+journalist to her garden gate she would have to grope back to the house
+in the dark, and alone! Her nerves were shaken by recent events. She did
+not wish to venture forth and back in the mysterious gloom of night,
+even on the familiar path of her garden. What might that darkness not
+hide! What robbers, what murderers might there not be lurking near!</p>
+
+<p>Fandor laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course I can, madame! To find the points of the compass, to
+cultivate the sense of locality, is part of a journalist's profession."</p>
+
+<p>"Do not forget to draw to behind you&mdash;it needs a strong pull&mdash;the gate
+which separates us from the street: once shut, no one can open it from
+outside."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor, shaking hands with the boarding-house keeper, promised to close
+the gate. As the sound of his steps on the gravel grew less and less, as
+the gate fell to with a loud noise, and an absolute silence followed,
+Madame Bourrat felt sure that her guest had left the garden&mdash;had gone
+away.</p>
+
+<p>But he had done nothing of the sort!</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had shut the gate noiselessly, but he had remained inside the
+grounds. He stood motionless, holding his breath, wishing neither to be
+seen nor heard. He remained so for a long twenty minutes. Then, being
+assured that Madame Bourrat had retired for the night&mdash;she had closed
+her shutters and put out her light&mdash;he rubbed his hands, murmuring:</p>
+
+<p>"Now we shall see!"</p>
+
+<p>Stepping gingerly along by the side of the wall, he reached the main
+building of the boarding-house: luckily, it was empty as far as boarders
+were concerned. He recognised Elizabeth Dollon's window on the first
+floor and was glad to see that it was half open. Chance favoured
+him&mdash;there was even a gutter pipe running down the wall and passing
+close to the window. Providence had favoured him with a fine staircase;
+there would not be much difficulty in climbing that!</p>
+
+<p>No sooner thought than done! Accustomed as he was to exercise and games,
+Fandor, agile as a young man in good training can be, squirmed up the
+pipe as far as Elizabeth's window. He caught hold of the sill, recovered
+his balance, jerked himself up, and, two seconds after, had landed in
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>Dared he strike a light! He remembered pretty accurately the position of
+the various pieces of furniture, but he would like to study the room
+more in detail. His luck still held, for a ray of moonlight suddenly
+shone out from behind a cloud. He saw the moon sailing in a clear sky.
+There would be sufficient light from the moon rays to enable him to
+pursue his investigations.</p>
+
+<p>It was an essentially modern room; the white walls were painted with
+ripolin, and were as bare of ornament as a nun's cell. An iron bedstead
+stood in the middle of the room: a wardrobe, with a mirror panel in
+front, and locked, occupied one of the corners; behind a folding screen
+was a toilette table, a Louis XV bureau, two chairs, an arm-chair: that
+was all.</p>
+
+<p>After making this rapid inventory, Fandor considered:</p>
+
+<p>"The situation is growing complicated," said he to himself. "I am quite
+persuaded that this room will shortly receive a visit from some
+individuals who will not court recognition&mdash;their interests are all
+against that&mdash;and they certainly will not be anxious to meet me here!
+These individuals assuredly know, at this minute, that the examining
+magistrate is going to make a thorough investigation here to-morrow
+morning.... How do they know it? It's very simple. The prime mover in
+the attempted murder, or one of his accomplices, was assuredly among the
+witnesses this afternoon. Is it the amiable Madame Bourrat? Is it that
+doltish Jules, who looks an absolute fool, but may be masking his game!
+Suppose the serious Barbey pops up? Or the elegant Nanteuil? But I do
+not think so&mdash;they are rather victims than attackers&mdash;everything leads
+me to that opinion. But&mdash;all this does not tell me whether the place has
+already been visited or not!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor unlocked the drawer, searched for the piece of soap under the
+pile of Elizabeth's linen, and had the extreme satisfaction of finding
+the soap had not been moved.</p>
+
+<p>"Good! I am here first! Ah, we shall see our men presently! Which, and
+how many?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor seated himself and let his imagination work. He tried to picture
+the faces of the mysterious individuals he was determined to track
+down&mdash;but, so far, in vain!... Then with strange, uncanny persistence,
+one face rose again and again before his mental vision, clear,
+vital&mdash;the face of the enigmatic Thomery, with his silver white hair,
+his red face, his light blue eyes, that Yankee head of his, well set on
+his robust torso....</p>
+
+<p>"Thomery!" cried Fandor almost aloud. "The fact is, everything leads me
+to think ... but don't let us anticipate! Concealment is the next item
+on the programme!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor realised that to hide under the bed was impossible: he would be
+discovered immediately.... The screen was no better!... There was
+Elizabeth's trunk!... Why, it was a kind of monument in wicker work! The
+very thing! It was quite big enough to hold him&mdash;it was one of those
+enormous trunks beloved of women!... To hide in it would be an
+excellent trick&mdash;a real joke! Let me burrow in there, and see the
+stupefaction of these estimable characters when they open it to rummage
+about among Elizabeth's belongings and find themselves face to face with
+me! They will see besides my sympathetic countenance the stern mouth of
+my revolver!... Let us see whether it is a possible hiding place!</p>
+
+<p>Fandor raised the cover and lifted out a top compartment, in which were
+scattered, among objects of feminine apparel, papers, books, and all
+sorts of things which had evidently belonged to the unfortunate painter.
+The distracted Elizabeth, in the hurry of departure from rue Norvins,
+must have thrust them in pell-mell. The lower division of the trunk was
+empty.</p>
+
+<p>"Another bit of luck!" thought Fandor. "Now to sample my little
+hide-hole!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor found he could get into a fairly comfortable position. Then he
+calculated, that with the compartment back in its place and the cover
+open, all he had to do to close it was to shake the trunk transversely.
+He could certainly remain inside for several hours without intolerable
+discomfort.</p>
+
+<p>Raising the cover, Fandor slipped out.</p>
+
+<p>The interminable hours crawled by. To smoke was out of the question.
+Fandor's pride in his exploit was sinking to zero: was he passing a
+wretched night to no purpose? A violent ring sounded. Someone was
+ringing at the garden gate&mdash;ringing loudly, insistently&mdash;an imperative
+summons!</p>
+
+<p>Instantly Fandor was on the alert. Useless to slip to the window and
+peer cautiously out, for Elizabeth's window did not face the gate: even
+by leaning out he could not catch any glimpse of any visitors, either
+coming to the house or passing along towards Madame Bourrat's apartments
+in the annex.... Besides, Fandor feared to make a noise, and the
+polished boards of the floor cracked and creaked at the least movement!</p>
+
+<p>"The one thing for me to do," thought he, "is to creep back into my
+retreat and wait. Now who can it be at this time of night?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor's curiosity was rapidly satisfied&mdash;after a fashion! The call of
+the bell had been answered by noises and hurried footsteps, whisperings,
+an outburst of voices, then silence.... A few minutes after, Fandor
+clearly heard some persons entering the ground floor of the house.</p>
+
+<p>He listened intently: he could hear his own heartbeats.</p>
+
+<p>Then a voice said:</p>
+
+<p>"In Heaven's name! Is it possible? Why do you come to upset people at
+this time of night? As if we had not had enough to put up with during
+the day! It is a dreadful business! There's no doubt about it! Are we
+never to be left in peace?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it's Madame Bourrat's voice!" said Fandor. "Poor woman! What's
+up?" He listened. Someone said:</p>
+
+<p>"The law is the law, madame, and we are it's humble executors. As the
+examining judge has ordered me to make an investigating distraint, we
+are compelled to carry out his instructions to the letter. Be good
+enough to tell your servant to lead us to the actual spot where the
+crime was attempted."</p>
+
+<p>"Now what is all this?" asked Fandor. "And from whence comes this police
+inspector? It only wanted that! He won't know what to make of it when I
+tell him who I am&mdash;and how am I to explain my presence here? Anyhow,
+wait, and see what happens!"</p>
+
+<p>"Someone was coming upstairs&mdash;more than one!"</p>
+
+<p>"This way, messieurs!" said a hoarse voice. "The room the young lady
+occupied is at the end of this passage!"</p>
+
+<p>"This time I recognise my fine fellow!" thought Fandor. "It is that
+imbecile of a Jules. But what a triumphant tone! And how different his
+voice sounds to what it did, this afternoon, at the examination!"</p>
+
+<p>Then Fandor all but jumped from his hiding place.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! What an egregious fool I am! Why, there is not a police inspector
+in France who would come at this hour to carry out an investigation&mdash;and
+a distraint to boot! What the devil does it mean? Can they be the fine
+fellows I am lying in wait to meet?"</p>
+
+<p>The dubious individuals who had roused the house at such an unholy hour
+entered the room. Someone turned on the electric light.</p>
+
+<p>Though Fandor could obtain a sufficient supply of air through the
+openings in the wickerwork, he could not see what was going on: he could
+only listen with all his ears.</p>
+
+<p>Madame Bourrat accompanied her strange visitors.</p>
+
+<p>"It is here," she exclaimed, "that the journalist, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor, found
+my boarder stretched out on the floor.... You see, in this corner, is
+the gas stove with its tubing! They have forgotten to refix it to the
+pipe; but there is no danger, the tap is turned off and so is the
+meter."</p>
+
+<p>The personage who had given out that he was a police inspector, whose
+voice was probably an assumed one, replied only by monosyllables. Fandor
+did not recognise his voice. But there was another speaker, who also had
+very little to say for himself; and Fandor thought he recognised certain
+tones as belonging to a man who had been much in his thoughts of late.</p>
+
+<p>"Thomery!" thought he. "Is it Thomery?"</p>
+
+<p>But he only knew the sugar refiner by sight, and had heard him speak but
+once or twice at the ball: that was not enough to go on, for Fandor had
+not paid special attention to the distinguishing tone and quality of his
+host's voice. Nevertheless, he could not get out of his head the idea
+that the celebrated sugar refiner, honoured by all Paris, esteemed by
+everybody, was standing only a step or two away from him now in this
+house of strange happenings, and under very peculiar circumstances. "Was
+he a burglar&mdash;an assassin? One of a nefarious band?"</p>
+
+<p>For Fandor was now convinced that these were not police emissaries
+bearing a legal mandate to search and distrain: no, they were robbers,
+criminals! He was preparing to rise from his hiding place and appear
+before the bandits: he would fire a few shots and make the deuce of a
+row and rouse the neighbourhood. He would also save poor Madame Bourrat,
+who was certainly not their accomplice. Just then he heard the pretended
+police inspector say:</p>
+
+<p>"Will you provide us with writing materials, madame? We must write an
+official report."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, certainly, monsieur," replied Madame Bourrat. "I will go
+downstairs and get what you require."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor heard her leave the room. No sooner had she gone than a hurried
+conversation began in low tones. Clearly Jules was guilty, for the
+pretended police inspector asked:</p>
+
+<p>"No one this evening? Nothing happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied Jules in a servile tone. "The journalist brought the
+mistress back and then went off at nine o'clock...."</p>
+
+<p>"No news of Alfred?" asked the voice.</p>
+
+<p>The third person answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Why, no. You know very well he is always at the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t."</p>
+
+<p>"Let us set to work!" said voice number one.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor felt that the decisive moment had arrived: someone opened the
+cover of the trunk and feverish hands were turning over the confused
+mass of objects in the top compartment.</p>
+
+<p>"Didn't you find anything?" asked the voice of Jules.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, monsieur! I searched everywhere; but as I do not read easily,
+it's difficult for me...."</p>
+
+<p>"Imbecile!" murmured the voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said Fandor to himself. "This fellow pleases me! He has the same
+opinion of this dolt of a Jules as I have!"</p>
+
+<p>Revolver in hand, Fandor was on the alert. The moment they lifted up the
+compartment out he would jump. Just then, Madame Bourrat could be heard
+approaching.</p>
+
+<p>"Confound it! We shall not have time to go through everything!"
+muttered a voice. The trunk cover was hastily closed.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor heard Madame Bourrat enter the room with slow, heavy step.</p>
+
+<p>"Here are ink and paper, messieurs!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>Then the pretended police inspector made a statement that startled the
+concealed Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame, we have no time, nor are we able to make a minute investigation
+now. Besides, with one exception, there does not seem to be anything
+suspicious about the room; but here is a trunk which contains papers of
+great importance. We are going to take it to the police station."</p>
+
+<p>"As you please," replied Madame Bourrat. "I ask only one thing and that
+is to be left in peace. I do not want to hear anything more about this
+abominable affair!"</p>
+
+<p>A rapid turn of the key given to each of the locks and Fandor knew that
+he was now a prisoner! Brave as he was, he felt a rush of blood to his
+heart and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"Dash it all! I am in an awful position! Impossible to move! If these
+brutes suspected they had me tight in here they would pitch me into the
+river as sure as Fate! Then good-bye to <i>La Capitale</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Then, before Fandor's mental vision rose a sweet consoling figure, the
+figure of the girl for whom he was braving danger, for love of whom&mdash;he
+certainly did love her&mdash;he had placed himself in such a serious
+position.... Then all that was optimistic in his nature&mdash;and that was
+much&mdash;rose to the surface, and declared the dilemma was not as serious
+as it seemed.... How could the bandits know of his presence in the
+trunk? They never would think J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor so stupid as to shut himself
+up in the trap!</p>
+
+<p>"Jules and I might shake hands as equals in folly!" concluded Fandor....
+Just then the trunk began to move. They were trying to lift it. Whilst
+trying to preserve an unstable equilibrium, he said to himself in a
+satisfied way:</p>
+
+<p>"And just to think now that they have not rummaged in the chest of
+drawers, nor have they seized the tell-tale piece of soap!... It's true
+that Fuselier alone knows of its being there&mdash;I was careful not to tell
+anyone else.... But, where the deuce are they going? It's the stairs, of
+course! It might be a rough precipice by the shaking up they're giving
+me!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XIX" id="XIX"></a>XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>CRIMINAL OR VICTIM?</h3>
+
+
+<p>At the bottom of his trunk J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor was foaming with rage, furious
+at being caught in the trap and uneasy as to how this adventure would
+end.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst he was realising that his unknown porters were carrying their
+heavy weight with difficulty to the pavement of rue Raffet, he made up
+his mind to a definite course of action: regardless of consequences, he
+was going to shout, move about, make a regular disturbance, rouse the
+attention of the passers-by&mdash;if there happened to be any&mdash;but, at all
+costs, he meant to get out of the trap!... He saw a ray of hope: Madame
+Bourrat had accompanied her visitors as far as the gate. In presence of
+such a witness, they would, at least, hesitate to do him serious bodily
+harm when he made his presence unmistakably known, furious though they
+would be. He would take every advantage of the situation....</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was about to act: a second more and he would have started, when
+he heard them speaking. He kept quiet.</p>
+
+<p>"We must have a taxi, or at the very least a cab to transport this big
+trunk. Do you know where one is likely to be found?"</p>
+
+<p>"I doubt if one will be passing at this hour, monsieur. We retire early
+in these parts; but, if you like, Jules can go to the station."</p>
+
+<p>"That's settled. Let him go as fast as he can!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, that is reassuring," thought Fandor. "If these fine fellows take
+a cab, it is not with the intention of chucking my cage and me into the
+river&mdash;and that is what I feared most. They may be going to leave me in
+a cloak-room till called for; or they may pack us off as luggage to some
+destination unknown! ... Oh, well, I shall only be a traveller without a
+ticket and I shall be sure to find some way out of the difficulty! And
+then, what stuff for an article I shall have when I get back to <i>La
+Capitale</i>!... What must they be thinking at the offices! It's
+forty-eight hours since I put foot in them! Never mind! When they
+know!..."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was listening with all his ears; but the bandits had little to
+say; and, when they did speak, their voices were plainly disguised. Was
+it as a general precaution, or was it on account of Madame Bourrat?...
+But, unless they were known to her, why the necessity? If, however, she
+knew one or more of them personally, why, they must have disguised their
+faces and figures as well as their voices!... If only he could have a
+peep at them!</p>
+
+<p>The sound of wheels made him suppose that Jules had succeeded in getting
+a cab at the Auteuil station. Then the trot-trot-trot of a horse became
+audible: a few moments later a cab drew up at the edge of the pavement.</p>
+
+<p>A hoarse voice was heard.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not a long journey, I hope!" said the hoarse, grumbling voice of
+the cabman.</p>
+
+<p>"To Police Headquarters," replied the pretended police inspector.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall see about that!" thought Fandor. "That address is to throw
+dust in Madame Bourrat's eyes. They will change their destination on the
+way. I bet on it!..."</p>
+
+<p>"The brutes! Are they going to jam my cage and me on to the seat?"
+Fandor asked himself, for they had seized the trunk and were beginning
+to lift it up. ... "Am I to be stuck upside down beside the driver? I
+don't fancy so!... We must weigh at least ninety kilos, as I weigh
+seventy myself!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor's mind was soon made easy on that score. After a fruitless
+attempt to hoist the trunk to the box seat, they decided to put it on to
+the back seat of the Victoria. One of the bandits planted himself on the
+little folding seat opposite the trunk: the other bandit mounted to the
+box seat next the driver.</p>
+
+<p>The two bandits took leave of Madame Bourrat. The rickety old vehicle
+started off. Presently, Fandor heard what he had expected to hear: one
+of his captors told the driver to take them to some other address than
+Police Headquarters. Owing to the rattling of the ramshackle cab&mdash;it
+lacked rubber tyres&mdash;Fandor, though listening with ears astretch, could
+not hear one word distinctly.</p>
+
+<p>Soon pale gleams of light began to filter through the wickerwork: dawn
+was near.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, we shall soon reach our destination," thought Fandor. "I don't
+fancy my trunk lifters will wish to be seen with this turnout in broad
+daylight! Now, where the deuce are we going?"</p>
+
+<p>In vain did Fandor strive to follow the route taken by the bandits! He
+had noted each shock and counter-shock produced by cobbled streets and
+smooth roads, by bumping against pavements, by crossed tram lines and
+sharp turnings!...</p>
+
+<p>The cab stopped with a jolt and a jerk. The two men got out. The trunk
+was lifted down to the pavement. The driver was paid. He rattled off.</p>
+
+<p>"Now trunk and I are in for it!" thought Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>A bell pealed. A courtyard entrance gate was thrown open. The two men
+lifted the trunk, cursing under their breath at its weight.</p>
+
+<p>In passing under the archway they called some name unknown to Fandor and
+so unintelligible that he could not remember it; then it was a painful
+ascension: up a staircase they went with prodigious effort, stopping on
+two landings.</p>
+
+<p>"Two floors," counted Fandor. "We are coming to the end, and, all said
+and done, I would rather be in a house than at the bottom of the river!"</p>
+
+<p>A key turned in a lock; the trunk was pushed rapidly inside; then the
+noise of a door being shut.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was in a room; no doubt, alone with the two bandits, and at their
+mercy! He was plunged into complete darkness. Evidently the shutters
+were still closed. The noise made by footsteps on the floor showed that
+it was uncarpeted. Judging from the sound, there seemed to be little
+furniture and no hangings in the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I and my cage in an ordinary room, in a studio, or in a hall?"
+wondered Fandor. In any case, the fellows who had brought him there
+seemed anxious to avoid making a noise.</p>
+
+<p>Then he felt the cover of the wickerwork trunk bend slightly and heard
+it creak. For a moment, he thought the two men were about to open his
+prison. He had his revolver ready: every inch of him was on the
+defensive! Then he realised that his captors had merely seated
+themselves on the trunk to rest!</p>
+
+<p>They began to talk.</p>
+
+<p>"This," thought Fandor, "is splendid! I shall hear everything they say.
+Why, it is a conversation in my honour! What luck!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was delighted: thanks to his position he would hear some
+interesting secrets. He listened. Alas! He could hear every word they
+uttered, but he could not understand what they were saying! Fandor swore
+strictly to himself. The two wretches were conversing in German.</p>
+
+<p>To the best of his judgment, a good hour had passed since the false
+police inspector and his acolyte had left the room. They had simply
+drawn to the door behind them, not troubling to lock it, much to the joy
+of J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>Absolute silence reigned.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor attempted some discreet movements as a test. The wickerwork
+creaked as he gently shook the trunk at short intervals. Not an
+answering sound came from outside! Menaced with cramp, Fandor felt that
+the moment of escape had arrived.</p>
+
+<p>He was, certainly, the only living soul in the place: listen as he
+might, and his sense of hearing was acute, he could not hear any sound
+of breathing. Yes, the time to quit his prison had come!</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had with him, besides his revolver, a box of matches, and a
+hunter's knife consisting of several blades, and a little saw. Getting
+out his knife with some difficulty, he began to hack at the wickerwork.
+Dry and pliant, the interlaced rods did not long resist the saw's steel
+teeth. It took him a bare ten minutes to make an opening, sufficiently
+large to push his head and shoulders through: the rest of his body
+followed easily. Such was his haste to be free, that he tore, not only
+his clothes, but his elbows and hands, on the jagged ends of the broken
+wickerwork: large drops of blood fell on the flooring.</p>
+
+<p>"Bah! I've got off cheaply!" cried Fandor, standing up to relax his
+cramped muscles and stretching his aching legs and arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Unless I am jolly well mistaken, I am lord of all I survey. I am alone
+in my glory! There's not a soul in the place! Good luck indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>He turned for a last look at his broken prison house, the cage in which
+he had spent such exciting hours. He suddenly stiffened and drew back: a
+nervous trembling seized him&mdash;the nervous trembling due to sudden shock.
+Between the trunk which had been dumped down in the centre of a large
+square room, without a scrap of furniture in it, and the window, through
+whose shutters the rays of morning sunshine shone, Fandor had caught
+sight of a body lying on the floor&mdash;a man's body! Fandor leapt forward.
+Was this same cunning criminal feigning sleep for some evil purpose?
+Standing over that motionless figure, Fandor bent and touched one of the
+man's hands: it was ice-cold and rigid. The man was dead!</p>
+
+<p>To see his face was imperative: it was turned towards the floor. With
+difficulty Fandor raised the head and shoulders, for they were unusually
+large and strongly built. Fandor glanced at the face and suddenly
+withdrew his hand: the corpse fell back on the floor with a thud!</p>
+
+<p>"Thomery!" murmured Fandor. "Why, it's Thomery!"</p>
+
+<p>It was the well-known sugar refiner's body. The face was purple, the
+tongue protruding. Round his neck was tied a tricoloured scarf, the
+scarf of a police inspector! Was this the murderer's ironic touch?</p>
+
+<p>Fandor sank down quite overcome. He tried to collect his thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>"A disgusting joke this! If someone should take into his head to enter
+the room at this moment, what kind of explanation could I give? Here I
+am, alone with the dead body of a man I know, and in a room I don't
+know, in a neighbourhood whose whereabouts I know no more than the man
+in the moon."</p>
+
+<p>"Where am I?... In whose house?... For what purpose?... Have those
+beauties of last night no suspicion of the truth?... Did they leave me
+in this lair of theirs of set purpose, knowing I was cooped up inside
+the trunk?"</p>
+
+<p>Just then, Fandor felt a slight moisture on the palm of his hand: it was
+all red: the scratches, made by the jagged edges of the wickerwork, were
+still bleeding.</p>
+
+<p>"Better and better I declare!" murmured Fandor. "If I don't look like a
+little holy Saint John! A corpse, and a man with blood on his hands
+seated beside the dead body of this murdered man! Nothing more is
+required to jail me with all the power of the law!... To go to prison
+under such suspicious circumstances is serious!... The police, who are
+floundering about in a maze of investigations, without any result so
+far, will be only too delighted to kill two birds with one stone&mdash;to
+suppress a journalist and discover a criminal!... I have got to get out
+of here; that is plain as a pikestaff!... Get away? Yes, but with the
+honour of war!... I must establish an alibi&mdash;that is absolutely
+necessary.... I like to think that my false police inspector and his
+accomplice have cut and run for some time; at any rate, that they will
+be in no hurry to come back to see what is happening where they have so
+neatly and nicely left the corpse of this Thomery.... What part did this
+fellow play in the drama?... Criminal or victim?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had reached the door of the hall opening on to the main
+staircase. He was listening.... He had explored the flat. It was empty.
+He had found water in the kitchen, had washed his face, and removed
+every trace of blood from his person. It was a flat suitable for a
+middle-class household. There were three large rooms, decorated with a
+certain amount of luxury.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor looked at his watch. It was seven o'clock. He stood listening.
+Someone, a man, was coming downstairs: someone, a woman, was coming up.
+They met on the landing just outside.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Mercadier, here are your letters! I was bringing them up to
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was hardly worth while, my good lady. I have to come down, you see,
+so you can save yourself five flights of stairs!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, monsieur! I have to come up to go down my stairs."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Mercadier continued to descend, and the portress continued to
+mount.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor's heart beat faster when he realised that she was approaching the
+door. Would she come in and find him there? Had the new tenants left a
+key of the flat with her? No, the portress dusted the landing quickly
+and continued her ascent: he heard her going up and up....</p>
+
+<p>He made up his mind to slip out on to the landing. Despite his efforts,
+he could not prevent his shoes creaking: it was spring-time, and already
+the stair carpet had been taken up. He was on the point of going
+downstairs, when he heard the portress calling from above:</p>
+
+<p>"Who's there?... What do you want?"</p>
+
+<p>Had she heard him leave the flat? Was he to be stupidly caught, just as
+he was escaping?... He must act at once. He went up a step or two of the
+next flight of stairs and called out:</p>
+
+<p>"Is Monsieur Mercadier at home?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, no, monsieur! He has just this minute gone out! I am surprised you
+did not meet him!..."</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, madame. I will come another time!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor turned on his heel, and, whistling, with hands in pockets, he
+gained the ground floor, passed the entrance gate, and found himself in
+the street. He mingled with the passers-by, and learned from the first
+plaque he came to with the name of the street on it, that he was in rue
+Lecourbe, Vaugirard....</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XX" id="XX"></a>XX</h2>
+
+<h3>UNDER THE HOODED MASK</h3>
+
+
+<p>What had happened? By way of what mysterious adventures had the corpse
+of sugar refiner Thomery reached that empty room in rue Lecourbe, where
+J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor had come across it?</p>
+
+<p>Two days previous, on the afternoon of Elizabeth Dollon's arrest,
+Monsieur Thomery was working in his study, when a servant came to tell
+him that a lady wished to speak to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Did she give you her name?" asked Thomery.</p>
+
+<p>"No, monsieur, this person said her name would tell you nothing; but she
+was sure monsieur would see her, for she would only detain him a minute
+or two...."</p>
+
+<p>Piles of papers were stacked on the great sugar refiner's study table:
+typists were laying numerous letters before him, which awaited his
+signature. Thomery thought to himself:</p>
+
+<p>"I have still a good half-hour's work before me ... deuce take this
+importunate visitor!" He was on the point of saying he could not see any
+one, when the servant added:</p>
+
+<p>"This person declares she comes with reference to Madame the Princess
+Danidoff."</p>
+
+<p>Though he was a man of business, Thomery was a gallant man also; and
+very much in love; his approaching marriage with the Princess, which had
+been kept secret, was now known. The name of Princess Danidoff settled
+the question.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, let her come in!"</p>
+
+<p>The manservant disappeared a minute, then ushered into the study a very
+unassuming woman of uncertain age and quite ordinary looking.</p>
+
+<p>Thomery rose to meet her, pointing pleasantly to one of the large
+arm-chairs in the room. The visitor was profusely apologetic.</p>
+
+<p>"I am so exceedingly sorry, Monsieur Thomery, to disturb you at such an
+hour, when you must certainly have a great deal to occupy your
+attention; but the matter I have come about will not wait, and I am sure
+it will interest you...."</p>
+
+<p>This little person seemed very intelligent, and Thomery was favourably
+impressed by her manner, which was both simple and decided.</p>
+
+<p>"Madame, I am listening to you. In what way can I be of service to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am not here, monsieur," she protested, "to pester you with any wants
+and wishes for myself. I am a diamond broker and ..."</p>
+
+<p>She had not finished her sentence when Thomery, smiling but firm, rose,
+and said sharply:</p>
+
+<p>"In that case, madame, I can guess the motive of your call...."</p>
+
+<p>"But, monsieur ..."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes!... That is so!... Ever since my approaching marriage has been
+announced, I have received, every day, a dozen visits from jewellers,
+goldsmiths, upholsterers, and so on ... I regret to have to tell you
+that you will not be able to persuade me to buy ... that my betrothed
+has received so many wedding presents that there is no room for more....
+I do not require one single thing...."</p>
+
+<p>Although Thomery had spoken in a tone which did not admit of any reply,
+although he had risen the better to mark his intention of cutting short
+the call, the diamond broker had remained seated, leaning back in her
+arm-chair.... She gave no sign of being ready to go away.</p>
+
+<p>"Consequently, madame," continued Thomery....</p>
+
+<p>His visitor laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, you have very quickly made up your mind that I have nothing
+interesting to offer you! I have not come to offer you ordinary
+jewels...."</p>
+
+<p>It was Thomery's turn to smile slightly.</p>
+
+<p>"I quite understand, madame, that you should think your merchandise
+exceptional.... But once more ..."</p>
+
+<p>The broker interrupted the sugar refiner with a movement of her hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Do listen to me a moment, monsieur!... Though I am a diamond broker,
+diamonds are not what I have come to ask you to purchase ... it is a
+question of something quite different...."</p>
+
+<p>She paused deliberately: Thomery gazed at her without saying a word.</p>
+
+<p>"You know, monsieur," continued the broker, "that in such a business as
+mine, one is obliged to see a great many jewellers every day; well, in
+the course of my peregrinations, I found at a jeweller's&mdash;you must allow
+me to withhold his name&mdash;some pearls, which I am certain you will find
+are a wonderful bargain...."</p>
+
+<p>"For the last time, madame, I do not want a wonderful bargain!"</p>
+
+<p>The agent smiled curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"There are some things which simply do not allow themselves to be
+refused," she declared.... She now drew from her pocket a little
+jewel-case; and, notwithstanding Thomery's unconcealed impatience,
+opened it, and selected two pearls which she held out to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Do examine these jewels! You are going to tell me that they are
+perfectly beautiful, are you not, Monsieur Thomery?"</p>
+
+<p>The diamond broker offered them so naturally that Thomery gave way. He
+examined the pearls: he was a connoisseur.</p>
+
+<p>"In truth, madame, these pearls are superb; unfortunately I am not
+enough of an expert to buy them without taking competent advice, that is
+if I thought of acquiring them eventually, but I repeat, I have no wish
+to acquire such things!"</p>
+
+<p>"Deuce take it!" thought Thomery. "This broker won't take 'no' for an
+answer! Since I cannot rid myself of her by being pleasant, I shall make
+myself disagreeable!"</p>
+
+<p>But the would-be seller still insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur, you really cannot be a connoisseur, otherwise I am sure you
+would not return these pearls to me."</p>
+
+<p>"But, madame!..."</p>
+
+<p>"And I am convinced that if Princess Sonia Danidoff had had them in her
+hand instead of you, she would have been greatly taken with them!"</p>
+
+<p>The broker had emphasised her words so strangely that, suddenly, Thomery
+hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>What did this mysterious visitor mean? What was it she considered so
+"extraordinary" about the jewels she had just submitted to him?... A
+suspicion flashed across his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Whence come these pearls, madame?"</p>
+
+<p>But, at this question, the broker got up.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Thomery," declared she, "I should be very vexed with myself
+were I to make you lose your evening ... your time is precious; besides,
+in order to give you a proper answer to your question, I should have to
+make certain of facts I only now guess at.... Still, I think that
+without having told you anything definite, I have made you sufficiently
+understand what is in my mind,... you will not now doubt the interest
+that the Princess Sonia Danidoff would have, were she able to examine
+these jewels...."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that so?"</p>
+
+<p>"Consequently, Monsieur Thomery, I am going to ask you if you will
+kindly show these pearls to the Princess; and then if you will be good
+enough to let me know what decision you come to, jointly with her.... If
+you were a buyer, I fancy I might let you have these jewels on quite
+exceptional terms."</p>
+
+<p>Thomery visibly hesitated.... He was looking at the pearls, which he was
+still holding in his hand, and he thought.</p>
+
+<p>"One might swear that these are two of the pearls stolen from Sonia at
+my ball!"</p>
+
+<p>Thomery did not reply at once. The broker was looking at him with a
+smile; she seemed to guess his thoughts. Thomery, on his side, was
+examining the woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Is she simply a police informer?" he asked himself. "One of these women
+who apparently are dealers, but are really in the pay of the police, and
+frequent jewellers for the purpose of tracing stolen jewels?"</p>
+
+<p>He was on the verge of asking her who she was, but he refrained.</p>
+
+<p>If this woman had not presented herself under her true colours,
+evidently she wished to pass for an ordinary dealer. It was possible
+that she was really a receiver of stolen goods!</p>
+
+<p>Thomery came to a decision.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall have the privilege of seeing the Princess Danidoff to-morrow
+afternoon; will you therefore leave the pearls with me?... I will show
+them to her. Should she express the slightest wish to possess them, I
+might possibly come to terms with you...."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Dearest, it is sweet of you to make no objection to the way in which I
+obtained this jewel for you to see, and to choose for your own, if you
+will.... The correct thing would have been to ask you to accompany me to
+some well-known jeweller, instead of which, I frankly confess, that
+these pearls were offered to me on very advantageous terms. If they
+please you, it will give me the greatest pleasure to see them adorning
+your graceful neck."</p>
+
+<p>Princess Sonia laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear, for Heaven's sake, don't worry about such a thing as that!...
+A pearl is not less beautiful because it comes from some unpretentious
+jeweller's shop. I am too fond of jewels for their own sake, to trouble
+about the casket that enshrines them!"</p>
+
+<p>Thomery bowed, well pleased.</p>
+
+<p>"Here then, dear Sonia, are the two pearls entrusted to me as samples
+... please, dearest, examine them carefully, very carefully ... and if
+you like them, tell me so frankly...."</p>
+
+<p>The Princess took the two pearls from the betrothed, and, crossing the
+great drawing-room, she approached one of the bay windows, lifting the
+thin hangings that she might the better examine the pearls.</p>
+
+<p>"They are marvellous!" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Sonia, you think these gems rarely beautiful?"</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed I do! Their lustre is superb; their quality, their shape,
+perfect!... Why, my dear, these are the most splendid pearls I have ever
+seen&mdash;with one exception&mdash;the only pearls to equal them are those that
+were stolen from me!... The loss of them has been a bitter grief ...
+they came to me, you know, from my dear mother!... I never thought to
+find pearls of such quality again...."</p>
+
+<p>"You consider these to be of as pure a quality then, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>Sonia Danidoff continued to examine the two pearls.</p>
+
+<p>"It is really extraordinary," she cried suddenly. "Do you know, my dear,
+there are certain peculiarities about their lustre,... yes ... I could
+swear that these very pearls you are offering me are two of those stolen
+from me!..."</p>
+
+<p>Thomery appeared to have been impatiently awaiting these very words.</p>
+
+<p>"You really, truly believe, Sonia, that they resemble the pearls stolen
+from you that unlucky evening?"</p>
+
+<p>"I repeat&mdash;they are identical!"</p>
+
+<p>Thomery looked smilingly at Sonia.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, my dear one, I do not think you are mistaken!... I have all
+sorts of reasons for supposing that they really are two of your own
+pearls you are now holding in your hand...." And, then and there,
+Thomery told his fianc&eacute;e all about the strange visit he had received the
+evening before, as well as his hope that he would be able to recover
+the stolen triple collar in its entirety.</p>
+
+<p>"That intriguing dealer," said he finally, "must be a police
+informer.... In any case, I am persuaded that, before long, she will
+take me to some receiver or other who is in possession of your pearl
+collar."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, tell me you are not going among such people, all alone?" cried
+Sonia, with a note of sharp anxiety in her voice.</p>
+
+<p>"But, why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"If they are, as you think, thieves?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well! Don't you see, my dear, that if you go to buy the pearls, they
+will count on your bringing a large sum of money with you!... Why, it
+would be a most imprudent thing to do!..."</p>
+
+<p>Thomery shrugged his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, that's nonsense, Sonia! If these assassins meant to set a trap
+for me, they have a thousand other means of doing so ... besides, it
+would be remarkably daring of them to advise me to show you these
+pearls, and draw my attention to the question of their being stolen
+ones!... No, Sonia, this dealer is not the emissary of a band of robbers
+and assassins: she is a police informer, who has taken precautions. I
+run no dangerous risks by accompanying her! Reassure yourself on that
+point!..."</p>
+
+<p>But Sonia Danidoff was not reassured by Thomery's arguments.</p>
+
+<p>"All that only frightens me!" said she.... "If you do not really think
+you are running any risk, will you let me go with you?... My dear, we
+will go together to identify those pearls, will we not?"</p>
+
+<p>Thomery rose to take his leave, laughing and protesting.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, dear Sonia, it would be in the highest degree improper on my part,
+were I to agree to such a proposition!... One of two things: either
+there is no danger, and I should be very sorry that I had let you go out
+in such shocking weather; or, if there is danger, I should be still
+more distressed were I to drag you into it with me.... I do beg of you,
+Sonia, do not insist on it.... I am not a child!... And I will be very
+careful&mdash;very wary!..."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Shortly after this, Thomery took leave of Sonia Danidoff. He went
+straight to the Caf&eacute; de la Paix, where he had arranged to meet the
+diamond broker....</p>
+
+<p>She was punctual. She greeted Thomery with her most winning smile.</p>
+
+<p>"I am persuaded, monsieur, that Madame Sonia Danidoff was interested by
+the offer you made her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite so," replied Thomery.... "Should we go to your jeweller's,
+without further loss of time?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you really wish to do so, monsieur! Indeed it would be the best
+thing to do...."</p>
+
+<p>Thomery hailed a cab. He and the diamond agent entered it together, and
+she gave the driver an address. Twenty minutes later they left the cab
+and were standing before the house where the present possessor of the
+pearls was to be found. Thomery knew no more now about the person he had
+come to interview, than he did when he started: that is to say,
+practically nothing.</p>
+
+<p>The diamond broker had cleverly evaded giving any direct answers to the
+sugar refiner's questions: she had confined herself to stating what
+would be the probable price demanded for the pearl collar&mdash;which
+question interested Thomery least of all!</p>
+
+<p>They mounted, in single file, a rather poor sort of staircase: on the
+second floor the woman stopped. A narrow door faced them.... The woman
+rang.... They waited....</p>
+
+<p>"Someone is coming!" said the woman. "I hear footsteps."</p>
+
+<p>The door was opened half-way.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it?" asked a man's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I, dear friend," answered the woman.</p>
+
+<p>The door opened wide: the same voice said:</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>Thomery had barely stepped inside the room, when the diamond broker, who
+was close behind, flung a long silk scarf round his neck, and, pushing
+his knee into his victim's back for a support, he attempted to give,
+with Herculean force, the famous stroke of Father Francis Vigozous;
+energetic, Thomery did not lose his presence of mind.... He knew that to
+resist such a pull by simple force was impossible.... Quickly he threw
+himself backwards, thus giving to the strangling pull and falling on top
+of the woman, who had played this dastardly trick on him. From his
+constricted throat came a hoarse "Ah!" like a death rattle.</p>
+
+<p>As he was falling, for one flashing second, it seemed as though he were
+going to escape from the vise which was crushing in his throat... then,
+out of the shadow, there had appeared the fantastic vision of a man in a
+tight fitting sort of black jersey, which covered him from head to
+foot.... His face was concealed by a hooded mask....</p>
+
+<p>This man had leapt out of the shadow.</p>
+
+<p>He held a dagger in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Before Thomery had time to make a movement, the masked man had pierced
+his chest with a single stroke!... The sugar refiner was naught but a
+convulsive corpse.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well!" declared the so-called diamond broker, who had got to his
+feet and was kicking Thomery's body aside. "Ah, well, he is a dead
+weight this fellow!... By Jove, master, I fancied he was going to crush
+me, and that I should have to let him free!... You did well to come to
+the rescue!"</p>
+
+<p>The masked man remarked in an indifferent tone:</p>
+
+<p>"It really does not matter in the slightest!... Tell me, does anyone
+suspect?"</p>
+
+<p>"No one, master. He came like a sheep to the slaughter."</p>
+
+<p>"Princess Danidoff?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, as for her&mdash;she must be waiting for the return of her beloved
+friend.... I do not advise you to pay her a visit!"</p>
+
+<p>"Be silent, chatter-box!" ordered the masked assassin sharply. "Get rid
+of your clothes.... We must hurry!... We have work to do!"</p>
+
+<p>"This evening?"</p>
+
+<p>"This evening!"</p>
+
+<p>And, whilst the diamond broker rid himself rapidly of skirt and bodice
+and regained his masculine appearance&mdash;for this diamond broker was a
+man&mdash;the masked assassin added:</p>
+
+<p>"Nibet, you have played your part perfectly, and I will pay you
+to-morrow the sum we agreed on; but, I repeat, we have work before us
+this evening&mdash;so, be quick!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a short silence, then the bandit asked:</p>
+
+<p>"You have arranged to put among this fool's papers the rent receipts,
+which will enable the police to find this flat?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, master!"</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Now all we have to do, is to get away from this room, which we
+shall not see again ... until this evening at any rate!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XXI" id="XXI"></a>XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>IN A PRISON VAN</h3>
+
+
+<p>In one of the rooms reserved for readers of <i>La Capitale</i>, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor
+was gravely listening to Madame Bourrat's account of what had occurred
+at her boarding-house during the night. She had rushed off to tell him
+and to ask his advice.</p>
+
+<p>"What you tell me, madame, is truly extraordinary!" said Fandor, with an
+air of profound astonishment....</p>
+
+<p>"How did you discover that the police inspector who seized the trunk and
+carried it away was not a genuine policeman?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, through the arrival of Monsieur Xavi&eacute;, the police inspector of our
+district! I know him.... There was no mistaking who and what he was; and
+when I told him that the trunk had been carried off the preceding
+evening, rather in the dead of night, he guessed everything...."</p>
+
+<p>"And what did he say?..."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he made us all come to the police station; and I can assure you
+that he looked far from pleased!"</p>
+
+<p>"You must admit, dear madame, that his annoyance was not without
+reason!... The police were made fine fools of in this affair.... But
+afterwards?... Whom did he take back with him to the police station?"</p>
+
+<p>"He took me and my manservant."</p>
+
+<p>"And when you got to the police station?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Monsieur Fandor, when we reached the police station, he made us
+come into his office, and there he put us through a regular
+examination,... just as though he suspected us!"</p>
+
+<p>"But there must have been an accomplice in your house who let the
+robbers in," said Fandor. "I do not suppose the false police inspector
+forced the door open!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, but, Monsieur Fandor, here is something I do not understand, nor
+does anybody else!... No, they did not try to hide themselves&mdash;not the
+least in the world! They rang the bell; they asked to see me; they told
+me what they had come for; and, accompanied by my manservant, carried
+away the trunk, and had it put on the cab&mdash;all in the most open and
+bare-faced manner!"</p>
+
+<p>"It was your manservant who accompanied them?"</p>
+
+<p>"But most certainly ... and that very fact turned against Jules, in a
+very nasty manner.... Poor Jules! Just imagine, the police inspector
+finished by ordering my house to be thoroughly searched from top to
+bottom! And when the policemen returned, without a why or wherefore,
+they took Jules away to another part of the police station!"</p>
+
+<p>"I say! I say!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it was all explained! As soon as Jules had gone, the police
+inspector told me that they had found keys in his rooms, keys which
+could be made to fit any kind of lock whatever. Monsieur Xavi&eacute; was
+convinced that my poor Jules was a burglar&mdash;imagine it!"</p>
+
+<p>"And you, yourself, madame, are convinced of the contrary?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, assuredly! Why, I have known Jules a very long time! And in many
+little ways on many occasions, he has shown himself to be strictly
+honest."</p>
+
+<p>"But those false keys?"</p>
+
+<p>"Those false keys, Monsieur Fandor, why I myself made Jules buy them,
+hoping to find among them one that would open my coach-house."</p>
+
+<p>"So that?..."</p>
+
+<p>"So that, Monsieur Fandor, the police inspector was obliged to agree
+with me that Jules was honest!"</p>
+
+<p>"And he released this servant of yours?" asked Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>His tone expressed annoyance.</p>
+
+<p>"No, and that is why I am so distressed. He said, that provisionally, at
+least, my servant, Jules, was to be considered as under arrest! What
+ought to be done to get him let out?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, madame!... He will be set free to-morrow, you may be certain of
+it!..."</p>
+
+<p>"No doubt he will!... All the same, there is my house turned upside
+down, and I need Jules to help me to-night!... I really do not know what
+I shall do without him! Poor fellow!... I simply cannot imagine how it
+is they suspect him!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor said, with mock gravity:</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, madame, Justice is sometimes so stupid&mdash;so wrongheaded!... Look
+here now, would you like a bit of good advice?... Telephone to Messieurs
+Barbey-Nanteuil. They are well known and powerful&mdash;perhaps they would
+exert their influence in your servant's favour? He might be set free
+this evening! I, you see, am but a journalist, and without a scrap of
+influence!"</p>
+
+<p>Madame Bourrat thought this a good idea. Fandor rang for an attendant.</p>
+
+<p>"Take madame to the telephone!"</p>
+
+<p>Left to himself, the reporter could not help rubbing his hands.</p>
+
+<p>"I must get rid of this excellent woman, who is certainly the most
+foolish person it has ever been my lot to meet. Good hearing! That
+servant of hers is under lock and key&mdash;things are going in the right
+direction ... but they are not going well for me!... If he confesses,
+to-morrow, when he is had up for examination, then the police will have
+the information before me!... Then, too, they are such duffers&mdash;such
+bunglers&mdash;that they are quite capable of giving that Jules his
+liberty!... What the deuce must I do to prevent his being let loose, and
+how am I to stop the judicial interrogation?... What a dog's life a
+journalist's is!"</p>
+
+<p>Madame Bourrat reappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Nanteuil is not there," she said. "But I got into
+communication with Monsieur Barbey.... He advised me to wait till
+to-morrow: he said it was too late in the day to do anything...."</p>
+
+<p>"But, will he not intervene to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. To tell the truth, I am sure Monsieur Barbey thought it
+very inconsiderate of me to disturb him about a matter in which he takes
+not the slightest interest."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a fact. What possible interest can the bankers take in such a
+matter?... My advice was absurd!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor rose. As he was seeing his visitor out, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"In any case, dear madame, count on me to-morrow morning. I shall call
+at your house about eleven. If there is anything fresh, we can talk it
+over!..."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Oh, here's Janson-de-Sailly College!... Oh, what detestable
+remembrances you conjure up!... But&mdash;this won't do!... Go it, my boy!...
+I must play the part!"</p>
+
+<p>The plumber, who had just given utterance to these remarks, glanced
+sharply about him. When he had made sure that there was no one close on
+his heels, he stepped into the roadway, and started on a zigzag course
+which seemed likely to upset his balance. Crossing the avenue
+Henri-Martin, going straight, towards the town hall at the corner of the
+rue de la Pompe, the good plumber, who was staggering more than a
+little, began to stutter and stammer in a drunken voice:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>It is the final struggle!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The passers-by looked round.</p>
+
+<p>"They sing the <i>Internationale</i> in the streets now, it seems!" remarked
+a severe-looking gentleman.</p>
+
+<p>The workman turned to this correct personage.</p>
+
+<p>"What of it?... Don't you think it a jolly fine thing then?"</p>
+
+<p>In a thick voice he continued to sing:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Let us gather, and on the morrow...</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The severe and correct personage spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"My friend, you would do better to hold your tongue!... You forget that
+there is a police station close by!..."</p>
+
+<p>But the incorrigible plumber caught the correct personage by his coat
+tails.</p>
+
+<p>"If I sing the <i>Internationale</i>, it's because I'm a free man&mdash;ain't
+I?... A free man can sing if he likes, can't he? Eh!... Why don't you
+sing then?... Eh!..."</p>
+
+<p>The correct personage drew himself up stiffly: tried to push the
+obnoxious plumber away.... The workman had now reached that stage of
+drunkenness when discussions tend to become interminable.</p>
+
+<p>The gentleman pushed the drunken man aside, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Come! Come! Go away!... Leave me alone!"</p>
+
+<p>But the maudlin plumber was attracting the attention of the passers by
+his gestures. He addressed the world at large.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you believe it&mdash;that fellow there don't want me to sing!... No!
+Well, I'm going to!" and he started triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>It is the&mdash;the&mdash;final ... strug-gle!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>A policeman came out of the station with a solemn air. He put his hand
+on the tipsy plumber's shoulder in paternal fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"Go along with you, my friend!... Come now&mdash;pass along&mdash;pass along!" But
+he could not make the plumber budge before he had finished his verse,
+any more than he could teach him to walk straight on the spur of the
+moment!... Leaving hold of the gentleman's coat tails, the worthy
+plumber seized the policeman's arm.'</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you, you're a brother!... I have education, I have! You're a
+workman too, I know!..."</p>
+
+<p>As the police inspector pushed him off, trying to make him go on his
+way, the plumber put his arm round him.</p>
+
+<p>"No! No!... show you're a workman! Sing with me!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>It is the final ...</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The scandal could no longer be tolerated! Street-corner idlers were
+gathering, people were laughing at the policeman: strong measures were
+necessary.</p>
+
+<p>"Come now," said the policeman. "Yes, or no! Will you be off, and go
+home?... Eh!... Or shall I take you to the station?..."</p>
+
+<p>"You take me?... You take me?... Why, it would take four of you to take
+me!..."</p>
+
+<p>There was no shilly-shallying after this! Wounded in his vanity, the
+servant of the law did not hesitate.</p>
+
+<p>"All right!" said he; and seizing the plumber by the collar, although
+there was no attempt at resistance, he dragged his prisoner towards the
+town hall of the district, for the police station was there also.</p>
+
+<p>"Some more game for the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t!" said the policeman as he passed the
+guard.... "A fellow I can't get rid of! Are the cells full up?"</p>
+
+<p>Other policemen came up. An arrest in a peaceful district gives interest
+to the dull routine of the men on duty.</p>
+
+<p>"The cells full? Go along with you! There's only a small shopkeeper who
+had no papers."</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon the unfortunate singer, who continued to stagger about, was
+quickly pushed into the dark room called "the detention room."</p>
+
+<p>An ordinary every day incident of the streets, this arrest of a
+drunkard!</p>
+
+<p>"I shall have to write out a report for this fellow!" said the
+policeman, who had arrested the songster... "and the 'Salad Basket'<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a>
+passes in an hour's time! ... I shall just do it!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Have you anyone for the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t to-day?" asked the driver from his high
+seat on the prison van. He was on a collecting journey as is usual every
+evening, when the Salad Baskets, as they are vulgarly called, pass to
+the various police stations of Paris to pick up the individuals arrested
+during the day.</p>
+
+<p>"Two of 'em," answered the police sergeant on duty. Whilst official
+papers were being interchanged and forms were being filled in according
+to rule, policemen went to the cells to bring out the two prisoners to
+be despatched to the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t.</p>
+
+<p>The first to pass out was the costermonger. He was straightway put into
+one of the narrow compartments in the Salad Basket. Then it was the turn
+of the tipsy and obstreperous workman, who was now silent, moody, and
+apparently sober.</p>
+
+<p>"Hop it now!" cried the policeman. "Come along with you, you miserable
+drunk!... March now!... Foot it!"</p>
+
+<p>As the "drunk" hit against the partition of the narrow passageway
+running up the middle of the Salad Basket, the policeman, with a shove,
+pushed him into one of the compartments, carefully shutting the little
+door on him and fastening it.</p>
+
+<p>"My word!" he exclaimed. "That fellow wouldn't have been capable of
+walking three steps in an hour's time!"</p>
+
+<p>As the driver climbed to his seat on the van, the policeman called out,
+with a laugh:</p>
+
+<p>"You have a traveller inside who doesn't detest wine!... It's a pity to
+see a man in such a hoggish state!"</p>
+
+<p>This same policeman would have been surprised, could he have seen the
+bibulous one's face when the Salad Basket cast loose from her moorings
+and started off in the direction of the Point-du-Jour police station,
+the last on the round to be visited!</p>
+
+<p>The "drunk" whom one push had sufficed to plant on his seat, had briskly
+drawn himself upright and was smiling broadly, a wide, noiseless smile!</p>
+
+<p>"What a joke!... And what a jolly good actor I should have made!"
+thought J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor, giving himself a mental hug of satisfaction....
+"Ah! They arrest the individuals I want to set talking!... The police
+imagine they are going to push in first and find out the answer to the
+riddle!... We shall see!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was listening intensely and trying to discover from the movements
+of the Salad Basket what street they were passing along.</p>
+
+<p>"Smooth going ... evidently we are still in the rue de la Pompe, so I
+have about a quarter of an hour more of it!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor examined the tiny cell in which he had been imprisoned of his own
+free will.</p>
+
+<p>"Not much to be said for it!" ran his thoughts. "There is scarcely room
+to sit ... impossible to stand up or turn around ... nearly dark ... and
+precious little air comes in through those wooden shutters!... I
+shouldn't think there ever had been an escape from these vans!..."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor smiled broadly.</p>
+
+<p>"Even if I don't succeed, it is worth while making the attempt!... But I
+shall succeed&mdash;see if I don't!... I settled it in my mind that I was to
+leave the cells after this costermonger: he is in front of me, therefore
+the cell behind me is empty. It will be deucedly queer if, at Auteuil
+police station, they don't put that confounded Jules in it, whom I
+intend to interview under the nose of the police!... I shall start
+talking to him by tapping on the partition in prisoner's language. The
+fellow is pretty sure to be an old offender, so he will know the
+system.... If he doesn't, when we get to the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t, I will push up to
+him somehow and get a few words with him.... If the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t is full, we
+shall be stuck into the common cell until morning.... So, I take it as
+certain that my interview with this true and faithful servant will come
+off, and I shall get to know a good deal about the mystery!..."</p>
+
+<p>As an afterthought, it occurred to Fandor that probably there had never
+been such a light-hearted occupant of this cell as he....</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, that's the sound of the trams!... One jolt! Two jolts! Good!... The
+rails!... We are crossing rue Mozart! We are going faster&mdash;in five
+minutes we shall be at the Auteuil police station, and there we can
+start our little operations!"</p>
+
+<p>There was one thing that attracted Fandor's attention, which was keenly
+on the alert. There was a violent jolt, and he had a distinct impression
+that the vehicle turned to the right.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, where the deuce are they taking us?" Fandor asked himself. "To the
+boulevard Exelmans station?... We had not reached the end of the rue
+Mozart, surely!... Where did we turn then? Rue du Ranelagh?... No, there
+is a channel stone at the entrance, and I should have felt it!... Rue de
+l'Assomption!... Again no. The roadway is up: I should be knocked about
+more than this on my wooden seat. We are going over a perfectly kept
+road, which cannot have much traffic!... Why, of course, it is rue du
+Docteur-Blanche!... Isn't rue Mozart barred at the end? Yes. The driver
+must be going round by the boulevard Montmorency.... Ah, well! I am in
+no hurry! There will be time enough for me to pay my respects to the
+illustrious Jules!"</p>
+
+<p>Just as Fandor was thus congratulating himself, he was thrown against
+the side of his cell! The van seemed to have come into violent collision
+with some object and had tilted over to a considerable extent.</p>
+
+<p>Muffled oaths came from neighbouring cells; a stifled exclamation
+reached Fandor's ears; then louder still, came the intermittent humming
+and snorting of a motor-car.</p>
+
+<p>"Confound you!... can't you pay attention to where you are going?...
+Keep to your right!"</p>
+
+<p>Slightly stunned, Fandor heard some one knocking.</p>
+
+<p>A voice asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Are you hurt?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, but ..."</p>
+
+<p>Already the questioner had moved away.</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently," thought Fandor, "the driver wants to know whether his human
+packages are damaged or not! We have collided with another vehicle!...
+Cheerful!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor's cell was now at such an angle that he could only suppose that
+the Salad Basket had had one of its wheels broken.</p>
+
+<p>"What a nuisance!" he murmured. "Before they have finished their palaver
+as to how the accident happened and have repaired the damage, we shall
+have been here a full half-hour.... Jules will be in a temper!"</p>
+
+<p>Minute succeeded minute, long, interminable minutes, and Fandor could
+not hear clearly what was said, what was being done to put the Salad
+Basket on its legs again.... The atmosphere in the little cell was
+becoming intolerable; for the movement of the vehicle had driven fresh
+air inside the shutter, and now that the Salad Basket was stationary,
+the air was becoming almost unbreathable.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor's nerves were on edge.</p>
+
+<p>"It cannot be that they are going to leave us stranded here!" thought
+he.... "Ah, now they have started repairs!" Fandor noticed that his cell
+was gradually regaining its ordinary level.... A lifting-jack must have
+been slipped under the vehicle, for there was a melancholy creaking
+sound. They must be putting the wheel on again!...</p>
+
+<p>"No," thought Fandor, after some time had passed. "Never would I have
+supposed that it could have taken so much time to repair a Salad
+Basket!... Why we shall soon have been stuck here for two mortal
+hours!... I hope it won't make any difference to our going to the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t,
+nor stop my getting into close touch with that villain Jules!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a further period of waiting. Then our exasperated journalist
+heard the driver pass down the centre of the van. The van door
+slammed.... Once more the Salad Basket was loosed from its moorings.</p>
+
+<p>"Something queer is going on!" said Fandor suddenly. He felt certain the
+van had turned completely round and was going in the direction it came
+from.</p>
+
+<p>"Now where in the world are we going?... By what kind of a route are we
+making for that blessed police station?"</p>
+
+<p>There were spaces of asphalt, succeeded by wood pavement, then by hard
+stones, then asphalt and wood again, and turning succeeded turning,
+whilst a new Tom Thumb was doing his possible to guess the route the
+Salad Basket was taking. Presently Fandor gave it up. He had to admit
+that he was completely lost.... Which way the Salad Basket was going he
+knew no more than the Man in the Moon!</p>
+
+<p>"We have been trotting along for more than half an hour; therefore we
+cannot be going to the boulevard Exelmans police station ... the
+distance from the rue du Docteur-Blanche to the Point-du-Jour is not
+great...."</p>
+
+<p>As Fandor was murmuring these words, the van slowed down, turned round;
+then, with a bump and a jolt, it mounted the footpath.</p>
+
+<p>"Now for it," said Fandor. "This is certainly not the Point-du-Jour
+station!... We are passing under an archway&mdash;now we are turning
+again.... Ah, we draw up, at last!... Not too soon!"</p>
+
+<p>The van did stop.</p>
+
+<p>Again a wait. Fandor cocked both ears; he wondered who was going to
+enter the cell next his. Then a man approached the door of his little
+cell, where he was indeed "cribbed, cabined and confined"; inserted a
+key in the lock, opened, and shouted in a brutal tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Out with you!... March! Quick now!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had no choice but to obey the orders hurled at him. But no sooner
+had he descended the steps of the prison van than he exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove! The D&eacute;p&ocirc;t!"</p>
+
+<p>This was not the moment to express all the surprise he felt at being
+landed at Police Headquarters in this fashion.... All round the Salad
+Basket the police were ranged in irregular order. They shouted to him to
+be quick.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on with you! Hurry there!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor, followed by the costermonger, was pushed towards a little open
+door in the grey wall which led into a kind of office, where an old
+frowning man was already looking through the papers, which had been
+respectfully handed to him by a warder.</p>
+
+<p>"So you have brought only two of the birds?" remarked the frowning
+official.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, superintendent."</p>
+
+<p>"Good, that will do!..."</p>
+
+<p>Turning to the warders, the frowning little superintendent ordered:
+"Take them away!... Cell 14.... Useless to rouse the whole place!"</p>
+
+<p>Once more the warders pushed Fandor before them, as well as the poor
+costermonger: they were driven into a dark corridor on to which a row of
+cells opened.</p>
+
+<p>The head warder opened a door.</p>
+
+<p>"In with you, my merry men! You will be put through your paces
+to-morrow!"</p>
+
+<p>As the door fell to with a resounding clang, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me had inspected the
+place by the light of a lantern.</p>
+
+<p>"Empty!... No luck!... My plan has been spoiled: I shall not be able to
+interview Jules!"</p>
+
+<p>Philosophically, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor was preparing to go to sleep on the plank
+bed which decorated one end of the cell, when the little costermonger,
+roused from his torpid condition, began to moan and groan.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what a misfortune!... To think I am innocent! Innocent as an unborn
+babe!... What's to be done!... Oh, what's to be done!"</p>
+
+<p>The last thing Fandor wished to do was to start a conversation with his
+lamenting companion. He tapped the costermonger on the shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heavens, man, the best thing you can do is to go to sleep! Take my
+word for it!"</p>
+
+<p>Without puzzling his brains any further over the enigmas he wished to
+get to the bottom of, Fandor stretched himself on his plank bed, and was
+soon sleeping the sleep of the innocent.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Monsieur Fuselier looked perplexed.</p>
+
+<p>"You, Fandor! You arrested!... But am I going mad?"</p>
+
+<p>Our journalist had been taken from his cell at eight in the morning, and
+had been conducted to the office of the Public Prosecutor. Here, the
+acting magistrate, in conformity with the law, wished to put him through
+the examination which would establish his identity. All arrested persons
+have to submit to this interrogation within twenty-four hours of their
+arrival at the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t.</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor had given his name at once, and, in order to prove the
+truth of his statements, he had asked that Monsieur Fuselier should be
+sent for, so that the magistrate might vouch for his identity and say a
+word in his favour.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Fuselier had hastened to the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t, had taken Fandor to his
+office, and had anxiously questioned him. Why, he asked, had the police
+been obliged to arrest him for drunkenness in the open thoroughfare?</p>
+
+<p>When Fandor had concluded his statement, the magistrate exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"Your ruse is inconceivable!... I must compliment you highly on your
+ability and your detective gifts!"</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could agree with you," replied Fandor in a depressed tone. "In
+spite of everything, I have not got into communication with Jules. But,
+Monsieur Fuselier, have you interrogated him yet?"</p>
+
+<p>The magistrate shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Alas, my poor friend, you have no idea of the extraordinary events of
+the past night; evidently, notwithstanding the fact that you played a
+passive part in them!"</p>
+
+<p>"I played a part?... Extraordinary events?... What the deuce do you
+mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"I mean, dear Fandor, that all Paris is laughing over it. The police
+have been tricked! You have been tricked! Did you not tell me, just now,
+that your prison van had had an accident? Do you know what really
+happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"I ask you to tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"Your vehicle was run into by a motor-car. The driver was extremely
+clumsy ... or very capable!"</p>
+
+<p>"What's that?" Fandor leaned forward, keen as a pointer on the scent.</p>
+
+<p>"It was like this," replied Monsieur Fuselier. "Your Salad Basket was
+very badly knocked about by the collision. The driver could not possibly
+repair it single-handed. He telephoned to Headquarters. Help was sent at
+once, and he had orders to drive to the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t as soon as he could: he
+was not to trouble about the boulevard Exelmans station; that, for once,
+could be cleared the following morning. Unfortunately the telephone
+messages and replies had taken up a certain amount of time. When they
+telephoned to the boulevard Exelmans station, from Headquarters, to warn
+them not to expect the injured Salad Basket, the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t man who was
+telephoning was extremely surprised to hear that the Salad Basket had
+already passed on to the Auteuil station and had taken away the arrested
+individuals there, notably this famous Jules!..."</p>
+
+<p>"I never calculated on this!" cried Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"The truth is, my dear fellow, that Salad Basket of yours was not
+knocked out of action by an unlucky accident&mdash;the knock-out was
+intentional&mdash;was carefully planned! It was done to stop your van from
+reaching the Auteuil station!... While your Basket was being repaired,
+another Basket appeared at the Auteuil clearing station! This, if you
+please, had been stolen! It was standing before the Palais de Justice.
+Two accomplices took possession of it and drove away. The daring rascals
+were suitably disguised, of course! They produced false papers at
+Auteuil, got them endorsed, went through the regular forms, and carried
+off the men from the detention cells, under the very nose and eyes of
+the superintendent himself!"</p>
+
+<p>"What became of the stolen Basket?" snapped Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"It was found at dawn near the fortifications, and, need I say&mdash;empty!"</p>
+
+<p>"So that Jules has escaped?"</p>
+
+<p>"As you say!..."</p>
+
+<p>"And the car which intentionally knocked my Salad Basket out of
+action&mdash;whose was it?"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Fuselier smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's a queer affair, in fact, it may lead to the wind-up of all the
+Dollon business&mdash;we may now get to the bottom of that series of
+crimes!... You will never guess who is the owner of that car,
+Fandor?..."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I am no good at guessing riddles just now ... besides, I hate
+them!" Fandor was nettled, exasperated!</p>
+
+<p>"We got the number of the car from a witness of the smash-up; and we
+have verified its correctness. Well, my dear fellow, the owner of that
+car is&mdash;Thomery!"</p>
+
+<p>"Thomery!" gasped Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I have summoned him to appear before me&mdash;the summons has just been
+issued. Between you and me, I think Thomery is guilty. When he appears
+here, in, say an hour from now, I shall issue a writ of arrest against
+this sugar refiner financier, and we don't know what else!"</p>
+
+<p>But, no sooner had Monsieur Fuselier finished his statement&mdash;a statement
+which he fully expected would strike his young reporter friend dumb with
+amazement&mdash;than Fandor threw himself back in his chair and roared with
+laughter.</p>
+
+<p>The magistrate was taken aback!...</p>
+
+<p>"But ... what the devil do you find to laugh at in that?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had already checked his hilarity.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it's nothing! Only, Fuselier, I ask myself, if really and truly,
+Monsieur Thomery, who is a very big fellow solidly built, has been able
+to discover a dodge, by means of which he can leave Jacques Dollon's
+imprints here, there and everywhere!"</p>
+
+<p>"But he does not leave Jacques Dollon's imprints, because Dollon is
+living, because he came to see his sister&mdash;why, you admitted that
+yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course! It's true!... Jacques Dollon is alive.... I had
+forgotten.... Thomery can only be his accomplice then!" declared Fandor.
+And as Monsieur Fuselier stared at him, astonished at the way he had
+received the sensational news of the night, Fandor rose to take his
+leave.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Fuselier, will you allow me to express my opinion?..."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Fuselier nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I am sure, that with regard to this affair, there are more
+surprises in store for us: you have not got the answer to the
+riddle&mdash;not yet!"</p>
+
+<p>With that, Fandor smiled and bowed, and left the magistrate's room. He
+quitted the Palais, half-smiling, half-serious.... What was he going to
+do next?</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XXII" id="XXII"></a>XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>AN EXECUTION</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Not much water about, is there?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's so, old 'un.... If I'd known, it's boats I'd have taken to!"</p>
+
+<p>"Bah! Your shoes are big enough. That's not saying it's weather for a
+Christian to be out in!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you grumble, old 'un! The more it comes down cats and dogs, the
+fewer stumps will be stirring out doors!... But a comrade or two will be
+on the prowl, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Right-o, old bird!... Keep a lookout!... Sure he'll come this way?"</p>
+
+<p>"You bet your nut he will!... He got my bit of a scrawl this
+morning...."</p>
+
+<p>"What then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up! Shut up! Folks coming!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The night was inky black. Rain fell with sudden violence, threshed and
+driven by icy gusts of wind. The hour was late: the rue Raffet deserted
+save for the two men who had ventured out into the tempestuous darkness.
+They advanced with difficulty, side by side, speaking low. Rough
+customers to deal with. Their faces were emaciated from excessive
+drinking: their eyes gleamed, their voices were hoarse: a brutal pair!
+But their movements were souple and lively: they walked with that
+ungainly swagger affected by the light-fingered gentry and the criminals
+of the underworld of Paris.</p>
+
+<p>"And what did you say in your scrawl?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, medlars! Take-ins! You know!... I didn't put my fist to it,
+though!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who then?"</p>
+
+<p>"You ask that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm no wizard! If it wasn't your fist, whose then?"</p>
+
+<p>"My woman...."</p>
+
+<p>"Ernestine?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Ernestine."</p>
+
+<p>They struggled on through the squally darkness. Then one of the two
+broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not jealous, Beadle, making your girl write letters to such
+folk?"</p>
+
+<p>That sinister hooligan, the Beadle, burst out laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Jealous? Me? Jealous of Ernestine? You make me laugh, you really do,
+old Beard!"</p>
+
+<p>But Beard did not share his companion's mirth. He leaned against a
+palisade to take breath, while a little sheltered from the fierce
+onslaughts of the wind.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you what," he said in a gruff and threatening voice: "I don't
+like such dodges&mdash;like those of this evening...."</p>
+
+<p>"Why so, monsieur?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, because, after all, it's a comrade!"</p>
+
+<p>"But he's betrayed&mdash;a traitor he is!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do we know about it?"</p>
+
+<p>The Beadle nodded; reflected.</p>
+
+<p>"What does anyone know about it?" he said at last....</p>
+
+<p>"Why, when the comrades told us, weren't they surprised, one and all?
+Nibet, Toulouche, even Mimile&mdash;they didn't hesitate, not one of them!...
+Well then, old 'un, as all the pals were of one mind, why hesitate?
+What's the use of discussing!... but, between you and me, I don't relish
+it either&mdash;it bothers me to go for a pal!..."</p>
+
+<p>Just then the tempest redoubled its fury: it seemed to the cowering men
+as though all the devils of the storm were galloping down the wind.
+Somewhere there was a moon, for scurrying clouds were dancing a witches'
+saraband across a faintly clearer sky. The unseen moon was mastering the
+obscurity of this midnight hour.</p>
+
+<p>By now, the two sinister beings were nearing the rue du Docteur-Blanche.
+They were passing a garden, in which tall poplars, caught by the squall,
+took fantastic shapes: they were nightmare trees, terrifyingly strange.</p>
+
+<p>"No more to be said," remarked the Beadle. "The scene is set!... Where
+is the meeting place?"</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred yards from there&mdash;a little before the corner of the boulevard
+Montmorency...."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! And the trap?"</p>
+
+<p>"It waits for us a little further off."</p>
+
+<p>"Who's aboard it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mimile."</p>
+
+<p>"That's good."</p>
+
+<p>The two men were now half-way along rue Raffet. The watch had begun.
+Gripped by the cold they waited in silence.... The minutes passed
+slowly, slowly, in the deserted street ... The Beard put his hand on the
+Beadle's shoulder.... A vague sound could be heard in the distance: the
+steps could be distinguished; some pedestrian was coming up the rue
+Raffet in their direction.</p>
+
+<p>"It is he!" whispered the Beadle.</p>
+
+<p>"It is he!" affirmed the Beard. "He's not oversteady on his feet!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps he's ill shod!"</p>
+
+<p>The two spoke low and in a jesting tone: it relieved the painful tension
+of the moment&mdash;a comrade was marching to meet his death, and theirs the
+hands to deal that death&mdash;but not yet: it was a reaction against their
+sense of the looming tragedy of this dark hour!</p>
+
+<p>Now a man's advancing figure could be discerned. He came nearer. He was
+plainly, by the cut of his garments, an indoor servant. The collar of
+his coat was turned up: he had his hands in his pockets: he walked fast.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey! You down there! The gang!" cried the Beard, hailing the oncoming
+figure.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, it's you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it's me, comrade."</p>
+
+<p>"And you too, Beadle?"</p>
+
+<p>"As you say...."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want of me? Since my arrest and escape from the Salad
+Basket, I'm not anxious to stroll about this neighbourhood&mdash;out with
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>The Beard said in a joking tone:</p>
+
+<p>"You don't suspect, then? Speak out, Jules!..."</p>
+
+<p>Jules&mdash;for it was indeed he&mdash;shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"My word, I have no idea what you want!... Who wrote to me this morning?
+Ernestine?"</p>
+
+<p>Neither the Beadle nor Beard replied.</p>
+
+<p>The three men stood talking in the deserted street, bending their heads
+and backs under the rain, which was now pouring harder than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on then! Make haste!" said Jules. "Come now, tell me what's the
+point&mdash;what's up&mdash;spit it out, comrades!... I don't want to be soaked to
+the skin, you know!"</p>
+
+<p>The Beadle forced the pace: he lifted his great hairy sinewy hand,
+brought it down heavily on Jules' shoulder, and in a changed voice,
+harsh, rough, imperative, he commanded:</p>
+
+<p>"You must follow us!" Already he had his man fast. The unsuspicious
+Jules did not grasp the situation in the least.</p>
+
+<p>"Follow you?" he asked. "As to that, certainly not!... No more walking
+for me in such weather. Wait for a sunny day, say I!... But whatever is
+the matter with you&mdash;eh?... What?... Why are you sticking out your jaws
+at me like this? Out with it, my lambs!... Where am I to follow you?...
+You won't say, Messieurs Beadle and Beard?</p>
+
+<p>"You won't say?..."</p>
+
+<p>Beard moved a step and got behind Jules unnoticed. He repeated in the
+same tone, harsh, threatening:</p>
+
+<p>"You've got to follow us, I tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively Jules tried to turn round. The Beadle's strong grip kept
+him motionless. Then he understood. He was afraid.</p>
+
+<p>"What's come to you?" he cried in a trembling voice.</p>
+
+<p>The Beadle cut him short.</p>
+
+<p>"Enough! Will you follow us? Yes or no?"</p>
+
+<p>Jules was going to say "no!" but he had not the time! Quick as lightning
+the Beadle flung a long scarf round his neck, stuck his knee into his
+victim's back, and pulled!</p>
+
+<p>Jules uttered a faint groan; but, half stifled, nearly strangled, he had
+not the strength to attempt the slightest self-defence.</p>
+
+<p>Directly he was flung backwards on the ground, where he measured his
+length and lay nearly stunned, Beard jumped on him, knelt on his chest,
+and pinioned him. Jules lay motionless.</p>
+
+<p>The Beard now began tying up the legs of their victim.</p>
+
+<p>"Pass me a scarf!"</p>
+
+<p>"There it is, old 'un!"</p>
+
+<p>"Very good, I am going to apply a 'Be Discreet.'"</p>
+
+<p>The "Be Discreet" of the Beard was a gag, which he rolled round the
+servant's head in expert fashion.</p>
+
+<p>"Feet firm?" asked the Beard.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, jolly fine!" said the Beadle. He turned his man over as though he
+were a bale of goods. Now he tied his victim's hands behind his back.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it far to go to the jaunting car?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;for two sous, that's it!"</p>
+
+<p>A motor-car was indeed coming slowly and noiselessly along rue Raffet:
+it was a sumptuous car!</p>
+
+<p>"And if it is not he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Stick him up against the bank ... dark as it is, there's every chance
+he won't be seen."</p>
+
+<p>Rapidly, the doughty two stuck Jules against the bank at the side of the
+road: the unfortunate creature had fainted. Then they took out their
+cigarettes, and going a few steps away, they pretended to be sheltering
+themselves in order to strike a light.</p>
+
+<p>They need not have taken this precaution.</p>
+
+<p>The car stopped in front of them. The familiar voice of Mimile was
+heard:</p>
+
+<p>"Got the rabbit then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, old 'un!"</p>
+
+<p>"Pitch it into the balloon then!"</p>
+
+<p>"The balloon?" questioned the Beadle. "Whatever's that?"</p>
+
+<p>Emilet laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"At times, my brothers, your ignorance, mechanically speaking, is
+crass!... The balloon is the back part of my car, I'd have you know."</p>
+
+<p>The Beard sniggered.</p>
+
+<p>"Good!... Pick it up! Now, Beadle!"</p>
+
+<p>The two seized the body of Jules by shoulders and feet, and flung it
+brutally into the limousine.</p>
+
+<p>A rug, negligently flung over the body of the trussed Jules, hid him
+from observation.</p>
+
+<p>"Now we'll embark," announced Emilet.</p>
+
+<p>As a precaution, the young hooligan asked:</p>
+
+<p>"The bloke snores?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," replied the Beadle. "He is travelling in No Nightmare Land...."
+The Beadle laughed.</p>
+
+<p>But Emilet was alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>"You haven't snuffed him out, have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No danger of it! He's only shamming!"</p>
+
+<p>"Off, then!" said Emilet.</p>
+
+<p>They rolled away at top speed.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The bandits' lair had been well chosen by their chiefs. It was a vast
+cellar, with a vaulted roof, and earthen walls bedewed with an icy
+humidity. Axes, mattocks, shovels, rakes, and watering cans lay
+scattered on the ground: these were worn out tools: they had not served
+their purpose for many a day.</p>
+
+<p>The lantern, a kind of cresset protected by a wire globe, was suspended
+from the roof by a string. It shed a faint and wavering light, creating
+weird shadows in that far-stretching space, too vast for the
+insufficient illumination.</p>
+
+<p>Directly beneath the cresset lantern, inside the circle of light it
+threw upon the ground, a fantastic group of human creatures pressed
+close to one another, drinking, shouting, chattering, singing.</p>
+
+<p>A clean-shaven man, whose suspicious little eyes were perpetually
+blinking, turned to a young woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Ernestine, my beauty, are you certain the Beadle understood
+that we should be waiting for him here?"</p>
+
+<p>Big Ernestine, who was crouching on the ground and warming her hands at
+a wood fire, throwing up clouds of smoke, shrugged her shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop it, do! You say things over and over again, like a clock,
+Nibet!... Since I've told you <i>yes</i>&mdash;<i>yes</i> it is&mdash;there now, and be
+hanged to you!... You don't by chance fancy the Beadle has been made a
+mouthful of, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>Roars of laughter greeted this. Nibet was not one of the inner circle;
+he was not much of a favourite in the band of Numbers. It is true that
+they reckoned him a comrade, useful, faithful, that they felt safe with
+him; but they bore him a grudge because of his regular employment,
+because of his position, because he was an official.... And, first and
+last, his warder's uniform impressed the jail birds unpleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>But Nibet was not the man to allow himself to be intimidated.</p>
+
+<p>"All the same," said he, "I ask where the three of them have got to?...
+If they know the mushroom bed, they should have been back long ago!" He
+shouted to an old woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Eh, Toulouche, tell us the time!"</p>
+
+<p>But Mother Toulouche shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't a watch!"</p>
+
+<p>There was a murmur of protestation. The seven or eight hooligans
+assembled there awaiting the return of the Beard and the Beadle, sent
+with Emilet to kidnap Jules, could not believe that. Mother Toulouche
+had told the truth.</p>
+
+<p>The Sailor caught the old woman by the shoulders and shook her, and went
+on shaking her.</p>
+
+<p>"Liar! Aren't you ashamed to be in a funk with us?... Ever since this
+blessed Mother Toulouche has sold winkles and many other things, ever
+since she began to make a little purse for herself, which must be a big
+purse by now, a purse everyone here has sweated to fill to the brim, she
+has always distrusted us!... You say you haven't a watch! I tell you,
+you've got dozens of 'em!..."</p>
+
+<p>Big Ernestine interrupted.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a half-hour over the hour agreed...."</p>
+
+<p>A shudder ran through the assembly: Nibet, finger on lip, made a sign
+that they were to listen.</p>
+
+<p>Then, in the mushroom bed, no longer in use, which the band of Numbers
+had recently adopted as their meeting place, a profound silence fell....</p>
+
+<p>"There they are!" said Nibet.</p>
+
+<p>Big Ernestine leaped up, left the fire, advanced to the far end of the
+cellar, and imitated the cry of a screech owl to perfection. There was a
+similar cry in response.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all right. They're here!" she said. She returned to the fire and
+sat down. But Nibet seized the girl and forced her to get up again.</p>
+
+<p>"Go along with you! Quick march!" he said roughly.</p>
+
+<p>She protested. Nibet stopped her.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we can't stand listening to you!... Ho there, Sailor!... Come
+here!... Sit down on this plank! You, the Beadle, and me&mdash;we're to be
+the judges.... Beard makes the accusation: and, if her heart tells her
+to, Ernestine will defend him."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather spit at the tell-tale!... You can tear him to bits as far as
+I'm concerned!" cried the girl. "There's nothing disgusts me so much as
+a tell-tale!"</p>
+
+<p>The hooligans crowded round big Ernestine. They applauded her
+ironically; for they all knew that, once upon a time, she had been
+strongly suspected of having dealings with, what they called, "The dirty
+lot at the Bobby's Nest."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Silence fell once more. They could hear the rasp of the rope unrolling
+from a hand windlass attached to an enormous bucket. This was the
+primitive lift.</p>
+
+<p>Moments passed. The hooligans had formed a circle beneath the black hole
+where the bucket moved up and down.</p>
+
+<p>"It goes, old Beard?" questioned Nibet, gazing upwards.</p>
+
+<p>"It goes, old bloke!"</p>
+
+<p>"Brought the game?"</p>
+
+<p>"That's what we're sending down now!..."</p>
+
+<p>"That's a bit of all right!"</p>
+
+<p>Sailor now seized the trussed Jules from the bucket and flung him on the
+ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Damaged goods, that&mdash;eh?" he laughed evilly.</p>
+
+<p>The Beadle, Beard, and Emilet were coming down in turn. The group below
+bent curiously over the prisoner.</p>
+
+<p>"He's soft&mdash;that sort is!" cried Ernestine. And tapping him on the face
+with her foot, big Ernestine tried to make Jules show signs of life.
+Beard dropped out of the bucket and stopped the game.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's see, Ernestine?... Stop it now!"</p>
+
+<p>After gripping the hand of each comrade in turn, after hugging a bottle
+and draining it in a long draught, emptying it to the dregs, Beard flung
+it aside.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's get to work&mdash;no time to waste!... If we finish him off, we'll
+have to get rid of him before morning!"</p>
+
+<p>Sailor lifted Jules with the aid of two comrades. They propped him
+against a massive pillar of wood which supported the cellar roof. They
+bound their wretched victim to it with strong cords.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Ernestine was unwinding the gag.</p>
+
+<p>"Take your places on the tribunal!" commanded Nibet.</p>
+
+<p>"And you others, a glass of pick-me-up for the fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>The pick-me-up intended to restore Jules to consciousness was brought by
+Mother Toulouche, under the form of a large earthen pot full of cold
+water. She dashed the water in the prisoner's face.</p>
+
+<p>Jules slowly opened his eyes and regained his wits, amidst an ominous
+silence. The band watched his return to life with evil smiles: they
+quietly watched his pallid face turn a livid green with terror.</p>
+
+<p>The wretched creature could not utter a syllable. He stared wildly at
+those about him, his friends of yesterday, at those seated on the mock
+judgment bench who, crouching forward, were observing him with sardonic
+smiles.</p>
+
+<p>Nibet put a question.</p>
+
+<p>"You hear and understand us, Jules?"</p>
+
+<p>"Pity!" howled the victim.</p>
+
+<p>Nibet was indifferent to the cry.</p>
+
+<p>"He understands!... For my part, I am all for keeping to a proper
+procedure.... I would not have agreed to sit in judgment on him if he
+had been unable to defend himself.... We don't act that way down here!"</p>
+
+<p>Turning to his acolytes for signs of their approval, he continued:</p>
+
+<p>"Beard! The word is with you! Let us hear why he has been brought up to
+judgment!... Tell us what he is accused of!... Bring up all there is
+against him!"</p>
+
+<p>Beard, who was marching up and down between the hooligan tribunal and
+the accused, who was half dead, and incapable of making a rational
+statement, stopped, squared himself with an air of satisfaction, and
+began his speech for the prosecution.</p>
+
+<p>"Jules, has anyone ever done you any harm here?... Has anyone played
+cowardly tricks on you?... Set traps to catch you in?... Have you ever
+been cheated out of your fair share of the spoil?... Is there anything
+you can bring up against us?... No?... Well, here's what we have against
+you ... it's not worth while lying about it either!... You are the one
+who has taken the wind out of our sails over the Danidoff affair ... do
+you confess that?"</p>
+
+<p>In a voice barely intelligible Jules gasped out:</p>
+
+<p>"Beard ... I don't understand you!... I have done nothing&mdash;nothing....
+What have you against me?..."</p>
+
+<p>Beard took his time.</p>
+
+<p>Planted before the prisoner, with hip stuck out and hand in pocket, the
+other hand raised in tragic invocation towards his comrades:</p>
+
+<p>"You have heard?... Monsieur does not understand!... He has not the
+pluck to be open and aboveboard!"</p>
+
+<p>Turning again to the wretched captive, he continued:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'm going to explain ... it was you, wasn't it, who had to put
+through the robbery of the lady's jewels?... Well, do you know what you
+did? Do you want me to tell you?... Instead of lending us a hand as was
+promised and sworn, you kept the cake for yourself!... In other words,
+you, and some of your sort, serving at the ball, put your heads
+together, and shut up the lady in the room they found her in; and that
+way, you got out of sharing with us!... So we have been done in the eye
+over that deal!... The proof that you have comrades we know nothing
+about is, that yesterday when you were done in, they found a way to get
+you out of the Salad Basket!... It wasn't us!... But to return to the
+Danidoff robbery ... oh, you must have laughed then!... But everyone has
+his turn ... you are going to laugh on the wrong side of your mouth
+now!... Do you know what they call it&mdash;what you've done&mdash;dared to do?"</p>
+
+<p>In the same strangled voice, Jules managed to get out the words:</p>
+
+<p>"But it's not true!... I swear to you ..."</p>
+
+<p>Beard did not listen.</p>
+
+<p>"There's not one of our lot who would give me the lie!... To behave like
+that is treachery!... You have betrayed the Numbers. There it is in a
+nutshell!... What have you to reply to that?"</p>
+
+<p>For the third time, Jules repeated in a hoarse whisper, for he felt life
+was gradually leaving him: an awful fear gripped him, he saw he was
+completely done for.</p>
+
+<p>"I swear I did not do that!... I didn't rob the princess.... I don't
+even know who did!"</p>
+
+<p>Jules was, perhaps, speaking the truth, but he took the worst way to
+defend himself.... If he had had pluck and wit enough to take the
+Beard's accusation with a high hand, if he had met threats with violent
+denial and assertion, it is quite possible he might have made an
+impression in his favour; but he cried for pity and for mercy from men
+who were pitiless!</p>
+
+<p>He was afraid!... His fear was shown by the convulsive trembling which
+agitated his wretched body, by his ghastly pallor, by the cold drops of
+sweat rolling down his forehead.... He was no longer a man: it was a
+lamentable bit of human wreckage the hooligans had before them!... And
+the more lamentable this wreck showed itself to be, the less worthy of
+their interest it seemed!</p>
+
+<p>When Jules gasped out once again:</p>
+
+<p>"I swear to you it was not I! No!... I did not do it!"</p>
+
+<p>The hooligans, moved by a common impulse, rose, indignant, furious, mad
+with rage.</p>
+
+<p>"That's a good one, that is!" yelled Nibet, who, beside himself with
+rage, suddenly forgot his avowed respect for judicial forms.</p>
+
+<p>"Since he is determined to tell lies, and hasn't the pluck to say what
+he's done, there's only one thing for us to do, and that's to stop his
+mouth up!... Ernestine, put the plug back!"</p>
+
+<p>And as the girl once more rolled the scarf round and round the head of
+the miserable Jules, Nibet turned to his comrades.</p>
+
+<p>"Now then? One hasn't any need to waste more time over it!... We know
+all the story&mdash;not so?... It's settled, I tell you!... A fellow who has
+done what he has done, what does he deserve?... You answer first,
+Mother Toulouche, since you are the oldest?..."</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche stretched out a trembling hand, as though calling on
+Heaven to witness an oath.</p>
+
+<p>"I," said the old woman, with a wicked gleam in her eyes. "I don't
+hesitate!... Comrades who flinch, sneaks who betray, get rid of them,
+say I!... I condemn him to death!..."</p>
+
+<p>The old woman's sentence was greeted with loud applause.</p>
+
+<p>Nibet resumed.</p>
+
+<p>"It is said!... It is unanimous!... Make a quick finish, my lads!...
+Since each has been injured, let each take his revenge! I say: Death by
+the hammer!"</p>
+
+<p>In that smoke-thickened air rose a chorus of hate and of vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>"Death by the hammer! Death by the hammer!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In that noisome lair of the bandits a horrible scene ensued.</p>
+
+<p>Mother Toulouche went groping in a dark corner. She searched for, and
+found, a blacksmith's hammer. She lifted it with trembling hands, and
+planting herself in front of the victim, more dead than alive, she said
+in a menacing voice:</p>
+
+<p>"You did harm to the Numbers! You wronged them! Here goes for that
+then!"</p>
+
+<p>The hammer described a quarter of a circle in the air and descended in a
+smashing blow on the wretched victim's face!</p>
+
+<p>The awful punishment had begun!</p>
+
+<p>According to age, one after another, the hooligans passed on the hammer,
+and, in a blind passion of hate, beat followed beat on the agonising
+body of Jules!</p>
+
+<p>At last the terrible agony was over and done! The passion of hate, the
+lust for revenge had burnt themselves out. Jules had expiated the crime
+they had imputed to him!</p>
+
+<p>The band were the victims of a paralysing fatigue. Emilet flung the
+blood-stained hammer into a far corner of their den.</p>
+
+<p>"Well done!" said he. "He has paid the price!"</p>
+
+<p>Emilet's eyes fell on Nibet. He was leaning against the wall, and, with
+folded arms, was watching the scene in which he had taken no part.
+Walking up to the warder, Emilet demanded:</p>
+
+<p>"Ho! Ho! You backed out of it, did you, my boy?... You didn't have a
+throw, did you?... No?..."</p>
+
+<p>Nibet grinned sardonically.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk rubbish, Emilet!... If I have stood aside, I had my reasons
+for doing so.... We haven't done with Jules yet!... Not by a long
+chalk!... Now that he's been killed, he's got to be got rid of&mdash;isn't
+that true?... Look at yourselves, my lambs! You are covered with red!...
+It will take you all of an hour to make yourselves presentable!... Now,
+look at me! I'm neat and clean ... and I have a plan ... a famous plan
+to rid us of that corpse there! Now, just you stir your stumps,
+Emilet!... I am going off to make preparations!... I'll give you ten
+minutes to make yourself fit to be seen ... it's we two are to be the
+undertakers; and I swear to you, that we will give them no end of
+trouble to the curiosity mongers at Police Headquarters!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XXIII" id="XXIII"></a>XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>FROM VAUGIRARD TO MONTMARTRE</h3>
+
+
+<p>On the boulevard du Palais, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor looked at his watch: it was
+half an hour after noon.</p>
+
+<p>"The hour for copy! Courage! I will go to <i>La Capitale</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely had he put foot in the large hall when the editorial secretary
+called:</p>
+
+<p>"There you are, Fandor!... At last!... That's a good thing!... Whatever
+have you been up to since yesterday evening? I got them to telephone to
+you twice, but they could not get on to you, try as they might. My dear
+fellow, you really mustn't absent yourself without giving us warning."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor looked jovial: certainly not repentant.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, say at once that I've been in the country!... But seriously, what
+did you want me for? Is there anything new?..."</p>
+
+<p>"A most mysterious scandal!..."</p>
+
+<p>"Another?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. You know Thomery, the sugar refiner?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know him!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;he has disappeared!... No one knows where he is!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor took the news stolidly.</p>
+
+<p>"You don't astonish me: you must be prepared for anything from those
+sort of people!..."</p>
+
+<p>It was the turn of the secretary to be surprised at Fandor's calmness.</p>
+
+<p>"But, old man, I am telling you of a disappearance which is causing any
+amount of talk in Paris!... You don't seem to grasp the situation!
+Surely you know that Thomery represents one of the biggest fortunes
+known?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know he is worth a lot."</p>
+
+<p>"His flight will bring ruin to many."</p>
+
+<p>"Others will probably be enriched by it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Probably. That is not our concern. What we are after are details about
+his disappearance. You are free to-day, are you not? Will you take the
+affair in hand then? I would put off the appearance of the paper for
+half an hour rather than not have details to report which would throw
+some light on this extraordinary affair."</p>
+
+<p>Then, as Fandor did not show the slightest intention of going in search
+of material for a Thomery article, the secretary laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you start on the trail, Fandor?... My word, I don't recognise
+a Fandor who is not off like a zigzag of lightning on such a reporting
+job as this!... We want illuminating details, my dear man!"</p>
+
+<p>"You think I haven't got any, then?... Be easy: this evening's issue of
+<i>La Capitale</i> will have all the details you could desire on the
+vanishing of Thomery."</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon, Fandor turned on his heel without further explanation, and
+went towards one of his colleagues, who went by the title of "Financier
+of the paper." The Financier had an official manner, and had an office
+of his own, the walls of which were carefully padded, for Marville&mdash;that
+was his name&mdash;frequently received visits from important personages.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor began questioning him on the subject of Thomery's disappearance.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, my dear fellow, what is happening in the financial world, now
+that Thomery has disappeared."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Where is the money going&mdash;all the coppers?"</p>
+
+<p>"The coppers?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes! I fancy that when an old fellow like that does the vanishing
+trick, there are terrible results on the Bourse? Will you be kind
+enough to explain what does happen in such a case?"</p>
+
+<p>Very much flattered by Fandor's request, Marville cried:</p>
+
+<p>"But, my boy, you are asking for nothing less than a course of political
+economy&mdash;but I cannot do that&mdash;on the spur of the moment!... State
+precisely what you want to know."</p>
+
+<p>"What I want to know is just this: Who loses money through Thomery's
+disappearance?"</p>
+
+<p>The Financier raised his hands to Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>"But everybody! Everybody!... Thomery was a daring fellow: without him
+his business is nothing!... There was a big failure on the market
+to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Good, but who gains by it?"</p>
+
+<p>"How, who gains by it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I presume Thomery's disappearance must be profitable to someone?
+Can you think of any people to whose interest it would be that this old
+fellow should disappear?"</p>
+
+<p>The Financier reflected.</p>
+
+<p>"Those who gain money by the disappearance of Thomery&mdash;only the
+speculators, I should say. Suppose now that a Monsieur Tartempion had
+bought Thomery shares at ninety francs. To-day these shares would not be
+worth more than seventy francs: Tartempion loses money. But let us
+suppose some financier speculates on the probable fall of Thomery
+shares, and has sold to clients speculating on the rise of these shares;
+these shares to be delivered in a fortnight, at a price of ninety
+francs. If Thomery was still there, his shares would be worth, possibly,
+the ninety francs, possibly more. In the first case, the financier's
+deal would amount to nothing: in the second case, his deal would be a
+deplorable one, because he would be obliged to deliver at an inferior
+price, and would be responsible for the difference...."</p>
+
+<p>"Whilst Thomery dead ..."</p>
+
+<p>"Dead&mdash;no! But simply in flight, his shares fall to nothing, and this
+same financier may buy at sixty francs which he must deliver at ninety
+francs in fifteen days. In that case he has done excellent business."</p>
+
+<p>"Excellent, certainly ... and ... tell me, my dear Marville, do you know
+if there has been any such deal in Thomery shares on a large scale?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! You ask me more than I can tell you now ... but that would be known
+at the Bourse."</p>
+
+<p>No doubt J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor was going to continue his interrogation, but
+there was a great disturbance in the editorial room near by. They were
+shouting:</p>
+
+<p>"Fandor! Fandor!"</p>
+
+<p>The editorial secretary entered the Financier's room, and, catching
+sight of Fandor, he cried:</p>
+
+<p>"What's the meaning of this? What are you up to here? I told you this
+Thomery affair was important.... Be off for the news as quick as you
+can.... Here is the <i>Havas</i>. It seems they have just found Thomery's
+body in a little apartment in the rue Lecourbe."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor forced himself to appear very interested.</p>
+
+<p>"Already! The police have been quick!... I also had an idea that that
+Thomery had more than simply disappeared!"</p>
+
+<p>"You had that idea?" asked the startled secretary.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, my dear fellow, I had&mdash;absolutely!"</p>
+
+<p>After a silence, Fandor added:</p>
+
+<p>"All the same, I am going out to get news. In half an hour's time, I
+will telephone details of the death. Does the <i>Havas</i> say whether it is
+a crime or a suicide?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Evidently the police know nothing."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"Monsieur Havard, I am delighted to meet you!... Surely now, you will
+not refuse me a little interview?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not I, my dear Fandor! I know only too well that you would not take
+'no' for an answer."</p>
+
+<p>"And you are right. I beg of you to give me some details, not as regards
+Thomery's death, for I have already made my little investigation
+touching that; but as to how the police managed to find the poor man's
+body."</p>
+
+<p>"In the easiest way in the world. Monsieur Thomery's servants were very
+much astonished yesterday morning, when they could not find their master
+in the house.</p>
+
+<p>"After eleven, Thomery's absence from the Bourse gave rise to
+disquieting rumors. He had some big deals to put through, therefore his
+absence could only be accounted for in one way&mdash;he had had an accident
+of some sort.</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally enough, they warned Headquarters, and at once I suspected
+there might be a little scandal of some sort.... You guess that I
+immediately went myself to Thomery's house?... I examined his papers;
+and I found by chance three receipts for the rent of a flat, in the name
+of Monsieur Durand, rue Lecourbe. One of them was of recent date. I, of
+course, sent one of my men to ascertain who lived there! This man
+learned from the portress that there was a new tenant there, who had not
+yet moved in with his furniture; but who, the evening before, had
+brought in a heavy trunk.... My man went up to this flat, and had the
+door opened. You know under what conditions he found Thomery's dead
+body."</p>
+
+<p>"And you did not find indications which went to show why Monsieur
+Thomery committed suicide?"</p>
+
+<p>"Committed suicide?... When a financier disappears, my Fandor, one is
+always tempted to cry 'suicide'; but, this time, I confess to you that I
+do not think it was anything of the kind!..."</p>
+
+<p>"Because?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because"&mdash;and Monsieur Havard bent his head. "Well, when I reached the
+scene of the crime I immediately thought that we were not face to face
+with a suicide. A man who wishes to kill himself, and to kill himself
+because of money affairs, a man like Thomery, does not feel the
+necessity of committing suicide in a little flat rented under a false
+name, and in front of a trunk, which you know, do you not, belonged to
+Mademoiselle Dollon! One might swear that everything was arranged
+expressly to make anyone believe that Thomery had strangled himself,
+after having stolen the trunk, for some unknown reason!"</p>
+
+<p>"You did not find any kind of clue?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed! And you know it as well as I do, for I have no doubt the
+extraordinary event has been the gossip of the neighbourhood. On the
+cover of the trunk we have once again found an imprint, a very clear
+impression&mdash;the famous imprint of Jacques Dollon!..."</p>
+
+<p>"And you found nothing else?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, in the dust on the floor, we found the marks of steps, numerous
+foot marks: we have made tracings of them."</p>
+
+<p>"My steps, evidently," thought Fandor. But what he said was:</p>
+
+<p>"What, in short, is your view of the general position, Monsieur Havard?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am very much bothered about it. For my part, I think we are once
+again faced by another of Jacques Dollon's crimes. This wretch, after
+having attempted to assassinate his sister, has learned that we were
+going to search mademoiselle's room. He then made arrangements to steal
+this trunk, by pretending to be a police inspector, as you know; then he
+brought the trunk to this flat, examined its contents thoroughly, and
+having some special interest in the sugar refiner's death, he managed to
+get him to come to the flat, and there assassinated him, leaving his
+dead body in front of this trunk, where it was bound to be seen; all
+this he did in order to tangle the traces and perplex those on his
+track...."</p>
+
+<p>"But how do you explain the fact of Jacques Dollon being so simple as to
+leave the imprints of his hand everywhere?... Deuce take it, this
+individual is at liberty: he reads the papers.... He knows that Monsieur
+Bertillon is tracing him!... So great a criminal would certainly be on
+his guard!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course! Such a successful criminal as Dollon has shown himself to
+be, must have resources at his disposal, which allow him to laugh at the
+police. He does not trouble to cover his tracks; it is enough for him
+that he should escape us."</p>
+
+<p>As Fandor could not suppress a smile, the chief of the detective force
+added:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, we shall finish by arresting Dollon, have no fear! So far he has
+quite extraordinary luck in his favour, but the luck will turn, and we
+shall put our hand on his collar!"</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly hope you may. But what are you going to do now?"</p>
+
+<p>The two had stopped on the edge of the pavement, and were talking
+without paying any attention to the passers-by who rubbed shoulders with
+them. The well-known journalist and the important police official were
+unrecognised.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Havard took Fandor's arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, come along with me, Fandor? Just the time to telephone to a
+police station, and then I will take you with me to make a fresh
+investigation."</p>
+
+<p>"Where!"</p>
+
+<p>"At Jacques Dollon's studio. I have kept the key of the house, and I
+wish to see whether I can find any other rent receipts made out in the
+name of Durand. Though I can see how Dollon inveigled Dollon into a
+trap, I do not understand how it came about that Thomery paid the rent
+of that trap. There is some subtle contrivance of Dollon's here; I want
+to get to the bottom of it.... Will you come to rue Norvins?"</p>
+
+<p>"I jolly well will!" cried Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>The chief of the detective force telephoned to Headquarters, whilst
+Fandor got into communication with <i>La Capitale</i>. He sent on a report of
+the Thomery case up to that moment.</p>
+
+<p>Quitting the police station, the two men hailed a cab, and were driven
+to the rue Norvins.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>As far as they could tell, the artist's house had not been entered since
+Elizabeth Dollon's departure.</p>
+
+<p>The neglected garden, with its rank growth of grass and weeds, gave an
+added air of melancholy to the deserted house.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Havard put the key in the lock of the front door.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think, Fandor, it gives one a queer feeling to enter a house
+where an unaccountable crime has been committed?" The key grated in the
+lock, and Monsieur Havard added:</p>
+
+<p>"In spite of oneself, there is the feeling that some terrifying spectre
+is lurking within!"</p>
+
+<p>"Or a ghost!" said Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>And as the door was unlocked and opened, our journalist asked:</p>
+
+<p>"Where shall we start this domiciliary visit?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let us begin with the studio," replied Monsieur Havard, mounting to the
+first story.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had they entered the room, than a double cry escaped from the
+two men.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!..."</p>
+
+<p>"Great Heaven!..."</p>
+
+<p>In the very middle of the studio, there was the rigid body of a man
+hanging.</p>
+
+<p>They rushed forward....</p>
+
+<p>"Dead!" was Monsieur Havard's cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Horribly dead!" echoed Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we never lay hands on those wretches?" Monsieur Havard stared,
+horrified, at the hanging corpse. He brought a chair, grasped the strong
+sharp knife he always carried about him, and, aided by Fandor, he cut
+the rope, laid the hanged man flat on the floor, and proceeded to
+examine the miserable remnant of a human being.</p>
+
+<p>The face was swollen, gashed, crushed....</p>
+
+<p>"The hands have been dipped in vitriol&mdash;they did not want finger prints
+taken&mdash;it is&mdash;it is Jacques Dollon!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Jacques Dollon? Of course, it isn't!... If it were Dollon, he would not
+hang himself here.... Why should he hang himself?"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Havard remarked:</p>
+
+<p>"He has not hanged himself. Again the stage has been set!... I could
+swear the man had been killed by blows from a hammer and hanged
+afterwards!... It seems to me, that if death had been caused through
+strangulation, there would have been marks round the neck.... But see,
+Fandor, the rope has hardly made a mark."</p>
+
+<p>"No, the man was dead when they strung him up."</p>
+
+<p>"It is of secondary importance!" remarked Fandor, who was preoccupied.</p>
+
+<p>"You are mistaken: it matters a great deal! It decidedly looks as if
+Dollon had accomplices, who wished to be rid of him."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"It is not Dollon! It cannot be Dollon!"</p>
+
+<p>"Look at the vitriolised hands&mdash;that was a precaution."</p>
+
+<p>"I say, as you did just now: it's like a set piece&mdash;a bit of slag
+assassins' stage craft."</p>
+
+<p>"I say, in Dollon's house, we have found Dollon at home!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was not convinced. He felt certain Dollon had lied in the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Elizabeth Dollon can settle the question for us. There may be
+some physical peculiarity, some mark by which she can identify her
+brother's body!"</p>
+
+<p>But Fandor was examining the body very carefully. Suddenly he rose from
+his stooping posture, exclaiming:</p>
+
+<p>"I know who it is!"</p>
+
+<p>"Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"Jules! None other than Madame Bourrat's servant, Jules!... That is to
+say, an accomplice whom the bandits we are after wanted to be rid of. He
+might give them away when brought up for examination. That was why they
+managed his escape: they killed him afterwards, because he had served
+their turn, and was now an encumbrance."</p>
+
+<p>"Your explanation is plausible, Fandor; but how about the truth of it?"</p>
+
+<p>"This proves the truth of it!" cried Fandor, pointing to a cicatrice on
+the back of the neck of the murdered man: it was the clear mark of where
+an abscess had been.</p>
+
+<p>"I am certain I noticed a similar mark on the neck of Jules. He sat in
+front of me the other day, and I particularly noticed this mark. The
+dead man is Jules. I am certain it is Jules!"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Havard was silent. Presently he said:</p>
+
+<p>"If it is Jules ... it must be admitted that we are no further forward!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was about to utter a protest, when there was a knock on the
+studio door. Startled, the two men looked at each other anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"It can only be one of the force," murmured Monsieur Havard. "I told
+them I was coming here with you, and that they were to send for me if
+necessary."</p>
+
+<p>The two men walked to the door. Monsieur Havard opened it. There stood a
+cyclist member of the police force. He saluted respectfully, and told
+his chief that he had come with a message from Michel.</p>
+
+<p>"The message?"</p>
+
+<p>"That the arrest is successful, chief."</p>
+
+<p>"Which?"</p>
+
+<p>"That of the band of Numbers, chief."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Whom have you bagged?"</p>
+
+<p>"Almost the whole lot, chief!"</p>
+
+<p>"That is to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mother Toulouche, Beard, Mimile, otherwise Emilet, and the Cooper&mdash;and
+a few more whose names are not known."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor said, laughing:</p>
+
+<p>"Not Cranajour, I am certain."</p>
+
+<p>"No. Cranajour has escaped," answered the policeman.</p>
+
+<p>Turning to Monsieur Havard, he asked:</p>
+
+<p>"You have no instructions, chief?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. Tell me, how did the capture go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfectly, chief. They were assembled in Mother Toulouche's store. They
+went like lambs."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!... Good!"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Havard gave the policeman some orders. The cyclist leaped into
+the saddle and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you guess that Cranajour was still at liberty?" asked Monsieur
+Havard.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Good business! You take me to be more stupid than I am. It is
+Cranajour's information which has enabled you to arrest the band of
+Numbers. Consequently!..."</p>
+
+<p>"Cranajour's information? You are mad, Fandor!... Whatever makes you
+imagine that Cranajour belongs to our force?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor looked Monsieur Havard straight in the eye and said coolly:</p>
+
+<p>"Juve has never told me that he had sent in his resignation!"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Havard looked searchingly at our journalist, before remarking:</p>
+
+<p>"Come now! What is this you are telling me? Poor Juve?..."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor wished to save the chief of the detective department from telling
+useless falsehoods.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Havard! Monsieur Havard! Interrogate the members of the band
+of Numbers, and don't trouble about how I got my information ... but, be
+sure of one thing, there are dead men of whom I could tell tales, of
+whose existence I am as well aware of as you yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>As the chief stared at the journalist, looking more and more astonished,
+Fandor added:</p>
+
+<p>"And I do not refer to Dollon! I am referring to Juve, to my dear friend
+Juve, the king of detectives!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XXIV" id="XXIV"></a>XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>AT SAINT LAZARE</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Hop along there! See if you can't hurry up a bit!"</p>
+
+<p>The warder opened the door of Elizabeth's Dollon's cell and pushed in an
+old woman&mdash;a horrid looking creature.</p>
+
+<p>"In with you!" commanded the warder in a harsh tone. "You are to stay
+here till to-morrow. We will find another place for you when we get
+instructions...."</p>
+
+<p>Poor Elizabeth Dollon stared miserably at this strange companion which
+Fate, in the person of a warder, had thrust on her.</p>
+
+<p>The old woman stared with no little curiosity at the pale, sad girl....
+Silence fell for a few minutes, then the new prisoner asked, in a tone
+of rough familiarity:</p>
+
+<p>"What's your name?"</p>
+
+<p>"I call myself Elizabeth!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't know it!... Elizabeth, who?..."</p>
+
+<p>"Elizabeth Dollon...."</p>
+
+<p>The old woman rose from the corner of the mattress she had seated
+herself on.</p>
+
+<p>"True? You're Elizabeth Dollon?... Well, that's funny! Have you been
+nabbed long?..."</p>
+
+<p>"You ask if it is long since I was...?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nabbed!... Taken!... Arrested!... Eh?"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth nodded in the affirmative. It seemed to her that an infinity
+of time had passed since her imprisonment at Saint Lazare.</p>
+
+<p>"I was nabbed last night. If you want to know my name, I'm called Mother
+Toulouche. They say I'm one of the band of Numbers, and that I receive
+stolen goods! Lies! That's well understood!"</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth had no desire to go into such an unsavoury question. This
+horrid old woman rather frightened her; but, such had been her distress
+and fears since she had been a prisoner, that it was a relief not to be
+quite alone; to have even this old creature to speak to was better than
+solitary confinement.</p>
+
+<p>In her character of old jail-bird, Mother Toulouche made herself quickly
+at home.</p>
+
+<p>"Moved to-morrow, they say I'm to be! Pity! At bottom you're not one of
+the scurvy sort, but you must be here to play spy on me, for all
+that!... When do you go out? Are you long for Saint Lago?" Alas, how
+could Elizabeth tell?</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"I like being a barrister," thought Fandor, as he entered Saint Lazare.
+"For the last hour I have felt a different person, much more serious,
+more sure of myself, not to say, more eloquent!... I must be eloquent,
+since I have succeeded in persuading my friend, Ma&icirc;tre Dubard, to get
+himself appointed officially as Mademoiselle Dollon's counsel; then to
+obtain a permit of communication, and to hand this same permit over to
+me, so that his identification papers, safely tucked away in my
+portfolio, make of me the most indisputable of Ma&icirc;tres Dubard!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Fandor might well congratulate himself! By means of this ruse&mdash;his own
+idea&mdash;he was enabled to see Elizabeth, not in the prison parlour, but in
+a special cell, and without a witness. As Fandor crossed the threshold
+of the sordid building, he said to himself:</p>
+
+<p>"I am Ma&icirc;tre Dubard, visiting his client, in order to prepare her
+defence!"</p>
+
+<p>He easily accomplished the necessary formalities, and, at last, he saw
+himself being conducted by a morose warder to a little parlour, scantily
+furnished with a table and a few stools.</p>
+
+<p>"Please be seated, ma&icirc;tre," said the surly fellow. "I'll fetch your
+client along!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor put down his portfolio, but remained standing, anxious, all
+aquiver at the thought that he was about to see his dear Elizabeth
+appear between two warders, just like a common prisoner!</p>
+
+<p>"In a moment she will be here," thought he.... But she must on no
+account recognise him on entering! By an exclamation she might betray
+his identity and complicate things! Therefore, Fandor feigned to be
+absorbed in a newspaper he unfolded and raised, so as to hide his face
+from the approaching pair. The door opened.</p>
+
+<p>"Come now! Go in!..." growled the warder. "Ma&icirc;tre, when you wish to
+leave, you have only to ring."</p>
+
+<p>The door fell to, heavily, behind the warder.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor made a sharp movement. He stood revealed. He hurried up to
+Elizabeth.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, tell me how you are, Mademoiselle Elizabeth!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>But the girl was struck dumb: she grew suddenly pale, and made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Will you not give me your hand even? You do not
+understand why I am here? I had to see you, speak to you without a
+witness ... that's why I have passed myself off as an advocate!"</p>
+
+<p>The startled girl was regaining her self-control. Fandor was gazing at
+her with frankly admiring eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Elizabeth! How I have made you suffer!"</p>
+
+<p>The poor girl's eyes filled with tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Why have you betrayed me?" she demanded in a voice trembling with
+restrained emotion. "Oh, how could you get me arrested? You, who well
+know I am not guilty?"</p>
+
+<p>"You really believe I have betrayed you? You actually credited me with
+that?"</p>
+
+<p>These two young people, meeting in a prison parlour under such tragic
+circumstances, were hurt and even angry with each other.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth Dollon went on:</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you not tell me that you had found on that piece of soap traces
+of my brother's finger-marks? Why did you accuse me of having received a
+visit from him, when you yourself had proved that he was dead?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor took Elizabeth's two little hands in his and pressed them long
+and tenderly.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Elizabeth, when I engineered this theatrical stroke in the
+presence of the examining magistrate, in order to secure your arrest,
+believe me, I had no time to warn you of what I meant to do.... Ah, if I
+could have warned you&mdash;but it would have only disturbed you to no good
+purpose, besides&mdash;your being really taken by surprise was a help&mdash;there
+could not be any idea of collusion.... Of course, you want the answer to
+this riddle? You shall have it&mdash;that is why I am here.... Don't you
+remember, Elizabeth, that on the evening before the fatal day you told
+me that I had twice rung you up on the telephone? And that each time you
+answered the call you could not find me at the end of the line?... You
+cannot imagine what I felt when I heard you say that! I never
+telephoned! I never telephoned to the convent!</p>
+
+<p>"The obvious conclusion was, that the individuals who, for some reason,
+did not wish to make themselves known, did wish to keep track of you,
+and to assure themselves that you were still at the convent, rue de la
+Glaci&egrave;re...."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor's voice trembled a little, as he went on:</p>
+
+<p>"And I was at once afraid, my poor child, that these people who were
+pursuing you, might be the very same who had got into Madame Bourrat's
+house, and had tried to kill you.... Ah, do you not see how greatly it
+hurt and troubled me to think that I had taken you to the convent, and
+had there placed you in security&mdash;as I thought&mdash;but where you were far
+from being safe?"</p>
+
+<p>Again Fandor took Elizabeth's hands in his.</p>
+
+<p>"You do understand now, dear child, why I had you arrested?... I felt
+you would be safe here.... You see, I could not get your persecutors
+imprisoned and so prevent them from getting at you. To imprison you was
+the alternative: you are better guarded here than elsewhere."</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth smiled a little smile when she saw how moved Fandor was.</p>
+
+<p>"But," replied she, "there is the other point! You certainly told me
+that you were sure my brother was killed in prison&mdash;in his cell!"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, I did! The assassination of your brother was premeditated.
+If the criminals have had accomplices at the D&eacute;p&ocirc;t, and such there
+certainly were, they have been bought over little by little.... The fact
+of your brother's murder is fresh in the memory of the police, of all,
+therefore, a special watch is kept over you. I ascertained that it would
+be so, and Fuselier himself assured me of it: there is a warder
+specially told off to keep a close guard over you, a safe man, known to
+be beyond suspicion.... No, Elizabeth, do believe me, if I was the cause
+of your horrified surprise the other day, and then of your imprisonment,
+I wished to be sure that you were as safe as it was possible to be;
+then, freed from such intense anxiety, I felt I should be at liberty to
+continue my investigations.... Do say you forgive me!"</p>
+
+<p>All Elizabeth could say was:</p>
+
+<p>"But why not have warned me?... I still can't quite see!..."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, because, I only thought of the plan at the last moment! Also,
+because I feared you might not be able to act surprise naturally
+enough!... It was absolutely&mdash;yes, absolutely necessary&mdash;that everyone
+should take your arrest seriously.... Surely, Elizabeth, you can
+understand that!"</p>
+
+<p>He repeated his plea.</p>
+
+<p>"Do, do say you forgive me, Elizabeth!"</p>
+
+<p>The smile returned to Elizabeth's lips: she was much moved.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I do... You are always my very good friend: you think of
+everything, and you watch over me as if ..."</p>
+
+<p>Intimidated, blushing hotly, she stopped short, then changed the
+conversation.</p>
+
+<p>"Do tell me if you have heard anything fresh!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor returned to his normal self also. He had sworn to himself that he
+would not tell Elizabeth he loved her, until he had succeeded in
+unravelling the tangled skein of the terrible Dollon affair.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall speak," thought he, "when she is once more at peace and free,
+when she is out of danger. I do not want her to consent to love me just
+because I have devoted myself to her brother's case. Elizabeth shall be
+my wife, please God; but only if I deserve her, if I can win her."</p>
+
+<p>And J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor told her the story of the famous wicker trunk&mdash;but he
+did not mention Thomery's death, nor did he speak of the horrible murder
+of Jules.... What was the use of saddening Elizabeth, of adding
+needlessly to her terrors? Instead, he thought it better to learn what
+he could from her.</p>
+
+<p>"I have not found that famous list!" said he.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Elizabeth. "I was so worried!... Just
+imagine that, I found the list after all, and I thought I had lost it!
+It was in one of my little handbags. I had put it there to bring to you.
+Here it is: they were quite willing to let me keep it!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor eagerly took the paper from Elizabeth and proceeded to examine
+it. Yes, it certainly was a page torn from a note-book of medium size.
+An unknown hand had traced the following words in bold writing. The
+names succeeded one another in the form of a list.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0"><i>Baroness de Vibray, April 3. Jacques Dollon.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Dep.... idem.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Sonia Danidoff, April 12.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Barbey-Nanteuil, May 15.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>G&eacute;rin...?</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Madame B...?</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Thomery, during May.</i><br /></span>
+<span class="i0"><i>Barbey-Nanteuil, end May.</i><br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Fandor could not find anything more on the paper. Whilst Elizabeth sat
+silent, Fandor reflected:</p>
+
+<p>"Baroness de Vibray, April 3. Jacques Dollon ... these correspond
+exactly with the commencement of this mysterious affair: the two first
+deaths, and the date of their death.... What does <i>Dep.</i> signify? The
+initials of a name&mdash;or&mdash;yes, Dep ... D&eacute;p&ocirc;t idem&mdash;yes, <i>D&eacute;p&ocirc;t the same
+day!</i> That's it! <i>Sonia Danidoff, April 12</i> ... the full name, the exact
+date. <i>Barbey-Nanteuil, May 15</i>: the affair of rue du Quatre Septembre
+occurred May 20; that's pretty near. Two more names, and one date which
+exactly tallies. <i>G&eacute;rin?</i>... <i>Madame B</i>....? Who are they? Why no date?
+Ah, G&eacute;rin, lawyer of Madame de Vibray, a crime planned, without date,
+perhaps because he was not indispensable ... and <i>Thomery</i>! Thomery, who
+died in the middle of May, as this plan indicates! But, how about the
+last line? <i>Barbey-Nanteuil, end of May?</i> Oh, beyond a doubt the bankers
+were to be victims of some fresh aggression on the part of the
+mysterious author of these lines!"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Barbey-Nanteuil, end of May!</i> We are at the 28th of the month: only
+three more days before the sinister date falls due! Are they to be
+attacked, or is it their money? How to defend them? How organise a trap
+for the mice?"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, Fandor looked up, saw Elizabeth's anxiety, and said quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, this list agrees in every particular with the description you
+gave me of it, and I don't quite see what fresh information we are
+likely to get from it. However, will you leave it with me?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor rose.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, there is one point which has just occurred to me"&mdash;Fandor's voice
+trembled a good deal&mdash;"Do you know for a fact that your brother had
+bought Thomery shares?"</p>
+
+<p>"He had very few, three or four. I think the Barbey-Nanteuil got them
+for him."</p>
+
+<p>"And your brother had to pay for them by a certain date?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor now felt he must tear himself away. He was deeply moved.</p>
+
+<p>"Elizabeth!... Elizabeth!" he cried. "I swear to you we shall clear up
+these dreadful mysteries amidst which we live, and more, you and I! Only
+have confidence, I implore you! Grant me a week's grace, less even!"
+Fandor pressed Elizabeth's hands as though he could never let them go!
+Such little hands, and so dear!</p>
+
+<p>It was not a farewell he took&mdash;it was a veritable flight he took from
+the girl who now meant so much to him!</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the prison, Fandor walked straight ahead, thinking aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"It is clear&mdash;evident! The Barbey-Nanteuils have sold Thomery shares to
+be paid up on a certain date. Thomery was murdered so that his shares
+should fall to zero, and so that the Barbey-Nanteuils should realise
+enormous sums at their monthly clearance. Next Saturday, the coffers of
+the Barbey-Nanteuil bank will be full of gold, and this same Saturday is
+the last day of May, the fatal day inscribed on the list. Yes, this
+coming Saturday, they will pillage the Barbey-Nanteuil bank!"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XXV" id="XXV"></a>XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>A MOUSE TRAP</h3>
+
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor had been ringing Juve's door bell in vain: the great
+detective was not at home.</p>
+
+<p>"What the deuce is he doing? What has become of him? Never have I needed
+his advice as I need it now!... His support, encouragement&mdash;what a
+comfort they would be!... It is possible he would have dissuaded me
+against the attempt&mdash;or, he might have joined forces with me! Hang it
+all! It was a jolly bad move on Juve's part to make himself scarce at
+such a critical moment for me!... It is a long time, too, since I had
+news of him! Were I not certain that he has sound reasons for his
+absence&mdash;Juve never acts haphazard&mdash;I should be desperately anxious!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor consulted his watch&mdash;four o'clock! He had time then! He could
+think over all the dramatic events in which he had been involved during
+the past weeks, beginning with the rue Norvins affair, and ending&mdash;how,
+and when?</p>
+
+<p>At last, our journalist arrived before the immense building which forms
+the corner of the rue de Clichy. He saw, in front of him, the tall
+windows of the flat occupied by Nanteuil: on the ground floor were the
+bank offices.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," thought Fandor, "I certainly am going to do an unconventional
+thing. If my summing up of them is right, these bankers are balanced,
+calm, cold, without imagination, and distrusting it in others. I shall
+have to be eloquent to convince them, to make them listen to me and get
+them to do what I want. Will they show me the door, as though I were an
+intriguer or a madman?... I shall not let them do it!... Ah, they will
+owe me a fine candle if I have the good luck.... Whether there will be
+good luck for my venture, and gratitude from the bankers, remains to be
+seen.... Here goes!..."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Seated behind their large and important looking writing table, as though
+judges behind a judgment seat, Messieurs Barbey and Nanteuil, in their
+immense reception office, separated from the rest of the world by a
+number of padded doors, had just said to Fandor, who was standing in
+front of them:</p>
+
+<p>"We are listening to you, monsieur."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had asked to see the bankers, and to see them only, stating that
+he would wait if they were engaged. He had been shown into a handsomely
+furnished room, then into another, then into a third; finally, he had
+been ushered into the office of the partners. He had waited there for a
+few minutes alone. He recognised it as the same room in which he had
+interviewed Monsieur Barbey a few weeks earlier. Again he saw the same
+hangings, the same fine rugs, the same velvet arm-chair of classic
+design.</p>
+
+<p>Then Barbey, solemn, and Nanteuil, elegant, a rose in his buttonhole,
+had entered the room, their manner stiff-starched, showing no surprise,
+accustomed as they were to receive visitors of all sorts and kinds: they
+were polite, but not cordial.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor, accustomed to society as he was, and audacious as he had to be
+in the exercise of his profession, was intimidated, for a moment, by the
+calm simplicity of the two men&mdash;these strictly conventional bankers, to
+whom he was about to say such strange things, and make a most unexpected
+proposition!</p>
+
+<p>First of all, he made excuse on excuse for having disturbed the bankers
+at their post time. Then anxiety overcame every consideration of
+conventional propriety. Full of persuasive ardour, he went straight to
+the point.</p>
+
+<p>"Messieurs," declared he, "you are more deeply involved than you might
+think in the mysterious affairs occupying the attention of the police at
+this moment. So far, they have not got to the bottom of them. I, myself,
+through the necessities of my profession, and owing to other
+circumstances, have been drawn into an investigation, conjointly with
+the detective department, an investigation which has had definite
+results: it has enabled me to discover clues of the highest importance.
+I learned, too late, alas, to prevent the tragedies, that certain
+persons were the chosen victims of these mysterious criminals. Madame de
+Vibray, the Princess Danidoff were condemned beforehand; the robbery of
+your gold was carefully arranged. Now to my point! Messieurs, you
+yourselves are sentenced: the execution of the sentence to be carried
+out three days hence. Do you believe me?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor had drawn nearer the two bankers: only the immense mahogany
+writing-table stood between them!</p>
+
+<p>The partners had listened with cold attention: nevertheless, a slight
+trembling of Monsieur Barbey's lips betrayed hidden feeling. Noticing
+this, Fandor was emboldened to proceed.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Nanteuil, in a slightly sneering tone, but with a perfectly
+correct manner, replied to the ardent young journalist:</p>
+
+<p>"We are greatly obliged to you, monsieur, for the sympathy you have
+shown us by coming to give us information regarding the mysterious
+assassins, whom the police are so zealously trying to round up. Believe
+me, we are accustomed to take our precautions, seeing that we have the
+handling of enormous sums of money. We are none the less grateful to you
+for your interest in us, and for your warning."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not a question of gratitude," interrupted Fandor sharply. "We
+have to deal with very strong opponents. I say 'we' because I have
+become more and more personally involved in all these crime-tragedies.
+Believe me, I speak from five years' experience as a reporter, who has
+had to report, on an average, one crime a day!... Up to now, nothing,
+absolutely nothing has hindered the criminals from executing their
+plans; but, warned in time, we may be able to thwart them."</p>
+
+<p>"But," interrupted Monsieur Barbey, who had grown more and more serious.
+"What are you aiming at?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor felt that the decisive moment had arrived. Bending across the
+table, his face almost touching the faces of the two men, he said slowly
+and distinctly:</p>
+
+<p>"Messieurs, I have asked <i>La Capitale</i> to grant me three days' leave. I
+have brought a little travelling bag with me: here it is! Leaving home
+as I did about half an hour ago, I consider I have arrived at the end of
+my journey!... Will you offer me hospitality for the next forty-eight
+hours?... I know that you, Monsieur Nanteuil, live above your offices,
+whilst Monsieur Barbey goes home every evening to his place at Saint
+Germain. I ask you to give up your room to me, for I am determined not
+to leave here for an instant!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor, in his eagerness, had spoken faster and faster, and his heart
+was beating violently. He stared fixedly at the two men; he quite
+expected that his demand would excite astonishment; that objections
+would be raised; and he was ready with a crowd of arguments by which to
+convince them and carry his point.... But, the surprise was his, for the
+bankers did not seem particularly astonished.</p>
+
+<p>They consulted each other with a look. Then, as Barbey opened his mouth
+to reply, Nanteuil began to speak, rising politely at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Fandor, your last statements and remarks are too serious to be
+passed over lightly. Your offer is too generous to be rejected without
+consideration. Will you allow us to retire for a minute or two: my
+partner and I will discuss the question."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>For about ten minutes Fandor marched up and down the sumptuous room.
+Then one of the padded doors opened silently, and Barbey entered more
+solemn than ever: Nanteuil was smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur," said Barbey, in weighty tones, "my partner and I, in view of
+the exceptional seriousness of the situation, for your words carry
+conviction&mdash;have come to a decision: we beg of you to consider yourself
+our guest from this moment, and to consider this house as your own!"</p>
+
+<p>"And it is understood, of course, that you dine with us this evening!"
+added Nanteuil with friendly graciousness. "Monsieur Barbey will be of
+the party, and will pass the night in our company ... and you can count
+on it, that we shall drink a good bottle of Burgundy to enable us to
+await with patience and serenity the audacious individuals you say we
+are to expect.... Dear Monsieur Fandor, here are some illustrated papers
+with some gay sketches of dear little women to exercise your patience
+over, whilst we sign our outgoing letters as fast as possible...."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XXVI" id="XXVI"></a>XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>IN THE TRAP</h3>
+
+
+<p>The servant had retired, leaving the three men to their fruit and wine.
+His hosts turned to Fandor in mute interrogation.... But Fandor
+continued to peel a superb peach with the utmost coolness: he did not
+seem disposed to talk.</p>
+
+<p>Barbey broke the silence.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me, now that your first day on guard is ended, and you have not
+left us for a moment&mdash;have you noticed anything at all suspicious?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor shook his head. "Nothing whatever."</p>
+
+<p>This was not strictly true; for he had noticed an individual in the
+bank, occupied in repairing the telephone. He had made discreet
+inquiries, and had been told that he was a workman sent by the State, at
+the request of the bankers, to see that the lines were in good working
+order. This explanation had at first set his mind at rest regarding the
+comings and goings of this individual.</p>
+
+<p>But, just when he was going in to dinner at seven o'clock, Fandor had
+come across the man in the vestibule of the bank making preparations to
+depart. It had been a painful surprise for Fandor. He recognised the
+man, but could not remember exactly who he was, or where he had seen
+him....</p>
+
+<p>Was this workman one of the mysterious band of criminals who, he was
+more and more convinced, meant to strike a blow at Monsieur Barbey, and
+his partner, Nanteuil?</p>
+
+<p>If Fandor had had anything to go upon, he would have had the man
+shadowed. But he had no sure ground for his suspicions; besides, sent
+by the State, the man was most probably what he seemed. As he was
+working for the Government, he could easily be traced should such a step
+be found necessary. But to make certain that all was as it should be,
+Fandor had examined the work done by this individual during the day.
+There was nothing wrong with it: beyond a doubt, the man was an expert.
+Therefore, Fandor had felt justified in saying that he had noticed
+nothing suspicious during the day.</p>
+
+<p>"So much the worse," remarked Monsieur Barbey, with a shrug....
+"Probably the individuals who are threatening us, have been warned of
+your presence here, and are on their guard. I rejoice as far as we are
+concerned; but, as regards the general interest, I almost regret it:
+that your trap should prove effective, is what we must wish."</p>
+
+<p>"Have no fear, dear Monsieur Barbey, it will not be laid in vain!
+Knowing the cunning, the cleverness of my adversaries, I have not the
+least doubt they know I am here; but I also know that the audacity of
+these criminals is such, that my presence here would not deter them from
+making their attempt. They believe themselves the stronger, but I hope
+to undeceive them."</p>
+
+<p>"What is your plan of campaign to-night?" asked Monsieur Nanteuil.</p>
+
+<p>"Before replying to that, will you show me all the means of access to
+the house?"</p>
+
+<p>"With the greatest pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>The three men left the dining-room: then went into the vestibule.</p>
+
+<p>"Our courtyard gate is at the far end of the house, on the right," said
+Nanteuil. "On the left, there are the Bank offices: they occupy this
+ground floor. The only entrance to them is through this vestibule. This
+door closed, it is impossible to get in."</p>
+
+<p>"Not by the windows looking on to the street?" asked Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"No, those windows have heavy iron bars before them. To remove them
+would be difficult&mdash;very ... As to the windows looking on to the garden,
+they are closed every evening&mdash;you can see for yourself&mdash;by strong
+wooden shutters fastened on the inside."</p>
+
+<p>"So the Bank offices are perfectly protected?" said Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"We believe so. Now, come upstairs to the floor above!... Here is a
+large corridor, and that door, on the right, opens into a library. The
+two rooms which come next, are my own room and a dressing-room. The
+other rooms are unoccupied."</p>
+
+<p>"Does your room face the street or the garden?" asked Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"The garden."</p>
+
+<p>"And the windows?"</p>
+
+<p>"The windows?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. Would it be difficult, or impossible to climb up to them?"</p>
+
+<p>"It would be difficult, but not impossible. No one ever enters the
+garden. If absolutely necessary, a ladder could be placed against them,
+a square of glass could be cut out, and the fastening could be undone
+... but come and see the room, you can then judge for yourself."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor inspected the room most carefully. The banker was right. It would
+be comparatively easy to get into the room by the window; but the other
+entrances to the room could be easily watched; they resolved themselves
+into one door, which opened on to the corridor.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Nanteuil's room was lightly furnished: he evidently favoured
+the modern method: it was a bare apartment, but it was hygienic.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah," said Fandor, "the bed has its back to the door, and faces the
+window. Very right. You have electric light, I see, near the fireplace,
+and above your bed. Then it is possible to switch on a bright light at
+any time.... Valuable, that!"</p>
+
+<p>Having finished a minute inspection of the room, and, to the amusement
+of the bankers, having looked under the bed to make sure that no one
+had hidden himself beneath it, Fandor declared:</p>
+
+<p>"I am decidedly pleased with this room, and if you see no objection, I
+wish to stay here and await the visitors of to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"You think of sleeping here alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Alone! Decidedly, I do! It is pretty certain that these men know every
+inch of your flat; and if they are the sort I take them to be, they will
+make certain that everything here is as usual before attempting to
+attack the Bank. I do not wish them to be frightened off by finding a
+companion at my side, and I particularly wish them to mistake me for
+you...."</p>
+
+<p>"But that is frightfully dangerous, surely?" objected Nanteuil.</p>
+
+<p>"Reassure yourself, monsieur, I do not run any great risk. They won't
+know I am watching them; but I shall have this advantage over them&mdash;I am
+on the lookout for the rascally assassins and robbers, and I do not fear
+them in the slightest."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was not going to own that he knew there was danger; but he was
+keenly set on running this particular risk, for, by so doing, might he
+not discover the truth?</p>
+
+<p>When the bankers left him for the night, Fandor again examined every
+corner of the room, and all it contained. He tested the electric light
+switch; he took a mental photograph of the situation of the pieces of
+furniture. He got into bed, half dressed, and lay quietly, grasping his
+revolver, fully loaded.</p>
+
+<p>He switched off the light, and in that large room, veiled in darkness,
+he awaited the events of the night. Noises from the street reached him
+indistinctly. The silence about him was menacing: something was going to
+happen here, something sudden, unforeseen, perhaps irremediable.</p>
+
+<p>Minute by minute, time went by, interminable, monotonous, casting a soft
+veil of sleep over the eyes of Fandor. But thoughts were rising within
+him: more and more keenly he was realising the horrible danger he was
+exposing himself to. Beneath closed eyes his brain was active, his
+imagination afire.</p>
+
+<p>"Elizabeth Dollon must be avenged," was his persistent thought.
+"Consequently, I must run some risks to achieve that!"</p>
+
+<p>A definite fear tormented him. He thought of the curious sleep Elizabeth
+had fallen victim to in the boarding-house.</p>
+
+<p>"Provided I have not taken some narcotic without knowing it!... Suppose
+the villains are going to inject into the room some gas which would
+suffocate me, and I should not know I was breathing it in? Suppose I
+lose consciousness and slip into death?"</p>
+
+<p>But Fandor drew himself together; he stiffened his will.</p>
+
+<p>Do they know I am in this room waiting to entrap them? Do they think
+they will find Nanteuil here defenceless? Who was that workman?... I
+ought to be able to put a name to that familiar face?</p>
+
+<p>How slow, how deadly slow, the tic-tac, tic-tac, of the timepiece?
+Centuries passed between the striking of the hours!... Would it be
+to-night?... To-morrow night?... Or ...</p>
+
+<p>On the corridor carpet outside the room, a slight rustling sound,
+continuous, barely perceptible, caught Fandor's listening ear.... Who
+was it?... Was it anyone at all?... Was it imagination? He listened
+intently ... not a sound now.... But, yes ... the same rustling sound
+... it was nearer&mdash;moving along the wall. Fandor closed his eyes an
+instant, so vividly did he feel that someone was looking at him through
+the wall!</p>
+
+<p>Seconds beat by&mdash;seconds that might culminate in a moment of
+horror&mdash;seconds passing steadily by in regular succession, sinking into
+nothingness....</p>
+
+<p>Had someone moved? Were there steps by the door?...</p>
+
+<p>Fandor thought he heard strange sounds all around him, in the room
+itself! His nerves were tensely strung: he was overwrought. Someone was
+certainly walking in the corridor!... He had felt a movement along the
+wall against which his bed stood!</p>
+
+<p>Impossible to hesitate longer! The door knob, which he could not see in
+the darkness, must have moved.... Fandor sensed this movement as surely
+as though he himself had placed his hand on the knob....</p>
+
+<p>Yes, the door was going to open!...</p>
+
+<p>It was ajar ... it was turning on its hinges&mdash;it was open.... Someone
+was coming in.... Who?...</p>
+
+<p>Fandor lay still&mdash;he dared not move an eyelid; but in his mind he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Come in, then! Take the trouble to come in!"</p>
+
+<p>Thus Fandor, who believed Death was entering the room, dared to welcome
+the grim visitor&mdash;with a smile!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Nothing was happening.... Fandor's feverish excitement sank down to
+depression.... He must have deceived himself&mdash;no one was entering the
+room&mdash;nothing untoward was happening! He had simply imagined the noises
+outside in the corridor, for nothing happened&mdash;nothing ... and once more
+he was following the eternal tic-tac, tic-tac of the timepiece!</p>
+
+<p>The head of Fandor's bed was near the door. He could not, in the dense
+darkness, fix the point where he supposed the enemy would find him, and
+he had the agonising conviction that they were very much at their
+ease&mdash;that they knew exactly where he was, and were quietly preparing
+their attack.</p>
+
+<p>But had these unknown assassins entered the room?... Yes, it was
+certain&mdash;there were men behind him&mdash;bending over him with outstretched
+hands to strangle him!... He could hear the sound their fingers made in
+passing through the air to grip his throat, to squeeze his life out!...</p>
+
+<p>Though he lived a hundred years, never could Fandor forget the agonising
+thrill when he sensed that hidden danger! He held his revolver ready to
+fire. He thought:</p>
+
+<p>"In whatever way I am attacked, I must not let slip this unique chance
+to learn the truth! I must seize the attacker at all costs, and leap to
+the electric switch, turn on the light&mdash;and I shall be saved! Saved!..."</p>
+
+<p>Without a cry, without a warning sound, without a moment's time to cope
+with the violence of the attack, Fandor felt a cloth over his face,
+strong hands on his throat, a heavy weight crushing his chest.</p>
+
+<p>"I am lost!" flashed through his mind.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean to find out the truth!" his will declared.</p>
+
+<p>With all the force of resistant muscle and will he disengaged himself
+from the power crushing him to death; seized an arm by chance, hung on
+to it, gripped it, threw off the man, ran to the switch, shouting:</p>
+
+<p>"Help!"</p>
+
+<p>Again, Fandor thought he was done for: the switch acted, but no light
+flashed forth!</p>
+
+<p>They had cut the wire!</p>
+
+<p>Men were holding on to him: their grip was tightening!</p>
+
+<p>A voice gave a strangled cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Help!"</p>
+
+<p>A strange voice! Whose?</p>
+
+<p>Fandor was weakening. His right hand seemed to be caught in a vise which
+would break and crush it: it was growing tighter and tighter: it was
+wrenching his arm, was dragging him backwards: it would fracture his
+shoulder blade! Who?... Who?...</p>
+
+<p>By a miraculous effort he freed himself. He leaped away; sprang to the
+mantelpiece; seized a pocket electric torch he had placed there&mdash;clac&mdash;a
+light flashed out!... Fandor saw, recognised his attacker!...</p>
+
+<p>Ah! The form he had seen before&mdash;a slim figure, clothed in black!... Ah,
+this murderer, whose face was concealed by a hooded mask!</p>
+
+<p>Fandor shouted at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Fant&ocirc;mas! It's you and I, Fant&ocirc;mas!"</p>
+
+<p>But, already, this mysterious bandit, unmasked by the unexpected light,
+had rushed on our journalist.</p>
+
+<p>The electric torch was extinguished.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle recommenced, fierce, formidable, desperate! Fandor was
+seized by the throat in a strangling grip: he was choking!</p>
+
+<p>His right arm, so twisted, so bruised, was powerless&mdash;and in that hand,
+now so deadened and helpless that it seemed detached from his body, was
+his revolver. He must shoot, though almost powerless in the formidable
+grip of the bandit. He must shoot if he was to be saved. He managed to
+pull the trigger.</p>
+
+<p>There was a loud report.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor felt himself flung towards the wall. The vise loosed its grip.
+There was a terrific din. The window panes were shattered, a heavy piece
+of furniture was pushed aside, oscillated, fell with a crash; then a
+sudden silence; but a silence broken by gaspings, loud breathings,
+hoarse sounds, an agonising death rattle.</p>
+
+<p>The dead pause seemed interminable.... Fandor was about to shoot again,
+when a voice close to him cried:</p>
+
+<p>"He is escaping!..."</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor recognised that voice!...</p>
+
+<p>Another voice said:</p>
+
+<p>"We must have a light!"</p>
+
+<p>A wax match flamed and flared.</p>
+
+<p>By its wavering light Fandor could distinguish three men in the room....
+Their clothes were torn: there was blood on their faces, they were
+panting: they stared at one another.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor recognised them instantly.</p>
+
+<p>Leaning against the bed, a gash in his cheek, was Monsieur Barbey.</p>
+
+<p>Lying on the floor, apparently half dead, was Monsieur Nanteuil.</p>
+
+<p>Calmly lighting a candle was the telephone workman. He alone seemed
+unmoved.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor threw down his revolver and, coolly marching to the door, locked
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Barbey followed the journalist with a look. He made a gesture
+of discouragement and pointed to the window: its panes were smashed to
+pieces.</p>
+
+<p>"We are tricked&mdash;done!" he said. "The assassin has got away!"</p>
+
+<p>But Fandor, with a shrug, marched up to the window, returned, and said
+in a matter-of-fact tone:</p>
+
+<p>"It is impossible that Fant&ocirc;mas could have made his escape that way!"</p>
+
+<p>The workman nodded gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Fandor," said he, "I am entirely of your opinion."</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XXVII" id="XXVII"></a>XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE IMPRINT</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Monsieur Fandor, I am entirely of your opinion!"</p>
+
+<p>Hearing these words, Fandor, who had regained his self-possession, and
+was ready to start fighting again if necessary, looked at the individual
+who had made this statement&mdash;the individual whose face was oddly
+familiar.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>The individual smiled broadly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you recognise me?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>He removed his wig, threw the candle light on himself, and smilingly
+announced his style and title.</p>
+
+<p>"Sergeant Juve, once of the detective force; formerly dead: now amateur
+policeman!"</p>
+
+<p>"You! You, Juve!" cried Fandor. "And to think I suspected you...."</p>
+
+<p>But the two bankers interrupted at one and the same moment.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>Juve smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"The art I practise brought me! Since my interest in the Dollon affair
+is so keen, I follow it up, I wish to find the secret of it, just
+through love of my art. I dabble in it nowadays."</p>
+
+<p>"But Juve&mdash;how did you get here?" questioned Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, ha! If you have made some psychological discoveries: if reasoning
+has landed you here, now facts have led me here!... You know I was
+shadowing the band of Numbers. You know that in the skin of Cranajour I
+was intimate with those rascals. To my astonishment I found that my
+wretched companions had dealings with the Barbey-Nanteuil bank, who, of
+course, had no suspicion of it! Are you surprised then that I felt it
+incumbent on me to visit this bank?... Besides, yesterday, I saw you
+enter here; but you never came out again! You had reasons for acting so.
+I determined to be near you, in case you needed my help. I therefore
+passed myself off as a workman come to attend to the telephone
+installation. It was easy enough, for I am a good electrician.... Well,
+when I found that you were preparing to pass the night here, I laid my
+plans accordingly. I pretended to leave the premises, but really I hid
+myself in the house. Just now, when you called for help, I came to your
+aid as quickly as I could, naturally!"</p>
+
+<p>"Just as we did!" remarked Monsieur Barbey, looking at his partner.</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Nanteuil contented himself with a nod. He added:</p>
+
+<p>"Alas, once again that criminal has escaped! Fant&ocirc;mas, since it was
+Fant&ocirc;mas who was here, just now, Fant&ocirc;mas has got away!" And Nanteuil
+pointed to the broken window by which it would seem the criminal, taking
+advantage of the noise, had escaped.</p>
+
+<p>But both Fandor and Juve shrugged doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"You believe then, Monsieur Nanteuil, that Fant&ocirc;mas has left this room?"
+questioned our young journalist.</p>
+
+<p>"What the devil do you mean?" asked Nanteuil.</p>
+
+<p>Juve demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Which way did he make his escape?"</p>
+
+<p>Nanteuil pointed.</p>
+
+<p>"Why that way! By this window ... where else?... You can see quite well
+that he has broken the panes!... Why, look! His hooded cloak has got
+caught on the window latch!..."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor lay back in an arm-chair. He seemed much amused. He silenced Juve
+with a gesture, and turned to Nanteuil.</p>
+
+<p>"I can assure, dear Monsieur Nanteuil, that Fant&ocirc;mas has not left the
+room by this window!..."</p>
+
+<p>"Because?..."</p>
+
+<p>"Because this window has been broken by means of this chair: this chair,
+which he flung against the panes to put us on the wrong scent, and make
+us believe he had escaped that way!... Just look at this chair! It is
+still strewn with broken bits of glass ... look, there is even a little
+bit stuck into the wood!"</p>
+
+<p>"But that proves nothing!... Fant&ocirc;mas has broken the window panes as
+best he could, and then made his escape!"</p>
+
+<p>"In that case," insisted Fandor, "dear Monsieur Nanteuil, can you
+explain how it was he troubled to remove his cloak, hood and all; and,
+after that, how is it he has left no footprints in the flower-beds
+beneath the window? When day dawns you will see for yourself that my
+statement is correct, though I have not verified it! The flower-beds are
+too wide, too big, for a man jumping from here, to jump clear of them!
+And the earth is soft enough to take and retain the footprints of a man
+who leaps down on to them from this height!... Nevertheless, such
+footprints are conspicuous by their absence!"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Barbey seemed overwhelmed&mdash;aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"If Fant&ocirc;mas did not escape by the window, how then did he get away?" he
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor said in clear, distinct tones:</p>
+
+<p>"Fant&ocirc;mas was not able to escape!..."</p>
+
+<p>"But he cannot be in the room?... Where, then, can he have hidden
+himself?"</p>
+
+<p>In a hard voice, Fandor made answer.</p>
+
+<p>"He is not hidden in the room...."</p>
+
+<p>"You think then that he has hidden himself somewhere in the house?"</p>
+
+<p>Speaking in the same hard, decisive tone, Fandor asserted:</p>
+
+<p>"He is not hidden in the house! In the very height of the struggle, I
+kept a strict watch on the direction taken by the man who was doing his
+utmost to strangle me. I am positive I had my back against the door
+when I fired, so that exit was barred! Neither by door nor window did
+Fant&ocirc;mas escape!" Fandor's tone was one of absolute assurance.</p>
+
+<p>"If you are certain of that," said Nanteuil, "can you tell us how
+Fant&ocirc;mas did escape?"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor's reply was to rise from his arm-chair. He took the candlestick
+from the table where Juve had placed it and walked towards a large
+mirror. He carefully examined his neck.</p>
+
+<p>"Very curious!" said he, in a low voice...: "Now, monsieur, the man who
+tried to strangle me was Fant&ocirc;mas&mdash;we have seen him.... Well, this man
+had a wound on his thumb, or, more probably, he wounded me, anyhow he
+has left on my collar the mark of his thumb in blood&mdash;you guess what
+this thumb-mark is?"</p>
+
+<p>Simultaneously, Barbey, Nanteuil, and Juve rushed towards the young
+journalist.... Fandor showed them a little red mark, clear cut on the
+white surface of the collar; it was a finger-print so characteristic,
+that the two bankers cried in a trembling voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Again the imprint of Jacques Dollon!"</p>
+
+<p>Silence fell&mdash;a pregnant silence. The four men gazed at one another.
+Fandor soon started whistling a popular air. Juve smiled: Monsieur
+Barbey was the first to speak:</p>
+
+<p>"Good Heavens! Do you mean to say that Jacques Dollon was here&mdash;in this
+room!... It is certain, you say, Monsieur Fandor, that he did not get
+away either by door or window&mdash;for pity's sake explain the mystery!"</p>
+
+<p>But Fandor contented himself with a smile and a question.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really think, then, that I know it?..."</p>
+
+<p>Nanteuil stamped with impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"But hang it all! If you don't know anything, don't let us waste time!
+Let us begin the search! Hunt through the house! Search the garden from
+end to end!..."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor went on&mdash;his tone was ironic.</p>
+
+<p>"And warn the police? Well, no, Monsieur Nanteuil, we will not make any
+search whatever, you can rely on that!... For the last three months we
+have been striving and struggling to solve a maddening mystery: we never
+could reach a certain solution of it: we have been vainly pursuing an
+assassin, who for ever escaped us ... and now, when for once, we get
+hold of a definite fact, an indisputable reality, are we going to risk
+muddling up the whole business?... Not if I know it!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" demanded Monsieur Barbey.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen!" replied Fandor: "Some minutes ago, I was alone in this room;
+Jacques Dollon entered the room, because I bear on my neck the imprint
+of his thumb. Jacques Dollon was Fant&ocirc;mas, because he declared it
+himself when he believed he would emerge victorious from the struggle.
+Jacques Dollon&mdash;Fant&ocirc;mas&mdash;has not left this room, either by door or
+window. On the other hand, you have entered the room&mdash;you Monsieur
+Barbey, you Monsieur Nanteuil, and you Juve. Since these individuals
+have entered the room, and no one has left it, it necessarily follows
+that the personage, Jacques Dollon&mdash;Fant&ocirc;mas, must have entered among
+you, and that he has remained here, between these four walls."</p>
+
+<p>Simultaneously, Barbey and Nanteuil raised protesting voices: but Juve
+continued to smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you believe then?..."</p>
+
+<p>But J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor did not allow him to finish.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not <i>think</i> anything," said he. "I <i>know</i> that I, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor,
+am I, and that I am not Jacques Dollon!... Juve knows that he is Juve,
+and that he is not Jacques Dollon. You, Monsieur Barbey; you, Monsieur
+Nanteuil, you know who you are, and who you are not! None of us can
+leave imprints similar to those of Jacques Dollon. But, I also know,
+that Jacques Dollon has entered this room, and that he has not left
+it&mdash;this is all that I know!"</p>
+
+<p>To this extraordinary declaration, Monsieur Nanteuil, with an
+incredulous shrug of the shoulders, exclaimed:</p>
+
+<p>"This is downright madness, monsieur!"</p>
+
+<p>But Juve congratulated Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"That's logic, my boy! You are going it strong, lad!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor continued.</p>
+
+<p>"It follows, that if Jacques Dollon has not left the room, he must be
+here in this room. He must be arrested. In order to arrest him, we must
+beg Monsieur Havard to come here as fast as he possibly can! Jacques
+Dollon is Fant&ocirc;mas, or I should say, Fant&ocirc;mas is Jacques Dollon.
+Monsieur Havard will not hesitate to put himself to any inconvenience in
+order to effect such a capture! I am going to call him up at once,
+messieurs, thanks to this telephone!"</p>
+
+<p>And profiting by the bewilderment of his hearers, Fandor, then and
+there, telephoned to Police Headquarters; he spoke to one of the
+officials, who undertook to inform his chief that he was wanted at the
+telephone on most urgent business.</p>
+
+<p>A minute or two later, Fandor was telling Monsieur Havard what had
+happened. He terminated his narrative thus:</p>
+
+<p>"I myself had locked the door of the room in which the struggle took
+place. No one left the room, nor shall anyone leave it before your
+arrival, I give you my word of honour on that! Come, post-haste. It is
+of the utmost urgency. Bring a locksmith. He must open the great door of
+the house. He will have to force open the door of the room in which we
+now are. I must keep an incessant watch over this room. I do not see
+Fant&ocirc;mas&mdash;Jacques Dollon&mdash;in this room; but in this room he must
+inevitably be&mdash;he <i>is</i> in it!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor, listening to Monsieur Havard's answer, repeated it to his
+companions.</p>
+
+<p>"In a very short time, the chief will be here; in a very short time,
+messieurs, we shall witness the arrest of Fant&ocirc;mas, that is, of the most
+inhuman monster that has ever existed!"</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me you are going too fast!" remarked Monsieur Barbey. "All
+is mystery&mdash;yet you talk of making an arrest!"</p>
+
+<p>"But what do you consider mysterious now?" asked Fandor, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, everything! Take one thing: do you know what were the motives of
+the different Fant&ocirc;mas-Dollon crimes?"</p>
+
+<p>Juve replied to this:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, as for that, perfectly! The motives are clear as crystal!... Madame
+de Vibray was ruined, and really committed suicide because&mdash;you will
+pardon me, I am sure&mdash;because the Bourse transactions you advised were
+not successful.... She poisoned herself, and went to Jacques Dollon's
+studio to die: perhaps she felt for him a secret attachment! Fate willed
+it that the assassins should choose this very evening to make their way
+into the painter's studio ... by means of this first corpse they created
+an alibi for themselves, and prepared the scene which was bound to
+mislead justice and make lawyers and police believe in the murder of
+Madame de Vibray and the suicide of her murderer.... Unfortunately for
+them, Dollon was discovered before the poison they administered had done
+its deadly work on him, and Dollon was arrested.... You can imagine the
+fury, the distracted state of the guilty! Dollon had seen them&mdash;he was
+going to speak at the legal interrogation&mdash;very well, then&mdash;they will
+kill him&mdash;and they do kill him...."</p>
+
+<p>"But Jacques Dollon lives, since his imprints are found here, there and
+everywhere!..." cried Monsieur Barbey.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor replied:</p>
+
+<p>"They kill Jacques Dollon, since it has been formally established that
+Jacques Dollon was seen dead; and once they have killed Dollon, they
+think that a dead man cannot be arrested by the police, and <i>they accept
+this dead man as one of their band</i>.... He, they decide, shall steal the
+pearls of Princess Danidoff!..."</p>
+
+<p>"This is raving lunacy!"</p>
+
+<p>"All that is pretty clearly proved, Monsieur Nanteuil!... It is he also
+who stole the millions in the rue du Quatre Septembre, a sensational
+robbery which would have ruined your bank, had not this issue of bullion
+been well covered by an insurance: this insurance signified that you
+were no losers by this robbery&mdash;in fact, owing to an ingenious
+combination of insurances, you have actually gained by the robbery! As
+we are on this subject, I might add that were I a member of the Band I
+should propose restoring to you the vanished ingots&mdash;robbers find
+bullion somewhat difficult to put into circulation: you might buy them
+back; then turn them into false coin, for instance&mdash;that would be all
+profit&mdash;for you!..."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder at you&mdash;making such a joke as that!" remarked Nanteuil.</p>
+
+<p>"Please wonder at me!... To continue!... Having carried out their plan
+successfully, these robbers remembered something they had forgotten&mdash;a
+compromising paper, or something like it, which had been left in
+Elizabeth Dollon's possession. Thereupon, they send the dead
+man&mdash;Jacques Dollon&mdash;to look for it: he attempts to murder his sister: I
+arrive just in time to open the windows before she is past all human
+aid.... Meanwhile a series of cleverly arranged deals on the Bourse are
+brought off, so that if Thomery disappeared the Barbey-Nanteuil Bank
+would rake in important profits ... in haste the assassins get rid of an
+accomplice who is in their way&mdash;that duffer of a Jules, the rue Raffet
+servant, and they send Dollon to kill Thomery. After that they decide to
+rob your Bank which is stuffed with gold; for, were it not for this
+theft, it would be your Bank, burdened as it is, with Thomery shares,
+which would pay out to speculators the differences in value between past
+and present prices&mdash;which amounts would have to come out of the money
+paid in the day before. Messieurs, with regard to this, Thomery's death
+did you a great service.... Without his death, which enriched you, you
+would have had to settle up your sales by a certain date, and you would
+have lost more than you gained at the moment, owing to the sole fact of
+his disappearance!... I think you are very grateful to Jacques Dollon
+because of what he has done for you."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Nanteuil, on hearing these last words, rose. He walked up to
+the journalist and said, in a voice quivering with some emotion:</p>
+
+<p>"For my part, Monsieur Fandor, I think your way of explaining the Dollon
+affair is a very strange way!... You assert that this painter is dead,
+and you make him behave as if he were alive!... Besides, I have
+understood your words! In truth, what you say is senseless: you make
+wild statements! You have involved our Bank in every one of the Dollon
+crimes!... You have shown us as interested parties in all these
+robberies!"</p>
+
+<p>Fandor said quietly:</p>
+
+<p>"Nevertheless, it is unquestionably true that you are the gainers by
+these crimes: beginning with Madame de Vibray and ending with Thomery.
+Madame de Vibray might have brought an action against you for the loss
+of her fortune, owing to your risky speculations and bad management.
+Thomery's murder brought down his shares with a run, and you found that
+a most advantageous state of affairs&mdash;you gained by it!... But, of
+course, this is coincidence, since you are not Fant&ocirc;mas, since you are
+not Jacques Dollon, since you cannot imitate the imprint of his
+thumb!... I have only said this to show ..." Fandor stopped short.</p>
+
+<p>"Hark!... Someone is coming upstairs! Here is Monsieur Havard!"</p>
+
+<p>As the bankers were hurrying impatiently to the door, Fandor said in a
+bantering tone:</p>
+
+<p>"Do not stir a step further, I beg of you! Not a step! Let us receive
+the chief of the detective force exactly in the position we were, not an
+hour ago, when we encountered him whom the chief has now come to
+arrest!"</p>
+
+<p>Barbey and Nanteuil returned to their former positions. Those in the
+room could hear voices on the other side of the door exchanging brief
+remarks. The lock was being picked. Monsieur Havard entered and hurried
+up to the journalist.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my dear Fandor, I have followed all your instructions to the
+letter!... Ah! you here, too, Juve! Well?... Speak! Anything fresh since
+your extraordinary telephone communication?... What were you telling
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was saying, Monsieur Havard, that the assassin had entered this room,
+and assuredly had not left it&mdash;that he was here!..."</p>
+
+<p>"Here?"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Havard had recognised the bankers at the first glance.... His
+question betrayed a certain incredulity which piqued Fandor.</p>
+
+<p>"Here! Yes! That is absolutely so, because it is impossible that he can
+have left the room! Besides, you shall convince yourself of that!...
+Monsieur Nanteuil, will you do me a small service? Will you draw a plan
+of the first floor of your house?"</p>
+
+<p>The banker rose and seated himself at his writing-table, which was
+placed in a corner of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"I am at your disposal." And he began to trace a plan, a pretty rough
+one, of the various rooms which made up the first floor of his house.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that what you want?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>J&eacute;r&ocirc;me Fandor rose quickly and went towards Nanteuil.</p>
+
+<p>The journalist's nerves must have been out of order&mdash;in a jumpy state,
+despite his apparent calm, for, in approaching the writing-table, he
+suddenly staggered, nearly fell, tried to regain his balance, and that
+so clumsily that he upset the contents of a large ink-pot on the
+writing-desk....</p>
+
+<p>"Take care!" said Monsieur Nanteuil, who, to save himself from coming
+into contact with this inky inundation, threw himself back in his chair,
+and lifted his hands above the flood of ink....</p>
+
+<p>The banker repeated:</p>
+
+<p>"Take care!... Here is a fresh catastrophe!..."</p>
+
+<p>But he did not finish what he intended to say! Quick as thought, Fandor
+steadied himself, and before anyone could guess his intention he seized
+the banker's right hand, pushed it forcibly into the wide-spreading ink,
+then, immediately after, pressed it on to a sheet of blotting paper
+which took the hand's imprint quite clearly....</p>
+
+<p>This imprint he glanced at but a moment.... Like a flag, he waved it
+above his head!</p>
+
+<p>"<i>It is the Jacques Dollon imprint!</i>" he shouted. "<i>The hand of Monsieur
+Nanteuil, whose characteristics are known in the anthropometric section,
+has just left the imprint of&mdash;Jacques Dollon!...</i>"</p>
+
+<p>The journalist's action created a momentary stupour!</p>
+
+<p>Juve rushed to him.</p>
+
+<p>"Bravo! Bravo!" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>But Monsieur Havard had gone quite pale. He said in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't understand!"</p>
+
+<p>Barbey and Nanteuil retained their self-possession!</p>
+
+<p>Then Monsieur Barbey rose. He looked fixedly at his partner. He spoke in
+a tone of sad finality:</p>
+
+<p>"I suspected this!... Farewell...."</p>
+
+<p>A shout of horror answered him: he had drawn a sharp dagger from inside
+his coat, and had plunged it in his heart up to the hilt!</p>
+
+<p>Juve knelt by the fallen man. Monsieur Havard kept a sharp eye on
+Nanteuil.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, then, is Jacques Dollon, the dead-alive!... Here is the elusive
+Fant&ocirc;mas!" said the chief of the detective force.</p>
+
+<p>But the bandit brazened it out as he recoiled before the chief.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you arrest me because of this imprint?" he demanded. "It is a
+piece of juggling on the part of this journalist!... Take a fresh
+imprint of my hand, my fingers, my thumb, and you will see whether my
+hand could possibly leave such an impression as that put on the blotting
+pad, by some sleight-of-hand trick of this much too smart reporter!" He
+stretched out his arm in the direction of the blotting pad, as though
+begging for a fresh trial....</p>
+
+<p>Fandor marched up to Nanteuil.</p>
+
+<p>"Useless," said he, in a curt tone. "I have been watching you!... I know
+the trick!"</p>
+
+<p>Nanteuil stood stock-still, dumb. Fandor lifted the cuff of Nanteuil's
+coat, and pointed out to Monsieur Havard, and to Juve, a sort of thin
+film of glove-like form. It was fastened to the wrist by an almost
+imperceptible piece of elastic.</p>
+
+<p>"This is human skin," said Fandor. "Human skin marvellously preserved by
+some special process: all its lines and marks are intact. Can you not
+guess whence it came? Do you need to be told whose dead body has
+supplied this phantom glove?"</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Havard was as white as a sheet.</p>
+
+<p>"The body of Jacques Dollon," he murmured.... "Yes, that is it!..."</p>
+
+<p>There was a moment's intense silence in the room.</p>
+
+<p>"How do you imagine this wretch set to work?" demanded Monsieur Havard.</p>
+
+<p>"Simple enough," replied Fandor.... "Fant&ocirc;mas knows the danger criminals
+run, owing to the exact science of anthropometry: he knows that every
+imprint denounces the assassin: he knows that it is difficult to do
+anything without leaving such imprints&mdash;and that is why, every time he
+has committed a crime, he has taken care to glove his hands in the skin
+of Jacques Dollon's hands."</p>
+
+<p>Nanteuil, at bay, attempted denial.</p>
+
+<p>"You are talking mere newspaper romance," said he.</p>
+
+<p>Fandor looked the banker in the eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Fant&ocirc;mas!" said he. "Do not attempt to deny what is no longer possible
+to deny!... The trick is remarkably clever, and you have reason to be
+proud of your invention. Perhaps I should never have discovered it, if
+in this very room, this very night, you had not been imprudent enough to
+leave those imprints on my collar!... No one had left the room,
+therefore the guilty person was in the room&mdash;of necessity he was:
+<i>therefore, it followed, that someone had the hands of Dollon!...</i> But
+how could this someone have the hands of Dollon?... Of course,
+naturally, the idea of these gloves occurred to me!..."</p>
+
+<p>Fandor turned to the chief of the detective force.</p>
+
+<p>"Monsieur Havard, Madame de Vibray committed suicide because she lost
+her fortune through Barbey-Nanteuil mismanagement&mdash;she might even have
+been poisoned by them! But that does not matter! Her death might
+compromise the Bank: they carried her dead body to Jacques Dollon's
+studio, and they tried to poison this painter, in order to put the law
+off their track. You know Dollon was saved! He was a dangerous witness.
+They killed him in his cell, some warder being accessory to the
+fact&mdash;killed him before his innocence could be established! Then they
+took his hands, that they might commit murders with them!... Dollon is
+dead, as I have held all along. It is Nanteuil who has committed the
+crimes ascribed to the most unfortunate Dollon. These crimes have
+profited the Barbey-Nanteuil Bank&mdash;as I pointed out just now!"</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Whilst Nanteuil stood speechless, whilst Barbey, whom they had lifted to
+a sofa, was gasping out his last breath, whilst Juve was giving little
+nods of approval to what his dear lad was saying, Fandor was treating
+Monsieur Havard to a further version of the affair.</p>
+
+<p>"When I telephoned to you I was morally certain of the approaching
+arrest. Not a soul quitted the room after the hands of Dollon had left
+imprints on my collar and on my neck. Therefore someone had the hands of
+Dollon. The finger imprints of all the personages present were known to
+me&mdash;therefore someone had a method by which he changed his own
+finger-prints into those of Dollon.... How was it done? It must be a
+removable method or means ... why, of course, it could only be by a pair
+of gloves that the trick was done ... of course it must be by means of
+<i>a pair of gloves made with the skin of Jacques Dollon's hands</i>!... I
+noticed that Nanteuil kept his hands obstinately behind his back. I
+guessed that it was he who had played the part of Dollon to-night, so I
+managed to prevent him removing those Dollon gloves, that I might take
+their imprint before your eyes&mdash;the rest can be guessed, can it not?...
+The imprint taken, profiting by the confusion, Nanteuil slipped off the
+glove which, as you see, was no thicker than a cigarette when rolled
+up.... To throw it aside was risky: he pushed it up his sleeve while
+pretending to arrange his cuff, and at the same time to put ink on his
+ungloved hand and so hide his trick!... Only I saw it all.... Monsieur
+Havard, it is not only the false Jacques Dollon I denounce, for Juve and
+I fully realised that he was also the elusive Fant&ocirc;mas! Here is this
+cloak with hooded mask, which is an irrefutable proof: besides he
+himself declared he was Fant&ocirc;mas.... Monsieur Havard, all you have to do
+now is seize this man: Juve and I will hand him over to you!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a thrilling moment! Juve and Fandor, in this hour of decisive
+victory, mutely embraced. Monsieur Havard advanced with raised hands
+towards Nanteuil who retreated.</p>
+
+<p>"Fant&ocirc;mas," he commenced, "in the name of the law I arr..."</p>
+
+<p>The word was strangled in his throat!...</p>
+
+<p>As he advanced another step, Nanteuil suddenly sprang backwards, and his
+hand rested on the moulding of a wooden panel.... At the same moment,
+Monsieur Havard, as if hampered by some invisible obstacle, stretched
+his length on the floor!</p>
+
+<p>Juve and Fandor were about to rush to his aid ... but while Fandor, in
+his turn, measured his length on the floor also, Juve yelled:</p>
+
+<p>"Good lord!... We are caught!... He escapes!..."</p>
+
+<p>Whilst the detective made a frantic effort to move a step&mdash;<i>he seemed
+nailed to the floor</i>&mdash;Fant&ocirc;mas, quick as lightning, leaped over the
+prone body of Monsieur Havard, gained the door, and banged it to behind
+him!... They heard a triumphant burst of laughter.... Fant&ocirc;mas was
+escaping!</p>
+
+<p>"This is sorcery!" shouted the chief of the detective force, in a voice
+hoarse with rage.</p>
+
+<p>"Take your boots off!... Take your boots off!" yelled Juve, who, with
+bare feet, was rushing through the house, revolver in hand, hoping to
+come up with the banker bandit!...</p>
+
+<p>But, when the detective arrived at the entrance gateway of the house, he
+found the policemen brought by Monsieur Havard chatting away quietly ...
+they had not seen a thing ... the street was deserted ... in a second
+Fant&ocirc;mas had disappeared, vanished into thin air ... he, the elusive
+one, had got away: once more he had escaped those who were pursuing him
+with such keen determination!</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"It is very simple," explained Juve to Monsieur Havard and Fandor, who
+seemed deprived of speech. "Yes, it is simple enough; I guessed it at
+once when I saw you fall, Monsieur Havard, just after Fant&ocirc;mas had
+pressed the woodwork."</p>
+
+<p>"He pressed an electric button, did he not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Fandor, he established a current!... The wretch must have placed
+powerful electric magnets under the floor ... and the moment he realised
+that it was impossible to brazen it out any longer&mdash;was on the very
+point of being arrested&mdash;he established the current ... so we three were
+nailed to the ground by the attraction exercised by these
+electro-magnets on the nails of our shoes&mdash;he, Fant&ocirc;mas, was then free
+to cut and run for it, whose shoes must certainly have had soles made of
+some insulating material...."</p>
+
+<p>Monsieur Havard and Fandor made no answer to this.</p>
+
+<p>To have held Fant&ocirc;mas at their mercy, if only for a minute; to have
+believed that they were going to lay hands on the atrocious criminal,
+at last; to have seen him slip through their fingers&mdash;the thought of
+this almost brought tears to their eyes: they were in a state of the
+deepest despondency.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a curse on us!" cried Fandor. "This time, at any rate, we have
+nothing to reproach ourselves with! We could not foresee that!..." Then,
+to himself in a low tone, he added:</p>
+
+<p>"Poor Elizabeth!... How are we to tell her that we have let her
+brother's murderer escape?"</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2><a name="XXVIII" id="XXVIII"></a>XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>COURAGE</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Have some more chicken?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, thanks: I am not hungry."</p>
+
+<p>"But you should eat all the same!"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you eating anything yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Faith, I am not!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then?"</p>
+
+<p>In the private room of the Fat-Pheasant restaurant, where Juve and
+Fandor were dining, silence again fell. The two men sat motionless,
+gazing into space. They neither wished to eat food nor do anything at
+all. They were depressed to the last degree; they felt baffled: they
+were sick of every mortal thing!</p>
+
+<p>All of a sudden, Fandor burst into tears. Juve, looking at his dear lad
+in such grief, bit his lip; his face with wrinkled brow wore a dejected,
+worried look.</p>
+
+<p>An hour or two previous to that, Fandor, on returning to his flat, had
+found a black-edged envelope: the address in Elizabeth Dollon's
+handwriting. Fandor had opened it with fast beating heart and trembling
+hand!</p>
+
+<p>For these past days, an evil Fate seemed relentlessly pursuing them. Now
+he feared to read of some fresh catastrophe.</p>
+
+<p>He was reassured by the opening lines; but as he read on, and took in
+the meaning of Elizabeth's words, Fandor felt as though his heart were
+bursting with grief.</p>
+
+<p>Elizabeth Dollon had written:</p>
+
+<p>"I seem to be going mad ... yes, I love you!... Yesterday, I should have
+been glad to become your wife; but there came by the same post as your
+letter, another, which contained terrible revelations, proofs of their
+truth were given me!... I have not the right to curse you&mdash;or rather I
+have not the strength to do it; but never will I marry you, J&eacute;r&ocirc;me
+Fandor, you, Charles Rambert!..."<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></p>
+
+<p>It seemed to Fandor that everything was turning round about him.... He
+took a few steps, staggering. The weight of this terrible past, a past
+in which he was the innocent victim, but of which he could not clear
+himself, overwhelmed him!</p>
+
+<p>Fandor cried, in a voice of despair:</p>
+
+<p>"Fant&ocirc;mas! Fant&ocirc;mas has taken his revenge!"</p>
+
+<p>And before the astounded portress, the unhappy young man turned about
+and fell in a heap on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, shortly after the extraordinary flight of the
+banker&mdash;Nanteuil to the world in general&mdash;but Fant&ocirc;mas to him and
+Fandor&mdash;Juve had received from Monsieur Annion, the supreme head of the
+police detective department, who only manifested himself on sensational
+occasions, a note sent by pneumatic post:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>Regret keenly that you revealed your personality in such
+ridiculous circumstances, and that you failed to arrest a great
+criminal.</i>"</p></div>
+
+<p>As Juve read these observations, he clinched his fists: he grew livid
+with rage!</p>
+
+<p>Dinner was a mere farce to the two friends: they did not dine: they had
+no appetite! Juve and Fandor went over and over in their minds the
+deplorable events of which, all said and done, they were the victims.
+They gazed at each other full of self-pity. They felt they were two
+derelicts afloat on the immense sea of indifferent humanity.</p>
+
+<p>"The worst suffering," said Fandor, with tears of misery in his voice,
+"is the pain of love."</p>
+
+<p>"The most painful of wounds," said Juve bitterly, "is a wound to
+self-respect!..."</p>
+
+<p>These two, men every inch of them, might have their moments of
+discouragement, but they were a sporting pair of the finest quality.</p>
+
+<p>"Fandor!"</p>
+
+<p>"Juve?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are courageous?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have courage, Juve!"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, my lad, let us sponge out the past, and start off afresh in
+pursuit of Fant&ocirc;mas!... I tell you the struggle has only begun....
+Listen!..."</p>
+
+<h4>END</h4>
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<h3>FOOTNOTES</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> See <i>Fant&ocirc;mas</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> See <i>Fant&ocirc;mas</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> See <i>The Exploits of Juve</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> See <i>The Exploits of Juve</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> See <i>The Exploits of Juve</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Hooligan.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> See <i>Fant&ocirc;mas</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Stock Exchange.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> See <i>The Exploits of Juve</i>.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Prison van.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> See <i>Fant&ocirc;mas</i> and <i>The Exploits of Juve</i>.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Messengers of Evil, by 
+Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain
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+Project Gutenberg's Messengers of Evil, by Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Messengers of Evil
+       Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas
+
+Author: Pierre Souvestre
+        Marcel Allain
+
+Release Date: March 15, 2009 [EBook #28333]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MESSENGERS OF EVIL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+                           MESSENGERS OF EVIL
+
+      BEING A FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE LURES AND DEVICES OF FANTOMAS
+
+                      THE FANTOMAS DETECTIVE NOVELS
+
+                  BY PIERRE SOUVESTRE AND MARCEL ALLAIN
+
+           AUTHORS OF "FANTOMAS," "THE EXPLOITS OF JUVE," ETC.
+
+
+NEW YORK
+BRENTANO'S
+1917
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY BRENTANO'S
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+       I. THE DRAMA OF THE RUE NORVINS
+
+      II. THOMERY'S TWO LOVES
+
+     III. UNEXPECTED COMPLICATIONS
+
+      IV. A SURPRISING ITINERARY
+
+       V. MOTHER TOULOUCHE AND CRANAJOUR
+
+      VI. IN THE OPPOSITE SENSE
+
+     VII. PEARLS AND DIAMONDS
+
+    VIII. END OF THE BALL
+
+      IX. FINGER PRINTS
+
+       X. IDENTITY OF A NAVVY
+
+      XI. AN AUDACIOUS THEFT
+
+     XII. INVESTIGATIONS
+
+    XIII. RUE RAFFET
+
+     XIV. SOMEONE TELEPHONED
+
+      XV. VAGUE SUSPICIONS
+
+     XVI. DISCUSSIONS
+
+    XVII. AN ARREST
+
+   XVIII. AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TRUNK
+
+     XIX. CRIMINAL OR VICTIM?
+
+      XX. UNDER THE HOODED MASK
+
+     XXI. IN A PRISON VAN
+
+    XXII. AN EXECUTION
+
+   XXIII. FROM VAUGIRARD TO MONTMARTRE
+
+    XXIV. AT SAINT LAZARE
+
+     XXV. A MOUSE TRAP
+
+    XXVI. IN THE TRAP
+
+   XXVII. THE IMPRINT
+
+  XXVIII. COURAGE
+
+
+
+
+MESSENGERS OF EVIL
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE DRAMA OF THE RUE NORVINS
+
+
+On Monday, April 4th, 19--, the evening paper _La Capitale_ published
+the following article on its first page:--
+
+A drama, over the motives of which there is a bewildering host of
+conjectures, was unfolded this morning on the heights of Montmartre. The
+Baroness de Vibray, well known in the Parisian world and among artists,
+whose generous patroness she was, has been found dead in the studio of
+the ceramic painter, Jacques Dollon. The young painter, rendered
+completely helpless by a soporific, lay stretched out beside her when
+the crime was discovered. We say 'crime' designedly, because, when the
+preliminary medical examination was completed, it was clear that the
+death of the Baroness de Vibray was due to the absorption of some
+poison.
+
+The painter, Jacques Dollon, whom the enlightened attentions of Doctor
+Mayran had drawn from his condition of torpor, underwent a short
+examination from the superintendent of police, in the course of which he
+made remarks of so suspicious a nature that the examining magistrate put
+him under arrest then and there. At police headquarters they are
+absolutely dumb regarding this strange affair. Nevertheless, the
+personal investigation undertaken by us throws a little light on what is
+already called: _The Drama of the Rue Norvins_.
+
+
+                         _The Discovery of the Crime_
+
+This morning, about seven o'clock, Madame Beju, a housekeeper in the
+service of the painter, Jacques Dollon, who, with his sister,
+Mademoiselle Elizabeth Dollon, occupied lodge number six, in the Close
+of the rue Norvins, was on the ground-floor of the house, attending to
+her customary duties. She had been on the premises about half an hour,
+and, so far, had not noticed anything abnormal; however, astonished at
+not hearing any movements on the floor above, for the painter generally
+rose pretty early, Madame Beju decided to go upstairs and wake her
+master, who would be vexed at having let himself sleep so late. She had
+to pass through the studio to reach Monsieur Jacques Dollon's bedroom.
+No sooner had she raised the door curtain of the studio than she
+recoiled, horrorstruck!
+
+Disorder reigned in the studio: a startling disorder!
+
+Pieces of furniture displaced, some of them overturned, showed that
+something extraordinary had happened there. In the middle of the room,
+on the floor, lay the inanimate form of a person whom Madame Beju knew
+well, for she had seen her at the painter's house many a time--the
+Baroness de Vibray. Not far from her, buried in a large arm-chair,
+motionless, giving no sign of life, was Monsieur Jacques Dollon!
+
+When the good woman saw the rigid attitude of these two persons, she
+realised that she was in the presence of a tragedy.
+
+Stirred to the depths, she redescended the stairs, calling for help:
+shortly afterwards, the entire Close was in a state of ferment: house
+porters, neighbours, male and female, crowded round Madame Beju,
+endeavouring to understand her disconnected account of the terrifying
+spectacle she had come face to face with but a minute before.
+
+Sudden death, suicide, crime--all were plausible suppositions. The more
+audacious of these gossip-mongers had ventured as far as the studio
+door; from that standpoint, a rapid glance round enabled them to get a
+clear idea of the truth of the housekeeper's statements: they returned
+to give a confirmation of them to the inquisitive and increasing crowd
+in the principal avenue of the Close.
+
+'The police! The police must be informed!' cried the Close portress.
+
+Whilst this woman, with considerable presence of mind, and aided by
+Madame Beju, exerted herself to keep out the people of the neighbourhood
+who had got wind of the tragedy, two men had set off to seek the police.
+
+
+                           _Lodge Number 6_
+
+On the summit of Montmartre is the rue Norvins. In shape it resembles a
+donkey's back, and at one particular spot it hugs the accentuated curve
+of the Butte. The Close of the rue Norvins is situated at number 47. It
+is separated from the street by a strong iron gate, the porter's lodge
+being at the side. The Close consists of a series of little dwellings,
+separated by wooden railings, up which climbing plants grow. Fine trees
+encircle these abodes with so thick a curtain of leafage that the
+inhabitants might think themselves buried in the depths of the country.
+
+Lodge Number 6 is even more isolated than the others. It consists of a
+ground floor and a first floor, with an immense studio attached. Three
+years ago, Number 6 was leased to Monsieur Jacques Dollon, then a
+student at the Fine Arts School. It has been continuously occupied by
+the tenant and his sister, Miss Elizabeth Dollon, who has kept house for
+her brother. For the last fortnight the painter has been alone: his
+sister, who had gone to Switzerland to convalesce after a long illness,
+was expected back that same day, or the day following.
+
+The reputation of the two young people is considered by their neighbours
+to be beyond criticism. The artist has led a regular and hard-working
+life: last year the Salon accorded him a medal of the second class.
+
+His sister, an affable and unassuming girl, seemed always much attached
+to her brother. In that very Bohemian neighbourhood she is highly
+thought of as a girl of the most estimable character.
+
+The Baroness de Vibray visited them frequently, and her motor-car used
+to attract attention in that high, remote suburb--the wilds of
+Montmartre. The old lady liked to dress in rather showy colours; she was
+considered eccentric, but was also known to be good and generous. She
+took a particular interest in the Dollons, whose family, so it was said,
+she had known in Provence. Jacques Dollon and his sister highly valued
+their intimacy with the Baroness de Vibray, who was known all over Paris
+as a patroness of artists and the arts.
+
+
+                         _First Verifications_
+
+Already slander and imagination between them had concocted the wildest
+stories, when Monsieur Agram, the eminent police superintendent of the
+Clignancourt Quarter, appeared at the entrance to the Close. Accompanied
+by his secretary, he at once entered Number 6, charging the two
+policemen, who were assisting him, on no account to allow anyone to
+enter, excepting the doctor, whom he had at once sent for.
+
+He requested the portress to hold herself at his disposal in the garden,
+and made Madame Beju accompany him to the studio. Barely twenty minutes
+had elapsed since the housekeeper had been terror-struck by the dreadful
+spectacle which had met her eyes there. When she entered with the
+superintendent of police nothing had been altered. Madame de Vibray,
+horribly pale, her eyes closed, her lips violet-hued, lay stretched on
+the floor: her body had assumed the rigidity of a corpse. That of
+Jacques Dollon, huddled in an arm-chair, was in a state of immobility.
+
+Monsieur Agram at once noticed long, intersecting streaks on the floor,
+such as might have been traced by heavy furniture dragged over the waxed
+boards of the flooring. A pungent medicinal odour caught the throats of
+the visitors: Madame Beju was about to open a window: the superintendent
+stopped her:
+
+'Let things remain as they are for the present,' was his order. After
+casting an observant eye round the room he questioned the housekeeper:
+
+'Is this state of disorder usual?'
+
+'Never in this world, sir!' declared the good woman. 'Monsieur Dollon
+and his sister are very steady, very regular in their habits, especially
+the young lady. It is true that she has been absent for nearly a month,
+but her brother has often been left alone, and he has always insisted on
+his studio being kept in good order.'
+
+'Did Monsieur Dollon have many visitors?'
+
+'Very seldom, monsieur. Sometimes his neighbours would come in; and then
+there was that poor lady lying there so deathly pale that it makes me
+ill to look at her....'
+
+
+                          _Jacques Dollon lives_
+
+The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the doctor employed
+in connection with relief for the poor. The superintendent of police
+pointed out to this Dr. Mayran the two inanimate figures. A glance of
+the doctor's trained eye sufficed to show him that Madame de Vibray had
+been dead for some time. Approaching Jacques Dollon, Dr. Mayran examined
+him attentively:
+
+'Will you help me to lift him on to a bed or a table?' he asked. 'It
+seems to me that this one is not dead.'
+
+'His bedroom is next to this!' cried Madame Beju. 'Oh, heavens above! If
+only the poor young man would recover!'
+
+Silently the doctor, aided by the superintendent and a policeman,
+transported young Dollon into the next room.
+
+'Air!' cried the doctor, 'give him air! Open all the windows! It seems
+to me a case of suspended animation! There is partial suffocation. This
+will probably yield to energetic treatment.'
+
+Whilst good Madame Beju, whose legs were shaking under her, was carrying
+out the doctor's orders, the superintendent of police kept watch to see
+that nothing was touched. The doctor's attention was concentrated on
+Jacques Dollon. Monsieur Agram was searching for some indication which
+might throw light on the drama. So far he had been unable to formulate
+any hypothesis. Should the moribund painter return to consciousness, the
+explanation he could give would certainly clear up the situation. At
+this point in the superintendent's cogitations, the doctor called out:
+
+'He lives! He lives! Bring me a glass of water!'
+
+Jacques Dollon was returning to consciousness! Slowly, painfully, his
+features contracting as at the remembrance of a horrible nightmare, the
+young man stretched his limbs, opened his eyes: he turned a dull gaze on
+those about him, a gaze which became one of stupefaction when he
+perceived these unknown faces gathered round his bed. His eyes fell on
+his housekeeper. He murmured:
+
+'Mme ... Be-ju ... je...,' and fell back into unconsciousness.
+
+'Is he dead?' whispered Monsieur Agram.
+
+The doctor smiled:
+
+'Be reassured, monsieur: he lives; but he finds it terribly difficult to
+wake up. He has certainly swallowed some powerful narcotic and is still
+under its influence; but its effects will soon pass off now.'
+
+The good doctor spoke the truth.
+
+In a short time Jacques Dollon, making a violent effort, sat up. Casting
+scared and bewildered glances about him, he cried:
+
+'Who are you? What do you want of me?... Ah, the ruffians! The bandits!'
+
+'There is nothing to fear, monsieur. I am simply the doctor they have
+called in to attend to you! Be calm!... You must recover your senses,
+and tell us what has happened!'
+
+Jacques Dollon pressed his hands to his forehead, as though in pain:
+
+'How heavy my head is!' he muttered. 'What has happened to me?... Let me
+see!... Wait.... Ah ... yes ... that's it!'
+
+At a sign from the doctor, the superintendent had stationed himself
+beside the bed, behind the young painter.
+
+Keeping a finger on his patient's pulse, the doctor asked him, in a
+fatherly fashion, to tell him all about it.
+
+'It is like this,' replied Jacques Dollon.... 'Yesterday evening I was
+sitting in my arm-chair reading. It was getting late. I had been working
+hard.... I was tired.... All of a sudden I was surrounded by masked men,
+clothed in long black garments: they flung themselves on me. Before I
+could make a movement I was gagged, bound with cords.... I felt
+something pointed driven into my leg--into my arm.... Then an
+overpowering drowsiness overcame me, the strangest visions passed before
+my eyes; I lost consciousness rapidly.... I wanted to move, to cry
+out ... in vain ... there was no strength in me ... powerless ... and
+that's all!'
+
+'Is there nothing more?' asked the doctor.
+
+After a minute's reflection Jacques answered:
+
+'That is all.'
+
+He now seemed fully awake. He moved: the movement was evidently painful:
+'It hurts,' he said, instinctively putting his hand on his left thigh.
+
+'Let us see what is wrong,' said the doctor, and was preparing to
+examine the place when a voice from the studio called:
+
+'Monsieur!'
+
+It was Monsieur Agram's secretary. The magistrate left his post by the
+bed and went into the studio.
+
+'Monsieur,' said the secretary, 'I have just found this paper under the
+chair in which Monsieur Dollon was: will you acquaint yourself with its
+contents?'
+
+The magistrate seized the paper: it was a letter, couched in the
+following terms:
+
+     _Dear Madame,_
+
+     _If you do not fear to climb the heights of Montmartre some
+     evening, will you come to see the painted pottery I am preparing
+     for the Salon: you will be welcome, and will confer on us a great
+     pleasure. I say 'us,' because I have excellent news of Elizabeth,
+     who is returning shortly: perhaps she will be here to receive you
+     with me._
+
+     _I am your respectful and devoted_
+     _Jacques Dollon._
+
+The magistrate was frowning as he handed back the letter to his
+secretary, saying: 'Keep it carefully.' Then he went into the bedroom,
+where the doctor was talking to the invalid. The doctor turned to
+Monsieur Agram:
+
+'Monsieur Dollon has just asked me who you are: I did not think I ought
+to hide from him that you are a superintendent of police, monsieur.'
+
+'Ah!' cried Jacques Dollon. 'Can you help me to discover what happened
+to me last night?'
+
+'You have just told us yourself, monsieur,' replied the
+magistrate.... 'But have you nothing further to tell us? Can you not
+recollect whether or no you had a visitor before the arrival of the
+men who attacked you?'
+
+'Why, no, monsieur, no one called.'
+
+The doctor here intervened:
+
+'The pain in the leg, Monsieur Dollon complained of, need not cause any
+anxiety. It is a very slight superficial wound. A slight swelling above
+the broken skin possibly indicates an intra-muscular puncture, which
+might have been made by someone unaccustomed to such operations, for it
+is a clumsy performance. It is a queer business!...'
+
+Monsieur Agram, who had been steadily observing Jacques Dollon,
+persisted:
+
+'Is there not a gap, monsieur, in your recollections of what
+occurred?... Were you quite alone yesterday evening? Were you not
+expecting anyone?... Are you certain that you did not have a visitor?
+Did not someone pay you a visit--someone you had asked to come and see
+you?'
+
+Jacques Dollon opened his eyes--eyes of stupefaction--and stared at the
+superintendent:
+
+'No, monsieur.'
+
+'It is that----' went on Monsieur Agram. Then stopping short, and
+drawing the doctor aside, he asked:
+
+'Do you consider him in a fit state to bear a severe moral shock?... A
+confrontation?'
+
+The doctor glanced at his patient:
+
+'He appears to me to be quite himself again: you can act as you see fit,
+monsieur.'
+
+Jacques Dollon, astonished at this confabulation, and vaguely uneasy,
+was, in fact, able to get up without help.
+
+'Be good enough to go into your studio, monsieur,' said the magistrate.
+
+Jacques Dollon complied without a word. No sooner did he cross the
+threshold than he recoiled, terror-struck.
+
+He was shaking from head to foot; his lips were quivering; every feature
+expressed horrified shrinking from the spectacle confronting him.
+
+'The--the--the Baroness de Vibray!' he barely articulated: 'how can it
+be possible?'
+
+The superintendent of police did not lose a single movement made by the
+young painter, keeping a lynx-eyed watch on every expression that
+flitted across his countenance. He said:
+
+'It certainly is the Baroness de Vibray, dead--assassinated, no doubt.
+How do you explain that?'
+
+'But,' retorted Jacques Dollon, who appeared overwhelmed: 'I do not
+know! I do not understand!'
+
+The magistrate replied:
+
+'Yet, did you not invite her to your studio? Had you not asked her to
+come some evening soon? Had you not certain pieces of painted pottery to
+show her?'
+
+'That is so,' confessed the painter: 'but I was not aware.... I did not
+know....' He seemed about to faint. The doctor made him sit down in the
+chair where he had been found unconscious. Whilst he was recovering,
+Monsieur Agram continued his investigations. He opened a little
+cupboard, in which were several poisonous powders: this was shown by the
+writing on the flasks containing them. He spoke to the doctor, taking
+care that Jacques Dollon should not overhear him:
+
+'Did you not say that this woman's death is due to poison?'
+
+'It certainly looks like it.... A post-mortem will ...'
+
+
+                           _The Arrest_
+
+Interrupting the doctor, Monsieur Agram went up to Jacques Dollon:
+
+'In the exercise of your profession, monsieur, do you not make use of
+various poisons, of which you have a reserve supply here?'
+
+'That is so,' confirmed Jacques Dollon, in a faint voice: 'But it is a
+very long time since I employed any of them.'
+
+'Very good, monsieur.'
+
+Monsieur Agram now made Madame Beju leave the room. He asked her to
+transmit an order to his policemen: they were to drive back the crowd.
+Soon a cab brought by a constable entered the Close, and drew up before
+the door of Number 6.
+
+Jacques Dollon, supported by two people, descended and entered the cab.
+
+Immediately a rumour spread that he had been arrested.
+
+This rumour was correct.
+
+
+     _Our Inquiry--Silence at Police Headquarters--Probable Motives of
+     the Crime_
+
+Such are the details referring to this strange affair, which we have
+been able to procure from those who were present. But the motives which
+determined the arrest of Monsieur Dollon are obscure.
+
+There are, however, two suspicious facts. The first is the puncture made
+in Monsieur Jacques Dollon's left leg: this puncture is aggravated by a
+scratch. According to the doctors, soporific, injected into the human
+body by the de Pravaz syringe, acts violently and efficaciously. It is
+beyond a doubt that Monsieur Jacques Dollon has been rendered
+unconscious in this manner.
+
+To begin with, the painter's first version was considered the true one,
+namely, that he had been surprised by robbers, who rendered him
+unconscious; but, on reflection, this explanation would not hold water.
+Murderous house-thieves do not send people to sleep: they kill them. Add
+to this that nothing has been stolen from Monsieur Dollon: therefore,
+mere robbery was not the motive of the crime.
+
+Besides, Monsieur Dollon maintained that he was alone; yet at that time
+Madame de Vibray was in his studio, and was there precisely because the
+artist himself had asked her to come. We know that the Baroness de
+Vibray, who was very wealthy, took a particular interest in this young
+man and his sister.
+
+We should consider ourselves to blame, did we not now remind our readers
+that the names of those personages--Dollon, Vibray--implicated in the
+drama of the rue Norvins, have already figured in the chronicles of
+crimes, both recent and celebrated.
+
+Thus the assassination of the Marquise de Langrune cannot have been
+forgotten, an assassination which has remained a mystery, which was
+perpetrated a few years ago, and brought into prominence the
+personalities of Monsieur Rambert and the charming Therese
+Auvernois....
+
+Madame de Vibray, who has just been so tragically done to death, was an
+intimate friend of the Marquise de Langrune....
+
+Monsieur Jacques Dollon is a son of Madame de Langrune's old steward....
+
+We do not, of course, pretend to connect, in any way whatever, the drama
+of the rue Norvins with the bygone drama which ended in the execution of
+Gurn,[1] but we cannot pass over in silence the strange coincidence
+that, within the space of a few years, the same halo of mystery
+surrounds the same group of individuals....
+
+[Footnote 1: See _Fantomas_.]
+
+But let us return to our narrative:
+
+Monsieur Jacques Dollon, interrogated by the superintendent of police,
+declared that he very rarely made use of the poisons locked up in the
+little cupboard of his studio....
+
+Notwithstanding this, it was discovered, during the course of the
+perquisition, that one of the phials containing poison had been recently
+opened, and that traces of the powder were still to be found on the
+floor. This powder is now being analysed, whilst the faculty are engaged
+in a post-mortem examination of the unfortunate victim's body; but, at
+the present moment, everything leads to the belief that there does not
+exist an immediate and certain link between this poison and the sudden
+death of the Baroness de Vibray.
+
+It might easily be supposed, and this we believe is the view taken at
+Police Headquarters, that for a motive as yet unknown, a motive the
+judicial examination will certainly bring to light, the artist has
+poisoned his patroness; and, in order to put the authorities on the
+wrong scent (perhaps he hoped she would leave the studio before the
+death-agony commenced), he has devised this species of tableau, invented
+the story of the masked men.
+
+In fact, the doctor who first attended him has declared that the
+puncture, clumsily made, might very well have been done by Jacques
+Dollon himself.
+
+It is worth noting that not a soul saw the Baroness de Vibray enter
+Monsieur Dollon's house yesterday evening: as a rule, she comes in her
+motor-car, and all the neighbourhood can hear her arrival.
+
+It seems evident that Jacques Dollon will abandon the line of defence he
+has adopted: it can hardly be described as rational.
+
+There is little doubt but that we shall have sensational revelations
+regarding the crime of the rue Norvins.
+
+
+                              _Last Hour_
+
+Mademoiselle Elizabeth Dollon, to whom Police Headquarters has
+telegraphed that a serious accident has happened to her brother, has
+sent a reply telegram from Lausanne to the effect that she will return
+to-night.
+
+The unfortunate girl is probably ignorant of all that has occurred.
+Nevertheless, we believe that two detectives have left at once for the
+frontier, where they will meet her, and shadow her as far as Paris, in
+case she should get news on the way of what had occurred, and should
+either attempt to escape, or make an attempt on her life.
+
+Decidedly, to-morrow promises to be a day full of vicissitudes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This article, published on the first page of _La Capitale_, was signed:
+
+    JEROME FANDOR.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+THOMERY'S TWO LOVES
+
+
+Two days before the sinister drama, details of which Jerome Fandor had
+given in _La Capitale_, the smart little town house inhabited by the
+Baroness de Vibray, in the Avenue Henri-Martin, assumed a festive
+appearance.
+
+This did not surprise her neighbours, for they knew the owner of this
+charming residence was very much a woman of the world, whose
+reception-rooms were constantly opened to the many distinguished
+Parisians forming her circle of acquaintances.
+
+It was seven in the evening when the Baroness, dressed for dinner,
+passed from her own room into the small drawing-room adjoining. Crossing
+a carpet so thick and soft that it deadened the sound of footsteps, she
+pressed the button of an electric bell beside the fireplace. A
+major-domo, of the most correct appearance, presented himself.
+
+"The Baroness rang for me?"
+
+Madame de Vibray, who had instinctively sought the flattering approval
+of her mirror, half turned:
+
+"I wish to know if anyone called this afternoon, Antoine?"
+
+"For the Baroness?"
+
+"Of course!" she replied, a note of impatience in her voice: "I want to
+know if anyone called to see _me_ this afternoon?"
+
+"No, madame."
+
+"No one has telephoned from the Barbey-Nanteuil Bank?"
+
+"No, madame."
+
+Repressing a slight feeling of annoyance, Madame de Vibray changed the
+subject:
+
+"You will have dinner served as soon as the guests arrive. They will not
+be later than half-past seven, I suppose."
+
+Antoine bowed solemnly, vanished into the anteroom, and from thence
+gained the servants' hall.
+
+Madame de Vibray quitted the small drawing-room. Traversing the great
+gallery with its glass roof, encircling the staircase, she entered the
+dining-room. Covers were laid for three.
+
+Inspecting the table arrangements with the eye of a mistress of the
+house, she straightened the line of some plates, gave a touch of
+distinction to the flowers scattered over the table in a conventional
+disorder; then she went to the sideboard, where the major-domo had left
+a china pot filled with flowers. With a slight shrug, the Baroness
+carried the pot to its usual place--a marble column at the further end
+of the room:
+
+"It was fortunate I came to see how things were! Antoine is a good
+fellow, but a hare-brained one too!" thought she.
+
+Madame de Vibray paused a moment: the light from an electric lamp shone
+on the vase and wonderfully enhanced its glittering beauty. It was a
+piece of faience decorated in the best taste. On its graceful form the
+artist had traced the lines of an old colour print, and had scrupulously
+preserved the picture born of an eighteenth-century artist's
+imagination, with its brilliancy of tone and soft background of tender
+grey. Madame de Vibray could not tear herself away from the
+contemplation of it. Not only did the design and the treatment please
+her, but she also felt a kind of maternal affection for the artist:
+"This dear Jacques," she murmured, "has decidedly a great deal of
+talent, and I like to think that in a short time his reputation...."
+
+Her reflections were interrupted by the servant. The good Antoine
+announced in a low voice, and with a touch of respectful reproach in his
+tone:
+
+"Monsieur Thomery awaits the Baroness in the small drawing-room: he has
+been waiting ten minutes."
+
+"Very well. I am coming."
+
+Madame de Vibray, whose movements were all harmonious grace, returned by
+way of the gallery to greet her guest. She paused on the threshold of
+the small drawing-room, smiling graciously.
+
+Framed in the dark drapery of the heavy door-curtains, the soft light
+from globes of ground glass falling on her, the Baroness de Vibray
+appeared a very attractive woman still. Her figure had retained its
+youthful slenderness, her neck, white as milk, was as round and fresh as
+a girl's; and had the hair about her forehead and temples not been
+turning grey--the Baroness wore it powdered, a piece of coquettish
+affection on her part--she would not have looked a day more than thirty.
+
+Monsieur Thomery rose hastily, and advanced to meet her. He kissed her
+hand with a gallant air:
+
+"My dear Mathilde," he declared with an admiring glance, "you are
+decidedly an exquisite woman!"
+
+The Baroness replied by a glance, in which there was something
+ambiguous, something of ironical mockery:
+
+"How are you, Norbert?" she asked in an affectionate tone.... "And those
+pains?"
+
+They seated themselves on a low couch, and began to discuss their
+respective aches and pains in friendly fashion. Whilst listening to his
+complaints, Madame de Vibray could not but admire his remarkable vigour,
+his air of superb health: his looks gave the lie to his words.
+
+About fifty-five, Monsieur Norbert Thomery seemed to be in the plenitude
+of his powers; his premature baldness was redeemed by the vivacity of
+his dark brown eyes, also by his long, thick moustache, probably dyed.
+He looked like an old soldier. He was the last of the great Thomery
+family who, for many generations, had been sugar refiners. His was a
+personality well known in Parisian Society; always first at his office
+or his factories, as soon as night fell he became the man of the world,
+frequenting fashionable drawing-rooms, theatrical first-nights, official
+receptions, and balls in the aristocratic circles of the faubourg
+Saint-Germain.
+
+Remarkably handsome, extremely rich, Thomery had had many love affairs.
+Gossips had it that between him and Madame de Vibray there had existed a
+tender intimacy; and, for once, gossip was right. But they had been
+tactful, had respected the conventions whilst their irregular union had
+lasted. Though now a thing of the past, for Thomery had sought other
+loves, his passion for the Baroness had changed to a calm, strong,
+semi-brotherly affection; whilst Madame de Vibray retained a more
+lively, a more tender feeling for the man whom she had known as the most
+gallant of lovers.
+
+Thomery suddenly ceased talking of his rheumatism:
+
+"But, my dear friend, I do not see that pretty smile which is your
+greatest charm! How is that?"
+
+Madame de Vibray looked sad: her beautiful eyes gazed deep into those of
+Thomery:
+
+"Ah," she murmured, "one cannot be eternally smiling; life sometimes
+holds painful surprises in store for us."
+
+"Is something worrying you?" Thomery's tone was one of anxious sympathy.
+
+"Yes and no," was her evasive reply. There was a silence; then she said:
+
+"It is always the same thing! I have no hesitation in telling you that,
+you, my old friend: it is a money wound--happily it is not mortal."
+
+Thomery nodded:
+
+"Well, I declare it is just what I expected! My poor Mathilde, are you
+never going to be sensible?"
+
+The Baroness pouted: "You know quite well I am sensible ... only it
+happens that there are moments when one is short of cash! Yesterday I
+asked my bankers to send me fifty thousand francs, and I have not heard
+a word from them!"
+
+"That is no great matter! The Barbey-Nanteuil credit cannot be shaken!"
+
+"Oh," cried the Baroness, "I have no fears on that score; but, as a
+rule, their delay in sending me what I ask for is of the briefest, yet
+no one has come from them to-day."
+
+Thomery began scolding her gently:
+
+"Ah, Mathilde, that you should be in such pressing need of so large a
+sum must mean that you have been drawn into some deplorable speculation!
+I will wager that you invested in those Oural copper mines after all!"
+
+"I thought the shares were going up," was Madame de Vibray's excuse: she
+lowered her eyes like a naughty schoolgirl caught in the act.
+
+Thomery, who had risen, and was walking up and down the room, halted in
+front of her:
+
+"I do beg of you to consult those who know all the ins and outs, persons
+competent to advise you, when you are bent on plunging into speculations
+of this description! The Barbey-Nanteuil people can give you reliable
+information; I myself, you know..."
+
+"But since it is really of no importance!" interrupted Madame de Vibray,
+who had no wish to listen to the remonstrances of her too prudent
+friend: "What does it matter? It is my only diversion now!... I love
+gambling--the emotions it arouses in one, the perpetual hopes and fears
+it excites!"
+
+Thomery was about to reply, to argue, to remonstrate further, but the
+Baroness had caught him glancing at the clock hanging beside the
+fireplace:
+
+"I am making you dine late," she said in a tone of apology. Then, with a
+touch of malice, and looking up at Thomery from under her eyes, to see
+how he took it:
+
+"You are to be rewarded for having to wait!... I have invited Princess
+Sonia Danidoff to dine with you!"
+
+Thomery started. He frowned. He again seated himself beside the
+Baroness:
+
+"You have invited her?..."
+
+"Yes ... and why not?... I believe this pretty woman is one of your
+special friends... that you consider her the most charming of all your
+friends now!..."
+
+Thomery did not take up the challenge: he simply said:
+
+"I had an idea that the Princess was not much to your taste!"
+
+The eyes of Madame de Vibray flashed a sad, strange look on her old
+friend, as she said gently:
+
+"One can accustom oneself to anything and everything, my dear
+friend.... Besides, I quite recognise that the Princess deserves
+the reputation she enjoys of being wonderfully beautiful and also
+intellectual...."
+
+Thomery did not reply to this: he looked puzzled, annoyed....
+
+The Baroness continued:
+
+"They even say that handsome bachelor, Monsieur Thomery, is not
+indifferent to her fascinations!... That, for the first time in his
+life, he is ready to link ..."
+
+"Oh, as for that!..." Thomery was protesting, when the door opened, and
+the Princess Sonia Danidoff rustled into the room, a superbly--a
+dazzlingly beautiful vision, all audacity and charm.
+
+"Accept all my apologies, dear Baroness," she cried, "for arriving so
+late; but the streets are so crowded!"
+
+"... And I live such a long way out!" added Madame de Vibray.
+
+"You live in a charming part," amended the Princess. Then, catching
+sight of Thomery:
+
+"Why, you!" she cried. And, with a gracious and dignified gesture, the
+Princess extended her hand, which the wealthy sugar refiner hastened to
+kiss.
+
+At this moment the double doors were flung wide, and Antoine, with his
+most solemn air, his most stiff-starched manner, announced:
+
+"Dinner is served!"
+
+"... No," cried she, smiling, whilst she refused the arm offered by her
+old friend; "take in the Princess, dear friend; I will follow ... by
+myself!"
+
+Thomery obeyed. He passed slowly along the gallery into the dining-room
+with the Princess. Behind them came the Baroness, who watched them as
+they went: Thomery, big, muscular, broad-shouldered: Sonia Danidoff,
+slim, pliant, refined, dainty!
+
+Checking a deep sigh, the Baroness could not help thinking, and her
+heart ached at the thought:
+
+"What a fine couple they would make!... What a fine couple they will
+make!"
+
+But, as she seated herself opposite her guests, she said to herself:
+
+"Bah!... I must send sad thoughts flying!... It is high time!"
+
+"My dear Thomery!" she cried playfully: "I wish--I expect you to show
+yourself the most charming of men to your delicious neighbour!"
+
+Ten o'clock had struck before Madame de Vibray and her guests left the
+dinner-table and proceeded to the small drawing-room. Thomery was
+allowed to smoke in their presence; besides, the Princess had accepted a
+Turkish cigarette, and the Baroness had allowed herself a liqueur. A
+most excellent dinner and choice wines had loosened tongues, and, in
+accordance with a prearranged plan, Madame de Vibray had directed the
+conversation imperceptibly into the channels she wished it to follow.
+Thus she learned what she had feared to know, namely, that a very
+serious flirtation had been going on for some time between Thomery and
+the Princess; that between this beautiful and wealthy young widow and
+the millionaire sugar refiner, the flirtation was rapidly developing
+into something much warmer and more lasting. So far, the final stage
+had evidently not been reached; nevertheless, Thomery had suggested,
+tentatively, that he would like to give a grand ball when he took
+possession of the new house which he was having built for himself in the
+park Monceau!... And had he not been so extremely anxious to secure a
+partner for the cotillion which he meant to lead!... Then Madame de
+Vibray had suggested that the person obviously fitted to play this
+important part was the Princess Sonia Danidoff! Who better!
+
+The suggestion was welcomed by both: it was settled there and then.
+
+"Yes," thought the Baroness, "Thomery's marriage is practically
+arranged, that is evident!... Well, I must resign myself to the
+inevitable!"
+
+It was about half-past eleven when Sonia Danidoff rose to take leave of
+her hostess. Thomery, hesitating, looked first at his old friend, then
+at the Princess, asking himself what he ought to do. Madame de Vibray
+felt secretly grateful to him for this momentary hesitation. As a woman
+whose mourning for a dead love is over, she spoke out bravely:
+
+"Dear friend," said she, "surely you are not going to let the Princess
+return alone?... I hope she will allow you to see her safely home?"
+
+The Princess pressed the hands of her generous hostess: she was radiant:
+
+"What a good kind friend you are!" she cried in an outburst of sincere
+affection. Then, with a questioning glance, in which there was a touch
+of uneasiness, a slight hesitation, she said:
+
+"Ah, do let me kiss you!"
+
+For all reply Madame de Vibray opened her arms; the two women clung
+together, sealing with their kiss the treaty of peace both wished to
+keep.
+
+When the humming of the motor-car, which bore off the Princess and
+Thomery, had died away in the distance, Madame de Vibray retired to her
+room. A tear rolled down her cheek:
+
+"A little bit of my heart has gone with them," she murmured. The poor
+woman sighed deeply: "Ah, it is my whole heart that has gone!"
+
+There was a discreet knock at the door. She mastered her emotion. It was
+the dignified mistress of the house who said quietly:
+
+"Come in!"
+
+It was Antoine, who presented two letters on a silver salver. He
+explained that, believing his mistress to be anxiously awaiting some
+news, he had ventured to bring up the last post at this late hour.
+
+After bidding Antoine good night, she recalled him to say:
+
+"Please tell the maid not to come up. I shall not require her. I can
+manage by myself."
+
+Madame de Vibray went towards the little writing-table, which stood in
+one corner of her room; in leisurely fashion she sat down and proceeded
+to open her letters with a wearied air.
+
+"Why, it's from that nice Jacques Dollon!" she exclaimed, as she read
+the first letter she opened: "I was thinking of him at this very
+minute!" ... "Yes," she went on, as she read, "I shall certainly pay him
+a visit soon!"
+
+Madame de Vibray put Jacques Dollon's letter in her handbag, recognising
+on the back of the second letter the initials B. N., which she knew to
+be the discreet superscription on the business paper of her bankers,
+Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil. It was long and closely written, in a fine,
+regular hand. When she began to read it her attention was wandering, for
+her mind was full of Sonia Danidoff and Thomery, and what she had
+ascertained regarding their relation to each other; but little by little
+she became absorbed in what she was reading, till her whole attention
+was taken captive. As she read on, however, her eyes opened more and
+more widely, there was a look of keenest anguish in them, her features
+contracted as if in pain, her bosom heaved, her fingers were trembling
+under the stress of some intense emotion:
+
+"Oh, my God! Ah! My God!" she gasped out several times in a half-choked
+voice.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Silence had reigned for a long while in the smart town house of the
+Baroness de Vibray in the Avenue Henri-Martin....
+
+From without came no sound; the avenue was quiet, deserted; the night
+was dark. But when three o'clock struck, the bedroom of Madame de Vibray
+was still flooded with light. She had not left her writing-table since
+she had read the letter of her bankers, Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil. She
+wrote on, and on, without intermission.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+UNEXPECTED COMPLICATIONS
+
+
+At nine o'clock in the morning, the staff of that great evening paper,
+_La Capitale_, were assembled in the vast editorial room, writing out
+their copy, in the midst of a perfect hubbub of continual comings and
+goings, of regular shindies, of perpetual discussions.
+
+A stranger entering this room, which among its frequenters went by the
+name of "The Wild Beasts' Cage," might easily have thought he was
+witnessing some thirty schoolboys at play in recreation time, instead of
+being in the presence of famous journalists celebrated for their reports
+and articles.
+
+Jerome Fandor had no sooner appeared on the threshold than he was
+accorded a variety of greetings--ironical, cordial, fault-finding,
+sympathetic. But he ignored them all; for, like most of those who came
+into the editorial room at this hour, he was preoccupied with one thing
+only--where the caprice of his editorial secretary would send him flying
+for news, in the course of a few minutes? On what difficult and delicate
+quest would he be despatched? It depended on the exigencies of passing
+events, on how questions of the hour struck the editorial secretary, in
+relation to Fandor.
+
+Just as he had expected, the editorial secretary called him.
+
+"Hey! Fandor, come here a minute! I am on the make-up: what have you got
+for to-day?"
+
+"I don't know. Who has charge of the landing of the King of Spain?"
+
+"Maray. He has just left. Have you seen the last issue of _l'Havas_?"
+
+"Here it is...."
+
+The two men ran rapidly through the night's telegrams.
+
+"Deplorably empty!" remarked the editorial secretary. "But where am I to
+send you?... Ah, now I have it! That article of yours on the rue Norvins
+affair, yesterday evening, was interesting--it made the others squirm, I
+know! Isn't there anything more to be got out of that story?"
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"Can't you stick in something just a little bit scandalous about the
+Baroness de Vibray? Or about Dollon? About no matter whom, in fact?
+After all, it's our one and only crime to-day, and you must put in
+something under that head!..."
+
+Jerome Fandor seemed to hesitate.
+
+"Would you like me to rake up the past--refer to what happened before?"
+
+"What past?"
+
+"Come now, you must have an inkling of what I refer to!"
+
+"Not I!"
+
+"Ah, my dear fellow, it will not be the first time we have had to
+mention these personages in our columns!... Just cast your mind back to
+the Gurn affair!..."
+
+"Ah, the drama in which a great lady was implicated ... to her
+detriment! Lady ... Lady Beltham?"
+
+"You have got it! These Dollons--Jacques and Elizabeth--did you know
+it?--happen to be the children of old Dollon, who was murdered in the
+train--an extraordinary murder!--when on his way to Paris, to give
+evidence in the Gurn case?"
+
+"Why, of course! I remember perfectly!" declared the editorial
+secretary: "Dollon, the father, was the Marquise de Langrune's
+steward!... The old lady who was murdered!... Isn't that so?"
+
+"That's it!... But, after the death of his mistress, he entered the
+service of the Baroness de Vibray, she who was assassinated yesterday!"
+
+"Well, I must say they have not been favoured by fortune," said the
+secretary jokingly. "But, look here, Fandor--like father, like son,
+eh?... If this young Dollon has murdered Madame de Vibray, doesn't that
+make you think that his father was the murderer of the Marquise de
+Langrune?"
+
+Jerome Fandor shook his head:
+
+"No, old boy, yesterday's crime was ordinary, even common-place, but the
+assassination of the Marquise de Langrune, on the contrary, gave the
+police no end of bother."
+
+"They did not find out anything, did they?"
+
+"Why, yes!... Don't you remember?... Naturally enough, it must all seem
+rather remote to you, but I have all the details as clearly in mind as
+if they had happened only yesterday.... The Gurn affair was one of the
+first I had a hand in, with Juve ... it was in connection with that very
+affair I made my start here on _La Capitale_."[2]
+
+[Footnote 2: See _Fantomas_.]
+
+Fandor grew pale:
+
+"And you were jolly proud of it, eh, Fandor?... Good Heavens, how you
+did hold forth about this Juve! And you regularly fed us up with this
+villain, so mysterious, so extraordinary, who was never run to earth,
+could not be captured, was capable of the most inhuman cruelties,
+capable of devising the most unimaginable tricks and stratagems--this
+Fantomas!"
+
+Fandor grew pale:
+
+"My dear fellow," said he, "never speak sneeringly or jokingly of
+Fantomas!... No doubt it is taken for granted, by the public at any
+rate, that Fantomas is an invention of Juve and myself: that Fantomas
+never existed!... And that because this monster, who is a man of genius,
+has never been identified; because not a soul has been able to lay hands
+on him ...; and because, as you know, this fruitless pursuit has cost
+poor Juve his life...."
+
+"The truth is, this famous detective died a foul death!"
+
+"No! You are mistaken! Juve died on the field of honour! When, after a
+terribly difficult and dangerous investigation, he succeeded (by this
+time it was no longer the Gurn-Fantomas affair, but that of the
+boulevard Inkermann at Neuilly) in cornering Fantomas, he was well aware
+that he risked his life in entering the bandit's abode. What happened
+was that the villain found means to blow up the house, and to bury Juve
+underneath the ruins.[3] Fantomas has proved the stronger; but,
+according to my ideas, Juve has had, none the less, the finest death he
+could desire--death in the midst of the fight--a useful death!"
+
+[Footnote 3: See _The Exploits of Juve_.]
+
+"Useful? In what way?..."
+
+"My dear fellow," cried Fandor, in a tone of vigorous denial, "in the
+opinion of all unprejudiced minds, the death of Juve has proved, proved
+up to the hilt, the existence of Fantomas.... More, it has forced this
+villain to disappear; it has restored peace, tranquillity to
+society.... At the cost of his life, Juve has scored a final triumph,
+he has deprived Fantomas of the power to do harm--pared his claws in
+fact."
+
+"The truth is he is never mentioned now by a soul ... for all that,
+Fandor, only to see you smile! Why--," and the editorial secretary shook
+a threatening finger at his colleague: "I'll wager you still believe in
+Fantomas!... That one fine day you will write us a rattling good
+article, announcing some fresh Fantomas crime!"
+
+Jerome Fandor made no direct reply to this--it was useless to try and
+convince those who had not closely followed the records of crimes
+perpetrated during recent years: you could not make them believe in the
+existence of Fantomas. Fandor _knew_; but, Juve dead, was there another
+soul who could know the true facts?
+
+All he said was:
+
+"Well, my dear fellow, this does not tell us what we are to fill up the
+paper with now!... If the doings connected with Fantomas are frightful,
+rousing our feelings in the highest degree, I repeat that yesterday's
+crime bears no resemblance to them: we can put in a paragraph or
+so--that is all!"
+
+"No way, is there, of compromising anyone with our Baroness de Vibray?"
+
+"I don't think so! It's a perfectly common-place affair. An elderly
+woman patronises a young painter, whose mistress she may or may not be,
+and she ends up by getting herself assassinated when the young man
+imagines he is mentioned in her will."
+
+"Ah! good! Well, I think you will have to fall back on the opening of
+the artesian well. That suit you?"
+
+"Oh, quite all right!... If you like I can give you my copy in half an
+hour. I know who are going to speak at the inauguration ceremony, and I
+can add names this evening! You know I am a bit of a specialist as
+regards reports written beforehand!"
+
+Fandor had got well on with his article: at the rate he was going he
+would have finished that morning, he thought with pleasure, and would
+have a free afternoon. Just then an office boy appeared:
+
+"Monsieur Fandor, you are being asked for at the telephone."
+
+Like most journalists, Fandor was accustomed to reply in nine cases out
+of ten, in similar cases, that he was not to be found. On this occasion,
+however, some interior prompting made him say:
+
+"I will come."
+
+A few minutes later Fandor went up to the editorial secretary:
+
+"Look here, old fellow, something unexpected has happened.... I must go
+to the Palais de Justice ... you don't want me for anything else this
+morning, do you?"
+
+"No, go along! But what's up?"
+
+"Oh ... this Jacques Dollon, you know, the assassin of the rue Norvins?
+Well, this imbecile has gone and hanged himself in his cell!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the exit door of _La Capitale_, in the noisy rue Montmartre, crowded
+with costermongers' barrows, Jerome Fandor hailed a taxi.
+
+"To the Palais!"
+
+Some minutes later he was crossing the hall of the Wandering Footsteps
+(as it is called), giving rapid, cordial greetings to all the barristers
+of his acquaintance--one never knew when they might impart a special
+piece of information which let an enterprising journalist into the know,
+or put him early on to a good thing--and finally reached the lobbies of
+the Law Courts proper. He was saying to himself as he went along:
+
+"He is a good fellow, Jouet! The news is not known yet! He telephoned me
+first!"
+
+His friend Jouet met him, with a warm handshake:
+
+"You did not seem to be in a good temper at the telephone just now,
+although I was giving you a nice bit of information!"
+
+"Yes," retorted Fandor, "but information which simply proved how much
+the administrators of justice, to which you have the misfortune to
+belong, can make egregious mistakes! When, for once, you succeed in
+immediately arresting the assassin of someone well known, and are in a
+position to bring into play all the power and rigour of the law, you are
+clumsy enough to give the fellow a chance of punishing himself, you let
+him commit suicide on the very first night of his arrest!"
+
+Fandor had been speaking in a fairly loud voice, as usual, but, at
+imperative signs made by his friend, he lowered his tones:
+
+"What is it?" he murmured.
+
+His friend rose:
+
+"What we are going to do, old boy, is to take a turn in the galleries!
+I have something to say to you, and, joking apart, you are not to
+breathe a word of it to a soul--sh?"
+
+"Count on me!"
+
+Presently the two friends found themselves in one of the corridors of
+the Palais, known only to barristers and those accused of law-breaking.
+
+"Come now!" cried Fandor, "your assassin has hanged himself, hasn't he?"
+
+"My assassin!" expostulated the junior barrister: "My assassin! Allow me
+to inform you that Jacques Dollon is innocent!"
+
+"Innocent?" Jerome Fandor shrugged a disbelieving shoulder: "Innocent!
+It is the fashion of the day to transform all murderers into
+innocents!... What ground have you for making such a declaration of
+innocence?"
+
+"Here is my ground! I have just copied it out for you! Read!..."
+
+Fandor hastened to read the paper handed to him by his friend. It was
+headed thus:
+
+     "_Copy of a letter brought by Maitre Gerin to the Public
+     Prosecutor, a letter addressed to Maitre Gerin by the Baroness de
+     Vibray._"
+
+"Oh, it's a plant!" cried Fandor.
+
+"Go on reading, you will see...."
+
+Fandor continued:
+
+     "_My dear Maitre_,--
+
+     _You will forgive me, I am certain of that, for all the
+     inconvenience I am going to cause you; I turn to you because you
+     are the only friend in whom I have confidence._
+
+     _I have just received a letter from my bankers, Messieurs
+     Barbey-Nanteuil, of whom I have often spoken to you, who you know
+     manage all my money affairs for me._
+
+     _This letter informs me that I am ruined. You quite
+     understand--absolutely, completely ruined._
+
+     _The house I am living in, my carriage, the luxurious surroundings
+     so necessary to me, I shall have to give it all up, so they tell
+     me._
+
+     _These people have dealt me a terrible blow, struck me
+     brutally...._
+
+     _My dear maitre, I learned this only two hours ago, and I am still
+     stunned by it. I do not wish to wait for the inevitable moment when
+     I shall begin to console myself, because I shall begin to hope that
+     the disaster is exaggerated. I have no family, I am already old;
+     apart from the satisfaction it gives me to use my influence on
+     behalf of youthful talent, and to help forward its development, my
+     life has no sense in it, it is without aim or object. My dear
+     maitre, there are not two ways of announcing to one's friends
+     resolutions analogous to that I now take: when you receive this
+     letter I shall be dead._
+
+     _I have in front of me, on my writing-table, a tiny phial of poison
+     which I am going to drink to the last drop, without any weakening
+     of will, almost without fear, as soon as I have posted this letter
+     to you myself._
+
+     _I must confess that I have an instinctive horror of being dragged
+     to the Morgue, as happens whenever there is some doubt about a
+     suicide. It is on account of this I now write to you, so that,
+     thanks to your intervention, all the mistakes justice is liable to
+     make may be avoided._
+
+     _I kill myself, I only; that is certain._
+
+     _No one must be incriminated in connection with my death, if it be
+     not Fatality, which has caused my ruin. I once more apologise, my
+     dear maitre, for all the measures you will be forced to take owing
+     to my death, and I beg you to believe that my friendship for you
+     was very sincere:_
+
+     _Signed:_
+
+     BARONESS DE VIBRAY."
+
+"Good for you!" cried Fandor. "Here's a go! What a pretty petard in
+prospect!... Jacques Dollon was innocent; you arrest him; he is so
+terrified that he hangs himself! Well, old boy, I must say you make some
+fine blunders on Clock Quay!"
+
+"It is nobody's fault!" protested the young barrister.
+
+"That is to say," retorted Fandor, "it is everybody's fault! By Jove! If
+you let innocent prisoners hang themselves in their cells, I am no
+longer surprised that you leave the guilty at liberty to walk the
+streets at their sweet will!"
+
+"Don't make a joke of it, old boy!... You understand, of course, that so
+far no one in the Palais has seen the letter! It has just been brought
+to the Public Prosecutor's office by Madame de Vibray's solicitor,
+Maitre Gerin. You came on the scene only a few minutes after I had sent
+up the original to the examining magistrate. The case is in Fuselier's
+hands."
+
+"Is he in his office?"
+
+"Certainly! He should proceed with the examination relative to poor
+Dollon this morning."
+
+"Very well then, I will go up. I shall jolly soon get out of this booby
+of a Fuselier the information I need to make one of the best reports I
+have ever written. And you know, I am ever so obliged to you for the
+matter you've given me! But, mind you, I am going to put together a bit
+of copy that will not deal tenderly with our gentlemen of the robe--the
+lot of you! No, it is a bad, unlucky business enough, but it is even
+more funny--it is tragi-comedy!"
+
+"For my part ..." began Fandor's barrister friend.
+
+"Yes, yes! Good day, Pontius Pilate!" cried Fandor. "I am going up to
+Fuselier.... We must meet to-morrow!"
+
+Hastening along the corridors, Fandor gained the office of the examining
+magistrate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fandor had known the magistrate a long while. Was not Fuselier the
+justice who, with Detective Juve, had had everything to do with the
+strangely mysterious cases associated with the name of Fantomas? In the
+course of his various judicial examinations he had often been able to
+give Fandor information and help. At first hostile to the constant
+preoccupation of Juve and Fandor--for long the arrest of Fantomas was
+their one aim--the young magistrate had gradually come to believe in
+what had seemed to him nothing but the detective's hypothesis.
+Open-minded, gifted with an alert intelligence, Fuselier had carefully
+followed the investigations of Juve and Fandor. He knew every detail,
+every vicissitude connected with the tracking of this elusive bandit.
+Since then the magistrate had taken the deepest interest in the pursuit
+of the criminal. Thanks to his support, Juve had been enabled to take
+various measures, otherwise almost impossible, avoid the many obstacles
+offered by legal procedure, risk the striking of many a blow he could
+not otherwise have ventured on.
+
+Fuselier had a high opinion of Juve, and his attitude to Fandor was
+sympathetic.
+
+Our journalist was going over the past as he hastened along:
+
+Ah, if only Juve were here! If only this loyal servant of Justice, this
+sincerest of friends, this bravest of the brave, had not been struck
+down, Fandor would have been full of enthusiasm for the Dollon affair;
+for its interest was increasing, its mystery deepening! But Fandor was
+single-handed now! He had had a miraculous escape from the bomb which
+had blown up Lady Beltham's house on that tragic day when Juve had all
+but laid hands on Fantomas!
+
+But Fandor would not allow himself to become disheartened--never that!
+In the school of his vanished friend he had learned to give himself up
+with single-minded devotion to any task he took up; his sole
+satisfaction being duty well fulfilled.... Well, the Dollon case should
+be cleared up!... To do so was to render a service to humanity! Having
+come to this conclusion he hastened to interview Monsieur Fuselier.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Monsieur Fuselier," cried Fandor as he shook hands with the magistrate,
+"you must know quite well why I have come to see you!"
+
+"About the rue Norvins affair?"
+
+"Say rather about the Depot affair! It is there the affair became
+tragic."
+
+Monsieur Fuselier smiled:
+
+"You know then?"
+
+"That Jacques Dollon has hanged himself? Yes. That he was innocent?
+Again, yes!" confessed Fandor, smiling in his turn: "You know that at
+_La Capitale_ we get all the information going, and are the first to get
+it!"
+
+"Evidently," conceded the magistrate. "But if you know all about it, why
+put my professional discretion to the torture by asking absurd
+questions?"
+
+"Now, what the deuce are they about on Clock Quay? Don't they supervise
+the accused in their cells?"
+
+"Certainly they do! When this Dollon arrived at the Depot he was
+immediately conducted to Monsieur Bertillon: there he was measured and
+tested, finger marks taken, and so on."
+
+"Just so," said Fandor. "I saw Bertillon before coming on to you. He
+told me Dollon seemed crushed: he submitted to all the tests without
+making the slightest objection; but he never spoke of suicide, never
+said anything which could lead one to imagine such a fatal termination."
+
+"Well, he would not cry it aloud on the housetops!... When he left
+Monsieur Bertillon, what then?"
+
+"After!... Oh, the police took him to a cell, and left him there. At
+midnight the chief warder made his rounds and saw nothing abnormal. It
+was in the morning they found this unfortunate Dollon had hanged
+himself."
+
+"What did he hang himself with?"
+
+"With strips of his shirt twisted into a rope.... Oh, my dear fellow, I
+see what you are thinking! You fancy that there has been a want of
+common prudence--that the warders were lax--that they had let him retain
+his braces, his cravat or his shoe laces!... Well, it was not
+so--precautions were taken."
+
+"And this suicide remains incomprehensible!"
+
+"Well!... This wretched youth must have been ferociously energetic,
+because he had fastened these shirt ropes of his to the iron bars of his
+bed, and strangled himself by lying on his back. Death must have been
+long in coming to release him from his agony."
+
+"Can I not see him?" asked Fandor.
+
+"Why not photograph him?" asked the magistrate in a bantering tone.
+
+"Oh, if it were possible!..." Fandor stopped short. A youth knocked and
+entered:
+
+"A lady, who wishes to see you, monsieur."
+
+"Tell her I am too busy."
+
+"She asked me to say that it is urgent."
+
+"Ask her name."
+
+"Here is her card, monsieur."
+
+Monsieur Fuselier looked at the card: he started!
+
+"Elizabeth Dollon!... Ah ... Good Heavens, what am I to say to this poor
+girl? How am I to tell her?"
+
+Just then the door was pushed violently open, and a girl, in tears,
+rushed towards him:
+
+"Monsieur, where is my brother?"
+
+"But, mademoiselle!..."
+
+Whilst the magistrate mechanically asked his distracted visitor to sit
+down, Jerome Fandor discreetly withdrew to the further side of the room;
+he was anxious that the magistrate should forget his presence, so that
+he might be a witness of what promised to be a most exciting interview.
+
+"Pray control yourself, mademoiselle," begged the magistrate. "Your
+brother has perhaps been arrested through a mistake...."
+
+"Oh, monsieur, I am sure of it, but it is frightful!"
+
+"Mademoiselle, the dreadful thing would be that he was guilty."
+
+"But they have not set him at liberty yet? He has not been able to clear
+himself?"
+
+"Yes, yes, mademoiselle, he has vindicated himself, I even ..." Monsieur
+Fuselier stopped short, intensely pained, not knowing how to tell
+Elizabeth Dollon the terrible news.
+
+At once she cried: "Ah, monsieur, you hesitate! You have learned
+something fresh? You are on the track of the assassins?"
+
+"It is certain ... your brother is not guilty!"
+
+The poor girl's countenance suddenly brightened. She had passed a
+horrible night after her return to Paris, and the receipt of the wire
+from Police Headquarters.
+
+"What a nightmare!" she cried. "But the telegram said he was
+injured--nothing serious, is it?... Where is he now? Can I see him?"
+
+"Mademoiselle," said the magistrate, "your brother has had a terrible
+shock!... It would be better!... I fear that!..."
+
+Suddenly Elizabeth Dollon cried:
+
+"Oh, monsieur, how you said that! How can seeing me do him harm?"
+
+As Monsieur Fuselier did not reply, she burst into tears:
+
+"You are hiding something from me! The papers said this morning that he
+also was a victim! Swear to me that he is not?"
+
+"But ..."
+
+"You _are_ hiding something from me!" The poor girl was frantic with
+terror: she wrung her hands in a state of despair: "Where is he? I must
+see him! Oh, take pity on me!"
+
+As she watched the magistrate's downcast look, his air of discomfiture,
+the horrid truth flashed on Elizabeth Dollon:
+
+"Dead!" she cried. She was shaken with sobs.
+
+"Mademoiselle!... Oh, mademoiselle!" implored the magistrate, filled
+with pity. He tried to find some words of consolation, and this
+confirmed her worst fears:
+
+"I swear to you!... It is certain your brother was not guilty!"
+
+The distracted girl was beyond listening to the magistrate's words!
+Huddled up in an arm-chair, she lay inert, collapsed. Presently she rose
+like a person moving in some mad dream, her eyes wild:
+
+"Take me to him!... I want to see him! They have killed him for me!... I
+must see him!"
+
+Such was her insistence, the violence with which she claimed the right
+to go to her brother, to kneel beside him, that Monsieur Fuselier dared
+not refuse her this consolation.
+
+"Control yourself, I beg of you! I am going to take you to him; but, for
+Heaven's sake, be reasonable! Control yourself!"
+
+With his eyes he sought for the moral support of Fandor, whose presence
+he suddenly remembered. But our journalist, taking advantage of the
+momentary confusion, had quietly slipped from the room.
+
+Evidently some unpleasant occurrence had upset the routine existence of
+the functionaries at the Depot. The warders were coming and going,
+talking among themselves, leaning against the doors of the numerous
+cells. The chief warder called one of his men:
+
+"There must be no more of this disorder, Nibet!"
+
+The chief warder was furious: he was about to hold forth to his
+subordinate, when an inspector approached.
+
+"What is it?" he asked.
+
+"Sergeant, it is Monsieur Jouet. He has a gentleman with him. He has a
+permit. Should I allow him to enter?"
+
+"Who? Monsieur Jouet?"
+
+"No, the gentleman accompanying him!"
+
+"Hang it all! Why, yes--if he has a permit!"
+
+The sergeant moved away shrugging his shoulders disgustedly.
+
+"Not pleased with things this morning, the chief isn't," one of the
+warders remarked.
+
+"Not likely, after last night's performance!"
+
+"It's he who will catch it hot over this business!" The warder rubbed
+his hands, laughing.
+
+Meanwhile, Fandor had appeared at the entrance of the corridor, under
+the guidance of a warder. He was thinking of the splendid copy he had
+secured: he was hoping that when Fuselier learned that a journalist had
+obtained admittance to the Depot, and had seen the corpse of Jacques
+Dollon in his cell, that he would not turn vicious: "But after all,"
+said he to himself, "Fuselier is not the man to give me the go-by out of
+spite."
+
+Fandor walked up and down the hall of the prison. He had informed the
+warders that he was waiting for the magistrate. "How strange life is!"
+thought he. "To think that once again I should be brought into close
+contact with Elizabeth Dollon, and that there is no likelihood of her
+recognising me--we were such children when we parted--she especially!
+Had she any recollection of the little rascal I was at the time of poor
+Madame de Langrune's assassination?" And, closing his eyes, Fandor tried
+to call to mind the features of the Jacques Dollon he used to know: it
+was useless! The body of Jacques Dollon he would be gazing at in a few
+minutes would be that of an unknown person, whose name alone awakened
+memories of bygone days....
+
+So to pass the time Fandor continued his marching up and down.
+
+Monsieur Fuselier appeared at the entrance to the Depot, supporting the
+unsteady steps of poor Elizabeth Dollon. Fandor quickly drew back into
+an obscure corner:
+
+"Better not attract attention to myself just at present," thought
+Fandor; "I will wait until the cell door is opened. If Fuselier does
+not wish to give me permission to remain, I can at any rate cast a rapid
+glance round that ill-omened little cell!"
+
+Fandor followed, at a distance, the wavering steps of the poor girl whom
+Monsieur Fuselier was supporting with fatherly care.
+
+When they paused before one of the cells pointed out by the head warder,
+Monsieur Fuselier turned to Elizabeth Dollon:
+
+"Do you think you are strong enough to bear this trial, mademoiselle?...
+You are determined to see your brother?"
+
+Elizabeth bent her head; the magistrate turned towards the warder:
+
+"Open," said he. As the key was turned in the lock he said: "According
+to instructions from the Head, we have placed him on his bed again....
+There is nothing to frighten you ... he seems to be asleep.... Now
+then!"
+
+But as he opened the door, stretching his arm in the direction of the
+bed where the body of Jacques Dollon should be, an oath escaped him:
+
+"Great Heavens! The dead man is gone!"
+
+In this cell with its bare walls, its sole furniture an iron bedstead
+and a stool riveted to the floor, in this little cell which the eye
+could glance round in a second, there was no vestige of a corpse:
+Jacques Dollon's body was not there!
+
+"You have mistaken the cell," said the magistrate sharply.
+
+"No, no!" cried the astounded warder.
+
+"You can see, can't you, that Jacques Dollon is not there?"
+
+"He was there a few minutes ago!"
+
+"Then they must have taken him somewhere else!"
+
+"The keys have never left me!"
+
+"Oh, come now!"
+
+"No, sir. He was there ... now he isn't there! That's all I know!...
+Hey! You down there!" yelled the warder: "Who knows what has become of
+the corpse of cell 12?... The corpse we laid out just now?"
+
+One after the other the warders came running. All confirmed what their
+chief had said: the dead body of Jacques Dollon had been left there,
+lying on the bed: not a soul had entered the cell: not a soul had
+touched the corpse!... Yet it was no longer there! Jerome Fandor, well
+in the background, followed the scene with an ironical smile. The
+frantic warders, the growing stupefaction of Monsieur Fuselier, amused
+him prodigiously. The magistrate was trying to understand the how, why,
+and wherefore of this incredible disappearance:
+
+"As this man is not here, he cannot have been dead ... he has escaped
+... but if he wanted to escape he must have been guilty!... Oh, I cannot
+make head or tail of it!"
+
+Seizing the head warder by the shoulders, almost roughly, Monsieur
+Fuselier asked:
+
+"Look here, chief, was this man dead, or was he not?"
+
+Elizabeth Dollon was repeating:
+
+"He lives! He lives!" and laughing wildly.
+
+The warder raised his hand as though taking a solemn oath:
+
+"As to being dead, he was dead right enough!... The doctor will tell you
+so, too: also my colleague, Favril, who helped me to lay out the body on
+the bed."
+
+"But how can a dead body get away from here? If he _was_ dead, he could
+not have escaped!" said the magistrate.
+
+"It is witchcraft!" declared the warder, with a shrug.
+
+Fuselier flew into a rage:
+
+"Had you not better confess that you and your colleagues did not keep
+proper watch and ward!... The investigation will show on whose shoulders
+the responsibility rests."
+
+"But, sakes alive, monsieur!" expostulated the warder: "There aren't
+only two of us who have seen him dead!... There are all the hospital
+attendants of the Depot as well!... There is the doctor, and there are
+my colleagues to be counted in: the truth is, monsieur, some fifty
+persons have seen him dead!"
+
+"So you say!" cried the impatient magistrate: "I am going to inform the
+Public Prosecutor of what has happened, and at once!"
+
+As he was hurrying away, he spied Jerome Fandor, who had not missed a
+single detail of the scene.
+
+"You again!" exclaimed the irate magistrate: "How did you get in here?"
+
+"By permit," replied our journalist.
+
+"Well, you have learned what there is to know, haven't you? Be off,
+then! You are one too many here!... Frankly, there is no need for you to
+augment the scandal!... Will you, therefore, be kind enough to take
+yourself off?" And Fuselier, almost beside himself with rage, raced off
+to the Public Prosecutor's office.
+
+After the magistrate's furious attack, Fandor could not possibly linger
+in the corridors of the Depot. The warders, too, were pressing their
+attentions on him and on Elizabeth Dollon:
+
+"This way, monsieur!... Madame, this way!... Ah, it's a wretched
+business!... Here, this way! This way!... Be off, as fast as you can!"
+
+Presently Fandor was descending the grand staircase of the Palais,
+steadying the uncertain steps of poor Elizabeth Dollon.
+
+"I implore you to help me!" she cried: "Help me: help us! My brother is
+guiltless--I could swear to that!... He must--must be found!... This
+hideous nightmare must end!"
+
+"Mademoiselle, I ask nothing better, only ... where to find him?"
+
+"Ah, I have no idea, none!... I implore you, you who must know
+influential people in high places, do not leave any stone unturned, do
+all that is humanly possible to save him--to save us!"
+
+Intensely moved by the poor girl's anguish of mind, Fandor could not
+trust himself to speak. He bent his head in the affirmative merely.
+Hailing a cab, he put her into it, gave the address to the driver, and
+as he was closing the door Elizabeth cried:
+
+"Do all that is humanly possible--do everything in the world!"
+
+"I swear to you I will get at the truth," was Fandor's parting promise.
+The cab had disappeared, but our journalist stood motionless, absorbed
+in his reflections. At last, uttering his thoughts aloud, he said:
+
+"If the Baroness de Vibray has written that she has killed herself, then
+she has killed herself, and Dollon is innocent. It's true the letter may
+be fictitious ... therefore we must put it aside--we have no guarantee
+as to its genuineness.... Here is the problem: Jacques Dollon is dead,
+and yet has left the Depot! Yes, but how?"
+
+Jerome Fandor went off in the direction of the offices of _La Capitale_
+so absorbed in thought that he jostled the passers-by, without noticing
+the angry glances bestowed on him:
+
+"Jacques Dollon, dead, has left the Depot!" He repeated this improbable
+statement, so absurd, of necessity incorrect; repeated it to the point
+of satiety:
+
+"Jacques Dollon is dead, and he has got away from the Depot!"
+
+Then, in an illuminating flash, he perceived the solution of this
+apparently insoluble problem:
+
+"A mystery such as this is incomprehensible, inexplicable, impossible,
+except in connection with one man! There is only one individual in the
+world capable of making a dead man seem to be alive after his death--and
+this individual is--Fantomas!"
+
+To formulate this conclusion was to give himself a thrilling shock....
+Since the disappearance of Juve, he had never had occasion to suspect
+the presence, the intervention of Fantomas in connection with any of
+the crimes he had investigated as reporter and student of human nature.
+
+Fantomas! The sound of that name evoked the worst horrors! Fantomas!
+This bandit, this criminal who has not shrunk from any cruelty, any
+horror--Fantomas is crime personified!
+
+Fantomas! He sticks at nothing!
+
+Pronouncing these syllables of evil omen, Fandor lived over again all
+the extraordinary, improbable, impossible things that had really
+happened, and had put him on the watch for this terrifying assassin.
+
+Fantomas!
+
+It was certain that to whatever degree he had participated in the
+assassination of the Baroness de Vibray, one must not be astonished at
+anything; neither at anything inconceivable, nor at any mysterious
+details connected with the murder.
+
+Fantomas!
+
+He was the daring criminal--daring beyond all bounds of credibility. And
+whatever might be the dexterity, the ingenuity, the ability, the
+devotion of those who were pursuing him, such were his tricks, such his
+craft and cunning, such the fertility of his invention, so well
+conceived his devices, so great his audacity, that there were grounds
+for fearing he would never be brought to justice, and punished for his
+abominable crimes!
+
+Fantomas!
+
+Ah, if life ever brought Jerome Fandor and this bandit face to face,
+there would ensue a struggle of every hour, day, and moment--a struggle
+of the most terrible nature, a struggle in which man was pitted against
+man, a struggle without pity, without mercy--a fight to the death!
+Fantomas would assuredly defend himself with all the immense elusive
+powers at his command: Jerome Fandor would pursue him with heart and
+soul, with his very life itself! It was not only to satisfy his sense of
+duty at the promptings of honour that the journalist would take action:
+he would have as guide for his acts, and to animate his will, the
+passion of hate, and the hope of avenging his friend Juve, fallen a
+victim to the mysterious blows of Fantomas.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In his article for _La Capitale_ Fandor did not directly mention the
+possible participation of Fantomas in the crime of the rue Norvins. When
+it was finished he returned to his modest little flat on the fifth floor
+in the rue Bergere. He was about to enter the vestibule, when he noticed
+a piece of paper, which must have been slipped under his door. He
+stooped and picked up an envelope:
+
+"Why, it is a letter--and there is no name and no stamp on it!"
+
+Entering his study, he seated himself at his table and prepared to begin
+work. Then he bethought him of the letter, which he had carelessly
+thrown on the mantelpiece. He tore it open, and drew out a sheet of
+letter paper.
+
+"Whatever is this?" he cried. His astonishment was natural enough, for
+the message was oddly put together. To prevent his handwriting being
+recognised, Fandor's correspondent had cut letters out of a newspaper,
+and had stuck them together in the desired order. The two or three lines
+of printed matter were as follows:
+
+     "Jerome Fandor, pay attention, great attention! The affair on which
+     you are concentrating all your powers is worthy of all possible
+     interest, but may have terribly dangerous consequences."
+
+Of course there was no signature.
+
+Evidently the warning referred to the Dollon case.
+
+"Why," exclaimed Fandor, "this is simply an invitation not to busy
+myself hunting for the guilty persons!... Who has sent this invitation
+and warning? Surely the sender is the assassin, to whose interest it is
+that the inquiry into the rue Norvins murder should be dropped!... It
+must be Jacques Dollon!... But how could Dollon know my address? How
+could he have found time between his flight from the Depot and the
+present minute, to put this message of printed letters together, and
+take it to the rue Bergere?... And that at the risk of encountering
+someone who could recognise him, and might have him arrested afresh? Had
+he accomplices?"
+
+Fandor was puzzled, agitated:
+
+"But I am mad!... mad! It cannot be Dollon!... Dollon is dead--dead as a
+door nail--dead beyond dispute, because fifty men have seen him dead;
+dead, because the Depot doctors have certified his death!"
+
+Daylight was fading; evening was coming on; Fandor was still turning the
+whole affair over in his mind. Every now and again he murmured:
+
+"Fantomas! Fantomas has to do with this extraordinary, this mysterious
+affair! Fantomas is in it!... Fantomas!"
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+A SURPRISING ITINERARY
+
+
+Jerome Fandor had passed a bad night!
+
+Visions of horror had continually arisen in his troubled mind. Between
+nightmare after nightmare he had heard all the horrors of the night
+sound out in the darkness and the glimmering dawn. Then he had fallen
+into a heavy sleep, which had left him on awaking broken with fatigue.
+He had given himself a cold douche, and this had calmed his nerves; then
+he had dressed quickly. When eight o'clock struck he was at his
+writing-table, thinking things over:
+
+"It's no laughing matter. I thought at first that the Dollon affair was
+quite ordinary; but I am mistaken. The warning I received last night
+leaves me no doubts on that head. Since the guilty person thinks it
+necessary to ask me to keep quiet, it is evident he fears my
+intervention; if he is afraid of that it is because it must be hurtful
+to him; if disastrous to him, a criminal, it is evident that it must be
+useful to honest folk. My duty, then, is to go straight ahead at all
+costs...."
+
+There was another motive besides this of duty which incited him to
+follow more closely the vicissitudes of the rue Norvins drama, a motive
+still indefinite, vague, but nevertheless terribly strong....
+
+Jerome Fandor had sworn to Elizabeth Dollon that he would get at the
+truth.
+
+He recalled the girl's entreaty, her emotion; and when he closed his
+eyes, now and again, he seemed to see before him the tall, graceful,
+fair and fascinating sister of the vanished artist.... All Fandor would
+admit to himself was a chivalrous feeling towards her--Elizabeth Dollon
+was worth putting himself out for--that was all!
+
+Our journalist spent the entire morning seated at his writing-table, his
+head between his hands, smoking cigarette after cigarette, arranging his
+plans for investigating the Dollon case:
+
+"What I have to find out is how the dead man left the Depot. It is the
+first discovery to be made, the first impossibility to be
+explained--yes, and how am I to set about it?"
+
+Suddenly Fandor jumped up, marched rapidly up and down his room,
+whistled a few bars of a popular melody, and in his exuberant gaiety
+attempted an operatic air in a voice deplorably out of tune.
+
+"There are eighty chances out of a hundred that I shall not succeed,"
+cried he; "but that still leaves me twenty chances of arriving at a
+satisfactory result--let us make the attempt!"
+
+As Fandor was hurrying off, he called to the portress in passing:
+
+"Madame Oudry, I don't know whether I shall be back this evening or no.
+Perhaps I may have to leave Paris for awhile, so would you be kind
+enough to pay particular attention to any letters that may come for
+me--be very particular about them, please!"
+
+Fandor went off. A thought struck him. He turned back. He had something
+more to say to the good woman:
+
+"I forgot to ask you whether anyone called to see me yesterday
+afternoon!"
+
+"No, Monsieur Fandor, no one!"
+
+"Good! If by any chance a messenger should bring a letter for me, look
+very carefully at him, Madame Oudry. I have a colleague or two who are
+playing a joke on me, and I should not be sorry to get even with them!"
+
+This time Fandor really went off, having set his portress on the alert.
+In the rue Montmartre he hailed a cab:
+
+"To the National Library! And as quick as you can!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"By Jove! It's three o'clock! I've not a minute to lose!" cried Fandor
+as he got back his stick from the cloak-room of the National Library: he
+had handed it in there some hours ago. He entered the rue Richelieu. Now
+for an ironmonger's shop! He caught sight of one and went in:
+
+"I should like fifty yards of fine cord, please; very strong and very
+pliable," said Fandor.
+
+The shopkeeper stared at the smart young man:
+
+"What do you want it for, sir?... I have various qualities."
+
+Without the trace of a smile, and as if it were the most natural thing
+in the world, he replied:
+
+"It is for one of my friends: he wants to hang himself!"
+
+A shout of laughter was the response to this witticism, and the amused
+shopkeeper forthwith displayed various samples of cords. Fandor promptly
+made his choice and left the shop.
+
+"Now for a watchmaker's!" said our journalist. He entered a jeweller's
+close by:
+
+"I want an alarum clock--a small one--the cheapest you have!"
+
+Provided with his alarum, Fandor looked at his watch again:
+
+"Confound it all! It's half-past three!" he cried. He signalled to a
+closed cab:
+
+"To the Palais de Justice! As hard as you can lick!"
+
+Directly Fandor was well inside the vehicle, he drew down the blinds;
+took off his coat; unbuttoned his waistcoat!...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The great clock of the Palais de Justice had just struck four, and its
+silvery tones were echoing harmoniously along the corridors when Jerome
+Fandor entered the tradesman's gallery. He turned to the right, and
+gained the little lobby in which the cloak-room is. He quietly entered
+it. Barristers were coming and going, full of business, throwing off
+their gowns, inspecting the letters put aside during the sittings of the
+Courts. Fandor made his way among the groups with the ease of custom. He
+seemed to be looking for someone, and finished by questioning one of the
+women employed in the cloak-room:
+
+"Is Madame Marguerite not here?"
+
+"Oh, yes, monsieur, she is down below."
+
+Madame Marguerite was an old friend of Fandor's. She was head of the
+cloak-room staff, and by her kind offices she had often obtained an
+interview for our journalist with one or other of the big-wigs of the
+bar, who generally object strongly to being questioned by journalists.
+When she appeared, Fandor told her he only wanted a little bit of
+information from her.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know all about that! There is someone you wish to see, and
+you want me to manage it for you!"
+
+"No! Not a bit of it! What I want to know is, where these gentlemen of
+the Court of Justice robe and unrobe? I mean the Justices of the Assize
+Courts!"
+
+This seemed to astonish Madame Marguerite considerably:
+
+"But, Monsieur Fandor, if you wish to interview one of the puisne
+judges, it would be ten times quicker for you to go and see him at his
+own home: here, at the Palais, it's almost certain he will refuse to
+answer you...."
+
+"Don't bother about that, Madame Marguerite! Just tell me where these
+worthy guardians of order, defenders of right and justice, divest
+themselves of their red robes?"
+
+Madame Marguerite was too much accustomed to our young journalist's
+ridiculous questions and absurd requests and remarks to argue with him
+any longer.
+
+"The robing-room of these gentlemen," said she, "is in one of the outer
+offices of the court, near the Council Chamber."
+
+"There is an assistant in that room, isn't there?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur Fandor."
+
+"Ah! That is just what I wanted to know! Many thanks, madame," and
+Fandor, grinning with satisfaction, made off in the direction of the
+Court of Assizes. He ran up the steps leading to the Council Chamber,
+and spying the messenger asked:
+
+"Can President Guechand see me, do you think?"
+
+"Monsieur le President has gone."
+
+Fandor seemed to be reflecting. He gazed searchingly round the room. As
+a matter of fact, he was verifying the correctness of Madame
+Marguerite's information. All round the room Fandor saw the little
+presses where the men of law kept their red robes. Yes, it was the
+robing and unrobing room of the puisne judges, the magistrates, right
+enough!
+
+"So the President has gone? Ah, well ..." Fandor hesitated: he must
+think of some other name. He noticed the visiting cards nailed to each
+press, indicating the owner. He read one of the names and repeated it:
+
+"Well, then, could Justice Hubert see me--could he possibly? Will you
+ask him to let me see him for five minutes?"
+
+"What name shall I say?"
+
+"My name will not tell him anything. Please say it is with reference to
+the--er--Peyru case--and I come from Maitre Tissot."
+
+"I will go and see," said the messenger, moving off.
+
+Whilst he was in sight Fandor walked up and down in the regulation way,
+murmuring:
+
+"Maitre Tissot!... The Peyru case!... Go ahead, my good fellow! You will
+have a nice kind of reception down below there--with those made-up
+names."
+
+Some minutes later, the messenger returned to his post, prepared to
+inform the importunate young man that he could not possibly be received
+by Justice Hubert. He stopped short on the threshold: not a soul was to
+be seen!
+
+"Wherever has that young man got to? Taken himself off, most likely!...
+I expect he was one of those lawyer's clerks--confound them! A nice fool
+I should have looked if his Honour, Justice Hubert, had said he would
+receive him!"
+
+With this reflection the messenger went back to his newspaper, not
+without having ascertained that it was four o'clock, and therefore he
+had still an hour to wait before he could have his coffee and cigar at
+the "Men of the Robe."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Through the great windows of the Court of Assizes, carefully closed as
+they were, not a ray of moonlight filtered into the court room. And this
+obscurity lent an added terror to a silence as profound as the grave, a
+silence which, with the falling shades of night, assumed possession of
+the vast hall, where so many criminals had listened to the fatal
+sentence--the sentence of death.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the Court had risen, the assistants had, as usual, proceeded to put
+the place in order; then the police sergeant had made his rounds, and
+had gone away, double locking the doors behind him. After this the
+chamber had gradually sunk into complete repose: a repose which would be
+broken the following morning when the bustling routine of the legal day
+commenced once more.
+
+Little by little, too, the many and varied noises, which had echoed and
+re-echoed the whole day through in the galleries of the Palais de
+Justice, had died down, and sunk into silence.
+
+The custodians had made their last round; the barristers had quitted the
+robing-room; the poor wretches who had slunk in to warm themselves at
+the heating apparatus in the halls had shuffled back to the cold
+street, and the whistling blasts of the north wind. The immense pile was
+entirely deserted.
+
+A clock began to strike.
+
+Then, hardly had the last stroke of eleven sounded, awakening the echoes
+of the empty galleries, than in the Court of Assizes itself, under the
+monumental desk, before which the justices sat in state by day, a noise
+made itself heard, long, strident, nerve-racking--the noise of an alarum
+clock!
+
+Just as the alarum ceased its raucous call, a loud yawn resounded
+through the empty spaces of the chamber. The sleeper, who had selected
+this spot that he might indulge, all undisturbed, in a revivifying
+sleep, evidently took no pains to smother the sound of his voice, for,
+after yawning enough to dislocate his jaws, he uttered a loud: "Ah!" He
+accompanied his yawns with exclamations:
+
+"It's a fact, the Republic doesn't do things up to the scratch! The rugs
+here are of poor quality!... I'm aching all over!... The floor is strewn
+with peach kernels--surely?... At any rate, it's a quiet hotel, and one
+is not disturbed--a truly delectable refuge to have a jolly good snore
+in!"
+
+The sleeper sat up:
+
+"What's the time exactly? Let us have a light on it!" A match was
+struck, and a tiny flare of light shone from under the desk of the
+presiding judge:
+
+"Ten past eleven! I've still five minutes to be lazy in--and I shall
+need all of it, for I've a rough night before me! I can rest awhile, and
+think things over!"
+
+The speaker calmly lay down again, trying to find a comfortable position
+on what he christened mentally: "The administrative peach kernels":
+
+"Let me see, now!" he went on aloud. "At five in the afternoon it was
+known that Jacques Dollon had committed suicide; was probably innocent,
+and that his corpse had disappeared. Yesterday, at half-past five, _La
+Capitale_ announced that he had a very pretty sister.... To-night at
+ten past eleven behold me, shut up quite alone in the Palais de Justice,
+free to proceed to the little investigation I think of making.... Jerome
+Fandor, my dear friend, I congratulate you! You have not managed
+badly!...
+
+"Yes," went on our journalist, "what a joke it is! Here have I got
+myself shut up in the Palais without the slightest difficulty! It is
+true, that if the assistant had been obliged to open, and verify, the
+contents of all the robing-rooms of all the judges, he would never have
+finished. As for me, in my cupboard, I followed all the good fellow's
+movements, and he never suspected my presence. If I am to be
+congratulated, he cannot be blamed for it! There I was, there I
+remained, and now I must be off!"
+
+Fandor drew a small wax taper from his pocket and lighted it with a
+match.
+
+"What's to be done with the alarum?" he went on. "To leave it will be to
+betray my having passed this way--what of it?... In any case, even if
+this reporting job fails, I shall make a story out of it ... and how can
+they accuse me of stealing if I leave my cloak as a gift for his
+judgeship!"
+
+Laughing, Fandor piled up the law books lying on the desk, and placed
+the alarum on the top; that done, he went to the principal entrance, the
+only one with double doors. He seized the heavy iron bar placed across
+the door and worked it loose. He drew the two leaves of the door towards
+him; and, although it had been locked as usual, he effected his escape,
+after a considerable trial of strength.
+
+Out on the stairs, lighted taper in hand, the laughing Fandor closed the
+two leaves of the door with the utmost care, and went forward whistling
+a marching tune. His objective was a certain little staircase leading to
+the top story of the Palais, and this he mounted with vigorous
+determination. There was no likelihood of chance encounters, for there
+was not a soul in the vast building: the police were making their rounds
+outside it. Our adventurous journalist did not make his way upwards with
+stealthy tread--there was no need for that. Having gained the top floor,
+he went straight to a corner where an ebony ladder was ensconced, a
+ladder which had long been the joy and pride of the grand master of this
+part of the Palais, the amiable Monsieur Peter.
+
+"Pretty heavy!" grumbled Fandor, as he carried it upwards. Under the
+roof he caught sight of a skylight, rested his ebony ladder against it,
+and climbed briskly on to the roof.
+
+From thence Fandor had a view that was fairy-like. Spread out in the
+distance were the sparkling lights of Paris. He was divided from them by
+the vast mass of roofs about him, by a gulf of empty space, and beyond,
+by a dark blur--the two arms of the Seine flowing on either side of the
+Palais de Justice.... The mysterious darkness! The fascination of the
+sparkling points of light!... Fandor gave himself a mental shake....
+This was no moment for dreaming under the stars!
+
+From his pocket he took a tiny, folding dark lantern; from his
+pocket-book he drew a paper, which he spread out and proceeded to study.
+As he bent over it, he murmured:
+
+"A bit of good luck that I was able to get hold of a complete and
+detailed plan of the Palais de Justice! Without it I never could have
+found my way among these roofs!"
+
+He examined the plan for some minutes; made a note of various landmarks;
+then refolding it, he gained one of the sloping roofs facing the quay of
+the Leather Dressers:
+
+"Now," thought Fandor, "I must be just above the Depot! And now to find
+out how Jacques Dollon, dead or living, has got out of the Depot! No use
+thinking of a window, for the cell has not got one! Fuselier has reason
+on his side when he declares that you do not get out of the cells of the
+Depot, nor out of the Palais!... Well, now--to carry off Dollon, dead
+or living, by way of the Palais Square, or by the boulevard, is out of
+the question: there are too many people about!... To carry him off by
+one of the exits, on to either of the quays, is equally out of the
+question: there are the sentries, in the first place, and then comes the
+Seine--then Jacques Dollon has left the Depot, or he has not, or, at any
+rate, he is still somewhere in the Palais--unless ..."
+
+Fandor interrupted his cogitations to light a cigarette: smoking helped
+him to think things out:
+
+"It is equally certain that if Dollon is still in the Palais, he cannot
+be in the Depot, for the Depot has been rigorously searched since his
+disappearance, and he would most certainly have been found, had he been
+anywhere about the Depot. It is also certain that he is not inside the
+Palais, because the only means of communication between the Depot and
+the Palais is a single staircase, and it is certain that a corpse could
+not have been taken that way unperceived.... Then it follows that
+Jacques Dollon must have got out by the only ways which are in
+communication with the Depot: that is to say, the drains and the
+chimneys!"
+
+"How could he have got out, or been got out by the drains? As far as I
+know, there is no system of pipes large enough to allow of the passage
+of a man through the pipes which join the main sewers; but, as a set-off
+to that, there is a chimney--the ancient chimney of Marie
+Antoinette--which communicates with the Depot, and the roof I am now on:
+it must have been by this chimney that the escape was made! Let us see
+whether this is so or not!"
+
+By the light of his tiny dark lantern Fandor studied afresh the plan of
+the Palais, and tried to identify the various chimneys about him. He
+soon picked out the orifice of Marie Antoinette's chimney. After a
+considering glance at it, he remarked:
+
+"That's odd! Here is the only chimney whose opening is below the ledge
+of the roofs! It is certain that unless one had been warned, and had
+examined this roof from some neighbouring building, the orifice of this
+chimney would not be noticed. If Jacques Dollon passed out by it, no one
+would notice his exit!"
+
+Our journalist continued his examination, full of excitement. Surely he
+was on the right track!
+
+"Ah! Ah! Here are stones freshly scraped and scratched!" he cried
+delightedly. "And this white mark is just the kind of mark which would
+be made by a cord scraping against the wall! And look what a size this
+chimney is! It's not only one Jacques Dollon who could pass out by it,
+but two! But three! A whole army! Ah, ha, I believe I am on the right
+track! Now for it!"
+
+Fandor bent over and looked down the interior of the chimney; and, at
+the risk of toppling over, he managed to reach something he saw shining
+in the darkness of the opening; he drew himself up, radiant:
+
+"By Jove! There are irons fixed in the walls of the chimney to climb up
+and down by; and, what is more, they bear traces of a recent
+passage--the rust has been rubbed off here and there!... Yes, it is by
+this way Dollon has come out!... To whom else could it be an advantage
+to use this as an exit from the interior of the Palais, on to the
+roofs?"
+
+Fandor was keen on the scent! Here, indeed, was matter for an article
+which would bring him into notice--good business for a journalist!
+
+"If Dollon had been alive," reflected Fandor, "it is evident that, once
+on the roofs, he had a choice of three ways to escape: he could do what
+I have just done, but the other way about; he could break a skylight,
+jump into a garret, and lie hidden under the tiles, awaiting the
+propitious moment when he could gain the corridors below and, mingling
+with the crowd, slip unobserved into the street; or, he could hide among
+the roofs, and stay there; or, he could search for an opening--one of
+those air holes which put the cellars and drains in communication with
+the exterior.... But I have come to the conclusion that Dollon is dead!
+Then his corpse could only remain up here; or, it has been put down into
+some place where nobody goes. The garrets of the Palais are so
+incessantly visited by the clerks and registrars that no corpse could
+remain undiscovered in any of them. Therefore, either Jacques Dollon's
+corpse is somewhere on the roofs of the Palais, or there is some sort of
+communication between the roofs and the drains--it is obvious!"
+
+Evidently the next step was to search every hole and corner of these
+same roofs. Armed with revolver and lantern, Fandor started on his tour
+of investigation; but prudently, for he was now almost certain that
+there were a number of accomplices involved in this Dollon affair.
+
+To go carefully over the enormous roof of the Palais de Justice was no
+light task! One has only to consider the immensity of this monumental
+pile, its complicated architecture, the numberless little courts
+enclosed within its vast confines, to understand the difficulties with
+which our intrepid journalist had to contend. But Jerome Fandor was not
+the man to be discouraged in the face of difficulties: he was determined
+to brave them--conquer them! He examined, minutely, the entire roofing
+of the Palais; he did not leave a corner or a morsel of shadow
+unexplored; there was not a gutter which he had not searched from end to
+end. When, after two hours of strenuous exertion, he returned to his
+starting-point, the chimney of Marie Antoinette, he was fain to confess
+that if Jacques Dollon had mounted to the roof of the Palais de Justice
+he certainly had not remained there.
+
+Fandor unfolded his plan once more. It fluttered in the night breeze, as
+he carefully numbered all the chimneys opening on to this roof; then,
+one by one, he identified them with the real chimneys before his eyes.
+He exclaimed joyfully:
+
+"There, now! It's just what I suspected!"
+
+He had discovered there was one chimney not down on the plan: "Whither
+did it lead?" At all costs he must find out--make sure. He hastened to
+this extra chimney. Its orifice was large enough to allow of the passage
+of a man; also, here again, stones had been recently loosened, and a
+rope had rubbed against them:
+
+"What the deuce is this chimney?" thought Fandor. "Another mystery! This
+chimney is not a chimney; there is not a trace of soot on it, even old
+soot!"
+
+After a moment's reflection, he added:
+
+"Can it be for ventilation only? But a ventilation hole could only
+communicate with one of the apartments in the Palais itself, and how the
+deuce could they drop a corpse down there? It would have been in the
+highest degree imprudent to attempt it! No, it is not by that road they
+have carried off Dollon's body! But then by what way?"
+
+He glued his ear to the chimney. After a while, Fandor could make out a
+vague, intermittent sound--could catch a little, far-away, plashing
+sound.
+
+"Can the chimney communicate with the Seine?" he asked himself. "No, we
+are too far off it. Why this opening, then?... Ah, I have it! It is a
+drain, a sewer, it communicates with!"
+
+To verify that, there was nothing for it but to descend this chimney,
+which was no chimney! So be it!... Fandor took off his coat, and
+uncovered the long, fine cord, rolled round and round his middle.
+Weighting the cord with a flint, he let it slide down the chimney,
+testing the straightness of the descent by the balanced oscillations of
+the stone, and so ascertaining the even size of the opening, as far as
+the line would go. This was the work of a few minutes.
+
+Fandor did not hesitate: he was eager to embark on the descent.
+
+"After all," he murmured, "though I may find myself face to face with a
+band of assassins--what of it? It is all in the night's risks!"
+
+He fastened the end of the cord to one of the neighbouring
+chimneys--fastened it firmly; then, his revolver handily stuck in his
+belt, Fandor seized the cord, twisted it round his legs, and let himself
+slowly down through the narrow opening.
+
+It was a perilous descent! Fandor did not know whether his cord was long
+enough, and, lost in the darkness, with only the gleam of light from his
+lantern to guide him, he was naturally afraid of reaching the end of his
+rope unawares, and of falling into the black void beneath. But what he
+observed in the course of his descent excited him so much that he almost
+forgot the danger he was running. To those at all practised in police
+detective work, it was clear as daylight that men had passed this way,
+and recently.
+
+"Here is a dislodged stone," muttered Fandor. "And here are scrapes and
+scratches--fresh ... and ... that mark looks like blood!"
+
+Pushing his knees and his shoulders against the wall to support himself
+and stay his movements, he examined the mark. There was no doubt
+possible: Fandor's sharp eyes and the lantern's light had picked out a
+little red patch, which sullied one of the projecting stones in the
+chimney walls:
+
+"This," reflected our amateur detective, "only confirms Dollon's death:
+if the wound which caused this mark had been made by a living body, the
+mark would have been larger, and there would have been others, for it
+must come from an abrasion of the skin made during the descent. But this
+blood mark has resulted from a dead body knocking against the stones of
+the wall: it is not a mark make by flowing blood, but by blood crushed
+out."
+
+He descended a few yards further:
+
+"Here's a find!" he cried. He had just perceived some hairs sticking to
+the rough surface of the stones. Again, with arched shoulders and bent
+knees, he supported himself against the wall, examined his discovery,
+left half the hairs where they were, took the rest, and carefully placed
+them in his pocket-book:
+
+"The police must not be able to say that I have arranged this for their
+benefit," Fandor remarked. "Cost what it may, if I do not come across
+Dollon's corpse below, I must find out to-morrow whether these hairs
+resemble his."
+
+Fandor went on descending, and first in one place, then in another, he
+saw on the walls of this chimney whitish patches such as might have been
+caused by the passage of a heavy mass or body, hanging at the end of a
+rope, and striking against the walls on its way down. Whilst he still
+believed himself to be some distance off the end of his downward
+journey, he felt a point of resistance beneath his feet. At first he
+mistook it for firm ground, much to his surprise. He was about to leave
+go of his cord when a remnant of prudence restrained him:
+
+"How do I know there is not an abyss depths upon depths below me--down
+into the very bowels of the earth! I had better take care!"
+
+What Fandor had taken for firm ground was nothing but an iron staple
+projecting from the wall. Fandor seized it, stopped for a minute or
+two's breathing space, ascertained, by drawing it up, that of his cord
+there were only a few yards remaining; but he also perceived, and with
+what relief, that from where he was resting, downwards the chimney was,
+as far as he could see by his lantern's light, marked off into regular
+spaces by these iron staples which are sometimes placed there for the
+use of chimney cleaners and masons. Fandor found them a most convenient
+kind of ladder. The descent now became easy, and in a short time our
+adventurous journalist reached the bottom of the chimney. At first he
+could not understand where he had got to. In the thick gloom around him
+his lantern's gleam of light showed him a kind of vaulted wall of
+massive masonry. He advanced a step or two with noiseless tread,
+listening, on the alert. Not a sound could he hear: he decided to expose
+the full light of his lantern.
+
+The brighter light showed him that the chimney from which he was now
+standing some yards away ended in a kind of sewer, evidently no longer
+in use; and the plashing sound he had heard on the far up heights of the
+Palais roofs proceeded from a thin and muddy stream of water flowing in
+the middle of the sewer channel in the direction of the Seine. Kneeling
+at the foot of the chimney Fandor could distinguish marks of steps made
+by human feet; much deeper and very different indentations were visible
+also:
+
+"Not only have men passed this way but a short while ago," he murmured,
+"but they were carrying a heavy burden: there are two kinds of
+footmarks, made by two kinds of shoes, and the heels have made much
+deeper marks in the soil than have the tips--yes, these men bore a heavy
+burden!"
+
+Fandor was so pleased that he mentally rubbed his hands over this
+discovery. His quest was a success so far: he was on the track of
+Dollon's body! And what copy for _La Capitale_! Then a sad thought came
+to dim his delight:
+
+"Poor, poor Elizabeth Dollon! I swore to her I would get at the
+truth--and a lamentable truth it is! Her brother is dead: he died in the
+Depot: he was done to death--it was no suicide!"
+
+Whilst talking to himself Fandor was scrutinising every inch of the
+ground as he moved forward: there might be fresh clues:
+
+"It's a queer kind of sewer," he went on. "This streamlet is as much mud
+as water, is almost stagnant. Evidently this underground sewer way is no
+longer used--has been abandoned!"
+
+A horrid spectacle struck him motionless. His lantern made visible a
+struggling, heaving mass of rats, fighting tooth and claw, enormous rats
+devouring some hidden thing!
+
+Fandor's stomach rose at the sight.
+
+Oh, horror! Could it be Jacques Dollon's body?
+
+Fandor snatched up a stone and flung it furiously among the unclean
+beasts. They fled. On the ground he could distinguish a mass, a red,
+formless mass, saturated with congealed blood:
+
+"Assuredly, if the corpse has disappeared, it is there the assassins
+must have cut it in pieces, that they might carry it more easily, and
+those vile creatures are in the thick of feasting on the poor victim's
+remains!... Pouah!"
+
+Fandor moved on, only to discover another pool of blood almost as large,
+also besieged by rats:
+
+"Evidently I shall find nothing else," thought Fandor: "the corpse no
+longer exists!"
+
+He continued his advance, determined to find out what this underground
+way ended in. His lantern was flickering to a finish when he arrived at
+the end of the sewer and found, as he had foreseen, that its opening had
+been cut in the steep bank of the Seine:
+
+"That's a bit of luck! I can get out this way instead of having to climb
+back the way I came, up to the Palais roof and down again!"
+
+It was still night; darkness reigned save on the far horizon, where a
+faint, whitish line indicated the early dawn of an April day.
+
+Fandor was just asking himself by what gymnastic feat he could regain
+the quay, and he was leaning over the opening of the sewer, his body
+bending far forward over the inky waters of the Seine. Before he had
+time to turn, before he could regain his balance, a brutal blow from
+behind half stunned him, and a vigorous thrust precipitated his body
+into the Seine.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+MOTHER TOULOUCHE AND CRANAJOUR
+
+
+"Come along, Cranajour! Let's have a sight of what they've given you for
+the frock coat and the whole outfit!"
+
+The person thus challenged rummaged in the pockets of his old,
+much-patched and filthy garments, and after interminable fumblings and
+huntings, finished by extracting a certain number of silver pieces,
+which he counted over with the greatest care, finally he replied:
+
+"Seventeen francs, Mother Toulouche."
+
+Mother Toulouche showed her impatience:
+
+"It's details I want! How much for the coat? How much for the whole
+suit? I've got to know, I tell you! I've got to write it all down, and
+I've got to see how much I've to hand over to each of the owners of the
+duds!... Try to remember, Cranajour!"
+
+The individual who answered to this odd appellation reflected. After a
+silence, shrugging his shoulders, he replied:
+
+"I don't know. I can't make myself remember--not anyhow!... And it's a
+long time since I sold the goods!"
+
+Mother Toulouche shrugged in turn:
+
+"A long time!" she grumbled. "What a wretched job! Why, it's only two
+hours since--barely that!... It's true," she went on, with a pitying
+look at the shabby, down-at-heel fellow, who had spread out his
+seventeen francs on the table, "it's true that you're known not to have
+two ha'p'orths of memory, and that at the end of an hour you have
+forgotten what you've done!"
+
+"That's right enough," answered Cranajour.
+
+"Let's have done with it, then," cried Mother Toulouche.
+
+She held out a repulsive-looking specimen of old clothes:
+
+"Be off with you! Go and pawn this academician's cast-off! When the
+comrades catch a sight of this bit of stuff to the fore, they'll
+understand they can come without danger!... No cops about the store on
+the lookout, are there?"
+
+Mother Toulouche took the precaution to advance to the threshold of her
+store, cast a rapid glance around--not a suspicious person, nor a sign
+of one to be seen:
+
+"A good thing," muttered she, "but I was sure of it! Those police spies
+are going to give us some peace for a bit!... Likely the whole lot of
+them are on this Dollon business! Isn't it so, Cranajour?"
+
+As she retreated into her store again Mother Toulouche knocked against
+that individual, who had not budged: he had hung over his arm
+respectfully the miserable bit of stuff that had been styled an
+academician's robe:
+
+"Well, what are you waiting for?" asked she sharply.
+
+"Nothing...."
+
+"What are you going to do with that?"
+
+Cranajour seemed to reflect:
+
+"Haven't I told you," grumbled Mother Toulouche, "to go and stick it up
+outside?... Don't say you've gone and forgotten already!"
+
+"No, no!" protested Cranajour, hastening to obey orders.
+
+"What a specimen!" thought Mother Toulouche, whilst counting over the
+seventeen francs.
+
+Cranajour was a remarkably queer fish, beyond question. How had he got
+into connection with Mother Toulouche and her intimates? That remained a
+mystery. One fine day this seedy specimen of humanity was found among
+the "comrades" exchanging vague remarks with one and another. He stuck
+to them in all their shifting from this place to that: no one had been
+able to get out of him what his name was, nor where he came from, for he
+was afflicted with a memory like a sieve--he could not remember things
+for two hours together. A feeble-minded, poor sort of fellow, with not a
+halfpenny's worth of wickedness in him, always ready to do a hand's turn
+for anyone: to judge by his looks he might have been any age between
+forty and seventy, for there is nothing like privations and misery to
+alter the looks of a man! Faced by this queer fish, with a brain like a
+sieve, they had christened him "Crane a jour"--and the nickname had
+stuck to this anonymous individual. Besides, was not Cranajour the most
+complaisant of fellows, the least exacting of collaborators--always
+content with what was given him, always willing to do his best!
+
+As to Mother Toulouche; she kept a little shop on the quay of the Clock.
+The sign over her little store read:
+
+     "_For the Curiosity Lover._"
+
+This alluring title was not justified by anything to be found inside
+this store, which was nothing but a common pick-up-anything shop: it was
+a receptacle for a hideous collection of lumber, for old broken
+furniture, for garments past decent wear, for indescribable odds and
+ends, where the wreckage of human misery lay huddled cheek by jowl with
+the beggarly offscourings of Parisian destitution.
+
+Behind the store, whose little front faced the edge of the quay and
+looked over the Seine, was a sordid back-shop: here the pallet of Mother
+Toulouche, a kitchen stove out of order, and the overflow of the goods
+which were crowded out of the store were jumbled up in ill-smelling
+disorder. This back-shop communicated with the rue de Harlay by a narrow
+dark passage; thus the lair of old Mother Toulouche had two outlets, nor
+were they superfluous; in fact, they were indispensable for such as
+she--ever on the alert to escape the inquisitive attentions of the
+police, ever receiving visitors of doubtful morals and thoroughly bad
+reputation.
+
+Mother Toulouche's quarters comprised not only the two stores, but a
+cellar both large and deep, to which one obtained access by a staircase
+pitch dark, crooked, and everlastingly covered with moisture, owing to
+the proximity of the river. The floor of the cellar was a kind of
+noisome cesspool: one slipped on the greasy mud--floundered about in it:
+for all that, this cellar was almost entirely filled with cases of all
+kinds, with queer-looking bundles, with objects of various shapes and
+sizes. Evidently the jumble store of Mother Toulouche did not confine
+itself to the rough-and-ready shop in the front; and, into the bargain,
+this basement might be used as a safe hiding-place in an emergency, a
+precious refuge for whoever might feel it necessary to cover his tracks,
+and thus escape the investigations of the police, for instance!
+
+Mother Toulouche, as a matter of fact, needed such premises as hers: if
+she took ceaseless precautions it was because she had a reason for her
+uneasy watchfulness.
+
+Mother Toulouche had already come into involuntary contact with the
+police; and her last and most serious encounter with them went as far
+back as those days of renown when the band of Numbers had as their chief
+the mysterious hooligan Loupart, also known under the name of Dr.
+Chaleck.[4] She had been arrested for complicity in a bank-note robbery,
+had been tried, and had been sentenced to twenty-two months'
+imprisonment.
+
+[Footnote 4: See _The Exploits of Juve_.]
+
+Not turned in the slightest degree from the error of her ways, and
+possessing some money, which she had kept carefully hidden, Mother
+Toulouche had decided to set up shop close to the Palais de Justice,
+that Great House where those gentlemen of the robe judged and condemned
+poor folk! She would say:
+
+"Being so close to the red-robed I shall end by making the acquaintance
+of one or two of them, and that may turn out a good job for me one of
+these days!"
+
+But this was merely a blind, for other considerations had led to Mother
+Toulouche renting this shop on the Isle of the City, in opening on the
+quay of the Clock, a quay but little frequented, her wretched jumble
+store of odds and ends. She had kept in touch with the band of Numbers,
+which had gradually come together again as soon as the various numbers
+of it had finished serving their time.
+
+For a while they had lived unmolested, but lately misfortunes had laid a
+heavy hand on the group. Still, as the band began to break up, other
+members came to replace those who had disappeared, either temporarily or
+for good and all.
+
+At any rate, they could safely count on the assistance of an individual
+more valuable to them than anyone; this was a man named Nibet, who
+although he intervened but seldom, could, thanks to his influence, save
+the band many annoyances. This Nibet held an honourable official
+position; he was a warder at the Depot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whilst Mother Toulouche, from the back of her store, was watching with a
+derisive air the good-natured Cranajour fasten up the Academician's robe
+in a prominent position on the front of her nondescript emporium,
+someone stepped inside, and warmly greeted Mother Toulouche with a:
+
+"Good day, old lady!"
+
+It was big Ernestine,[5] who explained volubly that for a good half hour
+she had been prowling about near the statue of Henry IV, keeping the
+store well in view, but not daring to approach until the usual signal
+had been displayed. Those who frequented the place knew that when the
+store was under police observation and Mother Toulouche feared a raid
+she took care to hang out any kind of old clothes; but if the way was
+clear, if no lurking police were on the lookout, then the rallying flag
+would be hoisted, the flag being the old, patched, rusty, musty
+Academician's robe.
+
+[Footnote 5: See _The Exploits of Juve_.]
+
+Ernestine had arrived looking thoroughly upset:
+
+"Have you heard the latest?" she cried, "the bad news?"
+
+"What news? Whose news?" questioned Mother Toulouche.
+
+"Why, that poor Emilet has come down a regular cropper!"
+
+"The poor fellow!... He isn't smashed up, is he?" Mother Toulouche
+lifted her hands.
+
+"I haven't heard anything more than what I've told you!"
+
+Consternation was on the faces of the two women.
+
+Their good Mimile! He who knew how to take care of himself without
+leaving a comrade in the lurch, who stuck to them, working for the
+common good.
+
+A few years previous to this Mimile, having refused to conform to
+military law, had been arrested in the tavern of a certain Father Korn
+during a particularly drastic police raid, and the defaulting youth had
+been straightway put under the penal military discipline administered to
+such as he. Instead of making himself notorious by his execrable conduct
+as those in his position generally did, he behaved like a little saint.
+Having thus made a reputation to trade on, he was twice able to steal
+the money from the regimental chest without a shadow of suspicion
+falling on him, and, what was worse, two of his innocent comrades had
+been accused of the crime, had been condemned and shot in his stead!
+Owing to his good conduct Mimile had been transferred to a regiment
+stationed in Algiers, and having a considerable amount of spare time on
+his hands, he got into close touch with the aeroplane mechanics.
+
+He was very much at home in this branch of work: could not Mimile
+demolish a lock as easily as one rolls a cigarette? He was daring to a
+degree, and, as soon as his time in the army was up, he began to earn
+his living as an aviator, and rightly, for he had become an able airman.
+Nevertheless, Mimile become Emilet, had aspired to greater things: a
+humdrum honest livelihood was not to his taste!
+
+He had come to the conclusion that provided he went warily nothing could
+be easier than to carry on a lucrative smuggling trade by aeroplane: he
+could fly from country to country under the pretext that he was out to
+make records in flying. Custom-house officials and police inspectors in
+the interior would never think of examining the tubes of a flying
+machine, to see whether or no they were packed with lace; nor would it
+occur to them to overhaul certain cells fore and aft to discover whether
+things of value had been secreted in them, such as thousands of matches
+or false coin.
+
+So, from time to time, Mimile would announce that he was off on a trial
+trip to Brussels from Paris, from London to Calais, and so on.
+
+For mechanics Mimile had two brokendown sharpers, who served as
+connecting links between the aviator and the band of smugglers and false
+coiners who gathered at the lair of Mother Toulouche under the seal of
+secrecy. This was why big Ernestine was so anxious when she heard of
+Mimile's accident. Had the aeroplane been totally wrecked? Would the
+very considerable prize of Malines lace they were expecting reach its
+destination safe and sound?
+
+For some time past ill-luck had pursued them, had seemed to pursue
+implacably these unfortunates who took such pains and precautions to
+carry through their unlawful operations to a successful issue. Already
+the Cooper, a member of the confraternity who had had his glorious hour
+in the famous days of Chaleck and Loupart, had scarcely left prison
+retirement before he had been nabbed again, owing to the far too sharp
+eyes of the French custom-house officials on the Belgian frontier.
+Others of the band were also under lock and key again: it really seemed
+as if Mother Toulouche and her circle were being strictly watched by the
+police ... and now here was Emilet who had come a regular cropper in his
+aeroplane--no doubt about it!
+
+Mother Toulouche was set on knowing the rights of it:
+
+"But what has happened to Emilet exactly?"
+
+She called Cranajour. The queer fellow came forward from the back store,
+where he had been loafing: he had a bewildered air.
+
+"Cranajour," said Mother Toulouche, putting a sou in his hand, "hurry
+off and buy me an evening paper! Now be quick about it!... Don't
+forget.... Make a knot in your handkerchief to remind a stupid head!"
+
+"Oh, don't be afraid, Mother Toulouche," declared Cranajour, "I shan't
+forget!" He nodded to big Ernestine, and vanished as by magic into the
+darkness, for night had fallen.
+
+Scarcely had Cranajour gone, than a surly looking individual slipped
+into the store, not by the quay entrance, but through the back store, to
+which he had gained access by the dark passage leading to the rue de
+Harlay.
+
+His collar was turned up as though he were cold; his cap was drawn well
+over his eyes, thus his face was almost entirely hidden.
+
+Having barred the door on the quay side of the store, Mother Toulouche
+joined big Ernestine and the newcomer:
+
+"Well, Nibet, anything fresh?" she asked.
+
+Removing his cap and lowering his collar Nibet's crabbed visage glowered
+on the two women: it was the Depot warder right enough:
+
+"Bad," he growled between his teeth: "Things are hot right at the
+Palais!"
+
+"Things to worry about--to do with comrades committed for trial?"
+questioned big Ernestine.
+
+Nibet shrugged and threw a glance of disdain at the girl:
+
+"You're going silly! It's this Dollon mess-up!"
+
+The warder gave them an account of what had happened. The two women were
+all ears, as they followed Nibet's story of events which had thrown the
+whole legal world into a state of commotion: incomprehensible
+occurrences, which threatened to turn an ordinary murder case into one
+of the most mysterious and most popular of assassination dramas.
+
+Mother Toulouche and big Ernestine were well aware that Nibet knew much
+more than he had told them about the details of the Dollon-Vibray
+affair; but they dared not cross-examine the warder who was in a nasty
+mood--nor did the announcement of Emilet's accident add to his gaiety!
+
+"It just wanted that!" he grunted: "And those bundles of lace were to
+turn up this evening too!"
+
+"Who is to bring them?" asked big Ernestine.
+
+"The Sailor," declared Nibet.
+
+"And who is to receive them?" demanded Mother Toulouche.
+
+"I and the Beadle," answered Nibet in a surly tone. "Come to think of
+it," went on Nibet, staring hard at big Ernestine, "where _is_ that man
+of yours--the Beadle?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Like someone who had been running at top speed Cranajour, who had been
+gone about an hour on his newspaper-buying errand, drew up panting
+before the dark little entry leading from the rue de Harlay to the den
+of Mother Toulouche. He slipped into the passage; but instead of
+rejoining the old storekeeper he began to mount a steep and tortuous
+staircase, which led up to the many floors of the house. He climbed up
+to the seventh story; turned the key of a shaky door, and entered an
+attic whose skylight window opened obliquely in the sloping roof.
+
+This poverty-stricken chamber was the domicile of the queer fellow who
+passed his daylight hours in the company of Mother Toulouche, hobnobbing
+with a hole-and-corner crew, cronies of the old receiver of stolen
+goods.
+
+Overheated with running, Cranajour unbuttoned his coat, opened his
+shirt, sprinkled his face and the upper part of his body with cold
+water, sponged the perspiration from his brow, and brushed the dust off
+his big shoes.
+
+It was a clear starlight night. To freshen himself up still more he put
+his head and shoulders out of the half-opened window. He was gazing at
+the roofs facing him; suddenly he started, and his eyes gleamed. They
+were the roofs, outlined against the night sky, of the Palais de
+Justice. There was a shadow on the roof of the great pile, a shadow
+which moved to and fro, passing from one roof ridge to another, now
+vanishing behind a chimney, now coming into view again. Anxiously
+Cranajour followed the odd movements of the mysterious individual who
+was making his lofty and lonely promenade up above there.
+
+"What the devil does it mean?" soliloquised the watcher. Whoever could
+have seen Cranajour at this moment would have been struck by the marked
+change produced in his physiognomy. This was not the Cranajour of the
+wandering eye, the silly smile, the stupid face, known to Mother
+Toulouche and her cronies; it was a transformed Cranajour, mobile of
+feature, lively of movement, a sharp, keen-witted Cranajour! Veritably
+another man!
+
+Puzzled by the vagaries of the promenader on the Palais roofs, Cranajour
+followed his movements intently for a few minutes longer. He would have
+remained at the window the whole night long had the unknown persisted in
+his peregrinations; but Cranajour saw him climb to the top of a chimney,
+a wide one, lower himself slowly into the opening of it, and then vanish
+from view!
+
+Cranajour waited a while in hopes that the unknown would not be long in
+coming out of his mysterious hiding-place again. He waited and expected
+in vain: the roofs of the Palais resumed their ordinary aspect: solitude
+reigned there.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not long afterwards Cranajour re-entered the back store.
+
+"What a time you have been!" cried Mother Toulouche: "You've brought the
+newspaper, haven't you?"
+
+Cranajour looked at the little company with his most stupid expression
+and then lowered his eyes:
+
+"My goodness, I've forgotten to buy one!" he cried.
+
+Nibet, who had paid but scant attention to the new arrival, continued
+his conversation with big Ernestine: they were talking about her lover,
+nicknamed the Beadle.
+
+He was a terrible individual this Beadle! Though his nickname suggested
+a peaceful occupation, he really owed it to the frightful reputation he
+had won as a "_bell-ringer_"; but the bells big Ernestine's lover was in
+the habit of ringing were unfortunate pedestrians whom he would rob and
+half murder, beating them unmercifully about the head and body.
+Sometimes he would beat them to within an ace of their last gasp:
+occasionally he would beat the life out of them altogether if they tried
+to resist his brutal attacks. The Beadle was an Apache[6] of the first
+order of brutality.
+
+[Footnote 6: Hooligan.]
+
+Big Ernestine finished explaining to Nibet that he must not count on the
+Beadle that evening, for things were so queer and uncertain, the outlook
+was so gloomy that no one knew what bad business they might be in for.
+
+Mother Toulouche asked if he had got mixed up in the Dollon affair.
+
+Cranajour cocked his ear at that, whilst pretending to put a great
+bundle of old clothes in order.
+
+But Nibet replied:
+
+"The Beadle has nothing whatever to do with that business.... I know
+what I know about all that.... He's afraid of getting what the Cooper
+got, so he keeps away. He's not far out either--you've got to be careful
+these days--queer times!"
+
+Ernestine and Mother Toulouche bewailed the Cooper's fate:
+
+"Poor fellow! No sooner out of quod than back--only a fortnight's
+liberty! And with a vile accusation fastened to him--smuggling and
+coining!"
+
+Nibet tried to relieve their minds:
+
+"Haven't I told you," growled he, "that I'm going to get Maitre Henri
+Robart to defend him? He knows how to get round juries: he'll get the
+Cooper off with an easy sentence."
+
+Nibet looked at his watch:
+
+"It will soon be half-past two! Got to go down! The boatman will be
+there before long, at the mouth of the sewer!"
+
+Mother Toulouche, who was always in a flurry when smuggled goods were to
+be unloaded in her cellars, tried to dissuade Nibet:
+
+"You'll never be able to manage it by yourself!"
+
+Nibet glanced at Cranajour. The warder hesitated, then said:
+
+"Since there's no one else, couldn't I take Cranajour with me?"
+
+At first objections were raised; there was a low-voiced discussion, so
+that the simpleton might not catch what they were saying: Cranajour had
+never been up to dodges of this kind: so far he had been kept out of
+them; besides, he was such a senseless cove, he might give things away,
+make a hash of it!
+
+Nibet smiled:
+
+"Why, it's just because he is such a simpleton, and because he hasn't a
+mite of memory that we can use him safely!"
+
+"That's true!" said Mother Toulouche, somewhat reassured.
+
+She called to Cranajour:
+
+"Come along, Cranajour, and just tell us where you dined this evening!"
+
+The simpleton seemed to make a prodigious effort of memory, seized his
+head between his hands, closed his eyes, and racked his brains: after
+quite a long silence, he declared emphatically and with a distressed
+air:
+
+"Faith, I can't tell you now!"
+
+Nibet, who had closely watched this performance, nodded:
+
+"It's quite all right," he said.
+
+The cellars below Mother Toulouche's store were extensive, dark, and
+ill-smelling. The walls glistened with exuding damp, and the ground was
+a sticky mass of foul mud, of all sorts of refuse, of putrefying matter.
+
+Nibet, followed by his companion, made his way down to them: it was no
+easy descent, for they had to climb over cases of all kinds, and over
+bales and bundles that moved and rolled about. They passed into a
+smaller cellar, around which were ranged long boxes of tin with rusty
+covers.
+
+Cranajour, who had been given the lantern to carry, was attracted to
+these boxes: he lifted the cover of one of them and drew back
+wonderstruck, for the box was full of shining gold pieces! Nibet, with a
+jab and thrust in the back, interrupted Cranajour's contemplation of
+this fortune:
+
+"Nothing to faint over!" he growled. "You're not such a simpleton then!
+You know the value of yellow boys? All right, then, I'll give you one or
+two, if you do your job all right! But," continued the warder, leading
+his companion to the further end of the second cellar, "you will have to
+look out if you present your banker with one of those pieces, for the
+little bits of shiny won't pass everywhere--you've got to keep your eye
+open--and jolly wide, too!"
+
+Cranajour nodded comprehension:
+
+"False money! False money!" he murmured.
+
+There was a very strong big door: an iron bar kept it closed. Nibet
+raised it with Cranajour's help. Through the door the two men passed
+into a long dark passage, swept by a sharp rush of air. The floor of it
+was paved, and at the side of it flowed a pestilential stream, carrying
+along in its slow-moving water a quantity of miscellaneous filth: it was
+thick as soup with impurities.
+
+"The little collecting sewer of the Cite," whispered Nibet. Pointing to
+a grey patch in the distance he put his mouth to Cranajour's ear:
+
+"See the daylight yonder? That's where the sewer discharges itself into
+the Seine: it's there the boatman and his load will be waiting for us
+presently."
+
+Nibet stopped dead; drew Cranajour back by the sleeve, and stepped
+stealthily backwards to the massive doors of the cellar. An unaccustomed
+noise had alarmed the warder. In profound silence the two men stood
+listening intently. There was no mistake! The sound of sharp regular
+steps could be clearly heard coming from that part of the sewer opposite
+the opening.
+
+"Someone!" said Cranajour, who was all on the alert, as he had been in
+his attic, watching the shadow and its vagaries on the roofs of the
+Palais de Justice.
+
+Nibet nodded.
+
+The light from a dark lantern gleamed on the damp, slimy walls of the
+subterranean passageway.
+
+"Come inside," murmured Nibet, in an almost inaudible voice; and, with
+infinite precaution, he closed the massive portal between the cellar and
+the sewer-way.
+
+In safe hiding the two men could watch the approaching intruder: they
+had extinguished their lantern, and were peering through the badly
+joined wood of the solid door. Friend or foe? An individual moved into
+view. The reflected light of his lantern lit up the vaulting of the
+sewer-way, and showed up his face. The man was young, fair, wore a
+small moustache!
+
+Hardly had he passed the cellar door when Nibet gripped Cranajour's arm
+and growled--intense rage was expressed in grip and tone--"It's he!
+Again! The journalist of the Dollon affair, of the Depot
+business--Jerome Fandor! Ah.... This time we'll see!..."
+
+Nibet's hand plunged into his trouser pocket.
+
+Cranajour was eagerly watching the warder's every movement: he clearly
+heard the sharp snap of a pocket-knife--a long sharp knife--a deadly
+weapon!
+
+Giving prudence the go-by, Nibet had opened the door, and dragging
+Cranajour in his wake had rushed into the sewer-way, hard on the heels
+of the journalist, who was slowly going in the direction of the Seine.
+Nibet ground his teeth.
+
+"I have had enough of that beast! Always on our track! Too good a chance
+to miss! I'm going to make a hole in his skin for him!"
+
+In the twilight of early dawn, which penetrated the sewer near the
+opening, Cranajour shuddered.
+
+With stealthy step the two men drew near the journalist. Fandor walked
+on unsuspicious at a slow regular pace, his head lowered. The two
+bandits came up to within a yard of him. Noiselessly, savagely
+determined, Nibet lifted his arm for a murderous stroke. At this precise
+moment Fandor stopped at the verge of the exit, by which the sewer
+discharged its burden steeply into the Seine.
+
+Yet a moment: Nibet's knife was poised for the rapid and terrible
+stroke; it was about to bury itself in the neck of the journalist up to
+the hilt, when Cranajour lifted his foot, as if inspired by an idea on
+the spur of the moment, gave the journalist a violent kick in the lower
+part of the back, and sent him flying into space!
+
+They heard his body fall heavily into the Seine.... So roughly sudden
+had been Cranajour's movement that Nibet stood dumbfounded, arm in air,
+and staring at Cranajour:
+
+Cranajour smiled his most idiotic smile, nodded, but did not utter one
+word!...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was formidable, the rage of Nibet! Here had that crass fool,
+Cranajour, kicked away the warder's chance of ridding himself of the
+journalist for good and all! This hit-and-miss made Nibet foam with
+rage. Of all the exasperating simpletons, this fool of a Cranajour took
+the cake!
+
+The two made their way back to the store, where Mother Toulouche and big
+Ernestine anxiously awaited results; and now not only had the two men
+returned stuttering over their statements and with no news of the
+boatman, who was generally up to time, but they had missed a fine
+opportunity chance had offered them!
+
+Nibet hated the journalist like all the poisons. Taunts, jeers, abuse
+were heaped on the silly head of Cranajour, who, all in vain, raised his
+eyes to heaven, beat his chest, shrugged his shoulders, stammered,
+mumbled vague excuses:
+
+"He didn't know exactly why he had done it! He thought he was helping
+Nibet!"
+
+They disputed and contended for two hours. Suddenly Cranajour broke a
+long silence and demanded, looking as stupid as a half-witted owl:
+
+"What have I done then? What are you scolding me for?"
+
+Mother Toulouche, big Ernestine, and the wrathful Nibet stared at one
+another, taken aback--then they understood: two hours had gone by, and
+Cranajour no longer remembered what had happened!
+
+Decidedly he was more innocent than a new-born babe! There was nothing
+whatever to be done with such an idiot, that was certain!
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+IN THE OPPOSITE SENSE
+
+
+When Jerome Fandor had been precipitated into the Seine so unexpectedly
+and with such violence he kept control of his wits: he did not utter a
+cry as he fell head foremost into the darkling river. He was an
+excellent swimmer: all aching as he was, he let himself go with the
+current and presently reached the sheltering arch of the Pont Neuf.
+There he took breath for a minute:
+
+"Queer!" was all he murmured. Then with regular strokes he made for the
+steep bank of the Seine opposite. Quitting the river, he secreted
+himself behind a heap of stones which lay on the quay. He took off his
+soaked garments and wrung the water out of them. This done, and clad in
+what looked like dry clothes, Fandor walked along the quay, hailed a
+passing cabman half asleep on his seat, jumped inside, and gave his
+address to the Jehu.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he arrived at _La Capitale_ on the Friday morning a boy approached
+him, and whispered mysteriously:
+
+"Monsieur Fandor, there's a very nice little woman in the sitting-room,
+who has been waiting for over an hour. She wishes to see you. She will
+not give her name: she declares that you know who she is."
+
+"What is she like?" Fandor asked. His curiosity was not much aroused.
+
+"Pretty, fair, all in black," replied the boy.
+
+"Good. I'll go in," interrupted Fandor.
+
+He entered the sitting-room and stood face to face with Mademoiselle
+Elizabeth Dollon. She came forward, her eyes shining, her face alight
+with welcome:
+
+"Ah, monsieur," she cried, taking his hands in hers, a movement of pure
+gratitude: "Ah, monsieur, I knew you would come to my help! I have read
+your article of yesterday. Thank you again and again! But, I implore
+you, since my brother is alive, tell me where I can see him! For mercy's
+sake don't keep me waiting!"
+
+Surprise kept Fandor silent a moment.
+
+_La Capitale_ had published the evening before a sensational article by
+Fandor, in which, under the guise of suppositions and interrogations, he
+had narrated the various adventures as they had happened to himself,
+concluding with the question--really an ironical one: "If Jacques
+Dollon, who had disappeared from his cell, where he had been left for
+dead, had escaped from the Depot by way of the famous chimney of Marie
+Antoinette, had reached the roof of the Palais, had redescended by
+another passageway to the sewer opening on to the Seine, did it not seem
+possible that Dollon had escaped alive from the Depot?"
+
+Fandor had indulged in a gentle irony, despite the gravity of the
+circumstances, in order to complicate the already complicated affair,
+and so plunge the police into a confusion worse confounded: this, in
+spite of his conviction that Dollon was dead, dead as dead could be!
+
+Now the cruelty of this professional game was brought home to him. His
+article had raised fresh hopes in Dollon's poor sister! At sight of this
+charming girl, brightened with hope, Fandor felt all pity and guilt. He
+pressed her hands; he hesitated; he was troubled. He did not know how to
+explain. At last he murmured:
+
+"It was wrong of me, mademoiselle, very wrong to write that article in
+such a way without warning you beforehand. Alas! You must not cherish
+illusions, illusions which this unfortunate article has given rise to,
+illusions I cannot believe in myself. I speak with all the sincerity of
+which I am capable, with the keenest desire to be of service to you: I
+dare not let you buoy yourself up with false hopes.... I assure you
+then, that from what I have been able to learn, to see, to know, I am
+convinced that your unfortunate brother is no more!... If there have
+been moments when I have doubted this, I am now morally certain that he
+is dead. Take courage, mademoiselle! Try, try to forget--to--to ..."
+
+Fandor was trembling with emotion: he could not continue. Elizabeth bent
+her head, her eyes full of tears. She could not speak. She was overcome
+by this cruel dashing to the ground of her hopes. Never, never, to see
+her brother again!
+
+An agonising silence reigned.
+
+Fandor was profoundly troubled by this mute grief. He sought in vain for
+some word of comfort, of encouragement.
+
+Elizabeth rose to go. The poor girl realised that nothing could be
+gained by prolonging the interview. Her one need now was to be alone,
+for then she could weep.
+
+Fandor was about to accompany her to the door, when a boy entered:
+
+"Monsieur Fandor, there's a man wishes to speak to you!"
+
+"Say I am not here," replied our journalist: he had no wish to see
+strangers just then.
+
+"But Monsieur Fandor, he says he is the keeper of the landing stage of
+the passenger boat service, and he comes with reference to the Dollon
+affair!"
+
+Both Elizabeth Dollon and Jerome Fandor started. She was trembling. Our
+journalist said at once:
+
+"Bring him in then!"
+
+The boy went off, and Fandor turned to the trembling girl.
+
+"Tell me, Mademoiselle Elizabeth, do you feel equal to hearing what
+this man has to tell us? It is not improbable that he has seen
+something--something it would be best you should not hear--had you not
+better avoid it?"
+
+Elizabeth shook her head in the negative. She was collecting all her
+forces: she would not remain ignorant of any detail of the terrible
+tragedy which had cost her brother so dear:
+
+"I shall be strong enough," she announced firmly.
+
+The boy ushered in the visitor. He looked a good specimen of his class,
+a man about forty. On his cap were the gold anchors of those in the
+employ of the Paris boat service.
+
+"Monsieur!... Madame!... At your service!" The good fellow was very much
+embarrassed:
+
+"Monsieur Fandor," he went on, "you do not know me, but I know you very
+well, that I do!... I read your articles every day in _La Capitale_.
+They're jolly good! What I say is ..."
+
+Fandor cut short his admirer: "Now tell me what brings you here!"
+
+"Oh, well, here goes! I was reading your article yesterday, about how
+Jacques Dollon, no more dead than you or I, had escaped over the roofs
+of the Palais de Justice. That made me laugh, because I am the keeper of
+the landing stage at the Pont Neuf Station. This affair is supposed to
+have happened in my parts, don't you see?... Well, I had just come to
+the bit where you also suppose that the corpse might easily have been
+devoured by rats inside the sewer.... Well, Monsieur Fandor, I can
+assure you that it was nothing of the sort...."
+
+The journalist was all eyes and ears. He signed to Elizabeth that she
+must keep quiet, so as not to intimidate the good fellow.
+
+"Come now, what is it you have seen?"
+
+"What I've seen?... Why, I saw Dollon break bounds!"
+
+At this statement Elizabeth grew white as a sheet. She jumped up, and
+with clasped hands rushed towards the keeper:
+
+"Speak, speak quickly, I implore you!" she cried.
+
+Fandor drew Elizabeth back gently, and whispered a few words to her. He
+turned to the keeper:
+
+"Mademoiselle has also come to make a statement regarding this affair,"
+he explained. "That is why she is so interested in what you have just
+told us.... But tell us how you saw Jacques Dollon escape!"
+
+"Well, I had got up a bit earlier than usual to see that the anchors and
+mooring were all right, and I thought I saw what looked like a big
+bundle fall into the river from the sewer opening--only I was half
+asleep and didn't take much notice; for, what with all the rain we've
+been having, there's no end of filthy stuff tumbling out of the mouth of
+the sewers. But, a few minutes after that, I noticed that the bundle,
+instead of going with the flow of the current, was drifting across the
+Seine, plainly making for the bank. There could be no mistake about
+that!"
+
+Elizabeth Dollon cried:
+
+"And then? And then?"
+
+"Then, my little lady, what if this surprise packet didn't turn off
+behind an arch of the Pont-Neuf! I didn't see what became of it--but no
+one will get it out of my head that it isn't some jolly dog who had no
+wish to show himself--that's what I think!"
+
+The keeper paused, then went on:
+
+"That's all I have to tell you, Monsieur Fandor ... it might serve for
+one of your articles some time or other ... only you mustn't say that I
+told you. I might get into trouble with my chiefs about it!"
+
+Elizabeth Dollon was no longer listening. She had turned to Fandor, and
+with shining eyes murmured:
+
+"He lives!... He lives!..."
+
+Fandor thanked the keeper, and got rid of him. Directly the door closed
+on him he darted to Elizabeth:
+
+"Poor child!" he cried, full of pity for her.
+
+"Ah! Don't pity me! I don't need your pity now!... My brother is
+alive!... That man has seen him!"
+
+Fandor had to undeceive her:
+
+"Your brother is certainly dead," he declared. "If he were the
+individual in question, it would not have been yesterday morning,
+but the morning before that, when the keeper saw him; and I do
+assure you ..."
+
+"But this good fellow is telling the truth then?"
+
+"I assure you that I have good reasons, the best of reasons, for
+believing, for being certain, that the swimmer who crossed the Seine was
+not your brother!"
+
+"Great Heaven! Who was it then?"
+
+Fandor hesitated a moment.... Should he divulge his secret? All he said
+was:
+
+"It was not your brother--I know that!"
+
+So decisive was his tone, so great the sympathy vibrating through his
+words, that Elizabeth Dollon, once more convinced that Fandor was not
+speaking at random, bent her head and shed tears of deepest grief and
+bitter disappointment.
+
+Fandor allowed the sorrow-stricken girl to give way to her grief for a
+few minutes; then he gently asked her:
+
+"Mademoiselle Elizabeth, shall we have a little talk?... You see I
+simply cannot tell you everything, yet I would gladly help you!... But
+first and foremost, I beg of you to put quite out of your mind this hope
+that your brother is still alive!..."
+
+Sadly Elizabeth wiped away her tears, and in a voice which she tried to
+steady, said:
+
+"Oh, what is to become of me! I thought I had found in you a support, a
+help, and now you abandon me! And I had put my faith in your goodness of
+heart!... There are your articles on the one hand, and your attitude on
+the other--what am I to make of it? It is driving me to despair! And if
+you only knew how much I need to be supported, encouraged; I feel as if
+I should go out of my senses--out of my mind ... and I am alone, so
+terribly alone!"
+
+The poor girl's voice was broken by sobs, her whole body was shaken by
+them. Fandor went up to her, and spoke to her in a low tone
+affectionately: he felt great sympathy and an immense pity for this
+unhappy young creature, who charmed and attracted him. He tried to
+console her, and to change the current of her thoughts:
+
+"Come now, Mademoiselle, do try to control yourself a little! I have
+promised to help you, and I certainly shall--you may be sure of it. But
+consider now--if I am to be of real use to you, I must know a little
+about you: you, yourself, your family, your brother; who your friends
+are, and who are your enemies! I must enter into your existence, not as
+a judge, but as a comrade who is interested in all that concerns you.
+Will you not confide in me? Once I know what there is to know we might
+then unite our efforts to some purpose, and find out what really has
+happened, since the mystery remains inexplicable."
+
+Elizabeth Dollon felt the young man was sincere, and that what he said
+in such a gentle voice was true.
+
+This poor human waif asked no more than to be allowed to cling to
+whoever would take pity on her and be kind. She now spoke to Jerome
+Fandor of her childhood without suspecting in the least that the same
+Jerome Fandor--Charles Rambert--used to play with her in those days.[7]
+
+[Footnote 7: See _Fantomas_.]
+
+She mentioned the assassination of the Marquise de Langrune--the first
+tragic episode of her life; then had come the horrible death of her
+father, old Steward Dollon, who had passed from the service of the
+Marquise to that of the Baroness de Vibray, and then perished, the
+victim of a criminal.
+
+She explained how Jacques Dollon and she had come to settle in Paris,
+feeling themselves rich on the savings they had inherited from their
+parents. Elizabeth had become a dressmaker, and Jacques had become an
+artist-craftsman. Gradually the young man's talent and industry had
+enabled his sister to leave her workroom and come to live with him. His
+reputation was a growing one, and the two young people looked forward to
+an existence of honest comfort in the near future. They got to know some
+people, one or two of whom were rich, and had shown their interest in
+the brother and sister.
+
+Jerome Fandor interrupted her:
+
+"You always remained on good terms with the Baroness de Vibray?"
+
+At this question the girl's eyes flashed:
+
+"They have put into print shameful things about this poor dear Baroness,
+and about my brother also. The papers have represented her as eccentric,
+as mad; they have said worse things than that, you know that, don't
+you?... They have declared that there was a very intimate relation
+between her and my brother--I cannot say more--it is too hateful! It is
+all false--as false as false can be! The Baroness was particularly
+interested in Jacques, but assuredly that was owing to the long standing
+relations between her family and ours.... The suicide of the Baroness
+has been a sad addition to my grief, for I was very fond of her!..."
+
+Fandor had been listening attentively to Elizabeth's story. He now said:
+
+"You have used the word 'suicide,' mademoiselle: do you then really
+think, as everyone seems to do, that your patroness killed herself of
+her own free will?"
+
+Elizabeth reflected a minute before replying:
+
+"That was what she wrote--and one must believe that, nevertheless ..."
+
+"Nevertheless?"
+
+Elizabeth hesitated, passed her hand over her forehead, then said:
+
+"Nevertheless, Monsieur Fandor, the more I think over this death, the
+more remarkable it seems. The Baroness de Vibray was not the kind of
+person to commit suicide, even if she were unhappy, even if she were
+ruined. I have often heard her speak of her money affairs; she even used
+to joke about the expostulations of her bankers, Messieurs
+Barbey-Nanteuil, because she was too fond of gambling. That was our poor
+friend's weakness: she was a dreadful gambler: she was always betting on
+horses and gambling on the Bourse."[8]
+
+[Footnote 8: Stock Exchange.]
+
+"Do you know the Barbey-Nanteuils at all, mademoiselle?"
+
+"A little. I have met them once or twice at Madame de Vibray's--when she
+had one of her little evenings. Once or twice my brother has asked their
+advice about investments--very modest investments I can assure you--and
+they got one of their friends, a Monsieur Thomery, to buy some of my
+brother's art pottery."
+
+"Have you many acquaintances in Paris, mademoiselle?"
+
+"Besides the Baroness we hardly saw anyone except Madame Bourrat, a very
+nice, kind woman, widow of an inspector of the City of Paris; she keeps
+a boarding-house at Auteuil, rue Raffet. In fact, I am staying with her
+now, for I had not the courage to go back to my brother's place: too
+many dreadful memories are connected with his studio there. I am lucky
+to find such a sympathetic friend in Madame Bourrat, and such a warm
+welcome.... I am alone now, and life is sad."
+
+Fandor went on with his cross-examination:
+
+"Nevertheless, mademoiselle, I must ask you to return in thought to that
+tragic home of yours. Please tell me what people you knew in your
+immediate neighbourhood? Acquaintances?"
+
+Elizabeth considered:
+
+"Acquaintances is the word, because we were not on really intimate terms
+with our neighbours in the Cite; for the most part they are either art
+students or work-people. However, we saw fairly often a nice man, a
+stranger, a Dutchman I think he was, called Monsieur Van Hoeren; he
+manufactures accordions; and lives in a little house opposite ours, with
+six children; he has been a widower for years! Also there was a Monsieur
+Louis, an engraver, who used to take tea with us in the evening
+sometimes, his wife also: he is employed in the Posts and Telegraphs. We
+had practically no other acquaintances."
+
+Elizabeth stopped. There was a silence. Fandor asked another question:
+
+"Tell me, mademoiselle, when you entered the studio for the first time
+after the tragedy, did you notice anything abnormal?"
+
+The poor girl shuddered at the appalling picture before her mind's eye:
+
+"Good Heavens, monsieur," she cried, "I did not examine the studio
+minutely! I had only one thought--to be with my brother, who had been so
+unjustly accused, so ..."
+
+Fandor interrupted to ask:
+
+"Do you not know that at his preliminary examination your brother
+declared that he had not received a single visitor during the evening
+preceding the tragedy? How then do you explain the fact that the
+Baroness de Vibray was found dead in his studio, and at his side, when
+no one had seen her enter it? Did your brother make a mistake? Please
+tell me what you think about it!"
+
+Elizabeth gazed anxiously at the young journalist, then fixed her eyes
+on the floor. Her hands twitched; she began to twist her fingers
+feverishly:
+
+"Do trust me!" begged Jerome Fandor. "Please tell me what you think!"
+
+Elizabeth rose, took several steps, and placed herself in front of the
+journalist:
+
+"Ah, monsieur, there is something mysterious, which I cannot explain! As
+a matter of fact, someone must have come to see my brother that evening:
+I cannot assert it as a fact beyond dispute certainly: but in my own
+mind I feel quite sure about it."
+
+"But you must have more proof of it than that?" cried Fandor.
+
+"But--there is more!" cried Elizabeth, as if enlightened by a sudden
+discovery: "There is a fact!..."
+
+"Tell me, do!" cried Fandor, intensely interested.
+
+"Well, just imagine, then! Among the papers scattered over his table,
+and close to his book, which was open, I noticed a sort of list of names
+and addresses, written on our own note-paper, and in the kind of green
+ink we use--so--well ..."
+
+"So," interrupted the journalist, "you came to the conclusion that this
+list had been written at your brother's house?"
+
+"Yes, and it was not my brother's handwriting."
+
+"Nor that of the Baroness de Vibray?"
+
+"Nor that of the Baroness de Vibray!"
+
+"And what did this list contain?"
+
+"Names, addresses, I tell you, of persons we knew. There were also two
+or three dates...."
+
+"And is that all?"
+
+"That is all, monsieur: I saw nothing else!"
+
+"Little enough," murmured Fandor, disappointed. "Still no detail,
+however slight, must be ignored!... What have you done with that list,
+mademoiselle?"
+
+"I must have taken it with me when I collected all the papers I could
+find the day before yesterday, before going to the boarding-house at
+Auteuil."
+
+"When you have an opportunity, will you bring me that list?" requested
+Fandor.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The conversation was interrupted. A boy came to tell Fandor that he was
+wanted on the telephone by someone in the Public Prosecutor's Office.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Later on in the day Jerome Fandor sent the following express message to
+Elizabeth Dollon:
+
+     _"Do not believe a word of the Police Headquarters' version which
+     you will read in this evening's 'La Capitale.'"_
+
+This despatched, our journalist commenced his article entitled:
+
+
+                 STILL THE AFFAIR OF THE RUE NORVINS
+
+     _Police Headquarters takes a view of this affair which is the very
+     reverse of that taken by our contributor, Jerome Fandor._
+
+     _By the Seine sewer, the roofs of the Palace, and the chimney of
+     Marie Antoinette, an inspector has succeeded in reaching the
+     Depot._
+
+     _Police Headquarters is convinced that Jacques Dollon escaped
+     alive!_
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+PEARLS AND DIAMONDS
+
+
+"Nadine!"
+
+"Princess!"
+
+"Nadine, what time is it?"
+
+The young Circassian, with hair as black as ink, souple and slender,
+rose from her chair and was hastening from the bedroom to ascertain the
+time when her mistress recalled her:
+
+"Don't go away, Nadine! Stay with me!"
+
+The dusky Circassian obeyed: she stared with big, astonished eyes into
+those of her mistress:
+
+"But, Princess, why don't you wish me to go?"
+
+The Princess stammered in a mysterious tone:
+
+"Don't you know then, Nadine, that to-day is the anniversary?... and I
+am frightened!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Princess Sonia Danidoff was in her bath robe. It must have been a
+quarter past eleven, or even nearer midnight than that. Although she had
+lived in Paris for years, she had never been able to make up her mind to
+settle in a flat of her own. Possessing an immense fortune, she much
+preferred the American way of living, and had taken a suite of rooms in
+one of those great palace-hotels near the place de l'Etoile. Though a
+very smart staff of servants was reserved for her exclusive use, her
+favourite attendant was a pretty Circassian, in whom she had absolute
+confidence. This Nadine was a native of Southern Russia. The movement of
+city life and civilised manners and customs had at first terrified this
+little savage; but she had learned to adapt herself to her changed
+surroundings, and was now high in the favour of Princess Sonia. She, and
+she alone, was authorised to be present when the beautiful great lady
+took her daily baths. For some years past the Princess had insisted on
+the presence of a maid when she took her baths: without fail they must
+either be in the bathroom itself, or in the room next to it, within
+reach or call. But on this particular evening Sonia Danidoff, more
+nervous and restless than usual, would not allow Nadine to leave her for
+a second. As to the time--well, if she did not know the exact time it
+could not be helped! Really it did not matter to her whether she were
+half an hour or no, for the ball given in her honour by Thomery, the
+millionaire sugar refiner: in fact, it would be much better to make her
+appearance after all the guests had assembled--her arrival would give
+the crowning touch of brilliancy to this society function.
+
+Sonia Danidoff had pronounced the word "anniversary" in a tone of
+anguish so sincere that Nadine was genuinely alarmed. She knew, only too
+well, what this fatal word meant to her mistress.
+
+She had not forgotten that five years ago to the day, just when the
+Princess was enjoying her evening bath, a mysterious individual had
+appeared before her, who, after frightening her, had robbed her of a
+large sum of money. The adventure would have been little out of the
+ordinary, for hotel robberies are frequent, had not the audacious bandit
+been quickly identified as the enigmatic and elusive Fantomas, whose
+prodigious reputation had only increased with the passage of the years.
+
+Sonia Danidoff, who was not ignorant of the dramatic adventures imputed
+to this legendary hero, could not bear to think of the position she had
+been placed in that awful night, when, threatened and robbed by
+Fantomas, she had escaped death by a series of unknown and unguessable
+circumstances: the tormenting mystery of it all had preyed insistently
+upon her mind. Since then Sonia Danidoff had never taken a bath without
+thinking of Fantomas; and every year when the anniversary of his
+aggression came round she suffered cruelly: she was seized with wild,
+unreasoning fears at the idea that she might see this terrifying bandit
+appear before her again, and that this time he would be merciless.
+
+Nadine knew all this. She also shuddered at the vision this horrible
+anniversary evoked, but controlling herself, she was anxious to change
+the current of her dear mistress's thoughts:
+
+"Forget, try to forget, Sonia Danidoff," she counselled in her melodious
+voice: "You are going to a ball--at Monsieur Thomery's--at your fiance's
+house!"
+
+The Princess shuddered:
+
+"Ah, Nadine, my Nadine!" she cried, raising herself, and regarding her
+maid with a strange look: "I cannot overcome my uneasiness--my
+alarms!... This coincidence of date agitates me.... You know how
+superstitious we are at home--in our Russia--and the life I lead in
+Paris has not destroyed in me the simplicity of soul of a daughter of
+the Steppes!"
+
+Nadine did not know what reply to make to this pathetic outburst. The
+Princess went on:
+
+"And then, do you see, I think it wrong of Monsieur Thomery to even want
+to give this ball, only a fortnight after the tragic death of that poor
+Baroness de Vibray!... I tried to dissuade him from it.... I think the
+Baroness was his most intimate friend once!..."
+
+"So it is said," murmured Nadine.
+
+Sonia Danidoff went on, as if speaking to herself:
+
+"I am not sure of it ... it is precisely to remove this suspicion from
+my mind that Thomery was determined to have his ball to-night at all
+costs!... The Baroness de Vibray, so he told me, was no more than a good
+old friend.... I cannot make her death an excuse for putting off the
+announcement of our marriage ... that would be to give colour to
+scandal."
+
+Sonia Danidoff shrugged her beautiful shoulders:
+
+"Hand me a mirror!"
+
+Nadine obeyed. The Princess gazed long and complacently at the
+marvellously lovely face reflected in the glass.
+
+"Princess," cried Nadine, "you must leave the bath, you will be late
+otherwise!"
+
+In the adjacent dressing-room, brilliantly illuminated by electric
+light, the Princess dressed with the aid of Nadine, proud and happy to
+be the sole assistant of her beloved mistress. The toilet was a triumph:
+silk of an exquisite blue, draped with silk muslin incrusted with pointe
+de Venise and bands of ermine: a costly masterpiece of the dressmaker's
+art. It enhanced the brilliant beauty of Sonia Danidoff, and threw
+Nadine into raptures.
+
+The Princess opened her jewel-box:
+
+"This evening, Nadine, I shall be pearls and diamonds!" cried the lovely
+creature, as she fixed two large grey pearls in her ears.
+
+"Oh, how beautiful you are, Princess! And what a lot they must have
+cost!" cried Nadine.
+
+"Ten thousand francs, my child, on each side of my head!"
+
+Sonia slipped on her fingers three diamond rings set in platinum:
+
+"And here are eight or nine thousand francs more," continued she, as
+Nadine's eyes grew round with wonder: her mind could hardly grasp all
+these thousands of francs-worth of diamonds and pearls. There were still
+more to come; for, rejecting a magnificent bracelet, on the plea that
+one no longer wore them at balls, the Princess smilingly bade her
+Circassian fasten round her neck a superb triple collar of pearls. To
+this was added a sparkling cascade of diamonds. Never had Nadine seen
+her beautiful mistress so richly dressed. Thus adorned, in Nadine's
+eyes, Sonia Danidoff was dazzlingly beautiful, exquisitely lovely.
+
+"You look like the Holy Virgin on the icons!" stammered Nadine,
+kneeling before her mistress, quite overcome by emotion.
+
+"Good Heavens! That is blasphemy! I am only a humble human creature!"
+said the Princess smiling. Then she once more looked at herself in the
+mirrors, well satisfied with her appearance, certain of the effect she
+would produce on her future husband Thomery. She threw over her
+shoulders a superb mantle of zibeline which was quite needed, for,
+though it was the middle of April, it was quite cold.
+
+Then, ready at last, she descended to her motor-car, and was whirled
+away to the ball.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Cranajour!... Cranajour!"
+
+Mother Toulouche shouted herself breathless: she tried to shout louder
+and louder. It was in vain. She might shout herself hoarse--there was no
+reply.
+
+The old termagant, who had left the front of her hovel and had gone to
+call her assistant, shouting in the passage at the back of the store,
+returned cursing and swearing, and seated herself near the store in the
+lean-to which did duty as a kitchen:
+
+"Where in the devil's name has that imbecile got to?" she grumbled,
+whilst sipping with gusts from the bottom of a cup, into which she had
+poured a small allowance of coffee and a copious ration of rum. It was
+about eleven in the evening. There was not a sound to be heard.
+
+Having finished her rum and tea the old receiver of stolen goods went to
+the entrance of the passage:
+
+"Cranajour!... Cranajour!" yelled the old termagant.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"He can't possibly be in his canteen," said Mother Toulouche to herself.
+"If he was he'd have answered, fool though he is, and would have come
+down!... Sure he's gone to drag his old down-at-heels somewhere--but
+where?... Oh, well, we can manage to do without him!"
+
+The old receiver went back to her store, and was starting on a queer
+sort of job when the door, which led on to the quay, burst open before a
+panting, breathless individual. He ran right up the store and stopped
+short. Mother Toulouche had seized the first thing she could find, and
+had taken up a defensive attitude. Her weapon was a great ancient
+cavalry sabre!
+
+But the newcomer intended no harm--quite the contrary! After an
+instinctive recoil, he leaned against a table and wiped his forehead,
+breathing in gasps, incapable of pronouncing a syllable.
+
+Mother Toulouche had recognised him:
+
+"Ah! It's you, Redhead!... And not a bit too soon either! I've been
+waiting for you this last half-hour! Ernestine will be there in ten
+minutes' time! However is it you are so late?"
+
+Redhead was well named! His bullet-head was covered with russet-red
+hair, cut very short; his complexion was a good match; his bloated
+cheeks and his potato-shaped nose were covered with red patches; his
+shaven chin was a tawny red; round his little gimlet eyes was a fringe
+of red lashes: it was a bestial face.
+
+He was hatless; above his waistcoat with metal buttons he wore a black
+coat; his trousers had a yellow line down them: he was evidently a
+servant, wearing the livery of some big house. The fellow was slowly
+recovering his breath; but he continued to wipe great drops of sweat off
+his narrow forehead; he was shaking all over, and his morose countenance
+was twitching and contracting nervously.
+
+"Well, what's your news? Good or bad?" questioned Mother Toulouche in a
+brutal tone.
+
+Redhead replied almost inaudibly:
+
+"That depends!... It's good on the whole."
+
+A gleam of cupidity showed in the old receiver's eyes:
+
+"Got a bit of tin on her back, that woman--eh?"
+
+Redhead nodded a "yes." Thereupon Mother Toulouche went into her back
+store and returned with a claret glass filled to the brim with rum:
+
+"Shoot that down your throat! That'll put you right!"
+
+When he had swallowed the bumper he seemed to gain courage, and said:
+
+"If I didn't get here sooner it's because I had to wait--but I saw the
+little thing...."
+
+"What's her name?"
+
+"Nadine," replied Redhead, and added: "A pretty little brat, too!...
+She's got some fire in her eyes!"
+
+"What's that to do with it?" interrupted Mother Toulouche.
+
+"You don't mean to tell me you were able to make her gabble a bit?" she
+queried contemptuously.
+
+Redhead bridled: "Likely, since I know everything now ... and I'm her
+sweetheart, let me tell you!"
+
+Mother Toulouche said in a jeering tone:
+
+"You don't tell me! You!"
+
+"Oh," replied Redhead, "it's just a way of speaking. She's a good little
+thing--there's nothing to it, you know!"
+
+"So much the worse!" declared Mother Toulouche. "Virtuous sorts aren't
+any use to our lot!... Well--what did she tell you--out with it!"
+
+"Well," said Redhead, "I waited three-quarters of an hour before Nadine
+joined me.... I had no bother in making her talk, I can tell you:
+without the asking she told me everything ... she was pretty well
+flabbergasted with all the jewels her mistress had stuck on her clothes
+and her skin.... Seems there's hundreds of thousands' worth!... All
+pearls and diamonds! Nothing but...."
+
+Mother Toulouche was calculating:
+
+"Real pearls, real diamonds--it's possible there's all that worth!"
+
+Steps could be heard on the pavement just outside.
+
+Redhead began to shake all over:
+
+"Who is it?" he asked. "Someone coming in?"
+
+Mother Toulouche grinned:
+
+"Be easy, then! Haven't I told you there's nothing to fear?"
+
+Nevertheless he asked anxiously:
+
+"There's nothing more I'm wanted for here, is there? I've told you all I
+know."
+
+"No, no, it's all right!" replied Mother Toulouche, maternal and
+conciliating, "there's nothing more for you to do here.... Still, if you
+want to see big Ernestine...."
+
+Without waiting to hear the end of her sentence Redhead hurried towards
+the exit. Mother Toulouche did not try to detain him:
+
+"After all," she said in a low tone to his back as a kind of farewell,
+"cut your sticks, my lad ... since you're funky!"
+
+When alone she grumbled aloud:
+
+"What a lot they are!... I never did!... White-livered, and for nothing
+at all!"
+
+Mother Toulouche was still muttering when big Ernestine marched in
+through the back way. She had on a large hat and was heavily veiled. She
+proceeded to remove both hat and veil:
+
+"Well?" she queried.
+
+"They've got on to it all right! Redhead has just gone! He knows through
+the little maid that the Princess went off to the ball, dressed up to
+the nines--hung with jewels like a shrine!"
+
+Big Ernestine uttered a deep sigh of satisfaction: her only reply was to
+hustle the old receiver:
+
+"Look alive, Mother Toulouche!... You've got to give me a beggar's
+outfit: it's up to you to see I'm disguised properly, and there's not a
+minute to lose either!"
+
+Mother Toulouche was an expert at disguises and make-up of every sort:
+this was not to be wondered at, considering the queer company she kept,
+and the fraudulent business she carried on, and the smuggling she was
+mixed up in!
+
+Big Ernestine, disguised as a poverty-stricken creature and rendered
+unrecognisable, looked exactly like some unfortunate reduced to
+soliciting alms. She walked into the back store, and helped Mother
+Toulouche to take from a cupboard some bottles, bandages, and medicated
+cotton-wool. By the light of a smoky lamp the two women scrutinised the
+labels, sniffing the various phials and flasks. Big Ernestine, with the
+aid of Mother Toulouche, prepared compresses of pomade and cotton-wool,
+on which she sprinkled a few drops of a yellow liquid, giving out a
+sickening odour. Besides this big Ernestine put inside her bodice a long
+phial, after making certain that the mixture, with which it was full,
+contained chloroform....
+
+Then, under Mother Toulouche's watchful eye, Ernestine prepared what was
+called in that world of light-fingered gentry "the mask": a mask of
+cotton, which is moulded by force on the face of the victim in order to
+plunge him, or her, into a heavy sleep. Whilst making these sinister
+preparations the two women talked as they went on with their evil task.
+Big Ernestine said, in reply to Mother Toulouche's questionings:
+
+"Oh, it's simple enough! It's like this:... When the motor-car stops I
+shall go to the right-hand door and begin to beg ... likely enough, the
+Princess won't want to hear what I have to say, but while I attract her
+attention, Mimile, who will be on the other side, will open the door,
+and will stick the compress on her mug.... She won't struggle--besides,
+Mimile will have hold of her--and then I'll have had time to see where
+her jewels are, and how they are fastened, and then I'll soon have them
+in my pocket--my deep 'un!"
+
+Mother Toulouche nodded:
+
+"It's arranged all right, but how will you arrest the motor?"
+
+"Oh, that's where the others come in; they'll do it all right.... I
+expect they're seeing to it now!..."
+
+"But, look here," cried Mother Toulouche, "Mimile isn't in bits then?
+They said he had fallen from his flier!"
+
+Big Ernestine gave a laugh:
+
+"He fell right enough, poor little fellow, and from pretty high too--but
+he's not broken a thing ... not this time ... a bit of luck I don't
+think--eh?"
+
+"He's a mascot, I'm certain," declared Mother Toulouche. Then she said:
+"You spoke of the others?... Who are they--the others?"
+
+"But didn't they tell you?" cried the surprised Ernestine, for she
+thought old Mother Toulouche was in the know: "Why, there's the
+Beadle--and the Beard...."
+
+"Oh," cried Mother Toulouche, much impressed: "If the Beard's in it,
+then it's a serious affair!"
+
+"Yes," replied big Ernestine, staring hard at the old receiver of stolen
+goods: "It's serious all right! If the chloroform doesn't work--oh, well
+... they'll bring the knife into play...."
+
+Big Ernestine looked at her little silver watch to mark the time:
+
+"Past midnight!" she remarked: "I must hurry off and see what they're up
+to!"
+
+As she was making off Mother Toulouche stopped her:
+
+"Have a glass of rum to start on--it puts heart into you!"
+
+The two women were quite ready for a drink together. When they had
+swallowed their dose, big Ernestine smacked her tongue:
+
+"Famous stuff!... It puts a heart into you and no mistake!"
+
+"Yes, it's the right stuff--the best," agreed Mother Toulouche: "It's
+what Nibet prefers!" she added. Then she cried: "But Nibet, how ...
+isn't he in it?"
+
+Big Ernestine put a finger on her lips:
+
+"Nibet's in it of course--as he always is--you know that, old
+Toulouche--but he's content to show the way--you know he seldom does
+anything himself ... besides, it seems he's on duty at the depot
+to-night!"
+
+Big Ernestine threw an old shawl over her head and went off crying:
+
+"I'm off, and in for it now!... Soon be back, Mother Toulouche!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The magnificent mansion of Thomery, the sugar refiner, overlooked the
+park Monceau. It was approached by a very quiet little avenue, in which
+were a few big houses: it opened on to the boulevard Malesherbes, and
+was known as the avenue de Valois. All the dwellings there are
+sumptuous, richly inhabited, and if the avenue is peaceful and silent by
+day, it is no uncommon thing to see it of an evening crowded with
+carriages and luxurious motor-cars, come to fetch the owners away to
+dinners and entertainments.
+
+On this particular evening the approaches to the avenue de Valois were
+full of animation. Motors and broughams succeeded one another in a long
+file, putting down the guests of Thomery under an immense marquee,
+covering the steps leading up to the vestibule.
+
+All the smart world had been invited to the reception: all Paris swarmed
+into the brilliantly illuminated entrance-halls of the mansion.
+
+Two mounted policemen sat as immovable as bronze caryatides on either
+side of the entrance, whilst a swarm of policemen made the carriages
+move on, and drove away from the aristocratic avenue de Valois the band
+of poverty-stricken and ragged creatures who crowded the pavement with
+the hope of securing a handsome tip by opening a carriage door or
+picking up some fallen object.
+
+It was no easy matter to keep order. One of the police sergeants
+accustomed to ceremonial functions remarked to one of his younger
+colleagues:
+
+"I have seen balls and receptions enough! Well, my boy, this Thomery
+affair is as fine a set out as if it were at the President's!"
+
+Although it was one o'clock in the morning, both on the boulevard
+Malesherbes and at the entrance to the rue de Monceau there was movement
+and activity. If, as seemed likely, there was a crush in the great
+reception-rooms of the Thomery mansion, it was certain that outside the
+crowd had to form up in line to get near the counters, where the wine
+sellers were serving their customers without a moment's
+intermission--serving them with drinks of every description. Thus there
+was a hubbub, there was noise and roystering clamour all around. Most of
+the chauffeurs, coachmen, and servants knew one another.
+
+Mingling with all this aristocracy of the servant class were
+pickpockets, mendicants obsequious and wheedling, who offered themselves
+as understudies to these of the upper ten of the servant world, and
+these aristocrats were ready to seize this chance of a little liberty,
+and at the same time play the generous patron to these poor failures in
+life's battle. In fact they gave more generous tips than their masters;
+for did they not rub shoulders with misery and thus realise, only too
+vividly, the measureless horrors of destitution?
+
+Ernestine and Mimile lost themselves in the noisy crowd. They were all
+eyes and ears for everything going on around them, whilst keeping in
+view their two accomplices, the Beadle and the Beard. This was more than
+usually difficult, because they were disguised almost out of
+recognition. The Beard was muffled in a blue blouse and a big soft hat,
+which gave him the look of a peasant, who had wandered into a crowd with
+which he had nothing in common. The Beadle was capitally disguised as a
+coachman in good service who is out of a situation, but who, from vanity
+and custom, sports the emblems of office.
+
+He was continually chewing a quid of tobacco; for such is the habit of
+coachmen who cannot smoke on their seats, and thus console themselves
+with two sous' worth of roll tobacco.
+
+The Beadle stopped beside a chauffeur who had just got down from his
+car, a magnificent limousine, lined with cream cloth, while its exterior
+was a dark maroon in the best taste.
+
+"Why, it's Casimir!" cried the Beadle, going up to the chauffeur with
+hands outstretched and smiling face.
+
+Mechanically the chauffeur, addressed as Casimir, responded to the
+offered handclasp. But, after a short silence, he said in a questioning
+tone, quite frankly:
+
+"I cannot recall you."
+
+"Can't you remember me!" cried the Beadle. "Why, don't you remember
+Cesar--Cesar who was with Rothschild last year?"
+
+No, Casimir could not remember. But he was quite willing to believe that
+he knew Cesar, for he had seen and known so many since he had been in
+the service of Princess Sonia Danidoff, that there was nothing
+extraordinary about his forgetfulness. Besides, Cesar looked quite a
+decent fellow, and had a taking face, and one only had to look at that
+beaming countenance of his to be sure that an invitation to take a drink
+together would soon be forthcoming!
+
+The Beadle, satisfied that he had so easily made a friend of the
+chauffeur of Sonia Danidoff, whom he had only known by sight for the
+last forty-eight hours, did in fact suggest their taking a glass
+together. The Beadle had indeed come up to expectations!
+
+Drink was Casimir's besetting sin. Excellent chauffeur, solid and
+serious fellow as he was, he had two defects: he was addicted to
+tippling, though he never drank to excess, and never got drunk. Also, he
+was fond of a gossip: he could talk for hours without stopping.
+
+The Beadle had been posted up regarding Casimir's little weaknesses and
+tastes. Thus nothing was easier than to set trap after trap, into each
+of which the simple fellow fell as they were set--fell fatally.
+
+The Beadle introduced the Beard to Casimir under the name of Father
+India-rubber: an old codger, whose trade was to buy and sell tyres to
+chauffeurs, tyres new and also second-hand. At this moment a young
+ragamuffin appeared on the scenes: he asked if he might be left in
+charge of the car. It was Mimile. The young hooligan, who had followed
+the conversation of the three men, and of Casimir in particular, whilst
+keeping in the background, now intervened at the right moment. He made
+his offer just as the chauffeur was looking about him in hopes of
+finding some poverty-stricken creatures into whose charge he could give
+his car. Casimir gave him twenty sous as an earnest of what was to
+follow in the way of coin, saying:
+
+"Take great care of my little shanty! Don't let anyone come mouching
+around it, and when I return you shall have double what you've just
+had!"
+
+"Thank you, master!" cried Mimile, bowing low before the chauffeur: "You
+may rest assured I shall keep a good look out!"
+
+Mimile exchanged signs of understanding with his two accomplices, whilst
+they, talking as they went, drew the innocent Casimir towards the
+nearest tavern, which was crowded with wine-bibbers.
+
+Mimile, as faithful guardian of the limousine, soon got bored, although
+big Ernestine was prowling around, and came to have a minute's talk with
+him now and again: they dared not be seen together too much for fear of
+attracting attention. As time went on, Mimile was surprised that neither
+the Beadle nor the Beard came to report progress. But at long last the
+majestic outline of the Beard was seen at the corner of the rue Monceau.
+The pretended seller of india-rubber was coming out of the tavern.
+
+He hastened to Mimile and, in a low, distinct voice, he gave him some
+hurried instructions, for now there was no time to lose:
+
+"That idiot would never get done with his stories about motor-cars, and
+all that stuff and rubbish--what's that to us? But--keep your ears open
+now, Mimile--it seems there are still fifteen litres of petrol in the
+tank, and that would take it a long way, for the motor consumes very
+little.... But this shanty has got to stop about five hundred yards from
+here, at the corner of the rue de Monceau and the rue de Teheran ...
+it's by this way Casimir will take his Baroness back from the ball....
+Well, what you have to do is to take fourteen litres and a half from
+that tank and pitch them in the gutter!... When Casimir finds that his
+petrol has given out, he will have to go in search of more ... it's
+during his absence that we will work the trick on the pretty
+Princess--we'll perform an operation on her, and amputate
+her--jewellery--the whole lot!"
+
+The Beard drew from under his blouse an empty bottle, which he had
+stolen in the tavern:
+
+"Here's your measure! Count carefully fourteen litres and a half--that
+done, wait quietly till Casimir turns up: your part in the story will be
+forty sous, and not to rouse his suspicions; then, while he goes up the
+avenue de Valois to take up the Princess, you and Ernestine have to
+gallop off to the corner of the rue de Monceau and the rue de Teheran,
+then ... wait!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mimile, with the agility of a monkey and the ability of a first-rate
+chauffeur--for there was nothing he did not know in the way of applied
+mechanics, as became an aviator--executed to the letter his accomplice's
+orders.
+
+The Beard meanwhile had returned to the tavern and Casimir.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly, all was activity in the world of carriages and coachmen! The
+great ball was drawing to its end. Casimir was once more in possession
+of his motor, and had generously tipped his understudy: thereupon the
+hooligan had made off as fast as his legs could carry him. Ernestine
+joined him at the appointed spot: there the two rogues waited.
+"Listen!" cried big Ernestine some fifteen minutes later.
+
+She stared in the direction of the boulevard Malesherbes, with neck
+outstretched and straining eyeballs. At last, after an agonising wait,
+she and Mimile saw the carriages driving by. "Attention!" cried big
+Ernestine in a sharp whisper ... "everybody's on the move at last!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Beadle and the Beard, hidden in the crowd which thronged the
+approaches to the Thomery mansion, awaited the departure of Princess
+Sonia Danidoff: the idea of this rich prey excited them. Then as they
+stared at the first outflow of departing guests, the two bandits could
+not but notice that far from looking gay and animated as people do who
+have danced and supped well, these guests of Thomery showed pale,
+dejected faces: in fact, they had all the appearance of people under the
+influence of some tragic emotion.
+
+"They look pretty down in the mouth, don't they?" whispered the Beard in
+the Beadle's ear.
+
+"That's a fact! You'd think they were returning from a funeral!"
+
+Then a vague rumour began to circulate; confirmation followed, spread
+insensibly within the Thomery mansion, was passed on by the lackeys,
+spread from the pavements to the avenue. People whispered of
+incomprehensible things incredible, but which little by little took
+definite shape. It was said that the Thomery ball had just become the
+scene of an accident, of a drama, of a robbery, of a crime!... The
+police, and of the highest grade, had intervened.... The news spread
+like a train of ignited gunpowder.... Nevertheless, if Thomery's guests
+were cognisant of the details, they did not take the beggars and
+pickpockets into their confidence: among the light-fingered gentry
+conjectures were rife.
+
+The Beadle and the Beard, who tried to catch odds and ends of talk
+separately, joined each other again, looking crestfallen, discomfited.
+The Beadle broke silence, with an oath, adding:
+
+"I am certain we have been done ... someone has got in before us--been
+too smart for us!"
+
+Beard nodded: he was of the same opinion.
+
+But who then could have had the audacity to plan such an attempt and
+carry it out, too? Who could have had the same idea as he and his
+comrades, and to realise it successfully? Whoever it was had proved
+himself the better man. In spite of himself the bandit, in thought,
+formulated one word:
+
+Fantomas!
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+END OF THE BALL
+
+
+When Sonia Danidoff entered Thomery's ball-room she made a sensation. It
+was not far off midnight when she appeared in all her brilliant beauty
+and dazzling array, leaning on the arm of her host and fiance, who bore
+his honours proudly. Dancers paused to admire this handsome couple; then
+the Hungarian band redoubled their efforts, and the whirling, eddying
+waltz started afresh, more gay, more inspiriting than before.
+
+In a corner opposite the musicians a group of persons were in animated
+talk: among them Sonia Danidoff, Thomery, and Jerome Fandor. Music was
+their theme, some admired Wagner and the classics, others voted for the
+moderns, for the sugariest of waltzes, for the romantic, the bizarre.
+
+"For the profane like myself," declared Thomery, laughing, "gipsy music
+has its charms!"
+
+"Oh," cried Sonia Danidoff, "you are not going to tell me that such
+hackneyed things as _The Smile of Spring_ and _The Blush Rose Waltz_ are
+to your taste!"
+
+Her tone was reproachful, but her smile was charming.
+
+Nanteuil, the fashionable banker, who was fluttering about the Princess,
+hastened to take her side:
+
+"Come now, Thomery, you would not put your signature to that?"
+
+Jerome Fandor, who had just joined the group, declared:
+
+"For my part, I thoroughly agree with you, my dear Monsieur Thomery!"
+
+Sonia Danidoff looked her surprise.
+
+Thomery replied, with a touch of malice:
+
+"Monsieur Fandor is like myself--the Tonkinoise is more to his taste!"
+
+"More than Wagner's operatic big guns!" finished Fandor.
+
+Then turning to the Princess who still wore her air of surprise:
+
+"Yes, Princess, I confess it--my taste in music is deplorable: it comes
+from absolute ignorance. I do not understand these modern
+symphonies--the simple romantic suits me best!"
+
+"And that is?" ... queried Nanteuil:
+
+"Just some music-hall air or ditty," answered Fandor with a smile as
+frank as his confession.
+
+The Princess was amused at this little pseudo-artistic discussion. She
+was about to speak when a couple of waltzers broke into the group and
+scattered it.
+
+Jerome Fandor slipped away and wandered through the gorgeous reception
+rooms. Here and there, when caught up in the throng and forced to halt,
+or when pressed against the wall of the ball-room, scraps of
+conversation, mingled with the strains of the Hungarian band, fell on
+his retentive ears. He took refuge at last in the embrasure of a window;
+but his retreat was soon invaded by two young men who, he gathered, had
+run across each other in the gallery, and were continuing their talk
+about old times and new.
+
+"Come, tell me, dear Charley, what has been happening to you since we
+left the school?"
+
+"Bah! I go from the Madeleine to the Opera nearly every evening, and
+then back again; I go to bed late and get up late; I go out a good deal,
+as you see; sometimes I dance, but very rarely; I often play bridge ...
+and that is about all! It's not very interesting; but you, old boy ... I
+heard you had got a jolly good billet, my dear Andral!"
+
+"Oh, hardly that, dear fellow; but I am well on the way to one, I
+fancy. I had the good luck to be introduced to Thomery, and it so
+happened he was wanting a young engineer for one of his sugar
+plantations in San Domingo."
+
+"Good Lord! At San Domingo, among the niggers?"
+
+"That's right! Not so bad, though it and the boulevards are a few miles
+apart! But, on the other hand, I am interested in my work, and I am
+married to a charming woman--Spanish."
+
+"Won't you introduce me to your wife?"
+
+"When we are nearer to her, old fellow! I came to Paris by myself to
+talk big business with Thomery. I am only here for a fortnight.... Now
+do point out some of the celebrities--you know everybody!"
+
+Charley adjusted his eyeglass and looked about the room:
+
+"Ah, there's an interesting pair! That old fellow and the young one, who
+are so extraordinarily alike--the Barbey-Nanteuils, bankers for
+generations in the financial swim, and mixed up in all sorts of big
+affairs, sugar, among them.... Look here! That's the widow of an iron
+master, Allouat--she is passing close to the orchestra--not bad looking
+in spite of her mahogany-coloured hair, granddaughter of a famous French
+peer, Flavogny de Saint-Ange.... Ah, I breathe again!... It's a detail,
+but I am quite delighted! General de Rini's daughters have at last found
+partners: they are ugly, poor things, and they've dressed themselves in
+rose-pink as though they were schoolgirls: a fine name, a distinguished
+position, but no fortune, and no husband!... Ah, now there's someone who
+looks as if he were in luck--and he is, too--matrimonial luck. The
+affair is settled this evening, it's whispered. It will interest you
+particularly, for the lucky fellow is none other than Thomery!"
+
+"What! Thomery?"
+
+"Yes, Thomery! Although he is well over fifty, he means to commit
+matrimony! I quite envy him his future wife, my Andral! There she is!
+That stately dame who is going towards the last of the reception rooms
+all alone, rather haughty, but a noble creature--it's Princess Sonia
+Danidoff, related to the Tzar in some distant way and with an immense
+fortune. Just look, dear boy, at those splendid jewels on that beautiful
+neck of hers! They say she's got on seven hundred thousand francs'
+worth--and the rest to match--millions to swell the sugar refiner's
+pouch! She is to lead the cotillion with him, so there's no doubt about
+the betrothal. By the by, you are going to stay for the cotillion?"
+
+"Hum! I..."
+
+"But you must! You simply must! We must sit together at supper, we have
+still so much to say!... Besides, if you hurry off like that, I fancy
+Thomery won't be best pleased. Oh, I say, there he is, coming our way!
+There's no denying it, he is a fine figure of a man, though he is in the
+fifties--but!... but!... but do look! What is the matter with him? He
+looks as if he had seen a ghost."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sonia Danidoff, who had been waltzing with Thomery, was a little out of
+breath. A quick glance in a mirror showed the lovely Princess that her
+cheeks were rather flushed:
+
+"I am scarlet," she thought, with that touch of feminine exaggeration
+characteristic of her! She was a true daughter of Eve!
+
+At that exact moment she felt a slight tug at the bottom of her skirt,
+and at the same time a black coat was making profuse apologies: it was
+Monsieur Nanteuil:
+
+"I am in despair, Princess!" cried the banker. "But no one is quite
+responsible for his movements in such a crush!... I am very much afraid
+that I have stepped on the muslin of your ravishing toilette and have
+slightly torn it!"
+
+The Princess protested that it did not matter in the least, and the
+banker moved away, bowing low and pouring out apologies and regrets. As
+soon as he had left her the Princess showed her annoyance: how could she
+lead the cotillion with this tear in her dress, slight though it might
+be--and the cotillion would begin in less than half an hour! Then she
+remembered that her fiance had led her, on her arrival, to a little
+drawing-room, quite away from the reception rooms at the end of the
+gallery, that she might leave her cloak there, saying:
+
+"Dear Princess, I have prepared this boudoir for you, and _you only_."
+
+Sonia decided to retire to this boudoir at once and repair the damage to
+her dress. As she passed the cloak-room on her way a maid offered her
+services. The Princess refused them. If she could not have Nadine, she
+preferred to manage for herself, besides, she saw that two pins,
+concealed in the silk muslin, would put her dress to rights; and a touch
+of powder to her cheeks would bring her colour down to a becoming tint.
+
+She was considerably amused at the veritable arsenal of flasks and boxes
+of perfumes which Thomery, as became an attentive lover, had placed
+there in her honour: the little boudoir had been transformed into a
+comfortable ladies' dressing-room. Everything was provided, down to a
+glass of sugar and water, down to a little phial of alcohol and mint!
+
+Sonia opened a powder box; then, like all the women of her race, having
+a passion for perfumes, she took up a scent sprayer and lavishly
+sprinkled her throat and the lower part of her face with what was
+labelled, "essence of violets."
+
+The Princess may have suffered from the intense heat of the ball-room,
+and required rest without realising it, for she felt slightly faint, a
+little sick--almost a desire to sleep.... She slipped down on to a low
+divan, which occupied a corner of the room: she drew deep breaths,
+breaking in the perfume, a sweet rather strange scent, from the
+sprayer.
+
+"This scent is sickly," she thought. "If only I had some
+eau-de-Cologne!"
+
+Without rising, for she felt a real lassitude stealing over her, she
+looked round for the eau-de-Cologne she wanted: Thomery's arsenal did
+not contain any. There was only one sprayer and that Sonia Danidoff held
+in her hand.
+
+She sprinkled herself a second time, hoping that the perfume would
+revive her; but, on the contrary, her fatigue increased: her eyes closed
+for a moment.... When she opened them again the room was in darkness.
+
+Sonia tried to rise from the divan. An overpowering torpor, though not
+disagreeable, was benumbing her whole body, and before her eyes bright
+lights seemed to float, succeeded by thick darkness. Her head turned
+round and round ... she strove to cry out, but her voice stuck in her
+throat: her body jerked with a feeble convulsive movement. She heard
+indistinctly an unknown voice murmuring:
+
+"Let yourself go!... Sleep!... Have no fear!"
+
+Sonia Danidoff essayed a momentary resistance, then she succumbed and
+lost all consciousness of her surroundings....
+
+Absolute silence reigned in the boudoir Thomery had reserved for the
+sole use of his beautiful betrothed, when he arrived to lead her to the
+cotillion. He found the door shut. He knocked discreetly. There was no
+reply. Repeated knocking evoked no audible answer. Thomery opened the
+door. The room was in total darkness. He switched on the electric light:
+the boudoir was brilliantly illuminated.... The sight that met his
+startled eyes was so moving that he grew livid with horror and rushed to
+the side of his betrothed.
+
+Sonia Danidoff was extended on the divan motionless and pale as death. A
+hoarse and laboured breath came from her heaving bosom at irregular
+intervals: on the exquisite skin of neck and breast were spattered
+streaks of blood!
+
+Beside himself, Thomery rushed away in search of help.
+
+It was at this terrible crisis that the fiance of Sonia Danidoff had
+attracted the attention of Charley, whose friend, the young engineer
+Andral, was the protege of the man whose awful pallor and distracted air
+spelt tragedy.
+
+Thomery, his countenance ravaged by intense emotion, his hands clenched,
+shaken by nervous tremors, hastened, with unsteady steps, in the
+direction of the gallery leading to the anteroom.
+
+Suddenly a woman's shrieks broke in on the charming harmonies of a slow
+waltz, which the orchestra was rendering at the moment.... There was an
+irresistible rush towards the boudoir, where two half-fainting women had
+collapsed on chairs, and the famous surgeon, Dr. Marvier, was doing his
+utmost to prevent the crowd from entering the room. The word went round
+that a tragedy had taken place--a death! Princess Sonia Danidoff was in
+the room lying dead! The words "crime" and "murder" were freely bandied
+about: murmurs of "assassin," "robber," "assassination" could be heard.
+
+Some twenty of the guests who had entered the boudoir could give
+details. The dreadful rumours were true. Sonia Danidoff, they declared,
+was stretched out on the floor covered with blood, her breast bare, her
+pearls had vanished--a horrible sight!
+
+The uproar died down; an icy silence reigned. The dancers drew together
+in groups discussing the terrifying tragedy.... Several women were still
+in a fainting condition; pallid men were opening windows that fresh air
+might circulate in the overheated rooms; on all sides they were watching
+for the return of their host.
+
+Thomery remained invisible.
+
+General de Rini called his two daughters to his side and spoke words of
+affectionate encouragement, for they were much upset. The old soldier
+marched off with them in the direction of the grand staircase and
+towards the cloak-room on the landing. As he was preparing to take over
+his coat and hat, one of the footmen went up to him and said a few words
+in a low voice:
+
+"What!... What!" cried the General. "What's the meaning of this?... Not
+to leave the house!... But, am I under suspicion then?... It is
+shameful!... I never heard of such a thing!"
+
+A butler approached the irate General and said, very respectfully:
+
+"I beg of you, General, to speak lower! A definite order to that effect
+was given us ten minutes ago. Directly Monsieur Thomery was aware of the
+... accident he had the entrance doors closed and had the house
+surrounded by the detectives who were downstairs on duty. The sergeant
+is there to see this order carried out: you cannot leave the
+premises!... It is not that you are under suspicion, General--of course
+not--but perhaps in this way they may succeed in finding the guilty
+person who has certainly not left the house, for no one has gone from
+the house for at least an hour...."
+
+General Rini had calmed down. He understood why his host had issued the
+order. He retired to a corner of the gallery with his daughters, Yvonne
+and Marthe: the poor things seemed stunned.
+
+The reception rooms slowly emptied: the guests crowded on to the
+verandah and into the smoking-room. There was a buzz of talk--queries,
+comments, conjectures: it ceased abruptly.
+
+Monsieur Thomery had just appeared at the top of the grand staircase,
+accompanied by a gentleman, whose simple black coat was in striking
+contrast to the light dresses and brilliant uniforms of the guests.
+
+Someone whispered:
+
+"Monsieur Havard!"
+
+It was, in fact, the chief of the detective police force. Within a
+couple of minutes of his frightful discovery, Thomery had rushed to the
+telephone and had called up Police Headquarters. It was a piece of
+unexpected good fortune to find Monsieur Havard there at so advanced an
+hour. He had immediately responded to the call in person.
+
+Whilst crossing the reception rooms Thomery talked to him in a low
+voice:
+
+"Accept my grateful thanks, Monsieur, for having answered my appeal for
+help so quickly. No sooner did I discover the body of my Princess than I
+lost no time in having all the exits from the premises watched.
+Unfortunately I was obliged to leave my reception rooms for quite a
+quarter of an hour, so that I cannot tell you what happened there. If
+only I had been able to remain with my guests, I might possibly have
+surprised some movement, some gesture, some look, which would have put
+me on the track of this murderous thief ... unfortunately ..."
+
+Monsieur Havard interrupted, smiling:
+
+"That does not matter, Monsieur: if the guilty person is among your
+guests and has in some way betrayed himself, I shall hear of it. There
+are, at least, four or five plain clothes men among the dancers, I can
+assure you of that."
+
+"I can assure you to the contrary!" replied Thomery--"I know my
+guests--know who have been admitted here!"
+
+"I also am sure of what I say," insisted Monsieur Havard. "There is
+scarcely a ball, a reception, however select it may be, where you will
+not find a certain number of our men."
+
+Thomery made no reply to this: they had arrived at the door of the fatal
+room. The doctor was standing beside the victim. Dr. Marvier reassured
+Monsieur Havard. He announced that the Princess had been almost
+literally felled to the ground by a most powerful soporific and was in
+no real danger: she would certainly regain consciousness in the course
+of an hour or two.... But she must be kept perfectly quiet: that was
+absolutely necessary.
+
+Monsieur Havard did not question the doctor's statement. After a rapid
+glance he was able to form his own opinion. There had been no struggle:
+the victim's wounds were due to the haste with which the thief had torn
+the jewels from Sonia Danidoff's neck. He next considered the two
+windows which, with the door opening on to the gallery, were the only
+means of entrance and exit the room had. There were strong iron shutters
+behind the windows: these could not be very easily opened: in any case,
+it was impossible to close them again from the outside. The thief must
+have been in the house, probably in the ball-room, and had followed the
+Princess into this little retiring-room.... But what had been the
+Princess's motive for coming here alone? Monsieur Havard had learned
+that the room had not been thrown open to the other guests. Then he
+perceived that the lace at the bottom of her dress was undone. He bent
+down and examined it carefully: two pins, hastily stuck in, kept
+together a piece of this lace.... The conclusion Monsieur Havard came to
+was, that the Princess having a rent in her dress had wished to be alone
+for a minute or two in order to repair the damage, and that while she
+was stooping towards the bottom of her skirt the assassin had thrown her
+to the ground and despoiled her of her jewels.
+
+The chief of the detective force turned to Thomery abruptly:
+
+"I shall be obliged to follow a course of action which may rather annoy
+your guests; but they must excuse me. Everything leads me to think that
+the guilty person is on the premises, since no one has gone away.... I
+must hold an investigation at once. I am going to cross-examine your
+guests--probe them thoroughly--and I wish to put them through their
+paces in your office, Monsieur Thomery, one by one.... I will begin ...
+with you ... so that your guests take my questioning with a good grace
+... it is only a mere matter of form--a pure formality!..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The investigations were lengthy and trying and led to no result
+whatever.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fandor, who was preoccupied by this fresh drama in which he had taken
+some part--far too slight to please him--was putting on his overcoat
+when he stopped dead.
+
+A voice--an unrecognisable voice--had murmured in his ear:
+
+"Attention! Fandor!... It is serious!..."
+
+Our journalist turned round in a flash. Ah, this time he would find out
+who the mysterious unknown was--the unknown, who wished to influence by
+word written and word spoken, the course of these investigations he had
+taken in hand:
+
+Anonymous friend?
+
+Concealed adversary?
+
+He must, at all costs, clear up the mystery.
+
+A dozen people were crowding round Fandor, insisting on being attended
+to in the cloak-room.
+
+No one noticed the journalist....
+
+No one seemed interested in what he was doing....
+
+Fandor examined every one of Thomery's guests who were standing about
+him. He knew some of them by name, some he knew by sight. He searched
+their faces with penetrating eyes; but, in vain.... Some were
+common-place looking, others calm, others impenetrable:
+
+"Hang it all," he grumbled. He went off furious and upset.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+FINGER PRINTS
+
+
+After having interrogated all the witnesses of last night's tragedy he
+could get into touch with, Jerome Fandor returned to the Palais de
+Justice.
+
+"All the same," he confessed to himself, "I must admit that, up to the
+present, I do not know anything very definite about it. This Princess
+Sonia Danidoff has managed to get robbed in a most extraordinary way. At
+one o'clock in the morning, Havard declares that the thief can be none
+other than one of the guests, and thereupon every person present has to
+submit to being searched--an exhaustive search! Nothing comes of it.
+Then Bertillon arrives on the scene, and it seems he has obtained very
+distinct imprints of finger marks. If they are as distinct as all that,
+the task of the police will be simplified; but, on the other hand, is it
+likely the guilty person will be so simple as to respond to the summons
+issued by the Public Prosecutor, a general summons issued to all
+Thomery's guests to parade in Bertillon's office for the finger-mark
+test?... Not he! Why the moment he heard of it he would make for the
+train and pass the frontier!"
+
+When his cab arrived at the Palais, Fandor uttered a big sigh of
+satisfaction:
+
+"There are a good many things I am not clear about: let us hope
+Bertillon will give me some information."
+
+The entrance to the anthropometric department was under the discreet
+observation of two detectives:
+
+"Oh," thought Fandor. "They think it probable there will be an immediate
+arrest, do they? We are going to have some complications, I foresee, in
+connection with the finger-mark ceremony!"
+
+He sent in his card and a few minutes after he found himself in the
+presence of Monsieur Bertillon.
+
+"Well, what is it you want me to tell you?" asked this famous man of
+science.
+
+"Why, dear master, everything that took place last night! Is it true
+that you have summoned here all Thomery's guests?... Have you obtained
+such perfect reprints that, in your hasty examination, you can be
+certain of identifying them with those of the persons who will pass
+through your office to undergo the test?"
+
+Bertillon smiled:
+
+"Oh, my dear fellow, you are of those who do not put much faith in the
+results of my tests for police purposes! That, let me tell you, is
+because you are not acquainted with our procedure. The impressions I
+obtained are distinct--precise as can be; if an arrest is made before
+long it will be made on sure grounds."
+
+Fandor bowed:
+
+"I accept your statement, dear master!... But, do be kind enough to tell
+me what happened after my departure?"
+
+"Oh, nothing very extraordinary.... Of course you know about the
+affair--how the Princess Sonia Danidoff was discovered?..."
+
+"What I know is that Thomery found one of his guests, Princess Sonia
+Danidoff, in a dead faint in a small drawing-room; that Dr. Du Marvier
+declared she had been rendered unconscious; that the theft of a pearl
+necklace worn by the victim had been the motive of this criminal
+attempt; that Monsieur Havard, called in at once, first made sure that
+no one had left the house, and then had everyone on the premises
+searched ... and that is really all I know about it!"
+
+"Well, Havard did not find anything!"
+
+"No one was caught with compromising jewels in their possession. The
+last guest gone, the house searched from top to bottom, not a single
+pearl had been found.... I arrived just when the investigations had
+terminated: at the moment when they were about to take the Princess
+home. She had regained consciousness by this time and declared she knew
+nothing except that she had fallen asleep after using a perfume sprayer.
+This has been seized and chloroform has been found in it; but no one
+seems to know who filled the sprayer with this stupefying perfume."
+
+"Did Monsieur Havard send for you?"
+
+"Yes, he telephoned. You know, of course, that I am always asked to
+intervene now in any ticklish affair!... Well Dr. Du Marvier, an expert
+in his way, noticed that the Princess had been half strangled by the
+thief in his haste to secure the pearl collar, and he wished me to
+search for finger prints on the nape of the victim's neck--to discover
+the assassin's signature in fact."
+
+"And there were some?"
+
+"A quantity. The Princess had been slightly wounded in the nape of the
+neck ... blood had been pressed on to the skin of her neck, and it was
+easy to take a cast of one of the fingers."
+
+"Was that sufficient?"
+
+"Yes, and no; such an impression is something; but there is better than
+that! The thief must have given the neck a violent squeeze with his
+hands, consequently there is a complete impression of the hand ... that
+I had to get...."
+
+Fandor instinctively put his hand to his neck as if he were squeezing
+it. He said:
+
+"Are such impressions imperceptible?"
+
+"Yes; to the eye, but not to the photographing apparatus. It is
+thoroughly established that the pattern formed by the innumerable lines
+which furrow the fleshy part of our fingers is as peculiarly
+characteristic of each individual as the form of his nose, of his ears,
+or the colour of his eyes. The curves or rings, the various forms taken
+by these lines already exist in the newly born and never change to the
+day of his death. Even in case of a burn, if the skin grows again, the
+ridges reappear exactly as they were before the accident. Look you, one
+can obtain by this method--this test--such results as you would never
+dream of. For example, by taking these imprints I obtained in the early
+hours of to-day, as a basis, I can tell you, with almost absolute
+accuracy, the height of the individual...."
+
+"This is marvellous!" cried Fandor. "The service your department renders
+then is to abolish legal blunders?"
+
+"That is so. Every individual identified, is identified plainly,
+irrefutably. Unfortunately, we cannot always obtain perfect imprints on
+the spot where the crime is committed."
+
+"But this night?"
+
+"Ah, as I told you, the impressions were most satisfactory. I have the
+thief's hand--the whole of it! I will even go so far as to declare that
+the fellow who committed the crime has already been through my hands. I
+recognise that hand! You shall see, whether or no I have made a
+mistake!"...
+
+Bertillon pressed a bell, and asked the official who answered it:
+
+"Have you identified the imprints I sent you just now?"
+
+"Yes, sir. This man has already been measured here. It is register
+9200."
+
+Bertillon turned to Fandor:
+
+"You see, I was not mistaken! All I have to do is to turn up my
+alphabetical index, and for this very month, for the number is a recent
+one, and I shall know the name of the old offender--he must be one, as
+he is catalogued here--who has committed this assault."
+
+Whilst speaking, Monsieur Bertillon was turning over the leaves of an
+enormous register:
+
+"Ah! Here is the 9200 series!..."
+
+Suddenly the book slipped from his hands, and he exclaimed: "The guilty
+man is ..."
+
+"Is who?" questioned Fandor.
+
+"Is Jacques Dollon!... The hand that has robbed Princess Sonia Danidoff
+is the hand of Jacques Dollon!"
+
+"But it is impossible!"
+
+Bertillon shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Impossible?... Why, since the proof of it is there?"
+
+"But Jacques Dollon is dead!"
+
+"He was the thief of yesterday's crime."
+
+"You are making a mistake!..."
+
+"I am not making a mistake!... Jacques Dollon is the thief I tell you!"
+
+This was too much for Jerome Fandor: he could not contain himself.
+
+"And I tell you, Monsieur Bertillon, that I know that I am
+certain--positively certain, that Jacques Dollon is dead!... Now,
+then!..."
+
+The man of science shook his head.
+
+"I, in my turn, say, you are making a mistake! Look at the two imprints
+I have here! That of Jacques Dollon taken a few days ago, and this made
+from the impressions obtained this very night, or, to be exact, in the
+early morning hours of to-day! They are identical--one can be exactly
+superposed on the other!..."
+
+"Coincidence!"
+
+"There is no such coincidence possible--besides"--Monsieur Bertillon
+took up a powerful magnifying glass--"look at these characteristic
+details!... Just look at the lines of the thumb, all out of shape!...
+The presentment of the thumb itself is not normal either; it denotes
+habitual movement in a certain direction: it is the thumb of a painter,
+of a potter!... Oh, it is all as clear as daylight--believe me--there is
+no doubt about it! Jacques Dollon is the guilty person!"
+
+"But," repeated Fandor obstinately: "Jacques Dollon is dead! I swear to
+you he is dead!..."
+
+This assertion made no impression on the man of science.
+
+"As to whether Jacques Dollon is alive or dead--that is for the police
+to decide!... For my part, I can declare that the man who committed the
+theft yesterday evening is the identical man who passed through my hands
+some days ago--and that man is certainly Jacques Dollon!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jerome Fandor left Monsieur Bertillon. The young journalist was
+perplexed.... If the finger-prints on the neck of Princess Sonia
+Danidoff were, beyond dispute, those of Jacques Dollon--then the mystery
+surrounding this affair, and not this affair only, but a series of
+incidents, so far from being cleared up, was more impenetrable than
+ever!
+
+But Fandor was obsessed by the idea of Fantomas, of Fantomas in the
+depths of mystery, presiding over this series of dramatic occurrences.
+
+"Yes, Fantomas is certainly in this!" he cried.... But Dollon has left
+traces of himself here--has, as it were, put his signature, his
+identification mark to this crime!... But Dollon is not Fantomas ...
+besides Dollon is dead!... I have proofs of it--yes, he is dead!... Well
+then?...
+
+What to make of it?
+
+Fandor could not make anything of it!
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+IDENTITY OF A NAVVY
+
+
+"The Barbey-Nanteuil bank is certainly gorgeous!" thought Jerome Fandor
+as he traversed the hall on the ground floor, where the massive mahogany
+furniture, the thick carpets, the deep, comfortable chairs, the sober
+elegance of the window curtains breathed an atmosphere of luxury and
+good taste. "And decidedly banking is the best of businesses!" added our
+young journalist.
+
+An attendant advanced to meet him.
+
+"What do you want, monsieur?"
+
+"Will you take in my card to Monsieur Nanteuil? I should be glad to have
+a few minutes' talk with him."
+
+The attendant bowed.
+
+"On a personal matter, monsieur?"
+
+"A personal matter?... Yes."
+
+Jerome Fandor wanted to interview the Barbey-Nanteuils on the subject of
+the recent occurrences, which had roused Paris opinion to the highest
+degree--mysterious occurrences on which no light seemed to have been
+thrown so far.... Not only were the Barbey-Nanteuils the bankers of the
+Baroness de Vibray, but they had been present at Thomery's ball, when
+the attack on Princess Sonia Danidoff had taken place.... Would they
+allow themselves to be interviewed? Fandor decided that they certainly
+would, for they were business men, and was he not going to give them a
+free advertisement?
+
+The attendant--a stately individual--returned.
+
+"Monsieur Nanteuil is sorry he cannot see you, he is taking the chair
+at an important committee meeting; but Monsieur Barbey will see you for
+a few minutes, that is to say, if he will do instead of Monsieur
+Nanteuil."
+
+"In that case, I will see Monsieur Barbey," said Fandor, rising.
+
+Following the attendant, Fandor traversed the whole length of the bank,
+and passing the half-open door of Monsieur Nanteuil's office--the name
+on the door told him this--he noticed that it was empty.
+
+Monsieur Barbey received him coldly and with a solemn bow. Fandor's
+reply was a pleasant smile.
+
+"I know," said he, "that your time is precious, Monsieur Barbey, so I
+will come straight to the object of my call.... You must be aware of the
+profound impression caused by the double crimes recently committed on
+the persons of Madame de Vibray and the Princess Sonia Danidoff?"
+
+"It is true, monsieur, that I have followed, in the papers, the account
+of the investigations regarding them: but, in what way?..."
+
+"Does it concern you?" finished Fandor. "Good heavens, monsieur, is it
+not a fact that the Baroness de Vibray was your client? And were you not
+present at Monsieur Thomery's ball?"
+
+"That is so, monsieur; but if you are hoping that I can supply you with
+further details than those already published, you will be disappointed.
+I myself have learned a good deal about these crimes only from reading
+your articles, monsieur."
+
+"Can you confirm the statement that Madame de Vibray was ruined?"
+
+"I do not think I am betraying a professional secret if I say that
+Madame de Vibray had had very heavy losses quite recently."
+
+"And Princess Sonia Danidoff?"
+
+"I do not think she is one of our clients."
+
+"You do not think so?"
+
+"But, monsieur, you cannot suppose that we know all our clients? Our
+business is a very extensive one, and neither Nanteuil, nor I, could
+possibly know the names of all those who do business with us."
+
+"You know the name of Jacques Dollon?"
+
+"Yes. I knew young Dollon. He was introduced to me by Madame de Vibray,
+who asked me to give him a helping hand, and I willingly did so. I can
+only regret now that my confidence was so ill placed."
+
+"Do you believe him guilty then?... Not really?"
+
+"I certainly do!... So do all your readers, monsieur. Is that not so?"
+
+But, whilst Monsieur Barbey was regarding Fandor with some astonishment
+because of his half-avowal, that he himself was not sure of Dollon's
+guilt, the door was flung open with violence, and Monsieur Nanteuil, out
+of breath, looking thoroughly upset, rushed into the room, followed by
+five or six men unknown to Jerome Fandor, and showing traces of fatigue
+and emotion also.
+
+"Good Heavens! What is it?" cried Monsieur Barbey, rising to meet his
+partner....
+
+"The matter is," cried Monsieur Nanteuil, "that an abominable robbery
+has just been committed...."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Rue du Quatre Septembre!..." Still panting, he began to give
+details....
+
+Fandor did not wait to hear more. He rushed from the Barbey-Nanteuil
+bank and made for the place de l'Opera at top speed.
+
+In consequence of the extraordinary occurrence which Monsieur Nanteuil
+had hastened to report to his partner, a considerable crowd had flocked
+to the scene of the accident; but barriers had been quickly erected, and
+the crowd, directed by the police, were able to circulate in orderly
+fashion when Fandor arrived on the scene.
+
+The agile young journalist had made his way to the front row of the
+curious, and was bent on entering the stone and wood yards of the works
+forbidden to the public; the usual palisade no longer existed owing to
+the landslip.
+
+Just as he was searching in his pocket for the precious identification
+card, which the police grant to the reporters connected with the big
+newspapers, Fandor was jostled by an individual coming out of the yards.
+It was a navvy all covered with mortar, white dust, and mud; he was
+without a hat and held his right hand pressed against his cheek; between
+his fingers there filtered a few drops of blood.
+
+The glances of the man and the journalist met, and Fandor felt as though
+someone had struck him a blow on the heart! The navvy had given him so
+strange a look. Fandor thought he had read in his eyes a threat and an
+invitation.
+
+Whilst our journalist hesitated, troubled by this sudden encounter, the
+man moved off, forcing his way through the crowd. Then Fandor caught
+sight of some of his colleagues, stumbling about amidst the ruins and
+rubble in the stone-yard. This reassured him; if he followed the navvy,
+and he had the strongest inclination to do so, he could telephone to
+some reporter friend who would supply him with the necessary details for
+his article on the accident. He had got some facts already: a sudden
+collapse of stones and mortar had buried a hand-cart, in which were
+large bars of gold belonging to the Barbey-Nanteuil bank. But the
+precious vehicle had soon been rescued, and they were taking it to the
+bank under escort.
+
+Satisfied as to this, Fandor followed with his eyes this strange navvy
+who was going further and further away.
+
+Fandor had an intuition--a very strong feeling--that he must follow the
+trail of this man and make him talk. It was of the utmost
+importance--something told him this was so.
+
+The navvy was not simply going away, he had the air of a man in flight.
+
+Fandor, who was following now and keenly observant, noticed the
+hesitating movements of the man--then there was an astonishing move on
+the navvy's part: he hailed a taxi and got in. Fandor had the good luck
+to find another taxi at once; jumping in, he said to the driver:
+
+"Follow the 4227 G.H. which is in front of you: don't let it outdistance
+you ... you shall have a good tip!"
+
+The chauffeur, a young alert fellow, understood there was a chase in
+question, and amused at the idea of pursuing a comrade through the
+crowded streets of Paris, he set off. He adroitly cut through a file of
+carriages and caught up taxi 4227 G.H. He then proceeded to follow
+closely in its track.
+
+Fandor, keen as a bloodhound on the scent, kept watch over their
+progress to an unknown destination.
+
+They rolled along the avenue de l'Opera: they cut across the rue de
+Rivoli. Then, when they were going at a good pace through the place du
+Carrousel, Fandor felt much moved by memories of past times, those days
+of great and wonderful adventures, when he would follow this very route
+to keep some exciting appointment with his good friend, Juve. How
+frequent those appointments used to be, when the famous detective was
+alive and so actively at work--the work of unearthing criminals--those
+pests of society! Off Fandor used to set when the longed for summons
+came, and would meet Juve in his little flat on the left side of the
+Seine. Ah, those were times, indeed!
+
+When a lad, Fandor had been practically adopted by the famous detective.
+Young Jerome Fandor had served a kind of apprenticeship with Juve, and
+this had brought him into close touch with the ups and downs of a number
+of crime dramas: he and Juve together had even been the voluntary, or
+involuntary, heroes of some of them! Then the tragic disappearance of
+Juve had occurred, when Fandor had escaped death by a kind of miracle!
+
+After that dreadful date, our journalist had found himself alone,
+isolated, with not a soul to whom he cared to confide his perplexities,
+his anxieties, his hopes! Fandor shuddered at the thought of this.
+
+The taxi had just crossed the bridge des Sainte Peres, had followed the
+quay for a few minutes, then rounding the Fine Arts School they entered
+the old and narrow rue Bonaparte....
+
+What was this? Of course, it could only be a coincidence ... but still
+... rue Bonaparte--why that only brought the memory of Juve more vividly
+to mind! For Juve had lived in this street; and now, a few yards further
+on, they would pass before the modest dwelling where, for years, the
+detective had made his home, keeping jealously hidden, from all and
+sundry, this asylum, this secret retreat.
+
+Ah, what happy hours, what jolly times, what tragic moments, too, had
+Fandor not passed in that little flat on the fourth floor! How they had
+chatted away in the detective's comfortable study! Then Fandor, full of
+spirit, would come and go from room to room, unable to sit still, all
+fire and activity; and Juve would remain in one place, calm, full of
+thought, sometimes sunk in a reverie, often silent for hours at a time,
+his eyes obstinately fixed on the ceiling, smoking methodically,
+mechanically even, his eternal cigarette. Oh, those good, good days gone
+for ever!
+
+After the disastrous disappearance of Juve, Fandor had not gone near the
+rue Bonaparte for six months. It was all too painful, to find again the
+familiar rooms and no Juve! It was too painful.
+
+However, one fine day, he determined to go and see what had happened to
+his friend's old home.... Alas, in Paris, the lapse of half a year
+suffices to alter the most familiar scene! In rue Bonaparte, the former
+house porters had left; their place had been taken by a stout, sulky
+woman who gave evasive replies to Fandor's questions. He extracted from
+her the information that the tenant of the fourth floor flat had died,
+that his furniture had been cleared out very soon after his death, and
+the flat had been let to an insurance inspector....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fandor was roused from this retrospect: he grew pale, his heart seemed
+to stop its beating: the taxi he was pursuing had slowed down--had drawn
+up beside the pavement--had stopped in front of Juve's old home!
+
+Fandor saw the navvy descend from the taxi, pay his fare, and enter the
+house, still keeping his right hand pressed to his cheek. Without a
+moment's reflection, Fandor leapt from his taxi, flung a five-franc
+piece to his driver, and without waiting for the change he rushed into
+the house, whose passages and stairs were so familiar.
+
+The navvy was swiftly mounting the stairs in front of our excited young
+journalist, who was close on his quarry's heels: the two men were
+panting as they went up that dark staircase.
+
+At the fourth floor, Fandor was nearly overcome by emotion, for the man
+entered Juve's old flat as if he had a right to do so.
+
+He was on the point of shutting the door in the face of his pursuer, but
+Fandor had foreseen this. He slipped through with a forceful push and
+caught the navvy by his jacket.
+
+Quick as lightning the navvy turned, and the two men stood face to
+face.... The result was startling!
+
+Speechless they stared at each other for what seemed an interminable
+moment; then, with a strangled cry, Fandor fell into the man's arms, and
+was crushed in a strong embrace. Two cries escaped from their lips at
+the same moment:
+
+"Juve!"
+
+"Fandor!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When he came to himself again, Fandor found he was lying in one of the
+comfortable leather arm-chairs in Juve's study. His temples and the
+lobes of his ears were being bathed with some refreshing liquid: the
+commingled scent of ether and eau-de-Cologne was in the air.
+
+When he opened his eyes, it was with difficulty that he could credit the
+sight that met them!
+
+Juve, his dear Juve, was bending over him, gazing at him tenderly,
+watching his return to consciousness with some anxiety.
+
+Fandor vainly strove to rise: he felt dazed.
+
+"Fandor!" murmured Juve, in a voice trembling with emotion. "Fandor, my
+little Fandor. My lad, my own dear lad!"
+
+Oh, yes, this was Juve, his own Juve, whom Fandor saw before him!... He
+had aged a little, this dear Juve of his--had gone slightly grey at the
+temples: there were some fresh lines on his forehead, at the corners of
+his mouth, too; but it was the Juve of old times, for all that!... Juve,
+alert, souple, robust, Juve in his full vigour, in the prime of life!
+Oh, a living, breathing, fatherly Juve: his respected master and most
+intimate friend--restored to him, after mourning the irreparable loss of
+him and his incomprehensible disappearance!
+
+While Fandor slowly came to himself, Juve had lessened the disordered
+state of his appearance; he had taken off his workman's clothes, and
+also the red beard which he had worn, when he ran up against the
+journalist in the place de l'Opera.
+
+As soon as Fandor was himself again, not only did he feel intense joy, a
+quite wild joy, but he also knew the good of a keen curiosity. Now he
+would know why the detective had felt obliged to disappear, officially
+at any rate, from Paris life for so long a period.
+
+Protestations of faithful attachment, or unalterable affection poured
+from Fandor's excited lips, intermingled with questions: he wanted to
+know everything at once.
+
+Juve smiled in silence, and gazed most affectionately at his dear lad.
+
+At last he said:
+
+"I am not going to ask you for your news, Fandor, for I have seen you
+repeatedly, and I know you are quite all right.... Why, I do believe you
+have put on flesh a little!"
+
+Juve was smiling that enigmatic smile of his.
+
+Fandor grew impatient, on fire with curiosity. Ah, this was indeed the
+Juve of bygone days, imperturbable, ironical, rather exasperating also!
+
+However, Juve took pity on Fandor, who was still under the influence of
+the shock he had received.
+
+"Well, now, dear lad, did you recognise me, a while ago?"
+
+Fandor pulled himself together.
+
+"To tell you the truth, Juve, I did not ... but, when our glances met, I
+had an intuition, a kind of interior revelation of what I had to do, and
+without any beating about the bush--I knew I had to follow you, follow
+you wherever you went."
+
+Juve nodded his approval.
+
+"Very good, dear fellow; your reply gives me infinite pleasure, and on
+two counts: in the first place, I perceive that your remarkable instinct
+for getting on to the right scent, strengthened by my teaching, has
+improved immensely since we parted; and, in the second place, I am
+delighted to know that I made my head and face so unrecognisable that
+even my old familiar friend, Fandor, did not know me when we were
+brought face to face!"
+
+"Why this disguise, Juve?" demanded Fandor, his countenance alight with
+curiosity. "How was it I came across you at the very spot where the
+Barbey-Nanteuil load of gold had been submerged, for the moment, under
+bricks and mortar? And, with regard to that, Juve, how comes it ..."
+
+Juve cut Fandor short.
+
+"Gently! Fandor! Gently! You are putting the cart before the horse, old
+fellow; and if we continue to talk by fits and starts, never shall we
+come to the end of all we have to say to each other, and must say. Are
+you aware, Fandor, that we have been drawn into a succession of
+incomprehensible occurrences--a mysterious network of them?... But I
+have good hopes that now we shall be able to work together again; and I
+like to think that if we follow the different trails we have each
+started on, we shall end up by..."
+
+It was Fandor's turn to interrupt:
+
+"Hang it all, Juve! I partly understand you, of course; but there's a
+lot I don't know yet.... What are you after, dear Juve? Are you, as I
+am, on the track of Jacques Dollon?"
+
+There was a pause, then Juve said:
+
+"I shall reserve the details for our leisure. What matters now is, that
+I should make clear to you the principal lines my existence has followed
+during the past three years or so. A few minutes will suffice to put you
+in possession of the main facts. Now, listen."
+
+The narrative went back to the time when Juve, aided by Fandor, was
+close on the heels of their mortal enemy, the mysterious and elusive
+Fantomas. The detective and the journalist had succeeded in cooping up
+the formidable bandit in a house at Neuilly, belonging to a great
+English lady, known under the name of Lady Beltham. This Englishwoman
+was the mistress and accomplice of the notorious Fantomas.[9] But at the
+precise moment when Juve was about to arrest him, a frightful explosion
+occurred, and the building, blown up by dynamite, collapsed in ruins,
+burying the two friends and some fifteen policemen and detectives.
+
+[Footnote 9: See _The Exploits of Juve_.]
+
+Rescuers were on the spot in a very short time, and uninterruptedly, for
+forty-eight hours, they searched among the ruins for the victims of the
+disaster, dead or alive.
+
+By a miraculous piece of good fortune, Fandor had been but slightly
+hurt, and at the end of a few days he was as well as ever. But the poor
+fellow had lost his best friend--Juve!
+
+The search for Juve had been a useless one. Several corpses could not be
+identified owing to the injuries they had sustained; and, as it seemed
+incredible that the detective could have escaped, they had concluded
+that one of the unrecognisable bodies must be his.
+
+Juve, however, was not one of the dead!
+
+Saved in as miraculous a fashion as Fandor had been, less injured even,
+a few seconds after the frightful crash, he had been able to rise and
+make his escape. The distracted detective had raced away from the scene
+of disaster in search of Fandor, and also in pursuit of Fantomas, for he
+believed that both had made their escape.
+
+After wandering about for some hours, he had returned to mingle with the
+crowd of rescuers, and had learned that Fandor had been found, and was
+not dangerously hurt: on the other hand, there were those present who
+declared that he, Juve, was killed!
+
+This unexpected announcement gave him an idea: for an indefinite period
+he would accept this version! For, more than ever set upon catching his
+enemy, the detective said to himself, that if Fantomas could feel
+certain that Juve no longer existed, the pretended dead would have a far
+better chance of catching the living bandit!
+
+Thereupon, Juve had submitted his project to his chief, Monsieur Havard;
+and the head of the police secret service had consented to ignore Juve's
+presence among the living.
+
+Juve knew that Lady Beltham had escaped to England.
+
+Supposing that Fantomas would rejoin her without delay, the detective
+left Paris, crossed the Channel. He then went to America. For scarcely
+had he arrived in London when he learned that the bandits had gone off
+to the United States.
+
+Juve travelled from place to place for some months. It was a vain quest:
+Fantomas had vanished, leaving not a trace behind, and the disgusted
+detective, now convinced that he had followed a false trail, returned to
+France.
+
+He determined to set himself to study anew the prison world; he was all
+the more interested in it because, before his supposed death, Juve had
+effected the arrest of several members of a band of which Fantomas was
+the leader. Among these were the Cooper, the Beard, and old Mother
+Toulouche.
+
+Then, at the prison connected with the asylum, Juve had come across a
+warder, who, some years previous to this, had been the warder in charge
+of a man condemned to death, one Gurn, who had not been guillotined
+because a substituted person had been executed in his stead. Juve was
+convinced that the condemned criminal was none other than Fantomas. Juve
+strongly suspected that this warder, Nibet by name, knew a great deal
+about this old affair. But soon Nibet passed to the Depot. The
+accomplices of Fantomas, having served the time of their respective
+sentences, some at Melun, others at Clermont, all this nice collection
+of criminals would meet once more on the pavements of Paris. Juve,
+therefore, had imperious reasons for mingling with this charming
+crowd!...
+
+Fandor had followed Juve's rapid narrative with the most intense
+interest.
+
+"And then, Juve, what then?" insisted Fandor.
+
+"And then," said the detective, "to make an end of it--for we must not
+be forever going over the past adventures--let me tell you, that after
+many and diverse happenings, a band of smugglers and false coiners,
+among whom are to be found individuals already known to you, notably the
+Beard, the Cooper, and also that wretch of a Mother Toulouche, one fine
+day made the acquaintance of a poor sort of creature, simple-minded, and
+anything but sharp-witted--an individual who goes by the name of
+Cranajour!"
+
+"Cranajour?" queried Fandor, "I don't in the least understand."
+
+"Yes, Cranajour," repeated Juve. "Here is how it came about. You
+remember when Fantomas got an unfortunate actor named Valgrand executed
+in his stead? Well, our mysterious Fantomas, the better to mislead and
+bamboozle those who might suspect this atrocious jugglery, our bandit of
+genius--for Fantomas has genius--took the personality of Valgrand for
+several hours, and dared to go to the theatre where the real Valgrand
+was playing. However, as Fantomas was not capable of playing the part to
+a finish, he conceived the idea of making those about Valgrand believe
+that he had been suddenly afflicted with loss of memory, and from that
+moment could not remember anything whatever: Fantomas, the false
+Valgrand, could thus pass for the true Valgrand, and be taken as such by
+the true Valgrand's intimates!... I humbly confess, Fandor, that I
+copied Fantomas by creating Cranajour...."
+
+Juve, then rapidly explained to the journalist the origin of this
+nickname, and also told him how the bandits treated him as one of
+themselves; how, as soon as they were convinced that he could not
+remember anything he had seen or heard for two hours together, they
+talked freely before him of their plans and doings!
+
+The detective went on:
+
+"I must add, my dear Fandor, that no very sensational revelations have
+come to me, so far, through my intimacy with this set of criminals. It
+seemed to me I was in the midst of common thieves, who smuggled and
+circulated false coin; but one thing did puzzle me--puzzles me still:
+these folk succeed in selling a considerable number of pounds sterling,
+false coin, of course, and that without my being able to discover, so
+far, where they sell them--who makes their market. They also sell lace
+smuggled from Belgium; that, however, interests me but little, and I was
+prepared to leave to the lower ranks of the service the duty of
+clearing Paris of this common-place brood of criminals; already, indeed,
+the regular police had arrested one of the smugglers, the Cooper, and
+two of his subordinate confederates; I was about to turn my back on this
+crew in order to give all my attention to a new trail which might put me
+on the track of Fantomas once more, when the Dollon affair blazed forth;
+and then suddenly, I meet again my Fandor, braver than ever, more
+perspicacious also, adroitly taking the affair in hand, bravely
+thrusting himself into the breach!
+
+"Is there any connection between the Dollon affair and my band of
+smugglers?"
+
+"You will appreciate the importance of this question and the reply to it
+in a minute, my Fandor, when you learn that the Depot warder, Nibet, is
+one of the most valuable confederates of the coiners, of Mother
+Toulouche, of that hooligan, the Beard...."
+
+"Is it possible!" cried Fandor. "Ah, Juve, all this is so strange that I
+believe you are really on Fantomas' track, once more!"
+
+Juve shook his head; then he continued:
+
+"I have still a great deal to tell you, but I must pause a moment to
+say, that I ought to apologise to you for a fairly brutal act I
+committed on your behalf--in your best interests, as you will see...."
+
+And to Fandor, who opened his eyes in astonishment, the detective
+related, in humorous fashion, the history of the famous kick he had
+administered--a kick wherewith Juve had removed his friend from the
+immediate and certain danger of assassination, at the hand and by the
+knife of Nibet.
+
+Fandor could not get over it! He grasped Juve's hands and pressed them
+warmly.
+
+"My friend! My good friend!" murmured he, moved almost to tears. "If I
+had had the least suspicion!..."
+
+Juve interrupted him.
+
+"There are many more things, Fandor, you never suspected, things you
+ought to know.... And what is more, you seem to me to be neglecting your
+work badly at this very moment, Mr. Reporter! It is already one o'clock
+in the afternoon; and if they are counting on you to supply them with
+information about this affair of the place de l'Opera...."
+
+Fandor leapt to his feet.
+
+"It's true!" he cried. "I had quite forgotten it!... But it is of no
+importance by the side of ..."
+
+Juve interrupted.
+
+"_The affair is serious, Fandor, attention!..._ Do you remember? It is
+the formula I employed on two or three occasions, when warning you,
+after the assassination of Jacques Dollon, after the attack on Sonia
+Danidoff at Thomery's house...."
+
+"What! It was you, Juve!" cried Fandor.
+
+"Yes, it was ... but let us pass on! Time presses. I am going to
+disappear anew; but you now know where to find me, in future, and under
+what form, should occasion require it. Cranajour I am; Cranajour I
+remain--for the time being, at any rate. As to you, Fandor, be off with
+you at once ... and go and hatch out that article of yours!"
+
+Our journalist rose mechanically; but Juve, thinking better of it,
+caught him by the arm, drew him back and pointed out the writing-table.
+
+"Come to think of it, you know nothing about the affair, and I do: there
+are things which should be said, above all things, to be hinted at ...
+do you wish me to give you information?... Sit yourself there, my lad: I
+am going to dictate your article to you!"
+
+Our journalist, understanding the gravity of the situation, and well
+knowing that if Juve took this course, he had important reasons for so
+doing, did not say one word. He simply brought out his fountain pen,
+screwed it ready for action, and, with his hand resting on a pile of
+white paper, he waited.
+
+Juve dictated.
+
+"First of all, put this as your title:
+
+     _An Audacious Theft_
+
+"That does not tell the reader anything, but it awakens his
+curiosity.... Let us continue!
+
+"Write."
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+AN AUDACIOUS THEFT
+
+
+Two hours after Juve had dictated his article to Fandor, our journalist
+was reading it, in proof, in the offices of _La Capitale_. His article
+ran thus:
+
+"By a fortunate coincidence we found ourselves, this very morning, in
+the directorial office of the Barbey-Nanteuil bank, chatting with
+Monsieur Barbey himself, when Monsieur Nanteuil arrived, breathless, and
+announced to his partner that a sensational robbery had just been
+committed in the rue du Quatre Septembre, a robbery involving a sum of
+twenty millions representing a clearance recently effected by the
+Federated Republic.
+
+"It seems that at ten o'clock this morning, Monsieur Nanteuil
+accompanied the little hand-cart used for transferring the bullion and
+paper money to the station, from whence it was to be despatched.
+According to custom, six of the bank clerks and three plain clothes men
+went with Monsieur Nanteuil. But, at the very moment when the hand-cart
+passed out of the place de l'Opera and turned the corner of the rue du
+Quatre Septembre, that is to say, at the precise moment when it was
+passing the palisade, surrounding the works on the Auteuil-Opera
+Metropolitan line, a formidable explosion was heard, and the hand-cart,
+as well as the men who were drawing it, and escorting it, including
+Monsieur Nanteuil himself, disappeared in a deep excavation caused by
+the explosion, whilst a water pipe which had burst at the same moment,
+poured out torrents of water, flooding the surrounding pavement and
+roadway.
+
+"It was then about eleven o'clock in the morning, and the rue du Quatre
+Septembre presented a very animated appearance. At the noise of the
+explosion, the passers-by were glued to the spot, dazed, stupefied. Then
+exclamations broke out on all sides.
+
+"'An accident?'
+
+"'A bomb?'
+
+"The explosion had created a veritable chasm. The first moment of
+stupefaction past, policeman 326 quickly organised the rescuers, and
+sent notice to the nearest police station. Some minutes later, the
+firemen arrived on the scene armed with ladders and ropes. Meanwhile,
+the crowd of curious onlookers was increasing with amazing rapidity.
+
+"Monsieur Nanteuil was the first to be drawn up from the pit; by a
+miracle he had escaped injury; unfortunately, the clerks of the
+Barbey-Nanteuil bank had not got off so well; bruises, contusions, cases
+of severe shock, more or less serious, had to be attended to by
+neighbouring chemists.
+
+"Monsieur Nanteuil, reassured as to the fate of his clerks, turned his
+attention to the hand-cart and its millions of bullion, and the police
+in charge were given to understand that it must be drawn up without
+delay.
+
+"Into the pit the firemen once more descended; at first they were
+surprised not to find the hand-cart and its millions! No doubt, it had
+been covered by the mass of fallen bricks and mortar! But fireman Le
+Goffic, who had advanced some yards along the railway line, caught sight
+of it. The cart was lying upside down; but, except for a few scratches,
+it was found to be unbroken.
+
+"It was immediately hauled up to the roadway. Monsieur Nanteuil at once
+ascertained that the seals were intact. He then gave orders that it was
+to be taken back to the Barbey-Nanteuil bank without delay. As the
+train, which was to have borne away the bullion, had left the station
+hours ago, Monsieur Nanteuil decided to break the seals, and place the
+bullion in one of the bank's safes for the night.
+
+"Monsieur Nanteuil's stupefaction can be imagined when, having unsealed
+and opened the hand-cart, he realised that the sacks of gold had been
+replaced by sacks of lead!
+
+"It was at this moment that Monsieur Barbey was informed of the fact by
+his half-frantic partner. We were witnesses of this dramatic scene.
+
+"Every second was of value: instant action was the thing! Police
+headquarters was warned at once; and, but a few minutes had elapsed,
+when Monsieur Havard arrived in a taxicab to take charge of the
+investigations.
+
+"Thanks to the courtesy of Monsieur Havard, we were allowed to accompany
+him to the stone-yards of the Metropolitan: the police were convinced
+that it was hereabouts that the robbery had been accomplished. We
+reached the spot about an hour after the explosion. The first
+investigations produced no result; but Monsieur Havard pursued his
+solitary search up one of the sidings, and had his reward. His
+exclamation was heard, and we hastened to the spot.... He had just found
+a second hand-cart, in all points similar to that he had recently
+examined in the courtyard of the Barbey-Nanteuil bank!
+
+"Monsieur Havard at once realised that he had before his eyes the
+original hand-cart, and that the hand-cart he had seen in the bank
+courtyard was a clever substitute! It need scarcely be said that there
+is no trace of the stolen millions to be found in the original
+hand-cart, cast away in a siding of the Metropolitan....
+
+"Our readers know something of the appearance presented by these lines,
+in course of construction on the Metropolitan railway. We have
+repeatedly published in _La Capitale_ details regarding the way in which
+the engineers and workmen supervise and execute the cutting of the
+passageway on the underground. The operations in the place de l'Opera
+are on an enormous scale, for there is a junction here, and the soil is
+more undermined than elsewhere on the railway.
+
+"At the precise spot where the explosion occurred, there are four
+galleries in course of construction: one is the future Auteuil-Opera
+line, the others either lead to existing lines, or are galleries made
+for the convenience of the workmen. Hand-cart number one, that is to
+say, the substituted hand-cart filled with sacks of lead, was found in
+the passageway of the Auteuil-Opera line, which is perfectly accessible,
+and would naturally be visited by the rescuers.
+
+"The original hand-cart was hidden away in one of the lateral galleries,
+which are small and narrow, and not likely to be visited and examined,
+except as a last resource. It is, therefore, clear that the affair has
+been carefully arranged: a premeditated robbery. The presence of the two
+hand-carts would establish this--the hand-carts used by the bank for the
+transport of bullion and other forms of money are of a particular
+make--unique, in fact. Their respective positions show that the robbers
+had carefully prepared their drama, and it was skilfully arranged.
+
+"Thanks to Monsieur Havard's kindness, we were permitted to approach the
+original hand-cart. It was in a lamentable condition: the body of it was
+nearly smashed to pieces! Of course, no traces of the seals were to be
+found. The only remark we see fit to make in this connection is, that
+Monsieur Nanteuil, his clerks, and those who witnessed the accident,
+must have been greatly excited and upset, otherwise they would naturally
+have been much astonished at finding the substituted hand-cart
+practically uninjured after an accident of so crushing a nature.
+
+"We have carefully examined the soil round the original hand-cart, in
+the hope of finding some clear footprints of the thieves, or their
+accomplices; but it was impossible to draw any conclusion from this
+examination--the footmarks are intermingled, superimposed,
+undistinguishable. It must be admitted the soil of the Metropolitan,
+hereabouts, has been very much trampled over and beaten down so that it
+is difficult to believe that researches, with the object of discovering
+the robbers' footmarks, are likely to have any clear result.
+
+"At the moment these lines have been written, the investigation in the
+Metropolitan passageways still continues, and will, in all probability,
+be continued late into the night. So far, the police admit that results
+are meagre. Monsieur Havard considers it certain that the deed is a
+premeditated one, carefully prepared, and that, consequently, the
+explosion which caused the catastrophe was a deliberate act of violence.
+On the other hand, Monsieur Nanteuil declares that outside the parties
+interested, that is to say, the Barbey-Nanteuil bank and the Comptoir
+d'Escomptes, who were to receive the bullion, not a soul could know of
+the transfer on that particular morning. But the staffs of the bank and
+of the Comptoir National d'Escomptes are absolutely trustworthy: their
+honour has never been questioned.
+
+"It is evident that such a daring and desperate deed, carried through so
+successfully in the galleries of the Metropolitan, in the sight of all
+Paris, at eleven o'clock in the morning, could only be the work of a
+band of criminals, numerous and perfectly organised.
+
+"'Are we returning to the days of--Fantomas?'
+
+"Let us add, that owing to the number of individuals probably involved,
+and the daring nature of the crime, Monsieur Havard considers that it
+will be extremely difficult for the guilty persons to escape from the
+police."
+
+Jerome Fandor had just finished correcting this sensational article,
+when slips from the Havas Agency arrived at _La Capitale_.
+
+Our journalist cast his eyes over them, thinking he might find some
+piece of news which had come to hand at the last minute. As he read he
+grew pale. He struck his writing-table a violent blow with his fist.
+
+"For all that, I am not mad!" he cried.
+
+And, holding his head between his hands, spelling out each word, he
+reread the following telegram from the Havas Agency:
+
+
+_Affair of the rue du Quatre Septembre_
+
+     "_At the last moment of going to press, a bloody imprint has been
+     discovered on hand-cart number 2. Monsieur Bertillon immediately
+     identified this imprint: it was made by the hand of Jacques Dollon,
+     the criminal who is already wanted by the police for the murder of
+     the Baroness de Vibray, and the robbery committed on the Princess
+     Sonia Danidoff._"
+
+"But I am not mad!" cried Fandor, when he had read these lines. "I
+declare I am not mad! By all that's holy, Jacques Dollon is dead!...
+Fifty persons have seen him dead! But, for all that, Bertillon cannot be
+mistaken!"
+
+After a minute or two, Fandor took up his pen again, and added a note to
+his article, entitled:--
+
+     _Sensational development. The police say: "It is the late Jacques
+     Dollon who has stolen the millions!"_
+
+This note showed clearly that Jerome Fandor did not believe that Jacques
+Dollon could possibly be involved in this affair, or in either of the
+other crimes in connection with which his name had been mentioned.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+INVESTIGATIONS
+
+
+A man jumped quickly out of the Auteuil-Madeleine tram.
+
+It would have been difficult to guess his age, or see his face. He wore
+a large soft hat--a Brazilian sombrero--whose edges he had turned down.
+The collar of his overcoat was turned up, so that the lower part of his
+face was so far buried in it that his features were almost hidden. Then,
+during the entire journey, seated at the end of the tramcar he had kept
+his back turned on the other passenger: he seemed to be absorbed in
+watching the movements of the driver. At the end of the rue Mozart,
+where the rues La Fontaine, Poussin, des Perchamps meet, he had quitted
+the tram with real satisfaction.
+
+Then, in the silence of the evening, the clock of Auteuil church had
+slowly struck eight silvery strokes.
+
+The listening man murmured:
+
+"Oh, there's no hurry after all. I've a two good hours' wait in front of
+me!"
+
+Leaving the frequented ways, he plunged into the little by-streets,
+newly made and not yet named, which join the end of the rue Mozart with
+the boulevard Montmorency. He walked fast, at the same time taking his
+bearings.
+
+"Rue Raffet?... If I don't deceive myself, it lies in this direction!"
+
+He reached the hilly and lonely road bearing that name, which, on both
+sides of its entire length, is bordered by attractive private
+residences.
+
+Swiftly, silently, stealthily, this individual approached one of these
+houses. He glanced through the garden railing, scrutinising the windows
+which were lighted up.
+
+"Good! Good! Decidedly good!" he said, in a low tone of satisfaction....
+"But there's two hours to wait ... they are still in the dining-room, if
+I am to go by the lighted windows."
+
+The watcher now inspected the rue Raffet. The house which interested him
+so much, was situated just where the rue du Docteur Blanche opens into
+the street at right angles. Auteuil is certainly not a frequented part,
+but, as a rule, the rue Raffet is generally more lonely than any of the
+streets in Auteuil: no carriages, no pedestrians.
+
+From an early hour in the evening, that hilly road was, more often than
+not, quite deserted, so was the rue du Docteur Blanche, still surrounded
+by waste land, and more especially at the rue Raffet end.
+
+A glance or two sufficed to show the man the lie of the land. He noted
+the feeble glimmer of the street lamps; he made certain that not one of
+the neighbouring houses could perceive his actions, mark his movements.
+He repeated in a theatrical tone of voice with a note of amusement in
+it.
+
+"Not a soul! Not a solitary soul! Well, it is no joke to wait here; but,
+after all, it is a quiet spot, and I can count on not being disturbed in
+the job I have in hand to-night...."
+
+This individual traversed the rue Raffet, gained the rue du Docteur
+Blanche, and, wrapping himself up in his voluminous black cloak,
+ensconced himself in a break in the palisades bordering the pavement. He
+stood there motionless; anyone might have passed within a few yards of
+him without suspecting his presence, so still was he, so imperceptibly
+did his dark figure blend with the blackness of the night.
+
+He started slightly. The church clock struck nine, its notes sounding
+silvery clear through the tranquil night ... in the distance some
+convent clock chimed an evening prayer, then a deeper silence fell on
+the darkness of night....
+
+Suddenly, the front door of the house, which the stranger had watched
+with scrutinising intentness, was thrown wide open, showing a large,
+luminous square in the darkness. Two women were speaking.
+
+"Are you going out, my darling?" asked the elder.
+
+"Don't be anxious, madame," replied a girlish voice. "There is no need
+to wait for me. I am only going to the post...."
+
+"Why not give Jules your letter?"
+
+"No, I prefer to post it myself."
+
+"You would not like someone to go with you? There are not many people
+about at this hour...."
+
+The same fresh, young voice replied:
+
+"Oh, I am not frightened ... besides it's only rue Raffet which is
+deserted; as soon as I reach rue Mozart there will be nothing more to
+fear!"
+
+The luminous square, drawn on the obscurity of the garden, disappeared.
+
+The mysterious stranger, who had not lost a word of this conversation,
+heard the door of the vestibule close, then the gravel of the garden
+crunch under the feet of the girl coming down the path. Very soon the
+gate of the garden grated on its badly oiled hinges, and then the
+elegant outline of a young girl was visible on the badly lighted
+pavement. She was walking fast....
+
+The stranger remained stationary until the girl had gone some way; then
+pressing against the wall, concealing his movements with practised
+ability, he followed her at a discreet distance....
+
+"There can be no doubt about it," he murmured. "I recognised her voice
+directly!... It's the very deuce!... It's going to complicate
+matters!... A lover's meeting? Not likely!... She must be going to the
+post, as she said.... She will return in about a quarter of an hour, and
+then ... then!..."
+
+The girl was far from suspecting that she was being followed. She had
+walked down rue Mozart, turned into rue Poussin, posted her letter, and
+then walked quietly back to the house.
+
+The stranger had not followed her into the more frequented streets: he
+awaited her return in a dark and deserted side street. When she came
+into view again, he sighed a sigh of great satisfaction.
+
+"Ah, there is the dear child!... That's all right.... Now we shall have
+some fun!... or, rather, I shall!"
+
+Anyone seeing his face, whilst making these significant exclamations,
+would have been frightened by his sneering chuckle, his hideous grin.
+
+A few minutes later, the girl re-entered the little garden of the house
+in the rue Raffet. A stout woman opened to her ring.
+
+"Ah, there you are, darling." There was relief in her tone.
+
+"Yes, here I am, safe and sound, madame!"
+
+"Nothing unpleasant--no one molested you, Elizabeth?"
+
+Elizabeth Dollon, for she it was, shook her head and smiled a smile both
+sad and sweet.
+
+"Ah, no, madame!... I was sure you would be waiting for me--I am so
+sorry!"
+
+"No, not at all!... Tell me, Elizabeth.... Jules has told me that you
+would not be going out to-morrow. The poor fellow is so stupid that I
+ask myself if he has not made a mistake?"
+
+"No," said Elizabeth. "It is quite true.... I do not think I shall go
+out, either in the morning or the afternoon."
+
+"You expect a caller?"
+
+"It is possible someone may come to see me.... If by any chance I have
+to go out for a few minutes, to get something or other, I must warn
+Jules: he must make the visitor wait: I shall not go far in case..."
+
+"All right! That's settled then, darling. Now, good night, I am going to
+my room."
+
+"Good evening, madame, and good night!"
+
+Leaving stout and kindly Madame Bourrat, owner of this private
+boarding-house where Elizabeth Dollon had found a refuge, the poor girl,
+still with a smile on her pale lips, made her way upstairs, entered her
+bedroom, and carefully locked the door. She lit the lamp. Her face now
+wore a tragic look: its expression was wild and desperate....
+
+"If only he would come!" she sighed.... "Ah, I am afraid! I am
+afraid!... I am terribly afraid!"
+
+Elizabeth stood motionless--a frozen image of fear--all but her eyes:
+they were casting terrified glances about her....
+
+And no wonder! Elizabeth was neatness personified, and her room was kept
+with exquisite care--but now, everything was in the greatest
+disorder.... The drawers of her chest of drawers were piled one on top
+of the other in a corner of the room; their contents were thrown down in
+heaps a little way off; books had been cast pell-mell on a sofa; a great
+wicker trunk, wherein Elizabeth had packed numerous papers belonging to
+her brother, was overturned on the floor, the lid open.
+
+Its contents were scattered near--a confused mass of documents and
+crumpled papers.
+
+Elizabeth stared about her for a long minute, and again she cried:
+
+"Oh, if only he would come! What is the meaning of all this?..."
+
+She regained her self-control. Her usual expression of serene gravity
+returned.
+
+"To go to sleep," she murmured. "That is the best thing--to-morrow will
+come more quickly so--and, oh, I am so sleepy, so very, very tired!"
+
+Soon Elizabeth blew out her lamp--darkness reigned in her room.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was about half-past ten o'clock, and the light in Elizabeth Dollon's
+room had been extinguished for some little while, when the front door
+of the little house was opened again....
+
+Noiselessly, with infinite precautions, with searching and suspicious
+glances, taking care to keep off the gravel of the paths, tip-toeing on
+the grass edging the flower beds, where his steps made no sound, a man
+left the house and went towards the garden gate.
+
+He quickly reached it; and there he commenced to whistle a soft, slow,
+monotonous, and continuous whistle.
+
+Second succeeded second; then another whistle, identical in rhythm,
+replied: soon a voice asked:
+
+"It's you, Jules?"
+
+"It is I, master!"
+
+The man whom Jules named "master," was the stranger, who, for two weary
+hours, had kept strict watch over the goings and comings of the
+house....
+
+"All well, Jules?"
+
+"All well, master!"
+
+"And nothing new?..."
+
+"I don't know about that, master: she has written a letter...."
+
+"To whom?..."
+
+"I couldn't say.... I could not see the address, master...."
+
+"You red-headed idiot!"
+
+The servant protested.
+
+"No, it was not my fault!... She did not write in the drawing-room, but
+in her own room.... I couldn't get a squint at her paper...."
+
+"Did she not say anything?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Did she look upset?"
+
+"A little."
+
+"No one suspects anything?"
+
+"I hope not, master!... Gods and little fishes, if anyone suspected!"
+
+The visitor's voice grew harsh, imperious.
+
+"Enough," said he. "We have no time to lose!"
+
+"How? No time...."
+
+"That's it! We must set to work...."
+
+"Work?... Now?... This very night?... Oh, master, surely not!"
+
+"Don't I? Do you imagine that I arranged a meeting only for the pleasure
+of talking to you?... Come on, now!... March!"
+
+"What are we to do?"
+
+A moment's silence.
+
+"I cannot see the house very well, because of the branches:
+listen--look!... Isn't there a light?... Someone still up?"
+
+"No. They've all gone to bed."
+
+"Good. And she?"
+
+"She, too."
+
+"You did what I told you?"
+
+"Yes, master."
+
+"You were able to pour out the narcotic?"
+
+"Yes, master."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"What do you mean by then?"
+
+"Have you carried out all my orders ... the last?"
+
+"Yes, it is all right!... I went into her room and blew out the lamp."
+
+"Good! Now for it!..."
+
+A slight brushing sound, along the low stone wall of the garden, was
+barely perceptible to a listening ear. The wall was topped by railings,
+and the gate had sheets of iron fastened to it. In a twinkling, the
+stranger leaped down beside Jules.
+
+"It's child's play to vault that gate," he said.
+
+By the uncertain light of the stars, Jules could see the individual who
+had just joined him. His appearance was fantastic, and the wretched
+Jules started and trembled in every limb. The stranger, who had thus
+invaded Madame Bourrat's domain, who a short while before had been
+wearing a long cloak and immense sombrero, wore them no longer. Probably
+he had rid himself of them by casting them among the bramble bushes on
+the waste ground around rue Docteur Blanche.... Now he was clad in a
+long black knitted garment moulded tightly to his figure, a sinister
+garment, by means of which the wearer can blend with the darkness so as
+to be almost indistinguishable. His face was entirely concealed by a
+long black hood, a movable mask, which prevented his features being
+seen: through two slits gleamed two eyeballs: they might have burned a
+way through like glowing coals.
+
+"Master!... Master!" murmured Jules. "What are you going to do now?"
+
+This spectral figure replied in a low tone:
+
+"Fool!... go on in front--or no--better follow me! And not a sound--it's
+as much as your skin is worth!... Take care--great care!"
+
+The two men advanced in silence. But, while Jules seemed to take
+exaggerated precautions to prevent being heard, his companion seemed
+naturally shod with silence.
+
+He advanced noiselessly, almost invisible in his black garment.
+
+The two accomplices were soon at the front-door steps of the house.
+
+"Open," commanded the master.
+
+Jules slipped a key into the lock: noiselessly the door turned on its
+hinges.
+
+"Listen," whispered the cloaked man. "Half-way up the stairs, you must
+stop: I do not wish you to go right up...."
+
+"But..."
+
+"Do as I say! You must keep watch.... If, by chance, you should hear a
+noise, if I were to be taken by surprise, you must go downstairs, making
+a great noise and shouting at the top of your voice: 'Stop him!... Stop
+him!...' Thus, in the first moment of confusion, everyone will rush
+after you, and that will give me time to choose my way of escape."
+
+Jules, whatever his fears, did not dare to question his instructions.
+
+"Very good, master," he breathed. "I'll do as you say."
+
+"I should think you would," scoffed his master, almost inaudibly.
+
+Leaving his accomplice on the stairs, the masked man went forward. He
+seemed to know the ins and outs of the house, for he turned into the
+corridor and, without a moment's hesitation, walked towards the door of
+Elizabeth Dollon's room. He put his ear against it.
+
+"She sleeps," he murmured.
+
+He had inserted a key in the lock: there was an obstacle to its easy
+entrance.
+
+"Confound it! The girl has left her own key in the lock!" he said
+softly.... "What the deuce am I to do now? What did Jules do when he got
+in and put out the lamp?... Why, of course, he took off the screw that
+fixes the staple--a simple push will suffice." With a push of his
+shoulder the door yielded. The stranger entered and carefully closed the
+door. He walked to the window and drew the curtains, muttering:
+
+"That fool should have thought of this just now."
+
+Taking a small electric torch from his pocket he turned on the light.
+Calmly, collectedly, he approached a couch at one side of the room....
+On it lay Elizabeth Dollon in a deep sleep. She looked white as death.
+
+"An excellent narcotic," he muttered, bending over the unconscious girl.
+"When one thinks that she took it at dinner, then went out, and that
+then it produced its effect!..."
+
+Moving away from Elizabeth, he crossed the room to where the contents of
+the overturned trunk lay.
+
+"Damnable papers!" he growled low. "To think!... It is too late now to
+continue the search.... Bah! By shutting the mouth of an informant ...
+that's the way to settle it ... the best way too!... Now for it!..."
+
+Without apparent effort, the man in the hooded mask seized Elizabeth
+Dollon in his muscular arms.
+
+"Come, mademoiselle," he said in a jeering tone. "Come to bye-bye! Sleep
+better than on this sofa! You will sleep a longer sleep, that's
+certain!" An evil smile punctuated these sinister remarks.
+
+He laid the poor girl's body on the floor in the middle of the room;
+then, approaching a little gas stove, he detached the india-rubber tube
+and slipped the end of it between his victim's teeth.
+
+He turned the gas tap....
+
+"Perfect!" he said, as he straightened himself.
+
+"To-morrow morning, early, at eight o'clock, or at nine, the excellent
+Madame Bourrat will open the meter. The narcotic this child has taken
+will prevent her from waking, so that, without suffering, without cries,
+quite gently--pfuit!... sweet Elizabeth will pass from life to death!...
+But it will not do to linger here ... let us find Jules and give him the
+necessary instructions!"
+
+The stranger went out into the corridor closing the door. The thing had
+been well managed; the screws keeping the bolt case in position were put
+back in their holes--the key remained inside--no one would suspect that
+only a slight push was necessary to get into the room.
+
+With a chuckle, the stranger bent down and pushed a tassel under the
+door.
+
+The servant must not discover the trick when she is sweeping the
+passage: now with this wedge, the door cannot be opened without a
+violent push.
+
+With a last glance up and down the passage, illuminated for a moment by
+his electric torch, the stranger made sure that there was no one about
+to see him; then, with silent tread, he began to go downstairs....
+
+Half-way down, his accomplice awaited him.
+
+"Well, master?" questioned Jules in a low, trembling voice.
+
+In a calm, quiet voice, the man in the hood mask replied:
+
+"It is done--is successful.... I have wedged the door to. You will be
+careful when you are sweeping to-morrow."
+
+Jules lowered his head.
+
+"Yes ... yes.... Have you?..."
+
+The stranger put his hand on the servant's shoulder.
+
+"Listen," whispered the stranger, "I do not repeat my orders twenty
+times over,... have I not already told you that I do not allow myself to
+be questioned?... try to remember that!... You wish to know whether I
+have killed her?... Well, I will tell you this: I have not killed her.
+But I have so managed things that she will kill herself!... A suicide,
+you understand.... One piece of advice: to-morrow, keep anyone from
+going to her room as long as you can ... if Madame Bourrat, or anyone
+else asks for her, you must say that you saw her leave the house--that
+she has gone out...."
+
+"But," protested Jules, "it is impossible, what you tell me to say,
+master! It just happens that she is expecting visitors to-morrow!... She
+told me that, on this account, she meant to stay indoors all day!"
+
+The man with the hood mask ground his teeth.
+
+"You idiot! What does that matter?... You are to say: Mademoiselle
+Elizabeth has just gone out, but she told me that she was not going far,
+and that she would return in about twenty minutes.... If anyone should
+ask for her again, you are to answer that she has not come in yet!..."
+
+"But ... master ... when they find out what's happened really?..."
+
+"Ho! When it is discovered, it will seem quite natural that a person who
+means to commit suicide--for she will have committed suicide, you
+understand--should have taken precautions not to be disturbed ... you
+grasp this?"
+
+"Yes, master ... yes!..."
+
+They had returned to the garden: the man in the hooded mask was
+preparing to get over the gate....
+
+"Farewell! Be faithful! Be intelligent!... You know what you have to
+gain?... You also know what risks you run?... Eh!... Now go!"
+
+"You will return to-morrow, master?"
+
+The man with the hooded mask looked his accomplice up and down.
+
+"I shall return when it pleases me to do so."
+
+Then, with marvellous agility, without making a spring for it, with a
+quite extraordinary muscular flexibility and power, the stranger leaped
+on to the little wall, cleared the gate, and disappeared into the
+night....
+
+Jules, with bent head, much moved, terribly anxious, slowly walked back
+to the house....
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+RUE RAFFET
+
+
+Maray, second reporter of _La Capitale_, shook hands with Fandor.
+
+"Are you in a good humour, dear boy?"
+
+"So--so...."
+
+"Ah! Well, here is something which will cheer you up, I'm sure!...
+Here's a letter from a lady for you.... I found it in my pigeon-hole by
+mistake!"
+
+Fandor smiled.
+
+"From a lady?... You must be mistaken!... How do you know it is?"
+
+"By the handwriting, the paper, and so on--I'm not mistaken--am I
+ever?..." Laughing, Maray threw down on Fandor's table a small envelope
+with a deep black border.
+
+"Yes, it is a letter from a woman," said Fandor, as he picked it up:
+"from whom?... Ah,... why yes!..."
+
+With a hasty finger, he tore open the envelope whilst his colleague
+withdrew making a joking remark.
+
+"Dear boy, I leave you to this tender missive: I should be annoyed with
+myself were I to interrupt your reflections!"
+
+Fandor's friend would have been surprised, if he could have seen the
+gloomy expression which the perusal of this so-called love-letter
+produced. Jerome had turned to the signature--_Elizabeth Dollon_.
+
+"What does she want with me?" he asked himself. "After the extraordinary
+affair of rue du Quatre Septembre, one must suppose that she has arrived
+at some conclusion regarding the possible guilt of her brother ... so
+long as she does not let her imagination run away with her, and, like
+the police, fancy that Jacques Dollon is still in the land of the
+living? The position the poor thing is in is a very cruel one!"
+
+Fandor had met Jacques Dollon's young sister repeatedly; and, every
+time, he had been more and more troubled by the poor girl's touching
+grief, as well as by her pathetic beauty, which had made a great
+impression on him.... He began to read her letter.
+
+     _"Dear Sir,_
+
+     _You have been so good to me in all my troubles, you have shown me
+     such true sympathy, that I do not hesitate to ask your help once
+     more._
+
+     _Such an extraordinary thing has happened to me which I cannot
+     account for at all, which, nevertheless, makes me think, more than
+     ever, that my poor brother is living, innocent, and kept prisoner,
+     perhaps by those who compel him to accept the responsibility for
+     all those horrible crimes you know about._
+
+     _To-day, whilst I was in Paris on business, some people, of whom I
+     know nothing, I need hardly say, whom not a soul in the private
+     boarding-house where I am saw, these persons entered my room!_
+
+     _I found all my belongings turned upside down; my papers scattered
+     over the floor, every drawer and trunk and box ransacked from top
+     to bottom!_
+
+     _You can guess how frightened I was...._
+
+     _I do not think they had come to do me any personal harm, not even
+     to rob me, for I had left my modest jewellery on the mantelpiece
+     and found them still there: those who entered my room did not covet
+     valuables._
+
+     _Then, why did they come?_
+
+     _You are perhaps going to say that my imagination is playing me
+     tricks!... Nevertheless, I assure you that I try to keep calm, but
+     I cannot keep control of myself, and I am terribly afraid!_
+
+     _I have just said that nothing was stolen from me; I think,
+     however, it right to mention one strange coincidence._
+
+     _I was convinced that I had left, in a little red pocket-book, the
+     list I spoke to you of, which had been retrieved at my brother's
+     house on the day of Madame de Vibray's death. It was, as I have
+     told you, written in green ink by a person whose handwriting I do
+     not know. I can hardly tell why, but amidst all the disorders in my
+     room I immediately searched for this list. The little pocket-book
+     was on the floor amongst other papers, but the list was not to be
+     found in it._
+
+     _Am I mistaken? Have I packed it in somewhere else, or, allowing
+     for the fact that everything had been turned upside down, has this
+     paper slipped among other papers, which would explain why I had not
+     come across it again?_
+
+     _In spite of myself, I must confess to you that the thieves, I
+     fancy, had only one aim in view when they entered my room, and that
+     was to get hold of this list._
+
+     _What is your opinion?_
+
+     _I feel that perhaps I am about to show myself both inconsiderate
+     and injudicious, but you know how miserable I am, and you will
+     understand how the position I am in gives me grounds for being
+     distracted. I am bent on talking this over with you, on knowing
+     what you think of it. Perhaps even, knowing how clever you are, you
+     might be able to find something, an indication, some detail, in my
+     room? I have not touched anything._
+
+     _I shall stay indoors all to-morrow in the hope of seeing you; do
+     come if you possibly can. It seems to me that I am forsaken by
+     everyone, and I trust only you...."_
+
+Jerome Fandor read and reread this letter, which had been written with a
+trembling hand.
+
+"Poor little soul!" he murmured. "Here is something more to add to her
+troubles! It is really terrible! It seems to me as if we should never
+come to the end of it; and I ask myself, whether the police will ever
+find the key to all these mysteries!...
+
+"Did someone really break into Elizabeth Dollon's room to steal this
+paper? It is rather improbable. Judging from what she told me, there is
+nothing compromising in it. But then, why this search?... She is right
+so far: if the intruders had been merely thieves, they would have
+carried off her jewellery!... Then it is for that paper they came?
+Besides, ordinary burglars would have had considerable difficulty in
+getting into her room, where she is remarkably well guarded, by the very
+fact of there being other boarders in the house....
+
+"No, the very audacity of this attempted theft seems to prove, that it
+is connected with the other affairs which have brought the name of
+Jacques Dollon into such prominence!
+
+"I see in this the same extraordinary audacity, the same certainty of
+escape, the same long and careful preparation, for it is a by no means
+convenient place for a burglary in open day: comings and goings are
+perpetual, and the guilty persons ran a hundred risks of being
+caught...."
+
+Fandor interrupted his reflections to read Elizabeth's letter once more.
+
+"She is dying of fright! That is evident!... In any case she calls to me
+for help. Her letter was posted yesterday evening.... I will go and see
+her--and at once.... Who knows but I might find some clue which would
+put me on the right track?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jerome Fandor did not feel very hopeful.
+
+After having gone carefully over every point connected with, and
+pertaining to, the affair of rue du Quatre Septembre, he had almost come
+to the conclusion, optimistic as he was regarding the police, that
+chance alone would bring about the arrest of the guilty parties.
+
+"To lay these criminals by the heels," he had frankly declared,
+"requires the aid of very favourable circumstances, and without them,
+neither I nor the police will get at the truth of it all."
+
+Fandor made a definite distinction between the opinion of the police and
+his own, because two different theories now obtained with regard to the
+two affairs: that of the attack on the Princess Sonia Danidoff, and that
+of the robbery of rue du Quatre Septembre, where the imprints of Jacques
+Dollon's fingers had been found.
+
+The police and Fandor coupled Monsieur Havard with Monsieur Bertillon
+under this definition; the police held it for certain that Jacques
+Dollon was alive, very much alive, and the probabilities were great that
+he was guilty of the different crimes attributed to him.
+
+In an interview granted to a press rival of _La Capitale_ Monsieur
+Bertillon had stated:
+
+"We base our assertion that Dollon is alive, and consequently guilty, on
+material facts: we have found his signature attached to each of the
+crimes, and it is a signature which cannot be imitated by anyone...."
+
+For his part, Fandor held it as certain that Jacques was dead.
+
+"I maintain that, since fifty persons have seen Jacques Dollon dead, it
+is infinitely more likely that he is dead than that he is alive! The
+imprints of his fingers, his hand, are equally visible, it is true, and
+seem to prove that he is alive. But the conclusive nature of this test
+is nullified by the fact that, before the discovery of these imprints,
+before these imprints had been made, Jacques Dollon was dead!"
+
+And in his articles in _La Capitale_, Jerome Fandor, with a persistency
+which finished by disconcerting even the most convinced partisans of the
+police contention, continued to maintain that Jacques Dollon was dead,
+dead as dead, and, to use his own expression, "as dead as it was
+possible for anyone to be dead!"
+
+Jerome Fandor had just rung the bell at the garden gate of Madame
+Bourrat's private boarding-house in Auteuil.
+
+Jules hastened to answer this ring, and was met by the question:
+
+"Is Mademoiselle Elizabeth Dollon at home?"
+
+"No, monsieur. She went out not an hour ago!"
+
+"And you are certain she has not returned?"
+
+"Absolutely, monsieur.... There are two visitors waiting for her
+already."
+
+"She will be in soon, then?"
+
+"Certainly, monsieur: she will not be long...."
+
+Fandor looked at his watch.
+
+"A quarter past ten!... Very well, I will wait for her."
+
+"If monsieur will kindly follow me?"
+
+Fandor was shown into the drawing-room. He had advanced only a step or
+two when he was greeted with:
+
+"Why! Monsieur Fandor!"
+
+"I am delighted to see you!" cried Fandor, shaking hands with Monsieur
+Barbey and Monsieur Nanteuil. Both gave him a pleasant smile of welcome.
+
+"You have come to see Mademoiselle Dollon, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes. We have come to assure her that we will do all in our power to
+help her out of her terrible difficulties. She wrote to us a few days
+ago to ask if we would act as intermediaries regarding the sale of some
+of her unfortunate brother's productions, also to see if we could get
+her a situation in some dressmaking establishment.... We have come to
+assure her of our entire sympathy."
+
+"That is most kind of you! They told you, did they not, that she had
+gone out? I think she will not be absent long, for I have an appointment
+with her. But, if you will allow me, I will go to the office and ask if
+they have the least idea of which way she has gone, for I have little
+time to spare, and if we could go to meet her, it would save, at least,
+a few minutes...."
+
+Jerome Fandor rose and went towards one of the drawing-room doors.
+
+"You are making a mistake," said Monsieur Nanteuil, "the office is this
+way," and he pointed to another door.
+
+"Bah! All roads lead to Rome!" With that, Fandor went out by the door he
+had approached first....
+
+"They are nice fellows," said Fandor to himself. "If Elizabeth Dollon is
+really not in!... but... Is she really not in the house? I am by no
+means sure.... If she feels timid at the idea of seeing the
+bankers--their visit may have made her nervous, considering the state
+she is in ... she might have sent to say she was not at home in order to
+have time to add some finishing touches to her toilette."
+
+Fandor, who knew the house, mounted the little staircase leading to the
+first floor. Elizabeth's room was on this floor. Before her door he
+stopped and sniffed.
+
+"Queer smell!" he murmured. "It smells like gas!"
+
+He knocked boldly, calling:
+
+"Mademoiselle Elizabeth! It is I, Fandor!"
+
+The smell of gas became more pronounced as he waited.
+
+A horrible idea, an agonising fear, flashed through his mind.
+
+He knocked as hard as he could on the door.
+
+"Mademoiselle Elizabeth! Mademoiselle!"
+
+No answer.
+
+He called down the stairs:
+
+"Waiter!... Porter!"
+
+But apparently the one and only manservant the house boasted was
+occupied elsewhere, for no one answered.
+
+Fandor returned to the door of Elizabeth's room, knelt down and tried to
+look through the keyhole. The inside key was there, which seemed to
+confirm his agonising fear.
+
+"She has not gone out then?"
+
+He took a deep breath.
+
+"What a horrible smell of gas!"
+
+This time he did not hesitate. He rose, stepped back, sprang forward,
+and with a vigorous push from the shoulder, he drove the door off its
+hinges.
+
+"My God!" he shouted.
+
+In the centre of the room, Fandor had just seen Elizabeth Dollon lying
+unconscious. A tube, detached from a portable gas stove, was between her
+tightly closed lips! The tap was turned full on. He flung himself on his
+knees near the poor girl, pulled away the deadly tube, and put his ear
+to her heart.
+
+What joy, what happiness, he felt when he heard, very feeble but quite
+unmistakable beatings of Elizabeth's heart!
+
+"She lives!" What unspeakable relief Jerome Fandor felt! What
+thankfulness!
+
+The noise he had made breaking the door off its hinges brought the whole
+household running to the spot. As the manservant, followed by Madame
+Bourrat, followed in turn by Monsieur Barbey and Nanteuil, appeared in
+the doorway uttering cries of terror, Jerome called out:
+
+"No one is to come in!... It is an accident!"
+
+Then lifting Elizabeth in his strong arms, he carried her out of the
+room.
+
+"What she needs is air!"
+
+He hurried downstairs and out into the garden with his precious burden,
+followed by the terrified witnesses of the scene.
+
+"You have saved her life, monsieur!" cried Madame Bourrat in a tragic
+voice. She groaned. "Oh, what a scandal!"
+
+"Yes, I have saved her," replied Fandor as, panting with his exertions,
+he laid Elizabeth Dollon flat on a garden seat.... "But from whom?... It
+is certainly not attempted suicide! There is some mystery behind this
+business: it's a regular theatrical performance arranged simply for
+effect, and to mislead us," declared Fandor. Then, turning to the
+bankers, he said courteously but with an air of command:
+
+"Please lay information with the superintendent of police at once ...
+the nearest police station, you understand!"
+
+"Madame," he said, addressing the overwhelmed Madame Bourrat, "you will
+be good enough to look after Mademoiselle Dollon, will you not?... Take
+every care of her. There is not much to be done, however! I have seen
+many cases of commencing asphyxia: she will regain consciousness now, in
+a few minutes."
+
+Then, looking at the manservant, he said in a sharp tone:
+
+"Come with me! You will mount guard at the door of Mademoiselle
+Elizabeth's room, whilst I try to discover some clues, before the police
+arrive on the scene."
+
+To tell the truth, our young journalist felt embarrassed at the idea
+that Elizabeth Dollon was about to regain consciousness, and that he
+would have to submit to being thanked by her, when she knew who had
+saved her.
+
+Accompanied by the manservant, he went quickly upstairs and into
+Elizabeth's room.
+
+"You must not enter Mademoiselle Dollon's room on any account!" said
+Fandor sternly. "It is quite enough that I should run the risk of
+effacing the, probably very slight, clues which the delinquents have
+left behind them...."
+
+"But, monsieur, if the young lady put the tubing between her lips, it
+must have been because she wished to destroy herself!"
+
+"On the face of it you are right, my good fellow. But, when one is
+right, one is often wrong!"
+
+Without more ado, Fandor started on a minute inspection of the room.
+Elizabeth had but stated the truth when she wrote that it had been
+thoroughly ransacked. Only her toilet things had been spared; but some
+books had been taken from their shelves and thrown about the floor,
+their pages crumpled and spoilt. He noticed the emptied trunk: its
+contents--copy books, letters, pieces of music--had been roughly dealt
+with. On the mantelpiece, in full view, lay Elizabeth's jewellery--some
+rings and brooches, a small gold watch, a purse.
+
+"A very queer affair," murmured Fandor, who was kneeling in the middle
+of the room, rummaging, searching, and not finding any clue. He rose,
+carefully examined all the woodwork, but found nothing incriminating. He
+examined the lock of the unhinged door, which had subsided on the floor.
+The lock was intact, the bolt moved freely: the screws only of the
+staple had given way.
+
+"That," thought Fandor, "is probably owing to the force of my thrust!"
+
+The window fastening was intact: the window closed.
+
+"If the robbers," reflected Fandor, "got into a closed room, they must
+have used false keys."
+
+Having examined the means of access to the room, Fandor started on a
+still more minute examination of the interior. He scrutinised the
+furniture and the slight powdering of dust on each article: in vain!...
+Then the washstand had its turn: nothing!... He scrutinised the soap.
+
+"Ah! This is interesting!" he cried. The manservant had made himself
+scarce; and Fandor, unobserved, could wrap up the piece of soap in his
+handkerchief and hide it in the lowest drawer of the chest of drawers,
+under a pile of linen. He was whistling now.
+
+"That bit of soap is interesting--very!" he cried. "Let the police come!
+I am not afraid of their blundering!... Now to see how Elizabeth is
+getting on!"
+
+When he reached her side, he found she had recovered full consciousness,
+and was preparing to answer the questions of a police superintendent,
+who, summoned by the bankers, had hastened to the scene of action. He
+was a stout, apoplectic man, very full of his own importance.
+
+"Come now, mademoiselle, tell us just how things happened from beginning
+to end! We ask nothing better than to believe you, but do not conceal
+any detail--not the slightest...."
+
+Poor Elizabeth Dollon, when she heard this speech, stared at the pompous
+police official, astonished. What had she to conceal? What had she to
+gain by lying? What did he think, this fat policeman, who took it upon
+himself to issue orders, when he should rather have tried to comfort
+her! Nevertheless, she at once began telling him all that she knew with
+regard to the affair. She told him of her letter to Fandor: that her
+room had been visited the evening before: by whom she did not know ...
+that she had not said a word about it to anyone, fearing vengeance would
+fall on her, frightened, not understanding what it all meant....
+
+Then she came to what the police dignitary called "her suicide." As she
+finished her recital with a reference to her rescue by Fandor, she
+looked at the young journalist. It was a look of great gratitude and a
+kind of ardent tenderness, with a touch of fear in it.
+
+"Strange, very strange!" pronounced the superintendent of police, who
+had been taking notes with an air of great gravity. "So very strange,
+mademoiselle, that it is very difficult to credit your statements!...
+very difficult indeed!..."
+
+Whilst he was speaking, Fandor was saying to himself:
+
+"Decidedly, it is that!... Just what I was thinking! It is quite clear,
+clear as the sun in the sky, evident, indisputable!" And he refused,
+very politely of course--for one has to respect the authorities--to
+accompany the superintendent, who, in his turn, went upstairs to
+Elizabeth's room, in order to carry out the necessary legal
+verification....
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+SOMEONE TELEPHONED
+
+
+The nuns of the order of Saint Augustin were not expelled in consequence
+of the Decrees. This was a special favour, but one fully justified,
+because of the incalculable benefits this community conferred on
+suffering humanity. The vast convent of rue de la Glaciere continues to
+serve as a shelter for these holy women, and as a sort of hospital for
+the sick. For close on a hundred years, generation after generation of
+those living near its walls have heard the convent clock sound the hours
+in solemn tones; so, too, the convent chapel's shrill-voiced bells have
+never failed to remind the faithful that the daily offices of their
+church are being said and sung by the holy sisters within the hallowed
+walls.
+
+In the vast quarter of Paris, peopled with hospitals and prisons, the
+convent shows a stern front in the shape of a high, blackened wall. A
+great courtyard gate, in which a window with iron bars and grating is
+the only visible opening to the exterior world.
+
+About half-past six in the morning, slightly out of breath with his
+rapid walk from the Metropolitan station, Jerome Fandor rang the convent
+door bell. The sound could be heard echoing and re-echoing in the
+vaulted corridors, till it died away in the stony distance. There was a
+silence: then the iron-barred window was half opened, and Fandor heard a
+voice asking:
+
+"What do you want, monsieur?"
+
+"I wish to speak to Madame the Superior," replied Fandor.
+
+The window was closed again and a lengthy silence followed. Then,
+slowly, the heavy entrance gate swung half open. Fandor entered the
+convent. Under the arched doorway, a nun received him with a slight
+salutation, and turned her back.
+
+"Kindly follow me," she murmured.
+
+Fandor followed along a narrow passage, on one side of which were cells,
+whilst on the other, it opened by means of large bays, on a vast
+rectangular cloister quite deserted. A door-window in the passage was
+ajar: the nun stopped here and said:
+
+"Kindly wait in this parlour, and be good enough to let me have your
+card. I will inform our Mother Superior that you wish to see her."
+
+The room in which our journalist found himself was severely furnished:
+its walls were white, on them hung a great ivory crucifix, and here and
+there, a simple religious picture framed in ebony. A few chairs were
+ranged in a circle about an oval table: on the floor, polished till it
+shone like a mirror, were a few small mats, which gave a touch of
+common-place comfort to the icy regularity of this parlour, set apart
+for official visits.
+
+What emotions, what dramas, what joys, have had this parlour for a
+setting! It is there that the life of the cloister touches mundane
+existence; it is there the nuns receive their future companions in the
+religious life and their weeping families; it is there the parents of
+those in the convent infirmary come to hear from the doctor's lips the
+decrees of life or death; for the convent is not only a retreat, it is
+an asylum for the sick, the ailing, recommended to their patients by the
+most eminent doctors, the most prominent surgeons.
+
+Accustomed though he was to every kind of human misery, Fandor shuddered
+at the thought of all these walls had seen and heard. His reflections
+were broken by the arrival of a little old lady, whose eyes shone
+strangely luminous in her pale and wrinkled face--a face showing the
+highest distinction.
+
+Fandor made a deep bow: it might have expressed the reverence of the
+world to religion.
+
+"Madame la Superieure," murmured he, "I have come to pay my respects to
+you and to ask for news of your boarder."
+
+The Mother Superior, in a gay tone, which contrasted with her cold and
+reserved appearance, replied at once:
+
+"Ah, you preferred to come yourself! You had not the patience to wait at
+the telephone? I quite understand. Would you believe it, while the
+sister, who has charge of this young girl, was being sent for, the
+communication was cut off. That is why we could not give you any
+information."
+
+Fandor stared.
+
+"But I do not understand, madame?"
+
+The Mother Superior replied:
+
+"Was it not you then who telephoned this morning to ask for news of
+Mademoiselle Dollon?"
+
+"I certainly did not do so!"
+
+"In that case, I do not understand what it means, either! But it does
+not matter much: you shall see your protegee now."
+
+The Mother Superior rang: a sister appeared.
+
+"Sister, will you take this gentleman to Mademoiselle Dollon! She was
+walking in the park a short while ago, and is probably there now....
+Monsieur, I bid you good day."
+
+Gliding swiftly and noiselessly over the polished floor, the Mother
+Superior disappeared. The nun led the way and Fandor followed: he was
+very much upset by what the Mother Superior had just told him.
+
+"How had Elizabeth's place of refuge been so quickly discovered?... Who
+could have telephoned to get news of her?"
+
+The nun had led Fandor across the great rectangular courtyard; then by
+corridors, and many winding, vaulted passages, they had come out on to a
+terrace, overlooking an immense park, which extended further than the
+eye could see. Here were bosky dells, ancient trees, bowers and grooves,
+meadows where milky mothers chewed the cud in the shade of blossoming
+apple trees. It might have been in Normandy, a hundred leagues from
+Paris!
+
+The nun turned to the admiring Fandor.
+
+"The young lady you seek, monsieur, is coming along this path: there she
+is!... I will leave you."
+
+Fandor had seen Elizabeth's graceful figure moving towards him, thrown
+into charming relief by the country landscape flooded with sunshine. In
+her modest mourning dress, with her fair shining hair, she appeared
+prettier than ever: a touching figure of sorrowing beauty!
+
+Elizabeth pressed Fandor's hands warmly.
+
+"Oh, thank you, monsieur, thank you!" she cried, "for having come to see
+me this morning. I know how little spare time you have! I feel vexed
+with myself for putting you out so ... but you see"--Elizabeth could not
+repress a sob--"I am so alone ... so desolate ... I have lost everything
+I cared for ... and you are the only person I can trust and confide in
+now!... I feel like a bit of wreckage at the mercy of wind and wave; I
+feel as though I were surrounded by enemies: I live in a nightmare....
+What should I do without you to turn to?..."
+
+Our young journalist, moved by such great misfortune so simply, so
+candidly expressed, returned the pressure of Elizabeth's hands.
+
+"You know, mademoiselle," he said softly, but in a voice vibrating with
+sympathetic emotion--the only sign of feeling he permitted himself to
+show--"you know that you can count absolutely on me. In getting you to
+take a few days' rest in this retreat, I felt I was doing what was best
+for you. You are not solitary; but your surroundings are peaceful and
+friendly, and should you have enemies, though I am loath to think it,
+you are sheltered here beyond their reach. With reference to that, have
+you given your address to anyone, since yesterday?"
+
+"To no one," replied Elizabeth. "Has anyone by chance?..."
+
+She looked troubled, and gave an anxious questioning glance at Fandor.
+
+He did not want to frighten the much-tried girl, but he wished to solve
+the mystery of the unaccountable telephone call.
+
+"Oh, I just wished to know, mademoiselle.... Now, tell me, have you
+quite recovered from ... your experience of the other day?"
+
+"Ah, monsieur, I owe my life to you!" cried Elizabeth. "For, I am
+certain that someone wished to get rid of me ... don't you agree with
+me?... I must have been dosed with some narcotic, just as they dosed my
+poor brother, for I am now absolutely convinced that he also was sent to
+sleep and poisoned...."
+
+"And that he is dead! Is that not so?" asked Fandor in a low voice.
+
+Without hesitation, in a tearful voice, Elizabeth repeated:
+
+"And that he is dead. You have given me so many proofs that it is so,
+that I can no longer doubt it, alas! But I will take courage, as I
+promised you I would. I ought to live, that I may strive to rehabilitate
+his memory, and restore to him his reputation as a man of probity, of
+honour, to which he is entitled. But directly I begin to think about the
+horrible mystery in which I am involved, my very reason seems to
+totter--you can understand that, can you not? I don't understand, I
+don't know, I can't guess ... oh!..."
+
+"But," interrupted Fandor, "we must seriously consider the situation in
+all its bearings. It may cause you atrocious suffering, but you must
+summon all your courage, mademoiselle. We must discuss it."
+
+Fandor and Elizabeth had moved away from the terrace, and were now in
+the leafy solitudes of the park.
+
+Fandor began:
+
+"There is that paper with its list of names, written in green ink,
+mademoiselle! It was a mistake on your part not to attach any importance
+to it until you fancied, and perhaps rightly, that someone had tried to
+steal it from you. Come now, can you tell me whether this list is still
+in your possession, or not?"
+
+Elizabeth shook her head sadly.
+
+"I do not know, I cannot tell! My poor head is so bewildered, and I find
+it all the trouble in the world to collect my thoughts. I told you, the
+other day, that this list had disappeared from a little red pocket book,
+that I had put on the chimney piece of my room at Auteuil. But the more
+I think it over, the more doubtful I am.... It seems to me now, that
+this list ought to be, must be still--unless it has been stolen
+since--in the big trunk, into which I threw, pell-mell, the papers and
+books my brother left scattered about his writing table. To be quite
+sure about this, we must return to Auteuil.... But perhaps it is
+useless; because when I wanted to send it to you some forty-eight hours
+ago, I searched everywhere for the wretched thing, and in vain!... I am
+not even sure now that I brought it away with me from rue Norvins!"
+
+Fandor gently comforted the distracted girl whose eyes were full of
+tears.
+
+"Do not be disheartened. Try rather to put together in your memory what
+was written in this paper! You told me, surely, that there were names in
+this list of persons you knew, or had heard of? Search your memory a
+little, mademoiselle."
+
+"I don't know! I cannot remember!" cried Elizabeth nervously.
+
+"Come now," said Fandor encouragingly, "I know an excellent way of
+assisting the memory. The eyes are like a sensitive photographic plate:
+what the brain does not always retain, the mirror of the eye registers:
+do not try to remember, but try, as it were, to read on white paper what
+your eyes saw!..."
+
+"Let us sit down a minute and I will help you to do it!" Fandor pointed
+out a rustic seat, under the trees, in front of which was a garden
+table. They sat down together and Fandor drew from his pocket a sheet of
+white paper and his fountain pen.
+
+Elizabeth's arm touched his shoulder.
+
+As though electrified by this contact, the two young people trembled,
+their eyes met in a glance full of troubled emotion--a feeling new to
+both--whose immense significance neither understood. Fandor remained
+speechless, and Elizabeth blushed.
+
+They gazed at each other, embarrassed, not knowing what to say for
+themselves; and their embarrassment was only relieved by the appearance
+of the sister who attended to the turning box at the entrance gate. She
+stood at the top of the steps leading down to the park and called
+Elizabeth.
+
+"Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! There is someone on the telephone who
+wishes to speak to you!"
+
+Fandor rose.
+
+"Will you allow me to accompany you, mademoiselle? I am very curious to
+know whether the person now asking for you is identical with the person
+who asked for you a little while ago?"
+
+The young couple hurried to the big parlour, and Elizabeth went to the
+telephone.
+
+"Hullo?..."
+
+Elizabeth had handed one of the receivers to Fandor. He heard a
+voice--an unknown voice, but beyond question masculine--who said, over
+the wire:
+
+"Hullo!... Is it really Mademoiselle Dollon to whom I have the honour of
+speaking?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur. Who is speaking to me?"
+
+But just as Elizabeth was about to repeat her question, Fandor thought
+he heard whoever had called up Elizabeth, hang up the receivers. No
+reply reached them!...
+
+Elizabeth cried impatiently:
+
+"Hullo!... Hullo!... Who is speaking to me?"
+
+But there was no one at the end of the line!
+
+Fandor swore softly to himself, then seizing the two receivers he
+called:
+
+"Hullo! Come, monsieur, reply!... Whom do you want? Who are you?"
+
+He could not obtain any reply.
+
+Fandor rang up the central office. When the telephone girl answered, he
+called:
+
+"Mademoiselle, why have you cut me off?"
+
+"But I have done nothing of the kind, monsieur!"
+
+"But I cannot get any reply!"
+
+"It is because the receivers have been hung up by whoever called you. I
+assure you that is so."
+
+"What was my caller's number?"
+
+"I cannot tell you that, monsieur--the rules forbid it."
+
+Fandor knew this quite well, so he did not insist further. But, as he
+turned away from the telephone, a dull anger smouldered within him.
+
+"Who was this mysterious individual who had called Elizabeth twice over
+the telephone, and then, no sooner put into communication with her, had
+refused to talk to her?"
+
+Fandor felt nervous, anxious, exasperated by this incident; but it would
+never do to trouble his young friend to no good purpose. He led her back
+to the garden.
+
+"Where were we in our talk, monsieur?" asked Elizabeth.
+
+With a considerable effort, the journalist collected his thoughts.
+
+"We were discussing the mysterious paper found at your brother's,
+mademoiselle."
+
+In agreement with Elizabeth, Jerome Fandor determined the approximate
+size of this list of addresses. He tore from his note-book a sheet of
+white paper.
+
+Elizabeth looked fixedly at the white sheet for a long time, as though,
+by concentrated will power, she could force the mysterious names which
+she read some days before on the original paper, to rise up in front of
+her eyes. Certainly it seemed to her that on this list figured the name
+of her brother, that of the Baroness de Vibray, lawyer Gerin's also:
+then she remembered a double name, a name not unknown to her, which had
+appeared in the list.
+
+"Barbey-Nanteuil!" she suddenly cried. "Yes, I do believe those two
+names were on it!"
+
+Fandor smiled. Encouraged by his smile and the results of this
+semi-clairvoyant attempt, Elizabeth allowed her thoughts free play.
+
+"I am sure of it: there was even a mistake in spelling: _Nanteuil_ was
+spelled _Nauteuil_: the bankers were third or fourth on the list, and I
+am certain now that the Baroness de Vibray's name headed the list....
+There was also a date, composed of two figures--a 1 ... then--wait a
+minute!... a figure with a tail to it ... that is to say, it could only
+have been a 5, a 7, or a 9.... I cannot remember which. Then there were
+other names I had never heard of."
+
+"Try, mademoiselle, to remember...."
+
+There was a silence. Fandor was puzzling over the figures
+he had written down in the order Elizabeth had mentioned
+them--fifteen--seventeen--nineteen--but what could he deduce from
+them?... Ah!... The mysterious robbery of rue du Quatre Septembre was
+committed on May 15th! There may be a clue there! The thread of Fandor's
+reflections were abruptly broken by a cry from Elizabeth.
+
+"I have recalled a name--something like ... Thomas!... Does that tell
+you anything?"
+
+"Thomas?" repeated Jerome Fandor slowly.... "I don't see...."
+
+But suddenly he saw light!
+
+He jumped up:
+
+"Isn't it Thomery?" cried he, intensely excited. "Are you not
+confounding Thomas with Thomery?"
+
+Elizabeth, taken aback, confused, tried hard to remember: she threshed
+her memory with knitted brows.
+
+"It may be so," she declared. "I see quite clearly the first letters of
+the word--Thom ... written in a large hand,... then the rest is
+indistinct ... but I have the impression that the end of the word is
+longer than the last syllable of Thomas."
+
+"Perhaps you are right!"
+
+Fandor was no longer listening to her. He had left the rustic bench, and
+without paying any attention to Elizabeth, he began walking up and down
+the shady path, talking to himself in a low tone, as was his habit when
+he wished to reduce his thoughts to order.
+
+"Thomas--that is Thomery; Jacques Dollon, the Baroness de Vibray,
+Barbey-Nanteuil, lawyer Gerin--but they are all the victims of the
+mysterious band that plots and plans in the shade!... It is
+incomprehensible--but we shall find a way to get to the bottom of it
+all!"
+
+Fandor returned to Elizabeth.
+
+"We shall get to the bottom of these mysteries," cried he, with so
+triumphant an air, his face shining with joy, that Elizabeth, in spite
+of her torturing anxieties, could not help smiling.
+
+They were alone in these green and flowery spaces. A great peace was all
+about them. The birds were singing, the breeze lightly stirred the trees
+and bushes with caressing breaths.... Fandor gazed tenderly at
+Elizabeth, very tenderly.... The young girl smiled tremulously, as she
+met this glance of lover-like tenderness.
+
+"We shall get to the bottom of it," repeated Fandor. "You will see, I
+promise you...."
+
+Their glances mingled in a mute communion of thought and feeling....
+Spontaneously, their hands met and clasped.... They were standing close
+together, and theirs the consciousness of living through an
+unforgettable moment: they felt most vividly alive together. How young
+they were! How intoxicating, a moment!... The world of outside things
+ceased to exist for them.... They were enwrapt in a glowing world of
+their own!... Fandor's hand slid to Elizabeth's shoulder; he leaned
+towards the unresisting girl, and with closed eyes, their lips met in a
+long kiss--a kiss all ecstasy....
+
+It was a moment's mutual madness!... The instant past, both knew it.
+Torn from this momentary dream of bliss, they gazed at each other,
+embarrassed, greatly moved: for that very reason they wished to part.
+Ah, this was not the moment to speak of love, to dream of happiness and
+mutual joy! Dark, dreadful mysteries enclosed them: it was a sinister
+net they struggled in: as yet they could see no clear way out!... They
+had no right to be themselves until the mysteries were cleared away....
+They could not belong to each other now!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fandor, when taking leave of Elizabeth, expressed a wish that she should
+not accompany him to the convent; and she, still shaken with emotion,
+had not insisted on doing so.
+
+As he was on the point of stepping into the street, a sister came up to
+him.
+
+"You are Monsieur Jerome Fandor?"
+
+"Yes, sister."
+
+"Our Mother Superior wishes to speak to you."
+
+Our journalist bowed acquiescence.
+
+Some minutes later, the Mother Superior joined him in the large parlour.
+
+"Monsieur," she began, "I must apologise for having sent for you, but I
+wished to have a necessary talk with you."
+
+Fandor interrupted the saintly nun.
+
+"And I must apologise, reverend Mother, for not having come to pay my
+respects to you before leaving. Had I not been much troubled, I should
+never have dreamt of leaving without thanking you for the help you have
+been good enough to give me."
+
+The nun looked at him questioningly. Fandor continued:
+
+"In agreeing to receive Mademoiselle Elizabeth Dollon as a boarder, you
+have done a deed of true charity: this poor girl is so unhappy, so
+tried, so unfortunate, that I really do not know where she could have
+found a better refuge than in this convent under your sheltering
+care.... I ..."
+
+But the nun would not allow Fandor to continue.
+
+"It is precisely about Mademoiselle Dollon that I wish to speak to
+you.... Of course, I should be glad to help and comfort one suffering
+from a real misfortune; but I must confess, that when Mademoiselle
+Dollon presented herself here as a boarder, I was ignorant of the exact
+nature of the scandal in which she is involved."
+
+Fandor was taken aback at the harsh tone of the nun's speech.
+
+"Good Heavens, madame, what do you mean to insinuate?"
+
+"I have just been informed, monsieur, of the exact nature of the
+relations which existed between the criminal, Jacques Dollon, and Madame
+de Vibray."
+
+Fandor stiffened with indignation.
+
+"It is false!" he cried. "Utterly false! You have been misinformed!"
+
+He stopped short. The nun signified by a movement of her hand that
+further protests were useless.
+
+"In any case, whether false or not, it is quite certain that we cannot
+keep this girl here any longer, for her name will, in the end, do harm
+to the respectability of this house."
+
+Fandor was astounded at this extraordinary statement.
+
+"In other words," said he, "you refuse to keep Mademoiselle here any
+longer as a boarder?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur!"
+
+The journalist moved a step or two, then, with bent head, seemed to be
+turning something over in his mind.
+
+"It comes to this, madame, you are not giving me your true reasons
+for ..."
+
+Again the nun interrupted the young man with a gesture.
+
+"True, monsieur, I should have preferred not to mention my real and very
+definite reasons which make it an imperative duty that I should request
+Mademoiselle Dollon to seek another refuge. Nevertheless, since you
+insist, I will tell you that Mademoiselle Dollon's attitude just
+now--her behaviour--is what we cannot possibly allow...."
+
+"Good Heavens! What do you wish to insinuate now, madame?"
+
+"You kissed her, monsieur. I regret that you have forced me to go into
+details. I regret that you have compelled me to put into words this--I
+will not allow you to turn this religious house into a lover's meeting
+place! Am I clear?"
+
+Before Fandor had time to protest, the nun gave him a curt bow, and
+prepared to leave him.
+
+The young journalist recalled her. He was angry; all the more so,
+because he knew that the Mother Superior had some justification for the
+attitude she had taken up. Alas! All his protestations were vain!
+
+"Very well, madame," he said at last. "You are utterly mistaken; but I
+recognise that your attitude has some colour of justification, and I bow
+to your decision, based on misinformation and a mistake though it be.
+Kindly allow me two days' grace, that I may find another refuge for
+Mademoiselle Dollon!"
+
+With a movement of her head the nun signified her assent; then, with a
+final bow, she left the parlour.
+
+Crestfallen, but full of angry resolve, Jerome Fandor turned his back on
+the convent.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+VAGUE SUSPICIONS
+
+
+Fandor was talking to himself--an inveterate habit of his--as he sat in
+the cab which was carrying him to the Palais de Justice.
+
+"Beyond question, I ought to have examined that paper they have stolen
+from Mademoiselle Elizabeth. I should have looked through it at the
+first opportunity. That sequence of names; those dates, which seem to
+almost coincide with the different criminal attempts, probably relate to
+the mysterious plan which the assassins are carrying out
+systematically.... But, that means there are to be more victims, and we
+shall witness fresh tragedies!... I am not at all easy about Elizabeth
+either!... Who the deuce could have telephoned to her at the convent?...
+Perhaps what I am going to do is stupid, but no chance must be
+neglected.... I wonder if I shall learn anything worth knowing at the
+court to-day?...
+
+"When they arrested these smugglers, five months ago, I recollect
+perfectly that Monsieur Thomery's name was mentioned in connection with
+the business.... If I only held the connecting link of interest in my
+hands, which would make it clear why all these people--Jacques Dollon,
+the Baroness de Vibray, Princess Sonia Danidoff, Barbey-Nanteuil, and
+even Elizabeth Dollon--have been the victims of the horrible band I am
+pursuing.... The motive? Evidently robbery! But there must be some other
+reason, for--and it is a significant fact--all these people know one
+another, meet one another, or at least are either clients of the
+Barbey-Nanteuil bank, or are friends of Monsieur Thomery.... It's the
+devil's own mystery!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Jerome Fandor had arrived at the Palais de Justice. He crossed the great
+hall des Pas-Perdus and entered the Assize Court.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The trial of the Cooper and his accomplices was a small affair, and had
+not attracted many listeners, for these smuggling and coining cases were
+apt to be dull. As a matter of fact, there would not have been a soul
+present, if the accused had not had the most popular of counsels to
+defend them--Maitre Henri Robart!
+
+Fandor joined a group who were on familiar terms evidently, and,
+although he had not seen her for many a day, he at once recognised
+Mother Toulouche by her remarkable appearance and grotesque get up. He
+had had so many other irons in the fire, that he had not followed this
+smuggling case at all closely: he was surprised, therefore, to see
+Mother Toulouche in the little passage adjoining the court, for he had
+the impression that the old receiver of stolen goods had been under lock
+and key for some weeks.... She was now being interviewed by one of his
+colleagues. Fandor went up to them.
+
+Though she had not been accused of anything so far, the old storekeeper
+was vehemently protesting her innocence.
+
+"Yes," she declared to her interviewer, "it is abominable, when such
+things are discovered all of a sudden!"
+
+Mother Toulouche went on to explain that on Clock Quay she rented a
+small shop for the sale of curiosities: that she was an honest woman,
+who had never wronged a soul by as much as a farthing: all she asked was
+to be left in peace to earn a decent living, so that she could retire
+from business some day or other.... Everyone had a right to ask as much
+as that!... Her store consisted of two rooms and an underground cellar,
+in which she had put a quantity of old odds and ends, when she had moved
+to her present abode.... She never descended to this cellar, never at
+all: she was far too much afraid of rats to venture down there! Not she!
+But, one day, if you please, when she was quietly engaged in mending
+some old clothes, the police had suddenly burst into her store!... And
+they had accused her of receiving smuggled goods and false money, and
+she didn't know what more besides!...
+
+The police, not content with this, had made her go down to the cellar to
+find out whether or no there were such things in the second cellar
+belonging to her store!... Who had been most surprised then? Why who but
+Mother Toulouche, who, until that very minute, had not known that this
+second cellar existed! How then was she to know that it communicated
+with the sewer, still less that the sewer opened on to the Seine, and
+that by the Seine arrived bales of smuggled goods, which were concealed
+in her cellar by the smugglers?... Fortunately, the judges had
+understood this, and after twenty-four hours' detention on suspicion,
+Mother Toulouche had been set at liberty!
+
+At first, she had declared that she did not know the accused persons
+summoned to appear that day, the Cooper in particular; to tell the
+truth, she had made a mistake; she did know them, through having met
+them a long time ago, when she lived near la Capelle; so long ago was it
+that she had forgotten all about it! Anyhow, she wanted to have done
+with the business!
+
+From the very beginning of the trial, Mother Toulouche had been
+disagreeably struck by the inquisitorial glances and pointed questions
+of the Public Prosecutor throughout the proceedings. Now, in her turn,
+the old storekeeper was questioning her audience, trying hard to find
+out what would be the probable attitude of the magistrate, when she
+herself should be summoned to the witness-box.
+
+"Witness!... Mother Toulouche!"
+
+Fandor smiled as he listened to the loquacious old storekeeper,
+for he knew how much faith was to be put in her veracity and
+respectability!... It was pretty clear that she was every whit as guilty
+as the handcuffed individuals now in the dock. As she had not been
+arrested, it simply meant that, in Juve's opinion, this was not an
+opportune moment to put a stopper on the nefarious activities of this
+bad old woman.
+
+At this precise moment, Fandor recognised Juve. He was leaving a group
+of barristers and officials, who had been hugely entertained by his
+stupid answers and remarks. Yes, it was Juve, so admirably made up and
+disguised that Fandor had difficulty in recognising him. Here was
+Cranajour on the scene! He approached Mother Toulouche and stood
+there--a Cranajour who was the picture of gaping imbecility!
+
+"You, too?" cried Mother Toulouche, looking askance at him. "Are you one
+of the witnesses?"
+
+Cranajour's reply was a comical grimace. He scratched his beard,
+remarking finally:
+
+"I have forgotten! I don't know!"
+
+His audience burst into roars of laughter: Fandor laughed loudest of
+all!
+
+One of Maitre Henri Robart's juniors whispered in Fandor's ear, with an
+air of giving the journalist a piece of information worth having.
+
+"A simple-minded soul, that!--a kind of idiot! You can guess that, at
+the preliminary inquiry, they soon found that out!... He may be
+heard--or he may not?"
+
+Fandor nodded. He found it difficult not to laugh.
+
+"Thanks many for the information," he stammered. The young barrister did
+not understand the ironical tone of our journalist.
+
+Mother Toulouche was envying Cranajour.
+
+"You're in luck, you are--to be too silly to go and talk to those
+inquisitive fellows in there! Eh?"
+
+Conversations stopped. The little low door, giving entrance to the
+court, had just opened: an usher announced:
+
+"The case is resumed!... Witnesses this way!... The woman Toulouche?...
+It is your turn!..."
+
+They jostled and pushed their way through the narrow entrance in order
+to get into the court room quickly.
+
+Fandor, however, instead of following the crowd, had grasped the simple
+Cranajour by the shoulder, and shouted loud enough to be heard by those
+who might have been surprised at his action.
+
+"You duffer of a Cranajour! Go along with you! You're the man for my
+money, old fellow! Here's something for a glass--but come with me for
+five minutes: I want to interview you and make a jolly good article out
+of it!"
+
+Fandor went off, followed by the detective. When they were quite away
+from everyone, Fandor turned quickly to his friend.
+
+"Well, Juve?"
+
+"Nothing, so far...."
+
+"You have not run in the whole gang?"
+
+"Not I!" replied Juve. "These are only the supernumeraries, and there
+are some of them out of my reach!... Look here, Fandor," continued Juve
+in a low tone. "You will see someone in court presently whose presence
+will astonish you--it is an aviator--the aviator Emilet.... Well, my
+boy, I have a notion that this fellow is no stranger to all these
+goings-on!... But patience!... besides, you know, Fandor, it's not my
+way of doing things to put the bracelets on mediocrities such as he: I
+fly higher!... Good-bye. Shall see you later on!"
+
+Fandor asked, in a low tone:
+
+"Shall I remain for the sitting?"
+
+"Yes," said Juve. "It is quite likely that I shall not be present; and
+it would be a good thing if you were to get a general idea of this
+affair: you may pick up some useful information."
+
+"Juve, I very much wish to have a longer talk with you--there are things
+I want to say--to tell you!"
+
+Steps could be heard coming in their direction: the two men separated at
+once; but Juve had just time to say:
+
+"This evening then, at eight, I shall come to your place, Fandor. Expect
+me!"
+
+Half an hour later, Fandor entered the court room....
+
+The speech for the Crown had just been concluded.
+
+The arrest of these smugglers, now on their trial, had made some stir,
+about five months ago. Public opinion had been aroused almost to fever
+pitch, when it became known that the accused had, for nearly two years
+past, succeeded in getting through into Paris, without having paid town
+dues, quantities of the most highly taxed articles, and thus had
+accumulated a large store of riches in contraband goods and money. They
+owed their arrest to the betrayal of a wretched dealer, who was
+dissatisfied with his remuneration.
+
+The journalists had, after their manner, amplified all the details, had
+exaggerated the realities, and had given a romantic colouring to the
+various incidents in the varied lives and adventures of this daring band
+of smugglers.
+
+They had been represented as perfect gentlemen, who had formed
+themselves into a marvellously organised Black Band, led by a chief
+having right of life or death over them: a band fertile in tricks and
+extraordinary stratagems, who massed their plunder in immense vaults and
+cellars under the very heart of Paris, in the Isle of the Cite, and
+communicating with the river, which, under the eyes of the police,
+served to bear the barges laden with their booty.
+
+Cellars and vaults in the Isle of the Cite!
+
+"Well," thought Fandor, "men organised into such a powerful association
+in this part of Paris might well put one on the track of strange
+discoveries regarding the mysterious events connected with the Jacques
+Dollon affair!"
+
+Then, having spoken to his colleagues on the press, Fandor turned in the
+direction of the jury and set himself to follow attentively Maitre Henri
+Robart's speech for the defence.
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+DISCUSSIONS
+
+
+The portress rang up Fandor on the telephone.
+
+"Monsieur Fandor! There is a stout little lady down here! She wants to
+see you! Should I let her go up?"
+
+Fandor's first impulse was to say "no." He glanced at the timepiece: it
+was exactly two minutes past eight and Juve might be here at any minute.
+He was sure to keep his appointment.
+
+After an instant's hesitation, Fandor decided on a "yes." He called down
+to the portress:
+
+"Let her come up!"
+
+Fandor had an idea: perhaps this person knew something about the
+appointment made that afternoon at the Palais de Justice! It would be
+well to find out the why and wherefore of this call. In any case, it was
+best for a journalist to see all comers, if possible.
+
+There was a discreet ring, announcing that the stout little lady had
+already mounted the five flights of stairs and was now on Fandor's
+landing.
+
+Our journalist went to open the door, standing well back in the shadow,
+so that his visitor might show herself first, as she passed into the
+little hall.
+
+Yes, she was certainly stout, short, and also elderly. She wore a bonnet
+with strings, perched on a thick crop of grey curls, yellowish at the
+tips. This elderly dame wore glasses; she was wrapped in a large brown
+shawl, and she supported herself, as she walked, with a crook-handled
+stick.
+
+Whilst the puzzled Fandor closed his front door, the visitor made
+straight for the little sitting-room, where our journalist usually sat,
+surrounded by his books and papers.
+
+"Ah, she seems to know my flat!" thought Fandor. The next moment he
+jumped back; for, no sooner had the visitor got well into the room, than
+she straightened her bent back, threw off her shawl, and dropped her
+stick! Then, tearing off her grey curls and her spectacles, the visitor
+revealed herself as--Juve!
+
+Fandor burst out laughing.
+
+"Juve! Well, I never!"
+
+"It's Juve, all right, my boy!" cried the smiling detective, as he rid
+himself of the feminine get-up which impeded his movements. "I was
+pleased to see, my lad, that you did not suspect my identity until I had
+thrown off this second-hand wardrobe I bulked myself out with!"
+
+"Oh!" cried Fandor, "that's only because I hardly looked at you. If I
+had, Juve, you may be sure I should have recognised you!"
+
+"Possibly! But what do you think of the disguise?"
+
+"Not so bad, Juve; but why did you change your sex this evening?"
+
+"Oh, for the fun of it, and to keep my hand in ... besides, the more
+precautions we take when we meet, the better. Admit for a moment that
+our enemies are keeping a watch on you here: what will they recollect
+about your doings this evening? Why, that Fandor, the journalist, had a
+call from a lady, and that she did not leave in a hurry either!"
+
+"Hang it all! I've no objection to a Don Juan reputation, but I may say,
+without offence, that, as a woman, there's nothing particularly
+attractive about you, Juve, in the garb you've just discarded!"
+
+"Bah!" replied Juve. "You mustn't be so particular, my dear boy--as if
+dress mattered--or appearance either!"
+
+Juve was lighting a cigarette as he walked about the room, examining the
+books and other objects with which Fandor had surrounded himself.
+
+"A charming home!" murmured the detective....
+
+Then, he inspected the contents of a little show-case, in which Fandor
+had collected what he called his "Circumstantial Evidence"; in other
+words, various objects relating to cases he had been engaged on, such as
+scraps of clothing, blood-stained weapons, broken locks: these records
+of crimes, new and old, were carefully labelled. Juve began questioning
+Fandor about these sinister relics. Five minutes of jokes and laughter,
+then Fandor became serious. He drew his friend to a corner settee.
+
+"Juve," said he, in an impressive tone, "I have found the connecting
+link!"
+
+"By Jove! You have, have you!" cried Juve in a bantering tone, and with
+a quizzical look. "Let us see it!... Explain!..."
+
+Regardless of his friend's scepticism, Fandor proceeded to expound his
+theory.
+
+"I did as you suggested. I was present at the trial of the smugglers: I
+listened to Counsel's speech for the defence, but judged it useless to
+stay to the end. When Maitre Henri Robart began a disquisition on the
+facts, I left. Here is what I have noted:
+
+"Someone owns a house in the Isle of the Cite; a house which is a
+meeting place for receivers of stolen goods, ruffians, robbers, and
+vagabonds: a house possessing underground cellars of no ordinary kind.
+Now, this Someone never mentions this strange house of his, though he
+must be aware of its existence; then this Someone knows intimately
+several, at least, of the people more or less involved in the Jacques
+Dollon affair, and--one may boldly assert it--the Dollon plot was
+hatched in a cellar, in a sewer of the Cite.
+
+"One of two things!...
+
+"Either this personage is timorous, is afraid of being compromised,
+and does not consider in what an awkward position this coincidence
+places him--if that be so, he is a singularly thick-headed
+individual--or--well--Monsieur Thomery ... you are the most rascally
+scoundrel it has been my lot to admire, up to now! But I assure you, we
+know how to get even with you! From the moment we have established, in
+the first place, a connection between all these affairs--that they
+indubitably hang together; secondly, that you, Monsieur Thomery, are the
+connecting link...."
+
+"No," interrupted Juve, sharply....
+
+"What is that you say?..."
+
+"I say--_no_."
+
+"What?" cried Fandor, taken aback. He stared at Juve, who continued to
+smoke his cigarette, unmoved. But Fandor was obstinately set on stating
+his point of view.
+
+"The primary cause of the Dollon affair seems to be the suicide
+of the Baroness de Vibray, a suicide probably owing to a love
+disappointment--the old lady had been forsaken by her lover--Monsieur
+Thomery!..."
+
+"No."
+
+Juve's denial slightly annoyed Fandor, but did not stop him.
+
+"I ask: was the man who robbed Sonia Danidoff one of the guests? It is
+very unlikely; for, not only were the clothes of all those present
+searched, but all Thomery's guests were known, well known!..."
+
+"No!"
+
+Fandor bit his lip.
+
+"It's true, Juve! You were there yourself, and no one penetrated your
+disguise, and discovered who you really were! My last argument is,
+therefore, worthless ... but I fancy your attitude, your way of
+receiving my deductions, hides something. Have you got new information!
+Fresh facts to go on? You know who stole the jewels?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Good Heavens! How aggravating you are, Juve!... But this time you will
+simply have to agree with me! Listen!... When we first met, after our
+long separation, you admitted that one thing bothered you--the ease with
+which your nefarious band of villains of the Isle of the Cite were able
+to get rid of considerable sums of false money; and you were trying to
+find their market--by what means these wretches were able to rid
+themselves of the coin; when, apparently, they were not acquainted with
+any influential people in the business world, or in the circles of high
+finance.... Well, I have discovered their channel of distribution--it is
+none other than the proprietor of this house properly, the ground floor
+and basement of which are occupied by Mother Toulouche--obviously, it is
+Thomery!..."
+
+"No!"
+
+Fandor lifted hands to heaven in despairing fashion and sat silent. He
+was deeply mortified. There was a long pause, during which Juve calmly
+smoked on. At last, Fandor asked in a hopeless sort of tone:
+
+"Well?... What do you think?"
+
+Slowly, as if awakening from a dream, Juve began to speak.
+
+"We know nothing for certain so far, my lad, except that the Baroness de
+Vibray has committed suicide; that Princess Sonia Danidoff has recovered
+from the shock of her jewel robbery, and is to marry Thomery next month
+... there is nothing extraordinary in that ... just as there is,
+perhaps, nothing surprising or extraordinary in the series of robberies,
+nor even in the crimes occupying our attention at the present moment!"
+
+Fandor jumped up. "Nothing!" he shouted. "You are joking, Juve! It is
+absurd what you say! Do just think a minute, my dear fellow! Why, all
+these affairs are closely connected, from the Jacques Dollon affair, up
+to ... up to ..."
+
+Fandor stopped short. Juve, who had been listening to him with seeming
+inattention, now appeared wholly anxious to hear the end of the
+sentence: he stared hard at Fandor.
+
+"Go on! Go on! I want to make you say it!..."
+
+And Fandor, as though in spite of himself, finished with:
+
+"Up to Fantomas!"
+
+"Yes, at last we have got it!" cried Juve.
+
+The two men gazed at each other; once more the logic of deductions, the
+chain of circumstances had inevitably led him to pronounce the name of
+the formidable bandit, of whom they could not think without a shudder;
+whose memory they could not evoke without immediately feeling themselves
+surrounded by sinister gloom, lost in a thick fog of mystery, of what
+was strange, hidden, occult!
+
+Fandor's countenance cleared suddenly as he gave utterance to the idea
+which had just crossed his mind.
+
+"Juve, do you not think that this mysterious prison warder, called
+Nibet, might very well be an incarnation of Fantomas, because in so many
+circumstances ..."
+
+Juve interrupted Fandor with a gesture of denial.
+
+"No, old fellow," said he gravely. "Don't start on that trail, it is
+assuredly a bad one: Nibet is not Fantomas. Nibet does not count for
+much, one might say, for nothing at all; he can scarcely be called a
+tiny wheel even in the great machine driven on its diabolical course by
+our fiendish enemy ... we must look higher than that!"
+
+"Thomery?" insisted Fandor, who still held to his idea, and was
+determined to turn Juve to his way of thinking....
+
+But Juve still said "no!" to that.
+
+"Let us drop Thomery, my lad! As to Fantomas, how do you think we can
+identify him in this haphazard fashion, basing our idea on pure
+supposition? ... For, who is Fantomas--the real Fantomas, among so many
+probable Fantomas?
+
+"Can you tell me that, Fandor?" continued Juve, who was getting excited
+at last.... "I grant you that we have seen, in the course of our
+chequered existence, an old gentleman, like Etienne Rambert, a thickset
+Englishman like Gurn, a robust fellow like Loupart, a weak and sickly
+individual like Chaleck. We have identified each one of them, in turn,
+as Fantomas--and that is all.
+
+"As for seeing Fantomas himself, just as he is, without artificial aid,
+without paint and powder, without a false beard, without a wig, Fantomas
+as his face really is under his hooded mask of black--that we have not
+yet done. It is that fact which makes our hunt for the villain
+ceaselessly difficult, often dangerous!... Fantomas is always someone,
+sometimes two persons, never himself!"
+
+Juve, once started on this subject, could go on for ever, and Fandor did
+not try to stop him: when the course of conversation led them to talk of
+Fantomas the two men were as though hypnotised by this mysterious
+creature, so well named, for he was really "Fantomatic," a spectral
+entity: the two friends could not turn their minds to any other subject.
+They discussed Fantomas up and down, in and out, and round about!...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was getting on towards one o'clock when Fandor saw Juve off as far as
+the staircase. The detective had resumed his disguise, but neither man
+was in a joking mood now. Fandor had given Juve an account of the
+annoying, yet rather absurd incident at the convent, when he and
+Elizabeth were unsuspectingly bidding each other a passionate farewell
+under the watchful and scandalised eye of a nun! Fandor had thought it
+better to take Juve into his confidence on the point, though it went
+against the grain, for he was bashful with regard to his feelings.
+
+Juve had openly laughed at first, but when he understood that Elizabeth,
+requested to leave the convent, would again be without a safe shelter,
+he became serious, reflected for a minute or two, then gave his dear lad
+a piece of advice, advice which Fandor had seemingly taken objection to,
+and had finished by agreeing to....
+
+They parted with these words:
+
+"The more you think it over, dear lad, the better you will like my
+idea," said Juve.
+
+Fandor had not said "No" to it!
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+AN ARREST
+
+
+The day after his memorable talk with Juve, Fandor was summoned to
+appear before the police magistrate, because he could give evidence
+regarding the rue Raffet affair, and had saved Elizabeth Dollon's life.
+
+It was about four in the afternoon, and he had just entered the passage
+leading to the offices so familiar to him, when he met Elizabeth. Behind
+her came several persons whom he recognised: among them were the
+Barbey-Nanteuil partners, Madame Bourrat, and the servant, Jules. They
+were together and were talking. The moment she saw him, Elizabeth went
+up to him.
+
+"Ah, monsieur!" she cried, with a reproachful look. "We had given up all
+hope of seeing you.... Just imagine, the magistrate has finished his
+enquiry already! Twice he asked if you had come!"
+
+Fandor seemed surprised.
+
+"The summons was for four this afternoon, was it not?" he asked, taking
+from his pocket the summoning letter. A glance showed that he was not
+mistaken: he gave Elizabeth the letter to read. She smiled.
+
+"You were summoned for four o'clock, I see; but we had to appear
+earlier: I was examined as soon as I arrived, and I was summoned to
+appear at half-past two."
+
+Fandor was annoyed with himself: he might have guessed it! He was vexed
+because he had not been on the watch in the passage whilst this
+examination was proceeding. He was moving towards Monsieur Fuselier's
+room, the magistrate in charge of the Auteuil affair, and he must have
+looked his vexation, for Elizabeth said:
+
+"I am a little to blame, perhaps, that you had not due notice, but what
+could I do! Yesterday evening when you telephoned to the convent to ask
+for news of me, I was just going to tell you at what time I was
+summoned, but when I went to the telephone...."
+
+"What's this you are telling me?" asked Fandor, staring hard at
+Elizabeth. "I never telephoned to you yesterday evening. Who told you I
+had been asking for you on the telephone?"
+
+"Nobody said so; but I supposed it was you! Who else would be so kindly
+interested in my doings?"
+
+Fandor made no reply to this. Here was the telephone mystery again--an
+alarming mystery. Elizabeth had not given her address to anyone: Fandor
+had been careful not to give it to a soul.... Clearly, this poor girl,
+even in the heart of this peaceful convent, was not secure from some
+unknown, outside interference; and Fandor, optimist though he was, could
+not help shuddering at the thought of these mysterious adversaries,
+implacable and formidable, who might work harm to this unfortunate girl,
+whose devoted protector he now was.... Besides ... did he not feel for
+Jacques Dollon's pretty sister something sweeter and more tender than
+pure sympathy?... Whenever he was near her, did he not experience a
+thrill of emotion? Fandor did not analyse his feelings, but they
+influenced him unconsciously.
+
+He turned to Elizabeth.
+
+"Since you cannot remain any longer at the convent, where do you think
+of staying?"
+
+"Well, monsieur, I shall go back to the convent this evening, though it
+is painful to me--very, very painful--to be obliged to accept their icy
+hospitality ... as for to-morrow!"
+
+Fandor was about to make a suggestion, when the door of Monsieur
+Fuselier's room opened half-way. The magistrate's clerk appeared, and,
+glancing round the passage over his spectacles, called, in a dull tone:
+
+"Monsieur Jerome Fandor!"
+
+"Here!" replied our journalist. "I am coming!"
+
+Then, taking a hasty farewell of Elizabeth as he went towards the
+magistrate's room, he whispered:
+
+"Wait for me, mademoiselle; and, for the love of Heaven, remember
+this--whatever I may say, whatever happens, whether we are alone,
+together, or in the presence of others, whether it be in a few minutes,
+or later on, do not be astonished at what may befall you, even though it
+be my fault--be absolutely convinced of this--whatever I may do will be
+for your good--more than that I must not say!"
+
+Elizabeth had not a word to say, but his words were humming and buzzing
+in her ears when Fandor was in the magistrate's room.
+
+With a cordial handshake, Monsieur Fuselier began by congratulating him
+on having saved Elizabeth Dollon's life.
+
+"Ah," said he, smiling, "you journalists have all the luck; and, between
+yourselves, I envy you a little, for your lucky star has led you to the
+discovery of a drama, and has enabled you to prevent a fatal ending to
+it. Now, do you not think, as I do, that this Auteuil affair is not a
+case of suicide, but of attempted assassination?"
+
+"There is no doubt about it," replied Fandor quietly.
+
+The magistrate drew himself up with a satisfied air.
+
+"That is also my opinion--has been so from the start."
+
+The clerk now interrupted the two men, who were talking as friends
+rather than as magistrate and witness, asking, in nasal tone:
+
+"Does His Honour wish to take the evidence of Monsieur Jerome Fandor?"
+
+"In four lines then. I do not think Monsieur Fandor has anything more to
+tell us than what he has already told us in the columns of _La
+Capitale_. That is so, is it not?" asked the magistrate, looking at
+Fandor.
+
+"That is correct," replied our journalist.
+
+The clerk rapidly drew up the deposition of Monsieur Jerome Fandor, in
+due form, and read it aloud in a monotonous voice.
+
+Fandor signed it. It did not compromise him at all. He was about to
+leave when Monsieur Fuselier caught him by the arm.
+
+"Please wait a minute! There are one or two points to be cleared up: I
+am going to ask the witnesses a few questions: we will have a general
+confrontation--we will compare evidence!"
+
+Then, the journalist's friend, now all the magistrate, asked the
+assembled witnesses certain questions, in an emphatic and professional
+tone.
+
+Fandor, seated a little apart, had leisure to examine the faces of the
+different persons whom circumstances had brought together in this room.
+
+His first look was for Elizabeth: energy and courage were plainly marked
+on her pretty, sad face. Then there was the proprietor of the Auteuil
+boarding-house: an honest, vulgar creature, red-faced, perpetually
+mopping her brow and raising her hands to heaven; ready to bewail her
+position, deploring the untimely publicity given to this affair, a
+publicity which threatened discredit to her boarding-house.
+
+As he was seated directly behind the manservant, Jules, Fandor had a
+view of his broad back, surmounted by a big bullet head and ruffled
+hair. This witness spoke with a strong Picardy accent, and there was
+nothing remarkable about his answers: he seemed the conventional
+second-rate type of servant. He did not seem to have understood much of
+what occurred on the famous day: when questioned as to the order of
+events, his answers were vague, uncertain.
+
+Then, seated beside Fandor were the bankers: Barbey, a grave-looking
+man, no longer young, judging by his beard, which was going grey; he was
+decorated with the Legion of Honour: the other, Nanteuil, looked about
+thirty, elegant, distinguished, lively. These two were well known in the
+highest Parisian society as representing finance of the best kind. They
+were highly thought of.
+
+The magistrate asked the bankers a question.
+
+"Why," asked he, "did Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil call on Mademoiselle
+Dollon? Was it to bring her some help, as has been stated?"
+
+Elizabeth blushed with humiliation at the magistrate's question.
+Monsieur Nanteuil answered:
+
+"There is a slight distinction to be made, your Honour, and Mademoiselle
+Dollon certainly will not object to our mentioning it. It never entered
+our minds to offer Mademoiselle Dollon charity--charity she never asked
+of us, be it clearly understood. Mademoiselle Dollon, with whom we had
+previously been acquainted, whose misfortunes have inspired us with deep
+sympathy, wrote to ask us if we could find her some employment. Hoping
+to find some post for her, we came to see her, to talk with her, to find
+out what her capabilities were. That is all. We were very glad it so
+happened, that we were able to aid Monsieur Fandor in restoring her to
+life."
+
+"Can you tell me, Monsieur Fandor, did you notice anything suspicious in
+Mademoiselle Dollon's room when you entered it? You wrote, in your
+article, that at first you had thought it simply an attempted burglary,
+followed by an attempted murder?"
+
+"That is so," replied Fandor. "Directly the window was opened, I leaned
+out: I wanted to see if there was anything suspicious on the wall of the
+house. I also looked behind the shutters."
+
+"Why?" asked the examining magistrate.
+
+"Because I had not forgotten the close of the Thomery drama--the same
+Monsieur Thomery mentioned in the Assize Court yesterday--oh, in all
+honour, of course; but you have not forgotten--although that examination
+was not in your hands, and I regret it, because I am of the opinion that
+there are points of connection interlinking all these mysterious
+affairs--you have not forgotten, I am sure, that when the investigations
+were over and Monsieur Thomery's guests had been allowed to leave the
+house, that a thread of flax was discovered hanging to the window
+fastening of the room in which Princess Danidoff had been found
+unconscious. This flax thread was very strong, and was broken at the
+end: it is easy to conclude that the stolen pearls had been temporarily
+fastened to it. This led me to think that the aggressor, or aggressors,
+had remained in the reception rooms during the whole course of the
+investigations, since it is proved that no one left the house....
+
+"... But, after all, we are not here to investigate the Thomery
+affair.... I wished to explain why I had examined the window and
+shutters Of Mademoiselle Dollon's room: I wanted to ascertain whether
+the procedure of the would-be murderer of Mademoiselle Dollon was
+similar to that of the robber in the Danidoff-Thomery case."
+
+"And what conclusion did you come to?" asked the magistrate.
+
+"Window and shutters bore no traces that I could see," said Fandor. "I
+could not come to any conclusion."
+
+Here Monsieur Barbey intervened.
+
+"If I may be allowed to say so"--he glanced at the magistrate for the
+required permission, which was given with a smile and gesture of
+assent--"I quite agree with Monsieur Jerome Fandor. I also am convinced
+that, even if there is not a close connection between the Thomery affair
+and the Auteuil affair, at least there exists such a connection between
+the Auteuil affair and the terrible drama of rue Norvins."
+
+"I would go even further than that," declared Monsieur Nanteuil. "The
+robbery of rue du Quatre Septembre, of which we are the victims, is also
+connected with this same series of mysterious cases."
+
+The magistrate asked a question.
+
+"It is a matter of twenty millions, is it not? It must have been a
+terrible blow to you?"
+
+"Fearful, monsieur," replied Monsieur Nanteuil. "Our credit was shaken:
+it affected a considerable number of our clients, Monsieur Thomery
+among them, and we consider him one of our most important clients. You
+are aware, of course, that in financial matters confidence is almost
+everything!... Our losses have just been covered by an insurance, but we
+have suffered other than direct material losses. Still"--the banker
+turned towards Elizabeth, who was wiping tears from her eyes--"still,
+what are our troubles compared with those which have struck Mademoiselle
+Dollon blow upon blow? Assassination of the Baroness de Vibray,
+mysterious death----"
+
+"The Baroness de Vibray was not assassinated, she committed suicide,"
+interrupted Fandor sharply. "Most certainly, I do not wish to make you
+responsible for that, gentlemen; but when you wrote, announcing her
+ruin, you dealt her a very hard blow!"
+
+"Could we have done otherwise?" replied Monsieur Barbey, with his
+customary gravity of manner and tone. "In our matter of fact business,
+where all must be clear and definite, we do not mince our words: we are
+bound to state things as they actually are. What is more, we do not
+share your point of view, and are convinced that the Baroness de Vibray
+was certainly murdered."
+
+Monsieur Fuselier now expressed his opinion, or at least, what he wished
+to be considered as his opinion:
+
+"Gentlemen, consider yourselves for the moment as not in the presence of
+the examining magistrate, but as being in the drawing-room of Monsieur
+Fuselier. In my private capacity, I will give you my opinion regarding
+the rue Norvins affair. I am decidedly less and less in agreement with
+Monsieur Fandor, though I recognise with pleasure his fine detective
+gifts."
+
+"Thanks," interrupted Fandor ironically. "That is a poor compliment!"
+
+Smiling, the magistrate continued:
+
+"I am of the same opinion as Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil: I believe Madame
+de Vibray was murdered."
+
+Fandor could not control his impatience.
+
+"Be logical, messieurs, I beg of you!" he cried. "The Baroness de
+Vibray committed suicide. Her letter states her intention. The
+authenticity of this letter has not been disputed. The disastrous
+revelations, contained in Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil's communication,
+proved too severe a shock for the poor lady's unbalanced brain: the news
+of her ruin, abruptly conveyed, drove her to desperation. The death of
+the Baroness de Vibray was voluntary and self-inflicted."
+
+There was a dead silence. Then Monsieur Barbey asked a question.
+
+"Well, then, Monsieur Fandor, will you explain to us how it happened
+that the Baroness de Vibray was found dead in the studio of the painter,
+Jacques Dollon?"
+
+Fandor seemed to expect this question from the banker.
+
+"There are two hypotheses," he declared. "The first, and, in my humble
+opinion, the more improbable, is this: Madame de Vibray at the same time
+that she decided to put an end to her life, wished to pay her protege a
+last visit; all the more so, because he had asked her to come and see
+his work before it was sent in to the Salon. Perhaps the Baroness
+intended to perform an act of charity, in this instance, before her
+supreme hour struck. Perhaps she miscalculated the effect of the poison
+she had taken, and so died in the house of the friend she had come to
+see and help: her death there could not have been her choice, for she
+must have known what serious trouble it would involve the artist in,
+were her dead body found in his studio.
+
+"Here is the second hypothesis, which seems the more plausible. The
+Baroness de Vibray learns that she is ruined, she decides to die, and by
+chance or coincidence, which remains to be explained, for I have not the
+key to it yet, some third parties interested in her fate, learn her
+decision. They let her write to her lawyer; they do not prevent her
+poisoning herself; but, as soon as she is dead, they straightway take
+possession of her dead body and hasten to carry it to Jacques Dollon's
+studio. To the painter himself they administered either with his consent
+or by force--probably by force--a powerful narcotic, so that when the
+police are called in next day they not only find the Baroness lying dead
+in the studio, but they also find the painter unconscious, close by his
+visitor. When Jacques Dollon is restored to consciousness, he is quite
+unable to give any sort of explanation of the tragedy; naturally enough,
+the police look upon him as the murderer of her who was well known to
+have been his patroness.... How does that strike you?"
+
+It was now Monsieur Fuselier's turn to hold forth.
+
+"You forget a detail which has its importance! I do not pretend to judge
+as to whether she was poisoned by her own free act or not; but, in any
+case, we have this proof--an uncorked phial of cyanide of potassium was
+found in Jacques Dollon's studio. It seemed to have been recently
+opened; but, when the painter was questioned about it, he declared that
+he had not made use of this ingredient for a very long time."
+
+Fandor replied:
+
+"I can turn your argument against you, monsieur. If the Baroness de
+Vibray had been poisoned, voluntarily or not, with the cyanide of
+potassium in Dollon's studio, he would have taken the precaution to
+banish all traces of the poison in question. It would have been his
+first care! When questioned by the police inspector, he would not have
+declared that he had not made use of this poison for a very long time!
+the contradiction involved is proof that Dollon was sincere; therefore,
+we are faced by a fact which, if not inexplicable, is, at least,
+unexplained."
+
+Monsieur Barbey now had something to say:
+
+"You criticise and hair-split in a remarkable fashion, monsieur, and are
+an adept in the science of induction; but, let me say without offence
+meant, that you give me the impression of being rather a romancing
+journalist than a judicial investigator!... Admitting that the Baroness
+de Vibray was carried to the painter Dollon's studio after her death,
+and that seems to be your opinion, what advantage would it be to the
+criminals to act in such a fashion?"
+
+Jerome Fandor had risen, his eyes shining, his body vibrating with
+excitement.
+
+"I expected your question, monsieur," he cried; "and the answer is
+simple. The mysterious criminals seized the Baroness de Vibray's body
+and brought it to Dollon's studio to create an alibi, and to cast
+suspicion on an innocent man. As you know, the stratagem was successful:
+two hours after the discovery of the crime, the police arrested
+Mademoiselle Dollon's unfortunate brother!"
+
+With a dramatic gesture Fandor pointed to Elizabeth, who, no longer able
+to contain her grief, was weeping bitterly.
+
+The audience had risen, moved, troubled, subjugated, in spite of
+themselves, by the journalist's eloquent and persuasive tones. Even
+Monsieur Fuselier had quitted his classic green leather arm-chair and
+had approached the two bankers: Madame Bourrat was behind them, and the
+servant, Jules, with his smooth face and staring eyes.
+
+Fandor continued:
+
+"This is not all, messieurs!... There is still something that must be
+said, and I beg of you to listen with all your attention, for what the
+result of my declarations will be, I do not know! It is no longer my
+reason that speaks, instinct dictates my words! Listen!..."
+
+It was a poignant moment! All the witnesses, the magistrate included,
+were thrilled with the certainty that the journalist was about to make a
+sensational revelation.
+
+Taking his time, Jerome Fandor walked slowly, quietly up to Elizabeth
+who, distraught with grief, was in floods of tears.
+
+"Mademoiselle," he said, in a clear level voice, which was in strange
+contrast with his recent persuasive and authoritative tones.
+"Mademoiselle, you must tell us everything!... You are here, not in the
+presence of a judge, and of enemies, but amidst friends who wish you
+nothing but good.... I understand your affectionate feelings, I know
+what an unreasoning, but quite natural, attachment you have for your
+unfortunate brother--but, mademoiselle, it is now imperatively necessary
+that you should do violence to yourself--you must tell us the truth, the
+whole truth!"
+
+Interrupting his appeal to Elizabeth, Fandor turned to the magistrate
+with a smile so enigmatic that his audience could not tell whether he
+was speaking sincerely or was acting a part.
+
+"I have contended in my articles up to now that Jacques Dollon was dead,
+dead beyond recall; but when confronted with recent facts my theory
+seems to fall to the ground." Fandor turned once more to Elizabeth,
+resuming his authoritative tone and manner: "Since the affair of the
+Depot, the legal authorities have recognised indelible traces of Jacques
+Dollon's hand in the series of crimes which have been recently
+perpetrated. Up to the present, I have determinedly denied such a
+possibility. But, mademoiselle, I put it to you: you have forgotten to
+tell us something of the very utmost importance, something quite out of
+the range of ordinary happenings, something phenomenal. Now here is the
+staggering fact I am faced with! The other day, between two and three in
+the afternoon, at the Auteuil boarding-house where you are staying, you
+received a visit from your brother, Jacques Dollon, the supposed robber
+of the Princess Sonia Danidoff's pearls, the suspected author of the
+robbery of rue du Quatre Septembre; and, lastly, the fratricide, for
+what other explanation of the attack on you can be given--an attempted
+murder beyond question--and I add ..." Fandor could not continue. His
+eyes were fixed on those of Elizabeth who, at the first words addressed
+to her by the journalist, had started up, trembling from head to
+foot.... Their glances met, challenging, each seeking to quell, to
+subjugate the other.... It seemed to the onlookers that they were
+witnessing an intense struggle between two very strong natures separated
+by a deep, a fathomless gulf; that a veil, dark as night, hanging
+between them had been rent asunder, giving passage to an illuminating
+flash; that this luminous ray carried with it all the revelations and
+the key to the fantastic mystery!
+
+But to a calm, perspicacious observer of the two beings standing face to
+face, it would have been clear that Jerome Fandor's real attitude was
+both suppliant and persuasive, and that Elizabeth Dollon's was one of
+overwhelming surprise.
+
+Monsieur Fuselier, carried away by the journalist's startling and
+extraordinary statements, did not perceive this. Suddenly, he saw in
+Jerome Fandor the denunciator, and in Elizabeth Dollon, the accomplice
+unmasked. Nevertheless, he said quietly:
+
+"Monsieur Fandor, you have just uttered words of such gravity that you
+are bound to confirm them by indisputable evidence. Do you mean to
+persist on these lines?"
+
+Fandor looked away from the stupefied Elizabeth and her questioning
+glance: he answered the magistrate at once.
+
+"The proof of what I advance, you will find by searching Mademoiselle
+Dollon's room.... I would rather not say more than that...."
+
+"Allow me to state, monsieur, that I cannot arrange for such an
+investigation until to-morrow morning!"
+
+Then, addressing the astounded Madame Bourrat, the two bankers, and the
+manservant, Jules.
+
+"Madame, messieurs, will you be kind enough to withdraw? Madame, I
+advise you, under pain of the most serious consequences, not to allow
+anyone whatever to enter your premises, nor go into Mademoiselle
+Dollon's room, before this matter has been fully sifted by the legal
+authorities. Be good enough to wait in the passage--all of you!"
+
+Having witnessed their exit, the magistrate walked up to Fandor, and
+looking him straight in the eyes said:
+
+"Well!... Out with it!"
+
+"Well," replied the journalist, "if you institute a search in the place
+I have indicated, you will find, in the chest of drawers, under a pile
+of Mademoiselle Dollon's personal linen a piece of soap wrapped up in a
+cambric handkerchief. Take this soap to Monsieur Bertillon's department,
+and after the scientific tests have been applied to it, you will be able
+to say that it bears distinct impressions of Dollon's hand!"
+
+"Dollon's?"
+
+The magistrate gasped.
+
+Elizabeth Dollon had fallen back into the arm-chair, from which she had
+risen all trembling. Her tears had ceased. She stared at the two men
+with wide open, terrified eyes. All the time, the clerk in spectacles
+wrote steadily on at his table, noting down the details of the scenes he
+was witnessing.
+
+There was a palpitating silence.
+
+Monsieur Fuselier had returned to his writing table.
+
+Jerome Fandor seemed to have recovered his composure, an ironic smile
+curved his lips beneath his small moustache, whilst his hand sought that
+of Elizabeth: it was the only way he could, at the moment, express the
+sympathy he had never ceased to feel for her.
+
+Monsieur Fuselier filled in a printed paper and pressed an electric
+bell.
+
+Two municipal guards appeared.
+
+Monsieur Fuselier rose and signing to the soldiers to wait, he faced
+Elizabeth Dollon.
+
+"Mademoiselle, have you any objections to make to the statements of
+Monsieur Jerome Fandor? Will you say whether or no you received a visit
+from your brother?"
+
+Elizabeth, tortured by intense emotion, her throat contracted, strove in
+vain to pronounce a word; at last, by a supreme effort, she murmured in
+a strangled voice:
+
+"Oh! Why, you are all mad here!"
+
+As she gave no direct reply to his question, Monsieur Fuselier, after a
+pause, announced in a grave voice:
+
+"Mademoiselle! Until I have more ample information, I am under the cruel
+necessity of ordering your arrest!... Guards, arrest the accused!" cried
+the magistrate sternly.
+
+Elizabeth Dollon made a movement of revolt, when she saw herself
+surrounded and felt her arms seized by the two representatives of
+authority. She was about to cry out in protest, but a glance--it seemed
+to her a tender glance--from Fandor restrained her.... She stood
+speechless, inert. After all, had she not confidence in him, although
+she could not understand his attitude! Had he not been her staunch
+defender up to now? Had he not warned her that she must not be
+astonished at anything that occurred--that she must be prepared for
+anything?... Nevertheless, Elizabeth Dollon felt her brain reeling--she
+was astounded beyond words.... The surprise was too strong for her....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+About a quarter of an hour after this tragic scene, Fandor was pacing up
+and down the asphalt of the boulevard du Palais, plunged in thought,
+when someone clapped him on the shoulder. He turned. It was Monsieur
+Fuselier.
+
+"Well, my dear fellow!" cried the magistrate, resuming his customary
+tone of good fellowship. "Well, what an adventure! You have been playing
+some fine tricks! I never expected such a stroke as that, the deuce if I
+did!"
+
+"Ho, ho!" laughed Fandor, "I think that a week from to-day we shall know
+a good many things!"
+
+"Well," replied the magistrate, "I have had the girl placed in solitary
+confinement--that makes them willing to speak out!...."
+
+Fandor looked the magistrate up and down.
+
+"Ah!" murmured he, with a scarcely perceptible note of contempt in his
+voice:
+
+"You think you will extract information from that quarter, do you?"
+
+"But why not? Why not?" interrupted the dapper Monsieur Fuselier, in a
+sprightly tone; and, leaving Fandor abruptly, he leapt into a passing
+tramcar.
+
+Fandor watched Fuselier cross the road and climb to an outside seat.
+Whilst the magistrate waved a friendly farewell from the top of the
+disappearing car, Fandor shrugged disdainful shoulders, and, with
+pitying lips, muttered one word:
+
+"Fool!"
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+AT THE BOTTOM OF THE TRUNK
+
+
+After Monsieur Fuselier's departure, Fandor rejoined Madame Bourrat on
+the boulevard. The good woman was very much upset by the dramatic scene
+she had witnessed. She had sent off her manservant, and was preparing to
+take the tram back to Auteuil. Fandor asked if he might accompany her,
+and Madame Bourrat was only too delighted to have a chance of further
+talk with the journalist, for she had a lively desire to learn all she
+could about the extraordinary drama in which she found herself involved.
+
+When they arrived at Auteuil, Madame Bourrat had learned nothing
+definite, for the journalist had given only evasive answers to her
+questions. Still, one point was obvious: Madame Bourrat considered
+Monsieur Jerome Fandor as the most amiable man in the world, and she was
+disposed to help him to the utmost of her powers, in defence of any
+interests he wished to safeguard....
+
+Madame Bourrat was absolutely set on receiving Monsieur Fandor in her
+private apartments. She then seized the opportunity to complain of the
+trouble this affair had brought into her regular and peaceful existence.
+Certainly, in summer, her boarders were less numerous; their numbers
+being, in fact, reduced to two or three.
+
+This season there had been fewer than usual; but the accident, or
+attempted assassination of Mademoiselle Dollon, had undoubtedly brought
+discredit on the house. An old paralysed gentleman, who had been in
+residence on the day of the drama, had departed the day after. There
+was not a single boarder in the house: it was empty.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Having made certain that her manservant, Jules, and her cook, Marianne,
+had retired to their respective rooms, Madame Bourrat conducted Fandor
+as far as the door of her dwelling. They had been so interested in their
+talk, that they had forgotten all about dinner: their experiences of the
+past few hours had left them with little appetite. It was about nine
+o'clock; night had fallen: house and garden were wrapped in a mantle of
+darkness.
+
+"Can you find your way?" asked Madame Bourrat. If she accompanied the
+journalist to her garden gate she would have to grope back to the house
+in the dark, and alone! Her nerves were shaken by recent events. She did
+not wish to venture forth and back in the mysterious gloom of night,
+even on the familiar path of her garden. What might that darkness not
+hide! What robbers, what murderers might there not be lurking near!
+
+Fandor laughed.
+
+"Why, of course I can, madame! To find the points of the compass, to
+cultivate the sense of locality, is part of a journalist's profession."
+
+"Do not forget to draw to behind you--it needs a strong pull--the gate
+which separates us from the street: once shut, no one can open it from
+outside."
+
+Fandor, shaking hands with the boarding-house keeper, promised to close
+the gate. As the sound of his steps on the gravel grew less and less, as
+the gate fell to with a loud noise, and an absolute silence followed,
+Madame Bourrat felt sure that her guest had left the garden--had gone
+away.
+
+But he had done nothing of the sort!
+
+Fandor had shut the gate noiselessly, but he had remained inside the
+grounds. He stood motionless, holding his breath, wishing neither to be
+seen nor heard. He remained so for a long twenty minutes. Then, being
+assured that Madame Bourrat had retired for the night--she had closed
+her shutters and put out her light--he rubbed his hands, murmuring:
+
+"Now we shall see!"
+
+Stepping gingerly along by the side of the wall, he reached the main
+building of the boarding-house: luckily, it was empty as far as boarders
+were concerned. He recognised Elizabeth Dollon's window on the first
+floor and was glad to see that it was half open. Chance favoured
+him--there was even a gutter pipe running down the wall and passing
+close to the window. Providence had favoured him with a fine staircase;
+there would not be much difficulty in climbing that!
+
+No sooner thought than done! Accustomed as he was to exercise and games,
+Fandor, agile as a young man in good training can be, squirmed up the
+pipe as far as Elizabeth's window. He caught hold of the sill, recovered
+his balance, jerked himself up, and, two seconds after, had landed in
+the room.
+
+Dared he strike a light! He remembered pretty accurately the position of
+the various pieces of furniture, but he would like to study the room
+more in detail. His luck still held, for a ray of moonlight suddenly
+shone out from behind a cloud. He saw the moon sailing in a clear sky.
+There would be sufficient light from the moon rays to enable him to
+pursue his investigations.
+
+It was an essentially modern room; the white walls were painted with
+ripolin, and were as bare of ornament as a nun's cell. An iron bedstead
+stood in the middle of the room: a wardrobe, with a mirror panel in
+front, and locked, occupied one of the corners; behind a folding screen
+was a toilette table, a Louis XV bureau, two chairs, an arm-chair: that
+was all.
+
+After making this rapid inventory, Fandor considered:
+
+"The situation is growing complicated," said he to himself. "I am quite
+persuaded that this room will shortly receive a visit from some
+individuals who will not court recognition--their interests are all
+against that--and they certainly will not be anxious to meet me here!
+These individuals assuredly know, at this minute, that the examining
+magistrate is going to make a thorough investigation here to-morrow
+morning.... How do they know it? It's very simple. The prime mover in
+the attempted murder, or one of his accomplices, was assuredly among the
+witnesses this afternoon. Is it the amiable Madame Bourrat? Is it that
+doltish Jules, who looks an absolute fool, but may be masking his game!
+Suppose the serious Barbey pops up? Or the elegant Nanteuil? But I do
+not think so--they are rather victims than attackers--everything leads
+me to that opinion. But--all this does not tell me whether the place has
+already been visited or not!"
+
+Fandor unlocked the drawer, searched for the piece of soap under the
+pile of Elizabeth's linen, and had the extreme satisfaction of finding
+the soap had not been moved.
+
+"Good! I am here first! Ah, we shall see our men presently! Which, and
+how many?"
+
+Fandor seated himself and let his imagination work. He tried to picture
+the faces of the mysterious individuals he was determined to track
+down--but, so far, in vain!... Then with strange, uncanny persistence,
+one face rose again and again before his mental vision, clear,
+vital--the face of the enigmatic Thomery, with his silver white hair,
+his red face, his light blue eyes, that Yankee head of his, well set on
+his robust torso....
+
+"Thomery!" cried Fandor almost aloud. "The fact is, everything leads me
+to think ... but don't let us anticipate! Concealment is the next item
+on the programme!"
+
+Fandor realised that to hide under the bed was impossible: he would be
+discovered immediately.... The screen was no better!... There was
+Elizabeth's trunk!... Why, it was a kind of monument in wicker work! The
+very thing! It was quite big enough to hold him--it was one of those
+enormous trunks beloved of women!... To hide in it would be an
+excellent trick--a real joke! Let me burrow in there, and see the
+stupefaction of these estimable characters when they open it to rummage
+about among Elizabeth's belongings and find themselves face to face with
+me! They will see besides my sympathetic countenance the stern mouth of
+my revolver!... Let us see whether it is a possible hiding place!
+
+Fandor raised the cover and lifted out a top compartment, in which were
+scattered, among objects of feminine apparel, papers, books, and all
+sorts of things which had evidently belonged to the unfortunate painter.
+The distracted Elizabeth, in the hurry of departure from rue Norvins,
+must have thrust them in pell-mell. The lower division of the trunk was
+empty.
+
+"Another bit of luck!" thought Fandor. "Now to sample my little
+hide-hole!"
+
+Fandor found he could get into a fairly comfortable position. Then he
+calculated, that with the compartment back in its place and the cover
+open, all he had to do to close it was to shake the trunk transversely.
+He could certainly remain inside for several hours without intolerable
+discomfort.
+
+Raising the cover, Fandor slipped out.
+
+The interminable hours crawled by. To smoke was out of the question.
+Fandor's pride in his exploit was sinking to zero: was he passing a
+wretched night to no purpose? A violent ring sounded. Someone was
+ringing at the garden gate--ringing loudly, insistently--an imperative
+summons!
+
+Instantly Fandor was on the alert. Useless to slip to the window and
+peer cautiously out, for Elizabeth's window did not face the gate: even
+by leaning out he could not catch any glimpse of any visitors, either
+coming to the house or passing along towards Madame Bourrat's apartments
+in the annex.... Besides, Fandor feared to make a noise, and the
+polished boards of the floor cracked and creaked at the least movement!
+
+"The one thing for me to do," thought he, "is to creep back into my
+retreat and wait. Now who can it be at this time of night?"
+
+Fandor's curiosity was rapidly satisfied--after a fashion! The call of
+the bell had been answered by noises and hurried footsteps, whisperings,
+an outburst of voices, then silence.... A few minutes after, Fandor
+clearly heard some persons entering the ground floor of the house.
+
+He listened intently: he could hear his own heartbeats.
+
+Then a voice said:
+
+"In Heaven's name! Is it possible? Why do you come to upset people at
+this time of night? As if we had not had enough to put up with during
+the day! It is a dreadful business! There's no doubt about it! Are we
+never to be left in peace?"
+
+"Why, it's Madame Bourrat's voice!" said Fandor. "Poor woman! What's
+up?" He listened. Someone said:
+
+"The law is the law, madame, and we are it's humble executors. As the
+examining judge has ordered me to make an investigating distraint, we
+are compelled to carry out his instructions to the letter. Be good
+enough to tell your servant to lead us to the actual spot where the
+crime was attempted."
+
+"Now what is all this?" asked Fandor. "And from whence comes this police
+inspector? It only wanted that! He won't know what to make of it when I
+tell him who I am--and how am I to explain my presence here? Anyhow,
+wait, and see what happens!"
+
+"Someone was coming upstairs--more than one!"
+
+"This way, messieurs!" said a hoarse voice. "The room the young lady
+occupied is at the end of this passage!"
+
+"This time I recognise my fine fellow!" thought Fandor. "It is that
+imbecile of a Jules. But what a triumphant tone! And how different his
+voice sounds to what it did, this afternoon, at the examination!"
+
+Then Fandor all but jumped from his hiding place.
+
+"Oh! What an egregious fool I am! Why, there is not a police inspector
+in France who would come at this hour to carry out an investigation--and
+a distraint to boot! What the devil does it mean? Can they be the fine
+fellows I am lying in wait to meet?"
+
+The dubious individuals who had roused the house at such an unholy hour
+entered the room. Someone turned on the electric light.
+
+Though Fandor could obtain a sufficient supply of air through the
+openings in the wickerwork, he could not see what was going on: he could
+only listen with all his ears.
+
+Madame Bourrat accompanied her strange visitors.
+
+"It is here," she exclaimed, "that the journalist, Jerome Fandor, found
+my boarder stretched out on the floor.... You see, in this corner, is
+the gas stove with its tubing! They have forgotten to refix it to the
+pipe; but there is no danger, the tap is turned off and so is the
+meter."
+
+The personage who had given out that he was a police inspector, whose
+voice was probably an assumed one, replied only by monosyllables. Fandor
+did not recognise his voice. But there was another speaker, who also had
+very little to say for himself; and Fandor thought he recognised certain
+tones as belonging to a man who had been much in his thoughts of late.
+
+"Thomery!" thought he. "Is it Thomery?"
+
+But he only knew the sugar refiner by sight, and had heard him speak but
+once or twice at the ball: that was not enough to go on, for Fandor had
+not paid special attention to the distinguishing tone and quality of his
+host's voice. Nevertheless, he could not get out of his head the idea
+that the celebrated sugar refiner, honoured by all Paris, esteemed by
+everybody, was standing only a step or two away from him now in this
+house of strange happenings, and under very peculiar circumstances. "Was
+he a burglar--an assassin? One of a nefarious band?"
+
+For Fandor was now convinced that these were not police emissaries
+bearing a legal mandate to search and distrain: no, they were robbers,
+criminals! He was preparing to rise from his hiding place and appear
+before the bandits: he would fire a few shots and make the deuce of a
+row and rouse the neighbourhood. He would also save poor Madame Bourrat,
+who was certainly not their accomplice. Just then he heard the pretended
+police inspector say:
+
+"Will you provide us with writing materials, madame? We must write an
+official report."
+
+"Why, certainly, monsieur," replied Madame Bourrat. "I will go
+downstairs and get what you require."
+
+Fandor heard her leave the room. No sooner had she gone than a hurried
+conversation began in low tones. Clearly Jules was guilty, for the
+pretended police inspector asked:
+
+"No one this evening? Nothing happened?"
+
+"No," replied Jules in a servile tone. "The journalist brought the
+mistress back and then went off at nine o'clock...."
+
+"No news of Alfred?" asked the voice.
+
+The third person answered:
+
+"Why, no. You know very well he is always at the Depot."
+
+"Let us set to work!" said voice number one.
+
+Fandor felt that the decisive moment had arrived: someone opened the
+cover of the trunk and feverish hands were turning over the confused
+mass of objects in the top compartment.
+
+"Didn't you find anything?" asked the voice of Jules.
+
+"No, no, monsieur! I searched everywhere; but as I do not read easily,
+it's difficult for me...."
+
+"Imbecile!" murmured the voice.
+
+"Ah!" said Fandor to himself. "This fellow pleases me! He has the same
+opinion of this dolt of a Jules as I have!"
+
+Revolver in hand, Fandor was on the alert. The moment they lifted up the
+compartment out he would jump. Just then, Madame Bourrat could be heard
+approaching.
+
+"Confound it! We shall not have time to go through everything!"
+muttered a voice. The trunk cover was hastily closed.
+
+Fandor heard Madame Bourrat enter the room with slow, heavy step.
+
+"Here are ink and paper, messieurs!" she said.
+
+Then the pretended police inspector made a statement that startled the
+concealed Fandor.
+
+"Madame, we have no time, nor are we able to make a minute investigation
+now. Besides, with one exception, there does not seem to be anything
+suspicious about the room; but here is a trunk which contains papers of
+great importance. We are going to take it to the police station."
+
+"As you please," replied Madame Bourrat. "I ask only one thing and that
+is to be left in peace. I do not want to hear anything more about this
+abominable affair!"
+
+A rapid turn of the key given to each of the locks and Fandor knew that
+he was now a prisoner! Brave as he was, he felt a rush of blood to his
+heart and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
+
+"Dash it all! I am in an awful position! Impossible to move! If these
+brutes suspected they had me tight in here they would pitch me into the
+river as sure as Fate! Then good-bye to _La Capitale_!"
+
+Then, before Fandor's mental vision rose a sweet consoling figure, the
+figure of the girl for whom he was braving danger, for love of whom--he
+certainly did love her--he had placed himself in such a serious
+position.... Then all that was optimistic in his nature--and that was
+much--rose to the surface, and declared the dilemma was not as serious
+as it seemed.... How could the bandits know of his presence in the
+trunk? They never would think Jerome Fandor so stupid as to shut himself
+up in the trap!
+
+"Jules and I might shake hands as equals in folly!" concluded Fandor....
+Just then the trunk began to move. They were trying to lift it. Whilst
+trying to preserve an unstable equilibrium, he said to himself in a
+satisfied way:
+
+"And just to think now that they have not rummaged in the chest of
+drawers, nor have they seized the tell-tale piece of soap!... It's true
+that Fuselier alone knows of its being there--I was careful not to tell
+anyone else.... But, where the deuce are they going? It's the stairs, of
+course! It might be a rough precipice by the shaking up they're giving
+me!"
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+CRIMINAL OR VICTIM?
+
+
+At the bottom of his trunk Jerome Fandor was foaming with rage, furious
+at being caught in the trap and uneasy as to how this adventure would
+end.
+
+Whilst he was realising that his unknown porters were carrying their
+heavy weight with difficulty to the pavement of rue Raffet, he made up
+his mind to a definite course of action: regardless of consequences, he
+was going to shout, move about, make a regular disturbance, rouse the
+attention of the passers-by--if there happened to be any--but, at all
+costs, he meant to get out of the trap!... He saw a ray of hope: Madame
+Bourrat had accompanied her visitors as far as the gate. In presence of
+such a witness, they would, at least, hesitate to do him serious bodily
+harm when he made his presence unmistakably known, furious though they
+would be. He would take every advantage of the situation....
+
+Fandor was about to act: a second more and he would have started, when
+he heard them speaking. He kept quiet.
+
+"We must have a taxi, or at the very least a cab to transport this big
+trunk. Do you know where one is likely to be found?"
+
+"I doubt if one will be passing at this hour, monsieur. We retire early
+in these parts; but, if you like, Jules can go to the station."
+
+"That's settled. Let him go as fast as he can!"
+
+"Well, that is reassuring," thought Fandor. "If these fine fellows take
+a cab, it is not with the intention of chucking my cage and me into the
+river--and that is what I feared most. They may be going to leave me in
+a cloak-room till called for; or they may pack us off as luggage to some
+destination unknown! ... Oh, well, I shall only be a traveller without a
+ticket and I shall be sure to find some way out of the difficulty! And
+then, what stuff for an article I shall have when I get back to _La
+Capitale_!... What must they be thinking at the offices! It's
+forty-eight hours since I put foot in them! Never mind! When they
+know!..."
+
+Fandor was listening with all his ears; but the bandits had little to
+say; and, when they did speak, their voices were plainly disguised. Was
+it as a general precaution, or was it on account of Madame Bourrat?...
+But, unless they were known to her, why the necessity? If, however, she
+knew one or more of them personally, why, they must have disguised their
+faces and figures as well as their voices!... If only he could have a
+peep at them!
+
+The sound of wheels made him suppose that Jules had succeeded in getting
+a cab at the Auteuil station. Then the trot-trot-trot of a horse became
+audible: a few moments later a cab drew up at the edge of the pavement.
+
+A hoarse voice was heard.
+
+"It's not a long journey, I hope!" said the hoarse, grumbling voice of
+the cabman.
+
+"To Police Headquarters," replied the pretended police inspector.
+
+"We shall see about that!" thought Fandor. "That address is to throw
+dust in Madame Bourrat's eyes. They will change their destination on the
+way. I bet on it!..."
+
+"The brutes! Are they going to jam my cage and me on to the seat?"
+Fandor asked himself, for they had seized the trunk and were beginning
+to lift it up. ... "Am I to be stuck upside down beside the driver? I
+don't fancy so!... We must weigh at least ninety kilos, as I weigh
+seventy myself!"
+
+Fandor's mind was soon made easy on that score. After a fruitless
+attempt to hoist the trunk to the box seat, they decided to put it on to
+the back seat of the Victoria. One of the bandits planted himself on the
+little folding seat opposite the trunk: the other bandit mounted to the
+box seat next the driver.
+
+The two bandits took leave of Madame Bourrat. The rickety old vehicle
+started off. Presently, Fandor heard what he had expected to hear: one
+of his captors told the driver to take them to some other address than
+Police Headquarters. Owing to the rattling of the ramshackle cab--it
+lacked rubber tyres--Fandor, though listening with ears astretch, could
+not hear one word distinctly.
+
+Soon pale gleams of light began to filter through the wickerwork: dawn
+was near.
+
+"Ah, we shall soon reach our destination," thought Fandor. "I don't
+fancy my trunk lifters will wish to be seen with this turnout in broad
+daylight! Now, where the deuce are we going?"
+
+In vain did Fandor strive to follow the route taken by the bandits! He
+had noted each shock and counter-shock produced by cobbled streets and
+smooth roads, by bumping against pavements, by crossed tram lines and
+sharp turnings!...
+
+The cab stopped with a jolt and a jerk. The two men got out. The trunk
+was lifted down to the pavement. The driver was paid. He rattled off.
+
+"Now trunk and I are in for it!" thought Fandor.
+
+A bell pealed. A courtyard entrance gate was thrown open. The two men
+lifted the trunk, cursing under their breath at its weight.
+
+In passing under the archway they called some name unknown to Fandor and
+so unintelligible that he could not remember it; then it was a painful
+ascension: up a staircase they went with prodigious effort, stopping on
+two landings.
+
+"Two floors," counted Fandor. "We are coming to the end, and, all said
+and done, I would rather be in a house than at the bottom of the river!"
+
+A key turned in a lock; the trunk was pushed rapidly inside; then the
+noise of a door being shut.
+
+Fandor was in a room; no doubt, alone with the two bandits, and at their
+mercy! He was plunged into complete darkness. Evidently the shutters
+were still closed. The noise made by footsteps on the floor showed that
+it was uncarpeted. Judging from the sound, there seemed to be little
+furniture and no hangings in the room.
+
+"Am I and my cage in an ordinary room, in a studio, or in a hall?"
+wondered Fandor. In any case, the fellows who had brought him there
+seemed anxious to avoid making a noise.
+
+Then he felt the cover of the wickerwork trunk bend slightly and heard
+it creak. For a moment, he thought the two men were about to open his
+prison. He had his revolver ready: every inch of him was on the
+defensive! Then he realised that his captors had merely seated
+themselves on the trunk to rest!
+
+They began to talk.
+
+"This," thought Fandor, "is splendid! I shall hear everything they say.
+Why, it is a conversation in my honour! What luck!"
+
+Fandor was delighted: thanks to his position he would hear some
+interesting secrets. He listened. Alas! He could hear every word they
+uttered, but he could not understand what they were saying! Fandor swore
+strictly to himself. The two wretches were conversing in German.
+
+To the best of his judgment, a good hour had passed since the false
+police inspector and his acolyte had left the room. They had simply
+drawn to the door behind them, not troubling to lock it, much to the joy
+of Jerome Fandor.
+
+Absolute silence reigned.
+
+Fandor attempted some discreet movements as a test. The wickerwork
+creaked as he gently shook the trunk at short intervals. Not an
+answering sound came from outside! Menaced with cramp, Fandor felt that
+the moment of escape had arrived.
+
+He was, certainly, the only living soul in the place: listen as he
+might, and his sense of hearing was acute, he could not hear any sound
+of breathing. Yes, the time to quit his prison had come!
+
+Fandor had with him, besides his revolver, a box of matches, and a
+hunter's knife consisting of several blades, and a little saw. Getting
+out his knife with some difficulty, he began to hack at the wickerwork.
+Dry and pliant, the interlaced rods did not long resist the saw's steel
+teeth. It took him a bare ten minutes to make an opening, sufficiently
+large to push his head and shoulders through: the rest of his body
+followed easily. Such was his haste to be free, that he tore, not only
+his clothes, but his elbows and hands, on the jagged ends of the broken
+wickerwork: large drops of blood fell on the flooring.
+
+"Bah! I've got off cheaply!" cried Fandor, standing up to relax his
+cramped muscles and stretching his aching legs and arms.
+
+"Unless I am jolly well mistaken, I am lord of all I survey. I am alone
+in my glory! There's not a soul in the place! Good luck indeed!"
+
+He turned for a last look at his broken prison house, the cage in which
+he had spent such exciting hours. He suddenly stiffened and drew back: a
+nervous trembling seized him--the nervous trembling due to sudden shock.
+Between the trunk which had been dumped down in the centre of a large
+square room, without a scrap of furniture in it, and the window, through
+whose shutters the rays of morning sunshine shone, Fandor had caught
+sight of a body lying on the floor--a man's body! Fandor leapt forward.
+Was this same cunning criminal feigning sleep for some evil purpose?
+Standing over that motionless figure, Fandor bent and touched one of the
+man's hands: it was ice-cold and rigid. The man was dead!
+
+To see his face was imperative: it was turned towards the floor. With
+difficulty Fandor raised the head and shoulders, for they were unusually
+large and strongly built. Fandor glanced at the face and suddenly
+withdrew his hand: the corpse fell back on the floor with a thud!
+
+"Thomery!" murmured Fandor. "Why, it's Thomery!"
+
+It was the well-known sugar refiner's body. The face was purple, the
+tongue protruding. Round his neck was tied a tricoloured scarf, the
+scarf of a police inspector! Was this the murderer's ironic touch?
+
+Fandor sank down quite overcome. He tried to collect his thoughts.
+
+"A disgusting joke this! If someone should take into his head to enter
+the room at this moment, what kind of explanation could I give? Here I
+am, alone with the dead body of a man I know, and in a room I don't
+know, in a neighbourhood whose whereabouts I know no more than the man
+in the moon."
+
+"Where am I?... In whose house?... For what purpose?... Have those
+beauties of last night no suspicion of the truth?... Did they leave me
+in this lair of theirs of set purpose, knowing I was cooped up inside
+the trunk?"
+
+Just then, Fandor felt a slight moisture on the palm of his hand: it was
+all red: the scratches, made by the jagged edges of the wickerwork, were
+still bleeding.
+
+"Better and better I declare!" murmured Fandor. "If I don't look like a
+little holy Saint John! A corpse, and a man with blood on his hands
+seated beside the dead body of this murdered man! Nothing more is
+required to jail me with all the power of the law!... To go to prison
+under such suspicious circumstances is serious!... The police, who are
+floundering about in a maze of investigations, without any result so
+far, will be only too delighted to kill two birds with one stone--to
+suppress a journalist and discover a criminal!... I have got to get out
+of here; that is plain as a pikestaff!... Get away? Yes, but with the
+honour of war!... I must establish an alibi--that is absolutely
+necessary.... I like to think that my false police inspector and his
+accomplice have cut and run for some time; at any rate, that they will
+be in no hurry to come back to see what is happening where they have so
+neatly and nicely left the corpse of this Thomery.... What part did this
+fellow play in the drama?... Criminal or victim?"
+
+Fandor had reached the door of the hall opening on to the main
+staircase. He was listening.... He had explored the flat. It was empty.
+He had found water in the kitchen, had washed his face, and removed
+every trace of blood from his person. It was a flat suitable for a
+middle-class household. There were three large rooms, decorated with a
+certain amount of luxury.
+
+Fandor looked at his watch. It was seven o'clock. He stood listening.
+Someone, a man, was coming downstairs: someone, a woman, was coming up.
+They met on the landing just outside.
+
+"Monsieur Mercadier, here are your letters! I was bringing them up to
+you!"
+
+"It was hardly worth while, my good lady. I have to come down, you see,
+so you can save yourself five flights of stairs!"
+
+"Oh, no, monsieur! I have to come up to go down my stairs."
+
+Monsieur Mercadier continued to descend, and the portress continued to
+mount.
+
+Fandor's heart beat faster when he realised that she was approaching the
+door. Would she come in and find him there? Had the new tenants left a
+key of the flat with her? No, the portress dusted the landing quickly
+and continued her ascent: he heard her going up and up....
+
+He made up his mind to slip out on to the landing. Despite his efforts,
+he could not prevent his shoes creaking: it was spring-time, and already
+the stair carpet had been taken up. He was on the point of going
+downstairs, when he heard the portress calling from above:
+
+"Who's there?... What do you want?"
+
+Had she heard him leave the flat? Was he to be stupidly caught, just as
+he was escaping?... He must act at once. He went up a step or two of the
+next flight of stairs and called out:
+
+"Is Monsieur Mercadier at home?"
+
+"Ah, no, monsieur! He has just this minute gone out! I am surprised you
+did not meet him!..."
+
+"Very good, madame. I will come another time!"
+
+Fandor turned on his heel, and, whistling, with hands in pockets, he
+gained the ground floor, passed the entrance gate, and found himself in
+the street. He mingled with the passers-by, and learned from the first
+plaque he came to with the name of the street on it, that he was in rue
+Lecourbe, Vaugirard....
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+UNDER THE HOODED MASK
+
+
+What had happened? By way of what mysterious adventures had the corpse
+of sugar refiner Thomery reached that empty room in rue Lecourbe, where
+Jerome Fandor had come across it?
+
+Two days previous, on the afternoon of Elizabeth Dollon's arrest,
+Monsieur Thomery was working in his study, when a servant came to tell
+him that a lady wished to speak to him.
+
+"Did she give you her name?" asked Thomery.
+
+"No, monsieur, this person said her name would tell you nothing; but she
+was sure monsieur would see her, for she would only detain him a minute
+or two...."
+
+Piles of papers were stacked on the great sugar refiner's study table:
+typists were laying numerous letters before him, which awaited his
+signature. Thomery thought to himself:
+
+"I have still a good half-hour's work before me ... deuce take this
+importunate visitor!" He was on the point of saying he could not see any
+one, when the servant added:
+
+"This person declares she comes with reference to Madame the Princess
+Danidoff."
+
+Though he was a man of business, Thomery was a gallant man also; and
+very much in love; his approaching marriage with the Princess, which had
+been kept secret, was now known. The name of Princess Danidoff settled
+the question.
+
+"Very well, let her come in!"
+
+The manservant disappeared a minute, then ushered into the study a very
+unassuming woman of uncertain age and quite ordinary looking.
+
+Thomery rose to meet her, pointing pleasantly to one of the large
+arm-chairs in the room. The visitor was profusely apologetic.
+
+"I am so exceedingly sorry, Monsieur Thomery, to disturb you at such an
+hour, when you must certainly have a great deal to occupy your
+attention; but the matter I have come about will not wait, and I am sure
+it will interest you...."
+
+This little person seemed very intelligent, and Thomery was favourably
+impressed by her manner, which was both simple and decided.
+
+"Madame, I am listening to you. In what way can I be of service to you?"
+
+"I am not here, monsieur," she protested, "to pester you with any wants
+and wishes for myself. I am a diamond broker and ..."
+
+She had not finished her sentence when Thomery, smiling but firm, rose,
+and said sharply:
+
+"In that case, madame, I can guess the motive of your call...."
+
+"But, monsieur ..."
+
+"Yes!... That is so!... Ever since my approaching marriage has been
+announced, I have received, every day, a dozen visits from jewellers,
+goldsmiths, upholsterers, and so on ... I regret to have to tell you
+that you will not be able to persuade me to buy ... that my betrothed
+has received so many wedding presents that there is no room for more....
+I do not require one single thing...."
+
+Although Thomery had spoken in a tone which did not admit of any reply,
+although he had risen the better to mark his intention of cutting short
+the call, the diamond broker had remained seated, leaning back in her
+arm-chair.... She gave no sign of being ready to go away.
+
+"Consequently, madame," continued Thomery....
+
+His visitor laughed.
+
+"Monsieur, you have very quickly made up your mind that I have nothing
+interesting to offer you! I have not come to offer you ordinary
+jewels...."
+
+It was Thomery's turn to smile slightly.
+
+"I quite understand, madame, that you should think your merchandise
+exceptional.... But once more ..."
+
+The broker interrupted the sugar refiner with a movement of her hand.
+
+"Do listen to me a moment, monsieur!... Though I am a diamond broker,
+diamonds are not what I have come to ask you to purchase ... it is a
+question of something quite different...."
+
+She paused deliberately: Thomery gazed at her without saying a word.
+
+"You know, monsieur," continued the broker, "that in such a business as
+mine, one is obliged to see a great many jewellers every day; well, in
+the course of my peregrinations, I found at a jeweller's--you must allow
+me to withhold his name--some pearls, which I am certain you will find
+are a wonderful bargain...."
+
+"For the last time, madame, I do not want a wonderful bargain!"
+
+The agent smiled curiously.
+
+"There are some things which simply do not allow themselves to be
+refused," she declared.... She now drew from her pocket a little
+jewel-case; and, notwithstanding Thomery's unconcealed impatience,
+opened it, and selected two pearls which she held out to him.
+
+"Do examine these jewels! You are going to tell me that they are
+perfectly beautiful, are you not, Monsieur Thomery?"
+
+The diamond broker offered them so naturally that Thomery gave way. He
+examined the pearls: he was a connoisseur.
+
+"In truth, madame, these pearls are superb; unfortunately I am not
+enough of an expert to buy them without taking competent advice, that is
+if I thought of acquiring them eventually, but I repeat, I have no wish
+to acquire such things!"
+
+"Deuce take it!" thought Thomery. "This broker won't take 'no' for an
+answer! Since I cannot rid myself of her by being pleasant, I shall make
+myself disagreeable!"
+
+But the would-be seller still insisted.
+
+"Monsieur, you really cannot be a connoisseur, otherwise I am sure you
+would not return these pearls to me."
+
+"But, madame!..."
+
+"And I am convinced that if Princess Sonia Danidoff had had them in her
+hand instead of you, she would have been greatly taken with them!"
+
+The broker had emphasised her words so strangely that, suddenly, Thomery
+hesitated.
+
+What did this mysterious visitor mean? What was it she considered so
+"extraordinary" about the jewels she had just submitted to him?... A
+suspicion flashed across his mind.
+
+"Whence come these pearls, madame?"
+
+But, at this question, the broker got up.
+
+"Monsieur Thomery," declared she, "I should be very vexed with myself
+were I to make you lose your evening ... your time is precious; besides,
+in order to give you a proper answer to your question, I should have to
+make certain of facts I only now guess at.... Still, I think that
+without having told you anything definite, I have made you sufficiently
+understand what is in my mind,... you will not now doubt the interest
+that the Princess Sonia Danidoff would have, were she able to examine
+these jewels...."
+
+"Is that so?"
+
+"Consequently, Monsieur Thomery, I am going to ask you if you will
+kindly show these pearls to the Princess; and then if you will be good
+enough to let me know what decision you come to, jointly with her.... If
+you were a buyer, I fancy I might let you have these jewels on quite
+exceptional terms."
+
+Thomery visibly hesitated.... He was looking at the pearls, which he was
+still holding in his hand, and he thought.
+
+"One might swear that these are two of the pearls stolen from Sonia at
+my ball!"
+
+Thomery did not reply at once. The broker was looking at him with a
+smile; she seemed to guess his thoughts. Thomery, on his side, was
+examining the woman.
+
+"Is she simply a police informer?" he asked himself. "One of these women
+who apparently are dealers, but are really in the pay of the police, and
+frequent jewellers for the purpose of tracing stolen jewels?"
+
+He was on the verge of asking her who she was, but he refrained.
+
+If this woman had not presented herself under her true colours,
+evidently she wished to pass for an ordinary dealer. It was possible
+that she was really a receiver of stolen goods!
+
+Thomery came to a decision.
+
+"I shall have the privilege of seeing the Princess Danidoff to-morrow
+afternoon; will you therefore leave the pearls with me?... I will show
+them to her. Should she express the slightest wish to possess them, I
+might possibly come to terms with you...."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Dearest, it is sweet of you to make no objection to the way in which I
+obtained this jewel for you to see, and to choose for your own, if you
+will.... The correct thing would have been to ask you to accompany me to
+some well-known jeweller, instead of which, I frankly confess, that
+these pearls were offered to me on very advantageous terms. If they
+please you, it will give me the greatest pleasure to see them adorning
+your graceful neck."
+
+Princess Sonia laughed.
+
+"My dear, for Heaven's sake, don't worry about such a thing as that!...
+A pearl is not less beautiful because it comes from some unpretentious
+jeweller's shop. I am too fond of jewels for their own sake, to trouble
+about the casket that enshrines them!"
+
+Thomery bowed, well pleased.
+
+"Here then, dear Sonia, are the two pearls entrusted to me as samples
+... please, dearest, examine them carefully, very carefully ... and if
+you like them, tell me so frankly...."
+
+The Princess took the two pearls from the betrothed, and, crossing the
+great drawing-room, she approached one of the bay windows, lifting the
+thin hangings that she might the better examine the pearls.
+
+"They are marvellous!" she cried.
+
+"Dear Sonia, you think these gems rarely beautiful?"
+
+"Indeed I do! Their lustre is superb; their quality, their shape,
+perfect!... Why, my dear, these are the most splendid pearls I have ever
+seen--with one exception--the only pearls to equal them are those that
+were stolen from me!... The loss of them has been a bitter grief ...
+they came to me, you know, from my dear mother!... I never thought to
+find pearls of such quality again...."
+
+"You consider these to be of as pure a quality then, dear?"
+
+Sonia Danidoff continued to examine the two pearls.
+
+"It is really extraordinary," she cried suddenly. "Do you know, my dear,
+there are certain peculiarities about their lustre,... yes ... I could
+swear that these very pearls you are offering me are two of those stolen
+from me!..."
+
+Thomery appeared to have been impatiently awaiting these very words.
+
+"You really, truly believe, Sonia, that they resemble the pearls stolen
+from you that unlucky evening?"
+
+"I repeat--they are identical!"
+
+Thomery looked smilingly at Sonia.
+
+"Well, then, my dear one, I do not think you are mistaken!... I have all
+sorts of reasons for supposing that they really are two of your own
+pearls you are now holding in your hand...." And, then and there,
+Thomery told his fiancee all about the strange visit he had received the
+evening before, as well as his hope that he would be able to recover
+the stolen triple collar in its entirety.
+
+"That intriguing dealer," said he finally, "must be a police
+informer.... In any case, I am persuaded that, before long, she will
+take me to some receiver or other who is in possession of your pearl
+collar."
+
+"Oh, tell me you are not going among such people, all alone?" cried
+Sonia, with a note of sharp anxiety in her voice.
+
+"But, why not?"
+
+"If they are, as you think, thieves?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well! Don't you see, my dear, that if you go to buy the pearls, they
+will count on your bringing a large sum of money with you!... Why, it
+would be a most imprudent thing to do!..."
+
+Thomery shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Really, that's nonsense, Sonia! If these assassins meant to set a trap
+for me, they have a thousand other means of doing so ... besides, it
+would be remarkably daring of them to advise me to show you these
+pearls, and draw my attention to the question of their being stolen
+ones!... No, Sonia, this dealer is not the emissary of a band of robbers
+and assassins: she is a police informer, who has taken precautions. I
+run no dangerous risks by accompanying her! Reassure yourself on that
+point!..."
+
+But Sonia Danidoff was not reassured by Thomery's arguments.
+
+"All that only frightens me!" said she.... "If you do not really think
+you are running any risk, will you let me go with you?... My dear, we
+will go together to identify those pearls, will we not?"
+
+Thomery rose to take his leave, laughing and protesting.
+
+"Why, dear Sonia, it would be in the highest degree improper on my part,
+were I to agree to such a proposition!... One of two things: either
+there is no danger, and I should be very sorry that I had let you go out
+in such shocking weather; or, if there is danger, I should be still
+more distressed were I to drag you into it with me.... I do beg of you,
+Sonia, do not insist on it.... I am not a child!... And I will be very
+careful--very wary!..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Shortly after this, Thomery took leave of Sonia Danidoff. He went
+straight to the Cafe de la Paix, where he had arranged to meet the
+diamond broker....
+
+She was punctual. She greeted Thomery with her most winning smile.
+
+"I am persuaded, monsieur, that Madame Sonia Danidoff was interested by
+the offer you made her?"
+
+"Quite so," replied Thomery.... "Should we go to your jeweller's,
+without further loss of time?"
+
+"If you really wish to do so, monsieur! Indeed it would be the best
+thing to do...."
+
+Thomery hailed a cab. He and the diamond agent entered it together, and
+she gave the driver an address. Twenty minutes later they left the cab
+and were standing before the house where the present possessor of the
+pearls was to be found. Thomery knew no more now about the person he had
+come to interview, than he did when he started: that is to say,
+practically nothing.
+
+The diamond broker had cleverly evaded giving any direct answers to the
+sugar refiner's questions: she had confined herself to stating what
+would be the probable price demanded for the pearl collar--which
+question interested Thomery least of all!
+
+They mounted, in single file, a rather poor sort of staircase: on the
+second floor the woman stopped. A narrow door faced them.... The woman
+rang.... They waited....
+
+"Someone is coming!" said the woman. "I hear footsteps."
+
+The door was opened half-way.
+
+"Who is it?" asked a man's voice.
+
+"I, dear friend," answered the woman.
+
+The door opened wide: the same voice said:
+
+"Come in, monsieur."
+
+Thomery had barely stepped inside the room, when the diamond broker, who
+was close behind, flung a long silk scarf round his neck, and, pushing
+his knee into his victim's back for a support, he attempted to give,
+with Herculean force, the famous stroke of Father Francis Vigozous;
+energetic, Thomery did not lose his presence of mind.... He knew that to
+resist such a pull by simple force was impossible.... Quickly he threw
+himself backwards, thus giving to the strangling pull and falling on top
+of the woman, who had played this dastardly trick on him. From his
+constricted throat came a hoarse "Ah!" like a death rattle.
+
+As he was falling, for one flashing second, it seemed as though he were
+going to escape from the vise which was crushing in his throat... then,
+out of the shadow, there had appeared the fantastic vision of a man in a
+tight fitting sort of black jersey, which covered him from head to
+foot.... His face was concealed by a hooded mask....
+
+This man had leapt out of the shadow.
+
+He held a dagger in his hand.
+
+Before Thomery had time to make a movement, the masked man had pierced
+his chest with a single stroke!... The sugar refiner was naught but a
+convulsive corpse.
+
+"Ah, well!" declared the so-called diamond broker, who had got to his
+feet and was kicking Thomery's body aside. "Ah, well, he is a dead
+weight this fellow!... By Jove, master, I fancied he was going to crush
+me, and that I should have to let him free!... You did well to come to
+the rescue!"
+
+The masked man remarked in an indifferent tone:
+
+"It really does not matter in the slightest!... Tell me, does anyone
+suspect?"
+
+"No one, master. He came like a sheep to the slaughter."
+
+"Princess Danidoff?"
+
+"Ah, as for her--she must be waiting for the return of her beloved
+friend.... I do not advise you to pay her a visit!"
+
+"Be silent, chatter-box!" ordered the masked assassin sharply. "Get rid
+of your clothes.... We must hurry!... We have work to do!"
+
+"This evening?"
+
+"This evening!"
+
+And, whilst the diamond broker rid himself rapidly of skirt and bodice
+and regained his masculine appearance--for this diamond broker was a
+man--the masked assassin added:
+
+"Nibet, you have played your part perfectly, and I will pay you
+to-morrow the sum we agreed on; but, I repeat, we have work before us
+this evening--so, be quick!"
+
+There was a short silence, then the bandit asked:
+
+"You have arranged to put among this fool's papers the rent receipts,
+which will enable the police to find this flat?"
+
+"Yes, master!"
+
+"Good! Now all we have to do, is to get away from this room, which we
+shall not see again ... until this evening at any rate!"
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+IN A PRISON VAN
+
+
+In one of the rooms reserved for readers of _La Capitale_, Jerome Fandor
+was gravely listening to Madame Bourrat's account of what had occurred
+at her boarding-house during the night. She had rushed off to tell him
+and to ask his advice.
+
+"What you tell me, madame, is truly extraordinary!" said Fandor, with an
+air of profound astonishment....
+
+"How did you discover that the police inspector who seized the trunk and
+carried it away was not a genuine policeman?"
+
+"Why, through the arrival of Monsieur Xavie, the police inspector of our
+district! I know him.... There was no mistaking who and what he was; and
+when I told him that the trunk had been carried off the preceding
+evening, rather in the dead of night, he guessed everything...."
+
+"And what did he say?..."
+
+"Oh, he made us all come to the police station; and I can assure you
+that he looked far from pleased!"
+
+"You must admit, dear madame, that his annoyance was not without
+reason!... The police were made fine fools of in this affair.... But
+afterwards?... Whom did he take back with him to the police station?"
+
+"He took me and my manservant."
+
+"And when you got to the police station?"
+
+"Well, Monsieur Fandor, when we reached the police station, he made us
+come into his office, and there he put us through a regular
+examination,... just as though he suspected us!"
+
+"But there must have been an accomplice in your house who let the
+robbers in," said Fandor. "I do not suppose the false police inspector
+forced the door open!"
+
+"Ah, but, Monsieur Fandor, here is something I do not understand, nor
+does anybody else!... No, they did not try to hide themselves--not the
+least in the world! They rang the bell; they asked to see me; they told
+me what they had come for; and, accompanied by my manservant, carried
+away the trunk, and had it put on the cab--all in the most open and
+bare-faced manner!"
+
+"It was your manservant who accompanied them?"
+
+"But most certainly ... and that very fact turned against Jules, in a
+very nasty manner.... Poor Jules! Just imagine, the police inspector
+finished by ordering my house to be thoroughly searched from top to
+bottom! And when the policemen returned, without a why or wherefore,
+they took Jules away to another part of the police station!"
+
+"I say! I say!"
+
+"Oh, it was all explained! As soon as Jules had gone, the police
+inspector told me that they had found keys in his rooms, keys which
+could be made to fit any kind of lock whatever. Monsieur Xavie was
+convinced that my poor Jules was a burglar--imagine it!"
+
+"And you, yourself, madame, are convinced of the contrary?"
+
+"Oh, assuredly! Why, I have known Jules a very long time! And in many
+little ways on many occasions, he has shown himself to be strictly
+honest."
+
+"But those false keys?"
+
+"Those false keys, Monsieur Fandor, why I myself made Jules buy them,
+hoping to find among them one that would open my coach-house."
+
+"So that?..."
+
+"So that, Monsieur Fandor, the police inspector was obliged to agree
+with me that Jules was honest!"
+
+"And he released this servant of yours?" asked Fandor.
+
+His tone expressed annoyance.
+
+"No, and that is why I am so distressed. He said, that provisionally, at
+least, my servant, Jules, was to be considered as under arrest! What
+ought to be done to get him let out?"
+
+"But, madame!... He will be set free to-morrow, you may be certain of
+it!..."
+
+"No doubt he will!... All the same, there is my house turned upside
+down, and I need Jules to help me to-night!... I really do not know what
+I shall do without him! Poor fellow!... I simply cannot imagine how it
+is they suspect him!"
+
+Fandor said, with mock gravity:
+
+"Ah, madame, Justice is sometimes so stupid--so wrongheaded!... Look
+here now, would you like a bit of good advice?... Telephone to Messieurs
+Barbey-Nanteuil. They are well known and powerful--perhaps they would
+exert their influence in your servant's favour? He might be set free
+this evening! I, you see, am but a journalist, and without a scrap of
+influence!"
+
+Madame Bourrat thought this a good idea. Fandor rang for an attendant.
+
+"Take madame to the telephone!"
+
+Left to himself, the reporter could not help rubbing his hands.
+
+"I must get rid of this excellent woman, who is certainly the most
+foolish person it has ever been my lot to meet. Good hearing! That
+servant of hers is under lock and key--things are going in the right
+direction ... but they are not going well for me!... If he confesses,
+to-morrow, when he is had up for examination, then the police will have
+the information before me!... Then, too, they are such duffers--such
+bunglers--that they are quite capable of giving that Jules his
+liberty!... What the deuce must I do to prevent his being let loose, and
+how am I to stop the judicial interrogation?... What a dog's life a
+journalist's is!"
+
+Madame Bourrat reappeared.
+
+"Monsieur Nanteuil is not there," she said. "But I got into
+communication with Monsieur Barbey.... He advised me to wait till
+to-morrow: he said it was too late in the day to do anything...."
+
+"But, will he not intervene to-morrow?"
+
+"I don't know. To tell the truth, I am sure Monsieur Barbey thought it
+very inconsiderate of me to disturb him about a matter in which he takes
+not the slightest interest."
+
+"That's a fact. What possible interest can the bankers take in such a
+matter?... My advice was absurd!"
+
+Fandor rose. As he was seeing his visitor out, he said:
+
+"In any case, dear madame, count on me to-morrow morning. I shall call
+at your house about eleven. If there is anything fresh, we can talk it
+over!..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Oh, here's Janson-de-Sailly College!... Oh, what detestable
+remembrances you conjure up!... But--this won't do!... Go it, my boy!...
+I must play the part!"
+
+The plumber, who had just given utterance to these remarks, glanced
+sharply about him. When he had made sure that there was no one close on
+his heels, he stepped into the roadway, and started on a zigzag course
+which seemed likely to upset his balance. Crossing the avenue
+Henri-Martin, going straight, towards the town hall at the corner of the
+rue de la Pompe, the good plumber, who was staggering more than a
+little, began to stutter and stammer in a drunken voice:
+
+"_It is the final struggle!_"
+
+The passers-by looked round.
+
+"They sing the _Internationale_ in the streets now, it seems!" remarked
+a severe-looking gentleman.
+
+The workman turned to this correct personage.
+
+"What of it?... Don't you think it a jolly fine thing then?"
+
+In a thick voice he continued to sing:
+
+"_Let us gather, and on the morrow..._"
+
+The severe and correct personage spoke.
+
+"My friend, you would do better to hold your tongue!... You forget that
+there is a police station close by!..."
+
+But the incorrigible plumber caught the correct personage by his coat
+tails.
+
+"If I sing the _Internationale_, it's because I'm a free man--ain't
+I?... A free man can sing if he likes, can't he? Eh!... Why don't you
+sing then?... Eh!..."
+
+The correct personage drew himself up stiffly: tried to push the
+obnoxious plumber away.... The workman had now reached that stage of
+drunkenness when discussions tend to become interminable.
+
+The gentleman pushed the drunken man aside, saying:
+
+"Come! Come! Go away!... Leave me alone!"
+
+But the maudlin plumber was attracting the attention of the passers by
+his gestures. He addressed the world at large.
+
+"Would you believe it--that fellow there don't want me to sing!... No!
+Well, I'm going to!" and he started triumphantly.
+
+"_It is the--the--final ... strug-gle!_"
+
+A policeman came out of the station with a solemn air. He put his hand
+on the tipsy plumber's shoulder in paternal fashion.
+
+"Go along with you, my friend!... Come now--pass along--pass along!" But
+he could not make the plumber budge before he had finished his verse,
+any more than he could teach him to walk straight on the spur of the
+moment!... Leaving hold of the gentleman's coat tails, the worthy
+plumber seized the policeman's arm.'
+
+"Oh, you, you're a brother!... I have education, I have! You're a
+workman too, I know!..."
+
+As the police inspector pushed him off, trying to make him go on his
+way, the plumber put his arm round him.
+
+"No! No!... show you're a workman! Sing with me!"
+
+"_It is the final ..._"
+
+The scandal could no longer be tolerated! Street-corner idlers were
+gathering, people were laughing at the policeman: strong measures were
+necessary.
+
+"Come now," said the policeman. "Yes, or no! Will you be off, and go
+home?... Eh!... Or shall I take you to the station?..."
+
+"You take me?... You take me?... Why, it would take four of you to take
+me!..."
+
+There was no shilly-shallying after this! Wounded in his vanity, the
+servant of the law did not hesitate.
+
+"All right!" said he; and seizing the plumber by the collar, although
+there was no attempt at resistance, he dragged his prisoner towards the
+town hall of the district, for the police station was there also.
+
+"Some more game for the Depot!" said the policeman as he passed the
+guard.... "A fellow I can't get rid of! Are the cells full up?"
+
+Other policemen came up. An arrest in a peaceful district gives interest
+to the dull routine of the men on duty.
+
+"The cells full? Go along with you! There's only a small shopkeeper who
+had no papers."
+
+Thereupon the unfortunate singer, who continued to stagger about, was
+quickly pushed into the dark room called "the detention room."
+
+An ordinary every day incident of the streets, this arrest of a
+drunkard!
+
+"I shall have to write out a report for this fellow!" said the
+policeman, who had arrested the songster... "and the 'Salad Basket'[10]
+passes in an hour's time! ... I shall just do it!"
+
+[Footnote 10: Prison van.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Have you anyone for the Depot to-day?" asked the driver from his high
+seat on the prison van. He was on a collecting journey as is usual every
+evening, when the Salad Baskets, as they are vulgarly called, pass to
+the various police stations of Paris to pick up the individuals arrested
+during the day.
+
+"Two of 'em," answered the police sergeant on duty. Whilst official
+papers were being interchanged and forms were being filled in according
+to rule, policemen went to the cells to bring out the two prisoners to
+be despatched to the Depot.
+
+The first to pass out was the costermonger. He was straightway put into
+one of the narrow compartments in the Salad Basket. Then it was the turn
+of the tipsy and obstreperous workman, who was now silent, moody, and
+apparently sober.
+
+"Hop it now!" cried the policeman. "Come along with you, you miserable
+drunk!... March now!... Foot it!"
+
+As the "drunk" hit against the partition of the narrow passageway
+running up the middle of the Salad Basket, the policeman, with a shove,
+pushed him into one of the compartments, carefully shutting the little
+door on him and fastening it.
+
+"My word!" he exclaimed. "That fellow wouldn't have been capable of
+walking three steps in an hour's time!"
+
+As the driver climbed to his seat on the van, the policeman called out,
+with a laugh:
+
+"You have a traveller inside who doesn't detest wine!... It's a pity to
+see a man in such a hoggish state!"
+
+This same policeman would have been surprised, could he have seen the
+bibulous one's face when the Salad Basket cast loose from her moorings
+and started off in the direction of the Point-du-Jour police station,
+the last on the round to be visited!
+
+The "drunk" whom one push had sufficed to plant on his seat, had briskly
+drawn himself upright and was smiling broadly, a wide, noiseless smile!
+
+"What a joke!... And what a jolly good actor I should have made!"
+thought Jerome Fandor, giving himself a mental hug of satisfaction....
+"Ah! They arrest the individuals I want to set talking!... The police
+imagine they are going to push in first and find out the answer to the
+riddle!... We shall see!"
+
+Fandor was listening intensely and trying to discover from the movements
+of the Salad Basket what street they were passing along.
+
+"Smooth going ... evidently we are still in the rue de la Pompe, so I
+have about a quarter of an hour more of it!"
+
+Fandor examined the tiny cell in which he had been imprisoned of his own
+free will.
+
+"Not much to be said for it!" ran his thoughts. "There is scarcely room
+to sit ... impossible to stand up or turn around ... nearly dark ... and
+precious little air comes in through those wooden shutters!... I
+shouldn't think there ever had been an escape from these vans!..."
+
+Fandor smiled broadly.
+
+"Even if I don't succeed, it is worth while making the attempt!... But I
+shall succeed--see if I don't!... I settled it in my mind that I was to
+leave the cells after this costermonger: he is in front of me, therefore
+the cell behind me is empty. It will be deucedly queer if, at Auteuil
+police station, they don't put that confounded Jules in it, whom I
+intend to interview under the nose of the police!... I shall start
+talking to him by tapping on the partition in prisoner's language. The
+fellow is pretty sure to be an old offender, so he will know the
+system.... If he doesn't, when we get to the Depot, I will push up to
+him somehow and get a few words with him.... If the Depot is full, we
+shall be stuck into the common cell until morning.... So, I take it as
+certain that my interview with this true and faithful servant will come
+off, and I shall get to know a good deal about the mystery!..."
+
+As an afterthought, it occurred to Fandor that probably there had never
+been such a light-hearted occupant of this cell as he....
+
+"Ah, that's the sound of the trams!... One jolt! Two jolts! Good!... The
+rails!... We are crossing rue Mozart! We are going faster--in five
+minutes we shall be at the Auteuil police station, and there we can
+start our little operations!"
+
+There was one thing that attracted Fandor's attention, which was keenly
+on the alert. There was a violent jolt, and he had a distinct impression
+that the vehicle turned to the right.
+
+"Why, where the deuce are they taking us?" Fandor asked himself. "To the
+boulevard Exelmans station?... We had not reached the end of the rue
+Mozart, surely!... Where did we turn then? Rue du Ranelagh?... No, there
+is a channel stone at the entrance, and I should have felt it!... Rue de
+l'Assomption!... Again no. The roadway is up: I should be knocked about
+more than this on my wooden seat. We are going over a perfectly kept
+road, which cannot have much traffic!... Why, of course, it is rue du
+Docteur-Blanche!... Isn't rue Mozart barred at the end? Yes. The driver
+must be going round by the boulevard Montmorency.... Ah, well! I am in
+no hurry! There will be time enough for me to pay my respects to the
+illustrious Jules!"
+
+Just as Fandor was thus congratulating himself, he was thrown against
+the side of his cell! The van seemed to have come into violent collision
+with some object and had tilted over to a considerable extent.
+
+Muffled oaths came from neighbouring cells; a stifled exclamation
+reached Fandor's ears; then louder still, came the intermittent humming
+and snorting of a motor-car.
+
+"Confound you!... can't you pay attention to where you are going?...
+Keep to your right!"
+
+Slightly stunned, Fandor heard some one knocking.
+
+A voice asked:
+
+"Are you hurt?"
+
+"No, but ..."
+
+Already the questioner had moved away.
+
+"Evidently," thought Fandor, "the driver wants to know whether his human
+packages are damaged or not! We have collided with another vehicle!...
+Cheerful!"
+
+Fandor's cell was now at such an angle that he could only suppose that
+the Salad Basket had had one of its wheels broken.
+
+"What a nuisance!" he murmured. "Before they have finished their palaver
+as to how the accident happened and have repaired the damage, we shall
+have been here a full half-hour.... Jules will be in a temper!"
+
+Minute succeeded minute, long, interminable minutes, and Fandor could
+not hear clearly what was said, what was being done to put the Salad
+Basket on its legs again.... The atmosphere in the little cell was
+becoming intolerable; for the movement of the vehicle had driven fresh
+air inside the shutter, and now that the Salad Basket was stationary,
+the air was becoming almost unbreathable.
+
+Fandor's nerves were on edge.
+
+"It cannot be that they are going to leave us stranded here!" thought
+he.... "Ah, now they have started repairs!" Fandor noticed that his cell
+was gradually regaining its ordinary level.... A lifting-jack must have
+been slipped under the vehicle, for there was a melancholy creaking
+sound. They must be putting the wheel on again!...
+
+"No," thought Fandor, after some time had passed. "Never would I have
+supposed that it could have taken so much time to repair a Salad
+Basket!... Why we shall soon have been stuck here for two mortal
+hours!... I hope it won't make any difference to our going to the Depot,
+nor stop my getting into close touch with that villain Jules!"
+
+There was a further period of waiting. Then our exasperated journalist
+heard the driver pass down the centre of the van. The van door
+slammed.... Once more the Salad Basket was loosed from its moorings.
+
+"Something queer is going on!" said Fandor suddenly. He felt certain the
+van had turned completely round and was going in the direction it came
+from.
+
+"Now where in the world are we going?... By what kind of a route are we
+making for that blessed police station?"
+
+There were spaces of asphalt, succeeded by wood pavement, then by hard
+stones, then asphalt and wood again, and turning succeeded turning,
+whilst a new Tom Thumb was doing his possible to guess the route the
+Salad Basket was taking. Presently Fandor gave it up. He had to admit
+that he was completely lost.... Which way the Salad Basket was going he
+knew no more than the Man in the Moon!
+
+"We have been trotting along for more than half an hour; therefore we
+cannot be going to the boulevard Exelmans police station ... the
+distance from the rue du Docteur-Blanche to the Point-du-Jour is not
+great...."
+
+As Fandor was murmuring these words, the van slowed down, turned round;
+then, with a bump and a jolt, it mounted the footpath.
+
+"Now for it," said Fandor. "This is certainly not the Point-du-Jour
+station!... We are passing under an archway--now we are turning
+again.... Ah, we draw up, at last!... Not too soon!"
+
+The van did stop.
+
+Again a wait. Fandor cocked both ears; he wondered who was going to
+enter the cell next his. Then a man approached the door of his little
+cell, where he was indeed "cribbed, cabined and confined"; inserted a
+key in the lock, opened, and shouted in a brutal tone:
+
+"Out with you!... March! Quick now!"
+
+Fandor had no choice but to obey the orders hurled at him. But no sooner
+had he descended the steps of the prison van than he exclaimed:
+
+"By Jove! The Depot!"
+
+This was not the moment to express all the surprise he felt at being
+landed at Police Headquarters in this fashion.... All round the Salad
+Basket the police were ranged in irregular order. They shouted to him to
+be quick.
+
+"Come on with you! Hurry there!"
+
+Fandor, followed by the costermonger, was pushed towards a little open
+door in the grey wall which led into a kind of office, where an old
+frowning man was already looking through the papers, which had been
+respectfully handed to him by a warder.
+
+"So you have brought only two of the birds?" remarked the frowning
+official.
+
+"Yes, superintendent."
+
+"Good, that will do!..."
+
+Turning to the warders, the frowning little superintendent ordered:
+"Take them away!... Cell 14.... Useless to rouse the whole place!"
+
+Once more the warders pushed Fandor before them, as well as the poor
+costermonger: they were driven into a dark corridor on to which a row of
+cells opened.
+
+The head warder opened a door.
+
+"In with you, my merry men! You will be put through your paces
+to-morrow!"
+
+As the door fell to with a resounding clang, Jerome had inspected the
+place by the light of a lantern.
+
+"Empty!... No luck!... My plan has been spoiled: I shall not be able to
+interview Jules!"
+
+Philosophically, Jerome Fandor was preparing to go to sleep on the plank
+bed which decorated one end of the cell, when the little costermonger,
+roused from his torpid condition, began to moan and groan.
+
+"Oh, what a misfortune!... To think I am innocent! Innocent as an unborn
+babe!... What's to be done!... Oh, what's to be done!"
+
+The last thing Fandor wished to do was to start a conversation with his
+lamenting companion. He tapped the costermonger on the shoulder.
+
+"Good Heavens, man, the best thing you can do is to go to sleep! Take my
+word for it!"
+
+Without puzzling his brains any further over the enigmas he wished to
+get to the bottom of, Fandor stretched himself on his plank bed, and was
+soon sleeping the sleep of the innocent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Monsieur Fuselier looked perplexed.
+
+"You, Fandor! You arrested!... But am I going mad?"
+
+Our journalist had been taken from his cell at eight in the morning, and
+had been conducted to the office of the Public Prosecutor. Here, the
+acting magistrate, in conformity with the law, wished to put him through
+the examination which would establish his identity. All arrested persons
+have to submit to this interrogation within twenty-four hours of their
+arrival at the Depot.
+
+Jerome Fandor had given his name at once, and, in order to prove the
+truth of his statements, he had asked that Monsieur Fuselier should be
+sent for, so that the magistrate might vouch for his identity and say a
+word in his favour.
+
+Monsieur Fuselier had hastened to the Depot, had taken Fandor to his
+office, and had anxiously questioned him. Why, he asked, had the police
+been obliged to arrest him for drunkenness in the open thoroughfare?
+
+When Fandor had concluded his statement, the magistrate exclaimed:
+
+"Your ruse is inconceivable!... I must compliment you highly on your
+ability and your detective gifts!"
+
+"I wish I could agree with you," replied Fandor in a depressed tone. "In
+spite of everything, I have not got into communication with Jules. But,
+Monsieur Fuselier, have you interrogated him yet?"
+
+The magistrate shook his head.
+
+"Alas, my poor friend, you have no idea of the extraordinary events of
+the past night; evidently, notwithstanding the fact that you played a
+passive part in them!"
+
+"I played a part?... Extraordinary events?... What the deuce do you
+mean?"
+
+"I mean, dear Fandor, that all Paris is laughing over it. The police
+have been tricked! You have been tricked! Did you not tell me, just now,
+that your prison van had had an accident? Do you know what really
+happened?"
+
+"I ask you to tell me."
+
+"Your vehicle was run into by a motor-car. The driver was extremely
+clumsy ... or very capable!"
+
+"What's that?" Fandor leaned forward, keen as a pointer on the scent.
+
+"It was like this," replied Monsieur Fuselier. "Your Salad Basket was
+very badly knocked about by the collision. The driver could not possibly
+repair it single-handed. He telephoned to Headquarters. Help was sent at
+once, and he had orders to drive to the Depot as soon as he could: he
+was not to trouble about the boulevard Exelmans station; that, for once,
+could be cleared the following morning. Unfortunately the telephone
+messages and replies had taken up a certain amount of time. When they
+telephoned to the boulevard Exelmans station, from Headquarters, to warn
+them not to expect the injured Salad Basket, the Depot man who was
+telephoning was extremely surprised to hear that the Salad Basket had
+already passed on to the Auteuil station and had taken away the arrested
+individuals there, notably this famous Jules!..."
+
+"I never calculated on this!" cried Fandor.
+
+"The truth is, my dear fellow, that Salad Basket of yours was not
+knocked out of action by an unlucky accident--the knock-out was
+intentional--was carefully planned! It was done to stop your van from
+reaching the Auteuil station!... While your Basket was being repaired,
+another Basket appeared at the Auteuil clearing station! This, if you
+please, had been stolen! It was standing before the Palais de Justice.
+Two accomplices took possession of it and drove away. The daring rascals
+were suitably disguised, of course! They produced false papers at
+Auteuil, got them endorsed, went through the regular forms, and carried
+off the men from the detention cells, under the very nose and eyes of
+the superintendent himself!"
+
+"What became of the stolen Basket?" snapped Fandor.
+
+"It was found at dawn near the fortifications, and, need I say--empty!"
+
+"So that Jules has escaped?"
+
+"As you say!..."
+
+"And the car which intentionally knocked my Salad Basket out of
+action--whose was it?"
+
+Monsieur Fuselier smiled.
+
+"Oh, it's a queer affair, in fact, it may lead to the wind-up of all the
+Dollon business--we may now get to the bottom of that series of
+crimes!... You will never guess who is the owner of that car,
+Fandor?..."
+
+"No, I am no good at guessing riddles just now ... besides, I hate
+them!" Fandor was nettled, exasperated!
+
+"We got the number of the car from a witness of the smash-up; and we
+have verified its correctness. Well, my dear fellow, the owner of that
+car is--Thomery!"
+
+"Thomery!" gasped Fandor.
+
+"Yes. I have summoned him to appear before me--the summons has just been
+issued. Between you and me, I think Thomery is guilty. When he appears
+here, in, say an hour from now, I shall issue a writ of arrest against
+this sugar refiner financier, and we don't know what else!"
+
+But, no sooner had Monsieur Fuselier finished his statement--a statement
+which he fully expected would strike his young reporter friend dumb with
+amazement--than Fandor threw himself back in his chair and roared with
+laughter.
+
+The magistrate was taken aback!...
+
+"But ... what the devil do you find to laugh at in that?"
+
+Fandor had already checked his hilarity.
+
+"Oh, it's nothing! Only, Fuselier, I ask myself, if really and truly,
+Monsieur Thomery, who is a very big fellow solidly built, has been able
+to discover a dodge, by means of which he can leave Jacques Dollon's
+imprints here, there and everywhere!"
+
+"But he does not leave Jacques Dollon's imprints, because Dollon is
+living, because he came to see his sister--why, you admitted that
+yourself!"
+
+"Why, of course! It's true!... Jacques Dollon is alive.... I had
+forgotten.... Thomery can only be his accomplice then!" declared Fandor.
+And as Monsieur Fuselier stared at him, astonished at the way he had
+received the sensational news of the night, Fandor rose to take his
+leave.
+
+"My dear Fuselier, will you allow me to express my opinion?..."
+
+Monsieur Fuselier nodded.
+
+"Well, I am sure, that with regard to this affair, there are more
+surprises in store for us: you have not got the answer to the
+riddle--not yet!"
+
+With that, Fandor smiled and bowed, and left the magistrate's room. He
+quitted the Palais, half-smiling, half-serious.... What was he going to
+do next?
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+AN EXECUTION
+
+
+"Not much water about, is there?"
+
+"That's so, old 'un.... If I'd known, it's boats I'd have taken to!"
+
+"Bah! Your shoes are big enough. That's not saying it's weather for a
+Christian to be out in!"
+
+"Don't you grumble, old 'un! The more it comes down cats and dogs, the
+fewer stumps will be stirring out doors!... But a comrade or two will be
+on the prowl, eh?"
+
+"Right-o, old bird!... Keep a lookout!... Sure he'll come this way?"
+
+"You bet your nut he will!... He got my bit of a scrawl this
+morning...."
+
+"What then?"
+
+"Shut up! Shut up! Folks coming!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The night was inky black. Rain fell with sudden violence, threshed and
+driven by icy gusts of wind. The hour was late: the rue Raffet deserted
+save for the two men who had ventured out into the tempestuous darkness.
+They advanced with difficulty, side by side, speaking low. Rough
+customers to deal with. Their faces were emaciated from excessive
+drinking: their eyes gleamed, their voices were hoarse: a brutal pair!
+But their movements were souple and lively: they walked with that
+ungainly swagger affected by the light-fingered gentry and the criminals
+of the underworld of Paris.
+
+"And what did you say in your scrawl?"
+
+"Oh, medlars! Take-ins! You know!... I didn't put my fist to it,
+though!"
+
+"Who then?"
+
+"You ask that?"
+
+"I'm no wizard! If it wasn't your fist, whose then?"
+
+"My woman...."
+
+"Ernestine?"
+
+"Yes. Ernestine."
+
+They struggled on through the squally darkness. Then one of the two
+broke the silence.
+
+"You're not jealous, Beadle, making your girl write letters to such
+folk?"
+
+That sinister hooligan, the Beadle, burst out laughing.
+
+"Jealous? Me? Jealous of Ernestine? You make me laugh, you really do,
+old Beard!"
+
+But Beard did not share his companion's mirth. He leaned against a
+palisade to take breath, while a little sheltered from the fierce
+onslaughts of the wind.
+
+"I tell you what," he said in a gruff and threatening voice: "I don't
+like such dodges--like those of this evening...."
+
+"Why so, monsieur?"
+
+"Why, because, after all, it's a comrade!"
+
+"But he's betrayed--a traitor he is!"
+
+"What do we know about it?"
+
+The Beadle nodded; reflected.
+
+"What does anyone know about it?" he said at last....
+
+"Why, when the comrades told us, weren't they surprised, one and all?
+Nibet, Toulouche, even Mimile--they didn't hesitate, not one of them!...
+Well then, old 'un, as all the pals were of one mind, why hesitate?
+What's the use of discussing!... but, between you and me, I don't relish
+it either--it bothers me to go for a pal!..."
+
+Just then the tempest redoubled its fury: it seemed to the cowering men
+as though all the devils of the storm were galloping down the wind.
+Somewhere there was a moon, for scurrying clouds were dancing a witches'
+saraband across a faintly clearer sky. The unseen moon was mastering the
+obscurity of this midnight hour.
+
+By now, the two sinister beings were nearing the rue du Docteur-Blanche.
+They were passing a garden, in which tall poplars, caught by the squall,
+took fantastic shapes: they were nightmare trees, terrifyingly strange.
+
+"No more to be said," remarked the Beadle. "The scene is set!... Where
+is the meeting place?"
+
+"A hundred yards from there--a little before the corner of the boulevard
+Montmorency...."
+
+"Good! And the trap?"
+
+"It waits for us a little further off."
+
+"Who's aboard it?"
+
+"Mimile."
+
+"That's good."
+
+The two men were now half-way along rue Raffet. The watch had begun.
+Gripped by the cold they waited in silence.... The minutes passed
+slowly, slowly, in the deserted street ... The Beard put his hand on the
+Beadle's shoulder.... A vague sound could be heard in the distance: the
+steps could be distinguished; some pedestrian was coming up the rue
+Raffet in their direction.
+
+"It is he!" whispered the Beadle.
+
+"It is he!" affirmed the Beard. "He's not oversteady on his feet!"
+
+"Perhaps he's ill shod!"
+
+The two spoke low and in a jesting tone: it relieved the painful tension
+of the moment--a comrade was marching to meet his death, and theirs the
+hands to deal that death--but not yet: it was a reaction against their
+sense of the looming tragedy of this dark hour!
+
+Now a man's advancing figure could be discerned. He came nearer. He was
+plainly, by the cut of his garments, an indoor servant. The collar of
+his coat was turned up: he had his hands in his pockets: he walked fast.
+
+"Hey! You down there! The gang!" cried the Beard, hailing the oncoming
+figure.
+
+"Ah, it's you?"
+
+"Yes, it's me, comrade."
+
+"And you too, Beadle?"
+
+"As you say...."
+
+"What do you want of me? Since my arrest and escape from the Salad
+Basket, I'm not anxious to stroll about this neighbourhood--out with
+it!"
+
+The Beard said in a joking tone:
+
+"You don't suspect, then? Speak out, Jules!..."
+
+Jules--for it was indeed he--shook his head.
+
+"My word, I have no idea what you want!... Who wrote to me this morning?
+Ernestine?"
+
+Neither the Beadle nor Beard replied.
+
+The three men stood talking in the deserted street, bending their heads
+and backs under the rain, which was now pouring harder than ever.
+
+"Come on then! Make haste!" said Jules. "Come now, tell me what's the
+point--what's up--spit it out, comrades!... I don't want to be soaked to
+the skin, you know!"
+
+The Beadle forced the pace: he lifted his great hairy sinewy hand,
+brought it down heavily on Jules' shoulder, and in a changed voice,
+harsh, rough, imperative, he commanded:
+
+"You must follow us!" Already he had his man fast. The unsuspicious
+Jules did not grasp the situation in the least.
+
+"Follow you?" he asked. "As to that, certainly not!... No more walking
+for me in such weather. Wait for a sunny day, say I!... But whatever is
+the matter with you--eh?... What?... Why are you sticking out your jaws
+at me like this? Out with it, my lambs!... Where am I to follow you?...
+You won't say, Messieurs Beadle and Beard?
+
+"You won't say?..."
+
+Beard moved a step and got behind Jules unnoticed. He repeated in the
+same tone, harsh, threatening:
+
+"You've got to follow us, I tell you!"
+
+Instinctively Jules tried to turn round. The Beadle's strong grip kept
+him motionless. Then he understood. He was afraid.
+
+"What's come to you?" he cried in a trembling voice.
+
+The Beadle cut him short.
+
+"Enough! Will you follow us? Yes or no?"
+
+Jules was going to say "no!" but he had not the time! Quick as lightning
+the Beadle flung a long scarf round his neck, stuck his knee into his
+victim's back, and pulled!
+
+Jules uttered a faint groan; but, half stifled, nearly strangled, he had
+not the strength to attempt the slightest self-defence.
+
+Directly he was flung backwards on the ground, where he measured his
+length and lay nearly stunned, Beard jumped on him, knelt on his chest,
+and pinioned him. Jules lay motionless.
+
+The Beard now began tying up the legs of their victim.
+
+"Pass me a scarf!"
+
+"There it is, old 'un!"
+
+"Very good, I am going to apply a 'Be Discreet.'"
+
+The "Be Discreet" of the Beard was a gag, which he rolled round the
+servant's head in expert fashion.
+
+"Feet firm?" asked the Beard.
+
+"Oh, jolly fine!" said the Beadle. He turned his man over as though he
+were a bale of goods. Now he tied his victim's hands behind his back.
+
+"Is it far to go to the jaunting car?"
+
+"No--for two sous, that's it!"
+
+A motor-car was indeed coming slowly and noiselessly along rue Raffet:
+it was a sumptuous car!
+
+"And if it is not he?"
+
+"Stick him up against the bank ... dark as it is, there's every chance
+he won't be seen."
+
+Rapidly, the doughty two stuck Jules against the bank at the side of the
+road: the unfortunate creature had fainted. Then they took out their
+cigarettes, and going a few steps away, they pretended to be sheltering
+themselves in order to strike a light.
+
+They need not have taken this precaution.
+
+The car stopped in front of them. The familiar voice of Mimile was
+heard:
+
+"Got the rabbit then?"
+
+"Yes, old 'un!"
+
+"Pitch it into the balloon then!"
+
+"The balloon?" questioned the Beadle. "Whatever's that?"
+
+Emilet laughed.
+
+"At times, my brothers, your ignorance, mechanically speaking, is
+crass!... The balloon is the back part of my car, I'd have you know."
+
+The Beard sniggered.
+
+"Good!... Pick it up! Now, Beadle!"
+
+The two seized the body of Jules by shoulders and feet, and flung it
+brutally into the limousine.
+
+A rug, negligently flung over the body of the trussed Jules, hid him
+from observation.
+
+"Now we'll embark," announced Emilet.
+
+As a precaution, the young hooligan asked:
+
+"The bloke snores?"
+
+"Yes," replied the Beadle. "He is travelling in No Nightmare Land...."
+The Beadle laughed.
+
+But Emilet was alarmed.
+
+"You haven't snuffed him out, have you?"
+
+"No danger of it! He's only shamming!"
+
+"Off, then!" said Emilet.
+
+They rolled away at top speed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The bandits' lair had been well chosen by their chiefs. It was a vast
+cellar, with a vaulted roof, and earthen walls bedewed with an icy
+humidity. Axes, mattocks, shovels, rakes, and watering cans lay
+scattered on the ground: these were worn out tools: they had not served
+their purpose for many a day.
+
+The lantern, a kind of cresset protected by a wire globe, was suspended
+from the roof by a string. It shed a faint and wavering light, creating
+weird shadows in that far-stretching space, too vast for the
+insufficient illumination.
+
+Directly beneath the cresset lantern, inside the circle of light it
+threw upon the ground, a fantastic group of human creatures pressed
+close to one another, drinking, shouting, chattering, singing.
+
+A clean-shaven man, whose suspicious little eyes were perpetually
+blinking, turned to a young woman.
+
+"Look here, Ernestine, my beauty, are you certain the Beadle understood
+that we should be waiting for him here?"
+
+Big Ernestine, who was crouching on the ground and warming her hands at
+a wood fire, throwing up clouds of smoke, shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"Stop it, do! You say things over and over again, like a clock,
+Nibet!... Since I've told you _yes_--_yes_ it is--there now, and be
+hanged to you!... You don't by chance fancy the Beadle has been made a
+mouthful of, do you?"
+
+Roars of laughter greeted this. Nibet was not one of the inner circle;
+he was not much of a favourite in the band of Numbers. It is true that
+they reckoned him a comrade, useful, faithful, that they felt safe with
+him; but they bore him a grudge because of his regular employment,
+because of his position, because he was an official.... And, first and
+last, his warder's uniform impressed the jail birds unpleasantly.
+
+But Nibet was not the man to allow himself to be intimidated.
+
+"All the same," said he, "I ask where the three of them have got to?...
+If they know the mushroom bed, they should have been back long ago!" He
+shouted to an old woman.
+
+"Eh, Toulouche, tell us the time!"
+
+But Mother Toulouche shook her head.
+
+"I haven't a watch!"
+
+There was a murmur of protestation. The seven or eight hooligans
+assembled there awaiting the return of the Beard and the Beadle, sent
+with Emilet to kidnap Jules, could not believe that. Mother Toulouche
+had told the truth.
+
+The Sailor caught the old woman by the shoulders and shook her, and went
+on shaking her.
+
+"Liar! Aren't you ashamed to be in a funk with us?... Ever since this
+blessed Mother Toulouche has sold winkles and many other things, ever
+since she began to make a little purse for herself, which must be a big
+purse by now, a purse everyone here has sweated to fill to the brim, she
+has always distrusted us!... You say you haven't a watch! I tell you,
+you've got dozens of 'em!..."
+
+Big Ernestine interrupted.
+
+"It's a half-hour over the hour agreed...."
+
+A shudder ran through the assembly: Nibet, finger on lip, made a sign
+that they were to listen.
+
+Then, in the mushroom bed, no longer in use, which the band of Numbers
+had recently adopted as their meeting place, a profound silence fell....
+
+"There they are!" said Nibet.
+
+Big Ernestine leaped up, left the fire, advanced to the far end of the
+cellar, and imitated the cry of a screech owl to perfection. There was a
+similar cry in response.
+
+"It's all right. They're here!" she said. She returned to the fire and
+sat down. But Nibet seized the girl and forced her to get up again.
+
+"Go along with you! Quick march!" he said roughly.
+
+She protested. Nibet stopped her.
+
+"Oh, we can't stand listening to you!... Ho there, Sailor!... Come
+here!... Sit down on this plank! You, the Beadle, and me--we're to be
+the judges.... Beard makes the accusation: and, if her heart tells her
+to, Ernestine will defend him."
+
+"I'd rather spit at the tell-tale!... You can tear him to bits as far as
+I'm concerned!" cried the girl. "There's nothing disgusts me so much as
+a tell-tale!"
+
+The hooligans crowded round big Ernestine. They applauded her
+ironically; for they all knew that, once upon a time, she had been
+strongly suspected of having dealings with, what they called, "The dirty
+lot at the Bobby's Nest."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Silence fell once more. They could hear the rasp of the rope unrolling
+from a hand windlass attached to an enormous bucket. This was the
+primitive lift.
+
+Moments passed. The hooligans had formed a circle beneath the black hole
+where the bucket moved up and down.
+
+"It goes, old Beard?" questioned Nibet, gazing upwards.
+
+"It goes, old bloke!"
+
+"Brought the game?"
+
+"That's what we're sending down now!..."
+
+"That's a bit of all right!"
+
+Sailor now seized the trussed Jules from the bucket and flung him on the
+ground.
+
+"Damaged goods, that--eh?" he laughed evilly.
+
+The Beadle, Beard, and Emilet were coming down in turn. The group below
+bent curiously over the prisoner.
+
+"He's soft--that sort is!" cried Ernestine. And tapping him on the face
+with her foot, big Ernestine tried to make Jules show signs of life.
+Beard dropped out of the bucket and stopped the game.
+
+"Let's see, Ernestine?... Stop it now!"
+
+After gripping the hand of each comrade in turn, after hugging a bottle
+and draining it in a long draught, emptying it to the dregs, Beard flung
+it aside.
+
+"Let's get to work--no time to waste!... If we finish him off, we'll
+have to get rid of him before morning!"
+
+Sailor lifted Jules with the aid of two comrades. They propped him
+against a massive pillar of wood which supported the cellar roof. They
+bound their wretched victim to it with strong cords.
+
+Meanwhile, Ernestine was unwinding the gag.
+
+"Take your places on the tribunal!" commanded Nibet.
+
+"And you others, a glass of pick-me-up for the fellow!"
+
+The pick-me-up intended to restore Jules to consciousness was brought by
+Mother Toulouche, under the form of a large earthen pot full of cold
+water. She dashed the water in the prisoner's face.
+
+Jules slowly opened his eyes and regained his wits, amidst an ominous
+silence. The band watched his return to life with evil smiles: they
+quietly watched his pallid face turn a livid green with terror.
+
+The wretched creature could not utter a syllable. He stared wildly at
+those about him, his friends of yesterday, at those seated on the mock
+judgment bench who, crouching forward, were observing him with sardonic
+smiles.
+
+Nibet put a question.
+
+"You hear and understand us, Jules?"
+
+"Pity!" howled the victim.
+
+Nibet was indifferent to the cry.
+
+"He understands!... For my part, I am all for keeping to a proper
+procedure.... I would not have agreed to sit in judgment on him if he
+had been unable to defend himself.... We don't act that way down here!"
+
+Turning to his acolytes for signs of their approval, he continued:
+
+"Beard! The word is with you! Let us hear why he has been brought up to
+judgment!... Tell us what he is accused of!... Bring up all there is
+against him!"
+
+Beard, who was marching up and down between the hooligan tribunal and
+the accused, who was half dead, and incapable of making a rational
+statement, stopped, squared himself with an air of satisfaction, and
+began his speech for the prosecution.
+
+"Jules, has anyone ever done you any harm here?... Has anyone played
+cowardly tricks on you?... Set traps to catch you in?... Have you ever
+been cheated out of your fair share of the spoil?... Is there anything
+you can bring up against us?... No?... Well, here's what we have against
+you ... it's not worth while lying about it either!... You are the one
+who has taken the wind out of our sails over the Danidoff affair ... do
+you confess that?"
+
+In a voice barely intelligible Jules gasped out:
+
+"Beard ... I don't understand you!... I have done nothing--nothing....
+What have you against me?..."
+
+Beard took his time.
+
+Planted before the prisoner, with hip stuck out and hand in pocket, the
+other hand raised in tragic invocation towards his comrades:
+
+"You have heard?... Monsieur does not understand!... He has not the
+pluck to be open and aboveboard!"
+
+Turning again to the wretched captive, he continued:
+
+"Well, I'm going to explain ... it was you, wasn't it, who had to put
+through the robbery of the lady's jewels?... Well, do you know what you
+did? Do you want me to tell you?... Instead of lending us a hand as was
+promised and sworn, you kept the cake for yourself!... In other words,
+you, and some of your sort, serving at the ball, put your heads
+together, and shut up the lady in the room they found her in; and that
+way, you got out of sharing with us!... So we have been done in the eye
+over that deal!... The proof that you have comrades we know nothing
+about is, that yesterday when you were done in, they found a way to get
+you out of the Salad Basket!... It wasn't us!... But to return to the
+Danidoff robbery ... oh, you must have laughed then!... But everyone has
+his turn ... you are going to laugh on the wrong side of your mouth
+now!... Do you know what they call it--what you've done--dared to do?"
+
+In the same strangled voice, Jules managed to get out the words:
+
+"But it's not true!... I swear to you ..."
+
+Beard did not listen.
+
+"There's not one of our lot who would give me the lie!... To behave like
+that is treachery!... You have betrayed the Numbers. There it is in a
+nutshell!... What have you to reply to that?"
+
+For the third time, Jules repeated in a hoarse whisper, for he felt life
+was gradually leaving him: an awful fear gripped him, he saw he was
+completely done for.
+
+"I swear I did not do that!... I didn't rob the princess.... I don't
+even know who did!"
+
+Jules was, perhaps, speaking the truth, but he took the worst way to
+defend himself.... If he had had pluck and wit enough to take the
+Beard's accusation with a high hand, if he had met threats with violent
+denial and assertion, it is quite possible he might have made an
+impression in his favour; but he cried for pity and for mercy from men
+who were pitiless!
+
+He was afraid!... His fear was shown by the convulsive trembling which
+agitated his wretched body, by his ghastly pallor, by the cold drops of
+sweat rolling down his forehead.... He was no longer a man: it was a
+lamentable bit of human wreckage the hooligans had before them!... And
+the more lamentable this wreck showed itself to be, the less worthy of
+their interest it seemed!
+
+When Jules gasped out once again:
+
+"I swear to you it was not I! No!... I did not do it!"
+
+The hooligans, moved by a common impulse, rose, indignant, furious, mad
+with rage.
+
+"That's a good one, that is!" yelled Nibet, who, beside himself with
+rage, suddenly forgot his avowed respect for judicial forms.
+
+"Since he is determined to tell lies, and hasn't the pluck to say what
+he's done, there's only one thing for us to do, and that's to stop his
+mouth up!... Ernestine, put the plug back!"
+
+And as the girl once more rolled the scarf round and round the head of
+the miserable Jules, Nibet turned to his comrades.
+
+"Now then? One hasn't any need to waste more time over it!... We know
+all the story--not so?... It's settled, I tell you!... A fellow who has
+done what he has done, what does he deserve?... You answer first,
+Mother Toulouche, since you are the oldest?..."
+
+Mother Toulouche stretched out a trembling hand, as though calling on
+Heaven to witness an oath.
+
+"I," said the old woman, with a wicked gleam in her eyes. "I don't
+hesitate!... Comrades who flinch, sneaks who betray, get rid of them,
+say I!... I condemn him to death!..."
+
+The old woman's sentence was greeted with loud applause.
+
+Nibet resumed.
+
+"It is said!... It is unanimous!... Make a quick finish, my lads!...
+Since each has been injured, let each take his revenge! I say: Death by
+the hammer!"
+
+In that smoke-thickened air rose a chorus of hate and of vengeance.
+
+"Death by the hammer! Death by the hammer!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In that noisome lair of the bandits a horrible scene ensued.
+
+Mother Toulouche went groping in a dark corner. She searched for, and
+found, a blacksmith's hammer. She lifted it with trembling hands, and
+planting herself in front of the victim, more dead than alive, she said
+in a menacing voice:
+
+"You did harm to the Numbers! You wronged them! Here goes for that
+then!"
+
+The hammer described a quarter of a circle in the air and descended in a
+smashing blow on the wretched victim's face!
+
+The awful punishment had begun!
+
+According to age, one after another, the hooligans passed on the hammer,
+and, in a blind passion of hate, beat followed beat on the agonising
+body of Jules!
+
+At last the terrible agony was over and done! The passion of hate, the
+lust for revenge had burnt themselves out. Jules had expiated the crime
+they had imputed to him!
+
+The band were the victims of a paralysing fatigue. Emilet flung the
+blood-stained hammer into a far corner of their den.
+
+"Well done!" said he. "He has paid the price!"
+
+Emilet's eyes fell on Nibet. He was leaning against the wall, and, with
+folded arms, was watching the scene in which he had taken no part.
+Walking up to the warder, Emilet demanded:
+
+"Ho! Ho! You backed out of it, did you, my boy?... You didn't have a
+throw, did you?... No?..."
+
+Nibet grinned sardonically.
+
+"Don't talk rubbish, Emilet!... If I have stood aside, I had my reasons
+for doing so.... We haven't done with Jules yet!... Not by a long
+chalk!... Now that he's been killed, he's got to be got rid of--isn't
+that true?... Look at yourselves, my lambs! You are covered with red!...
+It will take you all of an hour to make yourselves presentable!... Now,
+look at me! I'm neat and clean ... and I have a plan ... a famous plan
+to rid us of that corpse there! Now, just you stir your stumps,
+Emilet!... I am going off to make preparations!... I'll give you ten
+minutes to make yourself fit to be seen ... it's we two are to be the
+undertakers; and I swear to you, that we will give them no end of
+trouble to the curiosity mongers at Police Headquarters!"
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+FROM VAUGIRARD TO MONTMARTRE
+
+
+On the boulevard du Palais, Jerome Fandor looked at his watch: it was
+half an hour after noon.
+
+"The hour for copy! Courage! I will go to _La Capitale_."
+
+Scarcely had he put foot in the large hall when the editorial secretary
+called:
+
+"There you are, Fandor!... At last!... That's a good thing!... Whatever
+have you been up to since yesterday evening? I got them to telephone to
+you twice, but they could not get on to you, try as they might. My dear
+fellow, you really mustn't absent yourself without giving us warning."
+
+Fandor looked jovial: certainly not repentant.
+
+"Oh, say at once that I've been in the country!... But seriously, what
+did you want me for? Is there anything new?..."
+
+"A most mysterious scandal!..."
+
+"Another?"
+
+"Yes. You know Thomery, the sugar refiner?"
+
+"Yes, I know him!"
+
+"Well--he has disappeared!... No one knows where he is!"
+
+Fandor took the news stolidly.
+
+"You don't astonish me: you must be prepared for anything from those
+sort of people!..."
+
+It was the turn of the secretary to be surprised at Fandor's calmness.
+
+"But, old man, I am telling you of a disappearance which is causing any
+amount of talk in Paris!... You don't seem to grasp the situation!
+Surely you know that Thomery represents one of the biggest fortunes
+known?"
+
+"I know he is worth a lot."
+
+"His flight will bring ruin to many."
+
+"Others will probably be enriched by it!"
+
+"Probably. That is not our concern. What we are after are details about
+his disappearance. You are free to-day, are you not? Will you take the
+affair in hand then? I would put off the appearance of the paper for
+half an hour rather than not have details to report which would throw
+some light on this extraordinary affair."
+
+Then, as Fandor did not show the slightest intention of going in search
+of material for a Thomery article, the secretary laughed.
+
+"Why don't you start on the trail, Fandor?... My word, I don't recognise
+a Fandor who is not off like a zigzag of lightning on such a reporting
+job as this!... We want illuminating details, my dear man!"
+
+"You think I haven't got any, then?... Be easy: this evening's issue of
+_La Capitale_ will have all the details you could desire on the
+vanishing of Thomery."
+
+Thereupon, Fandor turned on his heel without further explanation, and
+went towards one of his colleagues, who went by the title of "Financier
+of the paper." The Financier had an official manner, and had an office
+of his own, the walls of which were carefully padded, for Marville--that
+was his name--frequently received visits from important personages.
+
+Fandor began questioning him on the subject of Thomery's disappearance.
+
+"Tell me, my dear fellow, what is happening in the financial world, now
+that Thomery has disappeared."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Where is the money going--all the coppers?"
+
+"The coppers?"
+
+"Why, yes! I fancy that when an old fellow like that does the vanishing
+trick, there are terrible results on the Bourse? Will you be kind
+enough to explain what does happen in such a case?"
+
+Very much flattered by Fandor's request, Marville cried:
+
+"But, my boy, you are asking for nothing less than a course of political
+economy--but I cannot do that--on the spur of the moment!... State
+precisely what you want to know."
+
+"What I want to know is just this: Who loses money through Thomery's
+disappearance?"
+
+The Financier raised his hands to Heaven.
+
+"But everybody! Everybody!... Thomery was a daring fellow: without him
+his business is nothing!... There was a big failure on the market
+to-day."
+
+"Good, but who gains by it?"
+
+"How, who gains by it?"
+
+"Yes. I presume Thomery's disappearance must be profitable to someone?
+Can you think of any people to whose interest it would be that this old
+fellow should disappear?"
+
+The Financier reflected.
+
+"Those who gain money by the disappearance of Thomery--only the
+speculators, I should say. Suppose now that a Monsieur Tartempion had
+bought Thomery shares at ninety francs. To-day these shares would not be
+worth more than seventy francs: Tartempion loses money. But let us
+suppose some financier speculates on the probable fall of Thomery
+shares, and has sold to clients speculating on the rise of these shares;
+these shares to be delivered in a fortnight, at a price of ninety
+francs. If Thomery was still there, his shares would be worth, possibly,
+the ninety francs, possibly more. In the first case, the financier's
+deal would amount to nothing: in the second case, his deal would be a
+deplorable one, because he would be obliged to deliver at an inferior
+price, and would be responsible for the difference...."
+
+"Whilst Thomery dead ..."
+
+"Dead--no! But simply in flight, his shares fall to nothing, and this
+same financier may buy at sixty francs which he must deliver at ninety
+francs in fifteen days. In that case he has done excellent business."
+
+"Excellent, certainly ... and ... tell me, my dear Marville, do you know
+if there has been any such deal in Thomery shares on a large scale?"
+
+"Ah! You ask me more than I can tell you now ... but that would be known
+at the Bourse."
+
+No doubt Jerome Fandor was going to continue his interrogation, but
+there was a great disturbance in the editorial room near by. They were
+shouting:
+
+"Fandor! Fandor!"
+
+The editorial secretary entered the Financier's room, and, catching
+sight of Fandor, he cried:
+
+"What's the meaning of this? What are you up to here? I told you this
+Thomery affair was important.... Be off for the news as quick as you
+can.... Here is the _Havas_. It seems they have just found Thomery's
+body in a little apartment in the rue Lecourbe."
+
+Fandor forced himself to appear very interested.
+
+"Already! The police have been quick!... I also had an idea that that
+Thomery had more than simply disappeared!"
+
+"You had that idea?" asked the startled secretary.
+
+"Yes, my dear fellow, I had--absolutely!"
+
+After a silence, Fandor added:
+
+"All the same, I am going out to get news. In half an hour's time, I
+will telephone details of the death. Does the _Havas_ say whether it is
+a crime or a suicide?"
+
+"No. Evidently the police know nothing."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Monsieur Havard, I am delighted to meet you!... Surely now, you will
+not refuse me a little interview?"
+
+"Not I, my dear Fandor! I know only too well that you would not take
+'no' for an answer."
+
+"And you are right. I beg of you to give me some details, not as regards
+Thomery's death, for I have already made my little investigation
+touching that; but as to how the police managed to find the poor man's
+body."
+
+"In the easiest way in the world. Monsieur Thomery's servants were very
+much astonished yesterday morning, when they could not find their master
+in the house.
+
+"After eleven, Thomery's absence from the Bourse gave rise to
+disquieting rumors. He had some big deals to put through, therefore his
+absence could only be accounted for in one way--he had had an accident
+of some sort.
+
+"Naturally enough, they warned Headquarters, and at once I suspected
+there might be a little scandal of some sort.... You guess that I
+immediately went myself to Thomery's house?... I examined his papers;
+and I found by chance three receipts for the rent of a flat, in the name
+of Monsieur Durand, rue Lecourbe. One of them was of recent date. I, of
+course, sent one of my men to ascertain who lived there! This man
+learned from the portress that there was a new tenant there, who had not
+yet moved in with his furniture; but who, the evening before, had
+brought in a heavy trunk.... My man went up to this flat, and had the
+door opened. You know under what conditions he found Thomery's dead
+body."
+
+"And you did not find indications which went to show why Monsieur
+Thomery committed suicide?"
+
+"Committed suicide?... When a financier disappears, my Fandor, one is
+always tempted to cry 'suicide'; but, this time, I confess to you that I
+do not think it was anything of the kind!..."
+
+"Because?"
+
+"Because"--and Monsieur Havard bent his head. "Well, when I reached the
+scene of the crime I immediately thought that we were not face to face
+with a suicide. A man who wishes to kill himself, and to kill himself
+because of money affairs, a man like Thomery, does not feel the
+necessity of committing suicide in a little flat rented under a false
+name, and in front of a trunk, which you know, do you not, belonged to
+Mademoiselle Dollon! One might swear that everything was arranged
+expressly to make anyone believe that Thomery had strangled himself,
+after having stolen the trunk, for some unknown reason!"
+
+"You did not find any kind of clue?"
+
+"Yes, indeed! And you know it as well as I do, for I have no doubt the
+extraordinary event has been the gossip of the neighbourhood. On the
+cover of the trunk we have once again found an imprint, a very clear
+impression--the famous imprint of Jacques Dollon!..."
+
+"And you found nothing else?"
+
+"Yes, in the dust on the floor, we found the marks of steps, numerous
+foot marks: we have made tracings of them."
+
+"My steps, evidently," thought Fandor. But what he said was:
+
+"What, in short, is your view of the general position, Monsieur Havard?"
+
+"I am very much bothered about it. For my part, I think we are once
+again faced by another of Jacques Dollon's crimes. This wretch, after
+having attempted to assassinate his sister, has learned that we were
+going to search mademoiselle's room. He then made arrangements to steal
+this trunk, by pretending to be a police inspector, as you know; then he
+brought the trunk to this flat, examined its contents thoroughly, and
+having some special interest in the sugar refiner's death, he managed to
+get him to come to the flat, and there assassinated him, leaving his
+dead body in front of this trunk, where it was bound to be seen; all
+this he did in order to tangle the traces and perplex those on his
+track...."
+
+"But how do you explain the fact of Jacques Dollon being so simple as to
+leave the imprints of his hand everywhere?... Deuce take it, this
+individual is at liberty: he reads the papers.... He knows that Monsieur
+Bertillon is tracing him!... So great a criminal would certainly be on
+his guard!"
+
+"Of course! Such a successful criminal as Dollon has shown himself to
+be, must have resources at his disposal, which allow him to laugh at the
+police. He does not trouble to cover his tracks; it is enough for him
+that he should escape us."
+
+As Fandor could not suppress a smile, the chief of the detective force
+added:
+
+"Oh, we shall finish by arresting Dollon, have no fear! So far he has
+quite extraordinary luck in his favour, but the luck will turn, and we
+shall put our hand on his collar!"
+
+"I certainly hope you may. But what are you going to do now?"
+
+The two had stopped on the edge of the pavement, and were talking
+without paying any attention to the passers-by who rubbed shoulders with
+them. The well-known journalist and the important police official were
+unrecognised.
+
+Monsieur Havard took Fandor's arm.
+
+"Look here, come along with me, Fandor? Just the time to telephone to a
+police station, and then I will take you with me to make a fresh
+investigation."
+
+"Where!"
+
+"At Jacques Dollon's studio. I have kept the key of the house, and I
+wish to see whether I can find any other rent receipts made out in the
+name of Durand. Though I can see how Dollon inveigled Dollon into a
+trap, I do not understand how it came about that Thomery paid the rent
+of that trap. There is some subtle contrivance of Dollon's here; I want
+to get to the bottom of it.... Will you come to rue Norvins?"
+
+"I jolly well will!" cried Fandor.
+
+The chief of the detective force telephoned to Headquarters, whilst
+Fandor got into communication with _La Capitale_. He sent on a report of
+the Thomery case up to that moment.
+
+Quitting the police station, the two men hailed a cab, and were driven
+to the rue Norvins.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As far as they could tell, the artist's house had not been entered since
+Elizabeth Dollon's departure.
+
+The neglected garden, with its rank growth of grass and weeds, gave an
+added air of melancholy to the deserted house.
+
+Monsieur Havard put the key in the lock of the front door.
+
+"Don't you think, Fandor, it gives one a queer feeling to enter a house
+where an unaccountable crime has been committed?" The key grated in the
+lock, and Monsieur Havard added:
+
+"In spite of oneself, there is the feeling that some terrifying spectre
+is lurking within!"
+
+"Or a ghost!" said Fandor.
+
+And as the door was unlocked and opened, our journalist asked:
+
+"Where shall we start this domiciliary visit?"
+
+"Let us begin with the studio," replied Monsieur Havard, mounting to the
+first story.
+
+No sooner had they entered the room, than a double cry escaped from the
+two men.
+
+"Oh!..."
+
+"Great Heaven!..."
+
+In the very middle of the studio, there was the rigid body of a man
+hanging.
+
+They rushed forward....
+
+"Dead!" was Monsieur Havard's cry.
+
+"Horribly dead!" echoed Fandor.
+
+"Shall we never lay hands on those wretches?" Monsieur Havard stared,
+horrified, at the hanging corpse. He brought a chair, grasped the strong
+sharp knife he always carried about him, and, aided by Fandor, he cut
+the rope, laid the hanged man flat on the floor, and proceeded to
+examine the miserable remnant of a human being.
+
+The face was swollen, gashed, crushed....
+
+"The hands have been dipped in vitriol--they did not want finger prints
+taken--it is--it is Jacques Dollon!"
+
+Fandor shook his head.
+
+"Jacques Dollon? Of course, it isn't!... If it were Dollon, he would not
+hang himself here.... Why should he hang himself?"
+
+Monsieur Havard remarked:
+
+"He has not hanged himself. Again the stage has been set!... I could
+swear the man had been killed by blows from a hammer and hanged
+afterwards!... It seems to me, that if death had been caused through
+strangulation, there would have been marks round the neck.... But see,
+Fandor, the rope has hardly made a mark."
+
+"No, the man was dead when they strung him up."
+
+"It is of secondary importance!" remarked Fandor, who was preoccupied.
+
+"You are mistaken: it matters a great deal! It decidedly looks as if
+Dollon had accomplices, who wished to be rid of him."
+
+Fandor shook his head.
+
+"It is not Dollon! It cannot be Dollon!"
+
+"Look at the vitriolised hands--that was a precaution."
+
+"I say, as you did just now: it's like a set piece--a bit of slag
+assassins' stage craft."
+
+"I say, in Dollon's house, we have found Dollon at home!"
+
+Fandor was not convinced. He felt certain Dollon had lied in the Depot.
+
+"Well, Elizabeth Dollon can settle the question for us. There may be
+some physical peculiarity, some mark by which she can identify her
+brother's body!"
+
+But Fandor was examining the body very carefully. Suddenly he rose from
+his stooping posture, exclaiming:
+
+"I know who it is!"
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Jules! None other than Madame Bourrat's servant, Jules!... That is to
+say, an accomplice whom the bandits we are after wanted to be rid of. He
+might give them away when brought up for examination. That was why they
+managed his escape: they killed him afterwards, because he had served
+their turn, and was now an encumbrance."
+
+"Your explanation is plausible, Fandor; but how about the truth of it?"
+
+"This proves the truth of it!" cried Fandor, pointing to a cicatrice on
+the back of the neck of the murdered man: it was the clear mark of where
+an abscess had been.
+
+"I am certain I noticed a similar mark on the neck of Jules. He sat in
+front of me the other day, and I particularly noticed this mark. The
+dead man is Jules. I am certain it is Jules!"
+
+Monsieur Havard was silent. Presently he said:
+
+"If it is Jules ... it must be admitted that we are no further forward!"
+
+Fandor was about to utter a protest, when there was a knock on the
+studio door. Startled, the two men looked at each other anxiously.
+
+"It can only be one of the force," murmured Monsieur Havard. "I told
+them I was coming here with you, and that they were to send for me if
+necessary."
+
+The two men walked to the door. Monsieur Havard opened it. There stood a
+cyclist member of the police force. He saluted respectfully, and told
+his chief that he had come with a message from Michel.
+
+"The message?"
+
+"That the arrest is successful, chief."
+
+"Which?"
+
+"That of the band of Numbers, chief."
+
+"Good! Whom have you bagged?"
+
+"Almost the whole lot, chief!"
+
+"That is to say?"
+
+"Mother Toulouche, Beard, Mimile, otherwise Emilet, and the Cooper--and
+a few more whose names are not known."
+
+Fandor said, laughing:
+
+"Not Cranajour, I am certain."
+
+"No. Cranajour has escaped," answered the policeman.
+
+Turning to Monsieur Havard, he asked:
+
+"You have no instructions, chief?"
+
+"No. Tell me, how did the capture go?"
+
+"Perfectly, chief. They were assembled in Mother Toulouche's store. They
+went like lambs."
+
+"Good!... Good!"
+
+Monsieur Havard gave the policeman some orders. The cyclist leaped into
+the saddle and disappeared.
+
+"How did you guess that Cranajour was still at liberty?" asked Monsieur
+Havard.
+
+Fandor smiled.
+
+"Good business! You take me to be more stupid than I am. It is
+Cranajour's information which has enabled you to arrest the band of
+Numbers. Consequently!..."
+
+"Cranajour's information? You are mad, Fandor!... Whatever makes you
+imagine that Cranajour belongs to our force?"
+
+Fandor looked Monsieur Havard straight in the eye and said coolly:
+
+"Juve has never told me that he had sent in his resignation!"
+
+Monsieur Havard looked searchingly at our journalist, before remarking:
+
+"Come now! What is this you are telling me? Poor Juve?..."
+
+Fandor wished to save the chief of the detective department from telling
+useless falsehoods.
+
+"Monsieur Havard! Monsieur Havard! Interrogate the members of the band
+of Numbers, and don't trouble about how I got my information ... but, be
+sure of one thing, there are dead men of whom I could tell tales, of
+whose existence I am as well aware of as you yourself!"
+
+As the chief stared at the journalist, looking more and more astonished,
+Fandor added:
+
+"And I do not refer to Dollon! I am referring to Juve, to my dear friend
+Juve, the king of detectives!"
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+AT SAINT LAZARE
+
+
+"Hop along there! See if you can't hurry up a bit!"
+
+The warder opened the door of Elizabeth's Dollon's cell and pushed in an
+old woman--a horrid looking creature.
+
+"In with you!" commanded the warder in a harsh tone. "You are to stay
+here till to-morrow. We will find another place for you when we get
+instructions...."
+
+Poor Elizabeth Dollon stared miserably at this strange companion which
+Fate, in the person of a warder, had thrust on her.
+
+The old woman stared with no little curiosity at the pale, sad girl....
+Silence fell for a few minutes, then the new prisoner asked, in a tone
+of rough familiarity:
+
+"What's your name?"
+
+"I call myself Elizabeth!"
+
+"Don't know it!... Elizabeth, who?..."
+
+"Elizabeth Dollon...."
+
+The old woman rose from the corner of the mattress she had seated
+herself on.
+
+"True? You're Elizabeth Dollon?... Well, that's funny! Have you been
+nabbed long?..."
+
+"You ask if it is long since I was...?"
+
+"Nabbed!... Taken!... Arrested!... Eh?"
+
+Elizabeth nodded in the affirmative. It seemed to her that an infinity
+of time had passed since her imprisonment at Saint Lazare.
+
+"I was nabbed last night. If you want to know my name, I'm called Mother
+Toulouche. They say I'm one of the band of Numbers, and that I receive
+stolen goods! Lies! That's well understood!"
+
+Elizabeth had no desire to go into such an unsavoury question. This
+horrid old woman rather frightened her; but, such had been her distress
+and fears since she had been a prisoner, that it was a relief not to be
+quite alone; to have even this old creature to speak to was better than
+solitary confinement.
+
+In her character of old jail-bird, Mother Toulouche made herself quickly
+at home.
+
+"Moved to-morrow, they say I'm to be! Pity! At bottom you're not one of
+the scurvy sort, but you must be here to play spy on me, for all
+that!... When do you go out? Are you long for Saint Lago?" Alas, how
+could Elizabeth tell?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I like being a barrister," thought Fandor, as he entered Saint Lazare.
+"For the last hour I have felt a different person, much more serious,
+more sure of myself, not to say, more eloquent!... I must be eloquent,
+since I have succeeded in persuading my friend, Maitre Dubard, to get
+himself appointed officially as Mademoiselle Dollon's counsel; then to
+obtain a permit of communication, and to hand this same permit over to
+me, so that his identification papers, safely tucked away in my
+portfolio, make of me the most indisputable of Maitres Dubard!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Fandor might well congratulate himself! By means of this ruse--his own
+idea--he was enabled to see Elizabeth, not in the prison parlour, but in
+a special cell, and without a witness. As Fandor crossed the threshold
+of the sordid building, he said to himself:
+
+"I am Maitre Dubard, visiting his client, in order to prepare her
+defence!"
+
+He easily accomplished the necessary formalities, and, at last, he saw
+himself being conducted by a morose warder to a little parlour, scantily
+furnished with a table and a few stools.
+
+"Please be seated, maitre," said the surly fellow. "I'll fetch your
+client along!"
+
+Fandor put down his portfolio, but remained standing, anxious, all
+aquiver at the thought that he was about to see his dear Elizabeth
+appear between two warders, just like a common prisoner!
+
+"In a moment she will be here," thought he.... But she must on no
+account recognise him on entering! By an exclamation she might betray
+his identity and complicate things! Therefore, Fandor feigned to be
+absorbed in a newspaper he unfolded and raised, so as to hide his face
+from the approaching pair. The door opened.
+
+"Come now! Go in!..." growled the warder. "Maitre, when you wish to
+leave, you have only to ring."
+
+The door fell to, heavily, behind the warder.
+
+Fandor made a sharp movement. He stood revealed. He hurried up to
+Elizabeth.
+
+"Oh, tell me how you are, Mademoiselle Elizabeth!" he cried.
+
+But the girl was struck dumb: she grew suddenly pale, and made no reply.
+
+"Elizabeth! Elizabeth! Will you not give me your hand even? You do not
+understand why I am here? I had to see you, speak to you without a
+witness ... that's why I have passed myself off as an advocate!"
+
+The startled girl was regaining her self-control. Fandor was gazing at
+her with frankly admiring eyes.
+
+"Poor Elizabeth! How I have made you suffer!"
+
+The poor girl's eyes filled with tears.
+
+"Why have you betrayed me?" she demanded in a voice trembling with
+restrained emotion. "Oh, how could you get me arrested? You, who well
+know I am not guilty?"
+
+"You really believe I have betrayed you? You actually credited me with
+that?"
+
+These two young people, meeting in a prison parlour under such tragic
+circumstances, were hurt and even angry with each other.
+
+Elizabeth Dollon went on:
+
+"Why did you not tell me that you had found on that piece of soap traces
+of my brother's finger-marks? Why did you accuse me of having received a
+visit from him, when you yourself had proved that he was dead?"
+
+Fandor took Elizabeth's two little hands in his and pressed them long
+and tenderly.
+
+"My dear Elizabeth, when I engineered this theatrical stroke in the
+presence of the examining magistrate, in order to secure your arrest,
+believe me, I had no time to warn you of what I meant to do.... Ah, if I
+could have warned you--but it would have only disturbed you to no good
+purpose, besides--your being really taken by surprise was a help--there
+could not be any idea of collusion.... Of course, you want the answer to
+this riddle? You shall have it--that is why I am here.... Don't you
+remember, Elizabeth, that on the evening before the fatal day you told
+me that I had twice rung you up on the telephone? And that each time you
+answered the call you could not find me at the end of the line?... You
+cannot imagine what I felt when I heard you say that! I never
+telephoned! I never telephoned to the convent!
+
+"The obvious conclusion was, that the individuals who, for some reason,
+did not wish to make themselves known, did wish to keep track of you,
+and to assure themselves that you were still at the convent, rue de la
+Glaciere...."
+
+Fandor's voice trembled a little, as he went on:
+
+"And I was at once afraid, my poor child, that these people who were
+pursuing you, might be the very same who had got into Madame Bourrat's
+house, and had tried to kill you.... Ah, do you not see how greatly it
+hurt and troubled me to think that I had taken you to the convent, and
+had there placed you in security--as I thought--but where you were far
+from being safe?"
+
+Again Fandor took Elizabeth's hands in his.
+
+"You do understand now, dear child, why I had you arrested?... I felt
+you would be safe here.... You see, I could not get your persecutors
+imprisoned and so prevent them from getting at you. To imprison you was
+the alternative: you are better guarded here than elsewhere."
+
+Elizabeth smiled a little smile when she saw how moved Fandor was.
+
+"But," replied she, "there is the other point! You certainly told me
+that you were sure my brother was killed in prison--in his cell!"
+
+"Certainly, I did! The assassination of your brother was premeditated.
+If the criminals have had accomplices at the Depot, and such there
+certainly were, they have been bought over little by little.... The fact
+of your brother's murder is fresh in the memory of the police, of all,
+therefore, a special watch is kept over you. I ascertained that it would
+be so, and Fuselier himself assured me of it: there is a warder
+specially told off to keep a close guard over you, a safe man, known to
+be beyond suspicion.... No, Elizabeth, do believe me, if I was the cause
+of your horrified surprise the other day, and then of your imprisonment,
+I wished to be sure that you were as safe as it was possible to be;
+then, freed from such intense anxiety, I felt I should be at liberty to
+continue my investigations.... Do say you forgive me!"
+
+All Elizabeth could say was:
+
+"But why not have warned me?... I still can't quite see!..."
+
+"Why, because, I only thought of the plan at the last moment! Also,
+because I feared you might not be able to act surprise naturally
+enough!... It was absolutely--yes, absolutely necessary--that everyone
+should take your arrest seriously.... Surely, Elizabeth, you can
+understand that!"
+
+He repeated his plea.
+
+"Do, do say you forgive me, Elizabeth!"
+
+The smile returned to Elizabeth's lips: she was much moved.
+
+"Indeed, I do... You are always my very good friend: you think of
+everything, and you watch over me as if ..."
+
+Intimidated, blushing hotly, she stopped short, then changed the
+conversation.
+
+"Do tell me if you have heard anything fresh!"
+
+Fandor returned to his normal self also. He had sworn to himself that he
+would not tell Elizabeth he loved her, until he had succeeded in
+unravelling the tangled skein of the terrible Dollon affair.
+
+"I shall speak," thought he, "when she is once more at peace and free,
+when she is out of danger. I do not want her to consent to love me just
+because I have devoted myself to her brother's case. Elizabeth shall be
+my wife, please God; but only if I deserve her, if I can win her."
+
+And Jerome Fandor told her the story of the famous wicker trunk--but he
+did not mention Thomery's death, nor did he speak of the horrible murder
+of Jules.... What was the use of saddening Elizabeth, of adding
+needlessly to her terrors? Instead, he thought it better to learn what
+he could from her.
+
+"I have not found that famous list!" said he.
+
+"Oh, I beg your pardon!" cried Elizabeth. "I was so worried!... Just
+imagine that, I found the list after all, and I thought I had lost it!
+It was in one of my little handbags. I had put it there to bring to you.
+Here it is: they were quite willing to let me keep it!"
+
+Fandor eagerly took the paper from Elizabeth and proceeded to examine
+it. Yes, it certainly was a page torn from a note-book of medium size.
+An unknown hand had traced the following words in bold writing. The
+names succeeded one another in the form of a list.
+
+    _Baroness de Vibray, April 3. Jacques Dollon._
+    _Dep.... idem._
+    _Sonia Danidoff, April 12._
+    _Barbey-Nanteuil, May 15._
+    _Gerin...?_
+    _Madame B...?_
+    _Thomery, during May._
+    _Barbey-Nanteuil, end May._
+
+Fandor could not find anything more on the paper. Whilst Elizabeth sat
+silent, Fandor reflected:
+
+"Baroness de Vibray, April 3. Jacques Dollon ... these correspond
+exactly with the commencement of this mysterious affair: the two first
+deaths, and the date of their death.... What does _Dep._ signify? The
+initials of a name--or--yes, Dep ... Depot idem--yes, _Depot the same
+day!_ That's it! _Sonia Danidoff, April 12_ ... the full name, the exact
+date. _Barbey-Nanteuil, May 15_: the affair of rue du Quatre Septembre
+occurred May 20; that's pretty near. Two more names, and one date which
+exactly tallies. _Gerin?_... _Madame B_....? Who are they? Why no date?
+Ah, Gerin, lawyer of Madame de Vibray, a crime planned, without date,
+perhaps because he was not indispensable ... and _Thomery_! Thomery, who
+died in the middle of May, as this plan indicates! But, how about the
+last line? _Barbey-Nanteuil, end of May?_ Oh, beyond a doubt the bankers
+were to be victims of some fresh aggression on the part of the
+mysterious author of these lines!"
+
+"_Barbey-Nanteuil, end of May!_ We are at the 28th of the month: only
+three more days before the sinister date falls due! Are they to be
+attacked, or is it their money? How to defend them? How organise a trap
+for the mice?"
+
+Suddenly, Fandor looked up, saw Elizabeth's anxiety, and said quietly:
+
+"Well, this list agrees in every particular with the description you
+gave me of it, and I don't quite see what fresh information we are
+likely to get from it. However, will you leave it with me?"
+
+Fandor rose.
+
+"Ah, there is one point which has just occurred to me"--Fandor's voice
+trembled a good deal--"Do you know for a fact that your brother had
+bought Thomery shares?"
+
+"He had very few, three or four. I think the Barbey-Nanteuil got them
+for him."
+
+"And your brother had to pay for them by a certain date?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Fandor now felt he must tear himself away. He was deeply moved.
+
+"Elizabeth!... Elizabeth!" he cried. "I swear to you we shall clear up
+these dreadful mysteries amidst which we live, and more, you and I! Only
+have confidence, I implore you! Grant me a week's grace, less even!"
+Fandor pressed Elizabeth's hands as though he could never let them go!
+Such little hands, and so dear!
+
+It was not a farewell he took--it was a veritable flight he took from
+the girl who now meant so much to him!
+
+Leaving the prison, Fandor walked straight ahead, thinking aloud.
+
+"It is clear--evident! The Barbey-Nanteuils have sold Thomery shares to
+be paid up on a certain date. Thomery was murdered so that his shares
+should fall to zero, and so that the Barbey-Nanteuils should realise
+enormous sums at their monthly clearance. Next Saturday, the coffers of
+the Barbey-Nanteuil bank will be full of gold, and this same Saturday is
+the last day of May, the fatal day inscribed on the list. Yes, this
+coming Saturday, they will pillage the Barbey-Nanteuil bank!"
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+A MOUSE TRAP
+
+
+Jerome Fandor had been ringing Juve's door bell in vain: the great
+detective was not at home.
+
+"What the deuce is he doing? What has become of him? Never have I needed
+his advice as I need it now!... His support, encouragement--what a
+comfort they would be!... It is possible he would have dissuaded me
+against the attempt--or, he might have joined forces with me! Hang it
+all! It was a jolly bad move on Juve's part to make himself scarce at
+such a critical moment for me!... It is a long time, too, since I had
+news of him! Were I not certain that he has sound reasons for his
+absence--Juve never acts haphazard--I should be desperately anxious!"
+
+Fandor consulted his watch--four o'clock! He had time then! He could
+think over all the dramatic events in which he had been involved during
+the past weeks, beginning with the rue Norvins affair, and ending--how,
+and when?
+
+At last, our journalist arrived before the immense building which forms
+the corner of the rue de Clichy. He saw, in front of him, the tall
+windows of the flat occupied by Nanteuil: on the ground floor were the
+bank offices.
+
+"Well," thought Fandor, "I certainly am going to do an unconventional
+thing. If my summing up of them is right, these bankers are balanced,
+calm, cold, without imagination, and distrusting it in others. I shall
+have to be eloquent to convince them, to make them listen to me and get
+them to do what I want. Will they show me the door, as though I were an
+intriguer or a madman?... I shall not let them do it!... Ah, they will
+owe me a fine candle if I have the good luck.... Whether there will be
+good luck for my venture, and gratitude from the bankers, remains to be
+seen.... Here goes!..."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Seated behind their large and important looking writing table, as though
+judges behind a judgment seat, Messieurs Barbey and Nanteuil, in their
+immense reception office, separated from the rest of the world by a
+number of padded doors, had just said to Fandor, who was standing in
+front of them:
+
+"We are listening to you, monsieur."
+
+Fandor had asked to see the bankers, and to see them only, stating that
+he would wait if they were engaged. He had been shown into a handsomely
+furnished room, then into another, then into a third; finally, he had
+been ushered into the office of the partners. He had waited there for a
+few minutes alone. He recognised it as the same room in which he had
+interviewed Monsieur Barbey a few weeks earlier. Again he saw the same
+hangings, the same fine rugs, the same velvet arm-chair of classic
+design.
+
+Then Barbey, solemn, and Nanteuil, elegant, a rose in his buttonhole,
+had entered the room, their manner stiff-starched, showing no surprise,
+accustomed as they were to receive visitors of all sorts and kinds: they
+were polite, but not cordial.
+
+Fandor, accustomed to society as he was, and audacious as he had to be
+in the exercise of his profession, was intimidated, for a moment, by the
+calm simplicity of the two men--these strictly conventional bankers, to
+whom he was about to say such strange things, and make a most unexpected
+proposition!
+
+First of all, he made excuse on excuse for having disturbed the bankers
+at their post time. Then anxiety overcame every consideration of
+conventional propriety. Full of persuasive ardour, he went straight to
+the point.
+
+"Messieurs," declared he, "you are more deeply involved than you might
+think in the mysterious affairs occupying the attention of the police at
+this moment. So far, they have not got to the bottom of them. I, myself,
+through the necessities of my profession, and owing to other
+circumstances, have been drawn into an investigation, conjointly with
+the detective department, an investigation which has had definite
+results: it has enabled me to discover clues of the highest importance.
+I learned, too late, alas, to prevent the tragedies, that certain
+persons were the chosen victims of these mysterious criminals. Madame de
+Vibray, the Princess Danidoff were condemned beforehand; the robbery of
+your gold was carefully arranged. Now to my point! Messieurs, you
+yourselves are sentenced: the execution of the sentence to be carried
+out three days hence. Do you believe me?"
+
+Fandor had drawn nearer the two bankers: only the immense mahogany
+writing-table stood between them!
+
+The partners had listened with cold attention: nevertheless, a slight
+trembling of Monsieur Barbey's lips betrayed hidden feeling. Noticing
+this, Fandor was emboldened to proceed.
+
+Monsieur Nanteuil, in a slightly sneering tone, but with a perfectly
+correct manner, replied to the ardent young journalist:
+
+"We are greatly obliged to you, monsieur, for the sympathy you have
+shown us by coming to give us information regarding the mysterious
+assassins, whom the police are so zealously trying to round up. Believe
+me, we are accustomed to take our precautions, seeing that we have the
+handling of enormous sums of money. We are none the less grateful to you
+for your interest in us, and for your warning."
+
+"It is not a question of gratitude," interrupted Fandor sharply. "We
+have to deal with very strong opponents. I say 'we' because I have
+become more and more personally involved in all these crime-tragedies.
+Believe me, I speak from five years' experience as a reporter, who has
+had to report, on an average, one crime a day!... Up to now, nothing,
+absolutely nothing has hindered the criminals from executing their
+plans; but, warned in time, we may be able to thwart them."
+
+"But," interrupted Monsieur Barbey, who had grown more and more serious.
+"What are you aiming at?"
+
+Fandor felt that the decisive moment had arrived. Bending across the
+table, his face almost touching the faces of the two men, he said slowly
+and distinctly:
+
+"Messieurs, I have asked _La Capitale_ to grant me three days' leave. I
+have brought a little travelling bag with me: here it is! Leaving home
+as I did about half an hour ago, I consider I have arrived at the end of
+my journey!... Will you offer me hospitality for the next forty-eight
+hours?... I know that you, Monsieur Nanteuil, live above your offices,
+whilst Monsieur Barbey goes home every evening to his place at Saint
+Germain. I ask you to give up your room to me, for I am determined not
+to leave here for an instant!"
+
+Fandor, in his eagerness, had spoken faster and faster, and his heart
+was beating violently. He stared fixedly at the two men; he quite
+expected that his demand would excite astonishment; that objections
+would be raised; and he was ready with a crowd of arguments by which to
+convince them and carry his point.... But, the surprise was his, for the
+bankers did not seem particularly astonished.
+
+They consulted each other with a look. Then, as Barbey opened his mouth
+to reply, Nanteuil began to speak, rising politely at the same time.
+
+"Monsieur Fandor, your last statements and remarks are too serious to be
+passed over lightly. Your offer is too generous to be rejected without
+consideration. Will you allow us to retire for a minute or two: my
+partner and I will discuss the question."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For about ten minutes Fandor marched up and down the sumptuous room.
+Then one of the padded doors opened silently, and Barbey entered more
+solemn than ever: Nanteuil was smiling.
+
+"Monsieur," said Barbey, in weighty tones, "my partner and I, in view of
+the exceptional seriousness of the situation, for your words carry
+conviction--have come to a decision: we beg of you to consider yourself
+our guest from this moment, and to consider this house as your own!"
+
+"And it is understood, of course, that you dine with us this evening!"
+added Nanteuil with friendly graciousness. "Monsieur Barbey will be of
+the party, and will pass the night in our company ... and you can count
+on it, that we shall drink a good bottle of Burgundy to enable us to
+await with patience and serenity the audacious individuals you say we
+are to expect.... Dear Monsieur Fandor, here are some illustrated papers
+with some gay sketches of dear little women to exercise your patience
+over, whilst we sign our outgoing letters as fast as possible...."
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+IN THE TRAP
+
+
+The servant had retired, leaving the three men to their fruit and wine.
+His hosts turned to Fandor in mute interrogation.... But Fandor
+continued to peel a superb peach with the utmost coolness: he did not
+seem disposed to talk.
+
+Barbey broke the silence.
+
+"Tell me, now that your first day on guard is ended, and you have not
+left us for a moment--have you noticed anything at all suspicious?"
+
+Fandor shook his head. "Nothing whatever."
+
+This was not strictly true; for he had noticed an individual in the
+bank, occupied in repairing the telephone. He had made discreet
+inquiries, and had been told that he was a workman sent by the State, at
+the request of the bankers, to see that the lines were in good working
+order. This explanation had at first set his mind at rest regarding the
+comings and goings of this individual.
+
+But, just when he was going in to dinner at seven o'clock, Fandor had
+come across the man in the vestibule of the bank making preparations to
+depart. It had been a painful surprise for Fandor. He recognised the
+man, but could not remember exactly who he was, or where he had seen
+him....
+
+Was this workman one of the mysterious band of criminals who, he was
+more and more convinced, meant to strike a blow at Monsieur Barbey, and
+his partner, Nanteuil?
+
+If Fandor had had anything to go upon, he would have had the man
+shadowed. But he had no sure ground for his suspicions; besides, sent
+by the State, the man was most probably what he seemed. As he was
+working for the Government, he could easily be traced should such a step
+be found necessary. But to make certain that all was as it should be,
+Fandor had examined the work done by this individual during the day.
+There was nothing wrong with it: beyond a doubt, the man was an expert.
+Therefore, Fandor had felt justified in saying that he had noticed
+nothing suspicious during the day.
+
+"So much the worse," remarked Monsieur Barbey, with a shrug....
+"Probably the individuals who are threatening us, have been warned of
+your presence here, and are on their guard. I rejoice as far as we are
+concerned; but, as regards the general interest, I almost regret it:
+that your trap should prove effective, is what we must wish."
+
+"Have no fear, dear Monsieur Barbey, it will not be laid in vain!
+Knowing the cunning, the cleverness of my adversaries, I have not the
+least doubt they know I am here; but I also know that the audacity of
+these criminals is such, that my presence here would not deter them from
+making their attempt. They believe themselves the stronger, but I hope
+to undeceive them."
+
+"What is your plan of campaign to-night?" asked Monsieur Nanteuil.
+
+"Before replying to that, will you show me all the means of access to
+the house?"
+
+"With the greatest pleasure."
+
+The three men left the dining-room: then went into the vestibule.
+
+"Our courtyard gate is at the far end of the house, on the right," said
+Nanteuil. "On the left, there are the Bank offices: they occupy this
+ground floor. The only entrance to them is through this vestibule. This
+door closed, it is impossible to get in."
+
+"Not by the windows looking on to the street?" asked Fandor.
+
+"No, those windows have heavy iron bars before them. To remove them
+would be difficult--very ... As to the windows looking on to the garden,
+they are closed every evening--you can see for yourself--by strong
+wooden shutters fastened on the inside."
+
+"So the Bank offices are perfectly protected?" said Fandor.
+
+"We believe so. Now, come upstairs to the floor above!... Here is a
+large corridor, and that door, on the right, opens into a library. The
+two rooms which come next, are my own room and a dressing-room. The
+other rooms are unoccupied."
+
+"Does your room face the street or the garden?" asked Fandor.
+
+"The garden."
+
+"And the windows?"
+
+"The windows?"
+
+"Yes. Would it be difficult, or impossible to climb up to them?"
+
+"It would be difficult, but not impossible. No one ever enters the
+garden. If absolutely necessary, a ladder could be placed against them,
+a square of glass could be cut out, and the fastening could be undone
+... but come and see the room, you can then judge for yourself."
+
+Fandor inspected the room most carefully. The banker was right. It would
+be comparatively easy to get into the room by the window; but the other
+entrances to the room could be easily watched; they resolved themselves
+into one door, which opened on to the corridor.
+
+Monsieur Nanteuil's room was lightly furnished: he evidently favoured
+the modern method: it was a bare apartment, but it was hygienic.
+
+"Ah," said Fandor, "the bed has its back to the door, and faces the
+window. Very right. You have electric light, I see, near the fireplace,
+and above your bed. Then it is possible to switch on a bright light at
+any time.... Valuable, that!"
+
+Having finished a minute inspection of the room, and, to the amusement
+of the bankers, having looked under the bed to make sure that no one
+had hidden himself beneath it, Fandor declared:
+
+"I am decidedly pleased with this room, and if you see no objection, I
+wish to stay here and await the visitors of to-night."
+
+"You think of sleeping here alone?"
+
+"Alone! Decidedly, I do! It is pretty certain that these men know every
+inch of your flat; and if they are the sort I take them to be, they will
+make certain that everything here is as usual before attempting to
+attack the Bank. I do not wish them to be frightened off by finding a
+companion at my side, and I particularly wish them to mistake me for
+you...."
+
+"But that is frightfully dangerous, surely?" objected Nanteuil.
+
+"Reassure yourself, monsieur, I do not run any great risk. They won't
+know I am watching them; but I shall have this advantage over them--I am
+on the lookout for the rascally assassins and robbers, and I do not fear
+them in the slightest."
+
+Fandor was not going to own that he knew there was danger; but he was
+keenly set on running this particular risk, for, by so doing, might he
+not discover the truth?
+
+When the bankers left him for the night, Fandor again examined every
+corner of the room, and all it contained. He tested the electric light
+switch; he took a mental photograph of the situation of the pieces of
+furniture. He got into bed, half dressed, and lay quietly, grasping his
+revolver, fully loaded.
+
+He switched off the light, and in that large room, veiled in darkness,
+he awaited the events of the night. Noises from the street reached him
+indistinctly. The silence about him was menacing: something was going to
+happen here, something sudden, unforeseen, perhaps irremediable.
+
+Minute by minute, time went by, interminable, monotonous, casting a soft
+veil of sleep over the eyes of Fandor. But thoughts were rising within
+him: more and more keenly he was realising the horrible danger he was
+exposing himself to. Beneath closed eyes his brain was active, his
+imagination afire.
+
+"Elizabeth Dollon must be avenged," was his persistent thought.
+"Consequently, I must run some risks to achieve that!"
+
+A definite fear tormented him. He thought of the curious sleep Elizabeth
+had fallen victim to in the boarding-house.
+
+"Provided I have not taken some narcotic without knowing it!... Suppose
+the villains are going to inject into the room some gas which would
+suffocate me, and I should not know I was breathing it in? Suppose I
+lose consciousness and slip into death?"
+
+But Fandor drew himself together; he stiffened his will.
+
+Do they know I am in this room waiting to entrap them? Do they think
+they will find Nanteuil here defenceless? Who was that workman?... I
+ought to be able to put a name to that familiar face?
+
+How slow, how deadly slow, the tic-tac, tic-tac, of the timepiece?
+Centuries passed between the striking of the hours!... Would it be
+to-night?... To-morrow night?... Or ...
+
+On the corridor carpet outside the room, a slight rustling sound,
+continuous, barely perceptible, caught Fandor's listening ear.... Who
+was it?... Was it anyone at all?... Was it imagination? He listened
+intently ... not a sound now.... But, yes ... the same rustling sound
+... it was nearer--moving along the wall. Fandor closed his eyes an
+instant, so vividly did he feel that someone was looking at him through
+the wall!
+
+Seconds beat by--seconds that might culminate in a moment of
+horror--seconds passing steadily by in regular succession, sinking into
+nothingness....
+
+Had someone moved? Were there steps by the door?...
+
+Fandor thought he heard strange sounds all around him, in the room
+itself! His nerves were tensely strung: he was overwrought. Someone was
+certainly walking in the corridor!... He had felt a movement along the
+wall against which his bed stood!
+
+Impossible to hesitate longer! The door knob, which he could not see in
+the darkness, must have moved.... Fandor sensed this movement as surely
+as though he himself had placed his hand on the knob....
+
+Yes, the door was going to open!...
+
+It was ajar ... it was turning on its hinges--it was open.... Someone
+was coming in.... Who?...
+
+Fandor lay still--he dared not move an eyelid; but in his mind he said:
+
+"Come in, then! Take the trouble to come in!"
+
+Thus Fandor, who believed Death was entering the room, dared to welcome
+the grim visitor--with a smile!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nothing was happening.... Fandor's feverish excitement sank down to
+depression.... He must have deceived himself--no one was entering the
+room--nothing untoward was happening! He had simply imagined the noises
+outside in the corridor, for nothing happened--nothing ... and once more
+he was following the eternal tic-tac, tic-tac of the timepiece!
+
+The head of Fandor's bed was near the door. He could not, in the dense
+darkness, fix the point where he supposed the enemy would find him, and
+he had the agonising conviction that they were very much at their
+ease--that they knew exactly where he was, and were quietly preparing
+their attack.
+
+But had these unknown assassins entered the room?... Yes, it was
+certain--there were men behind him--bending over him with outstretched
+hands to strangle him!... He could hear the sound their fingers made in
+passing through the air to grip his throat, to squeeze his life out!...
+
+Though he lived a hundred years, never could Fandor forget the agonising
+thrill when he sensed that hidden danger! He held his revolver ready to
+fire. He thought:
+
+"In whatever way I am attacked, I must not let slip this unique chance
+to learn the truth! I must seize the attacker at all costs, and leap to
+the electric switch, turn on the light--and I shall be saved! Saved!..."
+
+Without a cry, without a warning sound, without a moment's time to cope
+with the violence of the attack, Fandor felt a cloth over his face,
+strong hands on his throat, a heavy weight crushing his chest.
+
+"I am lost!" flashed through his mind.
+
+"I mean to find out the truth!" his will declared.
+
+With all the force of resistant muscle and will he disengaged himself
+from the power crushing him to death; seized an arm by chance, hung on
+to it, gripped it, threw off the man, ran to the switch, shouting:
+
+"Help!"
+
+Again, Fandor thought he was done for: the switch acted, but no light
+flashed forth!
+
+They had cut the wire!
+
+Men were holding on to him: their grip was tightening!
+
+A voice gave a strangled cry.
+
+"Help!"
+
+A strange voice! Whose?
+
+Fandor was weakening. His right hand seemed to be caught in a vise which
+would break and crush it: it was growing tighter and tighter: it was
+wrenching his arm, was dragging him backwards: it would fracture his
+shoulder blade! Who?... Who?...
+
+By a miraculous effort he freed himself. He leaped away; sprang to the
+mantelpiece; seized a pocket electric torch he had placed there--clac--a
+light flashed out!... Fandor saw, recognised his attacker!...
+
+Ah! The form he had seen before--a slim figure, clothed in black!... Ah,
+this murderer, whose face was concealed by a hooded mask!
+
+Fandor shouted at him.
+
+"Fantomas! It's you and I, Fantomas!"
+
+But, already, this mysterious bandit, unmasked by the unexpected light,
+had rushed on our journalist.
+
+The electric torch was extinguished.
+
+The struggle recommenced, fierce, formidable, desperate! Fandor was
+seized by the throat in a strangling grip: he was choking!
+
+His right arm, so twisted, so bruised, was powerless--and in that hand,
+now so deadened and helpless that it seemed detached from his body, was
+his revolver. He must shoot, though almost powerless in the formidable
+grip of the bandit. He must shoot if he was to be saved. He managed to
+pull the trigger.
+
+There was a loud report.
+
+Fandor felt himself flung towards the wall. The vise loosed its grip.
+There was a terrific din. The window panes were shattered, a heavy piece
+of furniture was pushed aside, oscillated, fell with a crash; then a
+sudden silence; but a silence broken by gaspings, loud breathings,
+hoarse sounds, an agonising death rattle.
+
+The dead pause seemed interminable.... Fandor was about to shoot again,
+when a voice close to him cried:
+
+"He is escaping!..."
+
+Jerome Fandor recognised that voice!...
+
+Another voice said:
+
+"We must have a light!"
+
+A wax match flamed and flared.
+
+By its wavering light Fandor could distinguish three men in the room....
+Their clothes were torn: there was blood on their faces, they were
+panting: they stared at one another.
+
+Fandor recognised them instantly.
+
+Leaning against the bed, a gash in his cheek, was Monsieur Barbey.
+
+Lying on the floor, apparently half dead, was Monsieur Nanteuil.
+
+Calmly lighting a candle was the telephone workman. He alone seemed
+unmoved.
+
+Fandor threw down his revolver and, coolly marching to the door, locked
+it.
+
+Monsieur Barbey followed the journalist with a look. He made a gesture
+of discouragement and pointed to the window: its panes were smashed to
+pieces.
+
+"We are tricked--done!" he said. "The assassin has got away!"
+
+But Fandor, with a shrug, marched up to the window, returned, and said
+in a matter-of-fact tone:
+
+"It is impossible that Fantomas could have made his escape that way!"
+
+The workman nodded gravely.
+
+"Monsieur Fandor," said he, "I am entirely of your opinion."
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+THE IMPRINT
+
+
+"Monsieur Fandor, I am entirely of your opinion!"
+
+Hearing these words, Fandor, who had regained his self-possession, and
+was ready to start fighting again if necessary, looked at the individual
+who had made this statement--the individual whose face was oddly
+familiar.
+
+"Who are you?" he asked.
+
+The individual smiled broadly.
+
+"Don't you recognise me?" he asked.
+
+He removed his wig, threw the candle light on himself, and smilingly
+announced his style and title.
+
+"Sergeant Juve, once of the detective force; formerly dead: now amateur
+policeman!"
+
+"You! You, Juve!" cried Fandor. "And to think I suspected you...."
+
+But the two bankers interrupted at one and the same moment.
+
+"What are you doing here?"
+
+Juve smiled.
+
+"The art I practise brought me! Since my interest in the Dollon affair
+is so keen, I follow it up, I wish to find the secret of it, just
+through love of my art. I dabble in it nowadays."
+
+"But Juve--how did you get here?" questioned Fandor.
+
+"Ah, ha! If you have made some psychological discoveries: if reasoning
+has landed you here, now facts have led me here!... You know I was
+shadowing the band of Numbers. You know that in the skin of Cranajour I
+was intimate with those rascals. To my astonishment I found that my
+wretched companions had dealings with the Barbey-Nanteuil bank, who, of
+course, had no suspicion of it! Are you surprised then that I felt it
+incumbent on me to visit this bank?... Besides, yesterday, I saw you
+enter here; but you never came out again! You had reasons for acting so.
+I determined to be near you, in case you needed my help. I therefore
+passed myself off as a workman come to attend to the telephone
+installation. It was easy enough, for I am a good electrician.... Well,
+when I found that you were preparing to pass the night here, I laid my
+plans accordingly. I pretended to leave the premises, but really I hid
+myself in the house. Just now, when you called for help, I came to your
+aid as quickly as I could, naturally!"
+
+"Just as we did!" remarked Monsieur Barbey, looking at his partner.
+
+Monsieur Nanteuil contented himself with a nod. He added:
+
+"Alas, once again that criminal has escaped! Fantomas, since it was
+Fantomas who was here, just now, Fantomas has got away!" And Nanteuil
+pointed to the broken window by which it would seem the criminal, taking
+advantage of the noise, had escaped.
+
+But both Fandor and Juve shrugged doubtfully.
+
+"You believe then, Monsieur Nanteuil, that Fantomas has left this room?"
+questioned our young journalist.
+
+"What the devil do you mean?" asked Nanteuil.
+
+Juve demanded.
+
+"Which way did he make his escape?"
+
+Nanteuil pointed.
+
+"Why that way! By this window ... where else?... You can see quite well
+that he has broken the panes!... Why, look! His hooded cloak has got
+caught on the window latch!..."
+
+Fandor lay back in an arm-chair. He seemed much amused. He silenced Juve
+with a gesture, and turned to Nanteuil.
+
+"I can assure, dear Monsieur Nanteuil, that Fantomas has not left the
+room by this window!..."
+
+"Because?..."
+
+"Because this window has been broken by means of this chair: this chair,
+which he flung against the panes to put us on the wrong scent, and make
+us believe he had escaped that way!... Just look at this chair! It is
+still strewn with broken bits of glass ... look, there is even a little
+bit stuck into the wood!"
+
+"But that proves nothing!... Fantomas has broken the window panes as
+best he could, and then made his escape!"
+
+"In that case," insisted Fandor, "dear Monsieur Nanteuil, can you
+explain how it was he troubled to remove his cloak, hood and all; and,
+after that, how is it he has left no footprints in the flower-beds
+beneath the window? When day dawns you will see for yourself that my
+statement is correct, though I have not verified it! The flower-beds are
+too wide, too big, for a man jumping from here, to jump clear of them!
+And the earth is soft enough to take and retain the footprints of a man
+who leaps down on to them from this height!... Nevertheless, such
+footprints are conspicuous by their absence!"
+
+Monsieur Barbey seemed overwhelmed--aghast.
+
+"If Fantomas did not escape by the window, how then did he get away?" he
+asked.
+
+Fandor said in clear, distinct tones:
+
+"Fantomas was not able to escape!..."
+
+"But he cannot be in the room?... Where, then, can he have hidden
+himself?"
+
+In a hard voice, Fandor made answer.
+
+"He is not hidden in the room...."
+
+"You think then that he has hidden himself somewhere in the house?"
+
+Speaking in the same hard, decisive tone, Fandor asserted:
+
+"He is not hidden in the house! In the very height of the struggle, I
+kept a strict watch on the direction taken by the man who was doing his
+utmost to strangle me. I am positive I had my back against the door
+when I fired, so that exit was barred! Neither by door nor window did
+Fantomas escape!" Fandor's tone was one of absolute assurance.
+
+"If you are certain of that," said Nanteuil, "can you tell us how
+Fantomas did escape?"
+
+Fandor's reply was to rise from his arm-chair. He took the candlestick
+from the table where Juve had placed it and walked towards a large
+mirror. He carefully examined his neck.
+
+"Very curious!" said he, in a low voice...: "Now, monsieur, the man who
+tried to strangle me was Fantomas--we have seen him.... Well, this man
+had a wound on his thumb, or, more probably, he wounded me, anyhow he
+has left on my collar the mark of his thumb in blood--you guess what
+this thumb-mark is?"
+
+Simultaneously, Barbey, Nanteuil, and Juve rushed towards the young
+journalist.... Fandor showed them a little red mark, clear cut on the
+white surface of the collar; it was a finger-print so characteristic,
+that the two bankers cried in a trembling voice:
+
+"Again the imprint of Jacques Dollon!"
+
+Silence fell--a pregnant silence. The four men gazed at one another.
+Fandor soon started whistling a popular air. Juve smiled: Monsieur
+Barbey was the first to speak:
+
+"Good Heavens! Do you mean to say that Jacques Dollon was here--in this
+room!... It is certain, you say, Monsieur Fandor, that he did not get
+away either by door or window--for pity's sake explain the mystery!"
+
+But Fandor contented himself with a smile and a question.
+
+"Do you really think, then, that I know it?..."
+
+Nanteuil stamped with impatience.
+
+"But hang it all! If you don't know anything, don't let us waste time!
+Let us begin the search! Hunt through the house! Search the garden from
+end to end!..."
+
+Fandor went on--his tone was ironic.
+
+"And warn the police? Well, no, Monsieur Nanteuil, we will not make any
+search whatever, you can rely on that!... For the last three months we
+have been striving and struggling to solve a maddening mystery: we never
+could reach a certain solution of it: we have been vainly pursuing an
+assassin, who for ever escaped us ... and now, when for once, we get
+hold of a definite fact, an indisputable reality, are we going to risk
+muddling up the whole business?... Not if I know it!"
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded Monsieur Barbey.
+
+"Listen!" replied Fandor: "Some minutes ago, I was alone in this room;
+Jacques Dollon entered the room, because I bear on my neck the imprint
+of his thumb. Jacques Dollon was Fantomas, because he declared it
+himself when he believed he would emerge victorious from the struggle.
+Jacques Dollon--Fantomas--has not left this room, either by door or
+window. On the other hand, you have entered the room--you Monsieur
+Barbey, you Monsieur Nanteuil, and you Juve. Since these individuals
+have entered the room, and no one has left it, it necessarily follows
+that the personage, Jacques Dollon--Fantomas, must have entered among
+you, and that he has remained here, between these four walls."
+
+Simultaneously, Barbey and Nanteuil raised protesting voices: but Juve
+continued to smile.
+
+"Do you believe then?..."
+
+But Jerome Fandor did not allow him to finish.
+
+"I do not _think_ anything," said he. "I _know_ that I, Jerome Fandor,
+am I, and that I am not Jacques Dollon!... Juve knows that he is Juve,
+and that he is not Jacques Dollon. You, Monsieur Barbey; you, Monsieur
+Nanteuil, you know who you are, and who you are not! None of us can
+leave imprints similar to those of Jacques Dollon. But, I also know,
+that Jacques Dollon has entered this room, and that he has not left
+it--this is all that I know!"
+
+To this extraordinary declaration, Monsieur Nanteuil, with an
+incredulous shrug of the shoulders, exclaimed:
+
+"This is downright madness, monsieur!"
+
+But Juve congratulated Fandor.
+
+"That's logic, my boy! You are going it strong, lad!"
+
+Fandor continued.
+
+"It follows, that if Jacques Dollon has not left the room, he must be
+here in this room. He must be arrested. In order to arrest him, we must
+beg Monsieur Havard to come here as fast as he possibly can! Jacques
+Dollon is Fantomas, or I should say, Fantomas is Jacques Dollon.
+Monsieur Havard will not hesitate to put himself to any inconvenience in
+order to effect such a capture! I am going to call him up at once,
+messieurs, thanks to this telephone!"
+
+And profiting by the bewilderment of his hearers, Fandor, then and
+there, telephoned to Police Headquarters; he spoke to one of the
+officials, who undertook to inform his chief that he was wanted at the
+telephone on most urgent business.
+
+A minute or two later, Fandor was telling Monsieur Havard what had
+happened. He terminated his narrative thus:
+
+"I myself had locked the door of the room in which the struggle took
+place. No one left the room, nor shall anyone leave it before your
+arrival, I give you my word of honour on that! Come, post-haste. It is
+of the utmost urgency. Bring a locksmith. He must open the great door of
+the house. He will have to force open the door of the room in which we
+now are. I must keep an incessant watch over this room. I do not see
+Fantomas--Jacques Dollon--in this room; but in this room he must
+inevitably be--he _is_ in it!"
+
+Fandor, listening to Monsieur Havard's answer, repeated it to his
+companions.
+
+"In a very short time, the chief will be here; in a very short time,
+messieurs, we shall witness the arrest of Fantomas, that is, of the most
+inhuman monster that has ever existed!"
+
+"It seems to me you are going too fast!" remarked Monsieur Barbey. "All
+is mystery--yet you talk of making an arrest!"
+
+"But what do you consider mysterious now?" asked Fandor, laughing.
+
+"Why, everything! Take one thing: do you know what were the motives of
+the different Fantomas-Dollon crimes?"
+
+Juve replied to this:
+
+"Oh, as for that, perfectly! The motives are clear as crystal!... Madame
+de Vibray was ruined, and really committed suicide because--you will
+pardon me, I am sure--because the Bourse transactions you advised were
+not successful.... She poisoned herself, and went to Jacques Dollon's
+studio to die: perhaps she felt for him a secret attachment! Fate willed
+it that the assassins should choose this very evening to make their way
+into the painter's studio ... by means of this first corpse they created
+an alibi for themselves, and prepared the scene which was bound to
+mislead justice and make lawyers and police believe in the murder of
+Madame de Vibray and the suicide of her murderer.... Unfortunately for
+them, Dollon was discovered before the poison they administered had done
+its deadly work on him, and Dollon was arrested.... You can imagine the
+fury, the distracted state of the guilty! Dollon had seen them--he was
+going to speak at the legal interrogation--very well, then--they will
+kill him--and they do kill him...."
+
+"But Jacques Dollon lives, since his imprints are found here, there and
+everywhere!..." cried Monsieur Barbey.
+
+Fandor replied:
+
+"They kill Jacques Dollon, since it has been formally established that
+Jacques Dollon was seen dead; and once they have killed Dollon, they
+think that a dead man cannot be arrested by the police, and _they accept
+this dead man as one of their band_.... He, they decide, shall steal the
+pearls of Princess Danidoff!..."
+
+"This is raving lunacy!"
+
+"All that is pretty clearly proved, Monsieur Nanteuil!... It is he also
+who stole the millions in the rue du Quatre Septembre, a sensational
+robbery which would have ruined your bank, had not this issue of bullion
+been well covered by an insurance: this insurance signified that you
+were no losers by this robbery--in fact, owing to an ingenious
+combination of insurances, you have actually gained by the robbery! As
+we are on this subject, I might add that were I a member of the Band I
+should propose restoring to you the vanished ingots--robbers find
+bullion somewhat difficult to put into circulation: you might buy them
+back; then turn them into false coin, for instance--that would be all
+profit--for you!..."
+
+"I wonder at you--making such a joke as that!" remarked Nanteuil.
+
+"Please wonder at me!... To continue!... Having carried out their plan
+successfully, these robbers remembered something they had forgotten--a
+compromising paper, or something like it, which had been left in
+Elizabeth Dollon's possession. Thereupon, they send the dead
+man--Jacques Dollon--to look for it: he attempts to murder his sister: I
+arrive just in time to open the windows before she is past all human
+aid.... Meanwhile a series of cleverly arranged deals on the Bourse are
+brought off, so that if Thomery disappeared the Barbey-Nanteuil Bank
+would rake in important profits ... in haste the assassins get rid of an
+accomplice who is in their way--that duffer of a Jules, the rue Raffet
+servant, and they send Dollon to kill Thomery. After that they decide to
+rob your Bank which is stuffed with gold; for, were it not for this
+theft, it would be your Bank, burdened as it is, with Thomery shares,
+which would pay out to speculators the differences in value between past
+and present prices--which amounts would have to come out of the money
+paid in the day before. Messieurs, with regard to this, Thomery's death
+did you a great service.... Without his death, which enriched you, you
+would have had to settle up your sales by a certain date, and you would
+have lost more than you gained at the moment, owing to the sole fact of
+his disappearance!... I think you are very grateful to Jacques Dollon
+because of what he has done for you."
+
+Monsieur Nanteuil, on hearing these last words, rose. He walked up to
+the journalist and said, in a voice quivering with some emotion:
+
+"For my part, Monsieur Fandor, I think your way of explaining the Dollon
+affair is a very strange way!... You assert that this painter is dead,
+and you make him behave as if he were alive!... Besides, I have
+understood your words! In truth, what you say is senseless: you make
+wild statements! You have involved our Bank in every one of the Dollon
+crimes!... You have shown us as interested parties in all these
+robberies!"
+
+Fandor said quietly:
+
+"Nevertheless, it is unquestionably true that you are the gainers by
+these crimes: beginning with Madame de Vibray and ending with Thomery.
+Madame de Vibray might have brought an action against you for the loss
+of her fortune, owing to your risky speculations and bad management.
+Thomery's murder brought down his shares with a run, and you found that
+a most advantageous state of affairs--you gained by it!... But, of
+course, this is coincidence, since you are not Fantomas, since you are
+not Jacques Dollon, since you cannot imitate the imprint of his
+thumb!... I have only said this to show ..." Fandor stopped short.
+
+"Hark!... Someone is coming upstairs! Here is Monsieur Havard!"
+
+As the bankers were hurrying impatiently to the door, Fandor said in a
+bantering tone:
+
+"Do not stir a step further, I beg of you! Not a step! Let us receive
+the chief of the detective force exactly in the position we were, not an
+hour ago, when we encountered him whom the chief has now come to
+arrest!"
+
+Barbey and Nanteuil returned to their former positions. Those in the
+room could hear voices on the other side of the door exchanging brief
+remarks. The lock was being picked. Monsieur Havard entered and hurried
+up to the journalist.
+
+"Well, my dear Fandor, I have followed all your instructions to the
+letter!... Ah! you here, too, Juve! Well?... Speak! Anything fresh since
+your extraordinary telephone communication?... What were you telling
+me?"
+
+"I was saying, Monsieur Havard, that the assassin had entered this room,
+and assuredly had not left it--that he was here!..."
+
+"Here?"
+
+Monsieur Havard had recognised the bankers at the first glance.... His
+question betrayed a certain incredulity which piqued Fandor.
+
+"Here! Yes! That is absolutely so, because it is impossible that he can
+have left the room! Besides, you shall convince yourself of that!...
+Monsieur Nanteuil, will you do me a small service? Will you draw a plan
+of the first floor of your house?"
+
+The banker rose and seated himself at his writing-table, which was
+placed in a corner of the room.
+
+"I am at your disposal." And he began to trace a plan, a pretty rough
+one, of the various rooms which made up the first floor of his house.
+
+"Is that what you want?" he asked.
+
+Jerome Fandor rose quickly and went towards Nanteuil.
+
+The journalist's nerves must have been out of order--in a jumpy state,
+despite his apparent calm, for, in approaching the writing-table, he
+suddenly staggered, nearly fell, tried to regain his balance, and that
+so clumsily that he upset the contents of a large ink-pot on the
+writing-desk....
+
+"Take care!" said Monsieur Nanteuil, who, to save himself from coming
+into contact with this inky inundation, threw himself back in his chair,
+and lifted his hands above the flood of ink....
+
+The banker repeated:
+
+"Take care!... Here is a fresh catastrophe!..."
+
+But he did not finish what he intended to say! Quick as thought, Fandor
+steadied himself, and before anyone could guess his intention he seized
+the banker's right hand, pushed it forcibly into the wide-spreading ink,
+then, immediately after, pressed it on to a sheet of blotting paper
+which took the hand's imprint quite clearly....
+
+This imprint he glanced at but a moment.... Like a flag, he waved it
+above his head!
+
+"_It is the Jacques Dollon imprint!_" he shouted. "_The hand of Monsieur
+Nanteuil, whose characteristics are known in the anthropometric section,
+has just left the imprint of--Jacques Dollon!..._"
+
+The journalist's action created a momentary stupour!
+
+Juve rushed to him.
+
+"Bravo! Bravo!" he cried.
+
+But Monsieur Havard had gone quite pale. He said in a low voice:
+
+"I don't understand!"
+
+Barbey and Nanteuil retained their self-possession!
+
+Then Monsieur Barbey rose. He looked fixedly at his partner. He spoke in
+a tone of sad finality:
+
+"I suspected this!... Farewell...."
+
+A shout of horror answered him: he had drawn a sharp dagger from inside
+his coat, and had plunged it in his heart up to the hilt!
+
+Juve knelt by the fallen man. Monsieur Havard kept a sharp eye on
+Nanteuil.
+
+"Here, then, is Jacques Dollon, the dead-alive!... Here is the elusive
+Fantomas!" said the chief of the detective force.
+
+But the bandit brazened it out as he recoiled before the chief.
+
+"Why do you arrest me because of this imprint?" he demanded. "It is a
+piece of juggling on the part of this journalist!... Take a fresh
+imprint of my hand, my fingers, my thumb, and you will see whether my
+hand could possibly leave such an impression as that put on the blotting
+pad, by some sleight-of-hand trick of this much too smart reporter!" He
+stretched out his arm in the direction of the blotting pad, as though
+begging for a fresh trial....
+
+Fandor marched up to Nanteuil.
+
+"Useless," said he, in a curt tone. "I have been watching you!... I know
+the trick!"
+
+Nanteuil stood stock-still, dumb. Fandor lifted the cuff of Nanteuil's
+coat, and pointed out to Monsieur Havard, and to Juve, a sort of thin
+film of glove-like form. It was fastened to the wrist by an almost
+imperceptible piece of elastic.
+
+"This is human skin," said Fandor. "Human skin marvellously preserved by
+some special process: all its lines and marks are intact. Can you not
+guess whence it came? Do you need to be told whose dead body has
+supplied this phantom glove?"
+
+Monsieur Havard was as white as a sheet.
+
+"The body of Jacques Dollon," he murmured.... "Yes, that is it!..."
+
+There was a moment's intense silence in the room.
+
+"How do you imagine this wretch set to work?" demanded Monsieur Havard.
+
+"Simple enough," replied Fandor.... "Fantomas knows the danger criminals
+run, owing to the exact science of anthropometry: he knows that every
+imprint denounces the assassin: he knows that it is difficult to do
+anything without leaving such imprints--and that is why, every time he
+has committed a crime, he has taken care to glove his hands in the skin
+of Jacques Dollon's hands."
+
+Nanteuil, at bay, attempted denial.
+
+"You are talking mere newspaper romance," said he.
+
+Fandor looked the banker in the eye.
+
+"Fantomas!" said he. "Do not attempt to deny what is no longer possible
+to deny!... The trick is remarkably clever, and you have reason to be
+proud of your invention. Perhaps I should never have discovered it, if
+in this very room, this very night, you had not been imprudent enough to
+leave those imprints on my collar!... No one had left the room,
+therefore the guilty person was in the room--of necessity he was:
+_therefore, it followed, that someone had the hands of Dollon!..._ But
+how could this someone have the hands of Dollon?... Of course,
+naturally, the idea of these gloves occurred to me!..."
+
+Fandor turned to the chief of the detective force.
+
+"Monsieur Havard, Madame de Vibray committed suicide because she lost
+her fortune through Barbey-Nanteuil mismanagement--she might even have
+been poisoned by them! But that does not matter! Her death might
+compromise the Bank: they carried her dead body to Jacques Dollon's
+studio, and they tried to poison this painter, in order to put the law
+off their track. You know Dollon was saved! He was a dangerous witness.
+They killed him in his cell, some warder being accessory to the
+fact--killed him before his innocence could be established! Then they
+took his hands, that they might commit murders with them!... Dollon is
+dead, as I have held all along. It is Nanteuil who has committed the
+crimes ascribed to the most unfortunate Dollon. These crimes have
+profited the Barbey-Nanteuil Bank--as I pointed out just now!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Whilst Nanteuil stood speechless, whilst Barbey, whom they had lifted to
+a sofa, was gasping out his last breath, whilst Juve was giving little
+nods of approval to what his dear lad was saying, Fandor was treating
+Monsieur Havard to a further version of the affair.
+
+"When I telephoned to you I was morally certain of the approaching
+arrest. Not a soul quitted the room after the hands of Dollon had left
+imprints on my collar and on my neck. Therefore someone had the hands of
+Dollon. The finger imprints of all the personages present were known to
+me--therefore someone had a method by which he changed his own
+finger-prints into those of Dollon.... How was it done? It must be a
+removable method or means ... why, of course, it could only be by a pair
+of gloves that the trick was done ... of course it must be by means of
+_a pair of gloves made with the skin of Jacques Dollon's hands_!... I
+noticed that Nanteuil kept his hands obstinately behind his back. I
+guessed that it was he who had played the part of Dollon to-night, so I
+managed to prevent him removing those Dollon gloves, that I might take
+their imprint before your eyes--the rest can be guessed, can it not?...
+The imprint taken, profiting by the confusion, Nanteuil slipped off the
+glove which, as you see, was no thicker than a cigarette when rolled
+up.... To throw it aside was risky: he pushed it up his sleeve while
+pretending to arrange his cuff, and at the same time to put ink on his
+ungloved hand and so hide his trick!... Only I saw it all.... Monsieur
+Havard, it is not only the false Jacques Dollon I denounce, for Juve and
+I fully realised that he was also the elusive Fantomas! Here is this
+cloak with hooded mask, which is an irrefutable proof: besides he
+himself declared he was Fantomas.... Monsieur Havard, all you have to do
+now is seize this man: Juve and I will hand him over to you!"
+
+It was a thrilling moment! Juve and Fandor, in this hour of decisive
+victory, mutely embraced. Monsieur Havard advanced with raised hands
+towards Nanteuil who retreated.
+
+"Fantomas," he commenced, "in the name of the law I arr..."
+
+The word was strangled in his throat!...
+
+As he advanced another step, Nanteuil suddenly sprang backwards, and his
+hand rested on the moulding of a wooden panel.... At the same moment,
+Monsieur Havard, as if hampered by some invisible obstacle, stretched
+his length on the floor!
+
+Juve and Fandor were about to rush to his aid ... but while Fandor, in
+his turn, measured his length on the floor also, Juve yelled:
+
+"Good lord!... We are caught!... He escapes!..."
+
+Whilst the detective made a frantic effort to move a step--_he seemed
+nailed to the floor_--Fantomas, quick as lightning, leaped over the
+prone body of Monsieur Havard, gained the door, and banged it to behind
+him!... They heard a triumphant burst of laughter.... Fantomas was
+escaping!
+
+"This is sorcery!" shouted the chief of the detective force, in a voice
+hoarse with rage.
+
+"Take your boots off!... Take your boots off!" yelled Juve, who, with
+bare feet, was rushing through the house, revolver in hand, hoping to
+come up with the banker bandit!...
+
+But, when the detective arrived at the entrance gateway of the house, he
+found the policemen brought by Monsieur Havard chatting away quietly ...
+they had not seen a thing ... the street was deserted ... in a second
+Fantomas had disappeared, vanished into thin air ... he, the elusive
+one, had got away: once more he had escaped those who were pursuing him
+with such keen determination!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"It is very simple," explained Juve to Monsieur Havard and Fandor, who
+seemed deprived of speech. "Yes, it is simple enough; I guessed it at
+once when I saw you fall, Monsieur Havard, just after Fantomas had
+pressed the woodwork."
+
+"He pressed an electric button, did he not?"
+
+"Yes, Fandor, he established a current!... The wretch must have placed
+powerful electric magnets under the floor ... and the moment he realised
+that it was impossible to brazen it out any longer--was on the very
+point of being arrested--he established the current ... so we three were
+nailed to the ground by the attraction exercised by these
+electro-magnets on the nails of our shoes--he, Fantomas, was then free
+to cut and run for it, whose shoes must certainly have had soles made of
+some insulating material...."
+
+Monsieur Havard and Fandor made no answer to this.
+
+To have held Fantomas at their mercy, if only for a minute; to have
+believed that they were going to lay hands on the atrocious criminal,
+at last; to have seen him slip through their fingers--the thought of
+this almost brought tears to their eyes: they were in a state of the
+deepest despondency.
+
+"There's a curse on us!" cried Fandor. "This time, at any rate, we have
+nothing to reproach ourselves with! We could not foresee that!..." Then,
+to himself in a low tone, he added:
+
+"Poor Elizabeth!... How are we to tell her that we have let her
+brother's murderer escape?"
+
+
+
+
+XXVIII
+
+COURAGE
+
+
+"Have some more chicken?"
+
+"No, thanks: I am not hungry."
+
+"But you should eat all the same!"
+
+"Are you eating anything yourself?"
+
+"Faith, I am not!"
+
+"Well, then?"
+
+In the private room of the Fat-Pheasant restaurant, where Juve and
+Fandor were dining, silence again fell. The two men sat motionless,
+gazing into space. They neither wished to eat food nor do anything at
+all. They were depressed to the last degree; they felt baffled: they
+were sick of every mortal thing!
+
+All of a sudden, Fandor burst into tears. Juve, looking at his dear lad
+in such grief, bit his lip; his face with wrinkled brow wore a dejected,
+worried look.
+
+An hour or two previous to that, Fandor, on returning to his flat, had
+found a black-edged envelope: the address in Elizabeth Dollon's
+handwriting. Fandor had opened it with fast beating heart and trembling
+hand!
+
+For these past days, an evil Fate seemed relentlessly pursuing them. Now
+he feared to read of some fresh catastrophe.
+
+He was reassured by the opening lines; but as he read on, and took in
+the meaning of Elizabeth's words, Fandor felt as though his heart were
+bursting with grief.
+
+Elizabeth Dollon had written:
+
+"I seem to be going mad ... yes, I love you!... Yesterday, I should have
+been glad to become your wife; but there came by the same post as your
+letter, another, which contained terrible revelations, proofs of their
+truth were given me!... I have not the right to curse you--or rather I
+have not the strength to do it; but never will I marry you, Jerome
+Fandor, you, Charles Rambert!..."[11]
+
+[Footnote 11: See _Fantomas_ and _The Exploits of Juve_.]
+
+It seemed to Fandor that everything was turning round about him.... He
+took a few steps, staggering. The weight of this terrible past, a past
+in which he was the innocent victim, but of which he could not clear
+himself, overwhelmed him!
+
+Fandor cried, in a voice of despair:
+
+"Fantomas! Fantomas has taken his revenge!"
+
+And before the astounded portress, the unhappy young man turned about
+and fell in a heap on the ground.
+
+On the other hand, shortly after the extraordinary flight of the
+banker--Nanteuil to the world in general--but Fantomas to him and
+Fandor--Juve had received from Monsieur Annion, the supreme head of the
+police detective department, who only manifested himself on sensational
+occasions, a note sent by pneumatic post:
+
+     "_Regret keenly that you revealed your personality in such
+     ridiculous circumstances, and that you failed to arrest a great
+     criminal._"
+
+As Juve read these observations, he clinched his fists: he grew livid
+with rage!
+
+Dinner was a mere farce to the two friends: they did not dine: they had
+no appetite! Juve and Fandor went over and over in their minds the
+deplorable events of which, all said and done, they were the victims.
+They gazed at each other full of self-pity. They felt they were two
+derelicts afloat on the immense sea of indifferent humanity.
+
+"The worst suffering," said Fandor, with tears of misery in his voice,
+"is the pain of love."
+
+"The most painful of wounds," said Juve bitterly, "is a wound to
+self-respect!..."
+
+These two, men every inch of them, might have their moments of
+discouragement, but they were a sporting pair of the finest quality.
+
+"Fandor!"
+
+"Juve?"
+
+"You are courageous?"
+
+"I have courage, Juve!"
+
+"Very well, my lad, let us sponge out the past, and start off afresh in
+pursuit of Fantomas!... I tell you the struggle has only begun....
+Listen!..."
+
+END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Messengers of Evil, by
+Pierre Souvestre and Marcel Allain
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