"So, uncle, you have decided to live at Neuilly?"
"Oh, it's quite settled. Your aunt finds the place charming, and besides, it would be so pleasant to have a garden. Also, the land is sure to grow more valuable in this neighbourhood and the purchase of a house here would be a good speculation!"
The stout man, as he uttered the word "speculation," beamed. The mere sight of him suggested the small tradesman grown rich by dint of long and arduous years of toil, retired from business and prone to fancy he was a man of genius.
Compared with him the young man he styled nephew, slim, elaborately elegant, his little moustache carefully curled, gave the impression of coming out of a draper's shop and wanting to betaken for a swell. Evidently the nephew courted the uncle and flattered him.
"You are right, land speculations are very sure and very profitable. So you wrote to the caretaker of the house to let you view it?"
"I did, and he answered, 'Come to-day or to-morrow. I shall be at your orders.' That is why I sent you word to go with me, for since you are the sole heir of my fortune——"
"Oh, uncle, you may be sure——"
The Madeleine tramway where the two men were talking aloud, heeding little the amused notice of the other passengers, pulled up a moment in the Place de l'Eglise at Neuilly.
"Let us get down. Boulevard Inkermann begins here."
With the pantings and gaspings of a man whose stoutness made all physical exercise irksome, the uncle lowered himself off the footboard of the tram. The young man sprang to his side. After five minutes' walk the two men were in front of Lady Beltham's house, the identical house to which Juve and Fandor had previously come before to make exhaustive inquiries.
"You see, my boy," declared the stout party, "it is not at all a bad looking house. Evidently it has not been lived in for a long time, its state of outside dilapidation shows how neglected ithas been, but it is possible that inside there may not be many repairs to be made."
"In any case, the garden is very fine."
"Yes, the grounds are large enough. And then what I like is its wonderful seclusion: the wall surrounding it on all sides is very high, and the entrance gate would be hard for robbers to tackle."
"Shall I ring?"
"Yes, ring."
The young man pressed the button, a peal rang out in the distance: presently the porter appeared. He was a big fellow with long whiskers and a distinguished air, the perfect type of the high-class servant.
"You gentlemen have come to see the house?"
"Exactly. I am M. Durant. It is I who wrote to you."
"To be sure, sir, I remember."
The porter showed the two visitors into the garden, and forthwith the stout man drew his nephew along the paths. The sense of proprietorship came over him at once; he spared his relative none of the points of the property.
"You see, Emile, it isn't big, but still it is amply sufficient. No trees before the house, which allows a view of the Boulevard from all the windows. The servants' quarters being in thefar part of the garden can in no way annoy the people in the house: Notice, too, that the trees are quite young and their foliage thin. I don't care for too luxuriant gardens which are apt to block the view."
"That's right, Uncle."
The porter, who was following the two, broke in upon the ecstasy of the prospective owner.
"Would you gentlemen like to see the house?"
"Why, certainly, certainly."
The stout man, however, before entering, was bent on going round it. He noticed the smallest details, growing more and more enthusiastic.
"Look, Emile, it is very well built. The ground floor is sufficiently raised so as not to be too damp. This big terrace, on which the three French windows open, must be very cheerful in summer. Oh, there are drain pipes at the four corners! And we mustn't fail to see the cellars. I'm sure they are very fine. Bend down over the air-holes; what do you think of the gratings that close them? And, now, shall we go in?"
The porter led them to the main entrance door.
"Here is the vestibule, gentlemen, to the left, the servants' hall and kitchen; to the right, the dining-room; facing you a small drawing-room, then the large drawing-room, and, lastly, the double staircase leading to the first floor."
The stout man dropped into a chair.
"And to whom does this place belong?"
"Lady Beltham, sir."
"She does not live here?"
"Not now. At this moment she is travelling."
In the wake of the porter, uncle and nephew went through the rooms on the ground floor. As happens in all untenanted houses, the damp had wrought terrible havoc. The flooring, worm-eaten, creaked under their feet, the carpets had large damp spots on them, the paper hung loose on the walls, while the furniture was covered with a thick coat of dust.
"Don't pay any attention to the furniture, Emile, it matters little; what we must first look at is the arrangement of the rooms. Why, there are iron shutters—I like that."
"To be sure, Uncle, they are very practical."
"Yes, yes; to begin with, when those shutters are closed it would be impossible from the outside to see anything in the rooms. Not even the least light."
The porter proceeded to show them the first floor of the house.
"There is only one staircase?" asked the stout man.
"Yes, only one."
"And what is the cause of the unusual dampness? We are far from the Seine; the garden is not very leafy."
"There is a leaky cistern in the cellars, sir. Here is the largest bedroom. It was my Lady's."
"Yes, one sees it has been the last room to be lived in."
At this harmless remark the porter seemed very upset.
"What makes you think that, sir?"
"Why, the chairs are pushed about as though recently used. There is much less dust on the furniture. And—there's a print—look at the desk, there is a trace of dust on the diary. The blotting paper has been moved lately, some one has been writing there—why, what's wrong with you?"
As he listened to the stout man's remarks the porter grew strangely pale.
"Oh," he stammered, "it's nothing, nothing at all."
"One would say you were afraid."
"Afraid? No, sir. I am not afraid—only——"
"Only what?"
"Well, gentlemen, it is best not to stay here—Lady Beltham is selling the house because it is—haunted!"
Neither of the visitors seemed impressed by the statement of their guide. The elder laughed a jolly laugh.
"Are there ghosts?"
"Why, sir, 'spirits' come here."
"Have you seen them?"
"Oh! certainly not, sir. When they are there, I shut myself up in the lodge, I can assure you——"
"When do they appear?"
"They come almost always on Tuesday nights."
And warming to his subject the porter gave details. He got the impression first on one occasion when her Ladyship was absent. She had left some days before for Italy. It was Sunday, and then during Tuesday night while walking in the garden he heard movements inside the house.
"I went to fetch my keys and when I came back I found nobody! I thought at first it was burglars, but I saw nothing had been taken away. Yet, I was not mistaken, furniture had been moved. There were bread crumbs on the floor."
The young man roared with laughter.
"Bread crumbs! Then your spirits come and sup here?"
The uncle, equally amused, asked:
"And what did Lady Beltham think when you told her that?"
"Lady Beltham laughed at me. But, sir, I had my own ideas. I watched in the garden daily and I heard the same sounds and always on Tuesday nights. At last I laid a trap; I put a chalk mark round the chairs in Lady Beltham's room, she being still away. Well, sir, when I came to the house again on Thursday the chairs had been moved. I told Lady Beltham, and this time she seemed very much frightened. It is since then she made up her mind to sell the house."
"For all that, what makes you say they are spirits?"
"What else could it be, sir. I also heard the sounds of chains jangling. One night I even heard a strange and terrible hiss."
"Well!" cried the stout man, beginning to go down the staircase, "since the house is haunted I shall have to pay less for it; eh, Emile?"
"You will buy, sir, in spite of that?"
"To be sure. Your phantoms alarm me less than the damp."
"Oh, the damp? That can be easily remedied. You will see that we have a central heating stove installed."
The porter led his visitors down a narrow stair to the cellars.
"Take care, gentlemen, the stairs are slippery."
Then he observed: "You don't need a candle, the gratings are big enough to give plenty of light."
"What is that?" asked the young man, pointing to a huge iron cylinder embedded in the earth and rising some four-and-a-half feet above the floor.
"The cistern of which I spoke, as you can see for yourselves, it is all but full."
The porter hurried them on.
"That is the heating stove. There are conductors throughout the house. When it is in full blast the house is even too warm."
"But your grate stove is in pieces!" objected the stout man, pointing with his stick to iron plates torn out of one side of the central furnace.
"Oh, sir, that happened at the time of the floods. But it won't cost much to put it right. If you gentlemen will examine the inside of the apparatus you will see that the pipes are in perfect order."
The uncle followed the porter's suggestion.
"Your pipes are as big as chimneys; a man could pass through them."
The inspection ended, uncle and nephew bestowed a liberal tip on their guide. They would think it over and write or come again soon.
The two relatives retraced their steps to Boulevard Inkermann.
"Fandor?"
"Juve?"
"We have got them!"
Uncle and nephew—that is to say, Juve and Fandor—could talk quite freely now.
"Juve, are you certain that we have got them?"
Juve pushed his friend into a wine-shop and ordered drinks. He then drew from his pocket a piece of paper, quite blank.
"What is that?"
"A bit of paper I picked up on Lady Beltham's desk while the porter's back was turned. It will serve for a little experiment. If it is not long since a hand rested on it, we shall find the print."
"On this blank paper?"
"Yes, Fandor. Look!"
Juve drew a pencil from his pocket and scratched off a fine dust of graphite which he shook over the paper. Gradually the outline of a hand appeared, faint, but quite visible.
"That is how," resumed Juve, "with this very simple process, you can decipher the finger prints of persons who have written or rested their hands on anything—paper, glass, even wood. According to the clearness of this outline which is thrown up by the coagulation of the plumbago—thanksto the ordinary moisture of the hand—which was laid on the paper, I can assure you that some one wrote on Lady Beltham's desk about ten days ago."
"It is wonderful," said Fandor. "Here, then, is proof positive that her Ladyship visits her house from time to time."
"Correct—or at least that some one goes there, for that is a man's hand."
"Well, what are you going to do now, Juve?"
"Now? I'm off to the Prefecture to get rid of my false embonpoint, which bothers me no end. I have never been so glad that I am not naturally stout."
Fandor laughed.
"And I own to you that I shan't be sorry to get rid of my false moustache. All the while I was inspecting that cursed house, this moustache kept tickling my nose and making me want to sneeze."
"You should have done so."
"But suppose my moustache had come off?"
"Oh! who is that?"
From the shadow issued some one who calmly replied:
"It is I."
"Ah!—I know you now, but why this disguise?"
"Madame the Superior—I present myself—Doctor Chaleck. Isn't my disguise as good as yours?"
"What do you want of me? Speak quickly, I am frightened."
"To begin with, I thank you for coming to the tryst at your house—at ours. For five Tuesdays I have waited in vain. But first, madame, explain your sudden conversion, the reason of your sudden entry into Orders. That is a strange device for the mistress of Gurn."
Doctor Chaleck held under the lash of hisirony the unhappy woman who seemed overcome by anxiety. The two were facing each other in the large room that formed the middle of the first floor of the house in Boulevard Inkermann at Neuilly. It was, in fact, the only room fit to use: they had left to neglect and inclement weather the other rooms in the elegant mansion which some years before was considered in the Parisian world as one of the most comfortable and luxurious in the foreign colony.
It was in truth here that in days gone by the tragic drama had been played: death had laid its cold hand upon the gilded trappings of the great apartment and laughter and joy had taken flight. However, time passes so quickly and evil memories so soon grow dim that many had forgotten the grim happenings which three years before had beset the mansion on the Boulevard.
It was at first the deep mourning of Lady Beltham whose husband had been mysteriously done to death at Belleville. Then, some weeks later, occurred the awful scene of the arrest of Lord Beltham's murderer, just as he was leaving the house, an arrest due to Juve, who, though he succeeded in laying hands on the assassin, the infamous Gurn, was not able to prove—sure though he might be of it—that the slayer of the husband was the lover of the wife.
After these shocking events Lady Beltham left France, dismissing the many attendants with whom she loved to surround herself like a true queen of beauty, luxury and wealth.
At rare intervals the Lady, whose existence grew more and more mysterious, went back for a few days to her house at Neuilly. She would vanish, would reappear, living like a recluse, almost in entire solitude, receiving none of her old acquaintances.
About a year ago she seemed to want to settle finally at Boulevard Inkermann. Workmen began to put the house in order again, the lodge was opened and a family of caretakers came; then suddenly the work had been broken off; some weeks went by while Lady Beltham lived alone with her companion; then both disappeared.
Lady Beltham shivered, and, gathering about her shoulders the cloak which covered her religious habit, muttered: "I'm cold."
"Beastly weather, and to think this is July."
Chaleck crossed to a register in the corner of the room.
"No good to leave that open! An icy wind comes through the passage to the cellar."
Lady Beltham turned in alarm toward her enigmatic companion.
"Why did you let it be supposed I was dead?"
"Why did you yourself leave here two days before the crime at the Cité Frochot?"
Lady Beltham hung her head and with a sob in her voice:
"I was deserted and jealous. Besides, I was enduring frightful remorse. The idea had come to me to write down the terrible secret which haunted my spirit, to give the story to some one I could trust, an attorney, and then——"
"Go on, pray!"
"And, then, what I had written suddenly vanished. It was after that I lost my head and fled. I had long been meaning to withdraw from the world. The Sisters of St. Clotilde offered to receive me in their house at Nogent."
Chaleck added brutally:
"That isn't all. You forgot to say you were afraid. Come, be frank, afraid of Gurn, of me!"
"Well, yes, I was afraid, not so much of you, but of our crimes. I am also afraid of dying."
"That confession you wrote became known to some one who confided it to me."
"Heavens," murmured the unhappy woman. "Who mentioned it?"
Chaleck had again crossed to the register, which, although closed by him some moments before, was open again, letting into the room a blast of icy air from the basement.
"This can't stay shut, it must be seen to," he muttered.
Lady Beltham, shaken by a nervous tremour, insisted:
"Who betrayed me? Who told?"
Chaleck seated himself by her side.
"You remember Valgrand, the actor? Well, Valgrand was married. His wife sought to clear up the mystery of his disappearance and went—where, I ask you? Why, to you, Lady Beltham! You took her as companion! It would have been impossible to introduce a more redoubtable spy into the house than the widow Valgrand, known by you under the false name of Mme. Raymond."
Lady Beltham remained panic-stricken.
"We are lost!"
Chaleck squeezed her two hands in a genuine burst of affection.
"We are saved!" he shouted. "Mme. Raymond will talk no more!"
"The body at the Cité Frochot!"
Chaleck nodded. "Yes."
She looked at him in alarm, mingled with repulsion and horror.
"Now, understand that that death saved you,and if I saved you it is because I loved you, love you still, will always love you!"
Lady Beltham, overcome, let herself fall into Chaleck's arms, her head resting on her lover's shoulder as she wept hot tears.
Lady Beltham was once more enslaved, a captive! More than two years ago she had broken with the mysterious and terrible being whom she had once egged on to kill her husband, and with whom she then committed the most appalling of crimes. During this separation the unhappy woman had tried to pull herself together, to acquire a fresh honesty of mind and body, a new soul; dreamed of finding again in religion some help, some forgetfulness. She had later experienced the frightful tortures of jealousy, knowing her late lover had mistresses! But she resisted the craving to see him again, and pictured him to herself in such terrible guise that she felt an overwhelming fear of finding herself face to face with him. Now the season of calm and quiet she had evoked was suddenly dispelled. First came the mysterious disappearance of her confession and the weird crime of the Cité Frochot following on its loss. To be sure she did not then know that Doctor Chaleck, of whom the papers spoke, was none other than Gurn, but had they not inLa Capitalespoken of Fantômas inthat connection? And at this disquieting comparison Lady Beltham had felt sinister forebodings. Other mysteries had then supervened, unaccountable to the guilty lady who by that time was already seeking her new birth in the bosom of Religion. Alas! her miseries were to grow definite enough.
At the very gate of the convent an innocent man, Bonardin, the actor, fell victim to the attack of Juve, also innocent, and in that affair she felt the complicity of her late lover grow more and more certain. She then received a letter from him, followed by a second. Gurn called her to his place—their place—the mansion at Neuilly, every Tuesday night. She held out several times despite threatened reprisals. At last she yielded and went: she expected Gurn—it was Chaleck she found. The two were one!
From henceforth she was faced with this accomplice, guilty of new crimes, clothed in a new personality, already under suspicion, which doubtless he would cast off only to assume another which would enable him still further to extend the list of his crimes! But despite all the horror her lover inspired her with she felt herself tamed again, powerless to resist him, ready to do anything the moment he bade her!
She inquired feebly:
"Who was it killed Mme. Raymond? Was it that ruffian—whom they speak of in the papers—Loupart?"
"Well, not exactly!"
"Then was it you? Speak, I would rather know."
"It was neither he nor I, and yet it was to some extent both."
"I do not understand."
"It is rather difficult to understand. Our 'executioner' does not lack originality. I may say it is something which lives yet does not think."
"Who is it! Who is it!"
"Why not ask Detective Juve. Oh! Juve, too, would like to know who the deuce all these people are. Gurn, Chaleck, Loupart, and, above all—Fantômas!"
"Fantômas! Ah, I scarcely dare utter that name. And yet a doubt oppresses my heart! Tell me, are you not, yourself—Fantômas?"
Chaleck freed himself gently, for Lady Beltham had wound her arms round his neck.
"I know nothing, I am merely the lover who loves you."
"Then let us go far away. Let us begin a new existence together. Will you? Come!" She stopped all at once—"I heard a noise." Chaleck, too, listened. Some slight creakings had, indeed, disturbed the hush of the room. But outside the wind and the rain whirled around the dilapidated, lonely abode, and it was not surprising that unaccountable sounds should be audible in the stillness. Once more Lady Beltham built up her plans, catching a glimpse of a future all peace and happiness.
With a brief, harsh remark, Chaleck brought her back to reality.
"All that cannot be, at least for the moment, we must first——"
Lady Beltham laid her hand on his lips.
"Do not speak!" she begged. "A fresh crime—that's what you mean?"
"A vengeance, an execution! A man has set himself to run me down, has determined my ruin: between us it is a struggle without quarter; my life is not safe but at the cost of his, so he must perish. In four days they will find Detective Juve dead in his own bed. And with him will finally vanish the fiction he has evoked of Fantômas! Fantômas! Ah, if society knew—if humanity, instead of being what it is—but it matters little!"
"And Fantômas? What will become of him—of you?"
"Have I told you that I was Fantômas?"
"No," stammered she, "but——"
The dim light of a pale dawn filtered through the closed shutters of the big drawing-room in which lover and mistress had met again, after long weeks of separation, to call up sinister memories. For all their hopes the limit of the tribulations to which they were a prey seemed still far off.
Chaleck blew out the lamp. He drew aside the curtains. Sharply he put an end to the interview:
"I am off, Lady Beltham. Soon we shall meet again. Never let anyone suspect what we have said to each other—Farewell."
The hapless woman, crushed and broken by emotion, remained nearly an hour alone in the great room. Then the requirements of her official life came to her mind. It was necessary to return to the convent at Nogent.
Extricating themselves painfully from the pipes of the great stove, Juve and Fandor, covered with plaster, wreathed with cobwebs, and freely sprinkled with dust, fell back suddenly into the middle of the cellar. The two men, heedless of the disarray of their dress and their painful cramped limbs, spoke both at once, dumbfounded but joyful:
"Well, Juve?"
"Well, Fandor, we got something for our money."
"Oh, what a lovely night, Juve; I wouldn't have given up my place for a fortune."
"We had front seats, though to be sure the velvet armchairs were lacking."
They were silent for a moment, their minds fully occupied with a crowd of ideas. So Chaleck and Loupart were one and the same? And Lady Beltham was indeed the accomplice of Gurn. An unhappy accomplice, repentant, wretched, a criminal through love.
"Fandor, they are ours now. Let us act!"
The pair, not sorry to breathe a little more easily than they had done for the past few hours, went upstairs, reached the ground floor and made their way into the drawing-room, where during the night Doctor Chaleck and Lady Beltham had had their memorable interview.
Juve, without a word, paced up and down the room, poking in all the corners, then gave a cry:
"Here is the famous mouth of the heater which that brute Chaleck tried to shut, and I persisted in opening so as not to lose a word of his instructive conversation. No matter, if he felt cold, what did I feel like?"
"The fact is," added Fandor, whose hoarse voice bore witness to the difficulties he had just passed through, "these stove pipes have very little comfort about them."
"What can you expect?" cried Juve. "The architect did not think of us when he built the house. And now, Fandor, we have a hard task before us and we need all the luck we can get. For certainly it is Fantômas we have unearthed: Fantômas, the lover of Lady Beltham, the slayer of her husband, the murderer of Valgrand, the master that got rid of Mme. Raymond! Gurn, Chaleck, Loupart. The one being who can be all those and himself too—Fantômas."
As the two friends left Lady Beltham's house without attracting notice, the detective drew from his pocket a species of little scale which he showed Fandor.
"What do you make of that?"
"I haven't the least idea."
"Well, I have, and it may put us in the way of a great discovery. Did you notice that Chaleck did not say definitely who the 'executioner' of Mme. Raymond was?"
"To be sure."
"Well, I believe that I have a morsel of this 'executioner' in my pocket."
Juve was in his study smoking a cigarette. It was nine in the evening. The door leading to the lobby opened and Fandor walked in.
"All right, this evening?"
"All right. What brings you here, Fandor?"
The journalist smiled and pointed to a calendar on the wall: "The fact that—it's this evening, Juve."
"The date fixed by Chaleck or Fantômas for my demise. To-morrow morning I am to be found in my bed, strangled, crushed, or something of the sort. I suppose you've come to get a farewell interview forLa Capitale. To gather the minutest details of the frightful crime so that you can publish a special edition. 'The tragedy in Rue Bonaparte! Juve overcome by Fantômas!'"
Fandor listened, amused at the detective's outburst.
"You'd be angry with me, Juve," he declared, in the same jocular strain, "for passing by such a sensational piece of news, wouldn't you?"
"That is so. And then I own I expected my last evening to be a lonely one, there was a feeling of sadness at the bottom of my heart. I thought that before dying I should have liked to say farewell to young Fandor, whose life I am continually putting in peril by my crazy ventures, but whom I love as the surest of companions, the sagest of advisers, the most discreet of confidants."
Fandor was touched. With a spontaneous movement he sprang to the armchair in which Juve sat, seized and wrung the detective's hands.
"What?"
"I shall stay here. You don't suppose I'm going to leave you to pass this night alone?"
Juve, touched beyond measure by Fandor's words, seemed uncertain what he ought to decide.
"I can't pretend, Fandor, that your presence is not agreeable, and I'm grateful to you for your sympathy; I knew I could count on you: but after all, lad, we must look ahead and consider all contingencies. Fantômas may succeed! Now you know what I have set out to do; if I should fail, I should like to think that you would carryon the work as my successor and put an end to Fantômas."
"But, Juve, you are threatened by Fantômas; that is why I am here to help you."
"Well, I have no bed to put you in."
Fandor, taken aback, stared at the detective. The latter rose and began walking about the room, then turned sharply and gazed at the young man:
"You are quite determined to stay with me?"
"Yes."
"And if I bade you go?"
"I should disobey you."
"Very well, then," concluded Juve, shrugging his shoulders, "come along and light me."
The detective passed out of the apartment and made for the stairs.
"Where are we bound for?" asked Fandor.
"The garret," Juve replied.
A quarter of an hour later Juve and Fandor dragged into the bedroom a huge open-work wicker-basket.
"Whew!" cried Juve, mopping his forehead, "no one would believe it was so heavy."
Fandor smiled.
"It's full of rubbish. Really, Juve, you are not a tidy man!"
Juve, without reply, proceeded to empty the basket, pulling out books, linen, pieces of wood,carpet, rolls of paper; in fact, the accumulated refuse of fifteen years.
"What is your height?" he asked.
"If I remember right, five feet ten."
Juve got out his pocket measure and took the length of the crate.
"That's all right," he murmured. "You'll be quite snug and comfortable in it."
Fandor burst out:
"You're a cheerful host, Juve. You bottle up your guests in cages now!"
Juve placed a mattress at the bottom of the basket and laid two blankets over that, then he put a pillow on top. Patting the bedding to make it smooth, he declared with a laugh:
"I fear nothing, but I have taken precautions. I have posted two men in the porter's lodge. I have loaded my revolver, and dined comfortably. About half-past eleven I shall go to bed as usual. However, instead of going to sleep I shall endeavour to keep awake. At dinner I took three cups of coffee, and when you go I shall drink a fourth."
"Excuse me," said Fandor, "but I am not going away."
"There! You'll sleep splendid inside that, Fandor."
The journalist, used to the devices of his friend, nodded his head. Juve had already taken off his coat and waistcoat and now drew from a box three belts half a yard in breadth and studded outside with sharp points. "Look, Fandor! I shall be completely protected when I am swathed in them. Oh," he added, "I was going to forget my leg guards!"
Juve went back to the box and took out two other rolls, also studded with spikes. Fandor looked in amazement at this gear and Juve observed laughingly:
"It will cost me a pair of sheets and maybe a mattress."
"What does it mean?"
"These defensive works have a double object. To protect me against Fantômas, or the 'executioner' he will send, and also I shall be able to determine the civil status of the 'executioner' in question."
Fandor, more and more puzzled, inspected the iron spikes, which were two or more inches in length.
"This contrivance is not new," said Juve; "Liabeuf wore arm guards like these under his jacket, and when the officers wanted to seize him they tore their hands."
"I know, I know," replied Fandor, "but——"
The detective all at once laid a finger on his lips.
"It's now twenty past eleven, and I am in the habit of being in bed at half past. Fantômas is bound to know it: when he comes or sends, he must not notice anything out of the way. Get into your wicker case and shut the lid down carefully. By the by, I shall leave the window slightly open."
"Isn't that a bit risky?"
"It is one of my habits, and not to make Fantômas suspicious I alter my ways in nothing."
Fandor settled himself in his case and Juve also got into bed. As he put out the light he gave a warning.
"We mustn't close an eye or utter a word. Whatever happens, don't move. But when I call, strike a light at once and come to me."
"All right," replied Fandor.
"Fandor!"
Juve's cry rent the stillness of the night, loud and compelling. The journalist leaped from his wicker-basket so abruptly that he knocked against the lamp stand and the lamp fell to the floor. Fandor searched for his matches in vain.
"Light up, Fandor!" shouted Juve.
The noise of a struggle, the dull thud of afall on the floor, maddened the journalist. In the darkness he heard Juve groaning, scraping the floor with his boots, making violent efforts to resist some mysterious assailant.
"Be quick, in God's name," implored the pain-wrung voice of the detective. Fandor trod on the glass of the lamp, which broke. He tripped, knocked his head against a press, rebounded, then suddenly uttered a terrible cry. His hands, outstretched apart, in the gloom, had brushed a cold, shiny body which slid under his palms.
"Fandor! Help, Fandor!"
Desperate, Fandor plunged haphazard about the disordered chamber, wrapped in darkness. Suddenly, he rushed into the study hard by, found there another lamp which he lit in haste, and hurried back with it.
A fearful sight wrung a cry of terror from him. Juve, on his knees on the floor, was covered with blood.
"Juve!"
"It's all right, Fandor. Some one has bled, but not I."
The detective rushed to the open window and leaned out into the dark night.
"Listen!" he cried. "Do you hear that low hissing, that dull rustling?"
"Yes. I heard it just now."
"It was the 'executioner.'"
The detective drew back into the room, shut the window, pulled down the blinds, and then took off his armour. Curiously he examined the stains of blood, the tiny shreds of flesh that had remained on the points.
"We have no more to fear now," he said, "the stroke has been tried—and has failed."
"Juve! tell me what has just happened? I may be an idiot, but I don't understand at all!"
"You are no fool, Fandor; far from it, but if in many circumstances you reason and argue with considerable aptness, I grant you far less deductive faculty. That does not seem to be your forte."
Fandor seated himself before the detective, and the latter held forth.
"When we found ourselves faced with the first crime, that of the Cité Frochot, and our notice was drawn to the elusive Fantômas, we were unable to decide in what manner that hapless Mme. Raymond, whom we then took for Lady Beltham, had been done to death. Now, remember, Fandor, that during that night of mystery, hidden behind the curtains in Chaleck's study we heard weird rustlings and faint sort of hissings, didn't we?"
"We did," admitted Fandor, at a loss, "but go on, Juve."
"When we were called to investigate the attack on the American, Dixon, it was easy for us to conclude that the attempt of which the pugilist had been the object was the outcome of the same plan of battle as that which cost the widow Valgrand her life. The mysterious 'executioner,' which Chaleck did not disguise from Lady Beltham, was thus a being endowed with vigour enough to completely crush a woman's body, and likely do as much to that of an ordinary man. But the 'executioner' in question was not strong enough to get the better of the grand physique of the champion pugilist, since it failed in its attempt.
"This instrument 'of limited power,' if I may so describe it, must then be, not a mechanism which nothing can resist, but a living being! It must also be a creature striking panic, terrifying, formidable: you ask why, Fandor?"
"Yes, to be sure."
"I am going to tell you. If our poor friend Josephine were not still in a high fever she would certainly uphold me. You remember the business on the Boulevard Pereire? Chaleck or Fantômas wants to be rid of the woman he loved under the guise of Loupart, since he has goneback to Lady Beltham. Moreover, Josephine chatters too much with Dixon, with the police.
"Chaleck, Fantômas, therefore, goes up to Josephine's. After having told the poor creature I know not what yarn, he departs, leaving behind in his hold-all, the instrument. Now this last, when it shows itself, so terrifies the poor girl that she throws herself out of the window."
"I begin to see what you mean," said the journalist.
"Listen," replied Juve. "The mysterious, nameless and terrible accomplice of Fantômas, is no other than a snake! A snake trained to crush bodies in its coils. After having long suspected its existence, I began to be sure of it when I found that strange scale at Neuilly. This accounts for the incomprehensible state of Mme. Valgrand's body, the extraordinary attempt on Dixon, the murderous thing that terrified Josephine! That is why, expecting to-night's visit, I barbed myself with iron like a knight of old, feeling pretty sure that if the hands of the officers were torn by the armlets of Liabeuf, the coils of Fantômas' serpent would be flayed on touching my sharp spikes."
"Juve!" cried Fandor, "if I hadn't had the bad luck to upset the lamp, we should have caught this frightful beast."
"Probably, but what should we have done with it? After all, it's better that it should go back to Fantômas."
"But you haven't yet told me what happened!"
The young man's face displayed such curiosity that Juve burst out laughing.
"Journalist! Incorrigible newsmonger! All right, take notes for your article describing this appalling adventure. So, then, Fandor, the lamp once out, the hours go by, a trifle more slowly in the darkness than in the light. You are silent and still like a little Moses in your wicker cradle. As for me, armoured as I was, I tried not to stir in my bed—to spare the sheets—Juve is not wealthy. Midnight, one o'clock, two, the quarter past. How long it is!—Then, an alarm! A cat that mews strangely. Then comes that little hissing sound I begin to know. Hiss—hiss! Oh, what a horrid feeling! I guess that the window is opening wider. You heard, as I did, Fandor, the revolting scales grit on the boards. But you didn't know what it was, whereas I did know it was the snake! I swear to you it needed all my pluck not to flinch, for I wanted at any cost to see it through to the end, and know whether, behind this reptile, Fantômas was not going to show his vile snout.
"Ah, the brute, how quickly he went to work. As I was listening, my muscles tense, my nerves on edge, I suddenly felt my sheet stir—the foul beast is trained to attack beds, remember the attack on Dixon—and suddenly it was the grip, furious, quick as a whip stroke, twining about me. I was thrown down, tossed, shaken, torn like a feather, tied up like a sausage!
"My arms glued to my body, my loins hampered. I intended not to say a word, I had faith in my iron-work; but to be frank, I was scared, awfully scared. And I yelled: 'Fandor! Help!'
"Oh, those accursed moments. He began to squeeze horribly when all at once I felt a cold liquid flow over my skin—blood. The brute was wounded. We still wrestled, and you tripped in the darkness and smashed the glass of the lamp, and I was choking gradually. All my life I shall remember it. And then, what relief, what joy when the grip slackened, when he gives up and makes off. The beast glided over the floor, reached the window, hissed frantically and vanished. There, M. Reporter, you have impressions from life, and rough ones, too! Well, the luck is turning, and I think it is veering to our quarter. Things are going from bad to worse for Fantômas. I tell you, Fandor, we shall nab him before long!"
Slight sounds, scarcely audible, disturbed the peace of the cloister. In the absolute silence of the night, vague noises could be distinguished. Furtive steps, whisperings, doors opened or shut cautiously. Then the blinking light of a candle shone at a casement, two or three other windows were illuminated and the hubbub grew general. Voices were heard, frightened interjections, the stir increased in the long corridor on which cells opened. Generally the curtains of these cells were discreetly drawn; now they were being pulled aside. Drowsy faces looked out of the gloom; the excitement increased.
"Sister Marguerite! Sister Vincent! Sister Clotilde! What is it? What is happening? Listen!"
The alarmed nuns gathered at the far end of the passage. The worthy women, roused fromtheir rest, had hastily arranged their coifs, and chastely wrapped themselves in their flowing robes. They turned their frightened faces toward the chapel.
"Burglars!" murmured the Sister who was treasurer of the convent, thinking of the cup of gold that the humble little sisterhood preserved as a relic with jealous care.
Another Sister, recently come from the creuse, from which she had been driven by the laws, did not conceal her fears.
"More emissaries of the government! They are going to turn us out!"
The Senior, Sister Vincent, quivering with alarm, stammered:
"It is a revolution—I saw that in '70."
A heap of chairs under the vaulting suddenly toppled down. Panic stricken, the sisters crowded closed together, not daring to go to the chapel, which was joined to the passage by a little staircase.
"And the Mother Superior, what did she think of it all—what would she say?"
They drew near the cell, a little apart from the others, occupied by the lady, who, on taking the headship of the "House," had brought with her precious personal assistance and a good deal of money as well. Sister Vincent, who hadgone forward and was about to enter the little chamber, drew back.
"Our Holy Mother," she informed the others, "is at her prayers."
At this very moment broken cries rang down the passage. Sister Frances, the janitress, who everyone believed was calmly slumbering in her lodge, suddenly appeared, her eyes wild, her garments in disarray.
The sisters gathered round her, but the helpless woman shrieked, quite beside herself.
"Let me go! Let us flee! I have seen the devil! He is there! In the church! It is frightful!"
Mad with terror, the Sister explained in disjointed phrases what had alarmed her. She had heard a noise and fancied it might be the gardener's dog shut by mistake in the chapel. Then behold! At the moment she entered the choir the stained-glass window above the shrine of St. Clotilde, their patroness, suddenly gave way, and through the opening appeared a supernatural being who came toward her ejaculating words she could not understand. Armed with a great cudgel, he struck right and left, making a terrible uproar.
Thereupon the janitress made an effort to escape, but the demon barred her path, and ina sepulchral voice commanded her to go for the Mother Superior and bid her come at once, if she did not want the worst of evils to fall upon the sisterhood.
She had scarcely finished when an echoing crash was heard. The sisters suppressed a cry, and as they turned, pale with dread, before them stood their Mother Superior. With a sweeping gesture, she vaguely gave a blessing as if to endow them with courage, then turned to the janitress.
"My dear Sister Françoise, calm yourself! Be brave! God will not forsake us! I intend to comply with the desire of the stranger. I will go alone—with God alone!" Lady Beltham made a mighty effort to disguise the emotion she felt. Slowly she went down the steps and entered the sanctuary, where she halted in a state of terror.
The choir was lit up. The tapers were flaring on the high altar, and in the middle of the chapel, wrapped in a large black cloak, his face hidden by a black mask, stood a man, mysterious and alarming.
"Lady Beltham!"
At the sound of this voice, Lady Beltham fancied she recognised her lover.
"What do you want? What are you doing? It is madness!"
"Nothing is madness in Fantômas!"
Lady Beltham pressed her hands to her heart, unable to speak.
The voice resumed: "Fantômas bids you leave here, Lady Beltham. In two hours you will go from this convent; a closed motor will be waiting for you at the back of the garden, at the little gate. The vehicle will take you to a seaport, where you will board a vessel which the driver will indicate; when the voyage is over you will be in England: there you will receive fresh orders to make for Canada."
Lady Beltham wrung her hands in despair.
"Why do you wish to force me to leave my dear companions?"
"Were you not ready to leave everything, Lady Beltham, to make a new life for yourself with—him you love?"
"Alas!"
"Remember last Tuesday night at the Neuilly mansion!"
"Ah! You should have carried me off then, not left me time to think it over. Now I am no longer willing."
"You will go! Yes or no. Will you obey?"
"I will—for, after all, I love you!"
The two tragic beings were silent for a moment, listening; outside the church the uproargrew in violence, brief orders were being shouted, a blowing of whistles. Suddenly, uttering a hoarse cry, the ruffian exclaimed:
"The police! The police are on the track of Fantômas! Juve's police. Well, this time Fantômas will be too much for them. Lady Beltham—till we meet again."
Beating a rapid retreat behind a pillar of the chapel he vanished. Lady Beltham found herself alone in the chapel. Five minutes later the heavy steps of the police sounded in the passages. They went through the house, searching for clues, then disappeared in the darkness of the night.
Lady Beltham addressed the nuns:
"A great peril threatens our sisters of the Boulevard Jourdan. They must be warned at all costs and at once. And it is necessary that I, and I only, should go to warn them. Have no fear. No harm will happen to me. I know what I am doing."
Under the appalled eyes of the sisterhood the Mother Superior slowly passed from the assembled community with a sweeping gesture of farewell. The moment she was alone, she ran to the far end of the garden and passed through the little gate in the wall behind the chapel. She was gone!
While these strange occurrences were in progress at the peaceful convent of Nogent, and the flight of Lady Beltham at the bidding of Fantômas was effected under the eyes of the sisters, no little stir was manifest in the environs of La Chapelle, in the dreaded region where the hooligans, forming the celebrated gang of Cyphers, have their haunts.
A certain misrule reigned in the confederation, due to the fact that Loupart had not been seen for some time. None of its members believed for an instant the newspaper story that Loupart had turned out to be Fantômas—the elusive, the superhuman, the improbable, the weird Fantômas. This was beyond them. Good enough to stuff the numskull of the law with such a tale, but there was no use for it among the gang of Cyphers.
That same evening there was considerable excitement at the station in the Rue Stephenson. Detectives, inspectors, real or sham hooligans, were assembled there.
"Who is that gentleman?" asked M. Rouquelet, the Commissary of the district, pointing to a young man seated in a corner of the room, taking notes on a pad.
Juve, to whom the query was addressed, turned his head.
"Why, it's Fandor, Jerome Fandor, my friend."
Juve was seated at the magistrate's table, comparing papers, documents, and material evidence; he had, standing round him men in uniform or mufti. One might have thought it the office of a general staff during a battle. The door opened to a man dressed like a market gardener.
"Well, Léon?" asked Juve.
"M. Inspector, it is done. We have nabbed the 'Cooper.'"
A sergeant of the 19th Arrondissement appeared and saluted.
"M. Inspector, my men are bringing in 'The Flirt.' Her throat is cut."
"Is her murderer taken?"
"Not yet—there are several of them—but we know them. The wounded woman was able to tell us their names. They 'bled' her because they suspected her of giving us information."
M. Rouquelet telephoned to Lâriboisière for an ambulance, and the officers went to see the victim, who was lying on a stretcher in the hall. At that moment, the sound of a struggle hurried Juve to the entrance of the station. Some officers were hauling in a youth with a pallid complexion and wicked eyes. Fandor recognised the captive.
"It's that little collegian who bit my finger the night of the Marseilles Express!"
Léon, who had drawn near, likewise identified the youth.
"I know him, that's Mimile. His account is settled, he is jugged!"
The hall of the station filled once more: an old woman, dragged in forcibly, was groaning and bawling at the top of her voice:
"Pack of swine! Isn't it shameful to treat a poor woman so!"
"M. Superintendent," explained one of the men, "we caught this woman, Mother Toulouche—in the act of stowing away in her bodice a bundle of bank notes just passed to her by a man. Here they are."
The constable handed the packet to the magistrate, and Fandor, who was watching, could not repress an exclamation.
"Oh!—Notes in halves! Suppose they belong to M. Martialle! Allow me, M. Rouquelet, to look at the numbers."
"In with Mother Toulouche!" cried the Superintendent, then rubbing his hands he turned to Juve and cried:
"A fine haul, M. Inspector. What do you think?"
But Juve did not hear him; he had drawn Fandor into a corner of the office and was explaining:
"I have done no more at present than have Lady Beltham shadowed, but I do not mean to arrest her. You see, if I asked Fuselier for a warrant against Lady Beltham, a person legally dead and buried more than two months ago, that excellent functionary would swallow his clerk, stool and all, in sheer amazement."
At that moment a cyclist constable, dripping with sweat and quite out of breath, came in and hastening straight to Juve, cried:
"I come from Nogent!"
"Well?"
"Well, M. Inspector, they saw a masked man come out of the convent, wrapped in a big cloak. They gave chase—he fired a revolver twice and killed two officers."
"Good God! It was certainly——"
"We thought, too—that perhaps—after all—it was—it was Fantômas!"
"Juve!" called the Commissary. "You are wanted on the telephone. Neuilly is asking for you."
The detective picked up the receiver.
"Hello! hello! Is that you, Michel? Yes. What is it? In a motor? Oh, you have taken the driver. But he—curse it! Who the devil isthis man who always escapes us? What? He is in Lady Beltham's house! You have surrounded the house? Good, keep your eyes open! Do nothing till I come."
Juve hung up the receiver and turned to Fandor.
"Fantômas is at Lady Beltham's; shut up in the house. I am going there."
"I'll go with you."
As the two men left the station, they were met by Inspector Grolle.
"We have taken 'The Beard' at Daddy Korn's," he cried.
"Confound that!" shouted Juve, as he jumped into a taxi with Fandor. "Neuilly! Boulevard Inkermann, and top speed!"
"Phew! Here I am!"
Checking his headlong course at the top of the terrace steps, Fantômas rapidly entered the house, then double-locked himself in. The ruffian at once inspected the fastenings of the windows and doors on the ground floor.
The monster cocked his ear. Three calls of the horn sounded dolefully in the silence of the night. Fantômas counted them anxiously and then exclaimed:
"There! That's my signal! My driver is taken."
A slight shudder shook the sturdy frame of the man. He went up to the first floor and peered through the shutters. He caught the sound of footsteps. In the light of a street lamp he suddenly descried the outline of his driver. The latter, among half a score of policemen, waswalking, head bent, with his hands fettered.
"Poor fellow!" he murmured. "Another who has to pay! Ah! they have left my 'sixty horse' for my use presently. But there is no time to lose, I'll bet that Juve, flanked by his everlasting journalist, will not be long in coming here. Very well! Juve, it is not as master that you will enter this house, but as a doomed man!"
Fantômas now became absorbed in a strange task which claimed all his attention. On the floor of the dark closet where all the electric gear of the house terminated, the bandit laid a sort of oblong fusee that he drew from his capacious cloak.
He fitted to the end of this fusee two electric wires previously freed of their insulator; then having verified the tie of the pulls of the distribution board, he hid the cartridge under a little lid of wood. Then he left the closet, taking care to double-lock the door.
"These detectives," he growled, "are about to witness the finest firework display imaginable and, I dare say, take part in it, too. Dynamite can transform a respectable middle-class house into a sparkling bouquet of loose stone!"
Such was, indeed, the fearful reception Fantômas held in reserve for his opponents. He had made everything ready to blow up the house and escape unhurt himself.
If Juve and Fandor had paid more attention to the piping of the wires, they would have seen that some of them ran outside the house and disappeared below ground, reappearing at the far end of the property in an old deserted woodshed.
Fantômas was about to leave the house. He was already stepping onto the terrace when, suppressing an oath, he wheeled about suddenly.
As Juve and Fandor were about to enter the grounds, Detective Michel rose up out of the dusk.
"That you, sir?"
"Well," replied Juve, "is the bird in the nest?"
"Yes, sir, and the cage is well guarded, I assure you. Fifteen of my men kept a strict guard round the house."
"Good. Here is the plan of action. You, Sergeant, will enter the house with Inspector Michel, at my back. The men will continue to watch the exit."
Juve broke off sharply. He saw the door of the house open a little way and Fantômas appear, then vanish again inside the house.
"At last!" cried Juve, who sprang forward, followed by Fandor.
"Slowly, gentlemen! We have now victory in sight, we mustn't imperil it by rashness. You remain on the ground floor. Each one in a room,and don't stir without good reason. I am going up."
"I am going with you," exclaimed Fandor.
The two went cautiously up the stairs to the first floor.
"Fantômas!" challenged Juve, halting on the landing, "you are caught; surrender!"
But the detective's voice only roused distant echoes; the big house was silent.
"Now, this is what we must do," he cautioned Fandor. "Above us is a loft—we will search it first; if it is empty, we will close it again. Then we will come down again, taking each room in turn and locking it after us. At the slightest sound fling yourself on the ground and let Fantômas fire first; the flash of the shot will tell us where it comes from."
The two man-hunters searched the loft without success. At the first floor Juve repressed a slight tremor, for the handle of the door leading into Lady Beltham's room creaked ominously. He opened it, springing aside quickly, expecting to be fired at. The room was empty, no trace of Fantômas. The two passed into another room, then as soon as their visitation was completed locked up the apartment.
Suddenly, as they reached the foot of the stairs, Juve gave a violent start. From the door of thedrawing-room a shadow, black from head to foot, came bounding out. Quick as lightning the form crossed the ante-room, then plunged by a low entrance into the cellarage.
Two shots rang out!
Fantômas drew behind him a big bar and prided himself on the barrier he thus put between his pursuers and himself. But despite his consummate confidence, he was beginning to feel a certain uneasiness, an undeniable anxiety. His black mask clung to his temples, dripping with sweat.
He crossed the basement to the little air-hole overlooking the garden.
"That is a way of escape," he thought, "unless——"
But, baffled, he ceased his inspection.
"Curse it! There are three policemen before that exit."
He scraped a match and reviewed the place in which he found himself—which for that matter he knew better than any one.
Facing him stood the dilapidated stove and at his feet shimmered the cistern.
All at once Fantômas clenched his fists. Under the increasing blows of the detective and his men the door of the basement yielded. Above the crash of the boards and iron-work Juve's voice rang out:
"Fantômas! Surrender!"
Fantômas groped in the darkness. His hand came on a bottle. A crackle of shattered glass was heard, Fantômas had taken the bottle by the neck and broken it against the wall.
Juve, revolver in hand, followed by Fandor, moved cautiously down the stairs to the cellar: both men were brave, yet they felt their hearts beating as though they would burst.
Juve reached the last step. He pressed the knob of his electric torch; a rush of light lit up the little room. It was empty!
Juve went the round of the cellar, carefully inspecting the walls and sounding them with the butt of his revolver. He went round the cistern. Its surface was black and still. A broken bottle, floating head downward, remained half immersed, absolutely motionless.
Fandor laid his hand on the detective's arm.
"Did you hear; some one breathed!"
Beyond doubt some one had breathed!
"Idiots that we are! He is in there," cried Juve, pointing to the pipe of the great stove.
The detective caught sight in a corner of a number of bundles of straw.
"That is what we want, Fandor! We are going to make a bonfire."
When the opening of the furnace was fitted, Juve set a light to it and the flames rose, crackling, while up the pipe of the heater rose a pungent smoke, thick and black.
"And now to the openings of the stove! Sergeant! Michel! This way!"
Through the apertures in the ground-floor rooms the great stove was beginning to smoke.
A broken bottle with the bottom gone was floating head downward on the black water of the tank. Scarcely had Juve and Fandor gone than the water was stirred, and slowly the mysterious bottle rose again to the top. Behind it rose the head of Fantômas, still wrapped in the black hood which now clung to his face like a mask moulded on the features.
Dripping, he issued from the tank and breathed hard for some moments. Despite his ingenious contrivance for feeding his lungs he was not far from suffocating.
"All the same," he growled, "if I hadn't remembered the plan of the Tonkingese who lie stretched at the bottom of a river for hours at a time, breathing through hollow reeds, I think that time we should have exchanged shots to some purpose!"