Marcel Allain

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]

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!"

"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:

"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:

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!"