Juve smiled.

"Fandor, my lad, you are endowed with a prodigious imagination. You impute to Dixon the worst intentions without any proof. He got Josephine away, you say? What makes you think so? If you did not see her it was due to collusion between them both. Why? As far as I can see, Josephine simply picked up an old lover of hers at the 'Crocodile' and went off with him as naturally as possible, preferring not to see the arrest of Loupart or of Chaleck. I admit that next day she simply took French leave of the worthy American, and you may be sure he knew nothing about her going."

Fandor was silent and Juve resumed:

"That being so, what can we bring against Dixon? Merely that he knows Josephine."

"You are right, Juve; perhaps I went too far with my deductions, but to speak frankly, I don't see clearly what we are to do now. All our trails are crossed. Loupart is in flight, Chaleck vanished, and as for Josephine, I doubt our finding her again for ever so long."

All the while the journalist was speaking, Juve had remained leaning against the window, watching the passers-by.

"Fandor, come and see! By the omnibus, there. The person who is going to cross."

The journalist burst out:

"Well, I'm damned!"

"You see, Fandor, you must never swear to anything."

"Well, ain't we going to catch and arrest her?"

"Why? Do you think her being in this street is due to chance? Look, she is crossing; she is coming straight here. She is entering the house. I tell you in a few moments Josephine will have climbed my stairs and will be seated cosily in this armchair, which I get ready and set full in the light."

Fandor could not get over his astonishment.

"Did you make an appointment with her?"

"Not at all."

Jean, the detective's servant, came into the room and announced:

"There is a lady waiting in the sitting-room. She would not give her name."

"Show her in, Jean."

A few moments later Josephine entered.

"Good day, Mademoiselle," cried Juve in a cordial tone. "What fresh news have you to tell us?"

Loupart's mistress stood in the middle of the room, somewhat taken aback. But Juve set her at ease.

"Sit down, Josephine. You mustn't mind my friend Fandor. He has just been telling me about your friend Dixon."

"You know him, sir?"

"A little," said Fandor. "And you, Mademoiselle, have been seeing something of him lately?"

"I happened to meet him at the 'Crocodile.'"

"And took a liking to him?"

"We took a liking to each other." She turned to Juve. "I suppose you distrust me for giving you the slip with another man?"

Juve smiled. "You found a good companion and forgot us. There is really nothing to be angry about. Now, won't you tell us what brings you here?"

"Yes, but M. Juve, you must swear to me that you will never repeat what I am going to tell you."

"It is very serious then?"

"M. Juve, I am going to put you in the way of arresting Loupart."

"You are very kind, my dear Josephine, but if the attempt is to succeed no better than that we made at the 'Crocodile'——"

"No, no, this time you'll be sure to nab him. Day after to-morrow at 2 o'clock, Loupart is going with some of his gang to Nogent, 7 Rue des Charmilles. He has a job there under way."

Juve laughed. "They've been fooling you, Josephine. Isn't that your view, Fandor? Do you think that Loupart would try a stroke in broad daylight?"

Josephine gave more details, eager to persuade him.

"There will be fifteen of them outside a little house whose tenants are away. Some of them will make a crowd to help their mates in case of danger. The Beard is to be in it, too."

"And Loupart?"

"Yes, Loupart, I tell you. He will wear a black mask by which you can identify him."

"Very well, if we have nothing better to do we will take a trip to Nogent day after to-morrow; eh, Fandor?"

"As you like, Juve."

"Only, remember this, my dear Josephine, if you are putting up a game on us you'll be sorry for it. There is a way, to be sure, in which you can prove your good faith. Be at Nogent Station at half-past one. If we find Loupart where you say he will be, we shall arrest him; if we don't find him——"

The detective paused, significantly.

"You will nab him. Only we mustn't look as if we met by appointment. No one must suspect that I gave you the tip."

Hereupon, Josephine started to go. Her manoeuvre had succeeded, and Loupart's business would go ahead safely. She turned at the door and nodded, looking at Fandor.

"Another thing; Loupart doesn't love you; you had better be on your guard."

Juve turned thoughtfully to Fandor:

"Strange! Is this woman playing with us, or is she in earnest, and how she looked at you when telling us to be on our guard!"



XXIV

A MYSTERIOUS CLASP

"Hullo! Hullo!"

Waking with a start, Juve rushed to the telephone. It was already broad daylight, but the detective had gone to bed very late and had been sleeping profoundly.

"Yes, it's I, Juve. The Surete? It's you, M. Havard? Yes, I am free. Oh! That's strange. No signs? I understand. Count on me. I'll go there and keep you informed."

Juve dressed in haste, went down to the street and hailed a taxi.

"To Sevres, the foot of the hill at Bellevue, and look sharp about it!"

* * * * *

Juve left his taxi-cab, and mounted the slope on foot to the elegant villa inhabited by Dixon. All was quiet, and if he had not had word, the detective would have doubted that he was close to the scene of a crime, or at least of an attempted one.

Scarcely had he entered the grounds when a sergeant came toward him and saluted. Juve inquired:

"What has happened?"

"M. Dixon is resting just now, and the doctor has forbidden the least noise."

"Is his condition serious?"

"I think not from what Doctor Plassin says."

"Now, Sergeant, tell me everything from the beginning."

The sergeant drew Juve to the arbour, where a policeman was seated making out a report. Juve took the paper and read:

"We, the undersigned, Dubois, Sergeant in the second squad of foot-police, quartered at Sevres, together with Constable Verdier, received this morning, June 28th, at 6.35 from M. Olivetti, a business man, living in Bellevue, the following declaration:

"'Having left my home at 6.15 and being on the way to the State Railway to take the 6.42 train, by which I go every day to my work, I was passing the slopes of Bellevue, when, being level with Brimborion Park, a little short of the villa number 16, which I hear belongs to M. Dixon, an American pugilist, I heard a revolver shot followed by the noise of breaking glass, the pieces falling on to a hard ground, most likely stone.

"'Having halted for a moment through caution, I looked to see if anyone was hiding near by. I saw nothing but heard three more revolver shots in quick succession, seeming to come from Dixon's house. After some minutes I went near the house and ascertained that the panes of the window on the right side of the front were broken, and the pieces strewed the asphalt terrace in front of the house.

"'I made up my mind to ring, but no one opened the door. I then thought that some prowlers had amused themselves by making a shindy, and I was about to continue to the train when I thought I heard faint cries coming from the inside of the house. Then, fearing there was a mishap or a crime, I ran to the police station and made the above statement in presence of the sergeant.'"

Juve turned to the sergeant, who gave further details.

"Constable Verdier and I immediately hastened here. We reached the terrace of the house, but there we came to a closed door we could not break in. Having shouted loudly we were answered by groans and cries for help which came from the room on the first floor of which the windows were broken. We then got a ladder and climbed up. I passed my hand inside and worked the hasp of the window. We went in and found ourselves in a bedroom in apple-pie order and in which nothing appeared to have been disarranged."

"And on a second inspection?" queried Juve.

"I went to the far end of the room and found stretched on the bed a man in undress, who seemed a prey to violent pains. I learned afterwards that this was M. Dixon, the tenant of the house. He could scarcely utter a word or move. His shoulders and arms were out of the clothes, and I could discern that the skin of his chest and shoulders bore traces of blood effusion. On a bracket to the right of the bed lay a revolver, the six cartridges of which had been recently fired."

"Ah!" cried Juve. "And then?"

"I thought the first thing to do was to call in a doctor. M. Olivetti consented to go and call Doctor Plassin, who lives near by. Five minutes later the doctor came, and I took advantage of his presence to send my man to the Station."

"Have you been over the house?"

"Not yet, Inspector, but nothing will be easier, for in turning out the pockets of the victim's clothes we found his bunch of keys."

"To bring the doctor into the house, you must have opened the door to him, and therefore had a glimpse of the other rooms in the house, the lobby, the staircase?"

The sergeant shook his head.

"No, Inspector. We went up the ladder. I tried to get out of the door of M. Dixon's room, but found it was locked. This seemed strange, for the assailant presumably entered by the door."

"By the by, Sergeant, are there no servants here? The place seems deserted."

Constable Verdier put in his word:

"The American lives here alone except for an old charwoman who comes in before nine. She will probably be here in half an hour, for she can have no idea of what has happened."

"Good," said Juve. "You will let me know as soon as she comes; wait for her in the garden. As for us," and he turned to the sergeant, "let us make our way inside."

The two, armed with Dixon's keys, opened without difficulty the main entrance door to the ground floor. There they found nothing out of the way, but on reaching the first floor, the marks of some one's passage was clearly visible.

The door of a lumber room stood wide open, and on its floor sheets of paper, letters and documents lay scattered about. Juve took a candle and, after a brief investigation, exclaimed:

"They were after the strong box."

A large steel safe, built into the wall, had been burst open, and the workman-like manner in which it had been done showed clearly the hand of an expert. Juve carefully examined the floor, picked up two or three papers that had evidently been trodden on, took some measurements which he jotted down in his note-book, and, without telling the sergeant his conclusions, went downstairs again, paying no heed to the next room in which Dixon lay, watched over by Doctor Plassin.

Verdier, who was mounting guard before the house, came forward and said:

"Mr. Inspector, the doctor says M. Dixon is awake. Do you care to see him?"

Juve at once had the ladder put to the first story window and made his way into the pugilist's room. The men's description was correct. No disorder reigned in the chamber, at the far end of which, on a great brass bed, a sturdy individual, his face worn with suffering, lay stretched.

In two words Juve introduced himself to the doctor; then expressed his sorrow for Dixon's plight.

"These are only contusions, M. Juve. Serious enough, but nothing more. By the by, M. Dixon may congratulate himself upon owning muscles of exceptional vigour. Otherwise, from the grip he must have undergone, his body would be no more than a shapeless pulp."

Juve pricked up his ears. He had heard before of bones snapped and broken under a strain that neither flesh nor muscle could resist. The mysterious death of Lady Beltham at once occurred to his memory.

"Mr. Dixon, you will tell me all the details of the tragic night you have passed through. You probably dined in Paris last evening?"

The sick man replied in a fairly firm voice:

"No, sir, I dined at home alone."

"Is that your usual habit?"

"No, sir, but between five and seven I had been training hard for my match which was to have come off to-morrow with Joe Sans."

"Do you think your opponent would have been capable of trying to injure you to keep you out of the ring?"

"No, Joe Sans is a good sportsman; besides, he lives at Brussels, and isn't due in Paris till to-morrow."

"And after dinner, what did you do?"

"I fastened the shutters and doors, came up here and undressed."

"Are you in the habit of bolting yourself into your room?"

"Yes, I lock my door every evening."

"What time was it when you went to bed?"

"Ten at latest."

"And then?"

"Then I went fast asleep, but in the middle of the night I was waked by a strange noise. It sounded like a scratching at my door. I gave a shout and banged my fist on the partition."

"Why?" asked Juve, surprised.

The American explained:

"I thought the scratching came from rats, and I simply made a noise to frighten them away. Then, the sound having ceased, I fell asleep again."

"And afterwards?"

"I was waked again by the sound of stealthy footsteps on the landing of the first floor."

"This time you went to see?"

"I meant to do so, I was about to get up. I had put out my arm to get my matches and revolver, when suddenly I felt a weight on my bed and then I was corded, bound like a sausage, my arms tight to my body! For ten minutes I struggled with all the power of my muscles against a frightful and mysterious grip which continually grew tighter."

"A lasso!" suggested Doctor Plassin in a low voice.

"Were you able to determine the nature of the thing that was gripping you?" asked Juve.

"I don't know. I remember feeling at the touch of the thing a marked sensation of dampness and cold."

"A wetted lasso, exactly. A rope dipped in water tautens of itself," remarked the doctor.

"You had to make a great effort to prevent being crushed or broken?"

"A more than human effort, Mr. Inspector, as the doctor has witnessed; if I had not muscles of steel and exceptional strength I should have been flattened."

"Good—good," applauded Juve. "That's exactly it!"

"Really! You think so?" queried the American with a touch of sarcasm.

Juve smilingly apologised. His approval meant no more than that the statements of the victim coincided with the theories he had formed. And indeed he saw clearly in the unsuccessful attempt on the American and the achieved killing of Lady Beltham a common way of going to work, the same process. Undoubtedly the American owed it to his robust physique that he got off but slightly scathed, whereas the hapless woman had been totally crushed.

The similarity of the two crimes allowed Juve to make further inductions. He reckoned that it was not by chance that Dixon had met Josephine at the "Crocodile" two nights before, while the presence of both Chaleck and Loupart in that establishment was still less accidental. And already he felt pleased at the thought that he knew almost to a certainty the villains to whom this fresh crime must be ascribed. They had wanted to get rid of Dixon, that was sure, and by a process still unknown to Juve, but which he would soon discover. They had rendered the pugilist helpless while they were robbing him.

"Had you a large sum of money in your safe?" he asked.

The American gave a violent start.

"They've burgled me! Tell me, sir, tell me quickly!"

Juve nodded in the affirmative. Dixon stammered feebly:

"Four thousand pounds! They've taken four thousand pounds from me! I received the sum a few days ago!"

"Gently, gently!" observed the doctor. "You will make yourself feverish and I shall have to stop the interview."

Juve put in:

"I only want a few moments more, doctor. It is important." Then, turning to Dixon, he resumed: "How did your struggle with the mysterious pressure end?"

"After about ten minutes I felt my bands relaxing. In a short while I was free; I heard no more, but suffered such great pain that I fell back in bed and either slept or fainted."

"Then you did not get up at all?"

"No."

"And the door of your room to the landing remained locked all night?"

"Yes, all night."

"How about this broken glass in your window? Those revolver shots at six in the morning?"

"It was I, firing from my bed to make a noise and bring some one here."

"I thought as much," said Juve, as he went down on all fours and proceeded to examine the carpeting of the room between the bed and the door, a distance of some seven feet. The carpet, of very close fabric, afforded no trace, but on a white bearskin rug the detective noted in places tufts of hair glued together as if something moist and sticky had passed over it. He cut off one of these tufts and shut it carefully in his pocketbook. He then went to the door which was hidden by a velvet curtain. He could not suppress a cry of amazement. In the lower panel of the door a round hole had been made about six or eight inches in diameter. It was four inches above the floor, and might have been made for a cat.

"Did you have that hole made in the door?" asked Juve.

"No. I don't know what it is," replied the American.

"Neither do I," rejoined Juve, "but I have an idea." Doctor Plassin was jubilant.

"There you are!" he cried. "A lasso! And it was thrust in by that hole."

Through the window, Verdier called:

"M. Inspector, the charwoman is coming."

Juve looked at his watch.

"Half-past nine. I will see her in a minute."



XXV

THE TRAP

"Twelve o'clock! Hang it! I've just time to get there to keep my engagement with Josephine."

Juve was going down Belleville hill as fast as his legs could take him by a short cut past the Sevres school. He cast a mocking glance toward the little police station which stands smart and trim at one side of the high road.

"Pity," he murmured, "that I can't escort my friends to that delightful country house."

Then he hastened his pace still more. He was growing angry.

"I told Fandor to be at Nogent Station exactly at 1.30. It is now five past twelve and I am still at Sevres. Matters are getting complicated. Oh, I'll take the tramway to Versailles' gate. From there I'll drive to Nogent Station in a taxi."

He put this plan into execution, and was lucky enough to find a place in the Louvre-Versailles' tram.

"All things considered, I have not wasted my morning. Poor Dixon! He was lucky to get off so cheaply. It would seem now that Josephine told the truth in saying he is not an accomplice of the Gang."

Juve reflected a while, then added:

"Only it looks as if that accursed Josephine had put her friends up to the job."

At the St. Cloud gate the tram came to a stop and Juve got down, hailed a taxi, and told the driver:

"To Nogent Station and look sharp. I'm in a terrible hurry."

The driver nodded assent, Juve got in, and the vehicle started. The taxi had hardly been going five minutes when Juve became impatient.

"Go quicker, my man! Don't you know how to drive?"

The man replied, nettled:

"I don't want to get run in for breaking the regulations."

Juve laughed.

"Never mind the regulations, I'm from Police Headquarters."

The magical word took effect. From that moment, heedless of the frantic signals of policemen, the driver tore along at full speed and reached the square in front of Nogent Station.

"It is only 1.45—Fandor should just have got here."

Juve, indeed, had only just settled with his driver when Fandor popped up from the waiting-room.

"Well, Juve! Anything fresh this morning?"

The detective smiled.

"Any number of things. But I'll tell you later. Where is Josephine?"

"Not here yet."

"The deuce!"

"That confirms my suspicions; eh, Juve?"

"Somewhat. I should be astonished if we did see her."

The detective led the journalist away, and the two went for a turn beside the railway-line on the deserted boulevard.

"Fandor, this is the time to draw up a plan of action. Do you remember the directions Josephine gave us?"

"Vaguely."

"Well, we are now going to the neighbourhood of the Rue des Charmilles. It is number 7 that Loupart and his gang are to loot, according to Josephine. Yesterday afternoon I sent my men to look at the street; this is how they described it to me. It is a sort of lane with no issue; the house which we are concerned with is the last, standing on the right. It is a lodge of humble aspect, the tenants of which are really away. There are not many people living in this Charmilles Lane, and the place is well chosen for such a job, at least that is Michel's opinion.

"Oh, I forgot one thing, round the house is a fairly large garden of which the walls are luckily high. So it is likely that even if the burglars should discover our presence they could not get off the back way."

"And what is your plan of action, Juve?"

"A very simple one. We are going to the entry of the Rue Charmilles and wait there. When our men come up with us I shall try to pick out Loupart and fly at his throat. There will be a struggle, no doubt, but in the meantime you must bellow with all your might: 'Murder' and 'Help.' I trust that succour will reach us."

"Then you haven't any plain-clothes men here?"

"No. I don't want to let my superiors know about this expedition."

The two men went forward some paces in silence along an empty side street, till Juve halted in a shady corner and drew out his Browning, carefully seeing to the magazine.

"Do as I do, Fandor"; he prepared for a tussle. "I smell powder in the air."

Juve was about to start forward again when suddenly a tremendous uproar broke out: "Help! Help!"

Juve seized Fandor by the arm.

"Take the left-hand pavement!"

The two had just reached the corner of the street where the house spoken of by Josephine should stand, when a jostling crowd of people came in sight, rushing toward them, uttering shouts and yells. Juve and Fandor recognised a man fleeing at full speed in front of them, whose face was hidden by a black mask! Behind him two other men were running, also masked, but with grey velvet. In the crowd following were grocers' assistants, workmen of all kinds, even a Nogent policeman.

"Help! Murder! Arrest him!"

The fleeing man was threatening his pursuers with an enormous revolver.

"Look out!" shouted Juve. "Loupart is mine! You tackle the others!"

But suddenly catching sight of the detective Loupart slackened his pace.

"Get out of the way!" he cried, flourishing his revolver.

"Stop, or I fire!" returned Juve.

"Fire then! I, too, shall fire!" And, leaping toward the detective, the outlaw pointed his revolver at him and fired twice.

With a quick movement Juve leaped aside. The bullets must have brushed him, but luckily he was not touched. The plucky detective again flung himself on Loupart, seized him by the collar and tried to throw him down.

"Let me go! I'll do for you——"

For a moment Juve felt the cold muzzle of the weapon on his neck. Then, with a supreme effort, he forced the outlaw's hands down and, aiming his revolver, fired.

"Help! I—I——"

A gush of blood welled up from the ruffian's collar. He turned twice, and then fell heavily on the ground.

In the meantime Fandor was struggling with the two men in the grey masks. Juve was about to go to his assistance, when the crowd now made a rush and the detective became the central point of a furious encounter: blows and kicks rained on him. He succumbed to numbers.

It was now Fandor's turn to help his friend, and he was about to join the fight when he stood rooted to the spot in utter amazement. A little beyond the groups of struggling men he caught sight of an individual standing beside a tripod on which was placed a contrivance he did not at once identify. The man seemed greatly amused, and was watching the scene laughing and showing no desire to intervene.

"Very good! Very good! That will make a splendid film!"

Fandor understood——

His head bandaged and his arm in a sling, Juve was replying in a shaky voice to the Superintendent of Police of Nogent.

"No, Superintendent, I realised nothing. It is monstrous! I asked in the most perfect good faith. I did not fire till I had been fired at three times."

"You didn't notice the strange get-up of the burglars? And of the policemen? Of that poor actor, Bonardin, you half killed?"

Juve shook his head.

"I hadn't time to notice details. I want you to understand, Superintendent, how things came about, to realise how the trap was laid for me.... I came to Nogent, assured that I was about to face dangerous ruffians. I was to encounter them at such an hour, in such a street. I was given their description: they would have their faces masked and come out of a certain house. And it all happened as described. I hadn't gone ten paces in the said street when sure enough I saw people rushing toward me bawling 'Help.' I recognised men in masks: had I time to look at the details of their costumes? Certainly not! I spring at the throat of the fugitive. He has a revolver and fires. How could I know the weapon was only loaded blank? He, an actor in a cinematograph scene, takes me for another, acting the part of a policeman. He fires at me and I retaliate."

"And you half kill him."

"For which I am exceedingly sorry. But nothing could lead me to suspect a trap."

"It's lucky you didn't wound anyone else. How did matters end?"

"The actors, naturally enough, were furious with me, and I was being roughly handled when the real policemen arrived and rescued me. All was explained when I brought out my card of identity. While they were taking me to the station, the actor Bonardin was being carried to the nearest house, a convent, I believe."

"Yes, the Convent of the Ladies of St. Clotilde."

* * * * *

The trap had been well devised, and Juve was not wrong in saying that anyone in his place would have been taken in by it. And so while the detective was detained at the station, Fandor, after a long and minute interrogation, returned to Paris in a state of deep dejection.



XXVI

AT THE HOUSE OF BONARDIN, THE ACTOR

In the Place d'Anvers, Fandor was passing Rokin College. He heard some one calling him. "Monsieur Fandor! Monsieur Fandor!"

It was Josephine, breathless and panting, her bright eyes glowing with joy.

Fandor turned, astonished.

"What is up?"

Josephine paused a second, then taking Fandor's hand familiarly drew him into the square, which at this time of day was almost deserted.

"Oh, it's something out of the common, I can assure you. I am going to astonish you!"

"You've done that already. The mere sight of you——"

"You thought I was arrested, didn't you?"

Fandor nodded.

"Well, it's your Juve who is jugged!"

Contrary to Josephine's expectation, Fandor did not appear very astonished.

"Come now, Miss Josephine, that's a likely tale! Juve arrested? On what grounds?"

Josephine began an incoherent story.

"I tell you they squabbled like rag-pickers! 'You make justice ridiculous,' shouted Fuselier. 'No one has the right to commit such blunders!' Well, they kept going on like that for a quarter of an hour. And then Fuselier rang and two Municipal guards came and he said: 'Arrest that man there!' pointing to Juve. And your friend the detective was obliged to let them do it. Only as he left the room he gave Fuselier such a look! Believe me, between those two it is war to the death from now."

When she had ended Fandor asked in a calm voice:

"And how did you get away, Josephine?"

"Oh, M. Fuselier was very nice. 'It's you again?' said he when he saw me. 'To be sure it is,' answered I, 'and I'm glad to meet you again, M. Magistrate.' Then he began to hold forth about the cinema business. I told him what I knew about it, what I told you. Loupart stuffed me up with his tale of a trap. As sure as my name's Josephine I believed what my lover told me."

Fandor gave her a penetrating glance.

"And how about the Dixon business?"

Josephine coloured, and said in a low tone:

"Oh, the Dixon business, as to that—we are very good pals, Dixon and I. Just fancy, I went to see him yesterday afternoon. He has taken a fancy to me. He promised to keep me in luxury. Ah, if I dared," sighed the girl.

"You would do well to leave Loupart."

"Leave Loupart? Especially now that Juve is in quod, Loupart will be the King of Paris!"

"Do you think your lover will attach much weight to the arrest of Juve? Won't he fancy it's a put-up job?"

"A put-up job! How could it be? Why, I saw with my two eyes Juve led away with the bracelets on his wrists."

The growing hubbub of the newsboys crying the evening papers drew near the Place d'Anvers. Instinctively Fandor, followed by Josephine, went toward them. On the boulevard he bought a paper.

"There you see!" cried Josephine triumphantly. "Here it is in print, so it is true!"

In scare headlines appeared this notice—"Amazing development in the affair of the Outlaws of La Chapelle. Detective Juve under lock and key."

Fandor, when he met Josephine in the Place d'Anvers, was on his way to the Rue des Abesses where Bonardin occupied a nice little suite of three rooms, tastefully decorated and comfortably furnished.

The actor had his shoulder in plaster—Juve's bullet had broken his clavicle, but the doctor declared that with a few days' rest he would be quite well again.

"M. Fandor, I am very sorry for what is happening to M. Juve. Do you think if I were to declare my intention not to proceed against him——"

Fandor cut his companion short.

"Let justice take its course, M. Bonardin. There will always be time later on."

Although M. Bonardin was only twenty-five, he was beginning to have some reputation. By hard work he had come rapidly to the front, and was fast gaining a position among the best interpreters of modern comedy.

"My dream," he exclaimed to Fandor, "is one day to attain to the fame of my masters, of such men as Tazzide, Gemier, Valgrand and Dumeny."

"You knew Valgrand?" asked Fandor.

Bonardin smiled.

"Why, we were great friends. When I first made my appearance at the theatre, after the Conservatoire, Valgrand was my model, my master. You certainly don't recollect it, M. Fandor, but I played the lover in the famous play 'La Toche Sanglante,' for which Valgrand had made himself up exactly like Gurn, the murderer of Lord Beltham. You must have heard of the case?"

Fandor pretended to tax his memory.

"Why, to be sure I do recall certain incidents, but won't you refresh my memory?"

Bonardin asked no better than to chatter.

"Valgrand, on the first night of his presentation of Gurn,[B] was quite worn out and left the theatre very late. He did not come again! For the second performance, his understudy took his part. The following day they sent to Valgrand's rooms; he had not been there for two days. The third day from the 'first night' Valgrand came among us again."

"Pray go on, you interest me immensely!"

"Valgrand came back, but he had gone mad. He managed to get to his dressing-room after taking the wrong door. 'I don't know a single word of my part,' he confessed to me. I comforted him as best I could, but he flung himself down on his couch and shook his head helplessly at me. 'I have been very ill, Bonardin,' then suddenly he demanded: 'Where is Charlot?'

"Charlot was his dresser. I remembered now that Charlot had not returned to the theatre since his master's disappearance. His body was found later in the Rue Messier. He had been murdered. I did not want to mention this to him for fear it might upset him still more, so I advised my old friend to wait for me till the end of the play and let me keep him company. I intended to take him home and fetch a doctor. Valgrand assented readily. I was then obliged to leave him hurriedly: they were calling me—it was my cue. When I returned Valgrand had vanished: he had left the theatre. We were not to see him again!"

"A sad affair," commented Fandor.

Bonardin continued his narrative:

"Shortly afterwards in a deserted house in the Rue Messier, near Boulevard Arago, the police found the body of a murdered man. The corpse was easily identified; it was that of Charlot, Valgrand's dresser."

"How did he come there? The house had no porter: the owner, an old peasant, knew nothing."

"Well, what do you conclude from this?" asked Fandor.

"My theory is that Valgrand murdered his dresser, for some reason unknown to us. Then, overcome by his crime, he went mad and committed suicide. Of that there is no doubt."

"Oh!" muttered Fandor, a little taken aback by this unexpected assertion.

The journalist, though he had closely followed the actor's account, was far from drawing the same conclusions. For in fact, Gurn, Lord Beltham's murderer, whom Fandor believed to be Fantomas, had certainly got Valgrand executed in his stead. The Valgrand who came back to the theatre, three days after the execution, was not the real one, but the man who had taken his place—Gurn, the criminal, Gurn—Fantomas. Ah! that was a stroke of the true Fantomas sort! It was certain that if Valgrand's disappearance had been simultaneous with Gurn's execution, there might have been suspicions. Gurn—Fantomas then found it necessary to show Valgrand living to witnesses, so that these could swear that the real Valgrand had not died instead of Gurn.

But Valgrand was an actor, Gurn—Fantomas was not! Not enough of one at least to venture to take the place on the boards of such a consummate player, such a famous tragedian.

"And that was the end?" asked Fandor.

"The end, no!" declared the actor. "Valgrand was married and had a son. As is often the case with artists, the Valgrand marriage was not a success, and madame, a singer of talent, was separated from her husband, and travelled much abroad.

"About a year after these sad occurrences I had a visit from her. On her way through Paris, she had come to draw the allowance made her by her husband, to supply not only her own wants, but also those of her son, of whom she had the custody. Mme. Valgrand chatted with me for hours together. I recounted to her at length what I have had the honour of telling you, and it seemed to me that she gave no great credence to my words.

"Not that she threw doubts on my statements, but she kept reiterating, 'That is not like him; I know Valgrand would never have behaved in such a way!'

"But I never could get her to say exactly what she thought. Some weeks after this first visit I saw her again. Matters were getting complicated. There was no certificate of her husband's death. Her men of business made his 'absence' a pretext: she no longer drew a cent of her allowance, and yet people knew that Valgrand had left a pretty large amount, and it was in the bank or with a lawyer, I forget which. You are aware, M. Fandor, that when the settling of accounts, or questions of inheritance or wills, come to the fore there is no end to them."

"That's a fact," replied Fandor.

"We must believe," went on Bonardin, "that the matter was important in Mme. Valgrand's eyes, for she refused fine offers from abroad, and planted herself in Paris, living on her savings. The good woman evidently had a double object, to recover the inheritance for her son, little Rene, and also to get at the truth touching her husband's fate.

"She evidently cherished the hope that her husband was not guilty of the dresser's murder, that perhaps he was not even dead, that he would get over his madness if ever they managed to find him. In short, M. Fandor, some six or seven months ago, when I had quite ceased to think of these events, I found myself face to face with Mme. Valgrand on the Boulevard. I had some difficulty in recognising her, for my friend's widow was no longer dressed like the Parisian smart woman. Her hair was plastered down and drawn tightly back, her garments were plain and humble, her dress almost neglected. No doubt the poor woman had experienced cruel disappointments.

"'Good day, Mme. Valgrand,' I cried, moving toward her with outstretched hands. She stopped me with a gesture.

"'Hush,' she breathed, 'there is no Mme. Valgrand now. I am a companion.' And the unhappy woman explained that to earn her living she had to accept an inferior position as reader and housekeeper to a rich lady."

"And to whom did Mme. Valgrand go as companion?"

"To an Englishwoman, I believe, but the name escapes me."

"Mme. Valgrand wished, you say, that her identity should remain unknown? Do you know what name she took?"

"Yes—Mme. Raymond."

Some moments later Fandor left the actor and was hastening down the Rue Lepic as fast as his legs would take him.



XXVII

THE MOTHER SUPERIOR

"The Mother Superior, if you please?"

The door shut automatically upon Fandor. He was in the little inner court of the small convent, face to face with a Sister, who gazed in alarm at the unexpected guest. The journalist persisted:

"Can I see the Mother Superior?"

"Well, sir, yes—no, I think not."

The worthy nun evidently did not know what to say. Finally making up her mind she pointed to a passage, and, drawing aside to let the journalist pass, said:

"Be good enough to go in there and wait a few moments."

Fandor was ushered into a large, plain and austere room—doubtless the parlour of the community. At the windows hung long, white curtains, while before the half-dozen armchairs lay tiny rugs of matting; the floor, very waxed, was slippery to the tread. The journalist regarded curiously the walls upon which were hung here and there religious figures or chromos of an edifying kind. Above the chimney hung a great crucifix of ebony. But for the noise from without, the passing of the trains and motors, and were it not also for the fine savour of cooking and roast onions, one might have thought oneself a hundred leagues from the world in the peaceful calm of this little convent.

Fandor, on leaving Bonardin, had decided to fulfill without delay a pious mission given him by Juve's victim.

Taken in at the time of his accident by the Sisters of the Rue Charmille, Bonardin had received from them the first aid his condition required, and as he had left them without a word of thanks, he had begged Fandor to return and hand them on his behalf a fifty-franc bill for their poor.

After some minutes the door opened and a nun appeared. She greeted Fandor with a slight movement of the head; while the journalist bowed deferentially before her.

"Have I the honour of speaking to the Mother Superior?"

"Our Mother sends her excuses," murmured the nun, "for not being able to receive you at this moment. However, I can take her place, sir. I am in charge of the finances of the house."

"I bring you news, Sister."

The nun clasped her hands.

"Good news, I hope! How is the poor young man doing?"

"As well as can be expected; the ball was extracted without trouble by the doctors."

"I shall thank St. Comus, the patron saint of surgeons. And his assailant? Surely he will be well punished?"

Fandor smiled.

"His assailant was the victim of a terrible misconception. He is a most upright man."

"Then I will pray to St. Yves, the patron saint of advocates, to get him out of his difficulty."

"Well," cried Fandor, "since you have so many saints at command, Sister, you would do well to point out to me one who might favour the efforts of the police in their struggle with the ruffians."

The nun was a woman of sense who understood a joke. She rejoined: "You might try St. George, sir, the patron saint of warriors." Then becoming serious again, the Sister made an end of the interview. "Our Mother Superior will be much touched, sir, when I report the kind step you have taken in coming here to us."

"Allow me, Sister," broke in Fandor, "my mission is not over yet."

Here the journalist discreetly proffered the note.

"This is from M. Bonardin, for your poor."

The nun was profuse in her thanks, and looking at Fandor with a touch of malice:

"You may perhaps smile, sir, if I say I shall thank St. Martin, the patron saint of the charitable. In any case I shall do it with my whole heart."

The soft sound of a bell came from the distance; the Sister instinctively turned her head and looked through the windows at the inner cloister of the convent.

"The bell calls you, no doubt, Sister?" he inquired.

"It is, indeed, the hour of Vespers."

Fandor, followed by the Sister, left the parlour and reached the outer gate. Already the porter was about to open it for him when he pulled up short. Moving at a measured pace, one behind the other, the ladies of the community crossed the courtyard, going toward the chapel at the far end of the garden.

"Sister," Fandor inquired anxiously, "who is that nun who walks at the head?"

"That is our holy Mother Superior."

Fandor was lucky enough to find a taxi as he left the little convent, into which he jumped: he was immersed in such deep reflections that when the taxi stopped he was quite surprised to find himself in Rue Bonaparte, when he had meant to go up to Bonardin's and expected to reach Montmarte.

"Where did I tell you to go?" he asked the driver.

The man looked at his fare in amazement:

"To the address you gave me, I suppose."

Fandor did not reply, but paid his fare.

"Heaven inspires me," he thought. "To be sure I wanted to see Bonardin to tell him I had done his commission, but it was to prove I should have gone after what I found out at the convent."

The journalist remained motionless on the pavement without seeming to feel the jostling of the passers-by. He stood there with his eyes fixed on the ground, his mind lost in a dream. He had unconsciously gone back several years, to his mysterious childhood, stormy and restless. He went over again in thought, this last affair, which had once more brought him so intimately into Juve's life: the abominable crime in the Cite Frochot, in which Chaleck and Loupart were involved, and behind them Fantomas—the crime of which the victim—as Juve had clearly established—was no other than Lady——

He quickly entered the house and rushed up the stairs, but halted on the landing.

"What have I come here for? If I am to believe the papers, Juve is under lock and key: It must be instinct that guides me. I feel that I am going to see Juve: besides, I must."

He did not ring, for he enjoyed the unique favour of a key which allowed him to enter Juve's place at will. He entered and went straight to the study: it was empty. He then cried out:

"Juve! Many things have happened since I had the pleasure of seeing you! Be good enough to let me into your office. I have two words to say to you."

But Fandor's words fell dead in the silence of the apartment. After this summons he made his way into the office, and ensconced himself in an armchair: clearly Fandor was assured his friend had heard him. And he was not wrong! Two seconds later, lifting a curtain that hid a secret entrance to the study, Juve appeared.

"You speak as if you knew I was here!"

The two men looked at each other and burst into shouts of laughter.

"So you understood it was all a put-up affair intended to make our opponents believe that for a time I was powerless to hurt them. What do you think of my notion?"

"First rate," replied Fandor. "The more so that the fair Josephine 'saw with her own eyes' some of the force taking you off to prison."

"Everybody believe it, don't they?"

"Everybody."

"Look here. You spoke just now as though you knew I was here?"

Fandor smiled.

"The odour of hot smoke is easily distinguished from the dankness of cold tobacco."

Juve approved.

"Well done, Fandor. Here, for your pains, roll a cigarette and let's talk. Have you anything fresh?"

"Yes—and a lot, too!"

Fandor related the talk he had had with Bonardin touching Valgrand, the actor, and Mme. Valgrand, alias—Mme. Raymond.

Juve uttered his reflections aloud.

"This is one riddle the more to solve. I still adhere to the theory that Josephine, some months ago, was brought into intimate relations with Lady Beltham, whose body I discovered at Cite Frochot and later identified."

Fandor sprang up and placed both of his hands upon Juve's shoulders.

"Lady Beltham is not dead: She is alive! As surely as my name's Fandor, the Superior of the Convent at Nogent is—Lady Beltham."



XXVIII

AN OLD PARALYTIC

At the far end of the Rue de Rome Fandor halted. "After all," he thought, "maybe I am going straight into a trap. Who sent me the letter? Who is this M. Mahon? I never heard of him. Why this menacing phrase, 'Come, if you take any interest in the affairs of Lady B—— and F——.' Oh, if only I could take counsel of Juve!"

But for the last fortnight, since the ill-starred affair of Nogent and the almost incredible discovery he had made that Lady Beltham was still alive, Fandor had not seen Juve. He had been to the Surete a number of times, but Juve had vanished.

Fandor stopped before a private house on the Boulevard Pereire North. He passed in through the outer hall and reached the porter's lodge.

"Madame, have you a tenant here named Mahon?"

The porteress came forward.

"M. Mahon? To be sure—fifth floor on the right."

"Thank you. I should like to ask a few questions about him. I have come—to negotiate an insurance policy for him and I should like to know about the value of the furniture in his rooms. What sort of a man is this M. Mahon? About how old is he?"

Fandor had, by pure professional instinct, found the best device in the world. There is not a porteress who has not many times enlightened insurance agents.

"Why, sir, M. Mahon has lived here only a month or six weeks. He can scarcely be very well off, for when he moved in I did not see any fine furniture go up. I believe for that matter he is an old cavalry officer, and, in the army nowadays, folks scarcely make fortunes."

"That's true enough," assented Fandor.

"Anyhow he is a very charming man, an ideal lodger. To begin with, he is infirm, almost paralysed in both legs. I believe he never goes out of an evening. And then he never has any visitors except two young fellows who are serving their time in the army."

"Are they with him now?"

"No, sir, they never come till three or four in the afternoon."

Fandor slipped a coin into the woman's hand and went upstairs. He rang at the door and was surprised at a strange, soft rolling sound.

"Oh, I know," he thought; "the poor man must move about his rooms in a rubber-tired wheel chair."

He was not mistaken. Scarcely was the door opened when he caught sight of an old man of much distinction seated in a wheel chair. This invalid greeted the journalist pleasantly.

"M. Fandor?"

"The same, sir."

M. Mahon pushed forward his chair and motioned to his visitor to come in.

Fandor entered a room in which the curtains were closely drawn and which was brilliantly illuminated with electric lights, although it was the middle of the afternoon. Was it a trap? The journalist instinctively hesitated in the doorway. But behind him a cordial voice called:

"Come in, you all kinds of an idiot!"

The door clicked behind him and the invalid, getting out of his chair, burst into a fit of laughter.

"Juve! Juve!"

"As you see!"

"Bah, what farce are you playing here? Why this lit-up room?"

"All for very good reasons. If you will be kind enough to take a seat, I will explain."

Fandor dropped into a chair staring at Juve, who continued:

"When you came back the other day and told me that unlikely yarn about Lady Beltham being alive, I decided to try new methods. First of all, I became a cavalry officer, then I got this wheel chair and moved into this apartment."

As Juve paused, Fandor, more and more amazed, inquired:

"But your reason for all this!"

"Just wait! The day after the Dixon business, I put three of my best men on the track of the American. I had a notion he would want to see Josephine again, and I was not mistaken. She came back to justify herself in his eyes. The story ended as might have been foreseen. Michel, who brought me the news, said that Josephine had agreed to become Dixon's mistress."

"The deuce!"

"Oh, there is nothing to be surprised at that. Michel made arrangements to learn all the details. Josephine is to live at 33 C in Boulevard Pereire South; that is, to the right of the railway line, fourth floor. Here we are at 24 B Boulevard Pereire North, to left of the railway, fifth floor, and just opposite."

"And what does this old M. Mahon do, Juve?"

Juve smiled.

"You are going to see, my lad."

He settled himself again in the wheel chair, drew a heavy rug over his knees and became once more the old invalid.

"My dear friend, will you open the door for me?"

Fandor laughingly complied, and Juve wheeled himself into another room.

"You see I have plenty of air here thanks to this balcony upon which I can wheel my chair. Would you be good enough to pass me that spy-glass?"

Juve pointed the glass toward the far end of Boulevard Pereire, in the direction of Poste Maillot.

"Mlle. Josephine has lately had a craze for keeping her nails polished."

"But you are not looking toward the house opposite, you are looking in a contrary direction!"

Juve laid his spy-glass on his knees and laughed.

"I expected you to make that remark. See, those glasses at the end are only for show, inside is a whole system of prisms. With this perspective you see not in front of you, but on one side. In other words, when I point it at the far end of the boulevard, what I am really looking at is the house opposite."

Fandor was about to congratulate his friend on this new specimen of his ingenuity, but Juve did not give him time. He startled the journalist by suddenly asking him:

"Tell me, do you love the army?"

"Why?"

"Because I think those two soldiers you see over there are coming."

"To see you," added Fandor.

"How do you know?"

"From your porteress."

"You pumped her?"

"I did. I got her to talk a bit about that excellent M. Mahon."

Juve laughed:

"Confound you!"

With a quick movement Fandor, at the detective's request, drew back the wheel chair and shut the window.

"You understand," explained Juve, "there is nothing to surprise my neighbours in my having two soldiers to visit me. But I don't care for third persons to hear what they say to me." There was a ring at the apartment door. "Go and open, Fandor. I don't leave my cripple's chair for them; people can see through the curtains."

Shown in by Fandor, the soldiers shook hands with Juve and took seats opposite him.

"Do you recognise Michel and Leon?"

"Oh, perfectly!" cried Fandor, "but why this disguise?"

"Because no heed is paid to uniforms, there are soldiers everywhere, and also it is not easy to recognise a civilian suddenly appearing in uniform. What is fresh, Michel?"

"Something pretty serious, sir. According to your instructions we have been shadowing the Superior of the Nogent Convent."

"Well, what have you discovered?"

"Every Tuesday evening the Superior leaves Nogent and goes to Paris."

"Where?"

"To one of the branches of her religious house in the Boulevard Jourdan."

"No. 180?"

Michel was dumbfounded.

"Yes, sir, you knew?"

"No," said Juve, coldly. "What does she do at this branch?"

"There are four or five old nuns there. The Superior spends Tuesday night there and on Wednesday goes back to Nogent about one in the afternoon."

"And you know no more than that?"

"No, sir. Must we go on with the shadowing?"

"No, it is not worth while. Return to the Prefecture and report to M. Havard."

When the two men had left, Fandor turned to Juve.

"What do you make of it?"

Juve shrugged his shoulders.

"Michel is an idiot. That house has two exits; one to the Boulevard, the other to waste ground that leads to the fortifications. The Superior, or Lady Beltham, goes there to change her dress, and then hastens to some prearranged meeting elsewhere. The house at Neuilly will bear watching."



XXIX

THROUGH THE WINDOW

"What a splendid fellow! One can count on him at any time. A friendship like his is rare and precious."

Fandor had just left Juve, and the detective could not help being strangely moved as he thought of the devotion shown him by the journalist.

The detective was still in his wheel chair; with a skilful turn he went back to the balcony and his post of observation.

Evening was coming on. After a fine day the sky had become leaden and overcast with great clouds: a storm was threatening. Juve swore.

"I shan't see much this evening; this confounded Josephine is so sentimental that she loves dreaming in the gloaming at her window without lighting up. Devil take her!"

Juve had armed himself with his spy-glass; he apparently levelled it at Porte Maillot, and in that way he could see something of the movements of Josephine in the rooms opposite him.

"Flowers on the chimney and on the piano! Expecting her lover probably!"

Suddenly he started up in his chair.

"Ah! some one has rung her bell. She is going toward the entrance door."

A minute passed; in the front rooms Juve no longer saw anyone. Josephine must be receiving a visitor.

Some minutes more went by; a heavy shower of rain came down and Juve was forced to leave his balcony.

When he resumed his watching he could not suppress an exclamation of surprise.

"Ah, if he would only turn! This cursed rain prevents me from seeing clearly what is afoot. The brute! Why won't he turn! There, he has laid his bag on a chair, his initials must be on it, but I can't read them. Yet the height of the man! His gestures! It's he, sure enough, it's Chaleck!"

Juve suddenly abandoned his post of observation, propelled his chair to the back room of the suite and seized the telephone apparatus.

"Hello! Give me the Prefecture. It is Juve speaking. Send at once detectives Leon and Michel to No. 33 C Boulevard Pereire South. They are to wait at the door of the house and arrest as they come out the persons I marked as numbers 14 and 15. Let them make haste."

"Assuredly Chaleck won't leave at once if he has come to see Josephine; no doubt he has important things to say. Leon and Michel will arrive in time to nab him first and Josephine after. And to-morrow, when I have them handcuffed before me, it's the deuce if I don't manage to get the truth out of them."

Juve went back to his look-out.

"Oh, they seem very lively, both of them; the talk must be serious. Josephine doesn't look pleased. She seems to disagree with what Chaleck is saying. One would think he was giving her orders. No! she is down on her knees. A declaration of love! After Loupart and Dixon it's that infernal doctor's turn!"

Juve watched for a moment longer the young woman and the mysterious and elusive Chaleck.

"Ah! that's what I feared! Chaleck is going and Leon and Michel haven't come!"

Juve hesitated. Should he go down, rush to the Boulevard and try to collar the ruffian? That wasn't possible. Juve lived on the fifth floor, so that he had one more story to get down than Chaleck, then there was the railway line between him and Josephine's house. Chaleck would have ample time to disappear. But Juve reassured himself.

"Luckily he has left his hold-all, and if I mistake not, that is his stick on the chair. Therefore he expects to come back."

Powerless to act, Juve witnessed the exit of Chaleck, who soon appeared at the door of Josephine's house and went striding off. Juve followed him with his eyes, intensely chagrined. Would he ever again find such a good opportunity of laying hands on the ruffian?

Chaleck vanished round the corner of the street, and Juve again took to watching Josephine! The young woman did not appear to be upset by her late visitor. She sat, her elbows on the table, turning with a listless finger the pages of a volume.

"Clearly he is coming back," thought Juve, "or he would not have left his things there. I shall nab him in a few days at latest."

Juve was about to leave his post of observation when he saw Josephine raise her head in an attitude of listening to an indefinable and mysterious noise.

"What is going on?" Juve asked himself. "She cannot be already watching for Chaleck's return."

Then Juve started.

"Oh! oh!"

He had just seen Josephine at a single bound spring toward the window. The young woman gazed steadily in front of her, her arms outstretched in a posture of horror. She seemed in a state of abject terror. There was no mistaking her motions. She was panic-stricken, panting, trembling in all her limbs. Juve, who lost no movement of the hapless woman, felt a cold sweat break out on his forehead.

"What's the matter with her? There is nobody in the room, I see nothing! What can frighten her to that extent? Oh, my God!"

Forgetting all precautions, all the comedy he was preparing so carefully for the neighbour's benefit, he sprang to his feet, deserting his wheel chair. His hands clenched on the rail of the balcony while spellbound by the sight he beheld, he leaned over the rail as if in a frantic desire to fling himself to the young woman's help. Josephine had bestridden the sash of her window. She was now standing on the ledge, holding with one hand to the rail of her balcony and her body flung backwards as if mad with terror.

"What is happening? Oh, the poor soul!"

Josephine, uttering a desperate cry, had let go of the supporting rail and had flung herself into space. Juve saw the young woman's body spin in the air, heard the dull thud that it made as it crashed against the ground.

"It is monstrous!"

Juve beside himself tore down the stairs full tilt, passed breathlessly the porteress, who seemed likely to faint at the sight of the headlong pace of the supposed paralytic.

He went round Boulevard Pereire, darted along the railway line, and, panting, got to the side of the ill-starred Josephine. At the sound of her fall and the cries she uttered people had flown to the windows, passers-by had turned round: when Juve got there a ring of people had already formed round the unfortunate woman. The detective roughly pushed some of them aside, knelt down beside the body and put his ear to the chest.

"Dead? No!"

A faint groan came from the lips of the poor sufferer. Juve realised that by unheard-of luck, Josephine, in the course of her fall, had struck the outer branches of one of the trees that fringed the Boulevard. This had somewhat broken the shock, but her legs were frightfully broken and one of her arms hung lifeless.

"Quick!" commanded Juve. "A cab; take her to the hospital."

As soon as help was forthcoming, Juve, recalled to the duties of his profession, asked himself:

"What can have occurred? What was it she tried to escape by throwing herself into space? I saw the whole room, there was no one with her. She must have been the victim of a delusion."



XXX

UNCLE AND NEPHEW

"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 be taken 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 it has 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 the far 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—thanks to 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?"



XXXI

LOVERS AND ACCOMPLICES

"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 his irony 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 Cite 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 Cite 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 Cite 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 in La Capitale spoken of Fantomas in that 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—Fantomas!"

"Fantomas! Ah, I scarcely dare utter that name. And yet a doubt oppresses my heart! Tell me, are you not, yourself—Fantomas?"

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 Fantomas! Fantomas! Ah, if society knew—if humanity, instead of being what it is—but it matters little!"

"And Fantomas? What will become of him—of you?"

"Have I told you that I was Fantomas?"

"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 Fantomas we have unearthed: Fantomas, 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—Fantomas."

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."



XXXII

THE SILENT EXECUTIONER

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 Fantomas 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 for La 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 Fantomas!'"

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. Fantomas may succeed! Now you know what I have set out to do; if I should fail, I should like to think that you would carry on the work as my successor and put an end to Fantomas."

"But, Juve, you are threatened by Fantomas; 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 Fantomas, 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. Fantomas 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 Fantomas 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 a fall 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 Cite Frochot, and our notice was drawn to the elusive Fantomas, 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 Fantomas wants to be rid of the woman he loved under the guise of Loupart, since he has gone back to Lady Beltham. Moreover, Josephine chatters too much with Dixon, with the police.

"Chaleck, Fantomas, 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 Fantomas, 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 Fantomas' 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 Fantomas."

"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, Fantomas 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!'