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Title: Fantômas

Author: Pierre Souvestre
Marcel Allain

Translator: Cranstoun Metcalfe

Release date: January 13, 2009 [eBook #27794]
Most recently updated: November 24, 2025

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27794

Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

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

Transcriber's Note

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected in
this text. For a complete list, please see the bottom of
this document.

FANTÔMAS

PIERRE SOUVESTRE
AND

MARCEL ALLAIN
Translated from the original French by
Cranstoun Metcalfe
Introduction to the Dover Edition by
Robin Walz
DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.
Mineola, New York

Bibliographical Note
This Dover edition, first published in 2006, is an unabridged republication
of the
work first published by Brentano's Publishers Inc., New York, in 1915.
International Standard Book Number: 0-486-44971-8
Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501

Contents
Introduction to the Dover Edition v
chapter page
I. The Genius of Crime 1
II. A Tragic Dawn 12
III. The Hunt for the Man 26
IV. "No! I am not Mad!" 34
V. "Arrest Me!" 45
VI. "Fantômas, it is Death!" 52
VII. The Criminal Investigation Department 68
VIII. A Dreadful Confession 82
IX. All for Honour 92
X. Princess Sonia's Bath 104
XI. Magistrate and Detective 117
XII. A Knock-out Blow 125
XIII. Thérèse's Future 133
XIV. Mademoiselle Jeanne 140
XV. The Mad Woman's Plot 146
XVI. Among the Market Porters 156
XVII. At the Saint-Anthony's Pig 163
XVIII. A Prisoner and a Witness 174
XIX. Jérôme Fandor 184
XX. A Cup of Tea 190
XXI. Lord Beltham's Murderer 196
XXII. The Scrap of Paper 205
XXIII. The Wreck of the "Lancaster" 210
XXIV. Under Lock and Key 216
XXV. An Unexpected Accomplice 223
XXVI. A Mysterious Crime 228
XXVII. Three Surprising Incidents 237
XXVIII. The Court of Assize 247

XXIX. Verdict and Sentence 255
XXX. An Assignation 265
XXXI. Fell Treachery 276
XXXII. On the Scaffold 288

I. The Genius of Crime
"Fantômas."
"What did you say?"
"I said: Fantômas."
"And what does that mean?"
"Nothing.... Everything!"
"But what is it?"
"Nobody.... And yet, yes, it is somebody!"
"And what does the somebody do?"
"Spreads terror!"

Dinner was just over, and the company were moving into the drawing-
room.
Hurrying to the fireplace, the Marquise de Langrune took a large log from a
basket and flung it on to the glowing embers on the hearth; the log crackled
and shed a brilliant light over the whole room; the guests of the Marquise
instinctively drew near to the fire.
During the ten consecutive months she spent every year at her château of
Beaulieu, on the outskirts of Corrèze, that picturesque district bounded by
the Dordogne, it had been the immemorial custom of the Marquise de
Langrune to entertain a few of her personal friends in the neighbourhood to
dinner every Wednesday, thereby obtaining a little pleasant relief from her
loneliness and keeping up some contact with the world.

On this particular winter evening the good lady's guests included several
habitués: President Bonnet, a retired magistrate who had withdrawn to his
small property at Saint-Jaury, in the suburbs of Brives, and the Abbé Sicot,
who was the parish priest. A more occasional friend was also there, the
Baronne de Vibray, a young and wealthy widow, a typical woman of the
world who spent the greater part of her life either in motoring, or in the
most exclusive drawing-rooms of Paris, or at the most fashionable
watering-places. But when the Baronne de Vibray put herself out to grass,
as she racily phrased it, and spent a few weeks at Querelles, her estate close
to the château of Beaulieu, nothing pleased her better than to take her place
again in the delightful company of the Marquise de Langrune and her
friends.
Finally, youth was represented by Charles Rambert, who had arrived at the
château a couple of days before, a charming lad of about eighteen who was
treated with warm affection by the Marquise and by Thérèse Auvernois, the
granddaughter of the Marquise, with whom since her parents' death she had
lived as a daughter.
The odd and even mysterious words spoken by President Bonnet as they
were leaving the table, and the personality of this Fantômas about which he
had said nothing definite in spite of all the questions put to him, had excited
the curiosity of the company, and while Thérèse Auvernois was gracefully
dispensing the coffee to her grandmother's guests the questions were
renewed with greater insistence. Crowding round the fire, for the evening
was very cold, Mme. de Langrune's friends showered fresh questions upon
the old magistrate, who secretly enjoyed the interest he had inspired. He
cast a solemn eye upon the circle of his audience and prolonged his silence,
the more to capture their attention. At length he began to speak.
"Statistics tell us, ladies, that of all the deaths that are registered every day
quite a third are due to crime. You are no doubt aware that the police
discover about half of the crimes that are committed, and that barely half
meet with the penalty of justice. This explains how it is that so many
mysteries are never cleared up, and why there are so many mistakes and
inconsistencies in judicial investigations."

"What is the conclusion you wish to draw?" the Marquise de Langrune
enquired with interest.
"This," the magistrate proceeded: "although many crimes pass unsuspected
it is none the less obvious that they have been committed; now while some
of them are due to ordinary criminals, others are the work of enigmatical
beings who are difficult to trace and too clever or intelligent to let
themselves be caught. History is full of stories of such mysterious
characters, the Iron Mask, for instance, and Cagliostro. In every age there
have been bands of dangerous creatures, led by such men as Cartouche and
Vidocq and Rocambole. Now why should we suppose that in our time no
one exists who emulates the deeds of those mighty criminals?"
The Abbé Sicot raised a gentle voice from the depths of a comfortable arm-
chair wherein he was peacefully digesting his dinner.
"The police do their work better in our time than ever they did before."
"That is perfectly true," the president admitted, "but their work is also more
difficult than ever it was before. Criminals who operate in the grand manner
have all sorts of things at their disposal nowadays. Science has done much
for modern progress, but unfortunately it can be of invaluable assistance to
criminals at times; the hosts of evil have the telegraph and the motor-car at
their disposal just as authority has, and some day they will make use of the
aeroplane."
Young Charles Rambert had been listening to the president's dissertation
with the utmost interest and now broke in, with a voice that quivered
slightly.
"You were talking about Fantômas just now, sir——"
The president cast a cryptic look at the lad and did not reply directly to him.
"That is what I am coming to, for, of course, you have understood me,
ladies. In these days we have been distressed by a steady access of
criminality, and among the assets we shall henceforth have to count a
mysterious and most dangerous creature, to whom the baffled authorities
and public rumour generally have for some time now given the name of
Fantômas. It is impossible to say exactly or to know precisely who

Fantômas is. He often assumes the form and personality of some definite
and even well-known individual; sometimes he assumes the forms of two
human beings at one and the same time. Sometimes he works alone,
sometimes with accomplices; sometimes he can be identified as such and
such a person, but no one has ever yet arrived at knowing Fantômas
himself. That he is a living person is certain and undeniable, yet he is
impossible to catch or to identify. He is nowhere and everywhere at once,
his shadow hovers above the strangest mysteries, and his traces are found
near the most inexplicable crimes, and yet——"
"You are frightening us!" exclaimed the Baronne de Vibray with a little
forced laugh that did not ring true, and the Marquise de Langrune, who for
the past few minutes had been uneasy at the idea of the children listening to
the conversation, cast about in her mind for an occupation more suited to
their age. The interruption gave her an opportunity, and she turned to
Charles Rambert and Thérèse.
"You must find it very dull here with all of us grown-up people, dears, so
run away now. Thérèse," she added with a smile to her granddaughter who
had risen obediently, "there is a splendid new puzzle in the library; you
ought to try it with Charles."
The young fellow realised that he must comply with the desire of the
Marquise, although the conversation interested him intensely; but he was
too well bred to betray his thoughts, and the next moment he was in the
adjoining room, sitting opposite the girl, and deep in the intricacies of the
latest fashionable game.

The Baronne de Vibray brought the conversation back to the subject of
Fantômas.
"What connection is there, President, between this uncanny creature and the
disappearance of Lord Beltham, of which we were talking at dinner?"
"I should certainly have agreed with you and thought there was none," the
old magistrate replied, "if Lord Beltham's disappearance had been
unattended by any mysterious circumstance. But there is one point that

deserves your attention: the newspaper from which I read an extract just
now, La Capitale, draws attention to it and regards it as being important. It
is said that when Lady Beltham began to be uneasy about her husband's
absence, on the morning of the day following his disappearance, she
remembered noticing just as he was going out that he was reading a
particular letter, the peculiar, square shape of which surprised her. She had
also noticed that the handwriting of the letter was very heavy and black.
Now, she found the letter in question upon her husband's desk, but the
whole of the writing had disappeared, and it was only the most minute
examination that resulted in the discovery of a few almost imperceptible
stains which proved that it really was the identical document that had been
in her husband's hands. Lady Beltham would not have thought very much
about it, if it had not occurred to the editor of La Capitale to interview
detective Juve about it, the famous Inspector of the Criminal Investigation
Department, you know, who has brought so many notorious criminals to
justice. Now M. Juve manifested the greatest excitement over the discovery
and the nature of this document; and he did not attempt to hide from his
interviewer his belief that the strange nature of this unusual epistle was
proof of the intervention of Fantômas. You very likely know that Juve has
made it his special business to follow up Fantômas; he has sworn that he
will take him, and he is after him body and soul. Let us hope he will
succeed! But it is no good pretending that Juve's job is not as difficult a one
as can be imagined.
"However, it is a fair inference that when Juve spoke as he did to the
representative of La Capitale, he did not think he was going too far when he
declared that a crime lay behind the disappearance of Lord Beltham, and
that perhaps the crime must be laid at Fantômas' door; and we can only
hope that at some not distant date, justice will not only throw full light upon
this mysterious affair, but also rid us for ever of this terrifying criminal!"
President Bonnet had convinced his audience completely, and his closing
words cast a chill upon them all.
The Marquise de Langrune deemed it time to create a diversion.
"Who are these people, Lord and Lady Beltham?" she enquired.

"Oh, my dear!" the Baronne de Vibray answered, "it is perfectly obvious
that you lead the life of a hermit in this remote country home of yours, and
that echoes from the world of Paris do not reach you often! Lord and Lady
Beltham are among the best known and most popular people in society. He
was formerly attached to the English Embassy, but left Paris to fight in the
Transvaal, and his wife went with him and showed magnificent courage and
compassion in charge of the ambulance and hospital work. They then went
back to London, and a couple of years ago they settled once more in Paris.
They lived, and still live, in the boulevard Inkermann at Neuilly-sur-Seine,
in a delightful house where they entertain a great deal. I have often been
one of Lady Beltham's guests; she is a most fascinating woman,
distinguished, tall, fair, and endowed with the charm that is peculiar to the
women of the North. I am very distressed at the trouble that is hanging over
her."
"Well," said the Marquise de Langrune conclusively, "I mean to believe that
the gloomy prognostications of our friend the president will not be justified
by the event."
"Amen!" murmured the Abbé mechanically, roused from his gentle slumber
by the closing words of the Marquise.

The clock chimed ten, and her duties as hostess did not make the Marquise
forgetful of her duties as grandmother.
"Thérèse," she called, "it is your bed-time. It is very late, darling."
The child obediently left her game, said good night to the Baronne de
Vibray and President Bonnet, and last of all to the old priest, who gave her a
paternal embrace.
"Shall I see you at the seven o'clock mass, Thérèse?" he asked.
The child turned to the Marquise.
"Will you let me accompany Charles to the station to-morrow morning? I
will go to the eight o'clock mass on my way back."

The Marquise looked at Charles Rambert.
"Your father really is coming by the train that reaches Verrières at 6.55?"
and when he assented she hesitated a moment before replying to Thérèse. "I
think, dear, it would be better to let our young friend go alone to meet his
father."
But Charles Rambert put in his plea.
"Oh, I am sure my father would be delighted to see Thérèse with me when
he gets out of the train."
"Very well, then," the kind old lady said; "arrange it as you please. But,
Thérèse, before you go upstairs, tell our good steward, Dollon, to give
orders for the carriage to be ready by six o'clock. It is a long way to the
station."
Thérèse promised, and the two young people left the drawing-room.
"A pretty couple," remarked the Baronne de Vibray, adding with a
characteristic touch of malice, "you mean to make a match between them
some day, Marquise?"
The old lady threw up her hands protesting.
"What an idea! Why, Thérèse is not fifteen yet."
"Who is this Charles Rambert?" the Abbé asked. "I just caught sight of him
the day before yesterday with Dollon, and I puzzled my brains wondering
who he could be."
"I am not surprised," the Marquise laughed, "not surprised that you did not
succeed in finding out, for you do not know him. But you may perhaps have
heard me mention a M. Etienne Rambert, an old friend of mine, with whom
I had many a dance in the long ago. I had lost sight of him completely until
about two years ago, when I met him at a charity function in Paris. The poor
man has had a rather chequered life; twenty years ago he married a woman
who was perfectly charming, but who is, I believe, very ill with a
distressing malady: I am not even sure that she is not insane. Quite lately
Etienne Rambert has been compelled to send her to an asylum."

"That does not tell us how his son comes to be your guest," President
Bonnet urged.
"It is very simple: Etienne Rambert is an energetic man who is always
moving about. Although he is quite sixty he still occupies himself with
some rubber plantations he possesses in Colombia, and he often goes to
America: he thinks no more of the voyage than we do of a trip to Paris.
Well, just recently young Charles Rambert was leaving the pension in
Hamburg where he had been living in order to perfect his German; I knew
from his father's letters that Mme. Rambert was about to be put away, and
that Etienne Rambert was obliged to be absent, so I offered to receive
Charles here until his father should return to Paris. Charles came the day
before yesterday, and that is the whole story."
"And M. Etienne Rambert joins him here to-morrow?" said the Abbé.
"That is so——"

The Marquise de Langrune would have given other information about her
young friend had he not come into the room just then. He was an attractive
lad with refined and distinguished features, clear, intelligent eyes, and
graceful figure. The other guests were silent, and Charles Rambert
approached them with the slight awkwardness of youth. He went up to
President Bonnet and plucked up sudden courage.
"And what then, sir?" he asked in a low tone.
"I don't understand, my boy," said the magistrate.
"Oh!" said Charles Rambert, "have you finished talking about Fantômas? It
was so amusing!"
"For my part," the president answered dryly, "I do not find these stories
about criminals 'amusing.'"
But the lad did not detect the shade of reproach in the words.

"But still it is very odd, very extraordinary that such mysterious characters
as Fantômas can exist nowadays. Is it really possible that a single man can
commit such a number of crimes, and that any human being can escape
discovery, as they say Fantômas can, and be able to foil the cleverest
devices of the police? I think it is——"
The president's manner grew steadily more chilly as the boy's curiosity
waxed more enthusiastic, and he interrupted curtly.
"I fail to understand your attitude, young man. You appear to be hypnotised,
fascinated. You speak of Fantômas as if he were something interesting. It is
out of place, to put it mildly," and he turned to the Abbé Sicot. "There, sir,
that is the result of this modern education and the state of mind produced in
the younger generation by the newspaper press and even by literature.
Criminals are given haloes and proclaimed from the housetops. It is
astounding!"
But Charles Rambert was not the least impressed.
"But it is life, sir; it is history, it is the real thing!" he insisted. "Why, you
yourself, in just a few words, have thrown an atmosphere round this
Fantômas which makes him absolutely fascinating! I would give anything
to have known Vidocq and Cartouche and Rocambole, and to have seen
them at close quarters. Those were men!"
President Bonnet contemplated the young man in astonishment; his eyes
flashed lightning at him and he burst out:
"You are mad, boy, absolutely mad! Vidocq—Rocambole! You mix up
legend and history, bracket murderers with detectives, and make no
distinction between right and wrong! You would not hesitate to set the
heroes of crime and the heroes of law and order on one and the same
pedestal!"
"You have said the word, sir," Charles Rambert exclaimed: "they all are
heroes. But, better still, Fantômas——"
The lad's outburst was so vehement and spontaneous and sincere, that it
provoked unanimous indignation among his hearers. Even the indulgent

Marquise de Langrune ceased to smile. Charles Rambert perceived that he
had gone too far, and stopped abruptly.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he murmured. "I spoke without thinking; please
forgive me."
He raised his eyes and looked at President Bonnet, blushing to the tips of
his ears and looking so abashed that the magistrate, who was a kind-hearted
man at bottom, tried to reassure him.
"Your imagination is much too lively, young man, much too lively. But you
will grow out of that. Come, come: that's all right; lads of your age do talk
without knowledge."
It was very late now, and a few minutes after this incident the guests of the
Marquise de Langrune took their departure.
Charles Rambert accompanied the Marquise to the door of her own private
rooms, and was about to bid her a respectful good night before going on to
his bedroom, which adjoined hers, when she asked him to follow her.
"Come in and get the book I promised you, Charles. It should be on my
writing-table." She glanced at that piece of furniture as she entered the
room, and went on, "Or in it, perhaps; I may have locked it away."
"I don't want to give you any trouble," he protested, but the Marquise
insisted.
"Put your light down on that table," she said. "Besides, I have got to open
my desk, for I must look at the lottery tickets I gave to Thérèse a few weeks
ago." She pushed back the roll top of her Empire desk and looked up at the
young fellow. "It would be a piece of good luck if my little Thérèse won the
first prize, eh, Charles? A million francs! That would be worth winning?"
"Rather!" said Charles Rambert with a smile.
The Marquise found the book she was searching for and gave it to the lad
with one hand while with the other she smoothed out several variegated
papers.

"These are my tickets," she said, and then broke off. "How stupid of me! I
have not kept the number of the winning ticket that was advertised in La
Capitale."
Charles Rambert immediately offered to go downstairs again to fetch the
newspaper, but the Marquise would not let him.
"It is no good, my dear boy; it is not there now. You know—or rather you
don't know—that the Abbé takes away all the week's newspapers every
Wednesday night in order to read all the political articles." The old lady
turned away from her writing-table, which she left wide open, conducted
the young man to the door, and held out a friendly hand. "It is to-morrow
morning already!" she said. "So now good night, dear Charles!"
In his own room, with the lights extinguished and the curtains closed,
Charles Rambert lay wide awake, a prey to strange excitement. He turned
and tossed in his bed nervously. In vain did he try to banish from his mind
the words spoken during the evening by President Bonnet. In imagination
Charles Rambert saw all manner of sinister and dramatic scenes, crimes and
murders: hugely interested, intensely curious, craving for knowledge, he
was ever trying to concoct plots and unravel mysteries. If for an instant he
dozed off, the image of Fantômas took shape in his mind, but never twice
the same: sometimes he saw a colossal figure with bestial face and
muscular shoulders; sometimes a wan, thin creature, with strange and
piercing eyes; sometimes a vague form, a phantom—Fantômas!
Charles Rambert slept, and woke, and dozed again. In the silence of the
night he thought he heard creakings and heavy sounds. Then suddenly he
felt a breath pass over his face—and again nothing! And suddenly again
strange sounds were buzzing in his ears.
Bathed in cold sweat Charles Rambert started and sat upright in bed, every
muscle tense, listening with all his ears. Was he dreaming, or had he really
waked up? He did not know. And still, still he had a consciousness of
Fantômas—of mystery—of Fantômas!
Charles Rambert heard the clock strike four.

II. A Tragic Dawn
As his cab turned by the end of the Pont Royal towards the Gare d'Orsay,
M. Etienne Rambert looked at his watch and found, as he had anticipated,
that he had a good quarter of an hour before the train that he intended to
take was due to start. He called a porter, and gave him the heavy valise and
the bundle of rugs that formed the whole of his hand baggage.
"Where is the office for forwarding luggage, my man?" he enquired.
The porter led him through the famous panelled hall of the Gare d'Orsay,
and M. Etienne Rambert satisfied himself that his trunks had been properly
registered for Verrières, the station at which he had to alight for the château
of Beaulieu.
Still attended by the porter, who had conceived a respectful admiration for
him in consequence of the authoritative tone in which he demanded
information from the various railway servants, and who scented a probable
munificent tip, M. Etienne Rambert proceeded to the booking-office and
took a first-class ticket. He spent a few minutes more at the book-stall
where he selected an imposing collection of illustrated papers, and then, his
final preparations completed, he turned once more to the porter.
"The Luchon train," he said; "where is it?" and as the man only made a
vague gesture and growled something wholly indistinct, he added: "Lead
the way, and I will follow."
It was now just half-past eight, and the station showed all the animation
inseparable from the departure of main-line trains. M. Etienne Rambert
hurried onwards, and reaching the platform from which all the lines begin,
was stayed by the porter who was laden with his baggage.
"You want the express, sir?"
"No, the slow train, my man."
The porter showed some surprise, but made no remark.

"Do you like the front or the back of the train?"
"The back by choice."
"First-class, isn't it?"
"Yes, first-class."
The porter, who had stopped a moment, picked up the heavy valise again.
"Then there isn't any choice. There are only two first-class carriages on the
slow train, and they are both in the middle."
"They are corridor carriages, I suppose?" said Etienne Rambert.
"Yes, sir; there are hardly any others on the main-line trains, especially first-
class."
In the ever-increasing crowd Etienne Rambert had some difficulty in
following the porter. The Gare d'Orsay has little or none of the
attractiveness of the other stations, which cannot fail to have a certain
fascination for any imaginative person, who thinks of the mystery attaching
to all those iron rails reaching out into the distance of countries unknown to
him. It is less noisy than the others also, for between Austerlitz and Orsay
the traction is entirely electric. And further, there is no clearly defined
separation between the main and the suburban lines.
On the right of the platform was the train which was to take Etienne
Rambert beyond Brives to Verrières, the slow train to Luchon; and on the
left of the same platform was another train for Juvisy and all the small
stations in the suburbs of Paris.
Very few people were making for the train to Luchon; but a large crowd
was pressing into the suburban train.
The porter who was piloting M. Etienne Rambert, set the baggage he was
carrying down on the footboard of a first-class carriage.
"There is no one for the slow train yet, sir; if you like to get in first you can
choose your own compartment."

M. Etienne Rambert acted on the suggestion, but he had hardly set foot in
the corridor before the guard, also scenting a generous tip, came to offer his
services.
"It really is the 8.50 you want, sir?" was his first enquiry. "You are sure you
are not making a mistake?"
"No," Etienne Rambert replied. "Why?"
"A great many first-class passengers do make a mistake," the man
explained, "and confuse the 8.50 with the 8.45 express."
As he spoke the guard took the baggage from the porter who had remained
on the platform, and the porter, after being generously remunerated for his
trouble by M. Rambert, hurried away to look for other travellers.
"The 8.45 is the express, isn't it?" M. Rambert enquired.
"Yes," the guard answered; "it runs right through without stopping at all the
small stations as this train does. It goes in front of this one and gets to
Luchon three hours earlier. There it is on the side there," and he pointed
through the window in the door on the far side to another train on the next
rails, in which a number of travellers were already taking their seats. "If you
prefer to go by that one, sir," he went on, "there is still time for you to
change; you are entitled to take your choice since you have a first-class
ticket."
But Etienne Rambert, after a moment's consideration, declined the
suggestion.
"No: I would rather go by the slow train. If I take the express I should have
to get out at Brives, and then I should be twelve or thirteen miles from
Saint-Jaury, which is my destination; whereas the slow train stops at
Verrières, where, by the way, I have already telegraphed to say I shall arrive
to-morrow morning."
He walked a little way along the corridor, assuring himself that the various
compartments were still quite empty, and then turned to the guard.
"Look here, my man," he said, "I am awfully tired, and I mean to get some
sleep to-night; consequently I should like to be alone. Now where shall I be

most quiet and undisturbed?"
The man understood. M. Etienne Rambert's enquiry about the place where
he would be most quiet, was an implicit promise of a handsome tip if
nobody did disturb him.
"If you like to settle yourself here, sir," the man answered, "you can draw
down the blinds at once, and I dare say I shall be able to find room for any
other passengers somewhere else."
"Good," said M. Rambert, moving towards the compartment indicated. "I
will smoke a cigar until the train starts, and immediately afterwards I will
settle down to sleep. By the way, my man, since you seem so obliging, I
wish you would undertake to call me to-morrow morning in time for me to
get out at Verrières. I am desperately sleepy and I am quite capable of not
waking up."
The guard touched his cap.
"You can be perfectly easy, sir, and sleep without the least anxiety. I won't
fail."
"Very well."
When his baggage had been stowed away, and his rugs spread out to make
the seat more comfortable still, M. Etienne Rambert repeated his appeal, for
he was an old traveller and knew that it does not do to rely too much upon
the promises of chance attendants.
"I can rely upon you, can't I? I may sleep as sound as I like, and you will
wake me at Verrières?" And the more to assure himself that the guard would
execute his orders he slipped a franc into his hand.
When he was left alone, M. Rambert continued his preparations for the
night. He carefully drew down the blinds over the door and over the
windows of the compartment that gave on to the corridor, and also lowered
the shade over the electric light, and then, in order to enjoy the last puffs at
his cigar in peace, he opened the window over the other door and leant his
elbows on it, watching the final preparations being made by the travellers
by the express on the other line.

The departure of a train is always a picturesque sight, and M. Rambert leant
forward inquisitively to note how the passengers had installed themselves in
the two compartments which he could see from his coign of vantage.
There were not many people in the train. As a matter of fact the Brives and
Luchon line is not much used at this time of year. If the number of
passengers in the express were any criterion Etienne Rambert might
reasonably expect that he would be the only one in the slow train. But there
was not much time for observations and reflections of this kind. On the
platform for the express, which he got a glimpse of through the
compartments, people were hurrying up their farewells. The passengers had
got into their carriages, and the friends who had come to see them off were
standing alone upon the platform. There was the sound of safety locks being
fastened by porters, and the noise of trollies being wheeled along bearing
articles for sale.
"Pillows! Rugs! Sweets! Papers!"
Then came the whistle of the guard, the shriller scream from the electric
engine, and then, slowly at first but steadily, more rapidly as the engine got
up speed, the express moved along the platform and plunged into the tunnel
on the way to Austerlitz.
Meanwhile the guard of the slow train was doing wonders. Shamelessly
resolved to assure perfect quiet to "his" passenger, he managed, without
unduly compromising himself but yet without leaving any doubt about it in
any mind, to insinuate discreetly that M. Rambert's carriage was reserved,
so that that gentleman might count upon an entirely undisturbed night.
A few minutes after the express had gone, the slow train drew out in its
turn, and disappeared into the darkness of the underground tunnel.

At the château of Beaulieu young Charles Rambert was just finishing
dressing when a gentle tap sounded on the door of his room.
"It is a quarter to five, Charles. Get up at once!"

"I am awake already, Thérèse," Charles Rambert answered with some pride.
"I shall be ready in two minutes."
"What? up already?" the girl exclaimed from the other side of the door.
"Marvellous! I congratulate you. I'm ready too; I will wait for you in the
dining-room. Come down as soon as you are dressed."
"All right!" the young man answered.
He wasted no time over his toilette, the more so because it was none too
warm in his room, for at this early hour it was still quite dark; and then
taking his light in one hand he opened his door carefully so as to make no
noise, tip-toed along the landing, and went down the staircase to join
Thérèse in the dining-room. The girl was an accomplished housekeeper
already, and while waiting for the young fellow she had got a scratch meal
together.
"Let us have breakfast quickly," she suggested; "it isn't snowing this
morning, and if you like we might walk to the station. We have plenty of
time, and it will do us good to have a walk."
"It will warm us up anyhow," Charles Rambert replied; he was only half-
awake, but he sat beside Thérèse, and did justice to the preparations she had
made.
"Do you know that it is very wonderful of you to get up so punctually?"
Mme. de Langrune's granddaughter remarked. "How did you manage it?
Last night you were afraid you would sleep on as usual."
"It was not much trouble for me to wake up," Charles Rambert answered. "I
hardly closed an eye all night."
"But I promised to come and knock at your door myself, so you might have
slept without any anxiety."
"That's so, but to tell you the truth, Thérèse, I was regularly upset and
excited by the thought of papa arriving this morning."
They had both finished breakfast, and Thérèse got up.
"Shall we start?" she asked.

"Yes."
Thérèse opened the hall door, and the two young people went down the
flight of steps leading to the garden. The girl had thrown a big cloak over
her shoulders, and she inhaled the pure morning air with keen delight.
"I love going out in the early morning," she declared.
"Well, I don't like it at all," Charles Rambert confessed with characteristic
candour. "Good Lord, how cold it is! And it is still pitch dark!"
"Surely you are not going to be frightened?" said Thérèse teasingly.
Charles Rambert made an irritable movement of vexation and surprise.
"Frightened? What do you take me for, Thérèse? If I don't like going out in
the early morning it's really only because it is cold."
She laughed at him while they were crossing the lawn towards the out-
buildings, through which she meant to get out on to the high road. As they
passed the stables they came across a groom who was leisurely getting an
old brougham out of the coach-house.
"Don't hurry, Jean," Thérèse called out as she greeted him. "We are going to
walk to the station, and the only important thing is that you should be there
to bring us back."
The man touched his cap and the two young people passed through the park
gate and found themselves upon the high road.

It was still very dark, with just a wan reflection in the distance of the sky
vaguely outlining some cloud-shapes to the eastward to give some promise
of the day. There was no sound to break the silence of the fields, and as they
walked briskly along Charles and Thérèse could hear their footsteps ringing
on the hard surface of the frozen ground.
"It must please you awfully to be going to meet your father," said Mme. de
Langrune's granddaughter half questioningly. "It is a long time since you
have seen him, isn't it?"

"Three years," Charles Rambert answered, "and then just for a few minutes.
He is coming home from America now, and before that he travelled in
Spain for a long time."
"He was travelling the whole time you were a child, wasn't he?"
"Yes, always: either in Colombia, looking after his rubber plantations there,
or in Spain, where he has a good deal of property too. When he was in Paris
he used to come to the school and ask for me, and I saw him in the parlour
—for a quarter of an hour."
"And your mother?"
"Oh, mamma was different. You know, Thérèse, I spent all the childhood
that I can remember at the school. I liked the masters and had good chums,
and was very happy there, and if the truth must be told I looked forward
with anything but pleasure to the holidays, when I had to go to my parents'
house. I always felt a stranger with them; my real home was the school-
room, where I had my desk and all my own interests. And then, you know,
when one is little one doesn't understand things much; I didn't feel having
hardly any family, very much."
"But you loved your mother very much?"
Thérèse asked the question quite anxiously, and it was patent that she would
have thought it dreadful if her companion had not had a real affection for
his mother.
"Oh, yes, I loved her," Charles Rambert answered; "but I hardly knew her
either." And as Thérèse showed her surprise he went on, telling her
something of the secret of his lonely childhood. "You see, Thérèse, now that
I am a man I guess lots of things that I could not have had even a suspicion
of then. My father and mother did not get on well together. They were what
you call an ill-assorted couple. They were both very good, but their
characters did not harmonise. When I was little I always saw mamma silent
and sad, and papa active and on the go, and bright and talking at the top of
his voice. I half believe he frightened mamma! And then my father was
constantly away, whereas mamma hardly ever went out. When a servant
took me to the house on Thursdays, I was taken up to say good morning to
her, and I invariably found her lying on a sofa in her room, with the blinds

down and almost dark. She just touched me with her lips and asked me one
or two questions, and then I was taken away again because I tired her."
"Was she ill, then?"
"Mamma always has been ill. I suppose you know, Thérèse, that three
months ago—stay, it was just when I had taken my degree and went to
Germany—she was sent to an asylum? I believe my father had wanted her
to agree to undergo careful treatment of the kind long before, but she would
not."
Thérèse was silent for a few minutes.
"You have not been very happy," she said presently.
"Oh, it was only after I grew up that I felt unhappy. When I was a little chap
I never thought of how sad it is to have no real father or mother. The last
four or five years it has hurt me, but when he came to see me once at
school, papa told me he would take me with him as soon as I had taken my
degree and grown up. Last October, after my examination, he wrote and
told me to be patient a little longer, and that he was hurrying on with the
winding up of his business and coming back to France. That gave me a
hope which has brightened these last few months, and will also make you
understand why I am so pleased this morning at my father's coming. It
seems to me that a new life is going to begin."
Day was breaking now: a dirty December day, with the light filtering
through heavy grey clouds that drifted along the ground, hid the horizon,
clung to the low hills, and then suddenly dispersed in long wisps driven by
a keen breeze, that got up in gusts, and drove clouds of dust along the hard
frozen ground.
"I have not been very happy either," said Thérèse, "for I lost my father
when I was tiny: I don't even remember him; and mamma must be dead as
well."
The ambiguous turning of the child's phrase caught Charles Rambert's
interested attention.
"What does that mean, Thérèse? Don't you know if your mother is dead?"

"Yes, oh yes; grandmamma says so. But whenever I ask for particulars
grandmamma always changes the subject. I will echo what you said just
now: when you are little you don't know anything and are not surprised at
anything. For a long time I took no notice of her sudden reticence, but now
I sometimes wonder if something is not being kept back from me—whether
it is really true that mamma is no more in this world."
Talking like this Thérèse and Charles had walked at a good pace, and now
they came to the few houses built around Verrières station. One by one,
bedroom windows and doors were being opened; peasants were making
their way to the sheds to lead their cattle to the pastures.
"We are very early," Thérèse remarked, pointing to the station clock in the
distance. "Your father's train is due at 6.55, and it is only 6.40 now; we still
have a quarter of an hour to wait, and more, if the train is not punctual!"

They went into the little station and Charles Rambert, thankful for some
shelter from the cold, stamped his feet, making a sudden uproar in the
empty waiting-room. A porter appeared.
"Who the deuce is kicking up all this row?" he began angrily, and then
seeing Thérèse, broke off short. "Ah, Mademoiselle Thérèse," he said with
the familiar yet perfectly respectful cordiality that marks country folk, "up
already? Have you come to meet somebody, or are you going away?"
As he spoke, the porter turned a curious eye upon Charles Rambert, whose
arrival had caused quite a sensation two days before in this little spot, where
with but few exceptions none but people belonging to the neighbourhood
ever came by train.
"No, I am not going away," Thérèse replied. "I have accompanied M.
Rambert, who has come to meet his father."
"Ah-ha, to meet your papa, sir: is he coming from far?"
"From Paris," Charles Rambert answered. "Is the train signalled yet?"
The man drew out a watch like a turnip, and looked at the time.

"It won't be here for quite another twenty minutes. The work on the tunnel
makes it necessary to be careful, and it's always late now. But you will hear
when the bell rings: that will be when the train is coming over the level-
crossing; it will run into the station three minutes after that. Well,
Mademoiselle, I must get on with my work," and the man left them.
Thérèse turned to Charles Rambert.
"Shall we go on to the platform? Then we shall see the train come in."
So they left the waiting-room and began to walk up and down the whole
length of the platform. Thérèse watched the jerky movements of the hands
of the clock, and smiled at her companion.
"Five minutes more, and your father will be here! Four minutes more! Ah!
There it is!" and she pointed to a slope in the distance where a slight trail of
smoke rose white against the blue of the sky, now clear of cloud. "Can't you
see it? That is the steam from the engine coming out of the tunnel."
Ere she finished speaking the quivering whir of the bell echoed through the
empty station.
"Ah!" said Charles Rambert: "at last!"
The two porters who, with the stationmaster, constituted the entire railway
staff at Verrières, came bustling along the platform, and while the bell
continued its monotonous whirring ring, pulled forward trucks in readiness
for any possible luggage. Puffing portentously, the engine slackened speed,
and the heavy train slowed down and finally stopped, bringing a noisy
atmosphere of life into the station of Verrières that but a moment ago was so
still.
The first-class carriages had stopped immediately in front of Charles and
Thérèse, and on the footboard Etienne Rambert stood, a tall, elderly man of
distinguished appearance, proud bearing and energetic attitude, with
extraordinarily keen eyes and an unusually high and intelligent forehead.
Seeing Thérèse and Charles he seized his baggage and in a twinkling had
sprung on to the platform. He dropped his valise, tossed his bundle of rugs
on to a seat, and gripped Charles by the two shoulders.

"My boy!" he exclaimed; "my dear boy!"
Although he had hitherto shown so little affection for his child, it was
obvious that the man was making a great effort to restrain his emotion, and
was really moved when he now saw him again as a grown young man.
Nor, on his part, did Charles Rambert remain unmoved. As if the sudden
grip of this almost stranger, who yet was his father, had awakened a world
of memories within him, he turned very pale and his voice faltered as he
replied:
"Papa! Dear papa! I am so glad to see you!"
Thérèse had drawn tactfully aside. M. Rambert still held his son by the
shoulders and stepped back a pace, the better to consider him.
"Why, you are a man! How you have altered, my boy! You are just what I
hoped you would be: tall and strong! Ah, you are my son all right! And you
are quite well, hey? Yet you look tired."
"I did not sleep well," Charles explained with a smile. "I was afraid I should
not wake up."
Turning his head, M. Rambert saw Thérèse and held out his hand.
"How do you do, my little Thérèse?" he exclaimed. "You have altered too
since I saw you last. I left a little chit of a child, and now I behold a grown-
up young lady. Well! I must be off at once to pay my respects to my dear
old friend, your grandmother. All well at the château, eh?"
Thérèse shook hands warmly with M. Rambert and thanked him prettily.
"Grandmamma is very well; she told me to tell you to excuse her if she did
not come to meet you, but her doctor says she must not get up very early."
"Of course your grandmamma is excused, my dear. Besides, I have to thank
her for her kindness to Charles, and for the hospitality she is going to
extend to me for a few days."
Meanwhile the train had gone on again, and now a porter came up to M.
Rambert.

"Will you take your luggage with you, sir?"
Recalled to material things, Etienne Rambert contemplated his trunk which
the porters had taken out of the luggage van.
"Good Lord!" he began, but Thérèse interrupted him.
"Grandmamma said she would send for your heavy luggage during the
morning, and that you could take your valise and any small parcels with us
in the brougham."
"What's that? Your grandmamma has taken the trouble to send her
carriage?"
"It's a long way to Beaulieu, you know," Thérèse replied. "Ask Charles if it
isn't. We came on foot and the walk would be too tiring for you after a
whole night in the train."
The three had reached the station yard, and Thérèse stopped in surprise.
"Why, how's that?" she exclaimed; "the carriage is not here. And yet Jean
was beginning to get it ready when we left the château."
M. Etienne Rambert was resting one hand on his son's shoulder, and
contemplating him with an affectionate, all-embracing survey every now
and then. He smiled at Thérèse.
"He may have been delayed, dear. I tell you what we will do. Since your
grandmamma is going to send for my luggage there is no need for me to
take my valise; we can leave everything in the cloak-room and start for the
château on foot; if my memory serves me right—and it is a very good
memory—there is only one road, so we shall meet Jean and can get into the
carriage on the way."
A few minutes later all three set out on the road to Beaulieu. M. Rambert
walked between the two young people; he had gallantly offered his arm to
Thérèse, who was not a little proud of the attention, which proved to her
mind that she was now regarded as a grown-up young lady. On the other
side of his father Charles made answer to the incessant questions put to
him.

M. Etienne Rambert enjoyed the walk in the quiet morning through the
peaceful country-side. With a tender half-melancholy he recognised every
turn in the road, every bit of scenery.
"Just fancy my coming back here at sixty years of age, with a great son of
eighteen!" he said with a laugh. "And I remember as if it were yesterday the
good times I have had at the château of Beaulieu. Mme. de Langrune and I
will have plenty of memories to talk over. Gad! it must be quite forty years
since I came this way, and yet I remember every bit of it. Say, Thérèse, isn't
it the fact that we shall see the front of the château directly we have passed
this little copse?"
"Quite true," the girl answered with a laugh. "You know the country very
well, sir."
"Yes," said Etienne Rambert; "when one gets to my age, little Thérèse, one
always does remember the happy days of one's youth; one remembers
recent events much less distinctly. Most likely that means, my dear, that the
human heart declines to grow old and refuses to preserve any but pictures of
childhood."

For a few minutes M. Rambert remained silent, as if absorbed in somewhat
melancholy reflections. But he soon recovered himself and shook off the
tender sadness evoked in his mind by memories of the past.
"Why, the park enclosure has been altered," he exclaimed. "Here is a wall
which used not to be here: there was only a hedge."
Thérèse laughed.
"I never knew the hedge," she said. "I have always seen the wall."
"Must we go on to the main gate?" M. Rambert asked, "or has your
grandmamma had another gate made?"
"We are going in by the out-buildings," the girl answered; "then we shall
hear why Jean did not come to meet us." She opened a little door half-
hidden among the moss and ivy that clothed the wall surrounding the park,

and making M. Rambert and Charles pass in before her, cried: "But Jean
has gone with the brougham, for the horses are not in the stable. How was it
we did not meet him?" Then she laughed. "Poor Jean! He is so muddle-
headed! I would not mind betting he went to meet us at Saint-Jaury, as he
does every morning to bring me home from church."
The little company, Etienne Rambert, Thérèse and Charles, were now
approaching the château. Passing beneath Mme. de Langrune's windows
Thérèse called merrily up to them.
"Here we are, grandmamma!"
There was no reply.
But at the window of an adjoining room appeared the figure of the steward,
Dollon, making a gesture, as if asking for silence.
Thérèse, in advance of her guests, had proceeded but a few yards when
Mme. de Langrune's old servant rushed down the stone flight of steps in
front of the château, towards M. Rambert.
Dollon seemed distraught. Usually so respectful and so deferential in
manner, he now seized M. Rambert by the arm, and imperiously waving
Thérèse and Charles away, drew him aside.
"It is awful, sir," he exclaimed: "horrible: a fearful thing has happened. We
have just found Mme. la Marquise dead—murdered—in her room!"

III. The Hunt for the Man
M. de Presles, the examining magistrate in charge of the Court at Brives,
had just arrived at the château of Beaulieu, having been notified of the
tragedy by the police sergeant stationed at Saint-Jaury. The magistrate was a
young, fashionable, and rather aristocratic man of the world, whose
grievance it was to be tied down to work that was mechanical rather than
intellectual. He was essentially modern in his ideas, and his chief ambition
was to get away as quickly as possible from the small provincial town to
which he had been exiled by the changes and chances of promotion; he was
sick of Brives, and now it occurred to him that a crime like this present one
would give him an opportunity of displaying his gifts of intuition and
deduction, prove his quality, and so might enable him to get another
appointment. After Dollon had received him at the château, the magistrate
had first of all made enquiry as to who was in the house at the time. From
the information given him he was satisfied that it was unnecessary to
subject either Thérèse or Charles Rambert to immediate examination, both
of the young people being much too upset to be able to reply to serious
questions, and both having been taken away to the house of the Baronne de
Vibray. It was, also, clear that M. Rambert senior, who had only arrived
after the crime, could not furnish any interesting information.
"Tell me exactly how you discovered the crime, M. Dollon," he said as, pale
and trembling, the steward accompanied him along the corridor to the scene
of the murder.
"I went this morning as usual, sir," the steward replied, "to say good
morning to Mme. de Langrune and receive her orders for the day. I knocked
at her door as I always did, but got no answer. I knocked louder, but still
there was no answer. I don't know why I opened the door instead of going
away; perhaps I had some kind of presentiment. Oh, I shall never forget the
shock I had when I saw my poor dear mistress lying dead at the foot of her
bed, steeped in blood, and with such a horrible gash in her throat that for a
moment I thought her head was severed from the trunk."

The police sergeant corroborated the steward's story.
"The murder certainly was committed with peculiarly horrible violence,
sir," he remarked. "The body shows that the victim was struck with the
utmost fury. The murderer must have gone mad over the corpse from sheer
lust of blood. The wounds are shocking."
"Knife wounds?" M. de Presles asked.
"I don't know," said the sergeant uncertainly. "Your worship can form your
own opinion."
The magistrate followed the steward into the room where Dollon had taken
care that nothing was touched.
In its furniture and general arrangement Mme. de Langrune's room
corresponded with the character of the old lady. It was large, and quietly
furnished with old presses, arm-chairs, chairs and old-fashioned tables. It
was evident that she had had no liking for modern fashions, but had
preferred to have her own room stamped with the rather severe, yet very
comfortable character of former days.
The whole of one side of the room was filled by the Marquise's bed. It was
large, and raised upon a kind of dais covered with a carpet of subdued
tones. At the foot of the bed, on the right, was a large window, fastened half
open despite the keen cold, no doubt for hygienic reasons. In the middle of
the room was a round mahogany table with a few small articles upon it, a
blotting-pad, books and so on. In one corner a large crucifix was suspended
from the wall with a prie-Dieu in front of it, the velvet of which had been
worn white by the old lady's knees. Finally, a little further away, was a
small escritoire, half open now, with its drawers gaping and papers scattered
on the floor.
There were only two ways of ingress into the room: one by the door
through which the magistrate had entered, which opened on to the main
corridor on the first floor, and the other by a door communicating with the
Marquise's dressing-room; this dressing-room was lighted by a large
window, which was shut.

The magistrate was shocked by the spectacle presented by the corpse of the
Marquise. It was lying on its back on the floor, with the arms extended; the
head was towards the bed, the feet towards the window. The body was
almost naked. A gash ran almost right across the throat, leaving the bones
exposed. Torrents of blood had saturated the victim's clothes, and on the
carpet round the body a wide stain was still slowly spreading wider.
M. de Presles stooped over the dead woman.
"What an appalling wound!" he muttered. "The medical evidence will
explain what weapon it was made with; but no doctor is required to point
out the violence of the blow or the fury of the murderer." He turned to the
old steward who, at sight of his mistress, could hardly restrain his tears.
"Nothing has been moved in the room, eh?"
"Nothing, sir."
The magistrate pointed to the escritoire with its open drawers.
"That has not been touched?"
"No, sir."
"I suppose that is where Mme. de Langrune kept her valuables?"
The steward shook his head.
"The Marquise could not have had any large sum of money in the house: a
few hundred francs perhaps for daily expenses, but certainly no more."
"So you do not think robbery was the motive of the crime?"
The steward shrugged his shoulders.
"The murderer may have thought that Mme. de Langrune had money here,
sir. But anyhow he must have been disturbed, because he did not take away
the rings the Marquise had laid upon the dressing-table before she got into
bed."
The magistrate walked slowly round the room.
"This window was open?" he asked.

"The Marquise always left it like that; she liked all the fresh air she could
get."
"Might not the murderer have got in that way?"
The steward shook his head.
"It is most unlikely, sir. See: the windows are fitted outside with a kind of
grating pointing outwards and downwards, and I think that would prevent
anyone from climbing in."
M. de Presles saw that this was so. Continuing his investigation, he satisfied
himself that there was nothing about the furniture in that room, or in the
dressing-room, to show that the murderer had been through them, except
the disorder on and about the little escritoire. At last he came to the door
which opened on to the corridor.
"Ah!" he exclaimed: "this is interesting!" and with a finger he pointed to the
inner bolt on the door, the screws of which were wrenched half out,
showing that an attempt had been made to force the door. "Did Mme. de
Langrune bolt her door every night?" he asked.
"Yes, always," Dollon answered. "She was very nervous, and if I was the
first to come to bid her good morning I always heard her unfasten that bolt
when I knocked."
M. de Presles made no reply. He made one more tour of the room, minutely
considering the situation of each single article.
"M. Dollon, will you kindly take me where I can have the use of a table and
inkstand, and anything else I may need to get on with my preliminary
enquiry?"
"Your clerk is waiting for you in the library, sir," the steward replied. "He
has everything ready for you there."
"Very well. If it is convenient to you we will join him now."

M. de Presles followed Dollon down to the library on the ground floor,
where his enterprising clerk had already established himself. The magistrate
took his seat behind a large table and called to the police sergeant.
"I shall ask you to be present during my enquiry, sergeant. The first
investigations will devolve upon you, so it will be well for you to hear all
the details the witnesses can furnish me with. I suppose you have taken no
steps as yet?"
"Beg pardon, sir: I have sent my men out in all directions, with orders to
interrogate all tramps and to detain any who do not give a satisfactory
account of their time last night."
"Good! By the way, while I think of it, have you sent off the telegram I
gave you when I arrived—the telegram to the police head-quarters in Paris,
asking for a detective to be sent down?"
"I took it to the telegraph office myself, sir."
His mind made easy on this score, the young magistrate turned to Dollon.
"Will you please take a seat, sir?" he said and, disregarding the
disapproving looks of his clerk, who had a particular predilection for all the
long circumlocutions and red tape of the law, he pretermitted the usual
questions as to name and age and occupation of the witnesses, and began
his enquiry by questioning the old steward. "What is the exact plan of the
château?" was his first enquiry.
"You know it now, sir, almost as well as I do. The passage from the front
door leads to the main staircase, which we went up just now, to the first
floor where the bedroom of the Marquise is situated. The first floor contains
a series of rooms separated by a corridor. On the right is Mlle. Thérèse's
room, and then come guest-chambers which are not occupied now. On the
left is the bedroom of the Marquise, followed by her dressing-room on the
same side, and after that there is another dressing-room and then the
bedroom occupied by M. Charles Rambert."
"Good. And the floor above: how is that arranged?"

"The second floor is exactly like the first floor, sir, except that there are
only servants' rooms there. They are smaller, and there are more of them."
"What servants sleep in the house?"
"As a general rule, sir, the two maid-servants, Marie the housemaid and
Louise the cook, and also Hervé the butler; but Hervé did not sleep in the
château last night. He had asked the mistress's permission to go into the
village, and she had given it to him on condition that he did not come back
that night."
"What do you mean?" enquired the magistrate, rather surprised.
"The Marquise was rather nervous, sir, and did not like the idea of anyone
being able to get into the house at night; so she was always careful to
double-lock the front door and the kitchen door herself every night. She
went round all the rooms too every night, and made sure that all the iron
shutters were properly fastened, and that it was impossible for anyone to get
into the house. When Hervé goes out in the evenings he either sleeps in the
village and does not return till the following morning, which is what he did
to-day, or else he asks the coachman to leave the yard door unlocked, and
sleeps in a room above the stables which as a rule is not occupied."
"That is where the other servants sleep, I suppose?"
"Yes, sir. The gardeners, the coachman, and the keepers all live in the out-
buildings. With regard to myself, I have a small cottage a little farther away
in the park."
M. de Presles sat silent for a few moments, thinking deeply. The only sound
in the room was the irritating squeak of the clerk's quill pen, as he
industriously wrote down all the steward's replies. At last M. de Presles
looked up.
"So, on the night of the crime the only persons sleeping in the château were
Mme. de Langrune, her granddaughter Mlle. Thérèse, M. Charles Rambert
and the two maids. Is that so?"
"Yes, sir."

"Then it does not seem likely that the crime was committed by anyone
living in the château?"
"That is so, sir:—and yet I do not believe that anybody got into the château;
only two people had a key of the front door—the Marquise and myself.
When I got to the house this morning I found the door open, because Mlle.
Thérèse went out early with M. Charles Rambert to meet M. Rambert,
senior, at the station, and she opened the door with the keys that the
Marquise had given into her care the night before; but she told me herself
that when she started to meet the train at five o'clock the door was shut.
Mlle. Thérèse had put her keys under her pillow, and my bunch had never
left my possession."
"Is it not possible," the magistrate suggested, "that someone may have got
in during the day, hidden himself, and have committed the crime when
night came? Remember, M. Dollon, the bolt inside Mme. de Langrune's
bedroom door has been wrenched away: that means that the murderer made
his entrance by that door, and made it by force."
But the steward shook his head.
"No, sir, nobody could have secreted himself in the château during the day;
people are always coming to the kitchen, so the back door is under constant
supervision; and all yesterday afternoon there were gardeners at work on
the lawn in front of the main entrance; if any stranger had presented himself
there he would certainly have been seen; and finally, Mme. de Langrune
had given orders, which I always attended to myself, to keep the door
locked through which one gets down to the cellars. So the murderer could
not have hidden in the basement, and where else could he have hidden? Not
in the rooms on the ground floor: there was company to dinner last night,
and all the rooms were used more or less; the Marquise, or some one of the
guests, would certainly have discovered him. So he would have had to be
upstairs, either on the first or second floor: that is most unlikely: it would
have been very risky; besides, the big house-dog is fastened up at the foot
of the staircase during the day, and he would not have let any stranger pass
him: either the dog must have known the man, or at all events some meat
must have been thrown to him; but there are no traces to show that anything
of the sort was done."

The magistrate was much perplexed.
"Then the crime is inexplicable, M. Dollon. You have just told me yourself
that there was no one in the château but Mme. de Langrune, the two young
people Thérèse and Charles, and the two maids: it certainly is not any one
of those who can be the guilty person, for the way in which the crime was
committed, and the force of the blows dealt, show that the criminal was a
man—a professional murderer in fact. Consequently the guilty person must
have got in from outside. Come now, have you no suspicions at all?"
The steward raised his arms and let them fall in utter dejection.
"No," he replied at last, "I do not suspect anybody! I cannot suspect
anybody! But, sir, as far as I am concerned, I feel certain that although the
murderer was not one of those who occupied the château last night he
nevertheless did not come in from outside. It was not possible! The doors
were locked and the shutters were fastened."
"Nevertheless," M. de Presles remarked, "inasmuch as someone has
committed a murder, it must necessarily be the fact, either that that someone
was hidden inside the château when Mme. de Langrune herself locked the
front door, or else that he got in during the night. Do you not see yourself,
M. Dollon, that one or other of these two hypotheses must be correct?"
The steward hesitated.
"It is a mystery, sir," he declared at last. "I swear to you, sir, that nobody
could have got in, and yet it is perfectly clear also that neither M. Charles
nor Mlle. Thérèse, nor yet either of the two maids, Marie and Louise, is the
murderer."
M. de Presles sat wrapped in thought for a few minutes and then desired the
old steward to fetch the two women servants.
"Come back, yourself," he added, as the old man went away; "I may require
further particulars from you."
Dollon left the room, and Gigou, the clerk, leant forward towards the
magistrate: tact was not the most shining of M. Gigou's qualities.

"When your enquiry is finished, sir—presently—we shall have to pay a
visit to the Mayor of Saint-Jaury. That is in accordance with the usual
procedure. And then he cannot do less than invite us to stay to dinner!"

IV. "No! I am not Mad!"
The next day but one after the crime, on the Friday, Louise the cook, who
was still terribly upset by the dreadful death of the good mistress in whose
service she had been for fifteen years, came down to her kitchen early. It
was scarcely daybreak, and the good woman was obliged to light a lamp to
see by. With her mind anywhere but on her work, she was mechanically
getting breakfast for the servants and for the visitors to the château, when a
sharp knock on the back door made her jump. She went to open it, and
uttered a little scream as she saw the cocked hats of gendarmes silhouetted
against the wan light of the early morning.
Between the gendarmes were two miserable-looking specimens of
humanity. Louise had only opened the door a few inches when the sergeant,
who had known her for many years, took a step forward and gave her a
military salute.
"I must ask your hospitality for us and for these two fellows whom we have
taken up to-night, prowling about the neighbourhood," he said.
The dismayed Louise broke in.
"Good heavens, sergeant, are you bringing thieves here? Where do you
expect me to put them? Surely there's enough trouble in the house as it is!"
The gendarme, Morand, smiled with the disillusioned air of a man who
knows very well what trouble is, and the sergeant replied:
"Put them? Why, in your kitchen, of course," and as the servant made a sign
of refusal, he added: "I am sorry, but you must; besides, there's nothing for
you to be afraid of; the men are handcuffed, and we shall not leave them.
We are going to wait here for the magistrate who will examine them."
The gendarmes had pushed their wretched captives in before them, two
tramps of the shadiest appearance.

Louise, who had gone mechanically to raise the lid of a kettle beginning to
boil over, looked round at his last words.
"The magistrate?" she said: "M. de Presles? Why, he is here now—in the
library."
"No?" exclaimed the sergeant, jumping up from the kitchen chair on which
he had seated himself.
"He is, I tell you," the old woman insisted; "and the little man who
generally goes about with him is here too."
"You mean M. Gigou, his clerk?"
"Very likely," muttered Louise.
"I leave the prisoners with you, Morand," said the sergeant curtly; "don't let
them out of your sight. I am going to the magistrate. I have no doubt he will
wish to interrogate these fellows at once."
The gendarme came to attention and saluted.
"Trust me, sergeant!"
It looked as if Morand's job was going to be an easy one; the two tramps,
huddled up in a corner of the kitchen opposite the stove, showed no
disposition to make their escape. The two were utterly different in
appearance. One was a tall, strongly built man, with thick hair crowned by a
little jockey cap, and was enveloped in a kind of overcoat which might have
been black once but which was now of a greenish hue, the result of the
inclemency of the weather; he gnawed his heavy moustache in silence and
turned sombre, uneasy looks on all, including his companion in misfortune.
He wore hobnailed shoes and carried a stout cudgel. He was more like a
piece of the human wreckage one sees in the street corners of great cities
than a genuine tramp. Instead of a collar, there was a variegated
handkerchief round his neck. His name, he had told the sergeant, was
François Paul.
The other man, who had been discovered at the back of a farm just as he
was about to crawl inside a stack, was a typical country tramp. An old soft
felt hat was crammed down on his head, and a shock of rebellious red and

grey hair curled up all round it, while a hairy beard entirely concealed all
the features of his face. All that could be seen of it was a pair of sparkling
eyes incessantly moving in every possible direction. This second man
contemplated with interest the place into which the police had conducted
him. On his back he bore a heavy sort of wallet in which he stowed articles
of the most varied description. Whereas his companion maintained a rigid
silence, this man never stopped talking. Nudging his neighbour every now
and then he whispered:
"Say, where do you come from? You're not from these parts, are you? I've
never seen you before have I? Everybody round here knows me: Bouzille—
my name's Bouzille," and turning to the gendarme he said: "Isn't it true,
M'sieu Morand, that you and I are old acquaintances? This is the fourth or
fifth time you've pinched me, isn't it?"
Bouzille's companion vouchsafed him a glance.
"So it's a habit of yours, is it?" he said in the same low tone; "you often get
nabbed?"
"As to 'often,'" the garrulous fellow replied, "that depends on what you
mean by the word. In winter time it's not bad business to go back to clink,
because of the rotten weather; in the summer one would rather go easy, and
then, too, in the summer there isn't so much crime; you can find all you
want on the road; country people aren't so particular in the summer, while in
the winter it's quite another thing; so they have done me down to-night for
mother Chiquard's rabbit, I expect."
The gendarme, who had been listening with no great attention, chimed in.
"So it was you who stole the rabbit, was it, Bouzille?"
"What's the good of your asking me that, M'sieu Morand?" protested
Bouzille. "I suppose you would have left me alone if you hadn't been sure
of it?"
Bouzille's companion bent his head and whispered very low:
"There has been something worse than that: the job with the lady of this
house."

"Oh, that!" said Bouzille with a gesture of complete indifference. But he did
not proceed. The sergeant came back to the kitchen and said sternly:
"François Paul, forward: the examining magistrate will hear you now."
The man summoned stepped towards the sergeant, and quietly submitted to
being taken by the arm, for his hands were fastened. Bouzille winked
knowingly at the gendarme, now his sole remaining confidant, and
remarked with satisfaction:
"Good luck! We are getting on to-day! Not too much 'remanded' about it,"
and as the gendarme, severely keeping his proper distance, made no reply,
the incorrigible chatterbox went on merrily: "As a matter of fact it suits me
just as well to be committed for trial, since the government give you your
board and lodging, and especially since there's a really beautiful prison at
Brives now." He leaned familiarly against the gendarme's shoulder. "Ah,
M'sieu Morand, you didn't know it—you weren't old enough—why, it was
before you joined the force—but the lock-up used to be in an old building
just behind the Law Courts: dirty! I should think it was dirty! And damp!
Why once, when I did three months there, from January to April, I came out
so ill with the rheumatics that I had to go back into the infirmary for another
fortnight! Gad!" he went on after a moment's pause during which he snuffed
the air around him, "something smells jolly good here!" He
unceremoniously addressed the cook who was busy at her work: "Mightn't
there perhaps be a bit of a blow out for me, Mme. Louise?" and as she
turned round with a somewhat scandalised expression he continued: "you
needn't be frightened, lady, you know me very well. Many a time I've come
and asked you for any old thing, and you've always given me something.
M'sieu Dollon, too: whenever he has an old pair of shoes that are worn out,
well, those are mine; and a crust of bread is what nobody ever refuses."
The cook hesitated, touched by the recollections evoked by the poor tramp;
she looked at the gendarme for a sign of encouragement. Morand shrugged
his shoulders and turned a patronising gaze on Bouzille.
"Give him something, if you like, Mme. Louise. After all, he is well known.
And for my own part I don't believe he could have done it."
The tramp interrupted him.

"Ah, M'sieu Morand, if it's a matter of picking up trifles here and there, a
wandering rabbit, perhaps, or a fowl that's tired of being lonely, I don't say
no; but as for anything else—thank'ee kindly, lady."
Louise had handed Bouzille a huge chunk of bread which he immediately
interned in the depths of his enormous bag.
"What do you suppose that other chap can have to tell Mr. Paul Pry? He did
not look like a regular! Now when I get before the gentlemen in black, I
don't want to contradict them, and so I always say, 'Yes, my lord,' and they
are perfectly satisfied; sometimes they laugh and the president of the court
says, 'Stand up, Bouzille,' and then he gives me a fortnight, or twenty-one
days, or a month, as the case may be."

The sergeant came back, alone, and addressed the gendarme.
"The other man has been discharged," he said. "As for Bouzille, M. de
Presles does not think there is any need to interrogate him."
"Am I to be punted out then?" enquired the tramp with some dismay, as he
looked uneasily towards the window, against the glass of which rain was
lashing.
The sergeant could not restrain a smile.
"Well, no, Bouzille," he said kindly, "we must take you to the lock-up;
there's the little matter of the rabbit to be cleared up, you know. Come now,
quick march! Take him to Saint-Jaury, Morand!"
The sergeant went back to the library to hold himself at the magistrate's
disposal; through the torrential downpour of rain Bouzille and the gendarme
wended their way to the village; and left alone in her kitchen, Louise put
out her lamp, for despite the shocking weather it was getting lighter now,
and communed with herself.
"I've a kind of idea that they would have done better to keep that other man.
He was a villainous-looking fellow!"

The sad, depressing day had passed without any notable incident.
Charles Rambert and his father had spent the afternoon with Thérèse and
the Baronne de Vibray continuously addressing large black-edged
envelopes to the relations and friends of the Marquise de Langrune, whose
funeral had been fixed for the next day but one.
A hasty dinner had been served at which the Baronne de Vibray was
present. Her grief was distressing to witness. Somewhat futile to outward
seeming, this woman had a very kind and tender heart; as a matter of course
she had constituted herself the protector and comforter of Thérèse, and she
had spent the whole of the previous day with the child at Brives, ransacking
the local shops to procure her mourning.
Thérèse was terribly shocked by the dreadful death of her grandmother
whom she adored, but she displayed unexpected strength of character and
controlled her grief so that she might be able to look after the guests whom
she was now entertaining for the first time as mistress of the house. The
Baronne de Vibray had failed in her attempt to persuade Thérèse to come
with her to Querelles to sleep. Thérèse was determined in her refusal to
leave the château and what she termed her "post of duty."
"Marie will stay with me," she assured the kind Baronne, "and I promise
you I shall have sufficient courage to go to sleep to-night."
So her friend got into her car alone at nine o'clock and went back to her
own house, and Thérèse went up at once to bed with Marie, the faithful
servant who, like Louise the cook, had been with her ever since she was
born.

After having read all the newspapers, with their minute and often inaccurate
account of the tragedy at Beaulieu—for everyone in the château had been
besieged the previous day by reporters and representatives of various press
agencies—M. Etienne Rambert said to his son simply, but with a marked
gravity:
"Let us go upstairs, my son: it is time."

At the door of his room Charles deferentially offered his cheek to his father,
but M. Etienne Rambert seemed to hesitate; then, as if taking a sudden
resolution, he entered his son's room instead of going on to his own.
Charles kept silence and refrained from asking any questions, for he had
noticed how lost in sad thought his father had seemed to be since the day
before.
Charles Rambert was very tired. He began to undress at once. He had taken
off his coat and waistcoat, and was turning towards a looking-glass to undo
his tie, when his father came up to him; with an abrupt movement M.
Etienne Rambert put both his hands on his son's shoulders and looked him
straight in the eyes. Then in a stifled but peremptory tone he said:
"Now confess, unhappy boy! Confess to your father!"
Charles went ghastly white.
"What?" he muttered.
Etienne Rambert kept his eyes fixed upon him.
"It was you who committed the murder!"
The ringing denial that the young man tried to utter was strangled in his
throat; he threw out his arms and groped with his hands as if to find
something to support him in his faintness; then he pulled himself together.
"Committed the murder? I? You accuse me of having killed the Marquise?
It is infamous, hateful, awful!"
"Alas, yes!"
"No, no! Good God, no!"
"Yes!" Etienne Rambert insisted.
The two men faced each other, panting. Charles controlled the emotion
which was sweeping over him once more, and looking steadily at his father,
said in tones of bitter reproach:
"And it is actually my own father who says that—who suspects me!"

Tears filled the young fellow's eyes and sobs choked him; he grew whiter
still, and seemed so near collapse that his father had to support him to a
chair, where he remained for several minutes utterly prostrated.
M. Rambert paced up and down the room a few times, then took another
chair and sat down in front of his son. Passing a hand across his brow as if
to sweep away the horrible nightmare that was haunting him, he spoke
again.
"Come now, my boy, my poor boy, let us talk it over quietly. I do not know
how it was, but yesterday morning when I saw you at the station I had a
presentiment of something: you were haggard, and tired, and your eyes
were drawn——"
"I told you before," Charles answered tonelessly "that I had had a bad night:
I was over-excited and did not sleep: I was awake the whole night."
"By Jove, yes!" his father rapped out: "I can believe that! But if you were
not asleep, how do you account for your not hearing anything?"
"Thérèse did not hear anything either," said Charles after a moment's
reflection.
"Thérèse's room was a long way off," M. Rambert replied, "while there was
only a thin wall between yours and that of the Marquise. You must have
heard: you did hear! More than that——, oh, my boy, my unhappy boy!"
Charles was twisting and untwisting his hands, and great drops of cold
perspiration beaded his brow.
"You are the only single person who thinks I committed such an awful
crime!" he said, half questioningly.
"The only one?" Etienne Rambert muttered. "Perhaps! As yet! But you
ought to know that you made a very bad impression indeed upon the friends
of the Marquise during the evening before the crime, when President
Bonnet was reading the particulars of a murder that had been committed in
Paris by—somebody: I forget whom."
"Good heavens!" Charles exclaimed in indignation, "I did not say anything
wrong. Do you mean to say that just because I am interested in stories of

great criminals like Rocambole and Fantômas——"
"You created a deplorable impression," his father repeated.
"So they suspect me too, do they?" Charles enquired. "But you can't make
accusations like that," he said, warming up: "you've got to have facts, and
proofs." He looked at his father for the sympathy and encouragement of
affection. "Listen, papa, I know you will believe me when I swear that I am
innocent; but do you think other people——"
M. Etienne Rambert sat with his head between his hands, wrapped in
thought; there was a short silence before the unhappy father replied:
"Unfortunately there is evidence against you," he said at last; "and damning
evidence, too!" he added with a glance at his son that seemed to pulverise
him. "Terrible evidence! Consider, Charles: the magistrates have decided, as
a result of their investigations, that no one got into the château on the fatal
night; you were the only man who slept there; and none but a man could
possibly have committed such a horrible crime, such a monstrous piece of
butchery!"
"Someone might have got in from outside," the unhappy lad urged, as if
trying to escape from the network in which he was being entangled.
"No one did," Etienne Rambert insisted; "besides, how could you prove it?"
Charles was silent. He stood in the middle of the room, with trembling legs
and haggard eyes, seemingly stupefied and incapable of coherent thought,
vacantly watching his father. With bent head and shoulders bowed as
though beneath a too-heavy load, Etienne Rambert moved towards the
dressing-room attached to the bedroom.
"Come here," he said in an almost inaudible voice; "follow me."
He went into the dressing-room, and picking up the towels that were heaped
anyhow on the lower rail of the washstand, he selected a very crumpled one
and held it out in front of his son.
"Look at that!" he said in a low, curt tone.

And on the towel, thus held in the light, Charles Rambert saw red stains of
blood. The lad started, and was about to burst into some protestation, but
Etienne Rambert imperiously checked him.
"Do you still deny it? Unhappy, wretched boy, there is the convincing,
irrefutable evidence of your guilt! These stains of blood proclaim it.
Something always is overlooked! How are you to explain the presence of
this blood-stained linen in your room? Can you still deny that it is proof
positive of your guilt?"
"But I do deny it, I do deny it! I don't understand! I know nothing about it!"
and once more Charles Rambert collapsed into the arm-chair; the unhappy
lad was nothing but a human wreck, with no strength to argue or even utter
a word.
His father's eyes rested on him, filled with infinite affection and
profoundest pity.
"My poor, poor boy!" the unhappy Etienne Rambert murmured, and added,
as if speaking only to himself: "I wonder if you are not entirely responsible
—if there are circumstances to plead for you!"
"Do you still accuse me, papa? Do you really believe I am the murderer?"
Etienne Rambert shook his head hopelessly.
"Oh, I wish, I wish," he exclaimed, "that for the honour of our name, and
for the sake of those who love us, I could prove you had congenital,
hereditary tendencies that made you not responsible! Why could not I have
watched over your upbringing? Why has fate decreed that I should only see
my son three times at most in eighteen years, and come home to find him—
a criminal? Oh, if science could but establish the fact that the child of a
tainted mother——"
"Tainted?" Charles exclaimed; "what do you mean?"
"Tainted with a terrible and mysterious disease," Etienne Rambert went on:
"a disease before which we are powerless and unarmed—insanity!"
"What?" cried Charles, growing momentarily more distressed and
bewildered; "what is that, papa? Are my wits going? My mother insane?"

And then he added hopelessly: "My God! You must be right! Often and
often I have been amazed by her strange, puzzling looks and behaviour! But
I—I have all my proper senses: I know what I am doing!"
"Was it, perhaps, some appalling hallucination," Etienne Rambert
suggested: "some moment of irresponsibility?"
But Charles saw what he meant and cut him short.
"No, no, papa! I am not mad! I am not mad! I am not mad!"
In his intense excitement the young fellow never thought of moderating the
tone of his voice, but shouted out what was in his mind, shouted it into the
silence of the night, heedless of all but this terrible discussion he was
having with the father whom he loved. Nor did Etienne Rambert lower his
voice: his son's impassioned protest wrung the retort from him:
"Then, Charles, if you are right, your crime is beyond forgiveness!
Murderer! Murderer!"
The two men stopped short as a slight sound in the passage caught their
attention. A silence fell upon them that they could not break, and they stood
dumbfounded, nervous and overwrought.
The door of the room opened very slowly, and a white form appeared
against the darkness of the corridor outside.
Robed in a long night-dress, Thérèse stood there, with hair dishevelled,
bloodless lips, and eyes dilated with horror; the child was shaking from
head to foot; as if every movement hurt her, she painfully raised her arm
and pointed to Charles.
"Thérèse!" Etienne Rambert muttered: "Thérèse, you were outside?"
The child's lips moved: she seemed to be making a more than human effort,
and a whisper escaped her lips:
"Yes——"
But she could say no more: her eyes rolled, her whole frame tottered, and
then, without sign or cry, she fell rigid and unconscious to the floor.

V. "Arrest Me!"
Twelve or thirteen miles from Souillac the main line from Brives to Cahors,
which flanks the slope, describes a rather sharp curve. The journey is a
particularly picturesque one, and travellers who make it during the daytime
have much that is interesting and agreeable to see; but while they are
admiring the country, which marks the transition from the severe region of
the Limousin to the more laughing landscapes on the confines of the Midi,
the train suddenly plunges into a tunnel which runs for half a mile and more
through the heart of the mountain slope. Leaving the tunnel, the line
continues along the slope, then gradually descends towards Souillac. Two or
three miles from that little station, which is a junction, the line runs
alongside the highroad to Salignac, skirts for a brief distance the Corrèze,
one of the largest tributaries on the right bank of the Dordogne, and then
plunges into the heart of Lot.
Torrential winter rains had seriously affected the railway embankment,
particularly near the mouth of the tunnel; a succession of heavy storms in
the early part of December had so greatly weakened the ballast that the
chief engineers of the Company had been hastily summoned to the scene of
the mischief. The experts decided that very important repairs were required
close to the Souillac end of the tunnel. It was necessary to put in a complete
system of drainage, with underground pipes through which the water that
came down from the mountain could escape between the ballast and the
side of the rock and so pass underneath the permanent way. The sleepers,
too, had been loosened by the bad weather, and some of them had perished
so much that the chairs were no longer fast, a matter which was all the more
serious because the line described a very sharp curve at that precise spot.
Gangs of first-class navvies had been hurriedly requisitioned, but in spite of
the fact that an exceptional rate of wages was paid, a local strike had broken
out and for some days all work was stopped. Gradually, however, moderate
counsels prevailed and for over a week now, nearly all the men had taken
up their tools again. Nevertheless, for a month past, these various
circumstances had resulted in all the trains running between Brives and

Cahors, being regularly half an hour late. Further, in view of the dangerous
state of the line, all engine drivers coming from Brives had received orders
to stop their trains two hundred yards from the end of the tunnel, and all
drivers coming from Cahors to stop their trains five hundred yards before
the entrance to the tunnel, so that should a train appear while any work was
going on which rendered it dangerous to pass, it could wait until the work
was completed. The order was also issued with the primary object of
preventing the workers on the line from being taken by surprise.

Day was just breaking this grey December morning, when the gang of
navvies set to work under a foreman, fixing on the down line the new
sleepers which had been brought up the day before. Suddenly a shrill
whistle was heard, and in the gaping black mouth of the tunnel the light of
two lamps became visible; a train bound for Cahors had stopped in
accordance with orders, and was calling for permission to pass.
The foreman ranged his men on either side of the down line and walked to a
small cabin erected at the mouth of the tunnel, where he pulled the hand-
signal so as to show the green light, thereby authorising the train to proceed
on its way.
There was a second short, sharp whistle; heavy puffs escaped from the
engine, and belching forth a dense volume of black smoke it slowly
emerged from the tunnel, followed by a long train of carriages, the windows
of which were frosted all over by the cold temperature outside.
A man approached the cabin allotted to the plate-layer in charge of that
section of the line in which the tunnel was included.
"I suppose this is the train due at Verrières at 6.55?" he said carelessly.
"Yes," the plate-layer answered, "but it's late, for the clock down there in
the valley struck seven several minutes ago."
The train had gone by: the three red lamps fastened at the end of it were
already lost in the morning mist.

The man who spoke to the plate-layer was no other than François Paul, the
tramp who had been discharged by the magistrate installed at the château of
Beaulieu, at precisely the same time the day before, after a brief
examination. In spite of the deep wrinkle furrowed in his brow the man
seemed to make an effort to appear friendly and to want to carry on the
conversation.
"There aren't many people in this morning train," he remarked, "specially in
the first-class carriages."
The plate-layer appeared in no wise unwilling to postpone for a few
moments his tiring and chilly underground patrol; he put down his pick
before answering.
"Well, that's not surprising, is it? People who are rich enough to travel first-
class always come by the express which gets to Brives at 2.50 a.m."
"I see," said François Paul; "that's reasonable: and more practical for
travellers to Brives or Cahors. But what about the people who want to get
out at Gourdon, or Souillac, or Verrières, or any of the small stations where
the express doesn't stop?"
"I don't know," said the plate-layer; "but I suppose they have to get out at
Brives or Cahors and drive, or else travel by the day trains, which are fast to
Brives and slow afterwards."
François Paul did not press the matter. He lit a pipe and breathed upon his
benumbed fingers.
"Hard times, these, and no mistake!"
The plate-layer seemed sorry for him.
"I don't suppose you're an independent gentleman, but why don't you try to
get taken on here?" he suggested. "They want hands here."
"Oh, do they?"
"That's the fact; this is the foreman coming along now: would you like me
to speak to him for you?"

"No hurry," replied François Paul. "'Course, I'm not saying no, but I should
like to see what sort of work it is they're doing here: it might not suit me; I
shall still have time to get a couple of words with him," and with his eyes
on the ground the tramp slowly walked along the embankment away from
the plate-layer.
The foreman met and passed him, and came up to the plate-layer at the
mouth of the tunnel.
"Well, Michu, how goes it with you? Still got the old complaint?"
"Middling, boss," the worthy fellow answered: "just keeping up, you know.
And how's yourself? And the work? When shall you finish? I don't know if
you know it, but these trains stopping regularly in my section give me an
extra lot of work."
"How's that?" the foreman enquired in surprise.
"The engine drivers take advantage of the stop to empty their ash-pans, and
they leave a great heap of mess there in my tunnel, which I'm obliged to
clear away. In the ordinary way they dump it somewhere else: where, I don't
know, but not in my tunnel, and that's all I care about."
The foreman laughed.
"You're a good 'un, Michu! If I were you I would ask the Company to give
me another man or two."
"And do you suppose the Company would?" Michu retorted. "By the way,
that poor devil who is going along there, shivering with cold and hunger,
was grumbling to me just now, and I advised him to ask you to take him on.
What do you think he said? Why, that he would have a look at the work
first, and off he went."
"It's a fact, Michu, that it's mighty difficult to come across people who
mean business nowadays. It's quite true that I want more hands. But if that
chap doesn't ask me to engage him in another minute, I'll kick him out. The
embankment is not public property, and I don't trust these rascals who are
for ever coming and going among the workmen to see what mischief they

can make. I'll go and cast an eye over the bolts and things, for there are all
sorts of vagrants about the neighbourhood just now."
"And criminals, too," said old Michu. "I suppose you have heard of the
murder up at the château of Beaulieu?"
"Rather! My men are talking of nothing else. But you are right, Michu, I
will get a closer look at all strangers, and at your friend in particular."
The foreman stopped abruptly; he had been examining the foot of the
embankment, and was standing quite still, watching. The plate-layer
followed his glance, and also stood fixed. After a few moments' silence the
two men looked at each other and smiled. In the half-light of the valley they
had seen the outline of a gendarme; he was on foot and appeared to be
looking for somebody, while making no attempt to remain unseen himself.
"Good!" whispered Michu; "that's sergeant Doucet: I know him by his
stripes. They say the murder was not committed by anyone belonging to
this part of the country; everybody was fond of the Marquise de Langrune."
"Look! Look!" the foreman broke in, pointing to the gendarme who was
slowly climbing up the embankment. "It looks as if the sergeant were
making for the gentleman who was looking for work just now and hoped he
would not find it. The sergeant's got a word for him, eh, what?"
"That might be," said Michu after a moment's further watching. "That chap
has a villainous, ugly face. One can tell from the way he's dressed that he
don't belong to our parts."
The two men waited with utmost interest to see what was going to happen.
Sergeant Doucet reached the top of the embankment at last and hurried past
the navvies, who stopped their work to stare inquisitively after the
representative of authority. Fifty yards beyond them, François Paul,
wrapped in thought, was walking slowly down towards the station of
Verrières. Hearing the sound of steps behind him, he turned. When he saw
the sergeant he frowned. He glanced rapidly about him and saw that while
he was alone with the gendarme, so that no one could overhear what they
said, however loudly they might speak, they were yet in such a position that
every sign and movement they made would be perfectly visible to whoever

might watch them. And as the gendarme paused a few paces from him and
—remarkable fact—seemed to be on the point of bringing his hand to his
cap in salute, the mysterious tramp rapped out:
"I thought I said no one was to disturb me, sergeant?"
The sergeant took a pace forward.
"I beg your pardon, Inspector, but I have important news for you."
For this François Paul, whom the sergeant thus respectfully addressed as
Inspector, was no other than an officer of the secret police who had been
sent down to Beaulieu the day before from head-quarters in Paris.
He was no ordinary officer. As if M. Havard had had an idea that the
Langrune affair would prove to be puzzling and complicated, he had singled
out the very best of his detectives, the most expert inspector of them all—
Juve. It was Juve who for the last forty-eight hours had been prowling about
the château of Beaulieu disguised as a tramp, and had had himself arrested
with Bouzille that he might prosecute his own investigations without raising
the slightest suspicion as to his real identity.
Juve made a face expressive of his vexation at the over-deferential attitude
of the sergeant.
"Do pay attention!" he said low. "We are being watched. If I must go back
with you, pretend to arrest me. Slip the handcuffs on me!"
"I beg your pardon, Inspector: I don't like to," the gendarme answered.
For all reply, Juve turned his back on him.
"Look here," he said, "I will take a step or two forward as if I meant to run
away; then you must put your hand on my shoulder roughly, and I will
stumble; when I do, slip the bracelets on."
From the mouth of the tunnel the plate-layer, the foreman and the navvies
all followed with their eyes the unintelligible conversation passing between
the gendarme and the tramp a hundred yards away. Suddenly they saw the
man try to get off and the sergeant seize him almost simultaneously. A few
minutes later the individual, with his hands linked together in front of him,

was obediently descending the steep slope of the embankment, by the
gendarme's side, and then the two men disappeared behind a clump of trees.
"I understand why that chap was not very keen on getting taken on here,"
said the foreman. "His conscience was none too easy!"
As they walked briskly in the direction of Beaulieu Juve asked the sergeant:
"What has happened at the château, then?"
"They know who the murderer is, Inspector," the sergeant answered. "Little
Mlle. Thérèse——"

VI. "Fantômas, it is Death!"
Hurrying back towards the château with the sergeant, Juve ran into M. de
Presles outside the park gate. The magistrate had just arrived from Brives in
a motor-car which he had commandeered for his personal use during the
last few days.
"Well," said Juve in his quiet, measured tones, "have you heard the news?"
And as the magistrate looked at him in surprise he went on: "I gather from
your expression that you have not. Well, sir, if you will kindly fill up a
warrant we will arrest M. Charles Rambert."
Juve briefly repeated to the magistrate what the sergeant had reported to
him, and the sergeant added a few further details. The three men had now
reached the foot of the steps before the house and were about to go up when
the door of the château was opened and Dollon appeared. He hurried
towards them, with unkempt hair and haggard face, and excitedly
exclaimed:
"Didn't you meet the Ramberts? Where are they? Where are they?"
The magistrate, who was bewildered by what Juve had told him, was trying
to form a coherent idea of the whole sequence of events, but the detective
realised the situation at once, and turned to the sergeant.
"The bird has flown," he said. The sergeant threw up his hands in dismay.

Inside the hall Juve and M. de Presles ordered Dollon to give them an exact
account of the discovery made by Thérèse in the course of the previous
night.
"Well, gentlemen," said the old fellow, who was greatly upset by the
discovery of the murderer of the Marquise de Langrune, "when I got to the
château early this morning I found the two old servants, Marie and Louise,
entirely occupied attending to the young mistress. Marie slept in an

adjoining room to hers last night, and was awakened about five o'clock by
the poor child's inarticulate cries. Mlle. Thérèse was bathed in perspiration;
her face was all drawn and there were dark rings under her eyes; she was
sleeping badly and evidently having a dreadful nightmare. She half woke up
several times and muttered some unintelligible words to Marie, who
thought that it was the result of over-excitement. But about six o'clock, just
as I arrived, Mlle. Thérèse really woke up, and bursting into a fit of sobbing
and crying, repeated the names of her grandmother and the Ramberts and
the Baronne de Vibray. She kept on saying, 'The murderer! the murderer!'
and making all sorts of signs of terror, but we were not able to get from her
a clear statement of what it was all about. I felt her pulse and found she was
very feverish, and Louise prepared a cooling drink, which she persuaded
her to take. In about twenty minutes—it was then nearly half-past six—
Mlle. Thérèse quietened down, and managed to tell us what she had heard
during the night, and the dreadful interview and conversation between M.
Rambert and his son which she had seen and overheard."
"What did you do then?" enquired M. de Presles.
"I was dreadfully upset myself, sir, and I sent Jean, the coachman, to Saint-
Jaury to fetch the doctor and also to let Sergeant Doucet know. Sergeant
Doucet got here first; I told him all I knew, and then I went upstairs with the
doctor to see Mlle. Thérèse."
The magistrate turned to the police-sergeant and questioned him.
"Directly M. Dollon told me his story," the sergeant replied, "I thought it
my duty to report to M. Juve, who I knew was not far from the château, on
his way to Verrières: M. Juve told me last night that he meant to explore
that part in the early morning. I left Morand on duty at the entrance to the
château, with orders to prevent either of the Ramberts from leaving."
"And Morand did not see them going away?" the magistrate asked.
Juve had already divined what had happened, and replied for the sergeant.
"Morand did not see them go out for the obvious reason that they had left
long before—in the middle of the night, directly after their altercation: in a
word, before Mlle. Thérèse woke up." He turned to the sergeant. "What has
been done since then?"

"Nothing, Inspector."
"Well, sergeant," said Juve. "I imagine his worship will order you to send
out your men at once after the runaways." As a matter of courtesy he
glanced at the magistrate as if asking for his approval, but he only did so
out of politeness, for he took it for granted.
"Of course!" said the magistrate; "please do so at once." The sergeant
turned on his heel and left the hall.
"Where is Mlle. Thérèse?" M. de Presles asked Dollon, who was standing
nervously apart.
"She is sleeping quietly just now, sir," said the steward, coming forward.
"The doctor is with her, and would rather she were not disturbed, if you
have no objection."
"Very well," said the magistrate. "Leave us, please," and Dollon also went
away.
Juve and M. de Presles looked at one another. The magistrate was the first
to break the silence.
"So it is finished?" he remarked. "So this Charles Rambert is the culprit?"
Juve shook his head.
"Charles Rambert? Well, he ought to be the culprit."
"Why that reservation?" enquired the magistrate.
"I say 'ought to be,' for all the circumstances point to that conclusion, and
yet in my bones I don't believe he is."
"Surely the presumptions of his guilt, his pseudo-confession, or at least his
silence in face of his father's formal accusation, may make us sure he is,"
said M. de Presles.
"There are some presumptions in favour of his innocence too," Juve replied,
but with a slight hesitation.
The magistrate pressed his point.

"Your investigations formally demonstrated the fact that the crime was
committed by some person who was inside the house."
"Possibly," said Juve, "but not certainly. The probabilities do not allow us to
assert it as a fact."
"Explain yourself."
"Not so fast, sir," Juve replied, and getting up he added: "There is nothing
for us to do here, sir; shall we go up to the room Charles Rambert
occupied?"
M. de Presles followed the detective, and the two men went into the room,
which was as plainly furnished as that of any young girl. The magistrate
installed himself comfortably in an easy chair and lighted a cigar, while
Juve walked up and down, scrutinising everything with quick, sharp
glances, and began to talk:
"I said 'not so fast' just now, sir, and I will tell you why: in my opinion there
are two preliminary points in this affair which it is important to clear up: the
nature of the crime, and the motive which can have actuated the criminal.
Let us take up these two points, and first of all ask ourselves how the
murder of the Marquise de Langrune ought to be 'classified' in the technical
sense. The first conclusion which must be impressed upon the mind of any
observant person who has visited the scene of the crime and examined the
corpse of the victim is, that this murder must be placed in the category of
crapulous crimes. The murderer seems to have left the implicit mark of his
character upon his victim; the very violence of the blows dealt shows that
he is a man of the lower orders, a typical criminal, a professional."
"What do you deduce that from?" M. de Presles enquired.
"Simply from the nature of the wound. You saw it, as I did. Mme. de
Langrune's throat was almost entirely severed by the blade of some cutting
instrument. The breadth and depth of the wound absolutely prove that it was
not made with one stroke; the murderer must have gone amok and dealt
several blows—have gone on striking even when death had finished his
work, or at least was quite inevitable; that shows clearly that the murderer
belongs to a class of individuals who feel no repugnance for their horrid
work, but who kill without horror, and even without excitement. Again, the

nature of the wound shows that the murderer is a strong man; you no doubt
know that weak men with feeble muscles strike 'deep' by choice, that is to
say with a pointed weapon and aiming at a vital organ, whereas powerful
murderers have a predilection for blows dealt 'superficially,' and for broad,
ghastly wounds. Besides, that is only following a natural law; a weak man
finesses with death, tries to make sure of it at some precise point,
penetrating the heart or severing an artery; a brutal man does not care where
he hits, but trusts to his own brute strength to achieve his purpose.
"We have next to determine the sort of weapon with which the murder was
committed. We have not got it, at any rate up to the present; I have given
orders for the drains to be emptied, and the pond to be dragged and the
shrubberies to be searched, but, whether our search is crowned with success
or not, I am convinced that the instrument was a knife, one of those
common knives with a catch lock that apaches always carry. If the murderer
had had a weapon whose point was its principal danger, he would have
stabbed, and stabbed to the heart, instead of cutting; but he used the edge,
the part of a knife that is most habitually used, and he actually cut. When
the first wound was made he did not strike anywhere else, but continued
working away at the wound and enlarging it. It is a point of capital
importance that this murder was committed with a knife, not with a dagger
or stiletto, and therefore this is a crapulous crime."
"And what conclusion do you draw from the fact that the crime is a
crapulous one?" the magistrate proceeded to enquire.
"Merely that it cannot have been committed by Charles Rambert," Juve
answered very gravely. "He is a young man who has been well brought up,
he comes of very good stock, and his age makes it most improbable that he
can be a professional criminal."
"Obviously, obviously!" murmured the magistrate, not a little embarrassed
by the keen logic of the detective.
"And now let us consider the motive or motives of the crime," Juve
continued. "Why did the man commit this murder?"
"Doubtless for purposes of robbery," said the magistrate.

"What did he want to steal?" Juve retorted. "As a matter of fact, Mme. de
Langrune's diamond rings and watch and purse were all found on her table,
in full view of everybody; in the drawers that had been broken open I found
other jewels, over twenty pounds in gold and silver, and three bank-notes in
a card-case. What is your view, sir, of a crapulous robber who sees
valuables like that within his reach, and who does not take them?"
"It is certainly surprising," the magistrate admitted.
"Very surprising; and goes to show that although the crime in itself is a
common, sordid one, the criminal may have had higher, or at any rate
different, aspirations from those which would lead an ordinary ruffian to
commit murder for the sake of robbery. The age and social position and
personality of Mme. de Langrune make it very unlikely that she had
enemies, or was the object of vengeance, and therefore if she was got rid of,
it was very likely that she might be robbed—but robbed of what? Was there
something more important than money or jewels to be got? I frankly admit
that although I put the question I am at a loss how to answer it."
"Obviously," murmured the magistrate again, still more puzzled by all these
logical deductions.
Juve proceeded with the development of his ideas.
"And now suppose we are face to face with a crime committed without any
motive, as a result of some morbid impulse, a by no means uncommon
occurrence, monomania or temporary insanity?
"In that case, although, in consequence of the crapulous nature of the crime,
I had previously dismissed the very serious presumption of guilt attaching
to young Rambert, I should be inclined to reconsider my opinion and think
it possible that he might be the culprit. We know very little about the young
fellow from the physiological point of view; in fact we don't know him at
all; but it seems that his family is not altogether normal, and I understand
that his mother's mental condition is precarious. If for a moment we regard
Charles Rambert as a hysterical subject, we can associate him with the
murder of the Marquise de Langrune without thereby destroying our case
that the crime is a crapulous one, for a man of only medium physical
strength, when suffering from an attack of mental alienation, has his

muscular power increased at least tenfold during his paroxysms. Under such
influence as that Charles Rambert might have committed murder with all
the fierce brutality of a giant!
"But I shall soon be in possession of absolutely accurate knowledge as to
the muscular strength of the murderer," Juve proceeded. "Quite lately M.
Bertillon invented a marvellous dynamometer which enables us not only to
ascertain what kind of lever has been used to force a lock or a piece of
furniture, but also to determine the exact strength of the individual who
used the tools. I have taken samples of the wood from the broken drawer,
and I shall soon have exact information."
"That will be immensely important," M. de Presles agreed. "Even if it does
away with our present certainty of Charles Rambert's guilt, we shall be able
to find out whether the murder was committed by any other occupant of the
house—still assuming that it was committed by some member of the
household."
"With regard to that," said Juve, "we can proceed with our method of
deduction and eliminate from our field of observation everybody who has a
good alibi or other defence; it will be so much ground cleared. For my own
part I find it impossible to suspect the two old maidservants, Louise and
Marie; the tramps whom we have detained and subsequently released are
too simple-minded, elementary people to have been capable of devising the
minute precautions which demonstrate the subtle cleverness of the man who
murdered the Marquise. Then there is Dollon; but I imagine you will agree
with me in thinking that his alibi removes him from suspicion—more
especially as the medical evidence proves that the murder was committed
during the night, between two and three o'clock."
"Only M. Etienne Rambert is left," the magistrate put in, "and about nine
o'clock that evening he left the d'Orsay station in the slow train which
reaches Verrières at 6.55 a.m. He spent the whole night in the train, for he
certainly arrived by that one. He could not have a better alibi."
"Not possibly," Juve replied. "So we need only trouble ourselves with
Charles Rambert," and warming up to the subject the detective proceeded to
pile up a crushing indictment against the young man. "The crime was
committed so quietly that not the faintest sound was heard; therefore the

murderer was in the house; he went to the Marquise's room and announced
his arrival by a cautious tap on the door; the Marquise then opened the door
to him, and was not surprised to see him, for she knew him quite well; he
went into her room with her and——"
"Oh, come, come!" M. de Presles broke in; "you are romancing now, M.
Juve; you forget that the bedroom door was forced, the best proof of that
being the bolt, which was found wrenched away and hanging literally at the
end of the screws."
"I was expecting you to say that, sir," said Juve with a smile. "But before I
reply I should like to show you something rather quaint." He led the way
across the passage and went into the bedroom of the Marquise, where order
had now been restored; the dead body had been removed to the library,
which was transformed into a chapelle ardente, and two nuns were
watching over it there. "Have a good look at this bolt," he said to M. de
Presles. "Is there anything unusual about it?"
"No," said the magistrate.
"Yes, there is," said Juve; "the slide-bolt is out, as when the bolt is fastened,
but the socket into which the slide-bolt slips to fasten the door to the wall is
intact. If the bolt really had been forced, the socket would have been
wrenched away too." Juve next asked M. de Presles to look closely at the
screws that were wrenched halfway out of the door. "Do you see anything
on those?"
The magistrate pointed to their heads.
"There are tiny scratches on them," he said, rather hesitatingly, for in his
inmost heart he knew the detective's real superiority over himself, "and
from those I must infer that the screws have not been wrenched out by the
pressure exerted on the bolt, but really unscrewed, and therefore——"
"And therefore," Juve broke in, "this is a mere blind, from which we may
certainly draw the conclusion that the murderer wished to make us believe
that the door was forced, whereas in reality it was opened to him by the
Marquise. Therefore the murderer was personally known to her!"

"The murderer was personally known to her," he repeated. "Now I should
like to remind you of young Charles Rambert's equivocal behaviour in the
course of the evening that preceded the crime. It struck President Bonnet
and shocked the priest. I also recall his hereditary antecedents, his mother's
insanity, and finally——" Juve broke off abruptly and unceremoniously
dragged the magistrate out of the room and into Charles Rambert's
bedroom. He hurried into the dressing-room adjoining, went down on his
knees on the floor, and laid a finger on the middle of the oil-cloth that was
laid over the boards. "What do you see there, sir?" he demanded.
The magistrate adjusted his eyeglass and, looking at the place indicated by
the detective, saw a little black stain; he wetted his finger, rubbed it on the
spot, and then, holding up his hand, observed that the tip of his finger was
stained red.
"It is blood," he muttered.
"Yes, blood," said Juve, "and I gather from this that the story of the blood-
stained towel which M. Rambert senior found among his son's things, and
the sight of which so greatly impressed Mlle. Thérèse, was not an invention
on that young lady's part, but really existed; and it forms the most damning
evidence possible against the young man. He obviously washed his hands
after the crime in the water from the tap over this wash-hand basin here, but
one drop of blood falling on the towel and dripping on to the floor has been
enough to give him away."
The magistrate nodded.
"It is conclusive," he said. "You have just proved to demonstration, M.
Juve, that Charles Rambert is the guilty party. It is beyond argument. It is
conclusive—conclusive!"
There were a couple of seconds of silence, and then Juve suddenly said
"No!"
"No!" he repeated; "it is quite true that we can adduce perfectly logical
arguments to show that the murder was committed by some member of the
household and that, therefore, Charles Rambert is the only possible culprit;
but we can adduce equally logical arguments to show that the crime was

committed by some person who got in from outside: there is nothing to
prove that he did not walk into the house through the front door."
"The door was locked," said the magistrate.
"That's nothing," said Juve with a laugh. "Don't forget that there isn't such a
thing as a real safety lock nowadays—since all locks can be opened with an
outside key. If I had found one of the good old-fashioned catch locks on the
door, such as they used to make years ago, I should have said to you:
nobody got in, because the only way to get through a door fastened with
one of those locks is to break the door down. But here we have a lock that
can be opened with a key. Now the key does not exist of which one cannot
get an impression, and there is not such a thing as an impression from
which one cannot manufacture a false key. The murderer could easily have
got into the house with a duplicate key."
The magistrate raised a further objection.
"If the murderer had got in from outside he would inevitably have left some
traces round about the château, but there aren't any."
"Yes there are," Juve retorted. "First of all there is this piece of an ordnance
map which I found yesterday between the château and the embankment."
He took it from his pocket as he spoke. "It is an odd coincidence that this
scrap shows the neighbourhood of the château of Beaulieu."
"That doesn't prove anything," said the magistrate. "To find a piece of a
map of our district in our district is the most natural thing possible. Now if
you were to discover the rest of this map in anybody's possession, then
——"
"You may rest assured that I shall try to do so with the least possible delay,"
said Juve gently. "But this is not the only argument I have to support my
theory. This morning, when I was walking near the embankment, I found
some very suspicious footprints. It is true there are any number of footprints
near the end of the Verrières tunnel, where the navvies are at work. But at
the other end of the tunnel, where there is no occasion for anyone to pass
by, I found that the earth of the embankment, which was crisp with the
frost, had been disturbed, showing that someone had clambered up the
embankment; the tips of his shoes had been driven into the earth, and I

could see distinctly where his feet had been placed; but unfortunately the
soil there is so dry that the footprints were too faint for me to hope to be
able to identify the maker of them. But the fact remains that someone did
climb up the embankment, someone who was making for the railway."
The magistrate did not seem to be impressed by Juve's discovery.
"And pray what conclusion do you think ought to be drawn from that?" he
enquired.
Juve sat down in an easy chair, threw back his head and closed his eyes as if
he were about to indulge in a long soliloquy, and began to express his
thoughts aloud.
"Suppose we were to combine the two hypotheses into one; to wit, that the
murderer was in the château prior to the accomplishment of the crime and
left the château directly it was accomplished. What should you say, sir, of a
criminal completing his deed, then hurrying over the couple of miles that
separate Beaulieu from the railway, and catching a passing train, and on his
way climbing the embankment at the spot where I found the footprints I
mentioned."
"I should say," the magistrate replied, "that you can't jump into a moving
train as you can into a passing tram, and further, that at night none but
express trains run between Brives and Cahors."
"All right," said Juve: "I will merely point out that owing to the work on the
line at present, all trains have stopped at the beginning of the tunnel for the
last two months. If the murderer had planned to escape in that way he might
very well have been aware of this regular stoppage."
The magistrates confidence was a little shaken by these new deductions on
the part of the detective, but he submitted yet another objection.
"We have not found any traces round about the château."
"Strictly speaking, no, we have not," Juve admitted; "but it is clear that if
the murderer walked on the grass, and he probably did so, he walked on it
during the night, that is to say, before the morning dew. Now everybody
knows that when the dew rises in the early morning, grass that has been

bent down by any passing man or animal, stands up again in its original
position, thereby destroying all traces; so if the murderer did walk on the
lawn when he was getting away, nobody could tell that he had done so.
Nevertheless, on the lawn in front of the window of the room where the
murder was committed I have observed, not exactly footprints, but signs
that the earth has been disturbed at that spot. I imagine that if I were to
jump out of a first floor window on to the soft surface of a lawn, and
wanted to efface the marks of my boots, I should smooth the earth and the
grass around them in just the same way that the little piece of lawn I speak
of seems to have been smoothed."
"I should like to have a look at that," said M. de Presles.
"Well, there's no difficulty about it," Juve replied. "Come along."
The two men hurried down the staircase and out of the house. When they
reached the patch of grass which the inspector said had been "made up,"
they crouched down and scrutinised it closely. Just by the side of the grass,
even overhanging it a little, a large rhubarb plant outspread its thick,
dentelated leaves almost parallel with the soil. Juve happened to glance
casually at the nearest leaf, and uttered an exclamation of surprise and
gratification.
"Gad, here's something interesting!" and he drew the magistrate's attention
to some little pilules of earth with which the plant was peppered.
"What is that?" enquired M. de Presles.
"Earth," said Juve, who had swept the top of the leaf with the palm of his
hand; "ordinary earth, like the rest ten inches below, on the grass."
"Well, what about it?" said the puzzled magistrate.
"Well," said Juve with a smile, "I imagine that ordinary earth, or any kind of
earth, has no power to move of its own volition, much less to jump up ten
inches into the air and settle on the top of a leaf, even a rhubarb leaf! So I
conclude that since this earth did not get here by itself it was brought here.
How? That is very simple! Somebody has jumped on to the grass there, M.
de Presles; he has removed the marks of his feet by smoothing the earth
with his hands; the earth soiled his hands, and he rubbed one against the

other quite mechanically; the earth which was on his hands fell off in little
balls on to the rhubarb leaf, and remained there for us to discover. And so it
is certain—this is one proof more—that even if the murderer did not get in
from outside, he did at any rate take to flight after he had committed the
crime."
"So it can't be Charles Rambert after all," said the magistrate.
"It 'ought to be' Charles Rambert!" was Juve's baffling reply.
The magistrate waxed irritable.
"My dear sir, your everlasting contradictions end by being rather absurd!
You have hardly finished building up one laborious theory before you start
knocking it down again. I fail to understand you."
Juve smiled at M. de Presles' sudden irritability, but quickly became grave
again.
"I am anxious not to be led away by any preconceived opinion. I put the
hypothesis that so and so is guilty, and examine all the arguments in support
of that theory; then I submit that the crime was committed by somebody
else, and proceed in the same way. My method certainly has the objection
that it confronts every argument with a diametrically opposite one, but we
are not concerned with establishing any one case in preference to another—
it is the truth, and nothing else, that we have to discover."
"And that is tantamount to saying that in spite of the overwhelming
circumstantial evidence, and in spite of the fact that he has run away,
Charles Rambert is innocent?"
"Charles Rambert is the culprit, sir," Juve replied brightly. "If he were not,
whom else could we possibly suspect?"
The detective's placidity and his perpetual self-contradictions exasperated
M. de Presles. He held his tongue, and was silently revolving the case in his
mind when Juve made yet one more suggestion.
"There is one final hypothesis which I feel obliged to put before you. Do
you realise, sir, that this is a typical Fantômas crime?"

M. de Presles shrugged his shoulders as the detective pronounced this half-
mythical name.
"Upon my word, M. Juve, I should never have expected you to invoke
Fantômas! Why, Fantômas is the too obvious subterfuge, the cheapest
device for investing a case with mock honours. Between you and me, you
know perfectly well that Fantômas is merely a legal fiction—a lawyers'
joke. Fantômas has no existence in fact!"
Juve stopped in his stride. He paused a moment before replying; then spoke
in a restrained voice, but with an emphasis on his words that always marked
him when he spoke in all seriousness.
"You are wrong to laugh, sir; very wrong. You are a magistrate and I am
only a humble detective inspector, but you have three or four years'
experience, perhaps less, while I have fifteen years' work behind me. I
know that Fantômas does exist, and I do anything but laugh when I suspect
his intervention in a case."
M. de Presles could hardly conceal his surprise, and Juve went on:
"No one has ever said of me, sir, that I was a coward. I have looked death in
the eyes; I have often hunted and arrested criminals who would not have
had the least hesitation in doing away with me. There are whole gangs of
rascals who have vowed my death. All manner of horrible revenges threaten
me to-day. For all that I have the most complete indifference! But when
people talk to me of Fantômas, when I fancy that I can detect the
intervention of that genius of crime in any case, then, M. de Presles, I am in
a funk! I tell you frankly I am in a funk. I am frightened, because Fantômas
is a being against whom it is idle to use ordinary weapons; because he has
been able to hide his identity and elude all pursuit for years; because his
daring is boundless and his power unmeasurable; because he is everywhere
and nowhere at once and, if he has had a hand in this affair, I am not even
sure that he is not listening to me now! And finally, M. de Presles, because
every one whom I have known to attack Fantômas, my friends, my
colleagues, my superior officers, have one and all, one and all, sir, been
beaten in the fight! Fantômas does exist, I know, but who is he? A man can
brave a danger he can measure, but he trembles when confronted with a
peril he suspects but cannot see."

"But this Fantômas is not a devil," the magistrate broke in testily; "he is a
man like you and me!"
"You are right, sir, in saying he is a man; but I repeat, the man is a genius! I
don't know whether he works alone or whether he is the head of a gang of
criminals; I know nothing of his life; I know nothing of his object. In no
single case yet has it been possible to determine the exact part he has taken.
He seems to possess the extraordinary gift of being able to slay and leave
no trace. You don't see him; you divine his presence: you don't hear him;
you have a presentiment of him. If Fantômas is mixed up in this present
affair, I don't know if we ever shall succeed in clearing it up!"
M. de Presles was impressed in spite of himself by the detective's
earnestness.
"But I suppose you are not recommending me to drop the enquiry, are you,
Juve?"
The detective forced a laugh that did not ring quite true.
"Come, come, sir," he answered, "I told you just now that I was frightened,
but I never said I was a coward. You may be quite sure I shall do my duty,
to the very end. When I first began—and that was not yesterday, nor yet the
day before—to realise the importance and the power of this Fantômas, I
took an oath, sir, that some day I would discover his identity and effect his
arrest! Fantômas is an enemy of society, you say? I prefer to regard him
first and foremost as my own personal enemy! I have declared war on him,
and I am ready to lose my skin in the war if necessary, but by God I'll have
his!"
Juve ceased. M. de Presles also was silent. But the magistrate was still
sceptical, despite the detective's strange utterance, and presently he could
not refrain from making a gentle protest and appeal.
"Do please bring in a verdict against someone, M. Juve, for really I would
rather believe that your Fantômas is—a creation of the imagination!"
Juve shrugged his shoulders, seemed to be arriving at a mighty decision,
and began:

"You are quite right, sir, to require me to draw some definite conclusion,
even if you are not right in denying the existence of Fantômas. So I make
the assertion that the murderer is——"

The sound of hurrying steps behind them made both men turn round. A
postman, hot and perspiring, was hurrying to the château; he had a telegram
in his hand.
"Does either of you gentlemen know M. Juve?" he asked.
"My name is Juve," said the detective, and he took the telegram and tore the
envelope open. He glanced through it and then handed it to the magistrate.
"Please read that, sir," he said.
The telegram was from the Criminal Investigation Department, and ran as
follows:

"Return immediately to Paris. Are convinced that extraordinary
crime lies behind disappearance of Lord Beltham. Privately,
suspect Fantômas' work."

VII. The Criminal Investigation Department
"Does M. Gurn live here, please?"
Mme. Doulenques, the concierge at No. 147 rue Lévert, looked at the
enquirer and saw a tall, dark man with a heavy moustache, wearing a soft
hat and a tightly buttoned overcoat, the collar of which was turned up to his
ears.
"M. Gurn is away, sir," she answered; "he has been away for some little
time."
"I know," said the stranger, "but still I want to go up to his rooms if you will
kindly go with me."
"You want——" the concierge began in surprise and doubt. "Oh, I know; of
course you are the man from the what's-its-name company, come for his
luggage? Wait a bit; what is the name of that company? Something funny—
an English name, I fancy."
The woman left the door, which she had been holding just ajar, and went to
the back of her lodge; she looked through the pigeon-holes where she kept
the tenants' letters ready sorted, and picked out a soiled printed circular
addressed to M. Gurn. She was busy putting on her spectacles when the
stranger drew near and from over her shoulder got a glimpse of the name
for which she was looking. He drew back again noiselessly, and said
quietly:
"I have come from the South Steamship Company."
"Yes, that's it," said the concierge, laboriously spelling out the words: "the
South—what you said. I can never pronounce those names. Rue
d'Hauteville, isn't it?"
"That's it," replied the man in the soft hat in pleasant, measured tones.

"Well, it's very plain that you don't bustle much in your place," the
concierge remarked. "I've been expecting you to come for M. Gurn's things
for nearly three weeks; he told me you would come a few days after he had
gone. However, that's your business."
Mme. Doulenques cast a mechanical glance through the window that
looked on to the street, and then surveyed the stranger from top to toe; he
seemed to be much too well dressed to be a mere porter.
"But you haven't got any handcart or truck," she exclaimed. "You're not
thinking of carrying the trunks on your shoulder, are you? Why, there are at
least three or four of them—and heavy!"
The stranger paused before answering, as though he found it necessary to
weigh each word.
"As a matter of fact I merely wanted to get an idea of the size of the
luggage," he said quietly. "Will you show me the things?"
"If I must, I must," said the concierge with a heavy sigh. "Come up with
me: it's the fifth floor," and as she climbed the stairs she grumbled: "It's a
pity you didn't come when I was doing my work: I shouldn't have had to
climb a hundred stairs a second time then; it counts up at the end of the day,
and I'm not so young as I was."
The stranger followed her up the stairs, murmuring monosyllabic sympathy,
and regulating his pace by hers. Arrived at the fifth floor, the concierge
drew a key from her pocket and opened the door of the flat.
It was a small modest place, but quite prettily decorated. The door on the
landing opened into a tiny sort of anteroom, from which one passed into a
front room furnished with little but a round table and a few arm-chairs.
Beyond this was a bedroom, almost filled by the large bed, which was the
first thing one saw on entering, and on the right there was yet another room,
probably a little office. Both the first room, which was a kind of general
living room, and the bedroom had wide windows overlooking gardens as
far as one could see. An advantage of the flat was that it had nothing
opposite, so that the occupant could move about with the windows open if
he liked, and yet have nothing to fear from the inquisitiveness of
neighbours.

The rooms had been shut up for several days, since the tenant had gone
away indeed, and there was a stuffy smell about them, mingled with a
strong smell of chemicals.
"I must air the place," the concierge muttered, "or else M. Gurn won't be
pleased when he comes back. He always says he is too hot and can't breathe
in Paris."
"So he does not live here regularly?" said the stranger, scanning the place
curiously as he spoke.
"Oh, no, sir," the concierge answered. "M. Gurn is a kind of commercial
traveller and is often away, sometimes for a month or six weeks together,"
and the gossiping woman was beginning a long and incoherent story when
the stranger interrupted her, pointing to a silver-framed photograph of a
young woman he had noticed on the mantelpiece.
"Is that Mme. Gurn?"
"M. Gurn is a bachelor," Mme. Doulenques replied. "I can't fancy him
married, with his roaming kind of life."
"Just a little friend of his, eh?" said the man in the soft hat, with a wink and
a meaning smile.
"Oh, no," said the concierge, shaking her head. "That photograph is not a bit
like her."
"So you know her, then?"
"I do and I don't. That's to say, when M. Gurn is in Paris, he often has visits
from a lady in the afternoon: a very fashionable lady, I can tell you, not the
sort that one often sees in this quarter. Why, the woman who comes is a
society lady, I am sure: she always has her veil down and passes by my
lodge ever so fast, and never has any conversation with me; free with her
money, too: it's very seldom she does not give me something when she
comes."
The stranger seemed to find the concierge's communications very
interesting, but they did not interrupt his mental inventory of the room.

"In other words, your tenant does not keep too sharp an eye on his money?"
he suggested.
"No, indeed: the rent is always paid in advance, and sometimes M. Gurn
even pays two terms in advance because he says he never can tell if his
business won't be keeping him away when the rent falls due."
Just then a deep voice called up the staircase:
"Concierge: M. Gurn: have you any one of that name in the house?"
"Come up to the fifth floor," the concierge called back to the man. "I am in
his rooms now," and she went back into the flat. "Here's somebody else for
M. Gurn," she exclaimed.
"Does he have many visitors?" the stranger enquired.
"Hardly any, sir: that's why I'm so surprised."
Two men appeared; their blue blouses and metal-peaked caps proclaimed
them to be porters. The concierge turned to the man in the soft hat.
"I suppose these are your men, come to fetch the trunks?"
The stranger made a slight grimace, seemed to hesitate and finally made up
his mind to remain silent.
Rather surprised to see that the three men did not seem to be acquainted
with each other, the concierge was about to ask what it meant, when one of
the porters addressed her curtly:
"We've come from the South Steamship Company for four boxes from M.
Gurn's place. Are those the ones?" and taking no notice of the visitor in the
room, the man pointed to two large trunks and two small boxes which were
placed in a corner of the room.
"But aren't you three all together?" enquired Mme. Doulenques, visibly
uneasy.
The stranger still remained silent, but the first porter replied at once.

"No; we have nothing to do with the gentleman. Get on to it, mate! We've
no time to waste!"
Anticipating their action, the concierge got instinctively between the porters
and the luggage: so too did the man in the soft hat.
"Pardon," said he politely but peremptorily. "Please take nothing away."
One of the porters drew a crumpled and dirty memorandum book from his
pocket and turned over the pages, wetting his thumb every time. He looked
at it attentively and then spoke.
"There's no mistake: this is where we were told to come," and again he
signed to his mate. "Let's get on with it!"
The concierge was puzzled. She looked first at the mysterious stranger, who
was as quiet and silent as ever, and then at the porters, who were beginning
to be irritated by these incomprehensible complications.
Mme. Doulenques' mistrust waxed greater, and she sincerely regretted
being alone on the fifth floor with these strangers, for the other occupants of
this floor had gone off to their daily work long ago. Suddenly she escaped
from the room, and called shrilly down the stairs:
"Madame Aurore! Madame Aurore!"
The man in the soft hat rushed after her, seized her gently but firmly by the
arm, and led her back into the room.
"I beg you, madame, make no noise: do not call out!" he said in a low tone.
"Everything will be all right. I only ask you not to create a disturbance."
But the concierge was thoroughly alarmed by the really odd behaviour of all
these men, and again screamed at the top of her voice:
"Help! Police!"
The first porter was exasperated.
"It's unfortunate to be taken for thieves," he said with a shrug of his
shoulders. "Look here, Auguste, just run down to the corner of the street

and bring back a gendarme. The gentleman can explain to the concierge in
his presence, and then we shall be at liberty to get on with our job."
Auguste hastened to obey, and several tense moments passed, during which
not a single word was exchanged between the three people who were left
together.
Then heavy steps were heard, and Auguste reappeared with a gendarme.
The latter came swaggering into the room with a would-be majestic air, and
solemnly and pompously enquired:
"Now then, what's all this about?"
At sight of the officer every countenance cleared. The concierge ceased to
tremble; the porter lost his air of suspicion. Both were beginning to explain
to the representative of authority, when the man in the soft hat waved them
aside, stepped up to the guardian of the peace and looking him straight in
the eyes, said:
"Criminal Investigation Department! Inspector Juve!"
The gendarme, who was quite unprepared for this announcement, stepped
back a pace and raised his eyes towards the man who addressed him: then
suddenly raised his hand to his képi and came to attention.
"Beg pardon, Inspector, I didn't recognise you! M. Juve! And you have been
in this division a long time too!" He turned angrily to the foremost porter.
"Step forward, please, and let's have no nonsense!"
Juve, who had thus disclosed his identity as a detective, smiled, seeing that
the gendarme assumed that the South Steamship Company's porter was a
thief.
"That's all right," he said. "Leave the man alone. He's done no harm."
"Then who am I to arrest?" the puzzled gendarme asked.
The concierge broke in to explain: she had been much impressed by the
style and title of the stranger.

"If the gentleman had told me where he came from I would certainly never
have allowed anyone to go for a gendarme."
Inspector Juve smiled.
"If I had told you who I was just now, madame, when you were, quite
naturally, so upset, you would not have believed me. You would have
continued to call out. Now, I am particularly anxious to avoid any scandal
or noise at the present moment. I rely on your discretion." He turned to the
two porters, who were dumb with amazement and could make nothing of
the affair. "As for you, my good fellows, I must ask you to leave your other
work and go back at once to your office in the rue d'Hauteville and tell your
manager—what is his name?"
"M. Wooland," one of the men replied.
"Good: tell M. Wooland that I want to see him here at the earliest possible
moment; and tell him to bring with him all the papers he has that refer to M.
Gurn. And not a word to anyone about all this, please, especially in this
neighbourhood. Take my message to your manager, and that's all."

The porters had left hurriedly for the rue d'Hauteville and a quarter of an
hour went by. The detective had requested the concierge to ask the Madame
Aurore to whom she had previously appealed so loudly for help, to take her
place temporarily in the lodge. Juve kept Mme. Doulenques upstairs with
him partly to get information from her, and partly to prevent her from
gossiping downstairs.
While he was opening drawers and ransacking furniture, and plunging his
hand into presses and cupboards, Juve asked the concierge to describe this
tenant of hers, M. Gurn, in whom he appeared to be so deeply interested.
"He is a rather fair man," the concierge told him, "medium height, stout
build, and clean shaven like an Englishman; there is nothing particular
about him: he is like lots of other people."
This very vague description was hardly satisfactory. The detective told the
policeman to unscrew the lock on a locked trunk, and gave him a small

screw-driver which he had found in the kitchen. Then he turned again to
Mme. Doulenques who was standing stiffly against the wall, severely silent.
"You told me that M. Gurn had a lady friend. When used he to see her?"
"Pretty often, when he was in Paris; and always in the afternoon.
Sometimes they were together till six or seven o'clock, and once or twice
the lady did not come down before half-past seven."
"Used they to leave the house together?"
"No, sir."
"Did the lady ever stay the night here?"
"Never, sir."
"Yes: evidently a married woman," murmured the detective as if speaking
to himself.
Mme. Doulenques made a vague gesture to show her ignorance on the
point.
"I can't tell you anything about that, sir."
"Very well," said the detective; "kindly pass me that coat behind you."
The concierge obediently took down a coat from a hook and handed it to
Juve who searched it quickly, looked it all over and then found a label sewn
on the inside of the collar: it bore the one word Pretoria.
"Good!" said he, in an undertone; "I thought as much."
Then he looked at the buttons; these were stamped on the under side with
the name Smith.
The gendarme understood what the detective was about, and he too
examined the clothes in the first trunk which he had just opened.
"There is nothing to show where these things came from, sir," he remarked.
"The name of the maker is not on them."
"That's all right," said Juve. "Open the other trunk."

While the gendarme was busy forcing this second lock Juve went for a
moment into the kitchen and came back holding a rather heavy copper
mallet with an iron handle, which he had found there. He was looking at
this mallet with some curiosity, balancing and weighing it in his hands,
when a sudden exclamation of fright from the gendarme drew his eyes to
the trunk, the lid of which had just been thrown back. Juve did not lose all
his professional impassivity, but even he leaped forward like a flash, swept
the gendarme to one side, and dropped on his knees beside the open box. A
horrid spectacle met his eyes. For the trunk contained a corpse!
The moment Mme. Doulenques caught sight of the ghastly thing, she fell
back into a chair half fainting, and there she remained, unable to move, with
her body hunched forward, and haggard eyes fixed upon the corpse, of
which she caught occasional glimpses as the movements of Juve and the
gendarme every now and then left the shocking thing within the trunk
exposed to her view.
Yet there was nothing especially gruesome or repellent about the corpse. It
was the body of a man of about fifty years of age, with a pronounced brick-
red complexion, and a lofty brow, the height of which was increased by
premature baldness. Long, fair moustaches drooped from the upper lip
almost to the top of the chest. The unfortunate creature was doubled up in
the trunk, with knees bent and head forced down by the weight of the lid.
The body was dressed with a certain fastidiousness, and it was obviously
that of a man of fashion and distinction; there was no wound to be seen. The
calm, quiet face suggested that the victim had been taken by surprise while
in the full vigour of life and killed suddenly, and had not been subjected to
the anguish of a fight for life or to any slow agony.
Juve half turned to the concierge.
"When did you see M. Gurn last? Exactly, please: it is important."
Mme. Doulenques babbled something unintelligible and then, as the
detective pressed her, made an effort to collect her scattered wits.
"Three weeks ago at least, sir: yes, three weeks exactly; no one has been
here since, I will swear."

Juve made a sign to the gendarme, who understood, and felt the body
carefully.
"Quite stiff, and hard, sir," he said; "yet there is no smell from it. Perhaps
the cold——"
Juve shook his head.
"Even severe cold could not preserve a body in that condition for three
weeks, and it's not cold now, but there is this:" and he showed his
subordinate a small yellowish stain just at the opening of the collar, close to
the Adam's apple, which, in spite of the comparative thinness of the body,
was very much developed.
Juve took the corpse under the arm-pits and raised it gently, wishing to
examine it closely, but anxious, also, not to alter its position. On the nape of
the neck was a large stain of blood, like a black wen and as big as a five-
shilling piece, just above the last vertebra of the spinal column.
"That's the explanation," the detective murmured, and carefully replacing
the body he continued his investigation. With quick, clever hands he
searched the coat pockets and found the watch in its proper place. Another
pocket was full of money, chiefly small change, with a few louis. But Juve
looked in vain for the pocket-book which the man had doubtless been in the
habit of carrying about with him: the pocket-book probably containing
some means of identification.
The inspector merely grunted, got up, began pacing the room, and
questioned the concierge.
"Did M. Gurn have a motor-car?"
"No, sir," she replied, looking surprised. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, for no particular reason," said the inspector with affected indifference,
but at the same time he was contemplating a large nickel pump that lay on a
what-not, a syringe holding perhaps half a pint, like those that chauffeurs
use. He looked at it steadfastly for several minutes. His next question was
addressed to the gendarme who was still on his knees by the trunk.

"We have found one yellow stain on the neck; you will very likely find
some more. Have a look at the wrists and the calves of the legs and the
stomach. But do it carefully, so as not to disturb the body." While the
gendarme began to obey his chief's order, carefully undoing the clothing on
the corpse, Juve looked at the concierge again.
"Who did the work of this flat?"
"I did, sir."
Juve pointed to the velvet curtain that screened the door between the little
anteroom and the room in which they were.
"How did you come to leave that curtain unhooked at the top, without
putting it to rights?"
Mme. Doulenques looked at it.
"It's the first time I've seen it like that," she said apologetically; "the curtain
could not have been unhooked when I did the room last without my
noticing it. Anyhow, it hasn't been like that long. I ought to say that as M.
Gurn was seldom here I didn't do the place out thoroughly very often."
"When did you do it out last?"
"Quite a month ago."
"That is to say M. Gurn went away a week after you last cleaned the place
up?"
"Yes, sir."
Juve changed the subject, and pointed to the corpse.
"Tell me, madame, did you know that person?"
The concierge fought down her nervousness and for the first time looked at
the unfortunate victim with a steady gaze.
"I have never seen him before," she said, with a little shudder.

"And so, when that gentleman came up here, you did not notice him?" said
the inspector gently.
"No, I did not notice him," she declared, and then went on as if answering
some question which occurred to her own mind. "And I wonder I didn't, for
people very seldom enquired for M. Gurn; of course when the lady was
with him M. Gurn was not at home to anybody. This—this dead man must
have come straight up himself."
Juve nodded, and was about to continue his questioning when the bell rang.
"Open the door," said Juve to the concierge, and he followed her to the
entrance of the flat, partly fearing to find some intruder there, partly hoping
to see some unexpected person whose arrival might throw a little light upon
the situation.
At the opened door Juve saw a young man of about twenty-five, an obvious
Englishman with clear eyes and close-cropped hair. With an accent that
further made his British origin unmistakable, the visitor introduced himself:
"I am Mr. Wooland, manager of the Paris branch of the South Steamship
Company. It seems that I am wanted at M. Gurn's flat on the fifth floor of
this house, by desire of the police."
Juve came forward.
"I am much obliged to you for putting yourself to this inconvenience, sir:
allow me to introduce myself: M. Juve, an Inspector from the Criminal
Investigation Department. Please come in."
Solemn and impassive, Mr. Wooland entered the room; a side glance
suddenly showed him the open trunk and the dead body, but not a muscle of
his face moved. Mr. Wooland came of a good stock, and had all that
admirable self-possession which is the strength of the powerful Anglo-
Saxon race. He looked at the inspector in somewhat haughty silence,
waiting for him to begin.
"Will you kindly let me know, sir, the instructions your firm had with regard
to the forwarding of the baggage which you sent for to this flat of M. Gurn's
this morning?"

"Four days ago, Inspector," said the young man, "on the 14th of December
to be precise, the London mail brought us a letter in which Lord Beltham,
who had been a client of ours for several years, instructed us to collect, on
the 17th of December, that is, to-day, four articles marked H. W. K., 1, 2, 3
and 4, from M. Gurn's apartments, 147 rue Lévert. He informed us that the
concierge had orders to allow us to take them away."
"To what address were you to despatch them?"
"Our client instructed us to forward the trunks by the first steamer to
Johannesburg, where he would send for them; we were to send two invoices
with the goods as usual; the third invoice was to be sent to London, Box 63,
Charing Cross Post Office."
Juve made a note of Box 63, Charing Cross in his pocket-book.
"Addressed to what name or initials?"
"Simply Beltham."
"Good. There are no other documents relating to the matter?"
"No, I have nothing else," said Mr. Wooland.
The young fellow relapsed into his usual impassive silence. Juve watched
him for a minute or two and then said:
"You must have heard the various rumours current in Paris three weeks ago,
sir, about Lord Beltham. He was a very well-known personage in society.
Suddenly he disappeared; his wife left nothing undone to give the matter
the widest publicity. Were you not rather surprised when you received a
letter from Lord Beltham four days ago?"
Mr. Wooland was not disconcerted by the rather embarrassing question.
"Of course I had heard of Lord Beltham's disappearance, but it was not for
me to form any official opinion about it. I am a business man, sir, not a
detective. Lord Beltham might have disappeared voluntarily or the reverse:
I was not asked to say which. When I got his letter I simply decided to carry
out the orders it contained. I should do the same again in similar
circumstances."

"Are you satisfied that the order was sent by Lord Beltham?"
"I have already told you, sir, that Lord Beltham had been a client of ours for
several years; we have had many similar dealings with him. This last order
which we received from him appeared to be entirely above suspicion:
identical in form and in terms with the previous letters we had had from
him." He took a letter out of his pocket-book, and handed it to Juve. "Here
is the order, sir; if you think proper you can compare it with similar
documents filed in our office in the rue d'Hauteville"; and as Juve was
silent, Mr. Wooland, with the utmost dignity, enquired: "Is there any further
occasion for me to remain here?"
"Thank you, sir, no," Juve replied. Mr. Wooland made an almost
imperceptible bow and was on the point of withdrawing when the detective
stayed him once more. "M. Wooland, did you know Lord Beltham?"
"No, sir: Lord Beltham always sent us his orders by letter; once or twice he
has spoken to us over the telephone, but he never came to our office, and I
have never been to his house."
"Thank you very much," said Juve, and with a bow Mr. Wooland withdrew.

With meticulous care Juve replaced every article which he had moved
during his investigations. He carefully shut the lid of the trunk, thus hiding
the unhappy corpse from the curious eyes of the gendarme and the still
terrified Mme. Doulenques. Then he leisurely buttoned his overcoat and
spoke to the gendarme.
"Stay here until I send a man to relieve you; I am going to your
superintendent now." At the door he called the concierge. "Will you kindly
go down before me, madame? Return to your lodge, and please do not say a
word about what has happened to anyone whatever."
"You can trust me, sir," the worthy creature murmured, and Juve walked
slowly away from the house with head bowed in thought.
There could be no doubt about it: the body in the trunk was that of Lord
Beltham! Juve knew the Englishman quite well. But who was the murderer?

"Everything points to Gurn," Juve thought, "and yet would an ordinary
murderer have dared to commit such a crime as this? Am I letting my
imagination run away with me again? I don't know: but it seems to me that
about this murder, committed in the very middle of Paris, in a crowded
house where yet nobody heard or suspected anything, there is an audacity, a
certainty of impunity, and above all a multiplicity of precautions, that are
typical of the Fantômas manner!" He clenched his fists and an evil smile
curled his lips as he repeated, like a threat, the name of that terrible and
most mysterious criminal, of whose hellish influence he seemed to be
conscious yet once again. "Fantômas! Fantômas! Did Fantômas really
commit this murder? And if he did, shall I ever succeed in throwing light
upon this new mystery, and learning the secret of that tragic room?"

VIII. A Dreadful Confession
While Juve was devoting his marvellous skill and incomparable daring to
the elucidation of the new case with which the Criminal Investigation
Department had entrusted him in Paris, things were marching at Beaulieu,
where the whole machinery of the law was being set in motion for the
discovery and arrest of Charles Rambert.

With a mighty clatter and racket Bouzille came down the slope and stopped
before old mother Chiquard's cottage. He arrived in his own equipage, and
an extraordinary one it was!
Bouzille was mounted upon a tricycle of prehistoric design, with two large
wheels behind and a small steering wheel in front, and a rusty handle-bar
from which all the plating was worn off. The solid rubber tyres which once
had adorned the machine had worn out long ago, and were now replaced by
twine twisted round the felloes of the wheels; this was for ever fraying
away and the wheels were fringed with a veritable lace-work of string.
Bouzille must have picked up this impossible machine for an old song at
some local market, unless perhaps some charitable person gave it to him
simply to get rid of it. He styled this tricycle his "engine," and it was by no
means the whole of his equipage. Attached to the tricycle by a stout rope
was a kind of wicker perambulator on four wheels, which he called his
"sleeping-car," because he stored away in it all the bits of rag he picked up
on his journeys, and also his very primitive bedding and the little piece of
waterproof canvas under which he often slept in the open air. Behind the
sleeping-car was a third vehicle, the restaurant-car, consisting of an old soap
box mounted on four solid wooden wheels, which were fastened to the
axles by huge conical bolts; in this he kept his provisions; lumps of bread
and fat, bottles and vegetables, all mixed up in agreeable confusion.
Bouzille made quite long journeys in this train of his, and was well known
throughout the south-west of France. Often did the astonished population
see him bent over his tricycle, with his pack on his back, pedalling with

extraordinary rapidity down the hills, while the carriages behind him
bumped and jumped over the inequalities in the surface of the road until it
seemed impossible that they could retain their equilibrium.
Old mother Chiquard had recognised the cause of the racket. The healthy
life of the country had kept the old woman strong and active in spite of the
eighty-three years that had passed over her head, and now she came to her
door, armed with a broom, and hailed the tramp in angry, threatening tones.
"So it's you, is it, you thief, you robber of the poor! It's shocking, the way
you spend your time in evil doing! What do you want now, pray?"
Slowly and sheepishly and with head bowed, Bouzille approached mother
Chiquard, nervously looking out for a whack over the head with the broom
the old lady held.
"Don't be cross," he pleaded when he could get in a word; "I want to come
to an arrangement with you, mother Chiquard, if it can be done."
"That's all according," said the old woman, eyeing the tramp with great
mistrust; "I haven't much faith in arrangements with you: rascals like you
always manage to do honest folk."
Mother Chiquard turned back into her cottage; it was no weather for her to
stop out of doors, for a strong north wind was blowing, and that was bad for
her rheumatism. Bouzille deliberately followed her inside and closed the
door carefully behind him. Without ceremony he walked up to the hearth,
where a scanty wood fire was burning, and put down his pack so as to be
able to rub his hands more freely.
"Miserable weather, mother Chiquard!"
The obstinate old lady stuck to her one idea.
"If it isn't miserable to steal my rabbit, this is the finest weather that ever I
saw!"
"You make a lot of fuss about a trifle," the tramp protested, "especially
since you will be a lot the better by the arrangement I'm going to suggest."

The notion calmed mother Chiquard a little, and she sat down on a form,
while Bouzille took a seat upon the table.
"What do you mean?" the old woman enquired.
"Well," said Bouzille, "I suppose your rabbit would have fetched a couple
of shillings in the market; I've brought you two fowls that are worth quite
eighteen-pence each, and if you will give me some dinner at twelve o'clock
I will put in a good morning's work for you."
Mother Chiquard looked at the clock upon the wall; it was eight o'clock.
The tramp's proposal represented four hours' work, which was not to be
despised; but before striking the bargain she insisted on seeing the fowls.
These were extracted from the pack; tied together by the feet, and half
suffocated, the unfortunate creatures were not much to look at, but they
would be cheap, which was worth considering.
"Where did you get these fowls?" mother Chiquard asked, more as a matter
of form than anything else, for she was pretty sure they had not been
honestly come by.
Bouzille put his finger to his lip.
"Hush!" he murmured gently; "that's a secret between me and the poultry.
Well, is it a go?" and he held out his hand to the old lady.
She hesitated a moment and then made up her mind.
"It's a go," she said, putting her horny fingers into the man's hard palm.
"You shall chop me some wood first, and then go down to the river for the
rushes I have put in to soak; they must be well swollen by this time."
Bouzille was glad to have made it up with mother Chiquard, and pleased at
the prospect of a good dinner at midday; he opened the cottage door, and
leisurely arranged a few logs within range of the axe with which he was
going to split them; mother Chiquard began to throw down some grain to
the skinny and famished fowls that fluttered round her.
"I thought you were in prison, Bouzille," she said, "over stealing my rabbit,
and also over that affair at the château of Beaulieu."

"Oh, those are two quite different stories," Bouzille replied. "You mustn't
mix them up together on any account. As for the château job, every tramp in
the district has been run in: I was copped by M'sieu Morand the morning
after the murder; he took me into the kitchen of the château and Mme.
Louise gave me something to eat. There was another chap there with me, a
man named François Paul who doesn't belong to these parts; between you
and me, I thought he was an evil-looking customer who might easily have
been the murderer, but it doesn't do to say that sort of thing, and I'm glad I
held my tongue because they let him go. I heard no more about it, and five
days later I went back to Brives to attend the funeral of the Marquise de
Langrune. That was a ceremony if you like! The church all lighted up, and
all the nobility from the neighbourhood present. I didn't lose my time, for I
knew all the gentlemen and ladies and took the best part of sixteen shillings,
and the blind beggar who sits on the steps of the church called me all the
names he could put his tongue to!"
The tramp's story interested mother Chiquard mightily, but her former idea
still dominated her mind.
"So they didn't punish you for stealing my rabbit?"
"Well, they did and they didn't," said Bouzille, scratching his head. "M'sieu
Morand, who is an old friend of mine, took me to the lock-up at Saint-Jaury,
and I was to have gone next morning to the court at Brives, where I know
the sentence for stealing domestic animals is three weeks. That would have
suited me all right just now, for the prison at Brives is quite new and very
comfortable, but that same night Sergeant Doucet shoved another man into
the clink with, me at Saint-Jaury, a raving lunatic who started smashing
everything up, and tried to tear my eyes out. Naturally, I gave him as good
as I got, and the infernal row we made brought in the sergeant. I told him
the chap wanted to throttle me, and he was nonplussed, for he couldn't do
anything with the man, who was fairly mad, and couldn't leave me alone
there with him. So at last the sergeant took me to one side and told me to
hook it and not let him see me again. So there it is."
While he was chattering like this Bouzille had finished the job set him by
mother Chiquard, who meanwhile had peeled some potatoes and poured the

soup on the bread. He wiped his brow, and seeing the brimming pot, gave a
meaning wink and licked his tongue.
"I'll make the fire up, mother Chiquard; I'm getting jolly hungry."
"So you ought to be, at half-past eleven," the old woman replied. "Yes, we'll
have dinner, and you can get the rushes out afterwards."
Mother Chiquard was the proud free-holder of a little cottage that was
separated from the bank of the Dordogne by the high road between Martel
and Montvalent. Round the cottage she had a small orchard, and opposite,
through a gap in the trees, was a view of the yellow waters of the Dordogne
and the chain of hills that stood up on the far side of the river. Living here
summer and winter, with her rabbits and her fowls, mother Chiquard earned
a little money by making baskets; but she was crippled with rheumatism,
and was miserable every time she had to go down to the river to pull out the
bundles of rushes that she put there to soak; the work meant not merely an
hour's paddling in mud up to the knees, but also a fortnight's acute agony
and at least a shilling for medicine. So whoever wanted to make a friend of
the old woman only had to volunteer to get the rushes out for her.
As he ate, Bouzille told mother Chiquard of his plans for the coming spring.
"Yes," he said, "since I'm not doing any time this winter I'm going to
undertake a long journey." He stopped munching for a second and paused
for greater effect. "I am going to Paris, mother Chiquard!" Then, seeing that
the old lady was utterly dumbfounded by the announcement, he leant his
elbows on the table and looked at her over his empty plate. "I've always had
one great desire—to see the Eiffel Tower: that idea has been running in my
head for the last fifteen years. Well, now I'm going to gratify the wish. I
hear you can get a room in Paris for twopence-halfpenny a night, and I can
manage that."
"How long will it take you to get there?" enquired the old woman,
immensely impressed by Bouzille's venturesome plan.
"That depends," said the tramp. "I must allow quite three months with my
train. Of course if I got run in on the way for stealing, or as a rogue and
vagabond, I couldn't say how long it would take."

The meal was over, and the old woman was quietly washing up her few
plates and dishes, when Bouzille, who had gone down to the river to fetch
the rushes, suddenly called shrilly to mother Chiquard.
"Mother Chiquard! Mother Chiquard! Come and look! Just fancy, I've
earned twenty-five francs!"
The summons was so urgent, and the news so amazing, that the old lady left
her house and hurried across the road to the river bank. She saw the tramp
up to his waist in the water, trying, with a long stick, to drag out of the
current a large object which was not identifiable at a first glance. To all her
enquiries Bouzille answered with the same delighted cry, "I have earned
twenty-five francs," too intent on bringing his fishing job to a successful
issue even to turn round. A few minutes later he emerged dripping from the
water, towing a large bundle to the safety of the bank. Mother Chiquard
drew nearer, greatly interested, and then recoiled with a shriek of horror.
Bouzille had fished out a corpse!
It was a ghastly sight: the body of a very young man, almost a boy, with
long, slender limbs; the face was so horribly swollen and torn as to be
shapeless. One leg was almost entirely torn from the trunk. Through rents in
the clothing strips of flesh were trailing, blue and discoloured by their long
immersion in the water. On the shoulders and back of the neck were bruises
and stains of blood. Bouzille, who was quite unaffected by the ghastliness
of the object and still kept up his gay chant "I have fished up a body, I've
earned twenty-five francs," observed that there were large splinters of
wood, rotten from long immersion, sticking in some of the wounds. He
stood up and addressed mother Chiquard who, white as a sheet, was
watching him in silence.
"I see what it is: he must have got caught in some mill wheel: that's what
has cut him up like that."
Mother Chiquard shook her head uneasily.
"Suppose it was a murder! That would be an ugly business!"
"It's no good my looking at him any more," said Bouzille. "I don't recognise
him; he's not from the country."

"That's sure," the old woman agreed. "He's dressed like a gentleman."
The two looked at each other in silence. Bouzille was not nearly so
complacent as he had been a few minutes before. The reward of twenty-five
francs prompted him to go at once to inform the police; the idea of a crime,
suggested by the worthy woman, disturbed him greatly, and all the more
because he thought it was well founded. Another murder in the
neighbourhood would certainly vex the authorities, and put the police in a
bad temper. Bouzille knew from experience that the first thing people do
after a tragedy is to arrest all the tramps, and that if the police are at all
crotchety they always contrive to get the tramps sentenced for something
else. He had had a momentary inclination to establish his winter quarters in
prison, but since then he had formed the plan of going to Paris, and liberty
appealed to him more. He reached a sudden decision.
"I'll punt him back into the water!"
But mother Chiquard stayed him, just as he was putting his idea into
execution.
"You mustn't: suppose somebody has seen us already? It would land us in
no end of trouble!"
Half an hour later, convinced that it was his melancholy duty, Bouzille left
two-thirds of his train in mother Chiquard's custody, got astride his
prehistoric tricycle and slowly pedalled off towards Saint-Jaury.

New Year's Day is a melancholy and a tedious one for everybody whose
public or private relations do not make it an exceptionally interesting one.
There is the alteration in the date, for one thing, which is provocative of
thought, and there is the enforced idleness for another, coming upon
energetic folk like a temporary paralysis and leaving them nothing but
meditation wherewith to employ themselves.
Juve, comfortably installed in his own private study, was realising this just
as evening was falling on this first of January. He was a confirmed bachelor,
and for several years had lived in a little flat on the fifth floor of an old

house in the rue Bonaparte. He had not gone out to-day, but though he was
resting he was not idle. For a whole month past he had been wholly
engrossed in his attempt to solve the mystery surrounding the two cases on
which he was engaged, the Beltham case, and the Langrune case, and his
mind was leisurely revolving round them now as he sat in his warm room
before a blazing wood fire, and watched the blue smoke curl up in rings
towards the ceiling. The two cases were very dissimilar, and yet his
detective instinct persuaded him that although they differed in details their
conception and execution emanated not only from one single brain but also
from one hand. He was convinced that he was dealing with a mysterious
and dangerous individual, and that while he himself was out in the open he
was fighting a concealed and invisible adversary; he strove to give form and
substance to the adversary, and the name of Fantômas came into his mind.
Fantômas! What might Fantômas be doing now, and, if he had a real
existence, as the detective most firmly believed, how was he spending New
Year's Day?
A sharp ring at the bell startled him from his chair, and not giving his man-
servant time to answer it, he went himself to the door and took from a
messenger a telegram which he hastily tore open and read:
"Have found in the Dordogne drowned body of young man, face
unrecognisable, from description possibly Charles Rambert. Please consider
situation and wire course you will take."
The telegram had been handed in at Brives and was signed by M. de
Presles.
"Something fresh at last," the detective muttered. "Drowned in the
Dordogne, and face unrecognisable! I wonder if it really is Charles
Rambert?"
Since M. Etienne Rambert and his son had disappeared so unaccountably,
the detective naturally had formulated mentally several hypotheses, but he
had arrived at no conclusion which really satisfied his judgment. But
though their flight had not surprised him greatly, he had been rather
surprised that the police had not been able to find any trace of them, for
rightly or wrongly Juve credited them with a good deal of cleverness and
power. So it was by no means unreasonable to accept the death of the

fugitives as explanation of the failure of the police to find them. However,
this was a fresh development of the case, and he was about to draft a reply
to M. de Presles when once more the bell rang sharply.
This time Juve did not move, but listened while his man spoke to the visitor.
It was an absolute rule of Juve's never to receive visitors at his flat. If
anyone wanted to see him on business, he was to be found almost every day
in his office at head-quarters about eleven in the morning; to a few people
he was willing to give appointments at a quiet and discreet little café in the
boulevard Saint-Michel; but he invited no one to his own rooms except one
or two of his own relations from the country, and even they had to be
provided with a password before they could obtain admission. So now, to
all the entreaties of the caller, Juve's servant stolidly replied with the
assurance that his master would see no one; yet the visitor's insistence was
so great that at last the servant was prevailed upon to bring in his card,
albeit with some fear as to the consequences for himself. But to his extreme
relief and surprise, Juve, when he had read the name engraved upon the
card, said sharply:
"Bring him in here at once!"
And in another couple of seconds M. Etienne Rambert was in the room!
The old gentleman who had fled so mysteriously a few days before, taking
with him the son over whom so dread a charge was hanging, bowed
deferentially to the detective, with the pitiful mien of one who is crushed
beneath the burden of misfortune. His features were drawn, his face bore
the stamp of deepest grief, and in his hand he held an evening paper, which
in his agitation he had crumpled almost into a ball.
"Tell me, sir, if it is true," he said in low trembling tones. "I have just read
that."
Juve pointed to a chair, took the paper mechanically, and smoothing it out,
read, below a large head-line, "Is this a sequel to the Beaulieu Crime?" a
story similar to that he had just gathered from M. de Presles' telegram.
Juve contemplated M. Etienne Rambert in silence for a few minutes, and
then, without replying directly to his visitor's first question, asked him a

question in that quiet voice of his, the wonderful indifferent tonelessness of
which concealed the least clue to his inmost thoughts.
"Why do you come to me, sir?"
"To find out, sir," the old man answered.
"To find out what?"
"If that poor drowned corpse is—my son's: is my poor Charles!"
"It is rather you who can tell me, sir," said Juve, impassive as ever.
There was a pause. Despite his emotion, M. Rambert seemed to be thinking
deeply. Suddenly he appeared to make an important decision, and raising
his eyes to the detective he spoke very slowly:
"Have pity, sir, on a broken-hearted father. Listen to me: I have a dreadful
confession to make!"
Juve drew his chair close to M. Etienne Rambert.
"I am listening," he said gently, and M. Etienne Rambert began his
"dreadful confession."

IX. All for Honour
Society had mustered in force at the Cahors Law Courts, where the Assizes
were about to be held. Hooting motor-cars and antiquated coaches drawn by
pursy horses were arriving every minute, bringing gentry from the great
houses in the neighbourhood, squireens and well-to-do country people,
prosperous farmers and jolly wine-growers, all of them determined not to
miss "the trial" that was causing such immense excitement because the
principal figure in it was well known as a friend of one of the oldest
families in those parts; and because he was not merely a witness, nor even
the victim, but actually the defendant in the case, although he had been
admitted to bail in the interval by order of the court.
Compared with those of large towns, this court room at Cahors was small,
but it was filled by a considerable and most select crowd. Quiet greetings
and low-toned conversation were freely exchanged, but there was an air of
melancholy about every person present, and it was obvious that they were
drawn there by no mere curiosity or desire for horrid details, but by
legitimate interest in the development of great drama.
One of the leading heroines in the case was pointed out with particular
sympathy.
"That's Thérèse Auvernois, over there in the first row! The President of the
Court gave her that seat; the officer who took the card of admission over to
Querelles told me so."
"That's where Mme. de Vibray lives, isn't it?"
"Yes: she is sitting next to Thérèse now: that pretty woman in grey. Since
Mme. de Langrune's death she has kept the child with her, thinking, very
rightly, that it would be too painful for her to be at Beaulieu. The family
council have appointed President Bonnet temporary guardian of Thérèse.
He is that tall, thin man over there, talking to the steward, Dollon."

The Baronne de Vibray turned affectionately to Thérèse, who was looking
dreadfully pale in her long mourning veil.
"Are you sure this won't tire you too much, dear? Shall we go outside for a
little while?"
"Oh, no, please do not worry about me," Thérèse replied. "Indeed I shall be
all right."
President Bonnet sat by the two ladies. He had been engaged solemnly
exchanging bows with everyone in the court room whom he considered it
flattering to himself to know; now he took part in the conversation, and
displayed his special knowledge by explaining the constitution of the court
and pointing out where the clerk sat, and where the public prosecutor sat,
and where the jury sat, all at great length and much to the interest of the
people near him: with, however, one exception; a man dressed entirely in
black, with his head half buried in the huge collar of a travelling ulster, and
dark glasses over his eyes, appeared to be vastly bored by the old
magistrate's disquisition. Juve—for it was he—knew too much about legal
procedure to require explanations from President Bonnet.
Suddenly a thrill ran through the room and conversation stopped abruptly.
M. Etienne Rambert had just walked down the gangway in the court to the
seat reserved for him, just in front of the witness box and close to a kind of
rostrum in which Maître Dareuil, an old member of the Cahors Bar,
immediately took his place. M. Etienne Rambert was very pale, but it was
obvious that he was by no means overwhelmed by the fatality overhanging
him. He was, indeed, a fine figure as he took his seat and mechanically
passed his hand through his long white curls, flinging them back and raising
his head almost as if in defiance of the inquisitive crowd that was gazing at
him.
Almost immediately after he had taken his seat a door was thrown open and
the jury filed in, and then a black-gowned usher came forward and shrilly
called for silence.
"Stand up, gentlemen! Hats off, please! Gentlemen, the Court!"
With solemn, measured steps, and heads bent as if absorbed in profoundest
meditation, the judges slowly proceeded to their seats. The president

formally declared the court open, whereupon the clerk rose immediately to
read the indictment.
The Clerk of the Court at Cahors was a most excellent man, but modesty
was his distinguishing characteristic and his chief desire appeared to be to
shun responsibility, figure as little prominently as possible, and even escape
observation altogether. Assizes were not often held at Cahors, and he had
had few occasions to read an indictment as tragic as this present one, with
the result that he lacked confidence now. He read in a toneless, monotonous
voice, so nervously and softly that nobody in the body of the court could
hear a word he said, and even the jury were obliged to lean their elbows on
the desk before them and make an ear trumpet of their hands to find out
what it was all about.
Etienne Rambert, however, was only a few feet from the clerk; he did not
miss a word, and it was evident from his nervous movements every now
and then that some passages in the indictment hit him very hard indeed, and
even lessened his general confidence.
When the clerk had finished Etienne Rambert sat still, with his forehead
resting in his hands, as if crushed by the weight of the memories the
indictment had evoked. Then the sharp, thin voice of the President of the
Court snapped the chain of his thoughts.
"Stand up, sir!"
And pale as death Etienne Rambert rose and folded his arms across his
breast. In firm, yet somehow muffled tones, he answered the preliminary
formal questions. His name was Hervé Paul Etienne Rambert; his age, fifty-
nine; his occupation, a merchant, owning and working rubber plantations in
South America. Then followed the formal enquiry whether he had heard and
understood the indictment which had just been read.
"I followed it all, sir," he replied, with a little gesture expressive of his sense
of the gravity of the facts detailed and the weight of the evidence adduced,
which won general sympathy for him. "I followed it all, but I protest against
some of the allegations, and I protest with my whole energy against the
suggestion that I have failed in my duty as a man of honour and as a
father!"

The President of the Court checked him irritably.
"Excuse me, I do not intend to permit you to extend the pleadings
indefinitely. I shall examine you on the various points of the indictment,
and you may protest as much as you please." The unfeeling rudeness
provoked no comment from the defendant, and the President proceeded.
"Well, you have heard the indictment. It charges you first with having aided
and abetted the escape of your son, whom an enquiry held in another place
had implicated in the murder of the Marquise de Langrune; and it charges
you secondly with having killed your son, whose body has been recovered
from the Dordogne, in order that you might escape the penalty of public
obloquy."
At this brutal statement of the case Etienne Rambert made a proud gesture
of indignation.
"Sir," he exclaimed, "there are different ways of putting things. I do not
deny the purport of the indictment, but I object to the summary of it that
you present. No one has ever dared to contend that I killed my son in order
to escape public obloquy, as you have just insinuated. I am entirely
indifferent to the world's opinion. What the indictment is intended to allege,
the only thing it can allege, is that I wrought justice upon a criminal who
ought to have filled me with horror but whom, nevertheless, I ought not to
have handed over to the public executioner."
This time it was the judge's turn to be astonished. He was so accustomed to
the cheap triumphs that judges look to win in court that he had expected to
make mincemeat of this poor, broken old man whom the law had delivered
to his tender mercy. But he discovered that the old man had fine courage
and replied with spirit to his malevolent remarks.
"We will discuss your right to take the law into your own hands presently,"
he said, "but that is not the question now: there are other points which it
would be well for you to explain to the jury. Why, in the first place, did you
obstinately decline to speak to the examining magistrate?"
"I had no answer to make to the examining magistrate," Etienne Rambert
answered slowly, as if he were weighing his words, "because in my opinion
he had no questions to put to me! I do not admit that I am charged with

anything contrary to the Code, or that any such charge can be formulated
against me. The indictment charges me with having killed my son because I
believed him to be guilty of the murder of Mme. de Langrune and would
not hand him over to the gallows. I have never confessed to that murder, sir,
and nothing will ever make me do so. And that is why I would not reply to
the examining magistrate, because I would not admit that there was
anything before the court concerning myself: because, since the dreadful
tragedy in my private life was exposed to public opinion, I desired that I
should be judged by public opinion, which, sir, is not represented by you
who are a professional judge, but by the jury here who will shortly say
whether I am really a criminal wretch: by the jury, many of whom are
fathers themselves and, when they think of their own sons, will wonder
what appalling visions must have passed through my mind when I was
forced to believe that my boy, my own son, had committed a cowardly
murder! What sort of tragedy will they think that must have been for a man
like me, with sixty years of honour and of honourable life behind him?"
The outburst ended on a sob, and the whole court was moved with
sympathy, women wiping their eyes, men coughing, and even the jury
striving hard to conceal the emotion that stirred them.
The judge glared round the court, and after a pause addressed the defendant
again with sarcastic phrases.
"So that is why you stood mute during the enquiry, was it, sir? Odd! very
odd! I admire the interpretation you place upon your duty as an honourable
man. It is—quaint!"
Etienne Rambert interrupted the sneering speech.
"I am quite sure, sir, that there are plenty of people here who will
understand and endorse what I did."
The declaration was so pointedly personal that the judge took it up.
"And I am quite sure that people of principle will understand me when I
have shown them your conduct as it really was. You have a predilection for
heroics; it will not be without interest to bring things to the point. Your
attitude throughout this affair has been this:—it is not for me to anticipate
the issue of the enquiry which will be held some day into the murder of

Mme. de Langrune, but I must recall the fact that the moment you believed
your son was the murderer, the moment you discovered the blood-stained
towel which furnished the circumstantial evidence of his guilt, you—the
man of honour, mind you,—never thought of handing over the culprit to the
police who were actually in the precincts of the château, but only thought of
securing his escape, and helping him to get away! You even accompanied
him in his flight, and so became in a sense his accomplice. I suppose you do
not deny that?"
Etienne Rambert shook with emotion and answered in ringing tones.
"If you are of opinion, sir, that that was an act of complicity on my part, I
will not only not deny it, I will proclaim it from the housetops! I became the
accomplice of a murderer by inducing him to run away, did I? You forget,
sir, that at the moment when I first believed my son was the culprit—I was
not his accomplice then, I suppose?—there was a bond between him and me
already that I could not possibly break: he was my son! Sir, the duty of a
father—and I attach the very loftiest meaning to the word 'duty'—can never
entail his giving up his son!"
A fresh murmur of sympathy through the court annoyed the judge, who
shrugged his shoulders.
"Let us leave empty rhetoric alone," he said. "You have plenty of fine
phrases with which to defend your action; that, indeed, is your concern, as
the jury will doubtless appreciate; but I think it will be more advantageous
to clear up the facts a little—not more advantageous to you, perhaps, but
that is what I am here to do. So will you please tell me whether your son
confessed to having murdered Mme. de Langrune, either during that night
when you persuaded him to run away, or afterwards? Yes or no, please."
"I can't answer, sir. My son was mad! I will not believe my son was a
criminal! There was absolutely no motive to prompt him to the deed, and
his mother is in an asylum! That is the whole explanation of the crime! If he
committed murder, it was in a fit of temporary insanity! He is dead; I refuse
to cover his memory with the stain of infamy!"
"In other words, according to you Charles Rambert did confess, but you
don't want to say so."

"I do not say he did confess."
"You leave it to be inferred."
Etienne Rambert made no reply, and the judge passed on to another point.
"What exactly did you do after you left the château?"
"What anyone does, I suppose, when he runs away. We wandered miserably
about, going through fields and woods, I accusing him and he defending
himself. We avoided the villages, scarcely venturing even in the early
morning to go and buy food, and walked quickly, wishing to get as far away
as possible. We spent the most frightful time it is possible to conceive."
"How long was all this?"
"I was with my son for four days, sir."
"So it was on the fourth day that you killed him?"
"Have pity, sir! I did not kill my son. It was a murderer that I had with me, a
murderer for whom the police were hunting and for whom the guillotine
was waiting!"
"A murderer, if you prefer it so," said the judge, entirely heedless of the
unhappy man's protests. "But you had no right to assume the functions of
executioner. Come, you admit you did kill him?"
"I do not admit it."
"Do you deny that you killed him?"
"I did what my duty told me to do!"
"Still the same story!" said the judge, angrily drumming his fingers on the
desk. "You refuse to answer. But even in your own interests you must have
the courage to adopt some definite theory. Well, would you have been glad
if your son had taken his own life?"
"May I entreat you to remember that my son is dead!" Etienne Rambert said
once more. "I can only remember the one fact that he was my son. I can't
say that I desired his death. I don't even know now if he was guilty.

Whatever horror I may feel for a crime, I can only remember now that
Charles was not in his right mind, and that he was the son of my loins!"
Again a tremor of emotion passed through the court, and again the judge
made an angry gesture ordering silence.
"So you decline to answer any of the principal points of the indictment? The
jury will no doubt appreciate the reason. Well, can you let us know any of
the advice you gave your son? If you did not desire him to take his own life,
and if you had no intention of killing him, what did you want?"
"Oblivion," said Etienne Rambert, more calmly this time. "It was not for me
to give my son up, and I could only desire for him oblivion, and if that was
impossible, then death. I implored him to think of the life that was before
him, and the future of shame, and I urged him to disappear for ever."
"Ah, you admit you did recommend him to commit suicide?"
"I mean I wanted him to go abroad."
The president feigned to be occupied with his notes, purposely giving time
for the importance of the last admission he had wrung from Etienne
Rambert to sink into the minds of the jury. Then, without raising his head,
he asked abruptly:
"You were very surprised to hear of his death?"
"No," said Rambert dully.
"How did you part from each other?"
"The last night we slept out of doors, under a stack; we were both worn out
and heart-sick; I prayed God of His mercy to have pity on us. It was by the
bank of the Dordogne. Next morning when I woke up I was alone. He—my
son—had disappeared. I know no more."
The judge quelled the emotion in the court by a threatening glance, and
sprang a question on the defendant which was like a trap to catch him lying.
"If at that time you knew no more, how was it that a few days later you
called on Inspector Juve and asked him at once what was known about the

dead body of your son? The body had only been recovered within the
previous hour or two, and had not been absolutely identified; the
newspapers, at any rate, only suggested the identity, with the utmost
reserve. But you, sir, had no doubt on the subject! You knew that the corpse
was that of your son! Why? How?"
It was one of the strongest points that could be made in support of the
theory that Etienne Rambert had murdered his son, and the defendant
immediately saw the difficulty he would have in giving an adequate answer
without compromising himself. He turned to the jury, as though he had
more hope in them than in the court.
"Gentlemen," he cried, "this is torture! I can bear no more! I cannot answer
any more. You know quite enough to form your judgment of me! Form it
now! Say if I failed in my duty as a man of honour and a father! I, at least,
can answer no more questions!" and he sank back in his place like a beaten
man, crushed by the distress evoked by all these painful memories.
The judge nodded to the jury with the grim complacency of a man who has
run down his game.
"This refusal to answer my questions is in itself tantamount to a
confession," he said acidly. "Well, we will proceed to call the witnesses. I
should like to say that the most interesting witness would undoubtedly be
Bouzille, the tramp who recovered the body of Charles Rambert; but
unfortunately that individual has no fixed abode and it has not been possible
to serve him with a subpœna."
A number of witnesses succeeded one another in the box, without, however,
throwing any fresh light upon the matter; they were peasants who had met
the two Ramberts when they were flying from the château, village bakers
who had sold them bread, and lockkeepers who had seen, but been unable
to recover, the floating corpse. The people in the court began to weary of
the proceedings, the more so as it was confidently rumoured that Etienne
Rambert had proudly declined to call any witnesses on his behalf, and even
to allow his counsel to make any rhetorical appeal to the jury. It might be
imprudent, but there was something fine in his defiance.

There was, however, one more thrill of interest for the public. The judge
had explained that he deemed it unnecessary to call the detective Juve,
inasmuch as all the information he had to give was already detailed in the
long indictment, but as Mme. de Langrune's granddaughter was present in
court, he would exercise his discretion and request her to answer one or two
questions. And, much taken aback by this unexpected publicity, Thérèse
Auvernois followed the usher to the witness-box.
"Mademoiselle Thérèse Auvernois, I need hardly ask if you recognise M.
Rambert: but do you identify him as the person whose conversation with
young Charles Rambert you overheard on that fatal night at the château of
Beaulieu?"
"Yes, sir, that is M. Etienne Rambert," she replied in low tones, and with a
long and tender look of pity at the defendant.
"Will you please tell us anything you know that has any bearing upon the
charge brought against the defendant, the charge of having killed his son?"
Thérèse made a visible effort to restrain her distress.
"I can only say one thing, sir: that M. Rambert was talking to his son in
tones of such terrible distress that I knew his heart was broken by the
tragedy. I have heard so much from my dear grandmother about M. Etienne
Rambert that I can only remember that she always declared him to be a man
of the very highest principle, and I can only tell him here how dreadfully
sorry I am for him, and that everybody pities him as much as I do."
The judge had expected that Thérèse would be a witness hostile to the
defendant, whereas anything she was going to say would obviously be
much to his advantage. He cut her short.
"That is enough, mademoiselle. Thank you," and while Thérèse was going
back to her seat, wiping away the tears that would come to her eyes despite
her bravest efforts to keep her self-control in the presence of so many
strangers, the judge announced that there were no other witnesses to be
heard, and called upon the Public Prosecutor to address the court.
That personage rose at once and made a harangue that was eloquent
enough, no doubt, but introduced no new features into the case. He relied

upon his law rather than his facts: rapidly recapitulated the defendant's
contradictions and pitifully weak arguments, if arguments they could be
called: claimed that the facts had been proved despite the defendant's steady
refusal to answer questions: and insisted on the point that the defendant had
no right whatever to take the law into his own hands, and either kill his son
or aid and abet in his flight. He concluded by asking for a verdict of guilty,
and a sentence of penal servitude for life.
To him succeeded counsel for the defendant, whose speech was brevity
itself. He declined to make any appeal ad misericordiam, but simply asked
the jury to decide whether the defendant had not acted as any high-
principled father would act when he discovered that his son had committed
a crime during a fit of insanity. He asked only for an impartial decision on
the facts, from men of high principle, and he sat down conscious of having
focussed the issue on the proper point and secured the sympathy of the
public.
The judges withdrew to their room, the jury retired to consider their verdict,
and Etienne Rambert was removed between two warders. Juve had not
stirred during the whole trial, or displayed the least sign of approval or
disapproval at any of the questions and answers exchanged. He sat now
unobtrusively listening to the conversation that passed near him, relative to
the issue of the case.
President Bonnet opined that Etienne Rambert had blundered in refusing to
put up any defence: he had shown contempt of court, which was always
unwise, and the court would show him no mercy. Dollon was of another
opinion: according to him Etienne Rambert was a sport of fate, deserving
pity rather than severity, and the court would be very lenient. Another man
declared that Etienne Rambert had been in an impasse: however fondly he
loved his son he could not but hope that he might commit suicide: if a
friend committed an offence against the laws of honour, the only thing to do
was to put a pistol into his hand. And so on: the only point on which all
were unanimous was their sympathy with the defendant.
But a bell rang sharply; grave and impassive, the jury returned, the judges
filed once more into their seats, Etienne Rambert was led back into court by
the warders. In tense silence the foreman of the jury spoke:

"In the presence of God and of man, and upon my honour and my
conscience I declare that the answer of the jury is 'no' to all the questions
put, and that is the answer of them all."
It was acquittal!
There was no applause, but yet it seemed as if the words that set the
defendant free had relieved every bosom of an overwhelming dread; the air
seemed easier to breathe; and there was no one there but seemed physically
better and also happier, for hearing a verdict which gave sanction for the
general pity they had felt for the unhappy defendant, a man of honour and a
most unhappy father!
By their verdict the jury had implicitly applauded and commiserated
Etienne Rambert; but he still sat in the dock, broken and prostrated by
terrible distress, sobbing unreservedly and making no effort to restrain his
immeasurable grief.

X. Princess Sonia's Bath
Four months had passed since Etienne Rambert had been acquitted at the
Cahors Assizes, and the world was beginning to forget the Beaulieu tragedy
as it had already almost forgotten the mysterious murder of Lord Beltham.
Juve alone did not allow his daily occupation to put the two cases out of his
mind. True, he had ceased to make any direct enquiries, and gave no sign
that he still had any interest in those crimes; but the detective knew very
well that in both of them he had to contend with no ordinary murderer and
he was content to remain in the shadow, waiting and watching, in seeming
inactivity, for some slip which should betray the person or persons who had
perpetrated two of the most puzzling murders that he had ever had to deal
with.
It was the end of June, and Paris was beginning to empty. But the spring
had been late and cold that year, and although it was within a couple of days
of July society had lingered on in the capital; luxuriously appointed
carriages still swept along the Champs Elysées when the audiences poured
out of theatres and concert rooms, and fashionably attired people still
thronged the broad pavements and gathered before the brilliantly lighted
cafés on the Rond-Point; even at that late hour the Champs Elysées were as
animated as in the busiest hours of the day.
At the Royal Palace Hotel the greatest animation prevailed. The entire staff
was hurrying about the vast entrance halls and the palatial rooms on the
ground floor; for it was the hour when the guests of the Royal Palace Hotel
were returning from their evening's amusements, and the spacious
vestibules of the immense hotel were crowded with men in evening dress,
young fellows in dinner jackets, and women in low-cut gowns.
A young and fashionable woman got out of a perfectly appointed victoria,
and M. Louis, the manager of the staff, came forward and bowed low, as he
only did to clients of the very highest distinction. The lady responded with a
gracious smile, and the manager called a servant.

"The lift for Mme. la Princesse Sonia Danidoff," and the next moment the
beautiful vision, who had created quite a sensation merely in passing
through the hall, had disappeared within the lift and was borne up to her
apartments.
Princess Sonia was one of the most important clients that the Royal Palace
Hotel possessed. She belonged to one of the greatest families in the world,
being, by her marriage with Prince Danidoff, cousin to the Emperor of
Russia and, so, connected with many royal personages. Still barely thirty
years of age, she was not pretty but remarkably lovely, with wonderful blue
eyes which formed a strange and most bewitching contrast to the heavy
masses of black hair that framed her face. A woman of immense wealth, and
typically a woman of the world, the Princess spent six months of the year in
Paris, where she was a well-known and much-liked figure in the most
exclusive circles; she was clever and cultivated, a first-rate musician, and
her reputation was spotless, although it was very seldom that she was
accompanied by her husband, whose duties as Grand Chamberlain to the
Tsar kept him almost continuously in Russia. When in Paris she occupied a
suite of four rooms on the third floor of the Royal Palace Hotel, a suite
identical in plan and in luxury with that reserved for sovereigns who came
there incognito.
The Princess passed through her drawing-room, a vast, round room, with a
superb view over the Arc de Triomphe, and went into her bedroom where
she switched on the electric light.
"Nadine," she called, in her grave, melodious voice, and a young girl,
almost a child, sprang from a low divan hidden in a corner. "Nadine, take
off my cloak and unfasten my hair. Then you can leave me: it is late, and I
am tired."
The little maid obeyed, helped her mistress to put on a silken dressing
gown, and loosened the masses of her hair. The Princess passed a hand
across her brow, as if to brush away a headache.
"Before you go, get a bath ready for me; I think that would rest me."
Ten minutes later Nadine crept back like a shadow, and found the Princess
standing dreamily on the balcony, inhaling deep breaths of the pure night

air. The child kissed the tips of her mistress's fingers. "Your bath is quite
ready," she said, and then withdrew.
A few more minutes passed, and Princess Sonia, half undressed, was just
going into her dressing-room when suddenly she turned and went back to
the middle of the bedroom which she had been on the point of leaving.
"Nadine," she called, "are you still there?" No answer came. "I must have
been dreaming," the Princess murmured, "but I thought I heard someone
moving about."
Sonia Danidoff was not unduly nervous, but like most people who live
much alone and in large hotels, she was wont to be careful, and wished to
make sure that no suspicious person had made his way into her rooms. She
made a rapid survey of her bedroom, glanced into the brilliantly lighted
drawing-room, and then moved to her bed and saw that the electric bell
board, which enabled her to summon any of her own or of the hotel's
servants, was in perfect order. Then, satisfied, she went into her dressing-
room, quickly slipped off the rest of her clothes, and plunged into the
perfumed water in her bath.
She thrilled with pleasure as her limbs, so tired after a long evening, relaxed
in the warm water. On a table close to the bath she had placed a volume of
old Muscovite folk tales, and she was glancing through these by the shaded
light from a lamp above her, when a fresh sound made her start. She sat up
quickly in the water and looked around her. There was nothing there. Then
a little shiver shook her and she sank down again in the warm bath with a
laugh at her own nervousness. And she was just beginning to read once
more, when suddenly a strange voice, with a ring of malice in it, sounded in
her ear. Someone was looking over her shoulder, and reading aloud the
words she had just begun!
Before Sonia Danidoff had time to utter a cry or make a movement, a strong
hand was over her lips, and another gripped her wrist, preventing her from
reaching the button of the electric bell that was fixed among the taps. The
Princess was almost fainting. She was expecting some horrible shock,
expecting to feel some horrible weapon that would take her life, when the
pressure on her lips and the grip upon her wrist gradually relaxed; and at the

same moment, the mysterious individual who had thus taken her by
surprise, moved round the bath and stood in front of her.
He was a man of about forty years of age, and extremely well dressed. A
perfectly cut dinner jacket proved that the strange visitor was no unclean
dweller in the Paris slums: no apache such as the Princess had read
terrifying descriptions of in luridly illustrated newspapers. The hands which
had held her motionless, and which now restored her liberty of movement
to her, were white and well manicured and adorned with a few plain rings.
The man's face was a distinguished one, and he wore a very fine black
beard; slight baldness added to the height of a forehead naturally large. But
what struck the Princess most, although she had little heart to observe the
man very closely, was the abnormal size of his head and the number of
wrinkles that ran right across his temples, following the line of the
eyebrows.
In silence and with trembling lips Sonia Danidoff made an instinctive effort
again to reach the electric bell, but with a quick movement the man caught
her shoulder and prevented her from doing so. There was a cryptic smile
upon the stranger's lips, and with a furious blush Sonia Danidoff dived back
again into the milky water in the bath.
The man still stood in perfect silence, and at length the Princess mastered
her emotion and spoke to him.
"Who are you? What do you want? Go at once or I will call for help."
"Above all things, do not call out, or you are a dead woman!" said the
stranger harshly. Then he gave a little ironical shrug of his shoulders. "As
for ringing—that would not be easy: you would have to leave the water to
do so! And, besides, I object."
"If it is money, or rings you want," said the Princess between clenched
teeth, "take them! But go!"
The Princess had laid several rings and bracelets on the table by her side,
and the man glanced at them now, but without paying much attention to
what the Princess said.

"Those trinkets are not bad," he said, "but your signet ring is much finer,"
and he calmly took the Princess's hand in his and examined the ring that she
had kept on her third finger. "Don't be frightened," he added as he felt her
hand trembling. "Let us have a chat, if you don't mind! There is nothing
especially tempting about jewels apart from their personality," he said after
a little pause, "apart, I mean, from the person who habitually wears them.
But the bracelet on a wrist, or the necklace round a neck, or the ring upon a
finger is another matter!"
Princess Sonia was as pale as death and utterly at a loss to understand what
this extraordinary visitor was driving at. She held up her ring finger, and
made a frightened little apology.
"I cannot take this ring off: it fits too tight."
The man laughed grimly.
"That does not matter in the least, Princess. Anyone who wanted to get a
ring like that could do it quite simply." He felt negligently in his waistcoat
pocket and produced a miniature razor, which he opened. He flashed the
blade before the terrified eyes of the Princess. "With a sharp blade like this
a skilful man could cut off the finger that had such a splendid jewel on it, in
a couple of seconds," and then, seeing that the Princess, in fresh panic, was
on the very point of screaming, quick as a flash he laid the palm of his hand
over her lips, while still speaking in gentle tones to her. "Please do not be so
terrified; I suppose you take me for some common hotel thief, or highway
robber, but, Princess, can you really believe that I am anything of the kind?"
The man's tone was so earnest, and there was so deferent a look in his eyes,
that the Princess recovered some of her courage.
"But I do not know who you are," she said half questioningly.
"So much the better," the man replied; "there is still time to make one
another's acquaintance. I know who you are, and that is the main thing. You
do not know me, Princess? Well, I assure you that on very many an
occasion I have mingled with the blessed company of your adorers!"
The Princess's anger rose steadily with her courage.

"Sir," she said, "I do not know if you are joking, or if you are talking
seriously, but your behaviour is extraordinary, hateful, abominable——"
"It is merely original, Princess, and it pleases me to reflect that if I had been
content to be presented to you in the ordinary way, in one or other of the
many drawing-rooms we both frequent, you would certainly have taken
much less notice of me than you have taken to-night; from the persistence
of your gaze I can see that from this day onwards, not a single feature of my
face will be unfamiliar to you, and I am convinced that, whatever happens,
you will remember it for a very long time."
Princess Sonia tried to force a smile. She had recovered her self-possession,
and was wondering what kind of man she had to deal with. If she was still
not quite persuaded that this was not a vulgar thief, and if she had but little
faith in his professions of admiration of herself, she was considerably
exercised by the idea that she was alone with a lunatic. The man seemed to
read her thoughts for he, too, smiled a little.
"I am glad to see, Princess, that you have a little more confidence now: we
shall be able to arrange things ever so much better. You are certainly much
more calm, much less uneasy now. Oh, yes, you are!" he added, checking
her protest. "Why, it is quite five minutes since you last tried to ring for
help. We are getting on. Besides, I somehow can't picture the Princess Sonia
Danidoff, wife of the Grand Chamberlain and cousin of His Majesty the
Emperor of All the Russias, allowing herself to be surprised alone with a
man whom she did not know. If she were to ring, and someone came, how
would the Princess account for the gentleman to whom she had accorded an
audience in the most delightful, but certainly the most private of all her
apartments?"
"But tell me," pleaded the unhappy woman, "how did you get in here?"
"That is not the question," the stranger replied. "The problem actually
before us is, how am I to get out? For, of course, Princess, I shall not be so
indelicate as to prolong my visit unduly, too happy only if you will permit
me to repeat it on some other evening soon." He turned his head, and
plunging his hand into the bath in the most natural manner possible, took
out the thermometer which was floating on the perfumed water. "Thirty
degrees, centigrade, Princess! Your bath is getting cold: you must get out!"

In her blank astonishment Princess Sonia did not know whether to laugh or
cry. Was she alone with a monster who, after having played with her as a cat
plays with a mouse, would suddenly turn and kill her? Or was this merely
some irresponsible lunatic, whom chance alone had enabled to get into her
rooms? Whatever the fact might be, the man's last words had made her
aware that her bath really was getting cold. A shiver shook her whole frame,
and yet——
"Oh, go, please go!" she implored him.
He shook his head, an ironical smile in his eyes.
"For pity's sake," she entreated him again, "have mercy on a woman—a
good woman!"
The man appeared to be considering.
"It is very embarrassing," he murmured, "and yet we must decide upon
something soon, for I am most anxious you should not take a chill. Oh, it is
very simple, Princess: of course you know the arrangement of everything
here so well that you could find your dressing-gown at once, by merely
feeling your way? We will put out the light, and then you will be able to get
out of the bath in the dark without the least fear." He was on the very point
of turning off the switch of the lamp, when he stopped abruptly and came
back to the bath. "I was forgetting that exasperating bell," he said. "A
movement is so very easily made: suppose you were to ring, by mere
inadvertence, and regret it afterwards?" Putting his idea into action, the man
made a quick cut with his razor and severed the two electric wires several
feet above the ground. "That is excellent," he said. "By the way, I don't
know where these other two wires go that run along the wall, but it is best
to be on the safe side. Suppose there were another bell?" He lifted his razor
once more and was trying to sever the electric wires when the steel blade
cut the insulator and an alarming flash of light resulted. The man leaped
into the air, and dropped his razor. "Good Lord!" he growled, "I suppose
that will make you happy, madame: I have burnt my hand most horribly!
These must be wires for the light! But no matter: I have still got one sound
hand, and that will be enough for me to secure the darkness that you want.
And anyhow, you can press the button of your bell as much as you like: it
won't ring. So I am sure of a few more minutes in your company."

Sudden darkness fell upon the room. Sonia Danidoff hesitated for a moment
and then half rose in the bath. All her pride as a great lady was in revolt. If
she must defend her honour and her life, she was ready to do so, and despair
would give her strength; but in any event she would be better out of the
water, and on her feet, prepared. The darkness was complete, both in the
bathroom and in the adjacent bedroom, and the silence was absolute.
Standing up in the bath, Sonia Danidoff swept her arms round in a circle to
feel for any obstacle. Her touch met nothing. She drew out one foot, and
then the other, sprang towards the chair on which she had left her dressing-
gown, slipped into it with feverish haste, slid her feet into her slippers,
stood motionless for just a second and then, with sudden decision, moved to
the switch by the door and turned on the light.
The man had gone from the bathroom, but taking two steps towards her
bedroom Sonia Danidoff saw him smiling at her from the far end of that
room.
"Sir," she said, "this—pleasantry—has lasted long enough. You must go.
You shall, you shall!"
"Shall?" the stranger echoed. "That is a word that is not often used to me.
But you are forgiven for not knowing that, Princess. I forgot for the moment
that I have not been presented to you. But what is in your mind now?"
Between them was a little escritoire, on the top of which was lying the tiny
inlaid revolver that Sonia Danidoff always carried when she went out at
night. Could she but get that into her hands it would be a potent argument to
induce this stranger to obey her. The Princess also knew that in the drawer
of that escritoire which she could actually see half open, she had placed,
only a few minutes before going in to her bath, a pocket-book filled with
bank-notes for a hundred and twenty thousand francs, money she had
withdrawn from the strong-room of the hotel that very morning in order to
meet some bills next day. She looked at the drawer and wondered if the
pocket-book was still there, or if this mysterious admirer of hers was only a
vulgar hotel thief after all. The man had followed her eyes to the revolver.
"That is an unusual knick-knack to find in a lady's room, Princess," and he
sprang in front of her as she was taking a step towards the escritoire, and
took possession of the revolver. "Do not be alarmed," he added, noticing her

little gesture of terror. "I would not do you an injury for anything in the
world. I shall be delighted to give this back to you in a minute, but first let
me render it harmless." He deftly slipped the six cartridges out of the barrel
and then handed the now useless weapon to the Princess with a gallant little
bow. "Do not laugh at my excess of caution: but accidents happen so
easily!"
It was in vain that the Princess tried to get near her escritoire to ascertain if
the drawer had been tampered with: the man kept between her and it all the
time, still smiling, still polite, but watching every movement that she made.
Suddenly he took his watch from his pocket.
"Two o'clock! Already! Princess, you will be vexed with me for having
abused your hospitality to such an extent. I must go!" He appeared not to
notice the sigh of relief that broke from her, but went on in a melodramatic
tone. "I shall take my departure, not through the window like a lover, nor up
the chimney like a thief, nor yet through a secret door behind the arras like
a brigand of romance, but like a gentleman who has come to pay his tribute
of homage and respect to the most enchanting woman in the world—
through the door!" He made a movement as if to go, and came back. "And
what do you think of doing now, Princess? Perhaps you will be angry with
me? Possibly some unpleasant discovery, made after my departure, will
raise some animosity in your breast against me? You might even ring,
directly my back is turned, and alarm the staff, merely to embarrass me in
my exit, and without paying any attention to the subsequent possible
scandal. That is a complicated arrangement of bells and telephones beside
your bed! It would be a pity to spoil such a pretty thing, and besides, I hate
doing unnecessary damage!" The Princess's eyes turned once more to the
drawer: it was practically certain that her money was not there now! But the
man broke in again upon her thoughts. "What can I be thinking of? Just
fancy my not having presented myself to you even yet! But as a matter of
fact I do not want to tell you my name out loud: it is a romantic one, utterly
out of keeping with the typically modern environment in which we are now.
Ah, if we were only on the steep side of some mountain with the moon like
a great lamp above us, or by the shore of some wild ocean, there would be
some fascination in the proclamation of my identity in the silence of the
night, or in the midst of lightning and thunder as the hurricane swept the
seas! But here—in a third-floor suite of the Royal Palace Hotel, surrounded

by telephones and electric light, and standing by a window overlooking the
Champs Elysées—it would be a positive anachronism!" He took a card out
of his pocket and drew near the little escritoire. "Allow me, Princess, to slip
my card into this drawer, left open on purpose, it would seem," and while
the Princess uttered an exclamation she could not repress, he suited the
action to the word. "And now, Princess," he went on, compelling her to
retreat before him right to the door of the anteroom opening on to the
corridor, "you are too well bred, I am sure, not to wish to conduct your
visitor to the door of your suite." His tone altered abruptly, and in a deep
imperious voice that made the Princess quake he ordered her: "And now,
not a word, not a cry, not a movement until I am outside, or I will kill you!"
Clenching her fists, and summoning all her strength to prevent herself from
swooning, Sonia Danidoff led the man to the anteroom door. Slowly she
unlocked the door and held it open, and the man stepped quietly through.
The next second he was gone!
Leaping back into her bedroom Sonia Danidoff set every bell a-ringing;
with great presence of mind she telephoned down to the hall porter: "Don't
let anybody go out! I have been robbed!" and she pressed hard upon the
special button that set the great alarm bell clanging. Footsteps and voices
resounded in the corridor: the Princess knew that help was coming and ran
to open her door. The night watchman, and the manager of the third floor
came running up and waiters appeared in numbers at the end of the corridor.
"Stop him! Stop him!" the Princess shouted. "He has only just gone out: a
man in a dinner jacket, with a great black beard!"

A lad came hurrying out of the lift.
"Where are you going? What is the matter?" enquired the hall porter, whose
lodge was at the far end of the hall, next to the courtyard of the hotel, the
door into which he had just closed.
"I don't know," he answered. "There is a thief in the hotel! They are calling
from the other side."

"It's not in your set, then? By the way, what floor are you on?"
"The second."
"All right," said the hall porter, "it's the third floor that they are calling
from. Go up and see what is wrong."
The lad turned on his heel, and disregarding the notice forbidding servants
to use the passenger lift, hurried back into it and upstairs again. He was a
stoutly built fellow, with a smooth face and red hair. On the third floor he
stopped, immediately opposite Sonia Danidoff's suite. The Princess was
standing at her door, taking no notice of the watchman Muller's efforts to
soothe her excitement, and mechanically twisting between her fingers the
blank visiting card which her strange visitor had left in place of her pocket-
book and the hundred and twenty thousand francs. There was no name
whatever on the card.
"Well," said Muller, to the red-headed lad, "where do you come from?"
"I'm the new man on the second floor," the fellow answered. "The hall
porter sent me up to find out what was the matter."
"Matter!" said Muller. "Somebody has robbed the Princess. Here, send
someone for the police at once."
"I'll run, sir," and as the lift, instead of being sent down, had carelessly been
sent up to the top floor, the young fellow ran down the staircase at full
speed.
Through the telephone, Muller was just ordering the hall porter to send for
the police, when the second-floor servant rushed up and caught him by the
arm, dragging him away from the instrument.
"Open the door for the Lord's sake! I'm off to the police station," and the
hall porter made haste to facilitate his departure.

On the top floor cries of astonishment re-echoed. The servants had been
alarmed by the uproar and, surprised to see the lift stop and nobody get out

of it, they opened the door and found a heap of clothing, a false beard, and a
wig. Two housemaids and a valet gazed in amazement at these
extraordinary properties, and never thought of informing the manager, M.
Louis. Meantime, however, that gentleman had hurried through the mazes
of the hotel, and had just reached the third floor when he was stopped by
the Baronne Van den Rosen, one of the hotel's oldest patronesses.
"M. Louis!" she exclaimed, bursting into sobs. "I have just been robbed of
my diamond necklace. I left it in a jewel-case on my table before going
down to dinner. When I heard the noise just now, I got up and looked
through my jewel-case, and the necklace is not there."
M. Louis was too dazed to reply. Muller ran up to him.
"Princess Sonia Danidoff's pocket-book has been stolen," he announced;
"but I have had the hotel doors shut and we shall be sure to catch the thief."
The Princess came near to explain matters, but at that moment the servants
came down from upstairs, bringing with them the make-up articles which
they had found in the lift. They laid these on the ground without a word and
M. Louis was staring at them when Muller had a sudden inspiration.
"M. Louis, what is the new man on the second floor like?"
Just at that instant a servant appeared at the end of the corridor, a middle-
aged man with white whiskers and a bald head.
"There he is, coming towards us," M. Louis replied. "His name is Arnold."
"Good God!" cried Muller; "and the red-headed fellow: the carroty chap?"
M. Louis shook his head, not understanding, and Muller tore himself away
and rushed down to the hall porter. "Has he gone out? Has anyone gone
out?"
"No one," said the porter, "except, of course, the servant from the second
floor, whom you sent for the police."
"The carroty chap?" Muller enquired.
"Yes, the carroty chap."

Princess Sonia Danidoff lay back in an easy chair, receiving the anxious
attentions of Nadine, her Circassian maid. M. Louis was holding salts to her
nostrils. The Princess still held in her hands the card left by the mysterious
stranger who had just robbed her so cleverly of a hundred and twenty
thousand francs. As she slowly came to herself the Princess gazed at the
card as if fascinated, and this time her haggard eyes grew wide with
astonishment. For upon the card, which hitherto had appeared immaculately
white, marks and letters were gradually becoming visible, and the Princess
read:
"Fan—tô—mas!"

XI. Magistrate and Detective
M. Fuselier was standing in his office in the law courts at Paris,
meditatively smoothing the nap of his silk hat. His mind was busy with the
enquiries he had been prosecuting during the day, and although he had no
reason to be dissatisfied with his day's work he had no clear idea as to what
his next steps ought to be.
Three discreet taps on the door broke in upon his thoughts.
"Come in," he said, and then stepped forward with a hearty welcome as he
recognised his visitor. "Juve, by all that is wonderful! What good wind has
blown you here? I haven't seen you for ages. Busy?"
"Frightfully."
"Well, it's a fact that there's no dearth of sensational crime just now. The
calendar is terribly heavy."
Juve had ensconced himself in a huge easy chair in a corner of the room.
"Yes," he said, "you are quite right. But unfortunately the calendar won't be
a brilliant one for the police. There may be lots of cases, but there are not
lots that they have worked out to a finish."
"You've got nothing to grumble at," M. Fuselier smiled. "You have been in
enough cases lately that were worked out to a finish. Your reputation isn't in
any danger of diminishing."
"I don't know what you mean," Juve said deprecatingly. "If you refer to the
Beltham and Langrune cases, you must admit that your congratulations are
not deserved. I have achieved no definite result in either of those affairs."
M. Fuselier also dropped into a comfortable chair. He lighted a cigarette.
"You have found out nothing fresh about that mysterious murder of Lord
Beltham?"

"Nothing. I'm done. It is an insoluble mystery to me."
"You seem to be very sorry for yourself, but really you needn't be, Juve.
You cleared up the Beltham case, and you solved the Langrune case,
although you try to make out you didn't. And allow me to inform you, those
two successes count, my friend."
"You are very kind, but you are rather misinformed. Unfortunately I have
not cleared up the Beltham case at all."
"You found the missing peer."
"Well, yes, but——"
"That was an amazing achievement. By the way, Juve, what led you to go to
the rue Lévert to search Gurn's trunks?"
"That was very simple. You remember what an excitement there was when
Lord Beltham disappeared? Well, when I was called in I saw at once that all
ideas of accident or suicide might be dismissed, and that consequently the
disappearance was due to crime. Once convinced of that, I very naturally
suspected every single person who had ever had relations with Lord
Beltham, for there was no single individual for me to suspect. Then I found
out that the ex-Ambassador had been in continuous association with an
Englishman named Gurn whom he had known in the South African war,
and who led a very queer sort of life. That of course took me to Gurn's
place, if for nothing else than to pick up information. And—well, that's all
about it. It was just by going to Gurn's place to pump him, rather than
anything else, that I found the noble lord's remains locked away in the
trunk."
"Your modesty is delightful, Juve," said M. Fuselier with an approving nod.
"You present things as if they were all matters of course, whereas really you
are proving your extraordinary instinct. If you had arrived only twenty-four
hours later the corpse would have been packed off to the Transvaal, and
only the Lord knows if after that the extraordinary mystery ever would have
been cleared up."
"Luck," Juve protested: "pure luck!"

"And were your other remarkable discoveries luck too?" enquired M.
Fuselier with a smile. "There was your discovery that sulphate of zinc had
been injected into the body to prevent it from smelling offensively."
"That was only a matter of using my eyes," Juve protested.
"All right," said the magistrate, "we will admit that you did not display any
remarkable acumen in the Beltham case, if you would rather have it so.
That does not alter the fact that you have solved the Langrune case."
"Solved it!"
M. Fuselier flicked the ash off his cigarette, and leant forward towards the
detective.
"Of course you know that I know you were at the Cahors Assizes, Juve?
What was your impression of the whole affair—of the verdict, and of
Etienne Rambert's guilt or innocence?"
Juve got up and began to walk up and down the room, followed by the
magistrate's eyes. He seemed to be hesitating as to whether he would
answer at all, but finally he stopped abruptly and faced his friend.
"If I were talking to anybody but you, M. Fuselier, I would either not
answer at all, or I would give an answer that was no answer! But as it is
——, well, in my opinion, the Langrune case is only just beginning, and
nothing certain is known at all."
"According to that, Charles Rambert is innocent?"
"I don't say that."
"What then? I suppose you don't think the father was the murderer?"
"The hypothesis is not absurd! But there! What is the real truth of the whole
affair? That is what I am wondering all the time. That murder is never out
of my head; it interests me more and more every day. Oh, yes, I've got lots
of ideas, but they are all utterly vague and improbable: sometimes my
imagination seems to be running away with me."
He stopped, and M. Fuselier wagged a mocking finger at him.

"Juve," he said, "I charge you formally with attempting to implicate
Fantômas in the murder of the Marquise de Langrune!"
The detective replied in the same tone of raillery.
"Guilty, my lord!"
"Good lord, man!" the magistrate exclaimed, "Fantômas is a perfect
obsession with you," and as Juve acquiesced with a laugh the magistrate
dropped his bantering tone. "Shall I tell you something, Juve? I too am
beginning to have an obsession for that fantastic miscreant! And what I
want to know is why you have not come to me before to ask me about that
sensational robbery at the Royal Palace Hotel?"
"The robbery from Princess Sonia Danidoff?"
"Yes: the Fantômas robbery!"
"Fantômas, eh?" Juve protested. "That remains to be seen."
"Why, man," M. Fuselier retorted, "you have heard that detail about the
card the man left, haven't you?—the visiting card that was blank when the
Princess found it, and on which the name of Fantômas afterwards became
visible?"
"There's no Fantômas about that, in my opinion."
"Why not?"
"Well, it isn't one of Fantômas' little ways to leave clear traces behind him.
One might as well picture him committing robbery or murder in a cap with
a neat little band round it: 'Fantômas and Co.' He might even add
'Discretion and Dispatch!' No, it's most unlikely."
"You don't think Fantômas capable of throwing down his glove to the police
in the shape of some such material proof of his identity?"
"I always base my arguments on the balance of probabilities," Juve replied.
"What emerges from this Royal Palace story is that some common hotel
thief conceived the ingenious idea of casting suspicion on Fantômas: it was
just a trick to mislead the police: at least, that is my opinion."

But M. Fuselier declined to be convinced.
"No, you are wrong, Juve: it was no common hotel thief who stole Mme.
Van den Rosen's necklace and Princess Sonia's hundred and twenty
thousand francs; the prize was big enough to appeal to Fantômas: and the
amazing audacity of the crime is suggestive too. Just think what coolness
the man must have had to be able to paralyse the Princess's power of
resistance when she tried to call for help: and also to get clear away in spite
of the hosts of servants in the hotel and all the precautions taken!"
"Tell me all about the robbery, M. Fuselier," said Juve.
The magistrate sat down at his desk and took up the notes he had made in
the course of his official enquiry that day. He told Juve everything he had
been able to elicit.
"The most amazing thing to me," he said in conclusion, "is the way the
fellow, when he had once got out of Princess Sonia's room, contrived to get
into the lift, shed his evening dress, get into livery, and make his first
attempt to escape. When the hall porter stopped him he did not lose his
head, but got into the lift again, sent that flying up to the top of the hotel
with the clothes that would have betrayed him, calmly presented himself
before Muller, the night watchman, and contrived to be told to go for the
police, ran down the stairs again, and took advantage of the night
watchman's telephoning to the hall porter to get the latter to open the door
for him, and so marched off as easily as you please. A man who kept his
nerve like that and could make such amazing use of every circumstance,
who was so quick and daring, and who was capable of carrying through
such a difficult comedy in the middle of the general uproar, richly deserves
to be taken for Fantômas!"
Juve sat in deep consideration of the whole story.
"That isn't what interests me most," he said at last. "His escape from the
hotel might have been effected by any clever thief. What I think more
remarkable is the means he took to prevent the Princess from screaming
when he was just leaving her rooms: that really was masterly. Instead of
trying to get her as far away as possible and shut her up in her bedroom, to
take her with him to the very door opening on to the corridor, where the

faintest cry might have involved the worst possible consequences, and to be
sure that the terror he had inspired would prevent her from uttering that cry,
to be able to assume that the victim was so overwrought that she would
make no effort at all and could do nothing—that is really very good indeed:
quite admirable psychology! Fine work!"
"So you see there are some unusual features in the case," said M. Fuselier
complacently: "this, for instance: why do you suppose the fellow stayed
such a long time with the Princess and went through all that comedy
business in the bathroom? Don't forget that she came in late, and it is
extremely probable that he might have finished his job before she returned."
Juve passed his hand through his hair, a characteristic trick when his mind
was working.
"I can imagine only one answer to that question, M. Fuselier. But you have
inspected the scene of the crime: tell me first, where do you think the rascal
was hidden?"
"Oh, I can answer that definitely. The Princess's suite of rooms ends in the
bathroom, you know, and the chief things there are the famous bath, some
cupboards, and a shower bath: the shower bath is one of those large model
Norchers with lateral as well as vertical sprays, and a waterproof curtain
hanging from rings at the top right down to the tub at the bottom. There
were footmarks on the enamel of the tub, so it is clear that the thief hid
there, behind the curtain, until the Princess got into her bath."
"And I suppose the shower bath is in the corner of the room near the
window?" Juve went on. "And the window was partly open, or had been
until the maid went in to prepare her mistress's bath? It's quite interesting!
The man had just succeeded in stealing the necklace from Mme. Van den
Rosen, whose rooms are next to Princess Sonia's: for some reason or other
he had not been able to escape through the corridor, and so he naturally
made up his mind to get into the Princess's suite, which he did by the simple
process of stepping over the railing on the balcony and walking in through
the open window of the dressing-room."
"And then Nadine came in, and he had to hide?"

"No, no!" said Juve, "you are getting on too fast. If that had been so, there
would have been no need for all the bath business; besides, the Princess was
robbed, too, you know. That was not just chance, it was planned; and so if
the thief hid in the shower bath he did so on purpose to wait for the
Princess."
"But he did not want her!" Fuselier retorted: "very much the reverse. If he
was in the room before anybody else, all he had to do was, take the pocket-
book and go!"
"Not a bit of it!" said Juve. "This robbery took place at the end of the
month, when the Princess would have big monthly bills to meet, as the thief
must have known. He must have found out that she had withdrawn her
portfolio and money from the custody of the hotel. But he must have been
ignorant of where she had placed the portfolio; and he waited for her to ask
her—and she told him!"
"That's a pretty tall yarn!" M. Fuselier protested. "What on earth do you
base it all upon? The Princess would never have shown the man the drawer
where the money was taken from!"
"Yes, she did!" said Juve. "Look here: this is what happened: the fellow
wanted to steal this pocket-book, and did not know where it was. He hid in
the shower bath and waited, either for the Princess to go to bed or take a
bath, either of which would place her at his mercy. When the lady was in
the bath he appeared, threatened her, until she was terrified, and then
bucked her up a bit again and hit on the dodge of putting out the electric
light—not out of respect for her wounded feelings, but simply in order to
get a chance to search through her clothes and make sure that the pocket-
book was not there. I am convinced that if he had found it then he would
have bolted at once. But he didn't find it. So he went to the end of the next
room and waited for the Princess to come to him there, which is precisely
what she did. He did not know where the money was, so he watched every
movement of her eyes and saw them go automatically towards the drawer
and stay there; then he slipped his card into the drawer, abstracted the
pocket-book, and took his leave, driving his impudence and skill to the
length of making her see him to the door!"

"Upon my word, Juve, you are a wonder," M. Fuselier said admiringly. "I've
spent the entire day cross-examining everybody in the hotel, and came to no
definite conclusion; and you, who have not seen anything or anybody
connected with it, sit in that chair and in five minutes clear up the entire
mystery. What a pity you won't believe that Fantômas had a finger in this
pie! What a pity you won't take up the search!"
Juve paid no heed to the compliments to his skill. He took out his watch and
looked at the time.
"I must go," he said; "it's quite time I was at my own work. Well, we may
not have been wasting our time, M. Fuselier. I admit I had not paid much
attention to the Royal Palace Hotel robbery. You have really interested me
in it. I won't make any promises, but I think I shall very likely come again
in a day or two for another talk with you about the case. It really interests
me now. And when once I'm quit of one or two pressing jobs, I don't say I
shan't ask leave to go thoroughly into it with you."

XII. A Knock-out Blow
The staff of the Royal Palace Hotel were just finishing dinner, and the
greatest animation prevailed in the vast white-tiled servants' hall. The tone
of the conversation varied at different tables, for the servants jealously
observed a strict order of precedence among themselves, but the present
topic was the same at all, the recent sensational robbery from Mme. Van
den Rosen and the Princess Sonia Danidoff. At one table, smaller than the
rest, a party of upper servants sat, under-managers or heads of departments:
M. Louis was here, the general manager, M. Muller the superintendent of
the second floor, M. Ludovic chief valet, M. Maurice head footman, M.
Naud chief cashier, and last but not least Mlle. Jeanne the young lady
cashier whose special duty it was to take charge of all the moneys and
valuables deposited in the custody of the hotel by guests who wished to
relieve themselves of the responsibility of keeping these in their own
rooms. This small and select company was increased to-night by the
addition of M. Henri Verbier, a man of about forty years of age, who had
left the branch hotel at Cairo belonging to the same Company to join the
staff at the Royal Palace Hotel in Paris.
"I am afraid, M. Verbier, you will form a very bad opinion of our
establishment," said M. Muller to him. "It is really a pity that you should
have left the Cairo branch and come here just when these robberies have put
the Royal Palace under a cloud."
Henri Verbier smiled.
"You need not be afraid of my attaching too much importance to that," he
said. "I've been in hotel life for fifteen years now, in one capacity or
another, and, as you may suppose, I've known similar cases before, so they
don't surprise me much. But one thing does surprise me, M. Muller, and that
is that no clue has yet been found. I suppose the Board have done
everything that can be done to trace the culprit? The reputation of the hotel
is at stake."

"I should think they have looked for him!" said M. Louis, with a pathetic
shrug of his shoulders. "Why, they even upbraided me for having had the
door opened for the thief! Luckily I had a good friend in Muller, who
admitted that he had been completely imposed upon and that he had given
the order for the fellow, whom he supposed to be the second-floor waiter, to
be allowed to go out. I knew nothing about it."
"And how was I to guess that the man was an impostor?" Muller protested.
"All the same," Henri Verbier retorted, "it is uncommonly annoying for
everybody when things like that happen."
"So long as one has not committed any breach of orders, and so can't be
made a scapegoat of, one mustn't grumble," M. Muller said. "Louis and I
did exactly what our duty required and no one can say anything to us. The
magistrate acknowledged that a week ago."
"He does not suspect anybody?" Henri Verbier asked.
"No: nobody," Muller answered.
M. Louis smiled.
"Yes, he did suspect somebody, Verbier," he said, "and that was your
charming neighbour Mlle. Jeanne there."
Verbier turned towards the young cashier.
"What? The magistrate tried to make out that you were implicated in it?"
The girl had only spoken a few words during the whole of dinner, although
Henri Verbier had made several gallant attempts to draw her into the general
conversation. Now she laughingly protested.
"M. Louis only says that to tease me."
But M. Louis stuck to his guns.
"Not a bit of it, Mademoiselle Jeanne: I said it because it is the truth. The
magistrate was on to you: I tell you he was! Why, M. Verbier, he cross-
examined her for more than half an hour after the general confrontation,
while he finished with Muller and me in less than ten minutes."

"Gad, M. Louis, a magistrate is a man, isn't he?" said Henri Verbier
gallantly. "The magistrate may have enjoyed talking to Mlle. Jeanne more
than he did to you, if I may suggest it without seeming rude."
There was a general laugh at this sally on the part of the new
superintendent, and then M. Louis continued:
"Well, if he wanted to make up to her he went a funny way to work, for he
made her angry."
"Did he really?" said Henri Verbier, turning again to the girl. "Why did the
magistrate cross-examine you so much?"
The young cashier shrugged her shoulders.
"We have thrashed it out so often, M. Verbier! But I will tell you the whole
story: during the morning of the day when the robbery was committed I had
returned to Princess Sonia Danidoff the pocket-book containing a hundred
and twenty thousand francs which she had given into my custody a few
days before; I could not refuse to give it to her when she asked for it, could
I? How was I to know that it would be stolen from her the same evening?
Customers deposit their valuables with me and I hand them a receipt: they
give me back the receipt when they demand their valuables, and all I have
to do is comply with their request, without asking questions. Isn't that so?"
"But that was not what puzzled the magistrate I suppose," said Henri
Verbier. "You are the custodian of all valuables, and you only complied
strictly with your orders."
"Yes," M. Muller broke in, "but Mlle. Jeanne has only told you part of the
story. Just fancy: only a few minutes before the robbery Mme. Van den
Rosen had asked Mlle. Jeanne to take charge of her diamond necklace, and
Mlle. Jeanne had refused!"
"That really was bad luck for you," said Henri Verbier to the girl with a
laugh, "and I quite understand that the magistrate thought it rather odd."
"They are unkind!" she protested. "From the way they put it, M. Verbier,
you really might think that I refused to take charge of Mme. Van den

Rosen's jewellery in order to make things easy for the thief, which is as
much as to say that I was his accomplice."
"That is precisely what the magistrate did think," M. Louis interpolated.
The girl took no notice of the interruption, but went on with her explanation
to Henri Verbier.
"What happened was this: the rule is that I am at the disposal of customers,
to take charge of deposits or to return them to the owners, until nine p.m.,
and until nine p.m. only. After that, my time is up, and all I have to do is
lock my safe and go: I am free until nine o'clock next morning. You know
that it does not do to take liberties in a position like mine. So when, on the
day of the robbery, Mme. Van den Rosen came with her diamond necklace
at half-past nine, I was perfectly within my rights in refusing to accept the
deposit."
"That's right enough," said M. Muller, who, having finished his dessert, was
now sipping coffee into which he had tipped sugar until it was as thick as
syrup: "but you were disobliging, my dear young lady, and that was what
struck the magistrate; for really it would not have been much trouble to
register the new deposit and take charge of Mme. Van den Rosen's necklace
for her."
"No, it wouldn't," the girl replied; "but when there is a rule it seems to me
that it ought to be obeyed. My time is up at nine o'clock, and I am forbidden
to accept any deposits after nine o'clock: and that's why I refused that lady's.
I was perfectly right; and I should do the same again, if the same thing
happened."
Henri Verbier was manifestly anxious to conciliate the young cashier. He
expressed his approval of her conduct now.
"I quite agree with you, it never does to put interpretations upon orders. It
was your duty to close your safe at nine o'clock, and you did close it then,
and no one can say anything to you. But, joking apart, what did the
magistrate want?"
The girl shrugged her shoulders with a gesture of indifference.

"You see I was right just now: M. Louis is only trying to tease me by saying
that the magistrate cross-examined me severely. As a matter of fact I was
simply asked what I have just told you, and when I gave all this
explanation, no fault at all was found with me." As she spoke, Mlle. Jeanne
folded her napkin carefully, pushed back her chair and shook hands with her
two neighbours at table. "Good night," she said. "I am going up to bed."
Mlle. Jeanne had hardly left the room before Henri Verbier also rose from
the table and prepared to follow her example.
M. Louis gave M. Muller a friendly dig in his comfortable paunch.
"A pound to a penny," he said, "that friend Verbier means to make up to
Mlle. Jeanne. Well, I wish him luck! But that young lady is not very easy to
tame!"
"You didn't succeed," M. Muller replied unkindly, "but it doesn't follow that
nobody else will!"

M. Louis was not deceived: Henri Verbier evidently did think his neighbour
at table a very charming young woman.
Mlle. Jeanne had hardly reached her room on the fifth floor of the hotel, and
flung open her window to gaze over the magnificent panorama spread out
below her and inhale the still night air, when a gentle tap fell upon the door
and, complying with her summons to come in, Henri Verbier entered the
room.
"My room is next to yours," he said, "and as I saw you were standing
dreaming at your window I thought perhaps you would condescend to
smoke an Egyptian cigarette. I have brought some back from Cairo: it is
very mild tobacco—real ladies' tobacco."
The girl laughed and took a dainty cigarette from the case that Henri
Verbier offered her.
"It's very kind of you to think of me," she said. "I don't make a habit of
smoking, but I let myself be tempted sometimes."

"If I have been kind, you can show your gratitude very easily," Henri
Verbier replied: "by allowing me to stay here a few minutes and smoke a
cigarette with you."
"By all means," said Mlle. Jeanne. "I love to spend a little time at my
window at night, to get the air before going to bed. You will prevent me
from getting tired of my own company, and can tell me all about Cairo."
"I'm afraid I know very little about Cairo," Henri Verbier replied; "you see I
spent almost the whole of my time in the hotel. But as you seem so kind and
so friendly disposed I wish you would tell me things."
"But I am a very ignorant young woman."
"You are a woman, and that's enough. Listen: I am a new-comer here, and I
am quite aware that my arrival, and my position, will make me some
enemies. Now, whom ought I to be on my guard against? Who is there,
among the staff, of whom I ought to be careful as doubtful associates? I ask
with all the more concern because I will tell you frankly that I had no
personal introduction to the Board: I have not got the same chance that you
have."
"How do you know I had any introduction?" the girl enquired.
"Gad, I'm sure of it," Henri Verbier answered: he was leaning his elbows on
the window-sill and gradually drawing closer to the young cashier. "I don't
suppose that an important position like the one you hold, requiring absolute
integrity and competence, is given without fullest investigation. Your work
is not tiring, but that does not mean it would be entrusted to anybody."
"You are quite right, M. Verbier: I did have an introduction to the Board:
and I had first-rate testimonials too."
"Have you been in business long? Two years—three years?"
"Yes," Mlle. Jeanne replied, purposely refraining from being explicit.
"I only asked because I fancy I have seen you before somewhere. I
recognise your eyes!" Henri Verbier smiled, and looked meaningly at the
girl. "Mlle. Jeanne, on summer nights like this, when you are looking at a
lovely view like this, don't you have a funny sort of feeling?"

"No. What do you mean?"
"Oh, I don't know. But you see, I'm a sentimental chap unfortunately, and I
really suffer a lot from always living in lonely isolation, without any
affection: there are times when I feel as if love were an absolute necessity."
The cashier looked at him ironically.
"That's all foolishness. Love is only stupid, and ought to be guarded against
as the worst possible mistake. Love always means misery for working
people like us."
"It is you who are foolish," Henri Verbier protested gently, "or else you are
mischievous. No: love is not stupid for working people like us; on the
contrary, it is the only means we have of attaining perfect happiness. Lovers
are rich!"
"In wealth that lets them die of hunger," she scoffed.
"No, no," he answered: "no. Look here: all to-day you and I have been
working hard, earning our living; well, suppose you were not laughing at
me but we were really lovers, would not this be the time to enjoy the living
we have earned?" and as the girl did not reply, Henri Verbier, who like an
experienced wooer had been drawing closer to her all the time, until now
his shoulder was touching hers, took her hand. "Would not this be sweet?"
he said. "I should take your little fingers into mine—like this; I should look
at them so tenderly, and raise them to my lips——"
But the girl wrested herself away.
"Let me go! I won't have it! Do you understand?" And then, to mitigate the
sharpness of her rebuke, and also to change the conversation, she said: "It is
beginning to turn cold. I will put a cloak over my shoulders," and she
moved away from the window to unhook a cloak from a peg on the wall.
Henri Verbier watched her without moving.
"How unkind you are!" he said reproachfully, disregarding the angry gleam
in her eyes. "Can it really be wrong to enjoy a kiss, on a lovely night like
this? If you are cold, Mademoiselle Jeanne, there is a better way of getting

warm than by putting a wrap over one's shoulders: and that is by resting in
someone else's arms."
He put out his arms as he spoke, ready to catch the girl as she came across
the room, and was on the very point of taking her into his arms as he had
suggested, when she broke from his grasp with a sudden turn and, furious
with rage, dealt him a tremendous blow right on the temple. With a stifled
groan, Henri Verbier dropped unconscious to the floor.
Mlle. Jeanne stared at him for a moment, as if dumbfounded. Then with
quite amazing rapidity the young cashier sprang to the window and
hurriedly closed it. She took down her hat from a hook on the wall, and put
it on with a single gesture, opened a drawer and took out a little bag, and
then, after listening for a minute to make sure that there was nobody in the
passage outside her room, she opened her door, went out, rapidly turned the
key behind her and ran down the stairs.
Two minutes later Mlle. Jeanne smilingly passed the porter on duty and
wished him good night.
"Bye-bye," she said. "I'm going out to get a little fresh air!"

Slowly, as if emerging from some extraordinary dream, Henri Verbier began
to recover from his brief unconsciousness: he could not understand at first
what had happened to him, why he was lying on the floor, why his head
ached so much, or why his blood-shot eyes saw everything through a mist.
He gradually struggled into a sitting posture and looked around the room.
"Nobody here!" he muttered. Then as if the sound of his own voice had
brought him back to life, he got up and hurried to the door and shook it
furiously. "Locked!" he growled angrily. "And I can call till I'm black in the
face! No one has come upstairs yet. I'm trapped!" He turned towards the
window, with some idea of calling for help, but as he passed the mirror over
the mantelpiece he caught sight of his own reflection and saw the bruise on
his forehead, with a tiny stream of blood beginning to trickle from a cut in
the skin. He went close to the glass and looked at himself in dismay. "Juve
though I am," he murmured, "I've let myself be knocked out by a woman!"

And then Juve, for Juve it was, cleverly disguised, uttered a sudden oath,
clenching his fists and grinding his teeth in rage. "Confound it all, I'll take
my oath that blow was never dealt by any woman!"

XIII. Thérèse's Future
M. Etienne Rambert was in the smoking-room of the house which he had
purchased a few months previously in the Place Pereire, rue Eugène-
Flachat, smoking and chatting with his old friend Barbey, who also was his
banker. The two had been discussing investments, and the wealthy merchant
had displayed considerable indifference to the banker's recommendation of
various gilt-edged securities.
"To tell you the truth, my dear fellow," he said at length, "these things
interest me very little; I've got used to big enterprises—am almost what you
would call a plunger. Of course you know that nothing is so risky as the
development of rubber plantations. No doubt the industry has prospered
amazingly since the boom in motor-cars began, but you must remember that
I went into it when no one could possibly foresee the immense market that
the new means of locomotion would open for our produce. That's enough to
prove to you that I'm no coward when it's a question of risking money." The
banker nodded: his friend certainly did display a quite extraordinary energy
and will-power for a man of his age. "As a matter of fact," M. Rambert
went on, "any business of which I am not actually a director, interests me
only slightly. You know I am not boasting when I say that my fortune is
large enough to justify me in incurring a certain amount of financial risk
without having to fear any serious modification of my social position if the
ventures should happen to turn out ill. I've got the sporting instinct."
"It's a fine one," M. Barbey said with some enthusiasm. "And I don't mind
telling you that if I were not your banker, and so had a certain responsibility
in your case, I should not hesitate to put a scheme before you that has been
running in my head for a year or two now."
"A scheme of your own, Barbey?" said M. Rambert. "How is it you have
never told me about it? I should have thought we were close enough friends
for that."
The hint of reproach in the words pricked the banker, and also encouraged
him to proceed.

"It's rather a delicate matter, and you will understand my hesitation when I
tell you—for I'll burn my boats now—that it isn't any ordinary speculation,
such as I am in the habit of recommending to my customers. It is a
speculation in which I am interested personally: in short, I want to increase
the capital of my Bank, and convert my House into a really large concern."
"Oh-ho!" said M. Etienne Rambert, half to himself. "Well, you are quite
right, Barbey. But if you want to suggest that I shall help to finance it, you
had better put all the cards on the table and let me know exactly what the
position is; I need not say that if nothing comes of it, I shall regard any
information you give me as absolutely confidential."
The two men plunged into the subject, and for a good half-hour discussed it
in all its bearings, making endless calculations and contemplating all
contingencies. At last M. Rambert threw down his pen and looked up.
"I'm accustomed to the American method of hustle, Barbey. In principle I
like your proposition quite well; but I won't be one of your financial
partners; if the thing goes through I'll be the only one, or not one at all. I
know what is in your mind," he went on with a smile, as he noticed the
banker's surprise; "you know what my fortune is, or rather you think you
do, and you are wondering where I shall get the million sterling, or
thereabouts, that you want. Well, make your mind easy about that; if I talk
like this, it's because I've got it." The banker's bow was very deferent, and
M. Rambert continued: "Yes, the last year or two have been good, even very
good, for me. I've made some lucky speculations and my capital has further
been increased by some lotteries which have turned out right quite lately.
Well!" he broke off with a sigh, "I suppose one can't always be unlucky in
everything, though money can't cure, or even touch, the wounds in one's
heart."
The banker made no answer: he shrank from waking, by untimely words,
the sad memories which were hardly dormant yet in the old man's mind.
But M. Rambert soon reverted to his business tone.
"I'm quite disposed to be interested in a financial venture like yours,
Barbey. But you must understand that you will have a good deal more than
a sleeping partner in me. Will that suit you? I should not ask you to abdicate

your authority, but I tell you frankly I should follow all the operations of
your house very closely indeed."
"There shall be no secrets from you, my dear friend, my dear partner, if I
may call you that," said M. Barbey, rising: "quite the contrary!"
The banker looked towards the mantelpiece, as if expecting to see a clock
there; M. Rambert understood the instinctive action and drew out his watch.
"Twenty minutes to eleven, Barbey: late hours for you. So off with you." He
cut short the banker's half-hearted apologies for not prolonging the evening.
"I am turning you out quite unceremoniously, my dear chap, and besides, as
you know, I'm not lonely to-night as I generally am. I have a young and
very charming companion, for whom I have the greatest possible affection,
and I am going to join her."
M. Etienne Rambert conducted his friend to the hall door, heard the sound
of his motor-car die away in the distance, and then walked across the hall
and, instead of going back to the smoking-room, turned into the adjoining
drawing-room. He paused for a moment in the doorway, tenderly
contemplating the charming spectacle that met his eyes.
The shaded light from an electric lamp fell upon the bent head, oval face
and delicate features of Thérèse Auvernois, who was intent upon a book.
The girl was emerging from childhood into young womanhood now, and
sorrow had heightened her natural distinction by giving her a stamp of
gravity that was new. Her figure showed slight and supple, delicate and
graceful, and her long, taper fingers turned over the pages of the book with
slow and regular movement. Thérèse looked round towards Etienne
Rambert when she heard him coming in, and laying down her book she
came forward to meet him, moving with a very graceful, easy carriage.
"I am sure I am keeping you up most dreadfully late, dear M. Rambert," she
said apologetically, "but what am I to do? I must wait for the Baronne de
Vibray, and the dear thing is so often late!"
The tragedy at the château of Beaulieu had had one effect in knitting all the
friends of the Marquise de Langrune in closer bonds of friendship. Prior to
that event Etienne Rambert had scarcely known the Baronne de Vibray;
now the two were intimate friends. The Baronne had not desisted from her

first generous effort until she had persuaded the family council to appoint
her guardian of the orphaned Thérèse Auvernois. At first she had installed
the child at Querelles, and remained there with her, leading the quietest
possible life, partly out of respect for Thérèse's grief, and partly because she
herself was also much upset by the distressing tragedy. She had even
enjoyed the rest, and her new interest in playing mother, or rather elder
sister, to Thérèse. But as the weeks went by and time accomplished its
healing work, Paris called to the Baronne once more, and yielding to the
solicitations of her many friends she brought her new ward to the capital
and settled in a little flat in the rue Boissy-d'Anglais. At first she protested
that she would go out nowhere, or at most pay only absolutely necessary
visits, but by degrees she accepted first one and then many invitations,
though always deploring the necessity of leaving Thérèse for several hours
at a time.
Happily there was always Etienne Rambert, who was also staying in Paris
just now. It had gradually become the custom of the Baronne de Vibray,
when she was dining out, to entrust Thérèse to Etienne Rambert's care, and
the young girl and the old man got on together perfectly. Their hearts had
met across the awful chasm that fate had tried to cut between them.
To Thérèse's last words now Etienne Rambert replied:
"You need not apologise for staying late, dear; you know how glad I am to
see you. I wish the house were yours."
The girl glanced round the room that had grown so familiar to her, and with
a sudden rush of feeling slipped her arm around the old man's neck and laid
her fair head on his shoulder.
"I should so love to stay here with you, M. Rambert!"
The old man looked oddly at her for a moment, repressing the words that he
might perhaps have wished to say, and then gently released himself from
her affectionate clasp and led her to a sofa, on which he sat down by her
side.
"That is one of the things that we must not allow ourselves to think about,
my dear," he said. "I should have rejoiced to receive you in my home, and
your presence, and the brightness of your dear fair face would have given a

charm to my lonely fireside; but unfortunately those are vain dreams. We
have to reckon with the world, and the world would not approve of a young
girl like you living in the home of a lonely man."
"Why not?" Thérèse enquired in surprise. "Why, you might be my father."
Etienne Rambert winced at the word.
"Ah!" he said, "you must not forget, Thérèse, that I am not your father, but
—his: the father of him who——" but Thérèse's soft hand laid upon his lips
prevented him from finishing what he would have said.
To change the conversation Thérèse feigned concern about her own future.
"When we left Querelles," she said, "President Bonnet told me that you
would tell me something about my affairs. I gather that my fortune is not a
very brilliant one."
It was indeed the fact that after the murder of the Marquise the unpleasant
discovery had been made that her fortune was by no means so considerable
as had generally been supposed. The estate was mortgaged, and President
Bonnet and Etienne Rambert had had long and anxious debates as to
whether it might not be well for Thérèse to renounce her inheritance to
Beaulieu, so doubtful did it seem whether the assets would exceed the
liabilities.
Etienne Rambert made a vague, but significant gesture when he heard the
girl raise the point now, but Thérèse had all the carelessness of youth.
"Oh, I shall not be down-hearted," she exclaimed. "My poor grannie always
gave me an example of energy and hard work; I've got plenty of pluck, and
I will work too. Suppose I turn governess?"
M. Rambert looked at her thoughtfully.
"My dear child, I know how brave and earnest you are, and that gives me
confidence. I have thought about your future a great deal already. Some day,
of course, some nice and wealthy young fellow will come along and marry
you—— Oh, yes, he will: you'll see. But in the meantime it will be
necessary for you to have some occupation. I am wondering whether it will

not be necessary to let, or even to sell Beaulieu. And, on the other hand, you
can't always stay with the Baronne de Vibray."
"No, I realise that," said Thérèse, who, with the native tact that was one of
her best qualities, had quickly seen that it would not be long before she
would become a difficulty in the way of the independence of the kind
Baronne. "That is what troubles me most."
"Your birth and your upbringing have been such that you would certainly
suffer much in taking up the difficult and delicate, and sometimes painful,
position of governess in a family; and, without wishing to be offensive, I
must remind you that you need to have studied very hard to be a governess
nowadays, and I am not aware that you are exactly a blue-stocking. But I
have an idea, and this is it: for a great many years now I have been on the
very friendliest terms with a lady who belongs to the very best English
society: Lady Beltham; you may perhaps have heard me speak of her."
Thérèse opened wide eyes of astonishment, and Rambert went on: "A few
months ago Lady Beltham lost her husband in strange circumstances, and
since then she has been good enough to give me more of her confidence
than previously. She is immensely rich, and very charitable, and I have
frequently been asked by her to look after some of her many financial
interests. Now I have often noticed that she has with her several young
English ladies who live with her, not as companions, but, shall I say,
secretaries? Do you understand the difference? She treats them like friends
or relatives, and they all belong to the very best social class, some of them
indeed being daughters of English peers. If Lady Beltham, to whom I could
speak about it, would admit you into her little company, I am sure you
would be in a most delightful milieu, and Lady Beltham, whom, I know,
you would please, would almost certainly interest herself in your future.
She knows what unhappiness is as well as you do, my dear," he added,
bending fondly over the girl, "and she would understand you."
"Dear M. Rambert!" murmured Thérèse, much moved: "do that; speak to
Lady Beltham about me; I should be so glad!"
Thérèse did not finish all she would have said. A loud ring at the front door
bell broke in upon her words, and Etienne Rambert rose and walked across
the room.

"That must be the good Baronne de Vibray come for you," he said.

XIV. Mademoiselle Jeanne
After she had so roughly disposed of the enterprising Henri Verbier, whose
most unseemly advances had so greatly scandalised her, Mlle. Jeanne took
to her heels, directly she was out of sight of the Royal Palace Hotel, and ran
like one possessed. She stood for a moment in the brilliantly lighted, traffic-
crowded Avenue Wagram, shaking with excitement and with palpitating
heart, and then mechanically hailed a passing cab and told the driver to take
her towards the Bois. There she gave another heedless order to go to the
boulevard Saint-Denis, but as the cab approached the place de l'Etoile she
realised that she was once more near the Royal Palace Hotel, and stopping
the driver by the tram lines she dismissed him and got into a tram that was
going to the station of Auteuil. It was just half-past eleven when she
reached the station.
"When is the next train for Saint-Lazaire?" she asked.
She learned that one was starting almost at once, and hurriedly taking a
second-class ticket she jumped into a ladies' carriage and went as far as
Courcelles. There she alighted, went out of the station, looked around her
for a minute or two to get her bearings, and then walked slowly towards the
rue Eugène-Flachat. She hesitated a second, and then walked firmly
towards a particular house, and rang the bell.

"A lady to see you, sir," the footman said to M. Rambert.
"Bring her in here at once," said M. Rambert, supposing that the man had
kept the Baronne de Vibray waiting in the anteroom.
The drawing-room door was opened a little way, and someone came in and
stepped quickly into the shadow by the door. Thérèse, who had risen to
hurry towards the visitor, stopped short when she perceived that it was a
stranger and not her guardian. Noticing her action, M. Etienne Rambert
turned and looked at the person who had entered.

It was a lady.
"To what am I indebted——" he began with a bow; and then, having
approached the visitor, he broke off short. "Good heavens——!"
The bell rang a second time, and on this occasion the Baronne de Vibray
hurried into the room, a radiant incarnation of gaiety.
"I am most dreadfully late!" she exclaimed, and was hurrying towards M.
Etienne Rambert with outstretched hands, full of some amusing story she
had to tell him, when she too caught sight of the strange lady standing
stiffly in the corner of the room, with downcast eyes.
Etienne Rambert repressed his first emotion, smiled to the Baronne, and
then went towards the mysterious lady.
"Madame," he said, not a muscle of his face moving, "may I trouble you to
come into my study?"
"Who is that lady, M. Rambert?" said Thérèse when presently M. Rambert
came back into the drawing-room. "And how white you are!"
M. Rambert forced a smile.
"I am rather tired, dear. I have had a great deal to do these last few days."
The Baronne de Vibray was full of instant apologies.
"It is all my fault," she exclaimed. "I am dreadfully sorry to have kept you
up so late," and in a few minutes more the Baronne's car was speeding
towards the rue Boissy-d'Anglais.

M. Rambert hurried back to his study, shut and locked the door behind him,
and almost sprang towards the unknown lady, his fists clenched, his eyes
starting out of his head.
"Charles!" he exclaimed.
"Papa!" the girl replied, and sank upon a sofa.

There was silence. Etienne Rambert seemed utterly dumbfounded.
"I won't, I won't remain disguised as a woman any longer. I've done with it.
I cannot bear it!" the strange creature murmured.
"You must!" said Rambert harshly, imperiously. "I insist!"
The pseudo Mlle. Jeanne slowly took off the heavy wig that concealed her
real features, and tore away the corsage that compressed her bosom,
revealing the strong and muscular frame of a young man.
"No, I will not," replied the strange individual, to whom M. Rambert had
not hesitated to give the name of Charles. "I would rather anything else
happened."
"You have got to expiate," Etienne Rambert said with the same harshness.
"The expiation is too great," the young fellow answered. "The torture is
unendurable."
"Charles," said M. Rambert very gravely, "do you forget that legally, civilly,
you are dead?"
"I would a thousand times rather be really dead!" the unhappy lad
exclaimed.
"Alas!" his father murmured, speaking very fast, "I thought your mind was
more unhinged than it really is. I saved your life, regardless of all risk,
because I thought you were insane, and now I know you are a criminal! Oh,
yes, I know things, I know your life!"
"Father," said Charles Rambert with so stern and determined an expression
that Etienne Rambert felt a moment's fear. "I want to know first of all how
you managed to save my life and make out that I was dead. Was that just
chance, or was it planned deliberately?"
Confronted with this new firmness of his son's, Etienne Rambert dropped
his peremptory tone; his shoulders drooped in distress.
"Can one anticipate things like that?" he said. "When we parted, my heart
bled to think that you, my son, must fall into the hands of justice, and that

your feet must tread the path that led to the scaffold or, at least, to the
galleys; I wondered how I could save you; then chance, chance, mark you,
brought that poor drowned body in my way: I saw the fortunate coincidence
of a faint resemblance, and resolved to pass it off for you; I got those
woman's clothes which you exchanged for yours, buried the dead man's
clothes and put yours on the corpse. Do you know, Charles, that I have
suffered too? Do you know what agony and torture I, as a man of honour,
have endured? Have you not heard the story of my appearance at the
Assizes and of my humiliation in court?"
"You did all that!" Charles Rambert murmured. "Strange chance, indeed!"
Then his tone changed and he sobbed. "Oh, my poor father, what an awful
fatality it all is!" Suddenly he sprang to his feet. "But I committed no crime,
papa! I never killed the Marquise de Langrune! Oh, do believe me! Why,
you have just this minute said that you know I am not mad!"
Etienne Rambert looked at his son with distress.
"Not mad, my poor boy? Yet perhaps you were mad—then?" Then he
stopped abruptly. "Don't let us go over all that again! I forbid it absolutely."
He leaned back on his writing-table, folded his arms and asked sternly:
"Have you come here only to tell me that?"
The curt question seemed to affect the lad strangely. All his former audacity
dropped from him. Nervously he stammered:
"I can't remain a woman any longer!"
"Why not?" snapped Etienne Rambert.
"I can't."
The two men looked at each other in silence, as if trying to read one
another's thoughts. Then Etienne Rambert seemed to see the inner meaning
of the words his son had just said.
"I see!" he answered slowly. "I understand.... The Royal Palace Hotel,
where Mlle. Jeanne held a trusted post, has just been the scene of a daring
robbery. Obviously, if anyone could prove that Charles Rambert and the
new cashier were one and the same person——"

But the young fellow understood the insinuation and burst out:
"I did not commit that robbery!"
"You did!" Etienne Rambert insisted: "you did. I read the newspaper
accounts of the robbery, read them with all the agony that only a father like
me with a son like you could feel. The detectives and the magistrates were
at a loss to find the key to the mystery, but I saw clearly and at once what
the solution of the mystery was. And I knew and understood because I knew
it was—you!"
"I did not commit the robbery," Charles Rambert shouted. "Do you mean to
begin all your horrible insinuations again, as you did at Beaulieu?" he
demanded in almost threatening tones. "What evil spirit obsesses you? Why
will you insist that your unhappy son is a criminal? I had nothing to do with
those robberies at the hotel; I swear I had not, father!"
M. Rambert shrugged his shoulders and clasped his hands.
"What have I done," he muttered, "to have so heavy a cross laid on me?" He
turned again to his son. "Your defence is childish. What is the use of mere
denials? Words don't mean anything without proofs to support them." The
lad was silent, seeming to think it useless to attempt to convince a father
who appeared so certain of his guilt, and also crushed by the thought of all
that had happened at the hotel. His father betrayed some uneasiness at a
new thought that had come into his mind. "I told you not to come to me
again except as a last resource, when punishment was actually overtaking
you, or when you had proved your innocence: why are you here now? Has
something happened that I do not know about? What has happened? What
else have you done? Speak!"
Charles Rambert answered in a toneless voice, as if hypnotised:
"There has been a detective in the hotel for the last few days. He called
himself Henri Verbier, and was disguised, but I knew him, for I had seen
him too lately, and in circumstances too deeply impressed upon my mind
for me to be able to forget him, although I only saw him then for a few
minutes."
"What do you mean?" said the elder man uneasily.

"I mean that Juve was at the Royal Palace Hotel."
"Juve?" exclaimed Etienne Rambert. "And then—go on!"
"Juve, disguised as Henri Verbier, subjected me to a kind of examination,
and I don't know what conclusion he came to. Then, this evening, barely
two hours ago, he came up to my room and had a long talk, and while he
was trying to get some information from me about a matter that I know
nothing about—for I swear, papa, that I had nothing whatever to do with the
robbery—he came up to me and took hold of me as a man does when he
wants to make up to a woman. And I lost my head! I felt that in another
minute all would be up with me—that he would establish my identity,
which he perhaps suspected already—and I thought of all you had done to
save my life by representing that I was dead, and——"
Charles paused for breath. His father's fists were clenched and his face
contracted.
"Go on!" he said, "go on, but speak lower!"
"As Juve came close," Charles went on, "I dealt him a terrific blow on the
forehead, and he fell like a stone. And I got away!"
"Is he dead?" Etienne Rambert whispered.
"I don't know."

For ten minutes Charles Rambert remained alone in the study, where his
father had left him, thinking deeply. Then the door opened and Etienne
Rambert came back carrying a bundle of clothes.
"There you are," he said to his son: "here are some man's clothes. Put them
on, and go!"
The young man hastily took off his woman's garments and dressed himself
in silence, while his father walked up and down the room, plunged in
deepest thought. Twice he asked: "Are you quite sure it was Juve?" and
twice his son replied "Quite sure." And once again Etienne Rambert asked,

in tones that betrayed his keen anxiety: "Did you kill him?" and Charles
Rambert shrugged his shoulders and replied: "I told you before, I do not
know."
And now Charles Rambert stood upon the threshold of the house, about to
leave his father without a word of farewell or parting embrace. M. Etienne
Rambert stayed him, holding out a pocket-book, filled full with bank-notes.
"There: take that," he said, "and go!"

XV. The Mad Woman's Plot
When Dr. Biron built his famous private asylum in the very heart of Passy,
intended, according to his prospectus, to provide a retreat for people
suffering from nervous breakdown or from overwork or over-excitement,
and to offer hospital treatment to the insane, in order to secure a kind of
official sanction for his institution, he took the wise precaution to proclaim
from the housetops that he would enlist the services of ex-medical officers
of the hospitals. The idea was a shrewd and a successful one, and his
establishment throve.
Perret and Sembadel were having breakfast, and also were grumbling.
"I shouldn't curse the meanness of the management quite so much if they
didn't put us on to all the jobs," said Sembadel. "Hang it all, man, we are
both qualified, and when we undertook to assist Dr. Biron we did so, I
presume, in order to top off our theoretical training with some practical
clinical experience."
"Who's stopping you?" Perret enquired.
"How can we find the time, when besides all our actual work with the
patients, we have to do all this administrative work, writing to people to say
how the patients are, and all that? That ought to be done by clerks, not by
us."
"Isn't one job as good as another?" Perret retorted. "Besides, we are the only
people who know how the patients really are, so it's common sense that we
should have to write to their friends."
"They might let us have a secretary, anyhow," Sembadel growled.
Perret saw that his friend was in a bad temper, so did not try to carry on the
argument.
"Say," he said, "you ought to make a special note of that case of No. 25, for
your thesis. She was in your ward for about six months, wasn't she?"

"No. 25?" said Sembadel. "Yes, I know: a woman named Rambert; age
about forty; hallucination that people are persecuting her; anæmic, with
alternate crises of excitement and melancholia, punctuated by fits of
passion; treatment: rest, nourishment, anodynes."
"You evidently remember the case distinctly."
"She interested me; she has marvellous eyes. Well, what about her?"
"Why, when she was moved into my pavilion the diagnosis was bad and the
prognosis very bad: she was supposed to be incurable. Just go and see her
now: her brain is restored: she's a new woman." He came to the table and
picked up some notepaper. "I wrote to her husband a day or two ago and
told him he might expect to hear that his wife had recovered, but I imagine
my letter miscarried, for I've had no answer. I have a good mind to write to
him again and ask for permission to send her to the convalescent home. The
mischief of it is that this Etienne Rambert may want to remove her
altogether, and that would mean one paying patient less, which would put
our worthy director in a bad temper for a month."
He turned to his correspondence, and for some minutes the silence in the
room was only broken by the scratching of pens on paper. Then an attendant
came in, bringing a quantity of letters. Perret picked them up and began to
sort them out.
"None for you," he said to Sembadel. "Not one of those little mauve
envelopes which you look for every day and which decide what your
temper will be. I must look out for storms."
"Shan't even have time to grouse to-day," Sembadel growled again. "You
forget that Swelding pays us an official visit to-day."
"The Danish professor? Is it this morning that he is coming?"
"So it seems."
"Who is the fellow?"
"Just one of those foreign savants who haven't succeeded in becoming
famous at home and so go abroad to worry other people under a pretext of
investigations. That's why he wants to come here. Wrote some beastly little

pamphlet on the ideontology of the hyper-imaginative. Never heard of it
myself."
The conversation dropped, and presently the two men went off to their
wards to see their patients, and warn the attendants to have everything in
apple-pie order for the official inspection.

Meantime, in the great drawing-room, elaborate courtesies were being
exchanged between Dr. Biron and Professor Swelding.
Dr. Biron was a man of about forty, with a high-coloured face and an active,
vigorous frame. He gesticulated freely and spoke in an unctuous, fawning
tone.
"I am delighted at the great compliment you pay me by coming here, sir,"
he said. "When I started this institution five years ago I certainly did not
dare to hope that it would so soon win sufficient reputation to entitle it to
the honour of inspection by men so eminent in the scientific world as
yourself."
The professor listened with a courteous smile but evinced no hurry in
replying.
Professor Swelding was certainly a remarkable figure. He might have been
sixty, but he bore very lightly the weight of the years that laid their snows
upon his thick and curly but startlingly white hair. It was this hair that
attracted attention first; it was of extraordinary thickness and was joined on
to a heavy moustache and a long and massive beard. He was like a man
who might have taken a vow never to cut his hair. It covered his ears and
grew low upon his forehead, so that hardly a vestige of the face could be
seen, while, further, all the expression of the eyes was concealed behind
large blue spectacles. The professor was enveloped in a heavy cloak, in
spite of the bright sunshine; evidently he was one of those men from the
cold North who do not know what real warmth is and have no idea of what
it means to be too thickly clothed. He spoke French correctly, but with a
slight accent and a slow enunciation that betrayed a foreign origin.

"I was really anxious, sir, to observe for myself the measures you have
taken which have set your institution in the forefront of establishments of
the kind," he replied. "I have read with the very greatest interest your
various communications to the transactions of learned societies. It is a great
advantage for a practitioner like myself to be able to profit by the
experience of a savant of your high standing."
A few further compliments were exchanged and then Dr. Biron suggested a
visit to the various wards, and led his guest out into the grounds of the
institution.
If Dr. Biron did not possess that theoretical knowledge of insanity which
has made French alienists famous throughout the world, he was certainly a
first-rate organiser. His sanatorium was a model one. It was situated in one
of the wealthiest, quietest and airiest quarters of Paris, and stood in a vast
enclosure behind high walls; within this enclosure a number of small
pavilions were built, all attractive in design, and communicating by broad
flights of steps with a beautiful garden studded with trees and shrubs, but
further subdivided into a series of little gardens separated from one another
by white latticed palings.
"You see, Professor, I rely entirely on the isolation principle. A single block
would have involved a deleterious collocation of various types of insanity,
so I built this series of small pavilions, where my patients can be segregated
according to their type of alienation. The system has great therapeutic
advantages, and I am sure it is the explanation of my high percentage of
cures."
Professor Swelding nodded approval.
"We apply the system of segregation in Denmark," he said, "but we have
never carried it so far as to divide the general grounds. I see that each of
your pavilions has its own private garden."
"I regard that as indispensable," Dr. Biron declared. He led his visitor to one
of the little gardens, where a man of about fifty was walking about between
two attendants. "This man is a megalomaniac," he said: "he believes that he
is the Almighty."

"What is your treatment here?" Professor Swelding enquired. "I am aware
that the books prescribe isolation, but that is not sufficient by itself."
"I nurse the brain by nursing the body," Dr. Biron replied. "I build up my
patient's system by careful attention to hygiene, diet, and rest, and I pretend
to ignore his mental alienation. There is always a spark of sound sense in a
diseased brain. This man imagines he is the Almighty, but when he is
hungry he has to ask for something to eat, and then we pretend to wonder
why he has any need to eat if he is the Almighty; he has to concoct some
explanation, and very gradually his reasoning power is restored. A man
ceases to be insane the moment he begins to comprehend that he is insane."
The Professor followed the doctor, casting curious eyes at the various
patients who were walking in their gardens.
"Have you many cures?"
"That is a difficult question to answer," said Dr. Biron. "The statistics are so
very different in the different categories of insanity."
"Of course," said Professor Swelding; "but take some particular type of
dementia, say, hallucination of persecution. What percentage of cures can
you show there?"
"Twenty per cent absolute recoveries, and forty per cent definite
improvements," the doctor replied promptly, and as the Professor evinced
unmistakable astonishment at so high a percentage, Dr. Biron took him
familiarly by the arm and drew him along. "I will show you a patient who
actually is to be sent home in a day or two. I believe that she is completely
cured, or on the very point of being completely cured."
A woman of about forty was sitting in one of the gardens by the side of an
attendant, quietly sewing. Dr. Biron paused to draw his visitor's particular
attention to her.
"That lady belongs to one of the best of our great merchant families. She is
Mme. Alice Rambert, wife of Etienne Rambert, the rubber merchant. She
has been under my care for nearly ten months. When she came here she was
in the last stage of debility and anæmia and suffered from the most
characteristic hallucination of all: she thought that assassins were all round

her. I have built up her physical system, and now I have cured her mind. At
the present moment that lady is not mad at all, in the proper sense of the
term."
"She never shows any symptoms of reverting to her morbid condition?"
Professor Swelding enquired with interest.
"Never."
"And would not, even if violently upset?"
"I do not think so."
"May I talk to her?"
"Certainly," and Dr. Biron led the visitor towards the seat on which the
patient was sitting. "Madame Rambert," he said, "may I present Professor
Swelding to you? He has heard that you are here and would like to pay his
respects."
Mme. Rambert put down her needlework and rose and looked at the Danish
professor.
"I am delighted to make the gentleman's acquaintance," she said, "but I
should like to know how he was aware of my existence, my dear doctor."
"I regret that I cannot claim to know you, madame," said Professor
Swelding, replying for Dr. Biron, "but I know that in addressing you I shall
be speaking to the inmate of this institution who will testify most warmly to
the scientific skill and the devotion of Dr. Biron."
"At all events," Mme. Rambert replied coldly, "he carries his kindness to
the extent of wishing his patients never to be dull, since he brings
unexpected visitors to see them."
The phrase was an implicit reproach of Dr. Biron's too ready inclination to
exhibit his patients as so many rare and curious wild animals, and it stung
him all the more because he was convinced that Mme. Rambert was
perfectly sane. He pretended not to hear what she said, giving some order to
the attendant, Berthe, who was standing respectfully by.

"I understand, madame," Professor Swelding replied gently. "You object to
my visit as an intrusion?"
Mme. Rambert had picked up her work and already was sewing again, but
suddenly she sprang up, so abruptly that the professor recoiled, and
exclaimed sharply:
"Who called me? Who called me? Who——"
The Professor was attempting to speak when the patient interrupted him.
"Oh!" she cried, "Alice! Alice! His voice—his voice! Go away! You
frighten me! Who spoke? Go away! Oh, help! help!" and she fled screaming
towards the far end of the garden, with the attendant and Dr. Biron running
after her. With all the cleverness of the insane she managed to elude them,
and continued to scream. "Oh, I recognised him! Do go away, I implore
you! Go! Murder! Murder!"
The attendant tried to reassure the doctor.
"Don't be frightened, sir. She is not dangerous. I expect the visit from that
gentleman has upset her."
The poor demented creature had taken refuge behind a clump of shrubs, and
was standing there with eyes dilated with anguish fixed on the Professor
and hand pointing to him, trembling in every limb.
"Fantômas!" she cried: "Fantômas! There—I know him! Oh, help!"
The scene was horribly distressing, and Dr. Biron put an end to it by
ordering the attendant to take Mme. Rambert to her room and induce her to
rest, and to send at once for M. Perret. Then he turned to Professor
Swelding.
"I am greatly distressed by this incident, Professor. It proves that the cure of
this poor creature is by no means so assured as I had believed. But there are
other cases which will not shake your faith in my judgment like this, I hope.
Shall we go on?"
Professor Swelding tried to comfort the doctor.

"The brain is a pathetically frail thing," he said. "You could not have a more
striking case to prove it: that poor lady, whom you believed to be cured,
suddenly having a typical crisis of her form of insanity provoked by—
what? Neither you nor I look particularly like assassins, do we?" And he
followed Dr. Biron, who was much discomfited, to be shown other matters
of interest.

"Better now, madame? Are you going to be good?"
Mme. Rambert was reclining on a sofa in her room, watching her attendant,
Berthe, moving about and tidying up the slight disorder caused by her
recent ministrations. The patient made a little gesture of despair.
"Poor Berthe!" she said. "If you only knew how unhappy I am, and how
sorry for having given way to that panic just now!"
"Oh, that was nothing," said the attendant. "The doctor won't attach any
importance to that."
"Yes, he will," said the patient with a weary smile. "I think he will attach
importance to it, and in any case it will delay my discharge from this place."
"Not a bit of it, madame. Why, you know they have written to your home to
say you are cured?"
Mme. Rambert did not reply for a minute or two. Then she said:
"Tell me, Berthe, what do you understand by the word 'cured'?"
The attendant was rather nonplussed.
"Why, it means that you are better: that you are quite well."
Her patient smiled bitterly.
"It is true that my health is better now, and that my stay here has done me
good. But that is not what I was talking about. What is your opinion about
my madness?"

"You mustn't think about that," the attendant remonstrated. "You are no
more mad than I am."
"Oh, I know the worst symptom of madness is to declare you are not mad,"
Mme. Rambert answered sadly; "so I will be careful not to say it, Berthe.
But, apart from this last panic, the reason for which I cannot tell you, have
you ever known me do, or heard me say, anything that was utterly devoid of
reason, in all the time that I have been in your charge?"
Struck by the remark, the attendant, in spite of herself, was obliged to
confess:
"No, I never have—that is——"
"That is," Mme. Rambert finished for her, "I have sometimes protested to
you that I was the victim of an abominable persecution, and that there was a
tragic mystery in my life: in short, that if I was shut up here, it was because
someone wanted me to be shut up. Come now, Berthe, has it never occurred
to you that perhaps I was telling the truth?"
The attendant had been shaken for a minute by the calm self-possession of
her patient; now she resumed her professional manner.
"Don't worry any more, Mme. Rambert, for you know as well as I do that
Dr. Biron acknowledges that you are cured now. You are going to leave the
place and resume your ordinary life."
"Ah, Berthe," said Mme. Rambert, twisting and untwisting her hands, "if
you only knew! Why, if I leave this sanatorium, or rather if the doctor sends
me back to my family, I shall certainly be put in some other sanatorium
before two days are past! No, it isn't merely an idea that I have got into my
head," she went on as the attendant protested. "Listen: during the whole ten
months that I have been here, I have never once protested that I was not
insane. I was quite glad to be in this place! For I felt safe here. But now I
am not sure of that. I must go, but I must not go merely to return to my
husband! I must be free, free to go to those who will help me to escape from
the horrible trap in which I have spent the last few years of my life!"
Mme. Rambert's earnest tone convinced the attendant in spite of her own
instinct.

"Yes?" she said enquiringly.
"I suppose you know that I am rich, Berthe?" Mme. Rambert went on. "I
have always been generous to you, and higher fees are paid for me here
than are paid for any other patient. Would you like to make sure of your
future for ever, and quite easily? I have heard you talk about getting
married. Shall I give you a dot? You might lose your situation here, but if
you trust me I will make it up to you a hundredfold, if you will help me to
escape from this place! And it cannot be too soon! I have not a minute to
lose!"
Berthe tried to get away from her patient, but Mme. Rambert held her back,
almost by force.
"Tell me your price," she said. "How much do you want? A thousand
pounds? Two thousand pounds?" and as the attendant, bewildered by the
mere suggestion of such fabulous sums, was silent, Mme. Rambert slipped
a diamond ring off her finger and held it out to the young woman. "Take
that as proof of my sincerity," she said. "If anybody asks me about it I will
say that I have lost it. And from now, Berthe, begin to prepare a way for me
to escape! The very night that I am free I swear you shall be a rich woman!"
Berthe got up, swaying, hardly knowing if she was awake or dreaming.
"A rich woman!" she murmured. "A rich woman!" and over the girl's face
there suddenly crept a horrible expression of cupidity and desire.

XVI. Among the Market Porters
"Boulevard Rochechouart," said Berthe, the young asylum nurse, to the
conductor as she sprang into the tram just as it was starting.
It was a September afternoon, one of the last fine days of the now fast-
dying summer, and the girl had just got her fortnightly leave for forty-eight
hours. She had gone off duty at noon, and now had until noon on the next
day but one to resume her own personality and shake off the anxieties that
beset all those who are charged with the constant care of the insane, the
most distressing kind of patients that exists. As a general rule Berthe spent
her fortnightly holidays with her old grand-parents in their cottage outside
Paris, but on this occasion she had elected to remain in the city, influenced
thereto by the long conversation she had had with the patient confided to
her particular care, No. 25, Mme. Rambert. Since that first talk with her, on
the day of Professor Swelding's visit to the asylum, she had had others, and
Berthe had now elaborated a plan to enable the supposed lunatic to escape,
and had decided to spend her short holiday in bringing the plan to a point.
At the boulevard Rochechouart Berthe got out of the tram, looked around to
get her bearings in the somewhat unfamiliar neighbourhood, and then
turned into the rue Clignancourt and stood on the left-hand side of the
street, looking at the shops. The third one was a wine shop, only the first of
many in the street.
Berthe pushed the door of this establishment a little way open and looked at
the rather rowdy company gathered round the zinc counter, all with flushed
faces and all talking loudly. She did not venture inside, but in a clear voice
asked, "Is M. Geoffroy here?" No definite answer was forthcoming, but the
men turned round, hearing her enquiry, and seeing her pretty figure began
to nudge one another and jest and laugh coarsely. "Come in, missy," said
one of them, but already Berthe had quickly closed the door and lightly
gone on her way.
A few yards further on there was another bar, and into this, also, Berthe
peeped and once more asked, "Is M. Geoffroy here?" adding by way of

further explanation, "Hogshead Geoffroy, I mean." This time a roar of
laughter followed, and the girl fled, flushed with indignation.
Yet she did not desist from her strange search, and at last, at the sixth shop,
her question was answered by a deep bass voice from the far end of a
smoke-clouded den. "Hogshead Geoffroy? Here!" and heaving a sigh of
relief Berthe went inside the shop.

When you want to see M. "Hogshead" Geoffroy, your procedure is
simplicity itself. As he has no known address, all you have to do is to start
at the bottom of the rue Clignancourt on the left-hand side, look into every
wineshop, and ask, in tones loud enough to be heard above the clatter of
conversation, whether Hogshead Geoffroy is there, and it will be mighty
bad luck if, at one or other of the bars, you do not hear the answer,
"Hogshead Geoffroy? Here," followed immediately by that gentleman's
order to the patronne: "Half a pint, please: the gentleman will pay!" It is a
safe order; the patronne knows from past experience that she can serve the
half-pint without anxiety: Hogshead Geoffroy rapidly drains it, and then
holds out a huge and hairy hand to the visitor and enquires, "Well, what is
it?"
If, as often happens, the Hogshead finds himself confronted by a stranger,
he feels no surprise; he knows his own popularity, and is a modest soul, so
he calls his visitor by his Christian name at once, taps him amicably on the
shoulder, and calls him "old boy," and invites him to stand a drink. The
Hogshead is an artist in his line; he hires himself out to public halls to
announce in his powerful voice, reinforced by a trumpet, the various items
on the programme or the results of performances achieved. He also
harangues the crowd on behalf of showmen, or hurls threats at too excited
demonstrators at public demonstrations. Between whiles he rolls hogsheads
down into cellars, or bottles wine, and even drinks it when he is among
friends who have money to pay withal.

At sight of Berthe, Hogshead Geoffroy so far departed from custom as not
to give an order to the patronne at the bar; instead, he rose and went
towards the girl and unceremoniously embraced her.
"Ah-ha, little sister, there you are! Why, I was just that moment thinking of
you!" He drew her to the back of the shop, towards a bunch of sturdy,
square-shouldered fellows drinking there, to whom he introduced her. "Now
then, mates, try to behave yourselves; I'm bringing a charming young lady
to see you, my sister Berthe, little Bob—Bobinette, as we called her when
we lived with the old folks." The girl blushed, a little uneasy at finding
herself in such a mixed company, but Hogshead Geoffroy put every one at
ease; he put his great hand under Berthe's chin and tilted her head back.
"Don't you think she is pretty, this little sister of mine? She's the very spit of
her brother!" There was a general roar of laughter. The contrast between the
two figures was so great that it seemed impossible there could be any
relationship between them: the graceful, slender, tiny Parisienne looking
tinier still beside the huge colossus of a man six feet high, with the chest of
a bull and the shoulders of an athlete. "We don't seem to be built on quite
the same lines," M. Geoffroy admitted, "but all the same there is a family
likeness!"
The men made room for the girl, and after she had yielded to the general
insistence and accepted a glass of white wine, Geoffroy bent forward and
spoke in a lower tone.
"Well, what do you want with me?"
"I want to talk to you about something which will interest you, I'm sure,"
Berthe answered.
"Anything to be got out of it?" was the giant's next enquiry.
Berthe smiled.
"I expect so, or I wouldn't have troubled you."
"Whenever there's any money to be picked up the Hogshead's always on,"
he replied: "especially just now when things aren't any too bright, though I
may tell you I think there's going to be an alteration in that respect."

"Have you got a situation?" Berthe asked in some surprise.
Hogshead Geoffroy laid a finger on his lip.
"It's still a secret," he said, "but there's no harm in talking it over, for
everybody here knows all about it," and at interminable length, and with
many a pause for libations, he explained that he was a candidate for an
appointment as Market Porter. He had been cramming for a fortnight past,
in order to emerge triumphantly from the examination to which candidates
were always subjected, and that very morning he had sat in the Hôtel de
Ville wrestling with nothing less than a problem in arithmetic. In proof, he
produced from his pocket a crumpled, greasy and wine-stained sheet of
paper scrawled all over with childish writing and figures, and showed it to
his sister, immensely proud of the effect he was producing on her. "A
problem," he repeated. "See here: two taps fill a tank at the rate of twenty
litres a minute, and a third tap empties it at the rate of fifteen hundred litres
an hour. How long will it take for the tank to get full?"
A friend of Geoffroy's broke in: it was Mealy Benoît, his most formidable
competitor for the appointment.
"And how long will it take for you to get full?" he asked with a great laugh.
Hogshead Geoffroy banged his fist on the table.
"This is a serious conversation," he said, and turned again to his sister, who
wanted to know if he had succeeded in finding the answer to the problem.
"Maybe," he replied. "I worked by rule of thumb, for, as you know,
arithmetic and all those devil's funniments aren't in my line. To sit for an
hour, writing at a table in the great hall of the Hôtel de Ville—not much! It
made me sweat more than carrying four hundredweight!"
But the company was preparing to make a move. Time was getting on, and
at six o'clock the second part of the examination, the physical test, was to be
held in the Fish Market. Mealy Benoît had paid his score already, and
Hogshead Geoffroy's deferent escort of friends was getting restless. Berthe
won fresh favour in her brother's eyes by paying for their refreshments with
a ten franc piece and leaving the change to be placed to his credit, and then
with him she left the wineshop.

The annual competition for an appointment as Market Porter is held at the
end of September. It is a great event. There are generally many candidates,
but only two or three, and sometimes less, of the best are picked. The posts
are few and good, for the number of porters is limited. The examination is
in two parts: one purely intellectual, consisting of some simple problem and
a little dictation, the other physical, in which the candidates have to carry a
sack of meal weighing three hundredweight a distance of two hundred yards
in the shortest time.
At six o'clock punctually the market women were all in their places along
the pavement by their respective stalls. The hall was decorated with flags;
the salesmen and regular shopmen were provided with chairs, and their
assistants were behind them, with the sweepers and criers; at the back stood
three or four rows of the general public, all eager to witness the impressive
display.
The two-hundred-yard course was carefully cleared, every obstacle having
been scrupulously swept off the asphalte, especially pieces of orange-peel,
lettuce leaves and bits of rotten vegetable matter, which might have caused
a competitor to slip when trying to break the record for carrying the sack. A
high official of the Hôtel de Ville and three of the senior Market Porters
formed the jury, and there were also two officials of the Cyclists' Union,
expert in the use of stop watches, armed with tested chronometers and
deputed to take the exact time of each performance.
The crowd of onlookers was as odd, and eclectic, and keen, as can possibly
be imagined. Berthe, who knew that false modesty is quite out of place in
popular gatherings, mingled freely in the general conversation. Among
other picturesque types she had noticed one particularly extraordinary
individual who, although he was in the last row of all, overtopped the rest
by quite half of his body, being perched on an antiquated tricycle, which
provoked the hilarity of the mob.
"What ho, Bouzille!" somebody called out, for the man was a well-known
and popular figure, and everybody knew his name. "Is that Methuselah's
tricycle that you have pinched?" and to some of the sallies the fellow

replied with a smile that was almost lost in his matted beard, and to others
with a jest uttered in the purest dialect of Auvergne.
Someone spoke softly in Berthe's ear and she turned and saw a sturdy
fellow of about twenty-five, wearing a blue blouse, a red handkerchief
round his neck, and a drover's cap; he was a well-built, powerful man, and
in spite of his humble dress, had an intelligent face and an almost
distinguished manner. Berthe responded amiably, and a few commonplace
remarks were exchanged between the two.
"In case you care to know, my name's Julot," said the man.
And Berthe replied frankly, but without otherwise compromising herself.
"And I am Bob, or Bobinette, whichever you like. I am Hogshead
Geoffroy's sister," she added with a little touch of pride.
A murmur ran round the crowd. Mealy Benoît was going through his trial.
The great fellow came along with rapid, rhythmical step, with supple limbs
and chest hunched forward. Surely balanced on his broad shoulders and the
nape of his neck was an enormous sack of meal, accurately weighed to
scale three hundredweight. Without the least hesitation or slackening of
pace, he covered the two hundred yards, reaching the goal perfectly fresh
and fit; he stood for a moment or two in front of the judges, displaying the
mighty muscles of his naked chest, over which the perspiration was
running, and evincing genuine delight in not freeing himself from his heavy
burden at the earliest possible moment. The applause was enthusiastic and
immediate, but silence quickly fell again and all eyes turned towards the
starting-post. It was Hogshead Geoffroy's turn.
The giant was really a splendid sight. Instead of walking as his rival had
done, he began to step like a gymnast, and the crowd yelled their delight. It
seemed that he must beat his rival's time easily, but all at once the great
sack on his shoulders was seen to shake, and Geoffroy almost stopped,
uttering a heavy groan before he got going again. The crowd looked on in
surprise: where he had just set his feet there was a wet mark upon the
asphalte: Geoffroy had slipped on a piece of orange-peel. But he managed
to restore the equilibrium of the sack, and, taught caution by the risk he had
just run, he finished the course with measured steps.

Two hours later the result of the competition was announced. Hogshead
Geoffroy and Mealy Benoît were bracketed equal, having taken exactly the
same time to cover the course; upon the result of the written examination
would depend the final issue, and the matter was all the more important
because this year there was but one vacancy for a Market Porter.
Berthe, or Bobinette, was vehemently discussing with her neighbours the
mishap that had befallen Geoffroy during his trial. A man dressed in a
shabby black overcoat buttoned up to the chin, and wearing a kind of
jockey cap on his greasy hair, was watching her intently, seeming to agree
with all she said while really interested in something else. Berthe, who was
very intent upon the matter in hand, did not notice this individual's manner;
it was Julot, her faithful squire for the last two hours, who got her away.
"Come," he said, taking her by the sleeve, "you know your brother is
waiting for you," and as she yielded to his insistence he whispered in her
ear, "That chap's a dirty-looking rascal: I don't think much of him!"
"He certainly is uncommonly ugly," the girl admitted, and then like the
trained nurse that she was, she added, "and did you notice his complexion?
The man must be ill: he is absolutely green!"

XVII. At the Saint-Anthony's Pig
"Pay for a drink, and I'll listen to you," said Hogshead Geoffroy to his sister.
After numerous visits to the many bars and drinking saloons that surround
the markets, they had finally gone for a late supper into the Saint-Anthony's
Pig, the most popular tavern in the neighbourhood, Geoffroy having
reconciled himself to waiting for the result of the examination, which would
not be announced until the following day.

A new and original attraction had been stationed outside the Saint-
Anthony's Pig for the last few days. After the formal enquiries succeeding
his discovery of the drowned body in the river, Bouzille had come to Paris
to see the Eiffel Tower. He had met with but a week's delay in his itinerary,
having been locked up for that time at Orleans for some trifling
misdemeanour.
On entering the capital, Bouzille's extraordinary equipage had caused quite
a sensation, and as the worthy fellow, with utter disregard of the heavy
traffic in the city, had careered about in it through the most crowded streets,
he had very soon been run in and taken to the nearest lock-up. His train had
been confiscated for forty-eight hours, but as there was nothing really to be
objected against the tramp, he had merely been requested to make himself
scarce, and not to do it again.
Bouzille did not quite know what to make of it all. But while he was towing
his two carriages behind his tricycle towards the Champ-de-Mars, from
which point he would at last be able to contemplate the Eiffel Tower, he had
fallen in with the editor of the Auto, to whom, in exchange for a bottle of
wine at the next café, he had ingenuously confided his story. A sensational
article about the globe-trotting tramp appeared in the next number of that
famous sporting journal, and Bouzille woke to find himself famous. The
next thing that happened was that François Bonbonne, the proprietor of the
Saint-Anthony's Pig, shrewdly foreseeing that this original character with

his remarkable equipage would furnish a singular attraction, engaged him to
station himself outside the establishment from eleven to three every night,
in return for his board and lodging and a salary of five francs a day.
It need not be said that Bouzille had closed with the offer. But getting tired
of cooling his heels on the doorstep, he had gradually taken to leaving his
train on the pavement and himself going down into the basement hall,
where he generously returned his five francs every night to the proprietor, in
exchange for potations to that amount.

In the basement of the Saint-Anthony's Pig the atmosphere was steadily
getting cloudier, and the noise louder. The time was about a quarter to two.
The "swells," and the young men about town who went to have a bowl of
onion soup at the popular café because that was the latest correct thing to
do, had withdrawn. The few pale and shabby dancers had given their show,
and in another ten minutes, when the wealthy customers had departed, the
supper room would resume its natural appearance and everybody would be
at home. François Bonbonne had just escorted the last toffs up the narrow
corkscrew staircase that led from the basement to the ground-floor, and now
he stood, his stout person entirely filling the only exit, unctuously
suggesting that perhaps somebody would like to give an order for a hot
wine salad.
Berthe was sitting in a corner beside her brother, whom the warmth of the
room and his numerous potations had rendered drowsy, and thinking it an
opportune moment to tell him of her scheme, before he became talkative or
quarrelsome, she began to explain.
"There's nothing much to do, but I want a strong man like you."
"Any barrels to roll anywhere?" he enquired in a thick voice.
Berthe shook her head, her glance meanwhile resting mechanically on a
small young man with a budding beard and a pale face, who had just taken
a seat opposite her and was timidly ordering a portion of sauerkraut.

"I want some bars removed from a window; they are iron bars set in stone,
but the stone is worn and the bars are very rusty, and anybody with a little
strength could wrench them out."
"And that's all?" Geoffroy enquired suspiciously.
"Yes, that's all."
"Then I shall be very glad to help you: I suppose it will be worth something,
won't it?" He broke off short, noticing that a man sitting close by seemed to
be listening attentively to the conversation. Berthe followed his eyes, and
then turned with a smile to her brother.
"That's all right; don't mind; I know that man," and in proof of the statement
she held out a friendly hand to the individual who seemed to be spying
upon them. "Good evening again, M. Julot: how are you, since I saw you
just now? I did not notice you were here."
Julot shook hands with her and without evincing any further interest in her,
went on with the conversation he was having with his own companion, a
clean-shaven fellow.
"Go on, Billy Tom," he said in low tones. "Tell me what has happened."
"Well, there has been the devil to pay at the Royal Palace, owing to that
——accident, you know; of course I was not mixed up in it in any way: I'm
only interpreter, and I stick to my own job. But three weeks after the affair,
Muller was suddenly kicked out, owing to the door having been opened for
the chap who worked the robbery."
"Muller, Muller?" said Julot, seeming to be searching his memory. "Who is
Muller?"
"Why, the watchman on the second floor."
"Oh, ah, yes; and who turned him out?"
"I think his name is Juve."
"Oh—ho!" Julot muttered to himself. "I thought as much!"

There was a noise at the entrance of the hall, and down the corkscrew
staircase came two people who, judging by the greeting they received, were
very popular: Ernestine, a well-known figure, and Mealy Benoît, who was
very drunk.
Benoît lurched from one table to another, leaning on every head and pair of
shoulders that came his way, and reached an empty seat on a lounge into
which he crushed, half squashing the pale young man with the budding
beard. The lad made no protest, seeming to be afraid of his neighbour's
bulk, but merely wriggled sideways and tried to give the new-comer all the
room he wanted. Benoît did not seem even to notice the humble little
fellow, but Ernestine took pity on him and assured him that she would look
after him.
"All right, sonny," she said, "Mealy won't squash you; and if he tries any of
his games on you, Ernestine will look after you." She took his head between
her two hands and kissed his forehead affectionately, ignoring Mealy
Benoît's angry protests. "He's a dear little chap: I like him," she said to the
company at large. "What's your name, deary?"
The boy blushed to the tips of his ears.
"Paul," he murmured.
But François Bonbonne the proprietor, with his usual keen eye to business,
arrived just then and set down before Mealy Benoît the famous hot wine
salad of which he had spoken before. Behind Bonbonne came Bouzille,
who had left his turn-out on the pavement and come down into the supper
room to eat and drink his five francs, and more if credit could be got.
Benoît caught sight of Hogshead Geoffroy and immediately offered to clink
glasses with him; he pushed a glass towards him, inviting him to dip it with
the rest into the steaming bowl; but Geoffroy was warming up under the
influence of alcohol, and broke into a sudden flame of wrath at sight of
Mealy Benoît. If Benoît should be given the first place, it would be a rank
injustice, he reflected, for he, Geoffroy, was most certainly the stronger
man. And besides, the sturdy Hogshead was beginning to wonder whether
his rival might not have devised an odious plot against him and put the
famous piece of orange-peel upon the track, but for which Geoffroy would

have won hands down. So Geoffroy, very drunk, offered Benoît, who was
no whit more sober, the gross affront of refusing to clink glasses with him!
"Why, it's you!" exclaimed Bouzille, in ringing tones of such glad surprise
that everybody turned round to see whom he was addressing. Julot and
Berthe looked with the rest.
"Why, it's the green man of just now," said the asylum nurse to her
companion, and he assented, moodily enough.
"Yes, it's him right enough."
Bouzille took no notice of the attention he had provoked, and did not seem
to notice that the green man appeared to be anything but pleased at having
been recognised.
"I've seen you before, I know," he went on; "where have I met you?"
The green man did not answer; he affected to be engrossed in a most serious
conversation with the friend he had brought with him into the supper room,
a shabby individual who carried a guitar. But Bouzille was not to be put off,
and suddenly he exclaimed, with perfect indifference to what his
neighbours might think:
"I know: you are the tramp who was arrested with me down there in Lot!
The day of that murder—you know—the murder of the Marquise de
Langrune!"
Bouzille in his excitement had caught the green man by the sleeve, but the
green man impatiently shook him off, growling angrily.
"Well, and what about it?"

For some minutes now Hogshead Geoffroy and Mealy Benoît had been
exchanging threatening glances. Geoffroy had given voice to his suspicions,
and kind friends had not failed to report his words to Benoît. Inflamed with
drink as they were, the two men were bound to come to blows before long,
and a dull murmur ran through the room heralding the approaching

altercation. Berthe, anxious on her brother's behalf, and a little frightened
on her own, did all she could to induce Geoffroy to come away, but even
though she promised to pay for any number of drinks elsewhere, he refused
to budge from the bench where he was sitting hunched up in a corner.

When at length he got rid of Bouzille and his exasperating garrulity, the
green man resumed his conversation with his friend with the guitar.
"It's rather odd that he hasn't a trace of accent," the latter remarked.
"Oh, it's nothing for a fellow like Gurn to speak French like a Frenchman,"
said the green man in a low tone; then he stopped nervously. Ernestine was
walking about among the company, chatting to one and another and getting
drinks, and he fancied that she was listening to what he said.
But another duologue rose audible in another part of the room.
"If the gentleman would like to show his strength there's someone ready to
take him on."
Hogshead Geoffroy had thrown down his glove!
Silence fell upon the room. It was Mealy Benoît's turn to answer. At that
precise moment, however, Benoît was draining the salad bowl. He slowly
swallowed the last of the red liquid—one can't do two things at once—laid
the bowl down, empty, on the table, and in thundering, dignified tones
demanded another, wiped his lips on the back of his sleeve, and turned his
huge head towards the corner where Geoffroy was hunched up, saying,
"Will the gentleman kindly repeat his last remark?"

Ernestine moved furtively to Julot's side, and affecting to be interested only
in the argument going on between Geoffroy and Benoît, said without
looking at him:
"The pale man, with the greenish complexion, said to the man with the
guitar, 'It's he, all right, because of the burn in the palm of his hand.'"

Julot choked back an oath, and instinctively clenched his fist, but Ernestine
already had moved on and was huskily chaffing the young man with the
budding beard. Julot sat with sombre face and angry eyes, only replying in
curt monosyllables to the occasional remarks of his next neighbour, Billy
Tom. Marie, the waitress, was passing near him and he signed to her to stop.
"Say, Marie," he said, nodding towards the window that was behind him,
"what does that window open on to?"
The girl thought for a moment.
"On to the cellar," she said; "this hall is in the basement."
"And the cellar," Julot went on; "how do you get out of that?"
"You can't," the servant answered; "there's no door; you have to come
through here."
Momentarily becoming more uneasy, Julot scrutinised the long tunnel of a
room at the extreme end of which he was sitting; there was only one means
of egress, up the narrow corkscrew staircase leading to the ground-floor,
and at the very foot of that staircase was the table occupied by the green
man and the man with the guitar.

A plate aimed by Hogshead Geoffroy at Mealy Benoît crashed against the
opposite wall. Everyone jumped to his feet, the women screaming, the men
swearing. The two market porters stood confronting one another, Hogshead
Geoffroy brandishing a chair, Benoît trying to wrench the marble top from a
table to serve as a weapon. The mêlée became general, plates smashing on
the floor, and dinner things flying towards the ceiling.
Suddenly a shot rang out, but quickly though it had been fired, the green
man and the man with the guitar had seen who fired it. For the last few
minutes, indeed, these two mysterious individuals had never taken their
eyes off Julot.
Julot, whom Berthe had supposed from his appearance to be an honest
cattle-drover, was undoubtedly a wonderful shot. Having observed that the

room was lighted by a single chandelier composed of three electric lamps,
and that the current was supplied by only two wires running along the
cornice, Julot had taken aim at the wires and cut them clean in two with a
single shot!
Immediately following upon the shot, the room was plunged into absolute
darkness. A perfectly incredible uproar ensued, men and women struggling
together and shouting and trampling one another down, and crockery and
dinner things crashing down from the side-boards and tables on to the floor.
Above the din a sudden hoarse cry of pain rang out, "Help!" and
simultaneously Berthe, who was lost among the mob, heard a muttered
exclamation in her ear and felt two hands groping all over her body as if
trying to identify her. The young nurse was the only woman in the room
wearing a hat. Half swooning with terror, she felt herself picked up and
thrust upon a bench, and then someone whispered in a vinous voice: "You
are not to help no. 25, the Rambert woman, to escape."
Berthe was so utterly astonished that she overcame her fright sufficiently to
stammer out a question:
"But what—but who——?"
Lower still, but yet more peremptorily, the voice became audible again.
"Fantômas forbids you to do it! And if you disobey, you die!"
The nurse dropped back upon the bench half fainting with fright, and the
row in the supper room grew worse. Three men were fighting now, the
green man being at grips with two at once. The green man did not seem to
feel the blows rained on him, but with a strength that was far beyond the
ordinary he gripped hold of an arm and slid his hands along the sleeve,
never letting go of the arm, until he reached the wrist, when wrenching
open the clenched fist he slipped his fingers on to the palm of the hand. A
little exclamation of triumph escaped him, and simultaneously the owner of
the hand uttered an exclamation of pain, for the green man's fingers had
touched a still raw wound upon the hollow of the palm.
But at that instant his leg was caught between two powerful knees, and the
slightest pressure more would have broken it. The green man was forced to

let go the hand he held; he fell to the ground with his adversary upon him,
and for a moment thought that he was lost. But at the same moment his
adversary let go of him in turn, having been taken by surprise by yet a third
combatant who joined in the fray and separated the first two, devoting
himself to a furious assault upon the man whom the green man had tried to
capture. The green man passed a rapid hand over the individual who had
just rescued him from the fierce assault, and was conscious of a shock of
surprise as he identified the young man with the budding beard; thereupon
he collared him firmly by the neck and did not let him go.

In the crush the combatants had been forced towards the staircase, and at
this narrow entrance into the hall bodies were being trampled underfoot and
piercing screams rent the air. François Bonbonne had not made the least
attempt to interfere. He knew exactly the proper procedure when trouble of
this sort broke out, and he had gone to the corner of the street and sent the
constable on duty there to the nearest police station for help. Directly the
first gendarmes arrived, François Bonbonne led them behind the counter in
the shop and showed them the fire hose; with the skill acquired by long
practice, they rapidly unrolled the pipe, introduced it into the narrow mouth
of the staircase, turned on the tap, and proceeded to drench everybody in the
supper room below.
The unexpected sousing pulled the combatants up short, separated all the
champions, and drove the howling and shrieking mob back to the far end of
the room. The operation lasted for a good five minutes, and when the
gendarmes considered that the customers of the Saint-Anthony's Pig were
sufficiently quieted down, the sergeant threw the light of a lantern, which
the proprietor obligingly had ready for him, over the supper room, and
peremptorily ordered the company to come up, one by one.
Seeing that resistance would be futile, the company obeyed. As they slowly
emerged at the top of the corkscrew staircase, meek and subdued, the
gendarmes at the top arrested them, slipped handcuffs on them, and sent
them off in couples to the station. When the sergeant assumed that every
one had come out, he went down into the supper room, just to make sure
that nobody was still hiding there. But the room was not quite empty. One

unfortunate man was lying on the floor, bathed in his own blood. It was the
man with the guitar, and a knife had been driven through his breast!

The couple consisting of the green man and the young man with the
budding beard, of whom his companion had never once let go since
identifying him during the fight in the supper room, were taken to the
station. The clerk, who was taking down the names of the prisoners, with
difficulty repressed an exclamation of surprise when the green man
produced an identification card, and whispered a few words in his ear.
"Release that gentleman at once," said the clerk. "With regard to the other
——"
"With regard to the other," the green man broke in, "kindly release him too.
I want to keep him with me."
The clerk bowed in consent, and both men were immediately released from
their handcuffs. The young man stared in astonishment at the individual
who a minute before had been his companion in bonds, and was about to
thank him, but the other grasped him firmly by the wrist, as though to warn
him of the impossibility of flight, and led him out of the police station. In
the street they met the sergeant with a gendarme bringing in the unfortunate
man with the guitar, who was just breathing, and in whom the officials had
recognised a detective-inspector. Without letting go of the youth, the green
man bent forward to the sergeant and had a brief but animated conversation
with him.
"Yes, sir, that's all," the sergeant said respectfully; "I haven't anyone else."
The green man stamped his foot in wrath.
"Good Lord! Gurn has got away!"

Towards the rue Montmartre the green man rapidly dragged his companion,
who was trembling in every limb, and utterly at a loss to guess what the
future held in store for him. Suddenly the green man halted, just under the

light of a street lamp outside the church of Saint-Eustache. He stood
squarely in front of his prisoner and looked him full in the eyes.
"I am Juve," he said, "the detective!" and as the young man stared at him in
silent dismay, Juve went on, emphasising each of his words, and with a
sardonic smile flickering over his face. "And you, Mademoiselle Jeanne—
you are Charles Rambert!"

XVIII. A Prisoner and a Witness
Juve had spoken in a tone of command that brooked no reply. His keen eyes
seemed to pierce through Paul and read his inmost soul. The winking light
of the street lamp shed a wan halo round the lad, who obviously wanted to
move away from its radius, but Juve held him fast.
"Come now, answer! You are Charles Rambert, and you were Mademoiselle
Jeanne?"
"I don't understand," Paul declared.
"Really!" sneered Juve. He hailed a passing cab. "Get in," he ordered
briefly, and pushing the lad in before him he gave an address to the driver,
entered the cab and shut the door. Juve sat there rubbing his hands as if well
pleased with his night's work. For several minutes he remained silent, and
then turned to his companion.
"You think it is clever to deny it," he remarked, "but do you imagine it isn't
obvious to anyone that you are Charles Rambert, and that you were
disguised as Mademoiselle Jeanne?"
"But you are wrong," Paul insisted. "Charles Rambert is dead."
"So you know that, do you? Then you admit that you know whom I am
talking about?"
The lad coloured and began to tremble. Juve looked out of the window,
pretending not to notice him, and smiled gently. Then he went on in a
friendly tone. "But you know it's stupid to deny what can't be denied.
Besides, you should remember that if I know you are Charles Rambert I
must know something else as well; and therefore——"
"Well, yes," Paul acknowledged, "I am Charles Rambert, and I was
disguised as Mademoiselle Jeanne. How did you know it? Why were you at
the Saint-Anthony's Pig? Had you come to arrest me? And where are you
taking me now—to prison?"

Juve shrugged his shoulders.
"You want to know too much, my boy. Besides, you ought to know Paris,
and so ought to be able to guess where I told the driver to go, merely by
looking at the streets we are passing through."
"That is exactly what frightens me," Charles Rambert replied. "We are on
the quays, near the Law Courts."
"And the Police Station, my son. Quite so. Now it's quite useless to make a
scene: you will gain nothing by attempting to get away. You are in the
hands of justice, or rather in my hands, which is not quite the same thing, so
come quietly. That is really good advice!"
A few minutes later the cab stopped at the Tour Pointue which has such
melancholy associations for so many criminals. Juve alighted and made his
companion alight as well, paid the driver, and walked up the staircase to the
first floor of the building. It was daylight now, and the men were coming on
duty; all of them saluted Juve as he walked along with his trembling
captive. The detective went down one long passage, turned into another,
and opened a door.
"Go in there," he ordered curtly.
Charles Rambert obeyed, and found himself in a small room the nature of
which he recognised immediately from the furniture it contained. It was the
measuring room of the anthropometric service. So what he feared was about
to happen: Juve was going to lock him up!
But the detective called out in a loud tone: "Hector, please!" and one of the
men who remained on duty in the department, in case they were required by
any of the detective inspectors to find the records of any previously
convicted criminal, came hurrying in.
"Ah, M. Juve, and with a bag too! So early? You think he has been here
before?"
"No," said Juve in a dry tone that put a stop to further indiscreet questions.
"I don't want you to look up my companion's record, but to take his
measurements, and very carefully too."

The man was somewhat surprised at the order, for it was not usual to be
asked to do such work at so very early an hour. He was rather irritable too at
being disturbed from the rest he was enjoying, and it was very curtly that he
spoke to Charles Rambert.
"Come here, please: the standard first: take off your boots."
Charles Rambert obeyed and stood under the standard of measurement, and
then, as the assistant ordered him, he submitted to having his fingers
smeared with ink so that his finger prints might be taken, to being
photographed, full face and in profile, and finally to having the width of his
head, from ear to ear, measured with a special pair of caliper compasses.
Hector was surprised by his docility.
"I must say your friend is not very talkative, M. Juve. What has he been up
to?" and as the detective merely shrugged his shoulders and did not reply,
he went on: "That's done, sir. We will develop the negatives and take the
prints, and recopy the measurements, and the record shall be classified in
the register in a couple of hours."
Charles Rambert grew momentarily more scared. He felt that he was
definitely arrested now. But Juve left the arm-chair in which he had been
resting, and coming up to him laid his hand upon his shoulder, speaking the
while with a certain gentleness.
"Come: there are some other points as to which I wish to examine you." He
led him from the anthropometric room along a dark corridor, and presently
taking a key from his pocket, opened a door and pushed the lad in before
him. "Go in there," he said. "This is where we make the dynamometer
tests."
A layman looking round the room might almost have supposed that it was
merely some carpenter's shop. Pieces of wood, of various shapes and sizes
and sorts, were arranged along the wall or laid upon the floor; in glass cases
were whole heaps of strips of metal, five or six inches long, and of varying
thickness.
Juve closed the door carefully behind him.

"For pity's sake, M. Juve, tell me what you are going to do with me,"
Charles Rambert implored.
The detective smiled.
"Well, there you ask a question which I can't answer off-hand. What am I
going to do with you, eh? That still depends upon a good many things."
As he spoke Juve tossed his hat aside and, looking at a rather high kind of
little table, proceeded to remove from it a grey cloth which protected it
from dust, and drew it into the middle of the room. This article was
composed of a metal body screwed on to a strong tripod, with a lower tray
that moved backwards and forwards, and two lateral buttresses with a steel
cross-piece firmly bolted on to them above. Upon this framework were two
dynamometers worked by an ingenious piece of mechanism. Juve looked at
Charles Rambert and explained.
"This is Dr. Bertillon's effraction dynamometer. I am going to make use of
it to find out at once whether you are or are not deserving of some little
interest. I don't want to tell you more just at present." Juve slipped into a
specially prepared notch a thin strip of wood, which he had selected with
particular care from one of the heaps of material arranged along the wall.
From a chest he took a tool which Charles Rambert, who had had some
intimate experience of late with the light-fingered community, immediately
recognised as a jemmy. "Take hold of that," said Juve, and as Charles took it
in his hand he added: "Now put the jemmy into this groove, and press with
all your force. If you can move that needle to a point which I know, and
which it is difficult but not impossible to reach, you may congratulate
yourself on being in luck."
Stimulated by this encouragement from the detective, Charles Rambert
exerted all his force upon the lever, only afraid that he might not be strong
enough. Juve stopped him very soon.
"That's all right," he said, and substituting a strip of sheet-iron for the strip
of wood, he handed another tool to the lad. "Now try again."
A few seconds later Juve took a magnifying lens, and closely examined
both the strip of metal and the strip of wood. He gave a little satisfied click
with his tongue, and seemed to be very pleased.

"Charles Rambert," he remarked, "I think we are going to do a very good
morning's work. Dr. Bertillon's new apparatus is an uncommonly useful
invention."
The detective might have gone on with his congratulatory monologue had
not an attendant come into the room at that moment.
"Ah, there you are, M. Juve: I have been looking for you everywhere. There
is someone asking for you who says he knows you will receive him. I told
him this was not the proper time, but he was so insistent that I promised to
bring you his card. Besides, he says you have given him an appointment."
Juve took the card and glanced at it.
"That's all right," he said. "Take the gentleman into the parlour and tell him
I will be with him in a minute." The attendant went out and Juve looked at
Charles Rambert with a smile. "You are played out," he said; "before we do
anything else common humanity requires that you should get some rest.
Come, follow me; I will take you to a room where you can throw yourself
on a sofa and get a sleep for a good hour at least while I go and see this
visitor." He led the lad into a small waiting-room, and as Charles Rambert
obediently stretched himself upon the sofa, Juve looked at the pale and
nervous and completely silent boy, and said with even greater gentleness:
"There, go to sleep; sleep quietly, and presently——"
Juve left the room, and called a man to whom he gave an order in a low
tone.
"Stay with that gentleman, please. He is a friend of mine, but a friend, you
understand, who must not leave this place. I am going to see some one, but
I will come up again presently," and Juve hurried downstairs to the parlour.
The visitor rose as the door opened, and Juve made a formal bow.
"M. Gervais Aventin?" he said.
"M. Gervais Aventin," that gentleman replied. "And you are Detective-
Inspector Juve?"
"I am, sir," the detective answered, and pointing his visitor to a chair he
took a seat himself at a small table littered with official documents.

"Sir," Juve began, "I ventured to send you that pressing invitation to come
to Paris to-day, because from enquiries I had made about you, I was sure
that you were a man with a sense of duty, who would not resent being put to
inconvenience when it was a question of co-operating in a work of justice
and of truth."
The visitor, a man of perhaps thirty, of somewhat fashionable appearance
and careful though quiet dress, manifested much surprise.
"Enquiries about me, sir? And pray, why? I must confess that I was very
much astonished when I received your letter informing me that the famous
Detective-Inspector Juve wished to see me, and at first I suspected some
practical joke. On consideration I decided to obey your summons without
further pressing, but I did not imagine that you would have made any
enquiries about me. How do you know me, may I ask?"
Juve smiled.
"Is it the fact," he enquired, instead of replying directly, for like the good
detective that he was, intensely keen on his work, he enjoyed mystifying
people with whom he conversed, "is it the fact that your name is Gervais
Aventin? A civil engineer? The possessor of considerable private means?
About to be married? And that lately you made a short journey to
Limoges?"
The young man nodded and smiled.
"Your information is perfectly correct in every particular. But I do not yet
understand what crime of mine can have subjected me to these enquiries on
your part."
Juve smiled again.
"I wondered, sir, why you vouchsafed no answer to the local enquiries
which have been made at my instance, to the advertisements which I have
had inserted in the papers, in which I discreetly made it known that the
police wanted to get into communication with all the passengers who
travelled first class, in the slow train from Paris to Luchon, on the night of
the 23rd of December last."

This time the young man looked anxious.
"Great Scott!" he exclaimed, "are you in the employment of my future
father-in-law?"
Juve burst into a roar of laughter.
"First acknowledge that you did travel by that train on that night: that you
got into it at Vierzon, where you live and where you are going to be
married; and that you were going to Limoges to see a lady—and that you
did not want your fiancée's family to know anything about it."
Gervais Aventin pulled himself together.
"I had no idea that the official police undertook espionage of that sort," he
said rather drily. "But it is true, sir, that I went to Limoges—my last post
before I was appointed to Vierzon—to take a final farewell to a lady. But
since you are so accurately informed about all this, since you even know
what train I went by, a train I deliberately chose because in little places like
Vierzon so much notice is taken of people who travel by the express, you
must also know——"
Juve checked him with a wave of the hand.
"A truce to jesting," he said; "excuse me, sir, I was only amusing myself by
observing once more how quickly decent people, who have a little
peccadillo on their conscience, are disturbed when they think they have
been found out. Your love affairs do not matter to me, sir; I don't want to
know if you have a lady friend, or not. The information I want from you is
of a very different nature. Tell me simply this: in what circumstances did
you make that journey? What carriage did you get into? Who travelled with
you in that carriage? I am asking you because, sir, I have every reason to
believe that you travelled that night with a murderer who committed a
crime of particular atrocity, and I think you may be able to give me some
interesting information."
The young man, who had been looking grave, smiled once more.
"I would rather have that than an enquiry into my defunct love affairs. Well,
sir, I got into the train at Vierzon, into a first-class carriage——"

"What kind of carriage?"
"One of the old-fashioned corridor carriages; that is to say, not a corridor
communicating with the other carriages, but a single carriage with four
compartments, two in the middle opening on to the corridor, and two at the
ends communicating with the corridor by a small door."
"I know," said Juve; "the lavatory is in the centre, and the end
compartments are like the ordinary noncorridor compartments, except that
they have only seven seats, and also have the little door communicating
with the narrow passage down one side of the carriage."
"That's it. I got into the smoking compartment at the end."
"Don't go too quick," said Juve. "Tell me whom you saw in the various
compartments. Let us go even farther back. You were on the platform,
waiting for the train; it came in; what happened then?"
"You want to be very precise," Gervais Aventin remarked. "Well, when the
train pulled up I looked for the first-class carriage; it was a few yards away
from me, and the corridor was alongside the platform. I got into the corridor
and wanted to choose my compartment. I remember clearly that I went first
to the rear compartment, the last one in the carriage. I could not get into
that, for the door opening into it from the corridor was locked."
"That is correct," Juve nodded. "I know from the guard that that
compartment was empty. What did you do then?"
"I turned back and, passing the ladies' compartment and the lavatory,
decided to take my seat in the one next it communicating with the corridor.
But luck was against me: a pane of glass was broken and it was bitterly cold
there; so I had to fall back on the only compartment left, the smoking one
towards the front of the train."
"Were there many of you there?"
"I thought at first that I was going to have a fellow-traveller, for there was
some luggage and a rug arranged on the seat. But the passenger must have
been in the lavatory, for I didn't see him. I lay down on the other seat and
went to sleep. When I got out of the train at Limoges, my fellow-traveller

must have been in the lavatory again, for I remember quite distinctly that he
was not on the opposite seat. I thought at the time how easy it would have
been for me to steal his luggage and walk off with his valise: nobody would
have seen me."
Juve had listened intently to every word of the story. He asked for one
further detail with a certain anxiety in his tone.
"Tell me, sir, when you woke up did you have any impression that the
baggage arranged on the seat opposite yours had been disturbed at all?
Might the traveller, whom you did not see, have come in for a sleep while
you yourself were asleep?"
Gervais Aventin made a little gesture of uncertainty.
"I can't answer in the affirmative, M. Juve. I did not notice that; and,
besides, when I got into the compartment, the shade was pulled down over
the lamp, and the curtains were drawn across the windows. I hardly saw
how the things were arranged. And then, when I got out at Limoges I was in
a hurry, and only thought about finding my ticket and jumping on to the
platform. But I do not think the other fellow did take his place while I was
asleep. I did not hear a sound, and yet I did not sleep at all heavily."
"So you travelled in a first-class compartment in the slow train from Paris
to Luchon on the night of the 23rd of December, and in that compartment
there was the luggage of a traveller whom you did not see—who may not
have been there?"
"Yes," said Gervais Aventin, and, as the detective sat silent for a moment,
he enquired: "Is my information too vague to be of any use to you?"
Juve was wondering inwardly why the dickens Etienne Rambert was not in
that compartment when, according to the depositions of the guard, he must
have been there; but he said nothing of this. Instead, he said:
"Your information is most valuable, sir. You have told me everything I
wanted to know."
Gervais Aventin displayed still more surprise.

"Well," he said, "by way of return, M. Juve, tell me something which
puzzles me. How did you know I travelled by that train that night?"
The detective drew out his pocket-book, and from an inner pocket produced
a first-class ticket, which he held out to the engineer.
"That is very simple," he replied. "Here is your ticket. I wanted to know
exactly who everyone was who travelled in that first-class compartment, so
I sent for all the first-class tickets which were given up by passengers who
left the train at the different stations. That's how I got yours: it had been
issued at Vierzon, the station where you got in, so I interrogated the clerk at
the booking-office who gave me a description of you; then I sent down an
inspector to Vierzon to make discreet enquiries, and he got me all the
information I required. All I had to do then was to write and ask you to
come here to-day; and the regrettable story of your broken relations with
the lady was an ample guarantee to me that you would be punctual at the
appointment!"

XIX. Jérôme Fandor
Whistling a quick-step, sure sign with him of a light heart, Juve opened the
door of the little room where he had left Charles Rambert, and looked at the
sleeping lad.
"It's a fine thing to be young," he remarked to the man he had left on guard;
"that boy plunges into the wildest adventures and shaves the scaffold by an
inch, and yet after one late night he sleeps as peacefully as any chancellor
of the Legion of Honour!" He shook the lad with a friendly hand. "Get up,
lazy-bones! It's ten o'clock: high time for me to carry you off."
"Where to?" the unhappy boy asked, rubbing his eyes.
"There's no doubt about inquisitiveness being your besetting sin," Juve
replied cryptically. "Well, we've got a quarter of an hour's drive in front of
us. But you're not going to prison; I'm going to take you home with me!"

Juve had taken off his collar and tie and put on an old jacket, had set a great
bowl of bread and milk in front of Charles Rambert, and was leisurely
enjoying his own breakfast.
"I didn't want to answer any questions just now," he said, "because I hate
talking in cabs where I have to sit by a man's side, and can't see him or hear
half he says. But now that we are snug and comfortable here, I've no right to
keep you waiting any longer, and I'll give you a bit of good news."
"Snug" and "comfortable" were the right words with which to describe
Juve's private abode. The detective had attained an honourable and lucrative
position in his profession, and, exposed as he was in the course of his work
to all manner of dangers and privations, had compensated himself by
making an entirely satisfactory, if not luxurious, nest where he could rest
after his labours.

When he had finished his breakfast he lighted a big cigar and sank into an
easy chair, crossing his hands behind his head. He turned a steady gaze
upon Charles Rambert, who was still completely puzzled, and half
frightened by this sudden amiability, and did not know whether he was a
prisoner or not.
"I will give you a bit of good news; that is, that you are innocent of the
Langrune affair when you were Charles Rambert, and innocent also of the
Danidoff affair, when you were Mademoiselle Jeanne. I need not say
anything about the scrap last night, in which you played a still more
distinguished part."
"Why tell me that?" asked Charles Rambert nervously. "Of course I know I
did not rob Princess Sonia Danidoff; but how did you recognise me last
night, and how did you find out that I was Mademoiselle Jeanne?"
Juve smiled, and shook back a lock of hair that was falling over his eyes.
"Listen, my boy: do you suppose that thundering blow you dealt the
excellent Henri Verbier when he was making love to Mademoiselle Jeanne,
could fail to make me determined to find out who that young lady was who
had the strength of a man?"
The allusion made Charles Rambert most uneasy.
"But that does not explain how you recognised me in Paul to-night. I
recognised you in Henri Verbier at the hotel, but I had no idea that it was
you last night."
"That's nothing," said Juve with a shake of the head. "And you may
understand once for all that when I have once looked anybody square in the
face, he needs to be an uncommonly clever fellow to escape me afterwards
by means of any disguise. You don't know how to make up, but I do; and
that's why I took you in and you did not take me in."
"What makes you believe I did not rob Princess Sonia Danidoff?" Charles
Rambert asked after a pause. "I am quite aware that everything points to my
having been the thief."

"Not quite everything," Juve answered gently. "There are one or two things
you don't know, and I'll tell you one of them. The Princess was robbed by
the same man who robbed Mme. Van den Rosen, wasn't she? Well, Mme.
Van den Rosen was the victim of a burglary: some of the furniture in her
room was broken into, and the tests I made this morning with the
dynamometer proved to me that you are not strong enough to have caused
those fractures."
"Not strong enough?" Charles Rambert ejaculated.
"No. I told you at the time that your innocence would be proved if you were
strong enough, but I said that to prevent you from playing tricks and not
putting out all your strength. As a matter of fact it was your comparative
weakness that saved you. The dynamometer tests and the figures I obtained
just now prove absolutely that you are innocent of the Van den Rosen
robbery and, consequently, of the robbery from Sonia Danidoff."
Again the lad reflected for a minute or two.
"But you didn't know who I was when you came to the hotel, did you? And
therefore had no suspicion that I was Charles Rambert? That's true, isn't it?
How did you find out? I was supposed to be dead."
"That was a child's job," Juve replied. "I got the anthropometric records of
the body that had been buried as yours, and I planned to get symmetrical
photographs of you in your character of Mademoiselle Jeanne, as I did of
you to-day at head-quarters. My first job was to lay hands upon
Mademoiselle Jeanne, and I very soon found her, as I expected, turned into
a man again, and living in the most disreputable company. I made any
number of enquiries, and when I went to the Saint-Anthony's Pig last
evening I knew that it was some unknown person who had been buried in
your stead; that Paul was Mademoiselle Jeanne; and that Mademoiselle
Jeanne was Charles Rambert. It was my intention to arrest you, and to
ascertain definitely by means of the dynamometer that you were innocent of
the Langrune and the Danidoff crimes."
"What you tell me about the dynamometer explains how you know I am not
the man who committed the robbery at the hotel, but what clears me in your
eyes of the Langrune murder?"

"Bless my soul!" Juve retorted, "you are arguing as if you wanted to prove
you were guilty. Well, my boy, it's the same story as the other. The man who
murdered the Marquise de Langrune smashed things, and the dynamometer
has proved that you are not strong enough to have been the man."
"And suppose I had been mad at the time," Charles Rambert said, his
hesitation and his tone betraying his anxiety about the answer, "could I have
been strong enough then? Might I have committed these crimes without
knowing anything about it?"
But Juve shook his head.
"I know: you are referring to your mother, and are haunted by an idea that
through some hereditary taint you might be a somnambulist and have done
these things in your sleep. Come, Charles Rambert, finish your breakfast
and put all that out of your head. To begin with, you would not have been
strong enough, even then; and in the next place there is nothing at present to
show that you are mad, nor even that your poor mother—— But I need not
go on: I've got some rather odd notions on that subject."
"Then, M. Juve——"
"Drop the 'monsieur'; call me 'Juve.'"
"Then, if you know that I am innocent, you can go and tell my father? I
have nothing to fear? I can reappear in my own name?"
Juve looked at the lad with an ironical smile.
"How you go ahead!" he exclaimed. "Please understand that although I do
believe you are innocent, I am almost certainly the only person who does.
And unfortunately I have not yet got any evidence that would be
sufficiently convincing and certain to put the persuasion of your guilt out of
your father's head, or anybody else's. This is not the time for you to
reappear: it would simply mean that you would be arrested by some
detective who knows less than I do, and thrown into prison as you
confidently expected to be this morning."
"Then what is to become of me?"
"What do you think of doing yourself?"

"Going to see my father."
"No, no," Juve protested once more. "I tell you not to go. It would be stupid
and utterly useless. Wait a few days, a few weeks if need be. When I have
put my hand on Fantômas' shoulder, I will be the very first to take you to
your father, and proclaim your innocence."
"Why wait until Fantômas is arrested?" Charles Rambert asked, the mere
sound of the name seeming to wake all his former enthusiasm on the subject
of that famous criminal.
"Because if you are innocent of the charge brought against you, it is
extremely likely that Fantômas is the guilty party. When he is laid by the
heels you will be able to protest your innocence without any fear."
Charles Rambert sat silent for some minutes, musing on the odd chance of
destiny which required him to make his own return to normal life
contingent on the arrest of a mysterious criminal, who was merely
suspected, and had never been seen nor discovered.
"What do you advise me to do?" he asked presently.
The detective got up and began to pace the room.
"Well," he began, "the first fact is that I am interested in you, and the next
is, that while I was having that rough-and-tumble last night with that
scoundrel in the supper-room, I thought for a minute or two that it was all
up with me: your chipping in saved my life. On the other hand I may be
said to have saved your life now by ascertaining your innocence and
preventing your arrest. So we are quits in a way. But you began the delicate
attentions, and I have only paid you back, so it's up to me to start a new
series and not turn you out into the street where you would inevitably get
into fresh trouble. So this is what I propose: change your name and go and
take a room somewhere; get into proper clothes and then come back to me,
and I'll give you a letter to a friend of mine who is on one of the big evening
papers. You are well educated, and I know you are energetic. You are keen
on everything connected with the police, and you'll get on splendidly as a
reporter. You will be able to earn an honest and respectable name that way.
Would you like to try that idea?"

"It's awfully good of you," Charles Rambert said gratefully. "I should love
to be able to earn my living by work so much to my taste."
Juve cut his thanks short, and held out some bank-notes.
"There's some money; now clear out; it's high time we both got a little
sleep. Get busy settling into rooms, and in a fortnight I shall expect you to
be editor of La Capitale."
"Under what name shall you introduce me to your friend?" Charles Rambert
asked, after a little nervous pause.
"H'm!" said Juve with a smile: "it will have to be an alias of course."
"Yes; and as it will be the name I shall write under it ought to be an easy
one to remember."
"Something arresting, like Fantômas!" said Juve chaffingly, amused by the
curious childishness of this lad, who could take keen interest in such a trifle
when he was in so critical a situation. "Choose something not too common
for the first name; and something short for the other. Why not keep the first
syllable of Fantômas? Oh, I've got it—Fandor; what about Jérôme Fandor?"
Charles Rambert murmured it over.
"Jérôme Fandor! Yes, you are right, it sounds well."
Juve pushed him out of the door.
"Well, Jérôme Fandor, leave me to my slumbers, and go and rig yourself
out, and get ready for the new life that I'm going to open up for you!"
Bewildered by the amazing adventures of which he had just been the central
figure, Charles Rambert, or Jérôme Fandor, walked down Juve's staircase
wondering. "Why should he take so much trouble about me? What interest
or what motive can he have? And how on earth does he find out such a
wonderful lot of things?"

XX. A Cup of Tea
After the tragic death of her husband, Lady Beltham—whose previous life
had inclined to the austere—withdrew into almost complete retirement. The
world of gaiety and fashion knew her no more. But in the world where
poverty and suffering reign, in hospital wards and squalid streets, a tall and
beautiful woman might often be seen, robed all in black, with distinguished
bearing and eyes serene and grave, distributing alms and consolation as she
moved. It was Lady Beltham, kind, good and very pitiful, bent on the work
of charity to which she had vowed her days.
Yet she had not allowed herself to be crushed by sorrow; after the tragedy
which left her a widow, she had assumed the effective control of her
husband's property, and, helped by faithful friends, had carried on his
interests and administered his estates, spreading a halo of kindness all
around her.
To help her in the heavy correspondence entailed by all these affairs, she
found three secretaries none too many. On M. Etienne Rambert's
recommendation, Thérèse Auvernois was now one of these, and the young
girl was perfectly happy in her new surroundings; time was helping her to
forget the tragedy which had taken her grandmother from her at Beaulieu,
and she enjoyed the company of the well-born, well-bred English
gentlewomen.
Lady Beltham was reclining on a sofa in the great hall of her house at
Neuilly. It was a spacious room, furnished half as a lounge and half as an
office, and Lady Beltham liked to receive people there. A large glass-
enclosed balcony commanded a view over the garden and the boulevard
Richard Wallace beyond, with the Bois de Boulogne beyond that again. A
few minutes before, a footman had brought in a table and set out tea-things,
and Lady Beltham was reading while Thérèse and the two young English
girls were chattering among themselves.
The telephone bell rang and Thérèse answered it.

"Hullo? Yes ... yes: you want to know if you may call this evening? The
Reverend—oh, yes: you have just come from Scotland? Hold on a minute."
She turned to Lady Beltham. "It is Mr. William Hope, and he wants to know
if you will see him to-night. He has just come from your place in Scotland."
"The dear man!" exclaimed Lady Beltham; "of course he may come," and
as Thérèse turned lightly to convey her permission to the clergyman waiting
at the other end of the line, she caught a smile on the face of one of the
other girls. "What is the joke, Lisbeth?" she enquired.
The girl laughed brightly.
"I think the worthy parson must have smelt the tea and toast, and wants to
make up for the wretched dinner he got in the train."
"You are incorrigible," Lady Beltham replied. "Mr. Hope is above such
material matters."
"Indeed he isn't, Lady Beltham," the girl persisted. "Why, only the other day
he told Thérèse that all food deserved respect and esteem directly a blessing
had been asked upon it, and that a badly cooked steak was a kind of
sacrilege."
"A badly cooked pheasant," Thérèse corrected her.
"You are both wicked little slanderers," Lady Beltham protested gently,
"and don't know the blessing a good appetite is. You do, Susannah, don't
you?"
Susannah, a pretty Irish girl, looked up from a letter she was reading, and
blushed.
"Oh, Lady Beltham, I've been ever so much less hungry since Harry's ship
sailed."
"I don't quite see the connection," Lady Beltham answered. "Love is good
nourishment for the soul, but not for the body. However, a good appetite is
nothing to be ashamed of, and you ought to keep your roses for your future
husband, and qualify in every way to be an excellent mother of a family."

"With lots and lots of children," Lisbeth went on wickedly: "seven or eight
daughters at the very least, all of whom will marry nice young clergymen
when their time comes and——"
She stopped speaking and the light chatter died away as a footman entered
and announced the Reverend William Hope, who followed him
immediately into the room, an elderly man with a full, clean-shaven face
and a comfortable portliness of figure.
Lady Beltham offered him a cordial hand.
"I am delighted you are back," she said. "Will you have a cup of tea with
us?"
The parson made a general bow to the girls gathered about the table.
"I got a wretched dinner in the train," he began, but Lisbeth interrupted him.
"Don't you think this tea smells delicious?" she asked.
The parson put out his hand to take the cup she offered to him, and bowed
and smiled.
"Precisely what I was going to observe, Miss Lisbeth."
Thérèse and Susannah turned away to hide their amusement, and Lady
Beltham adroitly changed the subject. She moved towards her writing-table.
"Mr. Hope must have much to tell me, girls, and it is getting late. I must get
to business. Did you have a good journey?"
"Quite as good as usual, Lady Beltham. The people at Scotwell Hill are
very plucky and good, but it will be a hard winter; there is snow on the hills
already."
"Have the women and children had all their woollen things?"
"Oh, yes: twelve hundred garments have been distributed according to a list
drawn up by the under-steward; here it is," and he handed a paper to Lady
Beltham, who passed it on to Susannah.

"I will ask you to check the list," she said to the girl, and turned again to the
clergyman. "The under-steward is a good fellow, but he is a rabid politician;
he may have omitted some families that are openly radical; but I think
charity should be given equally to all, for poverty makes no political
distinctions."
"That is the right Christian view," the clergyman said approvingly.
"And what about the sanatorium at Glasgow?" Lady Beltham went on.
"It is very nearly finished," the good man answered. "I have got your
lawyers to cut down the contractor's accounts by something like fifteen per
cent, which means a saving of nearly three hundred pounds."
"Excellent," said Lady Beltham, and she turned to Thérèse. "You must add
that three hundred pounds to the funds of the Scotwell Hill coal charity,"
she said. "They will want all of it if the winter is going to be a hard one,"
and Thérèse made a note of the instruction, full of admiration for Lady
Beltham's simple generosity.
But Mr. Hope was fidgeting on his chair. He seized an opportunity when
Lady Beltham, busy making notes, had turned her deep and steady eyes
away from him, to say in a low tone:
"Have I your permission just to mention—poor Lord Beltham?"
Lady Beltham started, and her face betrayed an emotion which she bravely
controlled. Hearing the name pronounced, the three girls withdrew to the far
end of the room, where they began to talk among themselves. Lady
Beltham signified her assent, and Mr. Hope began.
"You know, dear friend, this has been my first visit to Scotland since Lord
Beltham's death. I found your tenants still grievously upset by the tragedy
that occurred nearly a year ago. They have got by heart all the newspaper
accounts of the mysterious circumstances attending Lord Beltham's death,
but those are not enough to satisfy the sympathetic curiosity of these
excellent people, and I was obliged to tell them over and over again in full
detail—all we knew."

"I hope no scandal has gathered round his name," said Lady Beltham
quickly.
"You need have no fear of that," the clergyman replied in the same low
tone. "The rumour that got about when the crime was first discovered, that
Lord Beltham had been surprised in an intrigue and killed in revenge, has
not won acceptance. Local opinion agrees that he was decoyed into a trap
and killed by the man Gurn, who meant to rob him, but who was either
surprised or thought he was going to be, and fled before he had time to take
the money or the jewels from the body of his victim. They know that the
murderer has never been caught, but they also know that there is a price on
his head, and they all hope the police—— Oh, forgive me for recalling all
these painful memories!"
While he had been speaking, Lady Beltham's face had expressed almost
every shade of emotion and distress; it seemed to be drawn with pain at his
concluding words. But she made an effort to control herself, and spoke
resignedly.
"It cannot be helped, dear Mr. Hope. Go on."
But the clergyman changed the topic.
"Oh, I was quite forgetting," he said more brightly. "The under-steward has
turned out the two Tillys, quite on his own authority: you must remember
them, two brothers, blacksmiths, who drank a great deal and paid very little,
and created so much scandal in the place."
"I object to the under-steward doing any such thing without referring to me
first," Lady Beltham exclaimed warmly. "Man's duty is to persuade and
forgive, not to judge and punish. Kindness breeds kindness, and it is pity
that wins amendment. Why should a subordinate, my under-steward,
presume to do what I would not permit myself to do?"
She had sprung to her feet and was pacing excitedly about the room; she
had wholly dropped the impassive mask she habitually wore, concealing her
real personality.
The three girls watched her in silence.

The door opened anew, and Silbertown came in, the major-domo of Lady
Beltham's establishment at Neuilly. He brought the evening letters, and the
girls speedily took all the envelopes and newspapers from the tray and
began to sort and open them, while the major-domo entered into
conversation with his mistress, and the Rev. William Hope seized the
opportunity to say good night, and take his leave.
Many of the letters were merely appeals to help in money or in kind, but
one long letter Lisbeth handed to Lady Beltham. She glanced at the
signature.
"Ah, here is news of M. Etienne Rambert," she exclaimed, and as Thérèse
instinctively drew near, knowing that she, too, might hear something of
what her old friend had written, Lady Beltham put the letter into her hand.
"You read it, my dear, and then you can tell me presently what he has to
say."
Thérèse read the letter eagerly. M. Etienne Rambert had left Paris a week
before, upon a long and important journey. The energetic old fellow was to
make a trip in Germany first, and then go from Hamburg to England, where
he had some business to attend to on behalf of Lady Beltham, with whom
he was on more confidential terms than ever. Then he meant to sail from
Southampton and spend the winter in Colombia, where he had important
interests of his own to look after.
While Thérèse was reading, Lady Beltham continued her conversation with
her major-domo.
"I am glad you had the park gate seen to this afternoon," she said. "You
know how nervous I am. My childhood in Scotland was very lonely, and
ever since then I have had a vague terror of solitude and darkness."
The major-domo reassured her: he had no lack of self-confidence.
"There is nothing for your ladyship to be afraid of; the house is perfectly
safe, and carefully guarded. Walter, the porter, is a first-rate watch-dog and
always sleeps with one eye open. And I, too——"
"Yes, I know, Silbertown," the young widow replied; "and when I give
myself time to think I am not nervous. Thank you; you can leave me now."

She turned to the three girls.
"I am tired, dears; we won't stay up any later."
Lisbeth and Susannah kissed her affectionately and went away. Thérèse
lingered a moment, to bring a book, a Bible, and place it on a table close to
Lady Beltham's chair. Lady Beltham laid a hand upon her head as if in
blessing, and said gently:
"Good night; God bless you, dear child!"

XXI. Lord Beltham's Murderer
It was on the point of midnight, and absolute stillness reigned throughout
the house.
But Lady Beltham had not gone to bed. Although she had remained in the
great hall where she did her work, she had been unable to settle down to
any occupation. She had read a little, and begun a letter, got up and sat
down; and finally, beginning to feel chilly, she had drawn an easy chair up
to the hearth, where a log was just burning out, and stretching out her
slippers to the warmth had fallen into a waking dream.
A sound caught her ear and she sat upright. At first she thought it was some
trick of the imagination, but in another minute the noise grew louder; there
was the hurrying of feet and voices, muffled at first but rapidly becoming
louder, and at last a regular uproar, doors banging, glass breaking, and
shouts from all parts of the house. Lady Beltham jumped up, nervous and
trembling; she was just going to the window when she heard a shot and
stopped dead where she stood. Then she rushed out into the vestibule.
"Help!" she screamed. "What on earth is the matter?" and remembering the
girls for whom she had assumed responsibility, she called out anxiously for
them. "Lisbeth! Thérèse! Susannah! Come to me!"
Doors upstairs were flung open, and with their hair streaming over their
night-dresses Thérèse and Susannah rushed downstairs and crouched down
by her side, stifling moans of terror.
"Lisbeth? Where is Lisbeth?" Lady Beltham asked sharply.
At the same moment she appeared, her face distorted with fright.
"Oh, Lady Beltham, it's dreadful! There's a man, a burglar in the garden!
And Walter is throttling him! They are fighting dreadfully! They'll kill one
another!"

Silbertown, the major-domo, came rushing in just then. Seeing the three
girls in their night-dresses he made as if to draw back, but Lady Beltham
called him in and demanded explanations.
"We had just finished our rounds," he answered breathlessly, "when we
caught sight of a man hiding in the shadows, a thief probably. When we
shouted to him he ran away, but we ran after him and seized him; he
resisted and there was a fight. But we have got him and the police will take
him away in a few minutes."
Lady Beltham listened, with jaw set and hands clenched.
"A thief?" she said, controlling her emotion. "How do you know he is a
thief?"
"Well," stammered the major-domo, "he is very poorly dressed, and besides,
what was he doing in the garden?"
Lady Beltham was recovering her calm.
"What excuse did he give for being there?" she asked coldly.
"We didn't give him time to invent one," said the major-domo. "We collared
him almost as soon as we saw him. And you know, madame, how
tremendously powerful Walter is: Walter gave him all he deserved!" and the
major-domo clenched his fists and made an expressive exhibition of the
porter's reception of the stranger.
Lisbeth was still overcome by what she had seen.
"Oh, the blood!" she muttered hysterically; "it was streaming!"
Lady Beltham spoke angrily to the major-domo.
"I hate brutality: is the man seriously hurt? I hope not. You ought to have
questioned him before assaulting him. No one in my house has a right to
use violence. 'Whoso smites with the sword shall perish by the sword'!"
The major-domo heard her in silent astonishment: it was not at all what he
expected to be told, in view of all the circumstances.
Lady Beltham went on more gently:

"I suppose I shall have to apologise to this man for your wrong and
thoughtless behaviour."
"Apologise?" exclaimed Silbertown in amazement. "Surely your ladyship
will not do that?"
"One must not shrink from humiliation when one has been in the wrong,"
said Lady Beltham, in the pulpit manner she affected. "Tell Walter to come
to me."
A few minutes later the porter, a muscular giant of a man, came into the
room and made a clumsy bow.
"How was it possible for anyone to get into the house at this time of night?"
his mistress enquired coldly.
Walter dropped his eyes and twisted his cap nervously.
"I hope your ladyship will forgive me. I caught the fellow, and as he was
struggling I hit him. Then two of the footmen came, and they are looking
after him in the kitchen."
"Has he given any explanation of his presence here since you assaulted him
—at which I am very angry?" said Lady Beltham.
"He hasn't said anything; at least——"
"Well?"
"I don't like to tell you."
"Please do like!" said Lady Beltham irritably.
"Well," Walter replied, overcoming his nervousness with an effort, "he says
your ladyship is well known for your charity to everybody, and—he wants
to see you."
There was a moment's pause.
"I will see him," said Lady Beltham at last, in a half-stifled voice.

"Will your ladyship allow me to point out the danger of doing any such
thing?" Silbertown exclaimed. "Very likely the man is a lunatic! Or it may
be a trick: Lord Beltham was murdered, and perhaps——"
Lady Beltham looked intently at the major-domo, seemingly trying to read
his thoughts. Then she answered slowly:
"I will see him. I will be more pitiful than you," and as the major-domo and
the porter made a gesture of futile protest, she added peremptorily: "I have
given my orders: kindly obey."
When the two men had reluctantly left the room, Lady Beltham turned to
the three girls.
"You had better leave me, darlings," she said, kindly but firmly. "Run away:
excitement is bad for you. Go back to bed. No, I assure you I shall be in no
danger whatever," and for a few minutes she was left alone.

"Speak," said Lady Beltham in a toneless voice.
The major-domo and the porter had led in, and placed before her, a man
with unkempt hair and ragged beard; he was dressed entirely in black, and
his face was tired and haggard. Lady Beltham, ghastly pale, was leaning for
support against the back of an arm-chair. The man did not raise his eyes to
her.
"I will not speak unless we are alone," he answered dully.
"Alone?" said Lady Beltham, fighting down her emotion. "Then it is
something serious you have to tell me?"
"If you know anything of people in misfortune, Madame," the man
answered gently, "you know that they do not like to humiliate themselves
before—before those who cannot understand," and he nodded towards the
major-domo and the porter.
"I do know something of misfortune," Lady Beltham replied, in firmer
tones; "and I will hear you alone." She looked at her two servants. "Leave

us, please."
The major-domo started.
"Leave you alone with him? It's madness!" and as Lady Beltham merely
looked at him in haughty surprise, he began to withdraw in confusion, but
still protesting. "It's—it's—— Your ladyship has no idea what this fellow
wants: do please——"
But Lady Beltham curtly cut him short.
"That is enough!"
A heavy velvet curtain fell over the closing door, and in the room, that was
dimly lighted by a small electric lamp, Lady Beltham was alone with the
strange individual to whom she had so readily, so oddly, consented to
accord a private interview. She followed her servants to the door and locked
it after them. Then with a sudden movement she sprang towards the man,
who was standing motionless in the middle of the room following her with
his eyes, and flung herself into his arms.
"Oh, Gurn, my darling, my darling!" she cried. "I love you! I love you,
darling!" She looked up at him and saw blood upon his forehead. "Good
God! The brutes have hurt you! What pain you must be in! Give me your
eyes, your lips!" With kisses from her own lips she stanched the blood that
was trickling down his cheeks, and with her fingers she smoothed his hair.
"I am so happy!" she murmured, and broke off again. "But you are mad!
Why, why come here like this, and let yourself be caught and tortured so?"
Moodily Gurn answered, returning kiss for kiss.
"Time has been so long without you! And this evening I was prowling
round and saw a light. I thought that every one would be asleep—except
you, of course. And so I came straight to you, over walls, and gates—drawn
to you like a moth to a candle: and that is all!"
With shining eyes and heaving breast Lady Beltham clung to her lover.
"I love you so! How brave you are! Yes, I am wholly, only yours. But this is
madness! You might be arrested and given up to no one knows what horror,
without my knowing!"

Gurn seemed to be hypnotised by the fierce and passionate love of this great
lady.
"I never gave that a thought," he murmured. "I only thought of you!"
Silence fell upon these tragic lovers as they stood reading love in one
another's eyes, and recalling memories common to both, utterly unlike as
they were to outward seeming, yet linked by the strongest bond of all, the
bond of love.
"What happy hours we lived together out there!" Lady Beltham whispered.
Her thoughts had wandered to the far Transvaal and the battle-field where
first she had set eyes on Gurn, the sergeant of artillery with powder-
blackened face; and then to the homeward voyage on the mighty steamer
that bore them across the blue sea, towards the dull white cliffs of England.
Gurn's thoughts followed hers.
"Out there! Yes; and then on the vast ocean, on the ship homeward bound!
The quiet and peace of it all! And our meetings every day: our long, long
talks, and longer silences—in the clear starlight of those tropical skies! We
were learning to know each other——"
"We were learning to love each other," she said. "And then—London, and
Paris, and all the fever of life threatening our love. But that is the strongest
thing in the world: and—do you remember? Oh, the ecstasy of it all! But,
do you remember too what you did for me—through me—thirteen months
ago?"
She had risen, and with white lips and haggard eyes held Gurn's hands
within her own in an even tighter grip. Emotion choked her further
utterance.
"Yes, I remember," Gurn went on slowly: "it was in our little room in the
rue Lévert, and I was on my knees beside you when the door opened
quietly, and there stood Lord Beltham, mad with rage and jealousy!"
"I don't know what happened then," Lady Beltham whispered in a hopeless
undertone, drooping her head again.

"I do," muttered Gurn. "His eyes sought you, and a pistol was pointed at
your heart! He would have fired, but I sprang and struck him down! And
then I strangled him!"
Lady Beltham's eyes were fixed on the man's hands, that she still held
between her own.
"And I saw the muscles in these hands swell up beneath the skin as they
tightened on his throat!"
"I killed him!" groaned the man.
But Lady Beltham, swept by a surge of passion, sprang up and sought his
lips.
"Oh, Gurn!" she sobbed—"my darling!"

"Listen," said Gurn harshly, after a pause of anxious silence. "I had to see
you to-night, for who knows if to-morrow——" Lady Beltham shrank at the
words, but Gurn went on unheeding. "The police are after me. Of course I
have made myself almost unrecognisable, but twice just lately I have been
very nearly caught."
"Do you think the police have any accurate idea of what happened?" Lady
Beltham asked abruptly.
"No," said Gurn after a moment's hesitation. "They think I killed him with
the mallet. They have not found out that I had to strangle him. As far as I
know, they found no marks of my hands on his throat. At all events, they
could not have been clear, for his collar—you understand." The man spoke
of his crime without the least sign of remorse or repugnance now; his only
dread was lest he should be caught. "But, none the less, they have identified
me. That detective Juve is very clever."
"We did not have enough presence of mind," Lady Beltham said
despairingly. "We ought to have led them to suspect someone else: have
made them think that it was, say, Fantômas."

"Not that!" said Gurn nervously; "don't talk about Fantômas! We did all we
could. But the main thing now is that I should escape them. I had better get
away,—across the Channel,—across the Atlantic,—anywhere. But—would
you come too?"
Lady Beltham did not hesitate. She flung her arms around the neck of the
man who had murdered her own husband, and yielded to a paroxysm of
wild passion.
"You know that I am yours, wherever you may go. Shall it be to-morrow?
We can meet—you know where—and arrange everything for your flight."
"My flight?" said Gurn, with reproachful emphasis on the pronoun.
"For our flight," she replied, and Gurn smiled again.
"Then that is settled," he said. "I have seen you, and I am happy! Good-
bye."
He made a step towards the door, but Lady Beltham stayed him gently.
"Wait," she said. "Walter shall let you out of the house. Do not say
anything: I will explain; I will invent some story to satisfy the servants as to
your coming here, and also to justify your being allowed to go."
They clung to one another in a parting caress. Lady Beltham tore herself
away.
"Till to-morrow!" she whispered.
She stole to the door and unlocked it noiselessly, then crossed the room and
rang the bell placed near the fireplace. Resuming her impassive mask, and
the haughty air and attitude of cold indifference that were in such utter
contrast to her real character, she waited, while Gurn stood upright and still
in the middle of the room.
Walter, the porter, came in.
"Take that man to the door, and let no harm be done to him," said Lady
Beltham proudly and authoritatively. "He is free."

Without a word, or sign, or glance, Gurn went out of the room, and Walter
followed behind him to obey his mistress's command.

Once more alone in the great hall, Lady Beltham waited nervously to hear
the sound of the park gate closing behind Gurn. She did not dare go on to
the balcony to follow her departing lover with her eyes. So, shaken by her
recent emotions, she stood waiting and listening, in an agony to know that
he was safe. Then, of a sudden, the noise that she had heard an hour before
broke on her ears again: the noise of hurrying feet and broken shouts, and
words, vague at first but rapidly growing clearer. She crouched forward
listening, filled with a horrible fear, her hand laid upon her scarcely beating
heart.
"There he is: hold him!" some one shouted. "That's him all right! Look out,
constable!"
"This way, Inspector! Yes, it's him, it's Gurn! Ah, would you!"
Paler than death, Lady Beltham cowered down upon a sofa.
"Good God! Good God!" she moaned. "What are they doing to him!"
The uproar in the garden decreased, then voices sounded in the corridor,
Silbertown's exclamations rising above the frightened cries of the three
young girls.
"Gurn! Arrested! The man who murdered Lord Beltham!" Lisbeth called
out in anxious terror.
"But Lady Beltham? Dear God, perhaps he has murdered her too!"
The door was flung open and the girls rushed in. Lady Beltham by a
tremendous effort of will had risen to her feet, and was standing by the end
of the sofa.
"Lady Beltham! Alive! Yes, yes!" and Thérèse and Lisbeth and Susannah
rushed sobbing to her, and smothered her with caresses.

But the agonised woman motioned them away. With hard eyes and set
mouth she moved towards the window, straining her ears to listen. From the
park outside Gurn's voice rang distinctly; the lover wished to let his
mistress know what had happened, and to take a last farewell.
"I am caught, I am caught! Yes, I am Gurn, and I am caught!"
The fatal words were still ringing in Lady Beltham's ears when the major-
domo, Silbertown, came bursting into the room, with radiant face and
shining eyes and smiling lips, and hurried to his mistress.
"I thought as much!" he exclaimed excitedly. "It was the villain all right. I
recognised him from the description, in spite of his beard. I informed the
police! As a matter of fact they have been watching for the last two days.
Just fancy, your ladyship, a detective was shadowing Gurn—and when he
was going out of the house I gave him the signal!"
Lady Beltham stared at the major-domo in mute horror.
"Yes?" she muttered, on the point of swooning.
"I pointed him out to the police, and it's thanks to me, your ladyship, that
Gurn, the murderer, has been arrested at last!"
For just another moment Lady Beltham stared at the man who gave her
these appalling tidings, seemed to strive to utter something, then fell prone
to the floor, unconscious.
The major-domo and the girls sprang to her side to lavish attentions upon
her.
At that moment the door was pushed a little way open, and the figure of
Juve appeared.
"May I come in?" said he.

XXII. The Scrap of Paper
It was three o'clock when Juve arrived at the rue Lévert, and he found the
concierge of number 147 just finishing her coffee.
Amazed at the results achieved by the detective, the details of which she
had learned from the sensational articles in the daily paper she most
affected, Mme. Doulenques had conceived a most respectful admiration for
the Inspector of the Criminal Investigation Department.
"That man," she constantly declared to Madame Aurore, "it isn't eyes he has
in his head, it's telescopes, magnifying glasses! He sees everything in a
minute—even when it isn't there!"
She gave him an admiring "good afternoon, Inspector," as he came into her
lodge, and going to a board on which numbers of keys were hanging, took
one down and handed it to him.
"So there's something fresh to-day?" she said. "I've just seen in the paper
that M. Gurn has been arrested. So it was my lodger who did it? What a
dreadful man! Whoever would have thought it? It turns my blood cold to
think of him!"
Juve was never a man for general conversation, and he was still less
interested in the garrulity of this loquacious creature. He took the key and
cut short her remarks by walking to the door.
"Yes, Gurn has been arrested," he said shortly; "but he has made no
confession, so nothing is known for certain yet. Please go on with your
work exactly as though I were not in the house, Mme. Doulenques."
It was his usual phrase, and a constant disappointment to the concierge, who
would have asked nothing better than to go upstairs with the detective and
watch him at his wonderful work.
Juve went up the five floors to the flat formerly occupied by Gurn,
reflecting somewhat moodily. Of course Gurn's arrest was a success, and it

was satisfactory to have the scoundrel under lock and key, but in point of
fact Juve had learned nothing new in consequence of the arrest, and he was
obsessed with the idea that this murder of Lord Beltham was an altogether
exceptional crime. He did not yet know why Gurn had killed Lord Beltham,
and he did not even know exactly who Gurn himself was; all he could
declare was that the murder had been planned and carried out with
marvellous audacity and skill, and that was not enough.
Juve let himself into the flat and closed the door carefully behind him. The
rooms were in disorder, the result of the searches effected by the police. The
rent had not been paid for some time, and as no friend or relation had come
forward to assume control of Gurn's interests, the furniture and ornaments
of the little flat were to be sold by auction.
The detective walked through the rooms, then flung himself into an arm-
chair. He did not know precisely why he had come. He had searched the
place a dozen times already since his discovery of the corpse within the
trunk, and had found nothing more, no tell-tale marks or fresh detail, to
assist in the elucidation of the mystery. He would have given very much to
be able to identify Gurn with some other of the many criminals who had
passed through his hands, and still more to be able to identify him with that
one most mysterious criminal whose fearful deeds had shocked the world so
greatly. Somehow the particular way in which this murder was committed,
the very audacity of it, led him to think, to "sense," almost to swear that
——
Juve got up. It was little in accord with his active temperament to sit still.
Once more he went all round the flat.
"The kitchen? Let me see: I have been through everything? The stove? The
cupboards? The saucepans? Why, I went so far as to make sure that there
was no poison in them, though it seemed a wild idea. The anteroom?
Nothing there: the umbrella stand was empty, and the one interesting thing I
did see, the torn curtain, has been described and photographed officially."
He went back into the dining-room. "I've searched all the furniture: and I
went through all the parcels Gurn had done up before he left, and would, no
doubt, have come back for at his leisure, had it not been for my discovery of
the body, and the unfortunate publicity the newspapers gave to that fact." In

one corner of the room was a heap of old newspapers, crumpled and torn,
and thrown down in disorder. Juve kicked them aside. "I've looked through
all that, even read the agony columns, but there was nothing there." He
went into the bedroom and contemplated the bed, that the concierge had
stripped, the chairs set one on top of another in a corner, and the wardrobe
that stood empty, its former contents scattered on the floor by the police
during their search. There, too, nothing was to be found.
Against the wall, near the fireplace, was a little escritoire with a cupboard
above it, containing a few battered books.
"My men have been all through that," Juve muttered; "it's most unlikely that
they missed anything, but perhaps I had better see."
He sat down before it and began methodically to sort the scattered papers;
with quick, trained glance he scanned each document, putting one after
another aside with a grimace expressive of disappointment. Almost the last
document he picked up was a long sheet of parchment, and as he unfolded it
an exclamation escaped his lips. It was an official notice of Gurn's
promotion to the rank of sergeant when fighting under Lord Beltham in the
South African War. Juve read it through—he knew English well—and laid it
down with a gesture of discouragement.
"It is extraordinary," he muttered. "That seems to be perfectly authentic; it
is authentic, and it proves that this fellow was a decent fellow and a brave
soldier once; that is a fine record of service." He drummed his fingers on
the desk and spoke aloud. "Is Gurn really Gurn, then, and have I been
mistaken from start to finish in the little romance I have been weaving
round him? How am I to find the key to the mystery? How am I to prove
the truth of what I feel to be so very close to me, but which eludes me every
time, just as I seem to be about to grasp it?"
He went on with his search, and then, looking at the bookcase, took the
volumes out and, holding each by its two covers, shook it to make sure that
no papers were hidden among the leaves. But all in vain. He did the same
with a large railway time-table and several shipping calendars.
"The odd thing is," he thought, "that all these time-tables go to prove that
Gurn really was the commercial traveller he professed to be. It's exactly

things such as these one would expect to find in the possession of a man
who travelled much, and always had to be referring to the dates of sailing to
distant parts of the world."
In the bookcase was a box, made to represent a bound book, and containing
a collection of ordnance maps. Juve took them out to make sure that no
loose papers were included among them, and one by one unfolded every
map.
Then a sharp exclamation burst from his lips.
"Good Lord! Now there——"
In his surprise he sprang up so abruptly that he pushed back his chair, and
overturned it. His excitement was so great that his hands were shaking as he
carefully spread out upon the desk one of the ordnance maps he had taken
from the case.
"It's the map of the centre district all right: the map which shows Cahors,
and Brives, and Saint-Jaury and—Beaulieu! And the missing piece—it is
the missing piece that would give that precise district!"
Juve stared at the map with hypnotised gaze; for a piece had been cut out of
it, cut out with a penknife neatly and carefully, and that piece must have
shown the exact district where the château stood which had been occupied
by the Marquise de Langrune.
"Oh, if I could only prove it: prove that the piece missing from this map,
this map belonging to Gurn, is really and truly the piece I found near
Verrières Station just after the murder of the Marquise de Langrune—what
a triumph that would be! What a damning proof! What astounding
consequences this discovery of mine might have!"
Juve made a careful note of the number of the map, quickly and nervously,
folded it up again, and prepared to leave the flat.
He had made but a step or two towards the door when a sharp ring at the
bell made him jump.
"The deuce!" he exclaimed softly; "who can be coming to ring Gurn up
when everybody in Paris knows he has been arrested?" and he felt

mechanically in his pocket to make sure that his revolver was there. Then
he smiled. "What a fool I am! Of course it is only Mme. Doulenques,
wondering why I am staying here so long."
He strode to the door, flung it wide open, and then recoiled in astonishment.
"You?" he exclaimed, surveying the caller from top to toe. "You? Charles
Rambert! Or, I should say, Jérôme Fandor! Now what the deuce does this
mean?"

XXIII. The Wreck of the "Lancaster"
Jérôme Fandor entered the room without a word. Juve closed the door
behind him. The boy was very pale and manifestly much upset.
"What is the matter?" said Juve.
"Something terrible has happened," the boy answered. "I have just heard
awful news: my poor father is dead!"
"What?" Juve exclaimed sharply. "M. Etienne Rambert dead?"
Jérôme Fandor put a newspaper into the detective's hand. "Read that," he
said, and pointed to an article on the front page with a huge head-line:
"Wreck of the 'Lancaster': 150 Lives Lost." There were tears in his eyes, and
he had such obvious difficulty in restraining his grief, that Juve saw that to
read the article would be the speediest way to find out what had occurred.
The Red Star liner Lancaster, plying between Caracas and Southampton,
had gone down with all hands the night before, just off the Isle of Wight,
and at the moment of going to press only one person was known to have
been saved. There was a good sea running, but it was by no means rough,
and the vessel was still within sight of the lighthouse and making for the
open sea at full speed, when the lighthousemen suddenly saw her literally
blown into the air and then disappear beneath the waves. The alarm was
given immediately and boats of all kinds put off to the scene of the disaster,
but though a great deal of wreckage was still floating about, only one man
of the crew was seen, clinging to a spar; he was picked up by the Campbell
and taken to hospital, where he was interviewed by The Times, without,
however, being able to throw any light upon what was an almost
unprecedented catastrophe in the history of the sea. All he could say was
that the liner had just got up full speed and was making a perfectly normal
beginning of her trip, when suddenly a tremendous explosion occurred. He
himself was engaged at the moment fastening the tarpaulins over the
baggage hold, and he was confident that the explosion occurred among the
cargo. But he could give absolutely no more information: the entire ship

seemed to be riven asunder, and he was thrown into the sea, stunned, and
knew no more until he recovered consciousness and found himself aboard
the Campbell.
"It's quite incomprehensible," Juve muttered; "surely there can't have been
any powder aboard? No explosives are carried on these great liners; they
only take passengers and the mails." He scanned the list of passengers.
"Etienne Rambert's name is given among the first-class passengers, right
enough," he said. "Well, it's odd!"
Jérôme Fandor heaved a profound sigh.
"It is a fatality which I shall never get over," he said. "When you told me
the other day that you knew I was innocent, I ought to have gone to see my
father, in spite of what you said. I am sure he would have believed me and
come to see you; then you could have convinced him, and I should not have
this horrible grief of remembering that he had died without learning that his
son was not a bad man, but was quite deserving of his affection."
Jérôme Fandor was making a brave struggle to maintain his self-control,
and Juve looked at him without concealing the real sympathy he felt for him
in his grief. He put his hand kindly on his shoulder.
"Listen, my dear boy; odd as you may think it, you can take my word for it
that there is no need for you to despair; there is nothing to prove that your
father is dead; he may not have been on board."
The boy looked up in surprise.
"What do you mean, Juve?"
"I don't want to say anything, my boy, except that you would be very wrong
to give way to distress at present. If you have any confidence in me, you
may believe me when I say that. There is nothing yet to prove that you have
had this loss: and, besides, you still have your mother, who is perfectly sure
to get quite well: do you understand?—perfectly sure!" He changed the
subject abruptly. "There is one thing I should like to know: what the dickens
brought you here?"

"You were the first person I thought of in my trouble," Fandor replied.
"Directly I read about the disaster in that paper I came to tell you at once."
"Yes, I quite understand that," Juve answered. "What I do not understand is
how you guessed that you would find me here, in Gurn's flat."
The question seemed to perturb the boy.
"It—it was quite by chance," he stammered.
"That is the kind of explanation one offers to fools," Juve retorted. "By
what chance did you see me come into this house? What the deuce were
you doing in the rue Lévert?" The lad showed some inclination to make for
the door, but Juve stayed him peremptorily. "Answer my question, please:
how did you know I was here?"
Driven into a corner, the boy blurted out the truth:
"I had followed you."
"Followed me?" Juve exclaimed. "Where from?"
"From your rooms."
"You mean, and you may as well own up to it at once, that you were
shadowing me."
"Well, yes, M. Juve, it is true," Fandor confessed, all in one breath. "I was
shadowing you: I do every day!"
Juve was dumbfounded.
"Every day? And I never saw you! Gad, you are jolly clever! And may I
enquire why you have been exercising this supervision over me?"
Jérôme Fandor hung his head.
"Forgive me," he faltered; "I have been very stupid. I thought you—I
thought you were—Fantômas!"
The idea tickled the detective so much that he dropped back into a chair to
laugh at his ease.

"'Pon my word," he said, "you have an imagination! And what made you
suppose that I was Fantômas?"
"M. Juve," Fandor said earnestly, "I made a vow that I would find out the
truth, and discover the scoundrel who has made such awful havoc of my
life. But I did not know where to begin. From all you have said I realised
that Fantômas was a most extraordinarily clever man; I did not know
anyone who could be cleverer than you; and so I watched you! It was
merely logical!"
Far from being angry, Juve was rather flattered.
"I am amazed by what you have just told me, my boy," he said with a smile.
"In the first place your reasoning is not at all bad. Of course it is obvious
that I cannot suspect myself of being Fantômas, but I quite admit that if I
were in your place I might make the supposition, wild as it may seem. And,
in the next place, you have shadowed me without my becoming aware of
the fact, and that is very good indeed: a proof that you are uncommonly
smart." He looked at the lad attentively for a few moments, and then went
on more gravely: "Are you satisfied now that your hypothesis was wrong?
Or do you still suspect me?"
"No, I don't suspect you now," Fandor declared; "not since I saw you come
into this house; Fantômas certainly would not have come to search Gurn's
rooms because——"
He stopped, and Juve, who was looking at him keenly, did not make him
finish what he was saying.
"Shall I tell you something?" he said at last. "If you continue to display as
much thought and initiative in the career you have chosen as you have just
displayed, you will very soon be the first newspaper detective of the day!"
He jumped up and led the boy off. "Come along: I've got to go to the Law
Courts at once."
"You've found out something fresh?"
"I'm going to ask them to call an interesting witness in the Gurn affair."

Rain had been falling heavily all the morning and afternoon, but within the
last few minutes it had almost stopped. Dollon, the steward, put his hand
out of the window and found that only a few drops were falling now from
the heavy grey sky.
He was an invaluable servant, and a few months after the death of the
Marquise de Langrune, the Baronne de Vibray had gladly offered him a
situation, and a cottage on her estate at Querelles.
He walked across the room, and called his son.
"Jacques, would you like to come with me? I am going down to the river to
see that the sluices have been opened properly. The banks are anything but
sound, and these rains will flood us out one of these days."
The steward and his son went down the garden towards the stream which
formed one boundary of Mme. de Vibray's park.
"Look, father," Jacques exclaimed, "the postman is calling us."
The postman, a crusty but good-hearted fellow, came hurrying up to the
steward.
"You do make me run, M. Dollon," he complained. "I went to your house
this morning to take you a letter, but you weren't there."
"You might have left it with anybody."
"Excuse me!" the man retorted; "it's against the regulations: I've got an
official letter for you, and I can only give it to you yourself," and he held
out an envelope which Dollon tore open.
"Magistrates' office?" he said enquiringly, as he glanced at the heading of
the notepaper. "Who can be writing to me from the Law Courts?" He read
the letter aloud:
"Sir: As time does not permit of a regular summons being sent to you by an
usher of the court, I beg you to be so good as to come to Paris immediately,
the day after to-morrow if possible, and attend at my office, where your
depositions are absolutely required to conclude a case in which you are
interested. Please bring, without exception, all the papers and documents

entrusted to you by the Clerk of Assizes at Cahors, at the conclusion of the
Langrune enquiry."
"It is signed Germain Fuselier," Dollon remarked. "I've often seen his name
in the papers. He is a very well-known magistrate, and is employed in many
criminal cases." He read the letter through once more, and turned to the
postman. "Will you take a glass of wine, Muller?"
"That's a thing I never say 'no' to."
"Well, go into the house with Jacques, and while he is attending to you I
will write a reply telegram which you can take to the office for me."
While the man was quenching his thirst Dollon wrote his reply:
"Will leave Verrières to-morrow evening by 7.20 train, arriving Paris 5 a.m.
Wire appointment at your office to me at Hôtel Francs-Bourgeois, 152 rue
du Bac."
He read the message over, signed it "Dollon" and considered.
"I wonder what they can want me for? Oh, if only they have found out
something about the Langrune affair, how glad I shall be!"

XXIV. Under Lock and Key
After the preliminary examination as to his identity and so on, Gurn had
been transferred to the Santé prison. At first the prisoner seemed to have
terrible difficulty in accustoming himself to the rigours of confinement; he
suffered from alternate paroxysms of rage and despair, but by sheer strength
of character he fought these down. As a prisoner on remand he was entitled
to the privilege of a separate cell, also during the first forty-eight hours he
had been able to have his meals sent in from outside. Since then, however,
his money had given out, and he was obliged to content himself with the
ordinary prison dietary. But Gurn was not fastidious; this man whom Lady
Beltham had singled out, or accepted, as her lover had often given proofs of
an education and an intelligence above the average, yet now he appeared
quite at ease in the atmosphere of a prison.

Gurn was walking quickly and alone round the exercise yard, when a
breathless voice sounded in his ear.
"'Gad, Gurn, you know how to march! I was going to join you for a bit, but
I could not keep up with you."
Gurn turned and saw old Siegenthal, the warder in charge of his division, in
whose custody he was particularly placed.
"My word!" the old fellow panted, "anybody could tell you had been in the
infantry. Well, so have I; though that wasn't yesterday, nor yet the day
before; but we never marched as fast as you do. We made a fine march once
though—at Saint-Privat."
Out of pity for the decent old fellow Gurn slackened his pace. He had heard
the story of the battle of Saint-Privat a dozen times already, but he was quite
willing to let Siegenthal tell it again. The warder, however, wandered to
another point.

"By the way, I heard you were promoted sergeant out in the Transvaal: is
that so?" and as Gurn nodded assent, he went on: "I never rose above the
rank of corporal, but at any rate I have always led an honest life." A sudden
compassion for his prisoner seized the old man, and he laid a kindly hand
on Gurn's shoulder. "Is it really possible that an old soldier like you, who
seem to be such a steady, serious, kind of man, can have committed such a
crime?"
Gurn dropped his eyes and did not reply.
"I suppose there was a woman at the bottom of it?" Siegenthal said
tentatively. "You acted on impulse, in a fit of jealousy, eh?"
"No," Gurn answered with sudden bluntness, "I may as well own up that I
did it in anger, because I wanted money—for the sake of robbery."
"I'm sorry," said the old warder simply. "You must have been desperately
hard up."
"No I wasn't."
Siegenthal stared at his prisoner. The man must be utterly callous to talk
like that, he thought. Then a clock struck and the warder gave a curt order.
"Time, Gurn! We must go back," and he conducted the unresisting prisoner
up the three flights of stairs that led to the division in which his cell was.
"By the way," he remarked as they went, "I forgot to tell you that you and I
have got to part."
"Oh?" said Gurn. "Am I to be transferred to another prison?"
"No, it's I who am going. Just fancy, I have been appointed head warder at
Poissy; I go on leave to-night, and take up my new post in a week." Both
halted before the door of cell number 127. "In with you," said Siegenthal,
and when Gurn had obeyed he turned to go. Then he wheeled round again
quickly, and put out his hand hurriedly, as if half afraid of being seen. "Put
it there, Gurn," he said; "no doubt you are a murderer and, as you have
confessed yourself, a thief; but I can't forget that if you had kept straight,
you were the sergeant and I should have had to obey you. I'm sorry for
you!" Gurn was touched and murmured a word of thanks. "That's all right,

that's all right," Siegenthal muttered, not attempting to hide his emotion;
"let us hope that everything will turn out well," and he left Gurn alone in the
cell to his meditations.
Twice, Gurn reflected, relying on the sympathy which he knew he had
evoked in the old warder's heart despite the number of criminals who had
passed through his hands, he had been on the point of broaching a serious
and delicate matter to him; but he had not actually spoken, being deterred
by some undefinable scruple, as well as half suspecting that his application
would be made in vain. And now he was glad he had been so cautious, for
even if the warder had been amenable, his approaching removal to another
prison would have prevented the idea from coming to fruition.

A sing-song voice echoed in the corridor.
"Number 127, you are wanted in the barristers' room. Get ready," and the
next minute the door of the cell was thrown open, and a cheery-looking
warder, with a strong Gascon accent, appeared. Gurn had noticed him
before: he was the second warder in this division, a man named Nibet, and
no doubt he would be promoted to Siegenthal's place when the chief warder
left. Nibet looked curiously at Gurn, a certain sympathy in his quick brown
eyes. "Ready, Gurn?"
Gurn growled an answer and pulled on his coat again. His counsel was
Maître Barberoux, one of the foremost criminal barristers of the day; Gurn
had thought it prudent to retain him for his defence, more especially as it
would cost him nothing personally. But he had no particular desire to talk to
him now; he had already told him everything he intended to tell him, and he
had no intention of allowing the case to be boomed as a sensation; quite the
reverse indeed: in his opinion, the flatter the case fell, the better it would be
for his interests, though no doubt Maître Barberoux would not be of the
same way of thinking.
But he said nothing, and merely walked in front of Nibet along the corridor
towards the barristers' room, the way to which he was already familiar with.
On the way they passed some masons who were at work in the prison, and
these men stopped to watch him pass, but contrary to Gurn's apprehensions

they did not seem to recognise him. He hoped it meant that the murder was
already ceasing to be a nine days' wonder for the public at large.
Nibet pushed Gurn into the barristers' room, saying respectfully to the
person in it already, "You only have to ring, sir, when you have finished,"
and then withdrew, leaving Gurn in presence, not of his counsel as he had
expected, but of that personage's assistant, a young licentiate in law named
Roger de Seras, who was also a most incredible dandy.
Roger de Seras greeted Gurn with an engaging smile and advanced as if to
shake hands with him, but suddenly wondering whether that action might
not suggest undue familiarity, he raised his hand to his own head instead
and scratched it; the young fellow was still younger in his business, and did
not rightly know whether it was etiquette for a barrister, or even a barrister's
junior, to shake hands with a prisoner who was implicated in a notorious
murder.
Gurn felt inclined to laugh, and on the whole was glad that it was the junior
whom he had to see; the futile verbosity of this very young licentiate might
possibly be amusing.
Maître Roger de Seras began with civil apologies.
"You will excuse me if I only stay for a few minutes, but I am most
frightfully busy; besides, two ladies are waiting for me outside in my
carriage: I may say confidentially that they are actresses, old friends of
mine, and, just fancy, they are most frightfully anxious to see you! That's
what it means to be famous, M. Gurn; eh, what?" Gurn nodded, not feeling
unduly flattered. Roger de Seras continued. "Just to please them I have
made any number of applications to the governor of the prison, but there
was nothing doing, my dear chap; that beast of a magistrate, Fuselier, insists
on your being kept in absolute seclusion. But none the less, I've got some
news for you. I know heaps: why, my friends at the Law Courts call me 'the
peripatetic paragraph!' Not bad, eh, what?" Gurn smiled and Roger de Seras
was encouraged. "It's given me no end of a boom, my leader acting for you,
and my being able to come and see you whenever I like! Everybody asks
me how you are, and what you are like, and what you say, and what you
think. You can congratulate yourself on having caused a sensation in Paris."

Gurn began to be irritated by all this chatter.
"I must confess I'm not the least interested in what people are saying about
me. Is there anything new in my case?"
"Absolutely nothing that I am aware of," Roger de Seras replied serenely,
without stopping to think whether there was or not. "I say—Lady Beltham
——"
"Yes?" said Gurn.
"Well, I know her very well, you know: I go out a frightful lot and I have
often met her: a charming woman, Lady Beltham!"
Gurn really did not know how to treat the idiot. Never one to suffer fools
gladly, he grew irritable and would almost certainly have said something
that would have put the garrulous young bungler in his place, had not the
latter suddenly remembered something, just as he was on the point of
getting up to go.
"Oh, by the way," he said with a laugh, "I was nearly forgetting the most
important thing of all. Just fancy, that beast Juve, the marvellous detective
whom the newspapers rave about, went to your place yesterday afternoon to
make another official search!"
"Alone?" enquired Gurn, much interested.
"Quite alone. Now what do you suppose he found; the place has been
ransacked dozens of times, you know; of course I mean something
sensational in the way of a find. I bet you a thousand——"
"I never bet," Gurn snapped. "Tell me at once what it was."
The young fellow was proud of having caught the attention of his leader's
notorious client, if only for a moment; he paused and wagged his head,
weighing each word to give them greater emphasis.
"He found an ordnance map in your bookcase, my dear chap—an ordnance
map with a bit torn out of it."
"Oh! And what then?" said Gurn, a frown upon his face.

The young barrister did not notice the expression on the murderer's
countenance.
"Well, then it appears that Juve thought it was very important. Between you
and me, my opinion is that Juve tries to be frightfully clever and succeeds in
looking a fool. How, I ask you, can the discovery of that map affect your
case or influence the decision of the jury? By the way, there is no need for
you to worry about the result; I have had a frightful lot of experience in
criminal cases, and so be assured you are all right: extenuating
circumstances, you know. But—oh, yes, there is one thing more I wanted to
tell you. A fresh witness is going to be called at the examination; let me see,
what's his name? Dollon: that's it: the steward, Dollon."
"I don't understand," said Gurn; his head was bent and his eyes cast down.
A glimmer of light dawned in the young licentiate's brain.
"Wait, there is some connection," he said. "The steward, Dollon, is in the
employment of a lady who calls herself the Baronne de Vibray. And the
Baronne de Vibray is guardian to the young lady who was staying with
Lady Beltham the day, or rather the night, when you—you—well, you
know. And that young lady, Mlle. Thérèse Auvernois, was placed with Lady
Beltham by M. Etienne Rambert. And M. Etienne Rambert is the father of
the young man who murdered the Marquise de Langrune last year. I tell you
all these things without attempting to draw any deductions from them, for,
for my own part, I haven't the least idea why the steward, Dollon, has been
summoned in our case at all."
"Nor have I," said Gurn, and the frown on his brow was deeper.
Roger de Seras hunted all round the little room for his gloves and found
them in his pocket.
"Well, my dear chap, I must leave you. We have been chatting for a whole
half-hour, and those ladies are still waiting for me. What on earth will they
say to me?"
He was about to ring for the warder when Gurn abruptly stayed him.

"Tell me," he said with a sudden air of interest, "when is that man coming—
what's his name? Dollon?"
The young barrister was on the point of saying he did not know, when a
brilliant recollection came into his mind.
"'Gad, how frightfully stupid I am! Why, I have a copy of the telegram he
sent the magistrate in my portfolio here now." He opened the portfolio and
picked out a sheet of blue paper. "Here it is."
Gurn took it from him and read:
"Will leave Verrières to-morrow evening by 7.20 train, arriving Paris 5
a.m...."

Gurn appeared to be sufficiently edified: at all events he paid no attention to
the rest of the message. Lord Beltham's murderer handed the document
back to the barrister without a word.
A few minutes later Maître Roger de Seras had rejoined his lady friends,
and the prisoner was once more in his cell.

XXV. An Unexpected Accomplice
Gurn was walking nervously up and down in his cell after this interview,
when the door was pushed open and the cheery face of the warder Nibet
looked in.
"Evening, Gurn," he said; "it's six o'clock, and the restaurant-keeper
opposite wants to know if he is to send your dinner in to you."
"No," Gurn growled. "I'll have the prison ordinary."
"Oh—ho!" said the warder; "funds low, eh? Of course, it's not for you to
despise our dietary, but still, Government beans——" He came further into
the cell, ignoring Gurn's impatient preference for his room to his company,
and said in a low tone: "There, take that," and thrust a bank-note into the
hand of the dumbfounded prisoner. "And if you want any more, they will be
forthcoming," he added. He made a sign to Gurn to say nothing, and went
to the door. "I'll be back in a few minutes: I'll just go and order a decent
dinner for you."
Gurn felt as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from him; the cell
seemed larger, the prison walls less high; he had an intuition that Lady
Beltham was not deserting him. He had never doubted the sincerity of her
feelings for him, but he quite realised how a woman in her delicate position
might feel embarrassed in trying to intervene in favour of any prisoner, and
much more so in the case of the one whom the entire world believed to be
the single-handed murderer of her husband. But now Lady Beltham had
intervened. She had succeeded in communicating with him through the
medium of this warder. And almost certainly she would do much more yet.

The door opened again, and the warder entered, carrying a long rush basket
containing several dishes and a bottle of wine.
"Well, Gurn, that's a more agreeable sort of dinner, eh?"

"'Gad, I wanted it after all," said the murderer with a smile. "It was a good
idea of yours, M. Nibet, to insist on my getting my dinner sent in from
outside."
Nibet winked; he appreciated his prisoner's tact; obviously he was not one
to make untimely allusions to the warder's breach of discipline in conveying
money to him so simply, but so very irregularly.
As he ate Gurn chatted with Nibet.
"I suppose it is you who will get Siegenthal's place?"
"Yes," said Nibet, sipping the wine Gurn had offered him. "I have asked for
the berth no end of times, but it never came; I was always told to wait
because the place was not free, and another berth must be found first for
Siegenthal, who was my senior. But the old beast would never make any
application. However, three days ago, I was sent for to the Ministry, and one
of the staff told me that some one in the Embassy, or the Government, or
somewhere, was taking an interest in me, and they asked me a lot of
questions and I told them all about it. And then, all of a sudden, Siegenthal
was promoted to Poissy and I was given his billet here."
Gurn nodded: he saw light.
"And what about the money?"
"That's stranger still, but I understood all the same. A lady met me in the
street the other night and spoke to me by name. We had a chat there on the
pavement, for the street was empty, and she shoved some bank-notes in my
hand—not just one or two, but a great bunch——, and she told me that she
was interested in me—in you——, and that if things turned out as she
wished there were plenty more bank-notes where those came from."
While the warder was talking Gurn watched him carefully. The murderer
was an experienced reader of character in faces, and he speedily realised
that his lady's choice had fallen on an excellent object. Thick lips, a narrow
forehead, and prominent cheek-bones suggested a material nature that
would hesitate at nothing which would satisfy his carnal appetites, so Gurn
decided that further circumlocution was so much waste of time, and that he

might safely come to the point. He laid his hand familiarly on the warder's
shoulder.
"I'm getting sick of being here," he remarked.
"I dare say," the warder answered uneasily; "but you must be guided by
reason; time is going on, and things arrange themselves."
"They do when you help them," Gurn said peremptorily; "and you and I are
going to help them."
"That remains to be seen," said the warder.
"Of course, everything has got to be paid for," Gurn went on. "One can't
expect a warder to risk his situation merely to help a prisoner to escape." He
smiled as the warder made an exclamation of nervous warning. "Don't be
frightened, Nibet. We're not going to play any fool games, but let us talk
seriously. Of course you have another appointment with the worthy lady
who gave you that money?"
"I am to meet her to-night at eleven, in the boulevard Arago," Nibet said,
after a moment's hesitation.
"Good," said Gurn. "Well, you are to tell her that I must have ten thousand
francs."
"What?" exclaimed the man, in utter astonishment, but his eyes shone with
greed.
"Ten thousand francs," Gurn repeated calmly, "and by to-morrow morning.
Fifteen hundred of those are for you; I will go away to-morrow evening."
There was a tense silence; the warder seemed doubtful, and Gurn turned the
whole of his will power upon him to persuade him.
"Suppose they suspect me?" said Nibet.
"Idiot!" Gurn retorted; "all you will do will be to make a slip in your duty: I
don't want you to be an accomplice. Listen: there will be another five
thousand francs for you, and if things turn out awkwardly for you, all you

will have to do will be to go across to England, and live there comfortably
for the rest of your days."
The warder was obviously almost ready to comply.
"Who will guarantee me?" he asked.
"The lady, I tell you—the lady of the boulevard Arago. Here, give her this,"
and he tore a leaf out of his pocket-book and, scribbling a few words on it,
handed it to Nibet.
"Well," said the warder hesitatingly: "I don't say 'no.'"
"You've got to say 'yes,'" Gurn retorted.
The two looked steadily in each other's eyes; then the warder blenched.
"Yes," he said.
Nibet was going away, and was already almost in the corridor when Gurn
calmly called him back.
"You will evolve a plan, and I will start to-morrow. Don't forget to bring me
a time-table; the Orleans Company time-table will do."

The murderer was not disappointed in his expectations. The next morning
Nibet appeared with a mysterious face and eager eyes. He took a small
bundle from underneath his jersey and gave it to Gurn.
"Hide that in your bed," he said, and Gurn obeyed.
The morning passed without further developments; numerous warders came
and went in the corridor, attending to the prisoners, and Gurn could get no
private talk with Nibet, who contrived, however, to come into his cell
several times on various pretexts and assure him with a nod or a word that
all was going well. But presently, when walking in the exercise yard, the
two men were able to have a conversation.

Nibet manifested an intelligence of which his outer appearance gave no
indication; but it seems to be an established fact that the inventive faculties,
even of men of inferior mental quality, are sharpened when they are
engaged in mischief.
"For the last three weeks," he said, "about a score of masons have been
working in the prison, repairing the roof and doing up some of the cells.
Cell number 129, the one next yours, is empty, and there are no bars on the
window; the masons go through that cell and that window to get on to the
roof. They knock off work soon after six o'clock. The gate-keeper knows
them all, but he does not always look closely at their faces when they go by,
and you might perhaps be able to go out with them.
"In the bundle that I gave you there is a pair of workman's trousers, and a
waistcoat and a felt hat; put those on. At about a quarter to six, the men who
went up on to the roof through the cell, come down by way of the skylights
to the staircase that leads to the clerk's office, pass the office, where they are
asked no questions, cross the two yards and go out by the main gate. I will
open the door of your cell a few minutes before six, and you must go into
the empty cell next yours, slip up on to the roof and take care to hide behind
the chimney stacks until the men have done work. Let them go down in
front of you, and follow behind with a pick or a shovel on your shoulder,
and when you are passing the clerk, or anywhere where you might be
observed, mind you let the men go a yard or two in front of you. When the
gate is just being shut after the last workman, call out quietly, but as
naturally as you can, 'Hold on, M. Morin; mind you don't lock me in; I'm
not one of your lodgers; let me out after my mates.' Make some joke of that
sort, and when you are once outside the gate, by George, my boy, you'll
have to vamoose!"
Gurn listened attentively to the warder's instructions. Lady Beltham must,
indeed, have been generous and have made the man perfectly easy on the
score of his own future.
"In one of the pockets of the clothes," Nibet went on, "I have put ten
hundred-franc notes; you asked for more, but I could not raise it: we can
settle that some other time."
Gurn made no comment.

"When will my escape be discovered?" he asked.
"I am on night duty," the warder answered. "Arrange your clothes on your
bed to make it look as if you were in bed, and then they will think I might
have been deceived. I go off duty at five; the next round is at eight. My
mate will open the door of the cage, and by that time you will be miles
away."
Gurn nodded comprehension. Time did not permit of longer conversation.
The bell had rung some minutes ago, proclaiming that the exercise time was
over. The two men hurried upstairs to cell number 127 on the third floor,
and the prisoner was locked in alone, while Nibet went about his duty as
usual.

XXVI. A Mysterious Crime
Arriving in good time at the little station at Verrières, where he was about to
take a train to Paris to keep his appointment at the Law Courts, the old
steward Dollon gave his parting instructions to his two children, who had
come to see him off.
"I must, of course, call upon Mme. de Vibray," he said, "and I don't yet
know what time M. Fuselier wants to see me at his office. Anyhow, if I
don't come back to-morrow, I will the next day, without fail. Well, little
ones, I'm just off now, so say good-bye and get home as fast as you can. It
looks to me as if there was going to be a storm, and I should like to know
that you were safe at home."
With heavy creaking of iron wheels, and hoarse blowing off of steam from
the engine, the Paris train drew into the station. The steward gave a final
kiss to his little son and daughter and got into a second-class carriage.

In a neighbouring village a clock had just struck three.
The storm had been raging since early in the evening, but now it seemed
informed with a fresh fury: the rain was lashing down more fiercely, and the
wind was blowing harder still, making the slender poplars along the railway
line bow and bend before the squalls and assume the most fantastic shapes,
but vaguely shown against the night. The night was inky black. The keenest
eye could make out nothing at all distinctly, even at the distance of a few
yards: the darkness was so dense as to seem absolutely solid.
Nevertheless, along the railway embankment, a man was making his way
with steady step, seeming not a whit disturbed by the tragic horror of the
storm.
He was a man of about thirty, rather well dressed in a large waterproof coat,
the collar of which, turned up to his ears, hid the lower part of his face, and

a big felt hat with brim turned down protecting him fairly well from the
worst of the weather. The man fought his way against the wind, which
drove into his overcoat with such force that sometimes it almost stopped his
progress, and he trod the stony track without paying heed to the sorry plight
into which it would most surely put the thin boots he was wearing.
"Awful weather!" he growled: "I don't remember such a shocking night for
years: wind, rain, every conceivable thing! But I mustn't grumble, for the
total absence of moon will be uncommonly useful for my purpose." A flash
of lightning streaked the horizon, and the man stopped and looked quickly
about him. "I can't be far from the place," he thought, and again went on his
way. Presently he heaved a sigh of relief. "Here I am at last."
At this spot the line was completely enclosed between two high slopes, or
ran at the bottom of a deep cutting.
"It's better here," the man said to himself; "the wind passes well above my
head, and the cutting gives good shelter." He stopped and carefully
deposited on the ground a rather bulky bundle he had been carrying under
his arm; then he began to pace up and down, stamping his feet in an effort
to keep warm. "It has just struck three," he muttered. "From the time-table I
can't expect anything for another ten minutes. Well, better too soon than too
late!" He contemplated the bundle which he had laid down a few minutes
before. "It's heavier than I thought, and deucedly in the way. But it was
absolutely necessary to bring it. And down here in this cutting, there is
nothing for me to be anxious about: the grass is thick, so I can run, and the
line is so straight that I shall see the lights of the train a long way off." A
thin smile curled his lips. "Who would have thought, when I was in
America, that I should ever find it so useful to have learnt how to jump a
train?"
A dull sound in the distance caught his ear. In a second he had sprung to his
bundle, picked it up, and, choosing a spot on the ballast, crouched down
listening. At the place where he stood the line ran up a steep acclivity. It
was from the lower end of this that the noise he had heard proceeded, and
now was growing louder, almost deafening. It was the heavy, regular
puffing of a powerful engine coming up a steep gradient, under full steam.

"No mistake: my star is with me!" the man muttered, and as the train
approached he stretched his muscles and, taking a firmer grip of his bundle,
he bent forward in the stooping attitude that runners take when about to
start off in a race.
With a heavy roar, and enveloped in clouds of steam, the train came up to
where he was, travelling slowly because of the steep gradient, certainly less
than twenty miles an hour. The moment the engine had passed him, the man
started off, lithe as a cat, and ran at the top of his speed. The train, of
course, gained upon him; the tender, luggage vans, and third-class carriages
passed him, and a second-class carriage was just coming up with him. The
pace alone would have deprived almost anyone else of power of thought,
but this man was evidently a first-rate athlete, for the moment he caught
sight of the second-class carriage he took his decision. With a tremendous
effort he caught hold of the hand-rail and sprang upon the footboard, where,
with extraordinary skill, he contrived to remain.
Reaching the summit of the slope, the train gathered speed, and with an
even louder roar began its headlong journey through the darkness and the
storm, which seemed to increase in intensity with every passing minute.
For a few seconds the man hung on where he was. Then, when he had
regained his breath, he got on to the upper step and listened at the door of
the corridor at which he found himself. "No one there," he muttered.
"Besides, everyone will be asleep," and, chancing everything, he rose up,
opened the door, and stepped into the second-class carriage with a grunt of
relief.
Making no attempt to conceal himself, he walked boldly into the lavatory
and washed his face that was blackened with the smoke from outside, and
then, in the most leisurely, natural way possible, he came out of the lavatory
and walked along the corridor, soliloquising aloud, manifestly not minding
whether he were overheard.
"It's positively maddening! No one can sleep, with travelling companions
like that!"
As he spoke he went along the corridor, rapidly glancing into every
compartment. In one, three men were asleep, obviously unaware that

anyone was surveying them from outside. The door of the compartment was
ajar, and the stranger noiselessly stepped within. The fourth corner was
unoccupied, and here the man took his seat, laying his bundle down beside
him, and feigning sleep. He waited, motionless, for a good quarter of an
hour, until he was quite satisfied that his companions were really sleeping
soundly, then he slid his hand into the bundle by his side, seemed to be
doing something inside it, then withdrew his hand noiselessly, stepped out
of the compartment, and carefully closed the door.
In the corridor he drew a sigh of relieved satisfaction, and took a cigar from
his pocket.
"Everything is going splendidly," he said to himself. "I was cursing this
awful storm just now, but it is wonderfully useful to me. On such a night as
this no one would dream of opening the windows." He strolled up and
down, holding on to the hand-rail with one hand to maintain himself against
the rocking of the train, and every now and then taking out his watch with
the other to see the time. "I haven't any too much time," he muttered. "I
shall have to be quick, or my friend will miss his train!" He smiled, as if
amused at the idea, and then, holding his cigar away from him so as not to
inhale the smoke, he drew several deep breaths. "There is a faint smell," he
said, "but you would have to be told of it to detect it. The devil of it is that it
so often causes nightmare; that would be awful!" He suspended his patrol
and listened again. There was no sound to be heard from within the
compartments except the snoring of a few travellers and the monotonous,
rhythmical noise of the wheels passing over the joints of the rails. "Come:
I've waited twenty minutes; it would be risky to wait longer; let's get to
work!"
He stepped briskly back into the compartment, and furtively glancing into
the corridor to make sure that no one was there, he went across to the
opposite window and opened it wide. He put his head out into the air for a
minute or two, and then turned to examine his travelling companions. All
three were still sound asleep.
The man gave vent to a dry chuckle. He drew his bundle towards him, felt
until he found something within it, and flung it back on to the seat. Then he
walked up to the man opposite him, slipped his hand inside his coat and

abstracted a pocket-book and began to examine the papers it contained.
"Ah!" he exclaimed suddenly; "that was what I was afraid of!" and taking
one of the papers he put it inside his own pocket-book, chose one from his
own and put it into the other man's pocket-book, and then, having effected
this exchange, replaced the man's property and chuckled again. "You do
sleep!"
And indeed, although the pick-pocket took no particular precaution, the
man continued to sleep soundly, as did the other two men in the
compartment.
The thief looked once more at his watch.
"Time!"
He leaned out of the open window and slipped back the safety catch. Then
he opened the door quite wide, took the sleeping traveller by the shoulders
and picked him up from the seat, and with all his strength sent him rolling
out on to the line!
The next moment he seized from the rack the light articles that evidently
belonged to his victim, and threw them out after him.
When he had finished his ghastly work he rubbed his hands in satisfaction.
"Good!" he said, and closing the door again, but leaving the window down,
he left the compartment, not troubling to pick up his belongings, and
walked along the corridors to another second-class compartment, towards
the front of the train, in which he calmly installed himself.
"Luck has been with me," he muttered as he stretched himself out on the
seat. "Everything has gone off well; no one has seen me, and those two
fools who might have upset my plans will wake up quite naturally when
they begin to feel the cold; and they will attribute the headache they will
probably feel to their tiring journey."
A train, travelling in the opposite direction, suddenly roared past the
window and made him jump. He started up, and smiled.
"'Gad! I said my friend would miss his train, but he'll catch it in another five
minutes! In another five minutes, luggage and body and the entire caboodle

will be mincemeat!" and as if completely reassured by the idea he chuckled
again. "Nothing could have gone better: I can have a rest, and in an hour's
time I shall be at Juvisy, where, thanks to my forethought, I shall be able to
whitewash myself—literally." One thing, however, still seemed to worry
him: he did not know exactly where on the line he had thrown his unhappy
victim, but he had an idea that the train had run through a small station
shortly afterwards; if that was so, the body might be found sooner than he
would have liked. He tried to dismiss the notion from his mind, but he
caught sight of the telegraph posts speeding past the windows, and he shook
his fist at them malignantly. "That is the only thing that can harm me now,"
he muttered.

"Juvisy! Juvisy! Wait here two minutes!"
It was barely half-past six, and the porters hurried along the train, calling
out the name of the station, and rousing sleepy travellers from their dreams.
A man jumped nimbly out of a second-class carriage and walked towards
the exit from the station, holding out his ticket. "Season," he said, and
passed out rapidly.
"Good idea, that season ticket," he said to himself; "much less dangerous
than an ordinary ticket which the police could have traced."
He walked briskly towards the subway, crossed the main road, and took a
side turning that led down towards the Seine. Taking no notice of the mud,
the man went into a field and hid himself in a little thicket on the river bank.
He looked carefully all around him to make sure that he was unobserved,
then took off his overcoat, jacket and trousers, and drawing a bundle from
one of the pockets of his large waterproof, proceeded to dress himself anew.
As soon as he was dressed, he spread the waterproof out on the ground,
folded up in it the clothes and hat he had previously been wearing, added a
number of heavy stones, and tied the whole bundle up with a piece of
string. He swung it once or twice at the full length of his arm, and sent it
hurtling right into the middle of the river, where it sank at once.
A few minutes later a bricklayer in his working clothes presented himself at
the Juvisy booking office.

"A workman's ticket to Paris, please, missus," he said, and having got it, the
man went on to the departure platform. "It would have been risky to use my
own ticket," he muttered. "This return ticket will put them off the scent,"
and with a smile he waited for the train that would take him to Paris.

The slow train from Luchon was drawing near its Paris terminus and the
travellers were all making hasty toilettes and tidying themselves up after
their long night journey. Just, however, as it was approaching the goods
station it slowed down and stopped. The passengers, surprised, put their
heads out of the windows, to ascertain the reason for the unexpected delay,
hazarding various conjectures but unanimous in their vituperation of the
company.
Three men were walking slowly along the line, looking carefully at every
door. Two were porters, and they were manifesting the most respectful
attention to everything the third man said: he was a grave individual, very
correctly attired.
"Look there, sir," one of the porters exclaimed; "there is a door where the
safety catch has either been undone or not fastened; that is the only one on
the train."
"That is so," said the gentleman, and grasping the handle he opened the
door of the compartment and got in. Two travellers were busy strapping up
their bags, and they turned round in simultaneous surprise.
"You will pardon me, gentlemen, when you know who I am," said the
intruder, and throwing open his coat he showed his tricolour scarf. "I have
to make enquiry relative to a dead body that has been found on the line near
Brétigny; it probably fell from this train, and perhaps from this
compartment, for I have just observed that the safety catch is not fastened.
Where did you get into the train?"
The two passengers looked at one another in astonishment.
"What a dreadful thing!" one of them exclaimed. "Why, sir, to-night, while
my friend here and I were asleep, one of our fellow-travellers did disappear.

I made a remark about it, but this gentleman very reasonably pointed out
that he must have got out at some station while we were asleep."
The official was keenly interested.
"What was this passenger like?"
"Quite easily recognised, sir; a man of about sixty, rather stout, and wearing
whiskers."
"That tallies with the description. Might he have been a butler or a
steward?"
"That is exactly what he looked like."
"Then that must be the man whose body has been found upon the line. But I
do not know whether it is to be regarded as a case of suicide or of murder,
for some hand baggage has been picked up as well: a suicide would not
have thrown his luggage out, and a thief would not have wanted to get rid
of it."
The passenger who had not yet spoken, broke in.
"You are wrong, sir; at any rate all his luggage was not thrown on to the
line," and he pointed to the bundle left upon the seat. "I thought that
belonged to the gentleman here, but he has just told me it isn't his."
The official rapidly unfastened the straps and started back.
"Hullo! A bottle of liquid carbonic acid! Now what does that mean?" He
looked at it. "Did this bundle belong to the man who disappeared?"
The two passengers shook their heads.
"I don't think so," one of them said; "I should certainly have noticed that
Scotch rug; but I did not see it."
"Then there was a fourth passenger in this compartment?" the official
enquired.
"No, we travelled alone," said one of the men, but the other dissented.

"It is very odd, and I am not sure about it, but I really am wondering
whether someone did not get into our compartment last night while we were
asleep. I have a vague impression that someone did, but I can't be sure."
"Do try to remember, sir," the official urged him; "it is of the very highest
importance."
But the passenger shook his shoulders doubtfully.
"No, I really can't say anything definite; and, besides, I have a shocking
headache."
The official was silent for a minute or two.
"In my opinion, gentlemen, you have been uncommonly lucky to escape
murder yourselves. I do not quite understand yet how the murder was done,
but I incline to think it proves almost incredible daring. However——" He
stopped and put his head out of the window. "You can send the train on
now," he called to a porter, and resumed: "However, I must ask you to
accompany me to the stationmaster's office and give me your names and
addresses, and to help me afterwards in the conduct of the legal
investigation."
The two travellers looked at one another in distressed surprise.
"It is really appalling," said one of them; "you're not safe anywhere
nowadays."
"You really aren't," the other agreed. "Such a number of awful murders and
crimes are being perpetrated every day that you would think not one, but a
dozen Fantômas were at work!"

XXVII. Three Surprising Incidents
Nibet went off duty at five in the morning, and returned to his own home to
go to bed. As a general rule he slept like a top, after a night on duty, but on
this occasion he could not close an eye, being far too uneasy about the
consequences of his co-operation in Gurn's escape.
A few minutes before six in the evening he had taken advantage of no
warders being about to slip Gurn from cell number 127 into number 129,
whence he could make his way to the roof. At six, when he actually came
on duty, Nibet opened the peephole in the door of number 127, as he did in
all the others, and saw that Gurn had made an admirable dummy figure in
the bed: it was so good that it even deceived a head warder who made a
single rapid inspection of all the cells when Nibet was on one of his several
rounds during the night. Obviously Gurn must have got clear away from the
prison, for if he had been caught it would certainly have become generally
known.
These reflections somewhat comforted the restless man, but he knew that
the most difficult part of his task was still before him: the difficulty of
simulating astonishment and distress when he should get back to the prison
presently and be told by his fellow-warders of the prisoner's escape, and the
difficulty of answering in a natural manner to the close interrogation to
which he would be subjected by the governor and the police, and possibly
even M. Fuselier, who would be in a fine rage when he learned that his
captive had escaped him. Nibet meant to pretend ignorance and even
stupidity. He would far rather be called a fool, than found out to be a knave
and an accomplice.
About half-past eleven Nibet got up; Gurn's escape must certainly be known
at the prison by this time. The warder on duty would have gone to the cell
about seven to wake the prisoner, and though nothing might have been
detected then, the cell would infallibly have been found to be empty at eight
o'clock, when the morning broth was taken round. And then——

As he walked from his home round to the prison, Nibet met the gang of
masons coming out for dinner; he crossed the street towards them, hoping
to hear some news, but they passed by him in silence, one or two of them
giving a careless nod or word of greeting; at first Nibet took their silence
for a bad sign, thinking they might have been warned to give him no alarm,
but he reflected that if Gurn's escape were discovered, as it surely must be,
the authorities would probably prefer not to let the matter become widely
known.
As he reached the porter's lodge his heart beat violently. What would old
Morin have to tell him? But old Morin was very busy trying to make his
kitchen fire burn properly instead of sending all the smoke pouring out into
the room; the old man's slovenly figure was just visible in a clearing in the
smoke, and he returned Nibet's salutation with nothing more than a silent
salute.
"That's funny!" thought Nibet, and he passed through the main courtyard
towards the clerks' offices at the end. Through the windows he could see the
staff, a few bending over their work, most of them reading newspapers,
none of them obviously interested in anything special. Next he presented
himself before the warders' turnkey, and again he was allowed to pass on
without a word.
By this time Gurn's accomplice was in a state of such nervous tension that
he could hardly restrain himself from catching hold of one or other of the
warders whom he saw at their work, and asking them questions. How could
the escape of so important a prisoner as the man who had murdered Lord
Beltham create so little excitement as this? Nibet longed to rush up the
flights of stairs to number 127 and interrogate the warder who had gone on
duty after himself, and whom he was now about to relieve in turn. He must
surely know all about it. But it would not do to create suspicion, and Nibet
had sufficient self-control left to go upstairs at his usual leisurely pace.
Outwardly calm and steady, he reached his post just as the clock was
striking twelve; he was ever punctuality itself, and he was due on duty at
noon.
"Well, Colas," he said to his colleague, "here I am; you can go now."

"Good!" said the warder. "I'll be off at once. I'm on again at six to-night,"
and he moved away.
"Everything all right?" Nibet enquired, in a tone he tried to make as casual
as possible, but that trembled a little nevertheless.
"Quite," said Colas, perfectly naturally, and he went away.

Nibet could contain himself no longer, and the next second he threw caution
to the winds: rushing to Gurn's cell he flung the door open.
Gurn was there, sitting on the foot of his bed with his legs crossed and a
note-book on his knees, making notes with the quietest attention: he
scarcely appeared to notice Nibet's violent invasion.
"Oh! So you are there?" stammered the astonished warder.
Gurn raised his head and looked at the warder with a cryptic gaze.
"Yes, I'm here."
All manner of notions crowded through Nibet's brain, but he could find
words for none of them. Had the plot been discovered before Gurn had had
time to get away, or had a trap been laid for himself through the medium of
one of the prisoners to test his own incorruptibility? Nibet went white, and
leaned against the wall for support. At last Gurn spoke again, reassuring
him with a smile.
"Don't look so miserable," he said. "I am here. That is a matter of absolutely
no importance. We will suppose that nothing passed between us yesterday,
and—that's an end to it."
"So you haven't gone, you didn't go?" said Nibet again.
"No," Gurn replied; "since you are so interested, all I need say is that I was
afraid to risk it at the last minute."
Nibet had cast a keen and experienced eye all over the cell; under the
washstand he saw the little bundle of clothes which he had brought the

prisoner the previous day. He rightly opined that the first thing to do was to
remove these dangerous articles, whose presence in Gurn's cell would
appear very suspicious if they happened to be discovered. He took the
bundle and was hurriedly stowing it away under his own clothes, when he
uttered an exclamation of surprise; the things were wet, and he knew from
his own experience that the rain had never ceased throughout the whole of
the night.
"Gurn," he said reproachfully, "you are up to some trick! These things are
soaked. You must have gone out last night, or these things would not be like
this."
Gurn smiled sympathetically at the warder.
"Not so bad!" he remarked; "that's pretty good reasoning for a mere gaoler."
And as Nibet was about to press the matter, Gurn anticipated his questions,
and made frank confession. "Well, yes, I did try to get out,—got as far as
the clerk's office last evening, but at the last minute I funked it, and went
back on to the roof. But when I got into number 129 again I found I could
not get back into my own cell, for, as you know, 129 was locked outside; so
to avoid detection I returned to the roof and spent the night there; at
daybreak I took advantage of the little disturbance caused by the workmen
coming in, and slipped down from the roof just as they were going up. As
soon as I found myself on this floor I ran along this corridor and slipped
into my cell. When your friend Colas brought me my broth he did not
notice that my cell was unlocked,—and there you are!"
The explanation was not altogether convincing, but Nibet listened to it and
pondered the situation. On the whole, it was much better that things should
be as they were, but the warder was wondering how the great lady, who
paid so mighty well, might take the matter. She most certainly had not
promised so large a sum of money, nor paid the good round sum of ten
thousand francs down in advance, merely in order that Gurn might have a
little walk upon the tiles. What was to be done with regard to that
personage? With much ingenuousness Nibet confided his anxiety to the
prisoner, who laughed.
"It's not all over yet," he declared. "Indeed, it is only just beginning. What if
we only wanted to test you, and prove your quality? Make your mind easy,

Nibet. If Gurn is in prison at the present moment it is because he has his
own reasons for being there. But who is able to predict the future?"
It was time for Gurn to go to the exercise yard, and Nibet, reassuming the
uncompromising attitude that all warders ought to maintain when in
custody of prisoners, led the murderer down to the courtyard.

In his office at the Law Courts, M. Fuselier was having a private interview
with Juve, and listening with much interest to what the clever detective
inspector was saying to him.
"I tell you again, sir, I attach great importance to the finding of this
ordnance map in Gurn's rooms."
"Yes?" said M. Fuselier, with a touch of scepticism.
"And I will tell you why," Juve went on. "About a year ago, when I was
engaged on the case of the murder of the Marquise de Langrune at her
château of Beaulieu, down in Lot, I found a small piece of a map showing
the district in which I was at the time. I took it to M. de Presles, the
magistrate who was conducting the enquiry. He attached no importance to
it, and I myself could not see at the time that it gave us any new evidence."
"Quite so," said M. Fuselier. "There is nothing particularly remarkable in
finding a map, or a piece of a map, showing a district, in the district itself."
"Those are M. de Presles' very words to me," said Juve with a smile. "And I
will give you the same answer I gave him, namely, that if some day we
could find the other portion of the map which completed the first piece we
found, and could identify the owner of the two portions, there would then
be a formal basis on which to proceed to base an argument."
"Proceed to base it," M. Fuselier suggested.
"That's very easy," said Juve. "The fragment of map numbered 1, found at
Beaulieu, belongs to X. I do not know who X is; but in Paris, in Gurn's
rooms, I find the fragment of map numbered 2, which belongs to Gurn. If it
turns out, as I expect, that the two fragments of map, when placed together,

form a single and complete whole, I shall conclude logically that X, who
was the owner of fragment number 1, is the same as the owner of fragment
number 2, to wit, Gurn."
"How are you going to find out?" enquired M. Fuselier.
"It is in order to find it out that we have sent for Dollon," Juve replied. "He
was steward to the late Marquise de Langrune, and has all the
circumstantial evidence relating to that case. If he has still got the fragment
of map, it will be simplicity itself to prove what I have suggested, and
perhaps to make the identification I suggest."
"Yes," said M. Fuselier, "but if you do succeed, will it be of really great
importance in your opinion? Will you be able to infer from that one fact that
Gurn and the man who murdered the Marquise de Langrune are one and the
same person? Is not that going rather far? Especially as, if I remember
rightly, it was proved that the murderer in that case was the son of a M.
Rambert, and this young Rambert committed suicide after the crime?"
Juve evaded the issue.
"Well, we shall see," was all he said.

The magistrate's clerk came into the room and unceremoniously interrupted
the conversation.
"It has gone two, sir," he said. "There are some prisoners to examine, and a
whole lot of witnesses," and he placed two bulky bundles of papers before
the magistrate and waited for a sign to call the various persons, free or
otherwise, whom the magistrate had to see.
The first bundle caught Juve's attention. It was endorsed "Royal Palace
Hotel Case."
"Anything new about the robbery from Mme. Van den Rosen and Princess
Sonia Danidoff?" he enquired, and as the magistrate shook his head, he
added, "Are you going to examine Muller now?"

"Yes," said the magistrate; "at once."
"And after that you are to examine Gurn, aren't you, in connection with the
Beltham case?"
"Quite so."
"I wish you would oblige me by confronting the two men here, in my
presence."
M. Fuselier looked up in surprise: he could not see what connection there
could be between the two utterly dissimilar cases. What object could Juve
have in wanting the man who had murdered Lord Beltham to be confronted
with the unimportant little hotel servant who had really been arrested rather
as a concession to public opinion than because he was actually deemed
capable of burglary or attempted burglary? Might not Juve, with his known
mania for associating all crimes with each other, be going just a little too far
in the present instance?
"You have got some idea in the back of your head?" said M. Fuselier.
"I've got a—a scar in the palm of my hand," Juve answered with a smile,
and as the magistrate confessed that he failed to understand, Juve
enlightened him. "We know that the man who did that robbery at the Royal
Palace Hotel burned his hand badly when he was cutting the electric wires
in the Princess's bathroom. Well, a few weeks ago, while I was on the look
out for someone with a scar from such a wound, I was told of a man who
was prowling about the slums. I had the fellow followed up, and the very
night the hunt began I was going to arrest him, when, a good deal to my
surprise, I discovered that he was no other than Gurn. He escaped me that
time, but when he was caught later on I found that he has an unmistakable
scar inside the palm of his right hand; it is fading now, for the burn was
only superficial, but it is there. Now do you see my idea?"
"Yes, I do," the magistrate exclaimed, "and I am all the more glad to hear of
it, since I am to have both the men here now. Shall I have Muller in first?"
Juve assented....

"So you still refuse to confess?" said the magistrate at last. "You still
maintain that your—extraordinary—order to let the red-haired waiter out,
was given in good faith?"
"Yes, yes, yes, sir," the night watchman answered. "That very evening a
new servant had joined the staff. I had not even set eyes on him. When I
saw this—stranger——, I took him to be the servant who had been engaged
the day before, and I told them to open the door for him. That is the real
truth."
"And that is all?"
"That is positively all."
"We are only charging you with complicity," the magistrate went on, "for
the man who touched the electric wires burned his hand; that is a strong
point in your favour. And you also say that if the thief were put before you,
you could recognise him?"
"Yes," said the man confidently.
"Good!" said M. Fuselier, and he signed to his clerk to call in another
personage.
The clerk understood, and Gurn was brought in between two municipal
guards, and was followed by the young licentiate in law, Maître Roger de
Seras, who represented his leader at most of these preliminary
examinations. As Gurn came in, with the light from the window falling full
on his face, M. Fuselier gave a curt order.
"Muller, turn round and look at this man!"
Muller obeyed, and surveyed with some bewilderment, and without the
least comprehension, the bold head and the well-built, muscular frame of
Lord Beltham's murderer. Gurn did not flinch.
"Do you recognise that man?" the magistrate demanded.
Muller ransacked his brains and looked again at Gurn, then shook his head.
"No, sir."

"Gurn, open your right hand," the magistrate ordered. "Show it," and he
turned again to Muller. "The man before you seems to have been burned in
the palm of the hand, as that scar shows. Can you not remember having
seen that man at the Royal Palace Hotel?"
Muller looked steadily at Gurn.
"On my honour, sir, although it would be to my interest to recognise him, I
am bound to acknowledge that I really and truly don't."
M. Fuselier had a brief conversation aside with Juve, and then, the detective
appearing to agree with him, turned once more to the night watchman.
"Muller," he said, "the court is pleased with your frankness. You will be set
free provisionally, but you are to hold yourself at the disposal of the court of
enquiry," and he signed to the municipal guards to lead the gratefully
protesting man away.
Meanwhile Gurn's case appeared to him to be becoming much more
serious, and much more interesting. He had the prisoner placed in front of
him, while Juve, who had withdrawn into a dark corner of the room, never
took his eyes off the murderer.
"Gurn," he began, "can you give me an account of your time during the
second half of December of last year?"
Gurn was unprepared for the point-blank question, and made a gesture of
doubt. M. Fuselier, probably anticipating a sensation, was just on the point
of ordering Dollon to be called, when he was interrupted by a discreet tap
on the door. His clerk went to answer it, and saw a gendarme standing at the
door. At almost the first words he said, the clerk uttered an exclamation and
wheeled round to the magistrate.
"Oh, M. Fuselier, listen! They have just told me——"
But the gendarme had come in. He saluted the magistrate and handed him a
letter which M. Fuselier hastily tore open and read.
"To M. Germain Fuselier, Examining Magistrate,
The Law Courts, Paris.

"The special commissioner at Brétigny station has the honour to
report that this morning at 8 a.m. the police informed him of the
discovery on the railway line, five kilomètres from Brétigny on
the Orléans side, of the dead body of a man who must either
have fallen accidentally or been thrown intentionally from a
train bound for Paris. The body had been mutilated by a train
travelling in the other direction, but papers found on the person
of the deceased, and in particular a summons found in his
pocket, show that his name was Dollon, and that he was on his
way to Paris to wait upon you.
"The special commissioner at Brétigny station has, quite late,
been informed of the following facts: passengers who left the
train on its arrival at the Austerlitz terminus at 5 a.m. were
examined by the special commissioner at that station, and
subsequently allowed to go. Possibly you have already been
informed. We have, however, thought it our duty, after having
searched the body, to report this identification to you, and have
therefore requisitioned an officer of the police at Brétigny to
convey to you the information contained in this
communication."

M. Fuselier had turned pale as he read this letter. He handed it to Juve. With
feverish haste the famous detective read it through and wheeled round to
the gendarme.
"Tell me, do you know what has been done? Do you know if this man's
papers, all his papers, were found and have been preserved?"
The man shook his head in ignorance. Juve clasped the magistrate's hand.
"I'm off to Brétigny this instant," he said in a low tone.
Throughout this incident Maître Roger de Seras had remained in a state of
blank incomprehension.
Gurn's face was more expressionless and impenetrable than ever.

XXVIII. The Court of Assize
"Call Lady Beltham!"
It was a perfect May day, and everyone who could pretend, on any
conceivable ground, to belong to "Paris" had schemed and intrigued to
obtain admission to a trial over which public opinion had been excited for
months: the trial of Gurn for the murder of Lord Beltham, ex-Ambassador
and foremost man of fashion, whose murder, two years before, had caused a
great sensation.
The preliminary formalities of the trial had furnished nothing to tickle the
palates of the sensation-loving crowd. The indictment had been almost
inaudible, and, besides, it contained nothing that had not already been made
public by the Press. Nor had the examination of the prisoner been any more
interesting; Gurn sat, strangely impassive, in the dock between two
municipal guards, and hardly listened to his counsel, the eminent Maître
Barberoux, who was assisted by a galaxy of juniors, including young Roger
de Seras. Moreover, Gurn had frankly confessed his guilt almost
immediately after his arrest. There was not much for him to add to what he
had said before, although the President of the Court pressed him as to some
points which were still not satisfactorily clear with respect to his own
identity, and the motives which had prompted him to commit his crime,
and, subsequently, to pay that most risky visit to Lady Beltham, at the close
of which Juve had effected his arrest.
But Lady Beltham's evidence promised to be much more interesting.
Rumour had been busy for a long time with the great lady and her feelings,
and odd stories were being whispered. She was said to be beautiful, wealthy
and charitable; people said, under their breath, that she must know a good
deal about the murder of her spouse, and when she made her appearance in
the box a sudden hush fell upon the crowded court. She was, indeed, a most
appealing figure, robed in long black weeds, young, graceful, and very pale,
so sympathetic a figure that scandal was forgotten in the general tense
desire to hear her answers to the President of the Court.

Following the usher to the witness-box, she took off her gloves as desired,
and, in a voice that trembled slightly but was beautifully modulated,
repeated the words of the oath, with her right hand raised the while.
Noticing her agitation, the President mitigated somewhat the harshness of
the tone in which he generally spoke to witnesses.
"Pray compose yourself, madame. I am sorry to be obliged to subject you to
this examination, but the interests of Justice require it. Come now: you are
Lady Beltham, widow of the late Lord Beltham, of English nationality,
residing in Paris, at your own house in Neuilly?"
"Yes."
"Will you kindly turn round, madame, and tell me if you know the prisoner
in the dock?"
Lady Beltham obeyed mechanically; she glanced at Gurn, who paled a
little, and answered the President.
"Yes, I know the prisoner; his name is Gurn."
"Very good, madame. Can you tell me first of all how you came to be
acquainted with him?"
"When my husband was in South Africa, at the time of the Boer War, Gurn
was a sergeant in the regular army. It was then that I first met him."
"Did you know him well at that time?"
Lady Beltham seemed to be unable to prevent herself from casting long
glances at the prisoner; she appeared to be almost hypnotised and frightened
by his close proximity.
"I saw very little of Gurn in the Transvaal," she answered. "It was just by
chance that I learned his name, but of course the difference between his
own rank and my husband's position made the relations that I could have
with a mere sergeant very limited indeed."
"Yes, Gurn was a sergeant," the President said. "And after the war, madame,
did you see the prisoner again?"