Marcel Allain

“ Tom Bob, madam, is the man who must fight Fantômas!”
Lady Beltham was like to die of distress and perplexity. No doubt, she had but to open a door to bring the young Englishman face to face with the bogus detective. But was it her duty to act so? Ought she not rather to enlighten Ascott, to tell him that Fantômas and Tom Bob were one and the same, just as Père Moche and Fantômas again were one single and identical person! This course was what her conscience bade her take. But would duty triumph over love? ”

“ Fandor was terrified; what was to happen next? Was Juve, after escaping the gravest of his dangers, finally to fall a victim to Fantômas’ fury? Was it he, the real Fantômas, that was coming?
But Juve with superb audacity, an admirable effrontery, commanded:
“Silence, all of you, and don’t budge! if it is Fantômas alone they are after, Fantômas will defend himself alone, if it is all of us they are looking for, Fantômas will be at your head to defend you and triumph over our enemies; hush, do not speak, do not stir!” ”

“ With her modest, decent get-up, she had all the appearance, all the charm of youth, freshness and purity, of an honest little Paris workgirl, one of those pretty flowers that bloom in many a happy home of good, respectable, industrious working people. The girl was entirely charming with her virginal air of innocence and chastity.
Père Moche was all smiles as he looked at her; such was the old scamp’s artfulness in disguising his true feelings that as he stood beside the young girl he offered the very picture of a kind, good uncle, proud and happy in the beauty of his little niece! ”

“ After the inevitable panic created by this apparition of the terrible figure of Fantômas, a very real satisfaction, a genuine feeling of relief had been experienced in learning that beneath this horrid disguise was hidden the man who had pledged himself to deliver Parisian society from Fantômas! In fact there was not one of all the grand duchess’s guests but entertained in his heart a secret dread of the desperate criminal. Ever since the brigand had sworn to the Parliament to spread terror broadcast, every man felt himself more or less menaced. ”

“ I Fandor!... who loves you.... Listen to me, I beseech you!”
But with a sudden, desperate effort, Elisabeth Dollon had dragged the door to again, not without giving vent to another cry of frantic terror: “Help! it is Fantômas ... Fantômas!”
All this had occupied but a moment, and already Fandor was regaining his composure. That Elisabeth, terribly upset by last night’s violence, in which she believed him to have been concerned, took him for Fantômas, was after all of small importance. He could easily convince her of the truth. ”

“ In a single second Fandor had felt himself caught by the lasso, in one second he had been thrown to the ground, in one second he had noted the black, fantastic form of the bandit glide into the garret—and in that one second he recognized beyond possibility of doubt the Monarch of Crime, the Master of Terror!
It was Fantômas! Fantômas, and no other!
A grim apparition—this hooded man—this man who now held Fandor, his relentless pursuer, at his mercy. The journalist had fallen into the trap laid for him; he thought: “I am in Fantômas’ power! I am a lost man!” ”

“ Was Lady Beltham going to betray him? She had adored Fantômas madly, she undoubtedly adored him still; did she not intend, to help in her lover’s work, to deliver up him, Fandor, to the Bureau? After all, she knew quite well that Jérôme Fandor was the only man—Juve being in gaol—capable of checkmating the brigand. How she must be tempted to denounce him to M. Havard! But no, no! he must, he ought to trust to her good faith; Lady Beltham was an enemy, but she was an honourable enemy! ”

“ Screw up my eyes as I will, I can’t see a thing. All the same, I’ve got to get to Alfort; but shall I ever find the rendez-vous in this darkness, I wonder! All the same, how right I was to attend the marriage of that fool Ascott with the unspeakable Nini Guinon! What a wedding! and what a crew! And old Moche! what a clever fellow he must be to keep this gang of scoundrels on the job, always promising the fellows money and never giving them the pay for the crimes they do at his bidding! Oh! he’s one in a thousand, he is, the old money-lender of the Rue Saint-Fargeau! ”

“ Old Moche had positively sparkled with wit throughout the meal, but most of the time it was simply trouble wasted, for Ascott hardly listened to a word. Moche sat facing the two young people, who, as if by inadvertence, had taken their places on a narrow divan, so that as the festivity proceeded they were perpetually coming into casual contact with each other. At first the young man had discreetly kept his distance, but little by little, growing bolder under his senior’s indulgent eye—the old man seemed to be getting tipsy—the lover drew nearer to his charmer. ”

“ Fantômas bit his lips and his eyes fell, while Lady Beltham demanded in a questioning, defiant tone:
“And why should I not have told the princess who you were?”
Receiving no answer, she proceeded, smiling in her turn with a show of scornful dignity:
“You are afraid, it seems, that knowing you in your true aspect, she might cease to feel for you the fatal infatuation that consumes her? Poor princess! poor pitiful passion!... what matter the faults, the vices of the man a woman loves, when she truly loves him? ”

“ Yes, seeing it was in the name of love that Jérôme Fandor wrote, seeing he besought her pity, she would not refuse his prayer.
“My life, my unhappy life,” thought Lady Beltham, “has but one excuse—love. Whensoever I hear that name invoked, I shall be found ready to recognize the only sentiment I feel some little respect for!”
But a bewildering, a terrible problem still confronted the great lady; with what surprise, with what agitation she realized that Fandor was in her house, and must be there, the very terms of his letter showed it, disguised as Fantômas—in the same disguise as Tom Bob? ”

“ In the darkened chamber Jérôme Fandor’s long-drawn sobs proclaimed the unfortunate young man’s infinite distress! Vaguely and indistinctly, as in a dream, the young man, still on his knees by the dead girl’s bed, draining to the dregs his grief and despair, had heard a footman come in a few minutes before, seeking the Grand Duchess Alexandra. Absorbed in his grief, dazed with suffering, Fandor had not so much as raised his head. ”

“ Moche shrugged his shoulders:
“Nini, you’re a born fool: a bit of patience, my lass, and you’ll see Père Moche was in the right.” Then, in a lower tone: “You’re far too pretty and too clever to spend all your young days among this crowd, a parcel of rotters who’re good for nothing but talking loud and getting drunk. I’ve told you, haven’t I, I’d make you rich, I’d make a great lady of you, more than that, a queen of beauty, a queen of Paris, a queen of society! Play your cards, Nini, listen to me....” ”

“ Tom Bob had uttered his little speech in a tone of laughing irony well calculated to divert his host, but the latter declined to be amused.
“What do you think about it?” the detective insisted, “what impression does all this Fantômas business make on you?”
Ascott, rousing himself from a prolonged reverie, shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t care a fig about it,” he declared, “I am bored to death....”
The other feigned no little surprise.
“Well, that is just what struck me, my dear sir; you look tired, altered, you never go into society nowadays; have you had worries perhaps?” ”

“ To move a limb was impossible, to resist a wild dream. Yet no sooner had he gathered a clear idea of the danger threatening him than, calm again and confident, he waited events.
Swift and silent, Fantômas stepped over the crossbar of the window, sprang down into the room, and to Fandor’s side where he lay stretched helpless on the floor. In a turn of the hand he made fast the knots of his lasso, gagged the young man, then slackened the ligature that was almost strangling him, and this done, fell to taunting his victim with odious mockery. ”

“ Fantômas, I, a poor old woman; say, have I the guts, am I brave, or am I not?”
Without the quiver of a muscle, Juve had listened to the appalling confession of the hideous virago.
“This dead man,” he asked in a low, broken voice, “who was he?”
But suddenly there rose an urgent cry of “Hush! hush!” The apaches had heard unusual sounds, the tramp of footsteps in the distance. By the wan, feeble light that filtered in through a grated opening on a level with the ground outside, the crowd could see one another’s repulsive faces drawn with anxiety. ”

“ Apart from the other guests, at a table set at a distance from the others, sat dining quite alone a very beautiful woman, of an irreproachable elegance and one who, better still than Sonia Danidoff, could claim the rank of Royal Highness. The waiters named her to each other with baited breath: “Her Highness the Grand Duchess Alexandra.” It was in fact the haughty great lady, friend of Frederick Christian IV, King of Hesse-Weimar, the proud lady whom Juve and Fandor, and they alone, knew to be in reality the enigmatic Lady Beltham, the mistress of Fantômas! ”

“ A prisoner in his lantern, still gagged, still tied hand and foot, Fandor seemed the victim of an atrocious nightmare. Scarce had the men entered the room before Fandor realized the full horror of his situation, guessed the whole secret of the villainous design. The men were police officers, they were shouting: “Jérôme Fandor, hands up! or you are a dead man.”
Then they began to search the garret, to turn everything upside down, to hunt about, to hunt for him! The young man felt a cold sweat bead his temples. What had been in Fantômas’ mind? He knew it only too well. ”

“ Juve marshalled his men in a circle round him, and Fandor, reassured as to his comrade’s fate, slipped away and mingled unobtrusively with the crowd. A majestic figure, with flashing eye and commanding pose, the ex-detective played to perfection the rôle of the grim, mysterious Fantômas. The man’s coolness was amazing, for did he not confront the possible risk that at any moment the true owner of that redoubtable name might appear before him? He went on:
“I am listening, out with it all! give in your claims, my lads; every man shall have his deserts!” ”

“ Once succeed in effecting an arrest, Monsieur Bob, a difficult arrest, within four and twenty hours of your arrival in Paris, and you will instantly be the hero of the day! They cannot any longer then affect in high places the same indifference the French police will certainly show towards you, chagrined as they are that you should come to help them out of their difficulty. A sensational arrest, loudly proclaimed and commended by the Press, will give you prestige, add weight to your declaration, when you come to declare, as I hope you will, that Juve is not Fantômas. ”

“ Wounded in his self-love and baulked in his passion, the young Englishman had quickly come to his senses, and this the more readily from the fact that, as his love for Sonia Danidoff cooled more and more, he felt his heart more and more stirred and charmed by a youthful passion for the pretty child he supposed to be niece of the old moneylender, the grotesque M. Moche. Moreover, startled by the indignant refusal his first audacious proposal had provoked, Ascott had immediately realized that this was not the right way to deal with the old business man. ”

“ Next moment, with a lightning dart neither officer nor journalist could anticipate, the brigand had fallen on two hives and kicked them over.
True, Juve and Fandor, instantly hauled him back to the middle of the path, but yells of agony now burst from their lips. The bees, disturbed in their peaceful labours, exasperated at the earthquake that had befallen them, rose in angry swarms and swooped down on the three men! Burning for revenge, the insects in their hurrying thousands fell upon their enemies! ”

“ Any display of physical force was impossible! any exertion of strength would have been in vain; Juve and Fandor held him fast, each with a grip of steel, their strength doubled by the furious anger that tightened their muscles and the triumph that swelled their hearts to have captured the scoundrel. Nor could Fantômas dream of eluding their vigilance or asking any favour of his captors ”