Fandor

“ 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. ”

“ Fandor shouted at him.
"Fantômas! It's you and I, Fantômas!"
But, already, this mysterious bandit, unmasked by the unexpected light, had rushed on our journalist.
The electric torch was extinguished.
The struggle recommenced, fierce, formidable, desperate! Fandor was seized by the throat in a strangling grip: he was choking!
His right arm, so twisted, so bruised, was powerless—and in that hand, now so deadened and helpless that it seemed detached from his body, was his revolver. He must shoot, though almost powerless in the formidable grip of the bandit. He must shoot if he was to be saved. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Without a moment's reflection, Fandor leapt from his taxi, flung a five-franc piece to his driver, and without waiting for the change he rushed into the house, whose passages and stairs were so familiar.
The navvy was swiftly mounting the stairs in front of our excited young journalist, who was close on his quarry's heels: the two men were panting as they went up that dark staircase.
At the fourth floor, Fandor was nearly overcome by emotion, for the man entered Juve's old flat as if he had a right to do so. ”

“ The soldier's countenance was so full of alarm that Fandor regretted his first movement of ill-temper, his show of impatience. Perhaps this man had interesting things to say! He must give the fellow confidence. Fandor smiled.
"Very well," he suggested amiably, "let us have a talk if you really wish it."...
Corporal Vinson considered Fandor a moment, thanking him with a look for his more cordial attitude; then suddenly drawing himself up into a standing position, he shouted:
"Monsieur Fandor ... I am a traitor!" ”

“ Faces grew ugly, fists clenched, every eye glittered with murderous light. In his hiding-place Fandor congratulated himself on his presence at this unexpected scene. Moche seemed to be racking his brains to find a way to exculpate himself. ”

“ Fandor swore strictly to himself. The two wretches were conversing in German.
To the best of his judgment, a good hour had passed since the false police inspector and his acolyte had left the room. They had simply drawn to the door behind them, not troubling to lock it, much to the joy of Jérôme Fandor.
Absolute silence reigned.
Fandor attempted some discreet movements as a test. The wickerwork creaked as he gently shook the trunk at short intervals. Not an answering sound came from outside! Menaced with cramp, Fandor felt that the moment of escape had arrived. ”

“ Fandor was weakening. His right hand seemed to be caught in a vise which would break and crush it: it was growing tighter and tighter: it was wrenching his arm, was dragging him backwards: it would fracture his shoulder blade! Who?... Who?...
By a miraculous effort he freed himself. He leaped away; sprang to the mantelpiece; seized a pocket electric torch he had placed there—clac—a light flashed out!... Fandor saw, recognised his attacker!...
Ah! The form he had seen before—a slim figure, clothed in black!... Ah, this murderer, whose face was concealed by a hooded mask! ”

“ I cannot remember!" cried Elizabeth nervously.
"Come now," said Fandor encouragingly, "I know an excellent way of assisting the memory. The eyes are like a sensitive photographic plate: what the brain does not always retain, the mirror of the eye registers: do not try to remember, but try, as it were, to read on white paper what your eyes saw!..."
"Let us sit down a minute and I will help you to do it!" Fandor pointed out a rustic seat, under the trees, in front of which was a garden table. They sat down together and Fandor drew from his pocket a sheet of white paper and his fountain pen. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ Juve cut Fandor short.
"Gently! Fandor! Gently! You are putting the cart before the horse, old fellow; and if we continue to talk by fits and starts, never shall we come to the end of all we have to say to each other, and must say. Are you aware, Fandor, that we have been drawn into a succession of incomprehensible occurrences—a mysterious network of them?... But I have good hopes that now we shall be able to work together again; and I like to think that if we follow the different trails we have each started on, we shall end up by..." ”

“ Fandor's stomach rose at the sight.
Oh, horror! Could it be Jacques Dollon's body?
Fandor snatched up a stone and flung it furiously among the unclean beasts. They fled. On the ground he could distinguish a mass, a red, formless mass, saturated with congealed blood:
"Assuredly, if the corpse has disappeared, it is there the assassins must have cut it in pieces, that they might carry it more easily, and those vile creatures are in the thick of feasting on the poor victim's remains!... Pouah!" ”

“ The studio was plunged in darkness: a door banged: Fandor staggered, driven violently back into the middle of the studio. He felt a man was rushing away.
"He escapes! He escapes!"
Fandor did not know who had remained with him, who, had fled, whether he was on his head or his heels!... It was a momentary bewilderment; for the voice he had heard when the struggle was at its height was still speaking, calm, mocking.... It was the voice of Juve, saying:
"How exasperating!... These matches are no good at all!... Ah!... this one has decided to catch!" ”

“ He it was, Fandor could surely guess, who had contrived that Tom Bob and M. Havard were on the island at the very moment the lake was to burst into flame. Fantômas had of course felt no doubt that Fandor, prowling about the neighbourhood waiting to know the result of Lady Beltham’s visit, would be one of the first to make a dash for the island. In this way he would tumble into a regular trap.
Fandor was in full flight, seeing everywhere men hunting for him, revolver in hand, for the scattered conflagrations, dying down one by one, still afforded some light. ”

“ A few minutes after, Fandor clearly heard some persons entering the ground floor of the house.
He listened intently: he could hear his own heartbeats.
Then a voice said:
"In Heaven's name! Is it possible? Why do you come to upset people at this time of night? As if we had not had enough to put up with during the day! It is a dreadful business! There's no doubt about it! Are we never to be left in peace?"
"Why, it's Madame Bourrat's voice!" said Fandor. "Poor woman! What's up?" ”

“ Fandor laughed.
"Why, of course I can, madame! To find the points of the compass, to cultivate the sense of locality, is part of a journalist's profession."
"Do not forget to draw to behind you—it needs a strong pull—the gate which separates us from the street: once shut, no one can open it from outside."
Fandor, shaking hands with the boarding-house keeper, promised to close the gate. As the sound of his steps on the gravel grew less and less, as the gate fell to with a loud noise, and an absolute silence followed, Madame Bourrat felt sure that her guest had left the garden—had gone away. ”

“ He was not a working man at all! True, he wore a plumber’s short blue jacket, but it only needed to note his flat cap, his brown muffler, to say nothing of the broad red sash round his waist, his velvet Zouave breeches, his elegant, down-at-heel shoes, the whole vicious cut of the fellow, to guess his vile trade.
“A fancy-man!” thought Fandor, “it was a fancy-man, a bully, was his ally! ... and the two we’ve just planted on the sidewalk are purely and simply a couple of police officers!” ”

“ Almost on the defensive, in a voice of fear, Lady Beltham said for the third time: “Speak, sir, speak!”
“Madam,” Fandor resumed in trembling accents, “I love deeply, with all my heart and all my soul, an unhappy young girl whose name you know, for it bears a melancholy renown. Elisabeth Dollon, I mean. Madam, by your lover’s doing—nay, never protest, all denial is in vain between us—by your lover’s doing, I, I Jérôme Fandor, am deemed by Elisabeth Dollon, as by all men, to be Fantômas. She would love me if she knew me innocent, now she hates me, fears me, flies from me! ”

“ The corporal continued, stammeringly:
"Ah, Monsieur, you do not know what it is to have for your mistress such a woman as ... she whom I love, ... such a woman as ... Nichoune! Nichoune! Ah, all Châlons knows what she is like. Her wickedness is well known ... but for all that, there is not a man who."...
Fandor interrupted:
"But, my good corporal, why are you telling me all this?"
"Why, Monsieur," replied Vinson, after a pause and a piteous look, "because—it's because ... I have sworn to tell you everything before I die!"
"Hang it all! What do you mean to do?" asked Fandor. ”

“ 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? ”

“ I am alone in my glory! There's not a soul in the place! Good luck indeed!"
He turned for a last look at his broken prison house, the cage in which he had spent such exciting hours. He suddenly stiffened and drew back: a nervous trembling seized him—the nervous trembling due to sudden shock. Between the trunk which had been dumped down in the centre of a large square room, without a scrap of furniture in it, and the window, through whose shutters the rays of morning sunshine shone, Fandor had caught sight of a body lying on the floor—a man's body! Fandor leapt forward. ”

“ One being, and one only, was capable of such a diabolically clever performance; and Fandor, who would not believe it some weeks before, when discussing the question with Juve, had now to accept his hypothesis as a certainty: his acts caused his unseen personality to hit you in the eyes! Only one person could pull the strings with such a demon hand!... Yes, Fandor could no longer doubt that his desperate plight was due to the terrific, odious, elusive Fantômas!
Our journalist was now in the lowest depths. He attempted to keep calm and cool, but he had lost grip of himself.... ”

“ It was not without a shudder Juve gazed round the damp, confined cellar where, but for Fandor’s quite unlooked for intervention, he would inevitably have met an appalling death.
“Fandor!” began his friend, “it is a hideous job we have to do. It is the grave there must give us up its secret. The unhappy man who lies in it, Fantômas’ unsuspected victim, must rise up to accuse his murderer!” ”

“ Monsieur Fuselier appeared at the entrance to the Dépôt, supporting the unsteady steps of poor Elizabeth Dollon. Fandor quickly drew back into an obscure corner:
"Better not attract attention to myself just at present," thought Fandor; "I will wait until the cell door is opened. If Fuselier does not wish to give me permission to remain, I can at any rate cast a rapid glance round that ill-omened little cell!" ”

“ Like a flower that has borne the buffets of the storm and fades at the outburst of too fierce a sun, the unhappy child, after the grievous hours, the tragic, the dreadful times she had lived through, could not endure the too overpowering delight she felt at seeing Fandor again, and knowing him innocent, the too overwhelming shock of discovering that Lady Beltham stood before her! ”

“ Yes, Fantômas had changed his plans: rid of the Nihilists, he could have it all his own way with Fandor!
The disciples, as with one voice, cried:
"We are thy faithful followers. What thou ordainest that we do!"...
Trokoff turned to Fandor. He shook a threatening fist in Fandor's face.
"Collect yourself.... You are to pay the price of expiation soon!"
This menace hurled at his victim, Trokoff drew his fanatical partisans together, made them quit the studio, and vanished with them....
"He will return," thought Fandor: "And then it is all up with me! Courage to face the worst!" ”

“ This time Fandor really went off, having set his portress on the alert. In the rue Montmartre he hailed a cab:
"To the National Library! And as quick as you can!"
"By Jove! It's three o'clock! I've not a minute to lose!" cried Fandor as he got back his stick from the cloak-room of the National Library: he had handed it in there some hours ago. He entered the rue Richelieu. Now for an ironmonger's shop! He caught sight of one and went in:
"I should like fifty yards of fine cord, please; very strong and very pliable," said Fandor. ”