Messengers of Evil Part 9

"He lives! He lives!" and laughing wildly.

The warder raised his hand as though taking a solemn oath:

"As to being dead, he was dead right enough!... The doctor will tell you so, too: also my colleague, Favril, who helped me to lay out the body on the bed."

"But how can a dead body get away from here? If he _was_ dead, he could not have escaped!" said the magistrate.

"It is witchcraft!" declared the warder, with a shrug.

Fuselier flew into a rage:

"Had you not better confess that you and your colleagues did not keep proper watch and ward!... The investigation will show on whose shoulders the responsibility rests."

"But, sakes alive, monsieur!" expostulated the warder: "There aren't only two of us who have seen him dead!... There are all the hospital attendants of the Depot as well!... There is the doctor, and there are my colleagues to be counted in: the truth is, monsieur, some fifty persons have seen him dead!"

"So you say!" cried the impatient magistrate: "I am going to inform the Public Prosecutor of what has happened, and at once!"

As he was hurrying away, he spied Jerome Fandor, who had not missed a single detail of the scene.

"You again!" exclaimed the irate magistrate: "How did you get in here?"

"By permit," replied our journalist.

"Well, you have learned what there is to know, haven't you? Be off, then! You are one too many here!... Frankly, there is no need for you to augment the scandal!... Will you, therefore, be kind enough to take yourself off?" And Fuselier, almost beside himself with rage, raced off to the Public Prosecutor's office.

After the magistrate's furious attack, Fandor could not possibly linger in the corridors of the Depot. The warders, too, were pressing their attentions on him and on Elizabeth Dollon:

"This way, monsieur!... Madame, this way!... Ah, it's a wretched business!... Here, this way! This way!... Be off, as fast as you can!"

Presently Fandor was descending the grand staircase of the Palais, steadying the uncertain steps of poor Elizabeth Dollon.

"I implore you to help me!" she cried: "Help me: help us! My brother is guiltless--I could swear to that!... He must--must be found!... This hideous nightmare must end!"

"Mademoiselle, I ask nothing better, only ... where to find him?"

"Ah, I have no idea, none!... I implore you, you who must know influential people in high places, do not leave any stone unturned, do all that is humanly possible to save him--to save us!"

Intensely moved by the poor girl's anguish of mind, Fandor could not trust himself to speak. He bent his head in the affirmative merely.

Hailing a cab, he put her into it, gave the address to the driver, and as he was closing the door Elizabeth cried:

"Do all that is humanly possible--do everything in the world!"

"I swear to you I will get at the truth," was Fandor's parting promise.

The cab had disappeared, but our journalist stood motionless, absorbed in his reflections. At last, uttering his thoughts aloud, he said:

"If the Baroness de Vibray has written that she has killed herself, then she has killed herself, and Dollon is innocent. It's true the letter may be fict.i.tious ... therefore we must put it aside--we have no guarantee as to its genuineness.... Here is the problem: Jacques Dollon is dead, and yet has left the Depot! Yes, but how?"

Jerome Fandor went off in the direction of the offices of _La Capitale_ so absorbed in thought that he jostled the pa.s.sers-by, without noticing the angry glances bestowed on him:

"Jacques Dollon, dead, has left the Depot!" He repeated this improbable statement, so absurd, of necessity incorrect; repeated it to the point of satiety:

"Jacques Dollon is dead, and he has got away from the Depot!"

Then, in an illuminating flash, he perceived the solution of this apparently insoluble problem:

"A mystery such as this is incomprehensible, inexplicable, impossible, except in connection with one man! There is only one individual in the world capable of making a dead man seem to be alive after his death--and this individual is--Fantomas!"

To formulate this conclusion was to give himself a thrilling shock....

Since the disappearance of Juve, he had never had occasion to suspect the presence, the intervention of Fantomas in connection with any of the crimes he had investigated as reporter and student of human nature.

Fantomas! The sound of that name evoked the worst horrors! Fantomas!

This bandit, this criminal who has not shrunk from any cruelty, any horror--Fantomas is crime personified!

Fantomas! He sticks at nothing!

p.r.o.nouncing these syllables of evil omen, Fandor lived over again all the extraordinary, improbable, impossible things that had really happened, and had put him on the watch for this terrifying a.s.sa.s.sin.

Fantomas!

It was certain that to whatever degree he had partic.i.p.ated in the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Baroness de Vibray, one must not be astonished at anything; neither at anything inconceivable, nor at any mysterious details connected with the murder.

Fantomas!

He was the daring criminal--daring beyond all bounds of credibility. And whatever might be the dexterity, the ingenuity, the ability, the devotion of those who were pursuing him, such were his tricks, such his craft and cunning, such the fertility of his invention, so well conceived his devices, so great his audacity, that there were grounds for fearing he would never be brought to justice, and punished for his abominable crimes!

Fantomas!

Ah, if life ever brought Jerome Fandor and this bandit face to face, there would ensue a struggle of every hour, day, and moment--a struggle of the most terrible nature, a struggle in which man was pitted against man, a struggle without pity, without mercy--a fight to the death!

Fantomas would a.s.suredly defend himself with all the immense elusive powers at his command: Jerome Fandor would pursue him with heart and soul, with his very life itself! It was not only to satisfy his sense of duty at the promptings of honour that the journalist would take action: he would have as guide for his acts, and to animate his will, the pa.s.sion of hate, and the hope of avenging his friend Juve, fallen a victim to the mysterious blows of Fantomas.

In his article for _La Capitale_ Fandor did not directly mention the possible partic.i.p.ation of Fantomas in the crime of the rue Norvins. When it was finished he returned to his modest little flat on the fifth floor in the rue Bergere. He was about to enter the vestibule, when he noticed a piece of paper, which must have been slipped under his door. He stooped and picked up an envelope:

"Why, it is a letter--and there is no name and no stamp on it!"

Entering his study, he seated himself at his table and prepared to begin work. Then he bethought him of the letter, which he had carelessly thrown on the mantelpiece. He tore it open, and drew out a sheet of letter paper.

"Whatever is this?" he cried. His astonishment was natural enough, for the message was oddly put together. To prevent his handwriting being recognised, Fandor's correspondent had cut letters out of a newspaper, and had stuck them together in the desired order. The two or three lines of printed matter were as follows:

"Jerome Fandor, pay attention, great attention! The affair on which you are concentrating all your powers is worthy of all possible interest, but may have terribly dangerous consequences."

Of course there was no signature.

Evidently the warning referred to the Dollon case.

"Why," exclaimed Fandor, "this is simply an invitation not to busy myself hunting for the guilty persons!... Who has sent this invitation and warning? Surely the sender is the a.s.sa.s.sin, to whose interest it is that the inquiry into the rue Norvins murder should be dropped!... It must be Jacques Dollon!... But how could Dollon know my address? How could he have found time between his flight from the Depot and the present minute, to put this message of printed letters together, and take it to the rue Bergere?... And that at the risk of encountering someone who could recognise him, and might have him arrested afresh? Had he accomplices?"

Fandor was puzzled, agitated: