Fantômas

by Allain, Marcel; Souvestre, Pierre; Metcalfe, Cranstoun

  “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 Benoit, 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 Benoit. If Benoit 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 Benoit 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 Guru 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 confront
ing one another, Hogshead Geoffroy brandishing a chair, Benoit 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 wh
om 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!