Fantômas

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

  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. Curn 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: prov
e 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 Tines, 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 met”

  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 initiativ
e 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: