Fantômas

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

  “They do when you help them,” Gurn said peremptorily; “and you and I are going to help them.”

  “That remains to be seen,” said the warder.

  “Of course, everything has got to be paid for,” Gurn went on. “One can’t expect a warder to risk his situation merely to help a prisoner to escape.” He smiled as the warder made an exclamation of nervous warning. “Don’t be frightened, Nibet. We’re not going to play any fool games, but let us talk seriously. Of course you have another appointment with the worthy lady who gave you that money?”

  “I am to meet her to-night at eleven, in the boulevard Arago,” Nibet said, after a moment’s hesitation.

  “Good,” said Gurn. “Well, you are to tell her that I must have ten thousand francs.”

  “What?” exclaimed the man, in utter astonishment, but his eyes shone with greed.

  “Ten thousand francs,” Gurn repeated calmly, “and by tomorrow morning. Fifteen hundred of those are for you; I will go away to-morrow evening.”

  There was a tense silence; the warder seemed doubtful, and Gurn turned the whole of his will power upon him to persuade him.

  “Suppose they suspect me?” said Nibet.

  “Idiot!” Gurn retorted; “all you will do will be to make a slip in your duty: I don’t want you to be an accomplice. Listen: there will be another five thousand francs for you, and if things turn out awkwardly for you, all you will have to do will be to go across to England, and live there comfortably for the rest of your days.”

  The warder was obviously almost ready to comply.

  “Who will guarantee me?” he asked.

  “The lady, I tell you—the lady of the boulevard Arago. Here, give her this,” and he tore a leaf out of his pocket-book and, scribbling a few words on it, handed it to Nibet.

  “Well,” said the warder hesitatingly: “I don’t say ‘no.’”

  “You’ve got to say ‘yes,’” Gurn retorted.

  The two looked steadily in each other’s eyes; then the warder blenched.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Nibet was going away, and was already almost in the corridor when Gurn calmly called him back.

  “You will evolve a plan, and I will start to-morrow. Don’t forget to bring me a time-table; the Orléans Company time-table will do.”

  The murderer was not disappointed in his expectations. The next morning Nibet appeared with a mysterious face and eager eyes. He took a small bundle from underneath his jersey and gave it to Gurn.

  “Hide that in your bed,” he said, and Gurn obeyed.

  The morning passed without further developments; numerous warders came and went in the corridor, attending to the prisoners, and Gurn could get no private talk with Nibet, who contrived, however, to come into his cell several times on various pretexts and assure him with a nod or a word that all was going well. But presently, when walking in the exercise yard, the two men were able to have a conversation.

  Nibet manifested an intelligence of which his outer appearance gave no indication; but it seems to be an established fact that the inventive faculties, even of men of inferior mental quality, are sharpened when they are engaged in mischief.

  “For the last three weeks,” he said, “about a score of masons have been working in the prison, repairing the roof and doing up some of the cells. Cell number 129, the one next yours, is empty, and there are no bars on the window; the masons go through that cell and that window to get on to the roof. They knock off work soon after six o’clock. The gate-keeper knows them all, but he does not always look closely at their faces when they go by, and you might perhaps be able to go out with them.

  “In the bundle that I gave you there is a pair of workman’s trousers, and a waistcoat and a felt hat; put those on. At about a quarter to six, the men who went up on to the roof through the cell, come down by way of the skylights to the staircase that leads to the clerk’s office, pass the office, where they are asked no questions, cross the two yards and go out by the main gate. I will open the door of your cell a few minutes before six, and you must go into the empty cell next yours, slip up on to the roof and take care to hide behind the chimney stacks until the men have done work. Let them go down in front of you, and follow behind with a pick or a shovel on your shoulder, and when you are passing the clerk, or anywhere where you might be observed, mind you let the men go a yard or two in front of you. When the gate is just being shut after the last workman, call out quietly, but as naturally as you can, ‘Hold on, M. Morin; mind you don’t lock me in; I’m not one of your lodgers; let me out after my mates.’ Make some joke of that sort, and when you are once outside the gate, by George, my boy, you’ll have to vamoose!”

  Gurn listened attentively to the warder’s instructions. Lady Beltham must, indeed, have been generous and have made the man perfectly easy on the score of his own future.

  “In one of the pockets of the clothes,” Nibet went on, “I have put ten hundred-franc notes; you asked for more, but I could not raise it: we can settle that some other time.”

  Gurn made no comment.

  “When will my escape be discovered?” he asked.

  “I am on night duty,” the warder answered. “Arrange your clothes on your bed to make it look as if you were in bed, and then they will think I might have been deceived. I go off duty at five; the next round is at eight. My mate will open the door of the cage, and by that time you will be miles away.”

  Gurn nodded comprehension. Time did not permit of longer conversation. The bell had rung some minutes ago, proclaiming that the exercise time was over. The two men hurried upstairs to cell number 127 on the third floor, and the prisoner was locked in alone, while Nibet went about his duty as usual.

  XXVI. A MYSTERIOUS CRIME

  Arriving in good time at the little station at Verrières, where he was about to take a train to Paris to keep his appointment at the Law Courts, the old steward Dollon gave his parting instructions to his two children, who had come to see him off.

  “I must, of course, call upon Mme. de Vibray,” he said, “and I don’t yet know what time M. Fuselier wants to see me at his office. Anyhow, if I don’t come back to-morrow, I will the next day, without fail. Well, little ones, I’m just off now, so say good-bye and get home as fast as you can. It looks to me as if there was going to be a storm, and I should like to know that you were safe at home.”

  With heavy creaking of iron wheels, and hoarse blowing off of steam from the engine, the Paris train drew into the station. The steward gave a final kiss to his little son and daughter and got into a second-class carriage.

  In a neighbouring village a clock had just struck three.

  The storm had been raging since early in the evening, but now it seemed informed with a fresh fury: the rain was lashing down more fiercely, and the wind was blowing harder still, making the slender poplars along the railway line bow and bend before the squalls and assume the most fantastic shapes, but vaguely shown against the night. The night was inky black. The keenest eye could make out nothing at all distinctly, even at the distance of a few yards: the darkness was so dense as to seem absolutely solid.

  Nevertheless, along the railway embankment, a man was making his way with steady step, seeming not a whit disturbed by the tragic horror of the storm.

  He was a man of about thirty, rather well dressed in a large waterproof coat, the collar of which, turned up to his ears, hid the lower part of his face, and a big felt hat with brim turned down protecting him fairly well from the worst of the weather. The man fought his way against the wind, which drove into his overcoat with such force that sometimes it almost stopped his progress, and he trod the stony track without paying heed to the sorry plight into which it would most surely put the thin boots he was wearing.

  “Awful weather!” he growled: “I don’t remember such a shocking night for years: wind, rain, every conceivable thing! But I mustn’t grumble, for the total absence of moon will be uncommonly useful for my purpose.” A flash of lightning streake
d the horizon, and the man stopped and looked quickly about him. “I can’t be far from the place,” he thought, and again went on his way. Presently he heaved a sigh of relief. “Here I am at last.”

  At this spot the line was completely enclosed between two high slopes, or ran at the bottom of a deep cutting.

  “It’s better here,” the man said to himself; “the wind passes well above my head, and the cutting gives good shelter.” He stopped and carefully deposited on the ground a rather bulky bundle he had been carrying under his arm; then he began to pace up and down, stamping his feet in an effort to keep warm. “It has just struck three,” he muttered. “From the time-table I can’t expect anything for another ten minutes. Well, better too soon than too late!” He contemplated the bundle which he had laid down a few minutes before. “It’s heavier than I thought, and deucedly in the way. But it was absolutely necessary to bring it. And down here in this cutting, there is nothing for me to be anxious about: the grass is thick, so I can run, and the line is so straight that I shall see the lights of the train a long way off.” A thin smile curled his lips. “Who would have thought, when I was in America, that I should ever find it so useful to have learnt how to jump a train?”

  A dull sound in the distance caught his ear. In a second he had sprung to his bundle, picked it up, and, choosing a spot on the ballast, crouched down listening. At the place where he stood the line ran up a steep acclivity. It was from the lower end of this that the noise he had heard proceeded, and now was growing louder, almost deafening. It was the heavy, regular puffing of a powerful engine coming up a steep gradient, under full steam.

  “No mistake: my star is with me!” the man muttered, and as the train approached he stretched his muscles and, taking a firmer grip of his bundle, he bent forward in the stooping attitude that runners take when about to start off in a race.

  With a heavy roar, and enveloped in clouds of steam, the train came up to where he was, travelling slowly because of the steep gradient, certainly less than twenty miles an hour. The moment the engine had passed him, the man started off, lithe as a cat, and ran at the top of his speed. The train, of course, gained upon him; the tender, luggage vans, and third-class carriages passed him, and a second-class carriage was just coming up with him. The pace alone would have deprived almost anyone else of power of thought, but this man was evidently a first-rate athlete, for the moment he caught sight of the second-class carriage he took his decision. With a tremendous effort he caught hold of the hand-rail and sprang upon the footboard, where, with extraordinary skill, he contrived to remain.

  Reaching the summit of the slope, the train gathered speed, and with an even louder roar began its headlong journey through the darkness and the storm, which seemed to increase in intensity with every passing minute.

  For a few seconds the man hung on where he was. Then, when he had regained his breath, he got on to the upper step and listened at the door of the corridor at which he found himself. “No one there,” he muttered. “Besides, everyone will be asleep,” and, chancing everything, he rose up, opened the door, and stepped into the second-class carriage with a grunt of relief.

  Making no attempt to conceal himself, he walked boldly into the lavatory and washed his face that was blackened with the smoke from outside, and then, in the most leisurely, natural way possible, he came out of the lavatory and walked along the corridor, soliloquising aloud, manifestly not minding whether he were overheard.

  “It’s positively maddening! No one can sleep, with travelling companions like that!”

  As he spoke he went along the corridor, rapidly glancing into every compartment. In one, three men were asleep, obviously unaware that anyone was surveying them from outside. The door of the compartment was ajar, and the stranger noiselessly stepped within. The fourth corner was unoccupied, and here the man took his seat, laying his bundle down beside him, and feigning sleep. He waited, motionless, for a good quarter of an hour, until he was quite satisfied that his companions were really sleeping soundly, then he slid his hand into the bundle by his side, seemed to be doing something inside it, then withdrew his hand noiselessly, stepped out of the compartment, and carefully closed the door.

  In the corridor he drew a sigh of relieved satisfaction, and took a cigar from his pocket.

  “Everything is going splendidly,” he said to himself. “I was cursing this awful storm just now, but it is wonderfully useful to me. On such a night as this no one would dream of opening the windows.” He strolled up and down, holding on to the hand-rail with one hand to maintain himself against the rocking of the train, and every now and then taking out his watch with the other to see the time. “I haven’t any too much time,” he muttered. “I shall have to be quick, or my friend will miss his train!” He smiled, as if amused at the idea, and then, holding his cigar away from him so as not to inhale the smoke, he drew several deep breaths. “There is a faint smell,” he said, “but you would have to be told of it to detect it. The devil of it is that it so often causes nightmare; that would be awful!” He suspended his patrol and listened again. There was no sound to be heard from within the compartments except the snoring of a few travellers and the monotonous, rhythmical noise of the wheels passing over the joints of the rails. “Come: I’ve waited twenty minutes; it would be risky to wait longer; let’s get to work!”

  He stepped briskly back into the compartment, and furtively glancing into the corridor to make sure that no one was there, he went across to the opposite window and opened it wide. He put his head out into the air for a minute or two, and then turned to examine his travelling companions. All three were still sound asleep.

  The man gave vent to a dry chuckle. He drew his bundle towards him, felt until he found something within it, and flung it back on to the seat. Then he walked up to the man opposite him, slipped his hand inside his coat and abstracted a pocket-book and began to examine the papers it contained. “Ah!” he exclaimed suddenly; “that was what I was afraid of!” and taking one of the papers he put it inside his own pocket-book, chose one from his own and put it into the other man’s pocket-book, and then, having effected this exchange, replaced the man’s property and chuckled again. “You do sleep!”

  And indeed, although the pick-pocket took no particular precaution, the man continued to sleep soundly, as did the other two men in the compartment.

  The thief looked once more at his watch.

  “Time!”

  He leaned out of the open window and slipped back the safety catch. Then he opened the door quite wide, took the sleeping traveller by the shoulders and picked him up from the seat, and with all his strength sent him rolling out on to the line!

  The next moment he seized from the rack the light articles that evidently belonged to his victim, and threw them out after him.

  When he had finished his ghastly work he rubbed his hands in satisfaction. “Good!” he said, and closing the door again, but leaving the window down, he left the compartment, not troubling to pick up his belongings, and walked along the corridors to another second-class compartment, towards the front of the train, in which he calmly installed himself.

  “Luck has been with me,” he muttered as he stretched himself out on the seat. “Everything has gone off well; no one has seen me, and those two fools who might have upset my plans will wake up quite naturally when they begin to feel the cold; and they will attribute the headache they will probably feel to their tiring journey.”

  A train, travelling in the opposite direction, suddenly roared past the window and made him jump. He started up, and smiled.

  “’Gad! I said my friend would miss his train, but he’ll catch it in another five minutes! In another five minutes, luggage and body and the entire caboodle will be mincemeat!” and as if completely reassured by the idea he chuckled again. “Nothing could have gone better: I can have a rest, and in an hour’s time I shall be at Juvisy, where, thanks to my forethought, I shall be able to whitewash myself—literally.” One thing, however, still se
emed to worry him: he did not know exactly where on the line he had thrown his unhappy victim, but he had an idea that the train had run through a small station shortly afterwards; if that was so, the body might be found sooner than he would have liked. He tried to dismiss the notion from his mind, but he caught sight of the telegraph posts speeding past the windows, and he shook his fist at them malignantly. “That is the only thing that can harm me now,” he muttered.

  “Juvisy! Juvisy! Wait here two minutes!”

  It was barely half-past six, and the porters hurried along the train, calling out the name of the station, and rousing sleepy travellers from their dreams. A man jumped nimbly out of a second-class carriage and walked towards the exit from the station, holding out his ticket. “Season,” he said, and passed out rapidly.

  “Good idea, that season ticket,” he said to himself; “much less dangerous than an ordinary ticket which the police could have traced.”

  He walked briskly towards the subway, crossed the main road, and took a side turning that led down towards the Seine. Taking no notice of the mud, the man went into a field and hid himself in a little thicket on the river bank. He looked carefully all around him to make sure that he was unobserved, then took off his overcoat, jacket and trousers, and drawing a bundle from one of the pockets of his large waterproof, proceeded to dress himself anew. As soon as he was dressed, he spread the waterproof out on the ground, folded up in it the clothes and hat he had previously been wearing, added a number of heavy stones, and tied the whole bundle up with a piece of string. He swung it once or twice at the full length of his arm, and sent it hurtling right into the middle of the river, where it sank at once.

  A few minutes later a bricklayer in his working clothes presented himself at the Juvisy booking office.

  “A workman’s ticket to Paris, please, missus,” he said, and having got it, the man went on to the departure platform. “It would have been risky to use my own ticket,” he muttered. “This return ticket will put them off the scent,” and with a smile he waited for the train that would take him to Paris.