taken to keep the failure two days back a secret, the papers had got
wind of the drama: _The Capital_ itself had spoken of it, though without
naming his fellow-worker. The staff of that paper was unaware that
Fandor was the other man who had so marvellously escaped from the sewer.
Blood-curdling tales were told about Doctor Chaleck, Juve, Loupart, the
house of the crime, the affair at the hospital; but to anyone familiar
with the actual happenings, the newspaper accounts were very far from
giving the truth.
And Juve, far from contradicting these misstatements, took a delight in
spreading them broadcast.
It is sometimes useful to set astray the powerful voice of the Press so
as to give a false security to the real culprits.
However, when masons, electricians and zinc-workers were seen to take
possession of Doctor Chaleck's house and begin to turn it upside down, a
crowd quickly assembled to witness the performance.
It was with great difficulty that Juve, who did not want too many
witnesses round the place, organised arrangements of a vigorous
character.
Installed in the drawing-room on the ground floor, he first had a long
interview with the owner of the house, M. Nathan, the well-known diamond
broker of the Rue de Provence. The poor man was in despair to think his
property had been the scene of the extraordinary events which were on
everybody's tongue. All he knew of Doctor Chaleck was that that
gentleman had been his tenant just four years, and had always paid his
rent regularly.
"You didn't suspect," asked Juve in conclusion, "the ingenious
contrivance of that electric lift in which the doctor placed a study
identically similar to the real one?"
"Certainly not, sir," replied the worthy man. "Eighteen months ago my
tenant asked permission to repair the house at his own expense; as you
may suppose, I granted his request at once. It must have been at that
time that the queer contrivance was built. Have I your permission to go
down to the cellars and ascertain their condition?"
"Not before to-morrow, sir, when I shall have finished my inspection,"
replied Juve, as he saw M. Nathan out.
The inspector was assisted in his investigation by detectives Michel and
Dupation. They interviewed the old couple in charge of the Cité and
various neighbours of Doctor Chaleck, but without lighting upon a clue.
Nobody had seen or heard anything whatever.
Toward noon he and Michel, who did not wish to leave the house, decided
to have a modest repast brought to them. M. Dupation, a fidgety
official, took this chance of getting away.
"Well, gentlemen," he declared, "you are much more up to this business
than I, and besides my wife expects me to luncheon. You don't need any
further help from me?"
Juve reassured the worthy superintendent and gave him permission to go.
He was only too glad to find himself alone with his lieutenant. The
workmen who were repairing the caved-in basement of the little house
were already gone, and there was no chance of their being back before
two o'clock. Thus Juve found himself alone with Michel.
"What I can't understand, sir," said Michel, "is the telephone call we
got toward morning from here asking for help at the office in the Rue
Rochefoucauld. Either the victim herself 'phoned, and in that case she
did not die, as we think, in the early part of the night, or it was not
she, and then----"
Juve smiled.
"You are right in putting the problem that way, but to my mind it is
easy to solve. The call was not given by the murdered woman for,
remember, when we raised the body at half-past six it was already cold.
Now the call was not given till six, when the woman had been dead some
little time. That I am sure of, and you will see the report of the
medical expert will uphold me."
"Then it was a third person who gave it?"
"Yes, and one who sought to have the crime discovered as soon as
possible, and who reckoned on the officers coming from the Central
Station, but did not expect Fandor or me to come back."
"Then according to you, sir, the murderer knew of your presence behind
the curtain in the study while the crime was being committed."
"I can't tell about the murderer, but Doctor Chaleck certainly knew we
were there. That man must have watched us all night, known the exact
instant we left the house, and immediately afterwards got some one to
telephone or must have done so himself."
Michel, becoming more and more convinced by Juve's reasoning, went on:
"At any rate, the existence of two studies, in all respects similar,
goes to show a carefully premeditated plan, but there is something I
can't account for. When you came back to the study where we found the
dead woman, you found traces of mud by the window brought in by your
shoes. You must therefore have been watching through the night the room
where the crime was committed."
Juve was about to put in a word, but Michel, launched on his train of
argument, continued:
"Allow me, sir; you are going, no doubt, to tell me that they might
during your short absence have carried the body of the victim into the
study in question, but I would point out to you, that on the loosened
hair of the poor creature blood had caked, that some was on the carpet
and had even gone through it to the flooring beneath. Now if they
carried in the body just a little while before we discovered it, that
would not have been the case."
Michel was delighted with his own argument. Juve smiled indulgently.
"My poor Michel," he cried, "you would be quite right if I put forward
such an explanation. It is certain that the room in which we found the
body was that in which the crime took place. It is therefore that in
which we were not! As for the marks of mud near the window, they are
ours, but transferred from the room in which we were into the room in
which we were not! Which again proves that our presence was known to the
culprits.
"Furthermore, the candle with which Doctor Chaleck melted the wax to
seal his letters was scarcely used, it only burned in fact a few
minutes. Now we found another candle in the same state. So you see that
the precautions were well taken and everything possible done to lead us
astray.
"We see the puppets moving--Loupart, Chaleck, Josephine, others maybe,
but we do not see the strings."
"The strings which move them perhaps may be no other than--Fantômas,"
ventured Michel.
Juve frowned and suddenly fell silent. Then abruptly changing the
conversation, he asked his lieutenant:
"You told me, did you not, that you could no longer appear in the
character of the Sapper?"
"Quite true, Inspector, I was spotted just the day before the crime by
Loupart, and so was my colleague, Nonet."
"Talking of that," answered Juve, "Nonet mentioned vaguely something
about an affair at the docks, supposed to have been planned by the Beard
and an individual known as the Cooper. Are you fully informed?"
"Unfortunately no, Inspector. I know no more about the matter than you
do."
"And what is Nonet about now?"
"He has left for Chartres."
Juve shrugged his shoulders. He was annoyed. Perhaps if Léon, nicknamed
Nonet, had not been transferred he would by now have obtained pertinent
clues to the dock's affair.
After having enjoined Michel to devise a new disguise which allowed him
to mix once more with the Band of Cyphers and going back to "The Good
Comrades," Juve went down to the basement to supervise the workmen, who
were now back; while Michel busied himself with the inventory of the
papers found in Doctor Chaleck's study.
* * * * *
On leaving the house toward half-past seven in the evening Juve went
slowly down to the Rue des Martyrs, pondering over the occurrences which
for several days had succeeded each other with such startling rapidity.
As he reached the boulevards the bawling of newsboys attracted his
attention. An ominous headline was displayed in the papers the crowd was
struggling for.
"ANOTHER RAILROAD ACCIDENT.
THE SIMPLON EXPRESS TELESCOPES
THE MARSEILLES LIMITED. MANY
VICTIMS."
Juve anxiously bought a paper and scanned the list of the injured,
fearful that Fandor would be found among the number. But as he read the
details and learned that those in the detached carriage had escaped, he
felt somewhat relieved. Hailing a taxi he drove off rapidly to the
Prefecture in search of more precise information.
"A message for you, M. Juve."
The detective, hurrying home, was passing the porter's lodge. He pulled
up short.
"For me?"
"Yes--it's certainly your name on the telegram."
Juve took the blue envelope with distrust and uneasiness. He had given
his home address to no one. He glanced over the message, and gave a sigh
of relief.
"The dear fellow," he muttered as he went upstairs. "He's had a narrow
escape; however, all's well than ends well."
After a hurried toilet and a bite of dinner, Juve set off again, jumped
into a train for the Boulevard St. Germain and got down at the Jardin
des Plantes. Then, sauntering casually along, he made for Bercy by the
docks, which were covered as far as the eye could see with rows and rows
of barrels.
* * * * *
About two hours later, Juve, who had been wandering about the vast
labyrinth of wine-docks, began to grow impatient.
It was already fifty minutes past the appointed hour, and the detective
began to feel uneasy. Why was Fandor so late? Something must surely have
happened to him! And then what a queer idea to choose such a meeting
place!
Suddenly, Juve started. He recalled his talk that afternoon with Michel;
the reference made to the affair of the docks in which the Beard and the
Cooper were implicated. What if he had been drawn into a trap!
The detective's reflections were suddenly cut short by unusual and
alarming sounds.
He fancied he heard the shrill blast of a whistle, followed by the rush
of footsteps and a collision of empty barrels.
Juve held his breath and crouched down under the shed in which he stood;
he thought he saw the outline of a shadow passing slowly in the
distance. Juve was stealthily following in its tracks when he caught a
significant click.
"Two can play at that," he growled between his teeth, as he cocked his
revolver. The shadow disappeared, but the footsteps went on.
Disguising his voice he called out: "Who goes there?"
A sharp summons answered him, "Halt!"
Juve was about to call upon his mysterious neighbour to do likewise,
when a report rang out, at once followed by another. Juve saw where the
shots came from. His assailant was scarcely fifteen paces from him, but
luckily the shots had gone wide.
"Use up your cartridges, my friend," muttered Juve; "when your get to
number six, it will be my turn."
The sixth shot rang out. This was the signal for Juve to spring forward.
Leaping over the barrels, he made for the shadow which he espied at
intervals. All at once he gave a cry of triumph. He was face to face
with a man.
His cry, however, changed into amazement.
"You, Fandor?"
"Juve!"
"You've begun shooting at me, now, have you?"
For answer, the journalist held out his revolver, which was fully
loaded.
"But what are you doing here, Juve?" he asked.
"You wired to me to come."
"That I never did."
Juve drew the telegram from his pocket and held it out to Fandor, but as
the two men drew close together, they were startled by a lightning
flash, and a report. A bullet whistled past their ears. Instinctively
they lay flat between two barrels, holding their breaths.
Juve whispered instructions: "When I give the signal, fire at anything
you see or toward the direction of the next report."
The two men slowly and noiselessly raised their heads.
"Ah," cried Juve.
And he fired at the rapidly fleeing figure.
"Did you see?" whispered Fandor, clutching Juve's arm. "It's Chaleck."
Juve was about to leap up and start in pursuit when a series of dull
thuds, the overturning of barrels, stifled oaths and cracking planks
smote his ear. These noises were followed by the measured footfall of a
body of men drawing near, words of command and shrill whistles.
"What's all that now?" questioned Fandor.
"The best thing that could happen for us," replied Juve. "The police are
coming. These quays are a refuge for all kinds of tramps and crooks who
from time to time are rounded up. We are probably going to see a
'drive.'"
Juve had scarcely finished speaking when several shots rang out; these
were followed by a general uproar and then a great blue flame suddenly
rose, died away and flared up again. A thick smoke permeated the
atmosphere.
"Fire," exclaimed Fandor.
"The kegs of alcohol are alight," added Juve.
The two had now to think of their own safety. Evidently bandits had been
tracking them for more than an hour, guided by Doctor Chaleck.
But they soon found that their retreat was cut off by a ring of flames.
"Let us head for the Seine," suggested Fandor, who had discovered a
break in the ring of fire at that point. A fresh explosion now took
place. From a burst cask a spurt of liquid fire shot up, closing the
circle. It had become impossible to pass through in any direction.
They heard the cries of the rabble, the whistles of the officers. In the
distance the horns of the fire engines moaned dolefully. The heat was
growing unbearable, and the ring enclosing Fandor and Juve narrowed
more and more. Suddenly Juve pointed to an enormous empty puncheon that
had just rolled beside them.
"Have you ever looped the loop?" he asked. "Hurry up now; in you go;
we'll let it roll down the slope of the quay into the river."
In a few moments the cask was rolling at top speed. Juve and Fandor
guessed by the crackling of the outer planks and by a sudden rise in the
temperature that they were passing through the fire. All at once the
great vat reached the level of the river. It plunged into the waves with
a dull thud.
XVII
ON THE SLABS OF THE MORGUE
As he turned at the far side of the Pont St. Louis, Doctor Ardel, the
celebrated medical jurist, caught sight of M. Fuselier, the magistrate,
chatting with Inspector Juve in front of the Morgue.
"I am behind-hand, gentlemen. So sorry to have made you wait."
M. Fuselier and Juve crossed the tiny court and entered the
semi-circular lecture-room, where daily lessons in medical jurisprudence
are given to the students and the head men of the detective police
force.
Doctor Ardel, piloting his guests, did the honours.
"The place is not exactly gay; in fact, it has an ill reputation; but
anyhow, gentlemen, it is at your disposition. M. Fuselier, you will be
able to investigate in peace: M. Juve, you will be at liberty to put any
questions you choose to your client."
The doctor spoke in a loud voice, emphasising each word with a jolly
laugh, good natured, devoid of malice, yet making an unpleasant
impression on his two visitors less at home than he in the gruesome
abode they had just entered.
"You will excuse me," he went on, "if I leave you for a couple of
minutes to put on an overall and my rubber gloves?"
The doctor gone, the two instinctively felt a vague need to talk to
counteract the doleful atmosphere the Morgue seemed to exhale, where so
many unclaimed corpses, so much human flotsam, had come to sleep under
the inquiring eyes of the crowd, before being given to the common ditch,
being no more than an entry in a register and a date: "Body found so and
so, buried so and so."
"Tell me, my dear Juve," asked M. Fuselier. "This morning directly I got
your message I at once acceded to your wish and asked Ardel to have us
both here this afternoon, but I hardly understand your object. What have
you come here for?"
Juve, with both hands in his pockets, was walking up and down before the
dissecting table. At the Magistrate's question he stopped short, and,
turning to M. Fuselier, replied:
"Why have I come here? I scarcely know myself. It's everything or
nothing. The key to the puzzle. I tell you, M. Fuselier, things are
becoming increasingly tragic and baffling."
"How's that?"
"The part played by Josephine is less and less clear. She is Loupart's
mistress; she informs against him, is fired at by him, then, according
to Fandor, becomes in some manner his accomplice in a robbery so daring
that you must search the annals of American criminality to find its
like."
"You refer to the train affair?"
"Yes. Now, leaving Josephine on one side, we are confronted with two
enigmas. Doctor Chaleck, a man of the world, a scholar, crops up as
leader of a band of criminals. What we know for certain about him is
that he fired at Josephine, that he was concerned in the affair of the
docks--no more. There remains Loupart; and about him being the real
culprit we know nothing. There is no proof that he killed the woman. In
order to prove that we should have to know who that woman is and why she
was killed, and also how. The how and why of the crime alone might
chance to give us the answer."
"What trail are you following?"
"That of the dead woman. The body we are about to examine will determine
me in which quarter to direct my search."
M. Fuselier, looking at the detective with a penetrating eye, asked:
"You surely haven't the notion of suspecting Fantômas?"
"You are right, M. Fuselier," he replied. "Behind Loupart, behind
Chaleck, everywhere and always it is Fantômas I am looking for."
Whatever information the detective was about to impart to the magistrate
was cut short by the return of Doctor Ardel. That gentleman, in donning
the uniform of the expert, had resumed an appearance of professional
gravity.
"We are going to work now, gentlemen," he announced. "I need not remind
you, of course, that the body you are about to see, that of the woman
found in the Cité Frochot, has already undergone certain changes due to
decomposition, which have modified its aspect."
So saying, Dr. Ardel pressed a button and gave an attendant the
necessary order. "Be so good as to bring the body from room No. 6."
Some minutes later a folding door in the wall opened and two men pushed
a truck into the middle of the hall upon which lay the corpse of the
unknown.
"I now give over the dead woman to you to identify," declared Doctor
Ardel. "My examination has been carried out and my part as expert is
over--I am ready to hand in my report."
Fuselier and Juve bent long over the slab upon which the body had been
placed.
"Alas!" cried Juve, "how recognise anything in this countenance
destroyed by pitch? What discover in these crushed limbs, this human
form, which is now a shapeless mass?" And, turning to Dr. Ardel, he
questioned:
"Professor, what did you learn from your autopsy?"
"Nothing, or very little," replied the doctor. "Death was not due to one
blow more than another. A general effusion of blood took place
everywhere at once."
"Everywhere at once? What do you mean by that?" questioned Juve.
"Gentlemen, that is the exact truth. In dissecting this body I was
surprised to find all the blood vessels burst, the heart, the veins, the
arteries, even the lung cells. More than this, the very bones are
broken, splintered into a vast number of little pieces. Lastly, both on
the limbs and over the whole body I find a general ecchymosis, reaching
from the top of the neck to the lower extremities."
"But," objected Juve, who feared the professor might linger over
technical details too complex for him, "what general notion does this
suggest to you as to the cause of death?"
"A strange idea, M. Juve, and one it is not easy for me to define. You
might say that the body of this woman had passed under the grinders of a
roller! The body is 'rolled,' that is just the word, crushed all over,
and there is no point where the pressure might be conjectured to have
been greatest."
M. Fuselier looked at Juve.
"What can we deduce from that?" he asked.
"Professor Ardel demonstrates scientifically the same doubts to which a
rough inspection led me. How did the murderer go to work? It becomes
more and more of a mystery."
"It is so much so," declared Professor Ardel, "that even by postulating
the worst complications I really cannot conceive of any machine capable
of thus crushing a human being."
"I do not believe," declared the magistrate, "that we have any more to
see here. It is plain, Juve, that this corpse cannot furnish any clues
to you and me for the inquest."
"The corpse, no," cried Juve, "but there is something else."
Then, turning to the professor, he asked:
"Could you have brought to us the clothes this woman wore?"
"Quite easily."
From a bag that an attendant handed him Juve drew out the garments of
the dead woman. The shoes were by a good maker, the silk stockings with
open-work embroidery, the chemise and the drawers were of fine linen and
the corset was well cut.
"Nothing," he cried, "not a mark on this linen nor even the name of the
shop where it was bought."
He examined her petticoat, her bodice, a sort of elegant blouse, trimmed
with lace, and the velvet collar which had several spots of blood upon
it. He then drew a small penknife from his pocket and, kneeling on the
floor, proceeded to probe the seams. Suddenly he uttered a muffled
exclamation:
"Ah! What's this?" From the lining of the bodice he drew out a thin roll
of paper, crumpled, stained with blood, torn unfortunately.
"Goodness of God in whom I trust--I do not wish to die with this
remorse--I do not wish to risk his killing me to destroy this
secret--I write this confession, I will tell him it is deposited in
a safe place--yes, I was the cause of the death of that hapless
actor! Yes, Valgrand paid for the crime which Gurn committed....
Yes, I sent Valgrand to the scaffold by making him pass for
Gurn--Gurn who killed Lord Beltham, Gurn, who I sometimes think
must be Fantômas!"
Juve read these lines in an agitated voice, and as he came to the
signature he turned pale and was obliged to stop.
"What is the matter?"
"It is signed--'Lady Beltham.'"
In order that Doctor Ardel, understanding nothing of Juve's agitation,
might grasp that import of the paper just discovered he would have had
to call to mind the appalling tragedy which three years before had
stirred the whole world with its bloody vicissitude and mystery, one not
solved to that hour.
"Lady Beltham!"
At that name Juve called up the whole blood-curdling past! He saw in
fancy the English lady[A] whose husband was murdered by the Canadian
Gurn, who perhaps was her lover.
And Juve, following his train of thought, pondered that he had accused
this same lady of having, to save her lover, the very day the guillotine
was erected on the boulevard, found means to send in his stead the
innocent actor, Valgrand.
And here in connection with this affair of the Cité Frochot he found
Lady Beltham involved in the puzzle of which he was so keenly seeking
the key.
Juve again read the momentous paper he had just unearthed.
"By Jove, it was plain," ran his thought, "the lady, criminal though she
might be, was first and foremost Fantômas' passionate inamorata. And
this paper he held in his hands was the tail end of her confession--the
remains of a document in which in a fit of moral distress she had avowed
her remorse and made known the truth."
And taking line by line the cryptic statement, Juve asked himself
further:
"What do these phrases signify? How extract the whole truth from these
few words? 'I do not want him to kill me in order to destroy that
secret'! When Lady Beltham wrote that she was angry with Gurn. Then
again what did this other doubtful expression mean?--'Gurn who I
sometimes fancy may be Fantômas.' She did not know then the precise
identity of her lover! Oh, the wretch! To what depths had she sunk?"
Then as he put this query to himself, Juve shook from head to foot. Like
a thunderclap he thought he grasped the truth he had followed so
eagerly. What had become of Lady Beltham? Must he not come to the
conclusion that this woman whose face had been crushed out of all
recognition by the murderer was none other than the lady? How else
explain the discovery in her bodice of the betraying document? Who but
she could have had it in her possession? Who else could have so
sedulously concealed it?
Juve read over another clause: "I will tell him it is deposited in a
safe place."
Feverishly Juve took up the garments trailing on the ground, carefully
explored the fabric, made a minute search.
"It is impossible," he thought, "that I should not find another
document. The beginning of this confession--I must have it!"
All at once he stopped short in his search. "Curse it all!" And he
pointed out to M. Fuselier, disguised in the lining of a loose pocket in
the petticoat--a fresh hiding place, but torn and alas! empty.
This woman had split up her confession into several portions. And if she
was killed it was certainly to strip her of these compromising papers.
Well, the murderer had attained his object.