anyone in his place would have been taken in by it. And so while the
detective was detained at the station, Fandor, after a long and minute
interrogation, returned to Paris in a state of deep dejection.
XXVI
AT THE HOUSE OF BONARDIN, THE ACTOR
In the Place d'Anvers, Fandor was passing Rokin College. He heard some
one calling him. "Monsieur Fandor! Monsieur Fandor!"
It was Josephine, breathless and panting, her bright eyes glowing with
joy.
Fandor turned, astonished.
"What is up?"
Josephine paused a second, then taking Fandor's hand familiarly drew him
into the square, which at this time of day was almost deserted.
"Oh, it's something out of the common, I can assure you. I am going to
astonish you!"
"You've done that already. The mere sight of you----"
"You thought I was arrested, didn't you?"
Fandor nodded.
"Well, it's your Juve who is jugged!"
Contrary to Josephine's expectation, Fandor did not appear very
astonished.
"Come now, Miss Josephine, that's a likely tale! Juve arrested? On what
grounds?"
Josephine began an incoherent story.
"I tell you they squabbled like rag-pickers! 'You make justice
ridiculous,' shouted Fuselier. 'No one has the right to commit such
blunders!' Well, they kept going on like that for a quarter of an hour.
And then Fuselier rang and two Municipal guards came and he said:
'Arrest that man there!' pointing to Juve. And your friend the detective
was obliged to let them do it. Only as he left the room he gave Fuselier
such a look! Believe me, between those two it is war to the death from
now."
When she had ended Fandor asked in a calm voice:
"And how did you get away, Josephine?"
"Oh, M. Fuselier was very nice. 'It's you again?' said he when he saw
me. 'To be sure it is,' answered I, 'and I'm glad to meet you again, M.
Magistrate.' Then he began to hold forth about the cinema business. I
told him what I knew about it, what I told you. Loupart stuffed me up
with his tale of a trap. As sure as my name's Josephine I believed what
my lover told me."
Fandor gave her a penetrating glance.
"And how about the Dixon business?"
Josephine coloured, and said in a low tone:
"Oh, the Dixon business, as to that--we are very good pals, Dixon and I.
Just fancy, I went to see him yesterday afternoon. He has taken a fancy
to me. He promised to keep me in luxury. Ah, if I dared," sighed the
girl.
"You would do well to leave Loupart."
"Leave Loupart? Especially now that Juve is in quod, Loupart will be the
King of Paris!"
"Do you think your lover will attach much weight to the arrest of Juve?
Won't he fancy it's a put-up job?"
"A put-up job! How could it be? Why, I saw with my two eyes Juve led
away with the bracelets on his wrists."
The growing hubbub of the newsboys crying the evening papers drew near
the Place d'Anvers. Instinctively Fandor, followed by Josephine, went
toward them. On the boulevard he bought a paper.
"There you see!" cried Josephine triumphantly. "Here it is in print, so
it is true!"
In scare headlines appeared this notice--"Amazing development in the
affair of the Outlaws of La Chapelle. Detective Juve under lock and
key."
Fandor, when he met Josephine in the Place d'Anvers, was on his way to
the Rue des Abesses where Bonardin occupied a nice little suite of three
rooms, tastefully decorated and comfortably furnished.
The actor had his shoulder in plaster--Juve's bullet had broken his
clavicle, but the doctor declared that with a few days' rest he would be
quite well again.
"M. Fandor, I am very sorry for what is happening to M. Juve. Do you
think if I were to declare my intention not to proceed against him----"
Fandor cut his companion short.
"Let justice take its course, M. Bonardin. There will always be time
later on."
Although M. Bonardin was only twenty-five, he was beginning to have some
reputation. By hard work he had come rapidly to the front, and was fast
gaining a position among the best interpreters of modern comedy.
"My dream," he exclaimed to Fandor, "is one day to attain to the fame of
my masters, of such men as Tazzide, Gémier, Valgrand and Dumény."
"You knew Valgrand?" asked Fandor.
Bonardin smiled.
"Why, we were great friends. When I first made my appearance at the
theatre, after the Conservatoire, Valgrand was my model, my master. You
certainly don't recollect it, M. Fandor, but I played the lover in the
famous play 'La Toche Sanglante,' for which Valgrand had made himself up
exactly like Gurn, the murderer of Lord Beltham. You must have heard of
the case?"
Fandor pretended to tax his memory.
"Why, to be sure I do recall certain incidents, but won't you refresh my
memory?"
Bonardin asked no better than to chatter.
"Valgrand, on the first night of his presentation of Gurn,[B] was quite
worn out and left the theatre very late. He did not come again! For the
second performance, his understudy took his part. The following day they
sent to Valgrand's rooms; he had not been there for two days. The third
day from the 'first night' Valgrand came among us again."
"Pray go on, you interest me immensely!"
"Valgrand came back, but he had gone mad. He managed to get to his
dressing-room after taking the wrong door. 'I don't know a single word
of my part,' he confessed to me. I comforted him as best I could, but he
flung himself down on his couch and shook his head helplessly at me. 'I
have been very ill, Bonardin,' then suddenly he demanded: 'Where is
Charlot?'
"Charlot was his dresser. I remembered now that Charlot had not returned
to the theatre since his master's disappearance. His body was found
later in the Rue Messier. He had been murdered. I did not want to
mention this to him for fear it might upset him still more, so I advised
my old friend to wait for me till the end of the play and let me keep
him company. I intended to take him home and fetch a doctor. Valgrand
assented readily. I was then obliged to leave him hurriedly: they were
calling me--it was my cue. When I returned Valgrand had vanished: he had
left the theatre. We were not to see him again!"
"A sad affair," commented Fandor.
Bonardin continued his narrative:
"Shortly afterwards in a deserted house in the Rue Messier, near
Boulevard Arago, the police found the body of a murdered man. The corpse
was easily identified; it was that of Charlot, Valgrand's dresser."
"How did he come there? The house had no porter: the owner, an old
peasant, knew nothing."
"Well, what do you conclude from this?" asked Fandor.
"My theory is that Valgrand murdered his dresser, for some reason
unknown to us. Then, overcome by his crime, he went mad and committed
suicide. Of that there is no doubt."
"Oh!" muttered Fandor, a little taken aback by this unexpected
assertion.
The journalist, though he had closely followed the actor's account, was
far from drawing the same conclusions. For in fact, Gurn, Lord Beltham's
murderer, whom Fandor believed to be Fantômas, had certainly got
Valgrand executed in his stead. The Valgrand who came back to the
theatre, three days after the execution, was not the real one, but the
man who had taken his place--Gurn, the criminal, Gurn--Fantômas. Ah!
that was a stroke of the true Fantômas sort! It was certain that if
Valgrand's disappearance had been simultaneous with Gurn's execution,
there might have been suspicions. Gurn--Fantômas then found it necessary
to show Valgrand living to witnesses, so that these could swear that the
real Valgrand had not died instead of Gurn.
But Valgrand was an actor, Gurn--Fantômas was not! Not enough of one at
least to venture to take the place on the boards of such a consummate
player, such a famous tragedian.
"And that was the end?" asked Fandor.
"The end, no!" declared the actor. "Valgrand was married and had a son.
As is often the case with artists, the Valgrand marriage was not a
success, and madame, a singer of talent, was separated from her husband,
and travelled much abroad.
"About a year after these sad occurrences I had a visit from her. On her
way through Paris, she had come to draw the allowance made her by her
husband, to supply not only her own wants, but also those of her son, of
whom she had the custody. Mme. Valgrand chatted with me for hours
together. I recounted to her at length what I have had the honour of
telling you, and it seemed to me that she gave no great credence to my
words.
"Not that she threw doubts on my statements, but she kept reiterating,
'That is not like him; I know Valgrand would never have behaved in such
a way!'
"But I never could get her to say exactly what she thought. Some weeks
after this first visit I saw her again. Matters were getting
complicated. There was no certificate of her husband's death. Her men of
business made his 'absence' a pretext: she no longer drew a cent of her
allowance, and yet people knew that Valgrand had left a pretty large
amount, and it was in the bank or with a lawyer, I forget which. You are
aware, M. Fandor, that when the settling of accounts, or questions of
inheritance or wills, come to the fore there is no end to them."
"That's a fact," replied Fandor.
"We must believe," went on Bonardin, "that the matter was important in
Mme. Valgrand's eyes, for she refused fine offers from abroad, and
planted herself in Paris, living on her savings. The good woman
evidently had a double object, to recover the inheritance for her son,
little René, and also to get at the truth touching her husband's fate.
"She evidently cherished the hope that her husband was not guilty of the
dresser's murder, that perhaps he was not even dead, that he would get
over his madness if ever they managed to find him. In short, M. Fandor,
some six or seven months ago, when I had quite ceased to think of these
events, I found myself face to face with Mme. Valgrand on the Boulevard.
I had some difficulty in recognising her, for my friend's widow was no
longer dressed like the Parisian smart woman. Her hair was plastered
down and drawn tightly back, her garments were plain and humble, her
dress almost neglected. No doubt the poor woman had experienced cruel
disappointments.
"'Good day, Mme. Valgrand,' I cried, moving toward her with
outstretched hands. She stopped me with a gesture.
"'Hush,' she breathed, 'there is no Mme. Valgrand now. I am a
companion.' And the unhappy woman explained that to earn her living she
had to accept an inferior position as reader and housekeeper to a rich
lady."
"And to whom did Mme. Valgrand go as companion?"
"To an Englishwoman, I believe, but the name escapes me."
"Mme. Valgrand wished, you say, that her identity should remain unknown?
Do you know what name she took?"
"Yes--Mme. Raymond."
Some moments later Fandor left the actor and was hastening down the Rue
Lepic as fast as his legs would take him.
XXVII
THE MOTHER SUPERIOR
"The Mother Superior, if you please?"
The door shut automatically upon Fandor. He was in the little inner
court of the small convent, face to face with a Sister, who gazed in
alarm at the unexpected guest. The journalist persisted:
"Can I see the Mother Superior?"
"Well, sir, yes--no, I think not."
The worthy nun evidently did not know what to say. Finally making up her
mind she pointed to a passage, and, drawing aside to let the journalist
pass, said:
"Be good enough to go in there and wait a few moments."
Fandor was ushered into a large, plain and austere room--doubtless the
parlour of the community. At the windows hung long, white curtains,
while before the half-dozen armchairs lay tiny rugs of matting; the
floor, very waxed, was slippery to the tread. The journalist regarded
curiously the walls upon which were hung here and there religious
figures or chromos of an edifying kind. Above the chimney hung a great
crucifix of ebony. But for the noise from without, the passing of the
trains and motors, and were it not also for the fine savour of cooking
and roast onions, one might have thought oneself a hundred leagues from
the world in the peaceful calm of this little convent.
Fandor, on leaving Bonardin, had decided to fulfill without delay a
pious mission given him by Juve's victim.
Taken in at the time of his accident by the Sisters of the Rue
Charmille, Bonardin had received from them the first aid his condition
required, and as he had left them without a word of thanks, he had
begged Fandor to return and hand them on his behalf a fifty-franc bill
for their poor.
After some minutes the door opened and a nun appeared. She greeted
Fandor with a slight movement of the head; while the journalist bowed
deferentially before her.
"Have I the honour of speaking to the Mother Superior?"
"Our Mother sends her excuses," murmured the nun, "for not being able
to receive you at this moment. However, I can take her place, sir. I am
in charge of the finances of the house."
"I bring you news, Sister."
The nun clasped her hands.
"Good news, I hope! How is the poor young man doing?"
"As well as can be expected; the ball was extracted without trouble by
the doctors."
"I shall thank St. Comus, the patron saint of surgeons. And his
assailant? Surely he will be well punished?"
Fandor smiled.
"His assailant was the victim of a terrible misconception. He is a most
upright man."
"Then I will pray to St. Yves, the patron saint of advocates, to get him
out of his difficulty."
"Well," cried Fandor, "since you have so many saints at command, Sister,
you would do well to point out to me one who might favour the efforts of
the police in their struggle with the ruffians."
The nun was a woman of sense who understood a joke. She rejoined: "You
might try St. George, sir, the patron saint of warriors." Then becoming
serious again, the Sister made an end of the interview. "Our Mother
Superior will be much touched, sir, when I report the kind step you have
taken in coming here to us."
"Allow me, Sister," broke in Fandor, "my mission is not over yet."
Here the journalist discreetly proffered the note.
"This is from M. Bonardin, for your poor."
The nun was profuse in her thanks, and looking at Fandor with a touch of
malice:
"You may perhaps smile, sir, if I say I shall thank St. Martin, the
patron saint of the charitable. In any case I shall do it with my whole
heart."
The soft sound of a bell came from the distance; the Sister
instinctively turned her head and looked through the windows at the
inner cloister of the convent.
"The bell calls you, no doubt, Sister?" he inquired.
"It is, indeed, the hour of Vespers."
Fandor, followed by the Sister, left the parlour and reached the outer
gate. Already the porter was about to open it for him when he pulled up
short. Moving at a measured pace, one behind the other, the ladies of
the community crossed the courtyard, going toward the chapel at the far
end of the garden.
"Sister," Fandor inquired anxiously, "who is that nun who walks at the
head?"
"That is our holy Mother Superior."
Fandor was lucky enough to find a taxi as he left the little convent,
into which he jumped: he was immersed in such deep reflections that when
the taxi stopped he was quite surprised to find himself in Rue
Bonaparte, when he had meant to go up to Bonardin's and expected to
reach Montmarte.
"Where did I tell you to go?" he asked the driver.
The man looked at his fare in amazement:
"To the address you gave me, I suppose."
Fandor did not reply, but paid his fare.
"Heaven inspires me," he thought. "To be sure I wanted to see Bonardin
to tell him I had done his commission, but it was to prove I should have
gone after what I found out at the convent."
The journalist remained motionless on the pavement without seeming to
feel the jostling of the passers-by. He stood there with his eyes fixed
on the ground, his mind lost in a dream. He had unconsciously gone back
several years, to his mysterious childhood, stormy and restless. He went
over again in thought, this last affair, which had once more brought him
so intimately into Juve's life: the abominable crime in the Cité
Frochot, in which Chaleck and Loupart were involved, and behind them
Fantômas--the crime of which the victim--as Juve had clearly
established--was no other than Lady----
He quickly entered the house and rushed up the stairs, but halted on the
landing.
"What have I come here for? If I am to believe the papers, Juve is under
lock and key: It must be instinct that guides me. I feel that I am going
to see Juve: besides, I must."
He did not ring, for he enjoyed the unique favour of a key which allowed
him to enter Juve's place at will. He entered and went straight to the
study: it was empty. He then cried out:
"Juve! Many things have happened since I had the pleasure of seeing you!
Be good enough to let me into your office. I have two words to say to
you."
But Fandor's words fell dead in the silence of the apartment. After this
summons he made his way into the office, and ensconced himself in an
armchair: clearly Fandor was assured his friend had heard him. And he
was not wrong! Two seconds later, lifting a curtain that hid a secret
entrance to the study, Juve appeared.
"You speak as if you knew I was here!"
The two men looked at each other and burst into shouts of laughter.
"So you understood it was all a put-up affair intended to make our
opponents believe that for a time I was powerless to hurt them. What do
you think of my notion?"
"First rate," replied Fandor. "The more so that the fair Josephine 'saw
with her own eyes' some of the force taking you off to prison."
"Everybody believe it, don't they?"
"Everybody."
"Look here. You spoke just now as though you knew I was here?"
Fandor smiled.
"The odour of hot smoke is easily distinguished from the dankness of
cold tobacco."
Juve approved.
"Well done, Fandor. Here, for your pains, roll a cigarette and let's
talk. Have you anything fresh?"
"Yes--and a lot, too!"
Fandor related the talk he had had with Bonardin touching Valgrand, the
actor, and Mme. Valgrand, alias--Mme. Raymond.
Juve uttered his reflections aloud.
"This is one riddle the more to solve. I still adhere to the theory that
Josephine, some months ago, was brought into intimate relations with
Lady Beltham, whose body I discovered at Cité Frochot and later
identified."
Fandor sprang up and placed both of his hands upon Juve's shoulders.
"Lady Beltham is not dead: She is alive! As surely as my name's Fandor,
the Superior of the Convent at Nogent is--Lady Beltham."
XXVIII
AN OLD PARALYTIC
At the far end of the Rue de Rome Fandor halted. "After all," he
thought, "maybe I am going straight into a trap. Who sent me the letter?
Who is this M. Mahon? I never heard of him. Why this menacing phrase,
'Come, if you take any interest in the affairs of Lady B---- and F----.'
Oh, if only I could take counsel of Juve!"
But for the last fortnight, since the ill-starred affair of Nogent and
the almost incredible discovery he had made that Lady Beltham was still
alive, Fandor had not seen Juve. He had been to the Sûreté a number of
times, but Juve had vanished.
Fandor stopped before a private house on the Boulevard Pereire North. He
passed in through the outer hall and reached the porter's lodge.
"Madame, have you a tenant here named Mahon?"
The porteress came forward.
"M. Mahon? To be sure--fifth floor on the right."
"Thank you. I should like to ask a few questions about him. I have
come--to negotiate an insurance policy for him and I should like to know
about the value of the furniture in his rooms. What sort of a man is
this M. Mahon? About how old is he?"
Fandor had, by pure professional instinct, found the best device in the
world. There is not a porteress who has not many times enlightened
insurance agents.
"Why, sir, M. Mahon has lived here only a month or six weeks. He can
scarcely be very well off, for when he moved in I did not see any fine
furniture go up. I believe for that matter he is an old cavalry officer,
and, in the army nowadays, folks scarcely make fortunes."
"That's true enough," assented Fandor.
"Anyhow he is a very charming man, an ideal lodger. To begin with, he is
infirm, almost paralysed in both legs. I believe he never goes out of an
evening. And then he never has any visitors except two young fellows who
are serving their time in the army."
"Are they with him now?"
"No, sir, they never come till three or four in the afternoon."
Fandor slipped a coin into the woman's hand and went upstairs. He rang
at the door and was surprised at a strange, soft rolling sound.
"Oh, I know," he thought; "the poor man must move about his rooms in a
rubber-tired wheel chair."
He was not mistaken. Scarcely was the door opened when he caught sight
of an old man of much distinction seated in a wheel chair. This invalid
greeted the journalist pleasantly.
"M. Fandor?"
"The same, sir."
M. Mahon pushed forward his chair and motioned to his visitor to come
in.
Fandor entered a room in which the curtains were closely drawn and which
was brilliantly illuminated with electric lights, although it was the
middle of the afternoon. Was it a trap? The journalist instinctively
hesitated in the doorway. But behind him a cordial voice called:
"Come in, you all kinds of an idiot!"
The door clicked behind him and the invalid, getting out of his chair,
burst into a fit of laughter.
"Juve! Juve!"
"As you see!"
"Bah, what farce are you playing here? Why this lit-up room?"
"All for very good reasons. If you will be kind enough to take a seat, I
will explain."
Fandor dropped into a chair staring at Juve, who continued:
"When you came back the other day and told me that unlikely yarn about
Lady Beltham being alive, I decided to try new methods. First of all, I
became a cavalry officer, then I got this wheel chair and moved into
this apartment."
As Juve paused, Fandor, more and more amazed, inquired:
"But your reason for all this!"
"Just wait! The day after the Dixon business, I put three of my best men
on the track of the American. I had a notion he would want to see
Josephine again, and I was not mistaken. She came back to justify
herself in his eyes. The story ended as might have been foreseen.
Michel, who brought me the news, said that Josephine had agreed to
become Dixon's mistress."
"The deuce!"
"Oh, there is nothing to be surprised at that. Michel made arrangements
to learn all the details. Josephine is to live at 33 C in Boulevard
Pereire South; that is, to the right of the railway line, fourth floor.
Here we are at 24 B Boulevard Pereire North, to left of the railway,
fifth floor, and just opposite."
"And what does this old M. Mahon do, Juve?"
Juve smiled.
"You are going to see, my lad."
He settled himself again in the wheel chair, drew a heavy rug over his
knees and became once more the old invalid.
"My dear friend, will you open the door for me?"
Fandor laughingly complied, and Juve wheeled himself into another room.
"You see I have plenty of air here thanks to this balcony upon which I
can wheel my chair. Would you be good enough to pass me that spy-glass?"
Juve pointed the glass toward the far end of Boulevard Pereire, in the
direction of Poste Maillot.
"Mlle. Josephine has lately had a craze for keeping her nails polished."
"But you are not looking toward the house opposite, you are looking in a
contrary direction!"
Juve laid his spy-glass on his knees and laughed.
"I expected you to make that remark. See, those glasses at the end are
only for show, inside is a whole system of prisms. With this perspective
you see not in front of you, but on one side. In other words, when I
point it at the far end of the boulevard, what I am really looking at is
the house opposite."
Fandor was about to congratulate his friend on this new specimen of his
ingenuity, but Juve did not give him time. He startled the journalist by
suddenly asking him:
"Tell me, do you love the army?"
"Why?"
"Because I think those two soldiers you see over there are coming."
"To see you," added Fandor.
"How do you know?"
"From your porteress."
"You pumped her?"
"I did. I got her to talk a bit about that excellent M. Mahon."
Juve laughed:
"Confound you!"
With a quick movement Fandor, at the detective's request, drew back the
wheel chair and shut the window.
"You understand," explained Juve, "there is nothing to surprise my
neighbours in my having two soldiers to visit me. But I don't care for
third persons to hear what they say to me." There was a ring at the
apartment door. "Go and open, Fandor. I don't leave my cripple's chair
for them; people can see through the curtains."
Shown in by Fandor, the soldiers shook hands with Juve and took seats
opposite him.
"Do you recognise Michel and Léon?"
"Oh, perfectly!" cried Fandor, "but why this disguise?"