His arrest would be immediate.
Juve considered the miserable heap collapsed on a side bench: this
traitorous rag of humanity had once been an upright man--a true
soldier of France! It was terrible! It was piteous!
Juve raised Butler-Vinson. The wretched fellow could hardly stand up.
Juve signed to a sailor, who took the corporal's left arm while Juve
supported him on the right. Vinson disembarked. He set his feet on the
soil--the sacred soil of France!
The crowd was pouring into the great hall, where customs officers were
examining the small baggage.
Juve drew Butler-Vinson to the left: the traitor must not catch sight
of the French uniforms. An individual seemed to rise out of the ground
in front of them: Juve said to him in a low voice:
"Our man!"
* * * * *
Revived by a cordial, Vinson gradually recovered his senses. Painfully
he raised his heavy eyelids: he looked about him curiously, anxiously.
He was in a large, square room, dimly lighted, almost empty, with bare
white walls.
"Where am I?" he asked Juve. Three men surrounded him. Juve's was the
sole face he knew.
Juve wore a solemn look: his words were gently spoken.
"You are at Calais, in the special police quarters connected with the
station. Corporal Vinson, I am sorry to have to tell you that you are
under arrest."
"My God!" exclaimed the traitor. He attempted to rise, but fell back
on his seat: his eyes were staring at the handcuffs on his wrists! He
burst into tears.
Juve felt pity for this miserable being, huddled up there in the
depths of humiliation and terror. But the dreadful fact
remained--Vinson was a criminal, a traitor! Perhaps his errors were
due to a bad bringing-up, to deplorable examples, alas!... Juve was
not there to pass judgment, but to deliver the guilty wretch into the
hands of the authorities.
"Come now!" he said, tapping Vinson on the shoulder. "Come, we are
leaving for Paris!"
Corporal Vinson, traitor, raised supplicating eyes to Juve: then,
realising all resistance was vain, he rose painfully: he assumed an
air of indifference.
A policeman from Headquarters had joined Juve. The three men got into
an empty second-class compartment.
In a voice quivering with shame, Vinson begged Juve not to allow
anyone to enter. "I should be so ashamed," he muttered, with hanging
head and hunched shoulders.
"We shall do our best to prevent it," Juve assured him. After an
explanation with the station-master, the compartment was labelled
"_Reserved_."
The train started. Vinson was wide awake now, and dejected to the last
degree. After a hand-to-mouth existence, but still a free one, in
England, he had allowed himself to be nabbed by the police, like the
veriest simpleton! The papers would be full of it!
Vinson, who had been led into criminal ways by his love for a bad
woman, troubled himself much less regarding the punishment to be meted
out to him than about the dreadful distress his arrest would cause his
mother. The old Alsatian mother, when she learned that her son was in
prison charged with treason to France, would die of grief. Vinson
wished with all his heart that he had stuck to his first
decision--that he had killed himself rather than make confession to
the journalist, Jerome Fandor, who had wished to save him, and had
helped him to escape, but who had really done him a bad service,
since, deserter as he was, he had been caught like the most vulgar of
criminals!
The train stopped at a station.
"I am dying of thirst," mumbled Vinson.
Juve sent his second in command for a bottle of water from the
refreshment buffet.
Vinson thanked Juve with a grateful nod.
Refreshed, Vinson pulled his wits together.
Juve, noticing this, began questioning him, promising to treat him as
well as he possibly could, if he would speak out, in confidence;
assuring him of the leniency of the judges if he consented to denounce
his accomplices.
When Vinson realised that he was to stand his trial for spying, for
betraying his country, as well as for desertion, he was only too glad
to obey Juve's suggestion.
"Ah!" murmured he, while tears rolled down his cheeks, "Cursed be the
day when I first agreed to enter into relations with the band of
criminals who have made of me what I am to-day!"
Vinson gave Juve a full account of his temptation, his errors;
nevertheless he did not tell the detective of his relations with
Jerome Fandor. Had he not promised absolute secrecy? Traitor and spy
as he was, Vinson had given his word of honour, and this journalist
had been kind to him in return, had given him a chance to escape and
start afresh: not for anything in the world would he have betrayed his
oath!
Juve was a hundred leagues from suspecting the substitution which had
taken place between Vinson and Fandor. He was convinced he had
Corporal Vinson before his eyes; but he also thought he had his grip
on the individual who had left Paris the night before, accompanied by
an ecclesiastic, for the purpose of handing over to a foreign power a
most important piece of a gun stolen from the Arsenal, as well as the
descriptive plan that went with it.
But when he cross-questioned Vinson on this point, the corporal did
not in the least understand what he was driving at! Juve, who had been
congratulating himself on his prisoner's frankness, grew angry with
what he believed was a culpable reservation. Why did the corporal,
who, up to this, had spoken so freely, now feign ignorance of the gun
piece affair?... Well, he would find out his prisoner's reasons
presently.... Not wishing to scare him, Juve changed the subject....
He had any number of questions to ask the culprit. Did he not know
Vagualame, the real Vagualame?
Vinson told him many things about the old accordion player with the
patriarchal white beard which he already knew; but one remark
particularly impressed him.
"If only the police knew all that goes on in the house in the rue
Monge!"... Vinson stopped short.
This remark opened new horizons to Juve. When they arrived at the
North station, some hours later, and Juve had transferred his prisoner
to a cab, giving the driver the address of the Cherche-Midi prison,
our detective had learned that Vagualame-Fantomas was in the habit of
visiting a mysterious house in rue Monge. Here he met many of his
accomplices. It was here the band of spies and traitors, of which he
seemed chief, disguised themselves, issuing forth to ply their
nefarious trade and mock the police.
Juve made a compact with himself.
"As soon as I have handed my corporal over to the military jailors, I
know where I shall go to smoke a cigarette!"
XXVI
WILHELMINE'S SECRET
"You are alone, Wilhelmine?"
Mademoiselle de Naarboveck had just left the house in the rue Fabert.
It was three in the afternoon, and she was going shopping. At the
corner of the rue de l'Universite she came on Henri de Loubersac.
It was a delightful surprise. She had not seen him for several days.
She was aware of the difficult and dangerous nature of her future
fiance's duties; that they frequently took him from Paris for days at
a time; that they forbade him writing even a post card to let her know
where he was!... Now she felt delightedly sure that he had taken
advantage of his first free moment to pay her a visit. How charming of
him!
The truth was that de Loubersac, whose anxieties and suspicions had
increased hour by hour, till he was suffering the tortures of the
damned, had made up his mind to have a decisive talk with Wilhelmine.
A clear and final explanation he would have, cost what it might!
Full of joy at the meeting, Wilhelmine did not seem to notice his
anxious looks, his strained expression. She answered his question with
a welcoming smile.
"I am alone."
"Your father?"
"Went away this morning: the calls of diplomacy are numerous, and
frequently sudden, you know!"
"And Mademoiselle Berthe?"
Wilhelmine raised her beautiful bright eyes and met her fiance's
questioning glance.
"No news of her for several days. Berthe seems to have disappeared."
Her tone was grave.
De Loubersac did not speak: mechanically he fitted his step to
Wilhelmine's. Presently he asked:
"Where do you think of going?"
"I was going to do a little shopping ... nothing much ... there is no
sort of hurry!"
She felt that Henri wished to discuss something important with her:
hers was too direct a nature to put him off with flimsy excuses when
he desired a serious talk.
"Should we walk on a little, talking as we go?" she suggested, with a
charming smile. To walk and talk with Henri was such a pleasure!
De Loubersac agreed.
The young couple crossed the Esplanade des Invalides, and by way of
the rue Saint-Dominique, the boulevard Saint-Germain, and rue
Buonaparte, reached the Luxembourg Gardens. Here they could talk at
ease.
A few casual remarks, and Henri de Loubersac came to his point.
"Dear Wilhelmine, there is a series of mysteries in your life which I
cannot help thinking about: mysteries which trouble me greatly!...
Forgive me for speaking to you so frankly!... You know how sincere my
feeling for you is!... My love for you is strong and deep.... My one
desire in life is to join my fate, my existence, to yours.... But
before that, there are some things we must speak of together, serious
things perhaps, about which we must have a clear understanding."
Wilhelmine had grown strangely pale. Despite the protestations of love
in which her future fiance had wrapped his questions, she was greatly
troubled. The painful moment she had waited for had come: she must
tell Henri de Loubersac the secret of her life: no very grave secret
if considered by itself; but the consequences of it, and the
innumerable deductions that could be drawn from it, might react
unfavourably on their relations to each other!
Wilhelmine must speak out.
They were just outside the church of Saint-Sulpice. Some large drops
of rain fell.
"Let us go into the church!" said Wilhelmine: "It will be quiet there.
If what I have to say to you is said in that holy place, you will
feel that I am speaking the truth. It is almost a confession." The
poor girl's voice trembled slightly as she uttered these decisive
words--words that frightened de Loubersac. What shocking revelations
did they foreshadow?
He acquiesced: the lovers entered the porch.
As he stepped aside to let Wilhelmine pass, he noticed a cab with
drawn blinds which had that minute drawn up not far from the space in
front of the church. He examined it anxiously.
"It seemed to me we were being followed--shadowed," replied de
Loubersac. "It is of little importance, however--we must expect that
in our service."
"Yes, you also have secrets," remarked Wilhelmine.
"They are only professional ones: there is nothing about my
personality to hide: my life is an open book for all the world to
read!"
De Loubersac's tone was hard.
It hurt Wilhelmine.
* * * * *
For some while they had been seated behind a pillar, in the shadow:
Wilhelmine had been speaking: Henri had been listening.
She told him she was not the daughter of the baron de Naarboveck, that
her real name was Therese Auvernois.[5]
[Footnote 5: See _Fantomas_: vol. i, Fantomas Series.]
This told de Loubersac nothing.
Wilhelmine explained that her childhood had been passed in an ancient
chateau, on the banks of the Dordogne, with her grandmother, the
Marquise de Langrune. One fatal December day the Marquise had been
assassinated. They were led to believe the assassin was a young man,
son of a friend of the family, by name, Charles Rambert. This tragedy
had altered the whole course of the orphan girl's life. She was taken
care of by the father of the supposed murderer, a worthy old man,
Monsieur Etionne Rambert. He recommended her to Lady Beltham, whose
husband had been murdered some months before; thus the bereaved girl
came to live under Lady Beltham's wing, and grew very fond of her.
Then Monsieur Etionne Rambert disappeared in a shipwreck, and
Wilhelmine went with Lady Beltham to her castle in Scotland.
Two peaceful years passed. Among other friends and visitors,
Wilhelmine met the Baron de Naarboveck, a foreign diplomat. Then Lady
Beltham went to France, and one sad day the orphan girl learned that
her mother by adoption had died there![6]
[Footnote 6: See _The Exploits of Juve_: vol. ii, Fantomas Series.]
Six dreary, anxious months followed. Then the baron, the only person
in the whole world who seemed to care whether she lived or died, came
to find her. He took her to Paris. There he decided to pass her off as
his daughter, declaring he had very grave reasons for doing so.
Though making her the centre of a mystery, for undeclared reasons of
his own, de Naarboveck was very good to her, helped her to unravel her
financial affairs, and informed her that she was the owner of a large
fortune. He told her that some day she would have to go to a foreign
country to take possession of this fortune--the baron did not say
where.
Wilhelmine stopped her narrative, jumped up, pointing to a shadow
moving across an altar.
"Did you see?" she questioned anxiously.
"I think I did," answered Henri de Loubersac. "It is the shadow of
some passer-by thrown into relief on the light background."
"Oh, I hope we are not being spied on!"
"Of whom are you afraid?" asked de Loubersac.
Wilhelmine--or Therese Auvernois, as she had confessed herself to
be--glanced about her. There was not a soul within hearing! Now she
would speak her mind to Henri--her dear Henri--and tell him all.
"You want to know, dear one, why my existence has been surrounded with
so many mysterious precautions of late years! You wish to know why the
baron is so determined that my real identity should remain hidden! You
are right; for I have long asked myself the same question. When I
spoke to the baron about this for the first time--it was only a few
weeks ago, and told him that I wished to appear as what I really am,
Therese Auvernois, my father by adoption--I may call him that, seeing
how good, how kind he has been to me--began by telling me it was
impossible--that the most terrible misfortunes would result from such
a revelation.... I insisted. I wanted to know what these dreadful
misfortunes would be, and why they would follow as a matter of course,
were it made known that I am Therese Auvernois. Thereupon the baron
told me astonishing things.
"According to him, from the time of my poor grandmother's death, I,
and those near to me, all those about me, were pursued, not only by a
terrible fatality, but also by a being, who, for unknown motives,
wished to sow perpetual death and terror among those intimately
connected with us.
"The baron did not want to talk of all this, but I made him speak out.
Bit by bit, I learned the details of one of those tragedies which
touched my life when a child. I went to the National Library,
secretly, and looked through the newspapers of that period. I noticed
that in whatever concerned us, whether legally or privately, closely
or distantly, one name appeared and reappeared, a terrifying and
legendary name, the name of a being we think of but dare not
mention--the name of Fantomas!"
Henri de Loubersac was staggered. This statement of the girl he knew
as Wilhelmine de Naarboveck, far from impressing him favourably,
seemed to him an improbable story invented, every bit of it, for the
sole purpose of putting him on the wrong track.
He had learned to love this charming girl, believing her to be
sincere, honest, pure, brought up as a young girl should be, amidst
elegant and distinguished surroundings: now, behold an abyss opened
before his eyes, separating him from one whom he was now inclined to
consider an adventuress.
He remembered Juve's words!
Granting the truth of her statement, that a tragedy had shadowed her
young life and altered her existence, this did not prevent her from
having been seduced by Captain Brocq! Rather, her early experiences
would tend to break down the barriers, behind which nice girls lived
and moved!... There were things that called for an explanation! For
instance, how explain the intimacy existing between de Naarboveck, his
so-called daughter, and this Mademoiselle Berthe, whose part in the
affair engaging de Loubersac's attention was open to the gravest
suspicions?...
Wilhelmine continued what she called her confession, thinking aloud,
opening her heart, confiding in her dear Henri, whose silence she took
for sympathy and encouragement.
"Fantomas," she murmured: "I cannot tell you how often I have thought
over this maddening, this puzzling personality, terrifying beyond
words, who seems implacably bent on our destruction!... Again and
again I have had reason to fear that his ill-omened influence has been
directed against my humble self!... As if he guessed something of
this, the baron has frequently sought to reassure me; yet, through
some singular coincidence, each time we have spoken of Fantomas a
tragedy has occurred, a dreadful tragedy, which has reminded us of
monstrous crimes committed by him in the past!"
Wilhelmine's statements were impressing de Loubersac less and less
favourably.
"Play acting--and clumsy play acting at that!" decided Henri: "Done to
avert my suspicions, imagined to feed my curiosity!... She thinks
herself a capable player at the game! She does not know the person she
is playing with!"
De Loubersac came to a decision. He rose, stood close to Wilhelmine,
who also rose, instinctively, looked her straight in the face, and
asked, point-blank:
"Wilhelmine de Naarboveck, or Therese Auvernois--it matters little to
me--I wish to know the real truth.... Confess, then, that you were
Captain Brocq's mistress!"
"Monsieur!" exclaimed the startled girl. She met de Loubersac's
inquisitorial look proudly.
His penetrating stare did not falter.
Suddenly Wilhelmine's lips began to tremble. She grew deadly pale: she
might have been on the verge of a fainting fit. She had realised the
incredulity of the man to whom, in her chaste innocence, she had given
her heart. In the pure soul of this loving girl an immense void made
itself felt. It was as though a flashlight had revealed to her the
lamentable truth: that the strange position in which destiny had
placed her--a position strange but not infamous--had made of her a
being apart, had put her outside the ordinary life of humanity,
outside the law of love!... A desire to explain, to convince, to
justify herself, the desire of a desperate creature at bay, burned up
in her like a flame: it flashed and died. Henri had no confidence in
her! He believed this odious thing of her--this abominable, incredible
thing!... Her heart was full to bursting with an agony of grief, of
outraged innocence.... She looked him straight in the eyes--her own
flashing fury.
"You insult me!" she cried.... "Withdraw what you have just said!...
You will apologise!"
De Loubersac said in a low, distinct voice:
"I maintain my accusation, Mademoiselle, until you have furnished me
with absolute, undeniable proofs!"...
De Loubersac's voice failed him. Wilhelmine had turned from him. She
hurried to the door, descended the church steps, and threw herself
into a passing cab.
De Loubersac had followed her.
In tones of contempt she had flung at him the words:
"Farewell, monsieur--and for ever!"
Henri's answer was a shrug of the shoulder.
As he stood there, an outline, a shadow, appeared under the church
porch: a something, a being, indescribable, appeared, disappeared,
running with spirit-like swiftness, vanishing. Henri de Loubersac had
a clear conviction that during his conversation with her who might
have been his fiancee in days to come, they had been shadowed, spied
upon!
XXVII
THE TWO VINSONS
There were strange happenings elsewhere on the day Henri de Loubersac
and Wilhelmine de Naarboveck had parted in grief and anger.
It was on the stroke of noon when Corporal Vinson heard a key turn in
the lock of his cell. Two military jailors confronted him.
"Butler?"
The traitor answered to that name.
Juve, for reasons of his own, had not revealed the prisoner's true
quality. Vinson had therefore been entered in the jail book as Butler.
One of the jailors, an old veteran, whose uniform was a mixture of the
civil and the military, took the word.
"Butler, you are to be transferred to a building belonging to the
Council of War: there you will occupy cell 27.... Our prison here is
for the condemned only, so you cannot remain. You belong to the
accused section."
All that mattered to Butler-Vinson for the moment was--he had to reach
his new quarters by crossing the rue Cherche-Midi between two
jailors.... He would be exposed to the curious glances of the public!
He shuddered at the thought!... And there was worse to come! This was
but the commencement of his purgatory.... As he had not known how to
die at the right moment, he must arm himself with courage to expiate
his cowardice!... He must leave the shelter of his cell!... With an
intense effort of will he stretched out his arms, was handcuffed
without a murmur, and, marching between his two jailors, he quitted
the prison.
The bright light of noonday made him blink. On reaching the pavement
he recoiled with a convulsive movement: the jailors pulled him
forward.
It was the crowded hour, when men leave offices and shops for a midday
meal. But the public of these parts, accustomed to such comings and
goings of prisoners and their jailors, paid no attention to this
pitiful trio.
The prisoner seemed so overcome with emotion that, after uttering a
long sigh like a death rattle, he sank, a dead weight, into the arms
of his jailors.
They were forced to support him. They carried him to the courtyard of
the Council of War. Some, whose curiosity was aroused by the unusual
pallor of the prisoner, wished to follow, but the jailors closed the
great doors of the courtyard.
Before leading him to his cell, they dumped their inanimate prisoner
on a chair in the porter's lodge.... The porter brought vinegar. They
rubbed Butler-Vinson's temples with it. A jailor slapped his hands. In
vain! The prisoner showed no signs of life!
"You had better take him to his cell," advised the porter. "Perhaps he
will come to his senses if laid on his palliasse? In any case, run for
the medical officer."
The jailors, who could make nothing of their prisoner's mysterious
condition, transported him to cell 27. They laid him on his palliasse.
* * * * *
"Lieutenant Servin?"
"Commandant?"
"Will you help me to reduce these papers to order? It is half-past
eleven: I want to go to breakfast!"
The lieutenant brought a pile of documents to his superior's table and
rapidly classified them.
His superior, Commandant Dumoulin, had been chief assistant at the
Second Bureau. He had passed long years at his post there. Previous to
that, he had acted as Government Commissioner on the Councils of War
in the various garrisons where he had been stationed.... Some six
months ago Dumoulin had sent in his request to the Minister of War for
a change of billet. His record being an excellent one, the Minister
had appointed him Government Chief-commissioner attached to the
Principal Council of War, sitting in Paris.
Dumoulin had recently taken up his new duties, and was counting on
getting peacefully into the run of things, when, the evening before,
he had been warned at his own home by a private note from the
Minister, that a deserter, accused of treason, had been arrested, and
that Corporal Vinson was the man in question.
At the sight of this name Commandant Dumoulin thrilled with
excitement. As former Under-Secretary at the Second Bureau he had the
affair at his finger ends, and well knew how tangled, how obscure it
was, how bristling with dangers, how rich in complications.... The
Vinson affair, it was the Captain Brocq affair, the singer Nichoune
affair ... the story of a plan of mobilisation stolen, of a gun piece
lifted from the Arsenal!... He was in for a big affair--a sensational
case!...
The commandant passed a wakeful night and arrived early at his office.
He must get to work! Fortunately, among his deputies he had found a
competent and zealous helper in Lieutenant Servin. He turned to him
now.