She felt about her with her fingers. She was certainly sitting on
rough boards.... She knelt, she stretched out her arms: she touched
rough boards.... Yes, this was the van she was in!... Was Fantomas
quite near? He might appear again! She was not saved!... But in
Bobinette who, terrified at being confronted with Fantomas
self-confessed, had tasted the bitterness of death, a powerful
reaction had set in: she was becoming mistress of herself once more.
Fantomas had said to her: "Thou shalt die!" She now decided that she
would live, would save herself!... She must escape!
"If Fantomas were there I should hear him," she thought. "He must have
gone.... I must at all costs escape from this prison before he
returns."
Bobinette got up.... The van must have a door, a window. She would
force her way out somehow. She was strong, and she was fighting for
her life!... She would make a tour of the van!... She felt her way by
fingering the wooden side of her prison.... The van must be empty, she
thought, for she had not encountered any furniture--when, suddenly,
she felt her hand come into contact with something soft and warm,
which moved. What was it?...
Bobinette jumped back.... She must be mad to imagine!... She waited a
few moments--she stepped forward--anew her fingers touched
something.... She could not say what!... But while she tried to define
the strange object her fingers touched, she felt the unknown thing was
drawing back--was avoiding her caress!...
The van was now filled with a formidable growling. She recognised it
as a repetition of the sound she had heard when nearing her sinister
rendezvous.
Bobinette understood!... She knew!... It was a bear!... It had been
asleep. She had waked it!
Fantomas had shut her in with a bear: she was to be devoured alive!
Bobinette softly withdrew to the other side of the van. She waited. No
growling sound reached her. The bear must have gone to sleep again.
She could hear its heavy breathing. As the air became exhausted in the
confined space the noisome odour of the beast caught her by the
throat.... What was she to do? Bobinette asked herself this again and
again as the slow and dreadful hours of that night wore on.
"The bear sleeps," she said to herself; "but he will wake in the
morning hungry: he will hurl himself on me and I shall be done for!"
After interminable hours of waiting, of aching immobility, of dull
agony of mind, the interior of the van was becoming slowly visible....
She had listened to the lessening fury of the wind: the rain had
ceased. The wan light of early day came through the cracks in the
planking. Bobinette could see the bear waking up: it turned, yawned:
suddenly it fixed its eyes on her and crouched.
What should she do? What could she do?
Bobinette had once read that the human eye could frighten a wild beast
into submission: she forced herself to stare at the animal with
concentrated energy. Alas! she was too frightened herself to terrify a
ferocious animal into harmless submission!
The bear licked itself. As though sure of its prey, which he would
presently fall upon and rend, he took his time and proceeded to make
his toilette.
It was grotesquely tragic, the leisurely tranquillity of this beast
face to face with this girl who could count the seconds of life
remaining to her.
* * * * *
Now and again Bobinette could hear the rapid passings of motor-cars on
the high road outside, speeding to Paris or Versailles, passing the
van abandoned, left derelict by the wayside. Far, indeed, were these
passers from suspecting the terrible drama of which it was the
theatre.
Call out?
That were madness! Her cries might pass unheeded. Why should she
suppose the drivers of these cars racing on their appointed way would
stop, locate the cry, and succour her? No, it would but excite the
anger of the bear, rouse it to action, thus hasten her own dreadful
end!...
* * * * *
A man was walking on the Sceaux road--walking fast. He wore the
clothes of a working man. He was leading a sorry nag.... The man
halted and let the nag go free. A sound had caught his ear--a growling
sound.
He listened intently.
"Did I imagine it?" he murmured.
Again that growling, punctuated by a woman's sharp scream. The man was
off at racing speed towards the van, which was but a hundred yards
away.
"Great Heaven! Shall I arrive too late?" ejaculated the man.
Reaching it, breathless, he glued his ear to the door. The van shook
with the movement and growling of some beast of prey about to spring.
The man drew back, rushed forward, hurled himself against the door and
drove it inwards.
A shot broke the silence of the morning.
The man rolled over the body of the bear, shot dead through the heart.
The man freed himself; escaped the convulsive movement of its limbs,
and crawled towards a crumpled heap huddled in a corner of this tragic
stage. Bobinette's poor face, exposed to view, was slashed and torn:
it bore the dreadful claw-marks of the bear.
The man placed his hand on her heart.
"She lives!" he said softly.
Supporting her with infinite gentleness, the man addressed her in a
voice trembling with emotion:
"Do not be afraid, Bobinette! You are saved! It is Juve who is telling
you so! It is Juve!"
XXXII
FREE AND PRISONER
Isolated in the cell which had served him as dwelling-place for the
past fortnight, Jerome Fandor had had his ups and downs, hours of
deepest depression, hours of violent exasperation when he suffered an
intolerable martyrdom between his four walls--suffered morally and
physically.
Yet his imprisonment had been rendered as tolerable as possible. He
could have his meals brought in from outside and obtain from the
library such books as there were.
How he longed for a talk with Juve; but that detective was rigorously
excluded from the prison. Juve was to be a witness at the trial.
As Fandor was to conduct his own case there were no consultations with
his counsel to relieve the monotony of the days; nor were newspapers
allowed him. He had no friends or relatives to visit and console him
or divert him.
In his sleepless hours Fandor's thoughts would revert to his past, to
the frightful drama of his boyhood, to the assassination of the
Marquise de Langrune, when he, a youth of eighteen, had been
suspected, had even been accused of committing this murder, the
accuser being his own father![8]
[Footnote 8: See _Fantomas_: vol. i, Fantomas Series.]
He remembered that, commencing the very day after the discovery of the
crime, his existence had been that of a pariah flying from the police,
from those who knew him; remembered how he had assumed disguise after
disguise, denied by his father, ignored by his mother, an unfortunate
woman who had lost her reason and was shut up in a lunatic asylum.
The only gleam of happiness which had come to illumine the dreary
darkness of his youth resolved itself into a memory picture of a pale
dawn when the lad, Charles Rambert, leaving a wine-shop, had been
caught by Juve, who, believing in his innocence, had taken him under
his protection, had given him the name of Jerome Fandor, and helped
him to start a new life.[9]
[Footnote 9: See _The Exploits of Juve_> vol. ii, Fantomas Series.]
From then onwards that timid lad, disheartened by his misfortunes, had
regained courage and hope, and had boldly plunged into the struggle to
live.
His heart and soul were in his journalistic work. Of an enquiring turn
of mind, Fandor had not been content with the episodic work of a mere
reporter: he eagerly pursued the guilty, took a lively interest in the
victims, and became Juve's valuable collaborator, with whom the bonds
of friendship strengthened day by day.
Thus Fandor, in Juve's company, was drawn into the hurly-burly, into
the troubles and torments of criminal affairs so mysterious, so
phenomenal, that, for several years in succession, they created a
sensation, not only in Paris but throughout France.
He constituted himself one of the most implacable enemies of Fantomas.
The more so, because he was satisfied that the "Genius of Crime," as
this monster had been called, had had a considerable share in the
vicissitudes and troubles of his own life. Fandor felt that this
monster's sinister influence was still being exercised against him.
Too often, in those wakeful hours when he reviewed his life, following
the course of it in a kind of mental cinematograph, did Fandor think
of Elizabeth Dollon. It was with sad yet sweet emotion, with a
piercing regret, but with an unfailing hope, that he saw before his
inner vision the charming, the adored face, and figure of Elizabeth
Dollon, for whom he had felt, and felt still, an affection profound
and sincere. He loved her: he would always love her.[10]
[Footnote 10: See _Messengers of Evil_: vol. iii, Fantomas Series.]
He thought of her brother's death and the extraordinary disappearance
of his body, of his own pursuit of the assassin, of the discovery,
made with Juve, that the murderer of Jacques Dollon was none other
than the elusive Fantomas.
Assuredly that ill-omened bandit was responsible for the sudden
departure of Elizabeth, immediately after Fandor had obtained from her
charming lips the sweet avowal of her love.... He owed to Fantomas
that he had been unable to join his life to that of this exquisite
girl: to Fantomas he owed it that he could not trace her to her
unknown retreat. Was she still in the land of the living? It was
ultimately to Fantomas that he owed his present dreadful position--to
this thrice accursed Genius of Crime--Fantomas.
* * * * *
That evening Fandor's absorbing reflections were broken into by the
turning of a key in the lock of his cell at an unusual hour. Through
the half-opened door he heard the close of a conversation between his
jailor and an unknown person.
"I also give notice, my good fellow, that my secretary will come to
join me presently," said the strange voice. The jailor replied:
"That is quite understood, Maitre. I will warn my colleague, who will
come on guard in my stead in ten minutes' time."
Fandor saw a barrister entering his cell. He supposed him to be the
official advocate prescribed by the Council of War.... Not in the
least disposed to unbosom himself to this defending counsel imposed on
him by law, Fandor was about to give him a freezing reception, but at
sight of the new arrival's face our journalist stood speechless. He
recognised under the barrister's gown someone whose features were
deeply graven on his memory, though he had not met him but once.
"Naarbo."... escaped his lips.
A brusque warning movement of the new-comer cut Fandor short. At the
same time he closed the door with a lightning quick movement. The
pseudo advocate then approached Fandor, saying in a low tone:
"Do not seem to recognise me. Yes, I am de Naarboveck.... It is
thanks to a subterfuge that I have been able to get near you."...
Fandor was nonplussed. A hundred questions rose to his lips, but he
did not speak. He had better await developments. As de Naarboveck had
run such risks to enter his cell so disguised, he must have something
extraordinary to say to the prisoner, Jerome Fandor!
De Naarboveck seated himself on the one bench the cell contained. He
invited Fandor to sit close to him, so that they might converse in low
tones.
"Monsieur," began the baron, "I obtained a permit to visit you as the
official advocate allotted to you by the president: that official's
visit is due to-morrow.... Well, a favour is never lost when one is
not dealing with the ungrateful!... Some weeks ago, when you came to
interview me with regard to the deplorable assassination of Captain
Brocq, I spoke freely to you, and at the same time asked you to give
me your word not to put into print a number of those personal details
with which journalists like to sprinkle their pages."...
"I remember," agreed Fandor.
"I confess I did not put much faith in your discretion, being a
journalist," went on the baron. "I was then agreeably surprised to
find that I had been interviewed by a man of tact. Since then I have
followed with sympathy the tenebrous adventures in which you have been
involved.... It was not without emotion that I learned of the grievous
position you are now in. I will come straight to the point--I am here
to extricate you from that position."
Fandor caught de Naarboveck's hands in his, and pressed them warmly.
"Can what you tell me be true?" he exclaimed.
The diplomat hastily withdrew his hands from Fandor's grasp, opened a
heavy portfolio such as advocates carry, and drew from it a black gown
like his own, an advocate's cap, and a pair of dark coloured trousers.
"Put these on as quickly as possible," said de Naarboveck, "and we
will leave here together."
Fandor hesitated: de Naarboveck insisted.
"It is of the first importance that you leave here! I know where
proofs of your innocence are to be found.... We have not a minute to
lose: besides, as a member of the diplomatic service, it is of the
utmost interest to me that the document stolen from Captain Brocq
should be recovered.... I know where it is. I want you to return it to
the Government. That will be the most striking proof possible of your
innocence."
Fandor's critical faculties were momentarily suspended: he seemed
moving in some dream. Mechanically he clothed himself in the get-up
which the baron had thought good to bring him.
Fandor had seen so many extraordinary things in the course of his
adventurous existence, that he did not stay to question the reason for
this diplomat's interest in his poor affairs--an interest so strong
that he had run serious risks to reach the prisoner and make himself
the accomplice of that prisoner's flight.
Out of prison, free, Fandor could and would act!
The two apparent men of the law gently opened the cell door. De
Naarboveck cast a rapid glance up and down the corridor, on to which
half a dozen cells opened.... The corridor was empty and silent. De
Naarboveck and Fandor stepped out, gently closing the cell door.
"The opening of the prison door is our next difficulty to be
overcome," whispered de Naarboveck: "I warned the jailor that I
expected my secretary. Let us hope he will take you as such and let us
pass out unmolested."
* * * * *
The military prison of the Council of War of Paris is not like other
prisons: that is why de Naarboveck's plan had a fair chance of
success. It would certainly have failed had it been attempted at La
Sante or at La Roquette.... This building had been a private hotel of
the old style.
On the first floor, the former reception-rooms had been divided into
small offices, and the principal drawing-room had been transformed
into a court-room. On the ground floor, what were evidently the
kitchens and domestic offices in the last century now constituted the
prison proper, for in these quarters are arranged the cells where the
accused await their appearance before their judges. No one
unacquainted with these arrangements would suspect that the low door,
scarcely noticeable in the vestibule facing the staircase leading to
the first floor is the entrance to the prison.
Yet those who pass through this low door find themselves in the
corridor lined with prison cells.
At the door of the prison a warder is posted, whose role is not so
much to watch the prisoners and prevent any attempt at escape as to
open to persons needing to enter that ill-omened place. At night-time
supervision is relaxed. The warder has to keep the offices in good
order, and when he has his key in his pocket, certain that the heavy
bolts and locks cannot be forced, he comes and goes about the house.
De Naarboveck was not only well posted in these details, but was aware
that up to the day of Fandor's trial, in view of the extra coming and
going, it had been decided to give the guardian an assistant, and that
this assistant would be at his post from six o'clock onwards.
It was past six o'clock.
The chances were, that when the false advocates knocked from the
inside, the prison door would be opened to allow them egress by the
supplementary guardian. De Naarboveck tapped on the peephole made in
the massive door.
The noise of heavy bolts withdrawn was heard; the prison door was half
opened: the warder's face appeared. Fandor stifled a sigh of
satisfaction: it was a jailor who did not know him: it was the
substitute counted upon.
"Ah!" cried he, saluting the gentlemen of the long robe: "Why, there
are two of you!"
"Naturally," replied de Naarboveck: "Did not your colleague let you
know that my secretary had joined me?"
"I knew he was coming, but I did not understand that he had already
come," replied the man.
De Naarboveck laughed.
"We leave together--what more natural?"
"It is your right," grumbled the man: "Have you finished your
interrogation of the accused Fandor?"
As he asked this pertinent question, the jailor made a movement to
enter the prison and make sure that the prisoner's cell was locked. De
Naarboveck caught his arm.
"Look here, my man," said he, slipping a silver coin into the jailor's
hand: "We are not suitably dressed for the street, and our ordinary
clothes are at the Palais de Justice. Will you be kind enough to stop
a cab for us? We can get into it at the courtyard entrance!"
The jailor decided that he could safely postpone his visit to Fandor's
cell. He went out into the courtyard with the two apparent advocates.
Standing on the step of the courtyard gate he looked out for a passing
cab.
A taxi-driver scented customers. He drove alongside the pavement. In a
moment de Naarboveck and Fandor were seated inside it, and, whilst
waving his hand to the respectful and gratified warder, he instructed
the driver in a clear voice:
"To the Palais de Justice!"
As soon as they reached the rue de Rennes, de Naarboveck changed his
destination....
* * * * *
He turned to Fandor.
"Well, Monsieur Fandor, what have you to say to this?"
"Ah, Baron, how can I ever express my gratitude?"
De Naarboveck smiled.... He gazed at the journalist. There was
something in the situation he found amusing....
Following the baron's directions, the taxi went up the rue Lapic, and
reached the heights of Montmartre. It stopped at last in a little
street, dark and deserted, before a wretched-looking house, whose
front was vaguely outlined in a small neglected garden.
De Naarboveck paid the driver, passed under a dark arch, crossed the
garden, and reached a kind of lodge. He let himself in, followed by
Fandor. They went up a cork-screw staircase to the floor above. De
Naarboveck switched on a light, and Fandor saw that he and his rescuer
were in a studio of vast proportions, well furnished.
Thick curtains hung before a large glass bay: it was a lofty room with
very slightly sloping walls.
Two or three rooms must have been thrown into one, for several thick
supporting columns of iron crossed the middle of the studio.
Fandor failed to find either piece of furniture or picture he could
recognise: everything in the place was new to him.
De Naarboveck had slipped off his gown at once. He was in elegant
evening dress.
Fandor also threw off the advocate's gown. He wore the black trousers
de Naarboveck had brought him, but was in his shirt sleeves. The
Vinson uniform had been left in the cell.
Having sufficiently enjoyed the surprise of his protege, the baron
asked:
"Do you know where we are, Monsieur Fandor?"
"I have not the remotest idea."
"Think a little!"
"I do not know in the least; that is a fact!"
"Monsieur," said de Naarboveck, coming close to Fandor, as though he
was afraid of being overheard: "You know, at least, by name a certain
enigmatic individual who plays an important part in the affairs of
which we both are victims, in different ways.... I will no longer hide
from you that we are in this individual's house!"
"And," gasped Fandor, "this individual is called?"...
"He is called Vagualame!"
"Vagualame!"
Fandor was aghast! Had the devil himself appeared before him he could
not have been more dumbfounded. Vagualame, the agent of the Second
Bureau--Vagualame, whom Fandor, for some time past, had taken to be a
spy with more than one string to his bow--it was he, then, who was the
author of the crimes for whom search was being made, in whose stead
Fandor himself was suffering humiliation and imprisonment, with
further dreadful possibilities to come! Fandor recalled his
conversation with Juve the day after Captain Brocq's assassination: in
the course of their conversation Juve had asserted that Fantomas was
the criminal.
Fandor himself had not followed the mysterious evolutions of this
sinister accordion player as had Juve; but now he wondered whether
there might not be a connection between Vagualame and Fantomas.... All
this was obscure: Fandor felt he was groping amid dark mysteries....
De Naarboveck was moving hither and thither in the studio: at the same
time he was observing Fandor, listening to what he had to say: he
seemed to be reading Fandor's thoughts.
"Your friend, Juve, has been hotly pursuing this Vagualame for some
time," remarked De Naarboveck: "Famous detective as he is, he has
suffered more than one check, has been routed, rebuffed, discomfited,
on several occasions by this same Vagualame, who has proved that he is
not such a fool as he looks! Possibly Juve will soon have a further
opportunity of realising the truth of this--however."...
Fandor interrupted:
"I hope my friend, my dear friend, Juve, does not run any risk!... I
beg of you, Monsieur, to tell me whether he is in danger!... You see,
I am free now."...
"Attention, Monsieur Fandor!" de Naarboveck cut in. "Bear in mind that
you are an escaped prisoner, that your flight must not be known! Be on
your guard, then! As to your friend, Juve, be reassured on that
point!"
Abruptly he changed the subject.
"Vagualame had a collaborator, a young person whom you
know--Mademoiselle Berthe, called Bobinette.... Bobinette has done
wrong, very wrong, but we will speak no more of her--peace to her
memory--she has expiated her crime!"
"Is Bobinette dead, then?" asked Fandor.... Immediately a conviction
seized him that the girl had fallen a victim to this mysterious
assassin whom no one could lay hands on.
The studio clock struck ten.
The lights went out.
Fandor stood startled, in deepest darkness.
Before he could utter an exclamation, move a finger, he was swathed in
a cloth, seized, bound, with the utmost brutality. Mysterious hands
fixed a supple mask on his face, pressed something on his head.
Dragged violently along, the cords cutting his flesh, Fandor realised
his attackers were fastening him to something which held him stiffly
upright. It must be one of the iron columns.
Fandor thought he heard a receding voice mutter: "As Bobinette died,
so shalt thou die--through Fantomas!"
Had he heard aright? Was it some illusion of sense and brain?... Was
it not he himself who had cried it? For Fandor, whose mind had been
full of Vagualame, had, at the moment of attack, spontaneously thought
of Fantomas.
Fandor strained at his bonds and thought of the baron.
"Naarboveck--To me! Help!" he shouted.
No answer came through the darkness.
Did he hear a distant, stifled groan?
Dazzling light flooded the studio.
Fandor, who could see through the eyeholes of the mask, supple as
skin, stared about him with intense curiosity.
This extraordinary studio revealed a blood-freezing spectacle.
Facing him, immobile, rigid, was stationed a being whom Fandor had had
a fleeting glimpse of two or three times in his life. He had seen this
enigmatic and formidable being under circumstances so tragic, on
occasions so phenomenal, that this being's outline was graven on his
memory for ever!
There was the cloak of many folds, dense black; the hooded mask, the
large soft hat shading the eyes; the strange inimitable outline!...
Fandor was facing Fantomas!
Fantomas!
With bent shoulders and straining muscles, Fandor made desperate
attempts to free himself, the while his eyes were fixed on the
terrifying apparition confronting him!
It was a mocking Fantomas he saw; for the abominable bandit was
mocking him--was imitating his every gesture to the life!...
Fandor's gaze was fixed in an observing stare....
Did he not see cords binding the limbs of Fantomas? cords binding him
about the middle, constricting his whole body?
Was he in some hell nightmare?... Was he mad?... Who was this facing
him?... Why, _himself_!...
Fandor, whose image was reflected in a mirror facing him a yard or two
away! Fandor had been endowed with the outline of--Fantomas!...