DISAPPOINTED HOPES
“So your birth certificate is an unknown quantity, eh? and there’s no
means of knowing what your name properly is?”
“What can that matter to you, Monsieur Moche?”
“Oh! for me, it’s nothing to me. I don’t care a hang; you’re a
tremendous cute chap, that’s all I want to know; your patent of
nobility you can leave with your ‘uncle,’ if that’s where you’ve
deposited it, eh, my lad?”
“That’s where it is—or somewhere else, Monsieur Moche.”
“Remember, prisons keep records, now, don’t they?”
“Don’t talk about that, sir!”
“Agreed, my boy! now look’ee, for the friends of the family, for
Paulet, the wench Nini, and the rest of the pals, you shall be ‘Little
Tremendous,’ that’s settled. Then, if clients come to see me, well,
I’ll give you a title of ceremony—d’you cotton to that?”
“I’m agreeable.”
“I shall call you ... let me see ... I’ll call you my ‘Chief of Staff.’
That’ll put a stopper on their gab.”
“No doubt it will, Monsieur Moche.”
It was in a dull, depressed, specious, fawning voice that Jérôme Fandor
replied to his new “master.”
In the garret where the dreadful old fellow stored his archives, huge
masses of dusty paper, cheek by jowl with all sorts of miscellaneous
rubbish, worthless bric-à-brac, old worn-out furniture, clothes fit
only for a hand-me-down shop, Fandor had passed a not too uncomfortable
night.
Accordingly he had risen in a cheerful frame of mind. A hasty wash at
a trickle of cold water that escaped with a nerve-racking noise from a
leaky tap on the landing outside his door, had quite made him his own
man again. Whistling a tune he had rejoined M. Moche.
“Now, sir,” he had asked, “you have work for me to do, eh, in your
place of business?”
M. Moche, already ensconced in a leather armchair, from which tags of
the horsehair stuffing stuck out in all directions, but which formed
a permanent seat of state behind his desk, loaded with multitudinous
papers, had nodded assent.
“Work? Yes, my young friend, yes; at my place there’s always work to
do, only as there’s not always cash, for times are hard, we must settle
about conditions. I offer you board and lodging, and now and again a
bit of money ... does that suit your book?”
Jérôme Fandor would have thought himself in heaven, had not the dubious
looks of the unpleasant old man driven all celestial ideas clean out of
his head.
“That’ll do me,” was as much as he had cared to say.
Thereupon the worthy M. Moche had proceeded to put a number of leading
questions.
What could Fandor do? Write? Yes?... Good. That was capital. He could
draw, too? then he could draw signatures? in fact, copy signatures, eh?
copy them, you know, eh? Yes, again? Better and better ... The old man
seemed delighted.
Fandor had judicially sized up his new employer by this time; yes,
there was no doubt he could be of great service to him on occasions.
Then M. Moche had asked the young man to tell him precisely who and
what he was. But on that point, Fandor had proved reticent to the last
degree.
“I’ve got pals,” this was all he would say, “who have nicknamed me
‘Little Tremendous,’ because I’m pretty nimble with my maulies and
ain’t afraid to use ’em.”
The information was vague enough. But Moche was not the man to insist
on any excessive precision of statement. He felt little doubt his new
clerk must have had a somewhat chequered past. If it didn’t suit him to
let out exactly who he was, well, that was his business ... And that
was why Moche, after informing Fandor that he would be where clients
were concerned the “Chief of Staff” in his office, addressed the young
man familiarly by the name he had chosen to give himself.
“Look here, young Handy Man, I’m going to send you on an errand.”
“Very good, M’sieu Moche.”
“An errand to a pretty girl’s....”
“Better still, M’sieu Moche.”
“But no nonsense, you know! it’s a serious matter, and you must be
serious. No larks with the girl, she’s going to be my tenant.”
“You’re a house owner then, M’sieu Moche?”
“Yes, my boy, a house owner, but a poor, hard-up one at that; don’t you
go and think I’m a millionaire ... Anyhow, I’ve a bit of a place where
the young lady in question has rented a flat.”
“And that’s where I’m to go, M’sieu Moche?”
“No, my ‘Little Tremendous,’ you’re to go to the Rue des Couronnes ...
d’you hear? the Rue des Couronnes while _my_ house stands in the Rue de
l’Evangile.”
“Now I can’t quite follow you, M’sieu Moche.”
“That’s because you talk too much, my lad! Shut your trap a bit, and
I’ll explain.”
“Shut it is, M’sieu Moche.”
“Good! well, here’s how it is: The lady has hired my flat; only as I
can’t say if she’ll fork out the tin regularly, I should like you to go
and have a look what furniture she’s got, to know if it’s good to cover
the quarter’s rent.”
“Good, M’sieu Moche.”
“You twig—do what I tell you without seeming to, eh?”
“In that case, I’d want an excuse, eh?”
“I never said I couldn’t provide one, did I? Look’ee, my son, search
under that green bookcase and you’ll find some patterns of wall-papers
... got ’em?”
“Yes.”
“Well, take ’em with you, young sir! For the last six months I’ve found
’em useful for the same little game. You see, I send a pal, as it
might be you, to call on the guy who wants to take my rooms. He comes
under pretence of offering the new tenant a choice of wall-papers;
as a matter of fact, I simply use him to inspect the furniture that
must guarantee the rent. As you may suppose, I never do pay for the
papering. Not much! The offer’s made—and there it ends!”
Fandor showed no surprise. The business his strange employer was
sending him on was of course perfectly straightforward and legitimate!
Still keeping to his slangy way of speaking, Fandor merely asked:
“And what’s the name, M’sieu Moche, your dicky-bird goes by? and what’s
her exact address in the Rue des Couronnes?”
M. Moche, while talking to his clerk, was busy changing his
down-at-heel slippers for a pair of elastic-sided boots, obviously too
small for him, the whitey-brown cracks in which he masked by smearing
them with ink. He was bending down behind his desk and could not see
the other’s face as he answered his last question:
“The dicky-bird, as you call her, lives, to be exact, at 142 _bis_ Rue
des Couronnes. As to her name, that’s pretty well-known, she’s the
sister of a man who was murdered; you can’t help remembering about it;
she’s called Mademoiselle Elisabeth Dollon—you’ll not forget?”
In a shaking voice it needed an almost superhuman effort to steady,
Jérôme Fandor promised he would not forget the name! A thousand
thoughts were whirling madly through his brain, his heart was still
beating high with excitement, when M. Moche went on:
“Well then, hook it, my boy; here’s three half-pence for going, to pay
your Underground; it’s not far, you can walk back.”
Yes, he could walk back quite well, Fandor agreed, hardly conscious of
what he was saying.
Ten minutes later he was on his way to the Rue des Couronnes.
Elisabeth Dollon! He was going, he, Jérôme Fandor, to see Elisabeth
Dollon! As if the past had suddenly risen before his eyes as on the
film of an imaginary cinematograph of dreams, Jérôme Fandor lived again
in pain and grief the torturing crises, the grim tragedies that name
called back to memory, a woman’s name, the name of Elisabeth Dollon.
No, never had he forgotten the pathetic heroine of those terrible days.
Elisabeth Dollon, the unhappy sister of the painter, Jacques Dollon,
Fantômas’ victim, deemed by some to be himself Fantômas till the day
when Juve and Fandor rehabilitated his good name, was she not the only
being Fandor cherished with a fond affection? Since the first day
he had learnt to know her, to appreciate the girl’s proud and tender
character, Jérôme Fandor had loved her!
It was for her, to do her honour, to rescue her from the most odious
entanglements, that he had in those days devoted himself, body
and soul, to the task of clearing up the mysterious affair of the
_Messenger of Death_. Twenty times over, in the course of that police
investigation, Fandor and Juve had risked their lives. Juve for his
part was acting more for the sake of unmasking Fantômas than for any
other reason, but for Fandor, he was spurred on by the interest he felt
in Elisabeth Dollon.
Once, for a moment, he had believed his dearest wishes would be
fulfilled. Then, at that very instant of joyful satisfaction, an
appalling catastrophe had destroyed his hopes. The prey he was
tracking down escaped, and Fantômas, to crown his victory, in eluding
the wiles of his two pursuers, Fandor and Juve, had the cruelty to
add yet another triumph. He wrote to Elisabeth Dollon—already his
victim—“Fandor is Charles Rambert; Charles Rambert is a criminal and a
coward,” with the result that, terrified by this false and treacherous
calumny, she avoided the young man, vanished from his life, swore she
would never see him more!
And now, now when he was poor, helpless, condemned to live in company
of bandits, apaches, the dregs of society, Fate gave him this sublime
recompense, sending him this day to see whom? whom but Elisabeth Dollon!
“To see her, heavens! to see her! to tell her who I am, what I am,
what I live for, to win a half-hour of sweet, calm converse with her,
wherein to convince her of the truth, to explain to her Fantômas’
machinations, oh! it is too much happiness!” Jérôme Fandor strove to
regain his self-possession, to master his nerves, but his pace was
headlong as he sped to the Rue des Couronnes, where he hoped to win
at last an unfeigned declaration of renewed affection from Elisabeth
Dollon.
“I shall know very well,” he murmured to himself at intervals. “I shall
know how to show her I love her truly. By the ardour of my words I
shall gain her confidence, the confidence she _must_ grant me, which I
_must_ have, that she may feel I speak the truth, that I am not what
Fantômas has told her I was.”
Arrived at 142 _bis_ Rue des Couronnes, Fandor found the house a
crowded nest of working people’s flats. Along a narrow, fetid passage,
its damp walls stained and scarred over with inscriptions indicating
the names of the tenants and the different floors they occupied, Fandor
penetrated to the concierge’s lodge. He tried to push open the door,
but it would not yield.
“So,” thought the young man, “the woman is not within.” He called:
“Anyone there?” but his voice was drowned by a deafening noise
proceeding from a tiny courtyard near by.
Turning his steps in that direction, he discovered a woman busy with
two sticks beating clouds of dust out of an unstitched mattress.
“The concierge?” asked the visitor.
The woman broke off her work to demand in a grumbling voice:
“What do you want with her, eh?”
“To inquire for a tenant’s rooms.”
“What tenant?”
“Mlle. Dollon.”
“Mlle. Dollon? And what may you want with her?”
Surprised at this discouraging reception, Fandor, who was anything but
patience personified, merely declared:
“That I propose to tell Mlle. Dollon herself in good time.”
But the virago had picked up her sticks again, preparatory to resuming
her work.
“To begin with,” she announced, “you’ll not say anything at all to her,
because you’re not going up to see her.”
“Not going up to see her! and pray, why?”
“That’s the orders she’s given me—that’s why!”
“Then you are the concierge?”
“Yes, I am. What then?”
Jérôme Fandor realized he would inevitably be shown the door unless he
could secure the good graces of this vixen who was so conscientious in
the matter of obeying orders.
“Madam,” he now addressed her in his most winning voice, forgetting how
strange it sounded for an apache, such as he looked in his disreputable
clothes, to be speaking in tones of perfect politeness. “Madam, you
would oblige me very greatly by informing me why Mlle. Dollon cannot
receive me. I have not come to trouble her unduly. I am here to offer
her a choice of wall-papers for the rooms she is moving into.”
The young man had found an excellent way to conciliate the good woman.
He had called her “Madam,” whereas in the _quartier_ she was invariably
addressed as “mother” so-and-so, by reason of her enormous bulk.
“Well, my good sir,” replied the fat portress, suddenly disarmed, “I’ll
tell you something; come along in to my lodge and I’ll have a peer
first at your patterns, and if there’s any that look like suiting her
book, I’ll go up and show her them, or you shall go up yourself. She
and I have the same taste in wall-papers.”
Be sure Fandor took care to express no doubts on the latter point,
albeit it struck him as highly improbable that the fat concierge should
share the same tastes as the artist, Elisabeth Dollon; he readily
enough agreed:
“After you, madam,”—and, preceded by the fat woman trotting along in
front of him, this being her own way of moving rapidly, Fandor advanced
into the concierge’s lodge.
“First of all,” began his hostess graciously, “so as our talk may go
easier, I’ll tell you my name; it’s Mme. Doulenques. Now, you mustn’t
bear malice because I was a bit rough with you just at first. The fact
is the young lady is still upset after her adventure.”
Boiling with impatience, Fandor wished Mme. Doulenques to the devil;
the all-important thing for him was to see Elisabeth. Mighty little he
cared to listen to the fat creature’s babble. But there, to hustle her
was impossible. He questioned:
“Her adventure? Mlle. Elisabeth Dollon?...”
“Why, yes; you haven’t heard? Ah! true, they didn’t put it in the
papers. Well, just imagine, Mr. Paperer, the poor, gentle lamb,
yesterday evening as she was coming home from her work, was attacked by
apaches.”
“Great heavens! not seriously hurt, I trust?”
“No, not much the worse certainly, seeing as how she escaped in time;
but it was touch and go; she got back here terribly upset, poor child!
That’s why she won’t see anybody to-day.”
Fandor seized the opportunity to cut short the conversation.
“I see; but she will see me, for sure, as I’ve come about decorating
the rooms ... what floor does she live on?”
“Fifth floor, left ... bell with a green bell-pull ... But just wait
till I tell you all about it. Just think, it was on the Boulevard de
Belleville it all happened.”
“Boulevard de Belleville!... yesterday evening?”
“Yes, yesterday evening—”
The young man had asked the question in such a strange voice that
Mme. Doulenques felt her earlier doubts more than justified.
“Now, whatever’s the matter?” she demanded, “One would think you’d been
taken ill.”
Indeed, Fandor had turned deadly pale as he listened to the woman’s
story. The coincidence was so startling—Elisabeth Dollon, the very
evening before, assailed by apaches on the Boulevard de Belleville;
then, on the same boulevard, not far away no doubt, he, Fandor,
defending an unknown woman against police officers ...
The concierge took up the tale again:
“And the worst part of the story you haven’t heard yet. Mr. Paperer—she
knows the villain who assaulted her! Seems it’s one Fandor, a low
fellow who once had to do with her, and who actually ... Why, what’s
wrong with you now?... God bless my soul! stop him!”
Spinning round on his heels, like a madman, Jérôme Fandor had abruptly
left fat Mme. Doulenques in the very middle of her narrative.
And truly it was a mad thing the journalist had been guilty of in so
acting. Commonly so careful and deliberate, so much master of his
feelings, for this once he had failed to govern an overmastering
impulse. So Elisabeth Dollon was the workgirl he had saved the night
before from the pursuit of the street patrol! And Elisabeth believed
that Jérôme Fandor, whom she had had time to recognize, was one of her
assailants! What cared he now for any further details Mme. Doulenques
might have to give?
Elisabeth lived on the fifth floor, and thither he rushed, panting,
filled with a frantic eagerness to proclaim his innocence to the woman
he loved, to clear up this new, this fatal misunderstanding. While
the portress, in sheer terror of the man’s strange behaviour, in the
very middle of a conversation bolting away like a thief to dash up to
her tenant’s rooms, was screaming hoarse, half-stifled cries for help,
Jérôme Fandor sprang up the stairs four steps at a time.
Yes, there on the fifth floor he saw to his left a door with a green
bell-pull beside it. He rang a peal, so loud and peremptory he could
hear someone on the other side of the door hurrying forward at a run. A
voice, Elisabeth’s voice, challenged:
“Who’s there? What’s wanted?”
Fandor had a gleam of common sense, enough to make him disguise his
voice:
“Someone from M. Moche’s to see Mlle. Elisabeth Dollon.”
There was a sound of a key turning in the lock and the door fell ajar,
while Jérôme could faintly catch a confused clamour reaching him from
the courtyard below.
“You want to see me, sir?” and cautiously the occupant of the
flat—doubtless the young woman had been resting on her bed and had
hurriedly thrown a _peignoir_ round her—opened the door a little wider.
Alas! hardly had she cast eyes on the visitor before she turned livid
and tried to pull the door to again, screaming: “Help! help!... you ...
you, Fantômas!... Fandor!... I am undone!”
Instinctively throwing his weight against the door, Fandor endeavoured
to prevent the girl from shutting him out. “For heaven’s sake,” he
prayed her, “calm yourself!—yes, it is I ... I Fandor!... who loves
you.... Listen to me, I beseech you!”
But with a sudden, desperate effort, Elisabeth Dollon had dragged
the door to again, not without giving vent to another cry of frantic
terror: “Help! it is Fantômas ... Fantômas!”
All this had occupied but a moment, and already Fandor was regaining
his composure. That Elisabeth, terribly upset by last night’s violence,
in which she believed him to have been concerned, took him for
Fantômas, was after all of small importance. He could easily convince
her of the truth. What was more serious was the monstrous folly he
had committed in bolting away in that unceremonious fashion from
Mme. Doulenques a moment before. Now on the stairs a prodigious uproar
was swelling louder and louder, while the shrill voice of the concierge
rose high above the clamour:
“A scoundrelly brigand, I tell you! one of the same lot for sure who
attacked the girl yesterday!” People were thronging upstairs, heavy
footsteps sounded on the boards, a crowd of neighbours was hurrying up
to the scene of action.
Instinctively Fandor stepped back on the landing. For nearly six months
he had been living the life of a fugitive; for all those months the
unfortunate young man had known the gnawing anxieties of a never-ending
flight from all whose interest it might be to discover his identity.
Now, finding himself pursued, trapped on this stairway, he lost his
head. Instead of quietly waiting till the concierge and her satellites
came up to him and then explaining the misunderstanding, Fandor,
realizing that Elisabeth would be long in recognizing her mistake,
resolved to fly. Swiftly, noiselessly, nimbly, he mounted to the
seventh story of the house, in the vague hope of finding a hiding-place.
Fortune favoured him. The house was an enormous block of workmen’s
dwellings, made up of several separate buildings, connected together
and served by several different staircases. Fandor, following the
corridor running between the rooms on the topmost floor, had the luck
to come upon the landing of a second flight of stairs. To make up his
mind, to dart to the top, to scamper down the stairway, never stopping
to know what had become of his pursuers, to dash into the street
and reach the line of the outer boulevards at a run, was the work
of a moment. Bathed in sweat and panting for breath, he reached the
Boulevard de Belleville—and knew he was safe.
Safe, yes, but alas! atrociously disappointed. An hour ago he was on
his way, in joyful anticipation, to visit Elisabeth Dollon, blessing
the happy chance that was to bring him to the girl’s presence; now he
had but caught a glimpse of her, had not so much as spoken with her;
all he knew was that she believed him guilty of the most dreadful
crimes, that she coupled his name with a name of horror, a name of
blood, a name of panic terror, with the name of Fantômas! Exhausted, he
sank on a bench. All day long, crushed by the hand of Fate that day by
day accumulated ever-fresh calamities on his devoted head, he wandered
miserably about the streets.
At nightfall he regained some degree of self-possession.
“I must think out a plan,” he told himself; “I know now where she
lives, I know where she is going to live, by the Lord, I can surely
contrive to clear my character in her eyes.” His aimless wanderings
had led him to the neighbourhood of Père-Lachaise, and he now set out
slowly and sadly on his way back to the Rue Saint-Fargeau.
“I will tell Moche,” he thought to himself, “that I waited for
Elisabeth all day, and have not seen her ... or else I will assure him
her furniture is good enough ... or, better still, as it’s nine o’clock
at night, I will slip up to my garret, of which I have a key, without
seeing my worthy master at all. To-morrow I shall be calmer, and can
then see what’s best to be done.”