PRISONER OF THE LANTERN
For nearly two hours, Jérôme Fandor had been back in his garret, the
lumber-room M. Moche had put at his disposal, albeit without making any
further provision for his accommodation beyond supplying a tiny lamp
to give him a glimmer of light. But the journalist was not yet asleep.
Kneeling on the floor, his lamp in front of him, he was reading and
re-reading the evening paper, _La Capitale_, which he had bought with
the sacrifice of one of the three sous presented to him that morning
by his generous master. What he read was of the deepest interest and
importance to Fandor. The young man was trembling in every limb, his
face wore an expression of horror and consternation; at intervals he
punctuated his perusal with half-stifled exclamations and frantic
ejaculations of dismay:
“What _does_ it mean?... the audacity of it!... the unspeakable
effrontery!... Are we on the eve of a Reign of Terror?... After six
months’ truce, are we to behold once more this figure of ill-omen
rise threatening, terrifying, on the horizon?... And to think of it,
my name too, on all men’s lips!... Confusion twice confounded! once
again the man succeeds in thrusting on another the responsibility
for his crimes!... a Minister kidnapped!... the Chamber in
consternation!... The whole country attacked in the person of its
highest representatives!... Ah! Fantômas is indeed a genius, the genius
of audacity, the king of frightfulness, the monster that assails
everything, that fears nothing, for whom nothing is sacred!”
For the tenth time, Fandor re-read the article in _La Capitale_. On
regaining the Rue Saint-Fargeau, worn out by the stress and strain of
his visit to Elisabeth, he had heard the newsboys crying at the top of
their voices the latest edition of _La Capitale_. People were fighting
for the paper, passers-by reading the news with looks of horror and
feverish excitement. No sooner had Fandor cast his eyes on the copy he
had secured than he started violently. In enormous letters he read the
headlines:
“_Fantômas at work again.—A Minister carried off by brigands.—Fantômas
demands a million francs to disappear. The Chamber votes defiance._”
Now, back in his garret two hours ago, Fandor was reading, still
incapable, in the mad whirl of his thoughts, of regaining anything
like calmness, the amazing details of the extraordinary sitting of the
Chamber, the Chamber wherein Fantômas had thrown defiance, a veritable
ultimatum to France, the sitting that had been held that same afternoon
at the moment he was on his way to Mlle. Dollon’s.
That Fantômas should strike a sudden blow, he reflected, a blow so
extraordinary as the one he has just delivered, is astounding, but it
is not perhaps so crushing as I thought at first. In any case, what a
fine argument it supplies in Juve’s defence. If Fantômas manifests his
activity abroad, in public, why, Juve can no longer be confounded with
him, seeing Juve is a prisoner in the Santé!
Then, with ever increasing agitation, the journalist began to read the
passage in the paper giving the shorthand report of the debate in the
Chamber, which stated how his name, his, Jérôme Fandor’s name, had
been uttered aloud as probably masking that of one of Fantômas’ chief
accomplices.
“By the Lord!” soliloquized the young man, “it’s plain enough;
everybody believes that Juve is Fantômas! Now Juve is in gaol, debarred
from action; the inevitable conclusion, therefore, is that one of his
lieutenants, one of his accomplices, must be credited with the atrocity
of to-day. As I am known to be Juve’s bosom friend, it is naturally
on me the police fix their suspicions, it is against me the public
launches its accusations. Yes, the game is up, my fate is sealed; no
stone will be left unturned to hunt me down and arrest me.”
Fandor’s reflections might have lasted longer yet perhaps, he might
perhaps have thought out a plan of escape, for he felt convinced the
bloodhounds of the Prefecture of Police would find little difficulty
in tracking him down to Père Moche’s, if he had not of a sudden had
the impression of footsteps, stealthy footsteps, at his side. Springing
instantly to his feet, the young man challenged: “Who goes there?” but
there was no answer, the garret was absolutely silent.
“Yet surely I was not dreaming?” he muttered. Holding his breath,
motionless as a statue, the journalist waited with ears astrain. But
no, he must have been mistaken; there was not a thing to attract his
attention.
“I’m getting nervous,” he muttered; “true, I’ve good reason to be just
now.”
He made a tour of inspection, but found nothing that seemed suspicious.
This done, he returned and knelt down again in front of _La Capitale_,
where the paper lay open on the floor. He was on the point of resuming
reading when he had the same unaccountable impression again. This time
it was certain, definite, unmistakable. He had felt a current of air
pass like a breath over his face. It was no hallucination, for the
journal he was reading had half lifted from the ground, the unshaded
flame of the lamp had flickered. Once more he started up, again he made
the tour of his cockloft.
“Nothing there!” he muttered, “nothing at all!”
But as he was returning slowly, hesitatingly, to the middle of the
room, with pursed lips and frowning brow, suddenly, with a sharp pop,
his lamp went out, while whirling before a powerful draught, _La
Capitale_ fluttered across the floor. It was stupefying! Instinctively,
in the pale moonlight, Fandor stepped across the garret, meaning to
set his back against the wall, in case of further eventualities. But
he had not taken three steps before a choking cry escaped him. Thrown
with horrid violence, a lasso had wound itself about his throat! He was
dragged to the ground, his limbs paralysed, half strangled, half dead!
Then, with horror unspeakable, he looked and saw ... The window of
the attic, a dormer window, had been opened noiselessly. Clinging to
the crossbar of the casement a dim shape was silhouetted against the
starlit sky. At a glance Fandor recognized the sinister apparition. It
was a man clad in black, close-fitting tights, the face hidden in a
deep cowl, the shoulders wrapped in a great black cloak! A figure of
horror, at once clearly defined and indistinct, a shape that absorbed
in the darkness, momentarily disappeared, only to reappear in darkling
outline on the whiter background of the wall; it was the figure of
Fantômas!
In a single second Fandor had felt himself caught by the lasso, in one
second he had been thrown to the ground, in one second he had noted the
black, fantastic form of the bandit glide into the garret—and in that
one second he recognized beyond possibility of doubt the Monarch of
Crime, the Master of Terror!
It was Fantômas! Fantômas, and no other!
A grim apparition—this hooded man—this man who now held Fandor, his
relentless pursuer, at his mercy. The journalist had fallen into the
trap laid for him; he thought: “I am in Fantômas’ power! I am a lost
man!”
To move a limb was impossible, to resist a wild dream. Yet no sooner
had he gathered a clear idea of the danger threatening him than, calm
again and confident, he waited events.
Swift and silent, Fantômas stepped over the crossbar of the window,
sprang down into the room, and to Fandor’s side where he lay stretched
helpless on the floor. In a turn of the hand he made fast the knots of
his lasso, gagged the young man, then slackened the ligature that was
almost strangling him, and this done, fell to taunting his victim with
odious mockery. But what a strange voice, toneless, metallic, scarce
human, it was that Fantômas adopted!
“Monsieur Fandor, good-day to you! Monsieur Jérôme Fandor, Fantômas
presents you his compliments.”
Helpless, gagged, bound hand and foot, Fandor could made no reply
whatsoever. Only the eyes were alive in the dead face, and in those
eyes Jérôme Fandor concentrated all his power of resolution. With calm
intensity he fixed his gaze on his enemy’s face, on the eyes that
glittered luminous under the black folds of the impenetrable mask,
staring back unflinching.
“He can kill me,” thought the young man, “he shall never think he can
frighten me!”
But Fantômas had dropped his bantering tone, and it was in a serious
voice he now spoke:
“You were reading _La Capitale_, so you know the latest news?
Interesting, is it not?... Unfortunately, Monsieur Fandor, the fools
have thought fit to lay to your account the claim formulated by me
against Parliament. At this moment the police are looking for you,
tracking you down, determined to arrest you. A pity, Fandor! no, I
could never allow that; I like you too well ... In ten minutes officers
will be entering this room to arrest you. But never fear, have no
anxiety! If I am here, it is simply and solely to help you escape their
reach; surely Fantômas owes this much to you, to protect you against
your friends, the agents of the law!”
A peal of laughter emphasized the bandit’s last words, and Fandor
was still pondering what precisely these expressions signified when
Fantômas turned his attention to a task the object of which seemed
quite inexplicable. He proceeded to drag out into the middle of the
floor a tall stool, and depositing it there, climbed on the top, a
manœuvre which brought him on a level with an enormous Chinese lantern,
one of those huge lanterns of wrought iron and coloured glass, of
the kind to be seen in the streets of Pekin, and which are sometimes
imported from the East to be suspended in the vestibules of houses. By
what strange chances the thing had come to be hanging from the ceiling
of old Moche’s garret, it would be hard to say. Anyway, Fantômas must
long ago have noticed its being there. He leant over towards it, opened
the door, and this done, descended from his perch.
“There, Monsieur Fandor,” he announced, “inside there, you’ll be in the
best boxes for seeing the play—I may say in the grated boxes, for I’m
pretty confident nobody will see you. One can see from within outwards,
but not the reverse way.”
With a catlike dexterity, the man slipped off the long, black coat
enveloping him in its folds, and without seeming to make any special
effort, took up Fandor on his shoulders, mounted the stool once more,
and deposited the young man in the interior of the lantern!
“Now, Mr. Journalist, I refasten the door, by way of precaution, but
I give you full leave to look out of the window to see what happens.
You’ll see, not a doubt of it, the way Fantômas fights for his friends,
and even for you, his enemy!”
Yes, he would look, no fear of that—and Fandor, still bound and
ensconced inside the Chinese lantern, into which Fantômas had forced
him, his limbs cramped, his flesh bruised by the cords, half stilling,
glued his face to the painted panes of his extraordinary prison.
Jumping down again, Fantômas set to work with the very utmost rapidity.
He pushed back the stool against the wall. He hauled up against the
door a huge trunk stuffed full of papers to reinforce the crazy panels.
From his pocket he extracted a screwdriver, and in a very few minutes
had taken off the lock. Then, kneeling against the trunk, he produced a
revolver, the nickel-plated barrel of which glittered in the moonlight,
and passing the muzzle through the loophole where the lock had been
torn away, waited events.
Minute after minute passed in deadly silence. Presently, as often
happens in the most tragic situations, Fandor in the midst of all his
poignant anxieties, began to be tormented by yet another apprehension—a
fantastic fear that the lantern in which Fantômas had imprisoned him
was not strong enough to bear his weight.
“I’m going to come tumbling down!” thought the journalist, “to come
tumbling down directly, with a crash of broken glass and an appalling
rattle. That’s something Fantômas has failed to foresee. Pray God, it
might upset his plans!”
But the lantern held firm, and by the time he had been a quarter of
an hour shut up in his odd prison-cell, Fandor had ceased to give a
thought to the possibility of taking a fall. His whole attention was
again concentrated on Fantômas; but the brigand remained perfectly
still and seemed to have forgotten the other’s very existence. On
his knees, his revolver all the time pointed through the improvised
loophole, he was evidently watching for the arrival of someone or
something.
And it was in a flash, without his having so much as given a start, or
moved a muscle, or uttered an exclamation, that the sharp explosion of
his weapon rang out, followed by the dull thud of a body dropping!
Instantly the whole house resounded with cries of pain, shouts and
screams and the din of tramping feet. “Go on! break in the door!”
Fandor heard a voice yelling. Next moment two more shots tore the air,
two other voices bellowed in agony, two more wounded men sank heavily
to the ground; then a mighty thrust shook the door and overset the
trunk.
With one bound, Fantômas was at the window, Fantômas had disappeared,
yelling as he vanished: “Hurrah! three officers brought down! hurrah!”
while into the garret, preceded by the blinding rays of electric
torches, sprang a whole troop of men, shouting, swearing, revolvers in
hand.
A prisoner in his lantern, still gagged, still tied hand and foot,
Fandor seemed the victim of an atrocious nightmare. Scarce had the
men entered the room before Fandor realized the full horror of his
situation, guessed the whole secret of the villainous design. The men
were police officers, they were shouting: “Jérôme Fandor, hands up! or
you are a dead man.”
Then they began to search the garret, to turn everything upside down,
to hunt about, to _hunt for him_! The young man felt a cold sweat bead
his temples. What had been in Fantômas’ mind? He knew it only too well.
The brigand had spared his life once more only to keep alive the man
who he was planning should bear the whole weight of responsibility
for his, Fantômas’ acts. If he had pinioned the journalist instead of
killing him, it was because Fandor was now marked down by public odium
as being Fantômas. He had hidden him in the lantern, he had taken post
behind the door, he had three several times fired on the police and
disappeared, all this only because he chose to make men think that
Fandor—the man they were come to arrest—was really Fantômas, and that
it was he, Fandor—not Fantômas—who had used his revolver to such deadly
effect!
“Let the lantern give way,” thought the prisoner, “and tumble me into
the middle of the constables, and I’m done for! they will kill me—and
they will be justified.”
Meantime the empty garret was the scene of a frenzied search. The
police, who had invaded the place like pillagers into a captured
city, were now convinced that the man they sought for had escaped.
“The scoundrel!” screamed one of them, who running to the window had
discovered a rope hanging from it, the rope that doubtless had helped
Fantômas to escape over the roofs, “the scoundrel!”
Fandor could not see the man well, but he had a better view of another
officer who answered him; it was Michel, Inspector Michel, who had once
served under Juve’s orders! “My word,” the Inspector was saying, “but
the villain had planned it all to rights. He was expecting us; while we
were breaking in the door, he had plenty of time to get away.... Curse
him! to think three of us have got themselves knocked out of time!”
But at this point a constable who was still busy turning out a corner
of the garret, interrupted his chief by a sharp exclamation: “Look,
sir, just look here!”—“What is it?”—It was a small, shiny object—Fandor
could see it quite plainly from his eyrie in the lantern—which the man
held out for his chief’s inspection. The latter seemed prodigiously
surprised at sight of it:
“God bless us! where did you find that?”
“In the corner over there ... It means something, that does.”
“Means something?... It means everything!”
The other men had gathered round the two:
“What is it, sir?”
“Look! an astonishing find! Léon has just picked up a button of the
uniform the collectors of the Comptoir National wear.”
While this was going on, a series of ominous cracks had seriously
alarmed the unfortunate young man who was still hunched up on his
uncomfortable perch. Meantime, however, the police officers had
disconsolately taken their departure; they had arrived a dozen men,
they returned to headquarters only nine.
Hardly had the constables gone when, suddenly, in a moment, without
further warning, the bottom of the Chinese lantern fell out. With a
mighty crash Fandor tumbled out on to the floor. Luckily, the ceiling
was low; the young man was not hurt, but he lay stunned on the ground,
and for some seconds did not know where he was. Then, quickly, with his
usual courage, he regained command of himself.
“Good Lord!” he reflected, “I made a hideous noise in falling. Unless
everybody is out of the house helping to remove the wounded men,
they’ll come here with a rush and find me.” Then, straining his muscles
almost to cracking point, Jérôme Fandor, in spite of the intolerable
pain these efforts caused him, struggled to unloose his bonds; at all
costs he must regain his liberty.
“Ah!” he muttered at last. “I think, down my legs ...” the rope
that tied his ankles together had, in fact, yielded a little to his
strenuous exertions. A few seconds more, and the rope came loose, he
could shake off the coils altogether. He was able to get on his feet,
he could get an arm free, unbind his fastenings altogether. But so
cramped were his limbs, so numbed by long confinement, that the first
step he tried to take, he staggered and had to sit down again.
“If they come up and find me,” he told himself again, “I am done for!”
But little by little the circulation was restored; he could stand on
his feet, he could walk!
Then, with the swiftness of decision that was characteristic of him,
Jérôme Fandor, without an instant’s hesitation, hurried to the window
and leant out over the sill.
“That’s it,” he muttered; “the police have forgotten to remove the
rope, or more likely they have left it there as a piece of evidence in
view of the further inquiries they mean to institute, no doubt. Good!
Where Fantômas found a way, I shall know how to follow his lead. But
quick! quick! there’s not a moment to lose.”
No sooner said than done. Following Fantômas’ example he climbed over
the sill, seized the rope and let himself slide down into the void
below. The night had turned dark, and the moon was hidden. As the
journalist descended, he could barely make out, some yards below him,
the dim outline of the roof of a tall building, and beyond again an
endless succession of other roofs, broken by a forest of chimneys
rising like spectres into the night sky.