“FANTÔMAS SPEAKING!”
M. Havard was almost apologetic, almost polite, a fact which in
his case was proof positive of the deepest respect. Habitually
plain-spoken, accustomed to give orders in clear, precise terms,
and to ask questions in a more downright fashion, still, M. Havard
appeared for once to be making heroic efforts to preserve a respectful,
deferential attitude.
“My carriage is not over and above luxurious,” he was saying, pointing
to the inside of the brougham in which he had just taken his seat in
company with a personage of a keen, anxious-looking countenance, “but
you must know that, to make up, it is one of the safest.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that, copying the Emperor of Germany, I have taken the
precaution, Monsieur le Ministre, to have the woodwork lined with
steel plates. In my carriage one is secure against the latest and most
approved revolvers, the sharpest daggers.”
The Minister smiled approvingly. “And that is always something!” he
laughed.
“Yes, it is indeed something,” M. Havard proceeded, “when, like me,
a man is continually exposed to acts of vengeance, of reprisal, the
object of ill-will and hatred.”
But it was pretty plain the Minister was paying but a divided attention
to M. Havard’s remarks.
“Quite right,” he said, in an indifferent voice; “yes, I admire your
precautions; you were certainly well inspired to fortify your carriage
in this way.... But come now, tell me what line you propose to adopt
with this individual?”
“The individual we are going to see?”
“Precisely, this man Tom Bob ... this Tom Bob who would seem to be
Fantômas—ridiculous as the supposition may appear at first sight.”
On hearing this remark, M. Havard was suddenly afflicted with a very
convenient tickling in the throat. He said nothing—the Head of the
Investigation Department would, under no circumstances, have taken upon
himself to contradict a Minister of State, but ... well, he coughed.
And to cough, in all the languages of the world, has always indicated
that a man would not be disinclined to prove his interlocutor mistaken
in the opinions he is enunciating in his presence.
Observing the police official’s hesitation, the Minister insisted:
“Why, yes, Tom Bob must be Fantômas! The thing is self-evident,
obvious; don’t _you_ think so, too, Havard?”
For, impossible as it seemed to admit that Tom Bob was really Fantômas,
the Minister had almost come to believe it—to wish to believe it
at any rate, since the tragic events of the previous night! On the
other hand, M. Havard, more accustomed to think things out coldly and
impartially, to weigh the arguments for and against a proposition, was
less convinced. “Events,” he reflected, “do certainly seem to show
Tom Bob to be Fantômas. But there are so many facts on the other side
that go to prove the contrary that we must not rush to so extravagant
a conclusion. Deuce take it, Tom Bob is a police-officer—an officer of
repute in America; he has already, here in Paris, since his arrival,
effected some telling arrests.... No, he cannot be Fantômas! If
appearances are against him, they are, after all, only appearances,
probably contrived by the real Fantômas. It is true....”
M. Havard broke off his reflections to answer the Minister’s question:
“Alas! sir, in all these baffling difficulties, I really do not know
what I think.”
“A very canny answer.”
“But a sincere one, sir.”
“Sincere, why, yes, I grant you; but surely not very frank. However, I
will force you to give a plain reply—yes or no, do you believe Tom Bob
is the murderer?”
M. Havard coughed again; it was evidently a chronic complaint, this
cough of his! Finally, sinking back in discouragement on the cushions
and nervously cracking his finger joints, he confessed in a dubious
voice:
“Believe! what do I believe?... well, I just make guesses, Monsieur le
Ministre.”
“But, my dear man, you told me yourself ...” then breaking off again,
the Minister started afresh.
“Come, tell me the exact particulars—I have so much business on my mind
there are times when I cannot trust my own memory—tell me the precise
results of your investigations. You were saying that yesterday ...”
This time, when it became a question of setting out the results of
a police investigation, without deducing the consequences, without
drawing any compromising conclusion, M. Havard recovered all his usual
coolness, all the peremptory tone of authority that was habitual with
him. So it was with perfect lucidity, with the strictest logical
precision, he now answered the Minister.
“My investigation has established nothing absolutely definite. All it
justifies us in doing is to specify certain facts, relevant facts I
admit, but in no way conclusive.”
“And these facts are?...”
“These facts are as follows: Yesterday, the Grand Duchess Alexandra
gave a ball, a costume ball. At this costume ball were several
‘Fantômas.’ How many, precisely, it is impossible, sir, for me to
inform you; I have not been able to ascertain the number. On more than
one occasion, this is certain, two masked figures, two ‘Fantômas’
were seen talking together, which would go to prove there were _two_
‘Fantômas’; but after all, this is not positively certain, for because
two men in black cowls have been seen, it obviously does not follow
there were no others elsewhere in the rooms....”
“But why this hypothesis?”
“Why? h’m! because ... Anyhow, sir, let us remember this fact, this
primary fact—two ‘Fantômas,’ exactly alike, two disguises of identical
shape and make, attended the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s fête. Very
good, but who and what were they? Here we enter the domain at once of
certainties and hypotheses. One certainly we have—one of these masquers
was Tom Bob; he was seen, recognized, identified by name. The second of
these masqued men, and here we have another, a melancholy, certainty,
was an agent of the Criminal Bureau, one of our excellent officers,
indeed, Inspector Joffre—he was the man they found subsequently, you
know, under the trees in the garden, stabbed to the heart.”
“And he was the man,” affirmed the Minister, “who was seen to go off
with Tom Bob, with the other ‘Fantômas,’ after a laughing colloquy, in
which our agent, like Tom Bob, had claimed to be actually and indeed
the ever-elusive brigand. From which I infer ...”
But M. Havard made a gesture of dissent:
“Yes, you infer, sir, but you go too fast in your inferences. What
precisely occurred between the moment when Tom Bob as ‘Fantômas’
arrived at the grand duchess’s, a little before our agent Joffre,
also disguised as a ‘Fantômas,’ and that when the unfortunate officer
was found dead, murdered? It would be hard to say. You remember the
laughing dispute that took place between the two ‘Fantômas’? That
dispute actually took place; my investigation has enabled me to find
many who can vouch for it, amongst other witnesses the Princess Sonia
Danidoff. I do not dispute it, but you miss one point, Monsieur le
Ministre, and that is that when the two men made a pretence of going
into the park to settle their difference arms in hand, both wore the
sinister black cowl, and could not therefore be recognized, and that in
consequence there is nothing to justify our alleging that the man who
was with the unfortunate Joffre was really Tom Bob.”
“Why, yes, there _is_ one thing ...”
“Namely, sir?”
“Why, think, the incident in the cloak room....”
M. Havard smiled.
“I do not forget it!” he cried, “yes, the cloak room incident does
constitute a serious impeachment against Tom Bob, a terribly serious
impeachment. But you remember the exact details, sir?”
“I think so! Come, now, events happened thus ...”
“I will detail them precisely as they did happen. At the very moment at
which the chauffeur found the murdered Joffre’s body in the gardens,
the rumour was circulating among the dancers, a well-founded rumour,
that Tom Bob, Tom Bob, still wearing his ‘Fantômas’ costume, had
just left. If we are to credit the cloak room attendant, he had come
in a few minutes before to claim back the black mantle that covered
his shoulders on his first arrival, and which he had entrusted to
the man’s care in the course of the evening. Now, as he put on the
garment, Tom Bob would appear to have mentioned that he was wounded
in the arm, and on the man expressing surprise, he would seem to have
gone on to say: ‘It’s the penalty for having chosen to play up a bit
too hard against the real Fantômas.’ Then, still going by what the
attendant says, he seems to have pulled up his sleeve, unbuttoned his
cuff, and—the cloak room was empty at the moment—examined a deep cut
on his arm, half way between shoulder and elbow, to be precise, a cut
apparently made by a knife, and which, moreover, was still bleeding
freely. Tom Bob seems after that to have pulled down the sleeve again,
declaring it was a trifle, and so taken his departure.”
M. Havard fell silent, the Minister seemed to be thinking, then
suddenly he asked:
“Monsieur Havard, why do you speak in the conditional mood?... Tom Bob
_would appear_ to have done such and such a thing, said such and such
a thing: _seems_ to have taken his departure! So you don’t believe the
witness to be trustworthy?”
This time, M. Havard’s habit of plain speaking took the upper hand, and
it was in a tone by no means over and above respectful that he replied:
“Oh, yes, I do! The witness is telling the truth, the story is quite
correct. But if I do speak in the conditional, the real fact is all
these happenings, all this evidence about the wound, is so ... so odd,
so improbable, that ...”
“How improbable?” protested the Minister, “Why, sir, if Joffre _was_
murdered, I take it he was not killed without defending himself; even
if he received a mortal blow quite unexpectedly, he could have struck
back, wounded Tom Bob, wounded his assailant....”
In a tone of raillery, M. Havard finished the other’s sentence:
“... And Fantômas could have committed the imprudence of boasting of
it in the cloak room? But, my dear sir, that is foolishness, utter
foolishness! I won’t so much as think of it! If Tom Bob was Joffre’s
murderer, he would be Fantômas; if he was Fantômas, he would never
have been guilty of the mad inconsistency of showing his wound to a
witness.”
M. Havard’s objection was evidently well founded, the whole story
was undoubtedly baffling. But the Minister still refused to confess
himself beaten. _He_ believed in Tom Bob’s guilt. Had the detective
not been seen in the “Fantômas” costume? Was he not known to have had
an altercation with Joffre, to have gone off in his company into the
gardens, where Joffre had been killed. Nothing, if not logical, the
Minister drew the conclusion: “Tom Bob is the murderer.”
Then another point struck him, and he added triumphantly:
“Besides, Havard, if Tom Bob were not guilty, why should he not have
come in answer to your invitation this morning?”
M. Havard shook his head doubtfully, and made no answer. This point,
raised by the Minister’s last question, was precisely what most
exercised the head of the Investigation Department. When at an early
hour he had been awakened by a ring on the telephone and a message
from the Commissary’s office at the Parc des Princes, telling him
that a new and appalling crime had just been committed by Fantômas, a
crime that was spreading frantic terror among the members of Parisian
society, a crime that it seemed must be set down to Tom Bob, M. Havard
had come to several important decisions. He telephoned immediately to
the Prefecture to send officers of the Department to shadow the Hôtel
Terminus, where Tom Bob was still in residence. For himself, he set off
at once to the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s. There he had, with his usual
ability and acumen, held a rapid investigation, in the course of which
he had discovered certain facts, facts if not directly relevant, at
least suggestive.
On leaving the villa in the Parc des Princes, M. Havard hurried to the
Ministry of Justice. It was eight o’clock when the head of the Criminal
Bureau reached the Minister’s private apartments. By dint of eager
representations to the ushers on duty and a like insistence with the
ministerial _attachés_, he obtained immediate audience of M. Désiré
Ferrand’s successor. A few moments more and he was closeted with the
Minister of Justice, and was rapidly narrating, almost without drawing
breath, the extraordinary events of the previous evening.
“Monsieur le Ministre,” M. Havard concluded, “I deemed it expedient to
put you in possession of the facts at once, in order to save myself
from incurring too heavy a load of responsibility; at this present
moment a man is suspected, and reasonably suspected; this man is Tom
Bob, the American detective. Unless we arrest him, public opinion,
alarmed, agitated, terror-stricken, is going to cause us the most
troublesome embarrassments; questions will be asked in the House,
for certain! On the other hand, to arrest Tom Bob is a serious step;
he is an American citizen, a foreigner, and will no doubt claim the
protection of his consul and involve us in diplomatic difficulties. In
fact, to arrest the man seems a monstrous thing to do.”
The Minister, after a few minutes’ thought, advised M. Havard to
despatch a special messenger to see Tom Bob and beg him to come at once
to the Ministry of Justice where the Minister wished to speak to him.
But the messenger had been to the Hôtel Terminus, had seen Tom Bob, and
had brought back the answer:
“Mr. Bob directs me to say he is very tired, almost ill, and cannot be
disturbed.”
Neither Havard nor the Minister could make anything of it, and while
the former was still marvelling at the amazing attitude the American
detective had chosen to adopt in refusing to obey the personal
invitation of a Minister of State, under the flimsy excuse of fatigue,
the Minister insisted:
“You must admit, M. Havard, that this refusal to come and see me is,
to say the least, extraordinary. Why, deuce take it, if Tom Bob was
not wounded, that is to say, was not guilty, that is to say, had not
pressing reasons for not showing himself just now, he would have come
along here post haste. How did he know I was not meaning to decorate
him?”
M. Havard laughed frankly at the great man’s little joke; he was still
laughing when the brougham stopped at the door of the Hôtel Terminus.
“Whatever you do,” the Minister observed, as they got out, “whatever
you do, address me as ‘my dear fellow,’ from now on. I don’t at all
like the idea of that American being able to boast of having put out a
Minister of France. I mean to preserve the strictest incognito.”
M. Havard handed his card to a waiter, bidding him go and inform
Mr. Tom Bob that he desired a few minutes’ conversation with him; then,
after the man had gone, he assured his companion:
“Do not be afraid, Monsieur le Ministre ... beg pardon!... do not be
afraid, my dear fellow: nobody shall guess who you are.”
* * * * *
“Monsieur Havard, I was expecting you”—smiling, cheerful, debonair, not
the very least like a sick or tired man, Tom Bob welcomed M. Havard in
one of the small sitting rooms of the hotel.
“You were expecting me, my dear colleague?”
“Certainly!”
Then, as Tom Bob was drawing up seats, and his eyes fell on the
Minister, M. Havard thought it needful to add: “Allow me to introduce
my senior secretary.”
The American vouchsafed a little supercilious smile for this
subordinate. “Delighted, sir, delighted to meet you!” and he turned
again to M. Havard, resuming:
“I was expecting you, because I supposed the Minister, having sent for
me this morning and finding I did not come, would send someone to see
me.”
The opportunity was too good a one for verifying an important point for
M. Havard to neglect:
“You were right, quite right in your supposition. But, by-the-by, why
did you not come to the Ministry?”
A smile appeared on Tom Bob’s lips; with his usual phlegm he answered
M. Havard:
“And pray, why should I have gone?”
The reply was so startling in its quiet unconcern that the Head of
the Criminal Bureau was struck dumb for a moment. However, he quickly
recovered his self-possession and answered back:
“Why, my dear sir, because ... because when a Minister sends for one,
surely one ought to take the trouble to obey.”
But Tom Bob, quite unruffled, only shrugged his shoulders. Taking a
cigarette from his case, he lit it without a sign of embarrassment,
then:
“You think so?” he said, “well, I think the opposite! If we differ
in our ideas, it is probably because you, M. Havard, are you, purely
French: and I, Tom Bob, equally American.”
“Which means?”
“Which means,” concluded the detective, with his Yankee bluntness,
“that having nothing to say to the Minister, I did not feel any need to
go and see him, and I considered if he wanted to speak to me, that he
might very well take the trouble to come as far as the Hôtel Terminus.”
Listening to this speech of the phlegmatic American, M. Havard turned
first pale, then green, sorely embarrassed as he remembered they were
spoken actually before the Minister’s very face. The interview was
taking an unpleasant complexion and it was best to push into other
matters: “Tell me, my dear Bob,” he asked by way of turning the
conversation, and getting back to serious affairs, “you can guess, I
take it, why I have come this morning?”
Immediately Tom Bob’s face lost its look of calm unconcern; it was
evident a genuine curiosity pricked the detective as he replied:
“Upon my word, I don’t, Monsieur Havard! I know nothing at all about
it, though I must confess it interests me very greatly ... Could I be
of any use to you, I wonder?”
The Head of the Criminal Bureau, after a moment’s pause, and speaking
sharply and incisively in a way to throw the other off his guard:
“Useful?” he exclaimed, “yes, you can be very useful to me”—and, almost
showing his cards, he demanded:
“I expect you to give me an explanation of last night’s events.”
“Last night’s events?”
“Yes, the tragedy that happened at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s.”
“A tragedy happened?”
“In a word, I want you to tell me how your wound is.”
“My wound?... why, you are gone crazy, Monsieur Havard!”
“Crazy indeed! but, now ...”
“What on earth are you talking about now?” Tom Bob’s face wore such
an expression of amazement, stupefaction, utter lack of comprehension,
that with one accord M. Havard and the Minister, who had to hold
himself in hand hard to keep his lips shut, sprang up and faced the
detective.
“But,” screamed M. Havard, boiling over with exasperation, “but you are
not, I presume, going to deny that yesterday evening you were at the
Grand Duchess Alexandra’s ball?”
Tom Bob struck his breast in perfectly unaffected surprise.
“I?” he stammered, “_I_ was at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s ball!”
“Egad! yes: as Fantômas, come now!”
“And as Fantômas! But, really, Monsieur Havard, I don’t understand one
word you are saying. I have never been in the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s
house, neither at her dance, nor at any other time: neither yesterday,
nor ever before!”
“And you are not wounded?”
“Wounded where?”
“In the arm.”
Tom Bob took off his coat and pulled up both his shirt-sleeves.
“There, look!” he cried, “where can you see a wound?”—and he passed his
hand across his forehead, exclaiming:
“Why, whatever do you mean, in God’s name! I think I must be dreaming!”
This time, M. Havard and the Minister gazed at each other in doubt and
bewilderment. Tom Bob was not wounded! Tom Bob had not been at the
grand duchess’s ball! Tom Bob was dumbfounded at the mere mention of
their suspicions. It was beyond everything.
Then the Minister took up his parable. “Listen, Monsieur Bob,” he
said “we are _not_ crazy. This is what occurred, this is what we
believed ...”
At great length, with details confirmed by M. Havard, with endless
comments, the Minister narrated the whole incomprehensible imbroglio
of the preceding evening, and at the end waited anxiously for the
detective to speak.
“Come now,” he demanded, “do you understand anything about it all?”
Tom Bob shook his head. “No!” he declared, in a preoccupied tone of
voice and with a meditative air, “no, I know nothing—or rather, from
what you tell me, M. Havard, and you, Monsieur le Ministre ...”
But at this mention of his rank, the Minister started violently.
“What!” he exclaimed, “then you know?”
“Yes, sir! yes, I know. Pardon me, but I know perfectly well I have the
honour to address the Minister of Justice. Egad, with Tom Bob, I assure
you, there is no incognito can last long. But enough of that—I was
going to tell you there is only one thing I do understand in all these
tragic and bloody accidents that befell at the grand duchess’s ball ...”
“And that is?”
“Just this,” declared the detective, “that Fantômas was present at the
ball and that Fantômas made himself out to be me, Tom Bob: that it
was actually Fantômas who was wounded, that he boasted of it out of a
criminal’s vanity who takes his impunity as a matter of course. And,
that he committed a blunder, after all, for this wound in the arm will
help us to identify him the more easily.”
But now, as Tom Bob finished speaking, the Minister and M. Havard
exchanged a meaning look; both had been struck by the same idea.
“Egad!” M. Havard spoke in a low voice, almost as if talking to
himself, “egad! if Mr. Bob is right, we shall have the means, once
and for all, of clearing up all these matters. Fantômas is in prison,
Fantômas is Juve ... if Juve is wounded!”
But the Minister broke in: “Yes, Havard, you are right; Juve is
Fantômas, then it is Juve must be wounded. But inasmuch as Juve is in
the _Santé_ prison, inasmuch as Juve is in gaol, he was not, he could
not be, at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s ball yesterday!”—and as if the
better to strengthen his conviction, the Minister repeated in a loud,
emphatic voice:
“Fantômas is in gaol! What the deuce, Fantômas is in gaol!”
Tom Bob was going to reply, when the door opened, and a man-servant put
in his head to announce:
“If you please, Monsieur Bob, you are wanted at the ’phone—someone who
declines to give his name.”
The detective got up, took two or three steps as if to leave the
room, then observing there was a telephone instrument standing on a
side-table near at hand, he told the servant: “Very good, my man, put
me through here, will you?”—and turning to the Minister and M. Havard,
who sat buried in their own thoughts: “Excuse me,” he said, as he
unhooked the receiver.
But he had hardly put the receiver to his ear before Tom Bob started
violently.
“One second!” he cried, “hello, just a second! will you hold the line?
I’m shutting a door so as to hear you better.”
The detective laid down the receiver and turning quickly to the
Minister and M. Harvard, he said in a mocking voice:
“Fantômas is in gaol, you say? what a mistake! Do you know who is
telephoning me at this moment?”
“Not I!” said the Minister, looking up.
Tom Bob answered in half-a-dozen words, spoken with all his usual
phlegm, without so much as raising his voice:
“Well, the person now speaking to me is just simply the man—just
Fantômas!”
And as the Minister and M. Havard looked at one another incredulously,
the detective, turning the instrument round, politely offered one of
the two receivers to the Minister, keeping the other himself, and
proceeded with the conversation over the wires:
“Hello! Yes, I’m back again now; it is I, Tom Bob, speaking. You
say—will I excuse you for having borrowed my personality? Why,
certainly; it would be very poor taste not to forgive you, Fantômas,
for I must own it was a stroke of genius! Hello! yes—you want to make
it up to me for the liberty you took? Yes, thank you. Hello! what say?
D’you mind repeating. Oh! you tell me, in order to let me win a score
off you in the eyes of the Criminal Department, that to-night, this
very evening, something will be doing at the Restaurant Azaïs ... what
o’clock?... seven!... very good, thank you again!—I’ll make a careful
note of it ... I shall be there ... hello! hello! are you there?”
But a blunder of the telephone girl had cut off connection, and
henceforth it was in vain Tom Bob repeated his hello! hello! There was
no answer. So he put down the receiver, while the Minister also hung up
his.
“Well!” remarked the detective, “you see, sir, we are on the best of
terms.”
The Minister seemed to be living in a nightmare; he thought he was
dreaming, perhaps going demented, and it was in a weak voice he
answered:
“But it’s a joke, all this, eh, Mr. Bob? It is not Fantômas ’phoning to
you, come now!”
The detective shrugged: “Not Fantômas?” he said. “Then who is it?...
who do you think it is?”
“Fantômas would never tell you beforehand he was going to commit a
crime at this restaurant in the Bois.”
“Pooh! if he’s sure, once more, of not being arrested?”
“No matter that! it would be too audacious; come, now, Mr. Bob, you
won’t go?”
“Oh, yes! I shall, sir! I shall be there.”
The Minister was thinking; suddenly he went on:
“Well, if you go, by all I hold most sacred, I will go too! Yes, I will
go! it shall never be said ...”
Tom Bob turned to M. Havard: “And you, my dear colleague, will you
come? You seem pensive for the moment?”
M. Havard indeed—from Tom Bob’s answers he had quite well gathered, or
at any rate guessed, what Fantômas probably said—was thinking deeply.
“Oh!” he declared at last, “yes, I shall certainly go; but it will be
without over much belief in the thing.”
“Why so?”
“Because ... because it was a practical joker telephoned you.”
“A practical joker? No, I don’t think that.”
“I do!” declared M. Havard, who was getting annoyed, “yes, a practical
joker! a practical joker, I repeat, for, look you, there is one thing
you are forgetting, that we are all forgetting at present, a fact that
is certain, indisputable ...”
“To wit?”
“Why, that Fantômas is in prison, that Fantômas is in the _Santé_, and
that consequently he could not have done murder yesterday, he cannot
be telephoning to you now, it will be impossible for him to be at the
_Azaïs_ to-morrow!”
The Minister, who for the last few minutes had been getting more and
more impatient, laid his hand on M. Havard’s shoulder.
“Listen to me!” he said, “all this is very bewildering, so bewildering
in fact, that we are forgetting our logic. There is one step we must
take instantly. Monsieur Havard, in coming to see your colleague, to
see Mr. Tom Bob, we have made a blunder; it is elsewhere we must go
now. By the Lord, we shall soon see if Juve is wounded, we shall soon
find out whether he telephoned this morning, whether he can go this
evening!”
Before the great man had done speaking, M. Havard had clapped on his
hat again and slipped on his top-coat.
“You are right, Monsieur le Ministre,” he declared, “let us go there at
once.”