Chapter 10

To clear up the imbroglio, Fandor had meant to send Juve a wire on his arrival at Verdun; on second thoughts he had decided against it. Probably the spies, or the Second Bureau, or both, were keeping a sharp watch on Vinson: it would be wiser to refrain from any communication which might reveal the fact that the corporal Vinson, who joined the 257th of the line at Verdun, was none other than Jérôme Fandor, journalist.

Though stiff with cold and fatigue, Fandor's brain was clear and active.

It is all right! Juve would be surprised, anxious, would make enquiries at the Company's offices, would learn that on the Sunday evening Fandor had occupied the place reserved for him in the sleeping-car, would be reassured, would not worry about Fandor's abrupt departure and silence--Fandor was holiday making!

"Yes, it is all right!" reiterated Fandor. "What I have to do is to throw myself wholeheartedly into my part, and play it as jovially as possible!"

The train whistled, slowed down, entered the station of Verdun.

Fandor let the crowd of soldiers precede him, as well as one or two civilians whom the night express had brought to this important frontier fortress. Having readjusted his coat, the fringes of his epaulettes, and put on his cap correctly, this corporal of the 257th line, stepped on to the platform, reached the exit, passed out on to a vast flat space, and found himself floundering in a sea of mud.

The men who had arrived with him had hurried off: Fandor was alone on the outskirts of the silent town.

What to do? Which way to go?

Under the flame of a gas-jet struggling against the onslaughts of the wind, Fandor caught sight of the honest face of a constable enveloped in a thick hooded coat. He eyed Fandor.

"Excuse me," said Corporal Vinson-Fandor, rolling his r's, in imitation of a rustic fresh from the country, "but could you tell me where I shall find the 257th of the line?"

"What do you want with the 257th of the line?" queried the constable.

"It is like this, Monsieur: I was in the 214th, garrisoned at Châlons. I have had eight days' leave, and they inform me I am attached to the 257th."

The constable nodded.

"And now you want to get to your new regiment?"

"Precisely."

"Well, the 257th is in three places: at bastion 14; at the Saint Benoit barracks; and at Fort Vieux--which are you bound for, Corporal?"

"I don't know--I've no preference," murmured Corporal Vinson-Fandor.

The two men stood staring at each other in the rain.

Despite the chill and melancholy dawn, with its darkly reddening skies, Fandor felt he was on the very verge of bursting into wild laughter.

"Let us see your route instructions," quoth the constable.

Corporal Vinson-Fandor showed his paper.

"That's it!" cried the constable triumphantly. "You are down to report yourself at the Saint Benoit barracks. You're in luck, my lad! It's only fifty yards or so from here!... Go down the road, and you will see the barrack wall on the left. The entrance is in the middle."

Fandor saluted the friendly constable, hurried off, and reached the Saint Benoit gate in a few minutes.

"The 257th?" he asked the sentry.

"Here!... You will find the sergeant in the guard-room."

Fandor entered a smoke-filled room; several soldiers were stretched at full length on a bench, slumbering: a snoring non-commissioned officer was lying on three straw bottomed chairs close to a stove.

At Fandor's entrance he was wide awake in a moment: he swore: it was the sergeant.

"What do you want?" he demanded roughly.

Adopting a military manner, Fandor announced:

"Corporal Vinson, just arrived from Châlons, exchanged from the 214th, sergeant!"

"Ah! Quite so. Wait! I will show you your company."

Stretching himself, the sergeant marched to the end of the room, turned up a gas-jet, opened a book, looked through the pages slowly. His finger stopped at a name.

"Orderly!"

A man presented himself.

"Conduct Corporal Vinson to A block, second floor."

Turning to Fandor, the sergeant informed him:

"You are attached to the third of the second."

While plodding through the mud of the courtyard, Fandor said to himself:

"The third of the second means, I suppose, that I have the honour of belonging to the third company of the second battalion."

Fandor gazed with lively curiosity at the immense building in which he was to pass his days and nights for he did not know how long a time. As he scrutinised this enormous pile, standing harsh and stark in its uncompromising and ordered strength, as he took stock of the vast courtyards and the stony lengths of imprisoning walls, he got an idea of that formidable organisation called a regiment, which itself is but an infinitesimal part of that great whole we call an army. Appreciating as he now did the importance, the immutability, the regularity of the movements of the military machine, with its wheels within wheels, Fandor asked himself if it were possible to carry through the programme he had drawn up for himself. Could he, at one and the same time, trick the French Army and save it?... He had taken his precautions: he had read and reread Vinson's manual, now _his_ manual. Mentally he had put himself in the skin of a corporal: he was letter perfect, and now he must cover himself with the mantle of Vinson--for the greater glory of France!

He could not help laughing when he read the list of his facial characteristics: chin, round; nose, medium; face, oval; eyes, grey. Vague enough this to be safe! Fandor's hair was dark chestnut: Vinson's was brown. Vinson and Fandor were sufficiently alike as to height and figure: besides, soldiers' uniforms were not an exact fit.

"Here you are, Corporal!" announced the orderly. He pointed to a vast room at the end of a corridor. The bugle had just sounded the reveille and the barrack-room was humming like a hive of awakened bees. The orderly had vanished. Fandor stood at the threshold, hesitating: his self-confidence had gone down with a run. It was a momentary lapse. Pulling himself together he walked into the room.

When giving him his instructions, Vinson had warned Fandor, that when it came to settling down in barracks he would find nothing to hand.

"Among other little items, your bed will be missing. As corporal you have a right to round on them. Row them hot and good--start reprisals straight away. The men will pretend not to understand, but insist--don't take no for an answer; take whatever you want right and left--in the end you will get properly settled in."

Fandor carried out these instructions. Before he had been ten minutes in the room, men were rushing in all directions, fussing, jostling one another, coming, going, demanding of all the echoes in that huge white-washed barn of a barrack-room dormitory:

"Where is the palliasse of Corporal Vinson!"

"Find me the bolster of Corporal Vinson!"

XIII

JUVE'S STRATAGEM

Whilst Jérôme Fandor was commencing his apprenticeship as a soldier at the Saint Benoit barracks, Verdun, a sordid individual was following an elegant pedestrian who, descending the rue Solférino, went in the direction of the Seine. It was about seven in the evening.

"Pstt!"

This sound issued from the ragged individual, but the passer-by did not turn his head.

"Monsieur!" insisted the sordid one.

As the elegant pedestrian did not seem to know he was being followed, the sordid individual stepped to his side, and murmured in his white beard distinctly enough to be heard:

"Lieutenant! Do listen!... Look here, Monsieur de Loubersac ... Henri!"

The young man turned: he gave the importunate speaker a withering stare: he was furious.

The speaker was Vagualame.

"I shall fine you five hundred francs! How dare you accost me like this? Are you mad?" De Loubersac's voice shook with rage.

Lieutenant de Loubersac had just quitted the Second Bureau after an unusually hard day's work. Fatigued by the over-heated offices, he was enjoying the fresh air and exercise in spite of the chilling mist overhanging Paris. When his thoughts were not connected on his work, he would dwell tenderly on every little detail of his meetings with pretty Mademoiselle de Naarboveck. Had she not given him permission to call her Wilhelmine, and did he not cherish the hope of soon making her his wife?

But this Vagualame was insupportable! That he should dare to accost him without observing the customary precautions--hail him by his style and title in a most public thoroughfare---should so imprudently compromise himself and an attaché of the Second Bureau! Well, he knew how to attack informers and such gentry in their most vulnerable spot--their purse; hence the fine of five hundred francs he had imposed on Vagualame!

The old fellow shuffled along beside the enraged lieutenant, whining, complaining of the precarious state of his finances, but de Loubersac was adamant. Perceiving this, Vagualame desisted.

"I want to talk to you," said he.

"To-morrow!" suggested de Loubersac.

"No, at once. It is urgent."

De Loubersac could hardly hear what Vagualame said. Twice he cried, in an irritated voice:

"What is the matter with you? I cannot understand what you say. I can hardly hear you."

"I have a severe cold on the chest, lieutenant."

Certainly Vagualame's voice was remarkably hoarse.

"If the Government does not give me something regular to live on, I shall die in hospital."

De Loubersac looked about him anxiously. If his colonel should catch sight of him conferring with an agent so near the headquarters of the Second Bureau he would incur a sharp reprimand. The interview must take place; therefore they must conceal themselves. Vagualame, as though reading the lieutenant's thought, pointed to the steep flight of steps leading to the banks of the Seine.

"Let us go down by the river! We shall be undisturbed there!"

De Loubersac acquiesced. So the smart young officer and the old beggar in his ragged coat, with the accordion hanging over his shoulder, who might have been mistaken for Quasimodo himself, descended the steps in company. Vagualame's eyes gleamed with joy. They were piercing eyes, full of life and intelligence, not the fierce furtive eyes of Vagualame, for this Vagualame was Juve!

The day following the famous evening he had passed in Fandor's flat, Juve, as we know, had discovered that Vagualame, agent of the Second Bureau, was cleverly disguised, and was none other than Fantômas! Juve appropriated the accordion left by the fleeing bandit: Juve also decided to personate Vagualame and spy on the various persons who had relations with this sinister being. As far as Juve was concerned, Vagualame-Fantômas was done for, therefore it was highly improbable that the criminal, daring to the last degree though he was, would show himself in his Vagualame guise for some time to come. Therefore Juve must act at once. His first move must be to meet and talk with the Second Bureau officer most in touch with Vagualame, and make him talk without arousing his suspicions. Juve also meant to mix with Vagualame's associates, trusting to luck and his own perspicacity to get on to various trails, trails that would lead him to the solution of grave problems.

Juve had felt anxious as he accosted de Loubersac: no doubt the lieutenant and his secret agent had some set form of greeting, some agreed on method of imparting information. By incurring the fine, Juve realised that he had made a wrong start--perhaps omitted a password. Still, he had obtained the essential thing--a private talk with this particular official of the Second Bureau.

The talk began with an abrupt question from de Loubersac:

"And the V. affair?"

"The V. affair?... Peuh!"

"What the deuce does he refer to?" Juve was asking himself.

Unsuspecting, de Loubersac came to his aid.

"Our corporal must have returned to Verdun to-day?"

"Ah!" thought Juve, "our corporal is Vinson!" The further he proceeded in his present investigations the clearer grew the connection between the Brocq affair and those of Bobinette, Wilhelmine, de Loubersac: surely they were all interpreters of the tragic drama conceived by Vagualame-Fantômas!

"His leave expired this morning," continued de Loubersac.

"He left yesterday evening. I have proof of it," asserted Juve-Vagualame.

"Anything new?"

"Not so far."

"Are you going to Verdun?"

"Possibly."

"How about the document?"

"Hum!" murmured Juve-Vagualame. Here was another conundrum he must go warily.

"You are constantly looking for it, of course? You know it is the most urgent of all!"...

Juve nodded agreement.

"Place it in my hands, and I shall give you fifty thousand francs in exchange for it--you know that!"

"Less the fine," put in Juve-Vagualame with a comical grimace.

De Loubersac smiled.

"We will speak of that again." There was a pause.

"A good deal has happened since the death of Captain Brocq's mistress."

Juve-Vagualame remarked.

"Is Captain Brocq's mistress dead, too?... Poor girl!"

De Loubersac stared hard at the accordion player.

"Oh come now, Vagualame! Where are your wits--wool-gathering?"

"Wits wool-gathering, lieutenant!" echoed Juve-Vagualame.

"There is no lieutenant, I tell you!" cried de Loubersac, with a stamp of his foot. "It is Monsieur Henri--just Henri, if you like. How many more times am I to tell you this?"

Juve-Vagualame's reply was an equivocal gesture.

"You do not know about the Châlons affair--the assassination of the singer, Nichoune?"

"No--that is to say."...

"Well, then?" De Loubersac was staring at Vagualame with puzzled eyes.

"Well, then--as to that--no!... I had better hold my tongue."

"Speak out!" commanded de Loubersac.

"No," growled Juve-Vagualame.

"I order you to do so."

"Well, then," conceded Juve-Vagualame, "since you must know what I think, I consider Nichoune was in no sense the mistress of Captain Brocq."

"They found letters from Captain Brocq on her." De Loubersac's laugh had a sneer in it.

"Bah!" said the old accordion player, punctuating his remark with some piercing sounds from his ancient instrument of discordant music. "It was a got-up business!"

"What is that you say?" objected de Loubersac. After a moment's reflection he added:

"But of course, you must know more about it than anyone, Vagualame, because you saw her just before the end. Didn't you have a talk with Nichoune on the Friday, the eve of her death?"

Juve-Vagualame was about to speak. De Loubersac added:

"The innkeeper saw you!"

"Did he now? What is this?" thought Juve. This statement opened up a fresh view of things.

De Loubersac did not give him time for reflection.

"Who, then, do you think killed Nichoune?"

Juve would not for the world voice his suspicions just then. With a side-glance at the lieutenant, he remarked:

"Faith, what I am inclined to think is, that the guilty person is that Aunt Palmyra."

"Aunt Palmyra!" repeated de Loubersac. "Decidedly my poor Vagualame, you are stupid as an owl to-day! Well, there is no harm in telling you this--Aunt Palmyra was one of my colleagues!"

"I suspected as much," thought Juve, "but I wanted him to confirm it."

De Loubersac was again the questioner.

"Vagualame! You spoke just now of Brocq's mistress: if, as you seem to think, Nichoune had no such relation with the captain, where are we to look for his mistress?"

"Hah!... Look in another direction ... among his friends ... in the great world ... the diplomatic set, for preference ... Think of those in the de Naarboveck circle."...

"Look out, Vagualame!" exclaimed de Loubersac. "Weigh your words well!"

"Do not be afraid, lieu ... pardon--Monsieur Henri!"

"Perhaps you think it is Bobinette?" queried de Loubersac.

"No."

"Who then?"

Juve shot his answer at the lieutenant, like a stone from a catapult.

"Wilhelmine de Naarboveck!"

A shout of indignant protest burst from de Loubersac. He could not contain his fury: he kicked the supposed Vagualame with such force that he sent him rolling in the greasy mud of the Seine bank.

"Beast!" growled Juve, as he picked himself up. "If I were not Vagualame, I should know how to answer him," he muttered. "As it is!"...

Juve rose, stumbling and staggering like a badly shaken old man, and leaned against the hand railing of the steps.

Meanwhile de Loubersac was walking up and down, talking aloud, in a state of extreme agitation.

"Disgusting creatures!... Low-minded wretches!... Degrading occupation!... They respect nothing, and no one!... Insinuating such abominations!... Wilhelmine de Naarboveck the mistress of Brocq!... How vile!... Loathsome creatures!"

It was now obvious to the alert Juve, who drank in every word, each gesture of de Loubersac's that the enraged lieutenant adored Wilhelmine ... no doubt on that score!

When de Loubersac had calmed down somewhat, Juve cried softly:

"Oh, Monsieur Henri!"...

Roused from his reflections, de Loubersac shouted:

"Hold your tongue, you sicken me!"

"But," insisted Juve-Vagualame, "I have only done my duty. If I spoke as I did, it was because my conscience."...

"Have you got consciences--your sort?" cried de Loubersac, casting a glance of withering contempt at the supposed old man.

There was a silence. Then de Loubersac walked up to the old accordion player and asked anxiously:

"Can you give me proofs of the truth of what you have just asserted?"

"Perhaps," was the evasive answer.

"You will have to give me proofs," insisted de Loubersac.

"Proofs?... I have none," replied the mysterious old fellow. "But I have intuitions; better still, my confidence is grounded on a strong probability."

This statement came to de Loubersac with the force of a stunning blow: it came from one whom he considered his best agent: he knew Vagualame always weighed his words: his information was generally correct.

"We cannot continue this conversation here," he said. "To-morrow we must meet as usual--and remember--do not attempt to accost me without using the password."

"Now, how the deuce am I to know what this famous word is?" Juve asked himself. Then he had an inspiration.

"We must not use it again," he announced. "I have reason to think our customary password is known ... I will explain another time ... it is a regular story--a long one."

"All right," agreed de Loubersac. "What should it be?... Suppose I say _monoplane_?"

"I will answer _dirigible_," said Juve-Vagualame.

"Agreed."

De Loubersac rapidly mounted the steps leading to the quay, glad to close a detestable interview.

Juve-Vagualame remained below. He struck his forehead.

"Monsieur Henri!" he called.

"What?"

"The meeting place to-morrow?"

De Loubersac had just signalled to a taxi: he leaned over the parapet and called to Juve-Vagualame, who had got no farther than the middle of the steps:

"Why at half past three, in the garden, as usual!"

* * * * *

"Oh, ho!" said the old accordion player. "He will be furious! I shall play him false--bound to--for how can I keep the appointment--confound it! What garden? Whereabouts in it?" Then, as he regained the quay, Juve laughed in his false white beard.

"What do I care? I snap my fingers at that rendezvous. I have extracted from him what I wanted to know--it matters not a jot if I never set eyes on him again! And ... now ... it is we two, Bobinette!"

XIV

BEFORE A TOMB

"This is a surprise!"

Mademoiselle de Naarboveck stopped. She smiled up at Henri de Loubersac.

"Do you know, I saw in this glass that you were following us," she said, pointing to a mirror placed at an angle in a confectioner's shop at the corner of rue Biot.

These artless remarks put the handsome lieutenant out of countenance: he blushed hotly, but he pressed the little hand held out to him so simply, and with such a look of frank pleasure. He stammered some excuse for not having recognised her. He bowed pleasantly to Wilhelmine's companion, Mademoiselle Berthe.

Wilhelmine turned to her.

"This meeting was not prearranged: it is one of pure chance." The tone was defensive without a touch of the apologetic.

Mademoiselle Berthe smiled, and declared that she had not for a moment supposed that the meeting had been prearranged.

De Loubersac gazed considerably at the two girls. Wilhelmine was looking particularly pretty. Beneath her fur toque shone masses of her pale gold hair, framing a charming little face. A long velvet coat with ermine stole suggested the youthful contours of her slender figure. Mademoiselle Berthe wore rough blue cloth, and a large hat trimmed with wings, which set off her piquant face with its irregular features and ruddy locks.

Wilhelmine and Henri de Loubersac strolled on together in the direction of the Hippodrome. Mutual protestations of love were, exchanged. Presently Wilhelmine asked:

"But what brought you in this direction?"

"Oh, I was going ... to pay a visit ... it is a piece of very good luck my coming across you like this."

De Loubersac seemed to have something on his mind. Despite his protestations he did not look as if he were enjoying this chance meeting.

"Where were you bound for, Wilhelmine?" he asked.

She looked up at her lover with sad eyes. Pointing in the direction of the cemetery of Montemartre, she replied in a low tone:

"I am going to visit the dear dead."

"Would you allow me to accompany you?" begged de Loubersac.

Wilhelmine shook her head.

"I must ask you to allow me to go there alone. It is my custom to pray there without witnesses."

De Loubersac turned towards Mademoiselle Berthe with a questioning look--a gesture of interrogation.

Wilhelmine replied to it:

"As a rule I go to the cemetery alone. You see me with my companion to-day because my father wished it. Since the sad affair which has thrown a shadow over our life, he is in a constant state of anxiety about my safety: he does not wish me to go about unaccompanied. I shall be waited for at the cemetery."

Wilhelmine's candid eyes gazed at de Loubersac, who was gnawing his moustache with a preoccupied air.

"What is the matter, Henri?" she asked.

De Loubersac came closer to Wilhelmine, grew red as fire, and without daring to look her in the face, burst out:

"Listen, Wilhelmine! I would rather tell you everything.... Oh, you are going to think badly of me.... The truth is--our meeting is not accidental ... it is of set purpose on my part.... For the last two days I have been worried--preoccupied--jealous.... I am afraid of not being loved by you as I love you ... afraid that there is ... or was ... something between us--dividing us--someone."...

Wilhelmine looked at her lover with the eyes of an astonished child.

"I do not understand you," she murmured.

Mastering his emotion, de Loubersac decided to make a clean breast of it.

"I will be frank, Wilhelmine.... Your last words have increased my torture.... Have you not spoken of _your_ dear dead, and must I learn that you are perhaps going to pray ... at the tomb of Captain Brocq?"

More and more astonished, Wilhelmine replied:

"And suppose I were going to do so? Should I be doing wrong to pray for the repose of the soul of the unfortunate Captain Brocq, who was one of my best friends?"

"Ah!" cried Henri de Loubersac: "Is it love you feel for him, then?" He looked so despairing that Wilhelmine, offended, hurt though she was by her lover's suspicions, pitied his anguish and reassured him:

"If you had been following me for some time past, you would have seen that I have been in the habit of going to this cemetery--have gone there regularly long before Captain Brocq's death--consequently."...

Wilhelmine, with a look of sorrowful disappointment, closed her lips: she was resolutely mute.

Henri de Loubersac brightened up, thanked her with a frankness so spontaneous, so sincere, that it would have touched the hardest woman's heart, and Wilhelmine's was a supremely tender and sensitive one. Yet, when he again asked for whom she was going to pray, for whom was the delicious bouquet of violets she was carrying, half hidden in her muff, she murmured: