Chapter 22

"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 Santé 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 rôle 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 protégé, 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 Fantômas 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 Fantômas.... 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 Fantômas!"

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 Fantômas.

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 Fantômas!

Fantômas!

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 Fantômas 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 Fantômas? 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--Fantômas!...

From the throat of this Fandor-Fantômas issued a long-drawn howl of rage!

XXXIII

RECONCILIATION

"Which do you prefer, Mademoiselle? The multi-coloured cockades or the bows of ribbon in one shade? We have both in satin of the best quality."

Wilhelmine de Naarboveck hesitated. The representative from "The Ladies' Paradise" continued:

"The cockades of various colours do very well: they are gay, look bright; but the bows of ribbon also produce an excellent effect--so distinguished! Both articles are in great demand."

Wilhelmine answered at random:

"Oh, put in half of each!"

"And what quantity, Mademoiselle?"

"Oh, three hundred will be sufficient, I should think."

The shopwoman displayed her assortment of cotillion objects. She did her part ably. But Wilhelmine de Naarboveck gave but a perfunctory attention to this choosing of cotillion accessories.

The saleswoman was more and more astonished. She considered that were her customer's orders executed to the letter she would have the oddest assortment of cotillion accessories that could be imagined. She adroitly called Wilhelmine's attention to this.

Realising that she had been giving orders at random, the absent-minded girl came to a decision.

"We have every confidence in your house being able to supply us with a cotillion complete in every detail. You know better than I what is necessary. I will leave it to you, then, to see that everything is done as well as possible."

The saleswoman was full of delighted protestations. Though satisfied with a decision that simplified her task, she was surprised that a young girl as free to act and order as Mademoiselle de Naarboveck seemed to be, did not take interest in the details of a fête which, as rumour had it, was given in her honour.

"Ah!" said the young woman, as she collected the patterns scattered over a table in the hall, "if all our customers were like you, Mademoiselle, and allowed us to carry out our own ideas, we should do marvellous things!"

Wilhelmine smiled, but--would this saleswoman never have done!

"Of course, Mademoiselle, we make similar ribbons for you and your partner; but would you kindly tell me if the gentleman is tall or short? It is better to make the ribbons of a length proportionate to the height."

This question troubled Wilhelmine.... The leader of the cotillion should have been Henri de Loubersac. Was not their betrothal to have been announced at the ball?... But the painful interview at Saint-Sulpice seemed to have put an end to all relations between them!

Who, then, would lead with her?

Little she cared!

"Really, Madame," replied Wilhelmine to the woman, who was astonished at her indifference: "I do not know how tall or short my partner is, for the very good reason that I do not know who he is!... Provide, then, a set of ribbons which may suit anybody!"

When the representative of "The Ladies' Paradise" had taken her departure, Wilhelmine went up to the library. Except for the stiff and solemn household staff, Wilhelmine was alone in the house. Her father was still absent: Mademoiselle Berthe had vanished.

The house was turned upside down from top to bottom. Decorators and electricians were in possession. Hammering had been going on all the afternoon. Furniture had been displaced, pushed hither and thither. The hall had been denuded of all but the table; even the privacy of the library had been invaded--and all in preparation for the ball of the day after to-morrow, to which the baron de Naarboveck had invited the highest personages of the aristocratic and official worlds.

What a lively interest Wilhelmine had at first taken in this fête!

The baron was giving it to set a public seal on his diplomatic position, for hitherto he had not been definitely attached to his embassy; now he was to be the accredited ambassador of a certain foreign power. Also he intended to announce the betrothal of the young couple.

Alas! this latter project had suffered shipwreck!

As Wilhelmine sat in lonely state in the library, she saw a dismal future opening before her. Not only had her heart been torn by the brusque rupture with Henri de Loubersac, but everything which made up her home life, such as it was, seemed falling to pieces.... No doubt the diplomat was obliged to be continually absent, but Wilhelmine suffered from this solitude, this abandonment.... She had become attached to the gay and companionable Mademoiselle Berthe, who had been the life and soul of the house. She had disappeared: no tidings of her doings or whereabouts had reached Wilhelmine. There must be some very serious reason for this....

The mysterious occurrences of the past weeks had altered her world, shaken it to its insecure foundations, and inevitably affected her outlook. Life seemed a melancholy thing: how gloomy, how helpless her outlook!

More than ever before she felt in every fibre of her being that she was not the daughter of the baron de Naarboveck, that she was indeed Thérèse Auvernois. But what a fatal destiny must be hers! An existence open to the attacks of misfortune, at the mercy of a being, enigmatic, indefatigable, who, time and again, had thrown his horrible influence across her destiny, was throwing it now--the sinister Fantômas!

Wilhelmine was torn from her miserable reflections by the irruption of a domestic, who announced:

"Monsieur de Loubersac is asking if Mademoiselle can receive him!"

Wilhelmine rose from the divan on which she had been reclining. In an expressionless voice she said:

"Show him in."

When the young officer of cuirassiers appeared, his air was embarrassed, his head was bent.

"You here, Monsieur?" Wilhelmine's voice and manner expressed indignation.

But Henri de Loubersac was no longer the arrogant unbeliever of the Saint-Sulpice interview.

"Excuse me!" he murmured.

"What do you want?" demanded Wilhelmine, her head held high.

"Your forgiveness," he said in a voice barely audible.

De Loubersac had come to his senses.

His intense jealousy had distorted his judgment.

Desperate after the Saint-Sulpice interview, when, so it had seemed to him, Wilhelmine had avoided a categorical denial of his accusation regarding her liaison with Captain Brocq, the frantic lover had flown to Juve and had poured out his soul to the sympathetic detective.

Juve had shown himself no sceptic. He believed Wilhelmine's story and statements. They coincided with his own prognostications: they explained why Wilhelmine went regularly to pray at Lady Beltham's tomb: they corroborated his conjectures, they confirmed his forecasts.

If he did not confess it to de Loubersac, he knew in his own mind that these statements indicated that between this Baron de Naarboveck and the redoubtable bandit he was pursuing so determinedly there was some connection, possibly as yet unfathomed, but in his heart of hearts he believed he had lighted on the truth. His conviction that de Naarboveck and Fantômas had relations of some sort dated from the night of his own arrest as Vagualame in the house of de Naarboveck. He had gone further than that.

"Yes," he had said to himself: "de Naarboveck must be a manifestation of Fantômas!"

Corporal Vinson's revelations regarding the den in the rue Monge had but strengthened Juve's impression. He had said to himself after that, "De Naarboveck, Vagualame, Fantômas, are but one."

Juve had reassured de Loubersac: he declared that Wilhelmine had spoken the truth, that she certainly was Thérèse Auvernois and the most honest girl in the world.

Juve calmed and finally convinced de Loubersac.

It only remained for the repentant lover to reinstate himself in Wilhelmine's good graces--if that were possible. Now, more ardently than ever before, he desired to make Wilhelmine his wife. See her, be reconciled to her, he must!

He arrived at a favourable moment. The poor girl, lonely and alone, was a prey to the most gloomy forebodings. Life had lost all its savour. She was in the depths of despair.

De Loubersac, standing before her, as at a judgment bar, again implored her forgiveness.

"Oh, how I regret the brutal, wounding things I said to you, Wilhelmine!" he murmured humbly, sorrowfully.

The innocent girl, so bitterly wronged by his thoughts and words, crimsoned with indignation at the memory of them. Her tone was icy.

"I may be able to forgive you, Monsieur, but that is all you can hope for."

"Will you never be able to love me again?" begged Henri, with the humble simplicity of a boy.

"No, Monsieur." Wilhelmine's voice was hard.

It was all Henri could do not to burst into tears of humiliation and despair.

"Wilhelmine--you are cruel!... If you could only know how you are making me suffer! Oh, I know I deserve to suffer! I recognise that!... All I can say now is--Farewell!... Farewell for ever!"

Wilhelmine sat silent, her face hidden in her hands.

Henri went on:

"I leave Paris shortly. I have asked for an exchange. I am to be sent to Africa, to the outposts of Morocco. I shall carry with me the memory--how cherished--of your adorable self, dearest of the dear!... It shall live in my heart until the day when, if Heaven but hear my prayers, I shall die at the head of my troops."

With that de Loubersac moved slowly to the door, overwhelmed by the conviction that he had irreparably wounded the girl he adored, that he had destroyed for ever the love she had borne him!

A stifled cry caught his ear.

"Henri!"...

"Wilhelmine!"

They were in each others' arms and in tears.

How the lovers talked! What plans they made! How happy would be their coming life together! What bliss!

Wilhelmine broke off:

"Henri, do you know that it is past midnight?"

"I seem only to have come!" cried her lover.

"Ah, but you should not have stayed so late, my Henri!... The baron is not here. I am alone!... Indeed, indeed, you must go!"

"Oh," laughed the happy Henri: "Why, of course the baron is not here!"...

Wilhelmine, all smiles, shook a finger at Henri.

"Be off with you!... Do, do be off with you!"

"Wilhelmine!"...

"Henri!"...

The lovers kissed each other--a long, lingering kiss....

XXXIV

A FANTÔMAS TRICK

Fandor stared at himself with wild eyes....

He must be in an abominable dream, a mad nightmare!... He must be!...

What was behind all this? This outrage? This Vagualame, criminal proprietor of this pavilion, was the author of it! To him he owed it that he was thus bound, masked, disguised!

That sinister menace was still ringing in his ears: "Through Fantômas thou shalt die!"

Well, however it might come, Death came but once! He would await the event!

Fandor's spirit rose once more--indomitable.

He closed his eyes.

He lived again, as might a drowning man, his hours of joy, of struggle, of triumph, of defeat, of high endeavour: all the thick-packed hours of vivid life. Ah, how Fantômas had haunted him from childhood onwards!

"'Tis but life's logic," he reflected: "I have fought Fantômas, and not always has the victory been wholly his! More than once I have called check to him! It is his turn to take revenge with the irrevocable checkmate. Well, I have lost. I pay."

The heavy silence of the studio was loud with menace.