Part 2

"For the Baroness?"

"Of course!" she replied, a note of impatience in her voice: "I want to know if anyone called to see _me_ this afternoon?"

"No, madame."

"No one has telephoned from the Barbey-Nanteuil Bank?"

"No, madame."

Repressing a slight feeling of annoyance, Madame de Vibray changed the subject:

"You will have dinner served as soon as the guests arrive. They will not be later than half-past seven, I suppose."

Antoine bowed solemnly, vanished into the anteroom, and from thence gained the servants' hall.

Madame de Vibray quitted the small drawing-room. Traversing the great gallery with its glass roof, encircling the staircase, she entered the dining-room. Covers were laid for three.

Inspecting the table arrangements with the eye of a mistress of the house, she straightened the line of some plates, gave a touch of distinction to the flowers scattered over the table in a conventional disorder; then she went to the sideboard, where the major-domo had left a china pot filled with flowers. With a slight shrug, the Baroness carried the pot to its usual place--a marble column at the further end of the room:

"It was fortunate I came to see how things were! Antoine is a good fellow, but a hare-brained one too!" thought she.

Madame de Vibray paused a moment: the light from an electric lamp shone on the vase and wonderfully enhanced its glittering beauty. It was a piece of faience decorated in the best taste. On its graceful form the artist had traced the lines of an old colour print, and had scrupulously preserved the picture born of an eighteenth-century artist's imagination, with its brilliancy of tone and soft background of tender grey. Madame de Vibray could not tear herself away from the contemplation of it. Not only did the design and the treatment please her, but she also felt a kind of maternal affection for the artist: "This dear Jacques," she murmured, "has decidedly a great deal of talent, and I like to think that in a short time his reputation...."

Her reflections were interrupted by the servant. The good Antoine announced in a low voice, and with a touch of respectful reproach in his tone:

"Monsieur Thomery awaits the Baroness in the small drawing-room: he has been waiting ten minutes."

"Very well. I am coming."

Madame de Vibray, whose movements were all harmonious grace, returned by way of the gallery to greet her guest. She paused on the threshold of the small drawing-room, smiling graciously.

Framed in the dark drapery of the heavy door-curtains, the soft light from globes of ground glass falling on her, the Baroness de Vibray appeared a very attractive woman still. Her figure had retained its youthful slenderness, her neck, white as milk, was as round and fresh as a girl's; and had the hair about her forehead and temples not been turning grey--the Baroness wore it powdered, a piece of coquettish affection on her part--she would not have looked a day more than thirty.

Monsieur Thomery rose hastily, and advanced to meet her. He kissed her hand with a gallant air:

"My dear Mathilde," he declared with an admiring glance, "you are decidedly an exquisite woman!"

The Baroness replied by a glance, in which there was something ambiguous, something of ironical mockery:

"How are you, Norbert?" she asked in an affectionate tone.... "And those pains?"

They seated themselves on a low couch, and began to discuss their respective aches and pains in friendly fashion. Whilst listening to his complaints, Madame de Vibray could not but admire his remarkable vigour, his air of superb health: his looks gave the lie to his words.

About fifty-five, Monsieur Norbert Thomery seemed to be in the plenitude of his powers; his premature baldness was redeemed by the vivacity of his dark brown eyes, also by his long, thick moustache, probably dyed. He looked like an old soldier. He was the last of the great Thomery family who, for many generations, had been sugar refiners. His was a personality well known in Parisian Society; always first at his office or his factories, as soon as night fell he became the man of the world, frequenting fashionable drawing-rooms, theatrical first-nights, official receptions, and balls in the aristocratic circles of the faubourg Saint-Germain.

Remarkably handsome, extremely rich, Thomery had had many love affairs. Gossips had it that between him and Madame de Vibray there had existed a tender intimacy; and, for once, gossip was right. But they had been tactful, had respected the conventions whilst their irregular union had lasted. Though now a thing of the past, for Thomery had sought other loves, his passion for the Baroness had changed to a calm, strong, semi-brotherly affection; whilst Madame de Vibray retained a more lively, a more tender feeling for the man whom she had known as the most gallant of lovers.

Thomery suddenly ceased talking of his rheumatism:

"But, my dear friend, I do not see that pretty smile which is your greatest charm! How is that?"

Madame de Vibray looked sad: her beautiful eyes gazed deep into those of Thomery:

"Ah," she murmured, "one cannot be eternally smiling; life sometimes holds painful surprises in store for us."

"Is something worrying you?" Thomery's tone was one of anxious sympathy.

"Yes and no," was her evasive reply. There was a silence; then she said:

"It is always the same thing! I have no hesitation in telling you that, you, my old friend: it is a money wound--happily it is not mortal."

Thomery nodded:

"Well, I declare it is just what I expected! My poor Mathilde, are you never going to be sensible?"

The Baroness pouted: "You know quite well I am sensible ... only it happens that there are moments when one is short of cash! Yesterday I asked my bankers to send me fifty thousand francs, and I have not heard a word from them!"

"That is no great matter! The Barbey-Nanteuil credit cannot be shaken!"

"Oh," cried the Baroness, "I have no fears on that score; but, as a rule, their delay in sending me what I ask for is of the briefest, yet no one has come from them to-day."

Thomery began scolding her gently:

"Ah, Mathilde, that you should be in such pressing need of so large a sum must mean that you have been drawn into some deplorable speculation! I will wager that you invested in those Oural copper mines after all!"

"I thought the shares were going up," was Madame de Vibray's excuse: she lowered her eyes like a naughty schoolgirl caught in the act.

Thomery, who had risen, and was walking up and down the room, halted in front of her:

"I do beg of you to consult those who know all the ins and outs, persons competent to advise you, when you are bent on plunging into speculations of this description! The Barbey-Nanteuil people can give you reliable information; I myself, you know..."

"But since it is really of no importance!" interrupted Madame de Vibray, who had no wish to listen to the remonstrances of her too prudent friend: "What does it matter? It is my only diversion now!... I love gambling--the emotions it arouses in one, the perpetual hopes and fears it excites!"

Thomery was about to reply, to argue, to remonstrate further, but the Baroness had caught him glancing at the clock hanging beside the fireplace:

"I am making you dine late," she said in a tone of apology. Then, with a touch of malice, and looking up at Thomery from under her eyes, to see how he took it:

"You are to be rewarded for having to wait!... I have invited Princess Sonia Danidoff to dine with you!"

Thomery started. He frowned. He again seated himself beside the Baroness:

"You have invited her?..."

"Yes ... and why not?... I believe this pretty woman is one of your special friends... that you consider her the most charming of all your friends now!..."

Thomery did not take up the challenge: he simply said:

"I had an idea that the Princess was not much to your taste!"

The eyes of Madame de Vibray flashed a sad, strange look on her old friend, as she said gently:

"One can accustom oneself to anything and everything, my dear friend.... Besides, I quite recognise that the Princess deserves the reputation she enjoys of being wonderfully beautiful and also intellectual...."

Thomery did not reply to this: he looked puzzled, annoyed....

The Baroness continued:

"They even say that handsome bachelor, Monsieur Thomery, is not indifferent to her fascinations!... That, for the first time in his life, he is ready to link ..."

"Oh, as for that!..." Thomery was protesting, when the door opened, and the Princess Sonia Danidoff rustled into the room, a superbly--a dazzlingly beautiful vision, all audacity and charm.

"Accept all my apologies, dear Baroness," she cried, "for arriving so late; but the streets are so crowded!"

"... And I live such a long way out!" added Madame de Vibray.

"You live in a charming part," amended the Princess. Then, catching sight of Thomery:

"Why, you!" she cried. And, with a gracious and dignified gesture, the Princess extended her hand, which the wealthy sugar refiner hastened to kiss.

At this moment the double doors were flung wide, and Antoine, with his most solemn air, his most stiff-starched manner, announced:

"Dinner is served!"

"... No," cried she, smiling, whilst she refused the arm offered by her old friend; "take in the Princess, dear friend; I will follow ... by myself!"

Thomery obeyed. He passed slowly along the gallery into the dining-room with the Princess. Behind them came the Baroness, who watched them as they went: Thomery, big, muscular, broad-shouldered: Sonia Danidoff, slim, pliant, refined, dainty!

Checking a deep sigh, the Baroness could not help thinking, and her heart ached at the thought:

"What a fine couple they would make!... What a fine couple they will make!"

But, as she seated herself opposite her guests, she said to herself:

"Bah!... I must send sad thoughts flying!... It is high time!"

"My dear Thomery!" she cried playfully: "I wish--I expect you to show yourself the most charming of men to your delicious neighbour!"

Ten o'clock had struck before Madame de Vibray and her guests left the dinner-table and proceeded to the small drawing-room. Thomery was allowed to smoke in their presence; besides, the Princess had accepted a Turkish cigarette, and the Baroness had allowed herself a liqueur. A most excellent dinner and choice wines had loosened tongues, and, in accordance with a prearranged plan, Madame de Vibray had directed the conversation imperceptibly into the channels she wished it to follow. Thus she learned what she had feared to know, namely, that a very serious flirtation had been going on for some time between Thomery and the Princess; that between this beautiful and wealthy young widow and the millionaire sugar refiner, the flirtation was rapidly developing into something much warmer and more lasting. So far, the final stage had evidently not been reached; nevertheless, Thomery had suggested, tentatively, that he would like to give a grand ball when he took possession of the new house which he was having built for himself in the park Monceau!... And had he not been so extremely anxious to secure a partner for the cotillion which he meant to lead!... Then Madame de Vibray had suggested that the person obviously fitted to play this important part was the Princess Sonia Danidoff! Who better!

The suggestion was welcomed by both: it was settled there and then.

"Yes," thought the Baroness, "Thomery's marriage is practically arranged, that is evident!... Well, I must resign myself to the inevitable!"

It was about half-past eleven when Sonia Danidoff rose to take leave of her hostess. Thomery, hesitating, looked first at his old friend, then at the Princess, asking himself what he ought to do. Madame de Vibray felt secretly grateful to him for this momentary hesitation. As a woman whose mourning for a dead love is over, she spoke out bravely:

"Dear friend," said she, "surely you are not going to let the Princess return alone?... I hope she will allow you to see her safely home?"

The Princess pressed the hands of her generous hostess: she was radiant:

"What a good kind friend you are!" she cried in an outburst of sincere affection. Then, with a questioning glance, in which there was a touch of uneasiness, a slight hesitation, she said:

"Ah, do let me kiss you!"

For all reply Madame de Vibray opened her arms; the two women clung together, sealing with their kiss the treaty of peace both wished to keep.

When the humming of the motor-car, which bore off the Princess and Thomery, had died away in the distance, Madame de Vibray retired to her room. A tear rolled down her cheek:

"A little bit of my heart has gone with them," she murmured. The poor woman sighed deeply: "Ah, it is my whole heart that has gone!"

There was a discreet knock at the door. She mastered her emotion. It was the dignified mistress of the house who said quietly:

"Come in!"

It was Antoine, who presented two letters on a silver salver. He explained that, believing his mistress to be anxiously awaiting some news, he had ventured to bring up the last post at this late hour.

After bidding Antoine good night, she recalled him to say:

"Please tell the maid not to come up. I shall not require her. I can manage by myself."

Madame de Vibray went towards the little writing-table, which stood in one corner of her room; in leisurely fashion she sat down and proceeded to open her letters with a wearied air.

"Why, it's from that nice Jacques Dollon!" she exclaimed, as she read the first letter she opened: "I was thinking of him at this very minute!" ... "Yes," she went on, as she read, "I shall certainly pay him a visit soon!"

Madame de Vibray put Jacques Dollon's letter in her handbag, recognising on the back of the second letter the initials B. N., which she knew to be the discreet superscription on the business paper of her bankers, Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil. It was long and closely written, in a fine, regular hand. When she began to read it her attention was wandering, for her mind was full of Sonia Danidoff and Thomery, and what she had ascertained regarding their relation to each other; but little by little she became absorbed in what she was reading, till her whole attention was taken captive. As she read on, however, her eyes opened more and more widely, there was a look of keenest anguish in them, her features contracted as if in pain, her bosom heaved, her fingers were trembling under the stress of some intense emotion:

"Oh, my God! Ah! My God!" she gasped out several times in a half-choked voice.

* * * * *

Silence had reigned for a long while in the smart town house of the Baroness de Vibray in the Avenue Henri-Martin....

From without came no sound; the avenue was quiet, deserted; the night was dark. But when three o'clock struck, the bedroom of Madame de Vibray was still flooded with light. She had not left her writing-table since she had read the letter of her bankers, Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil. She wrote on, and on, without intermission.

III

UNEXPECTED COMPLICATIONS

At nine o'clock in the morning, the staff of that great evening paper, _La Capitale_, were assembled in the vast editorial room, writing out their copy, in the midst of a perfect hubbub of continual comings and goings, of regular shindies, of perpetual discussions.

A stranger entering this room, which among its frequenters went by the name of "The Wild Beasts' Cage," might easily have thought he was witnessing some thirty schoolboys at play in recreation time, instead of being in the presence of famous journalists celebrated for their reports and articles.

Jerome Fandor had no sooner appeared on the threshold than he was accorded a variety of greetings--ironical, cordial, fault-finding, sympathetic. But he ignored them all; for, like most of those who came into the editorial room at this hour, he was preoccupied with one thing only--where the caprice of his editorial secretary would send him flying for news, in the course of a few minutes? On what difficult and delicate quest would he be despatched? It depended on the exigencies of passing events, on how questions of the hour struck the editorial secretary, in relation to Fandor.

Just as he had expected, the editorial secretary called him.

"Hey! Fandor, come here a minute! I am on the make-up: what have you got for to-day?"

"I don't know. Who has charge of the landing of the King of Spain?"

"Maray. He has just left. Have you seen the last issue of _l'Havas_?"

"Here it is...."

The two men ran rapidly through the night's telegrams.

"Deplorably empty!" remarked the editorial secretary. "But where am I to send you?... Ah, now I have it! That article of yours on the rue Norvins affair, yesterday evening, was interesting--it made the others squirm, I know! Isn't there anything more to be got out of that story?"

"What do you want?"

"Can't you stick in something just a little bit scandalous about the Baroness de Vibray? Or about Dollon? About no matter whom, in fact? After all, it's our one and only crime to-day, and you must put in something under that head!..."

Jerome Fandor seemed to hesitate.

"Would you like me to rake up the past--refer to what happened before?"

"What past?"

"Come now, you must have an inkling of what I refer to!"

"Not I!"

"Ah, my dear fellow, it will not be the first time we have had to mention these personages in our columns!... Just cast your mind back to the Gurn affair!..."

"Ah, the drama in which a great lady was implicated ... to her detriment! Lady ... Lady Beltham?"

"You have got it! These Dollons--Jacques and Elizabeth--did you know it?--happen to be the children of old Dollon, who was murdered in the train--an extraordinary murder!--when on his way to Paris, to give evidence in the Gurn case?"

"Why, of course! I remember perfectly!" declared the editorial secretary: "Dollon, the father, was the Marquise de Langrune's steward!... The old lady who was murdered!... Isn't that so?"

"That's it!... But, after the death of his mistress, he entered the service of the Baroness de Vibray, she who was assassinated yesterday!"

"Well, I must say they have not been favoured by fortune," said the secretary jokingly. "But, look here, Fandor--like father, like son, eh?... If this young Dollon has murdered Madame de Vibray, doesn't that make you think that his father was the murderer of the Marquise de Langrune?"

Jerome Fandor shook his head:

"No, old boy, yesterday's crime was ordinary, even common-place, but the assassination of the Marquise de Langrune, on the contrary, gave the police no end of bother."

"They did not find out anything, did they?"

"Why, yes!... Don't you remember?... Naturally enough, it must all seem rather remote to you, but I have all the details as clearly in mind as if they had happened only yesterday.... The Gurn affair was one of the first I had a hand in, with Juve ... it was in connection with that very affair I made my start here on _La Capitale_."[2]

[Footnote 2: See _Fantomas_.]

Fandor grew pale:

"And you were jolly proud of it, eh, Fandor?... Good Heavens, how you did hold forth about this Juve! And you regularly fed us up with this villain, so mysterious, so extraordinary, who was never run to earth, could not be captured, was capable of the most inhuman cruelties, capable of devising the most unimaginable tricks and stratagems--this Fantomas!"

Fandor grew pale:

"My dear fellow," said he, "never speak sneeringly or jokingly of Fantomas!... No doubt it is taken for granted, by the public at any rate, that Fantomas is an invention of Juve and myself: that Fantomas never existed!... And that because this monster, who is a man of genius, has never been identified; because not a soul has been able to lay hands on him ...; and because, as you know, this fruitless pursuit has cost poor Juve his life...."

"The truth is, this famous detective died a foul death!"

"No! You are mistaken! Juve died on the field of honour! When, after a terribly difficult and dangerous investigation, he succeeded (by this time it was no longer the Gurn-Fantomas affair, but that of the boulevard Inkermann at Neuilly) in cornering Fantomas, he was well aware that he risked his life in entering the bandit's abode. What happened was that the villain found means to blow up the house, and to bury Juve underneath the ruins.[3] Fantomas has proved the stronger; but, according to my ideas, Juve has had, none the less, the finest death he could desire--death in the midst of the fight--a useful death!"

[Footnote 3: See _The Exploits of Juve_.]

"Useful? In what way?..."

"My dear fellow," cried Fandor, in a tone of vigorous denial, "in the opinion of all unprejudiced minds, the death of Juve has proved, proved up to the hilt, the existence of Fantomas.... More, it has forced this villain to disappear; it has restored peace, tranquillity to society.... At the cost of his life, Juve has scored a final triumph, he has deprived Fantomas of the power to do harm--pared his claws in fact."

"The truth is he is never mentioned now by a soul ... for all that, Fandor, only to see you smile! Why--," and the editorial secretary shook a threatening finger at his colleague: "I'll wager you still believe in Fantomas!... That one fine day you will write us a rattling good article, announcing some fresh Fantomas crime!"

Jerome Fandor made no direct reply to this--it was useless to try and convince those who had not closely followed the records of crimes perpetrated during recent years: you could not make them believe in the existence of Fantomas. Fandor _knew_; but, Juve dead, was there another soul who could know the true facts?

All he said was:

"Well, my dear fellow, this does not tell us what we are to fill up the paper with now!... If the doings connected with Fantomas are frightful, rousing our feelings in the highest degree, I repeat that yesterday's crime bears no resemblance to them: we can put in a paragraph or so--that is all!"

"No way, is there, of compromising anyone with our Baroness de Vibray?"

"I don't think so! It's a perfectly common-place affair. An elderly woman patronises a young painter, whose mistress she may or may not be, and she ends up by getting herself assassinated when the young man imagines he is mentioned in her will."

"Ah! good! Well, I think you will have to fall back on the opening of the artesian well. That suit you?"

"Oh, quite all right!... If you like I can give you my copy in half an hour. I know who are going to speak at the inauguration ceremony, and I can add names this evening! You know I am a bit of a specialist as regards reports written beforehand!"

Fandor had got well on with his article: at the rate he was going he would have finished that morning, he thought with pleasure, and would have a free afternoon. Just then an office boy appeared:

"Monsieur Fandor, you are being asked for at the telephone."

Like most journalists, Fandor was accustomed to reply in nine cases out of ten, in similar cases, that he was not to be found. On this occasion, however, some interior prompting made him say:

"I will come."

A few minutes later Fandor went up to the editorial secretary:

"Look here, old fellow, something unexpected has happened.... I must go to the Palais de Justice ... you don't want me for anything else this morning, do you?"

"No, go along! But what's up?"

"Oh ... this Jacques Dollon, you know, the assassin of the rue Norvins? Well, this imbecile has gone and hanged himself in his cell!"

* * * * *

At the exit door of _La Capitale_, in the noisy rue Montmartre, crowded with costermongers' barrows, Jerome Fandor hailed a taxi.

"To the Palais!"