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Messengers of Evil

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<h2>XVI</h2> <h3>DISCUSSIONS</h3> The portress rang up Fandor on the telephone. "Monsieur Fandor! There is a stout little lady down here! She wants to see you! Should I let her go up?" Fandor's first impulse was to say "no." He glanced at the timepiece: it was exactly two minutes past eight and Juve might be here at any minute. He was sure to keep his appointment. After an instant's hesitation, Fandor decided on a "yes." He called down to the portress: "Let her come up!" Fandor had an idea: perhaps this person knew something about the appointment made that afternoon at the Palais de Justice! It would be well to find out the why and wherefore of this call. In any case, it was best for a journalist to see all comers, if possible. There was a discreet ring, announcing that the stout little lady had already mounted the five flights of stairs and was now on Fandor's landing. Our journalist went to open the door, standing well back in the shadow, so that his visitor might show herself first, as she passed into the little hall. Yes, she was certainly stout, short, and also elderly. She wore a bonnet with strings, perched on a thick crop of grey curls, yellowish at the tips. This elderly dame wore glasses; she was wrapped in a large brown shawl, and she supported herself, as she walked, with a crook-handled stick. Whilst the puzzled Fandor closed his front door, the visitor made straight for the little sitting-room, where our journalist usually sat, surrounded by his books and papers. "Ah, she seems to know my flat!" thought Fandor. The next moment he jumped back; for, no sooner had the visitor got well into the room, than she straightened her bent back, threw off her shawl, and dropped her stick! Then, tearing off her grey curls and her spectacles, the visitor revealed herself as—Juve! Fandor burst out laughing. "Juve! Well, I never!" "It's Juve, all right, my boy!" cried the smiling detective, as he rid himself of the feminine get-up which impeded his movements. "I was pleased to see, my lad, that you did not suspect my identity until I had thrown off this second-hand wardrobe I bulked myself out with!" "Oh!" cried Fandor, "that's only because I hardly looked at you. If I had, Juve, you may be sure I should have recognised you!" "Possibly! But what do you think of the disguise?" "Not so bad, Juve; but why did you change your sex this evening?" "Oh, for the fun of it, and to keep my hand in ... besides, the more precautions we take when we meet, the better. Admit for a moment that our enemies are keeping a watch on you here: what will they recollect about your doings this evening? Why, that Fandor, the journalist, had a call from a lady, and that she did not leave in a hurry either!" "Hang it all! I've no objection to a Don Juan reputation, but I may say, without offence, that, as a woman, there's nothing particularly attractive about you, Juve, in the garb you've just discarded!" "Bah!" replied Juve. "You mustn't be so particular, my dear boy—as if dress mattered—or appearance either!" Juve was lighting a cigarette as he walked about the room, examining the books and other objects with which Fandor had surrounded himself. "A charming home!" murmured the detective.... Then, he inspected the contents of a little show-case, in which Fandor had collected what he called his "Circumstantial Evidence"; in other words, various objects relating to cases he had been engaged on, such as scraps of clothing, blood-stained weapons, broken locks: these records of crimes, new and old, were carefully labelled. Juve began questioning Fandor about these sinister relics. Five minutes of jokes and laughter, then Fandor became serious. He drew his friend to a corner settee. "Juve," said he, in an impressive tone, "I have found the connecting link!" "By Jove! You have, have you!" cried Juve in a bantering tone, and with a quizzical look. "Let us see it!... Explain!..." Regardless of his friend's scepticism, Fandor proceeded to expound his theory. "I did as you suggested. I was present at the trial of the smugglers: I listened to Counsel's speech for the defence, but judged it useless to stay to the end. When Maître Henri Robart began a disquisition on the facts, I left. Here is what I have noted: "Someone owns a house in the Isle of the Cité; a house which is a meeting place for receivers of stolen goods, ruffians, robbers, and vagabonds: a house possessing underground cellars of no ordinary kind. Now, this Someone never mentions this strange house of his, though he must be aware of its existence; then this Someone knows intimately several, at least, of the people more or less involved in the Jacques Dollon affair, and—one may boldly assert it—the Dollon plot was hatched in a cellar, in a sewer of the Cité. "One of two things!... "Either this personage is timorous, is afraid of being compromised, and does not consider in what an awkward position this coincidence places him—if that be so, he is a singularly thick-headed individual—or—well—Monsieur Thomery ... you are the most rascally scoundrel it has been my lot to admire, up to now! But I assure you, we know how to get even with you! From the moment we have established, in the first place, a connection between all these affairs—that they indubitably hang together; secondly, that you, Monsieur Thomery, are the connecting link...." "No," interrupted Juve, sharply.... "What is that you say?..." "I say—no." "What?" cried Fandor, taken aback. He stared at Juve, who continued to smoke his cigarette, unmoved. But Fandor was obstinately set on stating his point of view. "The primary cause of the Dollon affair seems to be the suicide of the Baroness de Vibray, a suicide probably owing to a love disappointment—the old lady had been forsaken by her lover—Monsieur Thomery!..." "No." Juve's denial slightly annoyed Fandor, but did not stop him. "I ask: was the man who robbed Sonia Danidoff one of the guests? It is very unlikely; for, not only were the clothes of all those present searched, but all Thomery's guests were known, well known!..." "No!" Fandor bit his lip. "It's true, Juve! You were there yourself, and no one penetrated your disguise, and discovered who you really were! My last argument is, therefore, worthless ... but I fancy your attitude, your way of receiving my deductions, hides something. Have you got new information! Fresh facts to go on? You know who stole the jewels?" "No." "Good Heavens! How aggravating you are, Juve!... But this time you will simply have to agree with me! Listen!... When we first met, after our long separation, you admitted that one thing bothered you—the ease with which your nefarious band of villains of the Isle of the Cité were able to get rid of considerable sums of false money; and you were trying to find their market—by what means these wretches were able to rid themselves of the coin; when, apparently, they were not acquainted with any influential people in the business world, or in the circles of high finance.... Well, I have discovered their channel of distribution—it is none other than the proprietor of this house properly, the ground floor and basement of which are occupied by Mother Toulouche—obviously, it is Thomery!..." "No!" Fandor lifted hands to heaven in despairing fashion and sat silent. He was deeply mortified. There was a long pause, during which Juve calmly smoked on. At last, Fandor asked in a hopeless sort of tone: "Well?... What do you think?" Slowly, as if awakening from a dream, Juve began to speak. "We know nothing for certain so far, my lad, except that the Baroness de Vibray has committed suicide; that Princess Sonia Danidoff has recovered from the shock of her jewel robbery, and is to marry Thomery next month ... there is nothing extraordinary in that ... just as there is, perhaps, nothing surprising or extraordinary in the series of robberies, nor even in the crimes occupying our attention at the present moment!" Fandor jumped up. "Nothing!" he shouted. "You are joking, Juve! It is absurd what you say! Do just think a minute, my dear fellow! Why, all these affairs are closely connected, from the Jacques Dollon affair, up to ... up to ..." Fandor stopped short. Juve, who had been listening to him with seeming inattention, now appeared wholly anxious to hear the end of the sentence: he stared hard at Fandor. "Go on! Go on! I want to make you say it!..." And Fandor, as though in spite of himself, finished with: "Up to Fantômas!" "Yes, at last we have got it!" cried Juve. The two men gazed at each other; once more the logic of deductions, the chain of circumstances had inevitably led him to pronounce the name of the formidable bandit, of whom they could not think without a shudder; whose memory they could not evoke without immediately feeling themselves surrounded by sinister gloom, lost in a thick fog of mystery, of what was strange, hidden, occult! Fandor's countenance cleared suddenly as he gave utterance to the idea which had just crossed his mind. "Juve, do you not think that this mysterious prison warder, called Nibet, might very well be an incarnation of Fantômas, because in so many circumstances ..." Juve interrupted Fandor with a gesture of denial. "No, old fellow," said he gravely. "Don't start on that trail, it is assuredly a bad one: Nibet is not Fantômas. Nibet does not count for much, one might say, for nothing at all; he can scarcely be called a tiny wheel even in the great machine driven on its diabolical course by our fiendish enemy ... we must look higher than that!" "Thomery?" insisted Fandor, who still held to his idea, and was determined to turn Juve to his way of thinking.... But Juve still said "no!" to that. "Let us drop Thomery, my lad! As to Fantômas, how do you think we can identify him in this haphazard fashion, basing our idea on pure supposition? ... For, who is Fantômas—the real Fantômas, among so many probable Fantômas? "Can you tell me that, Fandor?" continued Juve, who was getting excited at last.... "I grant you that we have seen, in the course of our chequered existence, an old gentleman, like Etienne Rambert, a thickset Englishman like Gurn, a robust fellow like Loupart, a weak and sickly individual like Chaleck. We have identified each one of them, in turn, as Fantômas—and that is all. "As for seeing Fantômas himself, just as he is, without artificial aid, without paint and powder, without a false beard, without a wig, Fantômas as his face really is under his hooded mask of black—that we have not yet done. It is that fact which makes our hunt for the villain ceaselessly difficult, often dangerous!... Fantômas is always someone, sometimes two persons, never himself!" Juve, once started on this subject, could go on for ever, and Fandor did not try to stop him: when the course of conversation led them to talk of Fantômas the two men were as though hypnotised by this mysterious creature, so well named, for he was really "Fantômatic," a spectral entity: the two friends could not turn their minds to any other subject. They discussed Fantômas up and down, in and out, and round about!... <hr style='width: 45%;' /> It was getting on towards one o'clock when Fandor saw Juve off as far as the staircase. The detective had resumed his disguise, but neither man was in a joking mood now. Fandor had given Juve an account of the annoying, yet rather absurd incident at the convent, when he and Elizabeth were unsuspectingly bidding each other a passionate farewell under the watchful and scandalised eye of a nun! Fandor had thought it better to take Juve into his confidence on the point, though it went against the grain, for he was bashful with regard to his feelings. Juve had openly laughed at first, but when he understood that Elizabeth, requested to leave the convent, would again be without a safe shelter, he became serious, reflected for a minute or two, then gave his dear lad a piece of advice, advice which Fandor had seemingly taken objection to, and had finished by agreeing to.... They parted with these words: "The more you think it over, dear lad, the better you will like my idea," said Juve. Fandor had not said "No" to it! <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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