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Exploits of Juve (version 2)

<h2>XXXII</h2> <h3>THE SILENT EXECUTIONER</h3> Juve was in his study smoking a cigarette. It was nine in the evening. The door leading to the lobby opened and Fandor walked in. "All right, this evening?" "All right. What brings you here, Fandor?" The journalist smiled and pointed to a calendar on the wall: "The fact that—it's this evening, Juve." "The date fixed by Chaleck or Fantômas for my demise. To-morrow morning I am to be found in my bed, strangled, crushed, or something of the sort. I suppose you've come to get a farewell interview for La Capitale. To gather the minutest details of the frightful crime so that you can publish a special edition. 'The tragedy in Rue Bonaparte! Juve overcome by Fantômas!'" Fandor listened, amused at the detective's outburst.[Pg 269] "You'd be angry with me, Juve," he declared, in the same jocular strain, "for passing by such a sensational piece of news, wouldn't you?" "That is so. And then I own I expected my last evening to be a lonely one, there was a feeling of sadness at the bottom of my heart. I thought that before dying I should have liked to say farewell to young Fandor, whose life I am continually putting in peril by my crazy ventures, but whom I love as the surest of companions, the sagest of advisers, the most discreet of confidants." Fandor was touched. With a spontaneous movement he sprang to the armchair in which Juve sat, seized and wrung the detective's hands. "What?" "I shall stay here. You don't suppose I'm going to leave you to pass this night alone?" Juve, touched beyond measure by Fandor's words, seemed uncertain what he ought to decide. "I can't pretend, Fandor, that your presence is not agreeable, and I'm grateful to you for your sympathy; I knew I could count on you: but after all, lad, we must look ahead and consider all contingencies. Fantômas may succeed! Now you know what I have set out to do; if I should fail, I should like to think that you would carry[Pg 270] on the work as my successor and put an end to Fantômas." "But, Juve, you are threatened by Fantômas; that is why I am here to help you." "Well, I have no bed to put you in." Fandor, taken aback, stared at the detective. The latter rose and began walking about the room, then turned sharply and gazed at the young man: "You are quite determined to stay with me?" "Yes." "And if I bade you go?" "I should disobey you." "Very well, then," concluded Juve, shrugging his shoulders, "come along and light me." The detective passed out of the apartment and made for the stairs. "Where are we bound for?" asked Fandor. "The garret," Juve replied. A quarter of an hour later Juve and Fandor dragged into the bedroom a huge open-work wicker-basket. "Whew!" cried Juve, mopping his forehead, "no one would believe it was so heavy." Fandor smiled. "It's full of rubbish. Really, Juve, you are not a tidy man!" Juve, without reply, proceeded to empty the basket, pulling out books, linen, pieces of wood,[Pg 271] carpet, rolls of paper; in fact, the accumulated refuse of fifteen years. "What is your height?" he asked. "If I remember right, five feet ten." Juve got out his pocket measure and took the length of the crate. "That's all right," he murmured. "You'll be quite snug and comfortable in it." Fandor burst out: "You're a cheerful host, Juve. You bottle up your guests in cages now!" Juve placed a mattress at the bottom of the basket and laid two blankets over that, then he put a pillow on top. Patting the bedding to make it smooth, he declared with a laugh: "I fear nothing, but I have taken precautions. I have posted two men in the porter's lodge. I have loaded my revolver, and dined comfortably. About half-past eleven I shall go to bed as usual. However, instead of going to sleep I shall endeavour to keep awake. At dinner I took three cups of coffee, and when you go I shall drink a fourth." "Excuse me," said Fandor, "but I am not going away." "There! You'll sleep splendid inside that, Fandor."[Pg 272] The journalist, used to the devices of his friend, nodded his head. Juve had already taken off his coat and waistcoat and now drew from a box three belts half a yard in breadth and studded outside with sharp points. "Look, Fandor! I shall be completely protected when I am swathed in them. Oh," he added, "I was going to forget my leg guards!" Juve went back to the box and took out two other rolls, also studded with spikes. Fandor looked in amazement at this gear and Juve observed laughingly: "It will cost me a pair of sheets and maybe a mattress." "What does it mean?" "These defensive works have a double object. To protect me against Fantômas, or the 'executioner' he will send, and also I shall be able to determine the civil status of the 'executioner' in question." Fandor, more and more puzzled, inspected the iron spikes, which were two or more inches in length. "This contrivance is not new," said Juve; "Liabeuf wore arm guards like these under his jacket, and when the officers wanted to seize him they tore their hands." "I know, I know," replied Fandor, "but——"[Pg 273] The detective all at once laid a finger on his lips. "It's now twenty past eleven, and I am in the habit of being in bed at half past. Fantômas is bound to know it: when he comes or sends, he must not notice anything out of the way. Get into your wicker case and shut the lid down carefully. By the by, I shall leave the window slightly open." "Isn't that a bit risky?" "It is one of my habits, and not to make Fantômas suspicious I alter my ways in nothing." Fandor settled himself in his case and Juve also got into bed. As he put out the light he gave a warning. "We mustn't close an eye or utter a word. Whatever happens, don't move. But when I call, strike a light at once and come to me." "All right," replied Fandor. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> "Fandor!" Juve's cry rent the stillness of the night, loud and compelling. The journalist leaped from his wicker-basket so abruptly that he knocked against the lamp stand and the lamp fell to the floor. Fandor searched for his matches in vain. "Light up, Fandor!" shouted Juve. The noise of a struggle, the dull thud of a[Pg 274] fall on the floor, maddened the journalist. In the darkness he heard Juve groaning, scraping the floor with his boots, making violent efforts to resist some mysterious assailant. "Be quick, in God's name," implored the pain-wrung voice of the detective. Fandor trod on the glass of the lamp, which broke. He tripped, knocked his head against a press, rebounded, then suddenly uttered a terrible cry. His hands, outstretched apart, in the gloom, had brushed a cold, shiny body which slid under his palms. "Fandor! Help, Fandor!" Desperate, Fandor plunged haphazard about the disordered chamber, wrapped in darkness. Suddenly, he rushed into the study hard by, found there another lamp which he lit in haste, and hurried back with it. A fearful sight wrung a cry of terror from him. Juve, on his knees on the floor, was covered with blood. "Juve!" "It's all right, Fandor. Some one has bled, but not I." The detective rushed to the open window and leaned out into the dark night. "Listen!" he cried. "Do you hear that low hissing, that dull rustling?"[Pg 275] "Yes. I heard it just now." "It was the 'executioner.'" The detective drew back into the room, shut the window, pulled down the blinds, and then took off his armour. Curiously he examined the stains of blood, the tiny shreds of flesh that had remained on the points. "We have no more to fear now," he said, "the stroke has been tried—and has failed." "Juve! tell me what has just happened? I may be an idiot, but I don't understand at all!" "You are no fool, Fandor; far from it, but if in many circumstances you reason and argue with considerable aptness, I grant you far less deductive faculty. That does not seem to be your forte." Fandor seated himself before the detective, and the latter held forth. "When we found ourselves faced with the first crime, that of the Cité Frochot, and our notice was drawn to the elusive Fantômas, we were unable to decide in what manner that hapless Mme. Raymond, whom we then took for Lady Beltham, had been done to death. Now, remember, Fandor, that during that night of mystery, hidden behind the curtains in Chaleck's study we heard weird rustlings and faint sort of hissings, didn't we?"[Pg 276] "We did," admitted Fandor, at a loss, "but go on, Juve." "When we were called to investigate the attack on the American, Dixon, it was easy for us to conclude that the attempt of which the pugilist had been the object was the outcome of the same plan of battle as that which cost the widow Valgrand her life. The mysterious 'executioner,' which Chaleck did not disguise from Lady Beltham, was thus a being endowed with vigour enough to completely crush a woman's body, and likely do as much to that of an ordinary man. But the 'executioner' in question was not strong enough to get the better of the grand physique of the champion pugilist, since it failed in its attempt. "This instrument 'of limited power,' if I may so describe it, must then be, not a mechanism which nothing can resist, but a living being! It must also be a creature striking panic, terrifying, formidable: you ask why, Fandor?" "Yes, to be sure." "I am going to tell you. If our poor friend Josephine were not still in a high fever she would certainly uphold me. You remember the business on the Boulevard Pereire? Chaleck or Fantômas wants to be rid of the woman he loved under the guise of Loupart, since he has gone[Pg 277] back to Lady Beltham. Moreover, Josephine chatters too much with Dixon, with the police. "Chaleck, Fantômas, therefore, goes up to Josephine's. After having told the poor creature I know not what yarn, he departs, leaving behind in his hold-all, the instrument. Now this last, when it shows itself, so terrifies the poor girl that she throws herself out of the window." "I begin to see what you mean," said the journalist. "Listen," replied Juve. "The mysterious, nameless and terrible accomplice of Fantômas, is no other than a snake! A snake trained to crush bodies in its coils. After having long suspected its existence, I began to be sure of it when I found that strange scale at Neuilly. This accounts for the incomprehensible state of Mme. Valgrand's body, the extraordinary attempt on Dixon, the murderous thing that terrified Josephine! That is why, expecting to-night's visit, I barbed myself with iron like a knight of old, feeling pretty sure that if the hands of the officers were torn by the armlets of Liabeuf, the coils of Fantômas' serpent would be flayed on touching my sharp spikes." "Juve!" cried Fandor, "if I hadn't had the bad luck to upset the lamp, we should have caught this frightful beast."[Pg 278] "Probably, but what should we have done with it? After all, it's better that it should go back to Fantômas." "But you haven't yet told me what happened!" The young man's face displayed such curiosity that Juve burst out laughing. "Journalist! Incorrigible newsmonger! All right, take notes for your article describing this appalling adventure. So, then, Fandor, the lamp once out, the hours go by, a trifle more slowly in the darkness than in the light. You are silent and still like a little Moses in your wicker cradle. As for me, armoured as I was, I tried not to stir in my bed—to spare the sheets—Juve is not wealthy. Midnight, one o'clock, two, the quarter past. How long it is!—Then, an alarm! A cat that mews strangely. Then comes that little hissing sound I begin to know. Hiss—hiss! Oh, what a horrid feeling! I guess that the window is opening wider. You heard, as I did, Fandor, the revolting scales grit on the boards. But you didn't know what it was, whereas I did know it was the snake! I swear to you it needed all my pluck not to flinch, for I wanted at any cost to see it through to the end, and know whether, behind this reptile, Fantômas was not going to show his vile snout.[Pg 279] "Ah, the brute, how quickly he went to work. As I was listening, my muscles tense, my nerves on edge, I suddenly felt my sheet stir—the foul beast is trained to attack beds, remember the attack on Dixon—and suddenly it was the grip, furious, quick as a whip stroke, twining about me. I was thrown down, tossed, shaken, torn like a feather, tied up like a sausage! "My arms glued to my body, my loins hampered. I intended not to say a word, I had faith in my iron-work; but to be frank, I was scared, awfully scared. And I yelled: 'Fandor! Help!' "Oh, those accursed moments. He began to squeeze horribly when all at once I felt a cold liquid flow over my skin—blood. The brute was wounded. We still wrestled, and you tripped in the darkness and smashed the glass of the lamp, and I was choking gradually. All my life I shall remember it. And then, what relief, what joy when the grip slackened, when he gives up and makes off. The beast glided over the floor, reached the window, hissed frantically and vanished. There, M. Reporter, you have impressions from life, and rough ones, too! Well, the luck is turning, and I think it is veering to our quarter. Things are going from bad to worse for Fantômas. I tell you, Fandor, we shall nab him before long!" <hr style="width: 65%;"/>[Pg 280] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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