"Tell me, my boy! Suppose that after six months of truce, six months of tranquillity, your whole existence is again violently upset? If you understood that the efforts and dangers and struggles and tenacity of six long years were entirely wasted, and that the results you thought you had achieved did not exist—that you had to begin all over again—that once more you had to play a match with not only your life for stakes, but your honour as well—tell me, Fandor, would you not be stirred to your depths?"
Our journalist feigned indifference: it was the best way to draw Juve on, he well knew.
"What do you mean, Juve?"
"What do I mean, my boy? You shall hear! Do you know who killed Captain Brocq?"
"No! Who?"
"Fantômas!"
At this sinister name Fandor jumped up as though thunderstruck.
"Fantômas?... You accuse Fantômas of having killed Captain Brocq?"
Juve nodded assent.
The two men stared at each other in horror-struck silence.