"'Are we returning to the days of—Fantômas?'
"Let us add, that owing to the number of individuals probably involved, and the daring nature of the crime, Monsieur Havard considers that it will be extremely difficult for the guilty persons to escape from the police."
Jérôme Fandor had just finished correcting this sensational article, when slips from the Havas Agency arrived at La Capitale.
Our journalist cast his eyes over them, thinking he might find some piece of news which had come to hand at the last minute. As he read he grew pale. He struck his writing-table a violent blow with his fist.
"For all that, I am not mad!" he cried.
And, holding his head between his hands, spelling out each word, he reread the following telegram from the Havas Agency:
Affair of the rue du Quatre Septembre
"At the last moment of going to press, a bloody imprint has been discovered on hand-cart number 2. Monsieur Bertillon immediately identified this imprint: it was made by the hand of Jacques Dollon, the criminal who is already wanted by the police for the murder of the Baroness de Vibray, and the robbery committed on the Princess Sonia Danidoff."
"But I am not mad!" cried Fandor, when he had read these lines. "I declare I am not mad! By all that's holy, Jacques Dollon is dead!... Fifty persons have seen him dead! But, for all that, Bertillon cannot be mistaken!"
After a minute or two, Fandor took up his pen again, and added a note to his article, entitled:—