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.