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!"