"Here, then, is Jacques Dollon, the dead-alive!... Here is the elusive Fantômas!" said the chief of the detective force.
But the bandit brazened it out as he recoiled before the chief.
"Why do you arrest me because of this imprint?" he demanded. "It is a piece of juggling on the part of this journalist!... Take a fresh imprint of my hand, my fingers, my thumb, and you will see whether my hand could possibly leave such an impression as that put on the blotting pad, by some sleight-of-hand trick of this much too smart reporter!" He stretched out his arm in the direction of the blotting pad, as though begging for a fresh trial....
Fandor marched up to Nanteuil.
"Useless," said he, in a curt tone. "I have been watching you!... I know the trick!"
Nanteuil stood stock-still, dumb. Fandor lifted the cuff of Nanteuil's coat, and pointed out to Monsieur Havard, and to Juve, a sort of thin film of glove-like form. It was fastened to the wrist by an almost imperceptible piece of elastic.
"This is human skin," said Fandor. "Human skin marvellously preserved by some special process: all its lines and marks are intact. Can you not guess whence it came? Do you need to be told whose dead body has supplied this phantom glove?"
Monsieur Havard was as white as a sheet.
"The body of Jacques Dollon," he murmured.... "Yes, that is it!..."
There was a moment's intense silence in the room.