The long arm of Fantômas

by Pierre Souvestre; Marcel Allain

As he heard the ominous words, Juve shuddered, brave man as he was. The police-officer in the course of his adventurous life had gone through such ups and downs of fortune, taken part in such desperate struggles, confronted such dangers, that he was proof against all contingencies; yet he could not help trembling, for he felt a clear and definite presentiment that his last hour was on the point of striking. The incidents of the evening before had astounded him, and despite his imperturbable coolness, the detective could not but shudder to recall the terrible hours he had lived through since then. In fact, what had occurred in M. Fuselier’s room at the Palais and the brutal fashion in which Juve had been kidnapped, overpassed all limits in the way of fantastic extravagance. Not only had the gang of scoundrels taken him unawares, thrown themselves upon him, seized and pinioned him, in the very Palais de Justice itself, but they had actually carried him off by climbing down the scaffoldings running outside the windows of the building and got clear away.

Then Juve, gagged and bound, unable to stir a finger, had been pitched into a car which had been driven off at full speed without the officer being able to gather the faintest inkling of where he was being taken. Still blindfolded by a handkerchief tied tight over his eyes, he had been led into a house, where he had waited in silence and agonizing suspense to know the decision his abductors would come to regarding his fate.

As he recalled these events, his mind turned instinctively on what he had seen last, Fuselier attacked and terrorized, the last sound he had heard, the voice of the American detective, Tom Bob, the man he dreaded and suspected. Then despair overwhelmed him at the thought of the ever-accumulating proofs of the persistent ill-fortune that pursued him.

In truth he was to be pitied! He had been captured the very day he had at long last regained his freedom, when, cleared of the dreadful accusations that hung over his head, he was about to resume the struggle with the help and co-operation of that mighty organization, that all-powerful combination, formed by the police and the Criminal Bureau together. Now, in a moment, as the result of an odious plot, a plot no man could well have foreseen, he found himself plunged once more into the dark depths from which he was just emerging.

All this was assuredly the work of Fantômas! This conclusion Juve had definitely arrived at in the course of the terrible night he had just lived through, the last hours of which were still slowly dragging out their weary length. He had clearly seen that, taking advantage of his own long detention in prison, adroitly profiting by the judicial blunder to which he owed his incarceration in the Santé, Fantômas had duped his confederates and persuaded them that Juve was no other than the elusive brigand himself, and that it was actually Fantômas who was in gaol. Yes, he understood the whole scheme now, and from information gathered here and there, he could guess what was going to happen. Fantômas, the real Fantômas, not content with exploiting honest people, had exploited the apaches into the bargain—and these latter were out to take their revenge. With amazing audacity they had carried off Juve, more than ever convinced that he was Fantômas. And Juve, now in their power, was about to pay the penalty for the grim brigand’s perfidy.

As the night wore on, the noises the detective heard round him grew louder and more frequent. Evidently men were arriving at a rendez-vous arranged beforehand, and their number increased as time went on, while new voices could be distinguished demanding the immediate opening of the sitting. Presently Juve felt someone was coming up to him, and the cords that held him fast were loosened and the bandage removed from his eyes. Mechanically the prisoner stretched his limbs, cramped by the pressure of the ligatures.

Juve found himself stretched on the floor of a square chamber with bare, white-washed walls. By the light of a smoky lamp he saw he was surrounded by a score of apaches, with grim faces and surly, threatening looks. Some of these were unfamiliar to him, others he knew to belong to notorious criminals. By the chilly damp that exuded from the walls and the flagged floor of the place, as well as by the absence of windows, the detective gathered that he was confined in the depths of a cellar.

But his reflections were soon cut short. One of the apaches, the same who had untied him, now kicked a wooden stool towards him with the order: “Sit there, in the middle of us, and listen.”

Juve suddenly sprang to his feet. With a desperate, senseless impulse—for indeed it was useless to dream of escape—he pushed away the wooden seat, drove back fiercely with his elbows some of those nearest him, and darting to the farthest end of the cellar, set his back against the wall with clenched fists and furious face, ready to offer a vigorous resistance to the first who should come near him.

Alas! this spirited show of defiance had no practical result, rather the contrary. Nobody thought of coming to grips with the officer. The apaches, seeing him leap away had first jeered, thinking it a fine joke that Fantômas—for one and all took Juve to be Fantômas—should try to give them the slip, now it was impossible. But then, by way of precaution, the men nonchalantly produced their revolvers, the women borrowed their lovers’ knives and fell to polishing the keen blades on a corner of their red aprons.