“By the Lord!” soliloquized the young man, “it’s plain enough; everybody believes that Juve is Fantômas! Now Juve is in gaol, debarred from action; the inevitable conclusion, therefore, is that one of his lieutenants, one of his accomplices, must be credited with the atrocity of to-day. As I am known to be Juve’s bosom friend, it is naturally on me the police fix their suspicions, it is against me the public launches its accusations. Yes, the game is up, my fate is sealed; no stone will be left unturned to hunt me down and arrest me.”
Fandor’s reflections might have lasted longer yet perhaps, he might perhaps have thought out a plan of escape, for he felt convinced the bloodhounds of the Prefecture of Police would find little difficulty in tracking him down to Père Moche’s, if he had not of a sudden had the impression of footsteps, stealthy footsteps, at his side. Springing instantly to his feet, the young man challenged: “Who goes there?” but there was no answer, the garret was absolutely silent.
“Yet surely I was not dreaming?” he muttered. Holding his breath, motionless as a statue, the journalist waited with ears astrain. But no, he must have been mistaken; there was not a thing to attract his attention.
“I’m getting nervous,” he muttered; “true, I’ve good reason to be just now.”
He made a tour of inspection, but found nothing that seemed suspicious. This done, he returned and knelt down again in front of La Capitale, where the paper lay open on the floor. He was on the point of resuming reading when he had the same unaccountable impression again. This time it was certain, definite, unmistakable. He had felt a current of air pass like a breath over his face. It was no hallucination, for the journal he was reading had half lifted from the ground, the unshaded flame of the lamp had flickered. Once more he started up, again he made the tour of his cockloft.
“Nothing there!” he muttered, “nothing at all!”
But as he was returning slowly, hesitatingly, to the middle of the room, with pursed lips and frowning brow, suddenly, with a sharp pop, his lamp went out, while whirling before a powerful draught, La Capitale fluttered across the floor. It was stupefying! Instinctively, in the pale moonlight, Fandor stepped across the garret, meaning to set his back against the wall, in case of further eventualities. But he had not taken three steps before a choking cry escaped him. Thrown with horrid violence, a lasso had wound itself about his throat! He was dragged to the ground, his limbs paralysed, half strangled, half dead!
Then, with horror unspeakable, he looked and saw ... The window of the attic, a dormer window, had been opened noiselessly. Clinging to the crossbar of the casement a dim shape was silhouetted against the starlit sky. At a glance Fandor recognized the sinister apparition. It was a man clad in black, close-fitting tights, the face hidden in a deep cowl, the shoulders wrapped in a great black cloak! A figure of horror, at once clearly defined and indistinct, a shape that absorbed in the darkness, momentarily disappeared, only to reappear in darkling outline on the whiter background of the wall; it was the figure of Fantômas!
In a single second Fandor had felt himself caught by the lasso, in one second he had been thrown to the ground, in one second he had noted the black, fantastic form of the bandit glide into the garret—and in that one second he recognized beyond possibility of doubt the Monarch of Crime, the Master of Terror!
It was Fantômas! Fantômas, and no other!