A grim apparition—this hooded man—this man who now held Fandor, his relentless pursuer, at his mercy. The journalist had fallen into the trap laid for him; he thought: “I am in Fantômas’ power! I am a lost man!”
To move a limb was impossible, to resist a wild dream. Yet no sooner had he gathered a clear idea of the danger threatening him than, calm again and confident, he waited events.
Swift and silent, Fantômas stepped over the crossbar of the window, sprang down into the room, and to Fandor’s side where he lay stretched helpless on the floor. In a turn of the hand he made fast the knots of his lasso, gagged the young man, then slackened the ligature that was almost strangling him, and this done, fell to taunting his victim with odious mockery. But what a strange voice, toneless, metallic, scarce human, it was that Fantômas adopted!
“Monsieur Fandor, good-day to you! Monsieur Jérôme Fandor, Fantômas presents you his compliments.”
Helpless, gagged, bound hand and foot, Fandor could made no reply whatsoever. Only the eyes were alive in the dead face, and in those eyes Jérôme Fandor concentrated all his power of resolution. With calm intensity he fixed his gaze on his enemy’s face, on the eyes that glittered luminous under the black folds of the impenetrable mask, staring back unflinching.
“He can kill me,” thought the young man, “he shall never think he can frighten me!”
But Fantômas had dropped his bantering tone, and it was in a serious voice he now spoke:
“You were reading La Capitale, so you know the latest news? Interesting, is it not?... Unfortunately, Monsieur Fandor, the fools have thought fit to lay to your account the claim formulated by me against Parliament. At this moment the police are looking for you, tracking you down, determined to arrest you. A pity, Fandor! no, I could never allow that; I like you too well ... In ten minutes officers will be entering this room to arrest you. But never fear, have no anxiety! If I am here, it is simply and solely to help you escape their reach; surely Fantômas owes this much to you, to protect you against your friends, the agents of the law!”
A peal of laughter emphasized the bandit’s last words, and Fandor was still pondering what precisely these expressions signified when Fantômas turned his attention to a task the object of which seemed quite inexplicable. He proceeded to drag out into the middle of the floor a tall stool, and depositing it there, climbed on the top, a manœuvre
which brought him on a level with an enormous Chinese lantern, one of those huge lanterns of wrought iron and coloured glass, of the kind to be seen in the streets of Pekin, and which are sometimes imported from the East to be suspended in the vestibules of houses. By what strange chances the thing had come to be hanging from the ceiling of old Moche’s garret, it would be hard to say. Anyway, Fantômas must long ago have noticed its being there. He leant over towards it, opened the door, and this done, descended from his perch.