“There, Monsieur Fandor,” he announced, “inside there, you’ll be in the best boxes for seeing the play—I may say in the grated boxes, for I’m pretty confident nobody will see you. One can see from within outwards, but not the reverse way.”
With a catlike dexterity, the man slipped off the long, black coat enveloping him in its folds, and without seeming to make any special effort, took up Fandor on his shoulders, mounted the stool once more, and deposited the young man in the interior of the lantern!
“Now, Mr. Journalist, I refasten the door, by way of precaution, but I give you full leave to look out of the window to see what happens. You’ll see, not a doubt of it, the way Fantômas fights for his friends, and even for you, his enemy!”
Yes, he would look, no fear of that—and Fandor, still bound and ensconced inside the Chinese lantern, into which Fantômas had forced him, his limbs cramped, his flesh bruised by the cords, half stilling, glued his face to the painted panes of his extraordinary prison.
Jumping down again, Fantômas set to work with the very utmost rapidity. He pushed back the stool against the wall. He hauled up against the door a huge trunk stuffed full of papers to reinforce the crazy panels. From his pocket he extracted a screwdriver, and in a very few minutes had taken off the lock. Then, kneeling against the trunk, he produced a revolver, the nickel-plated barrel of which glittered in the moonlight, and passing the muzzle through the loophole where the lock had been torn away, waited events.
Minute after minute passed in deadly silence. Presently, as often happens in the most tragic situations, Fandor in the midst of all his poignant anxieties, began to be tormented by yet another apprehension—a fantastic fear that the lantern in which Fantômas had imprisoned him was not strong enough to bear his weight.
“I’m going to come tumbling down!” thought the journalist, “to come tumbling down directly, with a crash of broken glass and an appalling rattle. That’s something Fantômas has failed to foresee. Pray God, it might upset his plans!”
But the lantern held firm, and by the time he had been a quarter of an hour shut up in his odd prison-cell, Fandor had ceased to give a thought to the possibility of taking a fall. His whole attention was again concentrated on Fantômas; but the brigand remained perfectly still and seemed to have forgotten the other’s very existence. On his knees, his revolver all the time pointed through the improvised loophole, he was evidently watching for the arrival of someone or something.
And it was in a flash, without his having so much as given a start, or moved a muscle, or uttered an exclamation, that the sharp explosion of his weapon rang out, followed by the dull thud of a body dropping!
Instantly the whole house resounded with cries of pain, shouts and screams and the din of tramping feet. “Go on! break in the door!” Fandor heard a voice yelling. Next moment two more shots tore the air, two other voices bellowed in agony, two more wounded men sank heavily to the ground; then a mighty thrust shook the door and overset the trunk.