So the mad race went on. The competitors were well matched; no doubt one was armed, he had a revolver, but equally without doubt, he dared not use it for fear of making a noise. The thickness of the carpet deadened the sound of the steps, the heavy curtains intercepted the Minister’s frantic appeals for help.
But suddenly, the wretched man, running barefoot as he was, gave a cry of pain, followed by another and another. Next moment he staggered, fell to his knees, cried out again; then tried to rise, but could not struggle to his feet. Blood began to trickle from the soles of his feet, from his thighs, his wrists, the arm on which he had fallen.
A last despairing groan was succeeded by utter silence, the tortured man had fainted. Fantômas, taking advantage of his adversary’s helplessness, had snatched up his cudgel again, and with a yell of triumph, dealt him a stunning blow on the head. Then, calmly walking up to his victim without a vestige of compunction, he lifted him bodily by the shoulders and knees and carried him to his bed, where he laid him on his back.
Ferrand’s nightshirt gaped open over the chest. Fantômas passed the palm of his hand lightly over the damp skin to verify the exact position of the heart that was still beating in hurried jerks. Then, drawing from beneath his cloak a long, fine needle, the cowardly victor plunged it into his victim’s body below the left breast and pierced the heart.
Holding a mirror to the lips, Fantômas made doubly sure that Désiré Ferrand had ceased to breathe. Yes, he was dead, stone dead!
Thereupon, walking quietly over to the switch, he plunged the room in darkness, and in the darkness vanished.
It was now about three o’clock in the morning. The concierge at the door of the Ministry opening on the Rue Cambon was awakened from a sound sleep by someone tapping softly at his window.
“Open, please!” came the usual request, in calm, deliberate accents.
In a thick voice the porter, still half asleep, asked mechanically who it was asking to be let out.
After a moment’s hesitation, the answer came: