Messengers of Evil Part 5

"Here it is...."

The two men ran rapidly through the night's telegrams.

"Deplorably empty!" remarked the editorial secretary. "But where am I to send you?... Ah, now I have it! That article of yours on the rue Norvins affair, yesterday evening, was interesting--it made the others squirm, I know! Isn't there anything more to be got out of that story?"

"What do you want?"

"Can't you stick in something just a little bit scandalous about the Baroness de Vibray? Or about Dollon? About no matter whom, in fact?

After all, it's our one and only crime to-day, and you must put in something under that head!..."

Jerome Fandor seemed to hesitate.

"Would you like me to rake up the past--refer to what happened before?"

"What past?"

"Come now, you must have an inkling of what I refer to!"

"Not I!"

"Ah, my dear fellow, it will not be the first time we have had to mention these personages in our columns!... Just cast your mind back to the Gurn affair!..."

"Ah, the drama in which a great lady was implicated ... to her detriment! Lady ... Lady Beltham?"

"You have got it! These Dollons--Jacques and Elizabeth--did you know it?--happen to be the children of old Dollon, who was murdered in the train--an extraordinary murder!--when on his way to Paris, to give evidence in the Gurn case?"

"Why, of course! I remember perfectly!" declared the editorial secretary: "Dollon, the father, was the Marquise de Langrune's steward!... The old lady who was murdered!... Isn't that so?"

"That's it!... But, after the death of his mistress, he entered the service of the Baroness de Vibray, she who was a.s.sa.s.sinated yesterday!"

"Well, I must say they have not been favoured by fortune," said the secretary jokingly. "But, look here, Fandor--like father, like son, eh?... If this young Dollon has murdered Madame de Vibray, doesn't that make you think that his father was the murderer of the Marquise de Langrune?"

Jerome Fandor shook his head:

"No, old boy, yesterday's crime was ordinary, even common-place, but the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Marquise de Langrune, on the contrary, gave the police no end of bother."

"They did not find out anything, did they?"

"Why, yes!... Don't you remember?... Naturally enough, it must all seem rather remote to you, but I have all the details as clearly in mind as if they had happened only yesterday.... The Gurn affair was one of the first I had a hand in, with Juve ... it was in connection with that very affair I made my start here on _La Capitale_."[2]

[Footnote 2: See _Fantomas_.]

Fandor grew pale:

"And you were jolly proud of it, eh, Fandor?... Good Heavens, how you did hold forth about this Juve! And you regularly fed us up with this villain, so mysterious, so extraordinary, who was never run to earth, could not be captured, was capable of the most inhuman cruelties, capable of devising the most unimaginable tricks and stratagems--this Fantomas!"

Fandor grew pale:

"My dear fellow," said he, "never speak sneeringly or jokingly of Fantomas!... No doubt it is taken for granted, by the public at any rate, that Fantomas is an invention of Juve and myself: that Fantomas never existed!... And that because this monster, who is a man of genius, has never been identified; because not a soul has been able to lay hands on him ...; and because, as you know, this fruitless pursuit has cost poor Juve his life...."

"The truth is, this famous detective died a foul death!"

"No! You are mistaken! Juve died on the field of honour! When, after a terribly difficult and dangerous investigation, he succeeded (by this time it was no longer the Gurn-Fantomas affair, but that of the boulevard Inkermann at Neuilly) in cornering Fantomas, he was well aware that he risked his life in entering the bandit's abode. What happened was that the villain found means to blow up the house, and to bury Juve underneath the ruins.[3] Fantomas has proved the stronger; but, according to my ideas, Juve has had, none the less, the finest death he could desire--death in the midst of the fight--a useful death!"

[Footnote 3: See _The Exploits of Juve_.]

"Useful? In what way?..."

"My dear fellow," cried Fandor, in a tone of vigorous denial, "in the opinion of all unprejudiced minds, the death of Juve has proved, proved up to the hilt, the existence of Fantomas.... More, it has forced this villain to disappear; it has restored peace, tranquillity to society.... At the cost of his life, Juve has scored a final triumph, he has deprived Fantomas of the power to do harm--pared his claws in fact."

"The truth is he is never mentioned now by a soul ... for all that, Fandor, only to see you smile! Why--," and the editorial secretary shook a threatening finger at his colleague: "I'll wager you still believe in Fantomas!... That one fine day you will write us a rattling good article, announcing some fresh Fantomas crime!"

Jerome Fandor made no direct reply to this--it was useless to try and convince those who had not closely followed the records of crimes perpetrated during recent years: you could not make them believe in the existence of Fantomas. Fandor _knew_; but, Juve dead, was there another soul who could know the true facts?

All he said was:

"Well, my dear fellow, this does not tell us what we are to fill up the paper with now!... If the doings connected with Fantomas are frightful, rousing our feelings in the highest degree, I repeat that yesterday's crime bears no resemblance to them: we can put in a paragraph or so--that is all!"

"No way, is there, of compromising anyone with our Baroness de Vibray?"

"I don't think so! It's a perfectly common-place affair. An elderly woman patronises a young painter, whose mistress she may or may not be, and she ends up by getting herself a.s.sa.s.sinated when the young man imagines he is mentioned in her will."

"Ah! good! Well, I think you will have to fall back on the opening of the artesian well. That suit you?"

"Oh, quite all right!... If you like I can give you my copy in half an hour. I know who are going to speak at the inauguration ceremony, and I can add names this evening! You know I am a bit of a specialist as regards reports written beforehand!"

Fandor had got well on with his article: at the rate he was going he would have finished that morning, he thought with pleasure, and would have a free afternoon. Just then an office boy appeared:

"Monsieur Fandor, you are being asked for at the telephone."

Like most journalists, Fandor was accustomed to reply in nine cases out of ten, in similar cases, that he was not to be found. On this occasion, however, some interior prompting made him say:

"I will come."

A few minutes later Fandor went up to the editorial secretary:

"Look here, old fellow, something unexpected has happened.... I must go to the Palais de Justice ... you don't want me for anything else this morning, do you?"

"No, go along! But what's up?"

"Oh ... this Jacques Dollon, you know, the a.s.sa.s.sin of the rue Norvins?

Well, this imbecile has gone and hanged himself in his cell!"

At the exit door of _La Capitale_, in the noisy rue Montmartre, crowded with costermongers' barrows, Jerome Fandor hailed a taxi.

"To the Palais!"