“According to that, Charles Rambert is innocent?”
“I don’t say that.”
“What then? I suppose you don’t think the father was the murderer?”
“The hypothesis is not absurd! But there! What is the real truth of the whole affair? That is what I am wondering all the time. That murder is never out of my head; it interests me more and more every day. Oh, yes, I’ve got lots of ideas, but they are all utterly vague and improbable: sometimes my imagination seems to be running away with me.”
He stopped, and M. Fuselier wagged a mocking finger at him.
“Juve,” he said, “I charge you formally with attempting to implicate Fantômas in the murder of the Marquise de Langrune!”
The detective replied in the same tone of raillery.
“Guilty, my lord!”
“Good lord, man!” the magistrate exclaimed, “Fantômas is a perfect obsession with you,” and as Juve acquiesced with a laugh the magistrate dropped his bantering tone. “Shall I tell you something, Juve? I too am beginning to have an obsession for that fantastic miscreant! And what I want to know is why you have not come to me before to ask me about that sensational robbery at the Royal Palace Hotel?”
“The robbery from Princess Sonia Danidoff?”
“Yes: the Fantômas robbery!”
“Fantômas, eh?” Juve protested. “That remains to be seen.”
“Why, man,” M. Fuselier retorted, “you have heard that detail about the card the man left, haven’t you?—the visiting card that was blank when the Princess found it, and on which the name of Fantômas afterwards became visible?”
“There’s no Fantômas about that, in my opinion.”
“Why not?”
“Well, it isn’t one of Fantômas’ little ways to leave clear traces behind him. One might as well picture him committing robbery or murder in a cap with a neat little band round it: ‘Fantômas and Co.’ He might even add ‘Discretion and Dispatch!’ No, it’s most unlikely.”
“You don’t think Fantômas capable of throwing down his glove to the police in the shape of some such material proof of his identity?”
“I always base my arguments on the balance of probabilities,” Juve replied. “What emerges from this Royal Palace story is that some common hotel thief conceived the ingenious idea of casting suspicion on Fantômas: it was just a trick to mislead the police: at least, that is my opinion.”
But M. Fuselier declined to be convinced.
“No, you are wrong, Juve: it was no common hotel thief who stole Mme. Van den Rosen’s necklace and Princess Sonia’s hundred and twenty thousand francs; the prize was big enough to appeal to Fantômas: and the amazing audacity of the crime is suggestive too. Just think what coolness the man must have had to be able to paralyse the Princess’s power of resistance when she tried to call for help: and also to get clear away in spite of the hosts of servants in the hotel and all the precautions taken!”
“Tell me all about the robbery, M. Fuselier,” said Juve.
The magistrate sat down at his desk and took up the notes he had made in the course of his official enquiry that day. He told Juve everything he had been able to elicit.
“The most amazing thing to me,” he said in conclusion, “is the way the fellow, when he had once got out of Princess Sonia’s room, contrived to get into the lift, shed his evening dress, get into livery, and make his first attempt to escape. When the hall porter stopped him he did not lose his head, but got into the lift again, sent that flying up to the top of the hotel with the clothes that would have betrayed him, calmly presented himself before Muller, the night watchman, and contrived to be told to go for the police, ran down the stairs again, and took advantage of the night watchman’s telephoning to the hall porter to get the latter to open the door for him, and so marched off as easily as you please. A man who kept his nerve like that and could make such amazing use of every circumstance, who was so quick and daring, and who was capable of carrying through such a difficult comedy in the middle of the general uproar, richly deserves to be taken for Fantômas!”
Juve sat in deep consideration of the whole story.
“That isn’t what interests me most,” he said at last. “His escape from the hotel might have been effected by any clever thief. What I think more remarkable is the means he took to prevent the Princess from screaming when he was just leaving her rooms: that really was masterly. Instead of trying to get her as far away as possible and shut her up in her bedroom, to take her with him to the very door opening on to the corridor, where the faintest cry might have involved the worst possible consequences, and to be sure that the terror he had inspired would prevent her from uttering that cry, to be able to assume that the victim was so overwrought that she would make no effort at all and could do nothing—that is really very good indeed: quite admirable psychology! Fine work!”
“So you see there are some unusual features in the case,” said M. Fuselier complacently: “this, for instance: why do you suppose the fellow stayed such a long time with the Princess and went through all that comedy business in the bathroom? Don’t forget that she came in late, and it is extremely probable that he might have finished his job before she returned.”
Juve passed his hand through his hair, a characteristic trick when his mind was working.
“I can imagine only one answer to that question, M. Fuselier. But you have inspected the scene of the crime: tell me first, where do you think the rascal was hidden?”
“Oh, I can answer that definitely. The Princess’s suite of rooms ends in the bathroom, you know, and
