Part 10 (1/2)
”But I am mad!... mad! It cannot be Dollon!... Dollon is dead--dead as a door nail--dead beyond dispute, because fifty men have seen him dead; dead, because the Depot doctors have certified his death!”
Daylight was fading; evening was coming on; Fandor was still turning the whole affair over in his mind. Every now and again he murmured:
”Fantomas! Fantomas has to do with this extraordinary, this mysterious affair! Fantomas is in it!... Fantomas!”
IV
A SURPRISING ITINERARY
Jerome Fandor had pa.s.sed a bad night!
Visions of horror had continually arisen in his troubled mind. Between nightmare after nightmare he had heard all the horrors of the night sound out in the darkness and the glimmering dawn. Then he had fallen into a heavy sleep, which had left him on awaking broken with fatigue.
He had given himself a cold douche, and this had calmed his nerves; then he had dressed quickly. When eight o'clock struck he was at his writing-table, thinking things over:
”It's no laughing matter. I thought at first that the Dollon affair was quite ordinary; but I am mistaken. The warning I received last night leaves me no doubts on that head. Since the guilty person thinks it necessary to ask me to keep quiet, it is evident he fears my intervention; if he is afraid of that it is because it must be hurtful to him; if disastrous to him, a criminal, it is evident that it must be useful to honest folk. My duty, then, is to go straight ahead at all costs....”
There was another motive besides this of duty which incited him to follow more closely the vicissitudes of the rue Norvins drama, a motive still indefinite, vague, but nevertheless terribly strong....
Jerome Fandor had sworn to Elizabeth Dollon that he would get at the truth.
He recalled the girl's entreaty, her emotion; and when he closed his eyes, now and again, he seemed to see before him the tall, graceful, fair and fascinating sister of the vanished artist.... All Fandor would admit to himself was a chivalrous feeling towards her--Elizabeth Dollon was worth putting himself out for--that was all!
Our journalist spent the entire morning seated at his writing-table, his head between his hands, smoking cigarette after cigarette, arranging his plans for investigating the Dollon case:
”What I have to find out is how the dead man left the Depot. It is the first discovery to be made, the first impossibility to be explained--yes, and how am I to set about it?”
Suddenly Fandor jumped up, marched rapidly up and down his room, whistled a few bars of a popular melody, and in his exuberant gaiety attempted an operatic air in a voice deplorably out of tune.
”There are eighty chances out of a hundred that I shall not succeed,”
cried he; ”but that still leaves me twenty chances of arriving at a satisfactory result--let us make the attempt!”
As Fandor was hurrying off, he called to the portress in pa.s.sing:
”Madame Oudry, I don't know whether I shall be back this evening or no.
Perhaps I may have to leave Paris for awhile, so would you be kind enough to pay particular attention to any letters that may come for me--be very particular about them, please!”
Fandor went off. A thought struck him. He turned back. He had something more to say to the good woman:
”I forgot to ask you whether anyone called to see me yesterday afternoon!”
”No, Monsieur Fandor, no one!”
”Good! If by any chance a messenger should bring a letter for me, look very carefully at him, Madame Oudry. I have a colleague or two who are playing a joke on me, and I should not be sorry to get even with them!”
This time Fandor really went off, having set his portress on the alert.