“It’s true, Juve! You were there yourself, and no one penetrated your disguise and discovered who you really were! My last argument is, therefore, worthless... but I fancy your attitude, your way of receiving my deductions, hides something. Have you got new information? Fresh facts to go on? You know who stole the jewels? Good Heavens! How aggravating you are, Juve! But this time you will simply have to agree with me! Listen!... When we first met, after our long separation, you admitted that one thing bothered you – the ease with which your nefarious band of villains of the Isle of the Cité were able to get rid of considerable sums of false money; and you were trying to find their market – by what means these wretches were able to rid themselves of the coin; when, apparently, they were not acquainted with any influential people in the business world, or in the circles of high finance. Well, I have discovered their channel of distribution – it is none other than the proprietor of this house property, the ground floor and basement of which is occupied by Mother Toulouche – obviously it is Thomery!”

“No!”

Fandor lifted hands to heaven in despairing fashion and sat silent. He was deeply mortified. There was a long pause, during which Juve calmly smoked on. At last, Fandor asked in a hopeless sort of tone:

“Well? What do you think?”

Slowly, as if awakening from a dream, Juve began to speak. “We know nothing for certain so far, my lad, except that the Baroness de Vibray has committed suicide; that Princess Sonia Danidoff has recovered from the shock of her jewel robbery and is to marry Thomery next month... there is nothing extraordinary in that... just as there is, perhaps, nothing surprising or extraordinary in the series of robberies, nor even in the crimes occupying our attention at the present moment!”

Fandor jumped up. “Nothing!” he shouted. “You are joking, Juve! It is absurd what you say! Do just think a minute, my dear fellow! Why all these affairs are closely connected, from the Jacques Dollon affair, up to... up to...” Fandor stopped short. Juve, who had been listening to him with seeming inattention, now appeared wholly anxious to hear the end of the sentence: he stared hard at Fandor.“Go on! Go on! I want to make you say it!” And Fandor, as though in spite of himself, finished with: “Up to Fantômas!”

“Yes, at last we have got it!” cried Juve.

The two men gazed at each other; once more, the logic of deductions, the chain of circumstances had inevitably led them to pronounce the name of the formidable bandit, of whom they could not think without a shudder; whose memory they could not evoke without immediately feeling themselves surrounded by sinister gloom, lost in a thick fog of mystery, a delirium of all that was strange, sinister, occult!