Fandor’s countenance cleared suddenly as he gave utterance to the idea which had just crossed his mind.

“Juve, do you not think that this mysterious prison warder, called Nibet, might very well be an incarnation of Fantômas, because in so many circumstances...” Juve interrupted Fandor with a gesture of denial.

“No, old fellow,” said he gravely. “Don’t start on that trail, it is assuredly a bad one: Nibet is not Fantômas.

Nibet does not count for much; one might say, for nothing at all; he can scarcely be called a tiny wheel even in the murderous machine driven on its diabolical course by our fiendish enemy... we must look higher than that!”

“Then Thomery?” insisted Fandor, who still held to his idea, and was determined to turn Juve to his way of thinking.

But Juve still said “no!” to that.

“Let us drop Thomery, my lad! As to Fantômas, how do you think we can identify him in this haphazard fashion, basing our idea on pure supposition? For, who is Fantômas – the real Fantômas, among so many probable Fantômas?

“Can you tell me that, Fandor?” continued Juve, who was getting excited at last... “I grant you that we have seen, in the course of our chequered existence, an old gentleman, like Etienne Rambert, a thick-set Englishman like Gurn, a robust fellow like Loupart, a weak and sickly individual like Chaleck. We have identified each one of them, in turn, as Fantômas – and that is all.

“As for seeing Fantômas himself, just as he is, without artificial aid, without paint and powder, without a false beard, without a wig, Fantômas as his face really is under his hooded mask of black – that we have not yet done.

It is that fact which makes our hunt for the villain ceaselessly difficult, often dangerous. Fantômas is always someone, sometimes two persons, never himself!” Juve, once started on this subject, could go on forever, and Fandor did not try to stop him: when the course of conversation led them to talk of Fantômas the two men were as though hypnotised by this enigmatic creature, so well named, for he was really “Fantômatic”, a grim spectral entity – the two friends could not turn their minds to any other subject. They discussed Fantômas up and down, in and out, and round about!

It was getting on towards one o’clock when Fandor saw Juve off as far as the staircase. The detective had resumed his disguise, but neither man was in a joking mood now. Fandor had given Juve an account of the annoying yet rather absurd incident at the convent, when he and Elizabeth were unsuspectingly bidding each other a passionate farewell under the watchful and scandalised eye of a nun!

Fandor had thought it better to take Juve into his confidence on the point, though it went against the grain, for he was shy with regard to his feelings.