But, when the detective arrived at the entrance gateway of the house, he found the policemen brought by Monsieur Havard chatting away quietly... they had not seen a thing... the street was deserted. In a split second Fantômas had disappeared, vanished into thin air... the ever-elusive one had got away again: once more he had escaped those who were pursuing him with such keen determination!

“It is very simple,” explained Juve to Monsieur Havard and Fandor, who seemed deprived of speech. “Yes, it is simple enough; I guessed it at once when I saw you fall, Monsieur Havard, just after Fantômas had pressed the woodwork.”

“He pressed an electric button, did he not?”

“Yes, Fandor, he unleashed a high-voltage current!...

The wretch must have placed powerful electro-magnets under the floor... and the moment he realised that it was impossible to brazen it out any longer – was on the very point of being arrested – he fired up the current... we three were nailed to the ground by the attraction exerted by these electro-magnets on the metal heels of our shoes – he, Fantômas, was then free to cut and run for it – Fantômas, whose shoes must certainly have had rubber soles especially fitted.” Monsieur Havard and Fandor made no answer to this.

To have held Fantômas at their mercy, if only for a minute; to have believed that they were going to lay hands on the master of atrocity, at last; and then to have seen him slip through their fingers – the thought of this almost brought tears to their eyes: they were in a state of the deepest despondency.

“There’s a curse on us!” cried Fandor. “But this time, at any rate, we have nothing to reproach ourselves with! We could not have foreseen that cowardly trick!” Then, to himself in a low tone, he added:

“Poor Elizabeth!... How are we to tell her that we have let her brother’s murderer escape?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT : COURAGE

“Care for some more chicken?”

“No thanks: I am not hungry.”

“But you should eat all the same!”

“Are you eating anything yourself?”

“Faith, I am not!”

“Well then?”

In the private room of the Fat Pheasant restaurant, where Juve and Fandor were dining, silence again fell. The two men sat motionless, gazing into space. They neither wished to eat food nor do anything at all. They were depressed to the last degree; they felt baffled; they were sick of every mortal thing!

All of a sudden, Fandor burst into tears. Juve, looking at his dear young friend in such grief, bit his lip; his face with wrinkled brow wore a dejected, worried look.

An hour or two before that, Fandor, on returning to his flat, had found a black-edged envelope: the address in Elizabeth Dollon’s handwriting. Fandor had opened it with fast-beating heart and trembling hand!

For these past days, an evil Fate seemed relentlessly pursuing them. Now he feared to read of some fresh catastrophe.