“Very well then, I will go up. I shall damned well get out of this idiot of a Fuselier the information I need to make one of the best reports I have ever written. And you know, I am ever so obliged to you for the material you’ve given me!

But, mind you, I am going to put together a bit of copy that will not deal tenderly with our gentlemen of the robe – the lot of you! No, it is a bad, unlucky business right enough, but it is even more funny – it is tragi-comedy!”

“For my part...” began Fandor’s barrister friend.

“Yes, yes! Good day, Pontius Pilate!” cried Fandor.

“I am going up to Fuselier... We must meet tomorrow!” Hastening along the corridors, Fandor reached the office of the examining magistrate.

Fandor had known the magistrate a long while. Was not Fuselier the justice who, with Detective Juve, had had everything to do with the strangely mysterious cases associated with the name of Fantômas? In the course of his various judicial examinations he had often been able to give Fandor information and help. At first hostile to the constant preoccupation of Juve and Fandor – for a long while the arrest of Fantômas was their one and only aim – the young magistrate had gradually come to believe in what had first seemed to him nothing but the detective’s hypothesis.

Open-minded, gifted with an alert intelligence, Fuselier had carefully followed the investigations of Juve and Fandor. He knew every detail, every vicissitude connected with the tracking of this elusive bandit. Since then the magistrate had taken the deepest interest in the pursuit of the criminal.

Thanks to his support, Juve had been enabled to take various measures, otherwise almost impossible, to avoid the many obstacles offered by legal procedure, and risk the striking of many a blow he could not otherwise have ventured on.

Fuselier had a high opinion of Juve, and his attitude to Fandor was sympathetic.

Our journalist was going over the past as he hastened along: Ah, if only Juve were here! If only this loyal servant of Justice, this sincerest of friends, this bravest of the brave, had not been struck down, Fandor would have been full of enthusiasm for the Dollon affair; for its interest was increasing, its mystery deepening! But Fandor was single-handed now! He had had a miraculous escape from the bomb which had blown up Lady Beltham’s house on that tragic day when Juve had all but laid hands on Fantômas!