“I swear to you I will get at the truth,” was Fandor’s parting promise. The cab had disappeared, but the journalist stood motionless, absorbed in his reflections. At last, uttering his thoughts aloud, he said:

“If the Baroness do Vibray has written that she has killed herself, then she has killed herself, and Dollon is innocent. But it’s true the letter may be fictitious... therefore we must put it aside – we have no guarantee as to its authenticity... Here’s the problem : Jacques Dollon is dead, and yet he has escaped from the Dépôt! Yes, but how?” Jérôme Fandor headed off in the direction of the offices of La Capitale so absorbed in thought that he bumped into passers-by, oblivious to the angry glances hurled at him.

“Jacques Dollon, dead, has escaped from the Dépôt!” He repeated this improbable statement, so absurd, so obviously incorrect; repeated it to the point of nausea.

“Jacques Dollon is dead, and he has got away from the Dépôt!”

Then, in an illuminating flash, he perceived the solution to this apparently insoluble problem:

“A mystery such as this is incomprehensible, inexplicable, impossible – except in connection with one man! There is only one individual in the world capable of making a dead man seem to be alive after his death – and that individual is – Fantômas! ”

To form this conclusion was to give himself a jolting shock.... Since the disappearance of Juve, he had never had occasion to suspect the presence, the intervention of Fantômas in connection with any of the crimes he had investigated as reporter and student of human nature.

Fantômas! The sound of that name evoked the worst horrors! Fantômas! This terrorist, this über-criminal who has never shrunk from any cruelty, any horror – Fantômas is evil personified!

Fantômas! He stops at nothing!

Pronouncing these syllables of evil omen, Fandor lived over again all the extraordinary, improbable, impossible things that had really happened, and had put him on the watch for this terrifying assassin.

Fantômas!

It was certain that to whatever degree he had participated in the assassination of the Baroness de Vibray, one must not be astonished at anything; neither at anything inconceivable, nor at any mysterious details connected with the murder.

Fantômas!

He was the daring criminal – daring beyond all bounds of credibility. And whatever might be the dexterity, the ingenuity, the ability, the devotion of those who were pursuing him, such were his tricks, such his craft and cunning, such the fertility of his invention, so well conceived his devices, so great his audacity, that there were grounds for fearing he would never be brought to justice, never be punished for his abominable crimes.

Fantômas!