Fantômas by Pierre Souvestre (romantic love story reading txt) 📖

"My first point, gentlemen, is this: the murderer of the Marquise de Langrune and the man who robbed Mme. Van den Rosen and Princess Sonia Danidoff are one and the same person.

"That is shown beyond dispute by tests made in the two cases with a Bertillon dynamometer, an instrument of the nicest exactitude, which proved that the same individual operated in both cases; that is one point made good. And next, the man who robbed Mme. Van den Rosen and Princess Sonia is Gurn. That is proved to equal demonstration by the fact that the burglar burned his hand while engaged upon his crime, and that Gurn has a scar on his hand which betrays him as the criminal; the scar is faint now perhaps, but I can testify that it was very obvious at the time of a disturbance which occurred at a low café named the Saint-Anthony's Pig, where, accompanied by detective Lemaroy, who is still in hospital for treatment for injuries received on that occasion, I attempted, and failed, to arrest this man Gurn.

"Thus, gentlemen, I prove that the Langrune and Danidoff cases are the work of but one man, and that man, Gurn.

"I come to another point. As you know, the murder of the Marquise de Langrune was attended by some strange circumstances. At the inquest it was proved that the murderer most probably got into the house from outside, opening the front door with a skeleton key, and that he obtained admission into the bedroom of the Marquise, not by burglarious means—I lay insistence upon that—but by the simple means of her having opened the door to him, which she did on the strength of his name, and, finally, that if robbery was the motive of the crime, the nature of the robbery remained a mystery.

"Now I have ascertained, gentlemen, and—if, as I shall ask you presently, you decide to have an adjournment and a supplementary investigation—I shall be able to prove two important facts. The first is that the Marquise had in her possession a lottery ticket which had just won a large first prize; this ticket had been sent to her by M. Etienne Rambert. This ticket was not found at the time, but it was subsequently traced to a person, who for the moment has utterly disappeared, who declared that it was given to him by M. Etienne Rambert. And it is further noteworthy that M. Etienne Rambert seemed to be in greater funds from that time. The second fact I have ascertained is that, although M. Etienne Rambert pretended to get into a first-class carriage of a slow train at the gare d'Orsay, he most certainly was not in that train between Vierzon and Limoges: I can, if you wish, call a witness who inspected all the compartments of that carriage, and can prove that he was not there.

"The probable, almost certain, inference is that M. Etienne Rambert got into that slow train at the gare d'Orsay for the definite purpose of establishing an alibi, and then got out of it on the other side, and entered an express that was going in the same direction, and in front of the slow train.

"You may remember that it was shown that all trains stopped at the mouth of the Verrières tunnel, near Beaulieu, and that it was possible for a man to get out of the express, commit the crime and then return—I would remind you of the footprints found on the embankment—and get into the slow train which followed the express at an interval of three hours and a half, and get out of that train at Verrières station. The passenger who did that, was the criminal, and it was M. Etienne Rambert.

"As I have already proved that it was Gurn who murdered the Marquise de Langrune, it seems to follow necessarily that M. Etienne Rambert must be Gurn!"

Juve paused to make sure that the jury had followed his deductions and taken all his points. He proceeded, in the most tense hush.

"We have just identified Gurn with Rambert and proved that Rambert-Gurn is guilty of the Beltham and Langrune murders, and the robbery from Mme. Van den Rosen and Princess Sonia Danidoff. There remains the murder of the steward, Dollon.

"Gentlemen, when Gurn was arrested on the single charge of the murder of Lord Beltham, you will readily believe that his one fear was that all these other crimes, for which I have just shown him to be responsible, might be brought up against him. I was just then on the very point of finding out the truth, but I had not yet done so. A single link was missing in the chain which would connect Gurn with Rambert, and identify the murderer of Lord Beltham as the author of the other crimes. That link was some common clue, or, better still, some object belonging to the murderer of Lord Beltham, which had been forgotten and left on the scene of the Langrune murder.

"That object I found. It was a fragment of a map, picked up in a field near the château of Beaulieu, in the path which Etienne Rambert must have followed from the railway line; it was a fragment cut out of a large ordnance map, and the rest of the map I found in Gurn's rooms, thereby identifying Gurn with Rambert.

"Gentlemen, the fragment of map which was picked up in the field was left in the custody of the steward Dollon. That unfortunate man was summoned to Paris by M. Germain Fuselier. There was only one person who had any interest in preventing Dollon from coming, and that person was Gurn, or it would be better to say Rambert-Gurn; and you know that Dollon was killed before he reached M. Germain Fuselier. Is it necessary to declare that it was Gurn, Rambert-Gurn, who killed him?"

Juve said the last words in tones of such earnest and solemn denunciation that the truth of them seemed beyond all doubt. And yet he read incredulous surprise in the attitude of the jury. From the body of the court, too, a murmur rose that was not sympathetic. Juve realised that the sheer audacity of his theory must come as a shock, and he knew how difficult it would be to convince anyone who had not followed every detail of the case as he himself had done.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I know that my assertions about the multiple crimes of this man Gurn must fill you with amazement. That does not dismay me. There is one other name which I must mention, perhaps to silence your objections, perhaps to show the vast importance I attach to the deductions which I have just been privileged to detail to you. This is the last thing I have to say:

"The man who has been capable of assuming in turn the guise of Gurn, and of Etienne Rambert, and of the man of fashion at the Royal Palace Hotel: who has had the genius to devise and to accomplish such terrible crimes in incredible circumstances, and to combine audacity with skill, and a conception of evil with a pretence of respectability; who has been able to play the Proteus eluding all the efforts of the police;—this man, I say, ought not to be called Gurn! He is, and can be, no other than Fantômas!"

The detective suddenly broke off from his long statement, and the syllables of the melodramatic name seemed to echo through the court, and, taken up by all those present, to swell again into a dread murmur.

"Fantômas! He is Fantômas!"

For a space of minutes judges and jury seemed to be absorbed in their own reflections; and then the President of the Court made an abrupt gesture of violent dissent.

"M. Juve, you have just enunciated such astounding facts, and elaborated such an appalling indictment against this man Gurn, that I have no doubt the Public Prosecutor will ask for a supplementary examination, which this Court will be happy to grant, if he considers your arguments worth consideration. But are they? I will submit three objections." Juve bowed coldly. "First of all, M. Juve, do you believe that a man could assume disguise with the cleverness that you have just represented? M. Etienne Rambert is a man of sixty; Gurn is thirty-five. M. Rambert is an elderly man, slow of movement, and the man who robbed Princess Sonia Danidoff was a nimble, very active man."

"I have anticipated that objection, sir," Juve said with a smile, "by saying that Gurn is Fantômas! Nothing is impossible for Fantômas!"

"Suppose that is true," said the President with a wave of his hand, "but what have you to say to this: you charge Etienne Rambert with the murder of Mme. de Langrune; but do you not know that Etienne Rambert's son, Charles Rambert, who, according to the generally received, and most plausible, opinion was the real murderer of the Marquise, committed suicide from remorse? If Etienne Rambert was the guilty party, Charles Rambert would not have taken his own life."

Juve's voice shook a little.

"You would be quite right, sir, if again it were not necessary to add that Etienne Rambert is Gurn—that is to say, Fantômas! Is it not a possible hypothesis that Fantômas might have affected the mind of that lad: have suggested to him that it was he who committed the crime in a period of somnambulism: and at last have urged him to suicide? Do you not know the power of suggestion?"

"Suppose that also is true," said the President with another vague wave of his hand. "I will only put two incontestable facts before you. You accuse Etienne Rambert of being Gurn, and Etienne Rambert was lost in the wreck of the Lancaster; you also accuse Gurn of having murdered Dollon, and at the time that murder was committed Gurn was in solitary confinement in the Santé prison."

This time the detective made a sign as if of defeat.

"If I have waited until to-day to make the statement you have just listened to, it was obviously because hitherto I have had no absolute proofs, but merely groups of certainties. I spoke to-day, because I could keep silent no longer; if I am still without some explanations in detail, I am sure I shall have them some day. Everything comes to light sooner or later. And as to the two facts you have just put before me, I would reply that there is no proof that M. Rambert was lost in the wreck of the Lancaster: it has not been legally established that he ever was on board that ship. Of course, I know his name was in the list of passengers, but a child could have contrived a device of that sort. Besides, all the circumstances attending that disaster are still an utter mystery. My belief is that a Fantômas would be perfectly capable of causing an explosion on a ship and blowing up a hundred and fifty people, if thereby he could dispose of one of his identities, especially such a terribly compromising identity as that of Etienne Rambert."

The President dismissed the theory with a word.

"Pure romance!" he said. "And what about the murder of Dollon? I should like, further, to remind you that the fragment of map which, according to you, was the real reason for this man's death, was found on his body, and does not correspond in the least with the hole cut in the map you found in Gurn's rooms."

"As for that," Juve said with a smile, "the explanation is obvious. If Gurn, whom I charge with the murder of Dollon, had been content merely to abstract the real fragment, he would so to speak have set his signature to the crime. But he was much too clever for