XIX. JEROME FANDOR
Whistling a quick-step, sure sign with him of a light heart, Juve openedthe door of the little room where he had left Charles Rambert, andlooked at the sleeping lad.
"It's a fine thing to be young," he remarked to the man he had left onguard; "that boy plunges into the wildest adventures and shaves thescaffold by an inch, and yet after one late night he sleeps aspeacefully as any chancellor of the Legion of Honour!" He shook the ladwith a friendly hand. "Get up, lazy-bones! It's ten o'clock: high timefor me to carry you off."
"Where to?" the unhappy boy asked, rubbing his eyes.
"There's no doubt about inquisitiveness being your besetting sin," Juvereplied cryptically. "Well, we've got a quarter of an hour's drive infront of us. But you're not going to prison; I'm going to take you homewith me!"
* * * * *
Juve had taken off his collar and tie and put on an old jacket, had seta great bowl of bread and milk in front of Charles Rambert, and wasleisurely enjoying his own breakfast.
"I didn't want to answer any questions just now," he said, "because Ihate talking in cabs where I have to sit by a man's side, and can't seehim or hear half he says. But now that we are snug and comfortable here,I've no right to keep you waiting any longer, and I'll give you a bit ofgood news."
"Snug" and "comfortable" were the right words with which to describeJuve's private abode. The detective had attained an honourable andlucrative position in his profession, and, exposed as he was in thecourse of his work to all manner of dangers and privations, hadcompensated himself by making an entirely satisfactory, if notluxurious, nest where he could rest after his labours.
When he had finished his breakfast he lighted a big cigar and sank intoan easy chair, crossing his hands behind his head. He turned a steadygaze upon Charles Rambert, who was still completely puzzled, and halffrightened by this sudden amiability, and did not know whether he was aprisoner or not.
"I will give you a bit of good news; that is, that you are innocent ofthe Langrune affair when you were Charles Rambert, and innocent also ofthe Danidoff affair, when you were Mademoiselle Jeanne. I need not sayanything about the scrap last night, in which you played a still moredistinguished part."
"Why tell me that?" asked Charles Rambert nervously. "Of course I know Idid not rob Princess Sonia Danidoff; but how did you recognise me lastnight, and how did you find out that I was Mademoiselle Jeanne?"
Juve smiled, and shook back a lock of hair that was falling over hiseyes.
"Listen, my boy: do you suppose that thundering blow you dealt theexcellent Henri Verbier when he was making love to Mademoiselle Jeanne,could fail to make me determined to find out who that young lady was whohad the strength of a man?"
The allusion made Charles Rambert most uneasy.
"But that does not explain how you recognised me in Paul to-night. Irecognised you in Henri Verbier at the hotel, but I had no idea that itwas you last night."
"That's nothing," said Juve with a shake of the head. "And you mayunderstand once for all that when I have once looked anybody square inthe face, he needs to be an uncommonly clever fellow to escape meafterwards by means of any disguise. You don't know how to make up, butI do; and that's why I took you in and you did not take me in."
"What makes you believe I did not rob Princess Sonia Danidoff?" CharlesRambert asked after a pause. "I am quite aware that everything points tomy having been the thief."
"Not quite everything," Juve answered gently. "There are one or twothings you don't know, and I'll tell you one of them. The Princess wasrobbed by the same man who robbed Mme. Van den Rosen, wasn't she? Well,Mme. Van den Rosen was the victim of a burglary: some of the furniturein her room was broken into, and the tests I made this morning with thedynamometer proved to me that you are not strong enough to have causedthose fractures."
"Not strong enough?" Charles Rambert ejaculated.
"No. I told you at the time that your innocence would be proved if youwere strong enough, but I said that to prevent you from playing tricksand not putting out all your strength. As a matter of fact it was yourcomparative weakness that saved you. The dynamometer tests and thefigures I obtained just now prove absolutely that you are innocent ofthe Van den Rosen robbery and, consequently, of the robbery from SoniaDanidoff."
Again the lad reflected for a minute or two.
"But you didn't know who I was when you came to the hotel, did you? Andtherefore had no suspicion that I was Charles Rambert? That's true,isn't it? How did you find out? I was supposed to be dead."
"That was a child's job," Juve replied. "I got the anthropometricrecords of the body that had been buried as yours, and I planned to getsymmetrical photographs of you in your character of Mademoiselle Jeanne,as I did of you to-day at head-quarters. My first job was to lay handsupon Mademoiselle Jeanne, and I very soon found her, as I expected,turned into a man again, and living in the most disreputable company. Imade any number of enquiries, and when I went to the Saint-Anthony's Piglast evening I knew that it was some unknown person who had been buriedin your stead; that Paul was Mademoiselle Jeanne; and that MademoiselleJeanne was Charles Rambert. It was my intention to arrest you, and toascertain definitely by means of the dynamometer that you were innocentof the Langrune and the Danidoff crimes."
"What you tell me about the dynamometer explains how you know I am notthe man who committed the robbery at the hotel, but what clears me inyour eyes of the Langrune murder?"
"Bless my soul!" Juve retorted, "you are arguing as if you wanted toprove you were guilty. Well, my boy, it's the same story as the other.The man who murdered the Marquise de Langrune smashed things, and thedynamometer has proved that you are not strong enough to have been theman."
"And suppose I had been mad at the time," Charles Rambert said, hishesitation and his tone betraying his anxiety about the answer, "could Ihave been strong enough then? Might I have committed these crimeswithout knowing anything about it?"
But Juve shook his head.
"I know: you are referring to your mother, and are haunted by an ideathat through some hereditary taint you might be a somnambulist and havedone these things in your sleep. Come, Charles Rambert, finish yourbreakfast and put all that out of your head. To begin with, you wouldnot have been strong enough, even then; and in the next place there isnothing at present to show that you are mad, nor even that your poormother---- But I need not go on: I've got some rather odd notions onthat subject."
"Then, M. Juve----"
"Drop the 'monsieur'; call me 'Juve.'"
"Then, if you know that I am innocent, you can go and tell my father? Ihave nothing to fear? I can reappear in my own name?"
Juve looked at the lad with an ironical smile.
"How you go ahead!" he exclaimed. "Please understand that although I dobelieve you are innocent, I am almost certainly the only person whodoes. And unfortunately I have not yet got any evidence that would besufficiently convincing and certain to put the persuasion of your guiltout of your father's head, or anybody else's. This is not the time foryou to reappear: it would simply mean that you would be arrested by somedetective who knows less than I do, and thrown into prison as youconfidently expected to be this morning."
"Then what is to become of me?"
"What do you think of doing yourself?"
"Going to see my father."
"No, no," Juve protested once more. "I tell you not to go. It would bestupid and utterly useless. Wait a few days, a few weeks if need be.When I have put my hand on Fantomas' shoulder, I will be the very firstto take you to your father, and proclaim your innocence."
"Why wait until Fantomas is arrested?" Charles Rambert asked, the meresound of the name seeming to wake all his former enthusiasm on thesubject of that famous criminal.
"Because if you are innocent of the charge brought against you, it isextremely likely that Fantomas is the guilty party. When he is laid bythe heels you will be able to protest your innocence without any fear."
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Charles Rambert sat silent for some minutes, musing on the odd chance ofdestiny which required him to make his own return to normal lifecontingent on the arrest of a mysterious criminal, who was merelysuspected, and had never been seen nor discovered.
"What do you advise me to do?" he asked presently.
The detective got up and began to pace the room.
"Well," he began, "the first fact is that I am interested in you, andthe next is, that while I was having that rough-and-tumble last nightwith that scoundrel in the supper-room, I thought for a minute or twothat it was all up with me: your chipping in saved my life. On the otherhand I may be said to have saved your life now by ascertaining yourinnocence and preventing your arrest. So we are quits in a way. But youbegan the delicate attentions, and I have only paid you back, so it's upto me to start a new series and not turn you out into the street whereyou would inevitably get into fresh trouble. So this is what I propose:change your name and go and take a room somewhere; get into properclothes and then come back to me, and I'll give you a letter to a friendof mine who is on one of the big evening papers. You are well educated,and I know you are energetic. You are keen on everything connected withthe police, and you'll get on splendidly as a reporter. You will be ableto earn an honest and respectable name that way. Would you like to trythat idea?"
"It's awfully good of you," Charles Rambert said gratefully. "I shouldlove to be able to earn my living by work so much to my taste."
Juve cut his thanks short, and held out some bank-notes.
"There's some money; now clear out; it's high time we both got a littlesleep. Get busy settling into rooms, and in a fortnight I shall expectyou to be editor of _La Capitale_."
"Under what name shall you introduce me to your friend?" Charles Rambertasked, after a little nervous pause.
"H'm!" said Juve with a smile: "it will have to be an alias of course."
"Yes; and as it will be the name I shall write under it ought to be aneasy one to remember."
"Something arresting, like Fantomas!" said Juve chaffingly, amused bythe curious childishness of this lad, who could take keen interest insuch a trifle when he was in so critical a situation. "Choose somethingnot too common for the first name; and something short for the other.Why not keep the first syllable of Fantomas? Oh, I've got it--Fandor;what about Jerome Fandor?"
Charles Rambert murmured it over.
"Jerome Fandor! Yes, you are right, it sounds well."
Juve pushed him out of the door.
"Well, Jerome Fandor, leave me to my slumbers, and go and rig yourselfout, and get ready for the new life that I'm going to open up for you!"
Bewildered by the amazing adventures of which he had just been thecentral figure, Charles Rambert, or Jerome Fandor, walked down Juve'sstaircase wondering. "Why should he take so much trouble about me? Whatinterest or what motive can he have? And how on earth does he find outsuch a wonderful lot of things?"