won't be a brilliant one for the police. There may be lots of cases, but there are not lots that they have worked out to a finish."
"You've got nothing to grumble at," M. Fuselier smiled. "You have been in enough cases lately that were worked out to a finish. Your reputation isn't in any danger of diminishing."
"I don't know what you mean," Juve said deprecatingly. "If you refer to the Beltham and Langrune cases, you must admit that your congratulations are not deserved. I have achieved no definite result in either of those affairs."
M. Fuselier also dropped into a comfortable chair. He lighted a cigarette.
"You have found out nothing fresh about that mysterious murder of Lord Beltham?"
"Nothing. I'm done. It is an insoluble mystery to me."
"You seem to be very sorry for yourself, but really you needn't be, Juve. You cleared up the Beltham case, and you solved the Langrune case, although you try to make out you didn't. And allow me to inform you, those two successes count, my friend."
"You are very kind, but you are rather misinformed. Unfortunately I have not cleared up the Beltham case at all."
"You found the missing peer."
"Well, yes, but —— "
"That was an amazing achievement. By the way, Juve, what led you to go to the rue Lévert to search Gurn's trunks?"
"That was very simple. You remember what an excitement there was when Lord Beltham disappeared? Well, when I was called in I saw at once that all ideas of accident or suicide might be dismissed, and that consequently the disappearance was due to crime. Once convinced of that, I very naturally suspected every single person who had ever had relations with Lord Beltham, for there was no single individual for me to suspect. Then I found out that the ex-Ambassador had been in continuous association with an Englishman named Gurn whom he had known in the South African war, and who led a very queer sort of life. That of course took me to Gurn's place, if for nothing else than to pick up information. And — well, that's all about it. It was just by going to Gurn's place to pump him, rather than anything else, that I found the noble lord's remains locked away in the trunk."
"Your modesty is delightful, Juve," said M. Fuselier with an approving nod. "You present things as if they were all matters of course, whereas really you are proving your extraordinary instinct. If you had arrived only twenty-four hours later the corpse would have been packed off to the Transvaal, and only the Lord knows if after that the extraordinary mystery ever would have been cleared up."
"Luck," Juve protested: "pure luck!"
"And were your other remarkable discoveries luck too?" enquired M. Fuselier with a smile. "There was your discovery that sulphate of zinc had been injected into the body to prevent it from smelling offensively."
"That was only a matter of using my eyes," Juve protested.
"All right," said the magistrate, "we will admit that you did not display any remarkable acumen in the Beltham case, if you would rather have it so. That does not alter the fact that you have solved the Langrune case."
"Solved it!"
M. Fuselier flicked the ash off his cigarette, and leant forward towards the detective.
"Of course you know that I know you were at the Cahors Assizes, Juve? What was your impression of the whole affair — of the verdict, and of Etienne Rambert's guilt or innocence?"
Juve got up and began to walk up and down the room, followed by the magistrate's eyes. He seemed to be hesitating as to whether he would answer at all, but finally he stopped abruptly and faced his friend.
"If I were talking to anybody but you, M. Fuselier, I would either not answer at all, or I would give an answer that was no answer! But as it is —— , well, in my opinion, the Langrune case is only just beginning, and nothing certain is known at all."
"According to that, Charles Rambert is innocent?"
"I don't say that."
"What then? I suppose you don't think the father was the murderer?"
"The hypothesis is not absurd! But there! What is the real truth of the whole affair? That is what I am wondering all the time. That murder is never out of my head; it interests me more and more every day. Oh, yes, I've got lots of ideas, but they are all utterly vague and improbable: sometimes my imagination seems to be running away with me."
He stopped, and M. Fuselier wagged a mocking finger at him.
"Juve," he said, "I charge you formally with attempting to implicate Fantômas in the murder of the Marquise de Langrune!"
The detective replied in the same tone of raillery.
"Guilty, my lord!"
"Good lord, man!" the magistrate exclaimed, "Fantômas is a perfect obsession with you," and as Juve acquiesced with a laugh the magistrate dropped his bantering tone. "Shall I tell you something, Juve? I too am beginning to have an obsession for that fantastic miscreant! And what I want to know is why you have not come to me before to ask me about that sensational robbery at the Royal Palace Hotel?"
"The robbery from Princess Sonia Danidoff?"
"Yes: the Fantômas robbery!"
"Fantômas, eh?" Juve protested. "That remains to be seen."
"Why, man," M. Fuselier retorted, "you have heard that detail about the card the man left, haven't you? — the visiting card that was blank when the Princess found it, and on which the name of Fantômas afterwards became visible?"
"There's no Fantômas about that, in my opinion."
"Why not?"
"Well, it isn't one of Fantômas' little ways to leave clear traces behind him. One might as well picture him committing robbery or murder in a cap with a neat little band round it: 'Fantômas and Co.' He might even add 'Discretion and Dispatch!' No, it's most unlikely."
"You don't think Fantômas capable of throwing down his glove to the police in the shape of some such material proof of his identity?"
"I always base my arguments on the balance of probabilities," Juve replied. "What emerges from this Royal Palace story is that some common hotel thief conceived the ingenious idea of casting suspicion on Fantômas: it was just a trick to mislead the police: at least, that is my opinion."
But M. Fuselier declined to be convinced.
"No, you are wrong, Juve: it was no common hotel thief who stole Mme. Van den Rosen's necklace and Princess Sonia's hundred and twenty thousand francs; the prize was big enough to appeal to Fantômas: and the amazing audacity of the crime is suggestive too. Just think what coolness the man must have had to be able to paralyse the Princess's power of resistance when she tried to call for help: and also to get clear away in spite of the hosts of servants in the hotel and all the precautions taken!"
"Tell me all about the robbery, M. Fuselier," said Juve.
The magistrate sat down at his desk and took up the notes he had made in the course of his official enquiry that day. He told Juve everything he had been able to elicit.
"The
