The Exploits of Juve Part 45

"Who betrayed me? Who told?"

Chaleck seated himself by her side.

"You remember Valgrand, the actor? Well, Valgrand was married. His wife sought to clear up the mystery of his disappearance and went--where, I ask you? Why, to you, Lady Beltham! You took her as companion! It would have been impossible to introduce a more redoubtable spy into the house than the widow Valgrand, known by you under the false name of Mme.

Raymond."

Lady Beltham remained panic-stricken.

"We are lost!"

Chaleck squeezed her two hands in a genuine burst of affection.

"We are saved!" he shouted. "Mme. Raymond will talk no more!"

"The body at the Cite Frochot!"

Chaleck nodded. "Yes."

She looked at him in alarm, mingled with repulsion and horror.

"Now, understand that that death saved you, and if I saved you it is because I loved you, love you still, will always love you!"

Lady Beltham, overcome, let herself fall into Chaleck's arms, her head resting on her lover's shoulder as she wept hot tears.

Lady Beltham was once more enslaved, a captive! More than two years ago she had broken with the mysterious and terrible being whom she had once egged on to kill her husband, and with whom she then committed the most appalling of crimes. During this separation the unhappy woman had tried to pull herself together, to acquire a fresh honesty of mind and body, a new soul; dreamed of finding again in religion some help, some forgetfulness. She had later experienced the frightful tortures of jealousy, knowing her late lover had mistresses! But she resisted the craving to see him again, and pictured him to herself in such terrible guise that she felt an overwhelming fear of finding herself face to face with him. Now the season of calm and quiet she had evoked was suddenly dispelled. First came the mysterious disappearance of her confession and the weird crime of the Cite Frochot following on its loss. To be sure she did not then know that Doctor Chaleck, of whom the papers spoke, was none other than Gurn, but had they not in _La Capitale_ spoken of Fantomas in that connection? And at this disquieting comparison Lady Beltham had felt sinister forebodings. Other mysteries had then supervened, unaccountable to the guilty lady who by that time was already seeking her new birth in the bosom of Religion. Alas! her miseries were to grow definite enough.

At the very gate of the convent an innocent man, Bonardin, the actor, fell victim to the attack of Juve, also innocent, and in that affair she felt the complicity of her late lover grow more and more certain. She then received a letter from him, followed by a second. Gurn called her to his place--their place--the mansion at Neuilly, every Tuesday night.

She held out several times despite threatened reprisals. At last she yielded and went: she expected Gurn--it was Chaleck she found. The two were one!

From henceforth she was faced with this accomplice, guilty of new crimes, clothed in a new personality, already under suspicion, which doubtless he would cast off only to a.s.sume another which would enable him still further to extend the list of his crimes! But despite all the horror her lover inspired her with she felt herself tamed again, powerless to resist him, ready to do anything the moment he bade her!

She inquired feebly:

"Who was it killed Mme. Raymond? Was it that ruffian--whom they speak of in the papers--Loupart?"

"Well, not exactly!"

"Then was it you? Speak, I would rather know."

"It was neither he nor I, and yet it was to some extent both."

"I do not understand."

"It is rather difficult to understand. Our 'executioner' does not lack originality. I may say it is something which lives yet does not think."

"Who is it! Who is it!"

"Why not ask Detective Juve. Oh! Juve, too, would like to know who the deuce all these people are. Gurn, Chaleck, Loupart, and, above all--Fantomas!"

"Fantomas! Ah, I scarcely dare utter that name. And yet a doubt oppresses my heart! Tell me, are you not, yourself--Fantomas?"

Chaleck freed himself gently, for Lady Beltham had wound her arms round his neck.

"I know nothing, I am merely the lover who loves you."

"Then let us go far away. Let us begin a new existence together. Will you? Come!" She stopped all at once--"I heard a noise." Chaleck, too, listened. Some slight creakings had, indeed, disturbed the hush of the room. But outside the wind and the rain whirled around the dilapidated, lonely abode, and it was not surprising that unaccountable sounds should be audible in the stillness. Once more Lady Beltham built up her plans, catching a glimpse of a future all peace and happiness.

With a brief, harsh remark, Chaleck brought her back to reality.

"All that cannot be, at least for the moment, we must first----"

Lady Beltham laid her hand on his lips.

"Do not speak!" she begged. "A fresh crime--that's what you mean?"

"A vengeance, an execution! A man has set himself to run me down, has determined my ruin: between us it is a struggle without quarter; my life is not safe but at the cost of his, so he must perish. In four days they will find Detective Juve dead in his own bed. And with him will finally vanish the fiction he has evoked of Fantomas! Fantomas! Ah, if society knew--if humanity, instead of being what it is--but it matters little!"

"And Fantomas? What will become of him--of you?"

"Have I told you that I was Fantomas?"

"No," stammered she, "but----"

The dim light of a pale dawn filtered through the closed shutters of the big drawing-room in which lover and mistress had met again, after long weeks of separation, to call up sinister memories. For all their hopes the limit of the tribulations to which they were a prey seemed still far off.

Chaleck blew out the lamp. He drew aside the curtains. Sharply he put an end to the interview:

"I am off, Lady Beltham. Soon we shall meet again. Never let anyone suspect what we have said to each other--Farewell."

The hapless woman, crushed and broken by emotion, remained nearly an hour alone in the great room. Then the requirements of her official life came to her mind. It was necessary to return to the convent at Nogent.

Extricating themselves painfully from the pipes of the great stove, Juve and Fandor, covered with plaster, wreathed with cobwebs, and freely sprinkled with dust, fell back suddenly into the middle of the cellar.

The two men, heedless of the disarray of their dress and their painful cramped limbs, spoke both at once, dumbfounded but joyful:

"Well, Juve?"

"Well, Fandor, we got something for our money."

"Oh, what a lovely night, Juve; I wouldn't have given up my place for a fortune."

"We had front seats, though to be sure the velvet armchairs were lacking."

They were silent for a moment, their minds fully occupied with a crowd of ideas. So Chaleck and Loupart were one and the same? And Lady Beltham was indeed the accomplice of Gurn. An unhappy accomplice, repentant, wretched, a criminal through love.

"Fandor, they are ours now. Let us act!"