CHAPTER XXV
ASSAULT AND BATTERY
Juve was a free man. The Juge d’Instruction, M. Fuselier, who had all along been sceptical as to the generally accepted theory of the identity of the police-officer with Fantômas, but who had been rudely shaken in his faith in the detective’s innocence by the startling coincidence of the wound found on the prisoner’s arm, had bestirred himself with redoubled zeal and had instituted further searching investigations. The result had been the discovery that one of the warders at the Santé, Nibet by name, was in close touch with the Fantômas’ gang, and having access to Juve’s cell, had presumably seized an opportunity to drug the prisoner during the night and effect the cut on his arm that seemed to supply such convincing evidence of his being the same as the assailant of the unfortunate inspector of the Criminal Bureau at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s ball. Soon the conjecture became a certainty, albeit Nibet had disappeared, alarmed by M. Fuselier’s inquiries, and Juve had been released.
He was now closeted with M. Fuselier in the latter’s official room within the Palais de Justice and was receiving the friendly magistrate’s cordial congratulations on the vindication of his character and his restoration to liberty:
“Juve, you are free; the fact is established, you are not Fantômas; Nibet is proved the culprit in the matter of your wound”—and with a spontaneous and charming affability the magistrate shook Juve cordially by the hand.
“But alas!” he proceeded in a less cheerful tone, “we do not know when we shall be in a position to announce the capture of another and a more terrible culprit.”
Juve with equal seriousness replied:
“Pooh! I ask you, sir, for a fortnight at the outside! It is more than a police matter for me now to arrest Fantômas, to unmask him at any rate and force him to fly; it is a personal matter. Remember, all the time I have been in gaol, I have no doubt my friend, my accomplice, Fandor, has been at work; I am going now to see him, and between us two ...”
“Or you three,” corrected M. Fuselier, “for indeed you must not forget, Juve, that you will have an invaluable helper in the person of Tom Bob.”
But at once the worthy police-officer’s professional pride was up in arms; at the mention of Tom Bob Juve’s brow contracted and it was in a hard voice that he answered roughly:
“Tom Bob!... well, it strikes me, folks make a deal of fuss about this Tom Bob, and for my part, Monsieur Fuselier, I am far from desirous of working with him ... even ...”
Juve stopped short, but the other craved an explanation of the broken sentence.
“Even what?” he demanded.
“Even,” Juve resumed, “if I do deal with him, it will not perhaps be in the way you think, sir!”
M. Fuselier started violently.
“Oh! oh!” he cried, “oh, Juve!... is it possible?... but no, it cannot be! you are mistaken.” Juve gave a dry little laugh:
“I am not mistaken because I am making no assertion, but this much is certain, that Fantômas this time is not acting alone. He had accomplices, and accomplices highly placed. Upon my word! I confess that Tom Bob ...”
But the other sprang up, unwilling to listen to such extravagant theories.
“Come now, Juve,” he remonstrated, “you know the man yourself, you know Tom Bob personally. You are aware he is a famous detective, are you not?”
Juve wagged his head as he replied:
“Yes, I knew a Tom Bob; that Tom Bob I esteemed and admired and I do so still, but, sir, I am speaking of the Tom Bob who is now in Paris, who is a popular hero, the Tom Bob who boasts he will run Fantômas to earth, and who—mark this, it is an important point, believe me—who nevertheless never took the trouble to ask permission to see me at the Santé, when I was supposed to be Fantômas! There are but two alternatives: either the Tom Bob I speak of is my old friend, in which case it was only natural, I take it, he should have come to offer me the solace of his sympathy, or he is one of the ...”
Juve stopped short again then, unwilling to say all he thought.
“However, time will show,” he said; “anyway, sir, you may be sure that all my energies from now on will be devoted to following up my investigations.”
It was getting late. Since early in the afternoon Juve had been discussing with the magistrate the extraordinary incidents in which Fantômas’ name once more figured so disastrously.
“Well, it’s too late now to sign your discharge paper, and carry out the lengthy formalities required. So I am going to give you a provisional form of release and sign the formal document to-morrow. Will that suit you?”
Juve nodded, and was just opening his mouth to answer when a knock came at the door, and the magistrate bade the applicant come in.
It was a working mason who presented himself.
“Give you my excuses,” he said, “but now, sir, can’t we come into your room to fix up our scaffoldings?”
“Yes, yes, my man, just as you please?”
M. Fuselier got up, hastily arranged his papers, locking away some in drawers, anxious not to leave any compromising document lying about. He grumbled, “It’s just killing. Here’s a whole week I’ve never been left in peace with these building operations for enlarging the Palais; every hour of the day I have workmen fussing around.”
While the magistrate was speaking, in fact, five or six masons had entered the room. One of these made his way to the window, in front of which was a hanging scaffolding, where two more workmen were standing.
“All right, mates?” shouted the mason.
“All right it is ... and you?”
“We’re right, too—come on and see!”
And then next moment—the words were evidently a signal—there followed an abominable scene of violence and horror.
From the scaffolding two more workmen had jumped down into M. Fuselier’s room. Before they had time to gather their wits together, the magistrate and Juve were seized by the fellows, bound, gagged, and thrown roughly to the ground. M. Fuselier all but lost consciousness; Juve ground his teeth, fighting desperately, dealing blows to right and left, a miracle of strength and courage. But what could he do against the odds? and he was quickly forced to submit.
“Oh! damn the fellow!” one of the masons swore, “it’s a blessing we’ve got him tied! Now, sharp’s the word, my lads! The beak on a chair, and tight up! Hold on with the tec, eh?” By “the tec,” he meant Juve. Two men were kneeling on his chest, another was holding his head down on the floor, a fourth was cording his legs. Dazed and dumbfounded, Juve could make nothing of it all as he watched the bogus masons hurrying to obey the orders of the one who seemed to be in command.
“The beak on the chair, I tell you!” repeated the chief. A handkerchief was twisted round M. Fuselier’s head, knotted ropes secured his legs, his hands were tied behind his back. Then two of the workmen took the unfortunate magistrate, one by the shoulders, the other by the legs, and carried him to an armchair. There he was seated and fixed firmly with ropes. Meantime his mates had finished tying up Juve.
But suddenly the amazing crew who had invaded M. Fuselier’s sanctum stopped dead and stood motionless, afraid to stir. A knock had sounded at the door.
“Curse it!” muttered the “Beadle”—the chief of the band was in fact, that redoubtable apache—“here’s something to queer our pitch!” Then, after motioning his accomplices to gather in a body at the door, he called out “Come in,” in a quiet voice.
The door opened and the figure of a man appeared on the threshold; “M. Fuselier?...” he began: but the sentence was never finished. At a glance he had seen Juve’s body lying bound and inert on the floor, he had even caught sight of M. Fuselier, helpless in his chair. Instantly doubling his fists, a marvel of coolness and courage, he hurled himself into the room and rushed at the “Beadle” with a hoarse yell. But behind the door stood massed the apaches, waiting; he had not taken two steps when a human swarm was clinging round his shoulders, blows fell thick and fast, arms and legs were hauled and mauled, he was down, he was choking, he was helpless. Like Juve, like Fuselier, in half a minute he was tied and bound, unable to move a muscle.
“Well, my fine fellow!” the “Beadle” now took up his parable, “here’s someone I never expected! why the devil must he come trespassing on our preserves? You know the chap, eh? You know him, Paulet, don’t you?”
The rest shrugged shoulders contemptuously.
Paulet, with his crooked smile, swore: “By God! yes, there’s no mistaking the beggar, it’s Tom Bob, ain’t it—the chap that ran in poor ‘Beauty Boy’?”
But the older apache had already resumed his gravity:
“Yes, it’s Tom Bob, the detective! I’m thinking if we must ‘finish’ him; but no, by the Lord! not worth the trouble, it ain’t.”
Thereupon the “Beadle” knelt down beside the detective’s body where it lay and extended on the ground, took the unfortunate man by the shoulder and shook him roughly:
“Hi! detective, d’ye hear me? Yes? good—now look and see how we stand, we chaps? You wanted to arrest Fantômas, did you? Well, old man, it’s us have laid hands on you. And if we don’t finish you off, it’s only to save worries here. Only, let me give you a bit of advice—by the next boat you’ll have to hook it back to your own country. You twig?”
The man got to his feet again, and, a coward like all of his kidney, while Tom Bob lay helpless and incapable of offering the smallest resistance, he kicked him in the face again and again. Presently, tiring of the exercise, he broke off to add:
“There, I don’t want to spoil your phiz. What’d be the good of that? But what to do with the beast? we never looked to see him here. Bah! let’s just tie him up with the beak, it’ll be company for him!”
But there was no time to waste. It was a good twenty minutes since the brigands had invaded Fuselier’s privacy. True, at this time of day there was small likelihood of anybody coming to disturb the Juge d’Instruction; still it was best not to delay—a surprise was after all a possibility to be feared; a night watchman, a court official, an usher might arrive at any moment. Like a general inspecting the dispositions made by his subordinates in command, the “Beadle” proceeded to make a rapid examination of the fastenings securing Fuselier and Tom Bob.
“Righto!” he declared, “they’re hard and fast for the night, never fear!”
With a grin, he gripped Tom Bob by the shoulders and dragged him into a dark corner of the room; after which he seized M. Fuselier and turned him round with his face to the wall:
“They’ll be bored worse than ever if they can’t see one another! A pleasant time to you, gentlemen!... And the other, ready is he? you’ve got the sack?”
Yes, the other was ready. The chief might gibe and jest and enliven the proceedings with satirical remarks, but his men were not wasting their time. While he was speaking, they had executed the order previously given. The enterprise, not a doubt of it, had been planned beforehand, and long beforehand. One of the apaches now unfolded a voluminous receptacle he had brought with him, a sort of extra big sack; into this they bundled Juve, still bound, still incapable of the slightest movement. Two of the ruffians then picked up the sack, and carrying it to the window, dumped it on the hanging stage.
Finally, after turning the key in the lock to make security doubly secure, the chief addressed his men:
“Off we go! let’s hook it, mates, all that’s left to do is to slip down by the scaffold ropes. Underneath we’ll come on the masons’ workshops. There’s a watchman, of course, on guard there, but he’s full up at this time of night; no fear of his waking up. To get the gentleman away, we’ve the motor-car. Ah! by God! but it’s a fine bit of work we’ve done this journey!”
It was three hours or more since the daring ruffians who
had found a way into the Palais de Justice had tried and
accomplished their capture of Juve, whom they took for
Fantômas. M. Fuselier was almost despairing. It was all
too abominable; just as he was liberating Juve, Juve had
fallen into the brigands’ power. The man was done for
for certain—and so keen was the sympathy the magistrate
felt for the gallant officer, he almost forgot the grotesque
horror of his own position in fear for Juve’s fate. He
was the more alarmed, inasmuch as, being reduced to
helplessness, M. Fuselier realized quite clearly it would be long
ere he was set free, that there was practically no chance
of his being restored to liberty before the next morning
at seven or eight o’clock, the hour when the cleaners of
the Palais would want to come in to put his room to rights,
and surprised to find the door locked, would make enquiries
and no doubt find means to enter the room by way of the
window.
Nevertheless M. Fuselier was not without some fleeting gleams of hope. He had perfectly recognized Tom Bob at the moment the American detective sprang into his room and had, like himself, fallen a victim to the apaches. He could not see him, but now and again he heard him move. Tom Bob had not, like him, been tied on a chair, the wretches had left him stretched helpless on the carpet. Perhaps the detective was going to find a way to free himself? Very certainly it was he who was making those cracking, creaking noises he could catch at times. It seemed he must be dragging himself along the floor to try and break his bonds.
M. Fuselier was not mistaken. Battered and bleeding as he was, Tom Bob was giving proof of amazing energy. The apaches once gone, he had managed to crawl up to the magistrate’s desk, and there, with infinite patience, being just able to bend his body, he was employed in chafing against the corner of the desk one of the cords that held him fast. It needed indomitable perseverance, the attempt to free himself in this fashion, but Tom Bob had never wanted for energy. Moreover, the task cost him agonies, every movement forcing the cords deep into the flesh, but he was not the man to be deterred by pain.
After prolonged efforts, Tom Bob at last succeeded in breaking the cord that confined his wrist; after that it was child’s play to free himself altogether. In a very few minutes he had released his arms, then his legs, had then cut off the ropes and snatched out his gag. Barely giving himself time to inhale a deep draught of air, he hurried to the unfortunate magistrate’s side and untied him; then, at the end of his strength, he fell full length on the floor at his feet.
For many minutes, M. Fuselier and Tom Bob, now free, dared not risk a movement; half stifled both of them, dazed and stupefied, they could only pant for breath. M. Fuselier was the first to recover his self-possession.
“Ah! Bob! Bob!” he groaned, “what a dreadful thing has happened to us!... Juve is surely done for!”
In a hoarse voice, forcing the words with difficulty from his dry throat, Tom Bob protested:
“Juve! d’you say Juve? But, Monsieur Fuselier, you are mad! You don’t understand yet?... Juve is just Fantômas!”
“Nonsense, nonsense! if he was Fantômas the brigands would never have pinioned him as they did.”
“Yes, they would, to put you on a false scent.”
“But it was not worth their while, as he was free—I was going to let him go free.”
“The wretches did not know that.”
“He would have told them.”
“Not before us!”
M. Fuselier shook his head emphatically.
“No, no,” he asseverated, “I tell you Juve is innocent.”
“And I,” retorted Tom Bob, no less convinced it seemed, “I tell you the gang, thinking Juve, that is to say Fantômas, was definitely unmasked, resolved to deliver their Chief. They have delivered him and have so delivered him as to make you think they were treating him with brutal violence, merely the better to deceive you ...”
M. Fuselier, suddenly recalling the words Juve had uttered a few hours before concerning Tom Bob, grew thoughtful and gazed at the detective with eyes of sheer bewilderment.