“You are good and kind, madam.”
“No, no! don’t say that.”
“But you are! you are exquisitely good, exquisitely kind.”
A spasm of pain crossed the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s face, and it was in almost a harsh tone that she protested again:
“You are mistaken. Then, to begin with, the doctor forbids you to talk; you must obey his orders so as to get well, and you know very well you have to get well quickly.”
Moving soundlessly over the thick carpets of the sick-room, the grand duchess stepped up to the bed on which lay the young girl she addressed. With a light, skilful touch she shook up the pillows, re-arranged the bedclothes and settled the patient in the most comfortable position.
“Try to get to sleep, won’t you?”
“I am not sleepy; I am burning with fever and I feel thirsty—oh! so thirsty.”
The grand duchess carefully measured out a few drops of champagne into a glass, added a little water, and held out the cool, refreshing beverage:
“Drink, my poor darling. The doctor did not forbid this.”
A wan smile hovered on the patient’s lips, as she eagerly quenched her raging thirst.
“The doctor!” she murmured, “why does the doctor worry me with his prescriptions? He knows I shall not get well.”
But in a severe voice now, a tinge of bitterness even in its tones, the grand duchess replied:
“I do not wish you, Elisabeth, to talk like that. You have no right not to get well.... Think of him!”
By what series of strange events came Elisabeth Dollon, for the injured woman was indeed Elisabeth Dollon, to be in this house, the house of the Grand Duchess Alexandra, to have that enigmatic personage for sick-nurse?
The pursuit of Fandor among the underwood of the Ile de Beauté, while the blazing lake was burning itself out, had ended in a startling tragedy, the discovery of Elisabeth wounded, shot by the police-officers, who had fired on her in the belief they were shooting at Fantômas. How had the mistake come about? Alas! it found its explanation in a terrible scene that had just passed between the Grand Duchess Alexandra and the unhappy girl the young journalist loved. When the first moments of stupefaction were over, and the officers of justice were hotly pursuing the fugitive, Elisabeth Dollon had confessed to the grand duchess in the stammering accents of terror, that it was really and truly the journalist Fandor she had seen and denounced under the name of Fantômas.
Then the grand duchess had hesitated no more. She had come there to undeceive Elisabeth Dollon, to convince her of Fandor’s innocence, and now she carried out her intention with a vigour and emphasis born of her sympathy with the pair, and even as she spoke, she could see the girl turn pale and almost faint in her excitement. It was true then, Fandor was innocent? Fandor was worthy of her love! Fandor was the victim of a cruel Fate!—and it was she who had set the policemen on his track, the men who at that moment were ransacking the island to seize him, dead or alive!
In an instant the brave girl had resolved on a sublime act of self-sacrifice. Realizing that Fandor was done for if the pursuit continued, she made up her mind to interrupt this dreadful man-hunt. But how? By a terrible, a tragic ruse. In the darkness she ran to the water-side, threw herself into the lake, where she swam about vigorously, splashing with might and main so as to attract attention.
The hoped for result followed. The men heard the noise, they thought it was their quarry escaping, confusion grew worse confounded.
All this she had expected; but, alas! one grim consequence of her act she had not foreseen. In the fierce eagerness of their pursuit, the officers did not rest content merely to dash off on the fugitive’s traces; fully believing it was Fantômas trying to escape, they fired off their revolvers, hardly stopping to take aim. A ball struck Elisabeth, she gave one despairing shriek, and it was a wounded, half-drowned woman M. Havard brought ashore.
All crowded round the unfortunate girl, who still lay unconscious, and presently she was carried to the restaurant, where the Grand Duchess Alexandra was the first to kneel beside her, exhausting every means to recall her to life. She alone had seen all, and had guessed the true explanation of the terrible adventure. Her own love story a tragedy, herself a heroine in her day, the grand duchess could not fail to understand the motives that had guided Elisabeth, while the young girl’s noble self-sacrifice, her marvellous courage, had won the great lady’s highest respect and admiration.
Waiting till the police had completed their inquiries, the grand duchess herself organized the transport of the injured woman. She was determined to take her home with her and had her carried to her house in the Parc des Princes; there she summoned to her bedside the highest medical talent to be found in Paris. Doubtless she hoped by thus devoting herself to Elisabeth Dollon, by soothing away so far as was possible the girl’s dreadful anxieties, to repair, as much as in her lay, the cruelties of her lover, of Fantômas, the man she loved in spite of everything.
Two days had passed, and during that time Elisabeth Dollon’s condition, far from improving, had actually grown worse. The surgeons, called in one after the other, had departed, shaking their heads ominously; the ball had struck Elisabeth full in the chest and grazed the lungs. “She may be saved; it is possible she may recover!” such had been Professor Ardell’s pronouncement. He had prescribed absolute quiet, rest, a light diet, but alas! had not concealed the serious apprehensions he felt for the patient’s life.
It was in a feeble, breathless, almost inaudible voice, that Elisabeth appealed to the Grand Duchess Alexandra.
“You have had no news of him yet?” she asked.
The grand duchess, seeing the girl was awake, had drawn up a chair to the bedside and was holding between her slim, aristocratic fingers, Elisabeth’s little hands.
“No, I have no tidings of him yet. But, as I told you, he has escaped. No doubt he finds it difficult to come here, my house is perhaps watched. How can we tell? But do not agitate yourself, Elisabeth; I repeat, Fandor is bound to find out that you are here, and knowing you are here, he also knows that I must have convinced you of his innocence. I am persuaded he will not be long before he comes to see you....”
But suddenly the grand duchess broke off. Framed in the doorway the figure of a man had appeared; his face was worn with suffering, and he had pushed his way in frantic haste to the bedchamber, throwing aside the footman who was for showing him into an adjoining sitting room. It was Jérôme Fandor! The unhappy young man strode across the room and fell to his knees beside Elisabeth’s bed. With a passionate, yet restrained ardour he took the girl’s hand and covered it with burning kisses.
“Elisabeth! Elisabeth!” he murmured, “oh! what misery, and yet what bliss! to find you here, wounded, wounded for me! For I understand your noble self-sacrifice. What happiness to find you again, to have the right to love you!”
At sight of him, Elisabeth had instinctively sprung up in bed as if to rise and meet him; then, exhausted by the effort, pale as a dead woman, she had sunk back on the pillows. The hand Fandor held lay cold and lifeless in his, and it was in a weak whisper the girl asked:
“You forgive me, dear, for my suspicions, my distrust of you?”
The tears stood in Fandor’s eyes as he asked:
“But you do not distrust me any more?”
Elisabeth answered with a wan smile, and the young man sprang up impulsively and with outstretched hands, approached the grand duchess.
“Madam!” he cried, “never, madam, can I forget that it is thanks to you ...”
No less moved herself, the grand duchess returned Fandor’s hand clasp.
“Sir,” she began, “when, in the name of love, you came to beseech me, me, Lady Beltham ...”
But there she stopped; with a cry, a groan, Elisabeth Dollon had repeated the name, “Lady Beltham?”
Without intending it, the grand duchess had revealed to Elisabeth her real title, her tragic identity. Be sure, Elisabeth had heard of Fantômas’ ill-omened mistress! Many times had she read the tragic name of Lady Beltham in the public prints coupled with that of the notorious brigand. “Lady Beltham!” So it was Lady Beltham, this Grand Duchess Alexandra, who was nursing her with such devoted kindness!
But already, Jérôme Fandor was on his knees again beside Elisabeth’s bed.
“For pity’s sake,” he besought her, “be brave, my darling! be calm! be courageous!”
Alas! even as he spoke, the young man felt the sick woman’s hand grow heavier, more deathlike in his. Like a flower that has borne the buffets of the storm and fades at the outburst of too fierce a sun, the unhappy child, after the grievous hours, the tragic, the dreadful times she had lived through, could not endure the too overpowering delight she felt at seeing Fandor again, and knowing him innocent, the too overwhelming shock of discovering that Lady Beltham stood before her!
“Elisabeth! Elisabeth!” Jérôme Fandor cried in tones of sudden terror. Oh! how pale she was now, lying there with closed eyes, her head thrown back on the pillows, her golden hair dishevelled!
Lady Beltham, like Fandor, was seized with a sudden misgiving. The minutes seemed hours in the slow agony of suspense. At last the girl opened her eyes; she threw a grateful look at the grand duchess, this mysterious Lady Beltham, who had taken pity on her; then, with a superhuman effort, she whispered faintly: “Jérôme Fandor!”
But as she lifted her hand to meet the journalist’s clasp, a faint sigh breathed from her lips, a sigh so light, so calm, it was a full minute yet ere Jérôme Fandor, ere Lady Beltham, realized the dreadful truth, the dire calamity, the fell catastrophe—Elisabeth Dollon was dead!
In the darkened chamber Jérôme Fandor’s long-drawn
sobs proclaimed the unfortunate young man’s infinite distress!
Vaguely and indistinctly, as in a dream, the young
man, still on his knees by the dead girl’s bed, draining to
the dregs his grief and despair, had heard a footman come
in a few minutes before, seeking the Grand Duchess Alexandra.
Absorbed in his grief, dazed with suffering, Fandor
had not so much as raised his head. But the death chamber
communicated by double doors, at present wide open,
with an adjoining sitting room, and from this room voices
could be heard.
The grand duchess, mastering her very sincere grief, had consented to see a visitor, who was now with her. Jérôme Fandor, in the automatic way people’s attention is fixed by external trifles at times of the most poignant emotions, in the midst of the deepest sorrows, found himself listening to the conversation.
“Madam,” a voice was saying, a voice Fandor recognized with a startled exclamation to be that of M. Havard, “madam, the step I am taking to-day, believe me, is official; but in any case I think you will be ready to do as I desire.”
“Speak, sir.”
“You have recently, madam, taken the initiative in organizing a public subscription with the object of collecting the sum demanded by Fantômas as the condition of his disappearance, and refused him by the Chamber. That is so, is it not? you admit the fact?”
Haughtily the grand duchess assented.
“Yes, sir, that is so. I will even add that the money is beginning to come in.”
“Madam,” resumed M. Havard, “I do not know what motive prompted you ...”
The grand duchess did not let the Head of the Criminal Bureau finish his sentence.
“The motives that prompted me are quite simple,” she said; “the Chamber has refused to accept Fantômas’ ultimatum. That brigand, recoiling at nothing, now that Parliament has refused his demands, is adding crime to crime, piling atrocity on atrocity. What the Government declines to approve, it struck me as incumbent on private initiative to carry out. Fantômas the murderer promises he will kill no more if he is paid a million francs. What more natural, Monsieur Havard, than to open a general subscription to provide this million? to put Fantômas in a position to fulfil his undertaking? to induce him to halt in his sanguinary and deadly career?”
M. Havard did not answer at once; after some moments thought, however, he took up the word:
“Natural it may have been, madam, I have no wish to gauge the morality of the motives that may have led you to start this subscription; but I am bound to note the consequences of your action.”
“And they, Monsieur Havard, are?”
“Deplorable, madam, deplorable!”
“But, sir!... It is a reign of terror. The vilest abominations are of daily occurrence; crime follows crime, each more terrifying than the last, more monstrous, assuming even the character of crimes against the state. I believe my subscription will quickly prove a success, that I shall soon raise the sum of money required, that soon Fantômas will disappear. That is no deplorable result, is it?”
M. Havard had one of the little coughing fits he so frequently suffered from and which commonly served to disguise his embarrassments.
“What is deplorable,” he said at last, in a peevish tone, “is the fact that this subscription of yours, madam, makes my duties a farce, renders the French police ridiculous. How can we consent to Fantômas being paid to do us the favour to leave off murdering? He is an assassin! he should be arrested, that’s all there is to it.”
In a tone almost of mockery, certainly of irony, the grand duchess protested:
“But, Monsieur Havard, you don’t arrest him!”
“No,” confessed the Head of the Bureau, “no, not yet! But we shall arrest him.”
A silence followed, which Lady Beltham at last broke, to say:
“So that, according to you ...”
“According to me,” declared M. Havard—“and again I tell you this officially—it would be well, Madame la Grande Duchesse, to arrest your subscription. It is, I repeat, really an insult to my office.”
M. Havard paused, then proceeded:
“However, you are free to act as you deem fit.... It is evident that after all ... In a word, madam, my visit had another object. I may disapprove of your subscription, I have no right to misappropriate its funds. The fact is I have received ... from an anonymous contributor a sum of ten thousand francs with the request to hand it to you; here is the money.”
All the time the grand duchess and M. Havard were thus conversing, Jérôme could not help shuddering. He was barely a few yards from the man who was tracking him down with such determination! Lady Beltham was talking to M. Havard in an adjoining room, but hidden by the curtains, while he, Jérôme Fandor, who was supposed to be Fantômas’ accomplice, with the whole Criminal Bureau in pursuit of him, was only a few yards away! Was Lady Beltham going to betray him? She had adored Fantômas madly, she undoubtedly adored him still; did she not intend, to help in her lover’s work, to deliver up him, Fandor, to the Bureau? After all, she knew quite well that Jérôme Fandor was the only man—Juve being in gaol—capable of checkmating the brigand. How she must be tempted to denounce him to M. Havard! But no, no! he must, he ought to trust to her good faith; Lady Beltham was an enemy, but she was an honourable enemy!
Then Fandor weighed the value to be attached to what M. Havard had said. He could well understand the annoyance the Head of the Criminal Department might reasonably feel about the subscription opened by Lady Beltham. But then, what was the meaning of this gift from an anonymous well-wisher transmitted through M. Havard’s hands? Must one not, in fact, gather that the Head of the Criminal Bureau, anxious above all measure to be rid of Fantômas, was equally desirous, while concealing his modus operandi, to contribute to the fund and so hasten the time when the grand duchess would have the million francs in hand and be in a position to secure the brigand’s disappearance?
But Jérôme Fandor’s reflections were suddenly interrupted; he had heard Lady Beltham speaking again:
“M. Havard, you may, as a police-officer, regret the opening of my subscription, which I can well understand hurts your professional interests; but as a woman, I confess I am afraid of Fantômas, I shudder at the thought of the atrocious crimes this brigand is still committing, and may go on committing. That is why I shall continue to accept all the sums of money given me with this object.”
M. Havard in turn replied:
“You are free to act, madam! Still, I hope we shall have laid hands, not on Fantômas, who, the public is too apt to forget, is in prison, but on Jérôme Fandor, his redoubtable accomplice, before you have had time to deal with the funds you are collecting for him ... and, consequently ...”
Lady Beltham did not reply at once, causing Fandor a moment’s suspense that seemed an eternity. He threw a rapid glance round the room. He was too ill acquainted with the grand duchess’s mansion to be able to make good his escape if she told the police-officer he was there. If she was for betraying him, she could deliver him up without his having the power to stir a finger to save himself.
But just as the journalist was feeling himself to be caught in a trap without an issue, he heard Lady Beltham’s voice; she was saying:
“I wish you every success, Monsieur Havard, in effecting your arrest of Jérôme Fandor—seeing you believe that Jérôme Fandor is Fantômas’ accomplice.”