It was nine o’clock, and the storm was at its height. The rain came down in torrents, the wind blew fiercely, lightning blazed and thunder bellowed. The streets were deserted, for a man must indeed have had urgent business to call him abroad on such a night.

Apparently such was Jérôme Fandor’s case, for the journalist was walking fast and resolutely under the pitiless downpour along the quays bordering the Seine in the direction of Charenton. As he fought his way against the gale, the belated pedestrian was growling between his teeth:

“Good lord! how my ears sting with the cold! and how pitch dark it is! Screw up my eyes as I will, I can’t see a thing. All the same, I’ve got to get to Alfort; but shall I ever find the rendez-vous in this darkness, I wonder! All the same, how right I was to attend the marriage of that fool Ascott with the unspeakable Nini Guinon! What a wedding! and what a crew! And old Moche! what a clever fellow he must be to keep this gang of scoundrels on the job, always promising the fellows money and never giving them the pay for the crimes they do at his bidding! Oh! he’s one in a thousand, he is, the old money-lender of the Rue Saint-Fargeau! If I hadn’t important reasons for not wishing him to see me, I’d just go straight, fair and square, to the abandoned quarry where the confabulation’s to be between the ‘Gasman,’ ‘Bull’s-eye,’ Paulet and the rest of that gang of ruffians. But surely I hear footsteps coming up behind me. Best turn off the road now and make to the right to get time to find a hiding place. Mustn’t let yourself be seen, friend Fandor. True, all these chaps are your ‘pals’ and more or less well disposed; but ’ware Moche, if he spotted you, especially after yesterday’s business, there’d be trouble, and that wouldn’t help on poor Juve’s affairs!”

But the look of things would not have been half so grim if, moored by the shore, a dredger had not shown its huge, dark bulk on the black water, lifting to the sky its slanting spar with an endless chain running along its length carrying the great buckets that dredge up the mud and detritus from the bed of the stream.

A sound of footsteps. A cold sweat broke out on Fandor’s temples; like all truly brave men, he was not rash and deemed it foolish to risk his life without gain for anybody or anything whatsoever. Now it was very certain that, if he was seen by Moche, who knew him, and now treated him openly as an enemy, he would be denounced to the apaches, who would no longer take him to be one of their own crew and would dub him a traitor. A summary execution would be the sequel. But what would become of Juve then? Anyway, what was to be done now under these difficult circumstances? The intrepid journalist asked himself the question anxiously, calling up all his ingenuity and cunning to discover an immediate answer, for it was not hours now that counted, but seconds.

He was only just in time. The apaches were arriving one after the other in quick succession. “Big Ernestine” was the first; behind her came Paulet, the murderer of the bank messenger, the “Gasman,” “Bull’s-eye,” the “Beadle,” and other members of the gang, after them, five or six new recruits, whom Fandor only knew by sight, and who had as yet done little to get themselves talked about. These were whispering together under their breath. The rest seemed quite at home, they believed themselves as much alone as in their regular haunts, and their voices swelled to the loudest diapason of indignation.

“Eleven gone, and the dirty scamp’s not come! it’s over long the thief’s been chousing us all with his promises he never keeps. Won’t stand the cheat any more, what say you, mates?”

“If old man Moche tries on another of his tricks to-night, I’ll do him in to-morrow!”

“Hark there! what’s that?”

“It’s the old humbug here at last! oh, ho! his pockets are bulging with brass; that’s why he’s been so slow; it’s over heavy for him, he can’t walk!”—and the yells and imprecations broke out afresh.

A small, mean, cringing figure, his head almost buried in the collar of his great-coat, his hands clasped in a suppliant attitude, the old usurer listened quietly to the recriminations that rose on all sides, guessing that for sure he would be in the tightest of tight places before long.

“Good day to you, mates all,” he greeted the angry crowd, and said no more for the moment. But, after a brief pause, seeing looks of anger and suspicion scanning him from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head, he added in a whining voice:

“Beg pardon, but we’d be better elsewhere: suppose we adjourn to the deck of the Marie-Salope (the dredger) over there?”

A general shout reassured him: “Why, who’d ever dare to come?”

Still, by way of further precaution, “Big Ernestine” climbed down into the lighter, moored in the wake of the dredger, into which the buckets when working emptied their contents. Another minute and the woman was up again, satisfied with her inspection, and declaring:

“All clear!”

But Moche now pointed out that they were wasting precious time, gassing without saying anything to the point.

“We’re here to talk business, so let’s begin.”

The company took seats as they best could, some on the bulwarks, some on the deck-planks of the dredger, forming a circle in the middle of which Père Moche took his stand—and the trial opened. “Trial” is the right word, for truly the speaker was pleading for his life before his judges seated round him, whom even a superficial observer would have found no difficulty in recognizing as ready to go to the most violent extremities.

It was the “Beadle” who undertook the prosecution. All the while brandishing before the face of the culprit, who stood impassive before him, his redoubtable clenched fists, the weight of which was familiar to all the onlookers and which without an effort could have felled the unhappy old man to the ground, he began with an artful reference that instantly won him the sympathy of his audience.

“Père Moche,” he said, “you are come, and that is well, for it behooves us once for all to understand each other, us and you. You can see for yourself, that, among the chosen few of our band, one only is missing, poor ‘Beauty Boy,’ and if he has been nabbed, if he is in the stone jug, waiting till the bigwigs send him overseas, that is entirely your fault; I don’t mean to say you sold him to the ’tecs, but you left him without coin, without a yellow boy, without a stiver, and forced him to muck it somehow or other, so that ...”

A triple round of applause allowed the orator to take breath, which he did long and noisily, and to add another touch:

Faces grew ugly, fists clenched, every eye glittered with murderous light. In his hiding-place Fandor congratulated himself on his presence at this unexpected scene. Moche seemed to be racking his brains to find a way to exculpate himself. Still the old ruffian managed to conceal his distress, and it was without any great difficulty he succeeded in breaking in on the “Beadle’s” eloquence and making himself heard instead.

“Come, come, you’re never going to eat me, comrades? I’ve got a tough hide, you know, and you’d only get a belly-ache. Now what makes you go howling at me that gate when I’m your best chum? What have you against me, now?”

“The infernal cheek of the chap!” snorted out “Big Ernestine,” looking as red as a poppy.

“But come now, haven’t I done everything I ought? Sure enough, Fantômas, who set us to work, don’t pay us as we hoped he would. There’s been some good business done, I admit, and without you, without us, it would never have come off. Coin’s been handled by the chief, and it’s all stuck to his fingers, we’ve not had a chance yet to touch it. But I’m not Fantômas, I’m only his lieutenant, and to pass on your complaint to him, I should have to know where he is....”

“You don’t know where Fantômas is? D’ye think we’re going to swallow that humbug?” vociferated “Big Ernestine.”

“No, I do not know, my pretty dear, and if I did, I should have told you long ago, if only to satisfy your curiosity.”

“It’s not a plant, that?” asked the “Gasman,” half inclined to come to the old fellow’s help.

“Hear, hear! Fantômas for ever!”

“Well and good! Fantômas for ever!... So then, I still deserve your confidence, eh? I was to come here to explain things. Haven’t I come? did I shirk away?”

“That’s true enough; but where is the Chief?”

“Where he is precisely, he’d be a mighty cute customer who could tell us and be sure he was not mistaken. What is unfortunately certain is that he must have been put in confinement as from time to time we receive orders from the Santé prison, orders we have, in fact, always faithfully carried out. And all the same, with Fantômas, we are bound to look for the most amazing surprises.... Oh! if only we could see him!”

“We can if we want to!” declared the “Beadle” in a tone of conviction.

Everyone was startled at this bold statement spoken with such confidence, while Fandor felt his curiosity more keenly excited than ever.

“Why, yes, we can see him. If Fantômas writes from the Santé, that means he is there. If he’s there, we must manage his escape, that’s all.”

“You’re not a bit gone in the head, eh?” someone broke the silent pause of stupefaction that followed.

“I! not a bit of it; I’ve got my notion, and I’m just telling you what it is, and if you’re not chicken-hearted, it’ll come off. It’s not so hard as all that to find a crack Fantômas can slip out of gaol by.... Suppose we collar him as they’re taking him along down the passages in the Palais de Justice to be examined, eh? We’ve done bigger jobs than that before now. Only ...”

“Only?”

“Only we must have a plan, and it’s none so easy to find a good one. It’s not to praise up Moche I’m saying it, but there, he’s a mighty clever chap, and can read a heap of big old books and write like a schoolmaster.”

“Well, then, to my thinking we shall do nothing to rights without Moche; let him make out a plan and we’ll carry it through, dead or alive. I have spoken. Fantômas for ever!”

“Fantômas for ever!”

Looking on from his point of vantage, Fandor was prodigiously interested in what he now saw and heard; for all the wealth of the Indies he would not have surrendered his place to anyone whatsoever. But suddenly the journalist felt his heart stop beating at a thought that filled him with consternation; he shuddered as he reflected on the apaches’ new project. If, by any chance, this bold scheme of rescue which the gang proposed proved successful, it was not Fantômas they would lay hands on, but simply Juve! The fact was, the Fantômas of the Santé—Moche, indeed, must know this as certainly as Fandor did himself—was not Fantômas at all, but Juve, and once the police-officer fell into the power of the apaches, he was irremediably lost, whether they took him for Juve or for Fantômas, their perjured and bankrupt paymaster.

Fandor had guessed right; this he gathered from the decision the artful old schemer now pronounced in half a dozen short, crisp words: “I’ll take it on; to-morrow we meet again.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know yet, I must think it over, and once my plan is settled, I will let you know by Paulet. Is that agreed?”

“Agreed!”

“Nothing more to do here then. Let’s be off and have a cosy drink; it’ll be warmer than here, what say you?”

“Now you’re talking. Let’s hook it”—and thus the sitting was dissolved. Threatening dire disaster to Père Moche at the beginning, it had ended finally in a blaze of triumph for that astute scoundrel.

It was a wise precaution, and it proved useful. There was no doubt about it; some member of the gang was coming back, after leaving his confederates under some pretext or other, to return to Paris by themselves. But who was it? and what was he after?

For all the cool presence of mind that characterized him, Fandor with difficulty stifled the cry that rose to his lips. It was Moche! it was indeed Moche, who, after accompanying the apaches for five hundred yards or so as far as the fork of the roads that lead in different directions to Paris and to Alfort, had announced in the most natural way in the world:

“I am expected at Alfort, so I must leave you here. I’m not in your bad books any more?”

“No, no!... to-morrow’s the day?”

“To-morrow or next day, not a day later. So once again: Fantômas for ever!”

“Yes, Fantômas for ever!” echoed “Big Ernestine,” “... but only if he pays up and can prove he hasn’t choused us!”

“By God! yes, we’ll keep our eyes lifting,” added the “Gasman,” completing the other worthy’s meaning. “Till we meet again!”

On reaching the dredger, Moche abandoned his serpentine mode of advance and rising to his feet, stepped on to the deck and made straight for the winding-crank fixed at the bottom end of the spar, to put the buckets in motion. He took the handle in both hands and with legs wide astraddle and back hunched up, set to work to turn. Looking down at the old chap from above, Fandor could not restrain a laugh.

“Sweat away!” he grinned, “I’ll give you a dozen of champagne if you get the old machine to work ... God in heaven! it is turning.”

He had not time to say another word before he was pitched headlong into the lighter astern, among the rubbish that already half filled it and which, luckily for him, made a sort of cushion sufficiently yielding to break his fall. Nor had he time to get to his feet before the contents of the bucket that had previously hung below him, but was now suspended above his head as the chain revolved, came tumbling all over him.

“Oh, Moche, Moche, what a fool you are!—and just when you’re thinking yourself the cleverest rogue unhung! What is the fellow after? By the Lord, he’s hauling out of the mud an iron box, a cashbox. Full of yellow boys, I wager. Egad, there’s enough and to spare there to pay the greediest of Fantômas’ regular workers for their trouble! Moche, my boy, if I wanted to play you a nasty trick, I’d go slap off and tell the gang what I’ve seen, and I promise you that, two hours from now, when they’d caught you, you’d be having a devilish bad half-hour! Luckily for you, I prefer, in Juve’s interests, to find out what you’re proposing to do with your treasure. Are you an honest agent, is it just a trust confided to you by Fantômas? Or, are you by way of robbing your master and all his confederates? Oh, ho! it looks as if the villain is preparing to answer my question himself.”

For now, with a meditative air, Moche was pulling at his hideous red whiskers, one after the other. Then he took out his watch and made several unavailing attempts to see the time, for the night was still so dark he had to wait for a flash of lightning before he could read the hour, while the wind was blowing too violently for him to dream of lighting a match. When at last he was able to make out the face, a cry of annoyance broke from his lips: “Gone three already!”—and without a moment’s delay he started off at a run in the direction of Alfort, gripping under his left arm the precious box, which he had hastily reclosed.

Where was he off to? Fandor took prompt measures to find out, and the other had not gone three hundred paces before his steps were being dogged by the pursuing journalist. The pace was hot. It was plain that Fantômas’ man of business was bent on completing before daylight whatever the job it was he had made up his mind to do. But to manage it he must make all possible haste, for, as Moche had noted, it was by now three o’clock in the morning.

Moche, in fact, was making straight for a tumble-down building that stood empty and abandoned in the middle of a wide stretch of waste ground, its shutters hanging from their hinges, its walls dropping to pieces, and a general look of poverty-stricken dilapidation brooding over all. Like a person familiar with the locality and having a perfect right to march in without knocking, he pushed open the door, a strong and heavy one. Still, the idea occurred to him that tramps might have taken refuge in the ramshackle hut for shelter from the cold out of doors; so he took his revolver in hand, and in he went.

The old usurer reclosed the door behind him; then Fandor, who had been crouching to the ground, advanced with a thousand precautions, glued his ear to the door, made certain that the outermost room was unoccupied, and opening in his turn, made his way silently into the lonely house. Neither did he fail to hold his trusty Browning ready for action. At first he had some difficulty in making out just where Moche could be, but soon, noticing a feeble, almost imperceptible glimmer of light that filtered up through the floor, he realized that the old usurer was in a cellar, and had pulled to after him the trap-door by which he had gained access. Fandor threw himself flat on the trap-door in question and peeped through the cracks between the boards.

But what he saw went far beyond anything he had expected. By the light of a lantern he had unhooked from the wall Moche, having first deposited his precious money-chest on the floor, was busy raising with infinite caution one of the paving-stones in the north corner of the cellar.

“Evidently,” the journalist thought to himself, “he wants to re-bury his treasure in a new place!”

Meantime Fandor had moved from his spying place; Moche was about to take his departure and he must not catch sight of the intruder. The journalist’s first idea was simply to leave the ruined house before the old ruffian; but on second thoughts he realized that such a mode of departure was full of risk.

“Once outside, I shall be on the bare, deserted road, and Moche will inevitably see me—and that will never do!” But now a happy thought struck the young man—Moche, never for one moment suspecting the presence of anyone spying on his actions, would probably not trouble to search the rooms. All he himself would have to do would be to hide, let the old man go out first, then slip away after him quietly and in perfect safety.

A few minutes more and Fandor, concealed behind a forgotten pile of firewood, saw Moche emerge again from the cellar. The old fellow crossed the outer room, reached the door and so away.

“A pleasant journey to you!” grinned Fandor.

But the next instant a cold sweat broke out on his brow; Moche, after pulling the door to after him, had locked it fast.

It was all the young man could do to keep back an oath: “A prisoner! I am a prisoner, by the lord Harry!”