A Royal Prisoner Part 45

At length, after a long walk, Mme. Ceiron made her climb the stairs of a decent looking house. On the way up she remembered feeling faint and that the concierge had given her salts to smell. Following that came complete unconsciousness, out of which she woke to hear a grim menacing voice exclaim:

"I am Fantomas! I condemn you to death in the interest of my cause!"

She was in the hands of Fantomas!

And then she fainted again, but not until after a flood of light had been let into her mind. In a flash she understood that Fantomas himself must have been the mainspring of the incomprehensible events enveloping the King's visit to Paris. Furthermore, she divined that Mme. Ceiron and Fantomas were the same person. It was she who offered the salts, undoubtedly inducing her unconsciousness. The sound of a steady tic-tac she recognized as coming from a nearby clock. Where was she?

Was she really in Juve's apartment?

With a supreme effort she succeeded in turning her head a little, and in the movement the bandage over her eyes became loosened and fell off. She could see at last!

She found herself bound to a large sofa placed in the middle of a well-furnished room. Before her was placed a monstrous and sinister thing--the menacing barrel of a revolver. Its trigger was bound by a number of strings, each one ending in a nail. These were embedded in lighted wax candles, and from the nails hung a counter-weight.

It was not difficult to guess its purport.

When the candles burned down to the nails, these would become detached, releasing the counter-weights and automatically discharging the revolver aimed straight at her body. Fantomas had no need to return. His infernal cunning had found a means to kill her in his absence.

Marie Pascal calculated that the candles would burn for not more than an hour--an hour and a half at most. The unfortunate girl now began to undergo the agony of waiting for her approaching end. It seemed to her that the candles had been piously lighted for some death watch. When the wax had melted near the first nails, she closed her eyes and a deep sigh of horror escaped from her lips.

"Pity! Pity!"

Suddenly, Jerome Fandor burst into the chamber, anxious to tell his friend Juve about the objects he had found in Marie Pascal's room.

Scarcely had he opened the door than he started back in amazement, white as a sheet. Ah! the horrible spectacle of the young girl lying motionless, as though dead, she, who in spite of everything, he still found charming. Then realizing the situation, he sprang forward, put out the candles and removed the revolver.

"Saved! You are saved!"

With infinite precautions he untied the ropes and placed Marie's head upon some cus.h.i.+ons. She opened her eyes slowly and murmured:

"Where am I? Help! Fantomas!"

Fandor endeavored to rea.s.sure her.

"Don't be frightened! Fantomas isn't here; you are saved.... It is I ...

Jerome Fandor."

Marie Pascal was seated in an armchair, still very pale, but with courage regained.

"Now, Mademoiselle," exclaimed the journalist, "I beg you to tell me everything.... I promise I won't give you up ... time is precious and if your accomplice had tried to get rid of you, it is only natural; you are dangerous for him.... Marie Pascal, I implore you to tell me the truth!

Tell me, who is Fantomas?"

The young girl listened to these words with growing amazement.

"The accomplice of Fantomas, I!... What are you saying, Monsieur?...

Sire!"

Jerome Fandor interrupted.

"Now don't deny it! Look here, I'll tell you the truth. I am not the King."

"You are not...."

"No, but I haven't time to explain that now... you must help me to capture this criminal ... and I give you my word you will not be involved yourself."

"But I am not the accomplice of Fantomas!"

"Then why did you steal those jewels? Why have you the key of Susy d'Orsel's apartment in your possession?"

Marie's face expressed such bewilderment as Fandor asked the question that he could no longer doubt her innocence.

"Then, for the love of heaven, tell me all you know!"

Marie Pascal told a lengthy story. She recounted in detail the role she had played in the tragic affair of the Rue Monceau and ended by exclaiming:

"What you don't know is that Mme. Ceiron is in reality Fantomas. Under this disguise he has tried to a.s.sa.s.sinate me; he a.s.sured you that I had gone to the country, so that rescue would have been impossible."

"Ah, Fantomas!" cried Fandor at the end of the recital, "your hour has come! In an hour at most you will begin the expiation of your crimes!"

As the young girl looked doubtfully at him, he added:

"It's time, Marie Pascal! Come with me and see him arrested!"

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THE ARREST OF FANToMAS

"Good evening, Monsieur Caldoni, so you are starting soon?"

"Yes, Monsieur Vicart, it's customary and also my duty, every time a sovereign, a crowned head, takes the train..."

"You stick as close to him as possible until he has reached the frontier. Well, I'm not sorry to see you here," continued Vicart, "for now my job is over."

"And mine just beginning, worse luck."

"Oh! you have only a few hours of it; you travel luxuriously in a special train..."

"One gets tired of that pretty soon. Last week I took the Dowager Queen of Italy to Menton; then jumped to the Spanish frontier to pick up the King of Spain; now it's the King of Hesse-Weimar--to-morrow, who knows?"

The station was decorated gaily in honor of the departing Frederick-Christian. In a private room, a number of the guests, especially invited, were waiting the arrival of the Sovereign.

While M. Vicart, in company with a special agent, made a rapid examination of the station and satisfied himself that all preparations had been thoroughly carried out, M. Caldoni was talking to the station-master.

"The King's special train is to start exactly at 10.17, that is to say, it will follow, at an interval of 10 minutes number 322."