The Exploits of Juve

  XXVI

  AT THE HOUSE OF BONARDIN, THE ACTOR

  In the Place d'Anvers, Fandor was passing Rokin College. He heard someone calling him. "Monsieur Fandor! Monsieur Fandor!"

  It was Josephine, breathless and panting, her bright eyes glowing withjoy.

  Fandor turned, astonished.

  "What is up?"

  Josephine paused a second, then taking Fandor's hand familiarly drew himinto the square, which at this time of day was almost deserted.

  "Oh, it's something out of the common, I can assure you. I am going toastonish you!"

  "You've done that already. The mere sight of you----"

  "You thought I was arrested, didn't you?"

  Fandor nodded.

  "Well, it's your Juve who is jugged!"

  Contrary to Josephine's expectation, Fandor did not appear veryastonished.

  "Come now, Miss Josephine, that's a likely tale! Juve arrested? On whatgrounds?"

  Josephine began an incoherent story.

  "I tell you they squabbled like rag-pickers! 'You make justiceridiculous,' shouted Fuselier. 'No one has the right to commit suchblunders!' Well, they kept going on like that for a quarter of an hour.And then Fuselier rang and two Municipal guards came and he said:'Arrest that man there!' pointing to Juve. And your friend the detectivewas obliged to let them do it. Only as he left the room he gave Fuseliersuch a look! Believe me, between those two it is war to the death fromnow."

  When she had ended Fandor asked in a calm voice:

  "And how did you get away, Josephine?"

  "Oh, M. Fuselier was very nice. 'It's you again?' said he when he sawme. 'To be sure it is,' answered I, 'and I'm glad to meet you again, M.Magistrate.' Then he began to hold forth about the cinema business. Itold him what I knew about it, what I told you. Loupart stuffed me upwith his tale of a trap. As sure as my name's Josephine I believed whatmy lover told me."

  Fandor gave her a penetrating glance.

  "And how about the Dixon business?"

  Josephine coloured, and said in a low tone:

  "Oh, the Dixon business, as to that--we are very good pals, Dixon and I.Just fancy, I went to see him yesterday afternoon. He has taken a fancyto me. He promised to keep me in luxury. Ah, if I dared," sighed thegirl.

  "You would do well to leave Loupart."

  "Leave Loupart? Especially now that Juve is in quod, Loupart will be theKing of Paris!"

  "Do you think your lover will attach much weight to the arrest of Juve?Won't he fancy it's a put-up job?"

  "A put-up job! How could it be? Why, I saw with my two eyes Juve ledaway with the bracelets on his wrists."

  The growing hubbub of the newsboys crying the evening papers drew nearthe Place d'Anvers. Instinctively Fandor, followed by Josephine, wenttoward them. On the boulevard he bought a paper.

  "There you see!" cried Josephine triumphantly. "Here it is in print, soit is true!"

  In scare headlines appeared this notice--"Amazing development in theaffair of the Outlaws of La Chapelle. Detective Juve under lock andkey."

  Fandor, when he met Josephine in the Place d'Anvers, was on his way tothe Rue des Abesses where Bonardin occupied a nice little suite of threerooms, tastefully decorated and comfortably furnished.

  The actor had his shoulder in plaster--Juve's bullet had broken hisclavicle, but the doctor declared that with a few days' rest he would bequite well again.

  "M. Fandor, I am very sorry for what is happening to M. Juve. Do youthink if I were to declare my intention not to proceed against him----"

  Fandor cut his companion short.

  "Let justice take its course, M. Bonardin. There will always be timelater on."

  Although M. Bonardin was only twenty-five, he was beginning to have somereputation. By hard work he had come rapidly to the front, and was fastgaining a position among the best interpreters of modern comedy.

  "My dream," he exclaimed to Fandor, "is one day to attain to the fame ofmy masters, of such men as Tazzide, Gemier, Valgrand and Dumeny."

  "You knew Valgrand?" asked Fandor.

  Bonardin smiled.

  "Why, we were great friends. When I first made my appearance at thetheatre, after the Conservatoire, Valgrand was my model, my master. Youcertainly don't recollect it, M. Fandor, but I played the lover in thefamous play 'La Toche Sanglante,' for which Valgrand had made himself upexactly like Gurn, the murderer of Lord Beltham. You must have heard ofthe case?"

  Fandor pretended to tax his memory.

  "Why, to be sure I do recall certain incidents, but won't you refresh mymemory?"

  Bonardin asked no better than to chatter.

  "Valgrand, on the first night of his presentation of Gurn,[B] was quiteworn out and left the theatre very late. He did not come again! For thesecond performance, his understudy took his part. The following day theysent to Valgrand's rooms; he had not been there for two days. The thirdday from the 'first night' Valgrand came among us again."

  "Pray go on, you interest me immensely!"

  "Valgrand came back, but he had gone mad. He managed to get to hisdressing-room after taking the wrong door. 'I don't know a single wordof my part,' he confessed to me. I comforted him as best I could, but heflung himself down on his couch and shook his head helplessly at me. 'Ihave been very ill, Bonardin,' then suddenly he demanded: 'Where isCharlot?'

  "Charlot was his dresser. I remembered now that Charlot had not returnedto the theatre since his master's disappearance. His body was foundlater in the Rue Messier. He had been murdered. I did not want tomention this to him for fear it might upset him still more, so I advisedmy old friend to wait for me till the end of the play and let me keephim company. I intended to take him home and fetch a doctor. Valgrandassented readily. I was then obliged to leave him hurriedly: they werecalling me--it was my cue. When I returned Valgrand had vanished: he hadleft the theatre. We were not to see him again!"

  "A sad affair," commented Fandor.

  Bonardin continued his narrative:

  "Shortly afterwards in a deserted house in the Rue Messier, nearBoulevard Arago, the police found the body of a murdered man. The corpsewas easily identified; it was that of Charlot, Valgrand's dresser."

  "How did he come there? The house had no porter: the owner, an oldpeasant, knew nothing."

  "Well, what do you conclude from this?" asked Fandor.

  "My theory is that Valgrand murdered his dresser, for some reasonunknown to us. Then, overcome by his crime, he went mad and committedsuicide. Of that there is no doubt."

  "Oh!" muttered Fandor, a little taken aback by this unexpectedassertion.

  The journalist, though he had closely followed the actor's account, wasfar from drawing the same conclusions. For in fact, Gurn, Lord Beltham'smurderer, whom Fandor believed to be Fantomas, had certainly gotValgrand executed in his stead. The Valgrand who came back to thetheatre, three days after the execution, was not the real one, but theman who had taken his place--Gurn, the criminal, Gurn--Fantomas. Ah!that was a stroke of the true Fantomas sort! It was certain that ifValgrand's disappearance had been simultaneous with Gurn's execution,there might have been suspicions. Gurn--Fantomas then found it necessaryto show Valgrand living to witnesses, so that these could swear that thereal Valgrand had not died instead of Gurn.

  But Valgrand was an actor, Gurn--Fantomas was not! Not enough of one atleast to venture to take the place on the boards of such a consummateplayer, such a famous tragedian.

  "And that was the end?" asked Fandor.

  "The end, no!" declared the actor. "Valgrand was married and had a son.As is often the case with artists, the Valgrand marriage was not asuccess, and madame, a singer of talent, was separated from her husband,and travelled much abroad.

  "About a year after these sad occurrences I had a visit from her. On herway through Paris, she had come to draw the allowance made her by herhusband, to supply not only her own wants, but also those of her son, ofwhom she had the custody. Mme. Valgrand chatted with me for hourstogether. I recoun
ted to her at length what I have had the honour oftelling you, and it seemed to me that she gave no great credence to mywords.

  "Not that she threw doubts on my statements, but she kept reiterating,'That is not like him; I know Valgrand would never have behaved in sucha way!'

  "But I never could get her to say exactly what she thought. Some weeksafter this first visit I saw her again. Matters were gettingcomplicated. There was no certificate of her husband's death. Her men ofbusiness made his 'absence' a pretext: she no longer drew a cent of herallowance, and yet people knew that Valgrand had left a pretty largeamount, and it was in the bank or with a lawyer, I forget which. You areaware, M. Fandor, that when the settling of accounts, or questions ofinheritance or wills, come to the fore there is no end to them."

  "That's a fact," replied Fandor.

  "We must believe," went on Bonardin, "that the matter was important inMme. Valgrand's eyes, for she refused fine offers from abroad, andplanted herself in Paris, living on her savings. The good womanevidently had a double object, to recover the inheritance for her son,little Rene, and also to get at the truth touching her husband's fate.

  "She evidently cherished the hope that her husband was not guilty of thedresser's murder, that perhaps he was not even dead, that he would getover his madness if ever they managed to find him. In short, M. Fandor,some six or seven months ago, when I had quite ceased to think of theseevents, I found myself face to face with Mme. Valgrand on the Boulevard.I had some difficulty in recognising her, for my friend's widow was nolonger dressed like the Parisian smart woman. Her hair was plastereddown and drawn tightly back, her garments were plain and humble, herdress almost neglected. No doubt the poor woman had experienced crueldisappointments.

  "'Good day, Mme. Valgrand,' I cried, moving toward her withoutstretched hands. She stopped me with a gesture.

  "'Hush,' she breathed, 'there is no Mme. Valgrand now. I am acompanion.' And the unhappy woman explained that to earn her living shehad to accept an inferior position as reader and housekeeper to a richlady."

  "And to whom did Mme. Valgrand go as companion?"

  "To an Englishwoman, I believe, but the name escapes me."

  "Mme. Valgrand wished, you say, that her identity should remain unknown?Do you know what name she took?"

  "Yes--Mme. Raymond."

  Some moments later Fandor left the actor and was hastening down the RueLepic as fast as his legs would take him.