d him to pronounce the name of
the formidable bandit, of whom they could not think without a shudder;
whose memory they could not evoke without immediately feeling themselves
surrounded by sinister gloom, lost in a thick fog of mystery, of what
was strange, hidden, occult!

Fandor's countenance cleared suddenly as he gave utterance to the idea
which had just crossed his mind.

"Juve, do you not think that this mysterious prison warder, called
Nibet, might very well be an incarnation of Fantomas, because in so many
circumstances ..."

Juve interrupted Fandor with a gesture of denial.

"No, old fellow," said he gravely. "Don't start on that trail, it is
assuredly a bad one: Nibet is not Fantomas. Nibet does not count for
much, one might say, for nothing at all; he can scarcely be called a
tiny wheel even in the great machine driven on its diabolical course by
our fiendish enemy ... we must look higher than that!"

"Thomery?" insisted Fandor, who still held to his idea, and was
determined to turn Juve to his way of thinking....

But Juve still said "no!" to that.

"Let us drop Thomery, my lad! As to Fantomas, how do you think we can
identify him in this haphazard fashion, basing our idea on pure
supposition? ... For, who is Fantomas--the real Fantomas, among so many
probable Fantomas?

"Can you tell me that, Fandor?" continued Juve, who was getting excited
at last.... "I grant you that we have seen, in the course of our
chequered existence, an old gentleman, like Etienne Rambert, a thickset
Englishman like Gurn, a robust fellow like Loupart, a weak and sickly
individual like Chaleck. We have identified each one of them, in turn,
as Fantomas--and that is all.

"As for seeing Fantomas himself, just as he is, without artificial aid,
without paint and powder, without a false beard, without a wig, Fantomas
as his face really is under his hooded mask of black--that we have not
yet done. It is that fact which makes our hunt for the villain
ceaselessly difficult, often dangerous!... Fantomas is always someone,
sometimes two persons, never himself!"

Juve, once started on this subject, could go on for ever, and Fandor did
not try to stop him: when the course of conversation led them to talk of
Fantomas the two men were as though hypnotised by this mysterious
creature, so well named, for he was really "Fantomatic," a spectral
entity: the two friends could not turn their minds to any other subject.
They discussed Fantoma