e looked fixedly at his partner. He spoke in
a tone of sad finality:

"I suspected this!... Farewell...."

A shout of horror answered him: he had drawn a sharp dagger from inside
his coat, and had plunged it in his heart up to the hilt!

Juve knelt by the fallen man. Monsieur Havard kept a sharp eye on
Nanteuil.

"Here, then, is Jacques Dollon, the dead-alive!... Here is the elusive
Fantomas!" said the chief of the detective force.

But the bandit brazened it out as he recoiled before the chief.

"Why do you arrest me because of this imprint?" he demanded. "It is a
piece of juggling on the part of this journalist!... Take a fresh
imprint of my hand, my fingers, my thumb, and you will see whether my
hand could possibly leave such an impression as that put on the blotting
pad, by some sleight-of-hand trick of this much too smart reporter!" He
stretched out his arm in the direction of the blotting pad, as though
begging for a fresh trial....

Fandor marched up to Nanteuil.

"Useless," said he, in a curt tone. "I have been watching you!... I know
the trick!"

Nanteuil stood stock-still, dumb. Fandor lifted the cuff of Nanteuil's
coat, and pointed out to Monsieur Havard, and to Juve, a sort of thin
film of glove-like form. It was fastened to the wrist by an almost
imperceptible piece of elastic.

"This is human skin," said Fandor. "Human skin marvellously preserved by
some special process: all its lines and marks are intact. Can you not
guess whence it came? Do you need to be told whose dead body has
supplied this phantom glove?"

Monsieur Havard was as white as a sheet.

"The body of Jacques Dollon," he murmured.... "Yes, that is it!..."

There was a moment's intense silence in the room.

"How do you imagine this wretch set to work?" demanded Monsieur Havard.

"Simple enough," replied Fandor.... "Fantomas knows the danger criminals
run, owing to the exact science of anthropometry: he knows that every
imprint denounces the assassin: he knows that it is difficult to do
anything without leaving such imprints--and that is why, every time he
has committed a crime, he has taken care to glove his hands in the skin
of Jacques Dollon's hands."

Nanteuil, at bay, attempted denial.

"You are talking mere newspaper romance," said he.

Fandor looked the banker in the eye.

"Fantomas!" said he. "Do not attempt to deny what is no longer possible
to deny!... The trick is remarkably clever, and you have reason to be