imperceptible bow and was on the point of withdrawing when the detective
stayed him once more. "M. Wooland, did you know Lord Beltham?"

"No, sir: Lord Beltham always sent us his orders by letter; once or
twice he has spoken to us over the telephone, but he never came to our
office, and I have never been to his house."

"Thank you very much," said Juve, and with a bow Mr. Wooland withdrew.

* * * * *

With meticulous care Juve replaced every article which he had moved
during his investigations. He carefully shut the lid of the trunk, thus
hiding the unhappy corpse from the curious eyes of the gendarme and the
still terrified Mme. Doulenques. Then he leisurely buttoned his overcoat
and spoke to the gendarme.

"Stay here until I send a man to relieve you; I am going to your
superintendent now." At the door he called the concierge. "Will you
kindly go down before me, madame? Return to your lodge, and please do
not say a word about what has happened to anyone whatever."

"You can trust me, sir," the worthy creature murmured, and Juve walked
slowly away from the house with head bowed in thought.

There could be no doubt about it: the body in the trunk was that of Lord
Beltham! Juve knew the Englishman quite well. But who was the murderer?

"Everything points to Gurn," Juve thought, "and yet would an ordinary
murderer have dared to commit such a crime as this? Am I letting my
imagination run away with me again? I don't know: but it seems to me
that about this murder, committed in the very middle of Paris, in a
crowded house where yet nobody heard or suspected anything, there is an
audacity, a certainty of impunity, and above all a multiplicity of
precautions, that are typical of the Fantomas manner!" He clenched his
fists and an evil smile curled his lips as he repeated, like a threat,
the name of that terrible and most mysterious criminal, of whose hellish
influence he seemed to be conscious yet once again. "Fantomas! Fantomas!
Did Fantomas really commit this murder? And if he did, shall I ever
succeed in throwing light upon this new mystery, and learning the secret
of that tragic room?"

VIII. A DREADFUL CONFESSION

While Juve was devoting his marvellous skill and incomparable daring to
the elucidation of the new case with which the Criminal Investigation
Department had entrusted him in Paris, things were marching at Beaulieu,
where the whole machinery of the law was being se