possible that the police of
Hesse-Weimar may have discovered their mistake, and taken this method of
setting me at liberty. Or, it has been given out that I am dead, and
they intend to bury this poor fellow in my place....

"No, that's stupid. I was forgetting it is Fantomas who is supposed to
be caught, then are they going to give out that Fantomas is dead?...
That seems out of the question.... Besides this man didn't die a natural
death, he was killed! I can't make head or tail of it."

Juve paced up and down, rejecting one hypothesis after another. Finally,
with a shrug of his shoulders, he cried:

"Bah! I shall know all in good time. Let's get to the most pressing
problem. I have been given money, a ticket with the time of departure
marked on the time-table, that is as much as to say:

"'My dear Sir, you are to go to the Station and take the 1.22 train,
first class, for the frontier, there you will be left to your own
devices ... but be careful to use the disguise given you.'"

"Well," continued Juve to himself, "I haven't the least desire to thwart
my mysterious friends, having no wish to prolong my visit here."

Soon afterward Juve set out toward the town. As he walked the dawn broke
on the horizon.

* * * * *

For three hours the Berlin express had been speeding across Hesse-Weimar
on its way to Paris. Night was beginning to fall and multi-colored
signals showed their points of light as the train sped past way
stations.

Juve, plunged in his thoughts, paid no attention to what was passing
without. He had picked up a copy of the _Hesse-Weimar Gazette_ before
leaving, and in it had read the following:

"The desperate bandit, Fantomas, arrested two days ago in the Royal
Palace while in the act of stealing the diamond, has committed suicide
by shooting himself through the head with a small revolver he had hidden
in his clothes. His body is now lying in the mortuary chapel of the
cemetery awaiting the inevitable autopsy."

This information but confirmed Juve in the hypothesis he had formed. But
there still remained a point to be cleared up. Undoubtedly the public
were being duped ... but who was duping them, and why? If Juve was
thought to be Fantomas, they wouldn't have let him escape and put a dead
man in his place. On the other hand, if they knew that Juve was not
Fantomas, why the devil had this suicide story been invented?

A new idea suddenly flashed through Juve's m