"Ah, my dear fellow, it will not be the first time we have had to mention these personages in our columns!... Just cast your mind back to the Gurn affair!..." "Ah, the drama in which a great lady was implicated ... to her detriment! Lady ... Lady Beltham?" "You have got it! These Dollons--Jacques and Elizabeth--did you know it?--happen to be the children of old Dollon, who was murdered in the train--an extraordinary murder!--when on his way to Paris, to give evidence in the Gurn case?" "Why, of course! I remember perfectly!" declared the editorial secretary: "Dollon, the father, was the Marquise de Langrune's steward!... The old lady who was murdered!... Isn't that so?" "That's it!... But, after the death of his mistress, he entered the service of the Baroness de Vibray, she who was assassinated yesterday!" "Well, I must say they have not been favoured by fortune," said the secretary jokingly. "But, look here, Fandor--like father, like son, eh?... If this young Dollon has murdered Madame de Vibray, doesn't that make you think that his father was the murderer of the Marquise de Langrune?" Jerome Fandor shook his head: "No, old boy, yesterday's crime was ordinary, even common-place, but the assassination of the Marquise de Langrune, on the contrary, gave the police no end of bother." "They did not find out anything, did they?" "Why, yes!... Don't you remember?... Naturally enough, it must all seem rather remote to you, but I have all the details as clearly in mind as if they had happened only yesterday.... The Gurn affair was one of the first I had a hand in, with Juve ... it was in connection with that very affair I made my start here on _La Capitale_."[2] [Footnote 2: See _Fantomas_.] Fandor grew pale: "And you were jolly proud of it, eh, Fandor?... Good Heavens, how you did hold forth about this Juve! And you regularly fed us up with this villain, so mysterious, so extraordinary, who was never run to earth, could not be captured, was capable of the most inhuman cruelties, capable of devising the most unimaginable tricks and stratagems--this Fantomas!" Fandor grew pale: "My dear fellow," said he, "never speak sneeringly or jokingly of Fantomas!... No doubt it is taken for granted, by the public at any rate, that Fantomas is an invention of Juve and myself: that Fantomas never existed!... And that because this monster, who is a man of genius, has never been identified; because not a soul has been able to lay hands on him ...; and because, as you know, this fruitless pursuit has cost poor Juve his life...." "The truth is, this famous detective died a foul death!"