“The wound is quite superficial, the skin is only slightly broken, and if the hurt has bled rather copiously, that is only because one or two small veins have been divided. With every confidence I can assure you the prisoner’s bed has nothing whatever to do with the accident. It is a cut is in question, and a cut that cannot have been made by anything except an implement with a cutting edge. A blow, as violent as is assumed, would have produced a bruise, a swelling, the blood would have collected under the epidermis, might indeed have spurted out, but we should never have seen an incision so clean-cut as that.” But whilst the doctor was speaking, Juve had turned as pale as death; he seemed to have lost all power in his limbs and sank down exhausted on a stool. Doctor Du Marvier was quick to notice the prisoner’s condition; taking his hand he felt his pulse carefully. “Tell me,” he said, “is your pulse so slow usually?” “No, doctor, I have always supposed myself to have a normally rapid pulse, but to-day I don’t feel quite well, I slept very badly last night and I have a violent headache.” “Let me see your tongue!” It was quite white, like a man’s after a high fever. Then the doctor put his ear to the prisoner’s heart; when he raised his head after a long auscultation, he had apparently found the solution of the problem, for a look of conviction illuminated his face. Drawing the Governor on one side, he spoke to him in a low voice. What he said must have been of the very gravest import for, when he had done, the Governor was as pale as Juve himself and seemed to be profoundly agitated. M. Chaigniste was turning to the prisoner, no doubt intending to question him further, when one of his private servants came in to tell him: “M. Havard, sir, is waiting in your room to speak to you on some very urgent business.” “I will go to him,” replied the Governor, and beckoning to the warders: “Take the man back to his cell,” he ordered, “and keep him under observation.” M. Havard was much excited. His idea had been to follow up his researches regarding the crime committed at the grand duchess’s by satisfying himself as to Juve’s condition. Inasmuch as it was a proven fact that Fantômas had been wounded in the arm, if Juve was really and truly Fantômas, he argued, Juve must be wounded. Accordingly, M. Havard had betaken himself to the _Santé_ prison. Well, scarcely had he arrived there before he learned that the Governor and the doctor were with Juve, who had been wounded in the night! It was the confirmation of all his hypotheses; it was the new and unexpected fact that should bring daylight into a laborious investigation, hitherto anything but fruitful in results! Juve was verily and indeed Fantômas! the ex-detective was the most redoubtable of all malefactors! If he showed such acuteness and sagacity in unravelling the most tangled affairs, it was because the very crimes he brought to light he had himself committed!