It was the day after the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s ball, and that very evening Lady Beltham, in fulfilment of her promise to Fandor, was to go and see Elisabeth Dollon to assure her of the journalist’s innocence. Fandor never doubted that the great lady would keep her engagement and find some way of meeting the girl. After the furious dagger thrust, against which his coat of mail had so fortunately protected him, after his flight from the grand duchess’s, a flight that lady had in fact facilitated, the journalist could no longer doubt that Fantômas had been really present at that festivity. And from that moment the death of the unfortunate police-officer was no riddle to him—Joffre had fallen by the hand of Fantômas. This fresh murder in no way surprised him. Accordingly Jérôme Fandor, anxious above all things to meet Elisabeth Dollon and secure a renewal of the girl’s favour, had all the afternoon been watching for Lady Beltham’s arrival at the lake in the Bois. But it was only at nine in the evening that she arrived, and Fandor had of course taken care not to reveal his presence just then. When Lady Beltham should be returning and re-crossing the lake, then he would go to her and thank her and ask her if he might now go to Elisabeth to find her convinced of his innocence; for the moment it was very necessary to keep concealed. But just as the boat reached the landing place of the Restaurant Azaïs, Fandor, who was still prowling on the road beside the lake, caught sight of M. Havard’s figure, and Tom Bob with him, both evidently intending to take the ferry on their way back to Paris. Then in an instant came a flash, a blaze, an impassable wall of fire separating the journalist from the island and the restaurant. Like a madman, the unhappy man ran along the bank, wringing his hands in despair. But what could he do? what could he do? In an agony he pictured the terrible position, perhaps the fatal position ... in which the wretches now on the island might find themselves. “Elisabeth!” he cried, “Elisabeth, oh! we are under a curse!” Fandor in fact was asking himself if the fire was not going to reach the island, if indeed the island itself, drenched with petroleum, was not blazing too; if Elisabeth were not doomed to die by that awful death, the death that is worse than a thousand deaths, death by fire! Fandor could divine the whole villainous plot. No, it was no mere coincidence that the lake should take fire at the very moment Elisabeth learned that he was innocent. Not a doubt of it this was another of the horrid acts of cruelty Fantômas loved. Fantômas had willed Elisabeth should die at that precise moment. Yes, for he knew all, he had learned the _rendez-vous_ arranged with the grand duchess, for had he not been present at the whole conversation between Fandor and the great lady, when Fandor merely supposed he was looking at one of the many reflections in the mirrors ornamenting the walls of the winter garden.