“Where he is precisely, he’d be a mighty cute customer who could tell us and be sure he was not mistaken. What is unfortunately certain is that he must have been put in confinement as from time to time we receive orders from the _Santé_ prison, orders we have, in fact, always faithfully carried out. And all the same, with Fantômas, we are bound to look for the most amazing surprises.... Oh! if only we could see him!” “We can if we want to!” declared the “Beadle” in a tone of conviction. Everyone was startled at this bold statement spoken with such confidence, while Fandor felt his curiosity more keenly excited than ever. “Why, yes, we can see him. If Fantômas writes from the _Santé_, that means he is there. If he’s there, we must manage his escape, that’s all.” “You’re not a bit gone in the head, eh?” someone broke the silent pause of stupefaction that followed. “I! not a bit of it; I’ve got my notion, and I’m just telling you what it is, and if you’re not chicken-hearted, it’ll come off. It’s not so hard as all that to find a crack Fantômas can slip out of gaol by.... Suppose we collar him as they’re taking him along down the passages in the Palais de Justice to be examined, eh? We’ve done bigger jobs than that before now. Only ...” “Only?” “Only we must have a plan, and it’s none so easy to find a good one. It’s not to praise up Moche I’m saying it, but there, he’s a mighty clever chap, and can read a heap of big old books and write like a schoolmaster.” Moche was flattered and gave a little nod of the head, as much as to say they were quite in the right about him and the profundity of his acquirements. Then the “Beadle” seeing his audience hanging on his lips, went on with redoubled ardour: “Well, then, to my thinking we shall do nothing to rights without Moche; let him make out a plan and we’ll carry it through, dead or alive. I have spoken. Fantômas for ever!” “Fantômas for ever!” Looking on from his point of vantage, Fandor was prodigiously interested in what he now saw and heard; for all the wealth of the Indies he would not have surrendered his place to anyone whatsoever. But suddenly the journalist felt his heart stop beating at a thought that filled him with consternation; he shuddered as he reflected on the apaches’ new project. If, by any chance, this bold scheme of rescue which the gang proposed proved successful, it was not Fantômas they would lay hands on, but simply Juve! The fact was, the Fantômas of the _Santé_—Moche, indeed, must know this as certainly as Fandor did himself—was not Fantômas at all, but Juve, and once the police-officer fell into the power of the apaches, he was irremediably lost, whether they took him for Juve or for Fantômas, their perjured and bankrupt paymaster. Fandor had guessed right; this he gathered from the decision the artful old schemer now pronounced in half a dozen short, crisp words: “I’ll take it on; to-morrow we meet again.” “Where?”