Detective and mystery stories; Fantômas (Fictitious character) -- Fiction
Hours ago officer and journalist had planned his arrest. Instead of
hurrying off to find M. Havard, as the latter hoped, Juve and Fandor
had sworn to themselves to set off at once, hot foot, on the track of
the atrocious villain. They had been well advised in going straight
to Lady Beltham’s, for no sooner did they reach the neighbourhood of
the house in the Parc des Princes than they saw Fantômas slip in.
Thereupon, making sure the outlaw would inevitably try to escape by way
of the hidden pathway behind the building, they ensconced themselves in
the deepest shadow of the trees and waited.
Their foresight was rewarded; they had the brigand hard and fast. In
one second, with amazing dexterity, Juve had his prisoner handcuffed.
With his hands thus linked together in front of him, Fantômas was
harmless, helpless, impotent. With a vigorous push Juve forced him to
his knees, then to his feet. Gripping their captive by the arms, Juve
on one side, Fandor on the other, the two, without a word—they might
surely have found too much to say, and thought it best to hold their
tongue—dragged off their redoubtable prisoner towards the door at the
far end of the park.
Fantômas was deep in thought:
“Once they get me as far as there, once they drag me over the threshold
of that door, once I leave this garden, it is all up, I am done for!”
With amazing coolness the extraordinary man analysed the situation, and
in two seconds drew his conclusion. He had a hundred yards still to go
along the tree-shaded pathway; before that hundred yards was traversed,
he must find a means of escape—or else ...
Any display of physical force was impossible! any exertion of strength
would have been in vain; Juve and Fandor held him fast, each with
a grip of steel, their strength doubled by the furious anger that
tightened their muscles and the triumph that swelled their hearts to
have captured the scoundrel. Nor could Fantômas dream of eluding their
vigilance or asking any favour of his captors; the pitiless ruffian
could hope for no pity!
The last fifty yards only remained, and Fantômas had devised nothing
yet.
But suddenly a gleam of ferocity flashed in his eye. With a sudden
spring, he threw himself to one side of the pathway, shouldering back
Fandor who was on his left, dragging Juve on his right after him. Next
moment, with a lightning dart neither officer nor journalist could
anticipate, the brigand had fallen on two hives and kicked them over.
True, Juve and Fandor, instantly hauled him back to the middle of the
path, but yells of agony now burst from their lips. The bees, disturbed
in their peaceful labours, exasperated at the earthquake that had
befallen them, rose in angry swarms and swooped down on the three men!
Burning for revenge, the insects in their hurrying thousands fell upon
their enemies!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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