“Well, take ’em with you, young sir! For the last six months I’ve found ’em useful for the same little game. You see, I send a pal, as it might be you, to call on the guy who wants to take my rooms. He comes under pretence of offering the new tenant a choice of wall-papers; as a matter of fact, I simply use him to inspect the furniture that must guarantee the rent. As you may suppose, I never do pay for the papering. Not much! The offer’s made—and there it ends!” Fandor showed no surprise. The business his strange employer was sending him on was of course perfectly straightforward and legitimate! Still keeping to his slangy way of speaking, Fandor merely asked: “And what’s the name, M’sieu Moche, your dicky-bird goes by? and what’s her exact address in the Rue des Couronnes?” M. Moche, while talking to his clerk, was busy changing his down-at-heel slippers for a pair of elastic-sided boots, obviously too small for him, the whitey-brown cracks in which he masked by smearing them with ink. He was bending down behind his desk and could not see the other’s face as he answered his last question: “The dicky-bird, as you call her, lives, to be exact, at 142 _bis_ Rue des Couronnes. As to her name, that’s pretty well-known, she’s the sister of a man who was murdered; you can’t help remembering about it; she’s called Mademoiselle Elisabeth Dollon—you’ll not forget?” In a shaking voice it needed an almost superhuman effort to steady, Jérôme Fandor promised he would not forget the name! A thousand thoughts were whirling madly through his brain, his heart was still beating high with excitement, when M. Moche went on: “Well then, hook it, my boy; here’s three half-pence for going, to pay your Underground; it’s not far, you can walk back.” Yes, he could walk back quite well, Fandor agreed, hardly conscious of what he was saying. Ten minutes later he was on his way to the Rue des Couronnes. Elisabeth Dollon! He was going, he, Jérôme Fandor, to see Elisabeth Dollon! As if the past had suddenly risen before his eyes as on the film of an imaginary cinematograph of dreams, Jérôme Fandor lived again in pain and grief the torturing crises, the grim tragedies that name called back to memory, a woman’s name, the name of Elisabeth Dollon. No, never had he forgotten the pathetic heroine of those terrible days. Elisabeth Dollon, the unhappy sister of the painter, Jacques Dollon, Fantômas’ victim, deemed by some to be himself Fantômas till the day when Juve and Fandor rehabilitated his good name, was she not the only being Fandor cherished with a fond affection? Since the first day he had learnt to know her, to appreciate the girl’s proud and tender character, Jérôme Fandor had loved her!