It was for her, to do her honour, to rescue her from the most odious entanglements, that he had in those days devoted himself, body and soul, to the task of clearing up the mysterious affair of the _Messenger of Death_. Twenty times over, in the course of that police investigation, Fandor and Juve had risked their lives. Juve for his part was acting more for the sake of unmasking Fantômas than for any other reason, but for Fandor, he was spurred on by the interest he felt in Elisabeth Dollon. Once, for a moment, he had believed his dearest wishes would be fulfilled. Then, at that very instant of joyful satisfaction, an appalling catastrophe had destroyed his hopes. The prey he was tracking down escaped, and Fantômas, to crown his victory, in eluding the wiles of his two pursuers, Fandor and Juve, had the cruelty to add yet another triumph. He wrote to Elisabeth Dollon—already his victim—“Fandor is Charles Rambert; Charles Rambert is a criminal and a coward,” with the result that, terrified by this false and treacherous calumny, she avoided the young man, vanished from his life, swore she would never see him more! And now, now when he was poor, helpless, condemned to live in company of bandits, apaches, the dregs of society, Fate gave him this sublime recompense, sending him this day to see whom? whom but Elisabeth Dollon! “To see her, heavens! to see her! to tell her who I am, what I am, what I live for, to win a half-hour of sweet, calm converse with her, wherein to convince her of the truth, to explain to her Fantômas’ machinations, oh! it is too much happiness!” Jérôme Fandor strove to regain his self-possession, to master his nerves, but his pace was headlong as he sped to the Rue des Couronnes, where he hoped to win at last an unfeigned declaration of renewed affection from Elisabeth Dollon. “I shall know very well,” he murmured to himself at intervals. “I shall know how to show her I love her truly. By the ardour of my words I shall gain her confidence, the confidence she _must_ grant me, which I _must_ have, that she may feel I speak the truth, that I am not what Fantômas has told her I was.” Arrived at 142 _bis_ Rue des Couronnes, Fandor found the house a crowded nest of working people’s flats. Along a narrow, fetid passage, its damp walls stained and scarred over with inscriptions indicating the names of the tenants and the different floors they occupied, Fandor penetrated to the concierge’s lodge. He tried to push open the door, but it would not yield. “So,” thought the young man, “the woman is not within.” He called: “Anyone there?” but his voice was drowned by a deafening noise proceeding from a tiny courtyard near by. Turning his steps in that direction, he discovered a woman busy with two sticks beating clouds of dust out of an unstitched mattress. “The concierge?” asked the visitor. The woman broke off her work to demand in a grumbling voice: “What do you want with her, eh?” “To inquire for a tenant’s rooms.”