“Why, yes, I do mean murdered; the fact is obvious. M. Désiré Ferrand, awakened suddenly in the night, was struck with an instrument which evidently stunned him without leaving any wound—perhaps one of those cudgels murderers sometimes use.” “I see what you mean,” broke in M. Havard, “a sandbag, a sack, that is, filled with sand; it makes the most deadly weapon you can imagine when wielded like a sling.” The professor signified his agreement with the Chief’s version of the affair, and went on: “The victim, thus incapacitated, nothing easier than to pierce his heart with a needle; as a matter of fact, we have discovered one driven in under the left breast of the unfortunate man.” Noting the disordered state of the room, M. Casamajols observed: “Before the end there was evidently a struggle, a desperate struggle,” and the professor agreed. But M. Havard now broke in again: “A struggle, however, that was suddenly interrupted when the Minister, who was barefooted, stopped all of a sudden and fell to the floor. Evidently the aggressor, in order to handle his man more easily, and taking advantage of a favourable opportunity, emptied a bagful of nails over the carpet, the nails we have been picking up all this time.” “You are quite right,” agreed the professor, “the little superficial punctures we noticed scarring the dead man’s limbs were no doubt caused by the nails scattered about the floor.” “The scoundrel! he provided for everything, it appears—left nothing to chance.” M. Havard was profoundly agitated and perplexed. Striding up and down the room like a caged lion, casting furtive glances at the Minister’s body, he pondered the tragic origins of the crime and strove to fathom the mystery of who the criminal was. At seven in the morning he had been awakened by the telephone ringing him up from the Ministry of Justice. Summoned in all haste to the Place Vendôme, in a quarter of an hour he was at the scene of action, questioning the staff, examining the Minister’s bedroom, the adjoining apartments and the precincts generally of the mansion, but entirely, absolutely without result. Subsequently, however, when he came to search among the papers littering the Minister’s desk, he had been astonished, as had Ferrand himself, by the great number of holograph memoranda, all relating to Fantômas’ million francs and no doubt intentionally intermingled with the “urgent” correspondence. It was deliberately done, it was evidently the sign manual once more of the criminal, it was Fantômas, who, in ironic mood, anxious to rouse public opinion afresh, thus affirmed his presence and confirmed his impunity.