“When I think how I befriended you, how I saved you in your extremity, and then you came and murdered people in my house and committed atrocious crimes, I don’t know, I really do not know, you villain, what hinders me ...” Fandor looked his man calmly in the face. For one moment he had entertained the notion of seizing his accuser by the throat and choking him, for instinctively his gorge rose at the outrageous charge brought against him. But he quickly realized that, to begin with, old Moche’s indignation was only pretence, and then, that the least display of violence on his part could only have consequences disastrous to his plans. The journalist had gathered the firm conviction in the course of the two hours he had spent among the dubious frequenters of the _Blue Chestnut_ that Père Moche was possessed of a strange, but indubitable authority over these sinister personages. There was no question that, for some purpose or another, he was in the habit of aiding and abetting them, lending them money at need, or that he possessed an astuteness that made him master of the rest of his associates—and was perhaps the mysterious intermediary who transmitted to them the orders of the elusive autocrat Fantômas. Postponing all thought of reprisals for the present, Fandor obeyed the old ruffian’s orders and sneaked away; a few moments more and he quitted the _Blue Chestnut_ without his departure being remarked by anyone whatsoever, not even by the landlord, who troubled himself very little about his customer going away, as he invariably observed the excellent custom of making everybody pay in advance. * * * * * “That’s it, that must be the train!” Issuing from the Saint-Lazare terminus, an engine, heralded by the glare of its two head-lights, plunged beneath the dark arch of the Batignolles tunnel. Enveloped in a dense cloud of smoke, the locomotive rolled slowly on, with a rhythmical roar and rattle, towing behind it a long line of passenger coaches. His feet in the thick mud, his back against the clammy stonework, Fandor stood motionless half way through the tunnel waiting till the train reached him. The journalist, on leaving the _Blue Chestnut_, left alone with his thoughts, and now firmly convinced he had at last come upon the gang among whom he must look to find not only the murderer of the bank collector, but likewise the authors of the attack on the Minister of Justice, and to boot, in all likelihood, the assassin of Désiré Ferrand, told himself it was above all things incumbent on him from this time on to dare any and every risk to secure a collaborator in his task. His mind was made up; it was Tom Bob must be his ally and fellow-worker.