Fantômas: 5 Book Collection. Marcel Allain

a small piece of a map showing the district in which I was at the time. I took it to M. de Presles, the magistrate who was conducting the enquiry. He attached no importance to it, and I myself could not see at the time that it gave us any new evidence."

      "Quite so," said M. Fuselier. "There is nothing particularly remarkable in finding a map, or a piece of a map, showing a district, in the district itself."

      "Those are M. de Presles' very words to me," said Juve with a smile. "And I will give you the same answer I gave him, namely, that if some day we could find the other portion of the map which completed the first piece we found, and could identify the owner of the two portions, there would then be a formal basis on which to proceed to base an argument."

      "Proceed to base it," M. Fuselier suggested.

      "That's very easy," said Juve. "The fragment of map numbered 1, found at Beaulieu, belongs to X. I do not know who X is; but in Paris, in Gurn's rooms, I find the fragment of map numbered 2, which belongs to Gurn. If it turns out, as I expect, that the two fragments of map, when placed together, form a single and complete whole, I shall conclude logically that X, who was the owner of fragment number 1, is the same as the owner of fragment number 2, to wit, Gurn."

      "How are you going to find out?" enquired M. Fuselier.

      "It is in order to find it out that we have sent for Dollon," Juve replied. "He was steward to the late Marquise de Langrune, and has all the circumstantial evidence relating to that case. If he has still got the fragment of map, it will be simplicity itself to prove what I have suggested, and perhaps to make the identification I suggest."

      "Yes," said M. Fuselier, "but if you do succeed, will it be of really great importance in your opinion? Will you be able to infer from that one fact that Gurn and the man who murdered the Marquise de Langrune are one and the same person? Is not that going rather far? Especially as, if I remember rightly, it was proved that the murderer in that case was the son of a M. Rambert, and this young Rambert committed suicide after the crime?"

      Juve evaded the issue.

      "Well, we shall see," was all he said.

      The magistrate's clerk came into the room and unceremoniously interrupted the conversation.

      "It has gone two, sir," he said. "There are some prisoners to examine, and a whole lot of witnesses," and he placed two bulky bundles of papers before the magistrate and waited for a sign to call the various persons, free or otherwise, whom the magistrate had to see.

      The first bundle caught Juve's attention. It was endorsed "Royal Palace Hotel Case."

      "Anything new about the robbery from Mme. Van den Rosen and Princess Sonia Danidoff?" he enquired, and as the magistrate shook his head, he added, "Are you going to examine Muller now?"

      "Yes," said the magistrate; "at once."

      "And after that you are to examine Gurn, aren't you, in connection with the Beltham case?"

      "Quite so."

      "I wish you would oblige me by confronting the two men here, in my presence."

      M. Fuselier looked up in surprise: he could not see what connection there could be between the two utterly dissimilar cases. What object could Juve have in wanting the man who had murdered Lord Beltham to be confronted with the unimportant little hotel servant who had really been arrested rather as a concession to public opinion than because he was actually deemed capable of burglary or attempted burglary? Might not Juve, with his known mania for associating all crimes with each other, be going just a little too far in the present instance?

      "You have got some idea in the back of your head?" said M. Fuselier.

      "I've got a — a scar in the palm of my hand," Juve answered with a smile, and as the magistrate confessed that he failed to understand, Juve enlightened him. "We know that the man who did that robbery at the Royal Palace Hotel burned his hand badly when he was cutting the electric wires in the Princess's bathroom. Well, a few weeks ago, while I was on the look out for someone with a scar from such a wound, I was told of a man who was prowling about the slums. I had the fellow followed up, and the very night the hunt began I was going to arrest him, when, a good deal to my surprise, I discovered that he was no other than Gurn. He escaped me that time, but when he was caught later on I found that he has an unmistakable scar inside the palm of his right hand; it is fading now, for the burn was only superficial, but it is there. Now do you see my idea?"

      "Yes, I do," the magistrate exclaimed, "and I am all the more glad to hear of it, since I am to have both the men here now. Shall I have Muller in first?"

      Juve assented....

      "So you still refuse to confess?" said the magistrate at last. "You still maintain that your — extraordinary — order to let the red-haired waiter out, was given in good faith?"

      "Yes, yes, yes, sir," the night watchman answered. "That very evening a new servant had joined the staff. I had not even set eyes on him. When I saw this — stranger —— , I took him to be the servant who had been engaged the day before, and I told them to open the door for him. That is the real truth."

      "And that is all?"

      "That is positively all."

      "We are only charging you with complicity," the magistrate went on, "for the man who touched the electric wires burned his hand; that is a strong point in your favour. And you also say that if the thief were put before you, you could recognise him?"

      "Yes," said the man confidently.

      "Good!" said M. Fuselier, and he signed to his clerk to call in another personage.

      The clerk understood, and Gurn was brought in between two municipal guards, and was followed by the young licentiate in law, Maître Roger de Seras, who represented his leader at most of these preliminary examinations. As Gurn came in, with the light from the window falling full on his face, M. Fuselier gave a curt order.

      "Muller, turn round and look at this man!"

      Muller obeyed, and surveyed with some bewilderment, and without the least comprehension, the bold head and the well-built, muscular frame of Lord Beltham's murderer. Gurn did not flinch.

      "Do you recognise that man?" the magistrate demanded.

      Muller ransacked his brains and looked again at Gurn, then shook his head.

      "No, sir."

      "Gurn, open your right hand," the magistrate ordered. "Show it," and he turned again to Muller. "The man before you seems to have been burned in the palm of the hand, as that scar shows. Can you not remember having seen that man at the Royal Palace Hotel?"

      Muller looked steadily at Gurn.

      "On my honour, sir, although it would be to my interest to recognise him, I am bound to acknowledge that I really and truly don't."

      M. Fuselier had a brief conversation aside with Juve, and then, the detective appearing to agree with him, turned once more to the night watchman.

      "Muller," he said, "the court is pleased with your frankness. You will be set free provisionally, but you are to hold yourself at the disposal of the court of enquiry," and he signed to the municipal guards to lead the gratefully protesting man away.

      Meanwhile Gurn's case appeared to him to be becoming much more serious, and much more interesting. He had the prisoner placed in front of him, while Juve, who had withdrawn into a dark corner of the room, never took his eyes off the murderer.

      "Gurn," he began, "can you give me an account of your time during the second half of December of last year?"

      Gurn was unprepared for the point-blank question, and made a gesture of doubt. M. Fuselier, probably anticipating a sensation, was just on the point of ordering Dollon to be called, when he was interrupted by a discreet tap on the door. His clerk went to answer it, and saw a gendarme standing at the door. At almost the first words he said, the clerk uttered an exclamation and wheeled round to the magistrate.

      "Oh, M. Fuselier, listen! They have just told me ——