Fantômas: Action Thriller. Marcel Allain

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       Pierre Souvestre & Marcel Allain

      Fantômas: Action Thriller

      Published by

      Books

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       [email protected]

      2018 OK Publishing

      ISBN 978-80-272-4628-1

Table of Contents

       I The Genius of Crime

       II A Tragic Dawn

       III The Hunt for the Man

       IV "No! I am not Mad!"

       V "Arrest Me!"

       VI "Fantômas, it is Death!"

       VII The Criminal Investigation Department

       VIII A Dreadful Confession

       IX All for Honour

       X Princess Sonia's Bath

       XI Magistrate and Detective

       XII A Knock-out Blow

       XIII Thérèse's Future

       XIV Mademoiselle Jeanne

       XV The Mad Woman's Plot

       XVI Among the Market Porters

       XVII At the Saint-Anthony's Pig

       XVIII A Prisoner and a Witness

       XIX Jérôme Fandor

       XX A Cup of Tea

       XXI Lord Beltham's Murderer

       XXII The Scrap of Paper

       XXIII The Wreck of the "Lancaster"

       XXIV Under Lock and Key

       XXV An Unexpected Accomplice

       XXVI A Mysterious Crime

       XXVII Three Surprising Incidents

       XXVIII The Court of Assize

       XXIX Verdict and Sentence

       XXX An Assignation

       XXXI Fell Treachery

       XXXII On the Scaffold

      I

       The Genius of Crime

       Table of Contents

      "Fantômas."

      "What did you say?"

      "I said: Fantômas."

      "And what does that mean?"

      "Nothing.... Everything!"

      "But what is it?"

      "Nobody.... And yet, yes, it is somebody!"

      "And what does the somebody do?"

      "Spreads terror!"

      Dinner was just over, and the company were moving into the drawing-room.

      Hurrying to the fireplace, the Marquise de Langrune took a large log from a basket and flung it on to the glowing embers on the hearth; the log crackled and shed a brilliant light over the whole room; the guests of the Marquise instinctively drew near to the fire.

      During the ten consecutive months she spent every year at her château of Beaulieu, on the outskirts of Corrèze, that picturesque district bounded by the Dordogne, it had been the immemorial custom of the Marquise de Langrune to entertain a few of her personal friends in the neighbourhood to dinner every Wednesday, thereby obtaining a little pleasant relief from her loneliness and keeping up some contact with the world.

      On this particular winter evening the good lady's guests included several habitués: President Bonnet, a retired magistrate who had withdrawn to his small property at Saint-Jaury, in the suburbs of Brives, and the Abbé Sicot, who was the parish priest. A more occasional friend was also there, the Baronne de Vibray, a young and wealthy widow, a typical woman of the world who spent the greater part of her life either in motoring, or in the most exclusive drawing-rooms of Paris, or at the most fashionable watering-places. But when the Baronne de Vibray put herself out to grass, as she racily phrased it, and spent a few weeks at Querelles, her estate close to the château of Beaulieu, nothing pleased her better than to take her place again in the delightful company of the Marquise de Langrune and her friends.

      Finally, youth was represented by Charles Rambert, who had arrived at the château a couple of days before, a charming lad of about eighteen who was treated with warm affection by the Marquise and by Thérèse Auvernois, the granddaughter of the Marquise, with whom since her parents' death she had lived as a daughter.

      The odd and even mysterious words spoken by President Bonnet as they were leaving the table, and the personality of this Fantômas about which he had said nothing definite in spite of all the questions put to him, had excited the curiosity of the company, and while Thérèse Auvernois was gracefully dispensing the coffee to her grandmother's guests the questions were renewed with