e book slipped from his hands, and he exclaimed: "The guilty
man is ..."

"Is who?" questioned Fandor.

"Is Jacques Dollon!... The hand that has robbed Princess Sonia Danidoff
is the hand of Jacques Dollon!"

"But it is impossible!"

Bertillon shrugged his shoulders.

"Impossible?... Why, since the proof of it is there?"

"But Jacques Dollon is dead!"

"He was the thief of yesterday's crime."

"You are making a mistake!..."

"I am not making a mistake!... Jacques Dollon is the thief I tell you!"

This was too much for Jerome Fandor: he could not contain himself.

"And I tell you, Monsieur Bertillon, that I know that I am
certain--positively certain, that Jacques Dollon is dead!... Now,
then!..."

The man of science shook his head.

"I, in my turn, say, you are making a mistake! Look at the two imprints
I have here! That of Jacques Dollon taken a few days ago, and this made
from the impressions obtained this very night, or, to be exact, in the
early morning hours of to-day! They are identical--one can be exactly
superposed on the other!..."

"Coincidence!"

"There is no such coincidence possible--besides"--Monsieur Bertillon
took up a powerful magnifying glass--"look at these characteristic
details!... Just look at the lines of the thumb, all out of shape!...
The presentment of the thumb itself is not normal either; it denotes
habitual movement in a certain direction: it is the thumb of a painter,
of a potter!... Oh, it is all as clear as daylight--believe me--there is
no doubt about it! Jacques Dollon is the guilty person!"

"But," repeated Fandor obstinately: "Jacques Dollon is dead! I swear to
you he is dead!..."

This assertion made no impression on the man of science.

"As to whether Jacques Dollon is alive or dead--that is for the police
to decide!... For my part, I can declare that the man who committed the
theft yesterday evening is the identical man who passed through my hands
some days ago--and that man is certainly Jacques Dollon!"

* * * * *

Jerome Fandor left Monsieur Bertillon. The young journalist was
perplexed.... If the finger-prints on the neck of Princess Sonia
Danidoff were, beyond dispute, those of Jacques Dollon--then the mystery
surrounding this affair, and not this affair only, but a series of
incidents, so far from being cleared up, was more impenetrable than
ever!

But Fandor was obsessed by the idea of Fantomas, of Fantomas in the
dep