* * * *

"It is very simple," explained Juve to Monsieur Havard and Fandor, who
seemed deprived of speech. "Yes, it is simple enough; I guessed it at
once when I saw you fall, Monsieur Havard, just after Fantomas had
pressed the woodwork."

"He pressed an electric button, did he not?"

"Yes, Fandor, he established a current!... The wretch must have placed
powerful electric magnets under the floor ... and the moment he realised
that it was impossible to brazen it out any longer--was on the very
point of being arrested--he established the current ... so we three were
nailed to the ground by the attraction exercised by these
electro-magnets on the nails of our shoes--he, Fantomas, was then free
to cut and run for it, whose shoes must certainly have had soles made of
some insulating material...."

Monsieur Havard and Fandor made no answer to this.

To have held Fantomas at their mercy, if only for a minute; to have
believed that they were going to lay hands on the atrocious criminal,
at last; to have seen him slip through their fingers--the thought of
this almost brought tears to their eyes: they were in a state of the
deepest despondency.

"There's a curse on us!" cried Fandor. "This time, at any rate, we have
nothing to reproach ourselves with! We could not foresee that!..." Then,
to himself in a low tone, he added:

"Poor Elizabeth!... How are we to tell her that we have let her
brother's murderer escape?"

XXVIII

COURAGE

"Have some more chicken?"

"No, thanks: I am not hungry."

"But you should eat all the same!"

"Are you eating anything yourself?"

"Faith, I am not!"

"Well, then?"

In the private room of the Fat-Pheasant restaurant, where Juve and
Fandor were dining, silence again fell. The two men sat motionless,
gazing into space. They neither wished to eat food nor do anything at
all. They were depressed to the last degree; they felt baffled: they
were sick of every mortal thing!

All of a sudden, Fandor burst into tears. Juve, looking at his dear lad
in such grief, bit his lip; his face with wrinkled brow wore a dejected,
worried look.

An hour or two previous to that, Fandor, on returning to his flat, had
found a black-edged envelope: the address in Elizabeth Dollon's
handwriting. Fandor had opened it with fast beating heart and trembling
hand!

For these past days, an evil Fate seemed relentlessly pursuing them. Now
he feared to read of some fresh catas