"Rather!" said Charles Rambert with a smile.
The Marquise found the book she was searching for and gave it to the lad with one hand while with the other she smoothed out several variegated papers.
"These are my tickets," she said, and then broke off. "How stupid of me! I have not kept the number of the winning ticket that was advertised in La Capitale."
Charles Rambert immediately offered to go downstairs again to fetch the newspaper, but the Marquise would not let him.
"It is no good, my dear boy; it is not there now. You know — or rather you don't know — that the Abbé takes away all the week's newspapers every Wednesday night in order to read all the political articles." The old lady turned away from her writing-table, which she left wide open, conducted the young man to the door, and held out a friendly hand. "It is to-morrow morning already!" she said. "So now good night, dear Charles!"
In his own room, with the lights extinguished and the curtains closed, Charles Rambert lay wide awake, a prey to strange excitement. He turned and tossed in his bed nervously. In vain did he try to banish from his mind the words spoken during the evening by President Bonnet. In imagination Charles Rambert saw all manner of sinister and dramatic scenes, crimes and murders: hugely interested, intensely curious, craving for knowledge, he was ever trying to concoct plots and unravel mysteries. If for an instant he dozed off, the image of Fantômas took shape in his mind, but never twice the same: sometimes he saw a colossal figure with bestial face and muscular shoulders; sometimes a wan, thin creature, with strange and piercing eyes; sometimes a vague form, a phantom — Fantômas!
Charles Rambert slept, and woke, and dozed again. In the silence of the night he thought he heard creakings and heavy sounds. Then suddenly he felt a breath pass over his face — and again nothing! And suddenly again strange sounds were buzzing in his ears.
Bathed in cold sweat Charles Rambert started and sat upright in bed, every muscle tense, listening with all his ears. Was he dreaming, or had he really waked up? He did not know. And still, still he had a consciousness of Fantômas — of mystery — of Fantômas!
Charles Rambert heard the clock strike four.
II
A Tragic Dawn
As his cab turned by the end of the Pont Royal towards the Gare d'Orsay, M. Etienne Rambert looked at his watch and found, as he had anticipated, that he had a good quarter of an hour before the train that he intended to take was due to start. He called a porter, and gave him the heavy valise and the bundle of rugs that formed the whole of his hand baggage.
"Where is the office for forwarding luggage, my man?" he enquired.
The porter led him through the famous panelled hall of the Gare d'Orsay, and M. Etienne Rambert satisfied himself that his trunks had been properly registered for Verrières, the station at which he had to alight for the château of Beaulieu.
Still attended by the porter, who had conceived a respectful admiration for him in consequence of the authoritative tone in which he demanded information from the various railway servants, and who scented a probable munificent tip, M. Etienne Rambert proceeded to the booking-office and took a first-class ticket. He spent a few minutes more at the book-stall where he selected an imposing collection of illustrated papers, and then, his final preparations completed, he turned once more to the porter.
"The Luchon train," he said; "where is it?" and as the man only made a vague gesture and growled something wholly indistinct, he added: "Lead the way, and I will follow."
It was now just half-past eight, and the station showed all the animation inseparable from the departure of main-line trains. M. Etienne Rambert hurried onwards, and reaching the platform from which all the lines begin, was stayed by the porter who was laden with his baggage.
"You want the express, sir?"
"No, the slow train, my man."
The porter showed some surprise, but made no remark.
"Do you like the front or the back of the train?"
"The back by choice."
"First-class, isn't it?"
"Yes, first-class."
The porter, who had stopped a moment, picked up the heavy valise again.
"Then there isn't any choice. There are only two first-class carriages on the slow train, and they are both in the middle."
"They are corridor carriages, I suppose?" said Etienne Rambert.
"Yes, sir; there are hardly any others on the main-line trains, especially first-class."
In the ever-increasing crowd Etienne Rambert had some difficulty in following the porter. The Gare d'Orsay has little or none of the attractiveness of the other stations, which cannot fail to have a certain fascination for any imaginative person, who thinks of the mystery attaching to all those iron rails reaching out into the distance of countries unknown to him. It is less noisy than the others also, for between Austerlitz and Orsay the traction is entirely electric. And further, there is no clearly defined separation between the main and the suburban lines.
On the right of the platform was the train which was to take Etienne Rambert beyond Brives to Verrières, the slow train to Luchon; and on the left of the same platform was another train for Juvisy and all the small stations in the suburbs of Paris.
Very few people were making for the train to Luchon; but a large crowd was pressing into the suburban train.
The porter who was piloting M. Etienne Rambert, set the baggage he was carrying down on the footboard of a first-class carriage.
"There is no one for the slow train yet, sir; if you like to get in first you can choose your own compartment."
M. Etienne Rambert acted on the suggestion, but he had hardly set foot in the corridor before the guard, also scenting a generous tip, came to offer his services.
"It really is the 8.50 you want, sir?" was his first enquiry. "You are sure you are not making a mistake?"
"No," Etienne Rambert replied. "Why?"
"A great many first-class passengers do make a mistake," the man explained, "and confuse the 8.50 with the 8.45 express."
As he spoke the guard took the baggage from the porter who had remained on the platform, and the porter, after being generously remunerated for his trouble by M. Rambert, hurried away to look for other travellers.
"The 8.45 is the express, isn't it?" M. Rambert enquired.
"Yes," the guard answered; "it runs right through without stopping at all the small stations as this train does. It goes in front of this one and gets to Luchon three hours earlier. There it is on the side there," and he pointed through the window in the door on the far side to another train on the next rails, in which a number of travellers were already taking their seats. "If you prefer to go by that one, sir," he went on, "there is still time for you to change; you are entitled to take your choice since you have a first-class ticket."
But Etienne Rambert, after a moment's consideration, declined the suggestion.
"No: I would rather go by the slow train. If I take the express I should have to get out at Brives, and then I should be twelve or thirteen miles from Saint-Jaury, which is my destination; whereas the slow train stops at Verrières, where, by the way, I have already telegraphed to say I shall arrive to-morrow morning."
He walked a little way along the corridor, assuring himself that the various compartments were still quite empty, and then turned to the guard.