So they made it up!
After their cordial handshake, Juve, wishing to define the situation, asked:
"Now what are we after exactly--you and I? What is the common aim of the Second Bureau and Police Headquarters?"
De Loubersac"s reply was:
"A doc.u.ment has been stolen from us: we want to find it."
Juve said:
"Two crimes have been committed: we wish to seize the a.s.sa.s.sin."
"And," continued de Loubersac, with a smile, "as it is probable the murderer of Captain Brocq and Nichoune is none other than the individual who stole our doc.u.ment."...
"By uniting our efforts," finished Juve, "we have every chance of discovering the one and the other."
There was a pause. Then Juve asked:
"Nevertheless, Lieutenant, since I find you here, I fancy there is some side development--some incident?... In reality, have you not come to Dieppe to intercept a certain corporal who is to deliver to a foreign power a piece of artillery of the highest importance?"
"You have hit it!" was de Loubersac"s reply. "I see you know about this gun affair!"
Juve nodded.
The two men were slowly returning towards the town by way of the outer harbour quays. They approached a dock, in which was anch.o.r.ed a pretty little yacht flying the Dutch flag. Juve stared hard at this elegant craft. De Loubersac enquired if yachting was his favourite sport. Juve smiled.
"Far from it! Nevertheless, when that yacht weighs anchor, it would be my delight to inspect her from stem to stern, accompanied by the Custom House officials. It is my conviction that Corporal Vinson will soon turn up, slip aboard with the stolen gun-piece, conceal it in some prepared hiding-hole below: his otherwise uninteresting person will be hidden also."
"I am of the same mind," declared de Loubersac.
As the two men strolled they exchanged information.
De Loubersac told Juve that, according to the latest messages from the Second Bureau, Vinson had left Paris with a priest, in a hired motor-car, and had taken the road to Rouen, that in all probability they would reach Dieppe before nightfall, and when they arrived!...
"It is precisely at that moment we shall arrest them. I have made all arrangements with the local police," finished de Loubersac.
"Ah!" murmured Juve. "What a pity Captain Loreuil and Inspector Michel came on the scenes last night and arrested me prematurely, thinking they had got the real Vagualame, for now I can never make use of the ruffian"s disguise to pump the different members of the great spy organisation we are on the track of!"
"But what prevents you now from masquerading as Vagualame?" demanded de Loubersac.
"Why, when no one knew I was a false Vagualame, I could make up in his likeness: now they know the truth; not only is it known by the followers of Vagualame by this time, but--I am certain of it--I was recognised by the real Vagualame himself!"
"Did he see you then?"
"I would stake my life on it!" a.s.serted Juve.
"Just when?... Where?... In the street?" de Loubersac was keenly interested.
"No--just when I was arrested."
"But, from what I have heard, there were very few of you!" cried de Loubersac. "Then the real Vagualame must have been at the Baron de Naarboveck"s?"
"Hah!" was Juve"s non-committal exclamation.
"Whom do you suspect?"
Juve kept silence.
Suddenly he concealed himself behind a deserted goods waggon. De Loubersac did the same. Both fixed examining eyes on a couple coming in their direction. They were not the expected pair of traitors.
"Who?" again asked de Loubersac.
Juve was impenetrable.
"I am inclined to think that the companion, Mademoiselle Berthe, otherwise Bobinette, has played, and perhaps still plays, an incomprehensible part in these affairs."
"You find it incomprehensible?" Juve burst into laughter. "I do not!"
"Well then, were I in your place, I should not hesitate to arrest her!"
"And then?"
"Oh, explanations could follow."
Juve considered his companion a minute: then, taking his arm in friendly fashion, continued their walk along the quay.
"I have a theory," said Juve; "that when dealing with such complex affairs as these we are now engaged on, affairs in which the actors are but puppets, acting on behalf of the prime mover, a master-mind, ungetatable, or almost so, we should aim at first securing the prime mover. To secure the puppets and leave the prime mover free is to obtain but a partial success: the victory is then more apparent than real.... I might have arrested Bobinette as we shall probably arrest Corporal Vinson before long; but would her arrest furnish us with the master key to this problem? Have we not a better chance of discovering the powerful head of this band if we allow his collaborators to perform their manoeuvres in a fancied security?"
The prime mover of these mysteries? Juve was convinced that the prime mover of these nefarious mysteries, the murderous master mind was, and could be, none other than--Fantomas!
Juve paused abruptly.
A man was coming to meet them--an investigating agent attached to the general commissariat department at Dieppe.
"They are asking for Monsieur Henri on the telephone," he announced.
De Loubersac rushed to the police station. Over the telephone, a War Office colleague informed him that the fugitive corporal, accompanied by a priest, had during the last hour arrived at a garage in Rouen.
Meanwhile Juve had received a cypher telegram at the police station, confirming the news, with the addition that, after replenishing the motor with petrol, they had set off again at once--they had received a telegram.
Juve and de Loubersac returned to the quay.
"Our beauties will not be so long now," said he.
With twilight the tempest had died down, night was falling fast. The waters in the docks reflected the light from the quay lamps on their shining, heaving, surface.
Now, for some time, Henri de Loubersac had been longing to ask Juve a question, longing yet fearing to voice it--a question relating to his personal affairs. Had not Juve, as Vagualame, clearly insinuated that Wilhelmine de Naarboveck must have been the mistress of Captain Brocq?
Had not de Loubersac protested vehemently against such an odious calumny? But now that he knew this statement was Juve"s, he was in a state of torment--his love was bleeding with the torture of it!