United States or Suriname ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The evening before, following his arrest under the guise of Vagualame, Juve had been conducted to the Dépôt by his colleagues. No sooner were they seated in the taxi, under the charge of Inspector Michel and his companion, than Juve made himself known to his gratified, unsuspecting colleagues. It was a humiliating surprise for the two policemen: they felt fooled.
In a taxi they discussed how best to effect an entrance into the de Naarboveck mansion. Juve-Vagualame stuck to his original idea. The taxi drew up at the bridge. Juve-Vagualame paid the driver. Bobinette hurried away, slipped into the house, and went straight up to her room. She busied herself with the preparations agreed on, whereby Vagualame could the more easily effect an entrance in his turn.
Was she truly hastening towards good fortune through this night of wind and rain?... Why not? Bobinette felt comforted. She said to herself that since Vagualame had summoned her to meet him in gipsy costume, it must be because he intended to help her to escape: otherwise why had he foreseen the necessity for such a disguise?
This hooded cloak which his knife had revealed, which he had torn from its hiding place in the accordion of Vagualame, was none other than the cloak of Fantômas. Suddenly there was brought home to Juve the comprehension of all this adventure signified a distracting, a maddening adventure! "Fantômas! Fantômas!" Juve murmured. "Great Heavens! I saw Fantômas before me!... Vagualame!
He was quite a Parisian type, this Vagualame: one of those faces at once odd and classic, such as one comes across in numbers on the pavements, known to all the world, without anyone knowing exactly who they are, how they live, where they go, or whence they come.... The old man had, on his side, caught sight of Bobinette.
I don't want to be on such terms with anyone mixed up in your spying, I can tell you!... In the first place, there's something wrong with my heart, and to live in such a perpetual state of terror is very bad for me ... so you have got to understand, Vagualame I say it straight out I don't go on with it.... I would rather go to the magistrate and put myself completely outside this abominable business there!
"Look here, Vagualame, it's better to tell you the truth! Very well, then, spying is not my strong point! It is three months since I began it since you enticed me into it ... and life is not worth living.... I am in a constant state of terror I am afraid of being caught at it. They say: 'Do this Do that! I am always seeing new agents ... you come you go you disappear it's maddening!
"No more of this nonsense!" commanded Vagualame in a hard voice. "Keep cool, I tell you!... Go on to the landing. Look over. See what is happening. You are not to be afraid." Struck speechless, Bobinette stared at the old man, who commanded her as a master, and might stand by her as an accomplice but those terrifying eyes were not the eyes of her own Vagualame no! How to act?
You know the little singer of Châlons, called Nichoune? She made her first appearance at La Fère, and since then the creature has roved through the rowdy dancing-saloons of Picardy, of the Ardennes you must know her well, Monsieur Henri." The lieutenant interrupted him. "All this does not mean anything, Vagualame!" "Pardon!
"Naturally." Vagualame insisted: "Dangerous, as well?" "Perhaps!" "How much will you pay?" Without hesitation, the officer said: "Twenty-five thousand francs."... Equally without hesitation, but putting on an offended air, Vagualame retorted. "Nothing doing!" "Thirty thousand?" The old man murmured: "What the devil is it a question of?"
Word Of The Day