Fantômas — 32 - On the Scaffold

It was still dark.

In the keen morning air a crowd came hurrying along the pavements, flowing over into the roadways.

The boulevards were black with people, all marching briskly towards one common goal.

And it was a light-hearted, singing crowd, chanting the choruses of popular songs and swarming into the open restaurants and wine-shops and drinking dens.

And it was noticeable that all these late birds belonged to one of two sharply divided classes.

They were either rich, or miserably poor; they either came from the night clubs, or they were the poor devils with no homes or hearths who roam about the city from one year's end to another.

There were crooks whose faces shone with the evil excitement of alcohol, out-of-works of all kinds, beggars, and young men--all young men--with sleek oiled hair and shiny boots, in whose eyes and demeanour theft and crime could be seen.

By a curious coincidence the great news seemed to have reached all, toffs and crooks alike, at exactly the same time.

About midnight the rumour had run round the town; it was certain, definite this time; the official steps had been taken, and the guillotine was going to raise her blood-stained arms towards the sky; at earliest dawn, Gurn, the man who had murdered Lord Beltham, was to undergo the supreme punishment, and expiate his murder with his life.

No sooner had the great news become known than all prepared, as for a holiday, to go to see the man's head fall.

At Montmartre carriages were requisitioned and taxi-cabs were at a premium.

Women in gorgeous toilets and sparkling with jewels streamed from the open doors into the carriages which should bear them swiftly towards the Santé prison, and the place of execution.

In the faubourgs likewise, the bars were emptied of their customers, and men and women, linked arm-in-arm, set forth on foot, with songs and ribaldries upon their lips, for the spectacle of blood and the boulevard Arago.

Around the Santé prison an atmosphere of pleasure reigned as the people, massed together in tight ranks, produced bottles of wine, and ate sausages, and gaily enjoyed an improvised supper in the open air, while speculating about the details of the sight they had come to see.

And so the crowd amused itself, for Gurn's head was going to fall.

Worming his way through the crowd, François Bonbonne, the landlord of the Saint-Anthony's Pig, led a little company of friends who took advantage of his great stature to find the best path to take.

The landlord was half-drunk already in honour of the occasion.

"Come along, Billy Tom," he shouted.

"Catch hold of the tail of my coat and then you won't lose us.

Where is Hogshead Geoffroy?"

"He's coming along with Bouzille."

"Good!

Just fancy if Bouzille had tried to get through here with his train!

There are some people about, eh?"

Two men passed the landlord of the market inn just then.

"Come along," said one of them, and as the other caught him up, Juve added: "Didn't you recognise those fellows?"

"No," said Fandor.

Juve told him the names of the men whom they had passed.

"You will understand that I don't want them to recognise me," he said, and as Fandor smiled Juve went on: "It's a queer thing, but it is always the future customers of the guillotine, apaches and fellows like that, who make a point of seeing this ghastly spectacle."

The detective stopped and laid a hand upon the journalist's shoulder.

"Wait," he said, "we are right in front now: only the men who are holding the line are ahead of us.

If we want to get through and avoid the crush we must make ourselves known at once.

Here is your pass."

Jérôme Fandor took the card which Juve held out to him, and had got for him as a special favour.

"What do we do now?"

he asked.

"Here come the municipal guards," Juve replied; "I can see their sabres flashing.

We will get behind the newspaper kiosks and let them drive the crowd back, and then we will go through."

Juve had correctly anticipated the manoeuvre which the officer in command of the squadron immediately proceeded to execute.

Grave and imposing, and marvellously mounted on magnificent horses, a large number of municipal guards had just arrived on the boulevard Arago, by the side of the Santé prison, and just where the detective and the journalist were standing.

A sharp order rang out, and the guards deployed fan-wise and, riding knee to knee, drove the crowd back irresistibly to the end of the avenue, utterly disregarding the angry murmur of protest, and the general crushing that ensued.

The municipal guards were followed by troops of infantry, and these again by gendarmes who, holding hands, moved on all who by some means or other had managed to worm their way between the horses of the guards and the infantry, determined at any cost to keep in the front row of spectators.

Juve and Fandor, armed with their special passes which admitted them to the enclosure where the guillotine actually stood, had no difficulty in getting through the triple line.

They found themselves in the centre of a large portion of the boulevard Arago, entirely clear of spectators, and bounded on one side by the walls of the prison, and on the other by those of a convent.

In this clear space about a dozen individuals in black coats and silk hats were walking about, affecting a complete indifference to what was going to happen, although really they were profoundly affected by it.

"Chief detective-inspectors," Juve said, pointing them out: "my colleagues.

Some of yours too: do you see them?

Chief reporters of the big dailies.

Are you aware that you are uncommonly lucky to have been selected, at your extremely youthful age, to represent your paper at this lugubrious function?"

Jérôme Fandor made an odd grimace.

"I don't mind admitting to you, Juve, that I am here because I am like you in wanting to see Gurn's head fall; you have satisfied me beyond all doubt that Gurn is Fantômas, and I want to be sure that Fantômas is really dead.

But if it were not the execution of that one particular wretch,--the only thing that can make society safe,--I should certainly have declined the honour of reporting this event."

"It upsets you?"

"Yes."

Juve bent his head.

"So it does me!

Just think: for more than five years I have been fighting Fantômas!

For more than five years I have believed in his existence, in spite of all ridicule and sarcasm!

For more than five years I have been working for this wretch's death, for death is the only thing that can put a stop to his crimes!"

Juve paused a moment, but Fandor made no comment.

"And I am rather sick and sorry, too: because, although I have reached this certainty that Gurn is Fantômas, and have succeeded in convincing intelligent people, who were ready to study my work in good faith, I have nevertheless not succeeded in establishing legal proof that Gurn is Fantômas.

Deibler and the Public Prosecutor, and people generally, think that it is merely Gurn who is going to be decapitated now.

I may have secured this man's condemnation, but none the less he has beaten me and deprived me of the satisfaction of having brought him, Fantômas, to the scaffold!

I have only consigned Gurn to the scaffold, and that is a defeat!"

The detective stopped.

From the boulevard Arago, from the end to which the crowd had been driven back, cheers and applause and joyous shouts broke out; it was the mob welcoming the arrival of the guillotine.

Drawn by an old white horse, a heavy black van arrived at a fast trot, escorted by four mounted police with drawn swords.

The van stopped a few yards from Juve and Fandor; the police rode off, and a shabby brougham came into view, from which three men in black proceeded to get out.

"Monsieur de Paris and his assistants," Juve informed Fandor: "Deibler and his men."

Fandor shivered, and Juve went on with his explanations.

"That van contains the timbers and the knife.

Deibler and his men will get the guillotine up in half an hour, and in an hour at the outside, Fantômas will be no more!"

While the detective was speaking, the executioner had stepped briskly to the officer in charge of the proceedings and exchanged a few words with him.

He signified his approval of the arrangements made, saluted the superintendent of police of that division, and turned to his men.

"Come along, lads; get to work!"

He caught sight of Juve and shook hands with him.

"Good morning," he said, adding, as though his work were of the most commonplace kind: "Excuse me: we are a bit late this morning!"

The assistants took from the van some long cases, wrapped in grey canvas and apparently very heavy.

They laid these on the ground with the utmost care: they were the timbers and frame of the guillotine, and must not be warped or strained, for the guillotine is a nicely accurate machine!

They swept the ground thoroughly, careful to remove any gravel which might have affected the equilibrium of the framework, and then set up the red uprights of the scaffold.

The floor timbers fitted one into another and were joined by stout metal clamps fastened together by a bolt; next the men set the grooved slides, down which the knife must fall, into holes cut for the purpose in the middle of the floor.

The guillotine now raised its awful arms to the sky.

Hitherto Deibler had merely watched his men at work.

Now he took a hand himself.

With a spirit-level he ascertained that the floor was absolutely horizontal; next he arranged the two pieces of wood, from each of which a segment is cut so as to form the lunette into which the victim's neck is thrust; then he tested the lever, to make sure that it worked freely, and gave a curt order.

"The knife!"

One of the assistants brought a case which Deibler opened, and Fandor instinctively shrank as a flash from the bright steel fell full in his eyes, that sinister triangular knife that presently would do the work of death.

Deibler leant calmly against the guillotine, fitted the shank into the grooves in the two uprights, and, setting the mechanism to work, hoisted up the knife which glittered strangely; he looked the whole thing over and turned again to his assistants.

"The hay!"

A truss was arranged in the lunette, and Deibler came up to the instrument and pressed a spring.

Like a flash the knife dropped down the uprights and severed the truss in two.

The rehearsal was finished.

Now for the real drama!

While the guillotine was being set up Juve had stood by Fandor nervously chewing cigarettes.

"Everything is ready now," he said to the lad.

"Deibler has only got to put on his coat and take delivery of Fantômas."

The assistants had just arranged two baskets filled with bran along each side of the machine; one was destined to receive the severed head, the other the body when that was released from the plyer.

The executioner pulled on his coat, rubbed his hands mechanically, and then strode towards a group of officials who had arrived while the guillotine was being erected, and were now standing by the entrance to the prison.

"Gentlemen," said Deibler, "it will be sunrise in a quarter of an hour.

We can proceed to awaken the prisoner."

Slowly, in single file, the officials went inside the prison.

* * * * * There were present the Attorney General, the Public Prosecutor, his deputy, the Governor of the prison, and behind these, M. Havard, Deibler, and his two assistants.

The little company passed through the corridors to the third floor, where the condemned cells are.

The warder Nibet came forward with his bunch of keys in his hand.

Deibler looked at the Public Prosecutor.

"Are you ready, sir?"

and as that gentleman, who was very white, made a sign of assent, Deibler looked at the Governor of the prison.

"Unlock the cell," the Governor ordered.

Nibet turned the key noiselessly and pushed open the door.

The Public Prosecutor stepped forward.

He had hoped to find the condemned man asleep, and so have had a moment's respite before announcing the fatal news.

But he drew back; for the man was awake and dressed, sitting ready on his bed with mad, haggard eyes.

"Gurn," said the Public Prosecutor.

"Be brave!

Your appeal has been rejected!"

The others, standing behind him, were all silent, and the words of the Public Prosecutor fell like a knell.

The condemned man, however, had not stirred, had not even seemed to understand: his attitude was that of a man in a state of somnambulism.

The Public Prosecutor was surprised by this strange impassivity and spoke again, in strangled tones.

"Be brave!

Be brave!"

A spasm crossed the face of the condemned man, and his lips moved as though he were making an effort to say something.

"I'm not----" he murmured.

But Deibler laid his hands upon the man's shoulders and cut the horrid moment short.

"Come now!"

The chaplain came forward in his turn.

"Pray, my brother," he said; "do you wish to hear mass?"

At the touch of the executioner the prisoner had trembled; he rose, like an automaton, with dilated eyes and twitching face.

He understood what the chaplain said and took a step towards him.

"I--not----" M.

Havard intervened, and spoke to the chaplain.

"Really, sir, no: it is time."

Deibler nodded approval.

"Let us be quick; we can proceed; the sun has risen."

The Public Prosecutor was still bleating "Be brave!

Be brave!"

Deibler took the man by one arm, a warder took him by the other, and between them they half-carried him to the office for his last toilette.

In the little room, dimly lighted by a winking lamp, a chair had been set close to a table.

The executioner and his assistant pushed the condemned man into the chair, and Deibler took up a pair of scissors.

The Public Prosecutor spoke to the prisoner.

"Would you like a glass of rum?

Would you like a cigarette?

Is there anything you wish to have done?"

Maître Barberoux, who had not arrived in time for the awakening of the prisoner, now approached his client; he, too, was ghastly white.

"Is there anything else that I can do for you?

Have you any last wish?"

The condemned man made another effort to rise from the chair, and a hoarse groan escaped from his throat.

"I--I----" The prison doctor had joined the group, and now drew the Public Prosecutor's deputy aside.

"It is appalling!"

he said.

"The man has not articulated a single word since he was awakened.

He is as though sunk in a stupefied sleep.

There is a technical word for his condition: he is in a state of inhibition.

He is alive, and yet he is a corpse.

Anyhow he is utterly unconscious, incapable of any clear thought, or of saying a word that has any sense.

I have never seen such complete stupefaction."

Deibler waved aside the men who were pressing round him.

"Sign the gaol book, please, M. Havard," he said, and while that gentleman affixed a shaky signature to the warrant authorising the delivery of Gurn to the public executioner, Deibler took the scissors and cut a segment out of the prisoner's shirt and cut off a wisp of hair that grew low down on his neck.

Meanwhile an assistant bound the wrists of the man who was about to die.

Then the executioner looked at his watch and made a half-bow to the Public Prosecutor.

"Come!

Come!

It is the time fixed by law!"

Two assistants took the wretch by the shoulders and raised him up.

There was a horrible, deep, unintelligible rattle in his throat.

"I--I----" But no one heard him, and he was dragged away.

It was practically a corpse that the servants of the guillotine bore down to the boulevard Arago.

* * * * * Outside, the first rosy tints of early dawn were waking the birds, and playing on the great triangular knife, drawing gleams from it.

The time was ten minutes past five.

And now the supreme moment was at hand.

The crowd, momentarily growing denser, was crushed behind the cordon of troops that had difficulty in keeping it at a distance from the guillotine.

The soldiers, unheeding the oaths and curses and entreaties with which they were assailed, carried out their orders and permitted no one to take up his stand anywhere in the near neighbourhood of the guillotine, except the few rare individuals who had a special pass.

A sudden murmur ran through the crowd.

The mounted police, stationed opposite the guillotine, had just drawn their sabres.

Fandor gripped Juve's hand nervously.

The detective was very pale.

"Let us get over there," he said, and led Fandor just behind the guillotine, to the side where the severed head would fall into the basket.

"We shall see the poor devil get out of the carriage, and being fastened on to the bascule, and pulled into the lunette."

He went on talking as if to divert his own mind from the thing before him.

"That's the best place for seeing things: I stood there when Peugnez was guillotined, a long time ago now, and I was there again in 1909 when Duchémin, the parricide, was executed."

But he came to an abrupt stop.

From the great door of the Santé prison a carriage came rapidly out.

All heads were uncovered, all eyes were fixed, and a deep silence fell upon the crowded boulevard.

The carriage passed the journalist and the detective at a gallop and pulled up with a jerk just opposite them, on the other side of the guillotine, and at the very foot of the scaffold.

M.

Deibler jumped down from the box, and opening the door at the back of the vehicle let down the steps.

Pale and nervous, the chaplain got out backwards, hiding the scaffold from the eyes of the condemned man, whom the assistants managed somehow to help out of the carriage.

Fandor was shaking with nervousness and muttering to himself.

But things moved quickly now.

The chaplain, still walking backwards, hid the dread vision for yet a few seconds more, then stepped aside abruptly.

The assistants seized the condemned man, and pushed him on to the bascule.

Juve was watching the unhappy wretch, and could not restrain a word of admiration.

"That man is a brave man!

He has not even turned pale!

Generally condemned men are livid!"

The executioner's assistants had bound the man upon the plank; it tilted upwards.

Deibler grasped the head by the two ears and pulled it into the lunette, despite one last convulsive struggle of the victim.

There was a click of a spring, the flash of the falling knife, a spurt of blood, a dull groan from ten thousand breasts, and the head rolled into the basket!

But Juve had flung Fandor aside and sprang towards the scaffold.

He thrust the assistants away, and plunging his hands into the bran that was all soaked with blood, he seized the severed head by the hair and stared at it.

Horrified by this scandalous action the assistants rushed upon the detective.

Deibler forced him backwards.

"You must be mad!"

"Get away!"

Fandor saw that Juve was staggering and seemed about to swoon.

He rushed towards him.

"Good God!"

he cried in tones of anguish.

"It isn't Gurn who has just been put to death!"

Juve panted brokenly.

"This face has not gone white because it is painted!

It is made up--like an actor's!

Oh, curses on him!

Fantômas has escaped!

Fantômas has got away!

He has had some innocent man executed in his stead!

I tell you Fantômas is alive!"

+--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Transcriber's Notes | | | | Page 25: comma added after "why" ("Why, the park enclosure | | has been altered") | | Page 265: Treteau _sic_ | | | | Accents have been standardised.

| | | | Hyphenation has generally been standardized.

However, when | | a word appears hyphenated and unhyphenated an equal number | | of times, both versions have been retained | | (maidservants/maid-servants).

| +--------------------------------------------------------------+ *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FANTÔMAS ***

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