The detective caught sight in a corner of a number of bundles of straw.

"That is what we want, Fandor! We are going to make a bonfire."

When the opening of the furnace was fitted, Juve set a light to it and the flames rose, crackling, while up the pipe of the heater rose a pungent smoke, thick and black.

"And now to the openings of the stove! Sergeant! Michel! This way!"

Through the apertures in the ground-floor rooms the great stove was beginning to smoke.

A broken bottle with the bottom gone was floating head downward on the black water of the tank. Scarcely had Juve and Fandor gone than the water was stirred, and slowly the mysterious bottle rose again to the top. Behind it rose the head of Fantomas, still wrapped in the black hood which now clung to his face like a mask moulded on the features.

Dripping, he issued from the tank and breathed hard for some moments.

Despite his ingenious contrivance for feeding his lungs he was not far from suffocating.

"All the same," he growled, "if I hadn't remembered the plan of the Tonkingese who lie stretched at the bottom of a river for hours at a time, breathing through hollow reeds, I think that time we should have exchanged shots to some purpose!"

Fantomas was wringing out his garments in haste when loud cries sounded above his head, and two or three shots rang out. At the same time a sudden stirring took place in and around the house. He turned it to account by going at once to the air-hole. Now there was no one on guard, so Fantomas put his head through, then his shoulders.

"That's all right; the brute is dead!"

Juve was examining curiously the creature which lay helpless on the floor. Two trembling sergeants stood at the door of the room.

"We were expecting Fantomas to appear and a snake unrolls itself and springs in our faces!" cried Fandor.

Half emerging from the mouth of the heater the monstrous body of a boa constrictor lay on the floor. The men Juve had brought into the house were resolute, ripe for anything, but never did they imagine that Fantomas could a.s.sume such an unexpected shape. And terrified, overwhelmed with dread, they recoiled in a frenzy of fear and fled, calling on their mates outside, who at once ran to their a.s.sistance.

"Sir!" A terrified voice called from outside.

Juve rushed to the window. A dripping creature, clad in black from head to foot, crossed the garden, running toward the servants' quarters. It was Fantomas. Juve swore a great oath: "There he is! Getting away!"

The detective left his cry unfinished.

As he issued by the air-holes, Fantomas leaped forward. He was free!

"Juve scored the first game, the second is mine," he cried.

He reached the woodshed. With a practised hand he turned the electric tap which ignited a spark in the dark closet behind the pantry.

"I win!" shouted Fantomas, as a terrible explosion made itself heard.

The earth shook, a huge column of black smoke rose skywards, explosion followed explosion. The roar of falling walls was mingled with fearful cries and dying groans.

Lady Beltham's villa had been blown up, burying under its ruins the hapless men who in their pursuit of Fantomas had ventured too near.

a.s.suredly this arch-criminal had got away once more. But were Juve and Fandor among the dead?

THE END