Jérôme Fandor was making a brave struggle to maintain his self-control, and Juve looked at him without concealing the real sympathy he felt for him in his grief. He put his hand kindly on his shoulder.
"Listen, my dear boy; odd as you may think it, you can take my word for it that there is no need for you to despair; there is nothing to prove that your father is dead; he may not have been on board."
"I don't want to say anything, my boy, except that you would be very wrong to give way to distress at present. If you have any confidence in me, you may believe me when I say that. There is nothing yet to prove that you have had this loss: and, besides, you still have your mother, who is perfectly sure to get quite well: do you understand?--_perfectly sure!_" He changed the subject abruptly. "There is one thing I should like to know: what the dickens brought you here?"
"You were the first person I thought of in my trouble," Fandor replied. "Directly I read about the disaster in that paper I came to tell you at once."
"Yes, I quite understand that," Juve answered. "What I do not understand is how you guessed that you would find me here, in Gurn's flat."
"It--it was quite by chance," he stammered.
"That is the kind of explanation one offers to fools," Juve retorted. "By what chance did you see me come into this house? What the deuce were you doing in the rue Lévert?" The lad showed some inclination to make for the door, but Juve stayed him peremptorily. "Answer my question, please: how did you know I was here?"
Driven into a corner, the boy blurted out the truth:
"Followed me?" Juve exclaimed. "Where from?"
"You mean, and you may as well own up to it at once, that you were shadowing me."
"Well, yes, M. Juve, it is true," Fandor confessed, all in one breath. "I was shadowing you: I do every day!"
"Every day? And I never saw you! Gad, you are jolly clever! And may I enquire why you have been exercising this supervision over me?"
"Forgive me," he faltered; "I have been very stupid. I thought you--I thought you were--Fantômas!"
The idea tickled the detective so much that he dropped back into a chair to laugh at his ease.
"'Pon my word," he said, "you have an imagination! And what made you suppose that I was Fantômas?"