Messengers of Evil - Pierre Souvestre

The Baroness de Vibray has been poisoned. The painter Jacques Dollon is arrested, but he is discovered dead in his prison cell, an apparent suicide, before he can be questioned. The journalist Fandor attempts to unravel the mystery, suspecting none other than the Genius of Evil, Fantômas. Through passageways and sewers, over rooftops, he follows clues and runs into trouble with gangsters. Believing Fantômas is planning to rob the Barbey-Nanteuil Bank a trap is set for the master criminal-but will he escape again?

'From the imaginative standpoint Fantômas is one of the richest works that exist.'
-Guillaume Apollinaire

'Absurd and magnificent lyricism.'
-Jean Cocteau