“ ‘That is perfectly true,’ the president admitted, ‘but their work is also more difficult than ever before. Criminals who operate in the grand manner have all sorts of things at their disposal nowadays. Science has done much for modern progress, but unfortunately it can be of invaluable assistance to criminals as well; the hosts of evil have the telegraph and the motorcar at their disposal just as authority has, and some day they will make use of the airplane.’ ”

(Marcel Allain & Pierre Souvestre, Fantômas, trans. unknown, p. 3.)