Then another point struck him, and he added triumphantly:
“Besides, Havard, if Tom Bob were not guilty, why should he not have come in answer to your invitation this morning?”
M. Havard shook his head doubtfully, and made no answer. This point, raised by the Minister’s last question, was precisely what most exercised the head of the Investigation Department. When at an early hour he had been awakened by a ring on the telephone and a message from the Commissary’s office at the Parc des Princes, telling him that a new and appalling crime had just been committed by Fantômas, a crime that was spreading frantic terror among the members of Parisian society, a crime that it seemed must be set down to Tom Bob, M. Havard had come to several important decisions. He telephoned immediately to the Prefecture to send officers of the Department to shadow the Hôtel Terminus, where Tom Bob was still in residence. For himself, he set off at once to the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s. There he had, with his usual ability and acumen, held a rapid investigation, in the course of which he had discovered certain facts, facts if not directly relevant, at least suggestive.
On leaving the villa in the Parc des Princes, M. Havard hurried to the Ministry of Justice. It was eight o’clock when the head of the Criminal Bureau reached the Minister’s private apartments. By dint of eager representations to the ushers on duty and a like insistence with the ministerial attachés, he obtained immediate audience of M. Désiré Ferrand’s successor. A few moments more and he was closeted with the Minister of Justice, and was rapidly narrating, almost without drawing breath, the extraordinary events of the previous evening.
“Monsieur le Ministre,” M. Havard concluded, “I deemed it expedient to put you in possession of the facts at once, in order to save myself from incurring too heavy a load of responsibility; at this present moment a man is suspected, and reasonably suspected; this man is Tom Bob, the American detective. Unless we arrest him, public opinion, alarmed, agitated, terror-stricken, is going to cause us the most troublesome embarrassments; questions will be asked in the House, for certain! On the other hand, to arrest Tom Bob is a serious step; he is an American citizen, a foreigner, and will no doubt claim the protection of his consul and involve us in diplomatic difficulties. In fact, to arrest the man seems a monstrous thing to do.”
The Minister, after a few minutes’ thought, advised M. Havard to despatch a special messenger to see Tom Bob and beg him to come at once to the Ministry of Justice where the Minister wished to speak to him. But the messenger had been to the Hôtel Terminus, had seen Tom Bob, and had brought back the answer:
“Mr. Bob directs me to say he is very tired, almost ill, and cannot be disturbed.”
Neither Havard nor the Minister could make anything of it, and while the former was still marvelling at the amazing attitude the American detective had chosen to adopt in refusing to obey the personal invitation of a Minister of State, under the flimsy excuse of fatigue, the Minister insisted:
“You must admit, M. Havard, that this refusal to come and see me is, to say the least, extraordinary. Why, deuce take it, if Tom Bob was not wounded, that is to say, was not guilty, that is to say, had not pressing reasons for not showing himself just now, he would have come along here post haste. How did he know I was not meaning to decorate him?”
M. Havard laughed frankly at the great man’s little joke; he was still laughing when the brougham stopped at the door of the Hôtel Terminus.