“Crazy indeed! but, now ...”
“What on earth are you talking about now?” Tom Bob’s face wore such an expression of amazement, stupefaction, utter lack of comprehension, that with one accord M. Havard and the Minister, who had to hold himself in hand hard to keep his lips shut, sprang up and faced the detective.
“But,” screamed M. Havard, boiling over with exasperation, “but you are not, I presume, going to deny that yesterday evening you were at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s ball?”
Tom Bob struck his breast in perfectly unaffected surprise.
“I?” he stammered, “I was at the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s ball!”
“Egad! yes: as Fantômas, come now!”
“And as Fantômas! But, really, Monsieur Havard, I don’t understand one word you are saying. I have never been in the Grand Duchess Alexandra’s house, neither at her dance, nor at any other time: neither yesterday, nor ever before!”
“And you are not wounded?”
“Wounded where?”
“In the arm.”