“Look here,” he excused himself, “I was a bit blunt with you; but you mustn’t be angry, for some while back I’ve had good cause to be irritable, you’ll admit that?”
“I do,” Tom Bob agreed.
“Then forgive me! Now tell me—you’ve done some smart things since your arrival in this country, I can’t deny you’re clever—tell me, have you any idea what Fantômas may try to do this evening?”
Tom Bob was evidently too good-hearted and too nice a fellow not to commiserate the bad temper M. Havard suffered from, for it was in a very cordial tone this time that he answered the Chief of the Criminal Bureau:
“I can form no supposition on that point—nay, I will go further, and admit there’s something that worries me ...”
“This; if Fantômas has invited us here, it is because he is quite confident we are not likely either to guess or parry the blow he is preparing. Moreover, I’ve been engaged since I got here, in making a cursory investigation, and having learnt nothing ...”
But M. Havard, to the last degree perplexed, had become deeply buried in his own thoughts.
“For my own part,” he admitted, “do you know what it is worries me?”
“No! What does?”