“Natural it may have been, madam, I have no wish to gauge the morality of the motives that may have led you to start this subscription; but I am bound to note the consequences of your action.”
“And they, Monsieur Havard, are?”
“Deplorable, madam, deplorable!”
“But, sir!... It is a reign of terror. The vilest abominations are of daily occurrence; crime follows crime, each more terrifying than the last, more monstrous, assuming even the character of crimes against the state. I believe my subscription will quickly prove a success, that I shall soon raise the sum of money required, that soon Fantômas will disappear. That is no deplorable result, is it?”
M. Havard had one of the little coughing fits he so frequently suffered from and which commonly served to disguise his embarrassments.
“What is deplorable,” he said at last, in a peevish tone, “is the fact that this subscription of yours, madam, makes my duties a farce, renders the French police ridiculous. How can we consent to Fantômas being paid to do us the favour to leave off murdering? He is an assassin! he should be arrested, that’s all there is to it.”
In a tone almost of mockery, certainly of irony, the grand duchess protested:
“But, Monsieur Havard, you don’t arrest him!”
“No,” confessed the Head of the Bureau, “no, not yet! But we shall arrest him.”
A silence followed, which Lady Beltham at last broke, to say: