“You are free to act, madam! Still, I hope we shall have laid hands, not on Fantômas, who, the public is too apt to forget, is in prison, but on Jérôme Fandor, his redoubtable accomplice, before you have had time to deal with the funds you are collecting for him ... and, consequently ...”

Lady Beltham did not reply at once, causing Fandor a moment’s suspense that seemed an eternity. He threw a rapid glance round the room. He was too ill acquainted with the grand duchess’s mansion to be able to make good his escape if she told the police-officer he was there. If she was for betraying him, she could deliver him up without his having the power to stir a finger to save himself.

But just as the journalist was feeling himself to be caught in a trap without an issue, he heard Lady Beltham’s voice; she was saying:

“I wish you every success, Monsieur Havard, in effecting your arrest of Jérôme Fandor—seeing you believe that Jérôme Fandor is Fantômas’ accomplice.”

CHAPTER XXII
A VOLUNTEER WAITER

Tom Bob had been waiting some while in a small room reserved for the use of callers on the ground floor of the house. The detective seemed extremely impatient, again and again he looked at his watch.

“Half after nine,” he muttered, “I cannot afford to waste time, yet I must make sure Ascott will not fail....” The man was frowning in evident anxiety, as he asked himself what sort of a reception the wealthy Englishman would accord him. Since the strange affair of the Pré Catalan, which had culminated so extraordinarily in the capsizing of the automobiles into the lake, Tom Bob had not seen Ascott again, save on very rare occasions. For this there were several reasons. In the first place the detective had been very much taken up—at any rate he said so—with the events that had occurred since his arrival in Paris, since he had officially declared his intention to devote himself to the pursuit and discovery of Fantômas. Moreover, the intrigue between Tom Bob and the Princess Sonia Danidoff was not, could not be, unknown to the members of the intimate little group of fellow-travellers that had come together on board the Lorraine on her passage across the Atlantic. Better than anyone, indeed, Ascott, who had been deeply smitten by the Princess, must be aware that in Tom Bob he had a fortunate rival, who had quickly won his lady’s favours. In truth, it required all the American’s calm effrontery thus, without any preliminary testing of his footing, to come calling on the young Englishman, who might very well be proposing to give him a highly unpleasant reception.

“True it is,” Tom Bob told himself, “that since he abandoned his unsuccessful wooing of the Princess Sonia, Ascott has had other amorous adventures that should surely at this time of day prevent his being jealous of me.” The affair at the Silver Goblet had, in fact, become a matter of general gossip, albeit not specially spoken about among the detective’s own circle of friends, and the American appeared to be perfectly well posted as to what was happening, as well as what was likely to come of it eventually.

At last Ascott’s man-servant, John, appeared, and invited the detective to follow him upstairs to his master’s study, where he found the Englishman seated at his desk, writing.

“Up already!” exclaimed the visitor cheerfully,