Sonia Danidoff was exaggerating. With a tragic gesture she took the handkerchief from her forehead. On the pearly surface of the temple a cut was bleeding.
“Madam,” said the Minister, who knew Sonia Danidoff very well, “it is the Commissariat you must apply at!”
“No, Monsieur le Ministre! They would not understand at the police office the importance of my wound. If I have come to you, it is to denounce an abominable piece of swindling! The Grand Duchess Alexandra, the organizer of the subscription for Fantômas’ benefit, is Tom Bob’s mistress! And it was on account of jealousy, because Tom Bob is my lover, that she flew at me.”
For once the Minister quite forgot the courtesy due to a lady.
“The Grand Duchess Alexandra is Tom Bob’s mistress?” he cried. “Why, what fresh complication have we here? And what do you want me to do?”
The door opened yet again, and M. Landais’ private secretary came in, a very fashionable young man, very elegantly dressed and immaculately turned out.
“Sir,” he informed the Minister quietly, “here is a fresh communication come from the Palais.”
“What do they say?”
“It was not Juve, it was Tom Bob, who was tied up last night with M. Fuselier.”
But Sonia Danidoff, hearing this, broke in, protesting: