“Eh, Havard, suppose Tom Bob did run down and arrest Fantômas?”
Lifting his hands to heaven, the Chief of the Investigation Department turned his back on the Procureur Général:
“God Almighty!” he swore, “hadn’t we enough to worry us, enough to make us look ridiculous, without this Tom Bob shoving his finger in the pie. Upon my word, it’s the last straw, that!...”
Havard stopped dead in the middle of his tirade; the door of the room had opened.
“Do you mean me by that, Monsieur Havard?” demanded the newcomer.
M. Havard curbed a gesture of annoyance; decidedly he was in Fortune’s bad books that day. He drew back, and bowing low to the President of the Council—it was no other than M. Monnier himself who asked the question.
“I do assure you, sir,” he replied respectfully, “I should never allow myself to think such a thing of you.”
CHAPTER IX
THE BLUE CHESTNUT
“Get along then that’s no way to treat people! What’s he want with me, anyway, the nasty fellow?”
Nini Guinon was furious; turning sharply round, she thus apostrophized an individual who had just signalized his presence by tickling her ribs more roughly than agreeably. It was a Monday, and about two o’clock in the afternoon. Nini had just issued from the Poissonnière Gate; mounting the bank overhanging the moat of the fortifications and turning to the left, she was making for Saint-Ouen. The young woman stared suspiciously at the man who was following her without a word, good, bad or indifferent, a smile of doubtful import on his face.