“I am not mad,” he observed simply by way of explanation, “but I have a horror of seeing people sitting in high chairs when I am myself seated in a low one—a whim, Monsieur Fandor, a monomania, if you like, of no importance.... Now, what can I do for you?”
Jérôme Fandor squatted on the ground in obedience to the detective’s strange invitation, while the latter took his place on the seat so oddly truncated.
“Sir,” declared the journalist, “the name I have mentioned, the name of Juve, must have informed you of the object of my visit. You can guess ...”
But Tom Bob uttered a sharp protest: “No, I know nothing, I cannot guess. Besides, I never guess; I infer, that’s all.”
“Nevertheless you guessed my name, Monsieur Tom Bob?”
“Not at all! I only inferred you were Fandor from the fact that you invoked Juve’s name by way of introduction to me and that, as I look at it, there can hardly be another individual but you, Jérôme Fandor, to act so imprudently as to name Juve as guarantee, when Juve is generally taken to be Fantômas!”
On hearing the American’s words, Fandor sprang up instinctively to grasp his hand.
“Oh, sir,” he cried, “thank you for what you say, I thank you from the bottom of my heart! At the first word, I guessed you were to be an ally. You do not think, do you, that Juve is Fantômas?”
Tom Bob interrupted sharply again:
“I think I told you to sit on the floor! You get up instead; you are in the wrong, you must do what I ask. If you mean to jump up and down like this, I prefer to put off the interview you desire till to-morrow.”