Meantime the latter was bowing right and left, then glided swiftly among the groups of his acquaintance, grasping the men’s hands, kissing the ladies’, a very gallant gentleman. A curious thing, too, to observe that, while these fashionable men and women would never have condescended to clasp hands with a common inspector of the French Investigation Bureau, they were making much of Tom Bob, just because he was a foreigner. True, he had originally joined the police as an amateur, out of curiosity and for the sake of amusement, and it was only by degrees, after a series of notable successes, that he had become a professional detective—and the fact was not forgotten. But the mystery was dissipated. After the inevitable panic created by this apparition of the terrible figure of Fantômas, a very real satisfaction, a genuine feeling of relief had been experienced in learning that beneath this horrid disguise was hidden the man who had pledged himself to deliver Parisian society from Fantômas! In fact there was not one of all the grand duchess’s guests but entertained in his heart a secret dread of the desperate criminal. Ever since the brigand had sworn to the Parliament to spread terror broadcast, every man felt himself more or less menaced. The American detective, by taking up the challenge thrown down by the Minister, had to some extent relieved these apprehensions, and society was grateful to him. For half an hour the Grand Duchess Alexandra, like an accomplished hostess, had been moving through the different rooms, declining to dance herself, but finding for each an agreeable word, a gracious phrase of greeting, when in a doorway by chance she came face to face with the “Fantômas.” “Monsieur Bob,” she was beginning, when next moment she broke off in startled surprise. And truly the great lady had good reason to be amazed. The masquer, whom she was about to congratulate once more on his clever disguise, had just committed a grave breach of etiquette. Bowing, he had, without a word, while pretending to kiss her hand, slipped a note inside her glove. Then, turning on his heels, not giving the grand duchess time to protest or answer, he had glided off among the dancers, putting between them the effective barrier of the whirling couples. More than surprised, the grand duchess said and did what any woman would have said and done under the circumstances. “Tom Bob dares to slip a _billet doux_ into my hand! What insolence! Most certainly I will go and throw it down at his feet, this execrable token of bad taste!” Then she reflected that, before getting rid of the scrap of paper she could feel under her glove, it would perhaps be amusing to cast a glance at it, and, her lips curling in a disdainful smile, the grand duchess, leaving the dancing rooms for a moment, went up to her private apartment. There, hastily turning on the electric light, she hurriedly glanced at the extraordinary letter.