He drew from his pocket a crumpled telegram, the tears welling to his eyes: “Read, madam,” he cried, and could not articulate another word. Lady Beltham glanced through the message; it announced that, in a motor-car accident, Ascott’s father, the well-known peer and member of the Upper House, and his son, the young man’s eldest brother, had been killed! The tragedy had occurred in Scotland, in the Highlands, without a soul in sight! Ascott was sobbing bitterly. “When I heard of this terrible blow, madam,” he declared, “I had a presentiment, nay, all but a certainty, that the death of my loved ones was not due to mere accident. For, I must tell you this, I am the victim of a hideous plot, a prey to the most poignant anxieties. Madam,” he went on with an effort, “I was married quite lately, as you know.... I married an ‘unfortunate,’ an abandoned creature.... I am the victim of Fantômas’ villainies, who showed himself to me under the repulsive guise of the old usurer known by the name of Père Moche. The monster of superhuman guile has me in his toils, which he draws tighter and tighter every day! The wife he made me marry has run away, she has robbed me, ruined me; but that is nothing, would be nothing at all, did I not guess that my father’s death and my brother’s must be yet another outcome of a plot contrived by Fantômas!” Lady Beltham was in a better position than anybody to realize that the rich Englishman must be right; assuredly, the further she went, the more she would hear set down to her baleful lover’s account the most appalling revelations. Ascott, harking back to his first idea, again demanded an answer to his question, adjuring her to tell him where Tom Bob was. “I _must_ see him,” he urged, “I must see him and speak to him. Tom Bob is the only person on earth, madam, who by his perspicacity, his adroitness, his admirable detective skill, can extricate me from my difficulties, and put me in a position to avenge my relatives’ deaths. Tom Bob, madam, is the man who must fight Fantômas!” Lady Beltham was like to die of distress and perplexity. No doubt, she had but to open a door to bring the young Englishman face to face with the bogus detective. But was it her duty to act so? Ought she not rather to enlighten Ascott, to tell him that Fantômas and Tom Bob were one and the same, just as Père Moche and Fantômas again were one single and identical person! This course was what her conscience bade her take. But would duty triumph over love? Mechanically, moving like an automaton, without knowing yet what decision she would adopt, for, if she felt pity for Ascott, she burned with an ardent love for Fantômas, the great lady advanced slowly into the room where the brigand was. But next instant, horrified, she sprang back, though not without having first double locked the door of communication.