A pa.s.sing sailor heard this question. He was about to enlighten Butler-Vinson, but Juve pushed him aside--this imbecile was going to spoil everything!
"No, old fellow, you are quite mistaken! It is the _Victoria_ that goes to Calais: we go to Ostend with the _Empress_."
Butler-Vinson accepted this statement as true.
An ear-piercing whistle sounded; the cables were drawn up: a vibratory motion told the pa.s.sengers they were off.
The mast-head light was extinguished: the mail-boat silently made its way out to sea.
There was a dense fog in the Channel. The fog-horn sounded its lugubrious note.
The sea was rough: a strong wind from the south-west had been blowing all the afternoon. The boat began to pitch and toss: the pa.s.sengers were drenched.
Though nothing of a sailor in the nautical sense, Juve took his duckings with equanimity: a bit of a pitch and toss would keep Vinson occupied.
The fog was Juve"s friend: it lent an air of vagueness, of confusion, to Butler-Vinson"s surroundings. The vagaries of the steamer would further distract what thoughts he was capable of. Still, they were on an English boat, and should the corporal grasp what was happening and refuse to disembark, Juve would be in a fix. Butler-Vinson must be kept in ignorance of the truth till they were on French soil.
Captain Loreuil had remained at Dover, declaring he still had much to do in England. Besides, he could not be brought to consider that to arrest criminals came within the scope of his duties: to mark them down, point them out, yes. Thus he had tracked down the traitor and left him in good hands.
Meanwhile, Butler-Vinson was suffering from a severe attack of sea-sickness. His head seemed splitting with throbbing pain.
"How long shall we be getting across?" he asked in a faint voice.
"Three hours," said Juve: this was the crossing time between Dover and Ostend.
Heavy cross-seas were running. Those who braved the buffetings and drenchings above deck were now few: it was a villainous crossing!
At the end of an hour and a half the odious waltz of the steamer slowed down. The fog-horn was silent: the _Empress_ moved alongside the jetties of Calais.
The gangways were let down; porters invaded the deck, carrying away luggage to the trains awaiting the travellers in the terminus station.
"Now for it!" thought Juve.
Once on French soil it was all up with the liberty of Corporal Vinson!
His arrest would be immediate.
Juve considered the miserable heap collapsed on a side bench: this traitorous rag of humanity had once been an upright man--a true soldier of France! It was terrible! It was piteous!
Juve raised Butler-Vinson. The wretched fellow could hardly stand up.
Juve signed to a sailor, who took the corporal"s left arm while Juve supported him on the right. Vinson disembarked. He set his feet on the soil--the sacred soil of France!
The crowd was pouring into the great hall, where customs officers were examining the small baggage.
Juve drew Butler-Vinson to the left: the traitor must not catch sight of the French uniforms. An individual seemed to rise out of the ground in front of them: Juve said to him in a low voice:
"Our man!"
Revived by a cordial, Vinson gradually recovered his senses. Painfully he raised his heavy eyelids: he looked about him curiously, anxiously.
He was in a large, square room, dimly lighted, almost empty, with bare white walls.
"Where am I?" he asked Juve. Three men surrounded him. Juve"s was the sole face he knew.
Juve wore a solemn look: his words were gently spoken.
"You are at Calais, in the special police quarters connected with the station. Corporal Vinson, I am sorry to have to tell you that you are under arrest."
"My G.o.d!" exclaimed the traitor. He attempted to rise, but fell back on his seat: his eyes were staring at the handcuffs on his wrists! He burst into tears.
Juve felt pity for this miserable being, huddled up there in the depths of humiliation and terror. But the dreadful fact remained--Vinson was a criminal, a traitor! Perhaps his errors were due to a bad bringing-up, to deplorable examples, alas!... Juve was not there to pa.s.s judgment, but to deliver the guilty wretch into the hands of the authorities.
"Come now!" he said, tapping Vinson on the shoulder. "Come, we are leaving for Paris!"
Corporal Vinson, traitor, raised supplicating eyes to Juve: then, realising all resistance was vain, he rose painfully: he a.s.sumed an air of indifference.
A policeman from Headquarters had joined Juve. The three men got into an empty second-cla.s.s compartment.
In a voice quivering with shame, Vinson begged Juve not to allow anyone to enter. "I should be so ashamed," he muttered, with hanging head and hunched shoulders.
"We shall do our best to prevent it," Juve a.s.sured him. After an explanation with the station-master, the compartment was labelled "_Reserved_."
The train started. Vinson was wide awake now, and dejected to the last degree. After a hand-to-mouth existence, but still a free one, in England, he had allowed himself to be nabbed by the police, like the veriest simpleton! The papers would be full of it!
Vinson, who had been led into criminal ways by his love for a bad woman, troubled himself much less regarding the punishment to be meted out to him than about the dreadful distress his arrest would cause his mother. The old Alsatian mother, when she learned that her son was in prison charged with treason to France, would die of grief. Vinson wished with all his heart that he had stuck to his first decision--that he had killed himself rather than make confession to the journalist, Jerome Fandor, who had wished to save him, and had helped him to escape, but who had really done him a bad service, since, deserter as he was, he had been caught like the most vulgar of criminals!
The train stopped at a station.
"I am dying of thirst," mumbled Vinson.
Juve sent his second in command for a bottle of water from the refreshment buffet.
Vinson thanked Juve with a grateful nod.
Refreshed, Vinson pulled his wits together.
Juve, noticing this, began questioning him, promising to treat him as well as he possibly could, if he would speak out, in confidence; a.s.suring him of the leniency of the judges if he consented to denounce his accomplices.
When Vinson realised that he was to stand his trial for spying, for betraying his country, as well as for desertion, he was only too glad to obey Juve"s suggestion.
"Ah!" murmured he, while tears rolled down his cheeks, "Cursed be the day when I first agreed to enter into relations with the band of criminals who have made of me what I am to-day!"
Vinson gave Juve a full account of his temptation, his errors; nevertheless he did not tell the detective of his relations with Jerome Fandor. Had he not promised absolute secrecy? Traitor and spy as he was, Vinson had given his word of honour, and this journalist had been kind to him in return, had given him a chance to escape and start afresh: not for anything in the world would he have betrayed his oath!
Juve was a hundred leagues from suspecting the subst.i.tution which had taken place between Vinson and Fandor. He was convinced he had Corporal Vinson before his eyes; but he also thought he had his grip on the individual who had left Paris the night before, accompanied by an ecclesiastic, for the purpose of handing over to a foreign power a most important piece of a gun stolen from the a.r.s.enal, as well as the descriptive plan that went with it.
But when he cross-questioned Vinson on this point, the corporal did not in the least understand what he was driving at! Juve, who had been congratulating himself on his prisoner"s frankness, grew angry with what he believed was a culpable reservation. Why did the corporal, who, up to this, had spoken so freely, now feign ignorance of the gun piece affair?... Well, he would find out his prisoner"s reasons presently.... Not wishing to scare him, Juve changed the subject....
He had any number of questions to ask the culprit. Did he not know Vagualame, the real Vagualame?