"Fandor!"
"Juve!"
"What does this mean, Fandor?"
"It means, Juve, that I am arrested in the place of Corporal Vinson!"
"Nothing of the sort!... I arrive from London. I arrested Vinson yesterday evening at Calais!"
Fandor laughed: he could have roared with laughter.
"My dear Juve," said he, "I should have to talk to you for two mortal hours before you would understand a word of this business!"
Fandor turned to the thunderstruck Dumoulin, and said in a voice of the most exquisite politeness:
"Commandant, I must state once for all that I am not Corporal Vinson!... I am a journalist, whom you perhaps know by name: Jerome Fandor, on the staff of _La Capitale_.... If you see me in this uniform, this disguise, that relates to a series of events, details of which I will give you with pleasure, as soon as I have reduced my own ideas to order.... As things stand, I am fortunate in meeting my friend Juve, who, if you desire it, will confirm the truth of my statement."
Dumoulin, more and more nonplussed, started in turn at the detective, at the journalist, at his reporter.... With face red as a boiled lobster, he turned to Lieutenant Servin....
When this farcical scene began, Servin had gone into his own office, and had given his secretary an order. The secretary had just returned.
The lieutenant, having recorded the answer brought him, had just that moment returned to the commandant"s office.
Lieutenant Servin looked upset.
"Commandant!" he gasped out.
He turned to our detective.
"Monsieur Juve!"
He continued staring first at one man, then at the other.
"An incredible thing has happened!... I have just heard of it!... I had given the order to have Corporal Vinson brought here immediately--the real Corporal Vinson--he whom Monsieur Juve arrested under the name of Butler: well, Commandant, it appears that on entering his cell they found him--dead!"
"What is that you say?" asked Dumoulin and Juve together.
"I say that he is dead," repeated the lieutenant.
"But how?" questioned Juve.
The lieutenant made a sign to the sergeant in charge.
"Go for the medical officer."
Some minutes pa.s.sed in a silence that hummed with questions.
A young a.s.sistant surgeon appeared.
"Kindly explain what is wrong, Monsieur!" commanded Dumoulin.
The surgeon spoke.
"My commandant sent for me, about an hour ago. I was to attend to a prisoner who had fainted. This man, when crossing the rue du Cherche-Midi, had suddenly lost consciousness. His warders could not revive him. They carried him to his cell. They laid him on his pallia.s.se. When I arrived the man was dead."
"Dead of what?" demanded Dumoulin.
"A bullet in his heart," replied the surgeon.... "I ascertained this when undressing him. The bullet will be found at the post-mortem: it has probably lodged in the vertebral column."
Dumoulin rose: paced the floor: he was greatly agitated.
"Oh, come, come!" he cried. "People are not killed like that in the open street!... It is unheard of! Unbelievable!... A bullet presupposes a revolver--a weapon of percussion of some description--a detonation!... There is a noise, a sound!"
Dumoulin went up to the young surgeon. There was a note of suspicious contempt in his question:
"Are you quite sure of what you say?"
"I am quite sure, Commandant."
During this discussion Juve had approached Fandor. When the surgeon made his statement, Juve murmured in Fandor"s ear:
"Vinson shot through the heart by a bullet!... Like Captain Brocq!...
Killed undoubtedly by a noiseless weapon ... when crossing the street!... Here, again, is--Fantomas!"
Things calmed down somewhat. Fandor addressed Dumoulin:
"Excuse me, Commandant, for having troubled you. I should be most grateful if you would set me at liberty. One tragedy follows hard on another! It is phenomenal!... I shall have to."...
Commandant Dumoulin burst out:
"By Heaven!" he shouted, thumping the table with his fist: "You are the limit!... The take-the-cake limit!... You flout me! You practise on my credulity!... Now you would steal a march on me! Try it on--will you?... Ah! You are not Corporal Vinson!... No?... You are a journalist!... You have got to prove that!... Even if you do prove it, you have got yourself into a pretty pickle by your fooling, by making a laughing-stock of the entire army in your own preposterous person--by a.s.suming that uniform!...
"Guards!" shouted Dumoulin. "Take this man back to his cell! Be sharp about it!... Double his guard!"
Fandor was not allowed time to protest: he was marched off at the double.
Juve tried to get in a word of explanation.
"I a.s.sure you, Commandant, it is certainly Jerome Fandor you are deal----"
"You!" yelled the commandant. "Get out! Foot it!... Leave me in peace, can"t you!... Out with you, or I"ll know the reason why!...
Begone!"...
Dumoulin was apoplectic with rage.
XXVIII