"What a joke!... And what a jolly good actor I should have made!"
thought Jerome Fandor, giving himself a mental hug of satisfaction....
"Ah! They arrest the individuals I want to set talking!... The police imagine they are going to push in first and find out the answer to the riddle!... We shall see!"
Fandor was listening intensely and trying to discover from the movements of the Salad Basket what street they were pa.s.sing along.
"Smooth going ... evidently we are still in the rue de la Pompe, so I have about a quarter of an hour more of it!"
Fandor examined the tiny cell in which he had been imprisoned of his own free will.
"Not much to be said for it!" ran his thoughts. "There is scarcely room to sit ... impossible to stand up or turn around ... nearly dark ... and precious little air comes in through those wooden shutters!... I shouldn"t think there ever had been an escape from these vans!..."
Fandor smiled broadly.
"Even if I don"t succeed, it is worth while making the attempt!... But I shall succeed--see if I don"t!... I settled it in my mind that I was to leave the cells after this costermonger: he is in front of me, therefore the cell behind me is empty. It will be deucedly queer if, at Auteuil police station, they don"t put that confounded Jules in it, whom I intend to interview under the nose of the police!... I shall start talking to him by tapping on the part.i.tion in prisoner"s language. The fellow is pretty sure to be an old offender, so he will know the system.... If he doesn"t, when we get to the Depot, I will push up to him somehow and get a few words with him.... If the Depot is full, we shall be stuck into the common cell until morning.... So, I take it as certain that my interview with this true and faithful servant will come off, and I shall get to know a good deal about the mystery!..."
As an afterthought, it occurred to Fandor that probably there had never been such a light-hearted occupant of this cell as he....
"Ah, that"s the sound of the trams!... One jolt! Two jolts! Good!... The rails!... We are crossing rue Mozart! We are going faster--in five minutes we shall be at the Auteuil police station, and there we can start our little operations!"
There was one thing that attracted Fandor"s attention, which was keenly on the alert. There was a violent jolt, and he had a distinct impression that the vehicle turned to the right.
"Why, where the deuce are they taking us?" Fandor asked himself. "To the boulevard Exelmans station?... We had not reached the end of the rue Mozart, surely!... Where did we turn then? Rue du Ranelagh?... No, there is a channel stone at the entrance, and I should have felt it!... Rue de l"a.s.somption!... Again no. The roadway is up: I should be knocked about more than this on my wooden seat. We are going over a perfectly kept road, which cannot have much traffic!... Why, of course, it is rue du Docteur-Blanche!... Isn"t rue Mozart barred at the end? Yes. The driver must be going round by the boulevard Montmorency.... Ah, well! I am in no hurry! There will be time enough for me to pay my respects to the ill.u.s.trious Jules!"
Just as Fandor was thus congratulating himself, he was thrown against the side of his cell! The van seemed to have come into violent collision with some object and had tilted over to a considerable extent.
m.u.f.fled oaths came from neighbouring cells; a stifled exclamation reached Fandor"s ears; then louder still, came the intermittent humming and snorting of a motor-car.
"Confound you!... can"t you pay attention to where you are going?...
Keep to your right!"
Slightly stunned, Fandor heard some one knocking.
A voice asked:
"Are you hurt?"
"No, but ..."
Already the questioner had moved away.
"Evidently," thought Fandor, "the driver wants to know whether his human packages are damaged or not! We have collided with another vehicle!...
Cheerful!"
Fandor"s cell was now at such an angle that he could only suppose that the Salad Basket had had one of its wheels broken.
"What a nuisance!" he murmured. "Before they have finished their palaver as to how the accident happened and have repaired the damage, we shall have been here a full half-hour.... Jules will be in a temper!"
Minute succeeded minute, long, interminable minutes, and Fandor could not hear clearly what was said, what was being done to put the Salad Basket on its legs again.... The atmosphere in the little cell was becoming intolerable; for the movement of the vehicle had driven fresh air inside the shutter, and now that the Salad Basket was stationary, the air was becoming almost unbreathable.
Fandor"s nerves were on edge.
"It cannot be that they are going to leave us stranded here!" thought he.... "Ah, now they have started repairs!" Fandor noticed that his cell was gradually regaining its ordinary level.... A lifting-jack must have been slipped under the vehicle, for there was a melancholy creaking sound. They must be putting the wheel on again!...
"No," thought Fandor, after some time had pa.s.sed. "Never would I have supposed that it could have taken so much time to repair a Salad Basket!... Why we shall soon have been stuck here for two mortal hours!... I hope it won"t make any difference to our going to the Depot, nor stop my getting into close touch with that villain Jules!"
There was a further period of waiting. Then our exasperated journalist heard the driver pa.s.s down the centre of the van. The van door slammed.... Once more the Salad Basket was loosed from its moorings.
"Something queer is going on!" said Fandor suddenly. He felt certain the van had turned completely round and was going in the direction it came from.
"Now where in the world are we going?... By what kind of a route are we making for that blessed police station?"
There were s.p.a.ces of asphalt, succeeded by wood pavement, then by hard stones, then asphalt and wood again, and turning succeeded turning, whilst a new Tom Thumb was doing his possible to guess the route the Salad Basket was taking. Presently Fandor gave it up. He had to admit that he was completely lost.... Which way the Salad Basket was going he knew no more than the Man in the Moon!
"We have been trotting along for more than half an hour; therefore we cannot be going to the boulevard Exelmans police station ... the distance from the rue du Docteur-Blanche to the Point-du-Jour is not great...."
As Fandor was murmuring these words, the van slowed down, turned round; then, with a b.u.mp and a jolt, it mounted the footpath.
"Now for it," said Fandor. "This is certainly not the Point-du-Jour station!... We are pa.s.sing under an archway--now we are turning again.... Ah, we draw up, at last!... Not too soon!"
The van did stop.
Again a wait. Fandor c.o.c.ked both ears; he wondered who was going to enter the cell next his. Then a man approached the door of his little cell, where he was indeed "cribbed, cabined and confined"; inserted a key in the lock, opened, and shouted in a brutal tone:
"Out with you!... March! Quick now!"
Fandor had no choice but to obey the orders hurled at him. But no sooner had he descended the steps of the prison van than he exclaimed:
"By Jove! The Depot!"
This was not the moment to express all the surprise he felt at being landed at Police Headquarters in this fashion.... All round the Salad Basket the police were ranged in irregular order. They shouted to him to be quick.
"Come on with you! Hurry there!"
Fandor, followed by the costermonger, was pushed towards a little open door in the grey wall which led into a kind of office, where an old frowning man was already looking through the papers, which had been respectfully handed to him by a warder.
"So you have brought only two of the birds?" remarked the frowning official.
"Yes, superintendent."
"Good, that will do!..."
Turning to the warders, the frowning little superintendent ordered: "Take them away!... Cell 14.... Useless to rouse the whole place!"
Once more the warders pushed Fandor before them, as well as the poor costermonger: they were driven into a dark corridor on to which a row of cells opened.
The head warder opened a door.
"In with you, my merry men! You will be put through your paces to-morrow!"