Part 51 (2/2)

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 fas.h.i.+on.... 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!”

<script>