In one of the rooms reserved for readers of La Capitale, JÉrÔme Fandor was gravely listening to Madame Bourrat's account of what had occurred at her boarding-house during the night. She had rushed off to tell him and to ask his advice.

"What you tell me, madame, is truly extraordinary!" said Fandor, with an air of profound astonishment....

"How did you discover that the police inspector who seized the trunk and carried it away was not a genuine policeman?"

"Why, through the arrival of Monsieur XaviÉ, the police inspector of our district! I know him.... There was no mistaking who and what he was; and when I told him that the trunk had been carried off the preceding evening, rather in the dead of night, he guessed everything...."

"And what did he say?..."

"Oh, he made us all come to the police station; and I can assure you that he looked far from pleased!"

"You must admit, dear madame, that his annoyance was not without reason!... The police were made fine fools of in this affair.... But afterwards?... Whom did he take back with him to the police station?"

"He took me and my manservant."

"And when you got to the police station?"

"Well, Monsieur Fandor, when we reached the police station, he made us come into his office, and there he put us through a regular examination,... just as though he suspected us!"

"But there must have been an accomplice in your house who let the robbers in," said Fandor. "I do not suppose the false police inspector forced the door open!"

"Ah, but, Monsieur Fandor, here is something I do not understand, nor does anybody else!... No, they did not try to hide themselves—not the least in the world! They rang the bell; they asked to see me; they told me what they had come for; and, accompanied by my manservant, carried away the trunk, and had it put on the cab—all in the most open and bare-faced manner!"

"It was your manservant who accompanied them?"

"But most certainly ... and that very fact turned against Jules, in a very nasty manner.... Poor Jules! Just imagine, the police inspector finished by ordering my house to be thoroughly searched from top to bottom! And when the policemen returned, without a why or wherefore, they took Jules away to another part of the police station!"

"I say! I say!"

"Oh, it was all explained! As soon as Jules had gone, the police inspector told me that they had found keys in his rooms, keys which could be made to fit any kind of lock whatever. Monsieur XaviÉ was convinced that my poor Jules was a burglar—imagine it!"

"And you, yourself, madame, are convinced of the contrary?"

"Oh, assuredly! Why, I have known Jules a very long time! And in many little ways on many occasions, he has shown himself to be strictly honest."

"But those false keys?"

"Those false keys, Monsieur Fandor, why I myself made Jules buy them, hoping to find among them one that would open my coach-house."

"So that?..."

"So that, Monsieur Fandor, the police inspector was obliged to agree with me that Jules was honest!"

"And he released this servant of yours?" asked Fandor.

His tone expressed annoyance.

"No, and that is why I am so distressed. He said, that provisionally, at least, my servant, Jules, was to be considered as under arrest! What ought to be done to get him let out?"

"But, madame!... He will be set free to-morrow, you may be certain of it!..."

"No doubt he will!... All the same, there is my house turned upside down, and I need Jules to help me to-night!... I really do not know what I shall do without him! Poor fellow!... I simply cannot imagine how it is they suspect him!"

Fandor said, with mock gravity:

"Ah, madame, Justice is sometimes so stupid—so wrongheaded!... Look here now, would you like a bit of good advice?... Telephone to Messieurs Barbey-Nanteuil. They are well known and powerful—perhaps they would exert their influence in your servant's favour? He might be set free this evening! I, you see, am but a journalist, and without a scrap of influence!"

Madame Bourrat thought this a good idea. Fandor rang for an attendant.

"Take madame to the telephone!"

Left to himself, the reporter could not help rubbing his hands.

"I must get rid of this excellent woman, who is certainly the most foolish person it has ever been my lot to meet. Good hearing! That servant of hers is under lock and key—things are going in the right direction ... but they are not going well for me!... If he confesses, to-morrow, when he is had up for examination, then the police will have the information before me!... Then, too, they are such duffers—such bunglers—that they are quite capable of giving that Jules his liberty!... What the deuce must I do to prevent his being let loose, and how am I to stop the judicial interrogation?... What a dog's life a journalist's is!"

Madame Bourrat reappeared.

"Monsieur Nanteuil is not there," she said. "But I got into communication with Monsieur Barbey.... He advised me to wait till to-morrow: he said it was too late in the day to do anything...."

"But, will he not intervene to-morrow?"

"I don't know. To tell the truth, I am sure Monsieur Barbey thought it very inconsiderate of me to disturb him about a matter in which he takes not the slightest interest."

"That's a fact. What possible interest can the bankers take in such a matter?... My advice was absurd!"

Fandor rose. As he was seeing his visitor out, he said:

"In any case, dear madame, count on me to-morrow morning. I shall call at your house about eleven. If there is anything fresh, we can talk it over!..."

"Oh, here's Janson-de-Sailly College!... Oh, what detestable remembrances you conjure up!... But—this won't do!... Go it, my boy!... I must play the part!"

The plumber, who had just given utterance to these remarks, glanced sharply about him. When he had made sure that there was no one close on his heels, he stepped into the roadway, and started on a zigzag course which seemed likely to upset his balance. Crossing the avenue Henri-Martin, going straight, towards the town hall at the corner of the rue de la Pompe, the good plumber, who was staggering more than a little, began to stutter and stammer in a drunken voice:

"It is the final struggle!"

The passers-by looked round.

"They sing the Internationale in the streets now, it seems!" remarked a severe-looking gentleman.

The workman turned to this correct personage.

"What of it?... Don't you think it a jolly fine thing then?"

In a thick voice he continued to sing:

"Let us gather, and on the morrow..."

The severe and correct personage spoke.

"My friend, you would do better to hold your tongue!... You forget that there is a police station close by!..."

But the incorrigible plumber caught the correct personage by his coat tails.

"If I sing the Internationale, it's because I'm a free man—ain't I?... A free man can sing if he likes, can't he? Eh!... Why don't you sing then?... Eh!..."

The correct personage drew himself up stiffly: tried to push the obnoxious plumber away.... The workman had now reached that stage of drunkenness when discussions tend to become interminable.

The gentleman pushed the drunken man aside, saying:

"Come! Come! Go away!... Leave me alone!"

But the maudlin plumber was attracting the attention of the passers by his gestures. He addressed the world at large.

"Would you believe it—that fellow there don't want me to sing!... No! Well, I'm going to!" and he started triumphantly.

"It is the—the—final ... strug-gle!"

A policeman came out of the station with a solemn air. He put his hand on the tipsy plumber's shoulder in paternal fashion.

"Go along with you, my friend!... Come now—pass along—pass along!" But he could not make the plumber budge before he had finished his verse, any more than he could teach him to walk straight on the spur of the moment!... Leaving hold of the gentleman's coat tails, the worthy plumber seized the policeman's arm.'

"Oh, you, you're a brother!... I have education, I have! You're a workman too, I know!..."

As the police inspector pushed him off, trying to make him go on his way, the plumber put his arm round him.

"No! No!... show you're a workman! Sing with me!"

"It is the final ..."

The scandal could no longer be tolerated! Street-corner idlers were gathering, people were laughing at the policeman: strong measures were necessary.

"Come now," said the policeman. "Yes, or no! Will you be off, and go home?... Eh!... Or shall I take you to the station?..."

"You take me?... You take me?... Why, it would take four of you to take me!..."

There was no shilly-shallying after this! Wounded in his vanity, the servant of the law did not hesitate.

"All right!" said he; and seizing the plumber by the collar, although there was no attempt at resistance, he dragged his prisoner towards the town hall of the district, for the police station was there also.

"Some more game for the DÉpÔt!" said the policeman as he passed the guard.... "A fellow I can't get rid of! Are the cells full up?"

Other policemen came up. An arrest in a peaceful district gives interest to the dull routine of the men on duty.

"The cells full? Go along with you! There's only a small shopkeeper who had no papers."

Thereupon the unfortunate singer, who continued to stagger about, was quickly pushed into the dark room called "the detention room."

An ordinary every day incident of the streets, this arrest of a drunkard!

"I shall have to write out a report for this fellow!" said the policeman, who had arrested the songster... "and the 'Salad Basket'[10] passes in an hour's time! ... I shall just do it!"

"Have you anyone for the DÉpÔt to-day?" asked the driver from his high seat on the prison van. He was on a collecting journey as is usual every evening, when the Salad Baskets, as they are vulgarly called, pass to the various police stations of Paris to pick up the individuals arrested during the day.

"Two of 'em," answered the police sergeant on duty. Whilst official papers were being interchanged and forms were being filled in according to rule, policemen went to the cells to bring out the two prisoners to be despatched to the DÉpÔt.

The first to pass out was the costermonger. He was straightway put into one of the narrow compartments in the Salad Basket. Then it was the turn of the tipsy and obstreperous workman, who was now silent, moody, and apparently sober.

"Hop it now!" cried the policeman. "Come along with you, you miserable drunk!... March now!... Foot it!"

As the "drunk" hit against the partition of the narrow passageway running up the middle of the Salad Basket, the policeman, with a shove, pushed him into one of the compartments, carefully shutting the little door on him and fastening it.

"My word!" he exclaimed. "That fellow wouldn't have been capable of walking three steps in an hour's time!"

As the driver climbed to his seat on the van, the policeman called out, with a laugh:

"You have a traveller inside who doesn't detest wine!... It's a pity to see a man in such a hoggish state!"

This same policeman would have been surprised, could he have seen the bibulous one's face when the Salad Basket cast loose from her moorings and started off in the direction of the Point-du-Jour police station, the last on the round to be visited!

The "drunk" whom one push had sufficed to plant on his seat, had briskly drawn himself upright and was smiling broadly, a wide, noiseless smile!

"What a joke!... And what a jolly good actor I should have made!" thought JÉrÔme 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 passing 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 partition 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 DÉpÔt, I will push up to him somehow and get a few words with him.... If the DÉpÔt 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'Assomption!... 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 illustrious 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.

Muffled 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 passed. "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 DÉpÔt, 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 pass 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 spaces 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 bump and a jolt, it mounted the footpath.

"Now for it," said Fandor. "This is certainly not the Point-du-Jour station!... We are passing 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 cocked 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 DÉpÔt!"

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!"

As the door fell to with a resounding clang, JÉrÔme had inspected the place by the light of a lantern.

"Empty!... No luck!... My plan has been spoiled: I shall not be able to interview Jules!"

Philosophically, JÉrÔme Fandor was preparing to go to sleep on the plank bed which decorated one end of the cell, when the little costermonger, roused from his torpid condition, began to moan and groan.

"Oh, what a misfortune!... To think I am innocent! Innocent as an unborn babe!... What's to be done!... Oh, what's to be done!"

The last thing Fandor wished to do was to start a conversation with his lamenting companion. He tapped the costermonger on the shoulder.

"Good Heavens, man, the best thing you can do is to go to sleep! Take my word for it!"

Without puzzling his brains any further over the enigmas he wished to get to the bottom of, Fandor stretched himself on his plank bed, and was soon sleeping the sleep of the innocent.

Monsieur Fuselier looked perplexed.

"You, Fandor! You arrested!... But am I going mad?"

Our journalist had been taken from his cell at eight in the morning, and had been conducted to the office of the Public Prosecutor. Here, the acting magistrate, in conformity with the law, wished to put him through the examination which would establish his identity. All arrested persons have to submit to this interrogation within twenty-four hours of their arrival at the DÉpÔt.

JÉrÔme Fandor had given his name at once, and, in order to prove the truth of his statements, he had asked that Monsieur Fuselier should be sent for, so that the magistrate might vouch for his identity and say a word in his favour.

Monsieur Fuselier had hastened to the DÉpÔt, had taken Fandor to his office, and had anxiously questioned him. Why, he asked, had the police been obliged to arrest him for drunkenness in the open thoroughfare?

When Fandor had concluded his statement, the magistrate exclaimed:

"Your ruse is inconceivable!... I must compliment you highly on your ability and your detective gifts!"

"I wish I could agree with you," replied Fandor in a depressed tone. "In spite of everything, I have not got into communication with Jules. But, Monsieur Fuselier, have you interrogated him yet?"

The magistrate shook his head.

"Alas, my poor friend, you have no idea of the extraordinary events of the past night; evidently, notwithstanding the fact that you played a passive part in them!"

"I played a part?... Extraordinary events?... What the deuce do you mean?"

"I mean, dear Fandor, that all Paris is laughing over it. The police have been tricked! You have been tricked! Did you not tell me, just now, that your prison van had had an accident? Do you know what really happened?"

"I ask you to tell me."

"Your vehicle was run into by a motor-car. The driver was extremely clumsy ... or very capable!"

"What's that?" Fandor leaned forward, keen as a pointer on the scent.

"It was like this," replied Monsieur Fuselier. "Your Salad Basket was very badly knocked about by the collision. The driver could not possibly repair it single-handed. He telephoned to Headquarters. Help was sent at once, and he had orders to drive to the DÉpÔt as soon as he could: he was not to trouble about the boulevard Exelmans station; that, for once, could be cleared the following morning. Unfortunately the telephone messages and replies had taken up a certain amount of time. When they telephoned to the boulevard Exelmans station, from Headquarters, to warn them not to expect the injured Salad Basket, the DÉpÔt man who was telephoning was extremely surprised to hear that the Salad Basket had already passed on to the Auteuil station and had taken away the arrested individuals there, notably this famous Jules!..."

"I never calculated on this!" cried Fandor.

"The truth is, my dear fellow, that Salad Basket of yours was not knocked out of action by an unlucky accident—the knock-out was intentional—was carefully planned! It was done to stop your van from reaching the Auteuil station!... While your Basket was being repaired, another Basket appeared at the Auteuil clearing station! This, if you please, had been stolen! It was standing before the Palais de Justice. Two accomplices took possession of it and drove away. The daring rascals were suitably disguised, of course! They produced false papers at Auteuil, got them endorsed, went through the regular forms, and carried off the men from the detention cells, under the very nose and eyes of the superintendent himself!"

"What became of the stolen Basket?" snapped Fandor.

"It was found at dawn near the fortifications, and, need I say—empty!"

"So that Jules has escaped?"

"As you say!..."

"And the car which intentionally knocked my Salad Basket out of action—whose was it?"

Monsieur Fuselier smiled.

"Oh, it's a queer affair, in fact, it may lead to the wind-up of all the Dollon business—we may now get to the bottom of that series of crimes!... You will never guess who is the owner of that car, Fandor?..."

"No, I am no good at guessing riddles just now ... besides, I hate them!" Fandor was nettled, exasperated!

"We got the number of the car from a witness of the smash-up; and we have verified its correctness. Well, my dear fellow, the owner of that car is—Thomery!"

"Thomery!" gasped Fandor.

"Yes. I have summoned him to appear before me—the summons has just been issued. Between you and me, I think Thomery is guilty. When he appears here, in, say an hour from now, I shall issue a writ of arrest against this sugar refiner financier, and we don't know what else!"

But, no sooner had Monsieur Fuselier finished his statement—a statement which he fully expected would strike his young reporter friend dumb with amazement—than Fandor threw himself back in his chair and roared with laughter.

The magistrate was taken aback!...

"But ... what the devil do you find to laugh at in that?"

Fandor had already checked his hilarity.

"Oh, it's nothing! Only, Fuselier, I ask myself, if really and truly, Monsieur Thomery, who is a very big fellow solidly built, has been able to discover a dodge, by means of which he can leave Jacques Dollon's imprints here, there and everywhere!"

"But he does not leave Jacques Dollon's imprints, because Dollon is living, because he came to see his sister—why, you admitted that yourself!"

"Why, of course! It's true!... Jacques Dollon is alive.... I had forgotten.... Thomery can only be his accomplice then!" declared Fandor. And as Monsieur Fuselier stared at him, astonished at the way he had received the sensational news of the night, Fandor rose to take his leave.

"My dear Fuselier, will you allow me to express my opinion?..."

Monsieur Fuselier nodded.

"Well, I am sure, that with regard to this affair, there are more surprises in store for us: you have not got the answer to the riddle—not yet!"

With that, Fandor smiled and bowed, and left the magistrate's room. He quitted the Palais, half-smiling, half-serious.... What was he going to do next?