"To be so near success," he thought; "to be on the point of bringing in a magnificent haul, and then to get myself locked up, like a fool! No! Not if I can help it! Why it would be enough to make me strangle myself with my handkerchief as they believed that wretched Dollon, of sinister memory, did in the past!"
He smoked cigarette after cigarette, raving to himself, yet never taking his eyes off the pavements, where tirelessly, ceaselessly, a stream of pedestrians passed up and down the street.
"Was I mistaken, I wonder!" he went on. "Still, I cannot help fancying that youth—he was fifteen at the most—that sickly young blackguard of the Paris pavements who followed me into the tube, then took the same train as I did, who was behind me as I crossed the Place de la Concorde, who was continually and persistently on my tracks—I cannot think he was there by chance!... Well, it is no use worrying myself into a fever over it!"
Fandor found it almost impossible to recover his tranquillity of mind. Again and again, in the course of the day, he had come across the same individuals during his peregrinations, which took him from one end of Paris to the other: was it accident, coincidence, fatality, or was a very strict watch being kept over his movements? Thus Fandor had asked himself whether the Second Bureau had been warned of the part he had played with regard to Vinson? Was he not being watched and shadowed in the hope of running the treacherous corporal to earth? If the Second Bureau had decided to arrest Fandor, he certainly would not escape. "I shall be jailed within twenty-four hours," thought our journalist. "This branch of the detective service is so marvellously organised, that should the heads of it look upon me as Vinson's accomplice they will arrest me before I have time to parry the blow. In that case, the band of traitors I pursue, and am on the point of unearthing, will gain enough time to take their bearings, make all their arrangements, and disappear, without counting that this miserable Vinson, who relies on my help, will be caught at once."
Suddenly Fandor left his post of observation, shut his window, and went to the telephone.
"I must put Juve in possession of all the facts up to now, then, if I am caught, Juve will see to it that I am set free—he will put his heart into it, I know."
Unfortunately, it was not Juve who was at the other end of the line. He had gone out; his old servant took Fandor's message.
"Tell Monsieur Juve directly he comes in that I cannot go out, but that I absolutely must see him. Tell him the matter is most urgent."
It was ten o'clock at night. Corporal Vinson was dressing in haste.