XXX
APPALLING ACCUSATIONS
"But, Commandant, you cannot possibly maintain that I am not Jérôme Fandor, journalist!"
The interview between Commandant Dumoulin and Fandor had already lasted an hour. It was unlike that which had taken place six days before, when Dumoulin had dealt summarily with the Fandor-Vinson case. Since then Fandor had occupied cell 27, and had had no communication with the outside world. Fandor had raged furiously against things in general, against Dumoulin in particular, and against himself most of all. He acknowledged that Juve had done his utmost to extricate him from the tangled web he had involved himself in as Fandor-Vinson.
Each day brought him one distraction which he would willingly have foregone: he passed long exhausting hours in Commandant Dumoulin's office. He found the commandant detestable. Dumoulin was hot-blooded, noisy, unmethodical, always in a state of fuss and fume! He would begin his interrogations calmly, would weigh his words, would be logical, but little by little, his real nature—a tempestuous one—would get the upper hand.
For the twentieth time Fandor had insisted on his identity, and Dumoulin, tapping the case papers with an agitated hand, had replied:
"I recognise that you are Jérôme Fandor, exercising the profession of a journalist—since it seems journalism is a profession! But that is not the question; the problem I have to elucidate! I have to ascertain when, and at what exact moment, one Jérôme Fandor took the personality of Corporal Vinson!"...
"I have already told you, Commandant!... Please read my deposition of the day before yesterday. I will recapitulate: