Meantime Désiré Ferrand, cursing the Prefect’s precautions, halted at the edge of the sidewalk, waiting for the traffic to slow down and grow less dense before crossing the Rue de Rennes. He was just opposite the exit from the North to South Underground as a numerous and compact crowd of passengers issued from the bowels of the earth. Taking advantage of the press, the two men whom the Minister of Justice had ordered to turn back, but who had only made a feint of doing so, approached their intended victim, whom they had not lost sight of.
Paulet, rather staggered by the Minister’s rebuff, began questioning M. Moche, not without a note of anxiety in his voice:
“I never thought,” he began, “we were going to meddle with a toff of this swell sort ... such an important bloke as all this ... a Minister’s not just like everybody else.”
“Silly boy,” replied the old fellow, “Ministers are made of flesh and blood like the rest of us, and I can even assure you ...”
Père Moche broke off suddenly, his face losing the look of indifference it had worn hitherto.
“Attention!” he muttered, “the play’s beginning!”
A big man with huge hands and an evil face, standing a few yards away, had just signalled to M. Moche; this done, unintentionally it seemed, the fellow bumped violently against Désiré Ferrand, who staggered, taken unawares as he was, and uttered a furious: “Look out, sir, look where you’re going, I say ...”
But at the same instant Paulet, in accordance with the directions he had received, taking the Minister in the rear, violently tripped up his heels. What old Moche had foreseen happened. The Minister pitched over backwards, striking his head on the pavement and lay there half stunned. Then Paulet, quick as lightning, dropped on his knees beside the fallen man and dragging the jaws open with his sinewy hands, slipped the rubber ball into Désiré’s mouth.
Instantly the chokepear dilated to thrice its size, and try as he might, the unfortunate Minister could not ejaculate one single word.
A crowd quickly collected. Moche for his part had prudently slipped away to one side, while his eyes searched anxiously among the vehicles prowling round in search of fares for a certain conveyance whereof the driver was his confederate. Soon this particular cab hove in sight; indeed it had never been very far from the scene of action. It was a taxi that had been following the little group ever since they left the Pont Solférino.