Paulet meanwhile was playing his part splendidly. With the help of the big fellow with the knotty hands who had butted into the Minister in the first instance, he was clearing a ring, pushing back the over curious.
“I beseech you, ladies and gentlemen,” he was shouting, “go away; it’s a poor fellow, an invalid, who has just had an attack. Yes, he’s in a fit ... he’s ill,” he kept repeating, and everybody agreed the young man was perfectly right.
The Minister in fact, utterly at sea as to what had befallen him, merely aware that he could not utter a word and that they would not let him get up, was writhing and wriggling like a man possessed. A frothy lather covered his cheeks and poured from between his lips.
The spectators were of one mind, all repeating parrot-wise the same words:
“It’s a man been taken ill, an epileptic just had an attack!”
The taxi selected by old Moche drew up to the pavement. With the help of kind-hearted assistants, Paulet and his accomplice hoisted the Minister into the cab, still vainly resisting!
The two brigands took their places inside with their victim; then, just as the vehicle got under weigh, old Moche with surprising agility sprang on the step and took his seat beside the chauffeur.
The plot had succeeded—a triumph, indeed!
But, after all, with what object had they kidnapped the Minister of Justice? What did they expect to make of it? In the Chamber at the Palais-Bourbon, excitement was at its height. There was a constant coming and going of Deputies, talking together eagerly without paying the smallest attention to the demand for silence from the President’s chair, whose bell rang out unceasingly. Presently, however, quiet was restored when the President of the Council, the much respected M. Monnier, mounted the tribune to make the following announcement:
“Gentlemen, I regretted a while ago to have to inform you that our honourable colleague, M. Désiré Ferrand, Minister of Justice, had not returned to his house ... I have this moment received an extraordinary letter, so extraordinary in fact that I am tempted to believe it to be the work of a practical joker. Nevertheless, under present circumstances, I consider it my duty to make you acquainted with its contents.”