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Again Fandor-Vinson played the admirer's part, though he knew these machines were out-of-date. "What is his game?" was our journalist's mental query. The answer soon came. His guide led him to a strange-looking object concealed by some grey material. It might well be a cabinet for storing odds and ends, but Fandor felt sure the grey stuff covered something metallic.
The driver, who was the mail carrier for Maronne, answered civilly: "You must go to Motteville, Corporal. At the first cross-roads you come to, turn to the right keep straight on that will bring you to the station." Corporal Fandor-Vinson thanked the man, and started off in the direction indicated. "All I have to do now," thought he, "is to discover some nice, lonely spot for."...
Fandor was far from wishing to clink glasses with the spy: still, needs must when the devil drives you into a tight corner of your own choosing! The offer was accepted with feigned pleasure. Corporal Fandor-Vinson kept a smiling face, whilst, glass in hand, he talked trivialities with his host.
He took a few steps under the arcade, saying to himself: "Punctual to the tick and in uniform! The meeting should come off all right this time!" A delicately gloved hand was placed on his shoulder, and a voice said: "My dear Corporal! How are you?" Fandor-Vinson turned sharply and faced a priest!... He recognised the abbé. It was he of the Verdun motor-car. "Very well!
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.
Surrounded by the noisy disorder of the barrack room, amidst men rising hastily that they might not be reported missing at the morning muster, which would shortly take place in the courtyard, Fandor-Vinson dressed quickly. He put on his sword-belt, ascertained that his servant had sufficiently polished the brass buttons on his tunic, his sabre, and other trappings.
Fandor once again recalled Vinson's words: "When one has to do with a fresh spy chief, it is a certain thing that he will make you pass a little kind of examination ... will put you through a regular cross-examination to ascertain your capacities what you are made of!" Corporal Fandor-Vinson replied instantly: "As the crow flies, I calculate it is not more than four kilometres.
Of course they are only made for the fun of the thing still, they might happen to prove useful one never knows!" Again the marked accent on "useful." Again Fandor-Vinson played up. "I should like to have a squint at those holy-joke notes!" "I was going to suggest it!" Turning a handle, the red-bearded young man put the machine in motion. "Place yourself there, Corporal! Put your hands to it!
Fandor-Vinson played up. "It seems to me a marvellous machine! I should like to see it working!" The red-bearded young man smiled. "Come here some afternoon, and I will show you the machine in full work!... Come soon!" He led Fandor to another part of the printing-room. "Do you know anything about linotypes?"
"Why ask me to come in uniform?... Do they know I came in mufti this morning?... I shall go again; but I think it is high time I returned to civilian life!" It was two by the clock on the refuge, in the rue de Rivoli. Fandor-Vinson emerged from the Metropolitan and crossed to the corner of the rue Castiglione.
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