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Updated: June 15, 2025
Fandor turned to the thunderstruck Dumoulin, and said in a voice of the most exquisite politeness: "Commandant, I must state once for all that I am not Corporal Vinson!... I am a journalist, whom you perhaps know by name: Jérôme Fandor, on the staff of La Capitale.... If you see me in this uniform, this disguise, that relates to a series of events, details of which I will give you with pleasure, as soon as I have reduced my own ideas to order.... As things stand, I am fortunate in meeting my friend Juve, who, if you desire it, will confirm the truth of my statement."
At last Vinson managed to say, in a voice strangling with emotion: "Ah! Monsieur, excuse me for having come to disturb you like this, but I was determined to tell you ... to know you to express to you ... how I appreciate your talent, your way of writing ... how I like the ideas you express in your paper!... There was your last article, so just, so ... charitable!"
I am regularly let in!... As a civilian, as Fandor the journalist, I might go to the first military dépôt I can come at, and state that I had discovered a priest who was going to hand over to a foreign power an important piece of artillery!... The pretended Vinson would have done the trick and would then vanish.... But in uniform!... They would certainly accuse me of suspicious traffic with spies.... They would confine me cell me.... I should have the work of the world to obtain a release under six months!... Another point.... Why had they chosen him, Corporal Vinson as they believed, for such a mission?... Assuredly the spies possessed a thousand other agents, capable of carrying triumphantly through this dangerous mission, this delivery of a stolen piece of ordnance to a sailor spy in the pay of a foreign power inimical to France!"
"An incredible thing has happened!... I have just heard of it!... I had given the order to have Corporal Vinson brought here immediately the real Corporal Vinson he whom Monsieur Juve arrested under the name of Butler: well, Commandant, it appears that on entering his cell they found him dead!" "What is that you say?" asked Dumoulin and Juve together.
Nevertheless, when that yacht weighs anchor, it would be my delight to inspect her from stem to stern, accompanied by the Custom House officials. It is my conviction that Corporal Vinson will soon turn up, slip aboard with the stolen gun-piece, conceal it in some prepared hiding-hole below: his otherwise uninteresting person will be hidden also." "I am of the same mind," declared de Loubersac.
This 'someone' is the chief spy, already in touch with Vinson, or the chief spy at Verdun, who has been warned of Vinson's arrival: the post card I received from an unknown individual has nothing on it but the indications of a route already known to me, that from Verdun to the frontier. I shall follow that route as a pedestrian, and I look forward to meeting some interesting persons on the way."
There was a touch of the convent parlour about it. The man who had opened to him asked: "What name shall I give to the gentlemen, Monsieur?" "Tell them it is Corporal Vinson." Fandor's heart was beating like a sledge hammer as the minutes dragged by: it was an eternity of waiting! A flock of suspicions crowded his mind: might he not have fallen into a trap?
"And," asked Fandor, hesitating a little, "you have ... supplied him with all this?" In a voice so low as to be barely audible, and blushing to the roots of his hair, Vinson confessed: "I supplied it all!" "Is that all you have to say?" "Not yet, Monsieur listen: "Alfred had gone back with me as far as Nancy, where I had put on my uniform again; then I returned to Châlons quite by myself.
They are inside.... I shall follow them!... Meanwhile, do not stir from this door.... There is no other issue.... Do not allow a soul to pass not one!" "Never fear, Juve!" Information dropped by Corporal Vinson, who had been taken to The Crying Calf by Vagualame, more than once had caused Juve to keep a strict watch on the wine-shop for some days.
Without their powerful electric lights it would have been impossible to recognise the boats or the gangways leading to them. Juve had Butler by the arm: a necessary precaution, for the wretched man could scarcely keep on his feet. Juve propelled him towards a gangway: a minute later both were on the boat. Vinson caught sight of the inscription Empress on the lifebuoys.
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