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Page 12
Lord Albemarle, an elderly paralytic gentleman, was now the only advocate
of Phileas Fogg left. This noble lord, who was fastened to his chair,
would have given his fortune to be able to make the tour of the world,
if it took ten years; and he bet five thousand pounds on Phileas Fogg.
When the folly as well as the uselessness of the adventure was pointed out
to him, he contented himself with replying, "If the thing is feasible,
the first to do it ought to be an Englishman."
The Fogg party dwindled more and more, everybody was going against him,
and the bets stood a hundred and fifty and two hundred to one;
and a week after his departure an incident occurred which deprived him
of backers at any price.
The commissioner of police was sitting in his office at nine o'clock
one evening, when the following telegraphic dispatch was put into his hands:
Suez to London.
Rowan, Commissioner of Police, Scotland Yard:
I've found the bank robber, Phileas Fogg. Send with out delay warrant
of arrest to Bombay.
Fix, Detective.
The effect of this dispatch was instantaneous. The polished gentleman
disappeared to give place to the bank robber. His photograph, which was
hung with those of the rest of the members at the Reform Club,
was minutely examined, and it betrayed, feature by feature,
the description of the robber which had been provided to the police.
The mysterious habits of Phileas Fogg were recalled; his solitary ways,
his sudden departure; and it seemed clear that, in undertaking a tour
round the world on the pretext of a wager, he had had no other end in view
than to elude the detectives, and throw them off his track.
Chapter VI
IN WHICH FIX, THE DETECTIVE, BETRAYS A VERY NATURAL IMPATIENCE
The circumstances under which this telegraphic dispatch about
Phileas Fogg was sent were as follows:
The steamer Mongolia, belonging to the Peninsular and Oriental Company,
built of iron, of two thousand eight hundred tons burden, and five hundred
horse-power, was due at eleven o'clock a.m. on Wednesday, the 9th of October,
at Suez. The Mongolia plied regularly between Brindisi and Bombay via
the Suez Canal, and was one of the fastest steamers belonging to the company,
always making more than ten knots an hour between Brindisi and Suez,
and nine and a half between Suez and Bombay.
Two men were promenading up and down the wharves, among the crowd
of natives and strangers who were sojourning at this once straggling village--
now, thanks to the enterprise of M. Lesseps, a fast-growing town. One was
the British consul at Suez, who, despite the prophecies of the
English Government, and the unfavourable predictions of Stephenson,
was in the habit of seeing, from his office window, English ships
daily passing to and fro on the great canal, by which the old roundabout
route from England to India by the Cape of Good Hope was abridged
by at least a half. The other was a small, slight-built personage,
with a nervous, intelligent face, and bright eyes peering out
from under eyebrows which he was incessantly twitching.
He was just now manifesting unmistakable signs of impatience,
nervously pacing up and down, and unable to stand still for a moment.
This was Fix, one of the detectives who had been dispatched from England
in search of the bank robber; it was his task to narrowly watch every
passenger who arrived at Suez, and to follow up all who seemed to
be suspicious characters, or bore a resemblance to the description
of the criminal, which he had received two days before from the
police headquarters at London. The detective was evidently inspired
by the hope of obtaining the splendid reward which would be the prize
of success, and awaited with a feverish impatience, easy to understand,
the arrival of the steamer Mongolia.
"So you say, consul," asked he for the twentieth time, "that this steamer
is never behind time?"
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