LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER 6

      In which the Agent, Fix, shows a very proper impatience

      These are the circumstances under which the dispatch concerning Mr Phileas Fogg had been sent:

      On Wednesday, the ninth of October, there was expected at Suez, at eleven o’clock a.m., the iron steamer Mongolia, of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, sharp built, with a spar deck, of two thousand eight hundred tons burden, and nominally of five hundred horse-power. The Mongolia made regular trips from Brindisi to Bombay by the Suez Canal. It was one of the fastest sailers of the line, and always exceeded the regular rate of speed, that is, ten miles an hour between Brindisi and Suez, and nine and fifty-three hundredths miles between Suez and Bombay.

      Whilst waiting for the arrival of the Mongolia, two men were walking up and down the wharf, in the midst of the crowd of natives and foreigners who come together in this town, no longer a small one, to which the great work of M. Lesseps assures a great future.

      One of these men was the Consular agent of the United Kingdom, settled at Suez, who, in spite of the doleful prognostications of the British Government, and the sinister predictions of Stephenson, the engineer, saw English ships passing through this canal every day, thus cutting off one-half the old route from England to the East Indies around the Cape of Good Hope.

      The other was a small, spare man, of a quiet, intelligent, nervous face, who was contracting his eyebrows with remarkable persistence. Under his long eyelashes there shone very bright eyes, but whose brilliancy he could suppress at will. At this moment he showed some signs of impatience, going, coming, unable to remain in one spot.

      The name of this man was Fix, and he was one of the detectives, or agents of the English police, that had been sent to the various seaports after the robbery committed upon the Bank of England. This Fix was to watch, with the greatest care, all travellers taking the Suez route, and if one of them seemed suspicious to him, to follow him up whilst waiting for a warrant of arrest. Just two days before Fix had received from the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police the description of the supposed robber. It was that of the distinguished and well-dressed gentleman who had been noticed in the paying-room of the bank. The detective, evidently much excited by the large reward promised in case of success, was waiting then with an impatience easy to understand, the arrival of the Mongolia.

      “And you say, Consul,” he asked for the tenth time, “this vessel cannot be behind time?”

      “No, Mr Fix,” replied the Consul. “She was signalled yesterday off Port Said, and the one hundred and sixty kilometres of the canal are of no moment for such a vessel. I repeat to you that the Mongolia has always obtained the reward of twenty-five pounds given by the Government for every gain of twenty-four hours over the regulation time.”

      “This steamer comes directly from Brindisi?” asked Fix.

      “Directly from Brindisi, where it took on the India mail; from Brindisi, which it left on Saturday, at five o’clock p.m. So have patience; it cannot be behind-hand in arriving. But really I do not see how, with the description you have received, you could recognise your man, if he is on board the Mongolia.”

      “Consul,” replied Fix, “we feel these people rather than know them. You must have a scent for them, and the scent is like a special sense, in which are united hearing, sight, and smell. I have in my life arrested more than one of these gentlemen, and, provided that my robber is on board, I will venture that he will not slip from my hands.”

      “I hope so, Mr Fix, for it is a very heavy robbery.”

      “A magnificent robbery,” replied the enthusiastic detective. “Fifty-five thousand pounds! We don’t often have such windfalls! The robbers are becoming mean fellows. The race of Jack Sheppard is dying out! They are hung now for a few shillings!”

      “Mr Fix,” replied the Consul, “you speak in such a way that I earnestly wish you to succeed; but I repeat to you that, from the circumstances in which you find yourself, I fear that it will be difficult. Do you not know that, according to the description you have received, this robber resembles an honest man exactly?”

      “Consul,” replied the detective dogmatically, “great robbers always resemble honest people. You understand that those who have rogues’ faces have but one course to take to remain honest, otherwise they would be arrested. Honest physiognomies are the very ones that must be unmasked. It is a difficult task, I admit; and it is not a trade so much as an art.”

      It is seen that the aforesaid Fix was not wanting in a certain amount of self-conceit.

      In the meantime the wharf was becoming lively little by little. Sailors of various nationalities, merchants, ship-brokers, porters, and fellahs, were coming together in large numbers. The arrival of the steamer was evidently near. The weather was quite fine, but the atmosphere was cold from the east wind. A few minarets towered above the town in the pale rays of the sun. Towards the south, a jetty of about two thousand yards long extended like an arm into the Suez roadstead. Several fishing and coasting vessels were tossing upon the surface of the Red Sea, some of which preserved in their style the elegant shape of the ancient galley.

      Moving among this crowd, Fix, from the habit of his profession, was carefully examining the passers-by with a rapid glance.

      It was then half-past ten.

      “But this steamer will never arrive!” he exclaimed on hearing the port clock strike.

      “She cannot be far off,” replied the Consul.

      “How long will she stop at Suez?” asked Fix.

      “Four hours. Time enough to take in coal. From Suez to Aden, at the other end of the Red Sea, is reckoned thirteen hundred and ten miles, and it is necessary to lay in fuel.”

      “And from Suez this vessel goes directly to Bombay?”

      “Directly, without breaking bulk.”

      “Well, then,” said Fix, “if the robber has taken this route and this vessel, it must be in his plan to disembark at Suez, in order to reach by another route the Dutch or French possessions of Asia. He must know very well that he would not be safe in India, which is an English country.”

      “Unless he is a very shrewd man,” replied the Consul.

      “You know that an English criminal is always better concealed in London than he would be abroad.”

      After this idea, which gave the detective much food for reflection, the Consul returned to his office, situated at a short distance. The detective remained alone, affected by a certain nervous impatience, having the rather singular presentiment that his robber was to be found aboard the Mongolia—and truly, if this rascal had left England with the intention of reaching the New World, the East India route, being watched less, or more difficult to watch than that of the Atlantic, ought to have had his preference.

      Fix was not long left to his reflections. Sharp whistles announced the arrival of the steamer. The entire horde of porters and fellahs rushed towards the wharf

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