Around the World in 80 Days

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?”

“No, Mr. Fix,” replied the con­sul. “She was be­spo­ken yes­ter­day at Port Said, and the rest of the way is of no ac­count to such a craft. I re­peat that the Mon­go­lia has been in ad­vance of the time re­quired by the com­pa­ny's reg­ula­tions, and gained the prize award­ed for ex­cess of speed.”

“Does she come di­rect­ly from Brin­disi?”

“Di­rect­ly from Brin­disi; she takes on the In­di­an mails there, and she left there Sat­ur­day at five p.m. Have pa­tience, Mr. Fix; she will not be late. But re­al­ly, I don't see how, from the de­scrip­tion you have, you will be able to recog­nise your man, even if he is on board the Mon­go­lia.”

“A man rather feels the pres­ence of these fel­lows, con­sul, than recog­nis­es them. You must have a scent for them, and a scent is like a sixth sense which com­bines hear­ing, see­ing, and smelling. I've ar­rest­ed more than one of these gen­tle­men in my time, and, if my thief is on board, I'll an­swer for it; he'll not slip through my fin­gers.”

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

“A mag­nif­icent rob­bery, con­sul; fifty-​five thou­sand pounds! We don't of­ten have such wind­falls. Bur­glars are get­ting to be so con­temptible nowa­days! A fel­low gets hung for a hand­ful of shillings!”

“Mr. Fix,” said the con­sul, “I like your way of talk­ing, and hope you'll suc­ceed; but I fear you will find it far from easy. Don't you see, the de­scrip­tion which you have there has a sin­gu­lar re­sem­blance to an hon­est man?”

“Con­sul,” re­marked the de­tec­tive, dog­mat­ical­ly, “great rob­bers al­ways re­sem­ble hon­est folks. Fel­lows who have ras­cal­ly faces have on­ly one course to take, and that is to re­main hon­est; oth­er­wise they would be ar­rest­ed off-​hand. The artis­tic thing is, to un­mask hon­est coun­te­nances; it's no light task, I ad­mit, but a re­al art.”

Mr. Fix ev­ident­ly was not want­ing in a tinge of self-​con­ceit.

Lit­tle by lit­tle the scene on the quay be­came more an­imat­ed; sailors of var­ious na­tions, mer­chants, ship-​bro­kers, porters, fel­lahs, bus­tled to and fro as if the steam­er were im­me­di­ate­ly ex­pect­ed. The weath­er was clear, and slight­ly chilly. The minarets of the town loomed above the hous­es in the pale rays of the sun. A jet­ty pier, some two thou­sand yards along, ex­tend­ed in­to the road­stead. A num­ber of fish­ing-​smacks and coast­ing boats, some re­tain­ing the fan­tas­tic fash­ion of an­cient gal­leys, were dis­cernible on the Red Sea.

As he passed among the busy crowd, Fix, ac­cord­ing to habit, scru­ti­nised the passers-​by with a keen, rapid glance.

It was now half-​past ten.

“The steam­er doesn't come!” he ex­claimed, as the port clock struck.

“She can't be far off now,” re­turned his com­pan­ion.

“How long will she stop at Suez?”

“Four hours; long enough to get in her coal. It is thir­teen hun­dred and ten miles from Suez to Aden, at the oth­er end of the Red Sea, and she has to take in a fresh coal sup­ply.”

“And does she go from Suez di­rect­ly to Bom­bay?”

“With­out putting in any­where.”

“Good!” said Fix. “If the rob­ber is on board he will no doubt get off at Suez, so as to reach the Dutch or French colonies in Asia by some oth­er route. He ought to know that he would not be safe an hour in In­dia, which is En­glish soil.”

“Un­less,” ob­ject­ed the con­sul, “he is ex­cep­tion­al­ly shrewd. An En­glish crim­inal, you know, is al­ways bet­ter con­cealed in Lon­don than any­where else.”

This ob­ser­va­tion fur­nished the de­tec­tive food for thought, and mean­while the con­sul went away to his of­fice. Fix, left alone, was more im­pa­tient than ev­er, hav­ing a pre­sen­ti­ment that the rob­ber was on board the Mon­go­lia. If he had in­deed left Lon­don in­tend­ing to reach the New World, he would nat­ural­ly take the route via In­dia, which was less watched and more dif­fi­cult to watch than that of the At­lantic. But Fix's re­flec­tions were soon in­ter­rupt­ed by a suc­ces­sion of sharp whis­tles, which an­nounced the ar­rival of the Mon­go­lia. The porters and fel­lahs rushed down the quay, and a dozen boats pushed off from the shore to go and meet the steam­er. Soon her gi­gan­tic hull ap­peared pass­ing along be­tween the banks, and eleven o'clock struck as she an­chored in the road. She brought an un­usu­al num­ber of pas­sen­gers, some of whom re­mained on deck to scan the pic­turesque panora­ma of the town, while the greater part dis­em­barked in the boats, and land­ed on the quay.

Fix took up a po­si­tion, and care­ful­ly ex­am­ined each face and fig­ure which made its ap­pear­ance. Present­ly one of the pas­sen­gers, af­ter vig­or­ous­ly push­ing his way through the im­por­tu­nate crowd of porters, came up to him and po­lite­ly asked if he could point out the En­glish con­sulate, at the same time show­ing a pass­port which he wished to have visaed. Fix in­stinc­tive­ly took the pass­port, and with a rapid glance read the de­scrip­tion of its bear­er. An in­vol­un­tary mo­tion of sur­prise near­ly es­caped him, for the de­scrip­tion in the pass­port was iden­ti­cal with that of the bank rob­ber which he had re­ceived from Scot­land Yard.

“Is this your pass­port?” asked he.

“No, it's my mas­ter's.”

“And your mas­ter is--”

“He stayed on board.”

“But he must go to the con­sul's in per­son, so as to es­tab­lish his iden­ti­ty.”

“Oh, is that nec­es­sary?”

“Quite in­dis­pens­able.”

“And where is the con­sulate?”

“There, on the cor­ner of the square,” said Fix, point­ing to a house two hun­dred steps off.

“I'll go and fetch my mas­ter, who won't be much pleased, how­ev­er, to be dis­turbed.”

The pas­sen­ger bowed to Fix, and re­turned to the steam­er.