Fandor replied in quick monosyllables, closing the conversation with these words:
"Agreed. Presently, then chief."
As the journalist hung up the receiver his expression changed: he frowned, and pulling at his moustache with a nervous hand, fretting and fuming.
"Hang it! It only wanted this," he grumbled.
Fandor had been called up by M. Dupont, of L'Aube, the well-known opportunist deputy, who was the manager of La Capitale as well. M. Dupont was only a nominal manager, and generally contented himself with writing up his editorial without even taking it to the office. He left the real management to his son-in-law, whose function was that of editor-in-chief. Thus Fandor had been extremely astonished when his "Head," as he was called in the editorial department, had rung him up.
M. Dupont had summoned him to the Chamber of Deputies, for three o'clock in the afternoon: his chief wished to give him some information for an article on a matter which interested him particularly. Fandor was puzzled, anxious.
What could it be? The chief could not know that he was taking his holiday.
"Bah!" said he, "Dupont evidently does not know. I will go to our meeting-place and will explain my approaching departure to him, and the devil's in it if he does not pass on this bit of reporting to one of my colleagues!"
"Madame Angélique," continued Fandor in a joyous voice, turning to the breathless old housekeeper who had just come back laden with parcels, "Get me lunch quickly. Then you must strap up my portmanteau. This evening I am going to make off, whatever happens!"
For two hours, interminable hours they seemed, Fandor had waited for M. Dupont in the Hall des Perdus[1] of the Palais-Bourbon. The deputy was at a sitting of the Chamber. If the ushers were to be believed, the discussion was likely to go on interminably. Several times our young journalist had thought he would simply make off without word said, excusing himself on the score of a misunderstanding when eight hundred odd miles lay between him and the directorial thunders. But he was too scrupulous a journalist, too professionally honest to follow the prompting of his desires.
[1] Hall of the Wandering Footsteps.
So, champing his bit, Fandor had stood his ground.
As he was looking at his watch for the hundred and fiftieth time, he quickly rose and hastened towards two men who came out of a corridor: they were M. Dupont and a personage whom Fandor recognised at once. He bowed respectfully to them, shaking hands with the cordial M. Dupont, who said to his companion:
"My dear Minister, let me present to you my young collaborator, Jérôme Fandor."
"It is a name not unknown to me," replied the minister; then, having innumerable calls on his time, he quickly disappeared.
A few minutes after, in one of the little sitting-rooms reserved for Parliamentary Commissions, the manager of La Capitale was conversing with his chief reporter.
"It was not to present me to the minister that you sent for me, my dear Chief—unless you intend to get me an appointment as sub-prefect, in which case." …
"In which case?" questioned M. Dupont gently.
Fandor's reply was frank.
"In which case, even before being nominated, I should tender you my resignation: it is not a profession which tempts me much!"
"Reassure yourself, Fandor, I have no intention whatever of sending you to live in the provinces: but if I asked you to see me here, it was with reference to a very delicate affair about which I mean to give you instructions—I insist on this word."
"Good," thought Fandor. "It's all up with my holiday!"
He tried to ask this question before his chief went into details, but M. Dupont interrupted him with a movement of his hand.
"You will leave for your holiday a few hours later, my dear fellow, and you can take eight days in addition."
Fandor bowed. He could not dispute his chief's decision—and he had gained by this arrangement.
"My dear Fandor," said his chief, coming to the main point, "we published yesterday evening, as you, of course, know, a short paragraph on the death of an artillery officer, Captain Brocq. … There is something mysterious about his death. Captain Brocq who, owing to his functions, was attached to the Second Bureau of the Staff Headquarters, that is to say, the Intelligence Department, was in touch with different sets of people: it would be interesting to get some information about them. I mentioned this just now to the Minister of War, and to the Minister for Home Affairs: both are agreed, that, without making too much noise about this incident, we should institute enquiries, discreet, of course, but also pretty exhaustive. You are the only man on the paper possessed of the necessary tact and ability to carry the thing through successfully."
An hour later, under the pouring rain, Fandor, with turned-up trousers, his greatcoat collar raised, was walking stoically along the Esplanade des Invalides, which was feebly lighted by a few scarcely visible gas-jets. He reached the other side of the Place à la rue Fabert; looked at the number of the first house in front of him, followed the pavement a moment, turning his back on the Seine, then reached the Avenue de la Tour-Maubourg by way of the rue de l'Université.
Fandor repeated to himself the final words of his chief's instructions.
"Interview Baron de Naarboveck; get into touch with a young person called Bobinette; find out who and what are the frequenters of the house where this well-known diplomat lives."
Our journalist was not anxious as to the result of his interview; it was not his first experience of the kind, and this time his task was rendered especially easy, owing to the letter of introduction which M. Dupont had given him, in order that he might have a talk with M. de Naarboveck, who lived in a sumptuous mansion in the rue Fabert.
Fandor did not go straight ahead to this interview: his method was not so simple. After identifying the front of the house, wishing to know the immediate neighbourhood thoroughly, he went all round the mass of houses which limited the rue de l'Université; he went through the Avenue de la Tour-Maubourg, in order to discover whether the house was double or single, if it had one or two exits. Fandor was too much a detective at heart to neglect the smallest detail.
His inspection was soon done. The house possessed two entrances; that in the Avenue de la Tour-Maubourg was for the use of the servants and common folk only. The front door opened on the rue Fabert. A courtyard at the back separated it from the Avenue de la Tour-Maubourg.
The house consisted of three storeys, and a ground-floor approached by a few steps.
Fandor returned to the Esplanade des Invalides, and walked up and down under the trees for some time, watching the comings and goings of the neighbourhood. At a quarter to seven he had looked at his watch, and, not seeing any light in the first-floor rooms, the shutters of which were not yet closed, he concluded that the inmates had probably not come in.
Just then Fandor saw an automobile, a very elegant limousine, draw up before M. de Naarboveck's house. A man of a certain age descended from it, and vanished in the shadow of a doorway: the door had opened as the carriage stopped.
"That's de Naarboveck," thought Fandor.
Then he saw the carriage turn and move away.
"The carriage goes in: the master does not go out again," deduced Fandor.
A short time after, the chauffeur, having taken off his livery, came out of the house and went away.
"Good," remarked Fandor. "The man I am after will not budge from the house to-night."
The next to enter were two young women: then some twenty minutes