A voice asked:

“Are you hurt?”

“No, but...”

Already the questioner had moved away.

“Evidently,” thought Fandor, “the driver wants to know whether his human packages are damaged or not! We have collided with another vehicle! Great!” Fandor’s cell was now at such an angle that he could only suppose that the meat wagon had had one of its wheels broken. “What a nuisance!” he murmured. “Before they have finished their palaver as to how the accident happened and have repaired the damage, we shall have been here a full half-hour... Jules will be in a foul temper.” Minute followed minute, long, interminable minutes, and Fandor could not hear clearly what was said, what was being done to set the wagon upright again.... The atmosphere in the little cell was becoming intolerable; for the movement of the vehicle had driven fresh air inside the shutter, but now that the van was stationary the air was becoming almost unbreathable.

Fandor’s nerves were on edge.

It cannot be that they are going to leave us stranded here! he thought... Ah, now they’ve started repairs! Fandor noticed that his cell was gradually regaining its ordinary level... A lifting-jack must have been slipped under the vehicle, for there was a melancholy creaking sound. They must be putting the wheel on again!

No, thought Fandor, after some time had passed.

Never would I have supposed that it could have taken so much time to repair a meat wagon!... Why, we shall soon have been stuck here for two mortal hours! I hope it won’t make any difference to our going to the Dépôt, or stop my getting into close touch with that villain Jules...

There was a further period of waiting. Then the exasperated journalist heard the driver pass down the centre of the van. The van door slammed... Once more the meat wagon was on its way.

“Something queer is going on!” said Fandor suddenly. He felt certain the van had turned completely round and was going in the direction it came from.

“Now where in the world are we going!... By what kind of a route are we making for that blessed police station?”

There were spaces of asphalt, succeeded by wood pavement, then by hard stones, then asphalt and wood again, and turning succeeded turning, whilst the dazed passenger was doing his possible to guess the route the prison van was taking. Presently Fandor gave it up. He had to admit that he was completely lost.

Which way the van was going he know no more than the Man in the Moon!

“We have been chugging along for more than half an hour; therefore we cannot be going to the boulevard Exelmans police station... the distance from the rue du Docteur-Blanche to the Point-du-Jour is not great.” As Fandor was murmuring these words, the van slowed down, turned round; then, with a bump and a jolt, it mounted the footpath.