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 rob