Arrest Warrant

The Arrest Warrant turns Fix’s pursuit of Phileas Fogg from suspicion into an attempted exercise of legal authority, but its arrival and eventual use expose how badly that pursuit has misidentified its target. It is too late to serve in Yokohama, appears decisive when Fogg reaches Liverpool, and is rendered mistaken by the discovery that the real robber has already been arrested.

Arrival and jurisdiction

The warrant follows Fix from Bombay and reaches Yokohama aboard the Carnatic, the steamer on which Fix himself was supposed to be. By the time he finds it at the English consulate, however, Fogg has already left English ground. Fix therefore recognizes that the document cannot simply be used where he now needs it; he believes he must secure Fogg’s extradition. The warrant has arrived, but the change of territory has made its immediate authority inadequate to the detective’s purpose.

That delay also redirects Fix’s pursuit. He reasons that the warrant will be valid in England and concludes that Fogg intends to return there, believing he has escaped the police. Fix decides to follow him across the Atlantic. The warrant thus does more than authorize a later arrest: its limits help determine the route of the chase, keeping Fix attached to Fogg until the party reaches English soil.

The warrant and Fix’s pursuit

Fix’s thoughts at Yokohama reveal how thoroughly he has committed himself to the accusation. He considers the money Fogg may have left after spending more than five thousand pounds on travel, rewards, trials, bail, elephants, and other expenses, but treats the Bank’s wealth as reason not to worry about the cost. The warrant is part of an investigation that has already imposed substantial expenses; to Fix, those charges do not weaken the case against Fogg. They reinforce his expectation that the pursuit will eventually end in an arrest.

The document’s practical force remains conditional, however. At Queenstown, Fix is tempted to arrest Fogg but does not do so. The party continues by train to Dublin and then by steamer, finally reaching Liverpool on 21 December. Only after Fogg has disembarked does Fix approach with the warrant, ask him to confirm his identity, and announce the arrest. The contrast is central to the object’s role: it has accompanied Fix over a long route, yet its decisive use depends on the instant when his suspected fugitive is back on English ground.

Arrest, error, and release

Fix arrests Fogg because he understands it to be his duty, regardless of whether Fogg is guilty. In that moment, the warrant converts the detective’s belief into an immediate constraint on Fogg, who is only six hours from London and the wager’s deadline. Passepartout is held back by policemen when he tries to attack Fix; Aouda is stunned, and Passepartout explains that his master has been arrested as a robber. The warrant’s consequences therefore fall not only on the man named in the arrest but on the companions who have reached England with him.

The arrest also sharpens Passepartout’s sense of his own responsibility. He thinks that, had he told Fogg about Fix’s true purpose earlier, Fogg might have proved his innocence or at least prevented Fix from following him in order to arrest him at the first opportunity on English soil. The warrant gives this regret a concrete focus: Passepartout’s silence helped leave Fogg exposed to the legal action it enables. The scene makes the document’s force depend not only on law and jurisdiction, but also on what the travelers did and did not know about Fix.

The warrant’s authority proves temporary. Fix later hurries to Fogg, disordered and out of breath, apologizes for what he calls a most unfortunate resemblance, and explains that the robber was arrested three days earlier. Fogg is free. The revelation reverses the meaning of the Liverpool arrest: the warrant had appeared to confirm Fix’s judgment, but the separate arrest establishes that he has pursued the wrong man. Its journey from Bombay to Yokohama and across the Atlantic ends not in the conviction of Fogg but in the exposure of the mistake that made the pursuit possible.

Narrative significance

As an object, the warrant links distance, jurisdiction, and mistaken identity. Its arrival at Yokohama cannot undo the fact that Fogg has already left English ground; its anticipated usefulness in England keeps Fix in pursuit; and its eventual presentation in Liverpool produces an arrest that is immediately overtaken by new information. Each change in its apparent force follows a change in place or knowledge, rather than any change in the document itself.

The warrant also gives the chase a pointed reversal. Fix treats its presence as the final confirmation that he can act against Fogg, while the reader learns that the actual robber has already been caught. The instrument of pursuit therefore becomes evidence of the detective’s error. Its significance lies less in any described wording or physical detail—the book supplies neither—than in the sequence it sets in motion: delayed arrival, cross-Atlantic pursuit, arrest on English soil, and release once the resemblance is shown to have misled Fix.