The Rome Express | Page 3

and red uniform, who stood facing them with his arms
folded, gnawing his moustache and frowning severely.
Last of all, the porter was brought in and treated like the passengers,
but more distinctly as a prisoner. He had a guard all to himself; and it

seemed as though he was the object of peculiar suspicion. It had no
great effect upon him, for, while the rest of the party were very plainly
sad, and a prey to lively apprehension, the porter sat dull and unmoved,
with the stolid, sluggish, unconcerned aspect of a man just roused from
sound sleep and relapsing into slumber, who takes little notice of what
is passing around.
Meanwhile, the sleeping-car, with its contents, especially the corpse of
the victim, was shunted into a siding, and sentries were placed on it at
both ends. Seals had been affixed upon the entrance doors, so that the
interior might be kept inviolate until it could be visited and examined
by the Chef de la Sûreté, or Chief of the Detective Service. Every one
and everything awaited the arrival of this all-important functionary.
CHAPTER II
M. Floçon, the Chief, was an early man, and he paid a first visit to his
office about 7 A.M.
He lived just round the corner in the Rue des Arcs, and had not far to
go to the Prefecture. But even now, soon after daylight, he was
correctly dressed, as became a responsible ministerial officer. He wore
a tight frock coat and an immaculate white tie; under his arm he carried
the regulation portfolio, or lawyer's bag, stuffed full of reports,
dispositions, and documents dealing with cases in hand. He was
altogether a very precise and natty little personage, quiet and
unpretending in demeanour, with a mild, thoughtful face in which two
small ferrety eyes blinked and twinkled behind gold-rimmed glasses.
But when things went wrong, when he had to deal with fools, or when
scent was keen, or the enemy near, he would become as fierce and
eager as any terrier.
He had just taken his place at his table and begun to arrange his papers,
which, being a man of method, he kept carefully sorted by lots each in
an old copy of the Figaro, when he was called to the telephone. His
services were greatly needed, as we know, at the Lyons station and the
summons was to the following effect:

"Crime on train No. 45. A man murdered in the sleeper. All the
passengers held. Please come at once. Most important."
A fiacre was called instantly, and M. Floçon, accompanied by Galipaud
and Block, the two first inspectors for duty, was driven with all
possible speed across Paris.
He was met outside the station, just under the wide verandah, by the
officials, who gave him a brief outline of the facts, so far as they were
known, and as they have already been put before the reader.
"The passengers have been detained?" asked M. Floçon at once.
"Those in the sleeping-car only--"
"Tut, tut! they should have been all kept--at least until you had taken
their names and addresses. Who knows what they might not have been
able to tell?"
It was suggested that as the crime was committed presumably while the
train was in motion, only those in the one car could be implicated.
"We should never jump to conclusions," said the Chief snappishly.
"Well, show me the train card--the list of the travellers in the sleeper."
"It cannot be found, sir."
"Impossible! Why, it is the porter's business to deliver it at the end of
the journey to his superiors, and under the law--to us. Where is the
porter? In custody?"
"Surely, sir, but there is something wrong with him."
"So I should think! Nothing of this kind could well occur without his
knowledge. If he was doing his duty--unless, of course, he--but let us
avoid hasty conjectures."
"He has also lost the passengers' tickets, which you know he retains till
the end of the journey. After the catastrophe, however, he was unable to

lay his hand upon his pocket-book. It contained all his papers."
"Worse and worse. There is something behind all this. Take me to him.
Stay, can I have a private room close to the other--where the prisoners,
those held on suspicion, are? It will be necessary to hold investigations,
take their depositions. M. le Juge will be here directly."
M. Floçon was soon installed in a room actually communicating with
the waiting-room, and as a preliminary of the first importance, taking
precedence even of the examination of the sleeping-car, he ordered the
porter to be brought in to answer certain questions.
The man, Ludwig Groote, as he presently gave his name, thirty-two
years of age, born at Amsterdam, looked such a sluggish, slouching,
blear-eyed creature that