The Beast Within (20 page)

‘I saw Monsieur Dabadie going that way, a short while ago,’ he said calmly.

Never had he felt so cool and collected, so lucid, so ready to defend himself, so confident.

‘Look!’ he said. ‘Here comes Monsieur Dabadie, now!’

The stationmaster was on his way back from the goods depot. He quickly ran his eyes over the telegram.

‘I don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘There’s been a murder! This is a telegram from the inspector at Rouen.’

‘What?’ said Roubaud. ‘Who’s been murdered? One of our staff?’

‘No,’ said the stationmaster. ‘It was a passenger, travelling in a coupé ... the body was thrown out of the train at the end of the Malaunay tunnel, by the 153 kilometre post. It seems that it was one of our Company directors... President Grandmorin.’

Roubaud knew that he must express some surprise.

‘President Grandmorin!’ he exclaimed. ‘My poor wife will be devastated!’

The comment sounded so unforced and heartfelt that Monsieur Dabadie paused a moment and looked at him.

‘Of course,’ he said, ‘you knew him, didn’t you? He was a very kind man, wasn’t he?’

Then, turning his attention to the second telegram, addressed to the safety officer, he continued:

‘I imagine this will be from the examining magistrate; I dare-say there will be forms to fill in ... It’s only twenty-five past nine... I don’t suppose Monsieur Cauche is here yet, is he! Get someone to run over to the Café du Commerce on the Cours Napoléon; that’s where he’ll be. Tell him we need him here now!’

Monsieur Cauche arrived on the scene five minutes later, having been dragged from the café by one of the porters. He was a retired army officer and regarded his job as an extension of his retirement. He never turned up before ten o’clock; he would take a five-minute stroll round the station and then head straight for the café. He was in the middle of a game of piquet
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when the amazing news was brought to him. It took him a moment or two to register just how serious it was; normally he was asked to deal with more mundane matters. The telegram was indeed from the examining magistrate at Rouen. The fact that it had arrived twelve hours after the body had been discovered was because the magistrate had first telegraphed the stationmaster in Paris to ascertain what travelling arrangements the passenger had made. Only when he had verified the number of the train and the carriage had he issued the authorization for the safety officer to inspect the coupé compartment in carriage number 293, if it was still at Le Havre. Straight away Monsieur Cauche’s bad temper at having been disturbed for something he imagined was of no importance evaporated, and he assumed an air of great authority, appropriate to the extreme gravity of the situation.

‘Oh, my goodness me!’ he said, suddenly realizing that he might already have lost his chance to inspect the carriage. ‘It won’t be here; it will have left this morning.’

Roubaud, seemingly undisturbed, told him not to worry.

‘Begging your pardon,’ he said, ‘it hasn’t left. It’s still here. There was a coupé reserved for tonight. It’s in the carriage shed.’

Roubaud led the way, the safety officer and the stationmaster following him. The news must have spread. The men in the yard had stopped what they were doing and had wandered quietly over behind them. All along the platform, office doors opened, and people came out to look, eventually walking across in ones and twos to where they stood. Before long there was quite a gathering.

As they reached the carriage Monsieur Dabadie commented: ‘The train was inspected by the cleaners last night; surely, if there had been anything unusual, they would have mentioned it in their report.’

‘We shall see,’ said Monsieur Cauche.

He opened the door and climbed into the coupé. No sooner was he inside than they heard him let out a series of oaths and exclamations.

‘Bloody hell!’ he yelled, barely able to control himself. ‘It looks as if someone has bled a pig in here!’

A murmur of horror ran through the crowd; people craned their necks to see. Monsieur Dabadie was the first to step forward, standing on the carriage step to look inside. Roubaud stood behind him, straining his neck to make it appear that he was as curious as everyone else.

Nothing had been disturbed inside the coupé; the windows remained closed, and everything was in its proper place. But a foul smell issued from the open door, and there was a dark patch of congealed blood on one of the seat-cushions. The blood had formed a pool so broad and deep that a stream had trickled on to the floor carpet, like water from a spring. It had fallen in splashes all over the seat covers; there was blood everywhere. It was sickening.

Monsieur Dabadie was furious.

‘Who were the men responsible for cleaning this carriage last night?’ he shouted. ‘I want them here, immediately!’

They were in fact already there. They shuffled forward, muttering excuses... they hadn’t been able to see properly in the dark, they’d felt in all the compartments, they swore they hadn’t noticed a smell the night before.

Monsieur Cauche remained inside the carriage, scribbling notes for his report. He called down to Roubaud. Roubaud was a friend of his; the two men often took a stroll along the platform and had a smoke together when there was not much to do.

‘Monsieur Roubaud,’ he called, ‘would you come up and give me a hand, please?’

Roubaud stepped over the bloodstain on the carpet, careful not to tread on it.

‘Have a look under the other cushion,’ said Monsieur Cauche. ‘Something might have slipped down behind it.’

Roubaud lifted the cushion, feeling carefully with his hands and quickly looking underneath it. There was nothing there. But he noticed a mark on the upholstery on the back of the seat. He pointed it out to Monsieur Cauche; perhaps it was a bloodstained fingerprint.
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They both inspected it carefully and finally agreed that it was just another splash of blood. The crowd of onlookers, sensing that a crime had been committed, had edged closer to watch the investigation. They were all pushing forward behind the stationmaster, who, being a sensitive sort of man and easily upset, had refrained from entering the compartment and was still standing on the carriage step.

A thought suddenly occurred to him.

‘Monsieur Roubaud,’ he said. ‘Weren’t you on the train last night? You came back on the express, didn’t you? You might be able to give us some information.’

‘Why yes!’ exclaimed Monsieur Cauche. ‘Was there anything you noticed?’

For a moment or two Roubaud made no reply; he was stooping to look at the carpet. He quickly straightened himself and, in his usual rather gruff voice, answered:

‘Yes there was. I’ll tell you what I can... My wife was with me too, by the way. In fact, if this has to go in your report, I would like her to be present too, to make sure her account matches mine.’

Monsieur Cauche said that this seemed a very reasonable request. Pecqueux, who had just arrived on the scene, offered to go and look for her and hurried off immediately. There was nothing to do but wait. Philomène, who had arrived at the same time as Pecqueux, was not at all pleased to see him so eager to offer his assistance, but, catching sight of Madame Lebleu hurrying towards them as fast as her poor swollen legs would carry her, she ran over to give her a helping hand. The two women raised their hands to the heavens and uttered cries of amazement, thrilled by the discovery of such a heinous crime. Although nothing about the murder was yet known, various accounts of what had happened were already circulating amongst the crowd, accompanied by looks of horror and much arm waving. Above the general murmur of voices, Philomène herself could be heard declaring on her honour, although it was she who had just invented it, that Madame Roubaud had seen the murderer. At that moment Madame Roubaud herself appeared, accompanied by Pecqueux. Everyone became silent.

‘Look at her!’ hissed Madame Lebleu. ‘I ask you! Just because she’s married to an assistant stationmaster, she thinks she’s a queen! She was like that first thing this morning; I saw her in her room — hair done and all dolled up! Anyone would think she was going out visiting!’

Séverine walked down the platform, careful not to hurry; it was a long platform, and all eyes were on her as she moved towards them. She managed to stay calm, discreetly applying her handkerchief to her eyes to show how upset she was at just learning who it was that had been murdered. She wore a black woollen dress and looked very elegant, as if in mourning for the man who had been her life-long guardian. Her thick black hair shone radiantly in the morning sunlight; despite the cold, she hadn’t stopped to put on a hat. Her sorrowful blue eyes were brimming with tears. It was all very touching.

‘I’m not surprised she’s upset,’ whispered Philomène. ‘Now they haven’t got his lordship to look after them, they’re done for!’

Severine made her way through the crowd towards the open door of the coupe. Monsieur Cauche and Roubaud climbed out of the carriage, and Roubaud immediately began to tell him what he knew.

‘We went to see Monsieur Grandmorin yesterday morning, as soon as we got to Paris, didn’t we, my dear? It was about a quarter past eleven, wasn’t it?’

He looked her straight in the eyes and she said quietly, ‘Yes, a quarter past eleven.’

She suddenly caught sight of the carriage seat covered in blood. A shudder ran through her, and she began to sob bitterly. The stationmaster, feeling sorry for her, quickly interposed.

‘Madame,’ he said, ‘we fully understand how deeply distressing this must be for you. If you find it too much, perhaps ...’

‘It will only take a minute or two,’ Monsieur Cauche interrupted. ‘And then we’ll get someone to accompany Madame back to her apartment.’

Roubaud promptly resumed what he was saying: ‘We talked about various things, and then Monsieur Grandmorin suddenly said that he was planning to go to Doinville the next day to visit his sister. I can see him now, sitting at his desk. I was standing here, and my wife was standing there ... Yes, he said he intended to leave the next day. Is that not so, my dear?’

‘Yes, the next day.’

Monsieur Cauche, who was jotting down notes with his pencil, looked up.

‘The next day?’ he queried. ‘But surely he left the same evening!’

‘Quite so,’ said Roubaud. ‘He knew that we were leaving in the evening, and at one point he suggested he might travel with us on the express. He thought my wife might like to go to Doinville with him and spend a few days there with his sister, as she has done before. But my wife had too much to do here in Le Havre, so she declined the invitation. That’s right, isn’t it, my dear? You declined the invitation.’

‘Yes, I declined the invitation.’

‘He was very nice about it,’ continued Roubaud. ‘And that seemed to be the end of the matter. We then talked about some business of mine, and he showed us out. Is that not so, my dear?’

‘Yes, he showed us out.’

‘We left in the evening. Just before we got into the train I had a chat with Monsieur Vandorpe, the stationmaster. I didn’t notice anything unusual. I was rather irritated because I thought we had a compartment to ourselves, but I hadn’t noticed a woman who was sitting in one of the window seats. Then two more people got in at the last minute, a married couple. That irritated me even more. Everything seemed perfectly normal all the way to Rouen. I didn’t see anything. At Rouen we got out to stretch our legs. You can imagine our surprise when we saw Monsieur Grandmorin standing by the door of a coupé, three or four carriages down from our own. “Why, Monsieur Grandmorin!” I said. “So you left this evening after all! We didn’t expect to be travelling with you.” He explained that he had received a telegram ... The guard blew his whistle, and we jumped back into our compartment. It was empty, by the way. Much to our relief, the other passengers had got off at Rouen! So there you are! That’s about it, isn’t it, my dear?’

‘Yes,’ Severine whispered, ‘that’s about it.’

This seemingly unremarkable tale of events made a deep impression on the crowd of bystanders. Everyone listened spell-bound, expecting to pick up some clue to the murder. The safety officer replaced his pencil in his pocket. He was as puzzled as everyone else.

‘Are you quite sure there was no one else in the coupé with Monsieur Grandmorin?’ he asked.

‘Quite sure,’ Roubaud replied.

A shudder ran through the crowd. Something inexplicable had happened and it was very frightening; everyone sensed a shiver run down their spine. If the passenger had been alone in the compartment at Rouen, who could have killed him and thrown him out of the carriage ten miles further on, before the train had stopped at another station?

In the general hush, Philom&ne could be heard making her usual scathing comments.

‘Very peculiar, if you ask me!’ she was saying.

Sensing that her remarks were directed at him, Roubaud looked at her and nodded, as if to say that he found it peculiar too. He noticed Pecqueux and Madame Lebleu standing next to her, both of them nodding their agreement. The eyes of everyone were turned towards him; they were all waiting for something more, some detail that he might have forgotten, which would shed light on the mystery. They were not accusing him, but they all eyed him with such intense curiosity that he detected the first faint glimmerings of disbelief, the sort of vague suspicion that needs only one tiny detail to make it a certainty.

‘Extraordinary!’ murmured Monsieur Cauche.

‘Quite extraordinary!’ added Monsieur Dabadie.

Roubaud decided he must say something.

‘One thing I’m certain of,’ he said, ‘is that the train was travelling at its normal speed. It runs non-stop from Rouen to Barentin, and I didn’t notice anything unusual ... I only know because we were on our own in the compartment and I had opened the window to smoke a cigarette. I could see outside and I could hear the sound of the train. I even spotted Monsieur Bessière on the platform at Barentin; he took over from me as stationmaster there. I called him over, and we had a few words together; he stood on the step and shook hands with me. Is that not so, my dear? Anyway, you can ask him; Monsieur Bessière will tell you himself.’