Maxim Jakubowski - The Best British Mysteries III

Le Prince grinned fatuously at him. ‘Please try not to disappear like Louis.’

Potter hung off the rear of the carriage as the train pulled away, irritated by the man’s flippancy. After all, his brother’s body might still be lying unburied by the trackside even now. A final thought occurred to him, and he called out to the receding figure.

‘What was the problem he claimed to have solved? Did Louis say?’

He could barely make out what Albert Le Prince was saying through the echoes of the engine in the cavernous station.

‘Yes…new medium…celluloid…from Dr Marey, in Paris.’

At the time this meant nothing to Potter, and he settled in his seat, trying to put himself inside the mind of Le Prince.

He knew he was being followed from the moment he boarded the 2.42 p.m. train for Paris. He fingered his stiff celluloid collar, feeling the dampness of his fear. The station at Dijon was bustling with people, and everyone seemed engrossed in their own business. The accidental intersection of all their lives held no significance for anyone. But there was one particular fellow traveller – a tall, thin man enveloped in a long Inverness-cape coat – who was always hovering just on the limits of his vision. He could see the man over his brother’s shoulder, as he shook his hand in farewell. Then, as he made his way to the platform, there was the man again; lurking behind the line of pillars that supported the ornate station roof. As if to confirm his fears, the man turned away just as he fixed him with a stare, tipping his felt bowler over his angular features.

Then, in a cloud of hissing steam, the engine pulled in, and doors were flung open as the train began to disgorge its passengers. For a moment he lost sight of the man in the milling crowd, and he waved to his brother, then concentrated on seeking out a free seat. He passed his bag to the porter on the steps of the nearest carriage, and pulled himself up on the handrail, keeping the box he was carrying to himself for safety. He suddenly had a sense of being watched, and looked along the length of the train uneasily. Several people were mounting the steps up to the other carriages, rushing now to escape a sudden flurry of rain. There was no sign of the tall, thin man. Then, leaning out of the nearest window, he spotted a flapping cape through the clouds of steam. The man was making a decisive move down the platform in order to get in the same carriage that he himself had chosen. He hugged the exquisitely carpentered box closer to his chest, feeling the metal mount of the lens pressing into him. He hunched his shoulders as he moved along the carriage, trying in vain to hide, for he stood well over six feet.

The porter was already stowing his other hand baggage – a well-worn carpetbag valise that had survived the rough handling of careless North American porters – on the luggage rack above an empty seat. He didn’t want to sit down – he felt more like getting off the train and running for his life. The porter looked at him curiously, and waved an officious hand at the vacant seat. He recognised the imperious nature of all petty officials from this the country of his birth, and knew he would have to comply. Reluctantly, he sat down, reaching into his pocket for some money – a tip being the inevitable next part of the joint conspiracy. Pleased at his control of the passenger, the porter took the proffered coin and turned his officious attentions to the other sheeplike passengers.

For a moment he fidgeted nervously, rubbing the irritating open sore on his left hand, making it bleed again. Then he steeled himself to look up from his studious examination of his rain-spattered shoes. The tall, thin man, who had run the length of the platform to get in the same coach, was now sitting himself down right across from him! The man was brushing the rain from the shoulders of his cape, and smiled as their eyes met. And what a smile! Disdain, complicity, pity – all epithets seemed inadequate to describe it. He struggled to find the right word, and eventually settled on the right one.

Predatory.

The man’s hook of a nose reminded him of the buzzards that drifted on the updrafts over the Yorkshire crags, looking for easy pickings. He hunched in on himself and racked his brain for what his next move should be.

Despite all his attempts at entering the mind of the man he sought, Albert kept drifting off to his amatory campaign concerning Rosalind Wells. Potter had come across her at a meeting of the Fabians three years earlier, and had been bowled over by her imperious manner. And her shapely figure and big brown eyes. She was somewhat German-looking – a trait that was fashionable amongst the intellectuals with whom Albert fancied he belonged. So Potter had pressed his suit in his usual blunt way. He was at first mortified that she professed not to be aware of this, but that had not deterred him, nor blunted the ardour of his campaign. He had known from the start that he was the perfect match for her – it would just take some time to convince her of the fact. What the eye saw was not always the full picture.

He gazed admiringly at his own reflection in the window, only half noticing the build-up of dark, heavy clouds outside the carriage. His rather short torso and legs obscured, the image that stared back was of a man with a thick mane of hair and luxuriant moustache and goatee beard. He preened a little, then began to doze off in the stuffy carriage.

He was beginning to sweat heavily, and his head pounded in rhythm with the thump of the train’s motion along the track. His persecutor sat diagonally opposite him, mocking him with a leer every time he looked up. The sharp-faced man had not removed his curly-brimmed bowler, and a shadow hung over his brow. But it did not conceal the man’s eyes. They glowed like red-hot coals at the fiery base of a furnace.

He clutched his stiff collar, trying to loosen it as his breathing became more and more difficult. His heart pounded faster in his chest, and his lungs strained to draw in the suddenly thick, clammy air of the railway carriage. He was suffocating – why did the other passengers not feel the same? Everyone else in the carriage seemed oblivious to his condition. In fact, he realised they were blurring out of focus as if seen through a badly adjusted camera lens. He blinked his eyes trying to clear his vision, but it was no use. The only face he could see clearly was that of the tall, thin man opposite as he leaned forward and said something to him. The words were lost in their own echoes, and he squeezed his eyes shut to close out the man’s mocking face. A series of juddering crashes jarred through his body, and he almost cried out loud in fear.

His eyes flew open.

Then he realised the commotion was merely the train crossing the familiar set of junctions in the outer suburbs of Dijon. Almost at once the train settled to a more soothing rhythm, and he composed himself. He told himself he was being foolish – it was mere coincidence that this innocent man had seemed to dog his footsteps around the station. Like him, the man had been waiting for the Paris train, so it was only reasonable to assume they would have both been in the same places at the same time. Even the man’s dash for the very carriage he had chosen could be explained by his wish to avoid the downpour which had suddenly swept the uncovered platform further up the stationary train.

No, he was imagining things, without a doubt.

In an effort to normalise the situation, he even forced himself to look directly at the man and squeeze a smile onto his parched, dry lips. The man spoke, but again the words did not register: