The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By

by Georges Simenon

‘Wait!’

  She went over to the window and drew the curtains, letting in the wintry sunlight.

  ‘Come on, out with it.’

  She sat down on the edge of the bed, looked at him searchingly, and finally sighed:

  ‘I should have seen at once you didn’t look like a kerb-crawler. When you said you were in business last night, what did you mean? I bet it’s cocaine! Isn’t it? Come on, I dare you to deny it.’

  4.

  How Kees Popinga spent Christmas Eve and how, early next morning, he chose a car that suited him

  The porter at the Carlton had taken him for a madman; Jeanne Rozier, since he had shown no anger when he surprised her going through his pockets, had taken him for a cocaine dealer. And in the end, it was just as well. He had gone to such trouble, for the last forty years, to get people to take him for Kees Popinga, and to make sure every one of his actions was exactly as it should be.

  ‘I feel sleepy,’ he murmured, without replying to his companion, who had moved towards the bed.

  He sensed in her green eyes, flecked like a cat’s, more than curiosity. She was intrigued. It irked her to have to leave him without knowing. One knee on the bed, she murmured:

  ‘You don’t want me to come back in there for a while?’

  ‘Don’t bother!’

  She was holding in her hand the banknotes she had taken from his pocket, and she placed them on the table with a deliberate movement.

  ‘I’m putting them here, see! Tell me! Can I just take one of these?’

  He was not so drowsy that he failed to see that she had picked out a thousand-franc note, but what did it matter? He nodded off again.

  Jeanne Rozier had only a couple of hundred metres to run, through the cold morning air, then three floors to climb, and she was at home, in a furnished apartment in Rue Fromentin, where she closed the door quietly, poured some milk for the cat, undressed with neat movements, and slipped into the bed, where a man was lying.

  ‘Move over, Louis.’

  Louis shifted with a grunt.

  ‘I’ve just come from this really odd character. He almost frightened me.’

  But Louis wasn’t listening, and after lying for a quarter of an hour with her eyes fixed on the gap in the curtains, Jeanne Rozier went off to sleep, properly this time, in her own bed, warmed by Louis, who was wearing silk pyjamas.

  • • •

  It was at almost the same time, as offices started to fill up with people who had no great desire to work, and whose first cigarette of the day tasted bitter, that the telegram arrived at Rue des Saussaies.

  Amsterdam Police HQ to Paris Police HQ

  Individual named Kees Popinga, age 39, resident Groningen, wanted for murder of Pamela Makinsen, committed night of 23–24 December, suite Carlton Hotel, Amsterdam. Stop. Reason to believe Popinga caught train to France. Stop. Grey suit and hat. Stop. Blond hair, fair complexion, blue eyes, average build, no distinguishing features. Stop. Speaks fluent English, German and French

  Smoothly and unhurriedly, the mechanism had been set in motion, that is, the description of Kees Popinga had immediately been circulated, by wireless, telegraph and telephone, to all frontiers, gendarmeries and mobile units.

  In every police station in Paris, a junior officer was deciphering from his tickertape machine:

  . . . average build, no distinguishing features.

  And all that time, Kees Popinga was fast asleep in a Parisian hotel. He was still asleep at midday. At one o’clock, the chambermaid knocked at the glass partition at reception and called:

  ‘Number 7 not free yet?’

  Nobody could remember, and the cleaner went up to look. She saw Kees’s calm features as he lay sleeping with his mouth open, and on the bedside table a bundle of banknotes, but she dared not touch them.

  It was four in the afternoon, and the lamps were being lit when Jeanne Rozier called in turn at reception:

  ‘The man I came with last night, has he left?’

  ‘I think he’s still asleep.’

  Jeanne Rozier, a newspaper in her hand, went upstairs, pushed open the door, and looked at Popinga, who had still not moved, and whose face in repose had a childish expression.

  ‘Kees!’ she called suddenly in a soft voice.

  The word penetrated through his sleep, but had to be repeated two or three times before it brought him to a waking state. Then he opened his eyes, saw the light from the lamp over the bed and Jeanne Rozier in her squirrel coat, wearing a hat.

  ‘Oh, are you still here?’ he murmured with indifference.

  He was already preparing to turn over and carry on with his dream. She had to shake him.

  ‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’

  He looked up at her calmly, rubbed his eyes, raised himself a little and asked her in a gentle voice, almost as childlike as his expression when sleeping:

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I called you Kees, Kees Popinga!’

  She pronounced the syllables distinctly, but he did not seem disturbed.

  ‘Do you still not understand? Look, read this!’

  And she threw on to the bed a copy of the midday newspaper, then paced up and down the room two or three times.

  Dancer murdered in luxury Amsterdam hotel!

  Killer identified by documents left at the scene!

  The work of a madman or a sadist, say police!

  Jeanne Rozier was getting impatient and kept turning to look at her companion, waiting for him to react. He did not budge, but asked in a normal voice:

  ‘Can you pass me my jacket?’

  She naively felt the pockets to check he was not looking for a weapon. But he wanted a cigar. He lit it, infuriatingly slowly, then, having plumped up his pillow to lean against it more comfortably, he began to read the article, sometimes moving his lips.

  Our latest information is that Popinga left his home in Groningen in circumstances which suggest he may be responsible for another crime. His employer, Julius de Coster, has suddenly disappeared . . .

  ‘Is this about you?’ Jeanne Rozier burst out, losing patience.

  ‘Yes, of course it’s about me!’

  ‘And you strangled that woman?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to. What I’m wondering is, how she came to die. In any case, there are a lot of exaggerations in this article, and some things that are completely untrue.’

  Upon which, he got out of bed and headed towards the bathroom.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I’m going to get dressed. I need to get some lunch.’

  ‘It’s five o’clock!’

  ‘All right then, some dinner.’

  ‘And what do you intend to do after that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid you’re going to be arrested any minute?’

  ‘Someone would have to recognize me first.’

  ‘And where are you going to sleep? You’re forgetting that in any hotel they’ll ask for your papers.’

  ‘Yes, that is rather tiresome.’

  He had not yet had time to think about all that, and he had been so deeply asleep that he had to make a certain effort to think.

  ‘I’ll consider that by and by. Meanwhile, I don’t even have a toothbrush. Isn’t this Christmas Eve?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And they don’t have Christmas trees here?’

  ‘What they do here is go out to celebrate. You can have supper and dance in all the restaurants and cafés. Tell me, are you still having me on?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. Are you just enjoying yourself, letting me think you are this Popinga?’

  It was happening again! People seemed determined at all costs to give him a different personality from his own.

  ‘Listen.’ Jeanne Rozier was speaking again. ‘I can’t make any promises . . . Perhaps I’m wrong to be taking any part in this . . . But I’m going to tell someone about you . . . No, don’t worry, not the police, but
someone who might, if he feels like it, be able to help you get out of this. I don’t know if he’ll play ball, though. Sex crimes, well, people get scared . . .’

  He listened to her as he laced up his black shoes.

  ‘I won’t be seeing him until later. Do you know Rue de Douai? No? It’s very near here. Just ask the way. There’s a tobacconist’s there, where you just need to sit down and wait. Maybe I’ll get there by midnight, but it could be later, because a whole gang of us are going out to a party.’

  She looked at him one more time, and picked the newspaper up off the bed.

  ‘Don’t let papers like this lie around. That’s often how people get caught. And I’ll pay for the room myself, so that the office won’t take too much notice of you. They’re already surprised you’ve slept so long. That’s another sign.’

  ‘A sign of what?’

  But she shrugged her shoulders and left.

  ‘See you at the tobacconist’s in Rue de Douai.’

  Out on the boulevards, at about eight in the evening, when Paris was starting to come to life, he stopped in front of the sixth edition of an evening paper which had published a photograph on the front page, under the headline:

  The face of Pamela’s killer!

  (from Amsterdam, by Belinogram)

  It was terrifying. First of all, he asked himself where this photograph could have been obtained, since he did not remember it himself. Then, by looking more closely, he saw, to the left of his head, part of someone else’s face, and he understood. The other person was his wife. And the photo was the one on the sideboard, showing the whole family.

  They had enlarged his head and cropped the rest of the picture, and then, if you please, they had transmitted it by Belinogram, so that the image was blurred, as if it had been left out in the rain.

  At a second newspaper stand, he stopped in front of the same newspaper, with the same photograph, and almost regretted that he was so unrecognizable. It could have been any man in the street as easily as himself!

  The murderer’s wife suggests that he has had an attack of amnesia.

  He went to a third newspaper kiosk, bought a copy of the paper and asked:

  ‘Are there any other evening papers?’

  Four titles were pointed out to him and he bought them all.

  ‘Do you have any Dutch papers?’

  ‘You’ll have to go to the kiosk by the Opera.’

  Lights blazed everywhere, and posters invited people to celebrate Christmas Eve for 25 or 100 francs, ‘all in’. The Parisians had not yet come out to enjoy themselves, but the time was approaching.

  ‘Give me the Dutch newspapers, please.’

  He gave a start. Staring him in the face was the Dutch Daily Mail, and the same photograph as in the French papers was on the front page.

  ‘I’ll take the Daily Mail and the Morning Post as well.’

  The more he saw of them, the more satisfied he felt, just as in the past he had been happy to watch work piling up on his desk. Should he go to the tobacconist’s in Rue de Douai now?

  Better to eat first, and he took a seat in the Café de la Paix, where the waiters were fixing the last paper chains, and bunches of mistletoe.

  The sight made him think that Amersen would that very morning have delivered the Christmas tree which he had ordered. What would they do with it, back home? And what would a girl like Frida be thinking?

  He had never considered this kind of thing before, when he read newspaper stories, and now that he was right in the middle of one, he was realizing the multitude of little side-effects it could produce.

  For instance, he had a life-insurance policy. But what happens to a life-insurance policy if its holder is wanted for murder?

  ‘Everything to your liking, sir?’ the head waiter asked him: he had ordered his steak rare.

  ‘Perfectly all right!’ he replied with conviction.

  Apart from the fact that he couldn’t really read his Dutch newspapers as he ate, and found the pudding he was served less flavoursome than back in Holland. He had a sweet tooth. He also liked to drink his coffee with whipped cream and vanilla sugar, which the waiter did not seem to understand.

  Someone who had really been impressed was Jeanne Rozier! How did he know that? Because she was taking an interest in him, although he had not asked her for anything. What must she be thinking? That he was an exceptionally cool character, evidently. As he thought himself. To prove this to his own satisfaction, he went up to a policeman on Boulevard des Capucines to ask the way to Rue de Douai.

  There, on a corner site, was the tobacconist’s shop with its counter, and behind a glass partition a small café with eight tables. Kees Popinga seated himself in the café, finding by good luck a free table near the window. Outside, he could see the signs of nightclubs starting to light up, but the doormen and professional dancers were still chatting at the bar. Seated in the opposite corner was a flower-seller, her basket on the ground beside her, drinking coffee with a glass of rum.

  ‘I’ll have a coffee too, waiter.’

  He was a little disappointed by the strange Christmas Eve that was getting under way all round him, nothing like a real Christmas Eve, merely a sort of disorderly bacchanal. By nine in the evening, there were already drunks in the street and nobody seemed to be talking about midnight mass!

  From our special reporter in Groningen:

  While our Amsterdam correspondents were still making inquiries at the Carlton, where the hapless Pamela met her death, we hastened to Groningen, in order to find out more about the personality of Kees Popinga, the dancer’s murderer . . .

  Kees sighed, just as he did when some employee of Julius de Coster made an unpardonable mistake. He took the red notebook from his pocket, jotted down the date, the title of the newspaper, and then wrote:

  Not murderer, killer. It should not be overlooked that her death was accidental, a case of manslaughter, not murder.

  He glanced across at the flower-seller, who was dozing as she waited for the theatregoers to come out, and carried on reading

  What was our amazement [the report continued] to learn that Kees Popinga was a well-respected man and that this news has caused utter consternation in Groningen, where the townsfolk are lost in conjecture . . .

  He underlined the word ‘conjecture’, with his pencil, since he found it pretentious.

  At Popinga’s home, where the distress of his family is painful to witness, Mrs Popinga was prepared to say . . .

  Calmly, between two puffs at his cigar, he noted:

  I see that Mama was prepared to talk to the press!

  And he smiled, because the flower-seller’s head had just slumped forward on to her chest.

  . . . that only a sudden attack of insanity, combined with a moment of amnesia, can possibly explain such a deed . . .

  He found it amusing to underline the word ‘deed’, especially if Mama had really uttered it.

  Then he turned to a new page in the notebook to write:

  Mrs Popinga’s opinion: insanity or amnesia.

  She would not be alone. A junior clerk at Julius’s office, a lad of seventeen, whom he had hired himself, had told the reporter confidently:

  I had already noticed that at times, his eyes had this strange gleam in them.

  As for Dr Claes, he opined complacently:

  It is clear that the only explanation for Popinga’s action is a sudden episode of madness. As for whether there were any previous signs of this, professional confidentiality prevents me . . .

  So, everyone had decided he was mad. Until the moment when they started to think he might actually have killed Julius de Coster before killing Pamela.

  Because at that point, old Copenghem had told the journalist:

  It pains me to speak ill of a man who was a member of our Circle, but it can be said with certainty that to an impartial observer, Kees Popinga has always been a bitter person, unwilling to recognize the superiority of others in any sphere, and plotting vengeance. If
his inferiority complex became an obsession, that would explain the event that . . .

  Popinga wrote in his book, alongside Copenghem’s name: inferiority complex.

  Then in small handwriting:

  Only beat me once at chess and that was by surprise. So, who is he to talk!

  At ten o’clock, he had failed to realize that there were no more free seats in the café, and that he was being edged all the time towards the end of his banquette. He raised his eyes from the newspapers and his notebook, saw a strange face opposite, blinked, then paid no more attention. He did the same when he noticed that the customers included four or five negroes. The flower-seller was still there. Then people in evening dress started to appear, sitting cheek by jowl with other customers in much shabbier clothes.

  He was not aware that he was in one of the sidestreets of Montmartre, and that the people around him were extras and walk-on performers, as celebrations were about to begin in all the local cafés and nightclubs.

  The clerk at Groningen station remembers a man who looked very agitated.

  He wrote down with irritation:

  Not true.

  For people to talk of madness, or inferiority complexes was one thing, but to claim that because, a few hours later, he had killed Pamela (without intending to), he had been in an abnormal state on leaving Groningen . . . Was he agitated now, in spite of the two cups of coffee he had drunk?

  Worst of all was the night porter at the Carlton, whose ears Popinga would readily have boxed:

  As soon as he arrived, I could tell he wasn’t in a normal frame of mind and I considered warning Miss Pamela.

  Kees noted:

  Well, why didn’t he, then?

  When he came back down [the porter went on], he had the physiognomy of a hunted beast and . . .

  Popinga wrote sarcastically:

  Ask him what physiognomy means!

  Upon which he raised his head, since someone was standing in front of him looking him up and down. A young man in a dinner-jacket. Behind him stood Jeanne Rozier, who murmured: