by Michael Bond
Monsieur Pamplemousse Takes the Train
Michael Bond
CONTENTS
Title Page
1 Night Train from Rome
2 Murder Most Foul
3 Out on a Limb
4 The Search Begins
5 Catch 22
6 The Oldest Profession
7 The Morning After
8 In the Soup
9 Catch 22bis
10 Le Train Bleu
About the Author
Also by Michael Bond
Copyright
1
NIGHT TRAIN FROM ROME
Monsieur Pamplemousse spotted the hat first: a splash of red bobbing about amongst all the dark suits and overcoats entering binario 21 of Rome’s Stazione Termini. He couldn’t resist taking a quick photograph. The light was not all that it might have been and he held his breath while he pressed the shutter. It would either work or it wouldn’t. If it did it might make a good cover picture for L’Escargot, Le Guide’s staff magazine: a change from the usual gourmet offerings.
He had forgotten how soberly people tended to dress in Italy; dark colours predominated. In much the same way he had been taken by surprise, as he had been in the past, when he arrived in Rome the previous afternoon and caught sight of the suburban balconies festooned with laundry hanging out to dry. If it wasn’t laundry it would be people anxious to chat with their neighbours. In some ways it was as unlike Paris as it was possible to be. Parisians tended to keep themselves to themselves.
Steadying himself against the side of the waiting train, he pressed the shutter release once more for luck.
The girl was accompanied by two nuns in long grey habits, one on either side of her. From a distance it was almost like prisoner and escort, although there the resemblance ended. The nuns had their heads covered by black headdresses. It was hard to tell what, if anything, lay beneath them. Most policewomen in Rome seemed to wear their hair provocatively long, way below shoulder-length. Again, quite unlike their Parisian counterparts.
As the party drew near he moved forward to greet them, conscious that the eyes of the sleeping-car conductor were not the only ones following his progress down the platform. An American couple in the next compartment to his – a grey-haired man and his vastly overweight wife – peered out through their open door. Wisely, Pommes Frites, worn out after all the walking they had done during the past twenty-four hours, elected to stay on the train.
Raising his hat, Monsieur Pamplemousse mustered the little Italian he knew: not much more than the basic pleasantries – ‘Buona sera. Per favore. Grazie. Prego.’ The nice thing about the language was that you could always make things up and the natives seemed to understand. ‘Sì, signorina. Je suis il signor Pamplemousse. May I take your valise?’
The girl handed it to him gratefully. As befitted a relative of the Director, it felt expensive. Not what one might have pictured of the average convent girl going away for the half-term break. It also weighed a ton. He could see why she was glad to get rid of it.
‘I am Caterina.’ She spoke French with hardly a trace of an accent, although the intonation gave away her Italian origins. That, and the dark, expressive eyes.
‘My first guess was correct.’
She laughed as she followed his glance towards the accompanying nuns. Their faces remained expressionless. It struck Monsieur Pamplemousse that he was being quietly vetted. He must have passed muster, for a moment later, after a barely perceptible exchange of glances, one of them held out her hand. It felt soft and warm to the touch. He wondered why he should be so surprised. It occurred to him that he had never held a nun’s hand before. It was withdrawn almost immediately, as though she were reading his thoughts.
‘I trust you will both have a pleasant journey, Monsieur Pamplemousse.’
‘Arrivederci. Ciao. I will take good care of her.’ He found himself launching into another series of basic pleasantries, bowing his way out of the encounter as the two women issued last-minute instructions to the girl; more warnings than advice he fancied. From the tone of their voices it sounded as though Paris was beyond redemption: a place of perpetual sin.
‘Phew!’ Leading the way back up the quai he felt the girl relax. The face beneath the hat looked wide-eyed and innocent, as pale as the faces of the nuns had been, but the lips and the slight flare to the nostrils, suggested she had a wayward streak too; not someone to be trifled with if you got in her way. Black hair peeped out from beneath the wide brim of the hat. Undoing her top coat, she revealed a dark blue skirt reaching to below her knees, and a matching jacket over a starched white blouse.
Reaching the door to their coach, he waited patiently while the conductor collected the girl’s passport and examined her ticket, ticking off her name against his list of reservations. He handed her a customs declaration form and then stood back to allow them access. The American couple were clearly talking about them, trying to work out the relationship.
‘Is it possible to make a reservation for the dining-car?’
‘There is no dining-car, signore.’
‘No dining-car?’ repeated Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘But…’
He gazed at the conductor. It would be useless trying to explain that the main purpose of his travelling on the train in the first place was to report on the catering facilities. Useless, and against all the rules under which Inspectors working for Le Guide were expected to operate.
‘There is a buffet car, signore, where they do a hot dish. It is three coaches down. But they do not take reservations. I will fetch you some mineral water if you like – once everyone has boarded.’
‘Merci. Merci beaucoup.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse resorted to his native tongue. He couldn’t trust himself to deliver the right degree of sarcasm in Italian. It would probably be wasted in any language.
With a heavy heart he set off down the corridor, pointing out his own sleeping compartment as they went past.
Pommes Frites opened one eye and gazed benevolently, if noncommittally at his master’s latest acquisition.
The girl paused and reached down to pat his head. ‘You should have ordered two bottles of mineral water. Never mind, we’ll see if we can get you a doggy bag from the buffet car.’
Pommes Frites returned her gaze with loving eyes. Clearly he was dealing with a person who knew the way to a dog’s heart.
Monsieur Pamplemousse suddenly warmed to her too. He doubted Pommes Frites’ response at being presented with the remains of someone else’s meal wrapped up in silver foil when he, too, had most likely been looking forward to dining in style. However, it was the thought that mattered.
‘That is a nice idea, but it will not be necessary. Pommes Frites will have to take his place in the queue like everyone else.’
‘He travels with you everywhere?’
‘Everywhere,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse firmly. Carrying on up the corridor until they reached the girl’s compartment, he placed her valise on the seat.
‘I take it you would like to try the buffet car?’
‘You bet. I’m starving.’
‘The train leaves at nineteen ten. Shall I give you a call at, say, eight o’clock?’
‘Seven forty-five sounds even nicer.’
‘Seven forty-five,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse. ‘Arrivederci.’
‘A tout à l’heure, monsieur.’
Retracing his steps, Monsieur Pamplemousse entered his own compartment. Catching sight of the American couple watching his movements via a reflection in the corridor window, he closed the door and settled back to scan through the various Compagnia Wagon-Lits Italia brochures contained in a rack above the toilet cupboard.
&
nbsp; There being no restaurant car was little short of a disaster. A sign of the times if ever there was one. The Director would be furious when he heard. Or would he?
Monsieur Pamplemousse gazed out of the carriage window with unseeing eyes. The train in the adjoining quai was just leaving, but he scarcely registered the fact.
Wasn’t the whole situation typical of the tortuous way in which things at Le Guide were so often arranged? The simple truth was, the Director hated being put in the position of having to ask a direct favour of a subordinate. It was always a case of taking a circuitous route up and down the byways and round the houses before entering his chosen destination via the back door.
If only he had come straight out with it and said: ‘Pamplemousse, I want you to do me a very special favour. My wife, Chantal, has a petite cousine who is attending a convent school near Rome. She is coming to stay with us for the half term. She will be travelling to Paris on the night express and one reads such strange things these days. I may be old-fashioned, but a young girl by herself … Unfortunately both my wife and I are otherwise engaged. I am up to my eyes in work overseeing the preparation of next year’s Guide … Chantal has to go to Digne to attend the funeral of an old aunt who has just died … perhaps you wouldn’t mind escorting her?’
That would have been easily understandable.
Instead of which it had been: ‘Pamplemousse, I have been giving the affairs of Le Guide a great deal of thought over the past few weeks and it seems to me that it is time we extended our horizons. We should not remain stationary, but we should move forward. Air travel is but one area we have neglected in the past. Railways are another. Perhaps we should also have a section devoted to the great trains of Europe … Par exemple … PAUSE … par exemple the night train from Rome to Paris … I believe it is called the Palatino. With this in mind I have made arrangements for you to do some preliminary fieldwork. Oh, and en passant it just so happens that a relative of Chantal’s will be travelling on the same train…’
He must have got someone to check the arrangements, but it simply wouldn’t have occurred to him to come straight out with the simple truth: ‘I’m afraid it is not quite like the old days, Pamplemousse. There is no longer a restaurant car as such. It is a self-service buffet car, but I am told the plat du jour is always heated.’
As had happened so many times in the past, Monsieur Pamplemousse had been caught napping. Halfway through the Director’s discourse – the point where he had opened a second bottle of Gosset champagne (the Grand Millésime Rosé ’82!) – he had even found himself coming up with other ideas. Cruise liners might be a rich field to research – Truffert would be a good candidate for the task – he had spent some time in the merchant navy. Then there were converted canal barges in the Midi catering for small groups of holidaymakers – that would suit Guilot – he liked the quiet life. And why stop there? Loudier was getting on in years. Why not ‘Meals on Wheels for the Elderly’ before he finally retired? Come to that, eating in a dining-car was a form of ‘Meals on Wheels’ – why not send Loudier instead?
The Director had not been amused by the suggestion.
Almost imperceptibly the train began to move. They were barely out of the station when there was a knock on the door. It was the conductor with his mineral water: Effervescente naturale.
Pommes Frites gazed mournfully at the bubbles as his master poured some water into a dish. Bubbles tickled his nose and it was not what he was used to. Monsieur Pamplemousse heaved a sigh. Something told him he was in for a bad night. He opened the door before the atmosphere became too oppressive.
And at the end of it all, where was he? Sitting in an overnight train heading back to Paris, acting as nursemaid to a sixteen-year-old.
Sixteen? That is what the Director had said, and there was no reason to disbelieve him. She seemed pleasant enough. But what did you talk about to a sixteen-year-old convent girl? Perhaps it was just as well he didn’t have to sit through a long-drawn-out meal.
Wouldn’t it also be true to say that it was a way of getting Monsieur Pamplemousse’s services for free? Madame Grante in Accounts might suspect the worst when she checked his expenses, but she wouldn’t be able to prove anything.
Anyway, who was he, Pamplemousse, to argue? Looked at in another light, it was an unexpected bonus. Travelling aboard a trans-European express still had an aura of romance about it. He glanced around the cabin. The quality of the workmanship and the solidity of the wood and the metal fittings reflected the lavishness of a bygone age. It might lack the smoothness of the TGV, but it was certainly a pleasant change from the hours he normally spent crouched over the wheel of his 2CV.
Rome had been another bonus. Arriving late the previous afternoon, he’d had time to explore the city. It was bathed in a golden light and stank of petrol fumes. Along with hordes of others he had paid his respects to the Church of San Pietro, seen and marvelled at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, walked beside the Tiber – dusty and disappointing compared with the Seine, gazed at the view across the rooftops from the balcony above the Piazza del Popolo, walked in the Borghese Gardens – counting the number of broken off organs on the statues in the Pincio area – breaking them off was apparently a popular local sport, sat on the Spanish Steps; in short, he had done all the things a good tourist should do and in a remarkably short space of time. Art Buchwald’s four-minute Louvre wasn’t in it. Above all he had eaten well. Now, like Pommes Frites, he was feeling worn out.
A motherly woman bustled down the corridor ringing a handbell to indicate the buffet car was open. It was another reminder of more gracious times; a pleasant change from the ubiquitous hidden loudspeakers bombarding passengers with endless announcements.
Closing the door again he unpacked his suitcase and after a quick wash and shave, made his way down the corridor to collect the Director’s petite cousine.
Engrossed in his own thoughts, he was totally unprepared for the sight which met his eyes as the door was opened in response to his knock. It literally took his breath away and for a second or two he thought he had picked on the wrong compartment. Even Pommes Frites looked taken aback. Clearly he was searching his memory, trying to pin down where he had seen the girl before.
‘You should have warned me.’ Monsieur Pamplemousse gazed at the elegant figure standing before him, trying hard to make the adjustment: a quantum leap from the schoolgirl he’d escorted along the quai less than an hour ago to a soignée young lady of the world; a dramatic mixture of striking understatement.
‘You approve?’ Moistened lips parted in a smile which revealed the whitest teeth he had ever seen. Liquid blue eyes gazed into his. There was a momentary heady waft of perfume as she pirouetted gracefully on one high heel – a vision of loveliness; hair, released from the confines of the school hat, now hung loosely about her shoulders, a fashionably short, dark red dress revealed silk-clad legs which under other circumstances he would have been hard-put not to linger over. Her skin was firm and smooth.
The total transformation took him a moment or two to get used to. Everything about the girl had miraculously changed. She even looked taller. Her neck seemed longer, perhaps because the low-cut line of the dress was emphasised by a small gold cross hanging from a chain. Two small diamonds, one in each ear, matched a larger diamond in the centre of the cross. Make-up underlined the fullness of her lips; her cheeks were now the colour of a warm peach. Her figure…
Monsieur Pamplemousse pulled himself together. ‘I think,’ he said gruffly, ‘it is time we ate.’
It struck him as he led the way along the corridor, that had the nuns been following on behind they would have been searching beneath their gowns for bottles of sal volatile.
Half expecting the buffet car to be crowded, Monsieur Pamplemousse was relieved to find there were still a number of vacant tables. All the same, he was conscious of the stares from other occupants as they made their entrance. Seating the girl at a table which was still reasonably isolated, and leaving Pommes
Frites in charge to ensure it remained that way, he gathered up three trays and slid them in line along a counter beneath a row of stainless steel shelves and compartments, picking up cutlery and anything else that struck his fancy as he went along. It was assembly-line catering.
He recognised the woman who had gone past his compartment earlier ringing the bell. She was presiding over a cash desk at the end of the small queue. Orders for the main course were dispatched in ringing tones through an open doorway to her right. A framed colour illustration of a steak garni was fixed to the side of the carriage opposite the kitchen. He wondered if it was there for the benefit of the public or the chef. Time would tell.
Monsieur Pamplemousse called out his order, then waited patiently while those in front of him shuffled forward. A polyglot clientèle, both in speech and dress; jeans and open-necked shirts predominated, with here and there a more formal suit. There were exchanges in Italian, German, Swedish and English.
‘Can’t think where they’re all going to at this time of night!’ his old Mother would have said, using the tone of voice she reserved for those occasions when she mixed deep-felt suspicion with impatience at being kept waiting.
He wondered what she would have thought of Caterina. He felt sure she would have warmed to her. It would be hard not to. ‘Nice, but not too nice,’ would have been her summing up.
‘Oh, là! là!’ Seeing Monsieur Pamplemousse struggling with the trays, the Madame in charge abandoned her till for a moment while she helped him back to his seat, fussing over him like a mother hen. It was a little piece of French territory on wheels, presided over by someone who had it all organised. Paper serviettes were spirited out of thin air. Clucking heralded the arrival of the condiments. Bon appétits floated down the carriage as she returned to her post.
‘I think you have made a conquest,’ said Caterina.
‘Not as many as you have,’ said Monsieur Pamplemousse, glancing round the coach. ‘Besides, I think she is glad to hear someone speaking her own language. I doubt if she approves of other tongues.’ He poured two glasses of Côtes-du-Rhône.