Sister Marguerite looked rather disappointed that her chance to cause mischief had been cut short, but she lay down on the bunk with good grace, and pulled a billowing pyjama-habit out of her bag. Klaus made up the other bottom bunk too, and lifted Ester up by her elbows and into her bed. “There you are, Ester,” he said.
“Delightful,” said Ester – but not like she meant it.
“What a treasure you are, Klaus,” said Sister Marguerite. “How do you two know each other?”
“Ester is my aunt,” said Klaus, stowing their luggage as he talked. “I’m taking her on a special holiday. She’s always wanted to cross Europe by train. We spent some time in Paris first and we’ll spend some time in Istanbul at the other end.” He beamed. “It’s wonderful. Slight mix-up with the tickets – we were meant to be in a private car – but otherwise it’s all going brilliantly.”
“Oh, how lovely!” said Marguerite. “How are you finding it, Ester?”
“Disappointing,” hollered Ester, and she chucked a pear drop into her mouth and sucked at it noisily.
Klaus chuckled, said “Oh, you”, and clambered up on to his berth with some knitting needles and wool. The berth sagged under his huge weight.
So, thought Max, so. That was two still on the list, and now they had names. Ester and Klaus. She couldn’t make up her mind about Klaus: looking at his glowering face, she felt sure he had a history of terrible crime, but then he spoke and she sort of wanted to give him a hug. Ester, on the other hand, was cut-and-dried villainous. And covered in jewels. As she lay and thought, Max took out Marguerite’s newspaper and superglue from her case, and carefully stuck the day’s front page into her notebook.
The train began to slide out of the station, and Max sideways-watched Munich slip away. She couldn’t see city or sky, just blackness dotted with lights. She still felt anxious, but it was helped by the cosiness of her berth, and the fascination of meeting two more suspects. Was Rupert on the train? Who else had come on board?
She found out when she went to brush her teeth. The train really was small. She only counted four people from the TGV: Ester, Klaus, the red-headed woman from the food hall, and Rupert Nobes.
“Hello there, Max,” Rupert said, as she paused outside his car. “All right? Are you doing more of your exploring?” He had a middle berth too, and he had to curl his legs up to fit in it. He had taken his glasses off to read a battered old paperback, which made him look all vague and blinky again, and his hair was a bit tousled from the pillow.
“Just brushing my teeth,” said Max.
“Good, excellent. Rather fun on here, isn’t it? Like a sleepover!” he said, sitting up without thinking and banging his head on the berth above. “Bother,” he said, and then added, “Oh, ow. Bother.”
Next to Rupert’s name, Max wrote, Not sure he has it in him. She decided to downgrade him from Suspect Number One, even if he had missed the inspection.
Back in her berth, she lay on her front with her notebook, and gave them each a page of their own: ESTER. KLAUS GROB. RUPERT NOBES. ? – RED-HAIRED WOMAN. Maybe they were just four innocent travellers. But looking at those four pages, her heart beat a little faster. After all, somebody had believed that the thief was travelling by train – believed it enough to tell the police – and if they were, then it had to be one of these four. That really wasn’t too many suspects, and her half-game now didn’t seem like a game at all. What if one of them really was the thief?
Everyone in her car was quiet. The only sounds were the click of knitting needles from Klaus’s berth, and the steady thrum of the train.
A minute later the guard came to take their tickets, and their orders of orange juice or apple juice for the morning. Then he turned out the light, and slid shut the door on their car, so that Max could no longer see the city flashing past. The click of the knitting needles was gone now. The Kálmán Imre was settling down to sleep.
Max tossed and turned and turned and tossed, and her berth tilted with the movements of the train, and her thoughts wriggled about, and two hours later she was still awake. And thirsty, too. She had a water bottle in her case below. She didn’t want to emerge from her blankets, but in the end she had to admit that she’d need a drink of water to get back to sleep. She tiptoed down the ladder.
Ester’s suitcase was in the way of her own. She gave it a tug.
It was much heavier than she expected. She gave it another tug. She put both hands to it. She heaved. It shuffled begrudgingly forward.
She forgot all about the water, because her heart was beating fast again. Why was Ester’s case so heavy? From her berth nearby, the old lady snored. Max listened: everyone else seemed to be asleep too.
Max reminded herself that suitcases are private business. And she knew that this was what her maman would call “taking your games too far”. But her maman wasn’t there, and detectives had to look into private business sometimes, especially when there was a diamond thief on the loose – and there was no good innocent reason that Max could think of for an old lady’s holiday suitcase to feel like a case full of rocks.
She opened the clasps.
It was disappointing. Layers of fussy silks and laces and old-lady underwear, and a huge stockpile of pear drops. She checked every zip pocket and shook out every stocking, but finally had to admit that the diamond wasn’t there.
Now that she had started, she was too excited to stop. Klaus’s great grey case next. It whined gently as she unzipped it. Lots of soft balls of wool; some great Klaus-sized clothes; and an unnecessary number of socks. Nothing of note. Max had never really suspected Klaus anyway. But she was enjoying herself now, and she couldn’t resist creeping to Rupert’s car and checking his bag, since Le Goff never got the chance.
She opened the car door, quietly. She eased it shut again, quietly, leaving it open a crack to avoid the thud it made when you drew it all the way. She crept out into the corridor, quietly. And when she saw the red-headed woman glaring at her with her blue and green eyes, she even remembered to gasp quietly.
She turned the gasp into a yawn, and tried to stroll casually to the train toilet. The woman’s eyes followed her the whole way, and when she came back out they were waiting, like two watchful night lights, seeing her back to bed. Max walked past as calmly as she could. Why was this woman lurking in the corridor in the middle of the night? What was she up to?
Back in bed, Max waited while the train made a night-time stop at a station, and there was a brief flurry of footsteps and voices. She tried to wait another hour at least, to avoid meeting the woman again. It felt like an eternity. But it was the sort of eternity that ends eventually, and when she peeked out again, the woman had gone. She was now even more curious about the woman than she was about Rupert. She tiptoed to her car, slid the door open, and listened.
“Hello?” she whispered.
Nothing.
There were only three people in here, and it was easy to pick out the woman’s case – the other two were teenagers with hiking backpacks, covered in stickers from all round the world. The woman had a smart black case, and it opened with a surprisingly loud ping. Max ssh-ed it without thinking, remembered it was a suitcase, and felt a bit stupid.
The woman had what Max’s maman would call “a tidy mind”. Everything was immaculately folded and arranged. Spare clothes, a washbag, a hairbrush, a book. A stiff cream envelope, addressed to Celeste Le Blanc, 17 Rue de Tarasque, Le Vésinet, France. Max picked this up, examining the elegant swirling writing. It was very light – there couldn’t be more than one sheet of paper in there. She squinted at the stamps in the almost-darkness. They were from Istanbul.
Max reminded herself that letters are private business – even more private than suitcases. But then she pointed out to herself that it might be a clue. She argued with herself for a while, but it was already beside the point, because she had started taking the letter out of the envelope the moment she had seen the stamps. She unfolded it, and knelt close to the crack in the slidin
g door to read it:
My dear Celeste,
I enclose a photo as promised. I look forward so eagerly to your arrival. Take great care, my dear! Never has a girl been more precious.
Yours,
M x
Max checked the envelope, but the photo wasn’t there. Presumably it was tucked lovingly in a purse or a locket or something. Max was a bit disappointed. Celeste hadn’t seemed like she would carry photos around from people who called her a precious girl.
She reread the letter one more time. Take great care. Now that was odd. Why would Celeste need to take great care, if she was just on a normal train journey? Were she and her beloved M up to something dangerous?
She wrote Take great care on the woman’s page, and added Celeste Le Blanc at the top. She realized she hadn’t written anything for the others. Weirdly heavy case, but couldn’t see anything, she wrote for Ester. The diamond was tiny anyway, she remembered – so, now she came to think of it, the heaviness was neither here nor there. After a moment’s hesitation, she wrote Who needs that many socks? under Klaus. Which was a good question, but she couldn’t see what socks had to do with international diamond-smuggling networks. She had to admit that it was a disappointing set of notes so far.
But there was still Rupert. The train was about to pull into a station again, so Max had to scurry back to her bed for a while until the thrum of the train had started up once more. In the corridor, she paused to look out at the night. There were no lights here. Were they in Germany now, or Hungary, or in between in Austria?
No way of knowing. Max’s own ghostly face stared back at her from the window. She shivered, and got back to work, slipping silently into Rupert’s car.
The car was full, and loud with the sound of six people sleeping. Max hardly dared breathe. Everyone had huge cases, and there wasn’t quite enough room so Rupert had been forced to stuff his case at the bottom of his bed. It was very large, so he was almost folded double. Max eased it out very, very slowly.
Rupert snuffled, rolled over, bumped into the wall, and murmured some aggrieved English in his sleep.
Heart thumping, Max opened Rupert’s case.
It was empty. No spare clothes. No toothbrush. Nothing. His jacket pocket held his tickets (Max checked: all the way to Istanbul), his passport, some money, his little paperback book, and his wonky spectacles.
Why travel with an empty suitcase? Surely that was odd? Max couldn’t see how it helped, but it was strange enough to feel important. Better than Klaus’s socks, anyway.
Rupert had started murmuring again, so Max crept back to her berth, and finished her notes under her rug. Huge empty case, she wrote, and after a moment’s thought she added, Leaving room for something? But what? The diamond was tiny.
There was nothing more to do, but her heart was still pounding, as if she might somehow still get caught. She hugged her notebook closely, and ran over what she had seen in her mind, searching it for any missing clues. By the time her heart had slowed down and she began to drift off, there was a slight silver tinge around the edges of the curtain.
She was almost asleep when Sister Marguerite rolled over, sending the houseplant to the floor with a thump. Max’s eyes jumped open.
Sister Marguerite.
Technically – technically – there should be one more name on her list of passengers that had boarded both trains. It did seem a bit unlikely. But then, everything about Sister Marguerite seemed a bit unlikely.
Max didn’t want Sister Marguerite to be the thief. The thought set her homesickness off all over again. But the idea wouldn’t let go of her. That is the trouble with ideas that you have before dawn: they are extra sticky.
She would have to just check, she decided, and then she could forget about it.
She crept down the ladder, pulled Sister Marguerite’s bag out from under the bed, and put in a hand. Tickets. Money. Tissues. A book.
Of course, Le Goff had already checked the bag, but there was still the mysteriously endless habit. She folded it out, and checked its pockets. Crisps. The now-squishy banana. An umbrella. String. Flea spray. Mittens. Something cold and hard…
Max felt sick as she ran a finger along the cold-hard-something. That was definitely a gun.
She drew it out to take a look. It was a very dainty gun, small and pretty, but still very much a gun.
She rifled through the habit with more urgency. A pocket watch. A crossword book. A sheaf of notes, bound together with an elastic band…
They were brief letters. Max flipped through them, willing them to be innocent, but the evidence was stacked against her. Fort operation will proceed as planned – for a moment this meant nothing to Max, and then she remembered with a sinking heart that Fort was the name of the vault where the heartbreak diamond had been kept – Next target will be HBD – well, it was obvious what that stood for – and there, Remove from Paris to HQ by train, 8th December, 3.55 – and there was a series of times and dates below. They matched Max and Marguerite’s journey exactly.
Before Max could read any further, something was pressed just behind her ear.
“Stay where you are,” hissed Sister Marguerite, “and don’t move a muscle until I say you can.”
Max froze. She waited to feel fear, and maybe see her life flash before her eyes. To her surprise, she mostly just felt sick with sadness. She had liked Sister Marguerite.
There was fumbling behind her, and then a small torch beam cut through the dark, into Max’s eyes.
“Max?” said Marguerite. She lowered the cold-hard-something. That was the good news. The bad news was that Max could now see it was definitely the gun. She moved out of the torch’s beam and looked at Marguerite, whose long face was drooping in horror.
“Max,” she said, “I am so sorry. I didn’t think—”
But before Max could know what she hadn’t thought, Klaus’s alarm clock was playing “The Sun Has Got His Hat On”, and he was rolling over, creating a small berth-quake. Marguerite whisked the gun and the letters into her pyjama-habit.
“Good morning!” Klaus rumbled.
“Good morning, mon chou,” said Sister Marguerite cheerily.
“Why is everyone shouting?” Ester creaked thunderously into her pillow.
Max should have said, “Help, help, she’s a thief and she’s got a gun.” But she looked at Marguerite, her funny face looking naked and small without its wimple, and found herself saying, “Good morning.”
Then the guard came round with their juice and croissants, and Max still didn’t say “Help, help.” She knew that she should, but something seemed to be sticking in her throat. Instead she picked at her croissant, then went to brush her teeth and collect her thoughts in the tiny train toilet. Celeste was at the window in the corridor again, staring out. Max wondered if she was thinking of the mysterious M.
She might have been thinking of M, but it was Rupert who appeared a moment later, smiling his best smile at her. His jumper was on back to front, and covered in croissant crumbs. Celeste stared outside harder than ever. Max left them to it. They seemed very far away, somehow: as though they were still on a nice safe train, where friends weren’t thieves and nuns didn’t carry hidden weapons, and Max was now somewhere else entirely.
Safely locked in the tiny toilet, she looked at herself in the mirror, trying to work out what she felt. She was somewhere in the middle of Hungary on a train and her only friend here had pointed a gun at her. What was she supposed to do now?
She stood like that for a while, but got no answer besides the thrumming of the train. All her homesickness had returned with such a rush that she thought she might really be sick, and the vibrating little room wasn’t helping, so she stepped back outside. Sister Marguerite was there, clutching a bundle of habit and a washbag. She looked around, and then leaned in to Max.
“When we pull in,” she muttered, “follow me lickety-split. I promise I’ll explain, mon lapin.”
And with that, she bustled into the toilet, looking fo
r all the world like a nice nun in pyjamas, and not at all like a gun-wielding thief. Silver-gold fields rolled past sedately. Tales of guns in dark train carriages seemed silly now, somehow.
But it had been real.
When the time came to disembark five minutes later, Max was still so distracted that she managed to leave behind her case. That was how she came to meet Celeste Le Blanc. She felt a tap on her shoulder, and turned to see Celeste holding the case out, and smiling.
Max hadn’t seen her smile before. She had small pointy teeth, which added to the dragon effect.
“You left this,” she said. Her voice did not match her smile.
“Oh! Thank you.”
“No problem. You want to be careful on these trains. Someone went through my bag last night.”
“Oh!” Max said, twirling a plait casually. “Really?” She must have put things back too hastily in her excitement over the note. Of course Celeste would notice a disturbance in her so-tidy suitcase.
“Yes, really,” said Celeste. “Luckily nothing went missing, but if I were you, I would be very careful.” She smiled her unwavering dragon smile at Max. Somehow, even though she had turned up the corners of her mouth, it felt more like she was snarling.
More to escape that smile than anything else, Max gabbled, “Oh, I’ve got to go, I’m going to lose Sister Marguerite,” and ran off after the nun. Her heart was skittering about. She knew that she ought to be afraid of Sister Marguerite, but she found to her surprise that she was more afraid of Celeste.
When Marguerite turned and saw her, she broke into a huge smile. “I thought you weren’t going to come, mon lapin.”
Max still wasn’t sure if she was going to come. “Where are you going?”
They had reached the great arched entrance to Keleti station. Roads forked off in all directions, fanning out into the city. Max could see her breath in the cold air.
Sister Marguerite pointed to an ornate old building – actually, Max realized, all the buildings here were ornate and old – with a bakery tucked into the ground floor. “Breakfast,” she said, “and a very good explanation. I promise.”
The Secret of the Night Train Page 4