The Secret of the Night Train

by Sylvia Bishop

  “Well, I mean, that is, the roses are more of a metaphor…”

  “Rupert,” said the woman. “Go away.” And she nudged the dogs back on to the step, and shut the door, leaving the man outside – one hundred roses poorer and no richer in love.

  He didn’t seem too upset. As he walked away, he got sharper round the edges again, and he was whistling.

  The bitter rival

  At 10.20, a man built like a small mountain rang the doorbell. An elderly woman covered in furs poked him out of the way with her stick and rang the doorbell herself, four times, just to make sure.

  It was answered by a butler with permanently raised eyebrows, who listened politely to the woman’s bellowed request, bowed stiffly, and disappeared inside to deliver her message. He reappeared a minute later. “Please follow me,” he said. “Madame Morel will see you in the drawing room.”

  A minute later, the elderly woman and the enormous man were seated opposite an angular woman with beady eyes and cheeks bright with rouge, and they were all eyeing each other suspiciously. The guests sipped tea. The hostess was threading jewels with her right hand on to something that she held in her left; something that occasionally twitched and pulsed in her fingers.

  “I must confess,” said the hostess, selecting a bead of emerald, “that I am surprised that you would want to sell anything to me, Ester.”

  “Well, you are unbearable, Elodie,” barked the fur-covered woman, “but you’re also even richer than I am. There aren’t many people who can afford what I’m selling.”

  “Charmed.”

  “Excuse me,” said the mountain man, “but might I use your toilet?”

  The beady-eyed woman bowed her head in a small nod. “Third door on the left.”

  Three very awkward minutes followed, until the man returned. The hostess took him in with a swift flickering glance. She did not fail to notice the lump in his jacket pocket. It looked about two inches across. She did not think it had been there before. It was difficult to be sure, though, and there are some things that you do not want to admit to owning unless you are sure that they are being stolen. Best to quietly double-check.

  “Excuse me one moment, would you?” she said. She swept from the room. Three very tense minutes followed, until she returned.

  She sailed back in, and smiled sweetly at them. “Now,” she said. “What was it you were looking to sell?”

  The real menace

  At the back of the house, in a clump of rosemary bushes, crouched something that was very much not a rosemary bush. It was a nun, and a detective, and a friend and an adventure, all rolled into one. She was watching the windows of the house intently.

  At 10.32, one of them opened. A small arm was thrust out of it. The hand on the end of the arm gave a thumbs up.

  The nun smiled. She got up, dusted soil off her habit, and sauntered over to the building.

  She took off her shoe, raised it above her head, and smashed it against a window. A hundred alarms wailed. Dogs howled. Floodlights shot on.

  “Helloooo!” she called out. “It’s me!”

  The child

  Throughout all of this, things had been uncomfortable for Max.

  First of all, there was the basket. It itched beneath her, and even though Rupert had been careful to buy thornless roses, the flowers had still conspired to find ways to poke into her at awkward angles. The smell was overwhelming. And staying so very still for so very long was giving her bad pins and needles in her left leg.

  Then there was all the being-picked-up-and-put-down-again. She was put down on the doorstep, while Rupert rang the bell. Picked up and put down again into the hallway. Bumpitty-bump, and the second time, rose petals bumped ticklishly into her nose.

  And after that, there was the sound of dogs close by, panting and drooling. Max was wearing her rose-perfume-soaked dress, but she wasn’t one hundred per cent certain that that was going to work. One of the dogs whined uncertainly, not sure what to make of this mostly-roses smell. But although they were puzzled, it was enough to keep them calm: she smelled more of roses than of anything else.

  The door shut. Suzanne’s footsteps retreated, and Max was left in the hallway. She counted to thirty, then sat up, showering roses, and clambered out of the basket into Great-Aunt Elodie’s hall.

  If anything, things got more uncomfortable from there. Now she was exposed, and that made her feel more hot and prickly and anxious than a thousand roses. She wriggled out of the rose-scented clothes and buried them in the basket, revealing a black-and-white maid’s outfit made from Sister Marguerite’s pyjama-habit – not a real disguise, but enough to let her whisk out of sight round a corner without raising alarm, if necessary.

  She scanned the hall for somewhere to hide, heart thudding. The hall made her feel even more exposed. It was huge and white, with a high ceiling and enormous windows looking out to the Bosphorus Strait. There were splashes of colour: huge bouquets of flowers, and gilt cages holding jewelled figurines of birds, and tall glass vases, and tapestries in sumptuous thread. But mostly it was white, and Max felt like a stain in her maid’s black.

  Her investigations found that one of the tapestries hung in front of a slight recess, so that she could hide behind it without making a bulge in the fabric – if she was very still. She wriggled in.

  The telephone rang.

  The butler arrived and answered, in a voice that expressed how permanently raised his eyebrows were; he tap-tapped off; the soft rustle of Great-Aunt Elodie entered the hall.

  “Yes?”

  A pause; some anxious murmuring from the phone. Even through the phone, the voice was painfully familiar, and seemed to Max as if it came from another world.

  “Yes, there’s been a little spot of bother,” Great-Aunt Elodie tinkled. “It seems that poor Maximilienne was caught up in some madcap scheme of that nun’s. But you mustn’t worry yourself, my dear, I’m taking care of the situation.”

  Another pause; more murmuring.

  “No no, you mustn’t come. I know how busy you are. They will be flying both of them back to Paris tomorrow, and I’m sure it will all blow over then. Everything is under control, my dear.”

  It was all Max could do not to leap out from behind the tapestry and seize the telephone from her great-aunt’s hand. Maman, she thought, her heart squeezing painfully. Maman, it isn’t under control. It isn’t. Please come.

  But her mother couldn’t make things all right. Only Max could, and she had to stick to the plan. So she stayed still, and listened as Great-Aunt Elodie chattered and giggled, and eventually her mother’s anxious murmuring relaxed. Finally there was the click of the phone being returned to its place: and just like that, Max’s mother was gone.

  Then came the doorbell – once, and four more times to make sure – and the tap-tapping of the butler again. Max was too hot behind the tapestry, and cramped from staying so still. Some croaky yelling came from the doorstep, then the butler tapped away; a pause; he came tapping back again.

  “Please follow me,” Max heard him say. “Madame Morel will see you in the drawing room.”

  When the butler’s tap-tap had retreated, followed by one set of enormous footsteps and one scuttle with a menacing click-click-click, she poked her head out. No one there, unless you counted the ruby statue of a bird that hung in its cage by her head. She stayed very still for a moment, listening. Then at last, she moved.

  So did the bird.

  Max managed not to cry out, just about. She peered closer at the figurine. Was it mechanical?

  Slowly, painfully, the bird put its head on one side, and opened its beak in a soundless plea.

  A nasty feeling surged up from Max’s stomach to the top of her throat. Not mechanical. Alive. It was a real bird, with jewels threaded on to every feather, like beads on a braid of hair. Max looked around the hall, and realized that they were all alive. They were too heavy to flutter about, and too dispirited to sing, but they were blinking. If you watched closely, there was the
occasional twitch of a weighty wing.

  “Cah,” wheezed the ruby bird, in reproach.

  Max was so chilled by those living trinkets that for a few moments she forgot the whole plan, and stood frozen in horror. Some Ester-noises from a little way away brought her back with a start. She hurried off, following the sound.

  “Sorry,” she whispered to the ruby bird – budgie, maybe? Lovebird? – as she left. She wasn’t quite sure why she said it, except that she felt that someone ought to.

  “Cah,” sighed the ruby bird. It closed its eyes.

  Max followed the sound of Ester’s voice, stopped short outside the drawing room, and found a heavy velvet curtain to hide behind. She was perfectly hidden from the inside, but outside, she would be in plain view: the Bosphorus Strait ran below her, deep and still. She watched the water. It calmed her, a little.

  Klaus’s footsteps exited the room as planned. Max leaned out from the curtain, smiled as calmly as she could manage in her dizzy state, and gave him the stopper from Ester’s perfume bottle. It seemed a lifetime ago that she had peered into it on the Bosfor, looking for the diamond. It had been a good theory: it was exactly the right size.

  Klaus winked, and put the stopper in his pocket, taking care that it bulged against the fabric. He went into the third room on the left, just to keep up appearances; then disappeared back into the drawing room.

  Max’s heart hammered. Surely, surely, her ever-sharp-eyed great-aunt would take the bait?

  She didn’t have long to wait. The rustle of Great-Aunt Elodie’s skirts came next – accompanied, very faintly, by some cheeping from her clenched left hand. Max gave her enough time to turn the corner, then followed the sound of her light footsteps. Left, right, up, down, left, left, down – Max prayed that she would not need to find her way back out of the house again, because the warren got more and more confusing. At last, the footsteps paused.

  Max risked a peek around the corner. More flowers, more tapestries, more cages – in one, a majestic parrot dressed in jewels of every shade remarked, “Meddlers! Meddlers!” to no one in particular. Great-Aunt Elodie was taking a painting from a wall, to check the contents of the safe behind.

  Yes. So that’s where it was kept. Max withdrew, and danced a two-second wriggly victory dance. Then she tucked herself behind another curtain. The other side of the house this time, looking out to the street below – out over Europe. Perhaps, she thought, if you could flatten all the houses and mountains in the way, it was looking to France. Home.

  Great-Aunt Elodie withdrew. Max counted to one hundred, to let her get back to the drawing room. She counted to fifty, for luck. Then she found a window at the side of the house, overlooking the gardens, and waved a thumbs up to the rosemary below.

  Even though she was expecting them, the alarms made her jump. They wailed like howling wolves. In the hallway, red lights pulsed, onoffonoffonoff. Max put her hands over her ears.

  In a nearby cage, an emerald bird blinked and blinked and blinked in distress, its little beak open in a scream that had no hope of being heard.

  Max looked around for her nearest security camera. There was one at either end of the hall, but, she noticed, they would both just miss the painting. She walked to the nearest and started pulling faces at it.

  Outside, police arrived. The alarms were turned off.

  Come on, she thought, dancing for the camera. Check your screens. Look for the thieves. Come and get me.

  When they arrived in her hallway at last, an army of dark blue, Le Goff was at the helm. Someone must have told him that his escaped captives had been found. He arrived at the doorway to the hall with Marguerite already in handcuffs, with Great-Aunt Elodie gliding at his side, closely followed by Suzanne. Suzanne glared at Max, and now that her fury and hatred no longer had to be disguised, her blue-green eyes seemed on fire with it. Ester and Klaus, forgotten, hurried along behind the knot of Turkish police officers.

  “Diamonds!” announced the parrot. “Meddlers!”

  “Quite,” sighed Le Goff. “Maximilienne. You again. I have had to interrupt my brunch.”

  “Good morning, Commandant,” said Max politely. Her heart was thudding. She was working hard to sound calm. “Good morning, Great-Aunt.”

  “Maximilienne Morel,” began Le Goff, “I am placing you under arrest—”

  “I know,” said Max, “but please – I think you should check this safe first.” And she took the painting off the wall. Great-Aunt Elodie’s face twitched for a nanosecond into anger and shock, then she recovered, and restored her small smile. Suzanne’s eyes narrowed.

  “Please,” said Max, “look. The security cameras just miss it.” She pointed left and right. “Why is that, Great-Aunt? Wouldn’t it be safer to have it watched? Why would you leave it uncovered?”

  “Please, Maximilienne,” cut in Le Goff. “This foolishness is wasting valuable time—”

  “Commandant Le Goff,” said Max, “if you look in this safe, I promise you I will come really quietly. You can go back to brunch. But if you don’t look, I’m going to be difficult.”

  “Oh, me too,” said Marguerite, delighted.

  “And me!” screeched Ester.

  Le Goff shuddered. “Fine. Madame Morel, would you please open the safe?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “I’m afraid I won’t be doing that, Commandant. It’s private.”

  For the first time, a dull flicker of suspicion crossed Le Goff’s face. “Private?” he repeated.

  “Yes,” said Great-Aunt Elodie, her voice steely. “And if you insist on waiting for me to open it, my dear, then you will not just miss brunch. You will miss your lunch break, your post-lunch coffee, your mid-afternoon coffee, your dinner, and your evening chocolat.”

  Le Goff paled. He looked from Max to Great-Aunt Elodie to Max again. “All right,” he said. “Fine. Maximilienne—”

  “Heartbreak!”

  Le Goff, the knot of Turkish police, Ester, Klaus, Great-Aunt Elodie, Suzanne and Max all turned to look at the parrot. It heaved a heavy wing up, as if it was trying to call for their attention.

  “Heartbreak!” it repeated. “Diiiiamond. Meddlers. Heartbreak!”

  “Madame Morel,” said Le Goff, the flicker of suspicion returning, “why is your bird familiar with that word?”

  Great-Aunt Elodie didn’t miss a beat. “I adopted it,” she said, “from a young man recently left by his lover.”

  “Mine at last! Mine at last!” added the parrot.

  “But then she came home,” she explained, “and promised to be his.”

  A Turkish officer had been translating quietly to his boss, who now muttered something back. The translator leaned to Le Goff, and murmured that maybe, perhaps, this whole situation was a bit suspicious; and maybe, perhaps, they should check the secret safe that was deliberately missed by the security cameras and guarded by a parrot who said, “Heartbreak diamond, mine at last!”; and he was very sorry about brunch, but his boss would have to insist. Le Goff sighed.

  “Madame Morel,” he said. “Open the safe.”

  “No.”

  “Then we will.” And he looked pleadingly at the Turkish officers, who came forward and tried, one by one. It was impossible. This suited Max: there was no way, now, that they could think she had opened the safe and planted the diamond. In the end they had no choice but to take Great-Aunt Elodie, squirming, by the arm, and force her hand towards the safe. She twitched and flapped like one of her own birds, while Suzanne argued furiously with them, but they didn’t back down. So in the end Great-Aunt Elodie announced, with great dignity, that she would open it herself. They let her go, and she put fingertip to pad.

  The safe swung open. Something small and red twinkled at them, split down the centre by a streak of white.

  “Oh,” said Le Goff. “Ah,” he said, sadly, as the implications sank in, and he thought of all the apologetic phone calls he was going to have to make. Then, “Madame Morel,” said Le Goff, �
��is there by any chance a good explanation for this situation?”

  “Of course there is,” said Great-Aunt Elodie, straightening her sleeves. “I feared you might react badly, under the circumstances, so I wanted to keep this private – but it’s only a little hobby of mine. This is not the heartbreak diamond at all. It is a copy I had made.” They all looked at her doubtfully, but she said it so assuredly that it was almost convincing. Max was impressed. Her great-aunt was a quick liar.

  But Max was quick, too. She was thinking about the copy of the heartbreak diamond that had been left at Fort Vaults, and everything Rupert had told them about it – or, rather, what he hadn’t been able to tell them. Could she lay another trap, before Great-Aunt Elodie could scheme her way out of this?

  “Surely it can’t be a copy!” she said innocently. “It looks so real! What is it made of, then, if it isn’t a diamond?”

  “It’s a very ordinary stone called quartz,” came the smooth reply.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Max saw Le Goff’s face twitch at this. She did her best wide-eyed-disbelief face. “I don’t believe that could possibly work,” she said. “It looks too real. I don’t believe that we could all have been fooled by some ordinary quartz. That’s just silly.”

  “Well, it worked at Fort Vaults,” snapped her great-aunt, “so I think we can assume that people can be fooled. But really, Commandant, you ought to have learned the difference by now.”

  Max beamed at her. “Thank you,” she said, “very much.”

  Le Goff’s eyebrows had shot up, and he was murmuring to the translator, who murmured to the Turkish policeman in charge, who raised his eyebrows to match – and produced a pair of handcuffs. Great-Aunt Elodie’s stiff indignation stiffened even more. “But it’s qua—”

  “Madame Morel,” said Le Goff, “I don’t believe you. And I am afraid I now have no choice but to believe your great-niece.” He did his especially-firm-jaw, and just for a moment, he looked like a commandant doing his job properly. “The details of how the heartbreak diamond was copied have not been released to the public. Nobody knew that the copy was made of quartz. Nobody besides the management at Fort, the police force – and the thieves themselves.”