Mr Peters and Latimer took up their positions at the corner of the Avenue de la Reine and the Boulevard Jean Jaurès at half-past ten, the hour at which the hired car was due to pick up the messenger from Dimitrios opposite the Neuilly cemetery.
It was a cold night, and as it began to rain soon after they arrived, they stood for shelter just inside the porte cocher of a building a few yards along the Avenue in the direction of the Pont St Cloud.
‘How long will they be getting here?’ Latimer asked.
‘I said that I would expect them by eleven. That gives them half an hour to drive from Neuilly. They could do it in less, but I told them to make quite certain that they were not followed. If they are in doubt they will return to Neuilly. They will take no chances. The car is a Renault coupé-de-ville. We must have patience.’
They waited in silence. Now and again Mr Peters would stir as a car that might have been the hired Renault approached from the direction of the river. The rain trickling down the slope formed by the subsidence of the cobbles formed puddles about their feet. Latimer thought of his warm bed and wondered if he would catch a cold. He had booked a seat in the Athens slip-coach of the Orient Express due to leave the following morning. A train would not be the best place to spend three days nursing a cold. He remembered that he had a small bottle of cinnamon extract somewhere in his luggage and resolved to take a dose before he went to bed.
His mind was occupied with this domestic matter when suddenly Mr Peters grunted: ‘Attention!’
‘Are they coming?’
‘Yes.’
Latimer looked over Mr Peters’ shoulder. A large Renault was approaching from the left. As he looked it began to slow down as if the driver were uncertain of the way. It passed them, the rain glistening in the beams of the headlights, and stopped a few yards farther on. The outline of the driver’s head and shoulders were just visible in the darkness, but blinds were pulled down over the rear windows. Mr Peters put his hand in his overcoat pocket.
‘Wait here, please,’ he said to Latimer, and walked towards the car.
‘Ca va? Latimer heard him say to the driver. There was an answering ‘Oui’. Mr Peters opened the rear door and leaned forward.
Almost immediately he withdrew a pace and closed the door. In his left hand was a package. ‘Attendez,’ he said, and walked back to where Latimer was standing.
‘All right?’ said Latimer.
‘I think so. Will you strike a match, please?’
Latimer did so. The package was the size of a large book, about two inches thick and was wrapped in blue paper and tied with string. Mr Peters tore away the paper at one of the corners and exposed a solid wad of mille notes. He sighed. ‘Beautiful!’
‘Aren’t you going to count them?’
‘That pleasure,’ said Mr Peters seriously, ‘I shall reserve for the comfort of my home.’ He crammed the package into his overcoat pocket, stepped on to the pavement and raised his hand. The Renault started with a jerk, swung round in a wide circle and splashed away on its return journey. Mr Peters watched it go with a smile.
‘A very pretty woman,’ he said. ‘I wonder who she can be. But I prefer the million francs. Now, Mr Latimer, a taxi and then your favourite champagne. We have earned it, I think.’
They found a taxi near the Porte de St Cloud. Mr Peters enlarged on his success.
‘With a type like Dimitrios it is necessary only to be firm and circumspect. We put the matter to him squarely; we let him see that he has no choice but to agree to our demands, and it is done. A million francs. Very nice! One almost wishes that one had demanded two million. But it would have been unwise to be too greedy. As it is, he believes that we shall make fresh demands and that he has time to deal with us as he dealt with Visser. He will find that he has deceived himself. That is very satisfactory to me, Mr Latimer: as satisfying to my pride as it is to my pocket. I feel, too, that I have, in some measure, avenged poor Visser’s death. It is at moments like these, Mr Latimer, that one realizes that if it sometimes appears as if the Great One has forgotten His children, it is only that we have forgotten Him. I have suffered. Now I have my reward.’ He patted his pocket. ‘It would be amusing to see Dimitrios when at last he realizes how he has been tricked. A pity that we shall not be there.’
‘Shall you leave Paris immediately?’
‘I think so. I have a fancy to see something of South America. Not my own adopted fatherland, of course. It is one of the terms of my citizenship that I never enter the country. A hard condition, for I would like for sentimental reasons to see the country of my adoption. But it cannot be altered. I am a citizen of the world and must remain so. Perhaps I shall buy an estate somewhere, a place where I shall be able to pass my days in peace when I am old. You are a young man, Mr Latimer. When one is my age, the years seem shorter and one feels that one is soon to reach a destination. It is as if one were approaching a strange town late at night when one is sorry to be leaving the warm train for an unknown hotel and wishing that the journey would never end.’
‘Doesn’t your philosophy cover that point?’
‘Philosophy,’ said Mr Peters, ‘is for explaining that which has already happened. Only the Great One knows what will happen in the future. We are just human. How can our poor minds hope to understand the infinite? The sun is one hundred and sixty million kilometres from the earth. Think of it! We are insignificant dust. What is a million francs? Nothing! Useful, no doubt, but nothing. Why should the Great One concern Himself with such small matters? It is a mystery. Think of the stars. There are millions of them. It is remarkable.’
He went on to talk about the stars while the taxi traversed the Rue Lecourbe and turned into the Boulevard Montparnasse.
‘Yes, we are insignificant,’ Mr Peters was saying. ‘We struggle for existence like the ants. Yet, had I my life to live over again, I would not wish it any different. There have been disagreeable moments and the Great One has seen fit that I should do some unpleasant things, but I have made a little money and I am free to go where I wish. Not every man of my age,’ he added virtuously, ‘can say as much.’
The taxi turned left into the Rue de Rennes.
‘We are nearly home. I have your champagne. It was, as you warned me, very expensive. But I have no priggish objections to a little luxury. It is sometimes agreeable and, even when it is disagreeable, it serves to make us appreciate simplicity. Ah!’ The taxi had stopped at the end of the Impasse. ‘I have no change, Mr Latimer. That seems odd with a million francs in one’s pocket, does it not? Will you pay, please?’
They walked down the Impasse.
‘I think,’ said Mr Peters, ‘that I shall sell these houses before I go to South America. One does not want property on one’s hands that is not yielding a profit.’
‘Won’t they be rather difficult to sell? The view from the windows is a little depressing, isn’t it?’
‘It is not necessary to be always looking out of the windows. They could be made into very nice houses.’
They began the long climb up the stairs. On the second landing Mr Peters paused for breath, took off his overcoat and got out his keys. They continued the climb to his door.
He opened it, switched on the light, and then, going straight to the largest divan, took the package from his overcoat pocket and undid the string. With loving care he extracted the notes from the wrappings and held them up. For once his smile was real.
‘There, Mr Latimer! A million francs! Have you ever seen so much money at once before? Nearly six thousand English pounds!’ He stood up. ‘But we must have our little celebration. Take off your coat and I will get the champagne. I hope that you will like it. I have no ice, but I put it in a bowl of water. It will be quite cool.’
He walked towards the curtained-off part of the room.
Latimer had turned away to take off his coat. Suddenly he became aware that Mr Peters was still on the same side of the curtain and that he was standing motionless. He glanced round.
For a moment he thought that he was going to faint. The blood seemed to drain away suddenly from his head, leaving it hollow and light. A steel band seemed to tighten round his chest. He felt that he wanted to cry out, but all he could do was to stare.
Mr Peters was standing with his back to him, and his hands were raised above his head. Facing him in the gap between the gold curtains was Dimitrios, with a revolver in his hand.
Dimitrios stepped forward and sideways so that Latimer was no longer partly covered by Mr Peters. Latimer dropped his coat and put up his hands. Dimitrios raised his eyebrows.
‘It is not flattering,’ he said, ‘for you to look so surprised to see me, Petersen. Or should I call you Caillé?’
Mr Peters said nothing. Latimer could not see his face, but he saw his throat move as if he were swallowing.
The brown eyes flickered to Latimer. ‘I am glad that the Englishman is here, too, Petersen. I am saved the trouble of persuading you to give me his name and address. Monsieur Smith, who knows so many things and who was so anxious to keep his face hidden, is now shown to be as easy to deal with as you are, Petersen. You were always too ingenious, Petersen. I told you so once before. It was on the occasion when you brought a coffin from Salonika. You remember? Ingenuity is never a substitute for intelligence, you know. Did you really think that I should not see through you?’ His lips twisted. ‘Poor Dimitrios! He is very simple. He will think that I, clever Petersen, will come back for more, like any other blackmailer. He will not guess that I may be bluffing him. But, just to make sure that he does not guess, I will do what no other blackmailer ever did. I will tell him that I shall come back for more. Poor Dimitrios is such a fool that he will believe me. Poor Dimitrios has no intelligence. Even if he finds out from the records that, within a month of my coming out of prison, I had succeeded in selling three unsaleable houses to someone named Caillé, he will not dream of suspecting that I, clever Petersen, am also Caillé. Did you not know, Petersen, that before I bought these houses in your name they had been empty for ten years? You are such a fool.’
He paused. The anxious brown eyes narrowed. The mouth tightened. Latimer knew that Dimitrios was going to kill Mr Peters and that there was nothing that he could do about it. The wild beating of his heart seemed to be suffocating him.
‘Drop the money, Petersen.’
The wad of notes hit the carpet and spread out like a fan.
Dimitrios raised the revolver.
Suddenly, Mr Peters seemed to realize what was about to happen. He cried out: ‘No! You must…’
Then Dimitrios fired. He fired twice and with the earsplitting noise of the explosions Latimer heard one of the bullets thud into Mr Peters’ body.
Mr Peters emitted a long drawn-out retching sound and sank forward on to his hands and knees with blood pouring from his neck.
Dimitrios stared at Latimer. ‘Now you,’ he said.
At that moment Latimer jumped.
Why he chose that particular moment to jump he never knew. He never even knew what prompted him to jump at all. He supposed that it was an instinctive attempt to save himself. Why, however, his instinct for self-preservation should have led him to jump in the direction of the revolver which Dimitrios was about to fire is inexplicable. But he did jump, and the jump did save his life; for, as his right foot left the floor, a fraction of a second before Dimitrios pressed the trigger, he stumbled over one of Mr Peters’ thick tufts of rug and the shot went over his head into the wall.
Half dazed and with his forehead scorched by the blast from the muzzle of the revolver, he hurled himself at Dimitrios. They went down together with their hands at each other’s throats, but immediately Dimitrios brought his knee up into Latimer’s stomach and rolled clear of him.
He had dropped his revolver, and now he went to pick it up. Gasping for breath, Latimer scrambled towards the nearest movable object, which happened to be the heavy brass tray on top of one of the Moroccan tables, and flung it at Dimitrios. The edge of it hit the side of his head as he was reaching for the revolver and he reeled, but the blow stopped him for barely a second. Latimer threw the wooden part of the table at him and dashed forward. Dimitrios staggered back as the table caught his shoulder. The next moment Latimer had the revolver and was standing back, still trying to get his breath, but with his finger on the trigger.
His face sheet-white, Dimitrios came towards him. Latimer raised the revolver.
‘If you move again, I shall fire.’
Dimitrios stood still. His brown eyes stared into Latimer’s. His grey hair was tousled; his scarf had come out of his coat; he looked dangerous. Latimer was beginning to recover his breath, but his knees felt horribly weak, his ears were singing and the air he breathed reeked sickeningly of cordite fumes. It was for him to make the next move, and he felt frightened and helpless.
‘If you move,’ he repeated, ‘I shall fire.’
He saw the brown eyes flicker towards the notes on the floor and then back to him. ‘What are you going to do?’ said Dimitrios suddenly. ‘If the police come we shall both have something to explain. If you shoot me you will get only that million. If you will release me I will give you another million as well. That would be good for you.’
Latimer took no notice. He edged sideways towards the wall, until he could glance quickly at Mr Peters.
Mr Peters had crawled towards the divan on which his overcoat lay, and was now leaning against it with his eyes half closed. He was breathing stertorously through the mouth. One bullet had torn a great gaping wound in the side of his neck from which the blood was welling. The second had hit him full in the chest and scorched the clothing. The wound was a round purple mess about two inches in diameter. It was bleeding very little. Mr Peters’ lips moved.
Keeping his eyes fixed on Dimitrios, Latimer moved round until he was alongside Mr Peters.
‘How do you feel?’ he said.
It was a stupid question, and he knew it the moment the words had left his mouth. He tried desperately to collect his wits. A man had been shot and he had the man who shot him. He…
‘My pistol,’ muttered Mr Peters; ‘get my pistol. Overcoat.’ He said something else that was inaudible.
Cautiously, Latimer worked his way round to the overcoat and fumbled for the pistol. Dimitrios watched with a thin ghastly smile on his lips. Latimer found the pistol and handed it to Mr Peters. He grasped it with both hands and snicked back the safety catch.
‘Now,’ he muttered, ‘go and get police.’
‘Someone will have heard the shots,’ said Latimer soothingly. ‘The police will be here soon.’
‘Won’t find us,’ whispered Mr Peters. ‘Get police.’
Latimer hesitated. What Mr Peters said was true. The Impasse was hemmed in by blank walls. The shots might have been heard, but unless someone had happened to be passing the entrance to the Impasse during the few seconds in which they were fixed, nobody would know where the sounds had come from.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Where is the telephone?’
‘No telephone.’
‘But…’ He hesitated again. It might take ten minutes to find a policeman. Could he leave a badly wounded Mr Peters to watch a man like Dimitrios? But there was nothing else for it. Mr Peters needed a doctor. The sooner Dimitrios was under lock and key the better. He knew that Dimitrios understood his predicament and the knowledge did not please him. He glanced at Mr Peters. He had the Lüger resting on one knee and pointed at Dimitrios. The blood was still pouring from his neck. If a doctor did not attend to him soon he would bleed to death.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll be as quick as I can.’
He went towards the door.
‘One moment, Monsieur.’ There was an urgency in the harsh voice that made Latimer pause.
‘Well?’
‘If you go he will shoot me. Don’t you see that? Why not accept my offer?’
Latimer opened the door. ‘If you try any tricks you will certainly be shot.’ He looked again at the wounded man, huddled over the Lüger. ‘I shall be back with the police. Don’t shoot unless you have to.’
Then, as he made to go, Dimitrios laughed. Involuntarily, Latimer turned. ‘I should save that laugh for the executioner,’ he snapped. ‘You will need it.’
‘I was thinking,’ said Dimitrios, ‘that in the end one is always defeated by stupidity. If it is not one’s own it is the stupidity of others.’ His face changed. ‘Five million, Monsieur,’ he shouted angrily. ‘Is it not enough, or do you want this carrion to kill me?’
Latimer stared at him for a moment. The man was almost convincing. Then he remembered that others had been convinced by Dimitrios. He waited no longer. He heard Dimitrios shout something after him as he shut the door.
He was halfway down the stairs when he heard the shots. There were four of them. Three cracked out in quick succession. Then, there was a pause before the last one. His heart in his mouth, he turned and ran back up to the room. It was only later that he found anything curious in the fact that, as he raced up the stairs, the fear uppermost in his mind was for Mr Peters.
Dimitrios was not a pleasant sight. Only one of the bullets from Mr Peters’ Lüger had missed. Two had lodged in the body. The fourth, evidently fired at him after he had fallen to the floor, had hit him between the eyes and almost blown the top of his head off. His body was still twitching.
The Lüger slipped from Mr Peters’ fingers and he was leaning, with his head on the edge of the divan, opening and shutting his mouth like a stranded fish. As Latimer stood there he choked suddenly and blood trickled from his mouth.
Scarcely knowing what he was doing, Latimer blundered through the curtain. Dimitrios was dead; Mr Peters was dying; and all he, Latimer, could think about was the effort required not to faint or vomit. He strove to pull himself together. He must do something. Mr Peters must have water. Wounded men always need water. There was a washbasin and beside it were some glasses. He filled one and carried it back into the room.
Mr Peters had not moved. His mouth and eyes were open. Latimer knelt down beside him and poured a little water into the mouth. It ran out again. He put down the glass and felt for the pulse. There was none.
Latimer got quickly to his feet and looked at his hands. There was blood on them. He went back to the washbasin, rinsed them and dried them on a small, dirty towel which hung from a hook.
He should, he knew, call the police immediately. Two men had killed each other. That was a matter for the police. Yet… what was he going to say to them? How was he going to explain his own presence there in that shambles? Could he say that he had been passing the end of the Impasse and had heard the shots? But someone might have noticed him with Mr Peters. There was the taxi driver who had brought them. And when they found that Dimitrios had that day obtained a million francs from his bank… there would be endless questionings. Supposing they suspected him.
His brain seemed to clear suddenly. He must get out at once and he must leave no traces of his presence there. He thought quickly. The revolver in his pocket belonged to Dimitrios. It had his finger-prints on it. He took it out of his pocket, put on his gloves and wiped it all over carefully with his handkerchief. Then, setting his teeth, he went back into the room, knelt down beside Dimitrios and, taking his right hand, pressed the fingers round the butt and trigger. Removing the fingers and holding the revolver by the barrel, he then put it near the body on the floor.
He considered the mille notes strewn over the rug like so much wastepaper. To whom did they belong – Dimitrios or Mr Peters? There was Sholem’s money there and the money stolen in Athens in 1922. There was the fee for helping to assassinate Stambulisky and the money of which Madame Preveza had been cheated. There was the price of the charts Bulić had stolen and part of the profits from the white slave and drug traffics. To whom did it belong? Well, the police would decide. Best to leave it as it was. It would give them something to think about.
There was, however, the glass of water. It must be emptied, dried and replaced with the other glasses. He looked round. Was there anything else? No. Nothing at all? Yes, one thing. His fingerprints were on the tray and the table. He wiped them. Nothing more? Yes. Fingerprints on the doorknobs. He wiped them. Anything else? No. He carried the glass to the washbasin. The glass dried and replaced, he turned to go. It was then that he noticed the champagne which Mr Peters had bought for their celebration standing in a bowl of water. It was a Verzy 1921 – a half bottle.
No one saw him leave the Impasse. He went to a café in the Rue de Rennes and ordered a cognac.
Now he began to tremble from head to foot. He had been a fool. He ought to have gone to the police. It was still not too late to go to them. Supposing the bodies remained undiscovered. They might lie there for weeks in that ghastly room with the blue walls and gold stars and rugs, while the blood congealed and hardened and collected dust and the flesh began to rot. It was horrible to think of. If only there were some way of telling the police. An anonymous letter would be too dangerous. The police would know immediately that a third person had been concerned in the affair and would not be satisfied with the simple explanation that the two men had killed each other. Then he had an idea. The main thing was to get the police to the house. Why they went was unimportant.
There was an evening paper in the rack. He took it to his table and read it through feverishly. There were two news items in it which suited his purpose. One was a report of the theft of some valuable furs from a warehouse in the Avenue de la Republique; the other was an account of the smashing of the shop window of a jeweller in the Avenue de Clichy and the escape of two men with a tray of rings.
He decided that the first would suit his purpose best, and, summoning the waiter, ordered another cognac together with writing materials. He drank the brandy at a gulp and put his gloves on. Then, taking a sheet of the letter paper, he examined it carefully. It was ordinary, cheap café notepaper. Having satisfied himself that there was no distinguishing mark of any kind on it, he wrote across the middle of it in capital letters: ‘FAITES DES ENQUETES SUR CAILLÉ – 3, IMPASSE DES HUITS ANGES.’ Then he tore the report of the fur robbery out of the paper, folded it inside the note and put the two in an envelope, which he addressed to the Commissaire of Police of the Seventh Arrondissement. Leaving the café, he bought a stamp at a tobacco kiosk and posted the letter.
It was not until four o’clock that morning, when he had lain awake in bed for two hours, that the nerves of his stomach succumbed at last to the strain which had been put upon them and he was sick.
Two days later a paragraph appeared in three of the Paris morning papers saying that the body of a South American named Frederik Peters, together with that of a man, at present unidentified, but believed to be a South American also, had been found in an apartment off the Rue de Rennes. Both men, the paragraph continued, had been shot and it was thought that they had killed one another in a revolver fight following a quarrel over money, a considerable sum of which was found in the apartment. It was the only reference to the affair, the attention of the public being divided at the time between a new international crisis and a hatchet murder in the suburbs.
Latimer did not see the paragraph until several days later.
Soon after nine o’clock on the morning of the day on which the police received his note, he left his hotel for the Gare de l’Est and the Orient Express. A letter had arrived for him by the first post. It had a Bulgarian stamp and a Sofia postmark and was obviously from Marukakis. He put it in his pocket unread. It was not until later in the day, when the express was racing through the hills west of Belfort, that he remembered it. He opened it and began to read:
My Dear Friend.
Your letter delighted me. I was so pleased to get it. I was also a little surprised, for – forgive me, please – I did not seriously expect you to succeed in the difficult task which you had set yourself. The years bury so much of our wisdom that they are bound to bury most of our folly with it. Some time I hope to hear from you how a folly buried in Belgrade comes to be unearthed in Geneva.
I was interested in the reference to the Eurasian Credit Trust. Here is something that will interest you.
There has been recently, as you may know, a great deal of tension between this country and Yugoslavia. The Serbs, you know, have reason to feel tense. If Germany and vassal Hungary attacked her from the north, Italy attacked her through Albania from the south and by sea from the west, and Bulgaria attacked her from the east, she would be quickly finished. Her only chance would lie in the Russians outflanking the Germans and Hungarians with an attack launched through Rumania along the Bukovina railway. But has Bulgaria anything to fear from Yugoslavia? Is she a danger to Bulgaria? The idea is absurd. Yet, for the past three months or four, there has been here a stream of propaganda to the effect that Yugoslavia is planning to attack Bulgaria. ‘The menace across the frontier’ is a typical phrase.
If such things were not so dangerous one would laugh. But one recognizes the technique. Such propaganda always begins with words, but soon it proceeds to deeds. When there are no facts to support lies, facts must be made.
Two weeks ago there took place the inevitable frontier incident. Some Bulgarian peasants were fired upon by Yugoslavs (alleged to be soldiers), and one of the peasants was killed. There is much popular indignation, an outcry against the devilish Serbs. The newspaper offices are very busy. A week later the Government announces fresh purchases of anti-aircraft guns to strengthen the defences of the western Provinces. The purchases are made from a Belgian firm with the help of a loan negotiated by the Eurasian Credit Trust.
Yesterday a curious news item comes into this office.
As a result of careful investigations by the Yugoslav Government, it is shown that the four men who fired on the peasants were not Yugoslav soldiers, nor even Yugoslav subjects. They were of various nationalities and two had previously been imprisoned in Poland for terrorist activities. They had been paid to create the incident by a man about whom none of them knows anything more than that he came from Paris.
But there is more. Within an hour of that news item reaching Paris, I had instructions from the head office there to suppress the item and send out a démenti to all subscribers taking our French news. That is amusing, is it not? One would not have thought that such a rich organization as the Eurasian Credit Trust would be so sensitive.
As for your Dimitrios: what can one say?
A writer of plays once said that there are some situations that one cannot use on the stage; situations in which the audience can feel neither approval or disapproval, sympathy or antipathy; situations out of which there is no possible way that is not humiliating or distressing and from which there is no truth, however bitter, to be extracted. He was, you may say, one of those unhappy men who are confounded by the difference between the stupid vulgarities of real life and the ideal existence of the imagination. That may be. Yet, I have been wondering if, for once, I do not find myself in sympathy with him. Can one explain Dimitrios, or must one turn away disgusted and defeated? I am tempted to find reason and justice in the fact that he died as violently and indecently as he lived. But that is too ingenuous a way out. It does not explain Dimitrios; it only apologizes for him. Special sorts of conditions must exist for the creation of the special sort of criminal that he typified. I have tried to define those conditions – but unsuccessfully. All I do know is that while might is right, while chaos and anarchy masquerade as order and enlightenment, those conditions will obtain.
What is the remedy? But I can see you yawning and remember that if I bore you you will not write to me again to tell me whether you are enjoying your stay in Paris, whether you have found any more Bulićs or Prevezas and whether we shall see you soon in Sofia. My latest information is that war will not break out until the spring, so there will be time for some skiing. Late January is quite good here. The roads are terrible, but the runs, when one gets to them, are quite good. I shall look forward eagerly to learning from you when you will come.
With my most sincere regards
N. Marukakis.
Latimer folded the letter and put it in his pocket. A good fellow, Marukakis! He must write to him when he had the time. But just at the moment there were more important matters to be considered.
He needed, and badly, a motive, a neat method of committing a murder and an entertaining crew of suspects. Yes, the suspects must certainly be entertaining. His last book had been a trifle heavy. He must inject a little more humour into this one. As for the motive, money was always, of course, the soundest basis. A pity that wills and life insurance were so outmoded. Supposing a man murdered an old lady so that his wife should have a private income. It might be worth thinking about. The scene? Well, there was always plenty of fun to be got out of an English country village, wasn’t there? The time? Summer; with cricket matches on the village green, garden parties at the vicarage, the clink of teacups and the sweet smell of grass on a July evening. That was the sort of thing people liked to hear about. It was the sort of thing that he himself would like to hear about.
He looked out of the window. The sun had gone and the hills were receding slowly into the night sky. They would be slowing down for Belfort soon. Two more days to go! He ought to get some sort of a plot worked out in that time.
The train ran into a tunnel.