The Lost Luggage Porter (26 page)

Very likely; I could not keep my thoughts in a straight line; and the strangeness of France added to the strangeness of all.

We crossed the rails by a walkway, then stepped under the cover of the platform for Paris. Except that there wasn't a platform, so the train, which was in but not ready, stood very high. It was a towering engine; brown inasmuch as it had any colour. Compound cylinders, and a mix-up of gadgets sprouted all over it - it was an engine built inside out. That was for ease of maintenance; it didn't look beautiful. . . but handsome is as handsome does. The tender was massive, overflowing with queer-looking French coal, and I won­dered whether it was meant to run to Paris without stop. Hopkins was by my side; Sampson was ten yards off, buying wine and hunches of bread at a stall; beyond him was a promising sign: 'Bureau des Postes et Telegraphes'. Any attempt to telegraph was likely to be a palaver though, with me not knowing the language or the telegraphic address of the Chief, not to mention the likelihood of the Chief being dead. Sampson came up to us, carrying three bottles of wine. They were everyday articles - clear bottles without stoppers, and the loaves which were split with some sort of paste on the top. I bit into the bread, and it was soft and strange and more-ish; I then lifted the wine bottle, and put a load of that in, and when I looked towards Sampson again he was grin­ning at me.

'They do themselves pretty well this side of the water,' he said.

A thin man was close by, viewing the papers on a circular cabinet outside the book stall. I took this to be Hopkins, but looking again, it was not. A porter was moving towards me with a trolley, setting down little wooden steps at the doors of the train. Imagine doing that every time one came and went. These Frenchers were barmy

Still no sight of Hopkins ... Sampson still drinking before me. Dead chuffed, he was. He'd made his breakaway, and he had his ready money. Well, half of
it...
a certain quantity, at any rate, the balance being at the left-luggage place in Char­ing Cross.

He passed his bottle to me, even though my own was in my hand. I put my own down, and took a drink from his. It was the same but different; and that went for the whole of France. Harbour, sea, night sky . . . the very rain that fell. There was a softness to the place . . . more of a womanly touch to it all.

Things really
were
more free and easy on this side of the water. As Sampson put away the last of his wine I had the freedom to move a little way from him towards the sign, and the door marked 'Bureau des Postes et Telegraphes'. I could see through the window. Electric light. Bank-like inside, with men in starched collars behind polished brass grills ... All this going off at midnight, or near enough.

There were half a dozen windows: 'Postes', 'Telegraphes' and 'Bureau de Change'. I had about me the twenty quid that Sampson had paid me. I could change it, and use some of it to telegraph the Police Office at York station, or, failing that, the Stationmaster. 'Tell wife all well'. That would be my opener. I set down the wine bottle I was holding . .. and one of the telegraph clerks was eyeing me through the window. The thing about the bloody French
...
all
the buggers were hoity-toity, not just the toffs. Just then, Miles Hopkins walked out through the door, and I saw an extra word amid all the signs inside: 'Telephones'.

Seeing me at large, unguarded on the platform, he imme­diately said: 'Where's Sam?'

And at that very moment, I could not have said.

But a second later Valentine Sampson came into view with more supplies of wine, saying, casual as you like:

'Train's due off in five minutes.'

The three of us walked towards a book stall, where Hopkins picked up an English paper. The crowd was thickening about us now as train time drew near - all French voices.

'Are we in it, mate?' asked Sampson, putting wine bottles into his pockets.

'It's today's paper’ said Miles, 'which means it carries news of what happened
yesterday.'

He was looking at Sampson in a strange way. Nothing would get Hopkins out of his groove. He was scheming at all times.

Alongside the cabinet from which Hopkins had plucked the paper was a bookshelf - a little library in the rain. I picked up a small red volume called
Paris and its Environs, with Thirteen Maps and Thirty-Eight Plans.
A proper language! And I straightaway saw instructions for telegraphing and telephoning from France. Hopkins was watching me as I said: 'Reckon this might come in useful. It's only marked down as a bob 'n' all. . . Oh no, bugger that. It must be one
franc.'

Another shout came from the platform guard, and Samp­son just lifted the book and put it into my hand, saying, 'For Christ's sake, little Allan, get a shift on.'

The carriage had open seating, no compartments. After a great amount of shouting, the train left the platform at walk­ing pace. To avoid the gaze of Hopkins, I looked down at the first page of my book: 'For those who wish to derive instruc­tion as well as pleasure from a visit to Paris, the most attractive treasury of art and industry in the world, some acquaintance with French is indispensable.'

Hopkins and Sampson were speaking in low voices over the mighty sounds of the engine pulling away. Hopkins had been speaking over the telephone - he made no bones about that. Had he telephoned York? It must have been a pretty fast connection, if so.

I turned to the pages for Paris, and 'Post, Telegraph and Telephone Offices'. The chief telephone offices, I read, were in the Rue du Louvre and at the Bourse. There was a late tele­graph office at the Gare du Nord. But telephone was the quickest.

On a later page, I discovered that it was the same time in France as in Britain; Germany and Switzerland had different times. In the section at the back marked 'Language', selected words and phrases were given in English and French, and these were boiled down to the closest necessities such as 'How fond some people are of taking an immense lot of luggage'. Sampson was at his racing paper again. 'Of course, most multiple bets are just guesses’ he was saying to Hopkins, who wasn't listening, but continuing to eyeball me.

Some French words, I saw from the book, were the same as English. 'Omnibus' was 'omnibus'. 'Police' was 'police'. I then looked at some railway speaks: 'Nous allons bien vite.' We are going very fast. 'A quelle heure part le premier train?' At what time does the first train leave?

Having set down his paper, Sampson was saying, in con­nection with something or other: 'It's always supposed that the big ones are put up.'

Beyond the window, things were floating back fast in the darkness. 'What did your old man do for a living, Allan?' he asked me.

'Butcher,' I said, instantly. 'Yours?'

'Time’ he answered.

'He was a felon?' I asked, and Sampson's eyes went steely again.

I looked through the windows. The French houses were wrong, with the wrong roofs - like a man with a bad hat. We went at a lick through a station: its name began with 'B', and there was sea here too, or a lighthouse at any rate. We were next hurled over a great junction, and Sampson was looking at the other passengers in the carriage.

'Wouldn't mind giving her a shot,' he was saying.

Silence for a space, then Sampson said:

'That French cunt's staring at me.'

I looked up. He might have meant one of twenty. Not that they were all cunts, but they were all French. A woman sitting behind Hopkins was holding a baby, and the sight knocked me. I thought: one of those will be in my way before long, and the second thought came: will I ever see it? The baby was pounding as hard as it could on the shoulder of the woman but that wasn't at all hard. I looked out of the window:

nothing; blackness. I was in the same position as that kid.

By now, I could only tell by my ears when we were in a tunnel. I looked to my left, and Sampson was asleep, an empty wine bottle rolling between his boots. Well, he'd had a long day of it. In slumber, his face lost none of its shape.

'How is it you're so well up on railways?' said Hopkins.

'I did some turns in the goods yard over at Leeds, as I told you.'

Was it Leeds that I'd said? I couldn't recall. Come to that . . . Had I spoken of being employed in the goods yards at all?

'In addition, I used to take the
Railway Magazine,'
I added.

'Take it from others at railway stations, you mean?'

I'd made another bloomer. Hopkins was playing one of his finger games, smiling at me over his hands. I finished off what was left of my own wine, saying, 'I had a hobby in that direction, you know.'

Hopkins leant forwards, and settled himself with his elbows on his knees, giving up his finger exercises. It was a wild night outside, but the carriage was too close and dusty. I wanted to open the window but did not know how, or how to ask one of the Frenchers. I looked down at the book in my hands. The answer lay in there somewhere.

Hopkins raised one of his hands, and pointed at me. I thought this would be the start of a speech, but instead the long pointing finger moved towards me, towards my face, towards my spectacles, and through my spectacles to my eyelash, which he touched, causing me to do the most ridicu­lous thing. I coloured up; I then tried to laugh.

Hopkins was sitting back, smiling.

'How much did they set you back then, mate?' he asked. 'I would hope they come cheaper than the sort with lenses. See
...
I watched the fellow on the boat with glasses just like yours, and what with the rain and the flying spray they were all misted up.'

'It's a disguise, if you take my meaning,' I said. 'I didn't want to look like I did before because of . . . something . . . something that occurred.'

Hopkins, still smiling, said: 'Who are you, mate?'

And that was the nerve-cracking moment, for I had no answer.

'An ordinary working man’ I said to Hopkins as the train thundered on, 'always on the look-out for a spot
of ...'

'What?'

'Adventure.'

'And how do you find
this
adventure?'

The wonder of it was that he had not immediately accused me of being a detective, but then he always went around the houses, this one. He nodded towards Sampson, who was still dead to the world. 'Do you not find him a
bit. . .
nuts?'

'He gets a little excitable at times’ I said.

'He does that’ said Hopkins.

'In that case why stick with him?' I said, breathing a little easier at this new direction of the conversation.

Hopkins shrugged.

'Keep a cart on a wheel,' he said.

'How are we off for the readies?' I said. 'And when's the share-out?'

'Search me,' he said.

'And what's the plan for Paris?'

He made no answer but, turning towards the black window repeated my earlier words: 'An ordinary working man ...'

At which Valentine Sampson suddenly started and said: 'It's a pity, but I will
not
work, little Allan. It's hardly any advance on slavery.'

He'd uttered the words while still half asleep, or at the very moment of waking up. He looked at us both with wide eyes, as though waiting to be told something. But Hopkins remained silent and, presently, closed his eyes and fell asleep himself. I wanted to do the same but could not, for fear of what might be said. Instead I removed the spectacles for - at the very least of it - my disguise was all up.

We were now running fast past a spot called Abbeville; then past another starting with 'A'; eighty miles per hour gait. A great church made of darkness and rain; outlines of the weird engines in the rain. Over a maze of lines at some­where starting with 'L', then we were shooting downhill, into valleys made of tall, rough-looking buildings.

The Gare du Nord, when we came to it, was fitted out like a palace, a freezing-cold palace with high arches, and electric light in great glass globes, and yet even here no platforms to speak of. We climbed down,
and .. .
We were too early.

The day had not yet begun, and we had caught Paris all unawares. We walked through the ticket gate into a wide hall with a round window like a great white eye opposite the track ends. There were some small offices set into the walls below the window, and we approached one of these marked 'Consigne', which was French for left-luggage office. A clerk stood there with his hands on his hips as we approached. It was Napoleon waiting for Nelson, only lower down the scale of history.

He was eyeing Sampson's kitbag, which of course was all we had to consign. The remaining notes were in there once again, though not the gun. Our boots rattled smartly on the polished stone as we closed on the fellow.

When we were still some distance off, the fellow said, 'Bonjour, Messieurs', which came unexpectedly, for I'd expected surliness from him. Sampson made a go of replying in French and asking to leave the bag, for which he received a ticket on payment of money from his pocketbook. He put the ticket in his right-hand trouser pocket, which, I reckoned, was where he'd put the one given him at Charing Cross. As we walked away from the Consigne, Hopkins said some­thing in an under-breath to Sampson, and I thought: is he telling him of the discovery he'd made about me? But Samp­son's answer made me doubt it: