The Lost Luggage Porter (29 page)

A few more quick wine goes, then he rolled over on his side and looked at me with his violet eyes. It was very strange to see him lying down; unnatural somehow.

'Why d'you kill the Camerons, mate?' I asked him.

But his eyes shut at that moment.

I waited a quarter of an hour, then made straight for the door, opened it. Hopkins was there, with a knife in his hand.

Well, he had me three ways. He could wake Sampson, cry­ing copper. He could do me with the knife (although I didn't think that was in him). And the third way he voiced directly: 'Think of Mike,' he said in an under-breath, pressing me back into the room. 'He'll be on his way soon, unless I give the word.'

I whispered back: 'Why the fuck don't you lift the tickets yourself?'

He said nothing, but twirled the knife in his long right hand.

I tried another tack, saying: 'He'll shoot anybody he catch­es at it.'

'That's your lookout, copper’ he said.

I looked at Hopkins; at his curly hair stuck down at inter­vals by sweat. I turned and watched Sampson sleeping. I screwed myself up to it, and moved towards him.

'Right pocket’ Hopkins was saying from the doorway as I peeled back the coverlet,'. .. right pocket. The two chits are in there, I fucking swear it. London ticket is the principle one. The larger amount was stowed there.'

Sampson was flat on his back. I had to lean across him to get to the right pocket.

'Fingers only,' Hopkins was saying, 'fingers only; don't stick your fucking fist in.'

If Sampson woke, Hopkins would dart back to his own quarters. And I'd catch it. My finger ends were creeping into the pocket now. It was all in folds, my fingers approaching mountains and valleys of silk. From beyond the window and below, I heard a train approaching. As its rocking grew loud­er, Sampson, too, rocked in his sleep. Back and forth he went, back and forth; but it was only a small disturbance. I leant into my work again; into the sharp wine smell that was rising off Sampson; my fingers creeping further into the mountains and valleys. The shaming thought came to me that I was like the doxy, with my hand moving ever further towards Samp­son's privates.

I gave a glance back towards the window, and saw the rising of steam and smoke from the lately passed train. I was Jack in the Giant's Castle, high in the clouds, and making away the Giant's gold.

The thought came that I could wake Sampson and tell him I'd been put up to this by his confederate - the designing fel­low skulking in the doorway. It would be my word against Hopkins's. Might Sampson believe me, and then order Mike not to make his call? Mike's true governor was Sampson, after all, and he would have believed that the orders he'd had from Miles Hopkins were given on the say-so of Samp­son.

My finger ends met paper, and I said out loud: 'I have my fingers on one of the bloody things.'

'Collect the tickets scissor-like,' said Hopkins from the doorway.

Sampson slept on, silent and quite still as my fingers closed over the paper, dragging it into the light. The left-lug- gage ticket was blue, and the words upon it were in English. It was the one from Charing Cross, and the colour of it gave me the beginnings of an idea.

I stood back from the couch and, looking directly across the room at Hopkins, folded the blue ticket several times over, and lowered it into my own right trouser pocket.

'Give it here,' he whispered from the doorway.

'Hold on, mate,' I said. 'I'm going in for the other. I know it's there.'

I was sweating like a bull as I started on my second finger creep. But just as my fingertips had reached the pocket entrance for the second time, another train came rattling along the line below. Its rapid approach seemed to send a secret message to Sampson's right arm, which began to rise - a snake being charmed to the tune of a train. It wavered in the air, making as if to swipe at me. I drew back, and the thick arm landed heavily on top of the right pocket entrance, sealing it up, preventing any further attempts and deciding me upon my idea.

As the train rattled away I turned to Hopkins, saying, 'We must give it up now.'

He nodded. He could see the sense of that.

'Hand over the blue one,' said Miles. 'It's the English one, en't it?'

I did not have Hopkins down as a violent man, but I knew in that instant that he would never let me go even if I gave over the ticket. Why would he, knowing I was a copper? He would guess that the moment I was free, I would ask for men to be sent to the left-luggage offices, to prevent the money being taken, and to arrest anyone trying to claim it. As he looked on, I reached into my trouser pocket, where lay
two
blue left-luggage tickets. One unfolded, the other folded tightly. I took out the first. It was the ticket I'd been given at York in return for the good suit after my hotel breakfast with the Chief. I placed it on Sampson's belly, and retreated from the couch, making towards the door, and Hopkins.

'You must take it yourself,' I said, drawing level with him.

The ticket rose and fell with Sampson's belly, stirring somewhat in the breeze from the open window. Hopkins did not look at me but, cursing in an under-breath, moved rapidly towards the fluttering blue paper with knife in hand. As he reached out to take it I gave a cry, something that was not even a word. But it was loud, and I saw Samp­son rise in the moment before I turned and fled, screaming out with rapid rising glee. I was the brilliant sleuth hound after all. I had recovered half the stolen money, and I'd fixed Hopkins, Sampson, or the two bastards both . . . But most likely Hopkins, for he only had the blade where Sampson had the shooter. I saw in my mind's eye - as I crashed down those red-carpeted stairs - the bookstall at York station, with the glowing covers of the shilling novels, and all the detective heroes there depicted . . . But in the next instant the bookstall of my mind combusted in my rage at my own stupidity, and a terrible coldness came over me. I had won out over the ticket, and I had set the two at each other's throats, but Hopkins would not now be able to take back the order he had given. I had condemned the wife to the revenge of Mike.

I flew on, and at one mid-air moment - as I bounded the final three steps of the second or third landing - I thought I heard the crack of a gun - or was it a cry? - from the floors above.

I pounded on down the red-carpeted stairs, past the doors of all the sleeping artists, until I was at the front door of the hotel, and out of it and away, flying along shuttered streets, boots rattling crazily on the cobbles, with two cabs rushing along beside me. I tried to gaze through the windows as I ran, half expecting to see Sampson in there, taking aim with his shooter. The two cabs both turned left at the end of the street, so that was a direction leading .. . somewhere.

I took that turning myself, and was galloping alone in a wide street with thin trees on either side. I had to believe that Hopkins had been spinning a yarn; that no order had been given to Mike, for it was a queer sort of thing to ask: do such and such a thing unless you hear from me. Or that Mike would not obey. Or then again, I might be able to
beat
Mike to Thorpe- on-Ouse. Would he go out in the middle of the night? If not, there was hope, for I might be able to return by morning.

But this was all a gamble, with Lydia's life as the stake.

I ran on. Why was Sampson not giving chase? (For I was taking for granted that he'd won the scrap.) Perhaps he was, but in the wrong direction. Had I thrown him off already, by taking just one turning? He must know I'd be making for the station. This street was all signs. Without slackening my pace at all, I read 'Boulangerie', 'Glaces', 'Dentiste', 'Pharmacie' . . . but everything was closed, it being so late.

The only thing moving in my line of sight was a clock on an archway but there at the end of the street I saw my goal: the mighty window of the Gare du Nord, the eye looking outwards this time. I ran into the station, clattering on to the circulating area where three men in uniform looked at me, as if to say: 'What do you mean by running inside this palace of ours?' One train was leaving as I looked towards the plat­forms; the others in the station looked dead, stabled for the night.

Feeling the weight of the guide book in my coat pocket, I took it out, and scrabbled through the pages, finally looking up and asking the three: 'A quelle heure part la premier train
...
for London?'

No answer. You'd have thought one of the bastards would have stirred. I turned about and a lady of middling years in a very broad white hat was standing a little way off and say­ing, in the most beautiful of voices (meaning an English voice): 'The next boat train for London is in half an hour's time, but it goes from Saint-Lazare. There isn't another from here until 4.30.'

One of the men said a single word, and it sank in slowly with me: 'Metro'. The Metropolitain. The underground rail­way. They had understood her English better than mine. The human angel was still standing behind the men, still smiling, and not speaking now but pointing with a gloved hand to a spot on the station wall. I ran over, and saw a plan showing
...
a tangle. I looked behind me at the station clock: mid­night. I looked again at the map, which was called a plan. The three guards had gone now and so had the lady, but that meant I would be able to work it out for myself. The glass globes stretched away along the empty platforms, and they lit the way north to Calais. I turned again to the map. At the top, at the
north
was 'G. du Nord', but it was joined only to a thin pencil stroke of a Metro line. This was a line not yet existing. But the thick black lines were different. They were more useful, for they
existed.

Saint-Lazare must also be somewhere to the north if it sent trains to London. I roved immediately right, then left from the spot marked G. du Nord, and there was Saint-Lazare. It was to the left, and connected to a thick black line. The near­est station on the thick black line to Gare du Nord was called
...
well, it began with 'B', and it was the longest French word I'd so
far
struck.

I was running again through empty streets, heading left from Gare du Nord. I had twenty-five minutes remaining at the outside. I was checked by the sight of two men walking towards me under a metal bridge: one was broad, the other thin. I watched them, putting my hand into my pocket, and touching the folded left-luggage ticket. It seemed a very poor sort of prize. I ought not to have gambled with Lydia's life, but with my own. I had not been gentlemanly.

The two men moved towards me, becoming by degrees ordinary Frenchmen; behind them, an electrical train went over the metal bridge.I ran towards the bridge - and in fact it was a station, with the ticket offices below. Electrical train, electrical station. All bright lights and a smiling Frencher at the ticket window. 'Saint-Lazare’ I said, reaching into my pocket ... all my pockets . . . but there were only the two ten-pound notes. I had no French money. I looked around, and I believe that I was searching for the Angel-lady in the broad white hat, but the ticket was there waiting on the window ledge, pushed out by the clerk.

I held up a ten-pound note.

'Just remembered,' I said, 'only English money.'

What he made of that I don't know, because I took the tick­et and ran for the stairs that led to the platform. It was the Underground but you went
up
to reach it. The train came in: a line of boxes. It stopped in a heap, the doors flew open with a sneezing sound, and an official walked slowly out from one of the carriages. He watched me carefully as I climbed aboard into a carriage containing four men, all smoking. The train ran along level with the rooftops for a little way, before dipping down into a tunnel. At a station called Villiers I climbed down to look for another line, as I knew I must according to the plan I had seen.

After charging along white tunnels following blue arrows that I didn't understand, I came onto a platform where an electrical train waited. I climbed aboard without any notion of where it was going. One station later, its doors opened on the words 'Saint-Lazare'. I ran up into the mainline station passing a ticket gate with no checker. Into the station: few people, low roof, smoke everywhere. A clock dangled in the smoke: 12.25 ~ five minutes remaining. I looked at the signs: 'Bar', 'Consigne', 'Billets Internationaux', 'Telegrammes'. I could send a telegram. Who to? The Chief. But he would be in bed asleep, or he might just be dead. It came to me then: the Chief knew my address.I looked at the signs again: 'Telephone'. I could not tele­phone. I was not up to it; did not know how. I looked again at the clock: 12.27. There were some electrical trains in the bays; but smoke floated over from somewhere beyond. I saw the ticket windows. Would they accept English money? 12.28. I could not see the money-changing place. I dashed to the ticket window - Billets Internationaux - and slammed down one of the tenners. 'London’ I gasped out, 'boat train, second-class', and then I added for good measure, 'deck', which I'd heard Sampson say at Charing Cross. The man was writing out the ticket before I'd finished. But this writ­ing out took an age. I looked at the clock. Dead on half past.

The ticket was pushed across to me, and the man began counting out the change. But he stopped half way because he was short of English money; he had to go off into some back room to fetch more. I was gone, flying past the ends of the elec­trical trains, looking for the source of the smoke and steam. It came from an engine on the furthest platform - an engine that was leaving. I ran after the last carriage; it was moving slowly, and soon I was level with the buffers. I ran on, so that I was level with the rear windows, but now it was all I could do to keep up. The passengers inside were all looking dead ahead. I yelled out, but now I was only level with the back of the rear carriage once again, and then I was staring at the strange look­ing red lamp on the retreating back of the train.