The Beast Within - Emile Zola [68]
Roubaud turned round. His body had gone stiff; not a muscle in his face moved. His eyes caught sight of the two telegrams that the operator clutched in his hand. From the note of panic in the young man’s voice, he knew that this was what he had been waiting for. The moment of crisis had arrived.
‘I saw Monsieur Dabadie going that way, a short while ago,’ he said calmly.
Never had he felt so cool and collected, so lucid, so ready to defend himself, so confident.
‘Look!’ he said. ‘Here comes Monsieur Dabadie, now!’
The stationmaster was on his way back from the goods depot. He quickly ran his eyes over the telegram.
‘I don’t believe it,’ he said. ‘There’s been a murder! This is a telegram from the inspector at Rouen.’
‘What?’ said Roubaud. ‘Who’s been murdered? One of our staff?’
‘No,’ said the stationmaster. ‘It was a passenger, travelling in a coupé ... the body was thrown out of the train at the end of the Malaunay tunnel, by the 153 kilometre post. It seems that it was one of our Company directors... President Grandmorin.’
Roubaud knew that he must express some surprise.
‘President Grandmorin!’ he exclaimed. ‘My poor wife will be devastated!’
The comment sounded so unforced and heartfelt that Monsieur Dabadie paused a moment and looked at him.
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘you knew him, didn’t you? He was a very kind man, wasn’t he?’
Then, turning his attention to the second telegram, addressed to the safety officer, he continued:
‘I imagine this will be from the examining magistrate; I dare-say there will be forms to fill in ... It’s only twenty-five past nine... I don’t suppose Monsieur Cauche is here yet, is he! Get someone to run over to the Café du Commerce on the Cours Napoléon; that’s where he’ll be. Tell him we need him here now!’
Monsieur Cauche arrived on the scene five minutes later, having been dragged from the café by one of the porters. He was a retired army officer and regarded his job as an extension of his retirement. He never turned up before ten o’clock; he would take a five-minute stroll round the station and then head straight for the café. He was in the middle of a game of piquet3 when the amazing news was brought to him. It took him a moment or two to register just how serious it was; normally he was asked to deal with more mundane matters. The telegram was indeed from the examining magistrate at Rouen. The fact that it had arrived twelve hours after the body had been discovered was because the magistrate had first telegraphed the stationmaster in Paris to ascertain what travelling arrangements the passenger had made. Only when he had verified the number of the train and the carriage had he issued the authorization for the safety officer to inspect the coupé compartment in carriage number 293, if it was still at Le Havre. Straight away Monsieur Cauche’s bad temper at having been disturbed for something he imagined was of no importance evaporated, and he assumed an air of great authority, appropriate to the extreme gravity of the situation.
‘Oh, my goodness me!’ he said, suddenly realizing that he might already have lost his chance to inspect the carriage. ‘It won’t be here; it will have left this morning.’
Roubaud, seemingly undisturbed, told him not to worry.
‘Begging your pardon,’ he said, ‘it hasn’t left. It’s still here. There was a coupé reserved for tonight. It’s in the carriage shed.’
Roubaud led the way, the safety officer and the stationmaster following him. The news must have spread. The men in the yard had stopped what they were doing and had wandered quietly over behind them. All along the platform, office doors opened, and people came out to look, eventually walking across in ones and twos to where they stood. Before long there was quite a gathering.
As they reached the carriage Monsieur Dabadie commented: ‘The train was inspected by the cleaners last night; surely, if there had been anything unusual, they would have mentioned it in their report.’
‘We shall see,’ said Monsieur Cauche.
He opened the door and climbed into the