Chapter 2 - The Manifest and the Method
Ten minutes later, Julien sat in the small conductor's station at the front of Car 7. The low, rhythmic hum of the rails vibrated through the wooden desk where Roger had spread out the passenger ledger with trembling hands. The manifest revealed that Car 7 was only half-occupied tonight, housing a total of six passengers including the missing man.
"Tell me about Monsieur Grimaldi," Julien said, his eyes tracking the ink script on the ledger. "Who was he?"
"An antique dealer from Brussels, sir," Roger answered, his voice slowly recovering its rhythm under Julien's calm demeanor. "A very wealthy, eccentric gentleman. He always travels alone and always insists on Compartment 7 because he claims it has the smoothest ride over the axles. He was carrying a very small, reinforced steel briefcase when he boarded at Paris. He refused to let me help him with it, holding it tightly under his arm the entire time."
Julien looked back at the open door of Compartment 7 down the hall. "The briefcase was not in the room when I checked. Only his leather suitcase remained on the rack."
Julien stood up and began to review the other names on the manifest.
Compartment 1: Madame Blanche, an elderly widow traveling with a caged canary.
Compartment 3: Doctor Moreau, a prominent surgeon from Lille.
Compartment 5: Monsieur Dubois, a quiet businessman who had ordered a bottle of scotch early in the evening.
Compartment 9: A young couple, the Renards, on their honeymoon.
"Did anyone leave their compartment between the time Grimaldi boarded and the time he disappeared?" Julien asked.
"Only Doctor Moreau, sir," Roger noted quickly. "He walked to the dining car around ten-fifteen to fetch a warm tea for his throat. He returned about twenty minutes later. Monsieur Dubois opened his door briefly to hand me his empty glass, but that was all."
Julien walked down the corridor, his analytical mind applying the mechanics of historical railway crimes. In 1926, a notorious French thief named Jean Lamore had successfully robbed three moving trains by using a highly specialized, specialized lock-picking device made of thin piano wire and a miniature mirror, allowing him to slide the internal bolts of train compartments from the outside through the narrow ventilation slits above the doors. Julien walked to Compartment 7's door and reached up, examining the brass ventilation grille. It was clean, but a faint, microscopic scratch on the internal metal frame caught his eye.
Someone had manipulated this door from the outside.
Julien then walked to the heavy iron fire doors connecting Car 7 to Car 8, the baggage car. He pulled the handle. It was locked from the inside of Car 7, requiring Roger’s master key to open. He turned around and walked to the front door connecting to Car 6, the dining car. This door was unlocked to allow passenger movement.
"Roger, did you leave your desk at any point between ten-forty-five and eleven o'clock?" Julien asked sharply.
Roger hesitated, his cheeks flushing pink. "I... I went to the galley in Car 6 to boil the warm water Monsieur Grimaldi had requested, sir. I was gone for no more than four minutes."
"Four minutes," Julien muttered, his xám xịt eyes darkening. "In the world of professional theft, four minutes is an eternity. It takes an expert exactly forty seconds to bypass a standard railway lock, ninety seconds to subdue a target using a chloroform-soaked cloth, and another minute to exit."
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But the core paradox remained completely unsolved. If Grimaldi had been targeted for his briefcase and subdued in those four minutes, how did the attacker move a grown man out of the car without Roger seeing them on his return? A living man would struggle; a dead or unconscious man would be a clumsy, heavy weight that could not be hidden in the narrow corridor.
Julien walked to the door of Compartment 5, knocking firmly on the polished wood. It was time to interview the neighbors.
