Chapter 3 - The Surgical Precision
The door to Compartment 5 opened slowly, revealing Monsieur Dubois. He was a short, balding man in his late late 40s, wearing a silk dressing gown that smelled faintly of expensive scotch. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked thoroughly annoyed by the interruption.
"What is the meaning of this?" Dubois grumbled, looking at Julien’s badge with a defensive squint. "I am a paying first-class passenger. I demand to be left in peace."
"Federal Police, Monsieur Dubois," Julien said, his voice dropping into a smooth, professional register that brooked no argument. "The passenger in Compartment 7 has disappeared under highly suspicious circumstances. Did you hear anything unusual through your wall between ten-forty-five and eleven o'clock?"
Dubois blinked, his annoyance briefly replaced by a flash of genuine surprise. "Disappeared? From a moving train? That's preposterous. As for noise... no, nothing out of the ordinary. The tracks are exceptionally loud tonight due to the rain. I heard the usual mechanical thudding and the occasional shudder of the brakes. Nothing else."
"Thank you, monsieur. Please remain in your compartment," Julien said, closing the door before Dubois could object.
Julien moved down the hall to Compartment 3, the room belonging to Doctor Moreau. When he knocked, the door was answered almost instantly. Doctor Moreau was a tall, elegant man with silvering hair, sharp blue eyes, and impeccably manicured hands—the distinct hands of a surgeon. He was fully dressed in a tailored three-piece suit, looking as though he had no intention of sleeping.
"Ah, Inspector," Moreau said, his voice a smooth, comforting baritone. "I heard Roger rushing down the hall earlier. Has something happened?"
Julien explained the situation briefly, watching the doctor's face for any micro-expressions of guilt or calculation. Moreau’s brow furrowed with genuine, academic interest.
"Fascinating," Moreau murmured, leaning against the doorframe. "A locked-room mystery on the tracks. As a medical man, I can tell you that if he was removed forcibly without a sound, the perpetrator must have used a powerful anesthetic. Chloroform is the most likely culprit. It acts within seconds if highly concentrated, but it leaves a distinct, sweet chemical aroma that lingers in unventilated spaces for hours."
Julien smiled slightly. "Let us test your theory, Doctor."
They walked together back to Compartment 7. Julien pushed the door open wide, stepping into the small room, followed closely by Moreau. Julien leaned down, inhaling deeply near the rumpled white sheets of the lower berth. The air was stale, smelling of coffee and wet wool, but beneath it lay a faint, chemical sweetness—like rotten fruit.
"You have an excellent nose, Doctor," Julien said, his eyes tracking a small, wet stain on the white pillowcase. "It is indeed chloroform. The target was ambushed the moment he answered a knock at the door, or the lock was picked while he slept."
Julien knelt down on the floorboards, pulling back the heavy rug that lined the compartment floor. The floor of a railway carriage was not solid wood; it was an intricate engineering assembly of structural steel plates, insulation layers, and mechanical access hatches designed for the maintenance of the braking systems and steam heating pipes below.
Right beneath the lower bunk, Julien noticed that the flathead screws holding the small iron maintenance hatch were clean. The dark grease that usually coated the edges had been wiped away recently.
Julien drew his pocketknife, using the flat blade to twist the screws. Within two minutes, he lifted the iron plate, revealing a dark, freezing void that looked directly down onto the rushing, black gravel of the tracks below. The freezing rain hissed as it sprayed up into the opening.
"My God," Doctor Moreau whispered, looking down into the dark gap. "Did they throw him out through the floor?"
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Julien measured the opening with his hands. It was narrow, measuring exactly thirty-five centimeters wide—far too small for a grown man's shoulders to pass through, even if he were dead.
"No," Julien said, his voice cold as the wind howling through the hatch. "A human body cannot fit through here. This hatch wasn't used to remove the man. It was used to introduce something else into the car."
