Chapter 5 - The Weight of the Freight
The atmosphere inside Baggage Car 8 was drastically different from the luxury of the passenger accommodations. The air was freezing, smelling of wet canvas, rusted iron, and the raw grease of the train's heavy structural couplings. The structural walls were uninsulated steel, and the violent roar of the tracks below was deafening, amplified by the empty space of the cargo hold. Massive wooden crates and leather trunks were stacked high, secured by thick hemp ropes to iron rings in the floorboards.
Julien moved slowly through the narrow aisle between the crates, his revolver held low, his flashlight casting a sharp, piercing beam through the gloom. Doctor Moreau followed close behind, his breath forming thick white plumes in the freezing air.
"Look for anything that has been moved recently," Julien instructed over the roar of the engine. "A heavy trunk, a displaced crate, or any sign of a struggle."
The flashlight beam danced over the cargo. Julien noticed a large, wicker hamper used by the international postal service to carry heavy mail bags. The canvas cover was held down by thick leather straps, but one of the brass buckles was undone, hanging loosely against the wicker weave.
Julien walked over, his boots crunching on the stray bits of straw that littered the floor. He unfastened the remaining buckle and threw back the heavy canvas cover.
Doctor Moreau let out a sharp, horrified intake of breath.
Lying inside the hamper, crammed uncomfortably between two heavy canvas mail sacks, was Monsieur Grimaldi. His face was pale, his eyes closed, and a white linen cloth was tied tightly over his mouth, smelling heavily of the sweet, sickening aroma of chloroform. His hands were bound behind his back with industrial copper wire—the very wire used in the train’s electrical maintenance kits.
Doctor Moreau immediately knelt beside the hamper, his fingers moving to the target's neck with practiced efficiency. He held his position for a long, tense minute while Julien kept his eyes moving over the dark corners of the baggage car.
"He's alive," Moreau said, looking up with a sigh of relief. "The pulse is thready, and the respiration is shallow due to the heavy dose of chloroform, but he will survive if we get him to fresh air immediately. The attacker did not want to kill him—at least, not yet."
Julien knelt down, his flashlight illuminating Grimaldi’s clothing. His pockets had been completely turned inside out. The small, reinforced steel briefcase he had been carrying was nowhere to be found.
"The briefcase was the sole objective," Julien murmured, his mind organizing the suspects. "The attacker used the chloroform to silence him, moved him through the filed-down fire door during the four-minute window when Roger was distracted by the steam leak, and hid him here until the train reached Brussels, where the killer could simply walk off with the stolen valuables."
"But who could have done this?" Moreau asked, helping Julien lift the unconscious antique dealer from the wicker hamper. "All the passengers were accounted for in their rooms."
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"Not all of them," Julien said, his eyes locking onto a dark corner at the very back of the baggage car, where a stack of heavy canvas tarpaulins lay draped over a pile of spare iron wheels. "A train is a closed system, Doctor. If the killer is a passenger, they would need to return to their room to avoid suspicion. But what if the killer never had a room to begin with? What if the killer has been hiding in this very car since we left Paris?"
Julien raised his revolver, pointing it directly at the stack of tarpaulins. "Come out of the shadows, monsieur. The game is over."
