'Has he no family?' Faro asked.
'None. Arrangements have been made. We have no details of his next of kin.'
Faro knew there were reasons for such omissions by men who led secret and highly dangerous lives. He looked at Dieter's cold face. 'Do you believe it was an accident?'
Dieter shrugged. 'Of course. What else?'
Faro ignored that. 'Even considering George's kidnapping? Did that not seem significant?'
'Not at all. What makes you think they were connected? A mere unfortunate coincidence.'
Faro had long since learned to distrust such coincidences. Would Dieter be of the same mind if he knew about Tomas's visit to Faro's room just a few hours before his death?
'A matter of life and death.' He was about to tell Dieter but suddenly he decided against it. He would keep that piece of information to himself.
'People have accidents and get themselves killed every day,' said Dieter, which was hardly consolation.
But killing seemed far from that little group as the countryside and towns flashed by and Dieter opened the connecting door to allow waiters to bring their meals from the restaurant car attached to the first-class carriages.
Helga, a large, solid woman of uncertain age, withdrawn and keeping her own counsel, was another enigma. Faro continued to be puzzled over Dieter's insistence that she should accompany them. She seemed content to stare out of the window, her fingers busy, knitting needles clicking over some garment in bright red wool. Had her presence been suggested by Dieter as a mere kindness, to allow her to return safely to her widowed mother? Such a thoughtful gesture did not quite fit Faro's summing-up of the man's personality. Had she been young and pretty, he might have considered there was a motive, even a relationship between them. But although he was watchful, they remained distant from each other, two people locked in secret compartments of their own thoughts.
As for Helga's recommendation as a servant, Faro regarded this with the indifference of a lifetime spent fighting off danger with scant time and total disregard for personal comfort. Did it really matter whether the boys had clean shirts and underwear for such a short journey? Helga spoke only to Dieter. Faro did not exist, while the activities of George and Anton were studiously ignored.
Apart from the two boys chattering together, there was little conversation in the group. And that was in German, of which Faro recognised only occasional words. As Dieter and the boys always addressed him in English, it was then he made, a sudden decision - that it might be a wise move, considerably to his advantage, to appear, as far as they were concerned, to be completely ignorant of the German language.
The hours slipped past, the boys played cards or read the books they had brought with them to the tune of Helga's clicking needles, while Dieter spent much of his time in the corridor smoking very strong cigars.
Faro had brought ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’ which had a special appeal to his own instincts for detection. Unfinished when Charles Dickens died in 1870, it lacked the author's brilliant drawing together of all those seemingly unimportant threads and minor characters in one of his famous endings. Now, as Faro read, he made special notes of any possible clues, deciding that a pleasant retirement task would be to complete Mr Dickens' unfinished task by inventing possible and logical endings of his own.
The last part of their journey was in complete darkness with only the lights of stations and of isolated cottages, under a canopy of bright stars. Tall trees flew backwards out of their path and, illuminated here and there by lighted windows, ghostly telegraph poles threw out metal arms that gleamed moonbright.
This mysterious landscape of the night gave way to the sprawl of the great city of London, a vast spread of eerily gaslit streets of tall houses, overhung by palls of smoke. Lines of houses with tiny squares of windows in their walls, bright as eyes staring out into the darkness, gave tantalising glimpses into rooms warm and welcoming in lamplight. Eagerly, Faro rolled down the window, and the thick smoke of a thousand chimneys drifted into the compartment, the smell of city life and human habitation.
Then London, too, had vanished into the night and at last, yawning and weary, they were in Dover, with the train settling by the pier where the Club Train's ferry was about to depart.
Tomorrow they would be in Paris. By evening the Orient Express would have set them down at Stuttgart. There another royal train would be waiting and Faro's role in the life of George, heir to Luxoria, would be over forever.
It was such a short time, he thought sadly.
Chapter 11
Following the porter wheeling their luggage towards the Club Train, Faro was impressed by the new stratum of society in which he had been deposited. He was very conscious of his best tweed suit, tweed cap and boots, good enough for Balmoral Castle but very suburban when surrounded by men dressed in the elegance of fur-collared greatcoats and top hats. On their arms were ladies swathed in furs with ‘haute couture’ outfits, and flower-gardened or outrageously feathered bonnets which, he decided, he must try to remember in some detail for Olivia's benefit.
Even the air around the platform, as these passengers waved farewell to friends, was redolent of luxury and wealth, expensive cigars mingling with heady French perfumes.
As for Faro, he consoled himself on the grounds of anonymity, that their little group would not be worthy of a second glance in such company. If any had observed them with curiosity, it would be to dismiss their group as a family with two sons.
Perhaps Helga had her uses after all, he thought, and there had been method in including her in the party. Her unassuming attire consisted of a navy blue jacket and matching skirt, with an equally unassuming bonnet. Well-tailored but shabby,
