'Surely it is early for that?' said Faro.
'These things happen, sir.'
As they returned to their compartment, the outlook was very bleak indeed, the grey landscape obliterated by heavy rain. The approach to the railway station on the outskirts of the town was through a huddle of poor dwellings, tiny hovels crushed together, Faro imagined, by a ruthless builder, interested only in profits and with scant regard for human comfort. The houses were so close to the railway track that every passing train must have rattled them to their flimsy foundations. From windows lacking glass and covered in dirty rags, white faces of children stared out wide-eyed at the magnificence of the Orient Express as it thundered past, a creation from a world beyond their wildest dreams.
Remembering the luncheon’s several courses they had just enjoyed, the huge helpings, Faro thought of the plates removed from tables, many with their contents either half-eaten or untouched. They would have provided rich sustenance for those starving families bordering the railway sidings. He felt disgust at the extravagance, although these were familiar scenes he and Imogen frequently encountered in the slums of Europe’s great cities, and they never failed to stir in him feelings of guilt, the indignation of a social conscience at the unfairness of the distribution of the world's wealth.
'Strasbourg! Strasbourg!'
The Orient Express glided to a halt alongside the platform and Faro rolled down the window, determined to take this chance of a breath of air.
As the clouds of steam diminished he looked towards the departing passengers. There was one he recognised. A figure in a navy-blue jacket and skirt, with an unmistakeable shabby bonnet, hurrying towards the exit.
'Helga!' he shouted. 'Helga! Wait!'
The woman half-turned, glanced back briefly and disappeared in the crowd.
'Helga!' Faro shouted again.
Dieter looked over his shoulder. 'What is wrong?'
'That was Helga,' said Faro. 'Didn't you see her? She's just hurried towards the station exit.'
Dieter stared at him. 'It cannot be. She never boarded the train. I told you she left us at Paris to stay with her grandmother.'
'I tell you it was her.'
'You must be mistaken, many servants wear the same style of outdoor garments as Helga. They are not unique by any means.’
The boys now wanted to know what had happened, what all the excitement was about. The three talked in rapid German, impossible for Faro to grasp and interpret.
As the whistle blew and the train began to move, Faro knew he was once again rendered helpless, in a situation he could do nothing about.
The train gathered speed and he sat back in his seat, frustrated and angry, certain that he had not been mistaken, that the woman he had seen was Helga. He was certain, also, that Dieter had seen her and lied. Otherwise, how could he describe what she was wearing? Faro hadn't described that to him.
Now the question was why? Why? Faro did not like being tormented by illogical reasons. His instinct would have been to race after the woman, who had always been an enigma, and question her. Her disappearance raised burning issues, in particular what she was doing on the train after all and why Dieter had lied about her staying in Paris if he was not somehow involved in the deception.
Seeing Helga again aroused one of those imponderables which had long intrigued Faro - the reason for her presence in the first place. At least knowing that she was still alive removed one of his hidden fears about her disappearance, that something more permanent than a digestive upset had removed her from the train. He was consoled that he could dismiss the sinister thoughts regarding her fate that had plagued him since they left Paris. But that did nothing to settle his growing suspicion that Helga might have been involved with the kidnappers at Glenatholl and, even more disturbingly, the fatal accident to George's bodyguard Tomas.
He tried to remember the man, who was certainly more lightly built than Dieter. Helga was a big strong woman, and as a servant would have had the most ready excuse for persuading Tomas that a window was jammed, and then pushing him out of it.
If that was so, then there was an undeniable link with the attempt to push Anton overboard on the ferry. She might have been pretending to sleep in the cabin and followed him out on deck. Faro remembered the boy's uncertainty, his exact words. 'Someone - I think it was a man - '
Such also had been the description of George's kidnapper. In neither case had the face of 'a big strong man' been seen. George had been grabbed from behind, lifted bodily. In the darkness Anton saw only a shadowy figure, a stout stick raised to strike him. In the darkness big strong Helga could have been mistaken for a man by a frightened boy. And Faro also remembered George's idea that one of his kidnappers might have been a woman, since her footsteps were lighter.
Faro's thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the ‘chef de train’. 'There was a telegraph message waiting for us at Strasbourg for Herr Dieter. We should have had it when we arrived in Paris but it came too late.'
Dieter read it and said to George, 'It is really for you, Highness. The Grand Duchess, your mother, is home again from Mosheim. She is safe and well and longing to see you.'
George took the telegraph and read it out to them again.
'Such good news,' said Dieter. 'Is it not?'
'May I see?' Faro asked. The message had been transmitted from Paris earlier that day to await arrival of the Orient Express at its next point of call. Unfortunately the time stamp was illegible.
George was delighted. He clasped his hands, laughed excitedly. 'I am so glad.'
Faro was relieved. He had been afraid from the start of their journey, that news might arrive that
